Witch and Wizard - James Patterson [34]
Susan and Celia had started to lose me with all of their weird lingo until Celia mentioned Byron Traitor Suck-up. I’d forgotten all about him.
“He’s not exactly our weasel,” repeated Whit.
Just then we heard another distant chorus of spine-chilling moans.
“We don’t need to wait for him, really,” I said, cold sweat breaking out all over me.
“It’s no bother,” said Susan. “And we have to meet somebody else here anyway. In fact, here he comes. Yo, Sasha!” she yelled as a boy came running into view. I was starting to get used to partially solid people, so his opaqueness seemed out of place in the Shadowland. Then I realized he was probably a regular kid like us.
“You’re safe, Celia,” Sasha said with relief as she introduced us. He seemed older than me but maybe younger than Whit, and he had longish black hair and dark-blue eyes. He wore a Navy SEALS ball cap on backward, and his T-shirt read FREEDOM SHOULD BE FREE. I also noticed he was carrying a spool that trailed string into the gray haze behind him.
“So you find your way around here using string?” I asked him.
“Yeah,” he said. “I have some portal-sensing abilities, but it’s best to have backup. And bread crumbs are useless. But let’s talk about all that later. I heard a pack of Lost Ones on my way over here.” He was serious but wore an expression of easy confidence—which, in a split second, disappeared.
“Look out!” he yelled, and leaped in front of us to block the shape emerging from the fog. But it was just Feffer.
“Oh,” he said, embarrassed. “I’m guessing you brought a dog.”
“This is Feffer,” I said. “She came through the portal with us.”
“Cool, a Curve dog,” said Sasha, getting down on his knees to pet her. “You sure it’s gonna like your weasel?”
“He’s not our weasel,” Whit repeated. “Actually, that little rodent, that varmint, wanted to execute us.”
Just then another moan—sounding closer this time—cut through the gloaming. Celia’s beautiful eyes became a little sad. “Sasha, you need to lead them to the Freeland portal right now.”
Whit turned to her. “Can’t you come with us? You have to.”
Celia nodded. “Of course I will. But I can’t stay long, Whit. Or I’ll… cease to be. That’s another fact of life and death.”
“Let’s get out of here!” said a voice at my feet. I looked down and almost screamed.
“You’re taking the weasel,” Susan said firmly. “Incidentally, he needs a bath. And to be taught some manners. And some social skills.”
I glared down at him. “No. You can’t come. I hate your guts.”
He sat up on his haunches, beady black eyes boring into mine. “You did this to me.”
Sasha looked impressed. “You taught a weasel to speak?!”
“I was human,” said Byron. “And she is a witch.”
Sasha looked even more impressed.
“And don’t you forget it,” I said proudly. “Feffer? Meet Byron Traitor Suck-up. You may eat him.”
Chapter 56
Wisty
BUT FEFFER DIDN’T HAVE A CHANCE to find out what weasel tasted like. Because just then we all spotted the first thing other than ourselves that we’d ever seen in the Shadowland, and it was, in fact, a bunch of shadows.
They were distant and flickered out of sight as soon as we looked directly at them, but there was no question we didn’t want to get any closer.
Celia, Susan, and Sasha immediately put their fingers to their mouths, telling us to be quiet, and then—as Susan and Celia just kind of faded into the gray—Sasha did that little commando gesture indicating we should follow him.
With the weasel clinging to my pants leg and shaking like one of those toys that vibrate when you pull their tails, we fell into line behind him and jogged along his string toward what I prayed would be our escape.
“Sasha,” I panted after we’d been running for a minute or so, “did it just get really cold in here or what?”
“It’s the Lost Ones. Among other things, they absorb the heat of the living.”
“So,” I said, an uncomfortable realization dawning on me, “does that mean… they’re close?”
“No more talking” was all he said.
But then he stopped. He was holding the end of the string. And there was no portal there.
“Something