Claimed by Angels & Demons: Book 1 Read Online Free PDF Page A

spiritus, come on think, something something spiritus."
    "You mean to disperse me?" The ghost said, seeming offended at this idea, "I am no wayward spirit to be so easily dismissed. You will tell me who you are human."
    "Shut up," I yelled right back at the ghost, "you're not real and I'm going to disperse your ass." I kept racking my brain. The spell would come back to me, it had to come back to me.
    "Hoc loco spiritus," the ghost said. "Let us see your pathetic attempt to disperse me human, and then I will have my answers."
    He seemed awfully sure that the spell wasn't going to work, but that stupid dispersion spell felt like my only tether to sanity right now, so I tried it anyway. "Hoc loco spiritus," I said in a tentative sort of way, not really sure what to expect but wanting very badly for this thing to disappear. But nothing happened, the ghost didn't disappear, just smiled sadly. I could feel myself slipping under his spell again, my mind slowing, failing, like a drug slowly turning off the lights in my brain. I held my mind in place and tried desperately to think. I needed to figure this out while I could still think straight, but what was I doing wrong? Maybe I wasn't a witch to begin with. But apparently I was the only one that could see the ghost, so there must be something special about me. Maybe I needed to chant the spell. Witches were always chanting things in movies, maybe there was something to that.
    "Hoc loco spiritus," I said again, "hoc loco spiritus, hoc loco spiritus." The ghost started to disappear! I could see the doorway of Henry's room through him now. "Hoc loco spiritus," I said again, and kept saying it again and again and again.
    The ghost noticed he was starting to disappear and looked at me, completely enraged, "stop that," he thundered, but I kept right on repeating the spell, backing up away from him as I did so. "No mere human can disperse me, what are you?" I ignored him and kept repeating the spell, kept backing up, but I was in the corner of the room, my butt against a dresser, the ghost inches from my face, his eyes starting to glow, "stop!" he thundered.
    From somewhere inside of me came an instinct, and I put my hands right in to his luminous form and spoke the spell one last time, from deep in my chest, and I felt a pulse of energy travel through me, through my hands and in to him, and he flew apart with a cracking bang, sending a shock-wave throughout the room, knocking things over, like the world's biggest balloon being popped.
    I looked over at Mrs. Barlow and Donald and Henry, who were all looking at me, utterly petrified. "Is it gone?" Mrs. Barlow asked, her voice shaking.
    I looked around. I didn't see the ghost rematerializing anywhere, so I assumed that it was indeed gone. "I think so," I said, climbing down off of Henry's dresser. I had been very, very wrong about everything that had happened today. I really was a witch. Ghosts really did exist, and apparently they didn't like it too much when you dispersed them. But what the hell had that ghost done to me? I could still feel remnants of the intense love that had swept over me when I had gotten caught in his eyes, like the dying embers of a fire. And that look that he had given me. I had fallen in love with that look right there on the spot. Whoever Seffora had been, she had been truly and unconditionally loved. I envied her, that she had had someone that looked at her the way that ghost had looked at me for those few brief moments. They had been the greatest few seconds of my entire life.
    Mrs. Barlow stood up a lamp that had fallen over and gave me a weak smile. She looked like she was in shock. "Well then," she said, straightening her sweater vest, "I suppose I'll go get my check book."

 
    Chapter Three
     
    I almost didn't go back to Spiritual Dispersion Services. I almost went home to forget the whole thing, to convince myself that it had all been some sort of weird waking dream. But I didn't, I went back. And the