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I throw my arms out to catch them but they sail right past me. Physical education was never my strong suit.
Father Maxwell hobbles across the grass and retrieves the now slightly squished melons. He places them inside his demon mark. He fumbles with his box, opening it and tipping out the crosses onto the ground. He starts to stab them into the hard earth around the circumference of his circle, the way we did when we set up the wards around Grimwood and Nevermore Bookshop.
“Lead him over here!” Father Maxwell calls to Pax and Björn once he’s finished.
“Bree, I want to help,” Ambrose cries as he crawls toward me.
“Youarehelping,” I say as I drop to my knees. I find the cross in my pocket and stab it into the ground, closing the circle. Father Maxwell waves his hands over them, and the crosses light up briefly, then fade back again.
“What can I do?” Edward’s face is even paler than usual.
“You can be silent, spirit.” Father Maxwell frowns at the crosses. “We need something to entice it into the circle. It needs to taste our resurrection magic, but I’m too weak. I can’t do it.”
“You want me to pour magic into the fruit?” I stare down at the symbol. I may have been getting better at controlling my magic, but I’m too terrified to be able to do this now. I blink, but no matter how hard I squint, I can’t see the silver cords.
“Bree, it’s okay. It’s all going to be okay,” Ambrose says. “You don’t have to use your magic. I have what he needs.”
Ambrose steps into the circle.
36
Bree
“Ambrose,” my voice wavers. “Get out of that circle. Now.”
He folds his arms. “No. My veins are humming with your resurrection magic. If we need something to draw the creature into the circle, then I’m our best bet. Tell me that I’m wrong.”
I can’t.
Because he’s right.
I don’t know how I know this, but I know he’s right.
But I don’t want to lose him. Ican’t.
There has to be another way.
I grab Father Maxwell’s sleeve. “You can’t let him do this.”
“It’s too late now. They are coming.”
No, no, no.
I fling a look over his shoulder. Pax and Björn are backing across the grass, leading the demon toward our trap.
My breath stutters. Pax and Björn are a glory to behold. They dance around each other, tying up the demon as it tries to outsmart them, always staying just out of reach of its fire. Slowly, they force the hellbeast across the green, where it leaves a scorched trail in its wake.
“Ambrose, stand your ground,” Father Maxwell commands.
“I won’t move until you give the word,” he assures. He flashes his bright grin, but it wobbles a little at the edges.
Fear wells inside me. “Ambrose, you don’t have to do this.”
“I won’t let anything happen to you,” he assures me.
The demon bears down on us. It stops, its fire tail whipping across the grass, its shadow snout raised in the air, sniffing.
And then it rises up like a serpent ready to strike, and flings itself toward the circle.
