Revenant (13 page)

My
mind immediately flashed back to the second ritual—to Luke tying me to a
chair and binding my hands and feet with rope.

“Possession,”
I said under my breath.

“Possession,
yes.” It was Sonja’s voice. She’d come to stand beside me. “This is not like
the second death dealer ritual, however. It’s not possession from a spirit.
This is
something a bit different.” She was
looking at the chair. “You released a demon into this world, but the others—his
brethren—are still below in hell. There’s no gateway open yet for them to
come over to this side.” She turned and looked at me. “Gage has been trying to
bring them forth using the same
magic and dagger
you did, but so far he’s had no luck.” She smiled. “Hard to believe you’re more
powerful than Gage.” She gave me a guarded look. “Don’t tell him I said that.
He’s not the type of man that likes to admit defeat.”

Someone
in a black robe came out from the shadows and started drawing on the floor
around the chair and the candles.

“A
protection pentagram.” Sonja’s eyes followed the cloaked figure’s every move. “This
is the only way Gage can communicate with the other demons.”

“You
can’t be serious,” I said. “Someone is going to be possessed by a demon?”

“Not
any
someone
. Your dark-haired friend,”
she answered.

“No!”
The word came out loud and rang through the room. I looked around for an
opportunity to escape, for any sign of Wendy, but Caleb grabbed my arm. “Let go
of me,” I hissed at him.

Caleb
didn’t say a
word,
but his fingers dug
into my arm.

Wendy
walked out from a side door. She was wearing a red shift dress. It was similar
to the dress I wore during the ritual, but mine had been longer and made of a
thicker material. Wendy’s dress was cut
short,
and I could see her every curve through the skimpy material.

My
dress had been white. Luke said the tradition went back a hundred years—that
the dress signified a virginal journey into the underworld. If the white dress
meant a virginal journey, what did a red dress signify?

When
I’d gone into the underworld, a passing spirit possessed me. The spirit was
strong, and she’d threatened to stay inside me forever. But in the end I’d
overpowered her and pushed her out.

Now
Wendy was going to be possessed by a demon. Once it was inside her, would she
be able to force it back out?

Wendy
didn’t look at the crowd—her gaze stayed firmly on the floor. She sat
down in
the chair
before finally looking
up. Her face was pale, her eyes wide.
I’d never
seen her look more afraid.

The
black-robed man finished his drawing. He bent over and grabbed some rope. I
watched as he secured Wendy’s hands and feet to the chair. He also wrapped a
length of rope around Wendy’s waist.

“They
can’t do this,” I said, trying to break free of Caleb’s grip.

“They
can and they will,” Sonja replied. “Don’t worry. It’s not the first time she
’s done
this. Your friend will be fine.”

I
stared at Sonja in horror. How many times had they forced Wendy to be possessed
by a demon?

Two
men dressed in the same black clothing as everyone else pulled back the drapes
from a large window. Moonlight spilled into the room. They snuffed all of the
torches and candelabras, leaving the window as the only source of light. While
they did that, the robed figure lit the black candles.

Wendy
sat motionless in the chair, glowing in
an
island
of moonlight. The dim illumination from the foul-smelling black
candles threw shadows against the walls.

The
man in the robe said familiar words in Latin, but they weren’t the same words
that Luke had used. These were different. I strained to make them out.

Without
warning, Wendy’s head whipped back and she let out an ungodly scream. There was
a whooshing noise and all the flames on the candles rose four inches, turning
from red to green.

Wendy
started to speak. The harsh words spewing from her mouth made no sense.
She did this before, back at the asylum.
She’s speaking in tongues
. I remembered that a
janitor
at the asylum had the gift of interpretation—he’d
been able to understand what she was saying. He told me her gift came directly
from angels.

If
that was true and angels had bestowed her gift, there was no way they’d
intended it to
be used
for this dark
purpose.

Her
body started to contort. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and her limbs jerked
hard against the rope. Her head swung violently back and forth. Then, abruptly,
it stopped. Silence filled the room.

This
time when she looked up at the crowd, I knew I wasn’t looking into Wendy’s eyes.
Something else was looking back at us. Goose bumps rose on my arms.

A
growl left Wendy’s mouth.

Gage
stalked out from amidst the crowd and walked slowly toward her. When he got in
front of Wendy, he knelt down.

“Welcome,”
Gage said.

A
deep voice boomed out from between Wendy’s lips. “
WHY DID YOU BRING US HERE
?
”

“I
request an audience.” Gage’s head
was bowed
as though in prayer.

No
one spoke. No one moved. Wendy and Gage held the focus of everyone in the room.

“
STATE YOUR
PURPOSE
,”
boomed the voice. Wendy’s eyes were staring straight ahead. They were no longer
brown
, but red and glowing.

“Great
ones, I beseech you. I need your guidance.” Gage raised himself slowly until he
was standing, though his head
was still bowed
.

Those
red eyes stared at him. Another growl ripped from Wendy’s lips.

“I
bring you an offering,” Gage said, raising his head and motioning with his left
hand.

Two
men entered the room, each carrying a chicken. The chickens squawked and flapped
their wings, struggling in the men’s hands.

The
men stopped just short of the pentagram. They each raised their free hands, and
I saw the glint of steel in the candlelight. The knives plunged into and
slashed across the chickens. Blood oozed out and dripped onto the floor. As the
blood hit the floor and spread, the symbols written in the pentagram began to
glow.

“I hope you are pleased with the offering,” Gage said loudly.

“
WE ARE NOT
.”
Hissing and growling noises followed the words
.
I knew without a doubt that I’d heard those sounds before—within
the dark abyss.

I have to stop this madness
. A demon held Wendy captive,
possessing her body and speaking from her mouth. Caleb’s fingers were still on
my arm, but he suddenly jerked me back tight against his body, as if he knew
what I was thinking. I used every ounce of strength I had to pull away from him
and finally escaped his grasp. I stumbled away, expecting Caleb to stop me
again. When he
didn’t
, I looked back at
him.

His
eyes were dark, shining with an unnatural glow.
What’s going on?
I glanced around the room. Everyone near me had
the same cold glow to their eyes. Their expressions were all identical—transfixed
and blank. Everyone’s attention was on Wendy and Gage.

Everyone except for Caleb.

All
at once, his unfamiliar blank eyes changed to an expression of glee. His
fingers reached out and grabbed me again. They began to slide up my arm.

“
COLINA
…
” The voice that came out of his
lips was not his. The sound of my name, cold and somehow alien, made me freeze
in my tracks. “
COLINA CAMPBELL, WE’VE BEEN WAITING FOR YOU
.
”

“Wha—
Who are you?” I whispered.

“
WE ARE LEGION
,”
the
voice whispered back.

My
skim pimpled up in goose bumps where Caleb’s fingers touched me
.
I tried to back up, tried to move away,
but the fingers tightened and pulled me closer.

“
YOU ARE THE ONE
WHO WILL SET US FREE
.”
The voice decreased in pitch, a conspiratorial whisper, all of the more
disturbing coming out of Caleb’s mouth.

I
jerked my arm away and looked around for somewhere to run, some path to get
away.
This
is
not right, this can’t be real
.

A
scream ripped through the air, and I quickly turned back to Wendy. Her eyes,
red and calculating, focused on a mess laying on the floor before her.
What is that?
I wondered.
It wasn’t there before
… The look in
Wendy’s eyes sent a chill down my back.

I
pushed my way to the front of the room and watched in horror as the young
freckly girl who had brought us our tray of food earlier lay crying and
writhing in pain on the floor. Blood ran down from gashes on her wrists and
along her throat.

Gage
stood to one side of the pentagram, a dagger in his hand. The glint of the
dagger flashed in the candlelight, stained in red. Blood covered his arms.

No, what are you doing?
my
thoughts screamed.
She’s innocent!

He
looked at Wendy and shouted, “In your name!” He turned and raised the dagger up,
took a breath, then brought it down. The girl gurgled out a scream again as the
dagger slid deeply through her throat. Blood
spurted
from her wound and covered the front of Gage’s shirt.

A
pool of blood spread across the floor, oozing over the symbols. Where the blood
touched them, red sparks shot up into the air like
roman
candles.

It
took less than thirty seconds for all the blood in the girl’s body to drain out
onto the floor. She lay motionless, her eyes dim and lifeless.

Gage
had killed again, but this time with his
own
two hands.

I
looked up at him. He looked back at me and gave me a
slow,
cold smile.

“
YOUR OFFERING
IS ACCEPTABLE
…”
The words floated out of Wendy’s
mouth as her eyes glowed even more vividly red than before.

Gage
stepped into the pentagram. He leaned down toward Wendy. A whooshing sound whipped
through the air again, and the candles rose until the flames were almost six
feet tall. Their glow changed from red to orange. An inhuman scream ripped from
Wendy’s mouth.

And
then candles went out, throwing the room into darkness.

There was movement all around me. Voices yelled out in fear
and excitement. A torch flame suddenly pierced the darkness.
Gage
. He was standing in front of Wendy
with the lit torch in his hand. More torches flared to
life throughout the room,
and it became bright enough that I could
see people huddled together, whispering among themselves. Caleb stood beside
me, a confused look on his face.

When
he finally looked my way, I watched him warily, waiting to see if the eyes
looking back at me were his. When I recognized his angry glare, I let out a
sigh of relief. I never thought I would be happy to see Caleb, but I was.
Whatever had possessed him
was gone
.

Gage
raised his blood-soaked arms. “The gods gave us their blessing and accepted the
sacrifice.”

The gods? Is he mad
? He was communing with
demons
, with creatures trapped in the
depths of hell. For the first time I wondered if that meant their power
was limited
to that realm—that they
couldn’t affect the world of the living. I sure hoped so. They might possess
Wendy and somehow affect the people in the crowd, but besides freaking me out,
whatever had taken over Caleb did not harm me. The girl Gage killed
was the only one hurt
.

If
he was trying to raise a demon, it
definitely
didn’t work. Gage killed the girl, but even with that evil sacrifice, no magic
shot around the room. True, the symbols lit up like fireworks, but that was it—no
demons had physically
appeared.

However,
I knew Gage was not the type of guy to give up. He
was determined
. If given enough time, could he do it? Could he
raise more demons? Could he open a portal straight into hell?

I
knew so little about demons. My people forbade talk of anything so dark. Gage
said he had books full of ancient magic. Dark, forbidden magic. Was information
about raising demons in there, too? At the moment these creatures seemed like
they couldn’t hurt us—like something still bound them to the other side.
But not all of them were trapped. One was loose. One roamed the earth. One
promised me we would meet again. It once sent Macaven after me, and now it was
working with Gage. How long until it showed up? And when it did, what would it
want from me?

As
my thoughts spiraled, a memory came to mind—my mother telling me,
A
demon
is created
when the darkest souls come
together.
We’d been sitting by the fire on a cold night, waiting for my
brother and father to return home.

I
remembered watching the flames of the fire flickering from orange, to red, to
yellow.

“But
how can the souls come together?” I’d asked. I was young and curious. As I got
older, I learned never to speak of such things. My parents always met any
questions of this nature with disapproving looks and silence. But on this
night, my mother had spoken of the creatures from below. It was the only time I
could recall her ever talking about them.

“No
one knows much about them. But it’s said that when men with evil in their hearts
pass from this earth, they go somewhere else.”

“The
in between?” I had asked.

She’d
shook her head. “No, child. Somewhere dark, where pure evil lurks. There the
souls come together and create these dark creatures.”

I
remembered scooting closer to my mother and looking out the window into the
night. My younger self had wondered what things lurked out there, waiting to
attack.

My
mother’s hand had reached out, and she had stroked my hair. “Not to worry.
You’re safe. Those creatures no longer have access to our world. They’re in a
place far, far away.”

The
black abyss. A place I’d visited many times now. Never would my mother have
dreamed I’d take the path of a death dealer. My actions would horrify her. If
she’d known that I communicated with spirits, dealt with dark souls, pushed
souls through the veil to the other side… She would’ve disowned me. What would
she have thought if she knew I released a demon into this world? A demon that
consumed my father’s and brother’s souls?

The
darkest, most evil souls make up a demon, she’d told me. But not this time. My
father’s shining goodness, my brother’s kindness—the souls of my family
were lost
within the creature I’d raised, lost in
a place where the worst evil resided.

A
sob left my mouth. Could I undo what I had done? Was there a way to vanquish
the creature back to hell? A way to free my father’s and brother’s souls from
the monster’s grip?

I
looked back up at Gage and noticed Wendy slouched down in the chair, her head hanging
against her chest. She was so still that, for a moment, I thought she might be
dead, but then they began to untie
her
and a moan escaped her lips. She was alive. Thank the Goddess. But the relief I
felt was short lived
.
Was the demon
still inside her? When her eyes open, would it be Wendy? Or would that thing be
staring back at me?

I
watched them
untie
the ropes
,
hoist her up, and carry her limp body from
the room.

Caleb
gave me an odd look and said in a quiet voice, “What happened?”

“You
don’t remember?”

A
look of pain filled his eyes. He raised a trembling hand to his temple.

“Something
took you over,” I said.

A
murderous look shot into his eyes. He grabbed me by the shoulders and gave me a
hard shake. “What do you mean?”

“I meant exactly what I said: something possessed you.”
Everyone had the same wild glow
to their eyes as they stared transfixed at the ceremony, but Caleb had spoken
to me. He’d experienced something different. Why did he look so scared, so
shaken up? Was what happened not a normal part of the ceremony? Did that mean
he was like Wendy? Did that mean that at the next ceremony,
his
butt would be tied to the chair? If
Caleb
was
a reader, Wendy would have
mentioned it. If he
wasn't
one, how did the
demon control him?

If
I wasn’t so terrified by what I’d just witnessed, I might have enjoyed his
discomfort. “Your eyes, your voice… Something controlled you.” It wasn’t a
spirit. It was something far more wicked, far
more
evil
.

Caleb
shook me hard again. “Tell me everything that happened.”

So
I told him. I told him
how something—a
demon, a spirit, I don’t know what—had been inside him.
How something spoke to me through his lips.

Caleb’s
expression grew cold, and for a moment doubt seemed to war with his
well-established anger. But then the crisis passed. He looked directly at me
and I could hatred shining from his eyes. “Nice try, but I’m not buying it.” He
gave me an amused smile. “Come on, little bird, let’s get you back to your cage
for the night.” He strode away, leaving me no choice but to follow.

* * *

When I got back to the house, I rushed to Wendy’s room,
hoping she would be there. She was. Sonja told me Wendy would be okay, but I
didn’t believe it. Wendy lay on the bed, her breathing shallow. Her skin was
cold to the touch.

I
leaned over her. “Wendy? Can you hear me?”

A
soft groan escaped her lips and her eyes fluttered open, but they held only
confusion. “Wendy? It’s me, Colina.” I put my hand gently on her forehead.

Her
eyes focused on my face. “Colina,” she whispered.

“I’m
here. It’s all right.”

Wendy
began to cry.

I
waited for her to stop, but she didn’t. I lay down next to her on the bed and
wrapped my arms around her. We lay that way for a while, and the whole time I
could feel her body shaking against mine.
Sobs
ripped through her until, finally, she was still. After a few minutes of
silence, she began to squirm a bit in my embrace and I let her go.

She
scooted away from me and sat up. “I…I’m all right,” she said in a shaky voice.

She
was obviously not fine. But I gave her a smile and nodded.

I
remembered what it felt like when Wanda took over my body so long ago, during
the second death dealer ritual. I would never forget the small, dark place I’d been
forced to take shelter in
,
as if my very
core had
been entombed
. I vividly
recalled Wanda speaking through my lips and how I’d been helpless to do
anything to stop it.

Wendy
looked over at me, her eyes wide. “It’s not supposed to be like that…like what
happened. Readers aren’t death dealers. We can’t hear the dead. We aren’t
supposed to be in contact with spirits.” A sob escaped her lips. “We aren’t
mediums,
we can’t become possessed by spirits
like your kind can.”

“Then
how—”

Her
face filled with anger, and she cut me off. “I don’t know.” She shook her head,
her hair flying back and forth wildly. When she looked back at me, there was a
haunted expression in her eyes. “I saw… There was a darkness before me. Things
called out
to me.”

The dark abyss.
I’d often heard voices calling
my name while standing in front of that darkness and heard the unearthly growls
from within. I still dreamed of red eyes moving toward me.

Her
hand fluttered in the air. “I was in front of this big pool of darkness and
then this thing…this creature…crawled out of it and lunged at me. I-I couldn’t stop
it.” She sobbed. “Th-then the thing was inside me. Evil. An unimaginable evil shot
through me and filled every inch of me…like a bolt of electricity.”

Was
it a demon? One that somehow bridged the gap between this world and hell by using
her body? Whatever possessed her, it had clearly done so to commune with Gage.
The spell they used must have been powerful since the rest of the crowd was
also affected.

I
once watched Macaven use a spell that bound all his people to his will. His
followers had swayed back and forth with glazed eyes during the ritual. At the
time, Macaven had been using his follower’s collective magic to power his
spell. That must have been what Gage was doing, but Caleb had been surprised
and shaken up by what I told him. Whatever Gage was doing, he was doing it to
his followers without their consent.

That
would explain why Caleb was totally freaked out by what transpired during the
ceremony. Was it all part of the spell? It was like the second ritual, but
Wendy was possessed by a demon instead of a spirit. A powerful demon. My mind
shot back to the images of the demon I’d raised tearing up Macaven’s men.

Tying
Wendy to a chair didn’t seem to be much of a precaution.

What
if somehow my being there had changed things? I could open the veil between
this world and the next. I had magics never seen
before
. What if my very presence somehow weakened the veil and made
it easier for the demons to make contact?

I
looked back at Wendy. “Are you conscious of what’s going on when that thing is
inside you?”

She
looked away.

“When
Wanda took over my body, I could hear the words she spoke. And Luke—he
can hear what’s going on when Dean’s conscious. A part of you has to be able to
hear what’s going on.” Wendy didn’t say a word. It didn’t take a mind reader to
realize she wanted me to stop drilling her.

Frustration
filled me. For a moment, the fact that she was a victim in this whole situation
didn’t matter anymore. I grabbed her by the shoulders and gave her a hard
shake. “Tell me what you heard. Tell me what that thing said to Gage.”

Wendy’s
face turned up to me. Gone was the scared, timid girl who had been my companion
in the asylum. The girl staring back at me had darkness in her eyes. Anger
contorted her face until there was nothing left but pure rage.

“Take
your hands off me!” she shouted, giving me a shove backward. I flew off the bed
and slammed against the wall across the room. I slumped to the floor, dazed. My
first clear thought—
how did such a
slight girl have the strength to fling me across the room?
Logically, I
knew that she didn’t.

But
something else did.

Wendy
sat
motionless
on the bed. The anger had drained
from her face, but she didn’t seem
concerned
for my well-being. She didn’t cry out apologies for tossing me across the room.
Instead, she watched me with cold indifference.

I
forced myself to my feet. “Wendy?” I wondered,
Which
voice
will answer? Wendy’s, or
the creature I heard while she sat in the chair?

“What
do you want from me?”

It’s Wendy. Her voice, her eyes.
But…

The
doubt rang through my brain. Gage forced Wendy into the possession ritual not
once, but a few times—exactly how many, I wasn’t sure. I knew how the
anger and darkness filled me and almost overwhelmed me when possessed by a
spirit. What have the demons done to Wendy? How have they changed her?