Arise (22 page)

There I started to run, picking up my pace once Joshua gained better control of his feet. The sound of his shoes pounded on the pavement as we dodged the traffic on Rampart Street and crossed back into the French Quarter.

Even though we’d made it back into the Quarter, we both continued to run mindlessly in the direction of the town house—holding each other’s hand and sprinting past pedestrians and restaurants and shuttered town homes.

While we ran, my brain buzzed with thoughts. Unpleasant ones. Each beat of my feet against pavement brought me closer to a horrible, inevitable conclusion.

This is it, isn’t it
? I asked myself.
This is the end
.

And I knew, without a doubt, that the answer was yes.

I couldn’t keep letting things like this happen. I couldn’t keep placing Joshua in danger with these constant, hopeless attempts to stay with him. Fleeing Oklahoma, only to wind up in potentially demon-infested clubs; participating in failed Voodoo rituals? These were crazy, desperate acts that hurt him far more than they helped me.

He could have been possessed tonight, by whatever dark force had taken over Gabrielle. Worse, he could have been killed. Besides, the longer I lingered by his side, the more opportunity I gave the evil netherworld spirits to find me, and thereby him.

Every second he spent with me, every instant he touched me was like a slow-working poison. Which meant that everything I’d done in the past few days was unforgivably selfish. Done to prolong my time with him instead of to protect him.

So I didn’t have two nights left with him. I didn’t even have one night.

I had to end this, now.

When I saw that we’d made it to the relative safety of Ursulines and Royal, just north of the Mayhew house, I yanked him to a stop. He instantly flopped back against a brick wall, panting, looking grateful for the chance to rest.

I, however, didn’t rest. I paced madly in front of him, trying not to cry. Trying to think of exactly what to say. It didn’t help that the weird, burning sensation was still snaking its way through my body. It made me feel heavy and jittery at the same time, simultaneously light-headed and weighted down.

Joshua looked worse for wear too. He clenched and unclenched his hands a few times and then ran one hand through his hair, letting it rest on the back of his neck.

God, why did he have to do that?
I thought.
This would be so much easier if he wouldn’t do things like that
.

“You okay?” he asked me, sounding winded. “What the hell happened back there?”

“It doesn’t matter.” I shook my head bitterly. “It’s not going to happen again.”

Joshua made a small noise somewhere between a grunt and a laugh. Then he grinned widely, like someone under the influence of a danger-induced rush.

“Oh, I agree—we won’t be going back to the St. Louis Number One any time soon.”

I shook my head again, more strongly. “No, Joshua. You don’t get it: it’s not going to happen again, because nothing’s going to happen again. Not between us. Not anymore.”

Joshua’s smile held, but faltered at the corners. “Amelia? What’s going on?”

I steeled my back, and my voice. “I’ve been lying to you, Joshua. You called me out for acting weird lately, and I lied to you about it. So now I’m going to tell you the truth: I’ve been thinking a lot about us, and our future.”

“And?” he said softly.

“And we don’t have one. A future, I mean. Tonight just proved it.”

His smile disappeared. “But … but tonight was just about me helping you. I thought you were okay with that?”

“I … I lied.”

Panic edged into his eyes. “Look, I won’t try that again. I promise.”

“N-no,” I whispered, my voice finally cracking. “You probably won’t. But will it matter? When five, ten, twenty years pass, will it really matter that we just sat back and enjoyed each other? Are you really going to be a forty-year-old man with a dead, eighteen-year-old girlfriend?”

Now Joshua’s eyes burned. He lunged forward, clasping his hands to my upper arms. He didn’t intend to hurt me, but he grabbed me forcefully enough that the movement lifted me onto my toes.

“I will, Amelia,” he said roughly. “I
will
.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I moaned, trying to pull away from him. I cursed myself when the tears began to flow, filling my eyes despite my resolution to be cold and immovable. “I’m leaving you, Joshua. Right now.”

He leaned in, trying to hold my gaze. But I closed my eyes so tightly, I forced the tears out onto my cheeks. I had to get out of here, had to materialize before my willpower completely crumbled.

So I ignored him. Ignored the heat I suddenly felt rising off his skin. Instead of his smile, his hands, his eyes, I pictured the ghosts I’d met in Jackson Square. Though they didn’t expect me for another day, I pictured myself finding them, joining them. Fading with them.

The effort worked. I could feel the soft pull of the materialization tugging me out of Joshua’s arms. Helping me vanish from his life forever.

Just before I slipped away, I heard him call out to me.

“Amelia, don’t do this! Stay with me.”

“Why?” I sobbed, though I could no longer see him. But his fading whisper still followed me into the darkness.

“Because I love you, Amelia.”

Chapter

NINETEEN

I
love you
.

The words whispered in my mind long after they’d been spoken. They echoed, haunting me, distracting me in the darkness.

Maybe
they
were the reason my materialization didn’t work. Not entirely anyway.

When I opened my eyes, I didn’t see the other ghosts. Instead, I saw a throng of drunken, living people, laughing and shouting and surging around me. Beads were flying, drinks were sloshing, and loud music was pouring out from every window and door.

Bourbon Street.

For all I knew, I’d landed right in the middle of a parade, or what might have been just an average night in the French Quarter. Either way, it was nothing but utter chaos, and it mirrored perfectly how I felt inside.

I began to stumble through the crowd like a zombie—mindless, uncaring, blind. I wanted to be numb, too, but my body wasn’t complying with that wish. As I walked, I grew dizzier and sicker, burning and reeling inside. It felt like my veins were filling up with kerosene and my brain was just seconds away from striking a match.

At this point, I probably wouldn’t stop it. While I stumbled and burned, one word repeated itself on an endless loop in my mind.

Mistake. Mistake. Mistake
.

I pushed my way through the mass of bodies, moving without direction or coherent thought. With nothing on my mind but that one repeating word and the impulse to get
away
. Every now and then I would catch the stench of rot, alcohol, and centuries of decadence. Even though they vanished quickly, these momentary sensations just made my head spin faster.

The farther I walked, the dizzier I got and the more the crowd pressed smothering-close. Their drunken laughter disoriented me so much, I started to superimpose the scene on other memories.

Memories of another party, on a bridge, many years ago.

A lifetime ago, technically.

That night—the night of my death—I’d seen shapeless black forms writhing their way through the crowd, inciting my friends and classmates to attack me. But tonight I couldn’t distinguish the living beings from the supernatural.

Until I smacked right into one.

The force of the contact knocked me off balance, and I stumbled backward. My legs tangled in my skirt; and, despite a clumsy attempt to right myself, I began to fall. I threw my hands behind me in time to land palms-first upon the dirty curb.

The moment my hands slapped pavement, a nasty, stinging sensation slashed across my palms—surprising me not only with its force, but with the fact that I felt it at all. Even stranger, the jolt of the fall actually knocked the wind out of me. I sat there stinging and gulping for almost a full minute before I had the sense to look up and figure out who I’d just run into.

When I saw the face leering down at me, I shivered—a reaction that had nothing to do with the cold wind suddenly biting into my exposed skin.

He tipped his flamboyant hat in acknowledgment and then bent his knees so that he crouched at my level. Of course, from my vantage point, he didn’t really
exist
below the knees.

“That felt good, running into you,” the pirate said, giving me a crooked grin. “Our group doesn’t ever touch. But I wouldn’t mind doing it again with someone who looks like you do.”

Before I could react to his innuendo, another voice hissed in my ear.

“Trying to seduce one of my own? Or are you just out for an evening stroll, dear?”

I jumped slightly and then shuffled backward on my stinging hands, away from the hiss. I moved even faster once I saw the speaker: the gray-haired woman from Jackson Square. Once I’d backed a safer distance away from her, I straightened my spine and gave her my coldest glare (despite the fact that my veins were now
scorching
).

“I don’t like your tone,” I told her icily.

A harsh, ugly smile cut across her face. “It doesn’t matter what you like, girl. You came to us—you’re ours now.”

As if they’d been planning this confrontation, the other three ghosts appeared out of thin air, materializing to form a circle around me. The soldier, with his arms folded menacingly across his chest; the sneering aristocrat; and the black-haired Creole girl whose dark eyes—now that I could see them more closely—looked a little manic. Those three must have agreed with, or at least overheard, the gray-haired woman, because they all flashed me triumphant, possessive smiles.

This wasn’t exactly how I pictured this scene going down: burning on the inside, freezing on the outside, and outnumbered by five spirits who I’d started to suspect weren’t my allies. Glowering back at them, I pushed myself off the pavement, dusted off my skirt in mock indifference, and then drew myself up to my full height.

“Other ghosts have tried to control me before,” I warned. “Trust me when I say it didn’t turn out too well for them.”

The soldier eyed his companions and then smirked. “I like our odds.”

The other ghosts shifted in response to his threat, moving as one to tighten their circle.

“What do you want from me?” I demanded.

“A trade,” the aristocrat said.

“For what? I don’t have anything to give you.”

He laughed. “We don’t want to trade with you; we want to trade
you
. We plan to exchange you for something else.”

My mouth dropped open, and I took an involuntary step backward. The dark-haired girl moved with me, pressing in closer to block my escape. I turned toward her, hoping to appeal to someone nearer to my own age. Even if she did look totally crazy.

“I just wanted your help,” I whispered to her. “Like you promised. You and I probably have a lot more in common than you think.”

To my surprise, she grinned. Then she held up her forearms for me to see the vertical scars on them. “I don’t think so. Not unless you slit your own wrists, too.”

When I recoiled, her grin only broadened.

She’s nuts. They all are
.

I repressed my horror and tried to keep my expression smooth, confident. Although I suspected that the girl was past the point of reasoning, I asked, “Is what you’d get in this trade really worth trying to hurt me?”

“Oh, yes,” she whispered, her eyes widening. “Yes, it certainly is.”

I spun back around to the rest of them. Louder, I asked, “What price are you getting for me?”

“Our freedom,” the soldier said. “From the demons. We have it on good authority that they want you. Badly.”

My rigid posture faltered, right alongside my bravado. I knew that
I
would do just about anything—aside from murder and betrayal, obviously—to avoid the demons. And I’d only been running from them for less than a week. So how could I expect these ghosts, half rabid from centuries of hiding, to feel any differently? How could I reason with all that fear and desperation?