Our reinforcements raced to us as fast as they could, making it there just in time to see a huge cloud of inky smoke pour itself onto the pavement. The wraiths broke away from one another quickly, each forming its own pillar of darkness to counter our pillars of fire. Except, of course, there were a lot more wraiths.

I threw a glance over my shoulder at the young Seers, expecting to find some of them paralyzed with fear. I was dead wrong: Hayley and Drew both wore savage grins, as did Annabel, Felix, and Scott. This was what they’d been preparing for; this was their moment. Seeing their faces, I felt adrenaline flood my veins. Without another thought, I released Joshua’s hand and dove for the nearest wraith.

With a menacing shriek, the wraith dove for me as well. But the moment it collided with my hands, the black thing hissed and writhed away from me. Instead of counting that a victory, as I had in the past, I clawed for purchase and—unexpectedly—found it. Although the creature looked like some vile mix of liquid and vapor, it actually had substance. And an arm, judging by the limb I now grabbed.

“They’re solid!” I yelled to my companions, gripping the wraith harder and pulling it closer to my glow. As it drew nearer, it struggled more frantically and hissed so hard that disgusting gray spittle flew out from where a human mouth might be. Even worse, the portion of the shadow that I now held began to steam. The harder I clawed into it, the more the shadow billowed into the air, releasing an overpowering stench of sulfur. When the steam dissipated, the black beneath it had curled back to reveal an arm.

A human arm, reaching out desperately from the ink.

I was so stunned that I accidentally loosened my grip, and the wraith skittered away. But apparently, the damage I’d done was irreparable. As I watched, the black substance began to bubble and peel away from the wraith, falling in nasty blobs to the concrete until all that remained was a bent human figure with faintly luminescent skin.

A ghost.

The figure looked up at me, and I took an involuntary step backward. If anyone had asked me ten minutes earlier what I thought that black shadow contained, my last guess would have been this middle-aged woman with a beehive hairdo and cat-eye glasses. But there she sat, huddled and frightened in her pink Jackie O suit. Aside from her ghostly shine, this woman looked like a fifties librarian. Or maybe a mom.

“Help,” she gasped, obviously struggling for breath. “Help . . . us.”

I stood there, frozen for just another heartbeat. Then I spun back to my friends and yelled, “They’re human! But you’ve got to try to burn them—it will make the shadows peel back.”

The Seers flew into action. Hayley snatched at the wraith closest to her, while Drew lunged toward two wraiths at once, pulling them both into a weird embrace. All around me, the others did the same—even Kaylen, who leaped onto a particularly large wraith and managed to wrestle it to the pavement.

Grinning triumphantly, I turned and saw Joshua fighting as well, although he somehow made the effort look more like a rescue. Like his cousins, he also held a wraith but as he did so, I heard him soothing it.

“It’s okay,” he murmured, crouching with it as it transformed into a hunched old man in faded denim overalls. “It’s going to be okay.”

For some reason, the sight of Joshua comforting that broken ghost made my eyes sting. So I rushed to the ghost that I’d felled and knelt beside her.

“Are you okay?” I whispered, tentatively brushing my fingers on the back of her hand. She startled at the touch, staring down at our hands with wide eyes.

“W-what . . . ?” she stuttered.

“I’m a ghost too,” I explained gently. “And I’m here to help you. All of you.”

“Don’t let them go,” she replied, jerking her head toward the other wraiths that had started to scatter across the bridge. “Don’t let them . . . go back there.”

I nodded, fighting another swell of tears, and shoved myself to my feet. I was ready to set another wraith free, when I caught a glimpse of something I didn’t like—something that made my stomach flip violently.

One person wasn’t fighting the wraiths, or even hiding from them. This person moved through the battle like a glassy-eyed zombie, taking methodic, inescapable steps toward the railing of the bridge. I’d seen a walk like that before; I’d made that walk.

“O’Reilly!” I screamed, racing toward him before the possessed boy could plunge himself over the edge. “O’Reilly, stop!”

Unsurprisingly, his relentless march didn’t even falter. So I did the only thing I could think of: I dove at him instead of the wraiths. As I struck his midsection and knocked him to the ground, I couldn’t help but think, So that’s why I never played contact sports.

Pain vibrated through my body, from both my blow to O’Reilly and our blow to the ground. I groaned as a wave of nausea crashed over me, but O’Reilly pushed himself up, stepping on my wounded shoulder in the process. Like some clockwork automaton, he started to use me as a ladder to climb the guardrail.

“Help,” I moaned, but my pain was so strong that my voice barely rose above a whisper. “Someone help us.”

My head lolled to one side and, although I could see a number of newly freed ghosts mingling among the Seers, I could also see that we were outnumbered. The wraiths had regrouped and were now diving at the Seers like birds of prey. Worse, Kaylen and Hayley now appeared to be possessed too, since they moved with inexorable slowness toward the guardrail.

“Stop,” I whispered, but not to my friends. “Make this stop.”

You can stop it anytime, Amelia, the demonic voice whispered back sweetly. Just make the choice.

“Okay,” I panted. “Okay, I will. I’ll join you. Just let them go—all of them.”

Swear it, the voice hissed, suddenly vicious. Swear it, or they’ll possess him next.

Joshua—the demons would take Joshua. So it really was time for me to do what I’d feared I would have to, the night I watched Ruth Mayhew die.

“I swear,” I whispered, feeling weak as a single tear rolled down my cheek. “I swear I’ll turn myself over to you, right now, if you’ll let everyone on this bridge go. Including the wraiths we freed.”

For a long, brutal minute, the demon didn’t respond. Then, in that booming volume that the darkness used for its most serious pronouncements, the voice replied, It is agreed.

Suddenly, O’Reilly’s foot slipped from my shoulder. He crumpled beside me, as Kaylen and Hayley slumped unconscious to the ground. Although the newly freed ghosts remained, cowering uselessly on the bridge, the surviving wraiths vanished like the puffs of smoke they resembled. All the living people who hadn’t been possessed whirled around frantically, clearly unsure of what had just happened.

“Did we . . . win?” Joshua asked hesitantly. But when his gaze fell on me, a look of sheer panic crossed his face. He bolted toward me, practically sliding across the road like the star baseball player he was. I was so weak, both physically and spiritually, that I let him pull me gently to my feet. Just before he folded me into his arms, I caught Jillian’s eye and gave her the slowest, most unwilling nod of my existence. The nod signaled that she should now enact her part in my plan.

Joshua didn’t see her move furtively toward us; all he could see was me. Whispering my name feverishly, he sought my lips and then gave me a desperate, frightened kiss. I stiffened, not wanting this to be the last time our lips touched.

But knowing that it was, I relented, kissing him with more passion, more love, than I ever had. I wanted to do this forever: to hold him close, to breath him in as if he were mine for all eternity.