Betrayal - By Lee Nichols Page 0,24

she’d understand that he was a ghost, but she’d want to summon him all the time, which he’d hate. Plus, I kind of liked having him to myself.

The playground was in the corner of a town park, and we crossed the street and followed a gravel path past the oak trees where people tossed tennis balls for their dogs during the day.

I shivered in my peacoat. “I don’t like the weather here.”

“You Californians are wusses.” She eyed the slides and swings.

“I never noticed how creepy playgrounds look after dark.” I looked around. “Maybe we should come back.”

“No way, man. It only makes it more fun.” Natalie was the girl who goes naked in the Jacuzzi and takes the dare instead fibbing about the truth. Ghasts at dusk were not going to intimidate her. “Here goes,” she said.

Natalie closed her eyes, and I felt their spirits before she even finished, like needles on my skin. I’d never dealt with ghasts before. They weren’t as dangerous as wraiths, but I still felt their twistedness.

“Wait,” I blurted. “I’m not ready.”

“Too late,” Natalie said, opening her eyes. “They’re here.”

They rose from the ground beside the drinking fountain, as if awakened from a deep slumber. Their heads swayed as they scanned and sniffed for the reason they’d been summoned. They didn’t look like wraiths, with tattered skin and hollow eyes, but like regular ghosts, in bad costumes, except gray, like they’d stepped out of an old black-and-white film.

“They look harmless,” I said, but the Rake had mentioned a trap.

“Looks are deceiving,” Natalie said.

There were two of them, both male, both dressed like the Rake, only less tailored and elegant. They swiveled toward Natalie and me, bared their teeth, and flew at us.

“Okay,” Natalie said. “Your turn.”

“What?”

“I can only summon them, Emma. You have to dispel them.”

I panicked. “I don’t know how!”

“What are you talking about? You’re Emma frickin’ Vaile—you know everything!”

“Run!” I yelled. “Natalie, run!”

Too late—the burly ghast knocked her to the ground.

“Emma!” she screamed. “Do something!”

But I couldn’t think; I couldn’t remember how to gather my power. I just stood there with an odd humming in my mind.

Natalie screamed and turned her head as the ghast drooled over her. The drool fell into the sandbox and sizzled.

Sizzling drool that would burn straight through Natalie’s flesh. That cleared my mind.

I reached out to the ghast. Stop! She is nothing to you. She is no threat. Leave her!

He hesitated, and Natalie rolled away. I started to compel him further, when the lankier ghast hit me like a wrecking ball, smashing me into the side of the seesaw. As I struggled to catch my breath, the lanky ghast screeched so piercingly that I was surprised my ears didn’t bleed.

The ghast bent me backward over the metal seesaw, which bounced up and down. I couldn’t touch the ground as he pressed his hands into my throat, trying to burn me. The sudden shock of pain woke my power, and I centered his spectral gray head between my palms and loosed a blast of energy that scrambled whatever was left of his brain. He lurched away from me, hardly able to stay on his feet.

“Emma!” Natalie called out. “A little help!”

I turned and saw her struggling beneath the burly ghast. With a flicker of thought, I compelled him to leave Natalie alone and join the other ghast, now whimpering inside a spiderweb climbing structure made of rope. He jerkily walked away, like an animated scarecrow, and stepped into the web.

I pulled Natalie to her feet. “Are you all right?” My back was to the ghasts, but my mind was still engaged, feeling their energy, compelling them to stay where they were.

Natalie examined the holes in her parka where the ghast’s drool had made contact. “Fantastic. What happened to you?”

“I don’t know. Nerves? I froze, I guess.”

“Well, as long as you snapped out of it.” She glanced toward the ghasts and taunted them. “Not so tough now, are you?”

“Natalie. I think there’s more.” Another presence tugged at the edge of my mind.

“Oh God!” Natalie said, her voice sharp with fear. “Look!”

The ground beneath the tire swing bulged, and a mound of dirt erupted from the wood chips. A billow of black smoke emerged and twined into a ghast, twice as big as the other two, with oversized hands and feet, long gray hair, and a beard. His mouth opened unnaturally wide, like a snake with unhinged jaws, as he wafted toward us.

“Looks like we sprang the trap,” Natalie said.

The humming