"There you are girly. I've been looking for you." I recognized a familiar spirit's voice close by... Wanda?

Questions shot rapid fire through my mind—How is she here? Does she have some sort of tie to me because of the possession ritual? I didn't have much time to speculate. I felt Wanda's presence edging closer.

"You thought you could get away from me, but I found you," Wanda cackled. "I knew I would if I kept looking hard enough. I've always been a wily one, alive or dead. Anything I wanted bad enough, I would and could get. And, girly, I want to live again!"

She can't have me... "No."

"Now, don't be difficult. No one's here to help you this time. It's just you and me, girly. And that's the way it should be."

"Leave me alone!" my voice commanded. My words shook through me, and I felt myself rise up. I wouldn't stay in the shadows. I refused to be forced into that dark place again.

As quick as I could blink, I felt Wanda's presence surrounding me, tightening like a vise around my mind. I fought against her insidious will. She seemed to be everywhere, grasping with clinging hands, but I held my ground. We grappled silently for a few moments, and I felt myself weakening, being forced back. Then, like a candle lit in a dark room, I felt a new strength rise to my call. Desperate, I grasped at the power and pushed Wanda back with a force of will that I didn't know I possessed. I knew without thinking that it was a strength I'd never had until this moment. I tried to focus on it, let my mind swim in it, use it to force her away once and for all.

She wasn't deterred. "You owe me a new body, deary." I felt a mental pressure as Wanda renewed her efforts, driving at me with the desperation of a drowning woman who, in her panic, was unintentionally dragging down the lifeguard.

I blocked out every other sensation and turned inward, gathering my new strength to me. With a grunt of effort, I cut away the bonds Wanda tried to place on me. They snapped easily, as if severed by a blade. She howled in frustration and fled into the darkness.

Wanda's presence shrank back, but the great expanse of inky blackness was still spread before me, its depths roiling like smoke. This time I heard a growl, and my skin broke out into a cold sweat. There's something else out there. I felt it slowly coming my way.

I steeled myself for another fight and waited for words to form or a voice to say something to me, but there were no human sounds that I could distinguish. The noises were unearthly—snarls and snaps, as if from dogs or wolves. And then an awful sound. A dragging, slinking, thumping. I felt myself shiver in fearful anticipation. My instincts were screaming at me to back up and flee, but there was nowhere to go.

The otherworldly thing was coming closer. I felt certain it came out of the very depths of hell. I shook violently when its presence rushed toward me, unable to follow my instincts and flee. The abyss seemed to become even darker, and though I couldn't see it, I knew it loomed over me.

The darkness slid inside me when it made contact. "No, leave me alone!" I protested, panicking, but it was too late. I felt the blackness ooze into my veins and move into my blood. I knew without a doubt I had felt this thing's dark touch before—it had reached out for me during the second ritual. Now its anger and hunger spread through me, and I felt its darkness settle into my bones. When it spoke, the sound came from inside me.

"Revenge can be yours, but we will demand a price." The words vibrated through me like the echo of corruption.

"What price?" I called out. "What do you mean?" I asked, but immediately knew that the answer didn't matter. I'm willing to pay whatever price to avenge my family's death. I'll do whatever needs to be done to see the men who killed my family brought to justice.

"So be it," called out the voice, and then it withdrew, laughing wickedly.

"No!" I cried out in horror. "I didn't agree to anything!" But in my heart, I knew it was a lie.

I screamed, "No! No!" As my words echoed, flames rose around me, and I was on fire again. The flames inched higher until they consumed me. Red heat blazed up against the blackness.

Then I opened my eyes.

I was on my feet, but barely. Luke's arms supported me, holding me tight.

"Are you alright?"

I couldn't speak. I was so relieved to be away from the darkness that I just sobbed.

We stood there together for a long time.

I took a deep breath and pulled away from him. I looked over at the bed. "Anna?" I whispered.

"She moved on. You helped her move on," Luke said quietly.

I walked over on shaky legs and looked down at Anna's body. Her eyes were wide open. Sky blue, filled with emptiness. She exhibited no signs of life.

I killed her.

I waited for dread to fill me. I waited to feel the pain of killing someone seep into my soul. But I looked down at Anna's lifeless body and felt nothing. I was completely numb. I should've felt...what? Sadness at the girl's passing? Happiness that I'd helped her pass on to a better place? Anger at the injustice of her death?

Instead, I felt absolutely nothing, and that frightened me even more than the darkness of oblivion.

I stood silent in the corner watching Luke pack away everything back into the duffel bags. I'd survived the three terrifying rituals. They were finally over. Am I relieved? I wasn't sure what I felt. Before I could delve too deep into my current emotional—or was it more accurate to say emotionless—state, Luke slung the straps of the bags over his shoulder and motioned for me to follow as he walked out of the room.

Anna's family greeted us in the hallway. Her mother's eyes were full of tears. "Is it—is she—"

"She's passed on to the other side." Luke's voice was full of compassion.

The family, their faces stricken with grief, made their way into the room and left us on our own in the hallway. We stood for a moment before I realized we weren't entirely alone.

A group of people mingled at the other end of the hallway. In the midst of the group was the woman who'd confronted us earlier. Just as I recognized her, she spotted us and pointed in our direction. I couldn't hear what she was saying, but I could read the expressions on the faces around her.

Whatever was about to happen was not going to be pleasant.

"It might be a good idea if we found another way out. I don't like the look of that crowd," Luke said, reaching out and taking my hand.

The crowd, which was starting to look more like a mob, began to move in our direction. Luke pulled me with him, and we hightailed it down the hallway in the opposite direction. We picked up speed as we went, and by the time we hit the flight of stairs, we were jogging. At the bottom of the stairs, we went through another set of doors and Luke halted.

"We're in the basement," Luke gestured to the left, "right next to the parking lot. Once we're out the door, we'll only be a few feet from the car."

I nodded and sucked in a lungful of air. I hadn't been prepared to run a marathon around the hospital.

Luke started down the hall. "Wait here—I'm going to check to make sure there isn't another welcome party waiting for us outside."

I sagged against the wall after he disappeared, watching, waiting for him to let me know it was safe to leave.

I didn't recognize the noise at first.

It wasn't until the buzzing sound increased a few notches that I noticed it at all. The sound was coming from a room to my left. My legs started down the hallway. My mind caught up with what I was doing, and I found myself standing in front of a set of large metal doors. Above the doors in bold, black letters was one word—morgue. Before I could truly process what was going on, I'd pushed through the doors and gone into the room.

Why had I come into the morgue? I could speak to spirits now—the last place I wanted to be was in a room full of dead bodies. I looked around, expecting a face or voice to pop out at me at any moment. The air was chilly—cold enough that I could see my breath. The space was enormous. Dozens of small metal doors with metal handles lined one wall. I was looking at the drawers where they kept the dead bodies.

What the hell am I doing here? What strange urge propelled me through those doors? I should turn around and march out, I thought, but my feet seemed glued to the floor. I twisted around and took in the rest of the room.

Against another wall was a large sink. I shuddered at the visual of what might go down that drain. Blood? Human tissue? I forced myself to look away. Shiny, black tile covered the floor, and four metal tables about waist high stood in the middle of the room. White sheets covered two of them, but they weren't lying flat against the tables' surfaces.

Something was under each sheet.

Dead bodies. Dead bodies were on the tables.

It shouldn't have been a surprise—I was in a morgue—but as I realized that bodies lay just a few feet away from me, I felt a totally irrational urge take over.

I have to see them.

I don't know why the thought crossed my mind, but once it did, I felt compelled. I took one step at a time toward the tables. I wasn't full of dread or fear. I should have been, but instead, I felt empty.

I'd seen dead bodies before—my mother had been a healer after all. In the past when confronted with the dead, I felt sadness—a heavy mourning for the loss of life. The person that passed no longer had the chance to feel the breeze on their face; they would never again hold a loved one in their arms. Death, loss, sadness, all these were things that I had been trying to come to terms with as I took on the role of a healer. All my life I'd watched my mother fight against death—do battle to save her patients' lives. And just moments earlier I had helped someone die. I'd forced Anna to the other side. I kept waiting for remorse to set in, kept waiting to feel regret, but I didn't. I just felt numb.

Well, not completely numb. An undeniable urge to see what lay under the sheets washed over me. The urge was so strong, I wondered if something was controlling me. The thought seemed to melt away as my hand reached out and grabbed a corner of the material. One hard pull, and the cloth partially fell away.

It was a man. I couldn't tell his age. Something had crushed part of his skull. On one side of his head was a gaping hole—a mess of protruding white bone and red tissue. The other half was still intact. I could make out a straight nose, a wide mouth with pleasantly shaped lips, and one good eye. The sheet lay bunched up against his stomach, but from what I could tell there were no other injuries—at least, none that I could see. His arms, his hands, and his chest seemed fine. Whatever trauma had happened to him only impacted his head.

How did you die? Was it fast? Did you have time to realize what was happening?

As the questions popped into my head, my body inched forward.

I don't know why I did it, but I couldn't seem to help myself. My hand acted almost of its own accord. My fingers brushed against cold, clammy skin. As I made contact with him, an orange light exploded around us. The light was so bright I was momentarily blinded. With it came a rush of sound and a barrage of images. I stumbled back, almost falling to the ground.

The room quieted.

I steadied myself. What the hell just happened? I looked around for any answer, then glanced at the table and shrieked, "Goddess!"

The dead man was slowly sitting up.

I blinked, trying to take in what I was seeing—my mind was reeling with panic.

This can't be happening. How is this happening?

His head slowly turned toward me—his head with its gaping wound and exposed skull—and his lips began to move. "Girly, where am I?" It was Wanda's voice. Wanda's voice was coming out of the mouth of the corpse on the table.

"What's going on?" The corpse's hand lifted and began to frantically wave around. It gasped with realization. "I made it. I'm back with the living again!"

I backed up and spun around, knocking into the other table, and falling flat against the second body. I scrambled away, but as I moved, part of the sheet came with me. My hands grazed across a cold patch of skin.

Light exploded again with another rush of images and noise.

The second body was a woman. Her head was all there, but she was missing an arm. It looked like it had been ripped off—the edges were jagged, and pieces of flesh hung down. I watched as her eyes popped open. Her mouth moved, opening wide, and she let out an otherworldly scream.

My hands flew to my ears. I backed up frantically until I fell against something solid. I screamed.

***