And if he did? Then I would be with my mother. And Ben. And Eli. And my baby. It was really that simple. What did I hope to gain by saving myself? What good was it to live this life if I had lost my soul? My only purpose was to find my soul and do it now, even if I lost my life. My fear of dying was my own creation.

With that realization, a new thought filled my mind. Show them. I had the power to show them, didn’t I?

“Kill her!” Rose shrieked.

I held up my hand, still afraid but knowing why I stood in that storm. “Before you kill me, do you want to see what I see?” I faced the pews. “Do you want to see how the Fury have infected me?”

“Don’t you dare do this to me!” Bobbie shrieked.

“Pull the trigger, boy,” Sylous snarled. He was afraid as well.

I lifted my other hand in a sign of surrender. “I know how to get rid of the Fury, Jamie. They’re in here now, all around us. They’re feeding on us. On me.”

“You’re lying,” Jamie spat. But his whole face was quivering and I knew he was fighting himself.

“Watch,” I said, and I turned to Bobbie. “Show yourself.”

She took a step back, terrified.

“You’re my creation,” I said. “And I say show yourself!”

In the eyes of the rest, it probably looked like I had lost my mind and was speaking to empty space. But in the next moment, the space wasn’t empty. All who had followed my stare saw Bobbie appear.

Gasps peppered the sanctuary. She looked around, stunned. Show them, the voice had told me, and this was what I knew to show them.

Bobbie, dressed in black and white, blonde and beautiful, stood like a statue, eyes round and confused. But her bewilderment fell away as she jerked her head to me, face red. “How dare you betray me?” she growled.

“Show yourself as you are,” I said.

I watched as my close friend slowly shifted from a beautiful woman into a wraith. A faceless, black-hooded ghoul with long white fingers and blue eyes. She was different from the other Fury I’d seen, because there were many kinds of fear. She was the kind known as the wisdom of the world. But fear was fear, and as Eli had said, all fear was darkness.

I lifted my hands and looked at my fingers, then my body. “Show yourselves, all of you.”

Ten or twelve other wraiths appeared around me. Some materialized close to me out of nowhere. Some emerged from my body. All were intently focused on me, eyes piercing, jaws wide, a few weeping. Some had yellow eyes, others black, most white.