Afterlife (Second Eden #1) (30 page)

“I was wondering how long it would take you to arrive. Never send a blackjacket to do Bone Man’s job, isn’t that right? Thanks to their stupidity, she’s safe. Again.”
 

The necklace drifted closer to the woman. She smiled at it, and there was sadness in her eyes. “It doesn’t look like much, does it?” she asked. “Agate’s a poor woman’s jewel in a place like this. Strange how something so simple as a necklace could cause so much trouble. So many of us died stealing it from the Spider.”

What sadness lingered in her eyes chilled. “It was worth every soul it cost. You will fail, Bone Man, and so will your master. He can try to extend his shadow over the Deep, expand this horrid city into the dust, but he will fail. She is home now. She will stop the archduke.”

Her raging spirit billowed against him. Bone Man watched silently as the rolling force crashed against his mind’s defenses and shattered like thin glass thrown at an iron wall.
 

The wind whistled into the alley. He rolled his shoulders. “Where is she?”

“You think I’ll tell you?” Marina laughed. “I know I’m dust in the wind. I knew that the day I brought the necklace to the mortal world. I sacrificed everything to set these wheels in motion,
everything
. I no longer fear you. Do your worst.”
 

Bone Man’s crows screeched and flapped, half taking flight in a fit of anger. Whispers tore through the alley, flinging through Marina’s hair.

She scowled at him, jabbing her finger at his face. “Your master will not succeed. He will not raise Second Eden, and he will never have her as his bride!”

Bone Man squeezed his sword and stepped toward her. “He will have her.”

“You complete fool,” Marina spat. “Not her. She is strong enough. She will master the Mother of Curses. She will break the bride, and then she will break you and the archduke.”

He shook his head. What a pitiful creature.

She wiped the snot from her nose and scowled at him. “I will not turn to ash begging like a coward, and I will not help you, monster, because I know the only way I leave this alley is on the breeze. I may die tonight, but I die knowing your trail ends here. You will fail the archduke, and his punishment for you will be a torture you cannot imagine. I’ve seen it! You will fail. You. Will.
Fail
.”

He clenched his teeth into a wall. Bone Man strode toward her, swiping his blade through the misty air.
 

She pinched her shoulders back and lifted her chin. “Do you hear it? It is the Deep, calling. It calls to me. It calls to you. Oh, what a sweet sound, this torment of my heart. I give my life, and with this kiss I do depart.”

Marina blew a kiss to the sky, bearing a row of perfect white teeth. Bone Man’s breaths came heavy and wet against his mask. He raised the sword behind him, and with one vicious swing, the fortuneteller collapsed, her body bursting into dust as it hit the ground.
 

Bone Man sheathed his sword and stared at the pile. His crows took flight and flapped into the sky, cawing in ecstasy at the dust. His fists clenched into quivering knots of rage. His will exploded, a blast of power rocketing from his body and smashing through the alley. Brick cracked. Walls shuddered. Sparks flew, and steel groaned.
 

The neon sign shaped like a crystal ball toppled from its perch and crashed onto the street in a sparking spray of glass and metal.
 

Bone Man’s fists stilled, and he flexed his fingers. He might have come too late to capture the girl, but at least he knew these dust devils had more a part to play than he first realized.
 

Sending blackjackets after the dust devils would do nothing but divert forces from the inner districts when the archduke needed them here the most. If Bone Man wanted to learn what the dust devils knew, he would need to go to the only sane soul who regularly dealt with them.

Bone Man slipped the sword into its sheath and pivoted on his foot. He strolled from the alley, each step a lance of pain and beauty all rolled in to one awful moment after another.

Dino didn’t say a word to Amber. Not once did he speak when they slipped past the blackjackets guarding the Crystal District’s gates. Not once did he speak when they reformed in Angel Park, his hand latched onto hers as they strode the winding lanes to La Couronne.
 

The lobby attendant smiled and asked how their day had gone. Dino ignored the question and kept right on, marching Amber upstairs and into her room.

Only then did he speak.
 

“What the hell, Amber? Every time I feel like I get anywhere at all with you, you go off and prove that you’re only here to make my life miserable! Do you realize how completely stupid it was to do what you just did? If Marina hadn’t had that hidden exit, we both would’ve been at the Black Palace right now, chained, beaten, and facing down Bone Man, the Iron Council, and the fucking archduke himself!”

“But we weren’t captured, were we? We got out safe, isn’t that all that matters?”

“We got out safe
this time
. What about the next time?”

“If only I had a teacher who could use the phantom curse, then I’d know just what to do! Or maybe doppelganger? Then I could just be someone else. But wait! I forgot. I’m not ready to use those curses. Or is it that you don’t want to teach me then because then I wouldn’t need you anymore? You have a lot of nerve getting mad at me.”

“The phantom curse is dangerous, Amber. You could ghost and never come back, or—”

“Oh, cut the bullshit. You think I’m that stupid? You go out of your way so I can learn how to fight or control a crowd, but the two curses that I could use to sneak out of here are conveniently left out of things. You want me to be a weapon, Dino, but you want to make sure you can control it. Don’t deny it. I can tell if you’re lying, remember?”

He clenched and unclenched his fists. “God you’re infuriating.” Dino stormed to the window, arms slapped over his chest, and glared into the city.
 

Amber watched him fume. He deserved to fume, to twist in his frustration. Until he actually did something trustworthy, frustration was all he would get from her. She looked at her hand, at the place where the snake bit what seemed like an eternity ago.
 

“Things are complicated,” he sighed. “But I’m not your enemy.”

“You’re not my friend, either. I never asked you to be. I just—look, I’m sorry. I couldn’t risk losing Toby’s trail.”

“You’re too obsessed with him. It’s not healthy.”

“He’s my brother and I love him. You have no idea what it feels like, knowing he’s out there needing me and I can’t get to him.”

“Please, you’re not the only one who’s lost loved ones in this.”

“That’s just it!” Amber sat on her bed, folding her hands in her lap. “Your stupid war didn’t take him from me. I lost Toby ten years ago, Dino, and that entire time I blamed myself for it. Imagine how you would feel if one day something happened and you had the chance to make things right with someone you lost.” She pressed her hand beneath her nose and squeezed her eyes shut. “I couldn’t help him then. I have a chance to do something now. I might not be able to make things right, but I can make things better. And here I am, stuck in a hotel, forced to be humiliated in boxing rings or expected to smile while my supposed friends lie straight to my face.”

Amber wiped her eyes. Dino exhaled, pinching the bridge of his nose as he stared out the windows. “I never thought about it that way,” he finally said.

“And it’s all I ever think about.
 

“You must’ve been close to your brother.”

“People sometimes thought me and Toby were twins. We did everything together.” Amber laughed at the memories rising to the surface. “Play forts. Hide and seek. I used to put makeup on him and make him pretend he was my fairy godmother. He’d do it, but only if I agreed to be his lieutenant when he wanted to play war. We never played war. I’d always find another game for us to play. He knew what I was doing. He just never said anything. I shouldn’t have done it. If I could do it over, I’d play his game every day.”

“It’s the regret that really kills you.” Dino took a seat on the mattress beside her and leaned back on his palms. “You always think about the things you had time to do but didn’t, the things you could’ve said but never did.”

“There’s so much I regret. This was supposed to be a way for me to make it right again. To do and say the things I never got the chance to. But he’s hiding from me, and now I’ve got this curse, and it’s getting stronger, and I don’t know if that’s good or bad, but I’m afraid. Why would he do this to me? Why?”

Dino didn’t say a word. Instead, he squeezed her shoulder, releasing some of the tension knotted in it. Amber closed her eyes and listened to his breathing. The room was comfortable. It was warm, but not overly so. She could lie down there in the blankets and listen to him breathe all night.
 

“Sometimes people do things we’ll never understand,” he said. “No matter how crazy or wrong or stupid it seems, everything they do, they do for you.”

Amber turned to Dino, her gaze dropping from his to settle on his chest. “I should’ve saved him. I could have if I’d been a little faster, swam a little harder. But I couldn’t, and he drowned. I wanted to play. It was me who wanted it, and he died because of it.”
 

She closed her eyes again, memories of that day flowing through her as vivid as if they happened yesterday. “It’s stupid, but when I put that necklace on and laid by his grave, I thought I could bring him back, if only for a few seconds, and talk to my baby brother again. I wanted to let him know I love him and that I was so, so, sorry.”

Dino pulled her close as hot tears streamed down her cheeks. She smelled his sweat and the leather of his jacket. The rise and fall of his chest was like a lullaby she could listen to forever. Only minutes ago, they’d argued. Now, she could fall asleep just listening to his heartbeat.

“If you could find a way to trade places, you would,” he said. “No matter what it would take. No matter the price and no matter what anyone said.”

She lifted her head from his chest. “Who was she?”

His jaw tightened. Nearly a minute passed before he spoke. “The Assembly had gotten old and bloated on power. They didn’t expand the city fast enough, and soul piled upon soul until only the wealthiest could afford room to breathe. And here comes this new archduke, promising a room for every soul and an Afterlife to believe in. What miserable soul wouldn’t flock right to his arms?”
 

“Did you?”

“No,” he snorted. “I was miserable, but I had her. She never wanted to fight in any war, so we stayed out of the Revolution until a winner walked out of the dust. The archduke took his seat, and practically the next day, things started changing. Using the sinners, he confiscated the old money and gave it to the people. He sent his blackjackets to the outer districts to keep order while others began construction of new homes for new souls. And for it all, he simply wanted one thing in return.”

“Loyalty?” Amber asked.
 

Dino smirked and looked out the window at the twinkling city. “That was expected. No, the archduke wanted relics. Nothing else mattered to him. Bring him a relic, any relic, no matter how powerful, and he could make you one of the landed gentry overnight. We needed money. Zoe didn’t mind being poor, but I saw how she looked at the nicer townhomes and big apartments in the inner districts. I knew where she really wanted to live. So, I started hunting relics and selling what I found in the Deep Market.”

“The Deep Market? Sounds mysterious.”

“There’re no factions in the Deep Market, just souls looking to make it rich or play with power. For me, it worked well for awhile. I started small enough, trading trinkets me and my men found scouring the Deep’s fringes. When the cash started flowing, we went deeper, got braver, took bigger risks.

“It’s hard to remember exactly what the Deep’s like once you leave it, but on my last trip, we went far. Really far. For days. Some of my men didn’t make it back. But I did, and I brought something with me I knew would make me rich. And it did. Faye wanted it. Wilhelmina wanted it. And the archduke wanted it.”

He laughed and shook his head. “The archduke offered so much money for it, Amber. So much. How could I refuse? It’d get me a nice place in Angel Park and then some!”

Amber swallowed. She sat up and looked to him. “What was this relic he wanted so badly?”

“You know it. You’ve seen it.” Dino squeezed his fists and shut his eyes. “I sold the archduke the most powerful relic this city’s ever seen. It was a mask, white, and shaped like a simple skull. It gave the soul who wears it power like nothing anyone had ever seen before, but it also made him a monster. It made him Bone Man.”

So much about Dino started making sense then. Suddenly the man had depth, layers she never saw—or refused to see—before. He blamed himself for Bone Man’s murders, like she blamed herself for Toby’s death.

“The archduke ordered everyone involved dead,” he continued. “Guess he didn’t want anyone to know how Bone Man truly came about. One by one my men disappeared. Gone, and all because of me. I had no clue what was going on. How could I? I was drunk and celebrating day and night. I could barely remember my own name half the time. Bone Man came for me last. At least, he tried to.” He cleared his throat and looked down.
 

“Zoe stopped him,” he murmured. “She found out. She was coming to warn me when he killed her. I remember everything. The casino. The rain on my cheeks. Laughing. Seeing her face. Seeing
his
come behind it. Her scream. Her dust.”

“I’m so sorry, Dino. You had no way of knowing what would happen.”

He snorted and shook his head. “Zoe did. She was a fireball, and there were hardly any spirits better than her in all of Afterlife. She saw what was coming, and she must’ve known warning me doomed her. She still did it. Damned woman loved me for some reason. Now she’s dust. She’s dust because of me, and everyone else who’s died by Bone Man’s hand is dead because of me.”