Bridge of Souls (Cassidy Blake #3)(17)

“What’s your point?” I ask softly.

“It’s okay if you’re scared this time, Cass. Because I’m not. I’m not scared because I know we’re going to get through this.”

I lean my shoulder against his, and for the first time, I’m grateful he’s more than a ghost, grateful for the slight pressure of his arm against mine.

“Thanks, Jacob.”

The door to our room swings open, and Dad pops his head out into the hall. “There you are.” Grim pokes his head out, too, gets one paw over the threshold before Dad ducks to catch him. “No you don’t,” he says, scooping the cat under his arm. “Bedtime, Cass.”

I get up, and follow. I climb into bed, one hand tight around my mirror charm, while Jacob sits on the floor next to Grim.

Jacob usually wanders off at night—I’ve never known where, but ghosts don’t exactly need sleep—but tonight, he stays close. A ghostly sentinel. Having him there makes me feel safe.

Or at least, safer.

“Rule number ninety-six,” he says. “Friends don’t let friends get snatched away by creepy skeletons.”

I groan, and pull the blankets up over my head.

Outside, people are still laughing and singing in the streets. New Orleans is one of those places that never sleep.

And apparently, neither will I.

*

At some point I finally drift off, and when I do, I dream.

I dream of the séance room in the Hotel Kardec. I’m sitting in one of the chairs, and there’s no one else there, and I can’t turn around, but I can feel the curtain move behind me, can feel something reaching for me.

“We will find you,” it whispers, bone fingers curling around the chair.

I shoot to my feet, and suddenly I’m on the Metro platform in Paris.

The train pulls away, and I see the stranger in the dark suit, tipping its hat. The skull mask beneath that seems to grimace and smile and grimace again, and then it lifts a gloved hand to the mask and pulls it away, and there’s nothing underneath, nothing but darkness and gravity.

I fall forward again, out of Paris.

I twist in time to see the bridge, my bike wrapped around the rail, before I hit the water’s surface and crash down into the river.

An icy shock, and then I’m under. I’m sinking. Drowning.

It is so cold and dark beneath the water.

A world of black—and blue.

A blue too bright to be natural light.

I look down, and see the ribbon glowing in my chest, the blue-white thread of my life, only visible in the Veil. It shines, bright as a beacon in the dark, but there’s nothing else to see. I’m all alone in the river.

Or so I think.

A hand grabs my wrist, and I gasp, twisting around.

But it’s just Jacob, his blond hair floating around his face.

“It’s okay,” he says, and his voice is crystal clear, even though we’re underwater. “It’s okay,” he says again, wrapping his arms around me. “I’m here.”

But instead of pulling me up toward the surface, he pulls me down, down, away from the light, and the air, and the world overhead.

I try to say his name, say wait, but all that comes out are bubbles. There is no air. I can’t breathe. I try to tear free, but his grip is iron, is stone, and when I twist enough to see his face, there is no face at all. Just a skull mask, the eyes empty and black. A skeletal smile, set in bone.

And when he speaks again, the voice is deep, and low, and unlike anything I’ve ever heard. I feel it in my bones.

“You belong here,” it says, holding me tight until my lungs scream, and the light inside my chest flickers, and dims, and goes out.

And we sink down through the bottomless dark.

*

I sit up with a gasp.

Morning light glares through the window, and through Jacob, who’s perched on the windowsill, tugging at a loose thread on his shirt. Mom and Dad bustle around, getting dressed.

I collapse back into the sheets, pulling a pillow over my head.

I feel headachy and wrong, and I can still taste the river in my throat, can hear the voice like a vibration in my chest.

You belong here.

Grim pads across the bed and paws at the pillow.

“Up and at ’em, sleepyhead,” says Mom. “Places to visit, spirits to see.”

“You know,” says Jacob, “I wonder if she’d be so fond of ghosts if she could see them.”

I groan and roll out of bed.

Mom is even more cheerful than usual, and I don’t find out why until we’re at breakfast in the hotel restaurant.

“Cemetery day!” she announces, the way a normal person might say, “We’re going to Disneyland!”

I look from Mom to Dad, a biscuit halfway to my mouth, waiting for one of them to explain.

Dad clears his throat. “As I mentioned, there are forty-two cemeteries in the city of New Orleans.”

“That seems excessive,” says Jacob.

“Please tell me we’re not going to all forty-two of them,” I say.

“Goodness, no,” Dad answers, “that would be impractical.”

“It would be a fun challenge,” says Mom, her face falling a little, “but no, we simply don’t have the time.”

“We are, however, going to six of them,” says Dad, as if six is a perfectly ordinary number of cemeteries. He ticks them off on his fingers. “There’s St. Louis Number One, St. Louis Number Two, St. Louis Number Three …”