Afterlife (Second Eden #1) (42 page)

“What happens next might be a little weird,” she said.

“What
does
happen next?” he asked.

A great force crashed into the basement door. Amber glanced up the stairs and as a foot rammed through it. The foot retracted, leaving a splintered gash. Through it, Bone Man’s wild eyes fixed right on her. She felt his tug, his pull, his psychotic rage.

Amber seized Jason, leaning to his ear. “I love you,” she whispered. “You’re the only one who’s ever really been my friend since the beginning.”

Before he could speak, she hurled them both at the mirror. Bone Man’s power latched onto her leg. She cried out as it squeezed her ankle like an icy vise, jerking her to a stop.

Amber reached for the glass. Her fingers stretched toward the surface, and the reflection drew closer.
 

“Take us!” Amber screamed. “Take us now!”

Her reflection smiled. It lanced out and latched onto her throat. “I knew you’d come back,” it sighed, and Ms. Flannery’s basement vanished in a flash.

Amber and Jason crashed through the mirror portal. Jason whipped around, clamped his fingers on the frame, and ripped it from the wall, slamming the mirror onto the floor. The glass shattered into glittering shards around them, and the air snapped and chilled as ice crystals cracked and spread along the wall.

She exhaled, her breath a cloud of mist in the frigid air. She fell against the wall and stared into the ceiling. “Thank God.”

Jason splayed his fingers, then clenched them into fists. “We just jumped through a mirror. And … And the reflection, it was like it was me, but—”

“It wasn’t,” she said.

“This is some next level shit, Amber. What is all this? Am I insane? Are we?”

Amber sucked in a deep breath, her heart finally slowing its terrifying beat. She shivered in the cold and rubbed her arms. “I’m sorry, I just didn’t know what else to do. He’ll find another way back here. He knows where to go. At least we bought some time.”

“Yeah, about that. Who is he?”

“I’ll explain everything later.” She peeled away from the wall and latched onto his hand. “But this place isn’t safe either. We have to find—”

“Amber?”

Amber’s heart clawed up her throat at the sound of Dino’s voice. She whipped around, suddenly aware of her tissue-thin hospital gown, torn, tattered, and filthy as it was.
 

The last of the mist trailing around Dino dissipated as he solidified a few feet away. Dust smudged his cheeks and layered in grey grains through his thick, dark hair. Sweat ran in lines down his face and stained his jacket collar. He stared at her, chest heaving with his heavy breaths. “I, uh, I was coming to save you.”

“Thanks,” she murmured.
 

A painful instant stretched into eternity. He slumped, then rushed toward her. “I’m so sorry, Amber. It’s not what you think. Faye used her curse and disguised herself as me. She tried to hurt you as much as she could. She wanted to imprison you.” He flashed a lopsided grin. “But you didn’t exactly react the way she thought you would by the way you left the warehouse—or what was left of it.”

Amber squeezed her fists. Once chilly air warmed as he drew closer. “But the things you said—
Faye
said—they weren’t untrue. All these souls are getting snuffed out because of me, because I can’t let Toby go. It’s my fault.”

“No.” Dino grabbed her shoulders and pulled her to him. “Don’t you dare blame yourself for this. You were pulled into this war, Amber. Every soul the archduke dusts is on him, not you. Faye was wrong. She was wrong about you. She was wrong about everything.”

“Was?” Amber asked.

“The Fool’s Errand is gone, with much of the thanks for it going to Bentley, if you can believe it. He worked for the Spider!”

“Are you kidding me? I really don’t like that guy.”

Dino grinned. He tensed, squeezing her shoulders like he might pull her closer. Instead, he dropped his hands and took a step back, eyes narrowing at Jason. “Who’s he?”

“This is Jason,” Amber said, backing away with a smile.

Jason extended a hand. He cleared his throat and said in a voice that was laughably too deep, “Sup?”

“Dino Cardona.” Dino took his hand, and they shook. “You’re a mortal too then.”

“Uh, I guess so?” He looked to Amber and shrugged. “I’m not dead right?”

“Don’t be so melodramatic. We’re not dead yet.” Amber replied.

“Yet? Oh well, excuse me, I just escaped a madman in a mask and leapt through a mirror. Not that I’m totally disappointed at who was waiting on the other side.” He winked at Dino. “But forgive me if I’m just a little confused at what the hell is going on.”
 

“I’ll explain everything on the way.” She patted Jason’s cheek and turned to Dino, her smile flattening. “There’s only one place left we can go. Only the Black Palace has the answers I need. If I ever want to find out what happened to Toby, I have to go there.”

Dino reached into his jacket and pulled out a piece of folded paper. “I thought you might have the palace on your mind. Luckily for you, while the Fool’s Errand might be gone, I didn’t leave it empty-handed.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a map to the palace. Might come in handy, don’t you think?”

“Seriously?”

He flashed his brows and motioned down the hallway. “I told you I’d help you do this. Shall we be off to our potential dooms, Ms. Blackwood?”

“Lead the way, Mr. Cardona.”

“And him?” Dino asked, glancing at Jason.

Amber grabbed her friend’s hand and pulled him to her. “He’s coming. I brought him here. I’m not leaving him for the blackjackets.”

“Your choice.” Grey mists sighed from Dino’s shoulders and spun around his broad frame. He winked at Amber and glided toward the end of the hall. “I’m glad you’re back.”

“It feels good to be back,” she said. She squeezed Jason’s hand, and the rolling mists swirled around them, their bodies shifting into a mass of silky smoke.
 

The curse stirred within Amber. She could feel the darkness pulling her down, coaxing her deeper, but on this side of the mirror, the pull was manageable. As long as she didn’t overtax herself, she could keep control. Still, she felt Eve inside her, sensed the two red orbs watching from deep within the black, like a snake at the bottom of a well, patiently waiting.

Part of her wanted to tell Dino. He should know her curse was gaining strength, that in the mortal world Eve very nearly overtook her. Maybe once the dust settled on the war and she finally discovered what happened to her brother, they could start searching for a way to remove the curse.

Remove the curse
, Amber thought. Her heart sunk at the thought of it. She had so much power at her fingertips now. For the first time in her life, she felt like she could really do something.
 

Amber felt Eve smile in the darkness. The snake’s eyes glimmered with hunger, and she shivered at the thought.

Jason squeezed her hand in a death grip. “Amber, this is amazing! Are we going to Hogwart’s? I’ve always thought I’d be Gryffindor, but there’s something sexy about Slytherin.”

“You’re ridiculous. This has nothing to do with that.”

“Then what is it?”
 

They reached the end of the hall and zipped through the crack in the wall. In the plush hotel on the other side, they followed Dino to an open window. She took a deep breath and gazed at the glittering field of lights rolling to the horizon.
 

“It’s Afterlife,” she said, and with that she vaulted through the window, pulling him into the sky beside her.

The Black Palace swelled before them, a towering monstrosity of hard, cold shadows driven like a stake through the heart of the glittering, rolling plain of lights that was Afterlife. Dino watched the palace from their vantage in the clouds. He scanned balconies, peered into empty windows, and searched wide plazas for any sign of the blackjackets, but a deathly, quiet calm had settled over the complex, and not a single soul in Archduke black disturbed the shadows.

It was a heavy silence, thick as tar and wedged into every crack and corner. Worst of all, it was a hungry silence, the kind of quiet that falls around a mouse as the viper slowly rises behind it. The archduke had just finally crushed the one force standing between him and total domination of Afterlife. The palace should be teeming with raucous celebration. Instead, Dino led them into something still and quiet as a forgotten catacomb.

Dino ushered Amber and her friend into a corner of the infamous black garden. A little vortex of dust swirled around them as they landed softly in the shadows. He held a finger to his lips, and together, they huddled there and waited until the silence swelled from a nuisance to an agonizing itch begging to be scratched.

“It’s so quiet,” Amber whispered.

“Where is everybody?” Jason asked.

A light breeze sighed through the courtyard, playing with the dark grains coating the grounds. Dino wiped a sweaty palm on his chest and slowly swept his gaze around the place. “There should be more blackjackets. Hell, there should be
one
blackjacket.”

“Maybe they’re busy with the Errand?” she suggested.

“I don’t like this,” Jason added.

Dino pressed his lips together and blew a long breath through his nostrils. “This is a trap. I think we can all feel it.”

“Maybe so,” Amber said. “But when are we going to have a better opening than this, Dino? The blackjackets are in the city dusting what’s left of the Errand and Bone Man is probably still trying to find his way back to Afterlife. I can feel her inside me.” Amber closed her eyes, her lip trembling. “She’s coming for me. I have to get to Toby before she gets to me. It’s the only way.”

“And if Toby’s not here?” Dino asked.

Amber turned to him. When their eyes met, he could see the determination steeling them—steeling her. “He
is
here. But even if he’s not, we can’t let the archduke have this power. No one can have this power. Do you understand?”

He knew what she asked, what she wanted him to do. “Amber, I don’t know if I can.”

“You have to.” She grabbed his wrist and clenched hard. “Look at what the archduke’s done without Eve. If she joins him, there won’t be anyone left. You have to promise me that if it comes down to that, you won’t let him win. You can never let him win.”

They stared at one another for a long moment. The heat of her grip spread through him, the force of her stare enveloped him, and every fiber of being in his body screamed to reach out and take her in his arms and feel her lips press upon his. But if he did that, he knew he would never be able to do what she asked.
 

Dino swallowed and slipped from her grasp. “I promise you I won’t let that happen.”

She smiled, and it was a pure, unvarnished one. For the first time since he’d first met her in the mortal world, Dino felt like he was really getting to know the real Amber Blackwood.
And now I might lose her
.

Dino’s heart twisted. He spun from the wall and drifted into a long hallway, gliding slowly over the stone floors. Moonlight poured in sheets through the narrow arched windows lining the wall. Floating dust glittered in the silvery shafts and collected in loose piles in the corners. On the opposite end of the hall, a great door of black wood consumed the wall. He checked their map, and once confident in their path, guided them down the corridor.

Halfway down the hall, the air began to resist him. Dino frowned, fighting a nonexistent force that swelled around him. It was like swimming through molasses with weights around his ankles. He sunk, and his boots clicked as they connected with the floor. The rest of his body gained its girth, and he traded fog for flesh and bone.
 

He turned to Amber and Jason. They, too, stepped from the ethereal mists, their feet landing on the cool stones.
 

“What is this?” Amber asked.

Dino watched the doors, half expecting a horde of blackjackets to crash through them. “Relics. Faye had something like this too. On the bright side, if it stops our curse it’ll stop theirs, too.”

His voice echoed sharply down the hall. He winced and waited, but no thundering of boots came.

They padded to the enormous door without another word. Dino pressed his ear against the wood and listened, but only that same, persistent silence waited on the other side.
 
“This place is a tomb,” he said, pushing the door open.

It groaned like a tired giant, revealing a great round chamber with a high dome ceiling. Boxes littered the room, some open, some closed. Rolled and unrolled parchments sprung up between the chests like weeds. Dusty books teetered in tall stacks in the corners.
 

Dino blew the dust from an untitled book and opened the cover. Notes riddled the pages, scribbled by unsteady hands. He read the words and frowned. “Research. On the relics.”

“There might be something on Toby!” Amber rushed over to a crate and began tearing through it.

Dino eyed the room. There were doors neatly-spaced all the way around the curved wall. Narrow windows between them bathed the quiet space in moonlight. “There might be, but we shouldn’t spend too much time here. His spirits might already know we’re in the palace.”

“Just look around for a little.” She turned to Jason, slapping a hand on his shoulder. “Look for anything you can find on Toby. They took him here. There’s got to be a clue. I know there is.”

Her friend nodded and spun away, sifting through a nearby barrel of parchments. Dino watched Amber flit through the boxes and snatch a book bound in red leather.
 

He didn’t know why, but he smiled at the way she moved. She was a little goofy and looked like a mess in her tattered hospital gown, her hair a knotted nest around her pale face. She would’ve blended perfectly with any Deep-touched vagrant shouting nonsense about the end of the world in one of the outer districts, but he’d never wanted to hold one of them as closely as he wanted to hold Amber.