“What do you want?” he asked me. I met his probing gaze for a moment, before I looked down at our not-quite-entwined hands.
“To win,” I answered quietly, even though everyone in the room could still hear us. “To stop the demons from killing anyone else . . . in any way we can.”
Joshua immediately blanched. But before he got the chance to argue with me, the eavesdropping Seers sent up another one of their annoying, riotous cheers. Almost in unison, they started to climb out of the choir loft to congratulate me on my decision, and themselves on their plan. They began talking all at once, and soon it seemed as though everyone in the church was excitedly repeating the words “dust, demons, and defeat.”
Everyone except Joshua. He watched me silently, still wearing that stricken look. Probably because he alone knew what my concession meant. By agreeing to play the sacrifice game, I’d basically agreed to the demons’ original terms. Whether the Seers won or lost, I would likely be dragged into hell. Not that the Seers cared—they continued to chatter and clap each other on the back, walking out of the church without even one backward glance at the distraught teenagers who’d just solidified their crusade.
“You can’t,” Joshua whispered harshly, after the last of the Seers had gone. Suddenly, he looked so much older. So much more fearful, like all his optimism had left him in one fell swoop. I lifted my hand to his cheek, once again wishing for the ability to touch him so that I could smooth away the troubled lines around his mouth.
“I can, and I will.”
I spoke gently, and I smiled to soften the blow. But the effort didn’t work. Joshua shook his head, hard, as if the strength of the shake might take back what I’d just said.
“This is crazy,” he hissed.
“Yeah, it is.” I felt my lips tug into a bitter half grin. “But it’s also the best plan we’ve got.”
“It’s the only plan we’ve got.”
“Then I guess that settles it.”
When Joshua tried to argue, I raised my palm to silence him. “Do you know why I’m not as worried as I should be, Joshua? Because you’ll be there too. And I know you won’t let them shut the netherworld without me escaping it first.”
He hesitated, obviously unsure of what to say or do next. Then he groaned, raked his fingers roughly through his hair, and dropped his hand to the top of the pew beside me.
“Okay,” he sighed. “Okay. We’ll do it: you’ll be the demon trap, and I’ll be your lookout.”
He seemed so worried that I felt the ache in my chest awaken and writhe. So I offered him what little I could, in the form of a small smile.
“It’ll work,” I assured him softly. “This plan will work. Because I love you, and you love me, and we’ll be together tomorrow night. The plan won’t fail, because it can’t.”
Hearing this kernel of positivity—from me, of all people—Joshua responded with a small smile of his own. “Well, if you think we’ve got a chance, then we actually might. So that’s it, then: the plan won’t fail, because it can’t.”
“It can’t,” I repeated, ignoring the cruel voice inside of me that whispered the exact opposite.
Chapter
FIFTEEN
This place is just so damn creepy,” Jillian whispered.
She cast a wary look around the moonlit riverbank where we stood and then wrapped her arms more tightly around Scott’s waist.
“Yeah,” he said, pulling her to him. “After you find out that a place is impervious to hand grenades, you kind of lose your desire to party there.”
“Or die there again,” I muttered low enough that no one could hear me as I drew closer to Joshua. From the corner of his eye, Joshua caught my movement and mimicked it so that we stood as close as possible.
“It could be worse,” he replied to everyone in a jokey tone. “We could be hanging out with a bunch of old witches on one of our last Saturday nights of the school year. Oh, wait. . . .”
Scott and I chuckled, but Jillian just rolled her eyes. I guess I couldn’t really fault her bad mood. None of us had slept well last night, after our little Friday-night hoedown with the southeastern Oklahoma Seers.
Today hadn’t been much better either, at least not for me. I’d had to go invisible while I watched Joshua and Jillian spend their Saturday afternoon playing family with Ruth, who pretended that she’d just flown up for an impromptu visit—no demon-fighting ulterior motive whatsoever. Poor Scott had to stay at home all day, completely alone, waiting for tonight’s battle. Frankly, I think we were all a little tired from the effort.
Now Joshua and I stood on the muddy riverbank with Jillian and Scott, each of us trying not to look up at the hulking form of High Bridge. Just as it had on the night of Serena’s death, this area felt colder than the rest of Wilburton. Almost as if this place was so dark, so unrelenting, that it had the ability to swallow the warmth of spring and turn it into something bleak and frozen.
I wasn’t the only one who felt that way. Just a few minutes after we arrived, Jillian insisted that she and Scott make an emergency run back to the Mayhews’ house for hoodies and coats. If we had to be here on a Saturday night, she argued, we shouldn’t have to freeze for it. Of course, the four of us were only here—a full hour before showtime—because of our “orders.”
Our current job was relatively simple: stand guard near the bridge until the “moon was right” for the other Seers to arrive and perform their spells. If something eerie happened, we were supposed to call Ruth so that she could get a team of Seers here earlier than planned.
Personally, I thought the “moon” part of the Seers’ mandate was absurd. I’d seen the young, barely triggered Seers of New Orleans perform similar spells under extreme duress, and none of them had used the moon, as far as I could tell. But when I tried to explain that to Ruth that afternoon, during one of the few moments we were alone in a room together, she’d simply appointed me and my friends watchdogs and then given me a series of dismissive waves.
I guess that was the modus operandi of the southeastern Oklahoma Seer community: no one’s vote counted unless it had a few years—and a genuine pulse—behind it.
I pursed my lips and puffed out a slow, frustrated breath. Then I glanced over at Jillian, who was still staring around the bank uneasily. She caught me looking and grimaced.
“It’s really quiet out here.”
“Too quiet,” I agreed.
Despite the tense mood, Joshua and Scott began snickering. When Jillian and I balked, Joshua explained, “You two sound like you’re in a bad cop show. As in, Ashley and Mayhew, Paranormal Investigators.”
I groaned and slapped at the air where my hand should have made contact with his shoulder. “You’re ridiculous.”
But as Joshua and his friend continued to chuckle, I let myself join in—the last few hours had been such a jittery span of boredom and tension that I couldn’t resist the break. Jillian must have felt the same, because the four of us soon made a game of renaming TV crime dramas.
“Law and Order: Supernatural Intent?” Jillian suggested.
I snorted and then countered, “Disem-Body of Proof?”
“No, wait! Wait!” Joshua held up his hands and composed his expression into something overly stern. “CSI: Wilburton. ‘Where the drama never stops.’”
While Jillian and I dissolved into a fit of giggles, Scott imitated the deep, dramatic voice of a movie announcer. “Millions of viewers want to know: will the town’s one stoplight ever start working again? Find out next week, on CSI: Wilburton.”
He had just started to add a “dun-dun-dunnnn” for effect, when a haughty voice interrupted us.
“I assume by the singing and laughter that you’re all done shirking your duties now?”
All four of us spun around to find Ruth standing just a few feet away on the riverbank and watching us with barely concealed disdain. Behind her, the horde of Seers waited upon the embankment and along the road, appearing very much like an army in their uniformly black
clothing.
To my surprise, Jillian was the first to step forward and speak for our little group. “Nothing happened while we were waiting, Grandma. And we’re ready.”
Ruth eyed the rest of us—Joshua, Scott, and me—in a way that suggested she didn’t think we were ready at all. Instead of saying so, she turned slightly around and addressed her troops. “Form your circles along the bank,” she commanded loudly. “We’ll begin as soon as everyone has taken their place.”
The Seers followed their orders quickly, moving in waves down the embankment to group together in circles of ten along the riverside. After most of them were situated, Ruth faced the four of us again, focusing specifically on me.
“Why aren’t you on the bridge yet?” she demanded. No say your good-byes, no good luck, young lady—just that imperious get your ass up there command.
I shook my head grimly. “You’re a real piece of work, Ruth, you know that?”
She smiled back just as coldly as before. But in the dark, I thought I saw the tiniest flicker of sympathy in her eyes. As if she actually felt somewhat sorry about what might happen to me that night—not enough to come up with another plan, but enough to give me that look.
Or maybe I just imagined that flicker; it was dark out there.
Since Ruth and her Seers obviously weren’t going to provide me with another alternative in the next ten seconds, I resigned myself to this one. Trying not to tremble, I glanced first at Jillian. At that moment, she wasn’t looking at me. She was staring up at Scott with the warmest smile I’d ever seen her give someone. She seemed happy, and that fact made me happy too. Not that a girl like Jillian needed me to worry about her; regardless of her previous taste in boys, I didn’t doubt that she could take good care of herself from now on.
Next my eyes met Joshua’s, and instantly, something clenched painfully inside my heart. He stared at me the same way that Jillian had stared at Scott—but the look in Joshua’s eyes was far stronger. The look he gave me said everything that he didn’t: that he loved me, that he would watch over me tonight, and that he would fight his way to me, before the darkness closed.
Without speaking it aloud, Joshua told me that we were in this together. Always.
He and I held each other’s gaze for longer than was appropriate—given that we were standing near his grandmother, who happened to hate me—but I couldn’t bring myself to care. Finally, when I reached a point when I would either have to look away or run away, I let my eyes drop to the ground.
Keeping my gaze trained firmly on the tips of my boots, which had already sunk half an inch into the muddy riverbank, I cleared my throat. “So,” I asked roughly, “what are my specific orders now?”
“Get up there and do whatever it is that you do when the demons attack.”
Ruth said it matter-of-factly, like creating my glow was the easiest task in the world. But by now, I’d realized that there was no point in arguing with her. I tilted my head back and looked squarely into her eyes—like Joshua’s, they were a beautiful midnight blue, but hers were once again cold and shuttered. She and I would not share some tender good-bye.
“Okay. See you on the other side.”
Then I turned away from her—from all of them—and began to trudge up the embankment to the bridge. Although it hadn’t rained, the ground felt slipperier than it had on the way down, like the very earth didn’t want me to make this climb. Still, I kept going, finally cresting the hill with a deep, shaky breath.
I allowed myself one second of terrified indecision before taking that first step onto High Bridge Road. Once there, however, I forced my legs to move at a steady, assured pace until I stood near the center of the bridge on one of the few stretches of concrete that looked like it wouldn’t collapse at any moment. I shifted my weight from leg to leg until I felt as comfortable as I could, given the circumstances, and settled into my wait. Lord only knew how long the Seers’ spells would take—how long I would have to wait until this bridge shifted from mere rock to demonic metal and ice.
From this vantage point, I could still hear Ruth’s voice below me, echoing across the bank as she traveled from circle to circle to make sure that everyone was ready. Between gaps in the bridge’s railing, I could also see Joshua, Jillian, and Scott move to join one of the smaller circles. As they joined hands with the older Seers, a ragged breath tore its way out of my lips. Now I really was alone.
“Quit feeling so sorry for yourself,” someone behind me demanded.
I whirled around and saw Ruth, standing between two unstable-looking fissures in the asphalt. She had one hand placed on her hip, while she gripped an overstuffed red bag with the other.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, in a smaller voice than I would’ve liked.
“Bringing you a gift.”
Ruth shifted her bag forward, in front of her, and then began to step carefully over the cracks in the pavement. When she came within arm’s distance of me, she reached into her bag, pulled out an object, and handed it to me.
For a few seconds, I didn’t register the fact that I was holding the hilt of a medium-length, serrated knife. But once I finally processed that information, my eyes shot up sharply to Ruth’s.
“What . . . ? Why . . . ?”
She lifted one shoulder in a nonchalant shrug. “Because you need a backup plan.”
I made a small noise of disgust. “So, what, you think I should fall on my sword if things get bad? Is that it?”
“No, you stupid girl,” she hissed, abruptly angry. “I want you to protect yourself, if you have to.”
“What are you talking about? I’ll supposedly have my glow, and anyway, I’m pretty sure kitchen knives don’t work on demons.”
“Of course they don’t. But knives can work on other ghosts.”
My frown deepened. “No, they don’t.”
“Maybe not if I wielded them, or Joshua.” She paused, giving me a smile that was both dark and conspiratorial. “But if you take a knife to another supernatural being, that’s a different story.”
At first I didn’t understand what she meant. Then I remembered: I’d hurt Eli—drawn blood, even—when he tried to kiss me. According to Eli, that was something that shouldn’t have happened. Ghosts couldn’t hurt each other physically, any more than they could strike out and hurt the living without demonic assistance. And yet, I’d done it. Twice.
I’d told Ruth about it on the phone the other day, just as an afterthought in my long story; I had no idea if what she said might actually work.
“But . . . it’s an object,” I continued to protest. “One from the living world. I’m pretty sure it will just go right through any ghost that isn’t Risen.”
“Maybe. But nonetheless, you do have the power to blood-let. So if the need arises . . . well, I’ve done what I can.”
As if to emphasize what a huge indulgence she’d made on my behalf, she wiped her hands together, symbolically cleaning them of any blood I might “let.”
All I could offer in return was a quiet, pensive, “Thanks.” Then I moved the knife to my hip and slipped the blade through the space between my jeans and belt, so that the hilt caught and held the knife at my side. Like some modern-day gunslinger in skinny jeans and thousand-dollar boots.
Ruth nodded—in approval or farewell, I couldn’t tell. She turned away and navigated back to the entrance of High Bridge. When she reached the top edge of the embankment, she paused, and I thought for one strange second that she might look back at me. Give me a salute for luck, maybe.
Instead, she began to move deftly down the side of the steep hill. As her head ducked below road level and out of my sight, I heard her call out to her Seer circles.
“It’s time.”
Chapter
SIXTEEN
The Seers hadn’t been chanting for very long, but the sound had already started to freak me out. There’s nothing like fifty or so voices speaking Latin in unison to make one’s skin crawl. I almost would have welcomed the neth
erworld, if only to get them to stop.
Almost.
Trying not to listen to the chants, I started to play with the hilt of my new knife, using it to slap the flat side of the blade against my jeans in a kind of rhythmic beat. Since that little sound didn’t really do much to help me drown out the noises below, I began to hum and then outright sing, as I tried unsuccessfully to summon my glow.
“Glow,” I sang, intentionally too loud and off-key. “Glow, glow, glow. Gloooooowwwww. . . .”
Catchy.
My blood seemed to freeze the instant I heard that word echo off the girders around me. I froze too, holding very still with my hand on the hilt of the knife. I listened intently, but after a few minutes of nothing but that damn chanting below me, I felt foolish.
It’s nothing, I told myself. Just the Seers’ voices, carried by the wind.
Still, it took me more than a few seconds to ease out of my rigid stance and shake my head. “Idiot,” I chided myself, laughing quietly.
“Only because you’re still here.”
That time, I knew I didn’t imagine the voice. It echoed so loudly, I had no choice but to admit that something had finally joined me on this bridge. Again, my hand flew to the hilt of the knife and I spun around, searching for the speaker. I wasn’t surprised that I didn’t find anything: it wasn’t that kind of night, and it was never that kind of place.
“What do you want?” I addressed the air itself, since I technically had no one to confront.
“To save you, Amelia.”
By now I could tell that the speaker was male, although his voice sounded distorted, like it came through some busted-up old microphone.
“Save me?” I asked, pacing nervously around my spot on the bridge, still looking this way and that for some sign of presence. “Save me, how?”
“By telling you . . . to run. Now.”