The Sunlight Slayings (14 page)

Oliver finally understood. “Does she live on Queen Anne?”

“Yeah.”

“And you leave your body behind when you do this.…”

“Yeah,” said Emalie. “It's pretty strange … I mean, I use this protective circle, made of gypsum sand—that's another thing from Mom's notes—but sometimes when I come out of the person's head, I'm somewhere different than where I started.”

“So, you also went into someone's memories on Tuesday night?”

“Um,” Emalie said uncertainly, “yeah, I did.”

Oliver nodded. It made sense. “You really don't know, do you?”

Emalie's eyes narrowed. “Don't know what?”

Oliver thought out loud. “You didn't hire the wraith …”

“Why do you keep saying that?” Emalie griped. “What's a wraith?”

That was it. A wraith wasn't able to possess someone when they were conscious. It could only stay near Emalie, protecting and concealing her, without her knowing it. But if Emalie was leaving her body … “Listen, Emalie, a wraith is a spirit. And while you've been traveling into people's minds, one has been taking over your body.”

“What are you talking about?” Emalie sounded angry, or scared, or maybe both.

“Well, you said you end up in different places.…” Oliver said carefully. “While you're in a person's head, this wraith is possessing your body and using you to slay vampires. It's using an enchantment called the Scourge of Selket. It slays vampires by infecting them with sunlight.”

Emalie just stared at him. “But I'm not—”

“I know. You don't know it's happening.…” Oliver felt relief wash over him.

“He thought you were trying to kill him,” Dean added.

“Why would you think that?” Emalie said quietly.

“W-well, I didn't really,” Oliver stammered. “I mean, I was worried that you were, but since you gave me that newspaper clipping, I didn't really think—”

Suddenly Emalie's face twisted darkly. “Wait, what clipping?”

“The one you left under my desk, about my parents' deaths.”

“I never left that under your desk!” said Emalie. “I lost it, or someone stole it. I mean, I copied it at the library, and I was thinking of
maybe
giving it to you, but then it disappeared.”

Oliver felt like he'd been stopped dead in his tracks.
Then who gave it to me?
he wondered. And what did that mean?

“Can we get on with this whole memory thing already?” said Dean.

Oliver shook his head. More questions for later, but Dean was right. They had to get on with it. He reached into Désirée's bag and produced the small, square tin. He popped it open, and a coil of red vapor curled out.

“What's that?” Emalie asked.

“It's a powder that will ward off the wraith, at least for a little while.”

Emalie looked around. “What wraith? There's nothing here!”

“There is!” Oliver said. “You just can't see it. Look, you have to believe us.
We
saw it protecting you in the Yomi.”

Emalie's eyes narrowed. “You were following me in the Yomi?”

“Oh, boy,” Dean sighed, smacking his forehead.

“Yeah, didn't you know?” said Oliver.

“No—” Emalie started, sounding annoyed.

“Let's just do the spell,” Dean moaned.

“Well, of course we did,” Oliver continued. “You were crazy to go down there.”

“No I wasn't!” Emalie shouted. “My mom had notes about how to make a protection charm to wear so that nothing would hurt me.” Emalie pulled a necklace from her shirt. At the end of a leather strap was a tiny figure, woven from straw. “She said it didn't always work, but it's worked great for me. This is what kept me safe!”

“That?” Oliver almost laughed. “That might have kept you safe from the roaches, but not the demons that were around you.”

“What do you know, Oliver?” Emalie countered. “I made this! I'm an Orani and this keeps me safe. It—it does a better job than you could have done!”

Oliver stopped. He had no idea what to say next. This was all going to fall apart if they kept talking in circles like this. So instead he stood up. “Just watch,” he said. He held the tin straight out, then slowly spun in a circle, releasing the powder around them. Instead of falling to the floor, the powder hung in the air, then began to both drip toward the floor and float toward the ceiling, building a transparent, circular wall around them.

Emalie looked around. “So what's that supposed to—”

Suddenly a shrieking hiss tore at their ears. It seemed to be coming from everywhere at once. There was a rush of air, and now something vague and black hurtled down between them. Oliver was knocked back to the ground. The hissing became high-pitched: an inhuman scream. Emalie, Oliver, and Dean braced against a vortex of wind as the blackness gathered shape, becoming a long, undulating form. It spun madly. Oliver felt a rush of cold. He caught the faintest glimpse of teeth, of a face curled in rage, of claws. The scream was deafening—

And then silence. Oliver looked up. The red powder had reached the ceiling and the floor, closing off a circular chamber around them. He peered through the shimmering red. The wraith flashed by, circling the outside of the cylinder like a shark.

“That's been using me?” Emalie said quietly. “Okay …”

“We have to hurry,” Oliver urged. “The powder won't last long.”

“And what are we going to do when this protective thingy runs out, I mean, about the wraith?” Dean asked.

Oliver shrugged. “Don't know yet.”

Emalie looked at him, and their eyes locked with purpose. She thrust the stone memory rite into his hands. “You hold this.” She picked up a jar from beside her, stood, and made a circle of gypsum sand around the three of them. Then she sat back down, cross-legged, and opened the silver flask. She dabbed a drop onto one finger, and rubbed it in small circles against the other wrist. She repeated this, then held out her hands, one palm up and one down. “Like this,” she ordered.

“Whose head are we going into?” Oliver asked.

“Yours again,” Emalie replied.

Oliver and Dean awkwardly put their hands out. “Come on already,” Emalie urged. “Oliver's on Dean's, Dean's on mine, mine on yours.” Oliver got his hands into place. “Close your eyes and try to focus just on the hands.”

Oliver did so, the memory rite in the palm that Emalie put her hand atop. Focusing was tough because he was worried: What if, after all this, they found a truth he didn't want to know? What if what they were about to see really ruined everything …?

And then there was a rush of darkness and loss, as they traveled into Oliver's head, away from reality—back inside, and back to the night.

Oliver found himself in the hallway at school. Dean and Emalie were beside him, Dean a zombie, Emalie in black, as they'd looked in Emalie's basement moments before. The neon grotesqua glowed on the walls, but there was that sunlight that seemed too red streaming in through the windows. And the floor was made of grass.

“My head's a weird place,” Oliver muttered.

“Actually, yours is pretty lame compared to a human's,” Emalie commented as she headed down the hall. “You wouldn't believe what's on the minds of kids my age. Sheesh.”

Dean and Oliver followed her, their eyes meeting for just a second. Oliver thought Dean looked worried.
Maybe for the same reason I am
, Oliver thought. Dean might have said that it didn't matter who killed him, but what if it turned out Oliver really had? How were they going to deal with that?

They reached the double doors into the gymnasium. Emalie pushed through them. Inside, they found everyone from the night of Dean's death standing frozen in place. The kids were huddled together, Bane and his friends Ty and Randall in a triangle surrounding the humans. Oliver glanced off into the dark recesses of the gym. There he was, crouched on the basketball backboard, barely visible. Everything was still, waiting to begin.

“Let's stand over here,” Emalie said to Oliver and Dean, pointing to an empty space by the wall. She turned to the frozen scene before them and put out her hands. “Here we go.…”

The memory jumped to life.

“Look,” Bane called toward the darkness as he had that night, “big brother is here to help, so if you don't come down, here's what I'm going to do: I'm going to kill each of these kids, one at a time, until you do—starting with this one!”

Oliver and Dean watched it happen all over. There was no changing it: Bane making Oliver choose, Emalie mouthing the words
pick me
to try to protect the other terrified kids, and finally Oliver choosing Dean and leaping at him. And all the while, Bane holding that staff with the swirling turquoise orb on top.

In the memory, Oliver slammed into human Dean and tackled him to the floor.

“That hurt,” zombie Dean commented. Oliver could tell that he was trying to be funny, but his voice sounded tense. They were getting close to it now.…

“This is the part to watch,” Emalie said, holding her hands out against the air.

Oliver noticed that Bane had moved the staff in front of him.

“Ahhh—noo!” human Dean screamed in the memory, Oliver's face by his neck.

Oliver watched carefully as his memory self glanced quickly toward the door. He remembered this, planning to leap free. “Okay,” he said quietly to zombie Dean, “this is where it should change, because right here—”

A huge voice thundered through the gym:
“Oliver, don't fight it, my boy. It's time.…”

“Who was that?” Emalie asked.

“That was Illisius,” Oliver explained. “He's … he's my demon. This is the part where I leave, and he shows me the Gate.”

Both Emalie and Dean looked at him, perplexed. “The what?”

“I'll explain later. But watch—I'll leave right here,” Oliver said, trying to sound certain. He watched Bane in the memory.
He'll use that staff somehow. Here it comes
.…

“Oliver, no!” human Dean screamed from the floor.

Bane didn't move. The staff stayed as it was.

“Ahh!”

Oliver looked down and found that in the memory, he hadn't left. Instead … he had sunk his teeth into Dean's neck.

“Ah—” Human Dean's voice was cut off. There was an awful sound of gurgling blood.

“Whoa, okay …” zombie Dean mumbled blankly. He didn't sound upset by what he was seeing, but Oliver didn't think that would last much longer.

“Like I said, you do it every time,” said Emalie sadly.

“That's not what happens!” Oliver shouted, watching helplessly as he killed Dean. “I wasn't even here!”

“You say that, but this memory is in your head.…” Emalie pressed against the air. “Something is weird about it, though, like something's been changed, but … I don't know.”

In the memory, Oliver leaped to his feet, wiped at his blood-covered mouth, which was twisted in an evil grin, then turned and ran from the room.

“But—” zombie Dean breathed, watching.

“Nicely done, bro!” Bane called, that staff still unused. “Let's go, fellas.” He turned and sauntered back toward the exit. Ty and Randall followed Bane out. As soon as they were gone, the children began screaming and sobbing and running terrified for the exit. In moments, the gym was empty, except for Dean lying lifeless on the floor, and the Emalie in the memory sitting on the risers, face in her hands. Now she dug in her bag, removed her homemade vampire stake, and stumbled out of the gym.

“It—it doesn't make sense,” Oliver pleaded. “I
left
.” He turned halfway toward zombie Dean. “Dean, I swear—”

“Shut up,” Dean said quietly. He didn't sound mad. His brow was furrowed as he peered at his body, like he was trying to understand what he was seeing.

Emalie stepped to him. Her eyes were red. “Dean—”

He threw up his hand. “Duh!” He pointed emphatically toward his body. “Look!”

Oliver turned toward the body lying alone in the gym.

Emalie looked from the body back to Dean. “I'm so sorry.”

Dean glanced momentarily at Emalie and rolled his eyes. “Not at me, at
him
.”

“Who?” Emalie looked back at the lone body, confused, as did Oliver. He felt a swell of guilt. Dean was still trying to see something to disprove what they'd seen. But Oliver had killed Dean. Maybe while in his mind he'd been off with Illisius, his body had acted in its true nature.… He'd wanted so hard to believe that Bane had done it. “Dean, I—”

Dean looked up, anger finally in his face. “What is wrong with you?” He pointed back at his body. “Look … what's he saying?”

“Dean, he's—I mean, you—aren't saying anything. I think you're already dead,” Emalie added sadly.

“I never wanted to kill you,” Oliver began.

Suddenly Dean's eyes grew wide. “Oh, I get it.” Amazingly, he smiled. “You guys don't see him, do you?”

“Who?” Oliver asked.

Dean nodded. “Wow.” He turned to Emalie. “Can we watch the memory again?”

“It won't do any good—”

Dean shook his head. “This time can we see Oliver's memory the way I see it?”

“Wait,” said Emalie, “you're seeing something different?”

“Oh yeah.” Dean almost laughed.

“Okay.” Emalie moved between them. “Um, Oliver, give Dean the memory rite.” They made a circle of their arms. Emalie closed her eyes, her face twitching like she was busy. “This is tricky, but all right, here goes.…”

There was a blur, and the memory ran in reverse.

“There,” Dean said. “From right here.”

The memory began again. They were still inside Oliver's head but seeing what Dean saw. It started the same. “Oliver, no!” human Dean screamed from the floor. In the memory, Oliver was on him, just about to jump.