Amber grabbed Jason’s hand. “We’ve got to go. You ready?”
Blackjackets exploded from a door across the plaza. Before Jason could answer, she jerked him close, and as the bullets started flying, their bodies collapsed into a smoky vortex.
Amber kicked off the ground and went sailing into the sky. The Black Palace shrank beneath them while the dome of stars swelled ahead. Jason kept a death grip on her while he looked down at the receding citadel, the wind whipping through his hair.
They flew so high Afterlife became little more than an endless blanket of twinkling gems. She slowed their ascent and hovered there, letting the wind caress her sweaty cheeks.
Dino took up position beside them. He folded his arms over his chest as he gazed down at the city. “The Errand is finished. There’s no one in the city who will take us in now.” He unfolded his arms and looked to her. “I’m sorry about your brother, Amber.”
She swallowed the painful lump in her throat and kept her gaze from meeting his. “I am too.”
“Where do we go now?” Jason asked. “Back to Portsmouth?”
Amber thought for a moment. “There was a mirror in the Black Palace.”
“If there is one, then that’s the only one I know of,” Dino said.
“Well, we can’t go back there, then.”
“Then where?” Jason asked.
Amber finally met Dino’s stare. “She’s still inside me,” she told him.
“I know,” Dino replied.
“We have to find the dust devils. If anyone knows how to stop this, it’s them.”
“The dust devils are dangerous, Amber. There’s a reason they aren’t in the city. They weren’t even allowed in before the Revolution. They’re not just Deep-touched. They’re … dark. Unpredictable. Are you sure you want to do this?”
“I am.”
He smirked. “Then I guess we’ve got some dust devils to find. They’re not easy to catch, but then again, they may not be too keen on hiding if it’s you who’s doing the looking.”
She swept her arm in a wide arc. “Then lead the way, Dino Cardona.”
“It’d be my pleasure, Amber Blackwood.”
Dino glided into the distance. Amber powered after him, Jason awkwardly in her arms. “I’m gonna need a power too,” her friend finally said.
“You really don’t want one. The curses aren’t as fun as you think.”
“Are you kidding me? Where do I sign up? Who are these dust devils, and are there any brooding vampires with emotional issues I can hit up? I’ve been told I have a very charming neck.”
“You’re ridiculous, you know that?”
They laughed, and as the distance between them and the palace grew, the weight on her heart lifted. She lied to Dino, and the lie hurt, but Dino never would have left if he’d known Bone Man still lived. And in a way, Bone Man had died in that room. When Amber broke the mask, the monster that was Bone Man vanished. Her brother would never do anything close to what that creature did, and she knew in her heart she would find him again. Once she could control this curse, control Eve, she would return to Afterlife and end Adam once and for all. For Toby. For Dino. For every soul down there.
One day, though, she would need to tell Dino the truth about Bone Man and her brother, and knowing that slowly gnawed at her. She buried the thought. She buried it deep, where the gnawing was little more than the barest nibble in the darkest recesses of her mind, and there she hoped she would eventually forget it.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Hail, Adam
Toby winced at the roar blasting from within the archduke’s chambers. As the sound faded, the once quiet palace exploded into chaos. Blackjackets poured from rooms, pounding through the halls with swords and rifles drawn. The palace’s interior alarms began to wail, their piercing screeches rolling in undulating waves around him.
He grimaced at the alarms but powered on. He reached the doors to the archduke’s room, two massive, fifty-foot panels of black oak. A skull etched in iron plastered them, the pattern cut neatly in half where the doors pulled apart.
A great force thudded against them. Toby tensed and squeezed his sword grip. A ripple of power rolled toward him, radiating a thin wave of dust along the ground. The doors shook. With a long, deep groan, they slowly glided apart.
The gap between them was a black scar, but calling it black didn’t do it justice. Black is a color, a thing. This was a void, an absence, a hollow cold that no amount of light could ever penetrate.
A figure stepped from the abyss. The void tugged at the figure, its shadowy tendrils plucking at his arms and shoulders, beckoning him back into the black. Smoke rose from him in patches like he’d just put a smoldering fire out on his dark suit.
He held his hands behind him, pressed against the small of his back. He looked up from a deep contemplation, and when he did, he gazed upon Toby with two dark, hollow eyes. Shadows leaked from them like oil seeping from the ground and rolled in snaking streams down his cheeks.
When their gazes met, the archduke smiled. It radiated a chill wind despite the kind, handsome features of his face and oozed a kind of primitive hunger that could never be satisfied. “Toby Blackwood.”
“Archduke. Adam.” Toby slowly approached the man, and even that proved difficult beneath the oppressive, icy power of his will. He neared striking distance and drew his sword. “I won’t let you have her.”
Adam’s smile widened. “But, Toby, she’s already mine, just like you are mine.”
“I’m not yours! She freed me.”
The archduke laughed, and it rocked the walls. He gazed at Toby with those hollow eyes, and an excruciating pain drilled into his flesh like an icicle being rammed down his chest. Toby’s knees buckled, and he hit the floor.
Toby lashed out with his curse, but Adam ignored it like it was little more than the barest breeze on an autumn day. The man opened his palm, and a swirling vortex coalesced above it. The two halves of Toby’s mask appeared in the billowing dust. The archduke clenched his fist, and the mask sealed together.
“No!” Toby fought against Adam’s will, but it was useless. A power latched around him, dragging him closer to the man.
“Why fight, Toby? You are better when you’re Bone Man. You’re stronger.”
“I won’t be him again! I won’t let you do this!”
“You think you have a choice?”
The pale mask glided toward Toby. He tried wrenching his face away from the relic, but Adam pulled his chin level with the disguise.
“Don’t lie to yourself, Toby. You wanted this. It’s why you came here instead of going with her.”
“No! It’s not true. I … I hated being Bone Man. I hated what you made me do. I’m not a murderer. I’m not a monster!”
“It is true, and you know it.” Adam sighed, nonchalantly polishing his nails on his suit. “Setting this trap wasn’t easy, but the rewards will be worth it. I’ve lost one of my generals, but Wilhelmina has proved herself a capable replacement for the Council. And now that Amber is headed for the dust devils, soon I’ll have my bride back and all my enemies dust in the wind.”
A pit of dread opened up in Toby’s stomach. The mask was barely an inch from his face now. He could feel its power tug at his skin. “The dust devils will save her!”
“Is that what you think?” The archduke laughed again. “Poor Toby. If only you knew the truth. It wasn’t easy keeping it from you, pretending I didn’t know the relic thief was you sneaking out while the mask slept. But if this was to work, I needed both you and Bone Man to be completely ignorant of my greater plan. I had enemies in Afterlife, and I have enemies in the Deep, but I’m sure Amber will be a good girl and take care of them all for me.”
“This was a trap,” he rasped. “It was all a trap.”
“Mortals spring traps while Gods fulfill prophecies. Learn the difference. You will need to remember it once I ascend.”
The mask sealed against Toby’s face. The torturous pa
in and gift of power bestowed by the relic seeped into his muscles and buried in his bones. Toby screamed as his soul fell into a void, the light of the world fading into black.
Bone Man straightened. He rolled his shoulders and stepped back from the archduke, bowing deeply as he did. “She will return for me, Master,” he said.
“I’m counting on it.” The archduke turned his back to Bone Man and strolled into the scar of darkness. “Until then, we have much work to do. I will call on you soon.”
Bone Man waited until the great doors sealed. Then, he pivoted on his heel and headed for the black garden, where he would wait quietly until his master summoned him again.
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Afterlife (Second Eden #1) Page 35