A Darker Past (Entangled Teen) (The Darker Agency) (22 page)

Chapter Thirty

“Thank God.” Mom rushed forward, followed closely by Dad. He wasn’t bleeding anymore and seemed to be completely recovered. “What happened?”

“We got it.” I held up the box and tried not to shiver when something like current raced from my fingertips up to my shoulder. The longer I held on to this thing, the stronger it seemed to get.

We crossed the threshold of the cave, and I’d never been so happy to be looking up at the Shadow Realm’s starless, inky sky.

“Just in time.” Dad watched the horizon for a moment before looking upward and taking a deep breath. Pointing to the stone around her neck, he said, “Your time is up, Klaire. You have to leave.”

She fingered the pendant and frowned. Knowing Mom, she was disappointed that she wouldn’t get to see any more of the Shadow Realm. I could almost picture her on some cheesy monorail tour, seeing the sights and getting all goofy about it. Probably even wanting to bring back a souvenir. “Okay. Let’s get moving then.”

Dad didn’t move. “No. Lukas and I are staying. You and Jessie take the box and do what you need to do. Get Kendra back safely and take care of the demon.”

Mom’s eyes widened, and she opened her mouth to protest, but a chilling howl split the air. There was a slight tremor, followed by another, louder howl.

Dad pushed her toward me. “Lucifer sent his hounds. Lukas and I will keep them from following you.”

“No way. We all go together.” I set the box on the ground and stormed over to him. On the horizon, there was a mass of black dots. Howling. Lucifer’s hounds. Too many to count. There was no way they could hold them off alone.

“Damnit!” Dad snapped, furious and demonic. “Get your mother out of here now.”

The herd surged forward and was on us before I could argue. The first one lunged at Dad. With a feral snarl, he grabbed it around the waist and threw the thing to the ground, following it down with a brutal blow to the head. The demon’s skull caved like porcelain, folding in on itself as the black blood oozed down its lifeless face.

The next charged Lukas, but he was too preoccupied with me.

“Jessie!” he yelled.

Something silver flew at me. His blade. I caught it just as the hound reached him. He went down hard beneath it, and I rushed to him, but he had it under control. Fortunately, we were out of the cave. He, Dad, and I were back to normal.

Lukas wrapped his arms around its neck and jerked his entire body to the right. The hound’s neck twisted with the sickening crack of broken bones. He rolled the creature’s massive body off his own as the rest of the herd arrived, the look in his eyes matching Dad’s.

Demonic.

He raced to Dad’s side as a scream tore from his throat. It held an otherworldly echo, and in that moment, I knew his transformation had been complete. The human Lukas Scott was officially dead. Just in time, too. Because Lukas Scott, the demon? He was a huge helping of badass, and as badly timed as it was, I found the whole thing hot as hell.

Two hounds leaped at Mom and me. She shoved me backward and stumbled away as they sailed between us. Recovering quickly, they hit the ground and came at us, one zeroing in on her, and the other on me.

I adjusted my grip on Lukas’s knife and couldn’t help smiling. “Dad’s super selfish. He wanted to have all the fun himself.”

Mom’s shoulders shook in a silent laugh as she yanked an arrow tipped with quartz powder from the quill on her back. She widened her stance and held it at the ready.

“Take your mother and go.” Dad roared as he downed another hound. Their numbers were increasing, and the horizon was full of even more. They were coming fast.

“You can’t possibly expect us to leave you,” Mom snapped. “We—” The nearest one leaped at her. The arrow hit her hound right between the eyes. On impact, the thing howled and convulsed, and a moment later burst into flames like one of the best Fourth of July shows you could imagine.

“They will follow.” Dad whirled on her as the hound in his grasp hit the floor, dead. “They will follow us across and overtake us. Lukas and I are stronger here. We can hold them off while you do what you need to with the box.”

Another hound lunged for Mom, but Dad dived for it, knocking it aside. I tried not to cringe as he gripped a handful of its flesh by the neck and yanked, tearing its throat out.

“Once Lucifer sees that you’ve retrapped our enemy, he will call them off.” Dad turned to me. His gaze was intense and left no room for argument. “For the last time,
go
!”

That time I didn’t argue. I grabbed the box, then Mom, and shadowed us back home.

I’d been in a rush and hadn’t paid attention to my shadow, landing us on top of my desk. My arms flailed as I took a step, only to catch the edge and lose my footing, sending me and the box crashing to the floor. Mom was luckier. She caught herself in time, hopping down gracefully.

“Ma, please don’t be pissed at me.” I climbed to my feet and picked up the box. “You always tell me I’m not seeing the bigger picture. Well, Dad was right. They would have followed us. I didn’t wanna leave them any more than you did, but—”

She was in front of me in a second. Pulling me into a hug, she whispered, “I know, baby girl. I know. I’m proud of you. You made the right choice. The hard one.” She pulled away. “The one
I
couldn’t make.”

Despite the situation, I was totally beaming. I knew Mom was proud of me, but hearing her say it trumped everything.

“Come on,” she said, taking the box. With a nod toward the clock above the door, she sighed. “Let’s see if Cassidy can pull this off.”

…

The sun was about to rise by the time we got to the Archway. Cassidy was waiting for us, wearing her usual scowl and tapping her foot impatiently. “Took your time,” she snapped. “I suppose it’s not a big deal, since it’s not your daughter’s life on the line.”

If Cassidy didn’t watch her step, she wouldn’t make it out of this clearing alive—only it would be Mom, not Gressil, who did her in.

Always the pillar of restraint, Mom ignored the barb and asked, “How did you make out on finding a method to retrap him?”

The witch nodded and tapped her head. “I found the spell. We’re weaker, but with Kendra’s help, our combined magic should be enough to do the trick.”

Mom wasn’t convinced. “Are you sure? This will go down fast. How will Kendra know what to do?”

“She won’t need to do anything. I simply need to use her energy to fuel what little magic I have,” was Cassidy’s reply.

“That’s awesome, and as long as we can get him to hand Kendra over first, it’ll work, but what are you trapping him in?” I looked around the clearing. It didn’t seem that she’d brought anything with her. But I didn’t know squat about magic. I’d seen Kendra do plenty in recent weeks without physical supplies.

She blinked twice. “The prison is strong enough to hold a Prince of Hell. If I put him in there, too, he’ll never be freed
accidentally
again. Where is the box?” she asked with an icy tone.

“It’s safe,” Mom said. “I wasn’t going to take any chances until I was sure you’d come through on your end.”

Cassidy’s face turned a bright shade of scarlet. “You’re playing a dangerous game with my daughter’s life, Klaire. If anything happens and Gressil—”

“No!” Mom shouted. Craps. To call the demon, we had to simply speak his name.

True to his promise, he appeared in a thick puff of purple smoke. “You Darkers do live on the edge, don’t you? You almost missed your window.”

“Where’s Kendra?” He was alone and that worried me. This wasn’t going to work without her. We had no intention of handing over the box, and without her to help trap him, this was going to head south pretty damn fast.

He crooked a finger and turned to Mom. “My item, if you will?”

“Where’s Kendra?” Mom repeated.

Cassidy stepped up beside her. She was watching us from the corner of her eye, and at one point, I was almost positive that she’d tackle Mom. Did she really believe we’d do anything to put Ken in danger? “My daughter first, then the prison.”

Gressil laughed. He laughed, then laughed some more. In fact, it was like someone had slipped him crazy juice, because he couldn’t seem to stop laughing. “Poor, stupid little witch. Do you not remember our deal? Did you really think to double cross me? Get them to give me the prison, and you shall get your offspring back.”

Cassidy froze, turning paler, and a sick bubble formed in the pit of my stomach. Sure, he could have been referring to the bargain he made with all of us. The prison in exchange for Kendra. But there was something about the way he was studying her. Something that screamed of secrets and lies. Also, there was the fact that she looked ready to shit kittens.

“Give me my daughter back,” she roared.

He was on her in an instant. I made a move to help, but Mom, who watched the whole scene with a rare expression of shock, grabbed my arm and pulled back.

Gressil laughed again, this time in Cassidy’s face. “Did you think your cohorts wouldn’t find out, witch? How very simple of you.” He backed away and turned to Mom. “You have an hour. Bring what I requested and call to me. If you fail, I will rip the little witch apart and leave her in pieces at your feet.” And he was gone.

Cassidy let out a scream and collapsed to the ground, but she didn’t stay there long. Mom was on her in the time it took me to blink. She hauled her off the grass and threw her back against the altar. “Double cross him? What the hell did you do, Cass?”

She glared up at Mom, meeting her gaze with a look of defiance. “What I had to.”

“It was a setup,” I said, finally understanding. “She set the whole thing up. You
let
him take Kendra.”

Mom looked sick, but not surprised. I realized that must be why she refused to bring the box. She’d been suspicious. “You knew we’d get the prison. That we’d never leave her to die… You used us.”

“And
you
lied to me,” Cassidy said, but it was weaker than normal. It lacked some of her usual venom. “You said you didn’t know where the prison was. I knew damn well that was bullshit. I did what I had to do to save my coven.”

Mom slapped her. Not a closed fist punch or an elbow to the jaw. A slap. I’d never seen Mom slap anyone before. It was equal parts awesome and disturbing at the same time. “You risked the life of your
child
to trick us into getting him that prison?”

“I did what I had to—”

Mom hit her again. The sound echoed through the clearing and sent a flock of birds fleeing from one of the trees overhead. “Don’t say it,” she warned. “What the hell did you think was going to happen? We told you we had no intention of giving it to him.”

“But Cassidy did,” I said. I’d never been more disgusted with anyone in my life. Human or Otherworlder. “That’s why she freaked when we didn’t come with the box. She was going to hand it over.”

Mom was enraged. “Do you have any idea what the death toll would be if he sets Asmodeus free? How many lives would be lost?”

Cassidy opened her mouth, then closed it, shoulders falling forward. “I needed to save my coven. It was the only thing I could think of. I am willing to sacrifice anything—
anyone
—to do that.”

“Like I said before”—I couldn’t keep my mouth closed any longer—“if you’d just worked with us from the start, none of this would have happened.”

“You don’t understand.”

“Try explaining it,” Mom yelled.

Cassidy didn’t bother. “I just want my daughter back unharmed. What do we do to make that happen?”

I wasn’t sure if I believed her anymore. After all, she’d just said she was willing to sacrifice anything.
Anyone
. There was a spark of something familiar in her eyes. Desperation mixed with…what? I couldn’t place it, but it sent off every internal alarm I had. In the end though, it didn’t matter. My head drooped. “We don’t have another choice anymore. We need to give him the box.”

…

We all agreed to meet back at the Archway fifteen minutes before our time was up. Cassidy was leery of letting us out of her sight, but Mom coldly said that, unlike her, we didn’t sacrifice people to get what we wanted. That shut her up fast. She slunk away, and I made a promise to let Smokey terrorize her just a little when this was all over.

Mom left me at the office to get ready, and went to
take care of something
. No matter how much I begged, she wouldn’t tell me what, but after she left, I noticed she’d taken the prison with her. All she would say was that she was buying us some extra insurance. She still didn’t trust Cassidy, and I was right there with her.

I changed into my lucky Mashing jeans and had started toward my closet to load up on weapons when a voice behind me sent my body about ten feet off the ground.

“Don’t we look fetching? Going someplace fun, I hope? Possibly someplace with bloodshed and mayhem? That would be my idea of a good time.”

“Hell in a hailstorm. I swear I’m going to tie a bell around your neck,” I said, glaring at the demon lounging on my bed. “Tight.”

“I came for an update,” Valefar said, fingering a handful of my bed sheets. “How can you sleep on this? It’s like burlap.”

I dived forward and slapped his hand away. “Could you not paw my things? Like, especially my bed. It’s creepy.”

He stood and fixed his gaze on me, and all the breath left my lungs. The air turned colder when he got that expression. Dark and threatening. “I’m technically pawing
my
things.
You
belong to me. And what belongs to you belongs to me.”

I didn’t correct him.

“Now, update? Word on the street is that you’ve been a busy little beaver traipsing in places you ought not to be.”