The Summoning

Thirty-five

DEREK RETURNED TO THE shadows, leaving me alone, sitting cross-legged again, the flashlight lying in front of me. As much as I'd have liked to use it as a candle, pushing back the dark, I'd set it on its side, the beam directed at the spot where the bodies were buried in hopes that, if the ground so much as quivered, Derek would warn me before I raised the dead.

To free the ghosts from their corpses, I'd used visualization, so I did that again. I imagined myself tugging the ghosts from the ether, drawing them out like a magician pulling an endless scarf from his sleeve.

A few times I caught a flicker, only to have it vanish again. 1 kept working, slowly and steadily, resisting the urge to concentrate harder.

"What do you want?" a woman's voice snapped, so close and so clear I grabbed the flashlight, certain one of the nurses had discovered us.

Instead, I shone the beam on a woman dressed in a sweater set. Or that's what her top half was wearing. She was standing, her head brushing the low ceiling, meaning she was "buried" to mid-thigh under the dirt floor. She was maybe thirty, with a blond bob. Her sharp features were rigid with annoyance.

"Well, necromancer, what do you want?"

'Tell her to leave us be," a man's voice whined from the darkness.

I shone the beam in his direction but could make out only a faint form by the farthest wall.

"I just w-want to talk to you," I said.

"That much is obvious," the woman snapped. "Calling and pulling and pestering until you drag us out against our will."

"I didn't m-mean —"

"Can't leave well enough alone, can you? It wasn't enough to shove us back into our bodies. Do you know what that's like? Sitting down, enjoying a nice afternoon, and all of a sudden you're back in your corpse, buried, clawing your way to the surface, terrified you've been trapped by some demented necromancer looking for zombie slaves?"

"I didn't mean —"

"Oh, do you hear that, Michael? She didn't mean it." The woman moved toward me. "So if I accidentally unleash a storm of hellfire on your head, it'll be all right, as long as I didn't really mean it? You have a power, little girl, and you'd better learn to use it properly before someone decides to teach you a lesson. Summon me again and I'll do it."

She started to fade.

"Wait! You're —" I struggled to remember what Simon had called a female spellcaster "—a witch, right? What happened to you here?"

"I was murdered, in case that isn't perfectly obvious."

"Was it because you're a witch?"

She surged back so fast I jumped. "You mean, did I bring this on myself?"

"N-no. Samuel Lyle —the man who owned this house— did he kill you? Because you're a witch?"

Her lips curled in an ugly smile. "I'm sure my being a witch added a little extra dash of pleasure for him. I should have known better than to trust a sorcerer, but I was a fool. A desperate fool. Sam Lyle promised us an easier life. That's what we all want, isn't it? Power without price. Sam Lyle was a seller of dreams. A snake oil salesman. Or a madman." That twist of a smile again. "We could never figure out which, could we, Michael?"

"A madman," came the whisper from the back. "The things he did to us . . ."

"Ah, but we were willing subjects. At least, in the beginning. You see, little girl, all scientific advancement requires experimentation, and experimentation requires subjects, and that's what Michael and I were. Lab rats sacrificed to the vision of a madman."

"What about me?"

She sneered. "What about you?"

"Does this have anything to do with me being here? Now? There are more of us. Supernaturals. In a group home."

"Are they experimenting on you? Tying you to beds and prodding you with electrical wires until you bite off your tongue?"

"N-no. N-nothing like that."

"Then you count your blessings, little girl, and stop pestering us. Sam Lyle is dead and —if the Fates are just— rotting in a hell dimension."

She started fading again.

"Wait! I need to know —"

"Then find out!" She surged back again. "If you think you're here because of a dead sorcerer, then you're as mad as he was, but I don't have your answers. I'm a shade, not an oracle. Why are you brats here, where I died? How should I know? Why should I care?"

"Am I in danger?"

Her lip twisted. "You're a supernatural. You're always in danger."

"Mission accomplished, but nothing gained. Except more questions," I said as we brushed off our clothing in the laundry room. "Now you can finally get back to bed."

Derek shook his head. "Doesn't matter. I won't sleep."

"Because of this? I'm sorry. I didn't mean —"

"I wasn't sleeping before you got me up." He tugged off his shoe and dumped a trickle of dirt down the sink. "This fever or whatever. It's making me edgy. Restless." As if on cue, his forearm muscles started twitching. "Part of the problem is I'm not getting enough exercise. Tossing a ball around with Simon just doesn't cut it. I need more . . . space. More activity. I think that's what's causing this." He rubbed harder at the rippling muscles.

"Could you ask for workout equipment? They seem pretty good about stuff like that."

He slanted a look my way. "You've seen my file. You really think they're going to buy me a set of dumbbells and a punching bag?" He looked around the laundry room. "You tired?"

"After that? No."

"How about some fresh air? Get out, go for a walk?"

I laughed. "Sure, if there wasn't the small matter of an alarm system standing in our way."

He raked his hand through his hair, shaking out dirt he'd brushed from the crawl space ceiling. "I know the code."

"What?"

"You think I'm going to push Simon to leave and not know the security code? I can get us out, and we really should do a walk around, check out escape routes, hiding places. I don't get to go on many field trips, so I haven't gotten a look at the neighborhood."

I crossed my arms. "You can walk out anytime? Get that exercise you need? But you never have?"

He shifted his weight. "Never thought of it —"

"Of course you have. But there could be an alert when the alarm is turned off. Or a record of it being disabled. So you've never taken the chance. But now we should. If we get caught, well, everyone already thinks we're fooling around. We'd get in trouble for sneaking off, but not like Simon and I would if we were caught running away."

He scratched his chin. "That's a good idea."

"And it never crossed your mind."

He said nothing. I sighed and headed for the stairs.

"Chloe," he said. "Hold on. I —"

I glanced back. "Coming?"