I had gone into the Shadow Lands and brought him back. Okay, I could handle that. Wren had done it before with books and other small objects.
I’d done it with a freaking person. Two of them. I’d summoned Maureen from the Beyond into the Shadow Lands, and then brought her here.
Things were spiraling out of control faster than I could keep track. But, okay. It was nothing to panic over. It wasn’t bad.
Holy shit. I took a deep breath. My knees buckled, but Joe and Maureen held me up. “If you let go, we’ll disappear,” Maureen informed me. “You are what anchors us to this place and this moment.”
“Okay.” I sucked in a breath. “Okay. I can do this.”
“Does this have to do with the concert on Halloween?” Joe asked.
I nodded. “The band is going to try to raise you.”
“They won’t be the first to try.”
“But they’ll be the first on Halloween in a place already teeming with spiritual energy under the control of a nut job.” I glanced at Maureen. “Do you know what your brother’s planning?”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to know. He was the reason I was vengeful in the first place. When Emily released me from this world, I left him behind me. I found peace for the first time in years.”
I did not want to know what Noah had done to her.
I turned back to Joe. “If I help bring you into this world, will you help us fight Noah?”
He blinked. “Will you still help me get justice for Laura?”
I nodded. “I’m on it.”
“Then, yes, I’ll fight him.”
Relief flooded my veins. “Oh, thank God.” I turned to Maureen. “Will you?”
She looked horrified. “No! I won’t face him. You can’t make me.”
“No,” I agreed, “I can’t. Don’t you want to make him pay?”
“No.” She shook her head. “I’m beyond that. I will tell you whatever you want to know about my brother. I will give you every weakness he has, but I won’t confront him. He is evil incarnate, and I will not subject myself to that again, not after finally getting away.”
Pressuring her or trying to force her wouldn’t help. It would only make me feel bad, and make me like her brother in her eyes.
“Okay,” I said. “Tell me how to fight him.”
She stared at me. “You don’t. You can’t fight him. He’s too strong.”
“I don’t believe that.” I couldn’t. “There has to be something.”
“He’s afraid of the dark,” she said. “At least, he was in life.”
Not terribly helpful.
“He’s vain, and a bully.”
Again, things I already knew. I had to try really hard not to be annoyed at her. She was as much Noah’s victim as Wren was—even more so.
Maureen turned to Kevin. “He’s possessed you. I can feel it.”
Kevin nodded, a bitter expression on his face.
Maureen tugged on my hand, drawing me and Joe closer to Kevin. She reached out and wrapped her fingers around his. A warm rush of energy ran through me as the four of us connected.
“That was cool,” Joe remarked. “Kind of like the first time I stepped out onstage.”
Kevin looked stunned. “What did you just do?”
Maureen smiled. “I unlocked those things he would have you keep hidden. All the secrets he thought buried inside you are now yours to remember. I gave you some of my own memories, as well. Use them as you see fit.” She turned to me, her face pale. “I can’t stay here any longer. Please, release me.”
I did. Hanging on to her would have felt cruel. She disappeared the moment we broke contact. Joe was still there.
Kevin rose to his feet. “I have to go. I think I know where there is something that might help us.”
Joe spoke, as well. “You’d better let me go, too, J.B. Can’t have you weakening yourself.”
I felt fine. “I suppose it would be dangerous to let you walk around all corporeal. Women might start throwing their underwear at you,” I joked. But then it occurred to me—wasn’t this what Noah had planned? To make it so he was tangible, but with all the abilities of the dead? He would need a lot of power to do that.
I was going to have to make sure I was well protected that night, because I was starting to think that I was like a big ole battery for ghosts. If he had me, Wren and Emily to draw power from, there was no telling what he might be capable of.
No one would be able to stop him.
WREN
I thought I was stronger than this.
I don’t think returning to Haven Crest was the right thing to do. Noah said I would feel better, that the infection wouldn’t be so bad if I returned to him. And now I can’t leave.
I should have known he lied. He lies about everything.
I ache all over. I want to run wild. I want to feel eyeballs pop free under my thumbs. I want to feel that rush I felt when we scared away those college students.
I need that fear.
I don’t know what he did to me.
But I want more.
LARK
The next day was Wednesday—the day before Halloween. I went to school for the morning—not because Nan made me, but because I wanted to talk to One-Shade-of-Gray again.