Sisters of Blood and Spirit

It had been wonderful. I never had and never would tell her just how much. Lark and I could touch, but there was always this invisible barrier between us. We were in different worlds, even if they overlapped. To have her with me finally was incredible—and wrong. She didn’t belong in my world, and I couldn’t have let her stay.

Kevin glanced at me again. “Okay.” He only said that one word, but it seemed to mean so much more than that. I smiled.

“Can I...?” I swallowed. “Can I touch you?”

The car swerved as he jerked his head toward me, then back again. “Now?” His voice was strained.

“I just want...” I leaned over and wrapped one of his curls around my finger. His hair was silky, springy—exactly like I’d hoped it would be. I laughed. “I’ve never felt hair other than Lark’s before.”

And this was different from when Lark was awake and I shared her body. Despite the heavy limbs and awkwardness of them, they felt like mine. I was in control, not my sister, and it...it was wonderful. And strange. So strange.

I pulled my hand away, but he caught it and twined his fingers with mine. His hand was warm. Strong. My heart slammed hard against my ribs. Was I going to vomit, or burst into song? I couldn’t tell.

And it wasn’t my heart, not really. It was Lark’s heart. I had to remember that. This wasn’t my body. In this realm I didn’t have a body. I wasn’t real.

But I let Kevin hold Lark’s hand all the way to his house anyway.

LARK

My eyes opened. The first face I saw other than my sister’s belonged to Mace. Funny, but his face was the last thing I remembered seeing before I passed out. God, that vision of Wren eating eyeballs had been gross. Not something I ever wanted to see again.

“Where am I?” I demanded. “Whose bed is this? And why do I smell toothpaste?” I swear on her grave my sister blushed.

Kevin’s freakishly curly head appeared over Mace’s shoulder. “You’re at my house. My bed.”

Well, ew.

“You fainted,” my sister informed me. “I had to wear you for a bit—there was a police officer.”

I opened my mouth, then closed it again.

“It’s okay,” Wren continued, strangely giddy. “They know about me. We’re friends.”

At the same time, I heard Roxi say, “Your sister possessed you when the cop showed up. It was awesome.”

Oh, great. Okay, so Wren possessing me seemed to convince everyone that I’d be on board with helping them, but what the hell had my sister done while running around in my body? I glanced at Kevin, my gaze narrow. She better not have made out with him. I sat up. My head swam a little. I reached out to steady myself, my hand clamping on to something warm and hard.

It was Mace’s shoulder. As soon as my brain settled I jerked my hand away.

“You okay?” he asked.

I nodded, avoiding his gaze. He needed to go away. He was too much of a distraction for me. I couldn’t seem to think around him. All I could think about was that he’d seen me at my weakest, and I could never change that. I owed him my life, and I couldn’t change that, either. That meant that regardless of what I thought of the others, I had to help him. I had to do everything in my power to save him. I might be a living, breathing girl, but I knew ghosts—I could fight them and hurt them—and I had one on my side.

So, I was going to walk into an asylum. A haunted one. I wanted to mention—just in case there was any confusion on the subject—that asylums and hospitals and jails didn’t have one ghost, or even half a dozen ghosts. Most of them, especially the old ones, could have hundreds of ghosts. When I was thirteen my parents took me—and Wren—to London. The Tower of London freaked me out. Wren had to return to the Shadow Lands—where she lived when she wasn’t with me—because the ghosts wouldn’t leave her alone.

There was a different energy to ghosts when they were in this world. The ones that stayed here had issues, and they were agitated, while Shadow Land ghosts were generally more calm. At least that was what Wren told me. I wasn’t there long enough to find out for myself, not really. But the Shadow Lands was like a stepping-stone between dimensions—a place between earth and Heaven, reincarnation...whatever.

“What happened to you earlier?” Roxi asked. She was perched on the dresser near the foot of the bed. Mace and Sarah were on the edge of the bed and Gage and Ben stood against the far wall. My sister was with Kevin. I didn’t like that very much, but at least he wasn’t looking at me like I was Hitler. In fact, he seemed really confused when he looked at me.

Oh, God. She’d made out with him. Didn’t she? She was so lucky she was already dead.

“I don’t know,” I told her honestly. “I had some kind of vision.”

“Of what?” It was Kevin who asked.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“It could help us.”

I scowled. “I said I don’t want to talk about it.”

“But it could help,” he insisted.

I clenched my jaw. “It won’t.” I gave him a look that said if he pushed it I’d punch him in the face.

Instead of continuing the argument, he tilted his head. “That bad?”

I resisted the urge to snort. “I passed out.” Was that bad enough for him? And why was he suddenly being all understanding? I thought he hated me.

“Sorry ’bout that,” Mace apologized. “I didn’t know that would happen.”

I shrugged. “Didn’t think you would have.”

He looked down—at my hand, the one he’d shoved under his shirt. My fingers twitched. I closed them into a fist. “I need to see where you were attacked.”

He didn’t even blink. “Okay. Let’s go.”

“Now?” His girlfriend blinked enough for both of us. “You’re going now? She just woke up.”

Mace rose to his feet and so did I. “He wants to make sure I don’t change my mind,” I remarked with less humor than I intended.

He shot me an unamused look. “Maybe I just want to make sure my friends and I are back to normal as soon as possible. I have to think that spectral wounds aren’t good.”

He was right, they weren’t. In fact, they could be life threatening. It was weird, but he didn’t seem to doubt for a moment that I could fix this, even though I had no freaking idea of how to do just that. “Let’s go, then.”

Wren came toward me. God, there were a lot of people in the room. So many of them depending on me to help them. I didn’t do well with responsibility. “I’m coming with you.”

I shook my head. “You’re not going anywhere near that place until I’ve checked it out.” I turned to Kevin. “Do you have a can of salt I can take with me?”

“Sure,” he said. I had to admit that I liked not having to explain myself. I followed him to the kitchen—everyone else tagging along behind. He took a large can of salt from the pantry and handed it to me. It was full, the seal not even broken. It was a cheap but effective weapon against spirits. I wasn’t sure why, but I didn’t care so long as it worked.

“If you’re not back in an hour we’re going to come looking for you,” Ben said. He’d been pretty quiet up until now. Then again, he and Wren could have chatted up a storm and braided each other’s hair while I was out of it, for all I knew.

I shot him a grim smile. “If we’re not back in an hour we’re dead.”

That brought the mood down.

“Why would you say that?” Sarah demanded. She turned to Mace. “Why would she say something like that?”