Whispers at Moonrise (Shadow Falls #4)(66)

"Don't run off," Kylie said in a hurry when she felt the cold begin to ebb. "I need to know. It's why you're here. I know it's hard to talk about things, but sometimes we have to do things that scare us. Sometimes it helps. Sort of like me walking into the cemetery." She glanced back at the gate and the hundred dead faces peering back at her.

Hannah opened her eyes; the panic made her pupils large and black. "He's close by." Her voice weakened.

"Who's close? What did he do?" When Hannah didn't continue, Kylie took a guess. "Is it that Blake guy? The one who called Holiday when she was at the falls?"

Hannah looked down at her hands finger-locked in front of her. "She loved him. She got everything she wanted. I just wanted to know what it would feel like to be that happy. I'd had too much to drink. He'd had too much to drink. It was wrong."

Kylie started putting the pieces together, but she wasn't completely sure, so she asked, "Was Blake the man Holiday was supposed to marry?"

Hannah nodded, and when she looked up, tears and shame filled her eyes.

"Is he the one who killed you?" Kylie asked.

Hannah put her hand over her mouth as if the thought sickened her.

"Is he?" Kylie asked again.

When she moved her hands from her lips, they were trembling. "I ... I don't know if it was Blake." Her eyes filled with terror and sadness at the same time. "I guess it could have been. I don't remember how it happened." She paused. "I only recall ... his aura." Pain filled her eyes. "Details I can't remember, I can't put a name on him, or a face, but the evilness of him as he took my life ... that I can't forget. And I've felt it since. He sometimes comes back to where he buried us. I hear him walking on the floor above. The three of us cling to each other in death and pretend our souls are already gone."

Hannah hugged herself as if the memory was too much. "He disguises his aura most of the time. He has the power to appear normal. But when he's not pretending, he's evil and dark."

"When he's pretending, is his aura the same as Blake's?" Kylie asked.

"I don't know. I'm not sure. I guess it could be. I never paid attention to that aura. It's the other that ... haunts me." She paused as if in thought. "There seems to be a small part of me that says I knew the man who did it." She paused as if her thoughts went in another direction, and from her expression, it wasn't a good direction. "He thinks killing brings him power-that's why he does it. And the day I was at Shadow Falls, I sensed he was close. I felt him and I knew. I knew I went to Shadow Falls because of him. He's not happy with just killing me. He wants Holiday." Her words seemed to linger in the night air when she snapped her head back and looked up at the dark sky.

"What is it?" Kylie asked, fearing the killer was close again.

"I think it's that strange shape-shifter from the Shadow Falls camp. The blond kid with eyes that change colors all the time."

The fear Kylie had felt for Hannah and from a murdering evil being faded, and Kylie's own concern rose. If Perry had found her, Lucas wouldn't be far behind. And then probably Burnett. Hoping she'd be less visible, she moved closer to the gate. She looked again at the dead faces appearing as guards of the cemetery. She didn't know if they recognized her from before. She wasn't sure if they even knew she could see them yet. But one thing was clear: if she didn't go in now, she might miss her grandfather.

Kylie looked at Hannah still glancing up at the sky. "Did he see us?" Kylie reached for the gate to open it.

"It's her. I told you it was her," one of the spirits behind the gate said. Then the spirits' arms started reaching through the bars to touch her. Kylie's vision filled with nothing but the arms coming out between the rusty bars of the gate. The cold shot through her skin and stung all the way to the bone. She bit down on her lip, fighting the pain and panic as she pushed open the gate.

"He can't see me. I don't know if he saw you." Hannah's voice echoed from behind her. With the gate open, Kylie pulled her hand free. The ghosts scattered, but the moment she moved a few feet inside the cemetery, they surrounded her. The cold of their spirits crowding around her coated her lips with ice. The pain nearly brought her to her knees. She forced herself to move a few feet away; the reprieve was instant, even if she knew it wouldn't last.

She looked back at Hannah. Fear filled her gaze-a gaze that was just as dead as those from the cemetery, who were now growing closer.

"I can't come in," Hannah said. "One of them might be a death angel. If they want to send me to hell for my sins, they can. I deserve it, but not until I know Holiday is safe."

"I don't think they'll send you to..." Kylie stopped talking when Hannah started to disappear.

"Save her for me, Kylie. Please save my sister!" Hannah's words rang in the dark.

The cold from the spirits drew closer. "Please," Kylie said, her gaze moving from one ashen face to another. "Give me some space."

They scurried back a few feet. Kylie looked over her shoulder, hoping she might see someone who walked in this world. Her hopes were futile. Everywhere she looked, she saw only death.

But then the darkness cloaking the tombstone terrain limited her vision. Kylie knew from the few times she'd been here that the cemetery was immense. Would her grandfather know she was here? The thought that it might not be her grandfather waiting for her, that it hadn't been him sending the e-mails, stirred deep in her chest, but she pushed it back.