Afterlife (Second Eden #1)

by Aaron Burdett

  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.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  In the Shadow of the Palace

  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.

  Dino smirked. He grabbed a book and flipped through the pages, searching for any clue about this Toby Blackwood’s fate. His eye caught some odd notes, and he pressed his finger on the page, pulling the book closer.

  I must be doing something wrong. The dust cannot compress. It will not, no matter how much force I apply. Why? Why does it refuse my command, yet answer the call of others? If he can do it and dust devil trash can do it, then so can I. I need more dust. Fresh dust. The answer is there. I will find it, my love. I swear I will.

  “Come look at this, Amber,” he said. “I think I found a note from the archduke.”

  He thumbed through more pages. When she didn’t reply, he slapped the book closed and looked up with a frown. “Amber?”

  Amber stared at the picture trembling in her hands. She recognized it almost immediately, buried amongst the books where she was searching for clues to Toby’s fate. And there, buried in a layer of thick dust, she caught the silvery frame glinting in the moonlight. She pulled it from the books, blew the dust from the broken glass, and just stared blankly at thing squeezed tightly in her hands.

  It was a picture of her, grinning the way children grin when they’re bursting at the seams with innocent happiness, cake smeared all over her eight-year-old face, fingers coated in sugary icing. Toby and Chris stood beside her. Chris wore his own sloppy smile and carried a wad of frosty chocolate in his fist. Toby gripped a red balloon by its curling string, his shirt stained with streaks of cake and icing.

  She remembered that birthday party. She remembered the laughter, the cake fight, all the neighborhood kids invited over to play in the backyard while their parents barbecued.

  Help me.

  The faintest whisper of Toby’s voice sent a shiver down her spine. She looked up and glanced at the others. Jason rummaged through a box at the far end of the room while Dino was engrossed in some notebook.

  Help me.

  Amber jumped at the sigh tickling her ear and darted for the door. “Toby?”

  Help me.

  She trembled as she neared the door, her pace slowing. “Toby, is that … Is that you?”

  Help me.

  Amber reached the door. She clasped its cool handle and turned, carefully pulling it wide. “Toby?”

  Help me.

  She stepped into the next room, and the door glided shut behind her. It was a simple room with a single chair and a fireplace piled high with ash. A single window framed the sprawling, glittering city beyond the palace’s walls. Amber hugged the picture against her chest and stepped toward the fireplace. “I’m … I’m here, Toby. Where are you? Please … Please don’t leave me again.”

  Help me, he whispered and this time his frigid breath washed across her neck and sent a chill racing down her spine.

  Amber whipped around.

  A mirror hung against the door, tall and wide. Her reflection shifted and shimmered. It warped, transforming into a tall man in a black suit who wore an expressionless mask shaped like a skull, his bright, frigid eyes fixed on her.

  Help me, he whispered.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  Mask and Maiden

  Bone Man burst from the mirror. Amber screamed, hurling the chair at her attacker. He twitched his hand and the chair flung aside, smashing into pieces against the wall.

  “Get away from me!” she shouted, her will bubbling up inside her.

  Power flung from her body and slammed against him. He shuddered against the weight of her will, his tall frame bending like he faced a strong headwind.

  Eve swirled inside her. Amber could feel the serpent slither in the black, slowly sliding her way closer and closer to the light. The more power Amber used, the cl
oser Eve came to the surface while she slipped into the darkness.

  “No,” she rasped, her power fading beneath the swell of fear.

  Bone Man straightened. He snapped his fingers, and the lock on the door clicked in place. He whipped the sword from its cane sheath and swung it in a lazy figure eight before him.

  “Get away from me,” she said. “I’ll….”

  Bone Man cocked his head. “Do what?”

  “Dino! Help!”

  Bone Man took a step closer. “He can’t help you. He can’t hear you. No one will hear you.”

  Amber lurched away and sprinted for the open window. She cried out, leaping into the cold night. Her body sailed into the open air, wind whistling wildly in her ears. As she fell, a force coiled around her stomach and jerked her back inside.

  Amber slammed on the ground, the wind rushing from her lungs. Bone Man wagged his finger disapprovingly and strolled toward her. She scrambled back and accidentally kicked the picture toward him. He paused, looking down at the frame. He bent to grab it.

  He would take it. Bone Man would take this picture of her family and he would destroy it. A terrifying force exploded within her as she rocked forward, her eyes full of fiery tears. “NO! It’s not yours! IT’S NOT YOURS!”

  Her will crashed into him, and his head snapped back. His mask cracked. He wobbled where he stood, his spine bent unnaturally back, arms wind-milling wildly beside him.

  Amber gasped at the chill blossoming in her core. Her hands and feet went numb. Her mind swam, and black edged her vision. She lurched to her feet and leaned against the hearth for support, her body drenched in a cold sweat. “You can’t have it. I … I won’t let you have it.”

  Bone Man stiffened and stilled. He straightened, each vertebrate cracking as it realigned. He stared at her and heaved heavy breaths. A long, thin fissure divided his mask in a jagged line like a lightning bolt. One of his icy blue eyes twitched. He stepped toward her. He reached for her, breaths heaving through his mask.