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?

“So they offered you your freedom,” I asked softly, “in exchange for … me?”

“Not exactly,” the pirate said. “An intermediary has agreed to negotiate on our behalf, as long as she—”

“Silence!” The gray-haired woman cut him off with another hiss. She held him in her cold stare as she addressed the rest of their companions. “We’re done explaining things to her. Let’s get on with it.”

Upon hearing her command, they each nodded. Then they began to take slow, stalking steps toward me. Almost in unison, they extended their hands like claws, reaching for me.

They looked like predators. Dead, crazy predators.

Panic and terror boiled inside me, along with that damned, searing heat. But I still clenched my fists and let loose a feral snarl.

“I won’t go without a fight,” I growled.

Still moving in, the soldier chuckled darkly. “Good.”

Once again, something about him reminded me of Eli—of his cruelty and sadism; his pleasure in my pain.

And just like that, I was infuriated beyond rational thought. Suddenly, mindlessly, I began to stalk forward, too. Ready to meet them headlong.

But just as abruptly, they scrambled away from me, skittering back across the uneven surface of Bourbon Street like leaves. Only two ghosts remained close enough so that I could still see their eyes, which shined with fear.

When I peered closely, I realized they shined with the reflection of something else, too …

Something almost neon, and blue.

I didn’t even have time to register what I’d seen in their eyes before the burning inside me doubled. So much so that I felt like my brain had finally dropped that lit match into the kerosene.

The blaze was so hot, so blistering that I arched my back and then hunched forward, flailing in some subconscious effort to put out the fire. A particularly strong wave forced my head downward so that I faced my hands. When I saw them—still clenched in defense—a soft shriek escaped my lips.

My protective glow was back.

Sort of.

Instead of fire, traces of blue light raced each other up and down my hands, my wrists, my arms. I glowed again.

But not with the ghostly flame I knew. That flame had never harmed me. This glow hurt. Wherever the light moved it seared, leaving lines of pain in its wake. Roasting me from the inside out.

After a few seconds of mindlessly staring at my hands, I realized that the light followed the tracks of my veins. In fact, it looked as though the veins themselves were shining through my skin. Like blistering hot, illuminated pathways that followed the course of my dead circulatory system. Blue lights, crisscrossing the places where my blood once flowed.

This isn’t possible, I thought. It can’t be.

Then it struck me: this is what I’d been feeling since Joshua and I left the cemetery. This is what had been boiling inside me. The slow, hot buildup of an internal lightning storm.