The exorcist's expression changed to one between understanding and awe as he reached forward, letting his hand hover over the item, but not touch it. Taylor tightened his hold on Caleb's hand as they watched. 

After a few moments with his eyes closed the exorcist retracted his hand and grasped the beads again, then started chanting. The same pressure began to build in the room. Without really thinking, Taylor stepped in front of Caleb's faded form, worried that if the ring didn't pass the test, it might go flying again. Of course, it would do far more damage to himself than Caleb, but his mind didn't even consider that fact. 

As the pressure began to get stifling, Taylor saw little zips of electricity begin to dance about on the little plastic item. He felt cold arms wrap around his right one as a pressure leaned against that side, but he didn't pay any mind to Caleb peaking around him as they both watched, transfixed. 

When the actual transition happened, it took less than the blink of an eye. One second Nikolai was there, and the next, Adoni was. Seeing his friend back in complete control was a huge relief. 

"It was a success," the exorcist said with a nod toward the little plastic ring. 

Caleb hurried forward after hearing those words and dropped to his knees before the tiny item. Even with most of his form invisible, Taylor could tell that he was a little nervous for his brother. He couldn't blame him. It was such an easy item to lose or destroy. He wasn't sure how Adon had gained so much trust from the banshee, but he admired both of them for coming to such a conclusion. 

Adon grasped the ring tightly in his hand as he stood up, a look of desperate relief on his tired face. With Nikolai's glamour gone it was easy to see just how exhausting it had been to deal with the banshee twenty-four seven. 

He seemed to think some things over silently for a few moments before walking over to the little metal clip holding his keys and sliding the ring back onto it. 

"I'm going to go wash up, then sleep," he said, the tone of his voice sounding dead tired, literally. 

Taylor nodded, unsurprised. The guy looked like he was about to fall over. Thankfully Caleb and Nikolai had helped bring his bed back upstairs previously. The frame had bent a bit with the fall, but it was still useable. Taylor watched him go, then turned back to the exorcist once the door to his bedroom had shut. 

"Now then, how can I help this little wraith, hmm?" the man questioned to himself. He rubbed at his jaw as he glanced at Caleb, who had found a seat on the floor in front of him. 

"Are you adamant about not directly possessing your friend? It wouldn't have to be permanent, but it might help you recover your form some." 

Caleb's outline wavered as he shook his head, making Taylor's heart hurt as he carefully sat down beside him and took his cold, translucent hand. 

"Well... there is one other way, but it would take a lot of trust on your part," he said to Taylor. 

He was surprised that he cared so much about Caleb after only having known him for a short time, and only his ghost, but he knew that he could trust the guy. 

"What is it?" 

The man pursed his lips and looked between them both, then began speaking. 

"I've never seen this method actually work, but I've heard stories... none of those have ever been between a human and a wraith, though. While wraiths are definitely considered the most powerful, there are limits to each supernatural form, as you have previous seen with the chalkboard example and banshees." 

Taylor leaned closer, wanting him to talk faster so that they could start already. He knew that Caleb was on borrowed time and fading more by the second. He didn't want to lose him by delaying something so important. 

The man seemed to get the picture since he stood up and gestured toward the basement. 

"Please, follow me." 

Taylor hurried after him, but stopped at the entrance when Caleb didn't stand up right away. 

"Kay?" he asked, silently noting the police officers still hovering by the open front door. They didn't seem very interested in coming back in and the man was on his phone, so he continued to ignore them, returning his attention to Caleb. 

The boy looked up, but didn't stand up. Confused and worried, he walked back over and gently lifted him up into his arms. He weighed almost nothing. It was like carrying a small bag of feathers. Careful not to drop him or let him sway too much, Taylor headed down to the basement. 

By the time he got there the exorcist was already standing before the skeleton on the bed. When he noticed them, he quickly gestured them over, then pointed to the skeleton. 

"Set him inside. He needs to be whole." 

Taylor didn't argue and hurried over, gently setting Caleb down on top of his skeleton. He faded into it immediately, disappearing completely. The sight had Taylor hesitating, wanting to reach out and try to pull him back out of it, but the exorcist grabbed his shoulder and guided him a few steps away. 

"Don't disturb him. That's what needs to happen," he said as he lead Taylor back toward the foot of the bed. 

"We are running out of time, so I need you to put all of your effort into this. This might be our only chance," he said, earning a quick nod from Taylor. 

The man gestured for him to kneel down, and he did as told right away. 

"Ghosts, banshees, and wraiths rely on memories and resentment to sustain themselves, but there is one other way to keep one on this plain," he said, drawing Taylor's wide eyes up to him. 

The exorcist gestured downward. 

"Pray, Taylor. If you want this boy to exist, you must care about him enough for him to feed off of your faith. His ethereal body needs a new reason to be here since his hatred has dissipated to this point... but I warn you. While his wraith form rests, the only other form he can have—" the sound of something moving on the bed met Taylor's ears, but he refused to stop praying. He had been focusing all of his effort, all of his heart, into turning Caleb into his god. His reason to live. He had only known him for a short time, but he couldn't imagine his life without the shy young man beside him. 

Stay with me, Caleb. I need you here. You've taken up so much space in my head that I can barely even think about anything else I used to care about. It's all you, and I never want to change that. So please; please continue to exist for me. I need you. 

A shadow fell over his form as he stared at the ground, his focus broken by the movement. 

"Miraculous..." the exorcist mumbled as Taylor slowly allowed his head to lift, bringing his eyes up to what had moved closer to him on the bed. 

Eyes widening in shock, he stared up into two pitch-black eye sockets. The skeleton was on its knees on the bed, both hands in front of it, clearly uncomfortable and trying to hold its bones up. 

There's nothing actually connecting the bones. 

"He's quite an amazing example of a wraith. I've never seen them be able to move the skeleton for more than a few simple gestures before, yet he wants to be near you so badly that he's already somewhat mobile," the exorcist said in awe. 

Taylor was in awe, too, but he couldn't push away the terror growing in his heart as the skeleton reached toward him with shaky, dusty fingers. Unable to control himself, he quickly scrambled backwards until his back bumped into the wall beside the old desk. His heart hammered in his chest, making it hard to get in a decent gasp of air. 

"Lad, you need to pull yourself together. Your friend is still himself, you just gave him a chance to rest his corporeal form so that he wouldn't truly pass on," the exorcist coaxed quietly as he knelt beside him and settled a hand on his shoulder. 

The moment the man touched him both of their eyes snapped back to the skeleton as a stuttered hiss somehow emanated from its slowly parting jaw bones. 

"O-oh, sorry Caleb," the man said as he quickly removed his hand and stood up, then bowed once. 

The hissing quieted, drawing Taylor's attention back and forth between the two of them. He was still a bit too shocked about the actual moving skeleton in front of him to really process the jealousy. 

Wait. Moving. 

His breath caught in his throat as Caleb maneuvered his new body off of the bed. It was no surprise, however, when he couldn't balance. He might have gotten a more solid form, but his movements were sluggish, likely because he wasn't used to having actual weight to move around. 

Taylor fought himself as he watched Caleb fall. He was terrified to even touch the skeleton, but it was old... several years old. It had been exposed to the air for quite some time, and several parts were already weakened by rodent bites and decay. 

He lunged forward before he could talk himself out of it, but right as his arms moved to wrap around the skeleton, he jerked his eyes closed. The feeling of worn porcelain met his fingertips as they slid for a moment before he forced himself to hold on. 

He barely weighs anything. 

Granted, he'd weighed almost nothing when he was a wraith, but for some reason he expected a skeleton to weigh more. He barely felt fifteen pounds in his arms, give or take. 

 His eyes finally refused to stay closed as the skeleton began to move, its actions extremely slow, with a few jerks in between. As much as he wanted to help, he couldn't make his eyes look away from the ceiling. Smooth digits pressed against his skin one at a time as Caleb worked his way through moving each singular bone. 

I guess it makes sense that it's a lot harder to move the skeleton than it would be to just move in his ethereal form. He has to tie together every single bone and coordinate them together, as well as hold them all in place correctly. 

Blinking back tears, Taylor looked down at the poor creature desperately holding onto him so that it didn't fall. It looked pitiful. Pathetic, even, but he knew that it was an incredible feat. 

"You're amazing," he whispered softly. 

It looked like Caleb was trying to lift the head of the skeleton to respond in some way, but he just seemed to be too tired to complete the action, as it hunched back down several times before it stopped moving altogether. 

"He should rest for a while. I can't imagine how hard it must be to suddenly have so much weight back on your body," the exorcist said, but didn't dare approach. 

Taylor agreed, and carefully began shuffling closer to the bed. It took a good while, since he had to wait for an-evidently very sleepy Caleb to match his actions. 

"It'll be okay, Kay. Just going to lay you down to rest for a little bit," he said quietly as he continued to guide Caleb back to the bed. 

It took them about twenty minutes before they were both finally sitting down on the edge. He'd had to be careful not to bump any of Nikolai's bones on their way, too, which added more time. Not that he minded. 

"Okay, time for a little nap," he said as he gently guided Caleb's body to lie down. 

A faint cloud of dust rose from the bed as they moved on it, making Taylor make a mental note to get a new set of soft blankets and some pillows that weren't flat and chewed on by bugs and rats. 

I really want to take him upstairs to the clean bed, but Adon probably just fell asleep, and to wake up next to a skeleton... I should just buy them a new bed for upstairs. 

"Don't worry. He'll be fine to rest there for now. Besides, the undead are always more comfortable in the area that they died. That is why you rarely see them venture far away from it, even though some wraiths probably could," the exorcist said as he gestured for them to head back upstairs. 

Taylor hesitated for several moments, but he knew that he couldn't do anything else right then. 

"I'll be back down soon, I promise. Get some rest, Caleb," he reassured himself as much as he did the wraith. 

With that, he slowly followed the other man up the stairs. By the time he stepped onto the first floor, he felt like his entire body was weighed down by something heavy. 

What is going on? 

"Feeling it, I imagine?" the exorcist asked as he turned to Taylor with a smile that didn't seem quite right. 

Feeling it? 

His mind felt jumbled as he took a step backward, then slid down the wall when he felt it against his shoulders-blades. 

"I'm surprised that he hasn't knocked you out yet, but that just goes to show how amazing he's going to be to study. I'm glad that all of my research about prayer transfusion was correct, too. I've never been able to get my hands on a wraith, let alone one so malleable, but you just made my dream come true," the man said as he gestured for the officers to come back in. 

They didn't look surprised by his predicament in the least, much to Taylor's discomfort. 

They had fooled us all. 

He tried to look toward his bedroom, worried that something might have happened to Adon, but he couldn't move his body anymore. 

"Don't worry about your friend. That was all fine. You're welcome for saving him, by the way. That banshee was draining his life-force pretty badly."

Now unable to speak, Taylor simply glared up at the man, receiving a cackling laugh in return. 

"You'll feel better in a little while... but by that time, we'll be long gone," the man said as he gestured for the officers to go downstairs. 

Get up. You have to get up! 

Yet he couldn't move a single muscle. Not even his fingers responded any longer. 

Only a few short minutes passed before he heard people coming back up the stairs. When they finally walked into his line of sight, his heart fell into his stomach. 

Don't take him. You can't take him! 

The skeleton in the man's arms was still holding itself together, but there was no sign of life from it as it hung limply in the cop's arms.

Caleb!

"Take care, Taylor. Thank you for this invaluable opportunity," the exorcist said as he headed out the door, taking the little plastic ring from Adon's keys as he went. 

"Safe-keeping," he said as he held it up and waved, but didn't bother looking back at him as he stepped out the door, then slammed it shut.