Chapter 1
The small town of Dayton, Washington lies in the foothills of the Blue Mountains of Washington state. It is a small farming community of about 2600 people in the town proper, and countless others spread through the sprawling fields and open hills. A peaceful place, or someone would think. Lying deep below the surface, one of Earth’s energy cross points—where two ley lines meet—lay beneath the little park at the center of town. And on this night, five children had gathered to do a ritual.
I say children, but they were really teens who felt like outcasts and powerless to change their circumstances.
It began two weeks earlier in Ethan Caldwell’s basement, around a thrift-store Ouija board that smelled of mildew and old attic dust. At first it was laughter and accusations—you’re pushing it—until the planchette glided on its own, spelling words none of them had guided.
H-E-L-P M-E.
The bulb overhead flickered. Breath fogged in sudden cold. Night after night the spirit returned, patient, promising everything they secretly craved: power, respect, a life bigger than wheat fields and dying dreams. All they had to do was free it from its prison beneath the park on the night of the full moon.
They agreed before fear could take root.
Instructions came in careful, deliberate spellings: black candles, pure sea salt, chalk mixed with graveyard dirt, a blade that had never tasted blood, a circle drawn exactly right. And, at the climax, the offering of pure blood—freely given or taken.
A virgin.
None of the older four intended to volunteer. That left only one real candidate, though none of them said it aloud at first.
Over the next ten days they scattered across Dayton like scavengers.
Ethan drove to Walla Walla and lifted black candles from the occult shelf of a cramped bookstore, heart hammering beneath his calm face.
Mara filled a mason jar with sea salt stolen one handful at a time from the co-op bulk bins.
Riley and Rowan biked to the old cemetery at dusk, scraping dirt from forgotten graves into plastic grocery bags while pretending to film a fake ghost-hunting video.
Amanda Moon—twelve years old, small for her age, perpetually drowning in oversized hoodies—was given the safest jobs. She swiped chalk from the elementary school art room. She found red string in her grandmother’s sewing basket. And when they needed a knife “sharp enough to cut true,” she produced her grandfather’s hunting knife with shining pride, still in its worn leather sheath, edge gleaming like new.
Each time she handed something over, they praised her lavishly.
“You’re the best, Mandy.”
“Couldn’t do this without you.”
“You’re really one of us now.”
She believed every word.
The full moon rose clear and cold. Just after midnight they met at the park, bundles slung over shoulders, footsteps muffled on frost-tipped grass. The swings creaked in a lazy breeze; the single streetlamp buzzed and flickered. Otherwise the town slept.
They worked fast and quiet. A wide chalk circle. Intricate symbols copied letter by letter. Black candles placed at north, east, south, west. A thick unbroken line of salt. The knife laid in the center on a square of black cloth.
Amanda stood just outside the circle, hugging herself against the chill, eyes bright with excitement. “It’s really happening,” she whispered. “We’re going to be powerful.”
Ethan smiled the same easy smile he’d used to let a sixth-grader into their secret club. “Come stand in the middle, Mandy. You brought the knife—you should start us off.”
She stepped carefully over the salt line, picked up the blade, held it out like a sacred thing.
That was when they moved.
Riley and Rowan grabbed her arms, twisting them behind her back before shock could become sound. Mara looped the red string—Amanda’s own string—around her wrists in quick, tight knots. Ethan slapped duct tape over her mouth when she finally opened it to scream.
They forced her to her knees in the dead center.
She thrashed, eyes huge, tears cutting pale tracks through chalk dust on her cheeks.
Mara crouched, brushed hair from Amanda’s face with fake tenderness. “Took you long enough.”
Riley leaned close. “Say hi to Mr. Whiskers when you get there. Needed to test the blade last week. Worked great. Not sorry.”
Rowan yanked the knots tighter until the string bit skin.
Ethan retrieved the knife, tested the edge. “You were always the virgin, Mandy. Youngest. Purest. Easiest.”
Amanda’s muffled cries shook her whole body. Every errand, every smile, every you’re one of us crashed over her in one sickening wave.
Ethan raised the knife high. Moonlight slid cold along the steel.
He began the incantation, voice steady and rehearsed.
“Exsurgat antiquus… ex vinculis suis…”
Mara and the twins joined, voices weaving together.
The ground trembled faintly, answering.
Then Amanda stopped struggling.
For one heartbeat she went perfectly still.
Rowan relaxed his grip a fraction.
She exploded.
Her head snapped backward, skull smashing into Rowan’s nose with a wet crunch. He shrieked, blood spraying, hands flying to his face as he staggered.
The grip on her right arm slackened.
She twisted hard, drove her knee into the dirt for leverage, and kicked forward with everything she had.
Her sneaker found Ethan’s groin dead-center.
He made a high, airless sound. The knife spun from his fingers into the grass. He folded, staggered backward two uncontrolled steps—heel grinding across the southern salt line, shoulder clipping the black candle. It toppled; flame hissed out against the earth.
The chant shattered into confused shouts.
Mara lunged, but Amanda—face streaked with tears and Rowan’s blood—ripped the duct tape halfway off with a violent jerk of her head.
And she screamed a name none of them had ever heard her use.
Not their mangled Latin.
A true name, spoken with absolute faith and fury.
“AZRINELO!”
The air split like lightning without thunder.
Every candle flame roared upward, blue-white and tall as torches. A hot wind exploded outward from Amanda, smelling of ozone and ancient parchment. It slammed Riley off his feet, pinned Mara against a pine at the circle’s edge.
Rowan, clutching his ruined nose, stared at her in open terror.
Ethan, curled on the ground and retching, looked up just in time to see the night above her fold and shimmer as something vast and winged and written in silver script began to manifest.
Amanda’s voice—small, shaking, but unbroken—cut through the gale.
“You weren’t listening. I took every lesson seriously.”
The broken circle smoked. The thing below the park growled in confusion and rage at the wrong summons.
But Azrinelo had answered first.
