Silas snapped his fingers at the man she couldn’t see. “Begin the infusion,” he said, leaning closer to Ridley. “I’m afraid this is going to hurt. But not nearly as much as I’d like it to.”
Ridley focused all her energy in the direction of the unseen man, somewhere in the darkness.
Don’t begin the infusion.
Don’t begin anything.
“I said, start things up,” Silas barked over his shoulder.
Ridley didn’t feel anything change, and she was so tired….
But she couldn’t give up.
You don’t want to hurt me, whoever you are.
You want to leave.
“Do I have to—?”
She heard the door close in the distance, footsteps in the hall beyond. Then she felt a slap sting her face.
“You have no idea who you’re messing with.”
Ridley stared back at him from beneath her tangled blond mane. Her signature waves had become something closer to dreadlocks.
“Yeah? Maybe I think you have no idea who you’re messing with,” she said through gritted teeth.
He grabbed Ridley’s chin, forcing her to look at him. “Oh, I think I do.”
She smiled, steeling herself. “Your grandfather said something like that. Right before my friends and I killed him.”
Silas brought his fist down on a panel next to her, and an electric current shot through Ridley’s body like her blood was on fire.
She screamed.
The fire burned its way from the entry point in her arm, pulsing up to her shoulders and head, then back down her spine to her legs. Her feet. Her toes. Like a second thunderous heartbeat.
With each pulse, Ridley’s body writhed and spasmed. Her mind lost track of the fire and she focused on the sound of that other heartbeat.
The one far steadier than her own.
If she could hear the sound of that heartbeat, it meant she was still alive.
Didn’t it?
As Ridley let go, she heard another sound from somewhere in the back of her mind.
A song.
The one Mamma used to sing.
“Mockingbird.”
Maybe it meant she’d get to see Mamma again.
And Reece.
And Ryan.
And Lena.
She really wanted to see Lena.
Ridley smelled something burning far away.
Barbeque, maybe. A boy I once knew loved barbeque.
Link. I think his name was Link.
The thought made her smile.
Until she realized the burning smell was coming from her body.
And not just the smell.
The screaming, too.
After that, she surrendered to the pain and the fire, and listened to the voice singing “Mockingbird” in her head.
Only when the bird sang, it sang her to sleep with a boy’s sweet, off-key voice.
That boy must really love me, she thought.
I only wish I could remember his name.
CHAPTER 11: LINK
Wasted Years
I think this is it,” Sampson called out, pulling Link out of his thoughts.
When Link looked up, Sampson was standing in front of a wall of green hedge.
Another dead end.
Before Link had a chance to complain, Sampson reached into the hedge and pushed, and it opened up onto what looked like a small-town Southern street, back when Link’s grandma was a kid and Gatlin only had one traffic light.
Another Caster door.
Figures.
As Link stepped through the Caster door and back into the Mortal world, he realized the door was cut into a huge Spanish moss–covered oak. On the other side, there was nothing around but more towering oaks and a broken-down house at the edge of a deserted intersection.
“Looks like we found it,” John said.
“Where are we?” As far as Link could tell, there was nothing to find.
John pointed up at the white signs at the intersection that read 61 and 49, and Liv checked her selenometer as if they weren’t standing in the middle of nowhere.
“Are those numbers supposed to mean something to us?” Floyd asked.
“We’re at the intersection of Highways 61 and 49 in Clarksdale, Mississippi,” John said.
Sampson shook his head. “I feel like an idiot. Any guitar player worth his strings knows about this place. It’s where Robert Johnson made a deal with the Devil.”
Floyd’s eyes widened. “Seriously? We’re at the crossroads?”
John nodded. “The one and only.”
Liv glanced at John. “I’m assuming this is an American thing.”
He put his arm around her. “Yeah, sorry. It’s an old rock and roll myth—at least as far as Mortals are concerned. In the 1930s, a blues musician named Robert Johnson disappeared for a couple of weeks. According to the story, he brought his guitar right here to this crossroads—”
Link jumped in. “Then he traded his soul to become the most famous blues guitarist in history.”
Sampson tugged on his leather pants, which weren’t the best choice in the Mississippi heat. “Totally a fair trade, as far as I’m concerned.”
“Thought the same thing myself,” a man’s voice called out from behind them.
Link wheeled around.
A young man wearing a wrinkled white shirt, a black jacket, and a Panama hat stood on the side of the road with a three-legged black Labrador. There was a weariness in the man’s eyes of someone much older. A battered guitar hung from a strap slung around his back.
Lucille and the black Lab circled each other until the dog gave up and flopped down in the dust.
“Holy crap.” It was the only thing Link could think of to say.
“I say that myself all the time, son,” the young man said, which was weird since he didn’t look that much older than the rest of them. He noticed John and tipped his hat to him. “Haven’t seen you since you were a boy.”
John shoved his hands in his pockets. “So you remember me, Mr. Johnson?”
“I think we’ve both seen enough to get past all that Mr. Johnson nonsense. Especially since I never did catch your name.”
John held out his hand. “It’s John Breed, sir.”
The bluesman stared down at John’s hand. “I don’t shake hands anymore. Can’t be too careful. But it’s nice to meet you all the same, John.”
Sampson inched forward. He actually looked nervous, which was completely out of character. “So the story’s true, then?”
Johnson looked up at Sampson and whistled. “Kids sure have gotten taller since my day.”
“Sampson’s a bit … different,” Liv said.
“You a Caster?” Johnson asked.
“You know about us?” Necro sounded shocked.
Johnson took a closer look at Necro’s blue hair and piercings. “Of course I do.” He glanced up at the midday Mississippi sun and walked toward a small house sitting alongside the road like a tornado had dropped it there. “Let’s go inside. It’s gettin’ hot out here.”
Link scanned the area, but there were no other homes anywhere in sight. The bluesman climbed the rickety porch steps and opened the screen door, the three-legged dog hobbling behind him. “Come on in. Make yourselves at home.”
The house was small inside, but it was crammed full of stuff. The front door spilled them into a living room full of threadbare armchairs and mismatched picture frames on the walls. It reminded Link of the Sisters’ house back in Gatlin. Ethan’s three great-great-aunts had lived together for as long as he could remember with just about everything they’d ever owned—at least until Abraham Ravenwood burned the place down.
When Link and Ethan were young, they’d stop by the Sisters’ after school and load up on sour lemon candies and buttercreams that were probably older than Ethan and Link combined. The Sisters’ house looked like a museum, because the three old ladies never threw anything away. If they couldn’t display it on the walls, they settled for any flat surface.
Johnson’s place was no different. But instead of tiny spoon collections, broken china, and old photo albums, his place was decorated with blues relics and memorabilia—like a bowl of old harmonicas on the coffee table next to a collection of broken guitar strings in a jar. Link couldn’t help but think about how disappointed the Sisters would be if Johnson invited them over without having a single dish of candy on the table.
Lucille slunk through the room, as if she felt right at home.
Sampson, Floyd, and Necro studied the yellowed newspaper clippings framed on the walls alongside old photographs and the broken-off neck of a guitar.
Johnson sat down in a sagging upholstered armchair beside a whirling fan and set his guitar on the floor next to him. The Lab curled up at his feet. “Go ahead and sit down,” he said. “I don’t get many visitors.”
Liv and John sat down on the sofa across from him. Link took a seat at an old pine table in the corner. He noticed a pencil sticking out of a mug, and without thinking, he pulled out the piece of paper he’d been writing songs on. He knew the lyrics sucked, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself from writing ever since Rid disappeared.
The bluesman leaned forward in his chair and looked John in the eye. “Things must be pretty bad if you came lookin’ for me.”
“It has to do with Abraham Ravenwood.”
“His grandson, Silas, actually,” Liv added.
The moment John spoke Abraham’s name, the bluesman stiffened, his hands gripping the arms of the chair so hard his knuckles turned white. “Haven’t heard that name in a long time, and I would’ve been fine never hearin’ it again.”