by Jus Accardo
What a tool. Figures. It’s always the hot ones that turn out to be asshats. “Let’s forget for a sec that what you just said makes, like, no sense.” I gestured to him. “You’re saying you’d sacrifice this poor guy so you could be free? Keep the body you stole? Kind of a dick move, don’t you think?”
He whirled around, pinning me with a look that, while dangerous, made my stomach do a little flippy dip. “Why would I think twice? It was done to me.”
“You’re saying you’re human but still a Sin?” Mom did nothing to disguise her skepticism.
“I’m saying that this body was infected a very long time ago—but it was mine. It’s always been mine.” He turned to glare at me. “I didn’t steal it from anyone.”
Lukas Scott was one big bundle of surprises wrapped in a nice, swoontastic package. But, if he was telling the truth and was in fact human, then that gave us six people to save instead of seven. Not a huge help, but Mom and I would need every advantage we could get since time was a-tickin’.
I was about to mention this as a good thing to Mom, but something hit me. If Lukas had been infected by Wrath, and this was his original body, then how come he hadn’t gotten it back when the Sins were returned to the box? “Hold up,” I said, standing again. “This isn’t adding.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“You said my grandfather put the Sins back in the box in 1959. Did he do it in time to save the people they’d infected?”
Lukas hesitated. “Yes. They all survived.”
“Then what’s your deal?” I turned to Mom. “If he was human, and his body was infected, how come he ended up in the box if everyone else was saved? Didn’t he say as long as the Sins were returned before the time was up, people got their bodies back? Why wasn’t he freed with the rest of them?”
He glared at me, obviously annoyed I’d poked a planet-sized hole in his story. “My situation was different from theirs.”
“No offense, but that’s what they all say.” I waited, expecting him to continue—but he didn’t.
Mom, apparently thinking the same thing I did, said, “I’m going to need a bit more than that.”
“I wasn’t taken over by Wrath in the same way the others were—I had it forced on me. It was fused to my soul by witchcraft.”
“Fused with your soul,” I repeated. “’Cause that doesn’t sound phony…”
His eyes went wide. “Are you accusing me of lying?”
“I dunno—are you lying?”
Mom flashed me a warning glare, then turned back to Lukas. “Please continue.”
“In 1882, one of the times the Sins were released, Wrath infected a man. A local farmer’s son. It grew fond of the body it had stolen, and all the perks that came with it, so it sought a way to keep them. A local witch devised a spell to transfer his essence to someone else.”
“I still don’t get it,” I said, feeling thick. “How could a witch have done that? How could she have separated him?”
“She made him human by stripping the demonic aspect from his essence and transferring it to me.” He flashed me a look of mock sympathy. “It’s something only a witch of immense power could manage. I understand if it’s too difficult an idea to wrap your head around.”
I opened my mouth—then closed it. I had a feeling I’d just been insulted. Politely insulted, but still. Insulted.
“Wrath and I inhabit the same space.” He tapped his chest. “We coexist here. I’m vulnerable to its weakness—being tethered to the box and the limits that entails—but when out, unlike the bodies the other Sins infect, I’m not a puppet. I maintain control. Mostly…”
Mostly? That sounded like a warning label in the making. “So is that the only thing that makes you different from the others? That you have control?”
His expression went from annoyed to I’m about to go postal. “The thing that makes me different is that I don’t belong in that box. I’m human. If the time runs out and the Sins are recalled by the box, they’ll take the bodies they’ve infected with them. Those bodies will be destroyed, their souls—their essences—fed upon by the Sins. Because Wrath and I magically inhabit the same space, my body is spared. It goes into a sort of stasis until the box is opened again and we’re set free.”
Mom studied him for a moment. I knew what she was doing—looking for tells. A flinch here, a twitch there. Something to show he was lying. “Okay, so back to my father. Let’s say you’re telling the truth and he agreed to your terms. He would aid you in gaining your freedom in exchange for helping him capture the others. What happened?”
Lukas gave me one final scowl, then focused on Mom. “I’m sure when Joseph originally made the deal, he was planning to betray me, but we grew close. Became friends. When it came time to lock the box, we decided to transfer Wrath to the person who’d opened it—a priest who thought he could use the Sins for his own gain. It seemed like a fitting punishment for all the lives lost.”
“I’m guessing,” Mom said, “that this is somehow connected to the Wells family you’re searching for, correct?”
“I was betrayed,” he growled. “Joseph discovered that since the spell which fused Wrath to me was made with blood—Meredith Wells’ blood—only someone of the same bloodline would be able to remove it. We tracked down a direct descendant named Mary Wells and procured her aid.”
“And she wasn’t able to do the spell?”
“She chose not to do the spell. We found her and gathered the items needed with only hours to spare.” Fingers knotted tight, he slammed a fist against the desk. Mom’s pencil holder wobbled and toppled sideways, spilling pens and markers across the surface. “When the time came, she insisted Joseph leave the room. As the pull of the box became too strong, she smiled and said I was destined to rot forever. She let the box take me with a smile on her face.”
“Not to paint my father in a bad light, but how do you know he didn’t set you up? Human or not, you’re still tainted by an unspeakable evil. Something that powerful always leaves a mark. Maybe he wasn’t willing to take the risk.”
Lukas’ eyes widened, and I felt kind of bad for him in that moment. The thought that Grandpa might have duped him had never crossed his mind.
I knew why Mom was asking. Poking the lion, she’d once called it. See if you can push buttons and get a reaction. Any reaction.
Lukas shook his head, resolved. “I don’t believe that.” And he didn’t. I could hear the certainty in his voice. He’d trusted Grandpa completely.
Mom was quiet for a few moments. I could almost see the wheels turning. “Say we agree to help you. How will we find the other Sins? And what is it you truly wish to get out of this?”
“I can find the Sins,” he said. “I’ve spent an eternity in their company. I know their—habits. Also, when close enough, I can sense them. As to what I wish—that’s simple. I want my freedom. I want you to track down a Wells witch and ensure she unbinds me from the box.”
Mom frowned. “You’re asking me to condemn an innocent person to take your place. I assume you’ll understand my refusal to pluck a random stranger off the street.”
“I suggest sticking to Joseph’s plan. The person who opened the box and released this hell should be the one to replace me. You’ll see soon enough—it’s what the individual deserves.”
“You said they saw a girl leaving the church the night the box was stolen, right Ma?”
She nodded in confirmation, but Lukas shook his head. “It was a man who opened the box, not a girl.”
“Well, thanks for that, Jonny Sunshine. That puts us back to square zero.”
Mom rolled her eyes. “Do you remember anything about him?”
Lukas frowned. “I’m sorry, no. It happened so fast. I remember he was tall. Also, he had a strange beard. That’s all.”
Mom thought about it for a minute. I knew how her mind worked. She was going over the possibilities. No doubt she felt sympathetic to Lukas’ situation, but could she really trade him for someone
else—no matter how deserving they were?
She tended to see more shades of gray than I did. Her take on things was that, if someone did bad, there was a deep-seated reason behind it. Something in their lives had made them that way. She was convinced they needed help, not punishment. Me? Bad was bad. That’s not to say I was strictly black and white, but I didn’t see the range in people she did. Most of the time, I was ashamed of my lack of faith in humanity. Growing up, Mom was the perfect role model for honesty and integrity. I guess I’d just inherited my dad’s darker outlook.
“And payment?” I asked to fill the silence. Silence always made me itch. And hey, a girl had to eat.
And pay for damages inflicted.
Mom kind of glared at me but didn’t object. She couldn’t. With the damage I did on a daily basis, I’d put us into a position that the jobs she’d normally take as public charity—the epic kind that prevented massive body counts and uber-bloodshed—were a thing of the past.
Lukas looked shocked. I guess no one had ever told him nothing in life was free. “I—I have no money…”
Mom shook her head. “Ignore my daughter, please. Payment won’t be necessary. This is not something we can ignore.”
Seven Sins.
Six innocent people.
Five days.
Piece of cake…
Chapter Four
My commute from the office to home was a tough one—through the back door and up a set of narrow stairs to our apartment. The carpet was worn to the wood in the middle of each step, and the fourth, fifth, and seventh stairs creaked. I’d lived here all my life, same as Mom. The building had been in our family for generations. Once an old barn, the bottom was long ago converted into a makeshift office, and the upstairs, a living area.
The apartment was small—I guessed none of the Darkers before us had exceptionally large families—two bedrooms, one bath, and an eat-in kitchen. It was fine. Big enough for me and Mom, and as far as I was concerned, comfy. More space meant more to clean, and neither one of us could be considered domestic goddesses. We didn’t even own a vacuum.
Having nowhere else to go, Lukas convinced Mom to let him sleep in the office. Honestly, I was pretty shocked when she agreed. She had a strict no personal involvement with clients policy. Yet another thing that had come from her relationship with Dad. That was, until I realized she probably wanted to keep an eye on Lukas. Setting Wrath loose on the town would make her twitchy. I knew how her brain worked. She’d made sure I went up to bed long before she did. If I had to guess, she’d put multiple wards in place that would alert her to any funky business.
Despite having what was, for all intents and purposes, an ancient evil cooling his heels on our office couch, I fell asleep fast. I was in the middle of a pretty awesome dream involving me, some chocolate covered popcorn, and a nice quiet corner of a deserted island when a loud crash jarred me awake.
Throwing aside the covers, I jumped out of bed and sprinted into the hall. I skidded to a stop in front of Mom’s door and pushed it open a crack. She was safe and curled under the covers, sleeping peacefully. It was kind of irritating. The woman could sleep through an alien invasion complete with a marching band to announce their presence. Me? A fly farted downtown and I was up.
Another bang.
I took off down the hall, sock-clad feet sliding on the scuffed hardwood as I rounded the corner. The noise had come from downstairs.
From the office.
Lukas.
Taking the stairs two at a time, I burst through the door. I don’t know what I expected to find. Catch him doing something evil? Making the neighborhood pets go rogue? Maybe inviting all his Sin buddies in for a late night raid on the fridge…
What I found was him standing in the middle of the room frowning at the floor. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dark, but when they did, I saw his right hand was bleeding onto a broken glass at his feet.
He looked up. “I didn’t mean to—”
I walked around him and went to the hall closet to grab the broom and dustpan. While I was at it, I made a pit stop in the bathroom and pulled out the first aid kit and a roll of paper towels.
Once the broken glass was cleaned up, I nodded to the pooling blood. “Trying to refinish the floor with your guts?”
“I cut myself.”
“Ya think?” I motioned for him to move closer. When he didn’t budge, I grabbed his hand and pulled him forward. He was surprisingly warm. Not sure why, but I’d expected something cold. In my experience, most evil things were cold.
The glass had sliced open the entire center of his hand, and I was thankful blood didn’t eek me out. My best friend Kendra would have passed out by now. “What happened?”
He didn’t seem bothered by the gaping chasm hacked into his palm or the river of blood gushing all over our floor. Instead, he was focused on me. I saw him watching through the curtain of my hair as I cleaned his hand, and I had to bite my tongue to keep from telling him to look away. The scrutiny made me squirmy. I wasn’t sure if it was because he was technically-maybe-sort of one of the bad guys, or because he was so damn hot.
I was about to start wrapping the wound when he tilted his head to the side, eyes faraway, and asked, “Who is Damien?”
The question took me off guard, and I stepped back, dropping his hand and almost tripping on my own two feet. “What?”
“Klaire was yelling at someone named Damien.”
Impossible. That was totally impossible. There was no way he was here without me knowing. I took another step back and folded my arms. “There wasn’t any yelling.”
“She was yelling at him in her dream.”
Her dream? I had no idea what to say to that. It made more sense, but was a little creepy. “So, you can spy on people’s dreams? Is that what you’re saying?”
His hands flew up in defense. Tiny flecks of blood flicked out and splattered against the wall. “Not on purpose.”
“Not on purpose? What the heck is that supposed to mean? How do you accidentally invade someone’s privacy like that?”
“I can see the focus of someone’s anger.”
“See? Like a vision or something?”
He shook his head. “See is the wrong word. It’s like a whisper in my head. A feeling. It’s the thing I feed on.”
Yeah. That wasn’t too creeptastic. “Thing you feed on?”
“The thing inside me. Wrath, remember?” He rolled his eyes. “It feeds off anger.”
I bit back a smile. Cute and sarcastic—if I had a type, Lukas would be it. Too bad he was kind of annoying, and more importantly, one of the Seven Deadly Sins… I glanced over at the DVD player. Two a.m. Fantastic. I was going to be one cranky kid come morning. Might as well make the most of it and see what I could find out.
Sinking onto the couch, I tucked my feet up and gestured toward the ceiling. “So you go around spreading your mojo and, what, feed?”
“This is hard to explain.”
“So let’s simplify. You spit pissy beams and then suck down the resulting anger orgy?”
His mouth fell open, and for a moment, I thought he might yell at me. His right eyebrow twitched and his mouth hung open in surprise. Taking a deep breath, he finally said, “I don’t spit anything, and I’m not sure what pissy beams are, but I’m fairly sure I don’t do them.”
I leaned back and tried to hide a smile. The hotness factor went through the roof when he got angry. Definitely something to take note of. “Okay. Fair enough.”
He held my gaze for a moment before looking away. When he turned back, his expression had done a one-eighty. Smile in place, he said, “I missed this.”
My own smile widened. He was infectious. “This?”
“Conversation.”
I laughed. “This is more argument than conversation.”
“The last person I spoke to was your grandfather. I wonder…would it be possible to see him?”
The smile faded, and I sighed. “Sorry…He died be
fore I was born.”
“Oh.” He sounded genuinely disappointed.
A few moments passed in silence. Lukas picked at the edges of the peroxide bottle, peeling back tiny bits of the label and dropping them into his lap. Wispy strands of dark hair fell forward, partially framing his face. I turned away, feeling a little guilty. Stop staring at the Sin! I had to do something distracting—something to keep my brain occupied. “What’s it like? Having Wrath inside you?”
He didn’t answer right away and I was worried I might have overstepped. When he did speak, his voice was low, and something about it made my chest tighten. “Like I said earlier, the Sin lives inside—we share the same space. I can feel it trying to push me out sometimes. To take over…”
He shifted on the couch and flexed his fingers and it almost looked like he was in pain. “Always here. Always crawling and clawing to get to the surface. It’s a constant fight to keep it under control.”
“But you said you can control it, right?”
Lips curling into a slight sneer, he leaned forward and said, “You’re not feeling particularly violent, are you?” He held my gaze, and there was something about his expression. Something challenging. It made the air drop in temperature, sending chills up and down my spine, but also sent little tickles wiggling in my stomach. Awesome and terrifying all at once. “It’s part of me, so it’s always there. A little bleeds into the air regardless of my control, and I’m afraid Klaire’s dream was spurred by that.”
“So then, yes to the pissy beams? You caused her dream.”
I didn’t know Lukas from a hell hole in the wall, but the guy looked like he wanted to scream. Taking a deep breath—he did that a lot—he said, “What is a pissy beam, and why do you keep accusing me of doing it?”
“Chill. Pissy—angry. Same thing. Now about the dream?”
“The anger was there already. Wrath just pulled it to the surface and intensified the feeling.”
He still hadn’t done anything about his hand. It was bleeding all over his jeans now. If he let it go much longer, he’d look like an extra from the set of 300.