He holds up the map so I can see it. I look at the lines he traced between the circles. The last circle around Ridgemont is the final point on a perfect five-pointed star.
“Someone was expecting another luiseach death in Ridgemont!” he shouts loud enough for me to hear. “Someone organized this!”
Lucio said the darkness was organized.
Out of the corner of my eye I see a gray-black blur in the distance. A man surrounded in shadow. I’ve seen him before. Seen his black coat and wide-brimmed hat. Seen his face. The face of the darkness.
He’s been watching all of this.
He’s been waiting for it.
He wants me to die here today.
My death will complete whatever powerful spell the darkness has been conjuring up. A spell that stretches the world over. I was wrong about all of this.
Suddenly, instead of peace, I’m filled with terror. Instead of falling in slow motion, I’m accelerating toward the ground rapidly. The fear of death consumes me. My ears ring as the pressure of making such a terrible mistake builds inside my head. I thought I was freeing the world of my burden on it, on everyone, but my death will only make things worse. The voices of the people I love fade, and suddenly I’m alone as I fall toward a mistake of my own making.
The chasm below me opens even wider, deeper into the earth. I look down. Swirling at the center of the chasm below me is a whirlpool of darkness. No, not just darkness. Dark spirits. Hundreds, thousands of demons are waiting for me down there.
Terrified, I close my eyes. In my mind’s eye I see an enormous white owl flying toward me. No, not flying: a little girl is throwing a stuffed animal up and down, laughing as its cotton wings flap back and forth in the breeze.
Her youthful voice calls my name, getting louder, following me down. But why? Anna can’t stop me from falling. She’s a spirit, nothing more than a presence beside me. She can’t take shape, can’t hang onto me, can’t pull my weight upward against gravity to save me.
I gasp as Anna’s ice-cold hands twine their fingers through mine.
And pull.