Witch & Wizard by James Patterson, Gabrielle Charbonnet Page A

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.”

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 broke the string,” he said, fear flickering in his brilliant eyes.
    From behind us, a chorus of moans added an ugly exclamation point to his statement.
    Then Sasha shook his head like a swimmer trying to get water out of his ears and took off into the fog.
    Byron, scared past coherent speech, chattered nonsense as we followed. I felt the cold on my back getting more and more intense.
    And then I did something incredibly stupid: I looked back over my shoulder.
    Twenty or more shadows—crooked, tall, short, bent, hobbling, but all supernaturally fast—were chasing after us. Just yards behind us now.
    They were indistinct, flickering, inconstant, but one of them loomed up and, with the most horrible, ravenous,