Suddenly, it seemed to me as though the club and its attendants were merely playing at the macabre. No real spooks waited in the corners. No demons lived under the stairs. Other than Joshua’s relatives and their friends, I doubted anyone in this building could even sense me, much less hear or see me.

Realizing that I had nothing to fear, I felt a heady sense of relief. Excitement, even. It shot up my spine and through my veins like adrenaline. Made me want to react. Made me want to set myself free, if only for a few minutes.

Joshua had just stepped past me on his way to the staircase, so I tugged at his arm. He met my gaze and then tilted his head to one side, questioning. I gave him a sly grin and used my free hand to point to the crowded floor we had just crossed.

Dance? I mouthed.

He raised both eyebrows questioningly. Then he started to grin too. He shrugged off his coat and passed it to Drew to carry up to the private room.

Free of the coat, Joshua looked … well, great, as I’d told him earlier. The word “delicious” sprang to mind, and I had to repress a giggle. I took one steadying breath, trying to stay cool. But as I watched him walk toward me, my excitement intensified. He placed both his hands in mine, and the fiery sensation burst across my skin, tingling along my palms and wrists.

At that point I did giggle. Then I said an immediate prayer of thanks that the loud music covered the sound.

Still grinning, Joshua spun us out into the crowd. He guided us past the other dancers and held me tighter, running his hands to my shoulders then down my back. His touch was so electric, I almost didn’t notice the effort it took to get to the center of the dance floor, directly beneath the red chandelier.

Once there, Joshua pressed closer—closer than we usually allowed ourselves to be. Suddenly, I felt the brush of his skin, real and warm against my own, and my breath caught in my throat. All around us, the music began to swell. As we swayed together to its rhythm, I felt dizzy, drunk off the heavy drumbeat and the dark, hypnotic melody.

My eyes met Joshua’s, and even through all the red, I could still see their striking midnight blue. By now his hands had strayed down my shoulder blades, leaving a trail of fire wherever they crossed. He rested them against the small of my back and then, with the slightest tug, pulled me so close I could almost feel his heart beat through his shirt. When he leaned down to brush his lips against my collarbone, I arched my neck and took one shuddering breath.

And that’s when I saw them.

Faces.

Ones that obviously didn’t belong here. And by here I meant the living world.

They were scattered throughout the crowd—ghastly, stark white and motionless against the undulating red. And all of them stared at one thing.

Me.

My head snapped forward, and I pressed my hands against Joshua’s chest. We continued to dance, but I now stared into the crowd, my head whipping to the right and left. Through the thick mass of dancers, I caught only the briefest glimpses of pale white, standing out in the sea of red. The faces were so isolated, so obscured by the movement of the dancers, I couldn’t be sure I saw them at all.

For a second I wondered whether I was just seeing the wannabe ghost-girls.

But I didn’t think so. Not when everything else in here—the lights, the walls, the people—looked like it had been dipped in blood.

While I kept searching, Joshua started to dance us in a circle. Although he moved slowly, the circular movement soon coupled with too much head swiveling, and my earlier dizziness returned in full force.

Worse, actually. Although Joshua and I continued to move to 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

After 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.