“Why this sort of scam? Why don’t you just feed on people like most of your kind?” I was still trying to stall her, to give the others time to get here.
“Shut up,” Sheryl said.
No wonder Sheryl hadn’t paid attention to the Court Magika’s rules about draining life energy. The shadow person probably didn’t know about them. Or didn’t care. But I still wondered why it had gone to all this trouble—why it hadn’t settled into her body and fed off of people right and left.
I managed to dive over the sofa, putting it between me and Sheryl. Ari had found a large heavy vase and was holding it in front of her like a shield.
“When Sheryl disappeared, that’s when you found her, wasn’t it?” The month that Sheryl had been gone—that she had been missing. That must have been when the shadow person first connected to her. It wasn’t until after she had reappeared that she had quit her job and started the Magikoil business.
There was pounding on the front door, and I could hear Rowan’s voice outside. Damn, the door must be locked. I turned to Ari, who was closest to the archway of the living room. “Unlock the door!”
Ari lobbed the vase at Sheryl. For her size, Ari was fit and strong. The vase went hurtling head over heels toward Sheryl, but she managed to dart out of the way as it crashed against the wall. Sheryl turned toward Ari, her eyes narrowing.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” she said.
Ari dashed toward the front door and Sheryl hesitated, then turned back toward me as I edged my way around the room. She looked vaguely confused, as though she wasn’t sure what to do next.
Rowan burst in just then, along with a couple of men. Sheryl collapsed as the shadow person raced toward me. I screamed as it slammed into me, knocking me to the ground.
If the shadow person was strong enough, they could take on physical form, and this one definitely had the power. It closed its inky fingers around my throat, and leaned down, the smooth black void of its face staring at me. A cord tentacled out, latching onto my crown chakra, and it began draining my energy.
I tried to scream but I couldn’t. The next moment, Rowan was there, along with a man I didn’t recognize. They joined hands, and reached toward the shadow figure as I began to lose consciousness.
A thousand live wires ricocheted through me, driving me awake again. The shadow figure lit up, sparks flying off of it as it convulsed. But it was still holding me, in an embrace surrounded by lightning. Once again, I was unable to move as the shock waves rippled through me, and then for a second, my heart convulsed and I thought I was going to die. But the shadow figure stumbled backward, letting go of my throat as it gripped the sides of its head. The lightning drained out of me as the shadow person stumbled away.
I sat up, dizzy. Every fiber of my being ached as though I had stuck my finger in a light socket. I groaned, then leaned forward to rest my head on my knees. If a tsunami had been bearing down on us, I couldn’t have moved to run, I was so exhausted and in pain.
The shadow figure thrashed, but Rowan and her companion kept driving the lightning out through their fingertips. With a final sizzle, the creature vanished and the room was silent.
Chapter Twenty-One
Rowan and Ari scrambled to kneel by my side.
“Are you all right?” Ari asked, stroking my frizzed out hair back from my face. It crackled under her fingers, and I reached up, realizing I was surrounded by a two-foot long afro. It was going to take some doing to get my hair back to normal.
My throat was dry, sore from screaming. I hadn’t even realized that I had been screaming. My pulse raced and I felt like I’d been the recipient of a full-body cleansing, the lightning had coursed so thoroughly through every cell of my system. I leaned on one hand, not even trying to stand up. Across the room, I noticed Sheryl, lying on the floor.
“How is she?” I managed a faint wave in her direction.
Two of the men who had come in with Rowan were examining her. One glanced over at us and shook his head, looking grim. “I don’t think she’s going to make it.” And then he placed her hand gently back on the floor and hung his head. “She’s gone. She was too attached to the shadow figure to make it on her own.”
“Is there any way to draw her spirit back into her body?” I asked. As I stared at Sheryl’s prone figure, I noticed the spirit standing beside it. It looked exactly like her. I motioned for Rowan to help me up. Between her and Ari, they got me on my feet and I approached Sheryl’s spirit.
“Are you all right?” I asked, looking for the shadow figure. But it was nowhere to be seen. And then I saw the silver cord that attaches souls to their bodies. It was still intact—fraying quickly, but still connecting Sheryl to her body.
“Who are you talking to?” Ari asked.
“Sheryl. Her spirit’s right here. Is there any way we can help her back into her body? She’s not fully cut off from it yet.” I knelt by Sheryl’s side, starting compressions on her chest. “Ari, give her mouth-to-mouth.”
Ari didn’t question me, just began to work. Rowan and the others began to pour healing energy toward Sheryl’s body. I glanced up at the spirit, who was kneeling near me, watching me work on her corpse.
“Do you want to come back?” I asked her. I should have asked her that in the first place.
She paused, then looked at me. I remember everything I did while that creature had control of me. I don’t know if I can live with some of those things.
“We can help you,” I said aloud, hoping the others would get the drift. “What you did was out of your control, and we can help you live with the memories.”
Rowan glanced at me. “She’s having doubts?”
“She remembers everything that happened, and she doesn’t know if she can live with the guilt. Do you think we can help her?”
“I’m positive that we can help her cope with the aftermath,” Rowan said. “Tell her to give it a try. I don’t like losing people to the shadow world. Also, can she hear me?”
I looked up at Sheryl. My grandmother wants to know if you can hear her speaking.
Yes, I can hear all of you still. Though it’s becoming fainter as the cord frays.
“She can hear us. But speak quickly.”
Rowan glanced up in the direction that I had been looking. “Sheryl, if you let yourself fade away, if you let go of life, you’re going to end up sucked into the shadow world. While we sent that thing away, you are still connected in spirit. We need to do an exorcism on you to fully detach you from the walk-in. So if you die, we can’t do that and you’ll eventually end up turning into a shadow person.”
I was watching Sheryl as Rowan spoke. She gasped, and turned frantically to me.
Please, save me. I don’t want to become what that thing was. I don’t want anything to do with them.
Then focus on staying connected to your body. We’re trying to resuscitate you.
I turned back to Rowan. “Let’s get her back into her body.” I started compressions again, and Ari started mouth-to-mouth again. Rowan and her Court Magika friends focused on pumping as much healing energy into Sheryl as they could.
Another minute past, and another, and then—when I was starting to lose hope—Sheryl jerked beneath my hands and coughed. As she opened her eyes, her spirit vanished, sucked back into her body. We had saved her from a fate that was literally worse than death.