The hand reached up from beneath the rancid water and grabbed Priest’s leg. His eyes widened in terror as the hand jerked his body off the wall. He let out one strangled scream before the water swallowed him.
A terrifying reality hit me.
Spirits are capable of touching people.
Priest’s head burst through the black surface for a second. He thrashed desperately, only to disappear again.
“We have to do something!” I shouted.
Jared threw his leg over the side and tried to force his body into the narrow opening. But his shoulders were too wide.
Alara grabbed the back of his shirt and dragged him out. “Move or I can’t take a shot.”
She fired liquid-salt rounds into the well, but they didn’t have any effect.
Priest pushed up through the churning water again, with a bony arm locked around his throat. A woman’s bruised and bloated face rose from the waves, filthy well water running down her cheeks like black tears. Her neck was broken, her head hanging unnaturally to one side.
“Get out of our well.” Her raspy voice echoed against the stones.
“Millicent.” Alara leaned over the edge. “I know what happened to your son. I know what they did.”
Jared and Lukas struggled to pull the rope up. But even their combined weight was no match for the spirit of a mother who had witnessed her child’s murder.
The spirit tightened her hold around Priest’s neck. He sputtered and coughed, choking on the sloshing water.
“I won’t let you take anything else from us,” she hissed.
Priest was drowning in a putrid sewer of rot, and I was the only one who could help him. There was nothing to think about—not the darkness or the depth or the murderous spirit.
I wound the rope around my arm and climbed over the side.
Jared’s fingers clamped down on my wrist, his blue eyes wild. “What are you doing?”
It wasn’t the same fear I saw when Priest hit the water. This fear was for me.
“He’s drowning. Just tell me how to stop her.” Bile rose in my throat as Priest gagged and thrashed below us.
Millicent looked up at me, a milky film coating her eyes like cataracts. “They took what was mine. Now I’ll take what is yours.”
The spirit tightened her withered arm around Priest’s neck. Her nails dug into his skin as she forced him under with her.
“Jared, you have to let me do this.” I eased my hand from his grip and started sliding down the rope.
“Wait.” Jared held out a long iron rod like the one Priest had taken with him. “If you stab her with this, it’ll destroy her.”
My hand closed over the metal, but he didn’t let go.
“Don’t get hurt.” It was a plea, not an order.
The well grew wider about halfway down. I lowered myself into the water carefully, aware that Priest was somewhere below me. There was no way to predict the depth—until the slimy liquid rose to my chin and my feet still hadn’t touched the bottom. I treaded water, reaching out blindly for Priest.
Something grabbed my waist.
Priest’s head burst through the surface again. He gagged and coughed up water, his skin turning blue.
I managed to pull him toward me without going under myself. “Priest? Can you hear me?”
He only nodded.
A cold hand touched my leg and brittle hair brushed against my neck.
“I can hear you,” Millicent whispered.
I thrust the rod behind me, and it slid effortlessly through the water. How would I know if I hit her? Would she feel solid?
Millicent wound my hair around her arm and yanked hard. The rod slipped out of my hand. I tried to grab it, but my head snapped back. Priest shouted something, but I couldn’t hear him over Millicent’s breath and the blood pounding in my ears.
Rancid liquid filled my mouth as the curtain of water closed above me. The world swayed with the ripples, shapes distorting and disappearing.
Until I ran out of air.
I fought the instinct to breathe, but it was impossible. Water filled my lungs, and the pressure hit me like a fist. Millicent slid one arm around my neck, and my body bucked against her.
Voices echoed above me.
My thoughts tripped over themselves and my vision blurred.…
Without warning, the vise grip released me.
I shot up to the surface, the light getting closer and closer until I broke through.
My body convulsed, the water forcing its way back out of my lungs in violent bursts. I gasped, desperate for air.
“Kennedy?” Priest held the collar of my T-shirt, trying to keep my head above water. He shoved me behind him, and I clung to the stones, my hands slipping down the sludge-covered walls.
I coughed, the air coming in huge gulps.
A hand emerged from the water, long nails dragging across the stone.
Priest raised his arm above his head. Something gleamed in his hand, thin and sharp at one end. He drove it down into the spirit’s neck.
Millicent let out a tortured wail before she exploded just like the girl in my bedroom. A spray of filthy water rained over us.
Priest wrapped the rope around my waist and pulled it tight, tethering us together. “Are you okay?”
“I think so.” My throat burned, every word tearing at my vocal cords. “How did you stop her?”
“I still had one of the bolts I made for Lukas’ crossbow in my pocket. It took two hits to take her down.” His voice swelled with pride. “I can’t believe you came after me. That was Legion all the way.”
“You saved my life.” I could still feel the water in my lungs, the pressure, and her arm around my neck.
He smiled. “I am the high priest, remember?”
“I’m pulling you guys up.” Lukas’ voice sounded shaky, or was it Jared’s? I couldn’t tell over the echo of the sloshing water and our ragged breathing.
“Take Kennedy,” Priest said. “I need to look for the disk.”
My stomach roiled at the thought of staying in the well for another second. But we had risked our lives to find the disk, and I wasn’t leaving Priest down here alone.
“I’m staying.”
“You’re both coming up,” one of them barked.
“Give us a minute.” Priest ran his hands along the slippery walls. “Check between the cracks.”
We worked our way around the inside of the well until my legs started to go numb from the cold. Priest even dove to the bottom a few times, but he came up empty-handed.
“Maybe it’s up there around the perimeter of the well somewhere,” I said.
“We’d better get out of here anyway. Your lips are turning blue.” He retied the rope, leaving us only a few feet apart, and signaled to Lukas. “Okay, pull us up.”
I watched Priest rise above me, moving closer to the gray sky. My body rose out of the water slowly, grime running down my arms. As my feet lifted out of the water, I felt a tiny hand close around my ankle.
It was impossible. I had watched her explode. Then I remembered.
She wasn’t the only one who died in the well.
The boy’s spirit looked like he was standing on top of the water, but his feet were just below the surface. The dark water splashed against his shins as if it was only inches deep.
“Wait.” His voice was tiny. The boy’s fingers uncurled from my skin as he reached into his pocket with his other hand. He pulled out a muddy silver disk, exactly the same size as the one we found at Lilburn.
“Lower me back down,” I said.
“No way!” Lukas yelled. I could see his black jacket at the edge of the well. He tugged the rope harder.
“I’ll untie myself,” I threatened.
Lukas hesitated, then lowered me a few inches.
“A little more.” I held out a shaking hand.
The boy dropped the disk in my palm.
“We’re supposed to look after it, but I don’t wanna stay here without Mamma. I’m scared of the water,” he said. “Don’t tell her I gave it to you.”
“I won’t.”
The boy smiled and he faded away.
Lukas hauled me over the side and untied the frayed rope. He pulled the last end free and paused, his hand lingering on my waist. “You scared the crap out of me, you know that?”
“Sorry,” I whispered.
Jared stood a few feet behind his brother, watching us. For a split second, I held his gaze, wishing I could be braver.
Not the kind of bravery it took to climb into the well, but the kind it would take to act on what I was feeling right this second—to run over and throw my arms around Jared until everything else disappeared. But I wasn’t that brave, and I didn’t want to feel anything when it came to Jared. Not when I knew how easily a guy like him could hurt me.
Lukas wiped the dirt off my face with the edge of his T-shirt. He made me feel safe in a world I didn’t understand, while Jared always left me feeling off balance. Like the way he was making me feel right now.
Heat spread across my cheeks.
I wondered if Lukas noticed—if he thought it was because of him.
Priest rushed over to Jared. “Did you see me take out that vengeance spirit? Don’t tell me it wasn’t badass.”
Jared looked away, breaking the connection between us, and gave Priest a weak smile. “Yeah, it was badass all right. And dumbass.”
“Whatever.” Priest stripped off his shirt and yanked on his dry hoodie, flipping up the hood.
“Here.” I handed Priest the disk.
“That’s what I’m talking about.” He grinned and examined it. “Based on the diagram and the size of the disks, the cylinder should be about the size of a coffee can.”
Alara touched my arm gently. “Are you okay?”
For a second, I was speechless. It was something a friend would do, not the girl who couldn’t stand me.
I rubbed my neck, trying to get rid of the feeling of Millicent’s arm wrapped around it. “I didn’t know spirits could touch us like that. She felt so real.”
“Not all of them can, but she was a full body apparition. Some of them feel as real as you and me.”
“How can you tell the difference?”
Alara stepped behind me, helping me wring the disgusting water out of my hair. “Sometimes you can’t.”
“Damn.” Priest winced, shaking his wrist in the air. “I must have cut myself.”
It was worse than that.
When he pulled up his sleeve, lines were carving themselves into the underside of his wrist like they were being guided by an invisible blade. Deep bloodless indentations remained etched in his flesh.
I gasped. “Oh my god.”
Jared squeezed Priest’s shoulder. “You’re getting your mark.”
What was he talking about? And why was he so calm while something sliced into Priest’s skin?
I pointed at the lines. “Does someone want to explain that?”
“When the original members of the Legion summoned Andras, they carved part of his seal into their flesh to bind him,” Lukas said. “It was supposed to help them control the demon. When a member of the Legion dies, their part of the seal transfers to the person chosen to replace them.”
“You have to earn it by destroying a paranormal entity.” Priest stared down at the mark in awe.
Alara twisted her eyebrow ring, pouting. “I still don’t have one.”
Lukas nudged her. “You will. Maybe you can take down a pink milk shake.”
“Eventually our marks will form the seal,” Priest said.
“How?”
Jared pulled up his sleeve and Lukas did the same. The skin on the insides of their wrists was smooth and unmarked. Priest held out his wrist, too. Where there had been deep depressions a moment ago, the skin had completely healed.
I grabbed his wrist. “Where did the cuts go?”
“Wait.” Jared nodded at Alara.
She scooped a handful of salt out of her pocket. The guys offered her their wrists and she rubbed them with the crystals. Within seconds, the indentations appeared in their skin, the lines blackening like they were filled with ink.
How is that possible?
I examined the shapes etched into their skin. None of the designs resembled the demon’s seal until they bent their wrists, Lukas and Jared lining up theirs side by side, and Priest pressing the heel of his hand against Jared’s. It created an L shape that transformed into three-fifths of the seal. After a minute, the lines faded again.
“So you don’t have one?” I asked Alara.
She brushed the salt off her hands. “Not yet. My grandmother was overprotective. But I’m not going to be the last person to get one.”
“I don’t think you have to worry about that.” I had almost gotten myself killed again today. I obviously wasn’t ready to destroy a vengeance spirit.
“You still don’t believe you’re one of us?” Priest asked, shaking the water out of his hair. He saved my life. This fifteen-year-old kid that I barely knew.
I looked back at Priest and gave him the only answer I could. “I don’t know what I believe.”