Page 31 of Christmas Spirits

“Repeat after me!” Rhys said. “Ol-ha—petrice—viltire—alro—sah.”

I did, the unknown language making my lips tingle the moment they left them.

“Again!”

“Ol-ha—petrice—viltire—alro—sah.” I peeked up at the hovering spirit and noticed its inky color was draining away. In front of me, the naked body began to become more lifelike. The skin was pale, his hair, dark, and his eyes were a pale shade of green. They stared out blankly, still unable to see.

Without Rhys’s prompting, I repeated the odd phrase again, then watched as the spirit faded more and more.

“Keep going, dear. You got it,” Grandmother Abigail encouraged.

I said the foreign words again and again until nothing was left of the poltergeist. It had vanished completely. The body, though, looked as real as a freshly dead corpse—sickly pastel in skin tone and unmoving—except for the eyes, which had latched onto me and were glaring with pure hatred.

Marc Anders, Westwood’s serial killer, in the flesh again.

“You’ve forced it back into its body,” Rhys explained, pain edging his tone. The wind died down around us. “Quick, before he can move, take the candles and—”

Pain smacked into the side of my face and I was flying across the room. My back hit another table, and I fell, everything aching. It took me a second to realize I’d been slapped, and when my gaze shot up, I found the body of Marc Anders stepping out of the bowl, his bare feet still covered in muck. Its green eyes flickered to every face in the room as he leaped off the table and growled menacingly.

That’s when a baby’s wails crackled through the monitor on Laurence’s hip, and all my breath froze in my chest.

Zach.

The moving corpse’s head snapped toward the backroom, and a smirk stretched across its thin lips.

My heart plummeted. It was going to go after Zach.

Laurence was off and running, pushing through the beaded curtain and dashing up the stairs within seconds.

The corpse went after him, moving too fast for a partially living thing.

A blast of ice blew past me, aimed for it, but instead of making an impact, the magic bounced off. Ineffective.

Arianna’s voice rose with another spell—this time a fireball—but like before, it couldn’t touch the creature.

“Magic won’t work now!” Rhys yelled. “It’s not fully part of this plane!”

My grandmother stood there, horror on her face. For the first time in my life, she couldn’t offer me any advice, and that scared her.

The corpse hurried to the counter, about to push past the curtain.

Fury ignited within me, unlike anything I’d ever felt before. A raging tornado of fire trapped in a skin casing.

Not my baby, you bastard.

My hand shot out; my silent command for it to stop boomed in my own ears but never left my mouth. To my surprise, the corpse locked in place, with one foot still raised to take another step.

Had I done that?

My body vibrated as power pushed through me, but I kept my focus on Marc Anders, knowing that if I looked away for even a second, the connection would be severed.

“You did it!” Rhys’s laughter was a strange sound amongst the danger. “Hold it there! Don’t let it go!”

Sweat beaded on my forehead.

“The candles,” he barked to Arianna and pointed to the still-lit candles on the ritual table. “It needs to be cleansed with fire. It’s the only way to banish it completely.”

Arianna rushed forward, but suddenly, a bolt of white light exploded, drowning the room in brightness. Disoriented, I shielded my eyes and stumbled back. When the light diminished, Elijah was standing there, bare chest and all, taking in the scene. His aura’s glow was dazzling, a brilliant halo of gold.

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