Betrayal by Lee Nichols Page B

at the same time.”
    â€œSo, run again?” she asked.
    â€œ Yeah,” I squeaked.
    But the black ghast slammed his massive feet to the ground, shaking the earth as he closed in on us. We stumbled, and his huge hand grabbed Natalie around the waist and started crushing her.
    She stared at me, eyes bulging in terror.
    I found myself hesitating again. I knew she needed help, but I felt heavy and sluggish. I reached inside for a spark of dispelling energy, to sear the black ghast—but instead, I found myself only compelling him to drop Natalie.
    He loosened his grip, tossed her aside, and turned his attention to me.
    â€œEmma!” Natalie said, sprawled on the ground. “Stop screwing around and dispel him!”
    The ghast roared, and his scalding breath whipped across the playground. I spun away as his spectral fingers plucked at my coat. I held my hands in front of me and fed dispelling energy into them, until in an instant it was crackling between my palms, and I shot the ghast in the side.
    He howled and thumped to the ground and started to fade.
    That’s when the other two ghasts tackled me. I’d stopped compelling them to stay inside the spiderweb.
    I yelled at them, No! Get away from me! but my panic weakened my compelling. With one on top of me and the other pressing my head into the frozen ground, I watched helplessly as the black ghast stalked toward Natalie. He grabbed her around the waist and flung her into the sandbox.
    â€œNo!” I screamed. I dug deep inside for my power, but all I found was that weird humming sound.
    Then I heard a voice. “Mind if I cut in?”
    I turned and saw two guys stroll onto the playground. The one who spoke was probably my age, dark haired and athletic, wearing a black parka and jeans, and the other was skinny and slightly older, wearing wide-rimmed tortoiseshell glasses and a long camel coat.
    The ghasts suffocating me swiveled toward them, their eye sockets burning with predatory intensity. I’d never seen either of these men before in my life, but I was sure of one thing: they were ghostkeepers. And the ghasts felt it, too.
    The ghasts’ shrieks of fear shook away all my hesitation. I blasted them off me with a burst of force. They hit the ground, scrambled onto all fours like dogs ready to pounce, and rushed at the two newcomers.
    The younger guy stepped forward, his arms spread, an eager grin on his face. The ghasts loped closer and closer, then sprang. The young guy used the ghasts’ weight and speed against them—he compelled them into the air, over his head, then slammed them onto their backs on top of the slide. Cool trick. As they half skidded down the cold slide, moaning in pain, the older guy shot quick bursts of dispelling energy into them, and they started shimmering into nonexistence.
    Martha had taught me basic concepts of ghostkeeping, but no two ghostkeepers were the same. I’d had to figure out myself what worked for me—and it looked nothing like what the ghostkeeper in the glasses had done. Or the other one, for that matter. I’d never realized you could hurl ghosts through the air.
    All of that happened in a fraction of a second, while I turned toward the huge black ghast. I drilled through the sluggishness I’d been feeling, to tap my power. He stomped toward me, his face an unearthly mask of fury.
    The light inside me grew brighter and hotter until, with the black ghast’s unhinged mouth three feet from me, I unleashed a beam of pure white directly into his face. He writhed and shrieked and uncoiled into smoke, which shrank and withered until nothing remained but a smudge of black tar on the wood chips.
    The younger guy said, “If this is what you two do at playgrounds, I’d hate to see you in a cemetery.”
    â€œOw,” Natalie said, struggling in the sandbox.
    â€œAre you okay?” I asked, jogging over to her.
    She took my hand and stood, showing me the ghast-acid