Bridge of Souls (Cassidy Blake #3)(23)

“We have found you,” it says, “and we will return you to the dark.”

It reaches forward, and I know that if it gets its hands on me, I will never get away. I know, but my legs are still like blocks of ice.

I shuffle backward again, make it a few clumsy steps before the ground changes beneath my feet, from gravel to stone, and a wall comes up against my back. A crypt, old and crumbling.

There’s nowhere to run.

Jacob struggles to his feet, still looking damp, and dazed, and gray, and even if he were solid enough to fight, he wouldn’t reach me in time.

The Emissary steps closer, and I resist the urge to close my eyes.

There’s nowhere to run, but I won’t hide.

I look up, into that skull face, those empty eyes, as it reaches out, gloved fingers skimming the air in front of my chest, carrying the touch of ice, and cold air, and deep shadow, as its other hand goes to its mask.

“Cassidy Blake,” says the Emissary, in its whispering way, “come with—”

Something shatters against the Emissary’s hat.

A roof tile.

I look at Jacob, but he’s still struggling to his feet.

And then a voice from the crypt over my head. A prim, English voice.

“Back off, reaper. She’s not going anywhere with you.”

The Emissary looks up, and so do I, and there’s Lara Chowdhury standing on the crypt roof, dressed in a pair of shorts, a gray blouse, and a bright red backpack.

I’m still trying to figure out how she’s there—if she’s there—when she disappears, jumping down from the crypt and out of sight.

Maybe she thought the Emissary would follow her, but it doesn’t.

“Lara?” I shout as the Emissary turns its focus back on me.

“Cassidy,” she says from the other side of the crypt. “You might want to get out of the way.”

The rotting tomb gives a violent groan against my back, and I realize what she’s doing. I lunge out of the way, just before the old crypt sways, and splits, and topples forward.

It doesn’t crush the Emissary, exactly. I don’t think it’s the kind of thing that can be crushed.

But the fall kicks up a lot of dust and debris, a thin gray cover. I hold my breath, trying not to inhale. A hand closes around my wrist, and I jump, stifling a shout, but it’s just Lara. Impossible, amazing Lara. Who’s really here.

“How are you here?” I ask, almost choking on crypt dust. “Where did you—”

“Questions later,” she says briskly. “Right now, run.”

I stumble, bending to scoop up my pendant from the weedy base of a grave, grimacing when I see the mirror is broken—not just splintered, but shattered. I pocket it as Lara pulls me up again and pushes me toward the gates.

Jacob staggers after us, still looking shaken and damp. “Are you okay?” I ask him.

“Zero out of ten,” he says with a shiver. “Do not recommend letting that thing touch you.”

“Less talk, more flee,” snaps Lara.

My ears are still ringing from the strange quiet that surrounds the Emissary, but as we near the graveyard gates, I swear I hear music. Not the eerie melody of the Veil but the high whine of a trumpet, followed by horns and a saxophone.

And then we hit the exit of St. Roch and I look up, and see a parade.

A very slow-moving parade. Cars crawl forward, and people walk on foot, some all in black and others in white, some holding flowers and others umbrellas. A marching band is staggered through the group like beads on a chain, gold instruments gleaming, as jazz rises through the street. And something moves at the center of it all, carried on either side by a pair of men.

It’s a casket.

And this, I realize, isn’t a parade.

It’s a funeral.

Lara pulls me straight toward it.

We duck and weave through the slow-moving sea, slip through a gap between a drum and a horn, a pair of women in feathered Sunday hats and a carriage horse, tumbling out on the other side of the street.

The procession stretches as far as I can see.

“That’s a lot of life and death,” says Lara, pulling me down behind a car, “which is good cover. It should confuse the Emissary, at least for a while.”

We crouch low, the three of us, and then Lara looks at me and the first thing she says, really says to me, is “I told you not to wander.” And then she scowls at Jacob. “Honestly, how hard is it to keep her safe?”

“I’d like to see you try!”

Jacob finally looks like himself again, his blond hair dry and his color back (well, as much as it ever is).

Lara clucks her tongue and lifts her own mirror pendant, angling it over her shoulder, so she can see past the parade to the cemetery gates.

I reach for my mirror before remembering it’s broken. My hand hovers as if it doesn’t know what to do, before dropping onto my camera.

“Do you see it?” I ask, shifting so I can look, too.

The air lurches in my chest as the Emissary appears at the mouth of the cemetery. It pauses under the wrought-iron arch of St. Roch, head swiveling from side to side as it searches for us. For me.

And then it disappears, sliding apart like smoke.

“It’s gone,” I whisper.

“For now,” says Lara, voicing the part I didn’t want to think about. The Emissary came out of nowhere. It vanished into nowhere. Which means it could be anywhere.