As she landed on the floor near Harry, she almost didn’t want to let her feet touch down. The feeling of unrestricted movement was incredible.

  So, with a chuckle, she didn’t.

  She zoomed off again and floated upside down near one of the bookshelves.

  Harry pursed his lips. He didn’t look impressed. “Serious, this is serious,” he shook a finger at her. “No having fun. Now get to work. I’ve already pulled out some books. You read the entries on embodiment and, Ebony, for the love of God, try to understand it. It is not possession. If you don’t understand exactly why it is different, I fear you will have no hope of fighting that demon.”

  Though she really didn’t want to touch down, Ebony let Harry’s words and tone move her. Scrunching her lips, she did as he suggested and grabbed up one of the books by his feet.

  Somehow she could interact with it. Not just let her hand rest on it until she decided it was solid enough to force her touch back, but she could heft it and turn the pages easily. Frowning, she looked up at Harry. “How can I—”

  “Because it’s me,” he answered off-hand. “Unlike everything else out there. I can touch you.” He demonstrated by whacking her on the back again. “I possess it. Therefore, it is mine.”

  Ebony raised an eyebrow at his over-the-top display and got back to reading.

  Carefully she examined the entry on embodiment. She could appreciate Harry’s point; she needed to understand exactly what it was if she wanted to fight the demon. Embodying her was the whole point of this mess. If she could figure out some way to stop it, she could break through this contract easily.

  The problem was the entry spoke of nothing Harry had not already mentioned. Embodiment was not possession; it occurred between two creatures of nearly equal power.

  Before Ebony continued, she scoffed at that point. She knew for a fact she was not nearly as powerful as the demon. That creature was immense and unimaginably powerful.

  Still, she forced herself to read on.

  Embodiment apparently happened when one powerful creature shared the same goal as another. Unlike possession, which happened all the time, embodiment only occurred at the exact point when the embodied agreed on something. Harry didn’t possess the foundations and books and blinds only when they agreed it was a good time to open the shop; they had no choice in the matter.

  Ebony screwed up her nose and tried to absorb the words. She shouldn’t be having this much trouble understanding it. Then she realized, in a surge of frustration, she knew why she was having so much trouble.

  She didn’t want to believe it.

  But she had to.

  “Ebony, stop munching at your lips and finish reading. We don’t have much time. Just a couple of minutes for this, then we need to track down some possessors.”

  When this was all over, Ebony was going to have a long chat with Harry about pushing her.

  To be honest, there was no need to waste her time reading up about embodiment; no matter how much she pored over the page, she didn’t understand it.

  With a rolling sigh, she snapped the book closed. “Fine then, let’s get it over with and go now. Now, where exactly do the possessors hang out? The ghosts were easy; you don’t even need to be magical to understand they hang around the dead. What about the possessors?” She stared at Harry pointedly.

  “Wherever they want,” he answered contemptuously. “You need to understand something about the possessors – a fact you should already know as a witch – we don’t live by your rules. We don’t live by anyone’s rules. We do exactly what we want. Possessing something is all about control.” Harry clenched his fist, and as he did, every blind rattled, opened, then closed.

  The slices of the dying light of dusk it sent through the room held Ebony’s attention.

  “If an entity uses its will to overcome another, to root out every last scrap of control that thing has, then it’s not going to care about rules or guidelines. The possessors don’t hang out in the same place, easy to identify and target. Possession is exactly about doing what you want. So we are everywhere; that is our place.” Harry’s voice really rattled on the word place.

  As he spoke, his display of power rolled through the room.

  Ebony watched it carefully.

  She knew her bookstore, and in the past few months, she’d only learned more about him. He was an enigma. Harry was not just one thing. Strong, yes, responsible, sometimes, rude, usually, trustworthy, definitely. He couldn’t be fit in a single box; he fought against every attempt to categorize him.

  Now she was seeing another side to him; he loved what he was. He truly reveled in the power it took him to possess the foundations of the building and everything within.

  While the building probably didn’t mind, as brick and stone and books didn’t mind anything in general, Harry’s brand of possession was only one kind.

  When one creature possessed another, it was different. Two wills fighting against one another, but one losing the struggle. It was about winning, dominating.

  That was the dark side of it. That was what made possession bad and the possessors dark creatures.

  Harry’s admission that she couldn’t just go to some specific place to find more possessors was not a welcome one; she didn’t fancy trawling the streets for them. That would take too long. She wanted to find a group, so she maximized her chances of at least one of them knowing something about the demon.

  “So what do we do? Just hang around and wait for a possessor to knock on the door and pop in for a chat?” She crossed her arms and harrumphed.

  “No.” Harry’s voice was indignant, and if Ebony had crossed her arms, it was nothing to the display Harry put on: the floorboards beneath him arched up and crossed around his middle, the whole house joining in on the act.

  Not because it chose to, because he owned it.

  Ebony swallowed. Possession was dark stuff. Not so much Harry’s brand, but everything else was nasty. It was about making something your perfect slave. Using their own body to fulfill your every wish.

  She shuddered, pulling away from her own dark thoughts with a blink.

  “Oh, you’re going to need more fight than that; if you can’t face a possessor, good luck with the unknown.”

  With a creak, Harry’s floorboards nestled back down. Then he stomped toward her. “Let’s go then.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know, an alley maybe. A—” Harry stopped. Then he chucked his head back and chuckled. “Oh, I know where to find some possessors.” He clicked his fingers.

  “You aren’t talking about Rick?”

  “Of course not. I’ve already explained to you that won’t work; I really don’t think your demon is going to volunteer its own name. No, I’m talking about the bay and the ocean just beyond. Just over that niggling little reef that has claimed so many ships over the years.”

  Ebony’s brow crumpled.

  “Don’t look so confused; keep up. So many ships have sunk at the mouth of Vale Bay, and not all of them have been sailed by human captains.” Harry took a rattling sniff. “Vale, being an important hub of magic, has always required a steady stream of magical goods and traffic. Though on the outside indistinguishable from an ordinary ship or boat, these ones were always special.”

  He was lecturing again. His head was tipped back, a superior look on his face, his shoulders wiggling.

  “Harry, get to the point. Why will there be so many possessors in the Bay?”

  “I was getting to that point. Basically, it takes a sheer act of will to possess something or someone. Sea captains tend to be willful old fools. The concentration and determination, the desire to see their ship to safety – that builds the character, Ebony. It also builds control and the desire for it.” His voice darkened.

  Ebony’s shoulders shifted uncomfortably, her back chilling at his voice.

  “That’s what you need for possession – a passing familiarity with magic and one epic will hell-bent on control. So, you see, the Bay is bloody full of them.”

  Harry made a jump, and it left Ebony blinking. “Sorry?”

  “Oh, really?” He rolled his head back. “Can you be this clueless? Keep up, little witch; magical captains are prime candidates for becoming possessors. Whether it is their bloody ship or their crew, their desire to see their vessel to shore safely tends to concentrate until that control leaks out into the very boards, sails, and people.”

  Ebony reeled back a little.

  It was a dark picture.

  One she could understand, though it was uncomfortable. The captains would want to see their ship reach shore at any costs, and that will would grow and grow until their desire for control over the wind and rain and the sails and prow leached right into it.

  She’d never heard of sea captains possessing ships and crews before, but now Harry explained the process to her, she could understand it.

  Blinking slowly and fixing her fingers over her cheeks as her expression grew slack, Ebony nodded. Then she quickly shook her head. “Hold on, how do we find these captains?”

  “They’re with their ships.” Harry looked at her as if she were stupid.

  “You mean they sank? But how—”

  “Oh, it’s obvious. In the last moments of a sinking ship, a captain’s will for control over the elements and situation peak, and that’s when possession is most likely to occur. So as the broken boat sinks to the bottom of the reef, the man’s will takes control of every centimeter, and the bodies of his men too. We just happen to be so lucky that Vale Bay is dotted with such ships.”

  Ebony’s lips sprung open. “Sorry, I didn’t know this? We have a hoard of possessed ships in the Bay?”

  Harry shrugged his shoulders. “You don’t know everything that goes on around here, Ebony Bell. Considering the possessor captains always stay with their ships, who cares? They aren’t doing anyone any harm.”

  Ebony stopped herself from scolding Harry. They were obviously doing harm; if the captains had possessed their own crew, then they would have stopped their souls from leaving and traveling to the afterlife.

  Forever.

  The men of those vessels would be trapped under the waves enwrapped by the will of their captain. Never capable of escaping their bodies or the waves above.

  “Anyhow, time to head off.” Harry rubbed his hands and gestured with his head to the window. Not the door, mind you, the window on the second floor.

  Ebony was going to have to get used to the fact that windows and doors and buildings and streets didn’t really mean what they used to. She could walk or sail or fly or fall. They couldn’t stop her.

  “How do we—” she tried.

  “You are a ghost,” Harry noted with frustration as he pushed himself out of the closed window and wafted down to the street below.

  She hesitated, a tingle of fear rushing through her. Then Ebony got over it and followed.

  “The waves can’t drown you anymore,” Harry continued, hardly pausing as he leaped up into the air and started to zoom into the sky and then toward the docks and Bay beyond.

  “Hey, wait for me,” she pleaded as she still stood on the street.

  He didn’t. So Ebony had to force herself yet again to forget what she was.

  She took flight. Though it was shaky, and she found herself losing altitude a couple of times and dipping down through the buildings and even the street, she flew. Like a ghost. With nothing to get in her way.

  She made it to the Bay, and when she did, once again, the elated feeling of freedom grabbed hold of her.

  She could have twirled and danced on the spot, meters above the waves.

  Harry, huffing her way, pointed down through the blue waters and then plunged through.

  It was still her Vale; it was still the same river leading to the same ocean.

  But she was not the same.

  She was starting to appreciate that. Though it would take her the rest of her days to understand why.

  Ebony plunged into the ocean without pause for breath.

  13

  It was harrowing to begin with; the sight of the ocean waves rushing past her face spiked her panic.

  She tried to hold her breath, even reverse direction.

  Harry reached up, clutched her arm, and weighed her down.

  In a way, it was exactly what had happened in the graveyard; the prospect of being pulled beneath filled her with fear.

  This time it was easier to get over.

  As the waves and water pushed around her, Ebony let go of her trapped breath. As she did, her skin tingled with a cold rush, the fear preparing her for inevitable drowning.

  It didn’t come.

  She sucked in a breath.

  She breathed in invisible air.

  Not water. She didn’t choke.

  She continued on.

  Then the two of them sank, lower and lower, the light from above flickering out.

  The blue of the ocean changed from a sparkling, inviting hue, to a dark murkiness.

  Though she could breathe and any latent belief she would drown was disappearing, that didn’t make it comfortable.

  The sensation of just letting herself be pulled further and further below, so far away from the sky and air and land above, was deeply distressing.

  It went against her will to live.

  Blinking, holding onto Harry now, even though she knew he was the one dragging her down, Ebony tried to get a handle on herself.

  You can do this, she thought desperately. You can face it.

  You can’t be killed, and you have to push on.

  She kept concentrating on her thoughts until her determination and belief in them grew.

  That would be when they finally struck the ocean floor. Great plumes of dust didn’t erupt from their move; the sand beneath them was not disrupted by their weight and force.

  Ebony marveled at it briefly, before looking up.

  The ocean was all around her, like a shadow enshrouding her form. As she could breathe through it, and as the cold press of the water was dampened, it felt surreal. It felt like a dream.

  Yet she could not deny the reality.

  She saw a school of fish darting by high above, the light filtering past their fast-moving bodies.

  Then she saw the rocks and mounds of seaweed swaying in the current.

  The fish, the crabs, the sharks, the life.

  Though the water was dark and murky, it didn’t matter; she could see all the colors as if she had a torch pressed right up before them – a perk of being a ghost, or perhaps a consequence of no longer being distracted by the facts of life and a body.

  She didn’t have time to marvel, though. Harry tugged at her arm and pointed forward. At first, he had his cheeks puffed wide as he held onto a breath. Then he stopped, looked to the side sharply in embarrassment, and let out a laugh. The sound of it was muffled and came out all wobbly, but she could still hear it.

  “They are just over this rise,” he said.

  She followed. The rise in the seabed was enormous, and Ebony started to appreciate just how massive the ocean was, or rather this small chunk of it.

  Then they breached the hill.

  Her expression slackened, her lips parting slightly.

  She’d never seen anything like this.

  With the dancing light of the surface high above hardly penetrating down but changing the color of the water as it did, Ebony stared.

  There were shipwrecks. Lots of them.

  They were not ordinary in any way.

  They were very clearly magical.

  They glowed blue and white and brown and gold all at once. Light erupted over the broken prows and masts, escaping into the current with zaps and sparks.

  There were also the men – the bodies of the sailors, some in torn trousers and shirts, large cuts in their arms and legs. Some were dressed perfectly, their appearances unaffected.

  They worked on the ships. Shifting the wood, protecting the holes in the side from sharks and fish and the violent press of the current.

  “What a sight to behold.” Harry’s voice didn’t carry beyond her. “What determination. The ship is lost and has been lost for hundreds of years, but the captain won’t accept that.” He shook his head.

  Ebony shifted her wide-eyed stare to Harry. The captain wouldn’t let his crew or ship rest, even though all was lost?

  It was a harrowing thought. It let her understand what she was about to face.

  “Right, no time to dally. Let’s hop in.” Harry waved her forward as he jumped up from the ocean and began to travel toward the ships like a bullet, not moving his arms or legs or making any indication that he was swimming at all.

  Ebony hesitated before she followed.

  As they both shot toward the ships, Ebony watched the sailors stop, stiffen, and run.

  Not away from them, but along their broken ships. They looked as though they were getting ready to defend.

  And defend they would.

  Before Harry or Ebony could reach the first ship, a cannonball sailed their way.

  Ebony spluttered, shifting to the side just in time. “Oh my god!” she squeaked.

  “God’s not going to help you; you’re a bloody ghost,” Harry quipped as he too sailed to the side to avoid another cannonball.

  “Why are they shooting at us?” she screamed.

  “Because they think we’re going to attack them.” Harry’s tone was matter-of-fact.

  “What do we do?” she squeaked high as a cannonball brushed close enough to her face that she could smell the ghostly gun powder.

  “Push on.” Harry shot forward, dodging past the volleys from each of the ships.

  Ebony sure as hell didn’t want to push on. She wanted to turn around and get away from the possessed ships with their possessed crew and possessed cannonballs.

  Then she thought of Nate. Just the image in her mind was enough to slow her on the spot.

  That would be when a cannonball caught her in the middle.

  Despite its speed and force, it didn’t rip a hole through her middle. It did send her spiraling backward, tumbling through the water over and over again.

  She eventually fell against the sand and caught her attention before she could slip beneath it.

  Her breath had been punched from her chest, that was all. She was surprised, frightfully so. She wasn’t dead, and she wasn’t injured. Her skirt wasn’t even marked, and there wasn’t a blemish on her perfectly white blouse.

 

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