"Maybe," was the ghost's only answer.

"Maybe?" Derek threw up his hands and started pacing, He muttered under his breath, but there was no anger in it, just frustration, trying to work through this problem and see a connection when he really should be in bed, nursing a fever.

"Samuel Lyle," the ghost communicated next. "Original owner. Know him?"

I said I didn't and asked Derek.

"How would I know the guy who built this place a hundred years ago?"

"Sixty," the ghost said, and I relayed it.

"Whatever." Derek resumed pacing. "Does he even know what year this is?"

I could have pointed out that if the ghost knew how long ago the house had been built, he obviously knew the current year, but Derek was just grouching, his fever making it hard to concentrate on this puzzle.

"Supernatural," the ghost said. "Lyle. Sorcerer."

That made Derek stop when I relayed it.

"The guy who built this place was a sorcerer?"

"Dark magic. Alchemist. Experimented. On supernaturals."

A chill ran up my arms and I crossed them. "You think that's how those people in the cellar died? This sorcerer, Lyle, experimented on them?"

"How does he know so much about this guy?" Derek said. "He followed you here, didn't he?"

"Everyone knew," the ghost replied. "In Buffalo. All supernaturals. Knew where he lived. And stayed away. Or didn't."

Derek shook his head. "1 still don't see how any of this is connected to us."

"Maybe," the ghost replied. "Maybe not. Need to ask."

Derek hissed a curse and smacked his hand into the wall hard enough to make me wince. I walked over to him.

"Go to bed. You're probably right. I'm sure it's nothing —"

"I'm not saying that. I'm just saying . . . A sorcerer built this place sixty years ago; there are supernaturals buried in the cellar; and now we're here, three supernatural kids. The group home is named after him. Is that significant? Or is it just named after the guy who built it? It seems too much to be a coincidence, but I'm just not getting the connection."

"I can do this. Go back —"

"No, he's right. We need to ask. I just . . ." He shoved his hand up the back of his shirt, scratching. "I feel like crap and it's making me cranky. But we need to do this."

The ghost followed us into the crawl space.

"How do I avoid what I did earlier?" I asked. "Returning them to their bodies?"

Silence. I counted to sixty, then said, "Hello? Are you still there?"

"Stay calm. Focus. But go easy. Soft. Your power. Too strong."

"My powers are too strong?"

I couldn't suppress a smile. I might not be certain I wanted these powers, but it was kind of cool to hear that I had more than the average necromancer. Like taking an IQ test and finding out you're smarter than you thought.

"Your age. Should never be able to . . ."

Silence. I waited patiently to catch the next word. And waited.

"Hello?"

He started again, word by word. 'Too soon. Too much. Too . . ."

A longer pause.

"Something's wrong," he said finally.

"Wrong?"

Derek crawled from the shadows, where he'd been silently watching. "What's he saying?"

"Something about my powers. That they're . . . wrong."

"Too strong," the ghost said. "Unnatural."

"Unnatural?" I whispered.

Derek's eyes blazed. "Don't listen to him, Chloe. So you're powerful. Big deal. You're fine. Just take it slow."

The ghost apologized. He gave a few more instructions, then said he'd watch from the "other side," in case his presence had boosted my powers earlier. If I needed him, he'd come back. One last warning against trying too hard, and he was gone.

Thirty-five

DEREK RETURNED TO THE shadows, leaving me alone, sitting cross-legged again, the flashlight lying in front of me. As much as I'd have liked to use it as a candle, pushing back the dark, I'd set it on its side, the beam directed at the spot where the bodies were buried in hopes that, if the ground so much as quivered, Derek would warn me before I raised the dead.

To free the ghosts from their corpses, I'd used visualization, so I did that again. I imagined myself tugging the ghosts from the ether, drawing them out like a magician pulling an endless scarf from his sleeve.

A few times I caught a flicker, only to have it vanish again. 1 kept working, slowly and steadily, resisting the urge to concentrate harder.

"What do you want?" a woman's voice snapped, so close and so clear I grabbed the flashlight, certain one of the nurses had discovered us.

Instead, I shone the beam on a woman dressed in a sweater set. Or that's what her top half was wearing. She was standing, her head brushing the low ceiling, meaning she was "buried" to mid-thigh under the dirt floor. She was maybe thirty, with a blond bob. Her sharp features were rigid with annoyance.

"Well, necromancer, what do you want?"

'Tell her to leave us be," a man's voice whined from the darkness.

I shone the beam in his direction but could make out only a faint form by the farthest wall.

"I just w-want to talk to you," I said.

"That much is obvious," the woman snapped. "Calling and pulling and pestering until you drag us out against our will."

"I didn't m-mean —"

"Can't leave well enough alone, can you? It wasn't enough to shove us back into our bodies. Do you know what that's like? Sitting down, enjoying a nice afternoon, and all of a sudden you're back in your corpse, buried, clawing your way to the surface, terrified you've been trapped by some demented necromancer looking for zombie slaves?"

"I didn't mean —"

"Oh, do you hear that, Michael? She didn't mean it." The woman moved toward me. "So if I accidentally unleash a storm of hellfire on your head, it'll be all right, as long as I didn't really mean it? You have a power, little girl, and you'd better learn to use it properly before someone decides to teach you a lesson. Summon me again and I'll do it."

She started to fade.

"Wait! You're —" I struggled to remember what Simon had called a female spellcaster "—a witch, right? What happened to you here?"

"I was murdered, in case that isn't perfectly obvious."

"Was it because you're a witch?"

She surged back so fast I jumped. "You mean, did I bring this on myself?"

"N-no. Samuel Lyle —the man who owned this house— did he kill you? Because you're a witch?"

Her lips curled in an ugly smile. "I'm sure my being a witch added a little extra dash of pleasure for him. I should have known better than to trust a sorcerer, but I was a fool. A desperate fool. Sam Lyle promised us an easier life. That's what we all want, isn't it? Power without price. Sam Lyle was a seller of dreams. A snake oil salesman. Or a madman." That twist of a smile again. "We could never figure out which, could we, Michael?"

"A madman," came the whisper from the back. "The things he did to us . . ."

"Ah, but we were willing subjects. At least, in the beginning. You see, little girl, all scientific advancement requires experimentation, and experimentation requires subjects, and that's what Michael and I were. Lab rats sacrificed to the vision of a madman."

"What about me?"

She sneered. "What about you?"

"Does this have anything to do with me being here? Now? There are more of us. Supernaturals. In a group home."

"Are they experimenting on you? Tying you to beds and prodding you with electrical wires until you bite off your tongue?"

"N-no. N-nothing like that."

"Then you count your blessings, little girl, and stop pestering us. Sam Lyle is dead and —if the Fates are just— rotting in a hell dimension."

She started fading again.

"Wait! I need to know —"

"Then find out!" She surged back again. "If you think you're here because of a dead sorcerer, then you're as mad as he was, but I don't have your answers. I'm a shade, not an oracle. Why are you brats here, where I died? How should I know? Why should I care?"