Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 90630 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 363(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90630 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 363(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
“It’s a ritual,” I exclaim. It’s so fucking obvious now I don’t know how I missed it before. Why else would we be out here in the woods? There were five bodies hanging, and each was equally spaced—like the points of a star.
I move out of Xavier’s embrace and throw out a hand, yanking down another body. It crashes down with a sickening thud, followed by the crunch of broken bones. It’s the body of a woman, and her eyes are open and lifeless. She also has had her throat slit in a ritualistic way.
The sound of metal scraping on metal echoes through the woods and we whirl around, unable to tell where it’s coming from. I turn, putting a hand on Xavier’s arm. He has dirt on his elbow from being thrown by the demon. Even though it doesn’t matter, I brush it off of him. In doing so, the smell of sulfur becomes stronger. I bring my hand to my face and sniff the dirt on my fingers.
Sulfur.
And then I realize that the demon hadn’t thrown Xavier aside just to keep him from attacking. It threw him right into the middle of the circle, where something has been dug up or buried or—
“It’s trying to access a Ley line,” I say as it comes to me.
“Ley line?” Devon asks.
“Earth’s energy grid,” I summarize. “If you can tap into them, you can access a shit town of power. Demons and monsters and anyone willing to participate in a really risky form of magic have been trying to access them as long as they’ve been known.”
“If a demon gets power from the Ley line…” Devon starts, trailing off so I can finish.
“It wouldn’t be good. They’d be almost unstoppable.” I bite my lip and inhale. “That’s why it didn’t want me to do the locator spell. It wasn’t done with the ritual. Which means we still have time to stop it before it does tap into an infinite source of magical energy.”
“Can you pull the rest of the bodies down?” Xavier asks, knowing using magic drains me.
“Yeah,” I say but before I can, the rest fall from the trees. I flinch and he pulls me close to him again, using his own body to protect me. This time, spirits rise from the bodies. I watch, transfixed in horror, as the spirit of a young, male counselor steps out of his body and turns around.
“No,” he cries, voice echoing through my head. He falls to his knees, sobbing, and each cry hurts, like a vice digging into my brain. His despair is palpable and his emotion and fear spirals around me. The spirits of the others do the same, each one realizing they’re dead.
Their pain becomes mine and I clutch at my chest, heart shattering in two. All the pain I’ve felt before bubbles to the surface and I pitch forward, tears in my eyes.
Everything is hopeless.
I don’t want to go on.
It hurts. It hurts so bad and I just want it to stop.
The spirit of the young man reaches for his body, fingers swiping through his own skin. He watched a shadow rise from the ground, red eyes glowing in the night. His sobs resound off every tree in the forest. This is wrong. Everything is wrong.
“Wren,” Xavier pants, pulling me to my feet. “Wren, what’s wrong?”
Hearing his voice brings me back to the here and now. I blink and suck in air. Holy shit. It’s the demon’s power.
“You don’t feel that?” I ask, as dread threatens to take over again, like I’m about to have a panic attack.
“Feel what?”
“All their emotions.” I blink back tears. “Hearing them cry is awful.”
“Hearing who cry?” Devon asks slowly.
I look from him to Xavier and then out at the spirits. “You don’t see them?”
“The bodies?” Xavier brushes loose strands of hair back that’s sticking to the sweat on my face.
“Oh,” I say as the realization crashes down. “They’re ghosts. You can’t see them.”
“Where are they?”
I sweep my hand out. “Right there. They’re trying to get back in their bodies. I can feel their pain and their fear and it’s overwhelming.” I hug my arms around myself, trying not to come undone. What I’m feeling aren’t my own emotions but my brain can’t tell the difference, and my nervous system is starting to panic as if something terrible is happening to me.
Xavier puts his hands on my shoulders and looks me right in the eye. “Breathe, Wren,” he says. “The spirits are trying to get back into their bodies?” he asks, needing to hear it again to be sure.
“Yes,” I say, looking at the crying man only several feet from us. “I think they know if they can’t get back in. They’re going to hell.”
I swallow hard. It’s the only thing that makes sense right now given how absolutely terrified everyone feels.