I was no longer in the woods. Instead, I stood before the now familiar bottomless dark abyss, a sea of black that reached out endlessly before me. Within the darkness, nameless, faceless voices and shadows called out to me, enticing me to join them. Without warning, the darkness stretched out and swirled around me. It engulfed me, and I was drowning in its waves.

Then a loud voice shouted my name, and I could see a beam of light shining in the distance.

The voice called again, "Colina!"

I recognized it. "Mama," I cried back. I tried to pull myself free, but the blackness held me tight. I pulled hard, but the dark tentacles surrounding me only stretched and strained—they would not break.

"Mama!" I screamed. The light came closer. With it came a feeling of warmth. It glided over me, pushing back the chill of the darkness, and suddenly I was free.

My mother's spirit stood before me. A white light illuminated her. She looked beautiful. As I watched, the light slowly morphed from white to blue to green. She smiled at me. I was filled with a sense of peace, seeing her this way, no longer in pain and agony.

Slowly, her expression changed. Panic filled her eyes, and the light surrounding her faded. A bullet hole appeared on her forehead and drops of blood streamed down her face.

"Mama!" I was desperate to reach her, reliving the nightmare of her death all over again.

She floated away and sobbed. "They took them from me."

I tried to move forward, determined to help my mother cross over to the other side, but before I could do anything, her image flickered. Her sobs grew softer until she finally disappeared.

My heart stuttered. "Mama, where are you? Come back! Stay with me! I can help you find the light," I cried into the darkness.

I was alone again.

The demon had taken my family from me. Under its orders, they had been brutally murdered before my eyes. I knew there would be no peace for them in the afterlife. My father's and brother's spirits existed forever within the demon. My mother roamed restlessly through the in between. And now I wandered this world on my own, trying desperately to survive. Trying so hard to be strong.

But I'm not alone, a small voice in the back of my mind whispered. Luke is with me.

As I thought of him, I felt a sense of calm come over me, and the air around me shifted. The darkness faded, and I found myself in a different place. It was night, but a full moon shone brightly overhead. There was dirt at my feet and large boulders scattered all around. Between the boulders, I could make out the shapes of cacti.

"Where am I?"

"Don't you know?" a voice answered.

I recognized that voice as the woman who'd died a year ago—the one who had possessed me. I'd heard her voice from the taped recording Barton had shared with me. I turned, and there before me she stood. Morgana was a small, woman in bulky, shrouded clothing with a hood hiding her face.

"Where am I?" I asked.

"Watch." She pointed behind me.

I spun, and for the first time saw that I stood on top of a cliff overlooking a barren desert. I looked down onto a plateau at least fifty feet below. A hulking mass moved across the desert floor. It looked like a brown whirlwind, a giant sandstorm. But that's not sand. It's something else. It swirled, as though propelled by wind, but the air around me was still.

And then I saw the thing had company. There was another—no, two more. The three sand creatures made their way across the valley floor.

"What are they?" I asked.

When no one answered, I turned back to Morgana. Her hood had fallen back, revealing the ghostly form of a bowed and worn-down woman. Her spirit wasn't bright like my mother's. It was gray and faded, and where her eyes should have been, there were two empty orbs. She was otherwise plain-looking, with a wide face that looked to be approaching middle age.

"The old ones. Creatures older than man. They are here with us always, but few notice. I've always seen them. I've been trying to call out to them since I was a child, but they never heard me or acknowledged my existence."

I watched, mesmerized, as the creatures continued to dance across the desert.

Morgana added, "I'm the reason he came to know them. Twenty years ago, Henry Weatherton was like you and Luke, a death dealer. He was someone I foolishly opened my heart to. Someone who I thought returned my love. But now I know it was never me he wanted. It was the power."

She seemed to fade even more. The memory of an old pain etched deeper lines into her face and aged her twenty years in an instant, turning her into the broken woman she must have been when she died.

When she spoke again, I could hear her sadness. "I was a fool. I opened his eyes to the older gods my people worship. And he saw how magnificent they were. How they had the true power. Weatherton realized he should be worshipping them. It was because of me that he started trying to get their attention.

"It's all my fault. I taught him my people's ways, and he was so excited, so eager to learn... But I never thought he would go so far." Her spirit seemed to darken. "I didn't know he sacrificed people in the hope of gaining more power. How could I know? But the elders sent me here as punishment for my crimes against the clan. Because of all the death and pain, I had caused, my mind broke.

"Weatherton followed me here, hoping to use that weakness to gain the last of my secrets. He continued to kill and defile the beliefs of my clan. After he was caught, I tried to reason with him and get him to stop, but he wouldn't listen. The more I tried to convince him, the angrier he got. And then one day he snapped and killed me. I thought once he died, it would finally be over." She broke off into a sob. "But it will never be over. He wants to live again. He wants to be whole."

She gestured toward the creatures. "Weatherton is determined. Not even death could stop his evil intentions. He possesses a body and is killing again. Everything he does is to try and gain power from the old gods. But he's an insignificant man. He has always been so. Dying didn't change that. He may do the spells and kill in the old gods' name, but they don't even know he exists."

I brought Luke back from the dead. I've done things that go against nature's laws. Does that make me as evil as Weatherton?

Morgana frowned. "He is twisted and likes to cause pain. He's enjoyed killing since he was a child. He used to kill animals when he was young, gutting them while they were still alive. He kept their hearts as souvenirs."

That sort of intentional evil could not be allowed to continue. I couldn't leave this place until we found him and stopped him.

She nodded as if reading my thoughts. "He left the heart in your room to scare you. But he also did it because he thought it was fun. I swear to you, Colina, I didn't realize the evil he held in his soul. I never saw who he truly was, and once I did, I couldn't stop him. I'm powerless over him now, but there is hope. You have come."

She moved closer to me, enough that I could see the shadows moving in what had once been her eyes. "Call to it." She pointed to the creature nearest to us. "Weatherton might try to gain their attention, but you don't have to try. You can."

"What do you mean?" I stood before her, watching the dancing sand swirl across the desert floor, trying to understand everything.

"You have no idea of the power inside you." Her expression showed her frustration at my lack of understanding, but then she gave me a kind smile. "Call out to them."

She wanted me to call out to the creatures? I moved back from the edge, alarmed by the thought that the old gods below, in all their ancient power, might come closer. Like a spider fears the boot, I quaked at the thought that something so much greater than myself would notice me, for good or for ill.

"You just have to reach for the knowledge. It's there just below the surface, waiting to bubble over." Morgana grabbed my hand, and a warm tingling filled my body. Silver light came up from the ground and poured through me, lighting me from within. Sparks glowed from my body. I stared in wonder, overwhelmed by the warmth in my limbs, shining off my skin. The darkness inside me, which had been present since the first ritual, had been pushed back for the moment.

Morgana pointed to the sky.

I looked up, and the light followed, streaming from my body to spiral upward like a spotlight.

One of the old gods stopped, ever so slowly. And then, sluggishly, it twirled and headed my way.

Was the light a beacon calling out to the creature?

Morgana whispered in awe, "My whole life, I tried to get their attention, but I never could. And here you are. You have the power to make them see you. Don't be afraid."

But I am. The terror built inside me. The thing was coming closer, and I could see the clouds of energy moving inside it—a twirling mass of golden energy—heading straight for me.

"What's going to happen?" I took a hasty step back and yanked my arm from Morgana.

"What is supposed to. What is preordained."

The demon had told me our fates were intertwined, which I refused to believe. "No. I believe in free will."

Morgana smiled; her eyes sad. "So did I when I was alive, but now I know better. It's amazing. Being dead, I understand so many things that I never did before." Her spirit drifted away from me.

"Wait! Morgana, you're dead, which means Weatherton has no power over you, right? You can go to the light. I can help you!"

She spoke without turning back to me. "I can't. He does have power—over all of us. He binds us to him like banshees. We aren't free. He feeds on our spirits. We give him strength."

But banshees bound to dark mages were set free when the dark mage died. That was how I had tried to free my brother. But killing the dark mage hadn't worked. The demon had sucked up my brother's soul and merged it with his evil energy instead. "If I kill him, will it set you free?"

That question stopped her. She turned to face me. "How can you kill him? He's already dead. Colina, you're hunting a dead man."

A dead man who's possessing a living, breathing body. "Morgana, who was it that hurt you? He's possessing someone. Tell me who it is!"

"I'm bound. I have been forbidden to speak that name. Though I can say it's someone close to you who's watching and waiting to strike. You must be on guard at all times. But he didn't anticipate this—that you could succeed where he failed. He didn't forbid me to show you, my gods." She turned to look into the darkness of the far horizon. "He's calling me. I wish I could stay and help you, but I must go."

"Who is he possessing?" I yelled, frantic to know the truth and fearful of the gradually approaching god.

There was no answer, just silence. I looked back to the spot where Morgana's spirit had just been. It was empty.

The powerful thing Morgana had forced me to call was now only a few feet away. Impossible. I was up on a cliff a good fifty feet from the desert floor, yet this thing had stretched and grown until it soared high above me.

Its massive presence overwhelmed me, making me feel tiny and insignificant. An ancient, vast power turned its horrible focus on me.

I turned to run but found that I couldn't. Oh, Goddess. This is not a good time to lose control of my limbs. The old god moved closer still, and for a moment, I thought it would crash over me like a tidal wave. I clenched my eyes shut and waited.

But there was nothing.

I opened my eyes to see the god stopped just short of the edge of the cliff, hovering there in front of me.

Curiosity replaced my fear. What was it, and what did it want? As if released from an invisible barrier, I could suddenly move. I took hesitant steps forward until only inches separated us. This older thing—this god of Morgana's people—was aware.

I don't know why, but I reached out. I looked down at my fingers as they slowly extended. What am I doing? I tried to pull my hand back, but once again, I could no longer control my body. My fingers stretched until they made contact with the god's energy.

And then I felt it, like a bolt of electricity running through me.

There were sounds. They weren't human and they weren't demons but something almost animalistic. There were no words, but more of a mix of raw emotions roaring through my mind, followed by the sound of human voices chanting. The chanting seemed far off in the distance and grew steadily closer. As it did, energy filled me, coursing through my muscles, my mind, through every nerve ending in my body.

And I changed.

In an instant, I stood before the inky abyss, but this time it didn't frighten me. I heard things calling out to me from the void, but then the voices went silent. In their place I heard snarling and hissing. Within the great expanse, a pair of red eyes blinked in the darkness.

I know you, I thought. The eyes edged closer.

The air shifted again. A warm breeze blew across me, and I was back in the forest outside the hospital, lying on my back in the fallen leaves. As if from a distance, I heard my mother call my name. Confused by the turn of events, I blinked, trying to clear my vision, and saw Mama's spirit hover next to me.

No bullet hole marked her forehead this time. No blood dripped down her skin. She didn't cry for my lost brother and father. Instead, she looked directly at me, her form translucent. I could see Luke, Wendy, and Mildred through her, standing there as if frozen in time a few feet away.

"Colina."

"Mama," I croaked. I so wanted to free her from this hellish hospital.

"Colina, baby." She looked at me with fear in her eyes. "He's coming for you. Run, baby girl. Do you hear me? Run!"

She's said those words to me before. In Pagan's beautiful, renovated barn house, when the dark mages had found Luke and me. But now, there was no place to run. No place to hide. It was either over the electrified fence and into the forest or back into the hospital.

The killer was coming, and he would try to murder us all before we had a chance to escape.

Unless we found and killed him first.

* * *

I opened my eyes. The first thing I saw was Luke staring at me. I laid on the ground, my head cradled in his lap. Torrential rain poured down, soaking my hair and clothes.

"She's awake." Luke looked relieved.

Wendy and Mildred stood over me, peering with curiosity.

Mildred's eyes filled with concern. "Are you alive, child?"

"I am." I sat up, dazed and disoriented. "What happened?"

"You were with us, and then you weren't. You fell hard to the ground in some kind of trance."

I felt a fierce burning on my forearm and let out a small gasp, cradling the injury against my chest.

"What?" Luke asked.

"Something's wrong," I said.

He swung the flashlight down, and I gaped at the outline of a bear on the skin of my forearm.

Luke asked the question pounding through my head. "What is that?"

I rubbed my hand across the image burned into my flesh. It looked like a fresh brand, still raw and red, and it throbbed with the distant memory of god-inflicted pain. The stylized shape of a bear was clear and distinct, striding unhurriedly down my arm toward my hand. It was only a silhouette, without detail, but the brand looked different than a real bear.

It seemed more primitive, with large humping shoulders that tapered down into a thick neck and a broad sloping head ending with a round nose.

Mildred rubbed the mark on my skin. "The old gods." It wasn't a question.

"I saw Morgana," I said. "There were...creatures. Like energy sandstorms. Giant things down in a valley. Morgana called them her gods. She told me to beckon them. She touched me and a light shot out of me—through me—and one of the creatures came at me. Then it touched me. No. I touched it."

Luke looked at me, his expression one of shock. "You touched it?"

I had no idea why I'd done that. "It was there, right in front of me. I touched it and then I was back here, and this thing appeared on my skin."

"Burned into your skin by the gods. It's a totem." Mildred gave a high-pitched laugh. "You've been blessed, child. You've been given a gift!"

Luke grabbed my arm and studied the mark. "A totem?"

Mildred whipped her long-wet hair back and looked out through the rain into the dark. "Many animist religions believe in animal totems. They say every person has a totem animal, which acts like a spiritual guide. These guides, when you communicate with them, offer power, protection, and wisdom. The bear is one of those totems."

Danger. The word screamed inside my head, interrupting Mildred. I'm in danger. I could sense a threat all around me.

My mother's words came back to me. "Run, child. Run!" I gasped, trying to get to my feet under the onslaught of warnings crashing over me.

"Colina, what is it?" Luke asked.

I looked out into the darkness. "He's here."

Weatherton was out there, watching us. Or was he standing next to me, waiting to pop out and kill again? I felt a wild, desperate terror. Not a fear of my enemy, but a fear that my enemy might force me to hurt someone I loved.

With a shock, I felt something besides dread burst to life inside me. A jolt of electricity shot through my body. The hair on the back of my neck and arms rose as a shimmering blue light glided across my skin. As quickly as it came, it was gone.

I sat in shock, staring at my arm. Did that just happen, or did I imagine it?

I looked over at Luke. He focused on my arms as well, his eyes wide with surprise.

A howl pierced the darkness. It sounded like a dog, but I had never seen any dogs on the property. We stood inside a ten-foot, electrified, metal fence surrounding the hospital. We should have been protected.

The eerie howl came again, this time closer.

"Do you hear a dog?" Wendy asked.

"Not a dog A wolf." Luke rose to his feet and pulled me up next to him. I wobbled on unsteady legs. Strong arms wrapped around my body, steadying me.

A different howl rang out, this time from the opposite direction.

Luke aimed his flashlight into the dark woods. There was nothing out there.

"Could wild animals get through the fence?" I asked, combing the night for any sign of movement.

I looked over at Wendy. Her eyes were closed, and she had an expression of concentration on her face.

"Wendy, can you sense anything?"

Wendy opened her eyes and shook her head. "Whatever's out there isn't alive."

A grunting, growling roar split the night, closer by far than any of the sounds before. We all turned toward the noise, and a pair of yellow eyes glowed on the edge of our small clearing, a full six feet off the ground.

Wendy and Mildred edged closer to Luke. Luke pushed me behind him. "Mildred, these spiritual guides. What form do they take?"

Mildred gave him a wild smile. "I've never seen one."

"They could be spirits?"

Spirits. Ghosts. There was something in the air around us, but I didn't feel the things I normally did when confronted with a ghost.

"Luke, I don't feel any spirits. Do you?" As soon as the words left my mouth, another mighty roar ripped through the night.

Luke spun toward the sound, pulling me with him. We all huddled in a circle for protection. Wendy's and Luke's flashlights moved back and forth across the trees.

I saw yellow eyes flashing at me every time the flashlights moved away, an otherworldly gaze staring at me from the darkness.

And then, suddenly, I no longer stood next to Luke. I floated through the air, rushing through the night. Adrenaline fueled my body and rain cooled my skin.

Not my skin...my fur. I was no longer human. I was an animal—a wolf. I was running and jumping, and I wasn't alone. Others ran with me. Hunted with me. We crashed through the underbrush, rushing through the woods. Suddenly, I smell the evil, there, just in front of me, somewhere out in the night...

And then I was back in front of Luke. His hands rested on my shoulders, and he gave me a hard shake.

"Colina, can you hear me?"

"Luke, what happened?" I looked around, trying to clear my head. Wendy and Mildred had gone. A light bounced across the ground ten feet away.

Luke pulled me with him. "We've got to get out of here!"

The crunching of leaves and breaking of twigs sounded in the underbrush. Something was out there, moving around.

I ran with Luke by my side. Howls filled the air behind us. The rain pounded down, the wind picked up, and the trees whipped above us. We crashed through the woods, branches scratching at my face and arms as I ran, but I didn't care. I didn't stop.

We headed back to the hospital. The only thought in my mind was getting inside the building. Something in the dark chased us, but we'd be safe inside.

We broke out of the trees and onto the cleared lawn at the side of the hospital. I could just see Wendy disappearing into the building.

"Don't be afraid," a voice whispered in my ear.

With those words, I dug in my heels.

Luke pulled hard against me before letting go abruptly. I fell on my butt in the mud.

I climbed slowly back to my feet, rubbing my bruised wrist and wiping the rain out of my eyes as I turned toward the trees. Dark, misty shapes floated along the boundary of the woods.

A vast shadow rushed toward us, moving with impressive speed.

Luke stepped forward, trying to get in front of me.

The shadow stopped a dozen feet away. Wisps of gray slowly morphed into the shape of a huge bear made not of skin and blood, but of shadow and mist. Rain pounded through its smoky form. Only its eyes seemed to have any real substance. They glowed yellow with an ancient power.

All along the forest's edge stood hunters of the wild—shadows of wolves and bears. Smaller creatures were barely visible in the distance. I knew in the depth of my soul that they weren't hunting me.

They hunted him— Weatherton. I somehow knew that the evil I had felt in the woods had been our killer. He'd masked his scent and fled when he felt the spirit pack on his heels.

I turned back to the bear and stared into its yellow eyes. Morgana had called the sand creatures gods. Mildred said the gods gave me a gift. Had that gift allowed me to call these creatures? I glanced at the bear tattoo on my forearm, barely visible in the darkness, then back up at the spirit bear again. We studied each other. Strangely, I felt a sense of kinship with this shadow. It radiated such wild and unrestrained power.

The spirits, or animal totems, had come to protect me.

With that knowledge, some closed door within me opened. I felt their emotions buzzing around in my mind. My fear must have brought them forward.

Gratitude and a sense of belonging filled me. I hadn't felt such emotions since I'd stood before my healer clan. Tears ran down my cheeks.

I'm not alone. These spirits are here with me, to help protect me.

As I calmed, the spirits faded slowly away. Shadows turned back into shadows. The world suddenly seemed smaller and darker, and I shivered, but not from the cold.

Luke watched me, astonished. "What were those things?"

"I'm not sure. Mildred called them animal totems."

"You controlled them."

"No. Not controlled." I knew these spirits were not like banshees. These creatures might be bound to me, but I didn't command them.

"They were chasing us."

"No. They were hunting Weatherton. They must have felt him in the woods."

Luke looked out into the forest. "Is he still out there?"

"I don't know. I don't think so. They couldn't find him."

"Colina, what happened to you? Why did those creatures come to you?" He looked confused and worried for me. It wasn't the first time that I'd displayed a new and scary ability.

I shared his concern. "I don't know. That thing I touched when I was with Morgana, I think this had to do with them."

"The old gods gave you a gift. That's what Mildred said."

But are they really gods? Or just some kind of being we haven't seen before? Beings that predate our kind?

"Something happened to me." I wanted him to understand but wasn't sure how to explain it. "When I touched that thing, it changed me. I feel different now."

"Can you make those things come forth again?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. I think they came because I was afraid."

"What kind of power do they have? Can they do damage like a banshee?"

"I don't know." So many questions whirled in my mind.

A flash of lightning lit the sky.

"We'd better get inside." Luke grabbed my hand and headed toward the hospital.

I went with him.

Even though I nowfelt with dead certainty that I was safer out here.

****