the rhythm, I felt like we were spinning out of control. My head swam, and a real, disorienting wave of nausea hit me.
I clung to Joshua, leaned over his shoulder, and tried to catch my breath. Tried to quell an overwhelming need to retch.
And there, mere inches away from me, a face stared back. Like it was waiting for me.
It was so close I only saw its most prominent features: pale flesh, black eyes. And row upon row of sharp teeth, glittering in a crazed, wicked smile.
I felt its breath, icy and insidious against my cheek, and I screamed.
Chapter
ELEVEN
A fter that, I didn’t think. I just reacted.
Within seconds I had Joshua at my back, my arms stretched behind me and wrapped around him in my best attempt to protect him from whatever had just come after us. I felt a feral snarl spring to my lips; and, for the briefest moment, I closed my eyes. To calm myself. To prepare.
But when I opened them, the menacing face was gone. No leering grin, no cold breath, no black eyes.
Gone .
Still keeping my arms clasped tightly around what had to be a very confused Joshua, I spun in a circle, searching the crowd again. This time I saw nothing but a swaying sea of red. Besides mine, the only supernatural faces left in this club were made of plastic and glitter.
All the ghastly beings must have disappeared in an instant. Vanished, as if they’d never been there at all.
As if I’d imagined them, just as I’d imagined my father this afternoon.
At that thought my arms dropped from Joshua’s sides. My hands immediately flew to my mouth, and I pressed my fingertips to my lips, trying to hold back a gasp. Despite the effort, I started to sound like I was hyperventilating.
The entire time, I kept asking myself the same question:
Is it possible for a ghost to go crazy?
If those faces weren’t real, then I had hallucinated twice in one day. Which didn’t bode well for my sanity.
But assuming for a moment that I hadn’t totally lost it, then I was probably in even worse trouble. Because I’d seen those kinds of faces before, on the night I’d finally stood against Eli upon High Bridge.
I watched one of them swoop in like a bat, dragging Eli into the darkness. Before fleeing the netherworld for the last time, I had a conversation with another one, which—unfortunately—gave me plenty of time to familiarize myself with how they looked.
Deathly pale and unnaturally still. Beautiful at first, and then hideous.
Those were the faces of demons.
And those were the faces watching me tonight. Maybe not the same demons I’d met on High Bridge, but similar enough.
How had they found me? More importantly, how were they here? If they stayed cloistered away in what I assumed was a place even darker than the netherworld, then what were they doing in living, breathing New Orleans?
Unfortunately, that question seemed to answer itself.
A handful of demons—if that’s what they actually were—had appeared tonight because they didn’t always stay away. They didn’t always hide in places darker than I could comprehend.
Sometimes they came to the living world to take matters into their own hands.
Maybe tonight had just been a glimpse of things to come. A warning that they could find me, whenever they wanted to.
Which meant my presence served as a lightning rod for evil, putting anyone who happened to stand nearby at risk. But only one person in particular stood nearby, almost all the time …
“Amelia?”
Immediately, my head snapped up and my eyes refocused. Then I jumped slightly, shocked to find myself standing outside the club with my back pressed against the brick wall. I’d been so intently drawing my conclusions that I must have walked outside, leaned against this wall, and clawed into it as if clinging for dear life.
Judging by the concerned faces around me, I’d had an entourage while doing so.
Joshua stood closest—he’d been the one to call my name in that sharp, frightened tone. A few steps behind
I clung to Joshua, leaned over his shoulder, and tried to catch my breath. Tried to quell an overwhelming need to retch.
And there, mere inches away from me, a face stared back. Like it was waiting for me.
It was so close I only saw its most prominent features: pale flesh, black eyes. And row upon row of sharp teeth, glittering in a crazed, wicked smile.
I felt its breath, icy and insidious against my cheek, and I screamed.
Chapter
ELEVEN
A fter that, I didn’t think. I just reacted.
Within seconds I had Joshua at my back, my arms stretched behind me and wrapped around him in my best attempt to protect him from whatever had just come after us. I felt a feral snarl spring to my lips; and, for the briefest moment, I closed my eyes. To calm myself. To prepare.
But when I opened them, the menacing face was gone. No leering grin, no cold breath, no black eyes.
Gone .
Still keeping my arms clasped tightly around what had to be a very confused Joshua, I spun in a circle, searching the crowd again. This time I saw nothing but a swaying sea of red. Besides mine, the only supernatural faces left in this club were made of plastic and glitter.
All the ghastly beings must have disappeared in an instant. Vanished, as if they’d never been there at all.
As if I’d imagined them, just as I’d imagined my father this afternoon.
At that thought my arms dropped from Joshua’s sides. My hands immediately flew to my mouth, and I pressed my fingertips to my lips, trying to hold back a gasp. Despite the effort, I started to sound like I was hyperventilating.
The entire time, I kept asking myself the same question:
Is it possible for a ghost to go crazy?
If those faces weren’t real, then I had hallucinated twice in one day. Which didn’t bode well for my sanity.
But assuming for a moment that I hadn’t totally lost it, then I was probably in even worse trouble. Because I’d seen those kinds of faces before, on the night I’d finally stood against Eli upon High Bridge.
I watched one of them swoop in like a bat, dragging Eli into the darkness. Before fleeing the netherworld for the last time, I had a conversation with another one, which—unfortunately—gave me plenty of time to familiarize myself with how they looked.
Deathly pale and unnaturally still. Beautiful at first, and then hideous.
Those were the faces of demons.
And those were the faces watching me tonight. Maybe not the same demons I’d met on High Bridge, but similar enough.
How had they found me? More importantly, how were they here? If they stayed cloistered away in what I assumed was a place even darker than the netherworld, then what were they doing in living, breathing New Orleans?
Unfortunately, that question seemed to answer itself.
A handful of demons—if that’s what they actually were—had appeared tonight because they didn’t always stay away. They didn’t always hide in places darker than I could comprehend.
Sometimes they came to the living world to take matters into their own hands.
Maybe tonight had just been a glimpse of things to come. A warning that they could find me, whenever they wanted to.
Which meant my presence served as a lightning rod for evil, putting anyone who happened to stand nearby at risk. But only one person in particular stood nearby, almost all the time …
“Amelia?”
Immediately, my head snapped up and my eyes refocused. Then I jumped slightly, shocked to find myself standing outside the club with my back pressed against the brick wall. I’d been so intently drawing my conclusions that I must have walked outside, leaned against this wall, and clawed into it as if clinging for dear life.
Judging by the concerned faces around me, I’d had an entourage while doing so.
Joshua stood closest—he’d been the one to call my name in that sharp, frightened tone. A few steps behind
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