Darker Days

“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.”