“You want to help me?” I asked, touched at the offer.
“Duh.” He gave me another squeeze and pulled me out the door. “For a smart girl you can be surprisingly dumb sometimes. No one crosses my friends and gets away with it. Not even the devil. If he so much as tries to lay a finger on you, I’ll glitter bomb the shit out of him.”
Damn, but I loved my friends.
***
As soon as we stepped off the bus, my skin prickled. The air felt energized.
The dance was held just off the road in a clearing bordered by trees. The sun sat low on the horizon, but as the shadows lengthened and the sky darkened from reds and pinks to blues and purples, students gathered around the center of the clearing.
There, in the middle of the field, a pile of wood the size of several cars had been stacked high. I’d read enough on the subject of Samhain to know that traditionally witches and other supernatural beings danced around a bonfire on the evening of October 31. This must be the bonfire.
Leanne ran ahead of the two of us. Oliver shook his head as we followed in the same direction, and he scanned the crowd for Rodrigo, his Eve.
Once the sky had darkened a little more, a witch walked up to the bonfire. She stopped in front of it and turned to address the gathering crowd. A hush fell over the group.
“On this day, our community’s holiest of days, we recognize that an inherent part of our world lies beyond this one. Tonight we recognize and welcome the spirits of our ancestors, the wild that lives within our own hearts, and the magic that all who are gathered get to experience each and every day.”
“Gabrielle,” a voice spoke from behind me. I swiveled around and came face to face with Leanne. Something about her looked different, more like the old roommate I knew.
“Leanne?” I asked. “I thought you were on the other side of the bonfire.”
“Listen to me,” she said, ignoring my comment. “Tonight, don’t give up your soul, no matter what.”
My mouth went dry at her words. “I wasn’t planning on it.”
“Shhh,” Oliver said from next to me, giving me and Leanne pointed looks.
Someone moved through the crowd carrying a torch. The torch passed hands to the speaker, the firelight flickering against the crowd’s skin.
I turned my attention momentarily away from Leanne to watch what was happening in front of the unlit bonfire.
“This flame represents the light of the living,” the speaker said, holding the torch up high for all to see. “It’s a celebration of the brief time we have here, and a reminder to those not of this world that while we welcome their presence on this hallowed evening, they are only visitors passing through.”
Leanne grabbed my hands. “Swear to me you won’t sell your soul—not even if someone’s life is at stake.”
“Leanne—”
“Swear it,” she said.
I took in her troubled eyes. “I swear it.”
“But for now,” the speaker said, “spirits of the Otherworld, we welcome you. Merry Samhain and may the festivities begin!” She threw the torch onto the pile of wood and it went up in flame.
Leanne squeezed my hands. “Good.” She kissed my cheek. “Safe travels,” she said, then slipped away into the crowd.
“What? Leanne, wait!”
The crowd cheered and music started up. Oliver, oblivious of Leanne’s cryptic warning, grabbed my hand. “Dance with me!”
“But Leanne—”
“Let her do her own thing.”
Reluctantly I let Oliver pull me into the fray, allowing myself to just go with things for once. We, along with the rest of the group, moved around the fire, dancing to the rhythm of the music.
Most of the students wore Venetian masks, and their reflective surfaces twinkled under the light of the fire.
As the darkness crept up on us, the air felt heavy and the shadows along the edges of the woods seemed to sway. A haze moved from the dark corners of the clearing towards the gathered crowd. As it got closer, it shifted and separated.
I almost yelped when I realized what I was seeing. Spectral beings took shape along the edges of the group and began to weave around the fire with us.
“Ghosts?” I asked Oliver. “Are we really dancing alongside ghosts?”
Oliver looked unimpressed. “That surprises you?” he said, his eyes scouring the crowd—probably still looking for Rodrigo. It was hard to tell who was who when everyone wore disguises.
“A little,” I said. I couldn’t help but squeal when one of the ghosts moved through me. My skin felt cold and clammy.
Oliver stopped searching the crowd to give me a look. “You’re a scary, bad-ass vampire who solves crimes and offs people for a living—”
“I don’t off people.”
“—but throw a couple of ghosts into the mix and you squeal like a baby.”
“Listen fairy boy . . .” My voice died away as I caught sight of the fire. A form flickered within the flames.