Bob moved away from the dog as she quieted. “What did you say her name was?”

“Foxglove,” Jupe said as he forced her to sit.

“No, your teacher.”

“Oh. Ms. Forsythe. Why? You know her?”

I zipped up my jacket. My ear was ringing. I tilted my head to the side and jostled it. “Bob lives here in Morella, Jupe. He doesn’t know her.”

“Ms. Forsythe lives out here in Morella, too,” Jupe argued. “She just works in La Sirena.”

Bob had a strange look on his face. “Grace Forsythe?”

“Yeah, Gracie. That’s what the other teachers call her,” Jupe said.

“That’s weird,” Bob said to me. “When he said she was religious, I thought he meant traditionally. But”—he glanced back at Jupe and lowered his voice, speaking to me conspiratorially—“Grace Forsythe goes to that, uh, temple you were asking me about the other day.”

I stared at him in disbelief.

“She used to be a patient at my father’s clinic before he died. All the Silent Temple members went to him.”

I have the support of my church. I’m quite blessed.

“Oh . . . God,” I murmured as I blinked at Lon. “Could it be?”

“No,” Lon insisted. “I know Grace. I can read her. If she’s involved, she has no idea.”

She was being used. Merrin was the getaway driver. Ms. Forsythe was unknowingly possessed by the duke.

Thirty years ago, Bishop was the getaway driver and Merrin was possessed by the duke. Only, Merrin was willing. Merrin struck the deal with the demon, but he was too weak to host him; too human. Merrin found someone stronger. Bishop’s old house was near the school. Ms. Forsythe worked at the school. She knew all the Earthbound kids. She was a member of the Silent Temple.

She was easy prey.

“Dad, what’s going on?”

Lon grimaced. “We can’t be sure, Jupe. I know she’s innocent—”

“No—that sound. Can’t you hear it? Foxglove’s whining. Where is that coming from?”

My ringing ears.

A shadow darkened the living room window, blocking out the setting sun.

Someone was testing the wards.

The shadow shifted out of sight. The ringing continued intermittently—softer, then louder.

“Oh, hell,” I said.

“Hasn’t reached the house ward yet,” Lon said. “No blue web.”

Lon and I set that ward together, strong magick that incapacitated anyone who crossed it with the intent to do harm. When tripped, it became visible, a network of bright blue lines. However, my own personal wards didn’t do that. Most of them alerted me with instinctive warnings that popped up in my mind, but I’d put up so many over the last few months, the windows and walls were covered with invisible ink, symbols from different traditions. One of them must issue an audible warning, and now was not the time I wanted to discover this detail.

Foxglove rocketed to the side door and barked her head off. My pounding heart mirrored her warning.

“Did you lock it when Bob came?” Lon said.

“Both locks.”

Lon grabbed a 12-gauge shotgun off the dining room table.

“Is it the Snatcher?” Jupe said, then squeaked out, “Ms. Forsythe?”

“Everyone upstairs,” I shouted. “My bedroom is the safest room in the house. Go!”

Jupe scooped up Mr. Piggy. “Foxie, come!”

The dog obeyed, darting up the stairs alongside Jupe. Once we were all inside my room, Lon slammed the door shut and locked it. “Help me move this, Bob.”

Bob scrambled to Lon’s side. Then they dragged my chest of drawers across the room and wedged it against the door. Jupe and I retreated into a corner and watched the door. If the main house ward was tripped, we’d all know. That’s what I kept telling myself as Foxglove paced the room, panting, alert. The ringing in my ears stopped.

I crept to the window and peeked through the curtains. Not much light left outside. The line of trees that created a privacy screen at the front of my lawn cast long shadows. I couldn’t see any movement below. My street was quiet. No one walking, no cars passing by. No trick-or-treaters, thanks to the countywide ban.

Jupe whispered in my ear, “I can’t hear the noise anymore.”

Foxglove snarled.

A dark shape bobbed outside the edge of the window. Jupe jumped back. Foreboding chills slithered down my back as the shape glided fully into view. It was a face. Grace Forsythe’s face. She was floating in the air like a ballon.

Her gentle blue halo was now fireball-red. It rippled around her head and shoulders like a wind-whipped cape. A fragment of Duke Chora’s goetia entry popped into my mind: He appeareth from above as a Goodly Knight with a Cloak of Red Velvet.

Not a cloak, but a halo, from above: Chora could fly without wings. That’s how he was snatching the children unnoticed.

Ms. Forsythe dipped and rose, peering into the window with a foreign intelligence behind her eyes—the hippie teacher who encouraged Jupe’s wild imagination was no longer home. Her gaze flicked around my bedroom until it lit on Jupe. Then something changed. Her face twisted unnaturally like she was in pain. The red halo pulsed and disappeared. I saw a dim circle of her old blue halo shimmer around her bobbed hair as her eyes fluttered shut.

Her shoulders sagged and without further warning, she went limp as a rag doll and plunged downward—no floating or gliding, just a limp weight being dropped from the sky like a bag of discarded garbage. The fleshy thud her body made when it hit the ground was muted and distant.