Born of Treasure (Treasure Chronicles Book 2) (29 page)

Would the child look like Clark? They both had blonde hair and blue eyes, but would the child also have his strong nose? What about his soothing voice?

“Mrs. Grisham?” Eric touched her shoulder. In public, he called her Amethyst so the outlaws wouldn’t be confused—he had to be concerned to revert back to the pet name.

“Eric.” She squeezed his wrist. “I’m with child.”

The holes where his eyes had been widened. “How do you know? I mean, do women… I’ve never been…”

He hadn’t known about Clark when he’d passed. “I felt it when I concentrated.”

“That’s… my grandchild.” Eric’s mouth gaped.

Could Amethyst still fight for Clark? Women in the city hid away for nine months, or ten, or eleven, as long as it took to safely have offspring. None of her friends had bred yet. She happened to be the first to marry, even though they had beaus and fiancés.

She’d seen the lower class with child, round bellies and waddles, frowns until they smiled, as if it was bittersweet. The servants still worked when they were in that condition. What had her mother done?

Knowing Georgette, it wouldn’t have stopped her.

“What do I do?” Amethyst asked.

“I… don’t know. I can ask Clark, but you should tell him.”

“Would Clark know?” Who cared who told her husband?

fell in love with him. When sadness struck, I pictured him in my mind, and it all washed away. We laughed, and I didn’t have to hide behind a façade of being better. He encouraged me—he told me I could do anything, and I believed him. He cheered me on when I wanted to curl up. He let me go when I needed to do something on my own.

I do this for him.

The steamcycle roared over a rock, soaring inches off the ground before hitting the dust again, and Amethyst opened her eyes. Jack Three drove her stolen bike so she wouldn’t have to struggle to keep up with the gang. His shoulders hung narrower than Clark’s, and back hair stuck out from his yellowed collar. The stench of sweat oozed off him making her want to gag. With her eyes shut, concentrating on Clark, she could forget about the horror of Jack Three. Maybe riding with Jack One or Jack Two—if they existed—would have been preferable.

Staring over the man’s hunched shoulder, she spotted the farm looming into view. Dusk colored the darkening sky in streaks of violet and orange, the type of painting she might’ve created when she really wanted a cat masterpiece. The leading cycles circled the cabin and barn, and Jack Three parked in the line. Amethyst jumped off and wiped her gloved hands on her new slacks. At least they’d been there to protect her from Jack Three, who took off his helmet and leered at her with broken teeth.

She’d used Eric’s bank code to purchase the dugout gang new clothes—Eric let them know what armor they could retrieve from his hideout—so they would be hardier. The clerk in Hedlund hadn’t blinked when she requested black pants, shirts, gloves, and boots, as if that order came in every day. The men and women from the other gangs wore their threadbare garb. She’d have to see if she could get them something new.

Amethyst folded her arms as a shiver played over her spine. Long ago, she’d been a little girl sitting on a white couch in a white playroom in her uncle’s apartment. He’d wanted everything to be white for her, to be pure, innocent… corruptible. She’d sat on that sofa with a porcelain doll in her lap, the toy covered in layers of silk and lace. A dollhouse had rested on the floor, along with a Jack-in-the-Box, a stuffed bear, and that bird in the white cage, that would sing whenever she turned the key in its side. City air would blow through the open window to stir the white velveteen curtains.

She would pretend her mother was there with her, since her uncle couldn’t play well. She’d stopped after she realized her mother wouldn’t return to the city to live. She stopped pretending she had anything other than her uncle and that white playroom.

Now, she didn’t have him, and she wore black, with buckles on her pants, buttons up the shirt, and boots that reached her knees.

The gang members started toward the house, and a man stepped out onto the porch, a rifle in hand.

“Whatcha think you’re doing?” he bellowed.

If anyone got shot, she could bring them back. Amethyst started forward when Eric appeared beside her.

“Do you remember when you first arrived in Hedlund and Rancher Horan attacked a neighbor?” he asked.

So much had happened when she first arrived. Amethyst shifted her stance. “A little.” The men had gone off, and her mother had worried in the drawing room, so Amethyst had played pool, drunk booze, and fell asleep on her balcony.

“Rancher Horan had attacked this farm. His brother told him I left something special here.”

“Wait, hadn’t my father sold this land to the man?” Jeremiah had complained about his father buying the land back to protect the farmer.

“Yes. He couldn’t protect mine forever. Garth didn’t know where I left anything.”

“State your business.” The farmer cocked his rifle and lifted it, so the gang lifted their weapons right back.

“Look here, fella,” Top Hat Terry called. “We don’t want no trouble. We gotta get something on your land and we’ll be off.”

“You’re gonna get off my land, that’s what!” The farmer—Steven Smith, Eric had called him—shot at Top Hat Terry’s feet. Dust puffed off from the ground as the shot rang across the fields. A cow in the barn mooed.

Top Hat Terry had said they didn’t mess with honest folk, like farmers struggling to survive in the dry climate. He told her they wouldn’t harm the family.

“Smith.” Amethyst sashayed forward, swinging her hips. “I’m Amethyst Treasure. Will you let us get what we need on behalf of my father?”

The farmer scowled before he spit tobacco juice onto the porch. “If you’re off with the likes of this lot, you’re just a whore. Garth don’t have whores.” He lunged forward, aiming his rifle at her. “You one of those that made the army take him off? You lied about his good name?”

Amethyst sighed. Time for her Rich Girl voice. “Shoot him. Tie him up. I’ll bring him back.” Short, to the point statements.

Top Hat Terry pulled his trigger and blood blossomed on Steven Smith’s chest. The farmer sank to his knees, his rifle striking the porch, and toppled sideways.

“Steve!” His wife fled from the house to kneel beside her husband, tears on her cheeks. “What have you done?” She scrambled for his rifle, but one of the men in the crowd shot her in the forehead. Her body crumpled over his.

Amethyst strolled forward to lean against the porch railing while Top Hat Terry and a woman in a ragged dress tied the Smiths together. Someone else marched in the house after the little boy, whose wrists they bound.

“Their dead,” the child wailed. “You killed them.”

“Oh, hush up,” Amethyst snapped. “They’re coming back to you.”

A ghost shimmered into existence beside her, a gouge carved into her neck and blood staining the front of her blue corset. “Be nice to the child.”

An aunt, perhaps? Amethyst shrugged the ghost away as she crouched on the wood, resting one hand on each of the Smiths’ shoulders. She closed her eyes to transport herself into the death world.

“Come with me,” she called. “Your son’s waiting.”

They crawled toward her, with blackened eyes and gaping mouths. Taking their hands, she yanked them back to reality, to leave them gasping on the porch.

“What are you?” Steven Smith panted.

What could she be? Amethyst rose. She could call herself the Dark Mistress, or another wicked name like that. Or… “Amethyst Grisham.” She winked and jumped off the porch. The ghost in the corset had vanished, leaving Eric as the only specter in the yard.

“This way.” He headed around the cabin, and she followed, sensing the others behind her. Boots crunched over dry grass and dirt. She lifted her chin and straightened her shoulders. The gang respected her more for her abilities than they did her money. Guiding them meant more than teaching a servant to polish silverware better.

Amethyst laughed, just to hear her voice in the air.

Eric stopped near the well and pointed toward the bottom. “The lever is in the rock with the key engraved on it.”

Amethyst glanced back at her followers. She’d look pathetic if she couldn’t get that to work. “Um, what?”

“Push in the stone with the symbol.”

Amethyst knelt in the dirt to rub her fingers over the stones. Some of them had marks, cracks, and dirt. None of them seemed to have an actual engraving.

“Eric, show her.” The corseted ghost shimmered near him. “Don’t be a tease.”

How nice, ghosts knew each other. Scowling, Amethyst searched lower to the ground. There. Her finger caught in the crease of an engraving. She brushed off the dirt to reveal a crude key design. She bit her lip as she pushed it inward. At first, it resisted, but gave with a click, dirt scraping off against her fingers. The ground behind her lurched and gears ground. A door lifted from beneath the grass and lights flickered within the hole.

She glanced at Eric, but he kissed the corseted ghost. Since when did he care about that? No man could resist a corset.

“Here we go!” Amethyst flashed a smile to her audience and stepped onto the first stair leading downward. They couldn’t see her hesitate.

Each step she descended caused another light to flicker in the wall. When she came to the bottom, a chamber glowed; it had to be at least a mile long, filled with steamcycles and steamcoaches.

Gunshots sounded above and someone shouted. Had the Smiths gotten loose? Why hadn’t anyone followed her? Amethyst ran back to the top, and someone grabbed her arm. Wind pushed, and she smacked her back into the ground, air rushing from her lungs.

A knife pressed against her throat.

“Move, bitch, and you die,” a man growled.

A man wearing an army uniform.

She swung her gaze and noticed other army men shooting at the gang members.

‘They’ve been watching the Smith farm. I didn’t see them.” Eric’s voice drifted to her ears. How good was a ghost then?

“I heard you call yourself Amethyst Treasure,” her attacker snarled. They must’ve waited for her to descend before attacking so she wouldn’t be able to escape.

The knife bit deeper, a sting forming along her throat. If she could save a life, who said she couldn’t take one? Amethyst fought her glove off as he leered at her and clamped her hand around his wrist, flashing them to the dead land. The officer staggered away from her into the sand.

“Bye,” Amethyst sang as she returned to reality. The man’s body crumpled onto her and warmth soared along her limbs, as though fire were about to leap off her skin. She had to find the energy to leave the cavern. What if she burned up from the inside out, a result of too much power? The corpse slid off her and she gasped for breath.

Her lungs wouldn’t work. Amethyst rolled to her side, panting, and reached out. Her hand hit an ankle and the fire energy from the Great Beyond soared off of her, onto…

She blinked up at the corseted ghost. How had the energy gone into a spirit? The cut through the ghost’s throat vanished and her blackened eyes shifted green, the whites appearing around the irises. The ghost lifted her hands and turned them over.