Possession (36 page)

There was light and burning pain, and air rushed into my
lungs. My eyes flew open.
Oxygen—it was so
sweet.
I sucked in one lungful after another.

Mildred’s face was inches from mine. “You okay,
child?” She reached down and patted a place on my pants that was smoking. “I
worried that the lightning would fry you. Didn’t know what else to do. You were
dead.
I figured
, how could it hurt? It
seemed to do the trick. It started your heart.” She leaned in until our noses
touched. “You still in there?”

I pushed her back weakly. “I’m fine.” My voice
came out in a rasp. I touched my bruised throat.
Weatherton
tried to strangle me to death
. But he was no longer a threat. His
spirit was on the other side in hell.

Mildred straightened. “I couldn’t believe it when
you crossed those spirits over. Never seen anything like it. The feeling of
love that came out with that golden light… I swear I could hear harps playing.”

“I didn’t hear harps.” It was Wendy. She stood
nearby. She looked bruised and beat up, but she was standing. She gave me a
small smile. “You did it. You banished him.”

“Straight to hell,” I whispered. Sitting up, I
lifted my arms. “I need some help.”

Mildred pulled me to my feet. “You remember all of
our names? You know your own name? Pouring all that electricity through you
after the shock treatment was risky, but I didn’t know what else to do.”

“I’m fine.” I looked over at her worried face.
“Mildred, you did good. You saved me.”

She gave me a wild grin. “I did. I saved your
life. The old girl came through when the going got tough.” She danced a little
jig.

I looked over at Dean. He was still on the ground.
My heart twisted. “Is he—”

Wendy saw where I was looking. “He’s still alive.
He’s breathing, and I think he’s coming to. I heard him say your name a few
minutes ago.”

“Is Luke—is he—” Terror filled me. I
couldn’t get the words out.

“He’s in there. I can feel it from here—the
two of them. I didn’t dare get close enough to touch him. I didn’t know what he
would try to do to me.” Her eyes got wide with fear. “What
is
he?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. I don’t know why
he changed. I can’t believe he killed Andrew.”

“He tried to kill all of us.” Wendy said in a
small voice.

That’s true.
Dean tried to kill all of us
.

“He didn’t know what he was doing. He was in some
sort of…blind killing rage,” I said. I couldn’t believe that Dean would truly
hurt me.

Mildred whispered, “The way he absorbed the magic
and deflected it… His strength, his speed, those yellow eyes…” She gazed off
into the distance, as if thinking hard.

“Mildred, do you know what happened? What he
became?” I questioned.

She looked directly at me. “Child, I know what he
is…but I never thought I would see one, not with my own eyes.”

When she didn’t continue, I yelled at her
impatiently, “See what? Mildred, what happened to Dean?”

“
Odin’s men rushed forwards without
armour
,
were as mad as dogs or wolves, bit their shields, and were strong as bears or
wild oxen, and killed people at a blow, but neither fire nor iron told upon
them. These were called Berserker,
”
Mildred sang out. I gave her a blank expression. “What, you’ve never heard it?
It’s from the
Ynglinga
saga
. I guess you haven’t read any of the old Icelandic poets.
He is a
Berserkergang
.”

I just stood there,
staring at her.
Maybe she’s finally come
unhinged
.

She gave me a sly smile. “He’s a
berserker. There are many tales
about them. It’s said that during battle, they go berserk. They go into a fit
of madness. They become fighting mad, blind with the need to kill. There are
stories from a hundred years ago.
Beserkers
have no
magic of their own, but magic doesn’t work against them. It actually
gives
them power.”

Could it be true? Could Dean be one of these berserkers?

Mildred looked over at Dean and then back at me. “Your kind—death
dealers—get dark magic when they do the first ritual, when they cross
over and see the other side. But if Dean is a berserker, he would’ve come back
without any power. When his folks started him on the second ritual…” She
shrugged.

“Dean wouldn’t have had the magic he needed to push back the spirit that
possessed him,” I finished. I looked at Dean lying on the ground. Not five
minutes ago he had come at me, his eyes glowing yellow.

“It would explain how he survived when the
lightning hit him,” Wendy said.

I turned to Mildred and demanded, “How did you do
it? How did you call down the lightning?”

Mildred gave me a blank look.

I gave her a hard stare in return. All this time, Mildred
had kept her powers a secret, and now that I was questioning her about them,
she was being evasive. “What other magic do you have?”

She just stared back at me as though she didn’t
know what I was talking about.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Dean move.
“Colina?”

My heart leaped when he called out my name.
Mildred was, for the moment, forgotten. I made my way over to Dean’s side.

“Colina, what happened? Where’s
Weatherton
?” Dean asked.

“It’s okay. Everything’s okay.
Weatherton
is dead.” My hand went into his. I helped him sit up.

He looked at his hand in mine and his bruised
knuckles. There was still blood between his fingers and burns on the backs of
his hands. “What happened? I had this crazy dream. There was fire and
lightning.”

I looked over at Andrew’s body. How could I
explain to Dean that he’d gone mad and killed Andrew? That he had, in an
unearthly rage, ripped Nurse Harrington into pieces? Dean had murdered before.
He tried to murder us all, and would have if the odd madness that came over him
hadn’t faded. Would it come back? At any minute, would his eyes take on a
yellowish glow?

I looked into Dean’s eyes. Blue orbs full of
confusion stared back at me. Dean wouldn’t hurt me if he had a choice—I
knew it. He had only gone berserk when the magic flames hit him. Whatever had
happened to him, it was the magic that fueled it.

I took his hand in mine. “Everything’s okay,” I
whispered.

Slowly, Dean got to his feet. He looked over at
the crowd. They had all gathered again, patients and staff, huddled together by
the building.

“Why aren’t they coming after us?” Dean asked.

I looked over at the faces in the crowd—faces
filled with shock and panic. They’d watched Dean go on a killing spree, and now
they quaked in fear of him. But how long will that fear last? How long until
they come after him?

“We need to get out of here.” I looked over at the
fence. Mildred’s lightning had blown it wide open. “The fence is down. We have
to go while we can.” I put my hand on Dean’s arm and started to pull him with
me.

Neither Wendy nor Mildred moved. They looked at
Dean with both fear and trepidation.

“Are you coming?” I asked, impatient to get away
before the dust could settle.

“We should leave him here,” Wendy said.

Mildred nodded in agreement. “The reader’s right.
The boy’s dangerous.”

Dean looked back and forth between the two. “What
do you mean,
dangerous
?”

“Enough!” I yelled. “No one’s staying behind.
We’re all getting out of here.” I met Wendy’s eyes. “We’re leaving right now,
and he’s coming with us.”

Wendy and I stood glaring at each other before Mildred
broke the silence. “He lays one finger on me and I’ll fry him. You understand,
boy?” She turned and started walking toward the fence.

“We’re almost free,” I begged Wendy.

Without a word, she turned and followed Mildred.

Panic filled Dean’s eyes. “Why are they looking at
me like that? Why did she say I was dangerous? Why is Mildred threatening me?”

I patted his arm, pulling him toward the flattened
fence. “It doesn’t matter now. I’ll explain everything once we get out.”

We made our way over torn metal and tree limbs
until we were finally on the outside. I stopped for a moment and looked up at
the sky. Rain fell gently against my face. We’re finally out of the asylum. We
did it. We made it out alive. We’re free.

I looked back at the asylum. The patients and
staff were still standing there, watching us. They had not made a move to stop
us from leaving.

I put my arm inside of Dean’s.
Luke is still in there. I’ll see him tonight
.
I would finally feel his arms around me again. He could only come out at night,
but he was still here by my side. Dean believed we could find a spell to help
Luke. We’ll transfer Luke’s soul safely into another body somehow. And then
Luke will be safe and Dean will be free to live his life.

Now that we were free, there was hope.

A long, winding dirt road ran away from the asylum
and we started down it. After walking for a while in silence, I noticed that
Mildred and Wendy had fallen behind us.

“Colina, my child,” Mildred called out to me and I
turned. She stood in the middle of the road, an odd expression on her face.

In shock, I comprehended that Wendy was on the
ground next to her.

“What happened?” I cried out and sprinted back
toward them. Dean followed me. “Did she collapse? Do you think her injuries
were worse than we thought?” I made it to Wendy’s side and got down on my
knees. She was eerily still and incredibly pale. I peered into her face and
pushed my fingertips against her neck. She was alive and breathing, but she was
unconscious.

“Colina… I’m so sorry. I had to do it,” Mildred
said in a strange voice.

What
—
I looked up. Mildred had a knife held to Dean’s throat.
What is she doing
? I thought wildly.

“Don’t do anything foolish,” she begged.

Mildred has finally
lost it
. Since I’d first met her, Mildred had balanced on the edge of
insanity. The fight we just went through must have somehow tilted that balance.
I looked into her eyes, expecting to see madness shining back at me. Instead, I
only saw cold calculation.

I straightened up slowly and took a cautious step
toward her. “Mildred, listen to me. Dean is not dangerous. He’s never been
violent.” Even as I said the words, I knew they weren’t true. The image of
Dean’s mother’s flashed into my mind. She had told me how Dean had been
possessed, and that he had killed. But he didn’t have a choice—a killer took
over his body. The Dean I know isn’t violent
.
He had only turned violent during the battle. “Mildred, think back. Dean didn’t
start to go berserk until
Weatherton’s
magic hit
him.” I took another step.

The knife pricked Dean’s skin, and a drop of blood
slid down his throat. “Don’t think I won’t do it,” Mildred cried out. I froze,
unsure of what move to make next.

Without warning, two black vehicles came roaring
out from a side road. They skidded to a stop beside us. A half-dozen men all
dressed in black scrambled out of the vehicles.

A tall, incredibly handsome, twenty-something
young man dressed in a shiny black suit and a red tie stepped out of the
passenger side of the nearest SUV. He adjusted his tie, then just stood there, staring
at me. A long scar slanting across his forehead marred his attractive face. It stopped
just above his right eye. His eyes were a shade of blue so light that they were
almost white. His black hair was streaked with a wide shock of white that
started just above the scar. He dressed like a B-movie gangster and the scar
made him look dangerous, but it didn’t take away from his good looks.

In a voice like honey, he began to speak. “Colina—when
I first heard of what you could do, I thought perhaps the stories were
exaggerated.” There was a look of joy on his face, and his eyes shone with
cruel glee. He looked like an eight-year-old boy ripping open his presents on Christmas
morning. He must have noticed my bewildered expression, because he said, “Ah, where
are my manners? Let me introduce myself.” He gave me a formal bow. “I’m Gage St.
Clare. We have a mutual acquaintance, I believe.” He held his hand next to him,
slightly above his waist. “Yay high, pigtails, full of fire and brimstone?”

He’s talking
about the demon I raised.

I glanced over to Dean, who was still held hostage
by Mildred. Gage’s expression changed, and he suddenly looked dangerous. “Don’t
test me. I
will
order her to kill
him. And she’ll do as I command. And we both know that if the boy dies, then the
other one—the one you love—will be lost in the ether sea. I know
you don’t want that. Neither do I.”

My mind was spinning. We’d just escaped the
asylum. I’d thought we were free…“I don’t understand.” I looked over at
Mildred. She still held the knife to Dean’s throat. “Mildred, what’s going on?”

Gage glanced at Mildred. “She’s been helping me
keep tabs on you.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. My head
swung in Mildred’s direction. All this time she had been spying on me? Plotting
against me?

Gage gave a laugh. “She’s not nearly as crazy as
she acts. Are you, my dear?”

“You were
spying
on me?” I demanded, my eyes boring into Mildred’s.

A flash of guilt crossed Mildred’s eyes before she
looked away.

“What do you want?” I said, turning back to Gage
and trying to keep the fear from my voice.

The smile was back on his face. “I need your help
on a little…
project
of mine.”