The Unseen
Page 34
“Sorry,” she whispered. “Did I wake you up?”
“It’s cool,” he said.
“You feeling okay?”
Kieran shrugged. “I feel like an idiot, if that’s what you mean. I can’t believe I let those cult freaks suck me in like that. I should have listened to you.”
“You’re stubborn and you don’t listen,” Cassidy said. “We’re definitely related.”
He smiled a little.
“Thanks,” he said. “Thanks for being there for me. Thanks for saving me.”
“What else was I going to do? You’re already an evil little brother. You don’t need a demon to help you with that.”
Kieran laughed. “And you guys really summoned a demon into my room all those years ago?”
“I can promise you he’s not in there now.” Cassidy touched her stomach, where she could feel the dense, roiling heat of the captured demon. “You should get some rest.”
“I will.” Kieran hesitated, then hugged her before stepping through the glass door into his room. Cassidy smiled to herself as he drew the curtain against the sunlight.
Cassidy returned through the door to the living room to find Ibis awake and watching her.
“Still alive?” she asked quietly, to avoid waking Barb. She sank to the couch between her two friends, old and new.
“I slept like the dead,” Ibis said. He gestured to her stomach. “How’s the little guy?”
“It’s like being pregnant with the Antichrist. Unholy heartburn. Any chance you can wave your magic wand and make him go away?”
“We’ll exorcize him. Can we go to my place? I need some tools and manuscripts I have there.”
“It’s not one of those strip-off-your-clothes-and-get-on-the-altar situations, is it?” Cassidy asked.
“It’s not. Shouldn’t we wake your friend and bring her along?” He glanced at Barb asleep on the couch.
“She’ll survive. Let her sleep. It won’t be the first time she’s woken up on this couch after a wild night. Now let’s go get this thing out of me.”
Ibis and Cassidy left the apartment together. Being with him gave her a comfortable feeling. Ibis had been there for her, had understood her and known just what she needed.
Cassidy was tempted to stop for a strong early-morning drink along the way—she’d certainly earned it—but again she shook off the thought. She’d poisoned her brain far too much, for far too many years. Now her mind felt clear and sharp, ready to face the day, ready to grapple with the world, both the seen and the unseen.
THE END
From the Author
Thanks so much for reading my newest book! If you’re a returning fan, I thank you so much for your continued support of me and my ability to feed my family. If you’re a new reader, I hope you enjoyed this one and will consider looking at a few of my other books as well!
I am a small independent author and depend heavily on word of mouth and good reviews to help my books reach new readers. If you enjoyed The Unseen, I hope you will tell others about or consider leaving a review on whichever ebook retailer you like best.
The Unseen was an unusually personal book for me to write, set in the city of Atlanta where I’ve lived most of my life, aside from my college years and some time I spent living in Los Angeles. It is full of details that are of significance to me. Cassidy’s house is based very closely on one where I nearly lived, and I’ve always wondered what my life would have been like if I’d chosen to live there. My wife did live in the area for a while, near Candler Park. Cassidy’s mother’s apartment is essentially the apartment of one of my best friends from high school, though the apartment complex itself is more like one where I later lived—full of flowers when I moved in, full of sharp, saw-toothed bushes and graffiti by the time I moved out (gang-tag graffiti, not the cool artistic kind you’d find in places like Little Five). Little Five Points is a place where I used to sneak away with friends during high school, a fantastic patch of color and creativity. Like Cassidy, I spent much of my life having terrible nightmares and coping with a dark, runaway imagination while awake. I was seeing scary monsters in my closet at a much, much later age than most people...
When I began writing this book, I expected it to be a standalone novel. By the end, I realized how much I enjoyed these particular characters, and I feel I’ve only scratched the surface of their strange world, so I now intend to write a sequel to The Unseen. I don’t have any final information about the title or release date, but it would be sometime in 2014.
You can keep up with my new releases by going to my website and signing up for my new release newsletter, which (as the name would imply) only goes out when I have a new book to tell readers about.
I also am very active on Twitter and Facebook and love to talk with readers! Here are my links:
Amazon Author Page (where you can see all my books and you can sign up for Amazon to notify you automatically when I release a new one): http://www.amazon.com/author/jlbryan
Website: http://www.jlbryanbooks.com/
Twitter: @jlbryanbooks
Facebook (J.L. Bryan’s Books page): https://www.facebook.com/groups/116027701791642/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2917423.J_L_Bryan
Finally, here are links to my other books (you can also find about more about these on my website). Thanks so much for taking the time to read The Unseen!
The Jenny Pox series (supernatural/horror)
Jenny Pox
Tommy Nightmare
Alexander Death
Jenny Plague-Bringer
Science Fiction Novels
Nomad
Helix
The Songs of Magic Series (YA/Fantasy)
Fairy Metal Thunder
Fairy Blues
Fairystruck
Fairyland
Fairyvision