Page 93 of Waysider
The books, Cass thought desperately. Remember the books.
Stealing from the forbidden section was easy. Most of the time, the librarian hadn’t looked up from the romance novel she was always reading. Cass probably slipped a dozen books in and out of there. One of them had been The Voyant View of Demonology.
The text stated that a demon was formed… or it was made. There were only so many lines a human being could cross before it began to affect them. Change them.
Patrick Doyle, Cass knew, was the latter.
As she watched him take his first step toward her, Cass became aware of a distant banging. Someone was hitting the door. Trying to get in. Multiple voices shouted on the other side. Hurry, Cass wanted to cry at them. Why couldn’t they open it? Had Patrick done something to the door?
The air began to get warmer. At the same moment Cass noticed this, a rumble filled the room. With slow horror, she realized the sound wasn’t an earthquake or a rumble—it was growling. Sinister shifted beside her, muttering a low curse. Cass could see Patrick’s throat moving, but it felt like the growling came from everywhere at once. It sounded like he’d grown teeth when he said, “You asked where we end, Miss Ryan. This is where. But first, I need to untether you from your little shadow here.”
At first, Cass stared at him blankly. The words rolled around in her head and she couldn’t seem to catch hold of them, understand them. Untether you. Little shadow.
Before she could try to speak, Cass watched The Taxidermist’s gaze shift. Not to her left, where Sinister stood. Instead, he looked right at the space where there should’ve been nothing but empty air, fixing his sights on her twin. And that’s when Cass finally figured it out.
Patrick Doyle had known Cal was here the entire time.
Sinister said something, but Cass didn’t hear him. She could see tethers now, dozens of them, some of them rotting, dripping, warping.
She could see the ones attached to Cal, too. The threads were luminescent, like moonlight. But whatever Patrick was doing had made them start to dim and fade. Cal doubled over in pain and cried out. “Cass, get out of here!”
Cass didn’t think, didn’t hesitate. All she knew was that she couldn’t lose her brother again. Cass put herself in front of Cal and threw up her arms, a scream erupting from her throat. Her fingers curled and her veins jutted as she gave herself over completely to the instincts taking over her body.
It felt like something ruptured inside her. The florescent lights flickered and Patrick Doyle made a sound. An unearthly, monstrous roar that was part pain, part fury. His neck snapped left, then right, cracking with such violence and speed that it should’ve broken. The rest of his body was twitching, too, and his skin bubbled as if something wanted to get out.
Then Sinister stepped up next to Cass. He raised his arms, too, and let out a snarl. She felt something ripple, as if his power had vibrated through the air itself.
Patrick screamed and tried to fly at them. Cass kept pulling with her mind, imagining the thing inside Patrick Doyle pouring from his mouth. She wanted to watch him explode. She wanted to see his blood splatter the walls and—
The door burst open, disrupting Cass’s focus.
She lost her hold on that strange power, and Patrick dropped to his knees, gasping, his eyes going back to blue. People flooded the room, parting around her and Sinister like water. Cass scanned their faces blearily, only one thought searing through her mind now.
Where was Cal?
As the hospital workers took hold of Patrick, yanking his arms behind his back, he was grinning. This isn’t over, his expression said.
Cass felt like she’d gotten the shit kicked out of her. Her muscles and bones ached, and her throat was throbbing. There was still no sign of Cal, and she knew she was on the verge of a meltdown. But seeing that look on Patrick’s face sent a burst of fear and hatred through her. Holding onto Sinister for balance, Cass managed to lift one arm and flip him off.
Patrick’s smile only grew.
Then guards, nurses, and doctors surrounded the demon and hid it from view.
Without a word, Sinister wrapped his arm around Cass and turned her away. She wanted to fight him, to start screaming Cal’s name and search the entire building for her brother. But Cass was barely managing to stay on her feet, and she realized that her ability to see Cal might’ve been affected by her depleted power. He’d reappear once she was back to normal, Cass told herself. So she leaned against Sinister and used her remaining strength to walk.
No one seemed to notice as he hurried them toward the door. They went past the other cells, and Cass didn’t look at any of the inmates until they reached the last one—he was talking, but the words were muffled. Cass allowed herself a single glance, and then her and Sinister went through the door. She hadn’t seen the man’s face, since his back was turned to them and he was curled in a ball, tucked into the corner. But she’d seen how his big shoulders trembled. She’d heard his voice, low and frantic, still chanting the same thing over and over again.
What had Patrick called him? Cass wondered faintly. Wiley, that was it.
As they left that horrible place, Cass finally realized what Wiley had been muttering under his breath. What he’d been trying to tell her.
“His eyes are black. His eyes are black. His eyes are black.”
They went straight to the airport.
Cal still hadn’t come back. Cass prayed he’d appear the second Sinister was gone, or maybe in the morning, after she had gotten some sleep. But as she boarded the plane with Sinister, Cass’s stomach churned uneasily. Part of her felt like she was leaving Cal behind. She forced herself to put her backpack in the overhead compartment and get into her assigned seat. Snow swirled on the other side of the window, and Cass watched the gray clouds gather.
Christmas was coming, she remembered suddenly. December had snuck up on her. Cass had been so focused on her classes, on learning everything she could about voyants and revenants, that she hadn’t even noticed the passing days. For weeks, there had only been her next class, upcoming quizzes and tests, late nights bent over her desk. Then there had been the mystery of Karen Watkins.
