couple of hunters ran toward us, but Balthazar tackled them, taking them both down with his outstretched arms. Ranulf held his own, but I wasn’t sure how much longer he could go. And two hunters already lay dazed on the ground near Lucas, who battled his mother in blind rage.
I did have ghostly powers that were useful in combat, but I’d only ever tried them on vampires. Would that kill a human? I wasn’t ready to do that, even if the humans in question seemed very ready to kill me.
“We don’t need powers,” I said quickly. “We need the police.”
“Police?”
“Vic, call 911! Tell them there’s a—like, a home invasion or an attempted robbery in progress, something!” Black Cross tried to steer clear of the law, because they wanted to stay off their radar. “When they hear the sirens, they’ll go.”
Vic took off for the house and his cell phone. I ran toward Lucas, not sure what I was going to do but desperate to keep him from either being killed or killing his mother.
Lucas’s wild-eyed gaze told me he was beyond reasoning with. So I cried, “Kate, don’t! You don’t want to do this!”
“Let me give my son some peace!” She never stopped circling her son; one of her eyes was already blackening from his fist. Lucas would never have done that to her, never, if anything of his spirit was in control.
I slipped between them—not like she could do anything to me, what with me being dead and everything. “You can’t kill him. You know you don’t want to.”
Her gaze went right through me, focusing only on the cloudy figure of her son behind my transparent form. “I can and I will.”
My desperation peaked. I looked at Kate, pleading with every part of my soul for her to stop and try to see that her son was still with her—to see him through my eyes—until it felt almost like my desperation had become a blade that could cut through her—
Then this bizarre tidal pull seized me, dragging me toward Kate in the blink of an eye. Before I could ask myself what was happening, I felt myself being drawn into her, absorbed by her. Everything went dark for an instant, and then when I could see again, I knew I was looking through Kate’s eyes. I could feel her body all around me, like a suit of armor, but one with warmth, breath, and a heartbeat.
Kate’s hand dropped the stake as her feet stumbled backward. The only thing I could think was, I’m possessing someone. I’ve possessed Kate. How did I do that? The sheer power of my desperation had acted almost like a battering ram, opening a portal into her very self. Could all wraiths do this? I had no idea. All that mattered was my ability to stop this fight.
Lucas charged at me, and I dodged him, but clumsily, because controlling Kate’s body was weird and unfamiliar, sort of like my first driving lesson. I shouted, “Everyone, let’s go!” Talking in Kate’s voice sounded odd, but I kept giving orders. “We’re getting out of here now!”
Then I felt an even stranger sensation—Kate’s spirit, struggling against me, trying to push me out. Could she do it? I decided to let her, if it was possible.
Instantly, I felt myself scattered and invisible, floating upward in a dreamlike haze. My reverie was broken when I heard Kate say, voice shaking with fear, “We have to leave.”
The hunters ran for their trucks and vans, responding either to her first order or her last. Lucas sprang after her, but Balthazar shoved him aside and took him down, keeping him back.
As their tail lights vanished down the road, Vic jogged out of his house, both hands in his sandy hair, like he was trying to hold his head together. “What, I just called the cops for nothing?”
“First be glad that Black Cross is gone,” Ranulf pointed out, brushing himself off and calm as ever.
“Well, the police are coming. So maybe get the car out of the yard.” Vic looked at the deep tire tracks in the grass and groaned. “There are not even words for how grounded I’m going to be. They’re gonna have to invent words for it. New words.”
I coalesced amid the guys. “Ranulf’s right, though. This could have been a lot worse.”
Lucas turned toward Vic. His eyes remained flat and blind, his fangs still extended. With horror I realized that Lucas hadn’t yet drunk blood—and the killing rage from the fight held him in its grasp.
He lunged at Vic. Ranulf managed to knock Vic out of the way, but Lucas tore at him with his whole strength, willing to shred Ranulf if that got him closer to the human, to the source of fresh blood.
Vic’s jaw dropped. “Oh, my God,” he said, standing in place out of shock instead of running for his life. “This isn’t happening.”
“Vic, run!” Balthazar said, pulling Lucas off Ranulf. Vic took a couple of shuffling steps, then finally accepted what was going on and ran like crazy toward his front door. Lucas elbowed Balthazar sharply, but Balthazar was able, with difficulty, to maintain his grip. He said to Ranulf, “Get him into the wine cellar. Keep him there until we can get him some blood. After I move the car, I’ll come help you.”
“Lucas?” I pleaded. “Lucas, can you hear me?”
It was like I didn’t exist. Lucas only wanted blood, and he didn’t care if he had to kill Vic to get it.
Ranulf dragged Lucas backward, struggling with him the whole way. All I could do was open the wine cellar door for them. In the distance, sirens blared, coming closer.
“Let me go!” Lucas raged, clawing Ranulf viciously in the side. Ranulf grimaced but held on. “Let me go!”
“You have to calm down,” I said. “Please, Lucas, get ahold of yourself.”
“He cannot—hear you—” Ranulf managed to say as he wrestled Lucas toward a corner. “I remember the madness.”
Lucas roared, a terrifyingly animal sound. Every muscle of his body was flexed in his desperate need to escape, to kill and drink blood. Ranulf could hold him off, because of his great age and power, but after that battle, Ranulf’s strength had to be taxed to the limit. Seeing Lucas like this, reduced to an insane shell of himself, here in the little makeshift apartment where we had loved each other so much, nearly destroyed me.
The sirens got louder. Lucas roared again and smashed Ranulf backward against the wall with such force that the wine bottles rattled and Ranulf lost his grip. He leaped toward the door, and I started after him—but Balthazar came through.
Thank God, I thought. Balthazar can stop him, I know he can!
But then I cried out in horror as Balthazar brandished a stake and swung it, hard, so that it slammed deep into Lucas’s chest.
Chapter Three
LUCAS COLLAPSED UPON THE FLOOR, A STAKE jutting out from his heart.
I fell to my knees by his side. “Balthazar, no! What are you doing?” Just as I grasped the stake to pull it out, Balthazar roughly towed me up to my feet, away from Lucas. I went vapory again, slipping out of his arms easily. “You can’t stop me from taking care of him.”
“Think,” Balthazar said. “We
