Bridge of Souls (Cassidy Blake #3)(48)

But I’m not leaving this place without both of my friends. I grab Jacob’s wrist and pull him away from the creature. Grab Lara’s hand, and together, we run.

The world at our backs is dark, but the road ahead is lighter. If we can just get off the Bridge of Souls. If we can—

“Where are you going?” rasps the Emissary, and there is an awful amusement in that hoarse voice. As if there’s nowhere to go, as if the bridge doesn’t run both ways.

The Emissary lifts one hand, bone talons pointed toward the sky—if there is a sky in a place like this. And suddenly the bridge beneath us ripples and sways. Thin black ropes shoot up from the ground, reaching for us, wrapping around our ankles and wrists. I twist free of one, dodge another, but the third coils around my calf and the fourth catches me around the stomach. I stumble and fall, hitting the bridge hard. My camera wedges up against my ribs, knocking the air from my lungs, and Lara’s red backpack goes skidding several feet away.

It stops near Lara herself. She’s on the ground, too, fighting as half a dozen ropes try to pin her down. Jacob alone seems immune to the black threads. He kneels beside me, tearing at the brittle ropes as the Emissary makes its slow way toward us.

I tear free of the last rope, but the monstrous reaper only chuckles.

“You cannot run from us,” it says.

And the thing is, I know it’s right.

This is a fisherman, and we are the fish. We have to break the line.

“Jacob,” I say, lunging for the red backpack in the middle of the bridge. “Get Lara!”

He’s already there, at her side, ripping out the ropes like weeds as they climb around her. Instead of running, I unzip the bag and turn out the last of the ingredients from the banishing spell.

The pouch of grave dirt is almost empty.

A few spoonfuls of oil slosh in the bottom of the bottle.

A handful of stones and the box of matches tumble out, and I scramble for them, too.

“Get behind me!” I shout as Jacob pulls Lara to her feet. One braid has come loose, her black hair escaping its plait, and she’s breathing heavily, but she’s up, and together they hurry toward me.

The Emissary doesn’t.

It moves with a terrifying slowness, the steady pace of someone—something—that knows its prey won’t escape. Jacob and Lara sink to their knees beside me. Lara understands what I’m doing. She starts to arrange the stones.

“Will this actually work?” asks Jacob, still ripping out every rope that reaches up through the bridge.

“I have no idea,” I say. “I’m making this up as I go.”

But I saw the way the spell burned through the layers of the world, from the living realm into the Veil. So maybe, just maybe, it will work here, too.

I can’t make a circle. I don’t have enough dirt, or oil, and even if I did, the Emissary would never step inside it. A line will have to do. I scatter the last of the grave dirt, little more than a smear against the darkened bridge. Lara pours the oil in a thin line, her hands somehow steady, even now.

I draw a match, before remembering—Jacob. My heart tumbles into my stomach. If I strike the match, if I do the spell, what will happen? Will he be trapped here? Will he be sent on?

There are no right answers, said the fortune-teller. You cannot win without losing, too.

Jacob meets my gaze, and smiles.

“It’s okay, Cass.”

But it’s not. I fling my arms around his shoulders. Tears slide down my cheeks. I can’t do this. I can’t lose my best friend.

“We’re running out of time,” hisses Lara as the Emissary gets closer.

“No matter what happens,” Jacob whispers in my ear, “you’ll never lose me.”

And then, before I can stop him, he grabs the box of matches and strikes one, dropping the flame onto the oil.

It catches.

And burns.

The fire spreads from the middle out, and the Emissary rears back, away from the smoldering line. Jacob sways, going gray, and I squeeze my hand around his, trying to keep him there, with me, trying to keep our line from breaking.

Shadows flicker across the Emissary’s mask. “We … will …” but it can’t seem to finish the line. It tips its head, as if trying to remember.

The spell is working.

And then the fire sputters, and goes out.

For a second, I think the spell is done, that it worked, even though Jacob is still here. But then I look down and realize, with a growing horror, that the line didn’t burn. There wasn’t enough oil. The banishing didn’t work.

The Emissary smiles, and steps smoothly over the ashes of the broken spell.

Jacob’s hand tears free of mine.

He lets out a primal shout and flings himself forward at the Emissary, the way he did before, in the graveyard. There, we were in the land of the living, and Jacob was just a ghost. Here, the Emissary may be something more, but so is Jacob.

He slams into the skull-faced figure, pushing him back across the line, inky boots smearing the grave dirt on the bridge. Jacob slams his hands against the Emissary’s chest, but this time, instead of stepping back, the Emissary holds its ground, and Jacob’s fists sink into its front, like quicksand.

Jacob gasps and tries to pull free, but his arms sink deeper into the black suit. His sneakers slide on the bridge as the Emissary drags him in.