Prologue

Annabeth walked into the library after school with books in her hand. Her brown eyes were red from being tired as she was mostly these days. She had a major test in a couple of days and a project due in a week. She sighed inwardly as the boys from another school also under pressure took up the table she normally used. The end of the term was coming up and finals were in two months. She turned away and found another table occupied by only one person with papers and books spread out all on one end. 

"Excuse me," she asked timidly.

The man looked up. His eyes were tired from lack of sleep and one was a black eye. His lower lip was busted but the short beard mostly hid the blood. "How can I help you?"

"May I sit at the other end of the table? All the others are full." She tucked her a piece of her bangs carefully behind her ear.

"The one with the boys looks like they have one spot open," the man suggested.

"They're loud, I won't get any work done since they talk so much. I promise I'll be quiet. You won't even know I was there."

He smiled briefly. "Sure."

Annabeth nodded in thanks and sat at the other end. She occupied a small corner and kept her nose in the books and occasionally looked at her computer. The man smiled to himself. He was reminded of his youngest son. She got up once after her phone went off to go over to the boys at the other table. 

"What?" she asked them.

"Why are you sitting there, with him?" one of them asked.

"Because ya'll talk too much and I have too much work to do. Finals are coming, I have a test in a couple of days and a project due in a week. So do you need help or not?"

"Anna, he has black magic books out. He worships the devil," another boy told her.

"Look, he's quiet and doesn't bug me and let me sit there. I don't care who he worships as long as he leaves me be. Which is what I want. Now if all ya'll will excuse me I have studying to do." She turned on her heel and left the boys and did not look back.

"Did they ask you why you weren't sitting with them?" the man asked as she passed by him again. 

"Yes. They said you worshiped the devil."

"And what if I did?"

"Don't care. It's your belief and I'll leave you to it. But the books aren't black magic at all from the glimpses I've seen passing by. You're looking up ghosts."

"Very astute young lady. What is your name?"

"Annabeth."

"Lee." He held out his hand and she shook it.

"Do you have a ghost problem Mr. Lee?"

"You could say that."

"Need any help?"

"No thank you."

"Are you sure Hunter?"

"What?" He looked alarmed.

Annabeth smiled. "Relax Mr. Lee. I'm Wiccan. There's a rumor going around that there was a Hunter in the area."

"Really?"

"Let's just say that some people practice for other reasons and those reasons would attract a Hunter." 

"What about you?"

 "No fear. I have nothing to hide. No hex bags for me. Are you sure you don't need help?"

 "How old are you?"

 "Fifteen."

 "You're too young to know this much." He looked at his notes and hesitated. "But you are the right age as all the other girls that went missing and you also match them."

 Annabeth's eyes widened with fear. She knew the house he was barely talking about. She pushed the fear down as much as possible.

 "You know the house I'm talking about don't you?" Annabeth could only nod. She sat down in a chair across from him.

 "So it's true. I mean I've been on a few ghost hunts but never really believed that things like that could actually happen. I assumed like everyone else that they just ran away or got stuck in the building, if remains were found."

 Lee nodded. "It's true I'm afraid. And unfortunately we have only one shot at this ghost." Annabeth was slightly shocked that he was going to let her come along with him.

"When?"

 "We have a few days. Until then, you focus on your test and if I over heard right it's in a couple of days, and I'll look for it's grave. If I can't find it before the new moon then we'll both go into the house and look for more clues and draw him out."

 "When I'm taking a break from studying, I'll look through my book and see what kind of banishing spells I have."

 "We may need more than just banishing spells." 

"Something stronger got it. I'll see what I can find."

 "You better go back to your studies and we'll talk more later."

 She nodded and went back to her side of the table. She studied for a bit longer and lost track of time. Her phone rang and she answered it quietly. When she was finished with her phone she packed up quickly and scribbled on a scrap of paper her cell number. She flung her backpack over her shoulders and her purse on her left shoulder.

When she passed Lee, she slipped the paper under his notes so the boys at the other table would not notice. Lee took the scrap out and read it. "Let me know what you find," was on the note as well as her cell number.

 Two days later, the new moon had arrived, and no grave was found. Lee picked up Annabeth from the library and went to the abandoned house.

 "What did you tell your parents?" he asked her. 

 "I was going on a ghost hunt for research on EVPs."

 "Close to the truth."

 "I do it all the time."

 "We'll have one more person with us."

 "Who?"

 "A bishop."

 "Handy."

 The rest of the drive was silent. They met the bishop there and Lee introduced him as Bishop Lane. A plan was set to have Annabeth explore the house on her own but Lee and Bishop Lane would not be far from her.

 "Bait?" she asked.

 "That's where you come in," Lee told her.

 "Super."

 "You can back out now and stay with us instead of going off on your own," Lee assured her.

 "No it's fine." Annabeth smiled. "So what are we looking for?"

 "Anything that will give us a clue of where his body is buried," Bishop Lane informed her.

 "Name?"

 "No records."

 "So much for that, okay." Annabeth checked her flashlight, knife, holy water, and recited the prayer the bishop had told her.

 "Ready?"

 "Ready."

 Annabeth went in ahead of the men and walked cautiously over broken beams and glass that littered the floor. Dust was everywhere, covering everything and even hung in the air as she walked across the floor.

 "Let's split up," Lee ordered.

 Annabeth separated from them as she was instructed to do. She found a room that was a bedroom at one point in time. The bed frame had been broken, the sheets were moth and rat eaten. The desk across the room from the bed had a chair that looked sturdy enough to sit on. She brought the chair to the middle of the floor and began a quick EVP session, hoping to try and catch anything. The quiet reminded her of her house that she grew up in before moving with her parents to where they were now. There was an evil presence in the house that could be felt throughout. Annabeth shivered once. She was about to get up and look through the desk for any papers that might have survived time but something moved in the room. She shined her flashlight in the direction of the sound and saw a rat. She sighed in relief and got up from the chair. She turned to her right to go to the desk but stopped as a figure stood in front of her. She dropped the flashlight.

It was not the ghost that was killing people in the house. This was something else altogether. It smiled, showing its black teeth, which looked like hematite. She saw a flash of sliver and screamed. Pain was all she felt as the knife enter her chest under the breastbone and angled up to her heart. What happened afterward she could not tell as everything went black and cold around her.

 Lee and Bishop Lane ran to the room she was in as fast as they could knowing that this might be the ghost hurting her. When they got there Annabeth's body was on the floor and something that was not a ghost stood over her with an out stretched hand as if beckoning her soul to follow him.

 "Demon," Bishop Lane informed. 

Lee did not respond. He raised the gun in his hands and fired.

~~

 Annabeth felt weightless, warm and at peace. There was no more pain. She looked around her but all she could see was a brilliant, pure white light surrounding her. She had friends and family around her. She could not see them but she could feel them. A mumbling was all she could hear of a prayer being said. A piece of her still held on to her body.

A hand lightly touched her shoulder. "Take my hand child," a voice commanded.

 "Where?"

 "Some place safe."

~~

 "Is she?" Lee asked the bishop.

 "I'm afraid so my son. She is dead."

 "Say a prayer over her and we'll continue the search. Then we'll come back and bring her to her parents," Lee told him. The priest began his prayer. Lee went over to Annabeth's body. He brushed her brunette hair from her face and placed her hands on her slender body. "I'm sorry Annabeth. We should have been more prepared for a demonic attack." He looked at the bishop, "Let's go Father."

~~

 Annabeth was yanked out of wherever she was and back in the darkness of the abandoned house. She closed her eyes hoping it was not real.

 "There's no time to rest child," said the voice.

"You must wake up and join your friends."

 "But I was," she began.

 "In Heaven, yes you were," said a second voice.

"But the angel is right, you must get back to your friends and help them before the vengeful ghost adds two more to my list. There's still time, they are not yet on it."

 At the words "my list" Annabeth opened her eyes again. Two men were standing over her. Both were angels only one had white wings while the other had black.

 "Death himself is at my side," Annabeth stated, "With an angel." She looked at them closely and tried to move, but could not do so. She was stiff.

 "Rigor mortis has set in Castiel," Death told the angel. The white winged angel place two fingers on her forehead and the stiffness went away. Her fingers moved as did her legs.

 "There now, that's better, don't you think?" Death helped her to her feet.

 "What's the catch?" she asked.

 "Catch?"

 "For bringing me back."

 "It was not your time Annabeth," Castiel told her.

 "Come, come child, your friends need you outside in the back of this place. You will find the grave in the cemetery by your school. Look for the all Seeing Eye in a circle, my mark as it were, there you will find the bones of this ghost."

 "Why can't you just bring him?"

 "Sadly as nice as that would be, I cannot bring him. He has refused to come to peace when he died. He was not ready to let go of his life. And so he was driven to madness and became the very thing he hunted."

 Annabeth swallowed. She picked up her gear and was ready to tell the angels thank you but they disappeared. "Thank you my friends."

She ran through the house look for Lee and the bishop. She found an iron crow bar and picked it up as a weapon against the ghost. She heard gunshots and shouts in Latin and headed for them.

 "Lee!" Annabeth shouted when she was outside where the men were.

 The spirit was in front of them but vanished when she came.

 "Don't move demon!" Lee ordered as he aimed his gun at her. 

"Don't shoot it's me," Annabeth plead.

 Bishop Lane lowered Lee's hands and whispered to him. The features in Lee's face changed from fearful and yet commanding to relief and grief. Annabeth ran over to them and told them about the grave. As she did the vengeful spirit appeared behind her. She turned quickly seeing the men's faces and swung the crow bar. The spirit vanished again.

 "How..." Lee began to ask.

 "I don't know. I could feel it more. Anyway as you're probably wondering, the Angel of Death told me where to find the grave."

 The bishop's face turned to ash. Lee's eyes widened. "You have a lot of explaining to do young lady. I saw the knife wound and the blood. The bishop felt for a pulse! There was no pulse!”

 Annabeth nodded. “Naturally. For now, let’s go to the graveyard like Death instructed, I’d rather not piss him off.” She did not wait for an answer but took off running. She knew the graveyard was not far. She could hear the men running after her. For someone who was dead, she thought to herself, she sure could run like used to.

 They reached the graveyard, but Annabeth did not slow down. She scanned the headstones and monuments, looking for the mark Death had told her about. With the sun to rise in one hour, there was no time to slow down. She stopped suddenly in her tracks. Lee and the Bishop nearly ran into her.

 "What's wrong?" Lee asked her.

 "Do you see that light up ahead?" she asked.

 "What light?" Bishop Lane asked curiously.

 "You mean to tell me that you don't see that blue light ahead of us?" she asked in earnest.

 "No Annabeth," Lee told her.

 "Let's check it out," she told them.

 "Sunrise is in an hour we don't have time," the bishop reminded her.

 "I know. Everything that goes bump in the night is returning to their graves or hideouts. What if that light is the grave we're looking for. Death told me that if we don't stop this thing, two more people will die tonight and we still have a chance to stop that."

 Lee sighed. "She has a point. Let's go."

 Annabeth did not wait for the bishop to respond. She took off running toward the blue light.

 "That's it! The all-Seeing Eye! That's it! That's the grave!" she shouted behind her. She tripped on a root from a nearby tree and rolled back up to her feet. She stopped running and looked at the root, then at Lee. Her eyes were wide.

 "Nice reflexes," he told her.

 "Normally I fall flat on my face."

 "The grave!" the bishop yelled. He pointed to the headstone. The vengeful spirit stood next to the grave.

 Annabeth raised the crow bar ready to swing at the spirit. Lee fired his gun and the spirit vanished. To Annabeth it looked like it expanded with a bunch of holes and then vanished. She looked at Lee.

"Iron bullets?"

 "Rock salt."

 "Ah. Shovels?" 

"Car."

 "You stay and keep the spirit at bay. Bishop Lane, you and I will go back to the car and get the shovels."

 The priest nodded and Lee agreed as well. They ran back to the car and Annabeth went to the driver's side.

"Get in!"

 "Can you drive?"

 "Got my permit. Are you licensed?"

 "Of course."

 "Then what are you waiting for?"

 The bishop got in the passenger side and Annabeth drove back to the cemetery. She parked quickly and popped the trunk, where she assumed the shovels were. The bishop grabbed the shovels and they ran back to the grave. Lee took one shovel and began to dig.

 "Swing the crow bar if the ghost comes back," Lee ordered Annabeth.

 "Aye, aye captain."

 The spirit only returned once and Annabeth swung with all her might but missed.

"Oh shit."

 The ghost hit Annabeth. The wind was knocked out of her as she landed on her back. Never in her life did she ever think she would encounter a ghost this strong. Hands wrapped around her throat. She heard the thud of a shovel hitting wood and men scurrying to open the casket. A gunshot rang in her ears but the spirit was gone again. Annabeth could breath again. She coughed.

 “What now?”

 “Gasoline, salt and matches,” Lee called to her.

 She got up and went back to the car. Death stood next to the car.

“Tick tock Annabeth. Thirty minutes to sunrise.”

 “I know, I know. We’re working on it.”

 “The angel is hoping you will pass this test.”

 “What test?”

 Death vanished in a black mist.

 “Anna!” Lee called to her. “Hurry up!”

 Annabeth grabbed the supplies Lee had told her and ran back. She and Lee poured the salt and gasoline on the bones as the priest said a prayer. Lee struck a match and dropped it in the open grave. Annabeth dropped to her knees and wanted to vomit. She held it together for as long as she could but the smell of the decaying flesh being burned mixed with gasoline was too much for her stomach.

 Once the flames had died out, Lee and Bishop Lane covered the grave back up. Lee helped Annabeth to her feet. He checked her neck where the spirit was trying to strangle her and was thankful only light bruising was visible.

 “Those bruises might get darker,” he advised her. “I’m going to look at the knife wound, where you were stabbed.” Lee was careful not to open the slit in her shirt too much. He could not tell if there was a scar there or not but she looked completely healed. “It’s a miracle.”

 “Well angels exist. I met two of them. And apparently this whole thing was a test!”

 “Test?” Bishop Lane asked.

 “Yeah.” She rubbed her tired eyes. She wanted sleep and badly. She was supposed to have been home hours ago.

 Lee smiled. “Come on let’s get you home and tomorrow you can explain everything with a phone call.” They all head back to the car and Lee drove her home.

 Annabeth was grounded for a week from ghost hunting for being out past curfew. She phoned Lee and explained everything from the time she left them to when she caught up with them. Lee was shocked. He could not believe that the Angel of Death and an angel yanked her from Heaven. She also told him that she was seeing things that she never saw before. He explained that it was probably made possible by crossing over to the other side.

 A month later, Annabeth turned sweet sixteen. Something happened that day no one had expected. Not only could she see spirits but also the spells in her Book of Shadows were now physical. Any spell she said was now visible to her and more immediate. Her parents were shocked but they supported her as they did before when the spells were not so visible. They, of course, were of no help as to why or how this was happening. She called Lee and told him what was happening. He also had no explanation. She began to wonder if this was another test and should call on the angel that saved her life with Death, but she could not remember his name. She went to bed with hope that this was all a dream.

 When Annabeth woke up, she was not in Louisiana anymore. The room was enormous and very bright from the globes on the wall. A girl about her age with pink hair walked in.

 "Oh good, you're awake. Please get dressed and follow me," said she in a British accent.

 Annabeth looked skeptical but did as she was asked and when they would get to their destination she would demand answers…nicely.

 She met with three Elders who had explained everything to her and had others train her. She learned too that time was different in this strange place. Two days back home was a week in this new world. When she returned home, Lee was sitting with her parents. Apparently while she was gone, her parents had looked through her cell phone and found Lee's number and called him. Lee had told them everything that happened and also offered to help train her now that she had powers that demons and other evil things would be attracted to. Her parents were not thrilled that a man who used their child as bait for an evil murdering spirit would be training her to fight. However, at the mention of her and friends and family being in danger without this training, they gave their consent reluctantly.