Darker Days (6 page)

Chapter Eight

It was almost four when we got back to the office. Lukas had settled on the old couch in the waiting area—the one Mom said Grandpa always hated. I could understand his dislike of the thing—and I’d never even met the guy. It looked like cheesy yellow and brown flower-infested curtains had thrown up all over it. To make things worse, the mustard yellow carpet matched the flowers perfectly and reminded me of a bad seventies movie. Most of the pictures on the wall—badly painted scenes of people dressed like pimps—had given me nightmares as a child. The place was a shrine to the days of platform shoes and fringe. I’d been pushing Mom to update the place, but as she pointed out, we were broke.

“You sure you’re okay?” I’d asked at least twelve times since we’d walked through the door. Pale and shaky, at least he didn’t look ready to collapse anymore. His eyes had returned to their normal color and he’d relaxed. For the most part. Every now and then I’d catch him watching me with an odd expression.

“I’ll be fine.”

“You want something to eat? Some water maybe?”

“Water would be nice, thank you.”

A quick dash to the kitchen. When I returned, I set down a glass and settled across from him on the chair. It took a lot to make me feel guilty. Hold your nose, jump in feet first, and think about it later—that was my mantra. When your mom owned an agency that dealt in the creepies, you kind of had to think that way. If I did something rash, it was because it needed to be done. No apologies. Not from me. This time, though, I’d acted stupid. Made a bad choice without thinking through the consequences. Lukas and all those people on the street in The Pit had paid the price because I felt like I had something to prove. “I’m sorry.”

He sipped the water and set it down on the coffee table. “Sorry?”

“That whole thing back there—it was my fault. We could have gone around. I was trying to get the jump on snagging the others.”

“Oh. Yes, it was.”

I held back a smile. Lukas didn’t sugarcoat things. You never had to wonder what he was thinking. It was a nice change from, well, pretty much everyone else. “I didn’t know what would happen.”

“I know.”

“I mean, you seemed to hold it together at school, so I thought…”

He leaned back. “You had no way of knowing my limits.”

“So I did the only thing I could think of.”

“You tried to kiss me.”

Tried?
Suddenly my cheeks were flaming for an entirely different reason. “Yeah. Well, I know I lack the experience of someone your age—what are you, like four hundred?”

I could see he was fighting a smile, and it made me want to smack him. This wasn’t funny. “Not quite, no.” His face flushed slightly. “And the kiss was…nice.”

Huh. Didn’t see that coming. My mouth dried out and the breath caught in my throat. It was like someone had sucked all the air from the room—then cranked the heat sky high. My heart started dancing crazy. Like one of Kendra’s crazy speed metal bands.

I cleared my throat. “I think for it to have been considered an actual
kiss
, there had to be lip movement.” And maybe some tongue—I wasn’t sure. I’d never had a real boyfriend. There was Tommy Jensen in the first grade, but shin kicking followed by a sloppy gum-infested peck on the check didn’t exactly define going steady.

Then it hit me. Suddenly, the warm temperature took on a distinct chill.
OhmyGod
. Had I actually said that out
loud
? Where was a large rock to hide under when you really needed it?

“That’s not true,” he insisted, leaning forward a few inches. His voice was low and deep. It sent tiny tremors tickling up and down my spine, making my already thundering heart beat just a bit faster.

I found myself leaning forward as well, drawn almost like a magnet to the sound of his voice. Every impulse I had was screaming for me to move away—
look
away—but there was something about him that held me there…something so enticing in his eyes. They were dangerous and addictive.

We were less than six inches apart now, breath mingling. “At the risk of sounding inappropriate, I’d really like to do it again,” he murmured.

The only sound I could hear was the hammering of my heart.
Oh.My.God.
He was going to kiss me? For real this time? Excitement erupted, sending a million tiny shockwaves through my body.
“You—um—wow, I—”

He pulled back and folded his hands neatly in his lap. “But I was raised a gentleman, so don’t worry.”

All the air whooshed out of the room like someone had just jammed a pin in a Jessie-sized balloon. I’d never been bummed about the office not having AC. Right about now, though, I needed to cool down—and distract my mind from this madness. “So…um, what exactly happened? I mean, I know you lost control, but why? What was different from school?”

He took another sip of water. When finished, he set the glass down and started again. “That place was full of black. Rage and death. There was so much of it…”

It made sense, and really, it was stupid that I hadn’t figured it out earlier. The Pit was where most of our calls came from—both human and Otherworlder. We’d stumbled onto entire bars that catered to freaky demon fetishes. Naturally, things got out of hand on occasion. People went missing. Things were stolen. It was a total cash cow from a business perspective, but for someone like Lukas, it must have been hell.

“What’s it like? When you lose control. It almost looked like you were in—”

“Pain?”

I nodded. “It hurts, doesn’t it?”

“You and your questions. Your grandfather was like that. It must be a family trait.” He leaned back again and glanced up toward the ceiling. “Yes, it does hurt. I’m fighting to keep control—I’m always fighting… Random anger here and there is hard, but manageable. But earlier, in that place, I was surrounded by so much of it. It senses the nearness of the very thing it feeds on and struggles for control.”

“It?”

“Wrath.”

“How—how painful is it?”

He stared at me, and I found the whole roller coaster starting all over again. Butterflies in the stomach, heated cheeks, heart jumping like a thrasher in a mosh pit…

I’d been boyfriendless for a reason. I didn’t want to get involved with anyone. I’d seen what it did to people—falling in love—and I wanted no part of it. Yet here I was, getting all hot under the collar for some guy. And not just any guy. One of the Seven Deadly Sins.

Irony, thy name is Jessie.

Mom would probably say it was hormones and walk away beaming with pride. She’d been pushing me to take an interest in something—someone—other than the agency. Somehow, though, I was pretty sure this
wasn’t
what she meant.

“It’s like being ripped apart—over and over again. Like being set on fire, dipped in ice, and then lit up again.”

“Jesus.” That cooled the mood quick. I was almost sorry I’d asked.

“The harder I fight, the worse it hurts when I finally lose control—which will happen more and more as time goes on. From the moment we’re released, the box is calling us back. It’s faint at first. A whisper in the crowd. But as our time runs out, the call becomes stronger and more painful, making the Sin more frantic to feed.”

“I’ll make sure Mom keeps her deal with you.” The passion in my voice surprised me. Mom was the good guy. The selfless one. I wasn’t the
bad one
, per se, but I didn’t inherit her patience with humanity. Nine times out of ten, if a person had an issue, it was my opinion that they brought it on themselves. Human
and
Otherworlder. Lukas was different, though. It wasn’t pity that I was feeling—I didn’t believe in that. It wasn’t even that he was incredibly hot—though that might have helped…a little.

I got the feeling he’d been royally screwed for no good reason, and that pissed me off. “We’ll help you become human again.” I took his hand and squeezed. To my surprise, he didn’t pull away. “We’ll fix this.”

He’d never expected us to honor our part of the deal—I could tell by the look on his face. A mix of shock and relief. “And who will we transfer the sin to? What innocent person do we punish for my misfortune?”

“Like Mom agreed. We’ll go with the original plan from 1959. We’ll find the bastard who opened the box and give him a taste of hell.”

Lukas looked down at my hand on his and opened his mouth, but the buzzing of the office phone interrupted him.

I stretched across the couch and grabbed the cordless, almost taking out the lamp in the process. “Darker Agency.”

“Jessie, I’m on my way home,” Mom’s voice crackled on the other end. Stupid cell reception sucked in this area. The town had been fighting against getting an additional tower installed. Some crap about it being an eyesore.

“Perfect. Pick up a pizza or—”

“Jessie, listen to me carefully. I found the person the Sins are looking for. The one who opened the box.” On the other end, I heard Mom talking to someone. “
Take the phone
,” she said.

There was some shuffling and a slight pause. The person on the other end sucked in a deep breath. “Hello, Jessie.”

Two words. That’s all it took to tear my world down. And not so much the words as the voice behind them.

“…
Dad
?”

Chapter Nine

Ten minutes later, they breezed through the door casual as could be. Mom first, followed by a face I hadn’t seen in almost five years.

Still impossibly tall with dark, wavy hair, he stopped in the doorway and stared. New additions to his look included a closely clipped goatee, a silver earring, and a new tattoo snaking down his arm and around his right wrist. He hadn’t aged a day since I’d seen him last. It might have been due to the fact that I’d built him up in my memory. Constantly looking at old pictures to keep his face fresh in my mind.

Or it might have been the demon blood running through his veins.

I’d heard the story a thousand times. How my very human mom fell in love with my deadly demonic dad. They met when Mom was just sixteen. She was working with Grandpa at the agency, and the way she tells it, Dad sauntered in looking for help retrieving a powerful amulet. According to Mom, the sparks were instant. There was more to it than that, but I’d blocked it out. Mom and Dad smoochies were not a thought I cared to entertain.

Grandpa, of course, didn’t approve, but who could blame him? What father would want his daughter to hook up with one of the very things he’d spent his life battling? In the end, it hadn’t mattered. Mom was like me. Stubborn to the core. She loved my dad—demon or not—and refused to give him up.

I crossed the room and threw myself into his arms. He smelled the same way I remembered. Slightly spicy with the tiniest hint of sulfur.

“I’m sorry, Jessie.”

“It’s true?
You’re
the one who opened the box?”

“I’m sorry,” he said again, pushing me away. His eyes found Lukas, and the tone of his voice changed instantly. It was deeper and darker.
Demonic
. “Wrath.”

Lukas’ eyes widened, and he took an unsteady step back. “Please—for everyone’s sake, don’t come any closer. It’s very hard for me to control my anger and you—”

“Make it harder?”

“Yes.”

Dad advanced a few steps wearing a wicked smile. “I’m a
demon
. We do that.”

Shadow demons, like my dad, had strength and speed, but their big claim to fame was shadowing. It was their trademark move and made them excellent employees for higher ranking demons, put to work as assassins and thieves. They had the ability to blend in—to become one with the shadows—and travel between them. Virtually undetectable, my dad could take you out before you even knew he was there. I’d slept with my lights on for an entire year when I was six because of a story Dad told me detailing a job he’d done once. That had been the last time Mom let him pop in to put me to sleep.

“Stop.” I grabbed Dad’s arm and pulled back. It was like trying to move a mountain, well, up a mountain.

“There is a Sin in the room with my family.” His voice was calm, but I knew better. I hadn’t spent much time with my dad, but I knew that tone. I’d heard it a thousand times from a thousand different demons. Threatening. Dangerous. It was the last sound you heard just before your world went splat.

“There’s a Sin in the room because
you
opened the box,” I said calmly. Hah. Take that, logic.

He turned to me, expression softening. “I didn’t open the box on purpose.”

“So what happened exactly?”

“We got word it was stolen and about to change hands. Valefar, my boss, sent me to stop the trade. There was a woman—I didn’t see her face. I chased her for the box, easily overpowering her. Too easily.”

“Too easily?” Mom came up beside him and rested a hand against his shoulder.

Dad nodded. “She all but surrendered the box—and then she tripped me.”

“She tripped you? As far as attack methods go, that one is a little middle school if you ask me.”

Understanding creased Mom’s features. “She wanted you to open the box.”

Again, Dad nodded. “I believe so. I tried to stop it from opening, but it was too late.”

“Why would you want to stop the box from being opened?” Lukas asked. He was watching Dad from across the room with a mixture of fear and awe. “You’re an instrument of Satan. Bred to spread evil.”

We stared at him.

Dad scoffed, offended. Arms folded and nose turned up, he said, “Ignorant human. You are a perfect example of why your species is inferior.”

Mom cleared her throat, and Dad amended with a wink, “Most of the species.”

Lukas looked confused. I patted him on the shoulder and shook my head. His view might be a little archaic, but it really wasn’t any different from the rest of the world’s. “The whole heaven-hell-angel-demon thing? So not what you think. I’ll explain later.”

“I’m not sure I want to know,” Lukas said, sinking back onto the couch. He ran a hand over his face and sighed. The poor guy was having a rough few days. “They’ll be looking for you. They need you to keep their freedom. There’s nothing they won’t do to break their tie to the box.”

“They’ll have to find me first.”

Mom was pale, and I could see the worry in her eyes, but she was a tough cookie. A woman used to kicking ass and taking names. A little thing like this wouldn’t slow her down. “This changes things,” she said with a quick glance in Lukas’ direction. He met her gaze for a moment before she turned away.

“Changes…?” And then I understood.
Dad
was the
bastard
that opened the box. The one we’d planned on switching Lukas with. “Craps,” I spat.

On the couch, Lukas remained silent and unsurprised. He’d figured it out before I did.

Dad leaned against the wall next to Mom’s desk. “Fill me in.”

“Lukas was human—trapped in the box,” I said.

Dad narrowed his eyes. “Human? How is that possible?”

“A witch,” Mom supplied with a frown. She moved around to the other side of the desk and settled into her chair. “And as you know, something done in blood cannot be undone without the same.”

“Ah.” Dad nodded. “Never been a fan of witches.”

“We were planning to transfer the sin to whoever opened the box…”

“I see.” Dad turned to Lukas. “You’ve found a descendant then, I take it? Of the one who trapped you?”

“We were searching for one,” Lukas said. “We’ve had no luck.”

“And this descendant you’re looking for can remove the Sin?”

“I believe so, yes. It’s how I became infected. By magic.”

Dad didn’t look convinced. “But you need someone to transfer the sin to. Is that correct?”

And this is where the problem was. Assuming we could find a Wells witch, we were now short one bad guy. “What about another demon? We bust bad ones all the time. Could we just—I dunno—pick a bad one and transfer the sin to them? Problem solved.”

Mom rolled her eyes, and Dad actually looked annoyed. He fixed his gaze on me, and in that moment, I was almost glad he’d been absent during my early years. The parental stare of death would have been hell coming from him. “Even if it were possible—which it’s not—I wouldn’t condemn one of my kind to that.”

Oops. No wonder Dad was mad. All demons came from the Shadow Realm and most were, in some small way, related. Technically, when we sent a demon back, there was a good chance we were deporting a relative of his—and mine. A distant relative, but still. We shared some small amount of blood.

“What do you mean, if it were even possible?” Mom asked.

I couldn’t help staring at them—my parents. Mom in the chair, and Dad standing beside her; they looked like the perfect couple. So normal… It was hard sometimes for me to remember they weren’t normal. Mom being human and Dad, well, not. Demons could look normal when it suited them, but you could spot them if you knew what to look for.

From the time I could talk, Mom taught me how to pick them out in a crowd. There was always a slight difference in eye color—usually too bright or too dark. Height was another indicator. Demons tended to be a bit taller than normal humans and had long, unusually slender fingers.

But the real way to sniff out a demon—the
foolproof
way, as Mom would say—was to pay attention to mannerisms. The devil really
was
in the details. Contrary to TV and movies, I’d never come across a volatile demon. They really didn’t go around wreaking random havoc—not unless it suited their plans. Demons were actually a pretty mellow bunch. Always observing. Waiting for their in. They didn’t talk much and never blinked—if a demon was looking at you, you
knew
it.

“The Seven Deadly Sins are the core demons. Ancient and powerful. You can’t transfer one demon essence to another. It won’t work.”

Hell. That meant the original plan was out. We couldn’t just grab an innocent person off the streets. And if demons were immune, we were going to have to find an alternative. Fast. Today had obviously been a waste. Sure, Mom found the person who opened the box, but I didn’t see her toting any Sins along when she and Dad came through the door.

I glanced over at the clock on Mom’s desk. After five already. That pretty much only left three full days and change to find six Sins and hopefully track down a Wells descendant.

Lukas stood. He was trying to be discreet, but I could see him glaring at Dad out of the corner of his eye. Dad, in turn, hadn’t taken his eye off Lukas. “I think I’d like to get some air, if you don’t mind.”

Mom must have noticed the tension between them, too. Always eager to diffuse a bad situation before it got started, she waved toward the back door and said, “Of course. If we need you, we’ll call.”

As soon as he was through the door, I turned to Mom. “Okay. Options?”

She shook her head. “Realistically? I don’t know that there are any.”

I stared. “So you’re giving up? Miss,
I’m a woman of my word even if it kills me
? You promised him you’d help.”

She turned to Dad. A look passed between them and I’ll admit it, I was a little jealous. Not only of her time spent with him before I was born—which was crazy, of course—but of the fact that she had someone who so clearly understood her as well as I did. “I know—and I shouldn’t have. Even if it hadn’t been your father, I don’t know if I could have condemned someone else to Lukas’ fate.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “But you said—”

“What was I
supposed
to say, Jessie? We’re talking about the Seven Deadly Sins. We need Lukas’ help to track them.”

“So you
lied
? Figured you’d use him to get what you want with no intention of keeping your word?” I was going to be sick. This was something I’d do. Not her. She was perfect. Noble. She’d never screw someone over like this…

“Jessie…”

She was upset.

Good. So was I.

“It’s not that I have no intention of helping him—I just thought maybe we could find another way. It doesn’t look good, but I’m not giving up. There’s still time. I’ll still search for the witch, but finding the Sins has to take precedence now.”

“Time? How can there be time to search for the witch if you won’t let me help?”

She opened her mouth, then closed it. Sighing, she said, “I have your father’s help, now. And maybe there’s a way to break Lukas’ tether from the box. Keep him out while putting the others back inside.”

“With Wrath still inside him?” I said skeptically. I knew she didn’t believe it, and it pissed me off that she’d try to pass off such a blatant lie. To
me
of all people. Like I couldn’t see through it? Her words might as well have been made of plastic wrap. Just as clear and twice as flimsy. For the first time I could ever remember, I was ashamed of my mom.

“Other witches, Voodoo priests, an elemental mage—we’re not out of options yet. Let me talk to Kendra’s mother. She might have an idea. They’re long shots—very long shots, but I won’t give up so long as you promise to tread lightly with him.”

I balked. This just kept getting better and better. “Tread lightly? What’s that supposed to mean?”

She glanced at Dad again. God, I wished she’d stop that. “You just seem—”

I grabbed my purple hoodie from the couch, pulled it over my head, and made my way to the door. I was not giving her a chance to finish that thought. It was pure insanity. “Whatever. He’s just a client. I’m trying to do what’s right, here. Apparently, I’m the only one.”