Max leaned toward his sister, heart hammering in his ears.

“No!” Aunt Tilda shrieked, halting her prayers. “Don’t touch them!”

“It’s killing her!” Max yelled, and Vera grabbed his arm, staring at her aunt with the same look of terror.

They couldn’t just stand there.

Aunt Tilda and the priest chanted again, their tones monotonous. The priest tossed water. Max looked at his mother’s reaction. Nothing. Chloe kept kicking, eyes bulging, curls wildly whirling in a wind that spiraled around the house. No, it spiraled at Vera’s house. A sudden cyclone formed, Vera’s home at the center, the fog whipping colorful petals, cut grass, and stray leaves around the wooden structure but never touching it.

An awareness came over him. His mouth fell open, gritty bits of earth hitting his tongue.

“It wants in your house,” Max said.

“I know.” Vera gripped him tighter. “It can’t get in.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

The priest kept praying, going through all these motions, Aunt Tilda following along. “The blessings on the basement, the artifacts, I think they’re keeping it out,” her aunt shouted, overhearing their conversation. “I think it wants to release what’s inside—all the demons, all the darkness. We can’t let it, Vera. Come! Help us. We have to stop it.”

Vera looked at her aunt, then at Max’s mother, then back at Aunt Tilda, then at Max. He could see the rattled confusion in her eyes as if he were looking in a mirror. She didn’t know what to do. No one did.

Then Chloe yelped, strangled pain in her voice, a child struggling to breathe. “Max!” she squeaked out.

He shook off Vera’s hold. He couldn’t wait any longer. These prayers weren’t working. A splash of water wasn’t working. He wasn’t going to stand here and let this thing kill his sister while he watched. He wasn’t going to let his mother do that to her own child.

The beast turned toward Vera.

“Ready yet?” it asked.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Vera

It wants in the house. Max and her aunt were right.

Vera stood on the lawn, the chaos of Hell consuming them, and felt in the deepest part of her soul how much the monster wanted inside her house. Why? Aunt Tilda guessed it was to shatter all the objects the house contained and release those demons on Earth. It was possible—the result would be catastrophic, apocalyptic. But it didn’t feel right.

For some reason Vera couldn’t quite explain, the rationale was wrong.

Beside her, Max bounced on his toes, ready to attack, while her aunt and the priest chanted exorcism prayers that felt…off. It was the binding prayers on the objects that were working; they were keeping the demon outside the home. That was clearly why it hadn’t come after Vera’s family before. In these seven years, it stayed away because it had to stay away. It couldn’t break in. Now the cult had made it stronger.

It wants you. It wants you.

They’d been saying it all along, all of the afflicted—Mr. Gonzalez, Anatole and his mother, Max’s mom. They’d been telling Vera directly, plainly, what the demon wanted.