Surrender (11 page)

“Smoky-snake guy. That doesn't sound good. Did she tell you where his ashes are?”

“She disappeared before I could ask; she said Neos was hunting for her. I couldn't summon her, I guess because she's a ghostkeeper ghost, not a regular one. And I've got this shivery feeling that she and Neos are still connected. I know she still loves him, but maybe she's also afraid, because he's so … pyscho.”

For a moment, Bennett didn't say anything. I wanted to tell him what Rachel had said about sacrifice, what she'd implied about him following in Neos's footsteps. But I didn't want to be hurtful, or have him think I'd lost faith in him—or in us.

“You know we'll have to dispel her, right?” he finally said, gently.

“I know,” I replied. “But if you're forced to kill your own aunt, shouldn't once be enough?”

School started the Monday after New Year's, and I sat across from Lukas and Natalie in the breakfast nook, trying to get them to focus. Not easy, considering they were still coming to terms with hooking up at Harry's party.

Were they a couple? Were they not a couple? They weren't quite sure, and seemed to think that gazing at each other soulfully and speaking in double entendres was the best way to find out.

But I had other things on my mind. I ran down the whole thing with Rachel again, and finished with, “So we don't know why Neos's ashes are there, but we have to find them. They must be the key to dispelling him.”

I might as well have been talking to myself. Natalie was trying to nibble her toast in a suggestive fashion, while Lukas kept reaching across the table to brush invisible crumbs from her sleeve.

“And that's not all,” I continued. “Sara and Harry got together last night.”

It took a second for that to sink in, then Natalie snapped out of the daze. “What?
No
! Really?”

“No,” I said. “I just wanted your attention. You two are making me sick. Remember Neos? We have to find his ashes.”

“We know,” Lukas said. “You've told us a hundred times. Can't you just use your reading powers to find them?”

“I'll try, but it hasn't worked yet.” I turned to Natalie. “So you'll help me search, right?”

“Oh Emma,” Natalie whined. “This early in the morning? Isn't it, like, still the holiday?”

I checked my phone. “You have thirty-two minutes before school starts. Besides, haven't you heard, ‘Death doesn't take a holiday'?”

“Is that like a poem or something?” Lukas asked. “Where have I heard that before?”

“I don't know,” I admitted. “It might be a mystery novel. The point is—”

“Yeah, we know,” Lukas said. “Find Neos's ashes. Got it.”

I turned to Natalie. “Fine,” she said.

Then Anatole set plates before them and they went back to gazing at each other over their eggs, while I worried about them shutting me out. We'd only lost Simon, but without him, our team seemed to be falling apart, just when I needed them most.

“Emma …”

The test prep notes on the board in AP Biology outlined
the functions of the eye. I really needed to focus if I wanted to swing my usual B, but instead I spent the first twenty minutes of class worrying about how I was going to search Thatcher.

“Emma …”

The school wasn't that big, but it was full of nooks and crannies, staircases and alcoves, classrooms, offices, and mazelike corridors. I didn't even know what to be looking for. Would they be in some kind of urn?

“Emma!”

I jerked in surprise, realizing that I'd heard someone whispering my name twice already. I turned toward the door and discovered my brother Max, waving frantically at me from the hallway. There had been nothing subtle about his final whisper, and he now had the attention of the entire class and the teacher, Ms. Braby, who cleared her throat and repeated my name. “Emma?”

“That—that's my brother,” I stammered. “I don't know what he's doing here.”

Max stepped into the room, slightly out of breath, his dirty-blond hair mussed, wearing skinny jeans and a black fleece hoodie. “Sorry, don't mean to interrupt. Family emergency. I need Emma.”

“Do you have a pass?” Ms. Braby asked blandly.

“Um—did I not say emergency?” Max answered. “Emma, get your stuff.”

I shoved everything into my bag and scrambled toward the door. What the hell was Max doing here? Had something happened to our parents? Was it Neos?

“I'll need a written excuse tomorrow, Emma,” Ms. Braby called after me.

I nodded blankly as the classroom door slammed behind me, then followed Max, who was already running down the hall. “Max, wait,” I called, as he rounded the corner.

“No time! C'mon, Emma.”

“What's happened?” I asked. “Is everyone okay? What are you doing here?”

“Everyone's fine. I'm searching for the ashes, obviously.”

“Oh, obviously,” I said, not bothering to mask the sarcasm. Figures he'd be ahead of me. I hadn't even started searching yet. Once my parents had filled him in, he'd probably decided to turn this into a competition.

Halfway down the next hallway, he entered a dinky deserted classroom with a cluster of student desks shoved in one corner. Max immediately crossed the floor and opened another door, revealing a seriously decaying staircase leading downward.

“You—” I didn't know where to start. The jamb was shattered. “Did you break the door?”

“Didn't have the key,” he explained. “And we need those ashes.”

“Really? I didn't know, because while you've been fighting Neos, I've been lazing on the beach in—” I stopped as a thought occurred to me. “Wait, did you find them?” Honestly, I didn't care who found them. I just wanted this to be over.

“Nope,” he said, heading down the dark-shrouded stairs. “I found a ghast. You coming?”

I grunted and followed. The walls were built of flaking horsehair plaster and I smelled cool, dank air. The stairs were thick uneven boards, covered in dust and mouse droppings, and cobwebs were impressively, repulsively, everywhere.

“What do you need me for?” I asked. “You're supposed to be a badass compeller.”

“It's nasty. Worst ghast I've seen in a long time. I can make it leave me alone for a minute, but I need you to dispel it so we can search this part of the cellar.”

“Is it weird to you that we're talking about ghosts?” I asked, brushing cobwebs from my face. He'd kept my parents' secret about me being a ghostkeeper all these years, and I wasn't about to forgive him. “You could've told me, you know. You didn't have to—”

“Emma!” he said, in that irritating tone he always used when I was bugging him. “We can delve into your deep-seated inferiority complex later. Just kill the ghast!”

I made a
hmph
ing noise as I pulled my dagger from my bag and slipped it from its sheath. I couldn't help but be a smidgen smug over the fact Max couldn't dispel a little old ghast.

I took the last step from the stairway onto the dirt floor of the old cellar as Max flicked on a flashlight. The room was low and dark, with empty racks along one of the stone walls and an eye-watering musty smell. A
roughly circular stone mound, covered in rotting planks, rose from the gloom at the far end of the room, and I felt my breath catch.

“Is that a grave?” I whispered.

“An old well, I think,” Max said, also whispering. “Maybe the original plumbing.”

“Oh.” I imbued my dagger with power and stepped farther into the cellar. “Well, where's this ghast?”

“Careful,” Max warned from the safety of the stairs.

“Why? Because it's
haunted
?” I said, maybe showing just a little more bravado than I felt. But since battling the last ghasts, I'd fought dozens of wraiths, a siren who could control my thoughts, and Neos. I wasn't too concerned. “This is nothing.”

“Just summon the damn thing and dispel it already.”

“Fine.” My boots
were
getting a little filthy from the dirt floor. “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” I recited in a sing-song voice.

I sent summoning energy into the void, and it took only a moment for the ghast to appear beside me. Well, not beside me so much as right in my face.

“Whoa!” I backpedaled, almost losing my balance.

It was a woman. I don't know why that surprised me, but it did. She was what I believe they called “strapping” back in the day, about three hundred pounds of fleshy shoulders, wide hips, and tree-trunk legs, with mean eyes and stringy hair pulled into a sloppy bun. I didn't see more after that first glimpse, because before I could dispel her,
she swiped at me with one massive paw and I ducked out of the way, narrowly missing the attack.

Surprisingly quick for all that girth, she grinned at me from across the room, next to the old well. Her teeth were all blackened and drool dripped from her mouth, sizzling beneath her. She made a sort of sickening giggly noise that grated along my spine.

“Ooh, boy,” I heard Max say behind me. “Not exactly beauty-pageant material. Just dispel her already, Em.”

“Jeez, I don't know what I did without your wise advice, Max.” My knife tingled with dispelling force; one cut and I'd have her.

I shot the ghast a warning look. Y
ou're not going to make a fool of me in front of my broth—

She launched herself at me, moving shockingly fast, but instead of burying my dagger in her heart, I only managed to scrape a long furrow down her side. She howled and spun at me as I jumped backward, smacking into the old stone well. I gripped the dagger in my hand, waiting for her to get closer, and felt a sudden surge of energy from across the room. Max was trying to come to my rescue, but he'd only get in my way, so I called, “I got this. Don't interrupt.”

“I'm not doing anything.”

“You're—”

“Emma, watch out! There's another one!”

As the first one attacked, I leaned back against the well and planted my boots on her belly, driving the dagger like a stake into her heart—then found myself staring into the face of a second ghast, identical to the first, except
her stringy hair streamed messily around her pallid face. Hoo boy.

“Twins,” Max said. “Sumo ghast
twins
.”

I blasted a stream of power at the new ghast, but she was as quick as her sister and dodged almost faster than my eye could follow. I could feel Max unleash his powers as he compelled her to freeze on top of the old well. I clambered onto the rotting planks next to her and slashed her neck with my dagger.

“Die,” I said between gritted teeth as I blasted her into vapor with a surge of power.

I stood there for a moment, panting in relief—until the plank sealing the well snapped under my feet. I lunged for safety as the wood tumbled into the well—and heard my dagger
plink, plink, plink
down the stone walls into the dark pool below. It had slipped from my grasp as I'd jumped.

I thought I heard a disembodied giggle echo as the well began to collapse in on itself, sealing my dagger inside.

I stood beside the mound of stones, stunned and breathless.

Behind me, Max said, “Not bad.”

“No,” I said. “Terrible.”

He hadn't seen my dagger fall, and thought I was upset about the fight. “Don't be so hard on yourself.” He grinned at my uniform with the plaid skirt. “And since when did we become Catholic? Come give me a hug, Sister Mary.”

“You're such a jerk,” I said, as he hugged me.

I felt him grin against me. “Some things never change.”

But one big thing just had. How was I going to kill Neos without my dagger?

I needed help.

Max had sent me back to class, telling me he'd meet me at the museum later. As I walked through the hallways, I worried about searching Thatcher. Would there be more ghasts waiting for us? Had Neos sent them purposely to get my dagger? No, it had felt like an accident, just stupendously bad luck.