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a ghast here if you were standing at the front gate, much less summon wraiths.”
    â€œAnd Rachel’s the most powerful communicator we have,” William said. “She would’ve known if—”
    â€œHit her,” I told Bennett.
    â€œStop!” Yoshiro shouted.
    â€œShe 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.
    â€œThey’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