by Eliza Lainn
“Lights!” Mackenzie shrieked, her voice shaking. “We need lights!”
Bronte still had a death-grip on my hand. “He’s…he’s changing.”
Then I heard growling. Low, soft, but still feral, still dangerous.
“Crap,” I muttered, pushing up from my own chair, still holding onto Bronte and Rose’s hands.
Rose’s hand was ripped from mine and she let out a squeal of surprise. Not pain or fear, so that was good. I could only assume Noah was watching out for her.
Tightening my grip on Bronte, I yanked her toward me. She slammed into me and we hobbled back a few steps as we reclaimed our balance.
Mackenzie kept yelling, calling for the lights.
Zach and his crew were just yelling a barrage of incoherent words.
People ran into things, fell over fallen chairs. Crashing and smacking and thumping.
The growling began to grow louder, stronger.
Then it stopped.
For half a heartbeat, I couldn’t hear Roger.
And then Amara screamed. It was in pain, peppered with fear. A scream that caused my skin to crawl, that caused anyone who heard it to shiver and turn away. A primal sound.
Mackenzie’s yells turned hysterical.
Fear turned me to lead. I couldn’t see, couldn’t think. It was just darkness and people yelling. Not a glimmer of light.
I didn’t know what to do.
Amara continued to scream; Roger continued to growl.
But the sound changed. And I could hear laughter behind his howls.
Then a flashlight turned on.
I turned toward it on instinct. Rose had her cell phone up, holding it up so that the beam shot up and the light fell around us. She saw me. “Name him!”
I blinked, my mind too petrified to keep up.
She tried to march toward me, but Noah held her back.
“Stella, name him!”
But I hadn’t met Roger—I didn’t have his name. We hadn’t talked. He hadn’t given it to me…
He had, though. Amara had asked him to give us his name when he first appeared. And he had.
That had to count, right?
I summoned as much power into my voice as I could. I concentrated on it, willing it to build, to be as strong as I could manage. To be absolute. Unbreakable. “Stop!”
It swelled, filling the room, growing louder than any normal shout could have. My body shook with the impact of it. Through the faint light, I saw everyone shake under the influence of it.
And for a moment, everyone stopped.
Silence crashed down, like a wave slamming against the shore. No shouting, no fumbling. Just silence as everyone stopped.
Everyone stopped.
The people whose names I had.
And those that I didn’t.
Everyone. Stopped.
My legs felt wobbly. My head spun, making me dizzy and nauseous. I bent over, pulling my hand from Bronte’s, feeling like I was going to be sick. Fire flamed in my throat, so much worse than when you wake up with strep or a cold.
And then action sparked, pushing away the stillness.
Roger Whitaker recovered first. A snarl erupted from him.
Amara whimpered.
Zach, his crew, and Mackenzie screamed.
Through the faint light of Rose’s phone, I saw Sebastian moving. His hands shot up and I heard crashing. But not like the sound of chairs falling. But more like wood shattering, breaking. On the level of cars crashing head-on when going ninety miles an hour or wrecking balls plowing into brick and stone.
“Oh my God,” Bronte breathed.
I raised my head up slowly, afraid of moving too fast. Any moment and I’d be sick. My stomach roiled, and my head started pulsing.
Then I saw what Bronte was looking at, and for a second, I forgot about my violent headache, rebelling stomach, and raw throat.
Against the far wall, there was a crater. There really was no other way to describe it. A circular crater from a violent impact, the cracks growing wider, stretching farther, as if the thing that had been thrown was still being pushed back. It reminded me of superhero movies, when they land after flying fast. The ground splinters and craters around their impact.
This was like that.
Only I couldn’t see what was being pushed into the wall.
I spun, instantly regretted it, but saw Sebastian for a moment before my eyes shut to help handle the dizziness. He had his hands out. Like he had in the kitchen. Like he had when I went flying.
One pointed toward the crater.
The other pointed back. Toward Seth. As far away from Roger Whitaker as the room would allow.
Roger Whitaker snarled.
And then he wasn’t snarling anymore.
My eyes flew open in time to see Sebastian’s arms fall to his side.
For a second, I thought he’d killed him. But then Bronte whimpered behind me. “He’s gone.”
Sebastian took off running, heading toward the door. He slammed into a table he couldn’t see with Rose’s weak light, swore, and pushed off it. He reached the door, barreling through it. As it swung open, the light from the hallway stole inside. But the door closed it off and we were all left in the faint light once again.
Bronte hurried to me. “Stella? Stella, are you ok?”
If I opened my mouth, I was going to vomit. Even if I somehow managed not to do that, my throat felt restricted, raw. I wouldn’t be able to form words.
My legs gave out underneath me and I fell straight down. Bronte caught me and helped slow my fall. We collapsed, her arms around me, sitting among the carnage of the restaurant.
“What the hell…” a familiar baritone voice whispered, no doubt taking in the scene.
“Cyril!” Bronte shouted. She had her arms wrapped around my shoulders, in case I fell forward or back, trying to get close with my legs splayed out around me. “Help me!”
My throat was on fire. Blackness crept into the edges of my vision. My stomach convulsed, heaving, fighting.
Coldness blossomed on my arm, my cheek. I leaned into it.
Then Sebastian burst back into the room. “I lost him. Roger Whitaker is loose in the hotel.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
When I woke a few hours later, things looked bleak. Roger Whitaker had disappeared. Those with perceptions continued scouring the hotel for him but weren’t having much luck. And those without perceptions had left.
Zach and his team had loaded up and were gone within thirty minutes. Mackenzie had tried half-heartedly to keep them around, Rose said, but hadn’t really stopped them when they insisted their safety was compromised. Rose told me she thought Mackenzie wanted to leave to.
Especially after the ambulance had left with Amara.
“There was so much blood, when we found the lights,” Rose whispered, handing me a class of water. Then she sat down next to me on the bed. “And her throat…”
She looked pale. Tired. The same way she’d looked when she’d found out her brother had been taken to the hospital back in high school. Or the days after she’d put her dog down.
“You ok?” I asked. Those two words clawed their way out of my throat. I had to take another sip of water to deal with the raw pain.
“Freaked,” she admitted. “But I’ll manage. Am I a coward that I’m actually relieved that I can’t go out looking for Roger Whitaker because I can’t sense him?”
I shook my head.
“I feel like I am. All the others are out looking—even the ghosts are out looking.” She sighed and rose from the bed. Pacing, she fidgeted with the zipper on her AI jacket. “Should I call them back? Should I pack us up? We didn’t sign up for this…this level of danger.”
“We did, though.”
She glanced over at me, smiling sadly. “I’ve got one of my best friends and my boyfriend hunting for a ghost that just mauled a poor woman. Cyril and Oliver are hunting too, even with the threat of the Adair boys exorcising them. And you can barely t
alk because I made you use your powers far beyond their limits. I’m not doing a good job as the leader here, am I?”
“You’re fine.”
Sighing, her pacing became more hurried, more frantic. “We should leave. Maybe Zach had the right idea of it. We’re out of our depth here.”
“We can’t leave.”
“I’m in charge,” she breathed. “Me. I brought you out here, I’m responsible for your safety. And the safety of the people in this hotel. I just…which one am I’m most responsible for? Do I keep you here, fighting, even though it puts you in danger? Or do I pack you up and leave, putting the hotel guests in danger?”
“Being a leader is hard.”
She sighed. “Tell me about it. I just…maybe we should leave?”
“And what?” I ask hoarsely. I rubbed at my sore throat. “We leave Seth and Sebastian to take care of it?”
She paused at that. Then she let out a heavy sigh as she ran her fingers up and through her hair. “Doesn’t seem fair, does it? To leave a sweet kid and his arrogant brother to take care of everything?”
I chuckled, then took a sip of water.
She stared down at the carpet. Then she straightened, coming to one of her lighting fast decisions. “Can you walk?”
In answer, I swung my legs over the side of my bed. The movement caused my stomach to shift—not as violently as down in the restaurant. This was manageable. The headache had dulled considerably, leaving only a slight ache at my temples.
“Good. Follow me.”
We went out into the hallway and marched down the hallway. She stopped at Sebastian’s room and banged on the door.
Across the hall, Seth opened his door. “He’s out looking for Roger Whitaker,” he said.
We both turned. Seth didn’t look jumpy in the slightest. He held a book in one hand and in the other he clutched a string of beads with a cross at the end.
“Is that a rosary?” Rose asked.
Seth looked down at his hands, as if forgetting he was holding anything. With a shrug, he turned and set them inside his bedroom. “You’re looking for Sebastian? I can text him, if you want.”
“Please. I think we should join forces on this—to handle Roger as quickly as possible.”
Seth’s eyes slid past Rose to me. He watched me for a moment and then pulled a cell phone from his back pocket. Fingers flying, he shot a quick text to his brother and then looked back up at me. “I gave you my name, didn’t I?”
For a moment, I feigned naivety. But I’d told Sebastian the specifics of my powers. No doubt he’d shared that with his brother. Denying any of it now would be stupid. So, I nodded.
His brow furrowed. “You ok?”
“Throat hurts,” I croaked.
“Oh. Yeah. I bet.” He stared for a moment. “But you didn’t have my brother’s name, right?”
I shook my head.
“He said he couldn’t move. For a few seconds, he was stopped, like the rest of us. But he said you told him your powers were name invocation.”
“A question I’d like to know the answer to also,” Sebastian voice came from behind us.
Rose and I turned to see him hurrying down the hall. He slid past us and stood beside his brother. No, beside wasn’t the right word. In front of. Shielding. Watching me with a cool expression.
“She didn’t lie, if that’s what you’re getting at,” Rose snapped, scooting closer to me. “Up until a few hours ago, we all thought her power dealt with names—her included.”
Sebastian’s sharp gaze slid to Rose. She returned it with her own flaming version, her aggressive posture daring him to contradict her.
“She’s not lying,” Seth whispered.
After a moment, he shrugged. Then he waved Seth forward. The boy inched up to stand beside his brother, a proud smile tugging at his lips as he stood straighter.
“I propose a truce, an alliance, whatever you want to call it, until we can find and deal with Roger Whitaker,” Rose said.
“And what is your plan for dealing with him?”
Rose and I exchanged a quick look.
Sebastian sighed. “Typical. Lucky for you, however, I feel as if some aspects of your operation could be useful.” His eyes slid to mine before he turned back to Rose.
“Look,” Rose said, and I could see her anger burning. Then she closed her eyes for a beat, and when she opened them, I could see the control in her stare. “Look, I am prepared to offer you whatever assistance you need so long as this is handled quickly and with the least amount of danger. You have more experience with this. We are willing to follow your lead and to take whatever orders you want to dish out for Roger Whitaker to be taken care of before someone else gets hurt. You’re in charge. We won’t argue or fight back. So long as this is handled the best way you know how to handle it.”
Sebastian regarded Rose for a moment. And I could hear his budding respect as he said, “Summon the rest of your Scooby squad. We’ll need to coordinate a plan.”
Nodding, Rose and I turned to leave.
“Stella?”
Rose stopped, looked between us, and then continued down the hallway.
Sebastian watched her retreat further before he spoke. “Is that truly the first time you’d ever commanded someone without their name before?”
I nodded.
“I need to hear you say it. Please.”
“That was truly the first time I’d ever commanded someone without their name,” I said, my voice hoarse.
He blinked, startled by how my voice sounded, then nodded. “Thank you for your honesty.”
I headed back for the room, realizing a few minutes too late that he hadn’t looked to his brother for confirmation.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Our hotel room felt cramped with both Apparition Investigations and Obscurity Consultants shoved inside it. And it didn’t get any better when Mackenzie stopped by for our brainstorming session either. She, Sebastian, and Rose stood off in one corner, silently talking amongst themselves. Bronte, seated on the other bed, and a ghost were trying to communicate via hand gestures. And Noah stood off on his own—or rather, as much as he could with seven people and two ghosts vying for the same space.
A coolness touched my shoulder before we began. “How are you feeling?” Cyril asked.
I shrugged. Then decided to test out my throat. “Fine.”
It still hurt, but the pain was lessening. I figured it would be raw for the next few days. Hopefully, by then, my voice would sound somewhat normal.
“You sound terrible.”
“Such a gentleman.”
He chuckled. “Can’t be all that bad if you’re cracking jokes.”
I gave him a slight smile. Or at least, where I thought he was.
“It took me a while to think of it,” Seth said, his voice cutting through our conversation. I turned to see him standing just behind me. “But I know what your power reminds me of.”
Instead of asking aloud, I widened my eyes curiously and nodded for him to continue.
“Skyrim. Dovahkiin. Dragonborn.”
I stared.
Cyril sounded confused. “Are those real words?”
“How old are you?” I snapped at Seth.
He jumped at my tone. “I’m ten.”
“And you’re playing Skyrim when you’re only ten?”
Realizing where this was going, he puffed himself up, trying to stand taller and look bigger. All he really succeeded in doing was reminding me of a strutting chicken. “I’m old enough.”
“Says who?”
“My brother.”
I rolled my eyes, prepared to march over to Sebastian and give him a piece of my mind.
And then Seth’s words struck home. Shouting. Words of power. Dovahkiin. I had shouted. Shouted.
My swagger fizzled. “Oh my God, I really am a Dovahkiin.”
“Told you,” Seth nodded proudly.
“Would someone kindly explain the context of this…Dova…Dovak…Dragonb
orn thing?”
Seth eyes gleamed as he started humming the theme song under his breath.
I smacked him lightly on the head and then wagged a finger in his face. “A. Stop that. B. You shouldn’t be playing that—you’re too young. C—”