This was a part of our plan that I was sure Sofia would lose hair worrying about, and I felt all the more sure of my decision to delay telling her about all this until after the fact.

I gazed down at the pencil case in my hands. Now that we were sure that we would indeed use Herbert, it was time to impart my memories to him, for only then could he instill them in Jeramiah’s mind. This, I feared, would be a rather unpleasant experience for me. But, again, Ibrahim assured me that it would all be okay; if he sensed the ghoul was straying from his command in even the slightest way, he would immediately force him back into the pencil case and then return him to The Sanctuary, reporting him as a disobedient ghoul… which would cause the creature to receive severe punishment.

Returning the box to Ibrahim’s hands, I sat down on the bed, steeling myself for what was to come.

Ibrahim opened the case, and out flooded the form of a translucent ghoul. His long, bony legs trailed against the ground as he hovered over me. I grimaced at his ghastly face, and then at the long, black claws protruding from his lanky fingers. Just one lash of those claws could easily take out an eye. Still, I trusted Ibrahim.

To my surprise, the warlock began to address Herbert in a strange, whispery language. Once he’d finished, I couldn’t help but comment, “I never knew you spoke ghoul, Ibrahim.”

Ibrahim chuckled dryly. “It’s not much of a language. I’ll teach you someday.”

Somehow, I didn’t see myself taking my friend up on that offer…

“So what now?” I asked, tentative.

“Close your eyes and cast your mind back to all the memories you’d like to impart to Jeramiah. Herbert is in his subtle form, which will allow him to sink his hands into your head and absorb it all. You shouldn’t feel a thing.”

Great…

“Okay,” I muttered, eyeing the nightmarish creature one last time before obeying him.

My eyes shut tight, I sensed the ghoul approach. Then I guessed his hands closed around me, but as Ibrahim had assured me, I didn’t feel anything. Well, not much. Just an odd chill around my skull, but I was used to being cold. I soon forgot that a nasty monster had his hands ferreting around in my brain, and instead focused on sourcing memories as far back as I could. I did my best to relive events in chronological order, and once I felt that I’d imparted enough, I opened my eyes.

Ibrahim hissed something to the ghoul, and immediately he withdrew his hands and hovered back toward the warlock.

“Sure you’re done?” Ibrahim asked, with a cock of his head.

“Yes. I believe so,” I replied.

“All right. Well, when you’re ready, we should go see Jeramiah. It’s best to do it as soon as possible while everything is still fresh within our friend’s mind.”

“We’ll go now.” I shot to my feet and gathered my cloak again. Then the three of us left the room, setting off down the corridor toward my nephew.

When we opened the door and stepped inside with Herbert, the sheer look of terror in Jeramiah’s eyes was quite a precious sight to behold. I doubted he’d ever seen a ghoul before. He looked tenfold more afraid now than when I had accosted him back in his apartment.

We moved closer with the ghoul, who set his eager eyes on his victim. I bent down so that my face was level with Jeramiah’s. “Given your attempt to murder me and my family, consider this a light, uncle-ly slap.”

I stepped back, indicating to Ibrahim that he move forward with the ghoul. Jeramiah growled another round of curses as he tried desperately to distance himself from Herbert. Pathetic. The ghoul reached him in a matter of seconds and closed his hands around his head. Then my nephew’s yelps subsided, reducing into nothing but heavy breathing as the ghoul began coursing my memories into his skull.

Jeramiah’s face contorted and he gripped the sides of his head, as if the gesture alone would rid him of the ghoul. Then he began to whimper. Whimper like a child.

“No. Stop. Stop! Please!”

It actually became uncomfortable to watch, and I backed out of the room while Herbert finished his work.

Once Ibrahim called to me that the ghoul was done, I returned to see my nephew curled up in a ball on the floor, locked in a fetal position, his whole body shaking.

I was staring down at a broken man.

A lonely, broken man.

Ben

It was the strangest feeling to be crouched down behind the boulders, perched between two people I’d believed to be dead.

Real life sure is stranger than fiction… at least in my case.

So much had happened to me in the past months, much of it seemed to be a blur now. Even after everything, I still found it hard to believe that it had all been real and not some kind of prolonged, twisted nightmare.

My life before I’d left The Shade—before my father had turned me into a vampire—seemed so distant, it was almost as though it had been lived by somebody else. I’d been so far removed from that time of wandering through our redwood forests, of homework and classmates, of afternoon walks along the shore with Abby and Shadow…

I found myself playing back my former life over in my head as the three of us remained watching the entrance. Lucas and I had wisely stopped conversing, and I was left to lose myself in my own thoughts… until another group of fae came streaming down through the vortex. Each carried white coffins—the same as the last, although there seemed to be fewer of them this time. Two batches within less than twenty-four hours. They’re serious about this ghost-snatching business.