Sisters of Blood and Spirit

by Kady Cross

  I looked at the girl standing beside Mace. The marks on her face looked better, or no worse than they had after I’d touched her. Mace had told me he was fine, and he didn’t look sick. Obviously I couldn’t haul up his shirt in the middle of the hospital, so I had to believe him.

  So what had happened to Gage?

  I caught a nurse looking at me. “Are you all right, dear? You look a little pale.”

  “I’m fine thanks.” Just a little warm. Just a little dizzy. Something tugged at my hair. I turned my head and almost screamed. I caught myself just in time, so it came out like a hiccup.

  Freaking hell.

  There was a girl playing with my hair. Her face was completely caved in—a bloody hole of flesh and bone. Only one eye remained perfect. It blinked at me.

  “Go away,” I whispered.

  She did—thank God.

  I turned around, the corridor spinning a little around me. I braced my hand against the wall for support. Standing a few feet away was a man in a hospital gown , his blood-splattered legs white and bare. He even had blood on his toes. I didn’t know where the blood was coming from, but he was clean from the waist up. He tilted his head to look at me, his milky eyes blank.

  “Why?” he asked.

  I whirled around once more, only to find a toddler sitting on the floor a few feet away from me. My stomach rolled at the blood on its overalls. And when it turned toward me and spoke in gibberish, I looked at its face...

  I turned to the wall and pressed my forehead against it. I wouldn’t scream. I would not scream.

  Warm hands came down on my shoulders. I jumped—made some sort of pathetic noise. It was just Ben.

  “Come on,” he said. He put his arm around me and guided me down the hall. “Guys.”

  The next thing I knew, I was sitting in a chair in the family room, and someone was pressing a paper cup of water into my hands. I took a sip, washing the sick taste out of my mouth. Ben crouched in front of me. Mace stood behind him, a concerned look on his face.

  “What happened?” Ben asked.

  I took another drink. “There are a lot of ghosts here.”

  “You didn’t have this sort of reaction last night.”

  I looked into his dark eyes and felt the world shift back into place. “Something’s not right. They sought me out.”

  Suddenly, Wren was there beside me. Where had she been while I’d been bombarded with images I was never, ever going to unsee? That kid... I swallowed. That poor little kid.

  “Bent’s here,” she whispered.

  My head snapped up and turned toward her. “What?”

  “It still freaks me out when she does that,” Sarah said. “I know someone’s there, but it doesn’t look like it.”

  Wren looked worried—scared even. “Bent’s here. I don’t know how, but he’s here, and he’s been draining Gage.”

  “What’s going on?” Mace demanded.

  I glanced at him. “Bent’s here.” Someone gasped.

  So I had seen Bent last night. God, why hadn’t I said something? Done something? Just because I hadn’t known it was possible for him to travel like that didn’t mean I shouldn’t have doubted my own eyes.

  But then, he’d been gone when I looked again. And Wren hadn’t seen or felt him, either. We’d been too distracted. Too confident that we were safe.

  “What do we do?” Ben asked.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean you don’t know?” Sarah cried. “You have to know! Can he follow all of us?”

  I opened my mouth—

  “No,” Kevin said as he entered the room. I hadn’t noticed he wasn’t with us before. “He can’t follow us. Ghosts can’t attach themselves to the living like that—not to do harm anyway. They can possess and influence those they’ve infected, but they’re bound by their surroundings unless something or someone strong enough for them to hitch a ride with shows up.”

  I closed my eyes. “Me. He followed me. This is my fault.” I had taken the razor. I was strongly connected to the spirit world through Wren and my own time there. Of course it had been me he grabbed on to. I was ashamed that I hadn’t even noticed, but then it wasn’t as though he would have to shadow me the entire night—just when he sensed that I was around the others. My being with them gave him the extra juice to leave the asylum and come for Gage. He wouldn’t have been able to stay for long, but then he hadn’t needed to.

  “Yes,” Kevin said. “It is.”

  I lifted my chin and looked him in the eyes. He wasn’t wearing his glasses, which made it easier. “Asshole.”

  “None of this would have happened if we hadn’t gone to Haven Crest in the first place,” Ben reminded him. “None of this is Lark’s fault.”

  “How do we get rid of him?” Roxi asked.

  “We don’t,” Kevin replied. He was Mr. Know-It-All. “He will leave when he’s ready.” He looked at Wren. “Or when you agree to join him. Actually, come to think of it, this is all your fault.”

  “Dude,” Mace said, “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  I looked up. “He’s just saying the truth. We don’t know how to get rid of Bent.” But we knew how to make things difficult for the bastard. I finished off the cup of water. “Hey, Ben, could you get me another drink?”

  He gave me a questioning glance. I nodded my head very slowly at him, hoping he got my meaning. Ben stood up. “Sure. Be right back.” When he reached the corridor, he stuck his head back in. “Hey, Gage’s father is outside his room.”

  Everyone started to file out to check on our friend. I stood up, too. Ben watched me from outside the room as one by one, everyone else filed out. Kevin was behind me, so when I stopped and shut the door, it was just me and him left inside.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  I turned around.

  And punched him in the face.

  WREN

  “Lark, what are you doing?” I cried.

  My sister shook her fist. It had to hurt—she’d hit Kevin very hard. “Wren, inside me. Now.”

  Kevin started laughing. He pressed a hand to his jaw as he turned his head toward Lark. That was when I saw what my sister had already realized.

  Josiah Bent had possessed Kevin. It didn’t matter that Kevin hadn’t been marked. He was a medium—fair game.

  “What gave me away?” he asked.

  Lark glared at him. “Kevin’s an idiot, but he’d never blame Wren, or suggest she join you.” She glanced over her shoulder at me. “I said now.”

  I leaped into her, settling my limbs into hers, letting my energy fill her, letting her envelop me. I wished I’d been as certain that Kevin wouldn’t be mean to me as she had been.

  Bent straightened. It was so unsettling to see Kevin’s face wearing Bent’s hateful expression. It made me angry.

  “Get out of him, Bent,” we said. My voice echoed inside Lark’s. “Get out of him, and leave Gage alone.”

  He smiled. “But I like this body. It’s very young and fit. He practically invited me in.”

  Oh, no. Kevin, why would you do that? He knew about these things, he wouldn’t just let Bent in—not without a reason.

  “I don’t care. Get out or I’ll beat you out.”

  He laughed. “Do you really think two little girls can defeat me? This boy is stronger than you, breather.”

  My sister’s response was to punch him again. He staggered backward, lip split. I winced. I didn’t want her to hurt Kevin, but Bent couldn’t be allowed to maintain control of him.

  “Six years of kickboxing, a year in a mental hospital, a lifetime of having to defend myself and ghostly possession,” Lark said. “I think I’m strong enough.”

  This time Bent didn’t mock her. He lifted the back
of Kevin’s hand to his mouth, wiping at the blood there. “You’ve meddled in my plans long enough, witch. The children are mine.”

  Lark threw another punch, but he moved out of the way. This time he punched back. Oh, that hurt! Lark’s pain tore through me. Still, she came back with a kick to his ribs. She was tougher than she looked, my sister. Bent hit her hard, sending us flying backward into a table. It smashed into our side as our head hit the wall.

  “Anytime you want to get pissed off, feel free,” Lark growled.

  Oh, I was pissed off, and an invitation to let that out was just what I needed. We spun around and cracked our foot against the side of Kevin’s head, then delivered a punch to his chest. Bent was older than me—stronger in many ways, just as Kevin was stronger than Lark. What Bent didn’t have was the connection my sister and I shared. Her body might be heavy, but it was familiar, and I’d worn it so many times it felt natural. We were attuned to one another. He struck out and we dodged to the side, coming up to punch him in the kidneys. We swept our leg behind him and knocked his feet out from underneath him. We pinned his arms with our knees and straddled him. We reached into Lark’s bag and found the iron bar Ben had given her. We shoved this under Bent’s chin.

  “Get out or I’ll beat your ass and salt you like a freaking ham,” we snarled—both of our voices coming out of one mouth.

  Bent didn’t need to be told twice. He pulled free of Kevin—a scab peeled from a wound—and stood over us. We lunged to our feet, iron in hand.

  Josiah Bent’s gaunt face twisted into a sneer. “I’ll leave for now, but I’ll be back. There’s only one way to stop this, Dead Born. Join me and I’ll leave these children alone. Deny me and I’ll drain them all. And I’ll save this one—” his foot passed through Kevin “—for last.”

  And Lark said, “What, not me? I thought I was your favorite, princess.”

  Bent roared at her, and then spun himself into a black whirlwind that tore past us and through the wall. A print of a barn in a field fell to the floor.

  On the floor, Kevin stirred. I slipped out of Lark just as she offered her hand to help him up.

  “Why did you beat me up if you had the bar all along?” he asked.

  My sister smiled at him as she wrapped one arm around her front. She had to be sore after that. “I think you know why.”

  I loved her so much at that moment.

  He looked in my direction, but I concentrated very hard on not letting him see me. “Is she here?”

  “You can’t see her?”

  He shook his head.

  Lark let out a breath. “You must have been a real douche, Sixth Sense.”

  Kevin’s expression turned sullen. It would have been cute if he wasn’t all battered and bloody. “You know, deciding we shouldn’t see each other hurt me, too.”

  “Yeah,” Lark said. She glanced at me before patting his shoulder. “I know. Come on, we need to check on Gage before they kick us out.”

  She opened the door and left the room. Kevin followed after her, but he paused at the threshold and looked over his shoulder. He might not see me, but he still felt me. “You have no idea how much it hurt me, too.”

  His words hit me harder than Bent ever could have. I stayed there a moment after he left, taking a moment of quiet just for myself.

  When I left the room a man with bloody legs was in the hall. He’d been a ghost for maybe a year or so. He looked at me. “Thank you for getting rid of that awful man. He made us all uncomfortable.”

  “I’m afraid it was my fault he came here in the first place. We’ll try to make sure he doesn’t come back.”

  He nodded and turned away. He really should have been wearing something underneath that open-back gown.

  I joined the others. They were gathered at the door of Gage’s room. Lark was inside talking to his father, so I drifted closer so I could hear them talk. Mr. Moreno had a lovely Colombian accent.

  “They tell me you can help protect my son against the evil spirits,” he said to Lark.

  She nodded and shoved her hand into that huge bag of hers. She pulled out two of those iron rings that strange man Chuck had delivered to the coffee shop. She gave one to Mr. Moreno and slipped the other on Gage’s finger. I supposed the hospital staff had removed the one he’d been wearing when he’d come in. Then Lark took a small, polished piece of moss agate from the bag and slipped it beneath Gage’s pillow. Ben taped one of his grandmother’s pujok to the wall behind the bed.

  “Tell the nurses not to move it,” Lark instructed. Then she gave the older man her cell phone number and told him to call her if he needed anything. She also told him to use any items from his faith that guarded against spirits, or to have a priest come in if he wanted. I was proud of her as she made Gage’s father feel better. It was so much easier for her when she could deal with people who believed in ghosts, regardless of their religion.

  “It wasn’t your touch that hurt him,” I told her. “It was Bent.”

  She nodded.

  “You could always try to heal him again.” I knew it took a lot out of her, and I knew she couldn’t completely heal him, but maybe she could undo some of the damage that awful lunatic had done.

  She set her hand on Gage’s left forearm. Poor thing was a mess. Why had Bent done that to his victims? Why flay and infect them? It seemed unnecessarily cruel. But then, Bent had been cruel in life, as well.

  We left the hospital shortly after. In the parking lot everyone wanted to ask Kevin—and Lark—what had happened. That was when Kevin admitted why he had let Bent in.

  “I thought I could get a sense of him,” he said. “He’s been in my head. I know him now.”

  Lark shook her head. “You freaking idiot. He could have used you to kill somebody. Besides, Wren and I found out where his grave is. Sort of.”

  He frowned. “You found out about the Japanese chestnut tree? How? She didn’t go to the cemetery, did she?”

  Did he think I was stupid? The Japanese chestnut tree?

  My sister scowled. “She’s not that stupid.” She didn’t explain that we hadn’t known the exact location, though. We did now, and that was all that mattered, I supposed. I really didn’t like that his dangerous experiment had managed to uncover what we couldn’t.

  Mace nodded. “I know that tree—it’s the great big one in the lower corner.”

  “Great.” Kevin licked at his cut lip and winced. “So, we’ll burn his remains tonight.”

  “Whoa.” Lark held up her hand. “No. We need to plan this. We can’t just walk in there. That cemetery isn’t on consecrated ground.” When they all looked at her blankly, she sighed. “Bent and his army will tear us apart. We have to find a way to protect the grave and ourselves, and dig it up. A backhoe is too conspicuous, so we have to try to do it by hand.”

  “Security doesn’t patrol there,” Mace said. “That’s how we got into this mess in the first place.”

  “That’s a bit of a help,” Lark allowed. “Ben, can you get some more iron from your mom? Just some to borrow?”

  He looked like he’d do anything my sister wanted. “Sure.”

  “Great. We’ll do it Monday night.”

  “Why Monday?” Kevin asked.

  “I heard one of the officers at the chief’s office say Olgilvie was off duty Monday night. If we get caught, I don’t want it to be him that catches us.”

  Mace nodded. “Agreed. No one would expect us to be there on a week night, either.”

  “Bent surprised us last night,” Lark said, making eye contact with each of them. “I don’t want that to happen when we go for him. We have to be prepared and protected.”

  Kevin didn’t like it, but he was outnumbered. I understood that he wanted immediate payback against Bent, but he was in no shape to go after him again. He looked exhausted, an
d the group needed him to be strong. If he went in there weak Bent might take him again. I’d tear the bastard apart if that happened.

  “What about Gage?” Roxi asked. Her eyes were red but dry.

  “He’s got protection now,” Lark said. “His father will do everything I told him. Plus, I don’t think Bent will come back so soon, if he can at all.”

  “How do you know?”

  Lark smiled at her. “Because he’s saving all his energy for me.”

  “And me,” I whispered. My sister glanced at me, but she didn’t speak.

  Finally, everyone went their separate ways. Ben drove Lark home and I followed after Kevin. I didn’t intend to stalk him, I just wanted to make sure he was all right, and that we hadn’t hurt him too badly.

  He went to the graveyard. I followed him down a familiar path to my grave. A deep ache flared to life inside me as he knelt on the dry grass and began pulling weeds from around the stone. There was a wilted rose there that I knew he’d left days earlier. He put it with the pile of weeds before lying down, using his arm for a pillow.

  He was lying on the spot where my tiny mortal remains were buried six feet below, in a tiny little box. I watched him as he closed his eyes. A tear trickled into his hair. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  I didn’t say anything. I just left him there.

  LARK

  “Kevin looked pretty beat up,” Ben remarked casually as we drove back to Nan’s. “You do that?”

  “Yep.”

  “Did he give you that bruise?”

  “Josiah Bent did that. Kevin was just his meat suit.”

  “I know. I’ve been friends with Kev a long time. He’d never hit a girl.”

  I snorted. “I’ve known plenty of girls who needed to be hit.”

  “Did you hit them?”

  “Some.” I glanced out the window. “Does that bother you? That I fight?”

  “Are you kidding? It’s hot.”

  I laughed. “If I’d known that, I would have started punching people a lot earlier.”

  “We can spar if you like.”