“Can I have a few minutes to myself?” I asked. I certainly didn’t plan on raising my first dead man with an audience.
Summer glanced at Luther, who had moved into the living room and now sat on a leather sofa the shade of sand pretending to watch MTV Cribs. He lifted one shoulder then lowered it. “I’m not movin’.”
“I didn’t mean that.” I turned to Summer. “Can you show me which room is mine?”
“You’re staying here?”
“Ruthie said I should.” She hadn’t, but Summer didn’t know that.
“Well, she didn’t tell me,” Summer muttered, then stomped as loudly as she could in bare feet down a hall that led toward the back of the house. As we walked, the corridor lengthened in front of us, doors appearing on either side.
I’d seen her do this before. She could change a cottage into a castle in the blink of an eye. She could also add rooms and floors without even waving her hand.
We turned into another long corridor, and she stopped, throwing open a door to our right. The room looked like a cell on Prison Block A.
I assumed Summer could also decorate with her imagination. Hence the cold gray walls, the metal cot with the über-thin, stained mattress, and an army-green blanket that appeared as soft as a Brillo Pad.
“Thanks.” I was unable to keep the sarcasm from my voice.
She smirked and turned away. I stepped into the room, which gave off an unpleasant chill, and shut the door, then I reached for a lock that wasn’t.
“Lock!” I shouted, and in the next instant one appeared.
Summer could no doubt unlock the door just as easily, but oh, well, this shouldn’t take long. At least it hadn’t for Mait.
Since I’d absorbed his powers, I hadn’t felt any different from before. Sure, I could stretch out my hand and make stuff come to me, but I didn’t feel any stronger in a mystical, necromancer-y kind of way. And shouldn’t I?
What if it was a lie—the gift of raising the dead? I’d only seen Mait do so in a dream. Certainly Ruthie had corroborated his talents, but Ruthie couldn’t be right about everything, all the time, could she? Had I risked my soul for nothing?
Panic threatened and since panic would help no one, I took a deep breath, closing my eyes, trying to calm myself. Just the familiar, meditative act made my training kick in. My mind opened. I reached for the power, and it was mine. Power flowed through me, along with all the knowledge. Suddenly I knew exactly what to do and how to do it.
So simple. Such strength. I could raise everyone we’d lost. Ruthie, Xander. What was to stop me? Who could stop me? Who would dare?
I slapped myself in the face. The sting brought me back.
“Focus,” I said. “You did this for Sawyer and only Sawyer.”
But what if it worked?
I shoved the tempting thought aside and did what I’d sacrificed so much to be able to do.
Mait had touched the graves, but that was because he hadn’t known those he was raising. I knew Sawyer—probably better than anyone. All I had to do was think of him and call him home.
“Come back,” I whispered, and then I waited.
For his touch, his voice, his scent. Nothing happened.
I tried again. Open. Reach. Beg. “Please, come back to me.”
I remained alone in an empty room.
I was doing this right. Unlike the time when I’d attempted to raise his ghost—a spell boosted by magic and therefore easily screwed up with the wrong twitch of a finger or the switching of a single word—the power to raise the dead was part of me. I could feel the ability to lift Sawyer out of death and back to life in my mind, my heart, my very soul.
From somewhere in the house came a vicious growl, followed by several heavy thumps and the breaking of glass.
I was at the door in an instant. I jerked on it three times before I remembered the lock. Then I was running down the hall and skidding into the living room where three people now stood instead of two.
“I knew I could do it,” I murmured.
“Are you insane?” Summer asked, her tone almost conversational.
I ignored her, so damn glad to see Sawyer my legs wobbled.
“Thank God,” I whispered, and started forward.
“Wait,” Luther murmured. Something in his voice stopped me. Luther’s shining amber eyes were fixed on Sawyer; his nostrils flared, every muscle tensed. The kid’s kinky curls stirred in an impossible breeze. “Ruthie says, ‘Skinwalker.’ “
“We know.” I didn’t pause to wonder why Ruthie was telling us twice—something she never did—but moved toward Sawyer again. I stopped a few feet away when the breeze that wasn’t brought me his scent.
Not trees and grass, wind and water with a hint of smoke, but ashes, embers, hot coals and flames.