3
A ghost servant stood beside the door, dressed in what I thought was called livery. Bennett and I handed him our coats and I thanked him, but he didn’t respond.
“Could he not hear me?” I asked Bennett after the servant drifted away. I was used to ghosts being pleased when I communicated with them.
“He probably could. I told you, they’re different here.”
“You mean rude.”
“I mean different.”
“Well, it’s pretty different that nobody’s here to meet us. Don’t we have an appointment?”
“They know we’re here. They’ll send for us when Yoshiro’s ready.”
So we wandered the halls, waiting for a human to greet us—I mean a living human.
One thing you could say about ghostkeepers: they liked their artifacts. The inside of the Knell could’ve passed for a museum. Not like Bennett’s house, which resembled a period-piece movie set; this was more like the Met. Ornate furnishings dotted the immaculate marble floor and left plenty of room for bronze sculptures, oil paintings, and antiquities on pedestals. The lighting was low, protecting the art and Oriental rugs, and creating a fittingly spooky ambience.
I ran a finger along the etching of an ivory box. My skin began to tingle and I quickly pulled my hand away. I sometimes sensed the memories of antiques like these, impressions of the people who once owned them. In the case of my namesake, the first Emma, I actually relived her experience, and I was afraid something like that might happen here.
And sure enough, I sensed something calling to me from one of the rooms. Not a ghost, but an object tugging at my attention.
“Um, Emma?” Bennett said. “Where are you going?”
“I don’t know.”
I followed my instincts, winding down wood-paneled hallways until I stood in a dark room, almost empty except for a tapestry on one wall and a blue velvet Victorian settee in the middle of the room, inviting you to sit and admire the intricate weaving.
“This is it, isn’t it?” I said, mesmerized by the tapestry. “The thing you should’ve told me about.”
“Uh-huh.” Bennett grew still, watching me, gauging my reaction.
The tapestry reminded me of the famous Lady and the Unicorn tapestries. We’d had a print of one of them in our hallway when I was a child. The colors and patterns were the same. The rich golds and burgundies, dark blue and forest green, the moons, trees, flowers, even the bunnies. A light-haired woman stood in the middle of this one, dressed in a red medieval gown, a sword held protectively across her body.
But instead of interacting with the animals, she was circled by ghosts in different guises: in human form, wraiths, and what I guessed were ghasts, though I’d never seen one. One of the ghosts was even a serpent, delicately woven into the fabric.
“Is that Emma?” I asked. Because she looked exactly like her—like me.
“Yeah, just not the Emma from Echo Point. This tapestry is centuries older than her, probably medieval European.”
My Emma lived in the late 1700s, which meant that this tapestry was almost five hundred years old. “But—”
“She’s a mirror image of you,” a woman’s voice said behind us.
I turned too quickly and caught a glimpse of the woman before the world started tilting. I stumbled, and Bennett took my arm and helped me to the settee. He crouched in front of me, holding my hands in his, his eyes concerned.
“Take a deep breath,” the woman told me. “You’ve had a shock.”
“I’ve got it,” Bennett snapped at her. “I’m sorry, Emma. I should’ve told you. But we don’t really know what it is or what it means. And I didn’t want you to … to take it too seriously.”
I touched his shoulder briefly. “It’s okay. I’m not sure knowing it was here would’ve prepared me, anyway. It’s not every day you discover you’re the reincarnation of Emma the Ghostslayer.”
“It’s striking, isn’t it?” the woman said to Bennett. “Yoshiro says that Emma is the only ghostkeeper who can stop Neos—which is odd, given she’s so new to her powers. But when you see her resemblance to the lady in the tapestry, all that power, distilled through the ages, leaping from bloodline to bloodline.” She turned to me. “Until finally settling in you. I begin to think Yoshiro’s right.”
“Who are you?” I asked, eying the woman. She looked about my parents’ age, tall and dark haired with hazel eyes. And vaguely familiar. “Do I know you?”
She smiled in surprise. “Actually, yes—though we haven’t met since you were a little girl. Or maybe it’s simply innate recognition.”
“Because we’re both ghostkeepers?”
“No,” she said, “because we’re family.”
“I don’t have family,” I told her. “Only my parents and brother. My grandparents died before I was born, my mom’s an only child, and my dad’s not in touch with—”
“His sister,” she finished.
“Wait,” I said. “You’re my dad’s sister?”
Bennett glared at her. “You never told me this.”
She nodded. “I’m your aunt.”
“Rachel?” I asked, astonished. She looked a little like my father around the eyes and in the way she smiled.
Her face glowed with pleasure, and she stepped forward like she wanted to hug me. I would’ve let her, except Bennett was glowering—and I was trying to remember why she and my father weren’t in touch anymore.
Instead of the hug, she sat beside me and squeezed my arm. “I’m so pleased to finally meet you—again.” She laughed. “The last time I saw you, you were still in diapers.”
Great. Just how I wanted Bennett picturing me: in princess-themed Pampers. At least he hadn’t kept this from me. The tapestry paled in comparison. Rachel seemed okay and all, but did I really need an unexpected aunt cluttering up my life? I had enough going on with dead friends, ghostly vendettas, and an untouchable boyfriend.
“Do my parents know you’re in the Knell?” I asked. “Where are they? Does my brother, Max, know about you?”
“Wait, wait—one question at a time,” she said.
“I’ve got one,” Bennett said, his face hard. “Do the others know you’re her aunt? I don’t like this, Rachel—springing this on Emma without any warning. She’s been through enough surprises already.”
“This is a family matter.”
“It’s a Knell matter,” he said. “Let’s bring this to Yoshiro and William and Gabriel, then we’ll all hear you answer Emma’s questions.”
“They know. I wanted a moment to speak with her privately,” she said.
“Emma doesn’t need—”
I cut him off. “I’m good, Bennett. I want to talk to her. She’s family and the only one who hasn’t run out on me. Well, if you don’t count when I was a baby.” Plus, for all I knew she was the key to Max’s and my parents’ disappearance. “You go ahead; tell them we’ll be there soon.”
“You sure?”
I gave him a look. I liked how protective he was, but I needed to do this on my own, and I sensed Rachel wouldn’t talk with him around.
He smiled wryly, reading my expression. “Okay,” he said. “Back in five minutes.”
After he left, I turned to Rachel and waited for her to begin, conscious of a vague feeling of disquiet. Maybe due to the tapestry or the proximity of so many ghostkeepers. Or maybe I was just picking up on Rachel’s anxiety.
She licked her lips and looked from the tapestry back to me. “Your father didn’t take your mother’s powers, Emma. Neos did. They—we were all working for the Knell, the four of us as a team. Nobody dispelled ghasts better than we did.” Her eyes flashed at the memory. “Then your mother and Neos fell in love, and she started losing her powers. When she became a liability, the Knell wanted her out. Neos immersed himself in the old lore, searching for a way to help her regain her abilities, but nothing worked. He even dabbled in Asarum.”
“What’s that, some kind of satanic rite?”
“It’s an herb that boosts ghostkeeping powers. Extremely addictive—and dangerous.” She shook her head. “Neos grew more and more distraught and guilty and he started to change. He became … twisted. Obsessed with the old lore, with the powers. Finally, your mother left him and started an affair with my brother.”
Ick. I held up a hand. “I don’t need the details.”
“No.” She frowned. “It’s not something I like to think about, either.”
I waited, but she just sat there staring into space. Finally, I said, “And then?”
She jerked slightly. “Oh! Well, your father thought that the Knell mistreated Jana—your mother. Tossing her aside when she wasn’t useful anymore.”
“And you?” I asked.
“I thought … I thought Jana had been unfair to Neos. He loved her so much, he’d lost his mind trying to save her.” She licked her lips again. “I tried to get Nathan, your father, to break it off with her.”
My parents were the madly-in-love types, as close as any couple I’d ever seen. It had always been obvious to me and Max that their relationship came first, that we were just a by-product. “He’d never do that,” I said.
“No,” Rachel agreed. “He accused me of only having the Knell’s interests at heart, of not caring about him or Jana.”
We sat in silence a moment. “You two haven’t spoken since I was a baby?” I asked.
“I tried to apologize but … in the end, he was right. After we fought, I lost myself in the Knell.” She smiled tentatively. “Which is why I’m so happy you’re here. You’re like a second chance. I never meant to hurt your parents,” she said, leaning forward intently. “I loved them. I hope you believe that.”
“Sure,” I said. Like me and Max. We fought sometimes, but we always loved each other. Even if he did totally bail on me when I needed him most. “Did the lady in the tapestry have a brother who looked like Max? I mean, is that normal, for a ghostkeeper to look so much like her ancestors?”
“She’s my ancestor, too.” Rachel’s gaze grew hard. “I don’t look like her. But then—”
She stopped as Bennett came back.
“Yoshiro’s ready for us,” he said.
I smiled at him, and not only from affection but also from relief. I wasn’t sure how I felt about Rachel. I had to admit, I could use an aunt, since my parents were AWOL. But there was something disconcerting about her, like she wasn’t quite comfortable in her own skin. Maybe she was just worried that I’d hate her like my father had.
“Are we ready for him?” I asked, standing.
“He’s quite formidable,” Rachel said. “But don’t let him intimidate you.”
“As long as he can help me, I don’t care.”
“If he can’t help,” Bennett said, “nobody can.”
“Yoshiro’s the heart of the Knell.” Rachel put her hand on my arm, ushering me toward the door. “Well, maybe not the heart—more the brain.”
“You’re getting a rare audience, meeting him in person,” Bennett said. “I’ve only seen him once. Usually he stays in his archives.”
But I wasn’t listening; I was staring at Rachel’s hand. My skin felt tingly under her palm, almost like I was touching a ghost, and I jerked away.
“I’m sorry.” She smiled apologetically as we headed into the hallway. “I don’t know why that happens. I’m a communicator, but sometimes my power gives off static shocks. Or spectral shocks, I suppose.”
I glanced at Bennett for reassurance, but he seemed preoccupied, like he was marshaling his strength to meet Yoshiro. I wished we could hold hands.
I nodded vaguely at Rachel, caught between my pleasure at reuniting with a long-lost relative and my sense that she wasn’t quite … normal. Maybe she seemed a little off because she was family. I’d need to get used to the idea.
So I decided to like her. Finally, a family member who was still willing to talk to me. That had to be a good thing, right?
As we headed upstairs, Rachel confided about how daunting she found Yoshiro, until we stopped outside a set of elaborately carved wooden double doors. A couple of male ghost servants stood on either side of the door, as though guarding the room. “I don’t mean to frighten you,” she said. “You’ll be fine.”
“Emma’s not afraid of anything,” Bennett said.
I took a deep breath, hoping he was right.
I smiled at one of the ghosts, but he ignored me while the other opened the door. After that, I expected a throne room or something, but Bennett led me into a small chamber, decorated like a library where you’d find Sherlock Holmes solving the case. It was all cherrywood, leather-bound books, and red and gold Oriental rugs with a fire blazing in the ornately carved fireplace.
Three men sat on leather couches, taking in the heat of the fire. They stood as we entered, and the oldest, an Asian man wearing wire-rim glasses, his long gray hair in a ponytail, stepped forward.
“Emma Vaile,” he said, subjecting me to an unsmiling inspection. “You are not as impressive as I’d imagined.”
“You must be Yoshiro,” I said, with a fake smile. “I thought you’d be taller.”
Beside him, the dark-haired younger man coughed, smothering a laugh, then introduced himself as Gabriel. He had a Spanish accent, and the sort of smoldering spark of one of those ugly European guys who’s somehow incredibly attractive.
“A pleasure to meet you, Emma,” he said. For the record, “Emma” sounded really pretty with a Spanish accent.
“Welcome to the Knell,” the third man said, a middle-aged black man dressed in intellectual chic. “My name is William. I remember your mother and father fondly.”
“Thanks. It’s kind of hard to imagine them here.”
Yoshiro cleared his throat. “Sit.”
I almost said something snotty about barking and rolling over, but Bennett nudged me toward one of the couches. Everyone sat except Yoshiro, who paced for a minute, then turned suddenly and considered me.
“Except for your youth, your likeness to the tapestry is exact.”
“And my hairstyle.” She looked like me dressed up for a Renaissance fair. “It doesn’t mean anything. It’s genetics. Probably happens all the time, except other people don’t have medieval tapestries lying around.”
“Yoshiro believes it’s more than that,” Gabriel said.
“Your powers are unprecedented,” William said. “And your resemblance to at least two dead ghostkeepers is also unprecedented. That’s not a coincidence.”
“Maybe not. But I’m not the first Emma, I’m not that medieval lady. I’m just a—” I looked at Yoshiro. “An unimpressive girl who doesn’t want to battle ghosts and kill wraiths. There’re only three things I want. To find my family. Dispel Neos. And to—” I stopped suddenly, and didn’t know where to look.
“Yes?” Yoshiro said. “The third thing?”
“To be with me,” Bennett said.
Yoshiro made a disgruntled sound. “You are too close.” He waved his hands between us. “This is dangerous.”
“We’re okay,” I said. “Thanks for the concern.”
“You are okay,” Yoshiro said. “But you are not the one in danger. You have a strange way of showing Bennett your regard, by undermining his ability.”
This time, my snappy retort dissolved into flushing with embarrassment, and I squirmed a few inches away from Bennett.
Like a hero, Bennett changed the subject. “What have you learned about Neos?”
Yoshiro crossed to the fire and watched the flames, leaving William to answer. “He’s something new, something nobody’s faced before. Stronger than any of us—except perhaps you, Emma. And except for the Knell, when we all act together.”
“What about my parents and brother?”
“They’re obsessed with Neos—with stopping him,” Gabriel said. “They warned us this might happen. But it’s like they’ve dropped off the face of the earth.”
“They knew he’d come back as a ghost?” I don’t know why I was surprised. I suppose they must have figured out it was Neos who attacked me as a child. And Aunt Rachel had filled in some of the missing pieces.
“They are not your concern,” Yoshiro said, turning. “Not now. You must focus on Neos. He is gathering strength in the Beyond, summoning wraiths and other, even more unwholesome spirits, forcing them to join his crusade.”
“Crusade against who?” Bennett asked. “Emma?”
“She’s half of it,” William said. “The other half is the Knell. That’s why we’re taking security even more seriously. Yoshiro hasn’t left his archives in weeks, and Gabriel and I don’t leave the building anymore.”
“So what’re we going to do?” I asked.
“We’re bringing the veteran teams home,” Gabriel said. “And forming new ones.”
“Just like the old days,” Rachel said, with a glint in her eyes.
“I’ll need Bennett on my team,” I said. “And Natalie.”
William and Yoshiro exchanged a dubious look. Gabriel simply looked on in a gorgeous Spanish manner.
Rachel nodded, though. “Emma’s not one of our soldiers. She needs to be close to those she loves.” She came and sat beside me. Her proximity unsettled me for some reason, though I was relieved someone was on my side.
“You know that’s not wise,” Yoshiro told her. “You of all people know that personal feelings undermine a group.”
“I won’t do it without them,” I said.
Everyone looked to Yoshiro, and as he debated, I squirmed in my seat. But it wasn’t because I was worried about his answer; something didn’t feel right. My skin tingled, in a bad way.
I frowned at Bennett. “Do you feel that?”
He shook his head. “What’s wrong?”
“There’s a ghost nearby. It’s—” My spine felt hot and itchy. “Not a ghost, a wraith.”
“Imposible,” Gabriel said in Spanish. “Wraiths cannot enter the Knell.”
Bennett stood and started drawing his power into his fists, a swirl of light glowing through the flesh and bone. “If Emma says there’s a wraith, there’s a wraith.”
“This building is a powerful nexus,” William said. “She’s probably feeling the—”
“Rachel!” I said, my eyes widening.
She was quiet and attentive, next to me. Scratching furiously at one of her forearms. Bloody scrapes appeared down her skin.
She twitched a smile. “Skin infection. Poison ivy.”
But it wasn’t a rash. I could see an oily swirl superimposed over her. It shifted and shimmered, then vanished into the lines on her arm like filthy water into a drain. My breath caught, and I pushed my awareness beyond my body, letting my power ripple across the room. Until I found it: a tight knot of fear and pain and insatiable hunger.
“Emma?” Bennett said, his hands glowing with power. “Emma! Where is it?”
“It—it’s my aunt,” I gasped. “Rachel. There’s a wraith inside her.”
“There’s no way,” Gabriel said. “Wraiths can’t possess people—and this building is completely shielded. You couldn’t detect a ghast here if you were standing at the front gate, much less summon wraiths.”
“And Rachel’s the most powerful communicator we have,” William said. “She would’ve known if—”
“Hit her,” I told Bennett.
“Stop!” Yoshiro shouted.
“She knows,” Rachel screeched. “She knows!” Her tone verged on insanity.
Bennett narrowed his eyes, and spears of light flew from his fists and slammed into Rachel’s chest. Her back arched and she shrieked, an ungodly howl. Her eyes turned milky and sunk into their sockets, while her skin paled to a dead white and cracked like a mud puddle in a heat wave. Deep, jagged fissures formed, as an inky blackness seeped from inside her.
Bennett snarled and poured more energy at Rachel, and she writhed and twisted as she pointed one dead-white arm at Yoshiro, her mouth open in a soundless scream. William and Gabriel sprang to their feet, but my attention was still focused on other ghostly disturbances in the building around us.
Then Rachel made a horrible choking noise, and the insectlike bone of a wraith sprang from her arm and plunged into Yoshiro’s chest.
Lightning crackled around Gabriel. In a blaze of power, he compelled her to freeze, the bony wraith-arm still sunk in Yoshiro’s chest. “Don’t dispel her,” he told Bennett. “Or she’ll take Yoshiro with her. William, phone the doctor. If I let her go, he’ll bleed out. Quickly!”
They froze there in a horrible tableau, with Rachel’s wraith-arm impaling Yoshiro’s chest, like a poster for a horror film. But with sound: the pained, panting breaths coming from Yoshiro and the squeals of rage from the wraith inside Rachel.
Time seemed to slow, the world closing in until there was nothing but us, locked together in this terrible room, listening to death approach with every gasping breath.
Then I felt them, a burning itch on my skin—more wraiths.
“They’re coming,” I said. “More of them.”
Gabriel didn’t move, his power completely focused on the wraith inside Rachel, but the rest of us prepared to meet the new attack. I faced the fireplace, while William crossed toward the door. Bennett stood beside the couch, a lucent spear from his right hand still weakening Rachel, while his left fist sparked with light.
They didn’t come from outside. They came from inside Rachel’s cracked skin, oozing through the torn flesh in an unearthly black mist.
I’d seen wraiths before, but it wasn’t something you got used to. They condensed from the filthy mist into skin hanging like tattered clothing from insectoid skeletons, ectoplasm dripping from their gaping mouths.
William was an amazing communicator. His mental command boomed out, There is nothing for you here. Leave us! If you stay, we will dispel you.
His tone held such power and conviction that it almost stopped me. But there was no communicating with wraiths; they were too consumed with hunger to listen. They screeched their desires: Feed, feed, eat the flesh, suck the blood …
William used arcane phrases and a tone of complete command, but the chorus of bloodlust drowned out his words. He crumpled to the floor as a wraith flung itself onto him, bony claws slashing his neck.
I gathered my dispelling energy and twisted it around the wraith attacking William. Like wringing water from a dishcloth, I torqued the wraith until nothing was left but a spray of sticky black blood. William pressed his palm to the wound on his neck and crawled to the old-fashioned phone on the desk, as I spun toward the others.
Gabriel remained frozen in place, straining with the effort of compelling the wraith inside Rachel, keeping it from finishing off Yoshiro. Bennett stood at Gabriel’s side, protecting him from the other two wraiths. Light crackled and burst around Bennett as he pierced one but was unable to dispel it completely, while the other attacked Gabriel.
They were losing. I concentrated on dispelling the wraith attacking Bennett, adding my own power to his. The wraith slithered away from him and staggered toward me, claws slashing. Drool from its gaping mouth splashed at my feet like acid, and I waited as it lurched forward. I waited until my palm was an inch from its ribcage, then I unraveled it into smoke.
Gabriel yelled for help, and Bennett spun and saw the wraith at Gabriel’s throat. He launched a glowing nimbus of light directly into it.
Too late. Gabriel staggered under the wraith’s attack and lost control of the wraith inside Rachel. It pulled its bony arm from Yoshiro’s chest. An arc of blood spurted across the room as Yoshiro collapsed to the floor. As Bennett burned his way through the wraith still attacking Gabriel, the one inside Rachel leaped at Bennett from behind.
Its bony arm swung in a lethal arc toward Bennett’s unprotected neck, and a wave of blackness rose around me, an almost overwhelming flare of fear, rage, and urgency. From some dark chamber of my heart, I unleashed more force than ever before, a single blast directly into Rachel’s chest.
The blast shot through her and exploded against the opposite wall. She stopped dead and her insectlike limb morphed back into a regular arm, as she swayed on her feet.
I caught Rachel as she fell, the wraith leeching from her body. Her skin faded from the unnatural white to a deathly pallor, and her eyes, still sunken, glinted with tears.
She clutched at me. “Forgive me; I couldn’t stop him.”
“Shhh, you’re going to be okay.”
“No. You need—,” she gasped, “a weapon. To focus your power. It’s your only hope. Emma, you need …” Her voice faltered.
“Rachel,” I said. “Don’t go. We just met. I need you—”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “For everything. You need to end this, Emma. Neos fears you. He sent a siren. To cripple you. She will …”
And Rachel died.