Maya stared at the phone ringing across the parking lot. The haunting melody of "Ave Maria" in a minor key made her skin crawl, but she couldn't look away.
"Don't even think about it," Elena said, but her voice sounded strange. Distant.
Maya turned to look at Elena and froze. Her rescuer's eyes had gone completely black.
"Elena?"
"The problem with parasites," Elena said, her voice overlapping with itself like multiple people speaking at once, "is that everyone assumes there's only one of them."
Maya stumbled backward, hitting the car door. "You're not Elena."
"Oh, I am Elena. I'm just... expanded." Elena's smile was too wide, showing teeth that were slightly too sharp. "Did you really think a parasite powerful enough to influence dozens of people would only have one backup plan?"
The crowd around them started laughing in perfect unison. The sound was like broken bells, discordant and wrong.
"I've been Elena for three days now," the thing wearing Elena's face continued. "Since right after she contacted you, actually. The real Elena is still in here, somewhere, screaming about her daughter and her guilt. She makes such lovely background noise."
Maya's mind raced. If Elena had been possessed for three days, then everything she'd told Maya about parasites, about her daughter Sarah, about Maya's family history—was any of it true?
"The beautiful thing about taking someone like Elena," the false Elena said, "is that she came with so much useful information. Did you know your grandmother didn't just break free from her parasite? She killed it. Destroyed it so thoroughly that it took sixty years for another one to find your family line."
Maya pressed herself against the car door. "What do you want?"
"The same thing I've always wanted. You. But I'm willing to be more... flexible about the terms now." The crowd began moving closer, forming a tight circle around Maya and the possessed Elena. "You see, I learned something interesting from Elena's memories. Your family bloodline isn't just vulnerable to parasitic attachment. It can actually kill beings like me."
Maya's heart pounded. "Then why would you want me?"
"Because, darling Maya, anything that can kill can also heal. Anything that can destroy can also create." False Elena reached out to touch Maya's cheek with fingers that felt like ice. "Your grandmother's parasite wasn't just feeding off her. It was dying. Poisoned by something in your bloodline that makes you toxic to my kind."
Maya jerked away from the touch. "So this whole time, you've been slowly poisoning yourself by connecting to me?"
"Exactly! Isn't it romantic? I'm literally dying for love." The possessed Elena laughed, and the sound was like fingernails on glass. "But here's the thing—if I can get you to willingly bond with me completely, the toxicity reverses. Instead of killing me, your bloodline would make me immortal. Truly immortal, not just long-lived."
Maya looked around at the crowd of influenced people. Their blank expressions suddenly made more sense. "You're not just collecting backup hosts. You're collecting witnesses."
"Smart girl. I need witnesses to confirm that you chose this freely. No coercion, no trickery, just pure choice. Because magic is all about consent, and consent only counts if you have other options."
Maya's phone stopped ringing, but immediately another phone in the crowd started playing the same haunting melody. Then another. And another. Within seconds, dozens of phones were creating a cacophony of minor-key "Ave Maria."
"Answer one of them, Maya," the false Elena said over the noise. "Let me make you feel special again. Let me give you everything you've ever wanted."
"And if I refuse?"
The possessed Elena's smile turned predatory. "Then I keep these lovely people as puppets forever. Mrs. Patterson will never see her grandchildren again. The college boy will fail his classes and drop out. The mailman will lose his job and his family. All because you were too selfish to accept the love I'm offering."
Maya felt the weight of thirty pairs of empty eyes staring at her. These people had families, lives, dreams of their own. The parasite was holding them hostage to force her compliance.
But something Elena had said earlier stuck with her. The real Elena, before she'd been possessed.
"You said my grandmother killed her parasite," Maya said slowly.
"She did. And it nearly killed her too. The toxicity goes both ways, sweet Maya. Destroy me, and you'll likely die in the process."
Maya looked at the crowd of innocent people trapped by her choices. Then she looked at the possessed Elena, who was wearing the face of someone who'd tried to help her.
"There's something you don't know about my family bloodline," Maya said, reaching for the nearest ringing phone.
The false Elena tilted her head, curious.
Maya picked up the phone and held it to her ear. On the other end, she could hear breathing that sounded like wind through cemetery gates.
"The thing about us," Maya said, looking directly into Elena's possessed black eyes, "is that we've never been afraid of dying for the right cause."