UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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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 someone—something. 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 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.

“I’m glad they’re here,” I said, looking down at Jillian’s wan face. Joshua must have stretched her out upon the riverbank again, because she lay in the mud again, close eyed and pale.

“Yeah. She’ll be okay, I think.” Joshua stared down at his sister, frowning heavily. Then he abruptly chuckled and turned back to me. “She’ll probably just wake up really, really pissed off.”

I laughed with him, but our laughter felt somehow out of place. Joshua must have sensed this too, because his face once again grew serious.

“Are you okay, Amelia?” he asked, his eyes searching mine.

“Yeah.” I sighed, and, for some inexplicable reason, I dropped my face back to his chest and sank farther into him. Maybe it was the sound of his rough voice that broke down my defenses, or maybe it was the simple act of resting for the first time this evening. Whatever the case, I was suddenly and overwhelmingly exhausted.

Joshua moved his arm up my shoulder to wrap his hand around the nape of my neck, where he then threaded his fingers through my hair. Not for the first time, I thought about how much I absolutely loved the way that felt. A slight smile crept over my face, and I sighed again.

“We don’t have to talk about it right now,” Joshua murmured. “But I’ve got to at least ask: did you . . . save us?”

“I wouldn’t call it saving per se,” I said, pressing my face harder into his chest. “I would call it . . . spooking, maybe.”

“So, you spooked Eli away?”

I smiled grimly, although Joshua couldn’t see my face. “I didn’t. But he’s definitely been spooked away. Pretty effectively too, I think.”

“Good.”

The sound we heard next surprised both of us. A soft voice—hoarse from exhaustion and too much river water—croaked up at us from the bank.

“Amelia?”

I looked down at Jillian. She’d leaned up a few inches, onto her elbows, and she now stared directly at me. Her hazel eyes—almost feverish in the dark—met mine. The intensity of her stare seemed to hypnotize me.

“Yes,” I whispered back, more out of compulsion than anything else.

“Is he gone?”

“Yes, O’Reilly’s gone.”

“No, not O’Reilly. The blond one.”

I blinked in surprise. Jillian meant Eli. How had she known about Eli? She hadn’t even seen him, had she?

“Y-yes,” I stuttered. “The other one’s gone too.”

“Then . . . thank you.”

She gave me one weak nod. Then she closed her eyes and laid her head back down upon the muddy bank.