Chapter 34
December 2nd, 1984
Deadwood, Oregon
Lane County Security Hospital
7:14 p.m.
There were two ways a demon was born.
They still hadn’t covered demonology in any of Cass’s classes, but she’d gone back to the library several times over the last few months. She probably knew more about it than any other freshman at Else Bellows.
An alarm blared through the stillness. Red lights flashed like an eerie, broken stoplight. As Cass straightened, lowering her arms back to her sides, she tried to remember everything she’d read. Bits of glass sprinkled off her shoulders and landed on the floor. Miraculously, none of it had lodged into the exposed parts of her body. Broken shards glinted around Cass’s feet. It was all that remained of the barrier that had once stood between her and the Taxidermist.
“Run,” Cass heard her brother say, his voice sharp with fear. “Run, Cass!”
“Get behind me,” Sinister’s voice commanded.
Slowly, Cass raised her gaze. As she met Patrick’s glittering eyes, Cass knew they were fucked. Completely and totally fucked. Demons were almost impossible to kill, even for a powerful Shadowripper like Sinister. It had taken three of them to take down Artie Salmon.
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.
It hadn’t been lonely, though. Cass’s mind flashed back to all those evenings with her roommates. Even now, she could smell pizza and hear obnoxious music coming from the television as the boys played one of their video games. Doors slamming, feet padding up and down the stairs. Dishes in the sink, books all over the table, shoes cluttering the floor. Cass thought of Finch’s smile, and Bradley’s blush, and Justin’s scowl. A smile curved her own lips as she pictured them.
Somewhere along the way, House Wayside had become home to her. And she’d started to care about the misfits who lived there.
Sinister shifted beside her, drawing Cass’s attention back to him. She studied his solemn profile as she thought about the events that had led to Sinister Gray sitting in that chair instead of Cal. Cass wondered if he’d used his mother’s connections to book a last-minute ticket on her flight and get the seat next to hers. But that wasn’t what Cass really wanted to ask him.
“Why did you come?” she asked abruptly, making sure he could see her mouth.
Sinister frowned. “Finch told me—”
Cass shook her head. “No, not to the hospital. Why did you come to Wayside? You said you stopped by the house, and that’s when Finch spilled her guts about where I was. Were you looking for me?”
To her surprise, Sinister didn’t answer. He turned his head and stared at the seat in front of him as if it were covered in writing. A lock of his brown hair fell forward, hiding half of his face. It wasn’t supposed to be a difficult question, Cass thought. She studied the tense line of his jaw and bit her tongue to stop herself from saying it out loud.
A full minute passed before Sinister finally spoke. His voice was flat, and he didn’t sign as he said, “I had a vision. I saw Patrick Doyle kill you.”
“A vision?” Cass repeated under her breath, her eyes darting around to make sure none of the other passengers were listening. Every person in sight was either sleeping or reading. A few rows ahead, a baby started crying.
Sinister nodded once. His hands remained in his lap and he still didn’t turn. “I can see the futures of the people around me. I can see my future, too.”
All at once, Cass remembered Professor Green’s lecture on the secondary abilities voyants could possess. Telepathy, telekinesis, transtemporal travel… and precognition. It’s rare for a voyant to possess any one of these abilities, much less more than one, but there are exceptions, the professor had said.
The next part replayed in Cass’s head, every syllable crystal clear, as if it had happened yesterday. Exceptions such as Nathanial Hissing and Sinister Gray.
Holy shit, she thought.
So Sinister Gray had visions, in addition to being a Shadowripper. No wonder he was so revered at school. It didn’t seem possible one person could hold so much power.
Something else occurred to her, and Cass’s gaze flew back to Sinister. “Is that why you went to the attic on the night of the scavenger hunt? You saw something in a vision?”
He nodded. “There wasn’t much to go on. There never is, really. I just got a glimpse of the chalk moving, and someone standing in front of it with the list of riddles. I wanted to know who the attic ghost had chosen.”
Another silence fell between them, and Cass wanted to ask the obvious question. Had Sinister seen her future? She felt an immediate rush of shame, and suddenly Cass could guess why he was acting so defensive. Sinister had probably been asked that by every person who found out what he could do. He wasn’t a fortune teller, and if he wanted her to know about something that might happen, he would tell her. He said he’d come as soon as he had the vision of Patrick Doyle.
Patrick Doyle. Cass had been careful not to think about him since they’d left the hospital, but now he slipped through the cracks like a beetle. It still hadn’t completely sunk in yet—demons were real. Cass had known they were, of course, but it was different reading about it versus actually seeing one. She remembered how his face had shifted and bubbled.
The fear came rushing back, and Cass’s fingers curled around the armrests. She started to wonder what she could’ve done differently in that room. She didn’t like that Patrick Doyle was still alive, or that he knew so much about her life. Cass had come all this way for answers, and now she was just leaving with more questions. But she did know one thing, at least.
As long as Patrick Doyle was breathing, no one was safe.
“I read something that said for every way a demon is made, there’s a way to unmake them,” Cass said abruptly.
Sinister’s gaze finally returned to her. He gave Cass an unreadable look. “Those books are in the forbidden section.”
Cass lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “So it’s true? Demons can be killed?”
“It’s true.”
“So that means there are two ways to take out Patrick Doyle.” Cass’s voice was a thoughtful murmur. She leaned back against the headrest, already forming a new plan. Judging by Sinister’s clipped response, he obviously didn’t want to give her any more information, but Cass had already proven she could get the books she needed. She would just continue her research on her own.
“Three,” Sinister said.
Cass’s eyebrows knit together. “What?”
He reached forward and pulled a magazine out of the pocket in front of him. His dark eyes darted toward her. “You said there are two ways a demon can form, but there are three,” he clarified.
“Dark energy and evil deeds.” Cass ticked them off on her fingers. She shook her head. “What is the other one?”
One of the flight attendants walked past, and Sinister waited until she was gone to answer. “For some revenants,” he said quietly, “being on the other side is like dying all over again. It changes them. They begin to lose pieces of who they were.”
Cass absorbed this silently, her eyes falling to the magazine in Sinister’s hands. His words made her think of Michael and what he’d told her on the night she had summoned Karen. The dead are unpredictable. We’re not fully human anymore. We don’t have to fear consequences, and we don’t get to experience things like kindness or love. We are alone.
After a moment, Cass turned and gazed out the window. A gray sky churned above, and rivulets of rain quivered down the glass. Shadows shifted and moved on her face. “Then why not move on?” she murmured.
Sinister’s response floated over to her. “I guess there’s something making them stay.”
Cass just made a soft, thoughtful sound. “Guess so,” she said.
Seconds later, the plane began to move, and the captain’s voice sounded overhead. His words were background noise to Cass. She’d spotted Patrick Doyle’s face in the clouds, and then she heard him. Heard his furious disbelief as he growled, You already love him.
Cass closed the window.