The Reckoning

Seven

SUMMONINGS AREN’T NEARLY AS cool as they look in the movies. Basically, it’s the reverse of how I banish a spirit. I close my eyes and picture pulling a ghost out instead of shoving him back in.

Ideally, I’d have something that belonged to the deceased. I’d been using a hoodie of Liz’s before Tori’s mom confiscated it. I didn’t have anything of my aunt’s. So the only way this would work was if they were hovering around, waiting to make contact.

I suspected one spirit was hovering around-the jerk from this morning. While I was tempted to question him further, a voice in my head-which sounded suspiciously like Derek’s-warned me against it. He hadn’t been forthcoming before, and I’d pissed him off by banishing him. So as I sat on the floor in our room, I was careful to keep very clear pictures of my aunt and Liz in my head, alternating between them.

While I hoped I wouldn’t see my aunt, I really did want to contact Liz, my former roommate at Lyle House. She had been killed the night I arrived. It’d taken time for her to believe she was dead, but once she did, she refused to go to the other side. She’d stayed and helped.

Not only was a ghost the perfect spy, but Liz was the same type of half-demon as that kid from this morning-telekinetic, meaning she was a poltergeist. So, yes, Liz would be very useful right now; but, more than that, I just wanted to see her, make sure she was okay.

“That necklace is supposed to prevent you from seeing ghosts, right?” Tori asked after a few moments of unsuccessful summoning.

Simon opened his mouth to tell her off for interrupting, but I cut him short.

“Obviously I still see them,” I said. “Either it doesn’t work or things would be a lot worse without it, something I’m sure I’ll test eventually. I want to talk to Margaret about it.”

“Okay, but if it keeps ghosts away, maybe that’s why Liz isn’t coming.”

She had a point. And yet…I fingered the necklace. If it did work, what else was it keeping at bay? Something worse than that telekinetic half-demon kid?

“Why don’t you take it off?” Tori began.

“Because she-” Simon snapped, then caught himself. “Let her try a bit more with it on. These things take time, and we’re not in any rush. If you’re bored, our room’s empty.”

Tori looked like she wanted to snap back, but couldn’t, not when he’d said it reasonably.

“I’m good,” she said, and I resumed the summoning.

Because Liz was the one I really wanted to see, she was the one I concentrated on, throwing out only the occasional calls to my aunt, praying they wouldn’t be answered. Finally, when Liz didn’t respond, I ramped up the appeals to Aunt Lauren. If I wanted reassurance that she was still alive, I needed to know that I’d tried as hard as I could to summon her.

“Don’t,” Tori whispered.

My eyes snapped open. “Don’t what?”

She frowned.

“You said ‘don’t,’” I prompted.

“Um, no, I didn’t open my mouth.”

“She didn’t,” Simon said. “You must be hearing a ghost.”

I closed my eyes and concentrated on Liz.

“Don’t,” the faint female voice whispered. “Please, baby.”

My gut seized. That wasn’t Liz. But it wasn’t something Aunt Lauren called me, either. Or did she? I wasn’t sure.

“If you’re there, whoever you are, please show yourself.”

Nothing.

“The amulet,” Tori whispered. “If she can’t get through, that must be stopping her.”

I reached for my necklace.

“No!” the voice whispered. “Not safe.”

“You don’t want me to take it off?”

No answer. My hands shook so badly the amulet knocked against my neck.

“Go on,” Simon said. “We’re right here. Anything happens, I’ll get it back on you.”

I started lifting it.

“No! Please, baby. Too dangerous. Not here. He’ll come.”

“Who’ll come?”

Silence. Then I thought I heard her whisper, but it was too faint for me to make out.

“She’s trying to warn me about something, but I can’t hear it,” I said.

Simon gestured for me to take off the necklace. I raised it over my head-

“What the hell are you doing?” a voice roared.

Derek strode into the room and yanked the amulet back down. “You’re summoning without your amulet? Are you crazy? A ghost lured you onto the roof this morning, could have gotten you killed.”

Simon got to his feet. “Ease off, okay? We were trying to get hold of Liz. Then a spirit wanted to warn Chloe about something, but she couldn’t hear her, so we suggested she take off the necklace, see if that would help it materialize.”

Derek’s trademark scowl didn’t waver. “Just because you suggest it doesn’t mean she needs to listen. She knows better.”

“No, but the suggestion made sense,” I said. “I was being careful. If you had stopped to watch instead of charging in here, you’d have seen that.”

Derek kept glowering, looming over me. No one looms like Derek, but I’d had enough experience to stand my ground.

“I’ll leave the necklace on,” I said, “but I’m going to try again. If she’s still here, then I might take it off.”

“Who is it?”

“I-I-” I faltered, chest seizing. “M-maybe my aunt. I-I-don’t think so, but…I should try again.”

Some of the anger drained from his face then. He ran a hand through his hair, sighed, then nodded. “Okay. You should. If she comes back and she seems to be trying to warn you, then…we’ll see what we can do about the necklace.”

I could point out that it was really my decision, but he was calming down, and I wasn’t about to crank him up again.

So I tried one more time. No luck.

“She didn’t want me summoning here,” I said.

“Yeah? Probably because you could call up that half-demon jerk.” Derek paused, then took the sarcasm down a notch. “We’ll go for a walk tomorrow, get farther from the house, and try again.”

“I’ll come,” Tori said. “And if the idiot shows up?”

She lifted her fingers. A ball of energy appeared, whirling over the tips. She grinned and whipped her hand back, throwing it like a softball. It hit the wall and exploded in a shower of sparks, scorching the faded wallpaper.

“Whoops,” she said.

Derek spun on her. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Showing off. I didn’t know it’d do that.”

He strode over and wiped the wall. The marks stayed.

“No one’s going to notice it,” Tori said. “And if they do, they sure aren’t going to blame my spells.”

“I don’t care. Someone could have seen you.”

“So I’ll get in trouble for marking the wallpaper. I’ll survive.”

“You don’t get it, do you? We can’t do things like that. They’re already worried about how powerful we are. We need to tone it down or we’re going to make them so nervous they might decide we really should be locked up in a lab.”

“Now that’s going a bit far,” Simon said. When Derek turned on him, he lifted his hands and lowered his voice. “Look, I know why you’re freaking out-”

“I’m not freaking out.”

“Okay, just…I think we have to be careful, but they already know about the experiments. They don’t expect us to be normal supernaturals. Yes, you probably shouldn’t go throwing furniture and Tori should nix the fireballs, but in general…well…”

“They should know,” Tori said. “If we’re trying to convince them that the Edison Group messed us up, then they need to see the proof. They should know I can do stuff like that. They should know you can toss a couch across the room. They should know Chloe can raise the dead.”

“No.” When no one answered, Derek looked from face to face, then settled his glower on me. “Absolutely not.”

“Um, I was the one keeping my mouth shut,” I said.

“I’m just saying, for all of us, we need to tone it down. We can’t give them any reason-” He glanced up sharply. “Andrew’s coming.” One last glare at the scorched wallpaper, and he hustled us out of the bedroom.

Andrew wanted us in bed, so Simon left to check his blood sugar for the night. I went downstairs for some water and was getting out a glass when Andrew popped in.

“Simon tells me you’ve been having trouble sleeping, so I’m going to give you this.” He laid a small pill on my palm. “It’s a half dose of an over-the-counter sleep aid. I’m not telling you to take it. I’m not going to ask if you did. I’m sure you got enough sleeping pills at Lyle House. I just think it’s important for you to get a good night’s rest. If you decide to take it, there’s water in the fridge.”

He left. I stared down at the pill. Taking it seemed like a cop-out. I had to learn to deal with ghosts because they weren’t going away anytime soon. But he was right-I needed sleep. Being rested would help me train better tomorrow. And yet…

“Take the pill.”

I jumped. Derek walked over to the counter and grabbed two apples from the bowl.

“You need your sleep. Toughing it out isn’t going to impress anyone. It’s just stupid.”

Ah, Derek. Always so encouraging.

“How about you?” I said. “You thought you were close to your Change again.”

“It won’t happen tonight. But if it does, I’ll…” He shrugged and bit into an apple.

“Come get me?”

“Yeah,” he mumbled through a mouth full of apple.

I filled my glass from the pitcher in the fridge. “So what do you think-?”

I turned midsentence and found I was talking to myself as the kitchen door swung shut.