"Fast! Take your places," I yelled before the seductive smell of their blood could mess with my concentration.

My friends ran to the deserted candles. Hastily they picked them up and waited in the proper positions.

I moved around Aphrodite, who was staring at Heath and Erik, with her hand pressed against her mouth as if to hold back her screams. I grabbed the purple candle and rushed over to Damien.

"Wind! I summon you to this circle," I yelled, touching the purple candle to the yellow one. I wanted to cry with relief when the familiar whirlwind suddenly sprang up, swirling around my body and lifting my hair crazily.

Shielding the purple candle with my hand I ran to Shaunee.

"Fire! I summon you to this circle!" Heat flared with the whirling air as I lit the red candle. I didn't pause, but kept moving clockwise around the circle. "Water! I summon you to this circle!" The sea was there, salty and sweet at the same time. "Earth! I summon you to this circle!" I touched the flame to Stevie Rae's candle, trying not to flinch at the bandages that covered her wrists. She was abnormally pale, but she grinned when the air filled with the scent of freshly cut hay.

Heath screamed again, and I rushed back to the center of the circle and lifted the purple candle. "Spirit! I summon you to this circle!" Energy sizzled into me. I glanced around at the boundary of my circle and, sure enough, I could see the ribbon of power marking its circumference. I closed my eyes for an instant. Oh, thank you, Nyx!

Then I put the candle down on the table and grabbed the goblet of bloody wine. I turned to face Heath and Erik and the ghostly horde.

"Here is your sacrifice!" I yelled, sloshing the liquid in the goblet in a messy arc around me, so that it made a blood-colored circle on the gazebo floor. "You weren't called here to kill. You were called here because it's Samhain and we wanted to honor you." I spilled more wine, trying hard to ignore the seductive scent of fresh blood mixed with wine.

The ghosts paused in their attack. I focused on them, not wanting to distract myself with the terror in Heath's eyes and the pain in Erik's.

"We prefer this warm young blood, Priestess." The eerie voice echoed up to me, sending chills over my skin. I swear I could smell his rotting flesh-scented breath.

I swallowed hard. "I understand that, but those lives aren't yours to take. Tonight is a night for celebration, not for death."

"And yet we choose death--it is dearest to us." Ghostly laughter floated through the air with the tainted smoke of sweet grass, and the spirits began to converge again on Heath.

I threw down the goblet and raised my hands. "Then I'm not asking anymore; I'm telling you. Wind, fire, water, earth, and spirit! I command in Nyx's name that you close this circle, pulling back to it the dead who have been allowed to escape. Now!"

Heat surged through my body and shot from my outstretched hands. In a rush of salt-scented wind that was burning hot, a shining green mist whooshed from me down the stairs to whip around Heath and Erik, making their clothes and hair flap like mad. The magical wind caught the smoky shapes and tore them from their victims, and with a deafening roar, it sucked them back into the boundary of my circle. Suddenly I was surrounded by ghostly shapes, from which I could feel danger and hunger pulsing, as clearly as I had felt Heath's blood earlier. Aphrodite was curled up on the chair, cowering from the specters. One of them brushed against her and she let out a little shriek, which seemed to stir them up even more, and they pressed violently around me.

"Zoey!" Stevie Rae cried my name, her voice shrill with fear. I saw her take a hesitant step toward me.

"No!" Damien snapped. "Don't break the circle. They can't hurt Zoey--they can't hurt any of us, the circle is too strong. But only if we don't break it."

"We're not going anywhere," Shaunee called.

"Nope. I like it right here," Erin said, sounding only a little breathless.

I felt their loyalty and trust and acceptance like a sixth element. It filled me with confidence. I straightened my spine and looked at the swirling, angry ghosts.

"So--we're not leaving. Which means you guys have got to go." I pointed down at the spilled blood and wine. "Take your sacrifice and get out of here. It's all the blood that is owed to you tonight."

The smoky horde paused in their seething. I knew I had them. I drew a deep breath and finished it.

"With the power of the elements I command you: Go!"

Suddenly, as though an invisible giant slapped them down, they dissolved into the wine-soaked floor of the gazebo, somehow absorbing the blood-tinged liquid and making it disappear with them.