A/N: Greetings readers! Here's the second chapter of our new story, for your long-weekend reading pleasure. Hope you enjoy! Keep your eyes peeled next Friday for the next installment.

Disclaimer: We are not Kelley Armstrong, we don't own the characters or the rights to Darkest Powers and we make no money from this.

I. Was. Going. To. Lose. My. Mind. Thanks to Jaime's tutelage, I now knew that that was an absolutely possible and in fact a very probable future for me, thanks to my necromancer heritage. Spirits can be demanding beings, as I was starting to learn, and even though my powers greatly exceeded those of any known necromancers in history, sometimes a spirit can be next to impossible to banish. Mark was proving to be one of those.

Tori was over when I tried banishing Mark again. Too observant, she had seen what Derek hadn't and had harangued me until I broke down and told her about Mark. Fortunately, Tori can be relied on to keep things to herself when necessary, and she had agreed not to tell Derek, provided that I try one last time to get rid of Mark and let her be present while I did it.

Which secretly made me feel a lot better.

I did everything to the letter. Jaime had mentioned that necromancers think that they need rituals and herbs and symbols to access their power, but that she had reason to believe that the power is within us and that all the paraphernalia is simply a way to help people focus on their objective. Because I hadn't known about my powers, I had never relied on rituals or incense or anything other than my visualizations to summon or banish (or in Mark's case, create) ghosts. But in the interest of making damn sure I never had to deal with this disturbed kid again, I had visited a local supply store and I had censers of burning herbs, chalk marks on my high-gloss cherry wood floor, a ritual cloth, grave dirt and (shudder) some corpse bits.

"Make sure to handle the corpse bits," Jaime had said, then she chuckled. "Or fondle them, whatever gets you off."

My face had flamed, even over the phone, and my blush came back to me now as I gingerly poked one of the desiccated pieces of what had used to be living flesh, my gorge rising.

"Think that's enough touching?" I asked Tori, who was watching in horrified fascination, her upper lip curled back in distaste.

"No touching would have been enough touching for me," she muttered, still staring at the dried lumps. "God, what the hell is that?"

Swallowing hard, I poked at it once again for good measure. "Uh, a p-piece of finger, m-m-maybe?" Damn. My stutter was cropping up again, which meant I was more nervous than I realized. Fighting for calm, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath before sitting up straight and reading the incantation that Jaime had e-mailed me.

Tori sat very still behind me, but I heard the low crackle of electricity as she readied one of her little zappers. She was determined to find out if they worked on ghosts, so if Mark gave me any trouble, I was supposed to let her know.

Matching my breathing to hers, I read out the incantation. I stumbled a little over the unfamiliar words in a strange language, but after I read it two times, then three, I could feel a slow, steady surge of power building within me, and my voice lowered and boomed as I nearly yelled the incantation for the fourth time.

"Weeeeeeeeell, well, well, look at this. Did you miss me that bad, honey?" Mark's slithery voice sent chills down my spine as his ghost took form before me.

"He's here," I said softly to Tori, and she aimed one of her death glares where I pointed.

"And you brought me a gift!" He winked at Tori, who just kept staring him down. "Ooh, a hottie. I like it when a hot chick looks that pissed off."

He glided over to her, his hand passing through her as he mimed copping a feel. Tori didn't notice, didn't even twitch as his hand went right through her body.

"Leave her alone," I ordered, and he seemed surprised when his body complied with my order. That was the purpose of the specific incantation I had used. It gave me a modicum of control over his spirit, rather than just throwing the full weight of my powers against him, draining me and possibly raising something better not raised. Tori shifted a little behind me, the faint rustle reminding me to get back to my point.

"," he singsonged, effectively breaking my concentration. With a wicked little grin, he leaned forward to catch my gaze. "Oh, I'm not bothering you, am I? Where's Derek, Chloe? He's not very good at looking after you anymore, is he? Now that he's fucked you?"

How in the hell-?

My hands, reaching for the chalk to draw a new set of symbols in preparation for the banishing, shook so hard that the chalk flew out of my fingers and skidded across the floor. Swearing softly, I lunged and grabbed it, forcing my sweaty hands into stillness. Mark kept it up, the constant stream of noise hovering and then retreating around my ears, reminding me of the mosquitoes that would get into our cabins at summer camp.

I wanted to swat him just a badly as I wanted to swat them back in the day.

Finally, too stressed and utterly disgusted by his words, I looked over at Tori.

"Here," I said, pointing right at him. She had been waiting for this, her face growing tense and concerned as my anxiety levels had risen. Now, permission granted, she grinned and whipped her handful of electricity right at him. It hit him squarely in the chest, and I don't know if the incantation had something to do with it, or if Tori's rare blend of sorcerer and witch powers were more powerful, but it struck him and stuck, little blue tendrils of electricity snaking up and down his arms and legs as his body spasmed.

"Oh, my God," I whispered, and Tori nudged me.

"I've got another ready, if he doesn't let up on you."

I stared at Mark's frozen, furious face for a second longer, then quickly sketched out the symbols from the sheet Jaime had sent me and added the rune Jeremy had scanned and sent to her to help me. Instantly I felt more in control, more centered, and I let my fingers linger on the rune for a second as I grabbed the second sheet that held the banishing incantation.

The shock didn't last long, then Mark was flying towards me, lips drawn back in a snarl, hands curled as he went for my throat. Instinctively, I flinched, even though logically I knew he couldn't touch me.

Tori grabbed the sheet that I had dropped in my moment of panic and thrust it back into my hands. "Read!" she ordered.

Like the first time, I stumbled a bit, but this time because Mark was hovering, screaming obscenities into my ear. He had noticed my earlier flinch and kept swinging his hand into my face, each time causing me to jump a little and lose my place. His relentless attack had me on the verge of tears, but finally I managed to get through the entire thing without stopping, and that swell of power filled me again. Raising my voice a little, I called out the last line and Mark popped out of sight.

The silence was abrupt after the screaming, howling chaos that had preceded it. Odd, because Tori didn't notice any difference, but I nearly wilted in relief. She saw my shoulders droop and grabbed my arm. She probably thought I was going to fall over. I wasn't entirely sure that that wouldn't have happened.

"He's gone?"

I nodded wearily and bent over to blow out the candle. "Yeah. It worked."

I wanted to feel relieved, but the verbal and nerve-wracking battering I had just taken was all I could feel.

"Did the zapper work?" Her brown eyes were alight with curiosity.

"Oddly enough, yeah, it did." I started rubbing at the chalk marks with a soft cloth as I spoke. "Usually nothing from our world affects a ghost."

Tori took the cloth from me and kept cleaning up the floor, so I started gathering together the rest of the paraphernalia. The corpse bits went into a little container that I sealed with relief. Everything got bundled into a little duffel with the ritual cloth folded and laid on top to hide the freaky-deaky stuff underneath. After I stuffed it into my closet, I half-collapsed onto my bed, my knees feeling a little watery.

"He's gone, Chloe." Tori's voice was uncharacteristically soft as she sat down beside me. "You look pretty shaken up still."

I calmed myself by looking at the picture of Derek and I that sat next to my bed. He was grinning widely at something Simon had said just before taking the picture, and I was laughing in the circle of his arms. It had been a sunny day and the grass had been such a vibrant green that it seemed unreal in the background. Seeing his face helped me breathe, and I heard his voice in my head. Relax, Chloe. He's gone.

"A little." I shrugged off the uneasy feeling and shook my head. "He knew things he shouldn't have, though."

"Like what?"

"Uh…" Clearing my throat a little, I gave Tori a Look. "Like, personal stuff…"

"Huh?" Her eyes went wide. "Oh! Oh, God, like I needed that picture in my head!" she yelped, covering her eyes. "You and wolfie…ugh."

"Tori," I caught her wrist and pulled until she looked at me, "he shouldn't have known that."

I saw the moment she understood, because her eyes flared. "He's been spying on you?"

Disgusted by the thought that my special night with Derek had been watched, I nodded. "I think so. Either that or he just threw out a good guess."

Brushing her bangs out of her eyes, she tilted her head thoughtfully to the side. "Possibly." Then she gave me a bracing shake and got up, grabbing both of our purses off the floor. "But he's gone now, so let's go get some dinner and celebrate."

Stepping into my shoes, I mustered a smile. "Yeah, you're right, he's gone."

Yeah. Freaking. Right.