Free The Reckoning by Kelley Armstrong Page A

interjected. “Raising the dead must have some use.”
    Armies of the dead , I thought, and tried not to remember the old pictures I’d seen, crazy necromancers raising undead hordes.
    “All right,” Margaret said. “You girls are worried because you don’t know what’s been done to you. But the only way to overcome that fear is to understand the extent of your powers and learn control. I’m not asking you to give it everything you have, Chloe. Just a little more.”
    I did, and caught the first shimmer of an appearing spirit.
    “Wonderful. Now, just a little more. Pace yourself. That’s it. Slowly, but firmly.”
    That inner alarm clanged louder now.
    “No more,” I said. “It doesn’t feel right.”
    “But you’re making progress.”
    “Maybe, but I’m not comfortable with going further.”
    “If she doesn’t want to—” Tori began.
    “Victoria?” Margaret held out the keys. “Please go sit in the car.”
    Tori stood. “Come on, Chloe.”
    I got to my feet. Margaret’s fingers wrapped around my leg. “You can’t walk away and leave a spirit like this. Look at him.”
    The air shimmered. An arm poked through. A face began to take form, then faded before I could make out any features.
    “He’s caught between limbo and the world of the living,” Margaret said. “You need to finish pulling him through.”
    “Why don’t you ?” Tori said.
    “Because this is Chloe’s lesson.”
    Tori started to argue again, but I silenced her with a shake of my head. Margaret was right. I had to learn to fix this problem. I wouldn’t be responsible for trapping a ghost between dimensions.
    “I’ll push him back,” I said.
    “Banish? That doesn’t work on trapped spirits.”
    I shook my head. “I mean push him. Like summoning,only in reverse. I’ve done it before.”
    The look she gave me reminded me of when I was seven and I’d proudly informed our housekeeper that I’d donated half my clothing to a charity drive at school. It had seemed perfectly sensible to me—I didn’t need so much stuff—but she’d stared at me like Margaret was now, with a mix of horror and disbelief.
    “You never, ever push a ghost back, Chloe. I’ve heard it’s possible, but—” She swallowed, like she was at a loss for words.
    “I think it’s a bad thing,” Tori whispered.
    “It’s a terrible, cruel thing. You have no idea where you’re pushing them. They could be lost in some—some…” She shook her head. “I don’t mean to alarm you, but you can never take that risk again. Do you understand?”
    I nodded. “So I keep tugging this one…”
    “That’s right.”
    I knelt and kept at it until sweat trickled into my eyes. I went past the mental alarms and finally the ghost began to materialize.
    “That’s it, Chloe. You’re almost there. Give him one last—”
    Tori yelped. My eyes flew open. She was staring at a nearby oak tree, her eyes wide. Something was moving under the tree—a shapeless mat of blackish gray fur stretched over bone.
    “Send it back,” Tori whispered. “Quick.”
    “Ignore that and finish summoning this spirit,” Margaret said.
    I turned on her in disbelief.
    “Are you nuts?” Tori said. “Can you see—?”
    “Yes, I can,” Margaret’s voice was eerily calm. “Apparently I was mistaken about the extent of Chloe’s powers.”
    “You think?” Tori said.
    I stared at Margaret. Her face was expressionless. In shock? She had to be. While she didn’t seem like the type to freak out, she’d just seen me raise a dead animal—without rituals, without ingredients, without even trying. Gaping in horror like Tori would be a perfectly reasonable response. But she only watched the thing, creeping toward us, pulling its mangled body along.
    Its head lifted, as if it could sense me watching. It had no eyes, though, no snout, no ears, just a skull covered in bits of tattered fur and skin. Its head bobbed and wobbled, like it was trying to see who had called it