Darker Days

by Jus Accardo

  Valefar turned to Meredith, who was standing a few feet away. She was still shaking and had a glazed, faraway look in her eyes. “When I met you, you were nothing more than a spoiled, stupid child. I gave you great power and freedom from your oppressive life by supplying you with the spell and suggesting you use it on Lukas Scott.” He circled her. “I then came to your aid once again by freeing you from Simon Darker’s prison and offering to supply the opportunity to get revenge for the wrongs done to you by the Darker family. You were told that Jessie Darker was off limits. You were about to betray me by condemning her to the box. Our agreement is void.”

  “She tried to steal Lukas!” Meredith protested. This was a Meredith I was unfamiliar with. Her voice lacked confidence and spite. Instead of the all-powerful witch I’d been so worried about facing, Valefar’s arrival had reduced her to nothing more than a whining child.

  “And whose fault is that? I gave you the tools to succeed—you simply failed.” To Dad, he said, “You’ve been loyal, Damien. You will be hard to replace.”

  Everything happened so fast. Too fast. One second, Dad was next to Mom and me, the next he was in front of Lukas, my blade in his hand. In a motion too fast for human eyes to follow, Dad buried the blade deep in Lukas’ gut.

  “No!” I screamed, rushing forward. I caught him as he collapsed, face frozen in shock.

  Valefar disappeared in a puff of black smoke, his voice lingering for several moments. “All debts have been satisfied. I release you, Damien of the Shadow Clan, from my service.”

  Chapter Thirty-six

  No.

  Someone had pushed repeat on the iPod in my brain. It was the only thing I heard.

  No. No. No.

  Lukas’ eyes fluttered and rolled back until all I could see was white.

  “Jessie,” he coughed and tried gasping for air. All he got was a lungful of blood.

  “Shh—you’ll get called back to the box. You’ll be okay.” The tears spilled over and fell with soft plops, some hitting his cheek, others landing on the concrete.

  It was like someone had popped a balloon full of acid in my chest. Each moment was more painful than the last, and sitting here watching as he moved toward his last breath was the hardest thing I’d ever done. I’d known I was going to lose him. He was going back in the box. But somehow, the idea that he was out there still—in some form—made it a little easier to deal with. But this…

  “I meant it, Jessie,” he said. He was fading. I could see the light dying behind those beautiful brown eyes. “Because of you…it was worth…”

  And he was gone.

  As unexpected and fast as he’d appeared in my life, he’d left it. Air. There just wasn’t enough of it. Everything was silent. The only thing I heard was an annoying sniffle. Normally, I’d tell whoever to suck it up. Work to do and all that. But this time—this time it was me.

  I brushed the hair from his face and placed the tiniest of kisses across his forehead. He still smelled like Mom’s lilac shower soap. “I love you,” I whispered, the tears falling harder now. “I know I’m too late, but I love you.”

  Someone pulled me to my feet. Dad. “You need to back away.”

  Everything blurred and took on a ragged, red tone. For an instant, I was sure Lukas must still be alive—there was no other way I could feel such anger…such rage. I whirled on Dad, lashing out. In that moment, he wasn’t my dad. He was a demon. One I wanted to strike down. Lukas had been so very wrong. I had anger. A lifetime worth had pushed to the surface and was ready to explode.

  I hit him in the stomach, his chest—anywhere my fists could make contact. “This is setting him free? Killing him?” I screamed over and over again.

  He let me pummel him for a moment before grabbing my hands and nudging me away like I was made of feathers. “Jessie, this was the only way to keep him from the box. I’m—”

  Three things happened at once. On the floor to the left, the box started to shake and Meredith, still cowering in the corner, started to scream. The latch shimmied and rattled until it finally flipped open and the top shot up. In the blink of an eye, Dad was beside Lukas. His stomach had started glowing—a deep pulsing red—while on the other side of the room, Amari began to thrash and scream.

  Time was up.

  “Get back,” Dad growled, leaning over to retrieve the knife. Even with all the screaming, I could hear the sound it made, wet and wrong, as he pulled it from Lukas’ stomach.

  There was a moment of silence. Amari spasmed and with one final scream, her entire body exploded in a shower of violet light. It bounced off several of the walls before diving into the box.

  Lukas’ light pulsed but didn’t engulf his entire form. Centered in the middle of his stomach, it flashed twice then shot up the length of his body, out his throat, and across the room.

  Right at Meredith.

  Right into Meredith.

  She didn’t get the chance to scream. I could see in her eyes she wanted to—seconds before the light swallowed her whole. She might’ve even tried, but like Amari, she exploded into a ball of light, ricocheting off the walls before diving into the box. This time, the latch snapped closed and locked behind her.

  The Seven Deadly Sins were dormant again.

  And Meredith had gotten what she deserved. A lifetime stuck in Lukas’ shoes. It hurt to know he hadn’t been able to see it. He deserved to see it.

  Fresh tears trickled down my cheeks as Dad guided me to where Mom was standing. I wanted to lash out, to hit him again, but I had no energy left. All I could do was stand there and stare at Lukas’ lifeless body.

  With my blade in his hand, Dad made a small incision at the center of his palm. He was frowning. “You should know I would never do something to hurt you, Jessie. Have some faith in me.”

  Positioning his clenched fist over Lukas’ mouth, the blood dripped across his lips. One. Two. Three. Four. Drop after drop of blood. Lifesaving blood.

  Of course. Demon blood could heal. We’d been using the Lupkee elixir for years. It was made, in part, with demon’s blood. I dropped to my knees beside Lukas as Dad stepped away. A few moments passed and the knot in my chest threatened to unravel, taking my sanity along with it. What if Lukas was different because of Wrath? What if he’d been dead too long? I knew there was a limit, I just didn’t know what it was.

  Just when I was about to start shaking him—because that would have done a world of good—his lip twitched. Then, a second later, his fingers. A twitch here, a flinch there. It was working. Slowly, his eyes opened. He didn’t smile or say a word. He only stared. Liquid brown eyes I’d been sure I’d never see again. I wrapped both arms around him as he struggled to sit up.

  “This gift comes with a price, I’m afraid.” Dad stood over us, face grim.

  I climbed to my feet and helped Lukas do the same. He looked from me to the box. “I don’t understand.”

  “Wrath needed a live host. By killing you, I forced it out. Meredith was the angriest person in the room. The perfect candidate.”

  Mom was looking at him funny. Hopeful, yet disappointed somehow. “You said there was a price?”

  Dad hesitated. “A demon increases his rank solely by how many minions he commands. Those minions come to us two different ways. With our master’s permission, we can choose special individuals at the time of death. The resurrected is indebted to service for eternity. The other way is people seek us out and choose to serve for an agreed upon length of time in exchange for something. I needed only one more minion to gain myself freedom from Valefar. He granted it by allowing me to save Lukas.”

  Dad turned to me, expression darkening. “Of course, that’s because he’d already found my replacement. How long?”

  Mom spun around, confused. She’d seen the crystal but didn’t know what it meant. “How long, what?”

  Looking Dad in the eye, I squared my shoulders. I’d made my choice. I didn’t regret it. “I did what I had to do.”

  Mom’s face paled. “What
you had to do?” She turned to Dad. There was panic in her voice. I’d seen Mom worried plenty of times. But panicked? That didn’t happen often. It made my stomach flop because it was about to get worse. “What is she talking about, Damien?”

  “How long?” he repeated.

  I took a deep breath. No apologies. Truthfully, I was terrified of what I’d done. Seeing Valefar with Meredith. Hearing the panic in Mom’s voice. Dad’s expression… It was starting to sink in. I’d condemned myself to Valefar’s vision. To his supposed destiny. I’d given away my free will. If I could get a do over, would I do the same thing?

  Yeah, I would. Without thinking twice. “Fifty-five years.”

  Then Mom understood. “Fix it,” she snapped, grabbing a handful of Dad’s shirt. If I didn’t know how truly panicked she was, I would’ve been worried. “Get her out of it!”

  Dad reached out and pulled at the black cord around my neck. It still didn’t budge. “There is nothing that can be done about this.” While sad, his voice held the tone of acceptance. This was his area of expertise. If there was a way to break a deal, he’d know about it.

  “How could you do something so stupid?” she spat. The panic was gone. Now came the anger. This was better. This I could deal with.

  “I was what, supposed to let you die?”

  She grabbed my shoulders and gave a good shake. “Do you know what you’ve done?”

  “Yeah. I think I do.” I rushed on before she could stop me. “I made a choice. One that was mine to make.”

  She let go and took a step back. She was angry, but there was something else. Pride, maybe?

  Dad cleared his throat. Turning to Lukas, he said, “I’ll need a strand of your hair.”

  Without question, Lukas complied.

  Dad closed his hand around the hair and whispered something. When he opened his palm, a blood-red crystal with black veins on a black cord had taken the place of Lukas’ hair.

  Something stirred in the pit of my stomach. It was the exact opposite of mine.

  “Once around your neck, this seals our deal,” Dad said. He held the crystal out to Lukas. “You will be bound to me and bound to my will. Should you need me, you have only to speak my name, but be warned—it works both ways.”

  “So you’re saying Valefar can just snap his fingers and pull me back to the Shadow Realm? Whenever he wants?” Okay. Maybe I was an idiot.

  “This is why dealing with a demon is a bad idea. Unless you know what you’re doing, you never get full disclosure.”

  I looked over at Mom. She’d seen me do it all. Jump from the roof. Kill my first demon. Have my first beer. Nothing I ever did fazed her. Now she’d seen me make—in her eyes—the biggest mistake of my life, and I think it might’ve broken her.

  I tried to lighten to mood. “So, no fair. Lukas’ is a better color than mine. What gives?”

  “Each hierarchy has its own color.”

  There was a glimmer of hope in Mom’s voice. “Hierarchy? So that means—”

  “I’m not tied to Valefar anymore.” He took her hand, and I could see it. Why regardless of Paulson’s years of devotion and endless waiting, it would always be Dad. “I can’t stay permanently, but I can spend a considerable amount of time out of the Shadow Realm. I am my own.”

  Lukas slipped the cord around his neck. “So that’s it? I’m normal now?”

  I took his hand and squeezed. “That’s right, Pinocchio. You’re a real boy.”

  “With obligations,” Dad said. “You care about my daughter?”

  Lukas looked from Dad to me, smiling. “I waited 147 years to find her.”

  Dad nodded. “Good. Then it will make your assignment easier. You will stay with Jessie and ensure no harm comes to her.”

  “I would have done that without the request.”

  At first, Dad’s smile was one of an approving father. “I know.” But it didn’t last. His expression darkened. It reminded me of Valefar’s when I’d snapped at him and that scared me. “But so we’re clear for future reference—it was not a request. It was an order.”

  Lukas nodded.

  Dad turned to Mom and took her hands. “I will see you again soon, Klaire. We will have the life we deserve.” He kissed her briefly and was gone.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  I folded my arms and took a step back. “I’m not doing it. The month is up. I’m off the hook.”

  “Please?” Mom begged. “Just this once. You can keep the payment.”

  “No way. Last time I did one, I got saddled with that thing.” I nodded to the corner of the office. Smokey was nestled on my old pillow—I’d given it up after a nasty round of demon dog yak—gnawing on a yellowing bone that looked suspiciously human. It looked old so chances were he hadn’t killed anything. Recently, anyway.

  “You know you love him. He’s grown on you.”

  I snorted. “Yeah. Like a genital wart.”

  “Is that a yes?”

  “Fine. But only if I get the Suffield case.”

  She shook her head. “Not a chance.”

  “Then no deal.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Haven’t you done enough dealing for awhile?”

  We hadn’t really spoken about the deal I’d made with Valefar. I didn’t think she knew what to say, really. She was furious, and I was pretty sure she was spending her nights researching ways to get me out of it, but there was no reason to hash it out. What was done was done.

  “Fifty-fifty,” I pushed. “You keep the case, but I get shotgun.”

  She thought about it for a moment.

  “What could go wrong?” I pressed. “I’ve got a demon doggie—” I nodded to Lukas. “And a guard doggie.”

  “Yes. Quite the entourage.”

  “And let’s not forget my superhero cape.”

  We’d been doing a lot of this since that day in the Morgan house basement. Compromises. As my mom, she was furious about what I’d done. Irresponsible. Reckless. Stupid squared. But as a girl after my own heart, she understood. In the same position, she would have done exactly the same thing.

  “Course, she didn’t say that, but I knew.”

  I watched her from across the room, and deep down, I knew we were the same, me and Mom. We’d stop at nothing to keep the other safe. And even though she’d tried to fight the lack of normal my entire life, I could tell she was proud. She was even starting to accept it.

  Slowly.

  “Dishes for a month.”

  “Two weeks.”

  “Three.”

  “Three and radio control for a month.”

  She sighed and set a stack of papers down on top of the filing cabinet. “Done.”

  “That was Vida on the phone,” Lukas said from behind Mom’s desk.

  “How’s she readjusting?”

  We’d been able to save all the hosts except for the one Pride had taken. Melissa Hanover, a daycare worker from Jersey who’d been at the Penance hotel visiting her sister, was still among the missing. Unfortunately, she’d remain that way. The others had been lucky. They remembered everything that happened, but escaped in relative health. Sure, there were probably some serious therapy bills in their future, but they had their lives. And their freedom. That was more than poor Melissa could say.

  They’d all gone back to their lives, content to never look back. All of them except Vida, that is. In the weeks following her return to reality, she’d kept in touch on an almost daily basis. Regardless of the trouble Lust had caused while wearing her body, I was starting to like the girl.

  “She was wondering if Klaire would stand on her behalf. She’s filing paperwork with the court to emancipate herself.”

  Mom nodded. “I’ll call her back later.”

  Things at school were mostly back to normal. After what happened to Kendra, Cassidy all but forbade her to so much as speak to anyone with the last name Darker. Thankfully, Kendra was standing up to her mother more and more lately and assured me nothing would ever stand in the way of o
ur friendship. Hell. She even managed to get rid of her horns and was practicing—with strict supervision.

  Lukas nodded and reached for the phone. A moment later, it started to ring.

  We’d only seen Dad once since everything had gone down. He was still setting things up in the Shadow Realm, but assured us he’d be home next week. He also warned us that Lukas, who now had his demonic blood pumping through his veins, would start to develop demon-like resources. Of course, when we asked him what the hell that meant, he’d bailed like someone had lit his ass on fire.

  Dad wasn’t the only one who’d bailed. A week after everything went down, I heard from one of the football jocks that Garrett had transferred schools. He was now attending East Lake high. I’d tried calling him once, but got his voice mail. I hadn’t tried again. Honestly, I would never admit it to anyone, but I was secretly glad. In the deepest recesses of my mind, I understood what happened wasn’t his fault. Vida had wammied him. But that didn’t change how I felt. I still woke up in a cold sweat some nights. I would try again. Eventually… I just needed some time.

  Mom nodded to Lukas, talking excitedly into the phone. “You know he can’t live on the couch forever, right?”

  “Well then start paying him. I’m more than happy to help him find a place of his own.”

  She rolled her eyes. “That’s just what I need.”

  “What about teen pregnancy and drinking binges? If Lukas had his own place, we could have major grope fests! Total teenage normalcy. That’s what you wanted, right?”

  “I’ve changed my mind. I’m chaining him to the couch.”

  “Hey, like you always say—be careful what you wish for.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Because it will bite you in the ass.”

  Something whizzed between us and pinged against the wall. A marker.

  “Consult?” Lukas mouthed. The boy caught on fast.

  Mom nodded and waited for him to hang up. “What ya got?”

  He leaned back, smiling. “A woman in The Ledges swears the Sandman just tried to kill her.”

  Acknowledgments