“Now vanish us to the Dome,” Jeramiah said.
Amaya planted a hand on Jeramiah’s shoulder, and both of them disappeared from the spot.
If I’d had a heart, it would’ve been hammering in my chest by now, blood pounding in my ears.
I need to reach the Dome.
I hurtled toward the nearest wall of the living room, and, passing through it, I emerged from the dilapidated farmhouse, reappearing in the dark field outside. The crowd of ghosts was still gathered round the building. They looked like they had hardly budged an inch since I had left them. Some looked after me as I whizzed across the fields, shooting toward the direction of the woods, while others even called out to me, but I ignored them all. I had tunnel vision as I urged myself faster and faster.
It was only a matter of minutes before I arrived at the Great Dome—but these were minutes when Jeramiah and Amaya could have been doing God knew what. When I entered the meeting chamber, it was empty, except for Jeramiah and Amaya standing right at the front, near the raised platform where my parents’ chairs had been. In their place now rested the memorial stone Jeramiah had created for his father.
Two clusters of incense had been lit on either side of the slab—the thin sticks had been stuck into the cracks in the floor to keep them upright. Jeramiah, standing a few feet back from the memorial slab, his eyes calm and steady, appeared to be waiting for something. He was watching the two incense clusters intently, and it was only now that I looked at them more closely that I realized how quickly they were burning and how much smoke they were emitting. Clearly, these were no ordinary incense sticks. They were burning at the speed of a match, and as the sticks disintegrated, the room was choked with a thick smoke. I could only guess the kind of aroma that emanated from them, but as Amaya strangled a cough, I imagined that it would be overbearing. The smoke was so thick that I had to move closer to the couple to see what they were doing.
Jeramiah reached inside his robe and drew out the wind instrument. Raising the mouthpiece to his lips, he blew into it, and it sounded out louder than ever. So loud that I staggered back. This was the loudest I’d ever heard the melody, and certainly the closest that I’d been to it. I stared at the vampire as he played, his fingers moving skillfully over the keys, as if he’d played the instrument his whole life. From far away, the sound was breathtaking—more beautiful a tune than I could ever play.
According to the clock hanging from the wall, he played for only five minutes before he replaced the instrument within the folds of his robe. Silence overtook the Dome.
It was more than clear to me by now that this instrument was like a kind of dog whistle for ghosts. Nobody else could hear it—not even Jeramiah.
“Do you really trust that old yogi?” the witch asked.
Jeramiah’s jaw twitched. He grunted curtly. “Throughout all the years I spent in India, he was the only true medium I came across. He knows more about ghosts than almost any supernatural. Yes, I trust him.”
Doubt still flickered in the witch’s eyes. “It’s just that… I mean, you’ve been playing that thing every few hours for the last two days. How do you even know it’s called anyone?”
“That will soon be clear to me,” Jeramiah replied, his eyes settled on the memorial slab. “Now we must be silent.”
He lowered to his knees and tilted his head slightly downward before whispering words that sent chills down my spine. “Father, if you heard my call, make yourself known to me.”
He’s trying to summon… Lucas Novak?
Could it possibly be that my uncle became a ghost?
“Send me into a deep, dreamful slumber,” Jeramiah said, his voice slightly raised as he addressed the witch. “I need to make myself available.”
“What if somebody comes?”
“You’re a bag of nerves, Amaya,” Jeramiah said impatiently. “Just do as I say. We’re invisible, for a start, but if somebody comes, even in my sleep you can transport me elsewhere to safety. But I don’t wish to be unconscious for long. Watch the clock and wake me up in ten minutes. That will be enough time for me to know whether or not my attempts have been successful.”
Amaya gulped, then nodded. Jeramiah lay on his back, stretched out directly in front of the raised platform where Lucas’s memorial stone reigned over the room.
The witch fumbled her way over to Jeramiah and, feeling his form, placed both of her hands on either side of Jeramiah’s head. Flattening her palms, she moved her thumbs up and down Jeramiah’s forehead, slowly and gently, until it was clear that the vampire had fallen asleep. His breathing pattern changed, becoming slower, deeper, and the muscles in his face relaxed.