“Why would you let that happen?” Dylan asked Tatyana, his voice husky.
“I was trying to help. I needed Oberon’s strength and power,” Tatyana said, having somehow caught the mic for a second. “But he’s not letting me back in—” She paused, then returned to her creepy double voice. “Now, now! Where were we? Ah, yes. Kill you all, then go be with my beloved Katherine.”
“Tatyana?” Dylan breathed, visibly confused.
“Wait, Katherine?!” I yelled in alarm.
“I need her. I have to be with her,” Tatyana-Oberon replied. She grinned and raised a hand toward Dylan, while she kept the other focused on us.
“Katherine Shipton?!” I gasped.
She glowered at me, then smiled. “Ever since I heard she was back, I’ve been looking for a way to find her.”
As I absorbed the shock, I realized that it sort of made sense. Everything bad that happened in the coven was always somehow related to friggin’ Katherine Shipton.
“You met her,” I said, stalling. Now I needed to focus on giving Dylan a window to take her down.
“Met her?” Tatyana-Oberon laughed. “I was with her. I loved her! I still love her. Hell, my love for her is what killed me.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“That’s none of your concern,” Tatyana-Oberon replied, the grief oozing out of the hijacking spirit. The bitterness and guilt, the pain and the longing… It felt like poison, tainting my blood.”
That was Dylan’s shot, and he took it. “You’re not taking her away from me!” Dylan shouted, sprinting forward and tackling her like the pro footballer that he was. They both landed with a thud and viciously wrestled, rolling and tumbling through the grass.
Punches were thrown. Some missed, some nailed the ribs and the sides.
Tatyana-Oberon swerved around and caught Dylan in a chokehold. Now free of her insanely powerful Telekinesis, I was able to use my own. I launched a targeted pulse, hitting her right in the forehead. It threw her head back, and she loosened her hold on Dylan, who then took control of the situation.
Wade reached them just as Dylan straddled Tatyana, forcing her hands behind her back. Even with Oberon’s spirit strengthening her, she couldn’t do much from that position.
“Let me go, you son of a—”
“Tatyana!” Dylan shouted, cutting her off. “Throw him out! Come back to me, please! Throw the bastard out!”
“I’m sorry, Tatyana’s not available at the moment.” Tatyana-Oberon chortled. “Please try again la—” She stilled, her yellowish eyes wide with shock. “No… No, no, no!”
She went into a seizure, shaking uncontrollably. Dylan held her down, and Wade checked her vitals. We all gathered around, watching helplessly as Tatyana fought Oberon for control of her body.
“Come on, Tatyana, you can do it,” I whispered.
“Kick his ass, chica!” Santana snapped.
“Please, Tatyana. Please, fight him. Come back to us… To me,” Dylan breathed, tearing up as he kept a tight grip on her.
Tatyana roared from what felt like incredibly intense emotional pain. I clutched my chest, shocked by how horrible it felt for her. Wade gave me a concerned glance. I nodded reassuringly in return. I didn’t want anyone to get distracted by my Empathy. Tatyana’s wellbeing mattered the most. Even as I dropped to one knee, subdued by the pain, I held on to that conviction.
“Come on, Tatyana! Do it!” I cried out, tears streaming down my cheeks, as every muscle in my body seemed to tear from my bones.
Tatyana screamed, the veins in her temples throbbing as she delivered a final push and sucked in a breath. A wisp of white smoke puffed out of her body and dissipated. I could almost hear Oberon’s wails as he vanished into the invisible veil of the spirit world.
I pointed my Esprit hand at her, the pearl lighting up white again. I could feel her—ashamed, exhausted, and angry. “She’s back,” I said, sitting down with a heavy breath.
Dylan got off Tatyana and helped her up into a sitting position. She was covered in a sheet of sweat, panting and sobbing at the same time. Dylan put his arms around her and pressed his lips against her temple.
“It’s okay,” he whispered. “You did it. It’s okay… It’s over.”
“No, not yet,” Tatyana choked out. She reached into her boot and retrieved a small pocket knife. She flipped it open and hissed from the pain as she carved a small rune symbol into her left forearm. I was the only one shocked by what I was watching, it seemed.
“What the hell?!” I blurted.
“It’s a banishing sigil. It keeps the last spirit to have entered the body from ever coming back,” Wade explained, then took out a handkerchief—because that’s the kind of guy he was, all suited up and always carrying a monogramed handkerchief around—and handed it to Tatyana, who tied it around her bleeding forearm.
“Thanks, Wade,” she sighed, then gave us all an apologetic smile. “I’m so, so sorry.”
“Hey, it’s okay. What matters is that you’re safe now,” Santana replied. “It could’ve been a lot worse.”
“Hold on, you literally carve runes into your skin to stop the likes of Oberon from possessing you again?” I asked, still wrapping my head around that unpleasant little nugget.
Tatyana nodded, then lifted her shirt to show me five other scars on her left hip—five other runes, for five other spirits that had taken over her body and refused to let go. I’d known she had a history with rogue spirits, but I hadn’t known the details or the repercussions.
“It’s not my first rodeo,” she said. “I was stupid this time. Given what the Ryders are doing, I thought I could use someone like Oberon…”
Her voice trailed off as she passed out.
“I’m taking her to the infirmary,” Dylan said, immediately scooping her up in his arms and racing toward the building.
Santana, Raffe, and Astrid followed. They all needed some light medical attention. Judging by the scratches and bruises on my arms, I could’ve used a couple of Band-Aids too. I was already partially purple here and there from the beating I’d gotten from the evil twins—a few additional grazes were practically nothing.
I now understood why Tatyana’s ability was so dangerous. It could easily kill anyone around her, not to mention Tatyana herself. What was Oberon thinking? He’d sounded so obsessed, so desperate to get to Katherine Shipton. He didn’t care who he hurt or what he had to do. He would’ve stopped at nothing to find his way back to her.
It scared me to think of the kind of power that Katherine Shipton could have on a man, to cause him to frantically search for her, even in death.
Thirty-Two
Tatyana
My head hurt as if it had been split in half like a watermelon. My eyes peeled open, instantly squinting to filter the blast of white light. It took me a couple of seconds to figure out that I was in the infirmary.
My mouth and throat were dry. I licked my lips, then looked down. I was in bed, still in my clothes. And Dylan was sleeping next to me, half of him in a chair and the other half leaning into my bed, his head resting against my hip.
I raised my arm slowly and saw the rune I’d carved into my skin. A heaviness weighed down on my shoulders as I realized that I hadn’t dreamed any of it. At some point, Oberon had taken over my body, without me even realizing. He’d probably noticed I could sense his spiritual pressure when he got behind the wheel and figured out a way to trick me.
I didn’t even realize he’d hijacked me until I saw myself casting Telekinetic attacks against my friends out by the dragon fountain. Shame set my face on fire. I couldn’t be in here for another second. I needed to crawl into a dark space somewhere and wait the embarrassment out.
Dylan felt me stir and put his arm out, pinning me down.
“You’re not going anywhere,” he grumbled, then raised his head to look at me.
Our eyes met, and I couldn’t stop the tears from flowing. He gave me a soft smile but didn’t say anything for a while. I felt so bad, so foolish… I would’ve loved it if the earth could’ve just opened up and swallowed me whole to spare me the misery. I’d been duped by a ghost.
“Don’t feel bad about it,” Dylan said, as if reading my mind. “You did what you thought was best. Besides, this wasn’t my first ghostly adventure. Remember?”
How could I forget? Dylan had barely marked his first week in the coven when the spirit of a former criminal warlock had hijacked me and nearly killed Preceptor Redmont. Apparently, the scholar of International Magical Cultures had made some enemies down in the basement prison some time ago, after testifying against several murderous rogues—including the one who’d snuck into my body.
Sometimes, if I wasn’t careful, I couldn’t even see a spirit coming. They’d wait around, quiet and patient, until they felt a temporary weakness in my spiritual defenses. It was going to take a lot more time and practice for me to be able to keep all the spirits at bay, as well as to control them while they were riding my meatsuit.
Dylan had joined Santana, Raffe, and Wade in taking me down and helping me exorcise the malevolent spirit. He’d actually found it… fascinating. That wasn’t a word I’d heard before, when describing a Kolduny’s ability to let spirits in.
“I was so stupid,” I said. “I believed Oberon. I thought he really wanted to help. I figured all he was getting out of this was the opportunity to feel everything again inside a body. What an idiot I was.”
Dylan squeezed my hand gently. The tingling sensation of his touch spread through my whole arm, then traveled all the way to my heart, where it settled and emitted a series of heatwaves. I definitely had feelings for Dylan, and I didn’t know what to do with them. I was a liability to anyone who got too close to me, as evidenced by the Oberon incident. I’d hurt my friends. I would’ve hurt Dylan, too, if I hadn’t found the strength to return to the surface.