Afterlife (Second Eden #1) (16 page)

I literally transformed into Tiffany Holt
, she thought.

The backdoor in the kitchen groaned as it opened, shattering Amber’s quiet contemplation. Her heart shot into her throat. She pressed her back against the wall, eyes wide and bright as slick china. Maybe her mom had flown home early. Maybe Chris decided to surprise her. Maybe Jason or Ms. Flannery wanted to check to see if she was okay.
 

The person in the kitchen could be any of them. Footsteps clicked on tile, slow, steady, and drawing nearer.
 

Shit
. Amber closed her eyes and forced the lump down her throat. She opened her eyes. There was a mirror on the wall ahead. Look in it at the right angle, and she could see into the kitchen, catch a glimpse and pray to God she knew this person.

Her back pressed against the wall, she inched toward the mirror. Its gold frame glimmered in the low light.
 

Just a little closer, and she would see into the kitchen. Another step clicked on the tile. There was a long pause. Sweat beaded on her palms. Her heartbeat pummeled her ribs.

Amber bit her lip and slid an inch along the wall. The kitchen appeared in the reflection. A man stood in the doorway where the tile met the floorboards. He wore a black suit, perfectly pressed, with a thin black tie and pale leather gloves. He gripped a cane, polished black as his spotless oxfords. A mask shaped like an expressionless skull hid his face, and from behind it his unblinking blue eyes locked with hers.

Amber’s muscles froze. She opened her mouth in a scream that wouldn’t come. Her fingernails dug against the wall. One nail broke, a flash of fire lancing up her hand. The masked man cocked his head like a curious puppy. He squeezed his cane.

No matter how hard she tried to move, her feet stayed glued to the floor, even as he slowly approached her. Amber felt a gentle force caress her jaw. Something like breath tickled her neck and whispered in her ear.

He took another step. Only a few feet remained between her and this masked thing of the stuff of nightmares. Ice crystallized over the mirror, and her breaths came out in steamy puffs. Sweat beaded on her temples as her mind cried out, her eyes still imprisoned by his.

Should he lift his cane, he would touch her with it. His breath sighed behind his mask, and she heard it. Amber wept, a tear dripping from her jaw and soaking her shirt.
 

Not like this,
she thought.
Not. Like. This!

A force flared from within her and smashed against the man. He flew backwards into the kitchen, crashing over the island before smashing into the door.
 

Amber gasped and doubled over as the force keeping her still uncoiled. Her heart felt like she had hammered a frozen nail through it. Her whole body trembled. She clutched her neck and drew a few ragged breaths.
 

Every kitchen cabinet crashed open. Windows rattled. Light bulbs buzzed and shattered.
 

Amber stumbled to her feet, whipping around the corner and bolting across the living room.
 

“Help!” she screamed. “Help!”

She launched into the foyer and plowed into the front door, yanking the knob, but the deadbolt held it fast.
 

“Shit! Shit!” Amber sobbed, fumbling with the knob. “Open, dammit. Just open!”

“Come back here!” he wailed, his warbling voice full of fury.
 

“No,” she sobbed. “Please, God no.”

That same probing force slid across her neck and rolled over an arm.
 

The lock clicked. Amber cried out, ripping the door open and flying outside. She glanced behind her. The tall, dark silhouette slinked across the living room, brandishing a gleaming blade.

Her hot lungs took in frigid air as she ran down the drive. Her toe caught a root, and she hit the ground.
 

Rocks cut her palms and knees. Her ankle throbbed. She flipped around and scrambled into the wedge of the great elm’s roots as the masked man strolled onto the yard, swinging his shining blade.
 

“Go away!” she screamed. “I don’t have anything!”

The stranger paused halfway to her. He raised his weapon and lowered his arm, and the blade remained suspended, slowly rotating like a screw ready to drive into Amber’s ribs. The man pointed toward her, and the wind sighed through rustling leaves, whispering teasing words over and over in her head.
 

The man flicked his wrist, and the blade shot toward Amber. She tensed, shielding her face.
 

A moment passed, and nothing impaled her. Amber took a breath and lowered her arms.
 

Not an inch from her eye, the sword tip trembled violently. Her assailant paused, looking at his hand. He thrust his palm toward her, and while the blade quivered, it didn’t budge.

The wind whipped angrily around her. “What is this?” he demanded. “Move!”

His voice was like glass shattering and nails on a chalkboard. Amber pressed her back against the tree trunk and stared at the blade.
 

A ghostly hand appeared around the weapon’s grip. The hand grew into an arm, then became a man. He wore a dark leather jacket studded with rings and buttons and a loose hood. The jacket fastened over an untied scarlet scarf, and while both might have been nice once, they were worn so well she wondered if he ever took them off. The wind toyed with his midnight-dark hair while light sparkled in the pools of his eyes. He had a kind of confidence in every minor twitch of muscle or blink of an eye, and had they been passing each other on the street, she would have turned around to get a second look and hoped he did the same.

He yanked the sword aside, ramming its blade into the elm’s thick bark. “Are you okay?” he asked, glancing down at her with a hot gaze.
 

Somehow she managed to nod. He grinned, taking her hand. “Good.”

The masked man leapt, rocks flying in his wake.
 

Amber’s rescuer jerked her into his arms and put his lips beside her ear. “Take a deep breath, and don’t panic,” he whispered.

Their bodies erupted into trails of murky mist as the murderous masked man rocketed right through them. Amber clutched the man’s jacket, the scent of sweat and leather assaulting her nose, the beat of his heart thumping against her cheek. “He’s trying to kill me!”

“If he wanted you dead, he would’ve done it sooner. He was toying with you, playing with you like a cat plays with a mouse. That was his mistake, and my opening.” The man kicked off the ground, and their ethereal bodies whistled through the tree’s leafy branches.
 

Her house, the drive, the street shrunk beneath them. Amber tightened her grip on his jacket and wrapped her legs around his waist. “What the hell is going on? I can’t do heights. We’re going to fall!”

“Even if we did, so what? If you haven’t noticed, you’re a little less than solid at the moment. So how’d you steal the relic from the palace anyway? You don’t seem so, I don’t know,
thiefy
. You certainly got under Bone Man’s skin though. Good job on that.”

“Because I’m not a thief! And I’ve never met that psycho before tonight. He broke into my house and … where’re we going?”

“We’ve got to get to safety. You’re coming with me.”

“What? No!”

“No choice, I’m afraid. Believe me when I say the alternative’s much, much worse.”

They reached the peak of their jump and careened toward Ms. Flannery’s home. He tightened his arm around her waist and took a deep breath of her hair. “That’s weird. You’re alive. How’d you get a curse? You got a relic?”

“Listen, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m not cursed, and I’m not some thief. Please, just let me down at the nearest police station. I can show you right where it is.”

“And he’ll just kill them all and take you, and then we’ll both have wasted a perfectly fine rescue. I don’t know about you, but I never waste a good entrance, and you’ve got to admit as far as entrances go, that was a great one. Your police probably wouldn’t appreciate being skewered like shish kebabs either.”

His dismissive attitude and poor attempt at humor sent her blood to a boil. “They’ll just shoot him before that happens. They have guns, unlike you, unless you’re hiding one in that jacket? What’s up with that jacket anyway? You like roleplaying?”

He laughed as Ms. Flannery’s roof loomed large before them. “I do. Glad to know you’re in to that kind of thing. It’s hard to find a girl with a little kink these days. But before we put you into a proper nurse’s uniform, could I get your name, maybe treat you to dinner?”

“I didn’t mean that kind of role play, you ass. Wait—slow down!” Amber’s eyes swelled as wind roared around them. Ms. Flannery’s roof zoomed closer by the second. Amber pulled back, but her supposed rescuer only increased his speed.
 

Amber buried her face in his chest and squeezed her eyes shut. “We’ll die! Stop!”

“You’ve got a lot to learn,” he said.

They hit the roof and passed through the shingles. Amber gasped as they tore through the upper floor, passing Ms. Flannery fast asleep in her oversized bed. They whipped through the first floor kitchen, then descended into the basement and stopped, their ghostly bodies reforming into something with substance.

Amber flung herself away from him, smashing the heel of her foot on his boot as she reeled back. “Ms. Flannery! Help!
HELP!
Call the police! Something!”

The man yelped and grabbed his foot, hopping in a little circle as he muttered an unbroken line of curses that actually startled Amber with its colorful creativity. His face turned beet red, and he kicked a box full of books. “Hell, woman, that smarted! I save you and you thank me by crushing my toes? That’s some kind of thank you!”

“Thank you?
Thank you?
I was just nearly murdered in my home by some psychopath in a mask who can … who can … who can do I don’t even know what, and then some other asshole just pops into existence—literally—and kidnaps me and flies me through my neighbor’s house. I’m leaving and you aren’t stopping me!”

He looked to the ceiling and flexed his jaw. “Bone Man’s coming,” he said, the lighthearted humor in his voice completely gone. “He doesn’t have my curse so he can’t get here as fast as we can, but he knows where I’m going. He’s probably already in the house.”

An enormous crash upstairs made the basement’s ceiling shudder. Dust fell in trails from the old floorboards, and the squeaky ceiling fan in the middle of the room rocked side to side.
 

“See?”
 

Amber shook her head. “Ms. Flannery….”

“If she knows what’s best for her, she’ll stay in bed. It’s not her Bone Man wants, it’s you. I think he’s under the impression you’re someone who took something very special from his master. While I’m starting to have my doubts you’re anything but a bother, I can’t risk leaving you behind for him. Looks like you’re flying with me tonight. Don’t look so down about it. You know how many women would kill for that honor?”

Amber rolled her eyes and headed toward the staircase. He grabbed her collar and yanked her to him, his finger pointing between her eyes. “Listen, you don’t have a choice. I’m saving you whether you like it or not. We’re leaving.”

“Do you even realize where we are? In a basement! There’s no way out!”
 

He flashed his brows and smiled. “Oh, but there is.”

The strange man motioned to the corner of the room where the antique mirror was propped in the corner, reflecting her messy crown of hair and dirty arms and legs. She was suddenly aware of every little imperfection about herself she hated and knew for certain he’d already taken note of each and every one of them.

“The mirror?” she asked. “Are you on drugs?”

“Not at the moment,” he replied.

Footsteps pounded overhead. The man grabbed her wrist and pulled her toward the glass. “Okay, enough chatting. Can’t let Bone Man capture his pretty little bird.”

Amber fought his pull, and he groaned, swinging her to him as their bodies exploded into mist and flowed toward their ethereal reflections.
 

Her gaze caught her reflection and lingered on it. The Amber staring back at her looked like her, but there was something in those eyes, some power that was so totally unlike her that it sent a shiver down her spine.

“Travel by mirror’s never comfortable,” he said. “That’s because it’s not really you that you’re seeing. It’s the Deep, hiding in your skin, hungry like a wolf that sees a wounded lamb. It wants you, and the Deep always gets what it wants.”

Amber tore her gaze from the mirror and stared incredulously at her captor. “Who
are
you?”

He smiled and winked. “Name’s Dino. Dino Cardona.”

The basement door exploded open, flying downstairs and shattering against a beam. Dino sucked in a breath and plowed them into the mirror. “See you on the other side!”

As she turned toward the glass her reflection exploded from it and latched onto her wrist. It smiled and pulled her into its hungry embrace. “Welcome home, Amber.”

Amber screamed and hit the mirror, and the world disappeared in a flash.

Dino latched onto the mirror as they crashed through the other side. He ripped the antique from the wall and slammed it to the ground. Glass shattered in a spray of glittering shards and sent dust piled on the floor flying around them. The air chilled, ice crystals radiating across the floor from the demolished antique.

The mortal girl doubled over in a coughing fit and stumbled for the arched window overlooking the ruins of Old City. She waved the grime from her face and blinked, staring into the wasteland. Her hand pressed against the glass as she gazed at the charred remnants of happier times, her eyes wide and a frantic mix of terror and wonder.

Dino caught himself smirking at her. She was goofy, sure, but there was a kind of fire in her eyes that pulled attention to her, even if she didn’t want it.