Everything is hopeless.
I don’t want to go on.
It hurts. It hurts so bad and I just want it to stop.
The spirit of the young man reaches for his body, fingers swiping through his own skin. He watched a shadow rise from the ground, red eyes glowing in the night. His sobs resound off every tree in the forest. This is wrong. Everything is wrong.
“Wren,” Xavier pants, pulling me to my feet. “Wren, what’s wrong?”
Hearing his voice brings me back to the here and now. I blink and suck in air. Holy shit. It’s the demon’s power.
“You don’t feel that?” I ask, as dread threatens to take over again, like I’m about to have a panic attack.
“Feel what?”
“All their emotions.” I blink back tears. “Hearing them cry is awful.”
“Hearing who cry?” Devon asks slowly.
I look from him to Xavier and then out at the spirits. “You don’t see them?”
“The bodies?” Xavier brushes loose strands of hair back that’s sticking to the sweat on my face.
“Oh,” I say as the realization crashes down. “They’re ghosts. You can’t see them.”
“Where are they?”
I sweep my hand out. “Right there. They’re trying to get back in their bodies. I can feel their pain and their fear and it’s overwhelming.” I hug my arms around myself, trying not to come undone. What I’m feeling aren’t my own emotions but my brain can’t tell the difference, and my nervous system is starting to panic as if something terrible is happening to me.
Xavier puts his hands on my shoulders and looks me right in the eye. “Breathe, Wren,” he says. “The spirits are trying to get back into their bodies?” he asks, needing to hear it again to be sure.
“Yes,” I say, looking at the crying man only several feet from us. “I think they know if they can’t get back in. They’re going to hell.”
I swallow hard. It’s the only thing that makes sense right now given how absolutely terrified everyone feels.
“The demon took their souls. And they know… they know what happens when your soul can’t ascend.”
I blink and visions of a hell escape full of brimstone and fire flash before me. That is what Hell looks like to the guy sobbing, desperately reaching for his body. It’s where he knows he will go—unless I can stop the demon.
If I kill the demon, whatever kind of contract he has over countless souls will be broken, and they will be free to move on, going to wherever they deserve to go.
“Get the bodies as far away from here as you can,” Xavier tells Devon.
“The boathouse so they can be identified later,” I say and suck in a shuttering breath, wanting to collapse onto the floor, crying. Knowing that my soul will never again be in my body is the worst type of existential terror that anyone can ever feel. But it’s not my fear, though no matter how many times I remind myself that I can’t get rid of the feeling.
“Take a breath,” Xavier tells me, making sure I’m steady on my feet before he speeds a few feet away, jumping up to pull another body down from the tree. I extend my hand and pull the remaining ones to the ground, feeling a sting in the back of my head similar to the feeling you get when water goes up your nose after jumping in a swimming pool and plunging deep below the surface.
Devon grabs two bodies and flings them over his shoulder as if they weigh nothing. He grabs another around the waist and races through the dark forest, disappearing from sight.
Now that the crying man is gone, I’m able to steady myself a bit more. There are still three more ghosts around us, confused and terrified. It comes off of them like waves, crashing against me and threatening to drag me out in a sea of horror.
Then the smell of sulfur chokes me. Xavier moves in front of me right as something steps out of the forest. It’s the demon, appearing as an older, well dressed gentleman, with swept back silver hair, and gray eyes to match.
“A witch and a vampire,” it says, deep voice reverberating in one thousand whispers throughout the forest. The sound seems to come from everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
“Go back to hell!” I scream, and throw out both hands, hitting it with a jolt of magic. Xavier pulls the dagger from my belt and speeds forward, sinking it into the demon’s heart. Like the spirits, the demon isn’t corporeal. But the blade seems to have some effect, and it sizzles as it slices through the thick shadow.
The demon vanishes, only to appear behind Xavier. It throws out its hand, fingers reaching into Xavier’s chest, similar to Xavier’s signature move of ripping out a heart. Thankfully, the demon can’t pull out Xavier’s heart, but whatever he does makes Xavier tense with pain and the dagger falls from his hand.
