Afterlife (Second Eden #1) (7 page)

Faye strummed the box. “Nobody could know about this. Not even the one who delivered it.”

“So you dusted them.”
 

“Got a problem with that?”

Dino tensed. She wanted him to say something, to protest. This was a test. He wouldn’t fail it, not when it promised to put him in range of Bone Man. “No. It was a smart move.”

Faye nodded approvingly and pulled a key from her pocket. She twisted the key in two, and it clicked apart. Arcs of violet electricity zapped between the pieces. With a flick of her wrist, she flung one at him.
 

Dino snatched it midair and looked at the half-key. “You want me to do what, exactly…?”

“I’ll have one half. You have the other. When the time comes, we open it. This way if the unthinkable happens and one of us is compromised, we can’t open the box.”

“And if one of us is captured, or one of our halves lost?”

“The box isn’t impossible to open, given time. We’re delayed a while longer in case of capture, but that’s a risk I’m willing to take.” Faye slipped the key between her breasts and replaced the box beneath her desk. “When it’s time, it’s time. I’ve lived in Afterlife longer than most souls here, survived the call of the Deep that’s taken so many. I am a patient woman.”

But I’m not
a patient man
, Dino thought bitterly. “And I’ll be in that final assault? I’ll be there?”

She mused on the question for a moment before thrusting her chin toward the door. “Whether you kill Bone Man and fulfill your debt is entirely up to you. Prove yourself, Dino. Make things right.”

“That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.”

“Good. It’s odd, isn’t it?”

“What?”

“That you of all the fools in the Fool’s Errand are the one I can trust with this. Even after her death, Zoe still finds ways to bring us together.”

“It wasn’t you and I she wanted together.”

Dino stood, ignoring the vicious, cold glare swirling in Faye’s dark eyes. He navigated the clutter from her desk and left the stifling air of the woman’s room. Once the door closed behind him, he took a deep breath. Already his throat dried, his tongue thirsted.
 

He would go to the gaming houses tonight and toss his wages into games of chance and bottles of whiskey. His right hand went to the gold band he wore around his neck. He fingered its hard edge, felt its comforting weight on the chain.
 

“Soon,” he murmured. “Soon. Things are looking up, Zoe.
Finally
.”

The porcelain tea kettle reflected the sun on its alabaster belly. Faded ivy braided the gold rim. A crack on the spout would make the tea pour out at an odd angle, probably why the family wanted to get rid of it.
 

Amber held it up. The round woman lording over the table eyed her suspiciously like she might pocket the trinket and take off for the forest.
 

 
“It’s pretty,” Amber said as she placed it back on the table and flashed a polite smile.

“It was my grandmother’s,” the woman replied. Red veins lined her bulbous nose. A thick layer of fat hid whatever neck she might have had, and her chest was so big her arms could barely cross over it.

“You should keep it if it means something special,” Amber said.

The woman’s bristling demeanor wilted, and her arms unfolded. “I can’t keep everything. We’re downsizing. Albert says it should go.”

Amber slid the kettle closer to the woman. “It hardly takes up any room.” She leaned over and cast a sly glance toward the lady’s husband. “I bet Albert doesn’t even notice. I won’t tell him. Will you?”

The woman slowly mirrored Amber’s smile and gingerly clasped the kettle, scooting it to her side. “You’re right, he’d never know if I did. It was my grandmother’s, and we used to have tea parties together with it. Thank you.”

Jason bounced over to them, and the moment evaporated. “You ready?”

Amber nodded and allowed him to twirl her toward his convertible. They climbed in, the engine thrummed alive, and they backed onto the street. Not a cloud scarred the brilliant unbroken fall sky. The bright disc of the sun warmed her cheeks even as the brisk breeze cooled them. It was the perfect balance, and Amber drank it up.

“I think we’ve got enough junk for six projects,” Jason said.

She ran her hand through her wild hair. Usually, it would stay in a tight ponytail. But on the weekends and in Jason’s car, feeling the wind whip it around brought a smile to her face.
 

Amber glanced at the collection of junk filling his back seat. “More than enough. I’m ready to get started. We heading to your place?”

“Ugh, absolutely not. Dad’s got coworkers in town and if I have to stomach another freaking story about the weather or the oh-so-beautiful leaves I’m going to vomit. Let’s go to your place.”

“Sounds good. Turn up here.”

They pulled up to an empty intersection. Amber’s hair went limp around her shoulders. She stared into the dome of the sky, set with the eye of the dazzling sun. The wind kissed her cheeks, and she closed her eyes.

Open your eyes.

Amber’s eyes shot open. She ripped around to Jason. “What?”

He had his aviators pulled down his nose and stared off to the left. “Huh? I said look at that.”

A sign posted across the street announced an estate sale a few blocks down the road. Amber hooked her thumb on the seat belt and ran her hand down to her lap. She could’ve sworn he said something else.

“Estate sales creep me out,” she said.

“But they have way better stuff than a garage sale.”

She bit her lip and squeezed the seatbelt. “We’ve already got a lot of stuff. Do you really want to go picking through some dead person’s junk?”

Jason popped his sunglasses back up his nose. He clenched the wheel and stared forward, shaking his shoulders. “Why, Ms. Blackwood, I do believe I do. You’ve still got plenty of money left over and I’m not a hundred percent on some of this crud.”

“But—”

“Oh my
gawd
just one more place. It won’t even take ten minutes. Promise.”

She rolled her eyes as the car squealed around the street, zipping toward their last stop. Houses rolled by, ruddy brick and rusted fences. Trees with their bright leaves fluttered like butterfly wings in the wind. She held her hand to the side and let the breeze whistle through her fingers while Jason sang ridiculously out of pitch.

Eventually, they spotted the sign marking the estate. The car rolled to a squeaky stop. Jason leaned onto the steering wheel, staring into the house’s dusty windows. It was a decent Portsmouth home, built in the Victorian style and painted a mint green with deep sage accents. Ivy ringed the home while a carefully-trimmed lawn invited strangers up the steps to a door hanging slightly ajar. A single tall chimney from which a curling trail of smoke drifted skyward poked from the angled roof.

No other cars lined the road. Even the neighbors kept indoors. Amber pulled her hair back and tied it in a ponytail. “Doesn’t look like anybody’s here.”

“Or maybe all the good stuff’s been picked over already,” Jason wondered.

“We can go then?”

He kicked his door open and spilled out. “Where’s your sense of adventure? Get your ass out of the car!”
 

They moseyed up the drive and strode toward the porch. The bottom stair croaked as she stepped on the board. A shadow passed across the window. She and Jason froze, sharing a nervous look.

“Maybe we should go. This place gives me the creeps,” she whispered.

Jason motioned for the car. He turned on his heel, and so did she. Behind them, the door creaked open. Amber and Jason turned to the sound.

A man stood in the frame wearing a closed-lip smile. Two dark eyes set beneath thick, caterpillar brows gazed down at his guests. A fan of deep wrinkles spread from the corners of his eyes across his temples, while deep laugh lines shadowed his round cheeks and gave them depth.
 

He opened the door wider and motioned inside. “Welcome, welcome. Are you here for the sale?”

His words poured out in a measured beat. Each syllable was carefully pronounced, but not without effort. His blue plaid shirt and grey slacks contrasted to the colorful home.
 

Jason shrugged and danced inside. “We certainly are.”

Amber followed at a slower pace. She nodded sheepishly as she passed their host and entered a house that smelled like cheap cinnamon candles and fresh laundry, not the old stench of an unkempt property that she half-expected from looking at the dusty windows.

“My name is Gregory Arshakuni,” he said, closing the door behind him. “Everything you see is for sale for the right price.”

“I’m sorry for your loss.” Amber recoiled at her own words, pressing a hand against her lips.

He made a sound of acknowledgement and took a seat in an overstuffed armchair. “Thank you, but condolences aren’t necessary. My mother passed over twenty years ago. She lived a long, happy life.”

Amber and Jason traded confused glances. Mr. Arshakuni chuckled, swatting the air. “I know, I know. I had always expected to retire here, but I think New Hampshire is too cold. My friend, he knows a man in Tampa building condominiums. I think I should like to spend the rest of my days beneath palms and not beneath the snow, and so, I say goodbye to this place. Too many memories. Too many.”

Jason flitted upstairs and vanished. Amber passed a buffet littered with antique frames and faded photos. Most were of a woman, some of the man—though obviously much younger than now. The woman had long, curling hair and those ridiculously oversized glasses popular a few decades ago. She held a cigarette in a few of the pictures, and while she didn’t smile in a single one of them, Amber saw mischief in her eyes.

“Your mother was a very pretty woman,” she said.

“Oh, she was, and she knew it. She fled Romania at the end of the War when she was barely able to walk, and she says she did it alone, though I’m not sure I believe her. She loved the US. Spent much of her time in New York reading fortunes and palms and taking money from gullible travelers and businessmen.”

“That sounds very exciting. I bet she had stories to tell.”

“Too many, if you ask me,” he said with a hoarse laugh. He coughed for a moment, then took a deep breath. “Apologies. I tried to cover up the smoke smell as best I could. It kills my sinuses.”

“You can’t even tell she smoked. Honestly.”

“At least wine doesn’t make the wallpaper reek. Every floorboard would smell like an old grape if it did. I tried to get her to quit both, but Marina Arshakuni was not one to follow the words of another, especially her son. She was always on some wild adventure, that woman.”
 

Amber ran her hand over one of Marina’s portraits. She turned from the pictures and looked at the home. Plastic covered most of the furniture. Yellowed floral wallpaper coated every wall. Cobwebs hung from the chandelier in the breakfast nook beyond the living room.

Sunlight poured in thick angles from the bay windows surrounding the chandelier. A round table beneath it held an array of glittering objects. Amber crossed the living room and inspected the knickknacks sprawled over the tabletop.

“What’s all this?” she asked.

The armchair’s springs protested as Gregory stood and strolled to the table. Using a finger, he poked through the pile of rubble. “Mostly cheap jewelry. It’s costume stuff from her psychic days. I won’t try and cheat you by telling you its real. I’m an honest man, even if my mother wasn’t so.”

“So you don’t think she was a real psychic?”

He laughed and knocked over a tiny gold figurine. “One thing I did learn from my mother is that this stuff is all fake. All of it. Fortunetelling is unlicensed grief counseling half the time and the other half terribly unsound investment advice. But what can I say? She got people to pay. That’s all that matters.”

“I imagine she also made more than a few people happy.”

“And more than a few mad,” he snorted. “When you buy stocks based on a beautiful woman with a mysterious Armenian accent and lose your life savings, you tend to hold a grudge. Sometimes I think my birth was more an excuse to run than desire to raise a son outside the city.”

Amber prodded the pile of discarded jewelry. Something hit the sunlight and glittered, catching her eye. She reached into the mound and pulled out a necklace. A gold chain held five polished scarlet stones framed by gold petals.
 

It was a gaudy thing, something Amber might find in a mall at some kiosk or costume store, although it weighed more than it looked and had a very solid feel to it.

“Ah, that’s agate,” he said, cupping the center stone in his palm. “Good for speaking to spirits, Mother always told me. I’m actually not sure if this was hers or not. It’s so different from the rest I think she might have stolen it or perhaps one of her clients fell on hard times and traded it for advice. It’s not worth much, but it’s more antique than costume like the other things you see.”

“It even feels old,” she whispered, transfixed by the glittering gold.

“Maybe a pretty girl like you could wear this to a dance. Or maybe you have a need to commune with the dead? My mother would tell me stories from Armenia, of how our family would speak with the beyond. She told me agate attracts spirits like flies to honey.” He laughed and shook his head. “It’s too bad it’s all silly fairy tales. Still, the necklace is pretty. You should buy it. God knows I’ll never wear it.”

If Amber could speak to spirits, she had ten thousand questions to ask them, to ask
him
. But nobody could speak to spirits, no matter how much she wished otherwise. Chris would roll his eyes at the mere suggestion. Her mom would have her committed.
 

“No thanks.” Amber dropped the jewelry on the table and turned just in time to see Jason bounce downstairs with a few random things in his hands.
 

“Find anything?” he asked.

“No,” she sighed.

Gregory pulled the necklace from the table. “Are you sure you don’t want it? Twenty dollars and it’s yours. We didn’t have too many decent pieces, but this is real agate. Might look pretty around your neck at school.”