“Take over for a minute,” I said to Oberon.
His glee tickled my throat, shortly before I felt crushed under the weight of a pickup truck. That was how intense it was when a ghost took control of my body. It wore me out.
“Hey, ladies.” Oberon chuckled, and my lips stretched into a sly grin. I could only imagine what Astrid and Garrett were thinking in that moment. I couldn’t hear or see them in the veil, but I had lost my ability to rein in my voice, as well as control over my body.
“Hi, handsome,” the brunette replied with a seductive wink.
“Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes!” the redhead exclaimed, clapping with excitement.
I was having a hard time not only consciously supporting the full weight of Oberon’s spirit, but also struggling not to roll my eyes at them.
“Glad to know I’m making two gorgeous creatures such as yourselves happy,” Oberon said, turning his charm up to eleven. “How about you tell me what you saw last night? My spirit-talking friend and I would really appreciate it.”
“Oh, so that’s why you’re in her! I never tried possessing someone before!” the brunette murmured.
Oberon sensed my alarm and chuckled nervously. “Well, don’t, toots. It’s not for amateurs. This is a powerful conduit I’m riding, not your run-of-the-mill type of human. Now, come on, tell me what you saw. Louella’s life is at stake.”
“Ugh. That dramatic little brat,” the redhead groaned. “She got so lucky to get her scrawny ass adopted into the Devereaux family, and she still threw fits. ‘I wanna go there! I wanna do that! Why won’t you let me see my old friends?’ Boo-friggin’-hoo! Girl didn’t know how good she had it until last night!”
“Wait, she was here?” Oberon replied.
They both nodded. “She was at the gates,” the brunette said. “The other ghosts… you know, the maids and whatever… they were inside with the Devereauxes. Front seats to the gruesome murder!” she added with sinister laughter.
“But Louella was out here. She’s a weird one, you know? She can see through walls. She can hear from miles away,” the redhead added. “Something is wrong with her.”
“Anyway, we think Louella was coming back home, when she heard her parents getting slaughtered in there,” the brunette said, nodding at the house, then pointing at the gate. “She stood there for a minute or two, then ran off crying.”
I understood then that Louella had some special abilities, indeed. Some I’d never heard of before—not without the use of a spell, anyway. Maybe she’d learned magic from somewhere. We couldn’t know for sure until we found her.
“Anything else, ladies?” Oberon asked, detecting my raw nerves as they stretched to new limits. He knew how much his full presence weighed on me.
“The killers came out, cackling like devils,” the redhead replied, “and walked out through the front gate. They said, and I quote, ‘Katie’s going to hang our asses out to dry if we don’t catch the little mouse,’” she added, mimicking a nasal tone.
“Thank you.” Oberon sighed. “Your assistance was incredible. And, might I add, you two look fantastic, given that you’re, you know… dead.”
They both fawned over him, fluttering their eyelashes and almost melting before us. I felt Oberon slip into the backseat of my consciousness. I could breathe again.
Leaving the spirit world behind, I opened my eyes to a very troubled Astrid and a highly amused Garrett. Astrid put her phone out, its screen dark, long enough for her to spot Oberon’s reflection in the glass. She gasped, then took several steps back.
“It’s okay,” I said, trying to keep her from freaking out. She’d seen me possessed before. “I’ve got him under control. He’s helping me.”
“You let a ghost ride you? Seriously?” Garrett chuckled. “I heard about the last time you were taken over, Tatyana. You still haven’t learned your lesson?”
“I told you, I’ve got him under control!” I insisted. “I have full command over my body at all times!”
That was a white lie, of course. Only minutes earlier, Oberon had completely taken over with the first group of spirits before I snapped at him. But I didn’t need to admit that. Oberon had been incredibly helpful just now. I had to give him credit.
“Tatyana, seriously, this is messed up,” Astrid said. “You know you’re not fully developed, so you can’t withstand a possession without the spirit eventually taking over.”
“Astrid, don’t worry about it. I mean it. I’m fine. We agreed to work together, Oberon and me. And he definitely helped!” I replied. “I just found out that Louella left the house early yesterday morning after an argument with the parents. Something happened during the day. Late last night, at around three or four, the Ryders came in.”
Now I had their full attention, the issue of Oberon and me slipping somewhere in the background. I gave them all the details I’d gathered from the spirits, including the last time they’d seen Louella, specifically during her parents’ murder.
Garrett and Astrid were silent for a while.
“The description you have of the Ryders,” Astrid murmured, flipping through her Smartie tablet files. “I’ve heard it before. Yup, here it is. They’re Shapeshifters, all right, just like Wade said. And they’re recycling identities. This wasn’t the first time they used these personas.”
“It hurts less to recycle identities,” Garrett said.
“One thing I could never wrap my head around is how do they get all the physical details right? They can’t possibly do it with just a photo,” I chimed in, further steering the conversation away from Oberon.
Garrett’s shoulders dropped. “They need to touch the person they’re copying. Or something that carries their DNA, like a hair or a nail or something.”
“Wow, that’s creepy,” Astrid replied, then frowned at him. “Wait, how’d you know that? It’s not in any of the manuals. It’s not common knowledge, for sure.”
“It isn’t,” I muttered, eyeing him suspiciously. “I’ve never heard of that before. As a matter of fact, from what I remember, non-Shapeshifter magicals are unable to fully explain the transformation process.”
“It’s because we keep it to ourselves. Usually, anyway. I feel like I can trust you two,” Garrett said.
“Holy crap!” Astrid gasped. “You’re a Shapeshifter!”
“And you’re a human, and Tatyana here has a ghost riding her,” Garrett fired back, irritated. “Nobody’s perfect!”
“Does anyone in the coven know?” I asked, slightly on edge.
“Alton, Wade, and Adley. That’s it. Well, and now you two. I’d appreciate it if we kept it at that. The stigma is still real and present,” he said. “I’m not comfortable with more people knowing about this, but I am aware that my ability can give you some insight into how the Ryders operate. And that’s what matters right now.”
Astrid stood in silence, processing the discovery. Then she looked at me. “You need to tell Wade about what you’re doing with the ghost. Wait, whose ghost is in you?”
“Oberon Marx,” I said.
“Oh. He helped you with Dylan, right?”
I nodded. “I’ll tell Wade, but not yet. I don’t want him expelling Oberon.”
“But—”
“You know that’s exactly what Wade will do, the moment he hears I’ve got a ghost in me!” I cut her off, my tone clipped.
“For good reason, too!” she said.
“It’s not the same, Astrid. I’m conscious, and I have a grip on things. Please. Just bear with me. We need all the help we can get. I mean, look at this mess,” I said, pointing at the Devereaux mansion. I wasn’t entirely honest, and Oberon probably had something to do with it, but he’d proven himself useful. I wasn’t ready to let go of him. “Bodies are dropping, magical kids are going poof. And Katherine Shipton might be involved. This is not a good time to play by the rules.”
“Tatyana does have a point,” Garrett said. “Special circumstances call for extreme measures. You know that. It’s why you were brought back to life three times, right? Special circumstances?”
Astrid nodded slowly. I remembered her previous, tragic deaths. As a Necromancer, Alton was able to bring her back, though each time it threw him straight into a Purge, given the intensity of the entire process. But he had to bring her back. Astrid was a human, and she’d died while helping us magicals. He had the coven authority to do that.
“I’ll put all the data we gathered from here through Smartie and send it out to Wade and the others. I’ll leave Oberon out of this for now,” she said, and I breathed a sigh of relief. “But the moment I smell something fishy, Tatyana, I’m telling Wade. Okay?”
“Okay. Thanks,” I replied, smiling.
“I’ll put all the descriptions we have of the Ryders into the system, too. We’re clearly looking for different people, impersonated by the same magicals.”
We left the Devereaux property and got back in the car. As soon as the engine roared to life, Garrett pressed the horn a couple of times, enough for the idle cops inside the mansion to snap out of their hypnotic state and resume their investigative work.
“We’ll send a cleanup crew out here today,” he said, driving off.
My heart felt heavy. I didn’t like how Oberon had been able to take the wheel earlier, but he had definitely helped us back there. I was split between letting him stay and expelling him.
Trust me, Tatyana, Oberon whispered in the back of my head. I won’t cross you again. It was pure reflex back there, completely unintentional. You have full control, I promise.
Given our circumstances, I didn’t have much of a choice. There was still so much we didn’t know, and considering what we’d seen from the Ryders so far, we had to be ready for the worst.