Bridge of Souls (Cassidy Blake #3)(4)

Which may be the last thing I ever thought I’d hear Jacob say.

“I know, I know,” he says, shoving his hands in his pockets.

Jacob and Lara don’t exactly get along. You could say it’s a difference of temperament—Jacob’s all Gryffindor, and Lara’s undeniably Ravenclaw—but it’s more complicated than that. Lara’s an in-betweener, like me, and her job—which is my job, too—is to send ghosts on to the other side, and Jacob is firmly, undeniably here.

He clears his throat.

Which is exactly where he’s supposed to be, I think pointedly.

“Look,” he says, “Lara doesn’t know everything, but she does know a lot of stuff, and maybe she’s seen one of these weird skeleton men before.”

I swallow hard. Whatever I saw in Paris, it wasn’t a man. It was shaped like one, more or less, with that black suit and that broad-brimmed hat. But a man has flesh and blood. A man has a face behind his mask. A man has eyes.

What I saw?

It wasn’t human at all.

As my parents walk on ahead of me, I take out my phone. It’s the middle of the afternoon in Scotland, assuming Lara’s still staying with her aunt. I send a text.

Me:

Hey, can you chat?



Within seconds, she texts back.

Lara:

What did Jacob do now?



“Rude!” he mutters.

I look down at the screen, trying to figure out how to ask about what I saw on the platform.

I bite my lip, searching for the words.

“I think the ones you’re looking for are scary, and nicely dressed, and soul-sucking skeleton dude,” offers Jacob, but I shoo him away.

Me:

There are other paranormal things, right? Besides ghosts?



Lara:

You’ll have to be more specific.



I start a few texts, deleting them each time. I don’t know what’s stopping me. Or maybe I do.

I can’t always run to Lara. I shouldn’t have to. I’m an in-betweener, too. I should know what to do. And if I don’t, I should be able to figure things out on my own.

“Sure,” says Jacob, “but you don’t have a dead uncle who spent his whole life researching the paranormal and now haunts the leather chair in your living room.”

“No,” I say slowly, “but I have you.”

Jacob smiles, a little uncertain. “Well, yeah, obviously.” He scuffs his shoe. “But I didn’t see the skeleton thing.”

And there’s more to my hesitation. The truth is, I don’t want to think about what I saw, or how it made me feel. I don’t want to put it into words, because then it will be real.

Lara:

Cassidy?



I look around for something else to ask her about. A spray-painted mouth smiles at me from a brick wall, two fangs jutting from the upper lip. An arrow points down an alley and asks the question, Thirsty?

I snap a photo with my phone and hit send.

Me:

Real?



Moments later, Lara writes back:

Lara:

No, Cassidy, vampires are not real.



I can practically hear her posh English accent. I can picture her rolling her eyes, too. Lara’s remarkably skeptical for a girl who can move between the world of the living and the dead.

My phone buzzes again.

Lara:

Are you in New Orleans? I’ve always wanted to go. It’s home to the oldest branch of the Society of the Black Cat.



It’s not the first time Lara’s mentioned the secret organization. When we met, she was staying in Edinburgh with her aunt and the ghost of her uncle. When her uncle was alive, he was a member, she said, of the Society, a mysterious group that knows all sorts of things about the paranormal.

Lara:

If I were there, I could petition the Society in person and convince them to let me join.

Lara:

If you find their headquarters, let me know.



I glance around again, half expecting to find a sign for the Society right here on Bourbon Street.

Me:

Where are they?



Lara:

I’m not sure. They don’t exactly advertise.



Up ahead, Dad’s studying the hours of a museum dedicated to poisons, while Mom reads a sandwich board advertising séances. I walk over to join Mom, and I study the icon of the upturned hand, a crystal ball hovering in the air over the palm. I take a photo of the board and send it to Lara.

Me:

What about this? Real?



I watch the three blinking dots that signal she’s typing. And typing. Still typing. I don’t know why I expected a simple answer, but when the text comes in, it fills my screen.

Lara:

Psychics are real, but séances generally fall under the category of entertainment. This is because, unlike in-betweeners, psychics stay on this side of the Veil, and pull the curtain back to talk to someone on the other side. But séances claim to bring those spirits across the threshold into the land of the living. If the spirits are strong enough to cross over, they generally get out.



Jacob reads over my shoulder, shaking his head.

“She could have just said no.”

He’s standing in front of a café window, and he squints at a reflection only the two of us can see. He runs a hand through his hair, but it doesn’t move. It’s always sticking up, just like his superhero T-shirt is always wrinkled. Nothing about him ever changes, because it can’t. It hasn’t, since the day he drowned.