Twelve

"Jordan!" I shook him hoping he'd wake up but there was no reaction. I looked up to meet Emilia's eyes that were wide with shock as her hand covered her mouth. "What happened?"

"I tried to tell you," Edith said. She was still where she had been and as I glanced at Roger, I knew he could see her too.

"What the fuck, Edith! What happened to Jordan?" I screamed at her from where I still sat clutching Jordan to me. "You know I can destroy you. If you don't start talking, I swear I'll tear your spirit apart." The calm that came over me should have scared me, but it didn't, it put me in touch with the power I tried to deny, and that power cried out for me to take action against her.

"He lives. They could not wait for him to choose to be the seer. Without him the wraith will destroy this world."

"Take me," Roger pleaded. "I never wanted this for him. He's a good man, why would they take him?"

"It was as predicted. A seer will rise to defend against the wraith with a necromancer. The two of you are entwined in many ways, one of them is by the powers you are both capable of. But neither of you are fully willing to embrace it, so the fates have decided for you." Edith hadn't taken her eyes off Jordan, and I wondered if she expected him to wake up. But still he hadn't moved.

"We need to take him to the hospital," I said to Roger and Emilia, ignoring Edith and what she'd just said.

"It won't matter," Roger said, his voice low as he stepped closer to Jordan. "There's nothing that can help him now. He'll need to survive the forest and return to us."

Buddy lay his head on Jordan's leg, and I realized we were all circled around him. He was surrounded by love, and I hoped he could feel it. "What do we do?" I whispered.

"We wait. He's smart and he won't allow anything to happen to him there," Emilia said, and she smoothed back the hair from his forehead. "Oh, my boy. Be strong," she whispered.

I looked up to Edith who still stood watching us. "You will go and protect him," I said. "If you won't do it on your own, I can force you. I won't allow him to be taken from me this way." The rage in me built and I could feel a darkness start to seep into my words that I knew could overtake me the moment I was out of control. I fought the urge to destroy this spirit and waited for her to reply.

"Necromancer, I will do as you ask, but there is more I need to tell you."

"What could possibly be more important than protecting the man I love while his spirit is outside his body?" I ground out and waited again for her to answer.

"Be prepared for what's about to come. There is far more happening than you know. The empath must come to his power or all will be lost, and you need to embrace all parts of your necromancer side or there will be no saving you."

"Who the fuck are you? How do you know anything about either of us?" I pulled Jordan closer to me and hoped for my rage to be tempered by my control.

"You do not know me, but you know my powers. You see, necromancer, I was once a seer, so I know exactly what can happen to the empath if he's unwilling to take the power that's offered." She glanced at Roger who looked away. "My family is the same as yours. We are connected to the veil in ways not many understand or even know about. I will go and help the empath, but I cannot give him any information. He needs to decide for himself." With that she faded and disappeared.

Emilia stood but still held Jordan's hand. "Let's move him to the couch. At least he can be comfortable there," she said, and I wondered if it mattered if his body was comfortable when his spirit was absent. But I didn't ask, I just carried him with help from Roger, over to the couch.

He looked so at peace, and I hoped he was safe wherever he was. I also made a promise to myself that whoever or whatever had caused Jordan to slip into the space between our world and the veil would pay dearly.

"Who was that spirit?" Roger finally asked once we had Jordan settled. I refused to move away from him and held his hand.

"So you could see her," I confirmed, needing to know what I thought happened, really had.

"Yes, but I don't know her or why I'd be able to see her," Roger said.

"I could see her too. I think she might be one of the old ones," Emilia said, and threw a blanket over Jordan. "I'm tired of keeping secrets that do nothing but harm those closest to us. Do you know how the wraith came into being?"

"No. Jordan and I tried to find out more about it but had no luck. We know it's an evil spirit, and its main purpose is to collect souls and use them. We couldn't find anything about destroying it permanently or how it came to be here."

"I know Jordan has wanted to tell you more about our family and the abilities we all have or those we could have. But I think it's important to know why we have them to begin with. It's not random, and while you are chosen by fate, in our family, genetics are more to blame. This is both a curse and a blessing to those that share our blood. Whether by marriage or direct line. The journal we showed you earlier is much older than we led you to believe, it has been added to for centuries. Each generation has one who updates it and one who will be either an empath or a seer. Roger is not the first to deny the role of seer but because he denied it, he is the scribe of this generation." Roger didn't look at me, just stayed as close as he could to Jordan who had yet to move other than to breathe.

"Who are the old ones?" I asked, knowing I needed the information but hating that I didn't already know.

"The old ones were our original ancestors, and some of the first people to experience magic. They were a small group that experimented with elemental magic, and the powers they found in nature. But they were inexperienced and in learning more about their magic, the wraith was pulled through from the other side of the veil. At first, they did not understand what had happened, but as you said, the wraith collects souls and forces them to do its bidding until it's strong enough to fully form in this world. It's a horrible entity who enjoys nothing more than trapping spirits and using them. It will stop at nothing to exist in this world."

Her words were a warning, and even though we'd been warned several times about the wraith, it was still a shock. For a moment hopelessness flooded my senses and I struggled to find anything good, but then I remembered something. "There is one man in the ghost hunters' group that can call spirits to him. He calls it a beacon. Apparently, the spirits can see this beacon and are drawn to it no matter where they are. The wraith tried to use his ability to draw more spirits for it to use, but instead they were able to turn them against the wraith. The spirits were set free, and the wraith was shoved back through the veil."

"That's impossible. No one has been able to force it out of this world since it was first brought here. They found ways to contain it but every time it has found a way to escape," Roger said.

"The guys knew it would try to return eventually, but we were all hoping we'd have longer before that happened." Janis had warned us that we needed to be ready, and we'd tried. But now it looked like the time had come and we were no more ready than we had been before. "Do you think the wraith would be able to get to Jordan while he's in the space between?"

"I—I don't know. There's so much we don't know about that part. We only know all seers will go there."

There was so much that could happen to Jordan there, and there was nothing I could do from here. But maybe there was something . . .