The room was dark, and it took a minute for my eyes to adjust to what little light fell from the cracks in the wooden blinds drawn shut over both windows.
“Close the door!” Scott shouted, and I jumped as he lifted one hand to block the light from the hallway. Nash nudged me farther into the room and pushed the door closed softly, cutting off so much light that I had to wait for my eyes to adjust again.
Scott cowered on the far end of the brown leather couch, and as Nash approached him, Scott began to mumble-chant under his breath.
“No light, no shadow. No light, no shadow…”
Chill bumps popped up all over my arms, in spite of the warm air flowing from the vent overhead.
“What’s wrong, Carter?” Nash squatted on the floor in front of his friend, one hand on the arm of the couch for balance. “Does the light hurt your eyes? Does your head hurt?”
Scott didn’t answer. He just kept mumbling, eyes squeezed shut.
“I think he’s afraid of the shadows,” I whispered, remembering Scott’s horror when he’d eyed our silhouettes in the cafeteria and his own shadow in the hall the afternoon before.
“Is that right?” Nash asked without looking at me, his profile tense with fear and concern. “Is something wrong with your shadow?”
“Not mine anymore,” Scott whispered, his voice high and reedy, like a scared child’s. He punched the sides of his head with both fists at once, as if he could beat down whatever he was seeing and hearing. “Not my shadow.”
“Whose shadow is it?” I whispered, fascinated in spite of the cold fingers of terror inching up my back, leaving chills in their wake.
“His. He stole it.”
My chest seemed to contract around my heart as a jolt of fear shot through it.
Nash shifted, trying to get comfortable in his squat. “Who stole it?”
“Like Peter Pan. Make Wendy sew my shadow back on…”
I glanced at Nash, and Scott froze with his eyes closed and his head cocked to one side, like a dog listening for a whistle humans can’t hear. Then he opened his eyes and looked straight at Nash, from less than a foot away. “Can you get me a soda, Hudson? I don’t think I ate lunch.” The sudden normalcy of his voice scared me almost as badly as the childlike quality had, and I glanced at Nash in surprise. But he only nodded and stood.
“Just watch him,” he whispered, squeezing my hand on his way out the door, which he left ajar a couple of inches.
Uncomfortable staring at Scott in his current state, I glanced around the room, admiring the built-in shelves behind a massive antique desk with scrolled feet and a tall, commanding chair.
“You can go look,” Scott said, and I jumped, in spite of my best effort to remain calm.
“What?”
“You like to read, right?” He cocked his head to one side, as if he heard a reply I hadn’t made. “Some of them are really old. Several first editions.”
I hesitated, but he looked so hopeful, so encouraging, that I rounded the corner of the desk farthest from him, drawn by the spine of an old copy of Tess of the d’Urbervilles. It was on the second shelf from the top, and I had to stand on my toes to reach it. To brush my fingers over the gold print on the spine.
The soft click of a door closing shot through the room, as loud as a peal of thunder in my head. I dropped to my heels and whirled to see Scott standing in front of the now-closed door, mumbling something like soft, inarticulate chanting.
My heart thudded in my chest, my own pulse roaring in my ears. “Scott? What’s wrong?”
His head snapped up, his fevered gaze focusing on me briefly. Then his mumbling rose in volume, and he seemed to be arguing now, but I couldn’t make out the words. He shook his head fiercely, like he had in his car. “Can you hear him?”
I stepped slowly toward the desk between us. “Hear who, Scott? What do you hear?”
“He says you can’t hear him,” Scott continued, his gaze momentarily holding mine again. Then, “No, no, no, no…”
I tried to sound calm as I inched toward him. “Who do you hear?”
“Him. Can’t see him in the dark, but I hear him. In. My. Head!” He punctuated each word with a blow to his own temple. “Stole my shadow. But I still hear him…”
Shivers traveled the length of my arms and legs, and my hands shook at my sides. Was Scott actually seeing someone the rest of us couldn’t? Hearing something meant only for his ears? Thanks to Tod, I knew better than most how very possible that was….
But this didn’t feel like the work of a reaper. Reapers couldn’t steal someone’s shadow. Could they?
Scott rolled his eyes from side to side, as if to catch movement on the edge of his vision. My stomach tried to heave itself through my chest and out my throat. I knew that motion. I did the same thing when I peeked into the Netherworld. When I tried to get a clear view of the heard-but-unseen creatures skittering and sliding through the impenetrable gray fog.
Could he see the fog? Could he see the things? Was something from the Netherworld talking to him?
No. It’s not possible. But my chill bumps were as big as mosquito bites.
“What is he saying?” I was past the desk, four feet from him now, and closing. When Nash came back, I would peek into the Netherworld to rule out that impossibility. To verify that Scott wasn’t seeing and hearing something from that other reality. From a world he didn’t even know existed.
Because creatures that couldn’t cross over couldn’t shout across the barrier, either. Right?
Scott looked up and smiled, but it was the kind of smile a cancer patient wears when he’s realized chemo isn’t worth the pain and nausea. When he’s finally decided to give up and let Death claim him. “Take me to him. He’ll fix me if you take me to him.”
Dread burned like ice in my veins, and I edged back when Scott stepped toward me. “Take you where?”
“There.” He rubbed his brow, as if to soothe a bad headache. “Where he is. He says you know how to cross.”
Cross. No. My eyes closed briefly, and I sucked in a long, devastated breath.
Scott’s shadow man wanted me to take him to the Netherworld.
11
“WHO IS HE, SCOTT?” I shuffled back another step and trailed my fingers over the top of his father’s desk, hoping the smooth, cool surface would ground me, in spite of my rapidly thumping heart. I needed to peek into the Netherworld, to see for myself who was talking to him, but I was afraid to take any of my attention from Scott.
“Take me…” he whispered fiercely, matching each of my steps with a larger one of his own. “We have to cross!”
Not gonna happen. I might not have Harmony’s experience, or my dad’s wisdom and pathological caution, but I was nowhere near naive enough to believe that whoever was tormenting Scott would simply “fix” him if I took him to the Netherworld.
The Netherworld didn’t do charity. This shadow man would claim us both, body and soul, and we’d never see the human world again.
Over Scott’s shoulder, the doorknob turned, and relief washed over me as Nash’s voice called out. “Kaylee?”
But the door didn’t open—it was locked—and I never should have taken my eyes off Scott.
“Nash, he’s not having delus—”
Scott grabbed my arm and jerked me forward. He pinned me to his chest and I gasped, more surprised than afraid. Something sharp bit into my throat, just below my jaw, and the shout I’d been about to unleash died on my tongue.
“Take me…” he demanded, and a cold, nauseatingly sweet puff of Demon’s Breath wafted over my face.
My breath hitched as I tried not to inhale, and my pulse pounded in my head. I wasn’t sure exactly where my jugular ran through my neck, but I was pretty sure accuracy wasn’t as important as enthusiasm in the art of throat slashing.