Betrayal - By Lee Nichols Page 0,12

needs to be close to those she loves.” She came and sat beside me. Her proximity unsettled me for some reason, though I was relieved someone was on my side.

“You know that’s not wise,” Yoshiro told her. “You of all people know that personal feelings undermine a group.”

“I won’t do it without them,” I said.

Everyone looked to Yoshiro, and as he debated, I squirmed in my seat. But it wasn’t because I was worried about his answer; something didn’t feel right. My skin tingled, in a bad way.

I frowned at Bennett. “Do you feel that?”

He shook his head. “What’s wrong?”

“There’s a ghost nearby. It’s—” My spine felt hot and itchy. “Not a ghost, a wraith.”

“Imposible,” Gabriel said in Spanish. “Wraiths cannot enter the Knell.”

Bennett stood and started drawing his power into his fists, a swirl of light glowing through the flesh and bone. “If Emma says there’s a wraith, there’s a wraith.”

“This building is a powerful nexus,” William said. “She’s probably feeling the—”

“Rachel!” I said, my eyes widening.

She was quiet and attentive, next to me. Scratching furiously at one of her forearms. Bloody scrapes appeared down her skin.

She twitched a smile. “Skin infection. Poison ivy.”

But it wasn’t a rash. I could see an oily swirl superimposed over her. It shifted and shimmered, then vanished into the lines on her arm like filthy water into a drain. My breath caught, and I pushed my awareness beyond my body, letting my power ripple across the room. Until I found it: a tight knot of fear and pain and insatiable hunger.

“Emma?” Bennett said, his hands glowing with power. “Emma! Where is it?”

“It—it’s my aunt,” I gasped. “Rachel. There’s a wraith inside her.”

“There’s no way,” Gabriel said. “Wraiths can’t possess people—and this building is completely shielded. You couldn’t detect a ghast here if you were standing at the front gate, much less summon wraiths.”

“And Rachel’s the most powerful communicator we have,” William said. “She would’ve known if—”

“Hit her,” I told Bennett.

“Stop!” Yoshiro shouted.

“She knows,” Rachel screeched. “She knows!” Her tone verged on insanity.

Bennett narrowed his eyes, and spears of light flew from his fists and slammed into Rachel’s chest. Her back arched and she shrieked, an ungodly howl. Her eyes turned milky and sunk into their sockets, while her skin paled to a dead white and cracked like a mud puddle in a heat wave. Deep, jagged fissures formed, as an inky blackness seeped from inside her.

Bennett snarled and poured more energy at Rachel, and she writhed and twisted as she pointed one dead-white arm at Yoshiro, her mouth open in a soundless scream. William and Gabriel sprang to their feet, but my attention was still focused on other ghostly disturbances in the building around us.

Then Rachel made a horrible choking noise, and the insectlike bone of a wraith sprang from her arm and plunged into Yoshiro’s chest.

Lightning crackled around Gabriel. In a blaze of power, he compelled her to freeze, the bony wraith-arm still sunk in Yoshiro’s chest. “Don’t dispel her,” he told Bennett. “Or she’ll take Yoshiro with her. William, phone the doctor. If I let her go, he’ll bleed out. Quickly!”

They froze there in a horrible tableau, with Rachel’s wraith-arm impaling Yoshiro’s chest, like a poster for a horror film. But with sound: the pained, panting breaths coming from Yoshiro and the squeals of rage from the wraith inside Rachel.

Time seemed to slow, the world closing in until there was nothing but us, locked together in this terrible room, listening to death approach with every gasping breath.

Then I felt them, a burning itch on my skin—more wraiths.

“They’re coming,” I said. “More of them.”

Gabriel didn’t move, his power completely focused on the wraith inside Rachel, but the rest of us prepared to meet the new attack. I faced the fireplace, while William crossed toward the door. Bennett stood beside the couch, a lucent spear from his right hand still weakening Rachel, while his left fist sparked with light.

They didn’t come from outside. They came from inside Rachel’s cracked skin, oozing through the torn flesh in an unearthly black mist.

I’d seen wraiths before, but it wasn’t something you got used to. They condensed from the filthy mist into skin hanging like tattered clothing from insectoid skeletons, ectoplasm dripping from their gaping mouths.

William was an amazing communicator. His mental command boomed out, There is nothing for you here. Leave us! If you stay, we will dispel you.

His tone held such power and conviction that it almost stopped me. But there was no communicating with