Hereafter (25 page)

However much Eli had doubted himself earlier, he obviously didn’t now. In fact, he looked more self-righteous than ever. As if Jillian had survived merely through his own will and generosity. As if Eli’s own hand had played no part in her near-death. As if he hadn’t taken a massive crowd of innocent people hostage in his play to capture me.

For some reason I couldn’t take my eyes off Eli’s smug face. The sheer loathsomeness of it held me in thrall. I released my arms from around Joshua’s neck and slowly rose to my feet.

I was vaguely aware that the strange glow within my skin had dimmed, sometime between finding Jillian in the water and watching her come back to life upon the shore.

Yet as I stood to focus upon Eli, the radiant light burst forth again. It seemed to erupt from my skin, blooming in violent reds and oranges and yellows. I’d never seen colors this fierce, or lovely. Maybe their light had been dulled or obscured by the water. Or maybe I’d never felt this angry before . . . this protective.

Whichever the case, my body now illuminated the entire riverbank.

“Amelia?”

Joshua spoke from behind me. Obviously, he could see the glow again, because his voice broke in a fearful tremble upon my name.

I wanted to turn to him, to tell him
Don’t worry, sweetheart. I’m sure burning like a human torch is normal for dead people.
But before I could do so, Eli spoke to Joshua first.

“Don’t you dare address her directly, boy,” Eli snarled. “She’s a servant of this place now, and she is
mine.
”

And that was all it took.

With that one little word—“mine”—the world exploded all around me.

Chapter
Twenty-eight

I
thought I’d burned them all, incinerated the living and the dead together in a final, inescapable blast.

From my perspective, the explosion looked like what I pictured when I thought of hell: fire billowing everywhere, obscuring my vision. I couldn’t see anything but bright orange waves, and I had the oddest notion flames poured out of my eyes and fingertips. Instinctively, I clenched my hands and shut my eyes tight.

I stayed like that for a moment, praying,
willing
that everything would be okay.

With my eyes still closed, I relaxed my hands and slowly stretched my fingers far apart from each other. Then I opened my eyes to stare down at my hand.

I could finally see again, but to my shock, the fire was still there. It glowed upon my skin, just as bright as ever. Yet the explosion hadn’t incinerated anything. Everything looked as it had before: no charred trees, no twisted metal, no embers dancing on the wind.

I was the only thing that looked aflame, just as I had on the riverbank. There hadn’t been any explosion at all, it seemed.

My location was the only thing that had changed since the explosion-that-wasn’t. Instead of standing on the shore beside Joshua and Jillian, I now stood back on the bridge—materialized here, I supposed, by the force of the glow on my skin.

My eyes darted immediately to my right, toward the riverbank below me. To my endless relief, Joshua still crouched in the mud unharmed, and he’d propped Jillian up in his arms. Perhaps he’d positioned her this way so she could more easily cough out the dangerous water in her lungs. Whatever his motives, Joshua had momentarily forgotten his mission. He stared up, wide-eyed and openmouthed, at the bridge. At me.

From my peripheral vision, I could see another wide-eyed and openmouthed observer standing just a few feet from me on the road. Only now that I was certain Joshua and Jillian were safe could I force myself to turn and look fully at Eli Rowland.

His blond hair fluttered from the breeze, and his already pale face had turned a new shade of ashen white. Though he looked awed—stunned, even, by the glow on my skin—he still wore his earlier, smug expression. As if he had absolute confidence that, despite this new ability of mine, he
owned
me. The sight of his horrible face made me want to snarl, to growl at him like an animal. It took all of my self-control not to do so.

I turned away from him to view the rest of the empty road. In front of me, a pair of fresh tire marks crossed the asphalt. Behind me, the black rubber zagged to one side of Joshua’s car and then streaked off across the dark road.

It appeared that, in the few minutes of chaos I’d witnessed from below the bridge, the owner of the loud car stereo had fled the scene, as had the rest of the students of Wilburton High.

I shook my head at the tire marks. I couldn’t blame any of them for running away, including O’Reilly, Scott, and Kaylen. I didn’t imagine that they would remember anything, or that they would want to, for a long time.

They shouldn’t have had to play any role in this twisted supernatural game. Nor should Jillian, who would likely carry the frightening memory of this night with her always.

Then there was Joshua. The one for whom I feared the most during this ordeal. The last—and, to me, the most important—of the living people who would have suffered horribly, had Eli’s plot ended in a darker way.

So much fear, and so much potential tragedy, all because Eli Rowland wanted me.

Nothing but outright ownership would satisfy Eli. Even now Eli had a glimmer of it in his eyes—not only the need to obey his masters’ orders, but also that mad, unstoppable need to own. To possess.

And because of some passing resemblance to his dead lover, I was the current object of his fixation. I might always be, if I didn’t act now. This knowledge burned within me, much stronger than any fire ever could.

I took one last look at Joshua’s shadowed face. Joshua had once more pressed his cell phone to his ear. He still cradled Jillian in his arms; and, every few seconds, he cast worried glances down at her and then back up at me.

When Joshua’s eyes met mine across this wide distance, my vague plans solidified. I had to stop Eli immediately if I ever hoped to spend this hereafter in peace. I had to make Eli fear me more than he did now. More than he feared anything on this earth. Only then would I stand any chance of existing without his constant, dangerous interference.

Eli only added to my resolve when he finally spoke.

“Whatever this is, Amelia,” he said, gesturing to the glow, “I think it could be very useful to me.”

I turned back to him. Eli didn’t meet my eyes, however, because he was still too busy watching the glow. Studying it intently.

“Oh, you think so, do you?” I asked softly.

“Of course.” Eli nodded, and I could almost see the ideas forming in his head. “You’d be my best servant yet. Just imagine what that light of yours could do—how many new souls it could help me gather; how many people would be drawn to it, like moths to a flame.”

I tilted my head to one side. “And if I don’t want to serve you?”

He started and met my gaze. A slow, incredulous smile spread across his face. “ ‘Don’t want to?’ ” he repeated. “Do you still think you have a choice in all this?”

I pressed my lips tight, fighting the surge of fury inside me. Only once I had a better handle on myself did I respond.

“We all have choices, Eli. I don’t care how often I have to say this: I have a choice too. Even if I’m dead.”

Eli shook his head. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you all along:
I
chose
you
. That should be enough.”

I too shook my head. “It’s not enough. Because I don’t choose you.”

He sneered; and as if on cue, the crowd of long, black shapes gathered around him. They seemed to appear out of thin air, swarming into view. They moved restlessly, constantly shifting so that I could hardly recognize their almost human forms, much less their faces.

Eli didn’t look at them, but his grin widened. “You sure you want to put up a fight, Amelia?” he whispered menacingly.

I stifled my gulp and clenched my fists at my sides. “I’m sure.”

Eli nodded again. Not to me, I realized, but to the black wraiths around him. In response the wraiths surged forward, surrounding me with a speed I didn’t know they possessed. They clustered around me, pressing together until they blocked out almost all the light and then began slinking closer.

Now enclosed by their dark forms, I whipped my head first one way and then another, seeking some sort of break in their ranks. Some beam of light in between them. My arms, extended from my sides, whipped around with me. When one of the shadowy souls reached out to grab me, I shrieked.

The soul didn’t trap me, however. At the moment it tried to wrap, snakelike, around my arm, the glow on my skin brightened and intensified. It shined powerfully against the wraith, cutting through the black shadows around it and revealing its almost human form. The wraith yanked back for a moment, shifting angrily among the dark periphery. Then as if to retaliate, the other wraiths moved at once to converge upon me.

Before I could fight back, before I could even scream, the glow flared around me. Instead of its previously warm oranges and yellows, the light shined so white and pure that I had to shield my eyes from it. This light was unlike anything I’d ever seen, more intense and fierce than the glow my skin normally gave off in the dark; this new glow was glorious and terrifying at the same time.

Finally, the light dimmed enough so that I was able to lower my hand in time to see the wraiths break apart, flying back across the road and away from the protective white glow around me.

Once they cleared, I could finally see Eli, waiting in the same spot he’d been standing earlier. He had his arms folded casually over his chest, and he wore an expression of near boredom. Waiting for his servants to finish his dirty work, no doubt.

But when he saw his minions scatter and flee over the side of the bridge, his expression changed. He frowned at them, his scowl deepening as each one disappeared. Only after the last black shadow had left the bridge did Eli look up at me. Now he looked savage. Vicious.

Meeting his furious eyes, I felt the ghost of a grin skitter across my lips. “What else have you got, Eli?” I murmured.

With a deep, wrenching snarl, Eli lunged at me.

Chapter
Twenty-nine

I
should have been scared. And I was. But instead of cowering, or even lunging to meet Eli head-on, I closed my eyes.

I may not have known the source of the supernatural light around me or how to control it, but I knew one thing that could certainly stop Eli. So, with my eyes shut tight, I pictured a series of images: the chair in the library flying back, away from me; the jagged crack that now marred my headstone. I pictured the bridge, bending under the force of my anger.

Then I pictured it breaking in half.

At the sound of metallic groaning beneath me, my eyes opened. I looked down and saw the fissure in the bridge widen. Above me, the metal cables between the girders began to swing wildly, and the bridge groaned again, shouting under the strain of movement.

Turning my attention back to the road, I held out my arms and braced myself.

Eli, however, was caught unprepared. The moment the bridge itself began to shake, he stumbled and fell, midlunge, to his knees. I locked my eyes on Eli, still concentrating as I watched the road crack and buckle around him. I gave a tiny flick of my head, and the asphalt split into a gaping hole through which I could see glimpses of the river below.

Eli scrambled to get on his feet but couldn’t. As he struggled against the shaking road, his eyes met mine. Finally, I saw in them what I’d been seeking: fear.

At this, my most powerful moment, our surroundings plunged into total darkness. The darkness hovered, heavy and thick, before lightening to reveal the familiar colors of the netherworld forest below me.

Here on the bridge, however, things were much different from what I’d expected. I’d never seen the netherworld version of High Bridge this closely, and the sight momentarily shocked me. Upon the bridge, and so close to the evil black hole beneath it, the colors of the netherworld were almost violent and wild. Bloody reds against glittering blacks; livid purples blossoming on top of bruised grays. The place looked stunning, beautiful. But also horribly wrong. Like an enormous, wounded animal.

The structure of this netherworld bridge looked worse for the wear, too. Its girders angled unnaturally together; and its surface showed deep, irreparable cracks. Whatever I’d done in the living world, it must have altered this bridge as well.

I frowned, ready to shake this place into glittering rubble, when a hissing sound made my head shoot up, toward the bent girders. High above me, two black shapes swooped and circled the girders, moving nimbly around the structure of the bridge. Their movements hissed softly into the darkness.

At first I thought they must have been more trapped souls, forced by Eli to confront me. As I stared harder, though, I realized that they weren’t black but a deep, arterial red. They also moved too deftly, too freely, as if they, unlike Eli’s minions, had their own wills.

I glanced down at Eli to gauge his response to these creatures and blinked back in surprise. He now looked even more terrified than he had before. He had actually curled up into a ball and ducked his head beneath his arms when, with a quiet sort of whoosh, they took form and landed on either side of him upon the cracked surface of the bridge.

Now where the two creatures had hovered stood two people. At least they
looked
like people.

Both of the figures wore dark clothing: the man, a well-cut black suit; and the woman, a stylish black dress. They both had white-blond hair: his cropped short and hers long and free across her pale shoulders. Something about them gave off a sort of funereal air. Creepy, certainly, but no creepier than anything else I’d seen tonight.

It was their eyes, though—their eerie, inhuman eyes—that made me gasp and take an involuntary step backward across the cracked road. Those disturbing eyes, black and pupilless, studied me for a moment longer; and then, simultaneously, both figures smiled.

“Well, isn’t this an interesting little thing?” the male mused.

“Eli,” the female purred without taking her eyes from me, “where have you been hiding this treasure?”

Eli kept his head ducked as he answered her. “I’ve been trying to claim her for you, I have, but—”

“Stop making excuses.” The woman cut him off, her voice suddenly sharp. “Are you telling me she isn’t under your control yet?”

Her eyes landed on him; and, although Eli couldn’t see her with his head down, he still shuddered. “I didn’t . . . she hasn’t . . . ,” he stuttered, but couldn’t finish the protest.

“I think Eli is telling us
exactly
that, my dear,” the man said, still watching me. “And so I suppose, like his predecessors, Eli has outlived his usefulness.”

The man twitched his head toward the woman. “Take him away.”

Upon hearing her counterpart’s command, the woman smiled again. I too shuddered at the sight. Despite her cold, beautiful features, she looked
dead
. More dead than Eli and I ever could.

Eli raised his head from his arms, and his eyes briefly shot to mine. Seeing the unadulterated horror in them, I felt something clench in my chest. Despite everything he’d done tonight, despite everything he’d done to me in the past, my heart suddenly ached for Eli.

“Don’t—!” I cried out, but I was too late.

In one swift motion, the woman melted back into a reddish black shape and enveloped Eli. Before another word escaped my lips, they disappeared together over the side of the netherworld bridge. For a few seconds I heard a primal, wrenching shriek. I realized, with a jolt, that the sound was Eli as he cried out in terror. Then, abruptly, the scream cut short.

I spun back around to the man. “Where are you taking him?” I demanded, my tone forceful in spite of the very real danger I was obviously facing.

The man lifted his eyebrows in mild surprise. “To our home, of course.”

“‘Your home’?” My eyes flickered briefly to the edge of the bridge as if I could see through the ruined surface to the dark, gaping expanse below.

As I did so, the man watched me closely. When I looked back at him, he tilted his head to one side. Studying me, even when he spoke.

“I’m referring to the place where my companion and I live, obviously,” he said. “The entrance to it lies beneath this bridge.”

“Why there?” I asked, still not sure what had given me all this courage. “Why live in that darkness?”

The man laughed without smiling. “You could hardly expect us to live up here with those pathetic, shadowy creatures. Or with the living in their world. Besides, we prefer to remain among our kind.”

I tried not to shudder, imagining what kind of beings would choose to live in that vile blackness. Although I kept my expression impassive, I had to swallow fear as it started to well up inside me.

“And what are you going to do with Eli, now that he’s in your home?”

“We’re going to implement punitive measures.” He sighed and shook his head, the picture of bored irritation. “We’ve had to take such actions before. It’s a shame we’ll have to do the same to Eli now.”

Well, that explained what had happened to Eli’s former mentor, and why Eli had acted so cagey about the subject yesterday in the forest. Not that the discovery provided me much comfort, especially when I considered the fact that, judging by the dark man’s cold expression, he wouldn’t have known shame if it slapped him in his creepy face.

The man studied me for a moment longer and then, in a genuinely curious tone, asked, “Do
you
care what happens to Eli?”

Part of my brain was raving, screaming at me to stop acting like a lunatic and run. Another part of my brain made me straighten my back and answer.

“Yes, I do. I care about everyone you’ve hurt. Everyone you’ve trapped here. Even Eli.”

The corner of the man’s mouth twitched with amusement. “How . . . interesting. What’s your name, girl?”

I shook my head, my bravado wavering slightly. “Doesn’t matter. What matters is that you need to let all the souls in this place go, including Eli . . . and my father.”

His eyebrows lifted again. “You think your father’s in here?”

“I . . . I’m not sure. But if you let them all go, I can probably find out.”

He laughed, but the sound was too brittle for real humor. “How about I do something better? How about I offer you a job?”

I balked. “You mean, what Eli does for you?”

He nodded. “Judging by that light of yours, and by the redecorating you’ve done to this place, I think you could prove quite valuable to us. Besides, the position is now open.”

I bit back what I really wanted to tell him he could with his offer and instead asked, “What exactly does that job entail?”

“We need an intermediary to build our world: a human soul who hasn’t moved on yet. One who can still go between worlds at will and influence the living . . . make them join us, one way or another.”

I frowned, examining the smooth contours of his perfect, inhuman face. “Why can’t you just do the job yourselves? Why would you need Eli, or me?”

“We have no desire to leave our home, to perform such tasks—we have everything we need in there. Every creature comfort.” He gave me a small, skin-crawling kind of grin and then went on. “We don’t condescend to come up here unless we must do something out of the ordinary. Like punish. Or collect.”

At the word “collect,” he titled his head, once again studying me. Assessing me and my usefulness to him, no doubt.

I tried not to gag at the thought of serving someone like this. No, not some
one
—some
thing
. Some demon, I was sure of it.

I had to get away from him. Immediately.

But even if these dark beings had no desire to follow me out of this world, I had no idea how I would leave it, either. Something told me that this man—this creature—wouldn’t just let me wander off toward the exit.

I tried to stall, tried to think my way out of this situation. My voice shook as I asked, “Why do you have to build your world at all? If you have everything you need in your . . . home?”

The man gave me a disdainful smile. “You don’t
really
think that’s how the afterlife works, do you? Is that what you’ve been taught about the whole cosmic game: that heaven and hell just sit back, waiting?”

At those two names, so deeply laden with meaning and myth, I finally shivered. I felt certain that I wasn’t standing over one of the entrances to heaven right now.

“So you want to do what?” I asked. “Win the game?”

“Yes,” he said, his smile growing wider until his teeth looked unnaturally sharp and bright, like a cluster of knives. “My side wants to win. And you’re going to help us do it.”

His eyes suddenly sparkled, dancing with a cold, soulless glow as they moved up and down my body. The appraisal chilled me—an actual chill, one that brought goose bumps to my arms.

As if it sensed the danger I was in, my light brightened suddenly, flaring with my fear, shining out toward the man as if it meant to protect me. I could see its glow reflected in the dark depths of his eyes and the glinting edges of his teeth.

The whole netherworld must have felt my fear, because the road beneath us began to groan as it split farther apart, just behind the place where the man stood. Unlike Eli, however, the dark man didn’t respond in fear to the display. His eyes flickered down to the damaged roadway, then back to the light that insulated me from him. When he met my gaze again, he looked pleased—no, overjoyed—by what I could do.

He took one step toward me, then another. His eyes widened with manic excitement, and he stretched a pale hand out to me. To catch me and drag me into the darkness with him, no doubt. To keep me here forever.

My eyes darted to the tree line of the netherworld forest, where my father might be trapped, pacing with all the other condemned souls. The sight held my gaze for one brief, regretful second and then I closed my eyes tight.

“Materialize,” I whispered desperately.

The bridge groaned again under my feet. Then, just beneath the groan, I heard the soft whoosh of air flying past me.

My eyes flew open. At first all I saw was the blinding white light. As it faded, however, I could make out the faint outlines of my surroundings. My vision became progressively clearer, and I searched frantically around me. But I saw no demonic man, no glittering netherworld. Just the bent metal and churned-up asphalt of the real High Bridge.

I stared at the black patch of air where the dark man had just been. I didn’t trust that darkness; I didn’t yet believe it was empty. But when I realized that he was gone—truly gone—I sighed. At my sigh, the glow around me extinguished with a soft
pop
.

“Huh,” I muttered, raising my arms and looking down at my body. “Well, how about that.”

I didn’t have a mark on me. No cinders, no singeing, no streaks of soot on my white dress.

Does this make me flammable, or inflammable? Or are they the same thing?

Despite the horror of this evening, I heard a small, hysterical giggle escape my lips.

The sudden wail of a siren, however, broke into my reverie. The noise reminded me of where I wanted to be, and it certainly wasn’t on this bridge. I closed my eyes, and, mere seconds later, I reopened them to the sight of Joshua and Jillian at my feet. The siren still sounded, now above me.

My easiest materialization yet, it seemed.

Joshua hadn’t seen me arrive, so I knelt beside him and gently placed one hand on his back. At my touch he whirled around with one fist clenched. The violence of his reaction startled me, and I moved to step backward. Before I could take the step, however, Joshua’s eyes lit up with recognition. He grabbed my hand and pulled me down to him. While keeping one hand clasped around one of Jillian’s, Joshua draped his free arm across my shoulder. I leaned into him, closing my eyes and dropping my head against his chest.

“I have no idea what just happened,” Joshua said. “And I want to know everything. But we don’t have much time to talk before the EMTs get here.”

I opened my eyes and looked up at the grassy embankment above us. The ambulance had come to a stop at the edge of the ruined bridge, and a handful of emergency responders now moved carefully down the steep hill toward the river.