Afterlife (Second Eden #1) (36 page)

She gasped a great gulp of air and raced into her room. Her form zipped over the ash pile that was once Liam and flew onto the balcony. With the barest effort she rocketed into the sky, never once looking back.
 

In the distance, sirens wailed. Dino said they would once he completed his mission. He wouldn’t go straight to the hotel knowing he might lead the blackjackets to her. No, first he would run somewhere safe. First he would flee to the only place in Afterlife where he could go and know the blackjackets couldn’t follow.

Dino reclined in his chair, watching the dancers flip and twirl in feathered scarlet costumes. Smoke filled the Deep Diamond’s air, drifting in trails from wide grins perched above the sooty, stained chins of laborers or the trimmed beards of the ones who managed them.
 

Beyond this hovel of a gaming house, Afterlife buzzed with the news of General Ian West’s untimely death. Blackjackets swarmed the streets. Screams punctuated the shadowed alleys and homes being raided by the archduke’s soldiers.
 

He needed to get to Bentley’s warehouse. Protected with a relic, not even the blackjackets could find him there. But knowing what he knew now, hearing the words spoken by the two generals and reading Vera’s disturbing journal, he needed a drink.
 

Dino toyed with the rim of his drink. Maybe Afterlife and the mortal world did need to start again. Maybe whatever children Adam and Even bore the second go around would be better than their lost siblings. Without Zoe around, Dino didn’t really care one way or the other.

But then there was Amber. And when he thought of her suffering at the hands of the archduke, losing her soul to some ancient curse, his chest tightened, and his hands shook.

He smirked and stuck a finger in his collar, grimacing at the tight fabric ringing his neck. “What in the hell’s going on with me?”

Mel glided by with a tray full of dirty martinis. He swiped one from her and winked as she nodded and continued her way through the maze of tables crowding the stage.
 

Two cheese-stuffed olives slid around the rim on a toothpick axis. Dino poked one. He frowned at the drink and pushed the glass away.

“You look lonely. Mind if I join you?” Amber asked, slipping into a seat beside him.
 

She wore a black silk gown cut high up the chest beneath a paisley coat of swirling scarlet over shimmering grey. Around her neck hung a black ribbon tied with a bow trailing over her chest. Not to outdo the gown, she wore a simple woman’s top hat wreathed by roses and crowned by a raven’s wing.

Dino lurched back in his seat, tipping the chair so hard his knee hit the underside of the table and knocked over the martini. He cursed, swiping the glass and slapping the spill with a napkin in one smooth motion. “I, ah, Amber? Jesus. You look, um, you look….”

Amber giggled and turned to the stage, passing her tongue slowly over her lips. “I must be doing something right if I can make Dino Cardona spill good vodka. How do you like the dress? I wore it for you.” She batted her eyes, her smile sharpening. “They say you love girls in red these days.”

His fingers squeezed the martini’s handle as his racing heartbeat thrummed to a darker rhythm. “Faye. Brave, wearing her body in the open like this. It’s too bad the blackjackets didn’t see you. Maybe they would’ve done me a favor and dusted you.”

Faye-As-Amber giggled. Her body shifted, flesh swirling like liquid smoke until it reformed in the familiar profile of Faye Labelle, master of the Fool’s Errand. “I’ve got more than enough spirits posted around this oversized dumpster to keep them off my trail—and yours, too. I haven’t seen you so flustered by the sight of a woman in quite a long time. Quite a
very
long time. That’s not good for the girl, if your past is remotely prologue to her future.”

“Don’t go there, Faye. I don’t want old scars to itch, not tonight. I came here to watch the show and have a drink, that’s all.”

“And I came here to see if my best assassin knew anything about the late Ian West’s death, but by the sound of it I don’t think the question needs asking. Tell me, Dino, what were your orders?”

“I haven’t forgotten them. I’ve been busy is all.”

Faye rapped her knuckles on the table, her jaw tightening. “That’s not the question I asked. I asked you tell me what your fucking orders were, so you better obey in the next three seconds or I’ll personally break the one unbreakable law in Afterlife and dust you right here and now for all to see.”

Dino licked the vodka from his thumb and stared at the stage. “You ordered me to make Amber a soldier in the Fool’s Errand.”

“Oh, so you do remember! And what’s the progress on those orders, soldier? Because unless I’m mistaken—and I never am—my number two has been wining and dining with the Scarlet Spider and assassinating generals on the Iron Council while the mortal girl is no closer to being loyal to me than the first night you dragged her through my door. I’d hazard to guess she actually doesn’t give two specks of dust for me and my cause.”

“She’ll never be loyal to you, Faye,” Dino sighed. “No matter how much you want it she’ll never be a fool. Any soul can see your time is done. How many of your fools have been dusted? How many are left? It’s over. He’s won.”

Faye’s round eyes hardened. “And you’ve failed. Or can you fail, if you never try?”

“I’m not a genie. I can’t snap my fingers and grant your wishes. There’re some things you and I can’t control. Amber’s one of them. Best we can hope for is that what she wants aligns with what we want.”

“If I know you, then you’ve already ensured what she wants
aligns
very nicely with what you want. It’s the only reason you’re actually telling me this and not leading me on, isn’t it?”

“To be honest, I don’t know what I want anymore.”

“Bullshit! You want Bone Man dead. That’s all your miserable, sorry soul has ever wanted since he dusted Zoe. You want to make this harder on me? On you? If your game’s to force my hand and make me take care of the girl myself, then I’ll gladly lay my cards on the table. I wonder how much she’ll want to be your little pet when she learns the truth about who you really are?”

Dino grabbed the olives from his empty glass and ate one, savoring the salty juices tinged just a hint of vodka as they soaked his tongue. “Go ahead. I already told her the truth about me. All of it.”

Faye snapped her fingers at Melanie and barked a drink order. Mel replied with a tight-lipped smile and flitted toward the bar.
 

“All of it?” Faye asked.

“Everything you know, she knows. It was the only way to get her to trust me.”

“So the secret’s out then. What a shame.” Faye strummed her fingers on the table, shaking her head. “You must really like her. I guess it had to happen one of these days, didn’t it? Zoe’s memory couldn’t last forever.”

Melanie returned with a drink. Faye snatched the glass, a bourbon number with a delicate orange peel curled around an oversized ice cube. While Mel waited for a tip, Faye took a sip, tapping the glass with a ruby nail.
 

She eyed the waitress, flashing the same plastic smile Melanie showed her. “Go away, sinner trash. We’re having a conversation.”

Melanie’s face flushed cherry red. Dino grabbed her wrist and smiled as he took another martini from her tray. “I’ll put her payment with mine, don’t worry.”

“You’re a good man, Dino.” Melanie exploded into a ball of swirling smoke and rushed through Faye, cloaking her in writhing serpentine clouds as she glided back to the bar.

Faye swatted at the clearing air like someone had passed gas. “She’s lucky she works in a casino. If I didn’t have more important things to deal with, I’d dust her as soon as she leaves her shift.”
 

“Faye, have you ever wondered why you’ve never been able to dislodge the archduke? It’s not just because you’re a repulsive piece of pond scum that wraps herself up in pretty dresses and prances around Afterlife pretending to be better than what she really is.”
 

“Oh? But I thought it was all those things,” she shot back, her voice dripping acid.

“You don’t give people hope. You live in the past, and we’ve moved on from it. The Soul Assembly’s gone. You lost the war when the Revolution ended, and there aren’t enough souls left who give two shits about the Assembly to put you back on top.”

Faye folded her hands on the table, glaring at him from the corner of her eye while she faced the stage. “I don’t need the city to cry out for the Soul Assembly. I just need to cut the head of the snake who took its place. And I find it ironic you of all people should be lecturing me on the past.”

“That should tell you something then. If Dino Cardona can move on from the past, maybe Faye LaBelle should get her head out of her ass and do it too. Zoe would’ve done the same.”

“Zoe.” Faye’s knuckles whitened around her drink. “Amber’s a lot like her, you know. I can see it in her eyes. She’s got the same kind of passion, the same kind of drive Zoe had. Call me scum if you like, but I wonder what that makes you, dropping the one you promised eternity to for the first gal who came along that reminded you of her? It’s too bad we can’t ask Zoe. She was always so good with words.”

Dino downed the second half of his drink. “I don’t need to ask her. I knew her better than anyone, even the spoiled woman on the Soul Assembly who was utterly obsessed with her. What was her name again? Faye LaBelle, I think? Who can be sure now? It’s been so long since anyone on the Assembly mattered. Let it go, Faye. It’s over.”

“You don’t get the luxury of making demands of
me
,” Faye snapped.

“I’ve decided I no longer want you to control me. So I’ll take all the little luxuries I can. Life’s so much less stressful that way. Zoe lived that way, you know.”

“And she died that way! I told her not to go with you. I told her you were dangerous and unpredictable. I begged her to stay by my side and fight the archduke. Instead, she went with you, and because of your greed, the woman I loved, the soul who should’ve spent eternity by
my
side, is dust in the fucking wind by the blade of the monster
you
created!

“You may be moving on because you think you and Amber will run away together. Maybe you don’t even care a thing for the girl and just want me to go ahead and end your miserable soul and dust you, but I won’t have you spending your final pathetic days thinking we’re somehow equals or you somehow got the last word on Zoe. I’ll show you your place, and I sure as hell will make sure Amber knows hers. That mortal will be mine, or there’ll be blood spilled in Afterlife soon enough, I swear on whatever god has an ear to listen. You’ll regret this, Dino Cardona.”

Faye left in a flurry of fine fabrics. Dino watched as several other casual watchers filtered out with her. He smiled, dragging his fingertip across the rim of his martini. Mel reappeared beside him and plopped the tray on the table. “She’s a piece of work, isn’t she?”

“That she is. A little too predictable for my tastes, though. How’d everything go?”

The waitress flashed her brows while she slipped her fingers between her breasts. “Never noticed. Was too fixed on you the whole time, thinking you were the one doing the dirty work.”

Mel brought out half of a key that when joined with the half Dino held would open a particular box holding the map to the Black Palace. He laughed as his twinkling gaze settled on it. “Mel, I owe you big time.”
 

“Just come see me sing soon. Promise?”

“Promise!”
 

Dino took the key and rocked to his feet, then headed for the door. Enough time had passed to lose any blackjacket tails he might have had. One quick visit to the hotel to check on Amber, and soon, they would have everything they needed to find the truth about her brother.
 

He smiled and lifted his chin. The thought of helping her warmed his chest. How many years had passed since he did something for anyone other than Zoe? He forgot how it felt, and he didn’t want to forget again. For the first time in a long time, things finally headed Dino’s way, and he aimed to make sure things stayed that way.

“I need to see Bentley!” Amber demanded.

The two guards traded glances.

“
Now
.” Amber folded her arms. “Unless you want to explain to Faye and Dino why you didn’t let me through?”

The men nodded and flung the door open. Amber charged inside, and the doors swung shut behind her. The warehouse brimmed with soldiers—more than she had ever seen collected in a single space before. She spotted Bentley hunched over a makeshift desk in the central boxing ring, studying papers layering the worn wood.

Amber jumped into the ring. The desk bounced, and Bentley whipped around with an angry scowl wrinkling his dark brow. “What in the hell?”

His frown melted when their eyes met. “Amber,” he said.

“Bentley. You’ve got to get your people out of La Couronne. Bone Man knows it’s a hideout.”
 

Bentley cursed and motioned for a soldier. She flipped onto the ring, and he whispered in her ear. The woman nodded, her eyes flicking to Amber and back again before she vanished in a swirling mass of smoke.

“And you’re sure you weren’t followed?” he asked.

“I’m good.”

“Good. You were smart coming to see me. Where’s Dino?”

“He’ll show up soon I hope.” She glanced out a massive factory window and listened to the sirens.
 

Bentley grumbled and pounded the desk. “What the hell has he been up to? Are these sirens his fault? The entire city’s in chaos. There’re blackjackets swarming the streets like it’s the whole damned Revolution again, dusting anybody who even blinks the wrong way! If it weren’t for the relic keeping this place safe, there’d be no more Errand.”

“He didn’t have a choice. He did what he did—”

“For
you
. I don’t know what it is about you that he sees, but that man’s got his stars crossed over you.”