Arise (13 page)

As we struggled and shoved, I stared at the rest of club’s decorations. Underneath its veneer of eerie Christmas paraphernalia, the place actually looked quite chic. It had a sort of old-world elegance to it, with damask paper and velvet booths running along its walls. The chandelier, the candelabra, the gilded mirrors—creepy in the dark, but I bet they looked lavish in the daylight.

And although the dancers wore nightmarish outfits, I could tell through their glittering skeleton masks and makeup that these people weren’t actual ghoul-seekers. Most looked just as chic as their surroundings, probably part of New Orleans’s young, painfully attractive set.

Suddenly, it seemed to me as though the club and its attendants were merely playing at the macabre. No real spooks waited in the corners. No demons lived under the stairs. Other than Joshua’s relatives and their friends, I doubted anyone in this building could even sense me, much less hear or see me.

Realizing that I had nothing to fear, I felt a heady sense of relief. Excitement, even. It shot up my spine and through my veins like adrenaline. Made me want to react. Made me want to set myself free, if only for a few minutes.

Joshua had just stepped past me on his way to the staircase, so I tugged at his arm. He met my gaze and then tilted his head to one side, questioning. I gave him a sly grin and used my free hand to point to the crowded floor we had just crossed.

Dance?
I mouthed.

He raised both eyebrows questioningly. Then he started to grin too. He shrugged off his coat and passed it to Drew to carry up to the private room.

Free of the coat, Joshua looked … well, great, as I’d told him earlier. The word “delicious” sprang to mind, and I had to repress a giggle. I took one steadying breath, trying to stay cool. But as I watched him walk toward me, my excitement intensified. He placed both his hands in mine, and the fiery sensation burst across my skin, tingling along my palms and wrists.

At that point I did giggle. Then I said an immediate prayer of thanks that the loud music covered the sound.

Still grinning, Joshua spun us out into the crowd. He guided us past the other dancers and held me tighter, running his hands to my shoulders then down my back. His touch was so electric, I almost didn’t notice the effort it took to get to the center of the dance floor, directly beneath the red chandelier.

Once there, Joshua pressed closer—closer than we usually allowed ourselves to be. Suddenly, I felt the brush of his skin, real and warm against my own, and my breath caught in my throat. All around us, the music began to swell. As we swayed together to its rhythm, I felt dizzy, drunk off the heavy drumbeat and the dark, hypnotic melody.

My eyes met Joshua’s, and even through all the red, I could still see their striking midnight blue. By now his hands had strayed down my shoulder blades, leaving a trail of fire wherever they crossed. He rested them against the small of my back and then, with the slightest tug, pulled me so close I could almost feel his heart beat through his shirt. When he leaned down to brush his lips against my collarbone, I arched my neck and took one shuddering breath.

And that’s when I saw them.

Faces.

Ones that obviously didn’t belong here. And by
here
I meant the living world.

They were scattered throughout the crowd—ghastly, stark white and motionless against the undulating red. And all of them stared at one thing.

Me.

My head snapped forward, and I pressed my hands against Joshua’s chest. We continued to dance, but I now stared into the crowd, my head whipping to the right and left. Through the thick mass of dancers, I caught only the briefest glimpses of pale white, standing out in the sea of red. The faces were so isolated, so obscured by the movement of the dancers, I couldn’t be sure I saw them at all.

For a second I wondered whether I was just seeing the wannabe ghost-girls.

But I didn’t think so. Not when everything else in here—the lights, the walls, the people—looked like it had been dipped in blood.

While I kept searching, Joshua started to dance us in a circle. Although he moved slowly, the circular movement soon coupled with too much head swiveling, and my earlier dizziness returned in full force.

Worse, actually. Although Joshua and I continued to move to the rhythm, I felt like we were spinning out of control. My head swam, and a real, disorienting wave of nausea hit me.

I clung to Joshua, leaned over his shoulder, and tried to catch my breath. Tried to quell an overwhelming need to retch.

And there, mere inches away from me, a face stared back. Like it was waiting for me.

It was so close I only saw its most prominent features: pale flesh, black eyes. And row upon row of sharp teeth, glittering in a crazed, wicked smile.

I felt its breath, icy and insidious against my cheek, and I screamed.

Chapter

ELEVEN

A
fter that, I didn’t think. I just reacted.

Within seconds I had Joshua at my back, my arms stretched behind me and wrapped around him in my best attempt to protect him from whatever had just come after us. I felt a feral snarl spring to my lips; and, for the briefest moment, I closed my eyes. To calm myself. To prepare.

But when I opened them, the menacing face was gone. No leering grin, no cold breath, no black eyes.

Gone
.

Still keeping my arms clasped tightly around what had to be a very confused Joshua, I spun in a circle, searching the crowd again. This time I saw nothing but a swaying sea of red. Besides mine, the only supernatural faces left in this club were made of plastic and glitter.

All the ghastly beings must have disappeared in an instant. Vanished, as if they’d never been there at all.

As if I’d imagined them, just as I’d imagined my father this afternoon.

At that thought my arms dropped from Joshua’s sides. My hands immediately flew to my mouth, and I pressed my fingertips to my lips, trying to hold back a gasp. Despite the effort, I started to sound like I was hyperventilating.

The entire time, I kept asking myself the same question:

Is it possible for a ghost to go crazy?

If those faces weren’t real, then I had hallucinated twice in one day. Which didn’t bode well for my sanity.

But assuming for a moment that I hadn’t totally lost it, then I was probably in even worse trouble. Because I’d seen those kinds of faces before, on the night I’d finally stood against Eli upon High Bridge.

I watched one of them swoop in like a bat, dragging Eli into the darkness. Before fleeing the netherworld for the last time, I had a conversation with another one, which—unfortunately—gave me plenty of time to familiarize myself with how they looked.

Deathly pale and unnaturally still. Beautiful at first, and then hideous.

Those were the faces of demons.

And those were the faces watching me tonight. Maybe not the same demons I’d met on High Bridge, but similar enough.

How had they found me? More importantly, how were they here? If they stayed cloistered away in what I assumed was a place even darker than the netherworld, then what were they doing in living, breathing New Orleans?

Unfortunately, that question seemed to answer itself.

A handful of demons—if that’s what they actually were—had appeared tonight because they
didn’t
always stay away. They
didn’t
always hide in places darker than I could comprehend.

Sometimes they came to the living world to take matters into their own hands.

Maybe tonight had just been a glimpse of things to come. A warning that they
could
find me, whenever they wanted to.

Which meant my presence served as a lightning rod for evil, putting anyone who happened to stand nearby at risk. But only one person in particular stood nearby, almost all the time …

“Amelia?”

Immediately, my head snapped up and my eyes refocused. Then I jumped slightly, shocked to find myself standing outside the club with my back pressed against the brick wall. I’d been so intently drawing my conclusions that I must have walked outside, leaned against this wall, and clawed into it as if clinging for dear life.

Judging by the concerned faces around me, I’d had an entourage while doing so.

Joshua stood closest—he’d been the one to call my name in that sharp, frightened tone. A few steps behind him, Annabel waited. She looked worried, casting glances at Joshua and then back at the club—making sure we wouldn’t be caught, even though we probably weren’t the strangest things in the alley tonight. At least, not on the surface.

“Everything okay?” Annabel asked.

I nodded and then remembered that, to her, I probably looked like a brick wall right now.

“Yeah,” I said out loud. “I just … I needed some air. That’s why I came outside.”

In front of me, the darkness of the alley hid part of Joshua’s features. When I gave my feeble excuse, the illuminated half of his face twisted.

“Really?” he said, his voice dripping with skepticism. “You screamed, then you freaked out, then you wandered out of the club without hearing me … because you needed air?”

I startled a little; I hadn’t realized that my behavior had been that frenzied.

“Um … yes?” My voice didn’t sound very convincing, but I went on, forcing a note of conviction into it. “Didn’t you notice how I was … getting sick? There were just too many people in there. I couldn’t breathe.”

“You couldn’t breathe,” he repeated in a flat, disbelieving voice. He was kind enough not to point out that I technically didn’t
need
to breathe.

In response, I simply gave a defensive shrug. Joshua watched me for a moment, waiting for a more plausible—or at least a more honest—explanation. When I didn’t produce one, he sighed.

“Okay,” he conceded. “You couldn’t breathe. Which probably means it’s our cue to go home.”

“
My
cue,” I blurted out. “My cue to go home.”

“Huh?”

“I’ll go,” I insisted. “You need to stay here and … and spend some more time with your cousins.”

Joshua tossed a quick glance back at Annabel and then shook his head. “It’s Christmas in three days—we’ll have plenty of time then. But I think
you
need me right now. So I’ll just come with you, okay?”

“No!”

I shouted the word. When Joshua flinched in surprise, I suppressed a curse. I took one quiet breath for restraint and then went on in what I hoped was a less desperate voice.

“I just … I need some time to think. Tonight’s been a lot to take in, you know?” I nodded meaningfully in Annabel’s direction. “It would be nice to have some time to myself. Just for a while.”

Joshua’s brow furrowed. In those dark blue eyes, I could read every one of his emotions: hurt that I obviously wanted to get away from him; fear about me being alone—if relatively invisible—on these dark, unfamiliar streets; and finally, reluctant surrender. He sighed again, and the sound was so full of defeat that the little ache in my chest writhed.

“Okay,” he said quietly. “Whatever you want, Amelia. Just wait for me in the courtyard behind the town house, okay? I’ll let you in when I get back.”

“Thank you,” I said, sounding too enthusiastic. Before I could think it through, I sprang forward and gave him a grateful kiss. Then, just as quickly, I jerked away—so fast, I wouldn’t blame him for feeling a little rejected.

With the fire of our touch still burning on my lips, I raised my eyes to his. In them I saw his longing, his uncertainty.

Considering the fact that I’d only recently discovered who I was, Joshua knew me about as well as I knew myself. He knew when I held back, and he knew when I was distracted. He knew when things weren’t quite right between us, and he knew when I was lying.

Like right now.

Realizing that my next words would be lies, too, I bit my lip, lifted onto my toes, and leaned in close to him.

“I’ll see you back at the town house,” I whispered. “I promise.”