Fighting his influence, the same he’d used to lull me into a state that had allowed him to bring me here, I kept his mask in a death grip and groped for his collar with my free hand. My fingers wound in the stiff fabric, and as they did, I murmured his name. His real name.

These actions served as my only defense against his severing of this moment I had fought so hard to win. In the end, they did not amount to enough, and my mind went where he pushed it—into the darkness of another dream, one in which he himself was nowhere to be found.

SIXTY-TWO

Lucas

“You know this hotel is haunted, right?” Wes asked, slipping into Rastin’s room as soon as the medium opened the door.

“Please,” Rastin replied, his tone wry. “Won’t you come in?”

I wandered in next, followed by Charlotte and Patrick.

Rastin gave us a weary and tight-lipped stare, as if hoping we’d all catch the drift that this wasn’t what he’d had in mind when he’d asked us to meet him at the Brown Hotel.

“I see you all made a collective decision not to wait for me in the lobby as we had discussed,” grumbled Rastin. “How did you get my room number?”

“Patrick hacked the hotel’s computer system,” Wes answered, lowering himself into an armchair with a heavy sigh.

“Cool middle name, by the way,” Patrick said. “P.S. You don’t look thirty-eight.”

Rastin, visibly peeved, perched on the window ledge.

“Here,” said Charlotte, handing him a coffee cup. “We brought you some chai.”

“How considerate,” muttered Rastin.

“So, what’s the plan, Stan?” asked Wes.

“The plan was for each of you to listen to me.”

“Yeah, we did a lot of that yesterday,” I said. “I thought today was for taking action.”

“Oh?” Rastin went to the only other chair in the room and took a seat, crossing his legs. “Then you have come to my room with a strategy in mind. Let us hear it.”

“See,” said Patrick, “we were sort of thinking that since you’re the one harboring a fraction of the enemy’s soul, you might have the strategy.”

“Obviously, you are not interested in my plan,” Rastin remarked before turning his attention to Charlotte. “This is very good tea. Where did you find it?”

Charlotte shrugged and held up her own paper cup. “Heine Brothers’. It’s a local chain. Their coffee will turn your brain into a grow lamp.”

“Mm,” said Rastin appreciatively. “I’ll have to try it.”

“Obviously,” I said, cutting in, “the plan is to go back to the house. This time, we go in prepared to fight and to get at least one of us onto the other side. To find Stephanie . . . and bring her back.”

“Ooh, ooh,” said Wes, snapping his fingers. “I’ve seen this movie. We come out of the ceiling at the end all gross and covered in ectoplasm. But we’re gonna need ropes and a small lady with a high-pitched voice.”