Betrayal - By Lee Nichols Page 0,38

in the Beyond. Paper-thin skin dangled from their insectoid forms throbbing with hunger and hatred. They were freshly hatched and bloodthirsty and took Natalie, Simon, and Lukas by surprise.

Time slowed. I tried to scream, but I was trapped in fog. The humming was back, blocking out the sound of the ghosts and wraiths. An insistent note, pushing everything else from my mind. Terror rose within me, but then quickly slid away, replaced by a removed sense of calm as the humming began to take on a distinct lullaby-like melody.

As soon as Natalie realized what she’d summoned, she panicked. She scrambled backward and tripped over the edge of the path as a wraith caught her around the neck and scorched her face with its fetid breath.

Simon screamed a few garbled words and shot quick bursts of dispelling energy at the wraith. The wraith screeched and trembled, then turned toward him. Simon’s attack wasn’t working, but at least Natalie took the opportunity to roll away and summon again. I felt the power radiating from her body, reaching far beyond the cemetery.

I stood watching from a tremendous distance, completely disengaged from my own feelings.

The wraith turned on Simon, and he shot another burst of power that the wraith shrugged off. Lukas was faring better. He used compelling force to channel the speed of an attacking wraith, flipping it over his head and onto a gravestone shaped like a miniature Washington Monument.

The stone impaled the wraith, and it shrieked and writhed, but refused to die. Instead, it started levitating higher, and Lukas forced it back downward—until he heard Simon shout for help. He turned and saw Simon peppering the other two wraiths with dispelling power, and hardly slowing them as they advanced on him and Natalie.

Lukas compelled the wraiths away from Simon, and they began to slither toward him, ignoring Simon and Natalie.

Natalie gasped at me. “Emma, wake up! They’re going to kill Lukas!”

I couldn’t move, couldn’t push past the humming in my mind.

As the wraiths pushed toward Lukas, the third wraith—now freed from the impaling monument—jumped him from behind and slashed with serrated teeth at his neck. Lukas dropped to one knee and threw the wraith past him—then he staggered, clutching the back of his neck, blood seeping through his fingers. He barely managed to stay on his feet, facing all three wraiths as they came toward him. A clawed hand swept forward to slash his face, as a blur of gray sprang from nowhere and tackled the wraith.

It was Coby! That’s who Natalie had summoned, along with the two ghost jocks who liked to heckle me. Coby drove the wraith into a marble gravestone, and the ghost jocks pounded it brutally.

Quarterback Coby quickly assessed the situation and barked orders at the ghost jocks, and the three of them attacked the other two wraiths in a unified front. In some ways, they were better prepared than ghostkeepers, because the wraiths couldn’t burn their skin—but they didn’t have our abilities.

And wraiths were more powerful than any ghosts. While Coby and the jocks bought the others time, the final outcome remained inevitable.

What the hell’s wrong with Emma? Coby asked Natalie.

But, of course, Natalie couldn’t hear him. She kept yelling at me to fight, to help, and I kept standing there, watching from a great unfeeling distance.

The wraiths slammed through the ghost jocks, vanquishing them back into the Beyond. Then they leaped at Coby. He was quick. He faked right, moved left, hurdled one gravestone, and dove through another to land beside me.

What’s happening? he asked. Is it Neos? This place stinks of his power.

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t get myself to form words over the melody in my head.

They’re gonna kill Natalie, and then you. And then they’ll—

A wraith slashed at him, and Coby twirled away and dove right at me. Right into me. He seemed to shimmer into true visibility for an instant, then pain burst through me, like a hundred wasps stinging me everywhere.

I screamed, and Coby’s voice echoed in the agony of my mind: Nobody can save them but you.

The wraith caught Coby, slammed him into the ground, and started slashing at him with hooked fingers. But the pain and his words had snapped something inside of me. And for the first time that night, I knew what I needed.

My dagger.

I grabbed for the hilt in my pocket and leaped at the wraith pinning Coby. As I moved, I gathered all my rage and strength into a ball of lightning in my