“Um…” Graham frowned down into the mug I had just handed him. “I appreciate the gesture, but I really shouldn’t be drinking coffee this late. Want some Sleepytime tea instead?”
I positioned a hard metal folding chair next to my bed. The sky outside my turret window was dark, and the rest of Primrose House was asleep, but I was keyed up with an electric, nervous energy. Striker stood on my pillow, yellow eyes alert and excited. I felt certain she could sense what I was up to, and I got the feeling she approved.
I flicked the side of Graham’s mug. “Drink it. I already had three mugs of Sleepytime, but I need you to stay awake for a while.”
“Why?”
“I just need you to watch over me while I’m sleeping.” I lifted my hands to my necklace, intending to pull it off over my head.
Graham’s hand shot out, pinning the black tourmaline to my chest. “Whoa, what? Why are you taking that off? I thought it was the only thing keeping Horace from just popping in here and harassing you.”
“It is. And that’s exactly what I want him to do.”
“What?”
Irritation crept up my back. I didn’t have time to explain every single detail of my plan. Now that I knew how to finally get to the bottom of Horace’s real identity, I just wanted to get it over with.
Plus… I couldn’t wait to get back into the astral plane. I needed to be there in that strangely silent world, working to make myself stronger. Every second I spent on the astral plane was currency, and just like Gabrielle had told me, I needed to pay the price for more power. I finally understood why people put in the time to master a musical instrument or why Graham dedicated so much of himself to his art.
Being a psychic was my calling. Walking the astral plane was my purpose. Once I embraced that truth, I knew it was the only way I could unmask Horace once and for all.
Graham, however, still hadn’t even accepted what I could do. That was the first thing I needed to fix if I was going to pull this off.
“Look,” I told him. “One of two things is happening. Either I’m just having super vivid dreams about a dead woman I’ve never even met, which I will admit is entirely possible. Or—and I really, really need you to get on board with this—I’m astral projecting in my sleep.”
He opened his mouth to say something, then apparently thought better of it. I waited until his lips closed again to continue.
“If I’m wrong,” I went on, “Horace won’t be able to do anything to me. He’ll just show up, and I’ll be sleeping, and you won’t even know he’s here. The worst he can do is give me screwy nightmares, which I’m pretty sure he was doing to me last month anyway.”
“And if you’re right?” Graham asked softly. “Can he hurt you then?”
I paused. I had been avoiding asking myself that same question because I couldn’t answer it. Camila had been able to touch me, but the “me” that existed in the astral plane didn’t have a physical form to harm.
“I don’t think so.” I bit my lip. “At least, I hope he can’t.”
“That’s not good enough. If you don’t know for sure, then it’s not safe.”
“I don’t know anything for sure. And I’m sick of it!” My voice rose to a shout. I took a breath and made the effort to lower it again, then retrieved the death certificate Deputy Wallace had given me from my counter. “Anson Monroe is dead. He was my one lead to Horace in the real world. I’m out of options, Graham. Either I get some answers straight from the bird’s beak, or I don’t get them at all.”
His jaw clenched and unclenched over and over as he stared down at Anson Monroe’s name. When he eventually met my eyes, a deep crease of worry had formed between his heavy brows. “Does it have to be here? Let’s go to Moyard, rent a hotel room. Whatever we have to do to keep him out of our home.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know why, but I can only astral project from my own bed. And it’s not like our house is some super-secret location he doesn’t know about. Somebody had to put the first jewelry box back in our house, and I’m betting it was the same guys who stole it out of the garage after that. You don’t think they gave him our address or got it from him?”
He said nothing, but I could see the wheels turning behind his glasses. Another rebuttal was inbound.
“I can’t stay awake forever,” I pointed out. “Either this happens now—on purpose and with you watching over me—or it happens next time I fall asleep.”
It was a low tactic, essentially using the same argument I had used against him outside Horace’s house. But it had worked then, and it wasn’t any less true now.
“Fine.” He marched over to my kitchenette, filled a large tumbler with water, and plunked down into the folding chair beside my bed. “But if you so much as snore funny, I’m dumping this on your face to wake you up.”
I grimaced and took off my necklace. “Deal.”
* * *
If you need proof the universe has an ironic sense of humor, just try super hard to fall asleep sometime. Really work at it, especially with two weeks’ worth of fear and anxiety pumping through your veins. I lay in bed for a good hour, squeezing my eyes shut and telling myself to disconnect from my body. I imagined opening my eyes in the yard like always, except this time I wouldn’t even wait for Camila. I was going to run straight back into the house, up the stairs, and here to my apartment so I could be close to Graham. That way, if anything happened, he would know.
I hoped.
For a moment, I thought I felt the familiar pull of sleep, but it was no good. My eyes popped open, and I glared at the sloped ceiling. Beside me, Graham hunched in the folding chair and chewed his thumbnail as he watched me.
“It didn’t work,” I said. “I’m too excited. I think I need more tea or something.”
He didn’t respond.
“Hey.” I sat up and frowned at him. “Are you okay?”
He still didn’t say anything, and his eyes didn’t follow me as I rose. They stayed fixed on my pillow.
I looked back, following his eye line, and saw myself asleep in bed. There was something wrong about it, something off-putting. It took me a moment to realize I had never been this close to my own face unless it was reversed by a mirror.
But this wasn’t a reflection. I was sitting on top of my own body.
I was astral projecting again.
Well, either that or I was dreaming about astral projecting and sitting on top of myself. But this didn’t feel any more like a dream than the last two times had. The world around me was crystal clear, in vivid but real colors, and silent except for the sound of my own voice.
I climbed out of bed and looked back at my body. My eyebrows were drawn together, and my mouth hung slightly open. It wasn’t a very flattering expression. Did I always look this concerned and stressed out when I was snoozing away? No wonder I slept like crap most of the time.
Striker curled around the crown of my head, her furry belly perfectly positioned to soak up all the heat escaping out of my body’s chimney. But she wasn’t sleeping. Her yellow eyes were bright, alert, and focused on my astral form.
“Hey, buzzy bee,” I whispered. “Can you hear me?”
She lifted her chin, and though I couldn’t hear it, I was certain she had just trilled in response to my question.
Graham glanced at her, then cast his eyes in my direction. He shivered and said something to her that I couldn’t hear, but if I had to guess, he was probably asking what she was looking at.
I stared at her. She was clearly still in the waking world; Graham could see and hear her. But she could see and hear me too. Was she astral projecting? How could she do that and still be awake?
Or—and the thought sent a strange chill down my spine—did cats constantly exist in both places? Could they see both the living world and the astral plane in tandem?
Was that what I was really doing when I saw a ghost?
Something grazed the side of my arm. I jumped and spun around, but it was only Camila. She winced apologetically and mouthed, “Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I told her.
She looked excited to see me again. Her brown eyes glittered like Striker’s, and she smiled happily around my apartment. I wondered if this was the first time she had ever been up here. On past nights, I always saw her in the backyard. I wanted to ask her, but there wasn’t any time to play our usual pantomime game.
“Hey,” I said. “Remember that man I was asking you about? The one with the hat and the red eyes?”
She nodded.
“I’m going to try to get him to come here.” I pursed my lips. “I don’t think you should be around for his visit. He’s dangerous.”
Her eyes narrowed, and she considered me for a few moments. Then she planted her feet, crossed her arms, and cocked her head to one side. I was getting pretty good at reading ghostly body language, and her message was clear.
Bring it on.
I shook my head. “I’m not kidding. He’s the most powerful psychic I’ve ever heard of. He can do some impossible things in the waking world, the kind of stuff you can do in here. I have to assume he’s capable of even more than that on this plane. Plus, he left that box for you to find. He could be after you. If he gets here and figures out I have it…”
The look on her face made me falter, and I trailed off. Her eyes were growing narrower and narrower, and I realized every word out of my mouth was just making her more determined to stay. She walked toward me, then made a gun out of her fingers and struck a pose like one of Charlie’s Angels.
I couldn’t help but crack a smile. I glanced at Graham, who was still staring at my sleeping body. He clearly couldn’t see my astral form. It might be nice to have someone around who could—besides Striker anyway.
“Okay, fine,” I said. “But you have to hide. Do your disappearing act, okay?”
She gave me a double thumbs-up, then walked over to my kitchen cupboards, placed her hands on one of the doors, and slowly faded out of sight.
“Great,” I muttered. “There’s a ghost in my cabinet. Definitely not going to be thinking about that every time I need to grab a plate for the rest of my life.”
With Camila safely secreted away, I prepared myself to do something I never imagined trying to do on purpose. Striker hopped off my pillow and scampered to my side, winding between my legs. Her presence bolstered my confidence. With her and Camila on my side, it would be three against one when Horace got here. I liked our odds.
I took a deep breath, centering myself the same way I would if I were back in the waking world and about to call to a spirit during a séance. Then, raising my voice as loud as I could manage, I shouted, “Horace!”
I pushed his name outward with all of my strength, forcing it through the walls of Primrose House and far beyond the boundaries that limited my travel in the astral plane. Wherever he was, whoever he was, I needed him to hear me.
“Horace!” I shouted again.
For a few moments, nothing happened.
Then Striker growled. She stood between my feet, fur standing on end as she huffed at something directly behind me.
“Mackenzie,” someone purred in my ear. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”
Bile rose in my throat at the sound of his voice. It took real effort to force my feet to move, and neither my neck nor my torso agreed to cooperate with my need to look behind myself. Inch by inch, I swiveled on my tiptoes and turned around.
His face was inches from mine. He stood as close to me as Camila had been when she startled me a few nights before. But the fear I felt now wasn’t the heart-stopping jolt of a jump scare. This was deeper, like the dread that immobilizes a pedestrian when they see a truck bearing down on them too quickly to stop.
Horace terrified me to my core.
I had never been so close to him before. Even when he appeared beneath my massage table, a few feet had separated us. I had no choice but to look at his face; it took up my entire field of vision. But despite the lack of distance between us, it was still difficult to make out the details of his features. They were fuzzy. Blurred. Whether it was the way his eyes burned like a pair of brake lights in the darkness or the shadow his flat-topped, brimmed hat cast over his features, I felt like I was only able to discern the parts of him that he was willing to let me see.
What did he really look like? How much of this was him? Was he asleep somewhere in a Zorro costume, or did the cape and the hat just pop into existence whenever he wanted them to?
The crimson glare in his eyes faded, and his face registered genuine surprise. “Look at you, red eyes all aglow. I knew you were powerful, but you seemed so raw the last time we met. So”—he licked his lips—“untamed.”
As he spoke, the air around me thickened. It pressed in against me like humidity on a hot day. My arms grew heavy, and even holding my head up became more difficult.
Silently, I swore. I had suspected he would be even more powerful in here, but it would have been nice to be wrong. I was, however, a little relieved I could hear him speak. I’d played enough of Horace’s games; we didn’t need to add charades to our repertoire.
“I never thought you would find your astral form so quickly,” he said. “How did you do it?”
Good question, I thought, happy not to have the answer. The spiritual energy rolling off him was strong enough that I worried I would blurt out anything he wanted me to tell him. Not knowing how I’d reached this point made it easier to play it coy.
“You have your secrets,” I said. “I have mine.”
“So I see. Well, the jig is up, I suppose. There’s no more point pretending to be a ghost.”
“No,” I agreed. “So why don’t you take off that costume?”
He chuckled, and his cape blinked out of existence. He ran his fingertip along the brim of his hat. “You’ll forgive me for keeping this. I’m rather fond of it.”
I tried and failed to keep the awe off my face. He really could change his appearance in here. He could literally be anyone, look like anything. Meanwhile, I stood in the same charcoal jeans and Pink Floyd T-shirt I had been wearing when I visited Gabrielle at the prison that morning.
Would I ever get to his level?
“Thank you for inviting me into your lovely home.” His lips twisted into a judgmental sneer as he gazed around my apartment. When his red eyes landed on Graham, they lit up with interest. “And who is this, watching over your sleeping body so sweetly?”
Graham’s name nearly flew out of my mouth. I swallowed it back just before it left my lips. The air grew heavier by the moment, and I was already starting to feel exhausted. This conversation was burning through my energy way faster than my chats with Camila did, and I had a sneaking suspicion he was doing that on purpose. Would I run out of spiritual stamina at some point? What would happen then? Would I wake up?
Would I die?
I’d rather not find out. But there were several things—one in particular—I did need to know. I had to figure out as much as I could about his real identity as fast as possible.
“How old are you?” I asked. “You’re clearly way better than me at this. How many years did it take you to get so strong?”
“Ah, I see.” He strode across the room and leaned against the wall beside my bathroom door. His pose was casual, with one bent leg propping him up against the plaster. “You want a teacher.”
“I just want to know how you travel so far.” I decided it might be worth showing one of the proverbial cards in my hand, just to get him to show me a little more of his. “Is it the runes? Lathu?”
That earned me a raised eyebrow. “How do you know about that?”
“I know things,” I hedged.
He considered me for a moment before a strange smile spread over his face. He shook his head ruefully. “You kept the box, didn’t you?”
My heart leapt into my throat, and my poker face slipped. How did he already know about Camila?
“I should have known,” he said. “That’s where you’re getting the energy to walk the astral plane. I thought it burned up with Cyrus and Shawn.”
Cyrus and Shawn?
The guys in the van, I realized.
I had been right; they were working for him. And he wasn’t talking about the box I’d found in New Mexico. He meant the jewelry box he left for me to find in the woods the month before. His original assumption had been right—that box did go up in flames—and I could only hope the sudden stunned expression on my face read as surprise that he had guessed my big secret rather than fear that he might discover Camila.
“Did you keep the rest of it too? Is the Franklin boy here somewhere?” He closed his eyes and seemed to be concentrating on something. When he opened them again, he pushed out his lower lip and nodded approvingly. “I’ll admit, Mackenzie. You impress me. First, you find a way to disappear from my sight completely, and now you’ve managed to hide one of my own vessels from me. But it doesn’t matter—I’ll find it soon enough.”
My mind raced. I couldn’t follow everything he was saying, but I knew I needed him to keep talking. I latched on to the one piece of information that made sense to me. “So your goons are who banished Richard Franklin from his cabin for me, huh? I should have thanked them when I had the chance.”
Horace scoffed. “They only used the tools I provided them. Not anyone can do what I do. A child couldn’t draw my runes with a stick in the mud and expect anything to happen. The symbols themselves are meaningless in the wrong hands. It takes power to create power. My runes—my magic—they work because I will them to.”
“But you said I’m powerful,” I pressed. “Tell me who you really are. We could meet up in the waking world. You show me how to get stronger, and then we can do like you said. Use my power to make more power.”
“Oh, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.” He pushed himself off the wall and started walking toward me.
“So you’ll teach me?”
“What would be the point?” He tilted his head, his lips curled into a sinister smile. “You can only fatten a calf so much before it’s fit for slaughter.”
My spine stiffened. “So that’s your plan? Kill me, the way you killed my mother?” I took another gamble. “The way you killed Anson Monroe?”
He drew to an abrupt halt halfway across the room. His eyes narrowed into thin slits. For a moment, I wondered if he was about to ask me how I knew that name.
Then I was on the floor.
Horace straddled me, the weight of his body pinning me to the braided rug. I hadn’t even seen him move, but he had closed the distance between us in the blink of an eye and wrapped his hands around my throat.
I gasped for air. I felt my eyes bulge as panic built up inside me.
“We don’t need to breathe, not when we’re like this,” he hissed into my ear. “But you have to be more careful, Mackenzie. What happens on the astral plane is mirrored in the waking world.”
I couldn’t move my head, but I could see the bed out of the corner of my eye. Graham stood over my body, holding me in a half-sitting position and shaking me from side to side. The empty water glass rolled silently across the floor toward me.
“Isn’t that sweet? I wish you could hear him desperately screaming your name. He’s trying so hard, but nothing out there can wake you while you’re in here.” Horace leaned back from me, and the pressure against my windpipe increased. “He’ll be so heartbroken when you die.”
I felt myself choking. A strange feeling grew behind my belly button. It was the same sensation I’d noticed when I was trying to leave Primrose House the other night with Camila.
It was the feeling of pulling too far from my body.
As though someone was slowly turning up the volume on a car radio, sound flooded my ears. I could hear everything around me, from the glass rolling along the floor to Graham’s panicked shouts.
“Mac! Mac!” he bellowed. “Wake up!”
This is it, I thought. I hope my parents are waiting for me.
My eyes slipped closed.
The ambient noise faded away.
The pull from my body weakened.
Then Striker screamed.
Her wild howls sounded like five cats at once. My eyes flew open just as she leapt into view, claws out and tail thrashing. She headed straight for Horace’s face, but he slapped her away with one hand as easily as swatting a fly. Her snarls abruptly cut off, but I didn’t have the energy to move my head to see where she went.
“I don’t have a box handy,” Horace said as his second hand rejoined the first at my throat. “But your spirit will stick around here for a few hours at least. There will be plenty of time for me to collect you and the others—”
His words were abruptly cut off as something slammed into him from the kitchen. Horace went flying, straight toward my wardrobe, and passed through it to the hallway outside my apartment.
Camila’s face appeared above mine. She looked back at Graham, who was still shaking my unconscious form on the bed. She grabbed my face in both hands, brought her lips so close to my ear that they brushed my skin, sucked in air, and screamed, “Wake up!”
Her voice knocked me out of the astral plane. I sat up, gasping and clutching my neck.
“Mac!” Graham gathered me to him. Then he pushed me away and searched my eyes. Tears poured down his face, and his hands trembled as they gripped my shoulders. “God, I thought I lost you.”
“Brrrllll,” Striker trilled from my pillow. She stood and stretched—first her front legs, then her back ones—and twisted her head to lick the back of one of her shoulder blades. When she was finished, she glared at the wardrobe, yellow eyes filled with indignation.
“My necklace,” I croaked. For all I knew, Horace was still just on the other side of my apartment wall. I needed to protect myself from him before he came back.
“Here.” Graham slipped the cord over my head.
The familiar weight of the black tourmaline against my chest comforted me, but it did nothing to soothe the burning in my throat or the bruises on my ego. Every muscle in my body shivered at how close I had just come to death. I had nearly lost everything… and for what?
I was no closer to learning Horace’s real name, and now he knew I could astral project. I had thrown away my one advantage—the element of surprise—for nothing.
No. Not nothing. In the end, he had let a few things slip. And those details were the guide I needed, the picture on the front of the puzzle box.
Now I knew how the pieces were supposed to fit together.
Graham’s fingers grazed the sides of my neck as he inspected me. “Your skin’s all red. What the hell just happened?”
“Horace tried to kill me.” My voice was raw and husky, like I had been screaming along with the lyrics at the world’s longest concert. I pulled my knees up to my chest and hugged them to my body. “And he’s going to try again.”