Mezzanine

| 54 |

"That's so messed up." Carter wiped his hands on his jeans like he was trying to get sweat off them. "What the hell? Why would someone want to do that—bring someone back from the dead and put their soul in some life size metal doll?"

I shook my head. He was right. It was sick and disgusting, but it made sense. All the pieces fit together: the doll, the ritual, and George's love for Maria, a woman who died tragically young.

"I don't know," I said. "It explains everything though."

A gust of wind rushed through the trees, sending orange and red leaves dancing across the lawn. Lola shivered, tucking her chin against her chest.

"Not everything," she whispered.

"What do you mean?" I asked. What was I missing?

"It doesn't explain us," she replied. "It doesn't explain why what happened at that factory caused us to develop the ability to read minds. Carter's related to one of the original twelve workers involved in the ritual, so that I can understand. The demons need the relatives of the original twelve as vessels. But I don't understand you, me and Damien. What part do we play in the ritual?"

Damien chewed on his nails. "I have a guess."

I clenched my teeth. I had a bad feeling I knew what he was going to say next.

"We're meant to be a sacrifice."

I narrowed my eyes as I stared him down. It was the same thing I'd been thinking, but hearing it aloud made my stomach turn.

"You don't know that for sure," I said.

"You're right, I don't" he said. "But what other reason could it be?"

"The ritual isn't just a resurrection, is it?" Lola asked. "It's a trade."

Damien nodded. "A life for a life."

I ran my hand back through my hair, exhaling heavily as I tried to think, but he was right. What other reason could it be? The demons were luring us there because they needed us to finally complete the ritual they'd been summoned to complete decades ago.

They needed our blood.

"So what do we do?" I asked.

"We stop it," Damien replied. "We go back to the factory and destroy the symbols."

"No shit," Carter said. "But how?"

"I don't know," Damien said. "But...I think I might have an idea of how we can find out."

Lola, Carter and I stared at him in silence, waiting for him to continue.

"George wasn't the first person to discover the ritual," Damien began. "He wasn't the only one that knew about these symbols."

I nodded. When Carter and I researched the symbols on the Ouija board, we discovered one of them was similar to something drawn in a journal that belonged to a member of an occult group. Other people knew about the powers these symbols had—how they could be used to summon demons.

"Remember what Robert said on that tape?" Damien continued. "He said George would attend those meetings on the other side of the state, and then he'd lock himself away at night reading the books he brought back. He was gathering information."

But how does that help us? Carter thought. We don't have time to find whatever books he was reading, let alone read them ourselves and figure it out. We're running out of time.

"I'm not suggesting we read the books," Damien responded to his thoughts. "I'm suggesting we steal the answers from someone who's already found them."

"What do you mean?" Lola narrowed her eyes.