Darker Days (7 page)

Chapter Ten

I found Lukas standing in the fading light on the back deck. “How ya doing?”

Without turning, he shrugged. I didn’t have to ask. I knew he’d heard every word.

“Listen—”

He turned to face me, lips weighted down at the corners. “You don’t have to explain. I already knew.”

“
You knew
? Then why did you agree to help?”

He shrugged again and turned back to the yard. The crickets were out in force, joined by the distant cry of a hawk. After a few minutes of silence, he said, “July fifteenth, 1864.”

“Huh?”

“My birthday.”

“Wow. You’re an old man,” I joked, but it fell flat.

“Technically, I’m only eighteen. I was trapped in the box in 1882. I don’t age inside.”

I stepped forward and leaned against the railing beside him as the wind kicked up. “You knew Meredith Wells, didn’t you?” It was a risky question considering how he’d reacted earlier, but I wanted to know.
Needed
to know. “Like, personally?”

He fiddled with a loose piece of wood that had splintered from the railing. Pulling it off, he turned it over several times before flicking it out into the grass below. “Meredith was beautiful. Long, dark hair, eyes the color of the ocean, and a smile that could chase away the rain.”

“Sounds like a swell chick.”

He nodded, picking at another piece of loose wood. “She was amazing. And she was mine—at least, I thought so.”

I stared. “Yours? What, like, your
girlfriend
?” And Mom wondered
why
I didn’t date?

“Fiancé, actually.” He swung both legs over the side of the railing and settled on the edge. “We were to be married the spring following my eighteenth birthday.”

I followed suit, letting my legs dangle next to his. It wasn’t until that moment that I realized how much taller he was than me. He had to have at least eight inches on my five-foot three. It was ridiculous timing, but I was tall enough that if I leaned against him, my head would rest perfectly on his shoulder. “And she was a witch?”

With an
umpf
, Lukas pushed off the railing and landed on the grass below. “A very talented one. Her family was wealthy. Very prominent in Penance. There were whispers about what she was, but no one believed them.
A Wells woman would never toy with such things
,” he said in a mocking tone. “Fools. Every last one of them.”

I followed him down, feet landing with a slight squish in the soft October grass.

“One evening, I caught her with another man. A local farmer’s son. I was more angry than hurt, really. Her actions chanced ruining a merger that would put both our families in favorable situations. It was selfish, but then, Meredith was a selfish woman. I begged her to see reason—to turn him away. I told her I would treat her like a queen…but it wasn’t enough.”

Lukas tilted his head back, watching the sky for a moment. Fine by me. This presented the opportunity to give him a nice, long, appreciative once over. That Meredith girl must have been nuts. I didn’t know what the standards for
hot
were in 1882, but in 2013, Lukas was serious real estate. Long, angular face and a generous mop of dark hair. His nose was just slightly off center—he must have broken it at one point—but it completed him so perfectly. It gave the lines of his face character. It
fit
.

“She chose him over you?”

“She did. But it wasn’t that simple. As I said, our union would have put our families in a favorable place. The marriage was arranged as a merger of wealth and status. Our parents had gone to great lengths to secure the union. I knew if her father found out what she’d done, he’d disown her. That wasn’t something Meredith could have handled. She liked her life of privilege. Her elegant parties and fancy dresses. Being waited on hand and foot. She’d never lifted a finger in her life.”

“So you threatened her.”

He nodded, tearing his gaze from the darkening sky, and started to walk. “I thought it would make her see reason, but she didn’t take it very well. Maybe her emotions were heightened by him, I don’t know.”

“Him? Wait—you mean she was shacking up with the original
Wrath
?
That’s
the guy you found her with?”

His expression twisted in pure disgust. “Yes. The farmer’s son was the one infected by Wrath. She’d seen him a thousand times, but he was beneath her notice. Lowly.” A bitter laugh escaped his lips and his fists curled tight. “I can only guess that when they crossed paths, after he’d been infected by Wrath, she saw something in him. Something different—and powerful. Meredith’s reasons for doing anything were always her own, but she craved power above all else. Maybe she thought she could get something from him. Or possibly, she saw him as an amusing distraction. Whatever the reason, it sickens me to think about it. At least, even now, I am still human at my core. He though, he was never human. He was a thing. A soulless demon.”

Even though I was sure he didn’t realize it, his words stung like salt crammed into an open wound. Voice remarkably steady, I said, “Not all demons are disgusting. They’re not things. My father’s a demon. I’m—I’m half demon, and I’m not a
thing
.”

He flinched like I’d slapped him. As I’d suspected, he’d been clueless, but that didn’t make it hurt any less. “I didn’t mean—”

“Whatever,” I said, trying to sound casual. I wouldn’t let him see his less than stellar opinion of demons bothered me. “So then what happened?”

He hesitated, almost as if to make sure I really wanted him to continue. “I don’t know the whole story. She’s long dead, and I will never know the truth behind her motivations. All that is certain is that she devised a way to set Wrath free—to essentially make him human—all she needed was someplace to store his essence.”

“So she damned you to an eternity inside the box? No offense, but your taste in girls sucks.”

“I didn’t choose her. She was chosen for me.”

He didn’t sound happy about it. Understandable. I mean, who would be, right? Getting told who you had to look at for the rest of your life? Who you had to kiss? Barbaric if you asked me—especially when your betrothed was a big fat ho.

“So who would you have chosen? What’s your type?” I started wondering again what it’d be like to kiss him. Actually kiss him. For real. Considering his aversion to demons, I’d probably never find out.

“Type?”

I rolled my eyes. I had to keep reminding myself we had a bit of a language barrier sometimes. “What kind of girl were you interested in?”

He thought about it for a few moments. “I don’t know that I had a
type
. I could have had anyone I wanted, really.” Expression darkening, he finished with, “If I’d been allowed to choose.”

“Wow. Cocky much?”

He frowned. “It was just fact. I inherited my father’s looks and stood to one day inherit his fortune. It made me desirable. And really, the girls were all the same back then. Demure and obedient.”

I stopped and plucked a leaf off a low hanging branch. Twirling it between my fingers, I said, “So you’re saying they were all snoozeville?”

He cocked an eyebrow and my pulse spiked. Oh, yeah. Meredith was an idiot. Whoever coined the phrase
ugly as sin
had never set eyes on Lukas Scott.

“Boring,” I supplied, after a deep, brain-clearing breath. “Dull.”

“Ah. I suppose dull is an adequate description. Things are very different now. Free. Women seem to stand equally against men.”

“Careful—normally this is a chick-only household. Estrogen is combustible under the right circumstances. And yeah, men and women
are
equal.”

“But to allow women to have such freedoms—is it safe? I must admit, the thought of Klaire—or you—doing the things Joseph Darker told me of…”

Good thing it was dark. He probably didn’t see me getting ready to deck him. How was that possible? To go from kissy thoughts to kick-your-ass thoughts in a matter of seconds? I’d never met anyone who could make my head spin on a dime like this before. I loved it and hated it at the same time. “What? Makes you sick? Gives you the creeps?”

“Worries me.”

“Huh?”

“Do the men in this century not look after their women? To allow them to participate in such dangerous things—”

“Whoa. First off, something you’re gonna need to know if you have any hope of not getting creamed in public—women can take care of themselves. We can ass kick with the best of them.” I winked. “In some cases, even better.”

I glanced back toward the house. It was nothing more than a fading silhouette barely visible through the brush. God, had we really gone that far? It felt like we’d just started walking.

It was Lukas. He was easy to talk to. To just
be
with. He made my brain itch with his backwards thinking and stone-aged comments sometimes, but underneath it all, he had a sense of humor and a kind heart. Not to mention a pair of arms I could see myself dreaming about.

I was about to suggest we start heading back, but Lukas’ eyes widened suddenly and he rushed forward. Whatever caught his attention, I was happy for it. My brain was venturing into places it shouldn’t go.

He stopped at the edge of the old railroad tracks that went through the back end of our property. Bending low, he brushed the tips of his fingers along the rusting metal and let out a long sigh. “Are these—I was just a child when these tracks were laid,” he whispered. “Everyone was so excited…”

I couldn’t imagine how displaced he must feel. If it were me, back in the same town I’d grown up in—over a
century
ago—I was pretty sure there’d be some freaking out. “This has gotta be weird for you.”

He stood and brushed off his jeans, giving the tracks one final look. “Did you know our families were friends? The Scotts and the Darkers?”

“Really?”

“Simon Darker—an ancestor of yours—was very close with my mother.” He laughed. “I do believe I was the one who set the Darker family on its current professional course.”

Ahha! Now we were getting to the good stuff. I leaned against the pine tree behind me. “How so?”

“When I was freed the first time in 1910, it was Simon I sought help from.”

“You’re saying the box was opened before the riots?”

He nodded. “Yes. Just once, and the rest weren’t out long.”

“So, why Simon?”

“I couldn’t go to my mother. She was a devout Catholic and I’d been gone twenty-eight years without aging a day. It would have caused her great stress to see me, and she was very ill. I knew Simon had always been secretly fascinated by the occult. He was my only choice.”

“So you went to Simon and said what? ‘I’ve been trapped in a box all this time—help a guy out?’”

He snorted. “
Obviously
it wasn’t that simple. At first, it was quite hard to convince him I wasn’t a dem—”

I glared at him.

“Evil,” he finished awkwardly. “But once I did, he was more than eager to help. He always believed that Meredith had something to do with my disappearance, but could never prove it because she disappeared shortly after.”

“So what happened? I mean, you mentioned Meredith’s descendant screwing you over in 1959. The same thing couldn’t have happened in 1910?”

He took a deep breath. “It did. Simon found a member of the Wells family and explained what her ancestor had done. The woman—Margret was her name—was ashamed and vowed to right the injustice. She told him she knew of a spell that could grant me my freedom. The time came and things were going fine, but in the middle of the spell she stopped.”

“Stopped?”

“She was speaking—then silent. I saw the others called back to the box and everything went black.” He thrust both hands into the pockets of his jeans and shrugged. “I don’t know what happened. Not with the spell. Not with Simon…”

“Where were the other Sins while you were working with Simon? They didn’t want out of the box for good?”

“They didn’t find out about the spell to gain their freedom until 1959. Technology was more advanced. I was able to get to Joseph Darker faster than I had Simon. We had more time to search for a Wells witch, and I suppose they became suspicious. They found out about the spell and what we were doing, but it didn’t matter. Mary Wells never intended to free me.” He sighed. “You asked me why I agreed to help—even though I knew Klaire had no intention of freeing me.”

“Yeah…” For an insane, brain-blocked moment, I thought he might declare that I was the reason. That from the moment he’d laid eyes on me, he knew we were
destined to be together.

Then he opened his mouth.

He spread his arms wide and flashed me a wicked smile. In the fading light, he looked almost mad. The slight gleam in his eyes, coupled with the tilt of his head and crook of his lip made the whole scene seem surreal somehow. Spinning twice, he said, “Maybe it’s my
penance
. Eternity in the box. I made mistakes—we all do—and maybe this is my punishment. My destiny. To hold Wrath in my body so no one else has to.”

Seriously. I had to stop letting Kendra drag me to those cheesy romance flicks.

I sighed and stepped closer. “Unless you went on a mad killing spree, I don’t see what you could have done to deserve this. It would take a special kind of asshole to be worthy of getting locked in that box…”

There was something more he wanted to say. I could tell by the way he watched me, but instead, he simply plucked a pinecone from a low hanging branch and crushed it between his palms.

I was about to suggest heading back to the house—standing out here alone in the dark with him was doing strange and confusing things to my stomach—but a loud roar split the air.

Chapter Eleven

“That didn’t sound good…” I said, looking past the open field and beyond the tracks. A second boom came, this one accompanied by an angry looking plume of gray smoke and a series of smaller bangs. With a quick glance toward the house, I turned on my heel and took off toward the chaos without a second thought.

Footsteps pounded against the ground behind me. Lukas. I don’t know why I was surprised he’d followed—but I was. Surprised, and something else. Glad? Grr. Why would I be glad? Obviously something in my brain had short circuited—spending more time with him wasn’t going to make it any better.

Another boom, this one even louder than the first. There was a slight shake to the ground and in the distance, someone screamed. I picked up the pace.

I crashed through the brush at the edge of the field and hit the pavement of the lot behind Al’s Antiques. The ground was wet and my sneakers slipped, momentarily disturbing my momentum, but I righted myself and kept going. Another boom. Louder. We were getting closer.

Rounding the corner of the building, I came to the sidewalk and pulled up short. Lukas plowed into me from behind, sending us both lurching forward into the street, but it didn’t matter. There was no traffic to worry about. Why? Because people were all on foot. Everywhere.

Flankman’s Department store had opened in Penance over a hundred years. They’d started out selling food and simple supplies, then in more recent years branched out to become a kind of sell-all store. TVs, clothing, groceries—Flankman’s had a little of it all. Family-owned, like most things in town, it was almost a landmark.

Well,
had been
like a landmark.

The glass storefront was shattered, only a small portion—the top part of the F and bottom half of L—remained. Smoke billowed from the top floor where the founder, Martin Flankman’s, original apartment had been. The entire right side of the roof was in flames and the fire was creeping across.

Another boom spilt the air. Just behind the building, shooting over the roof, a cascade of red and blue streaked across the sky. Fireworks. Someone had found Pete Flankman’s secret stash.

I was so busy staring into the sky, that I wasn’t paying enough attention to my surroundings. I backed into something solid—a man balancing two twelve packs of beer in his arms. George White.

“Watch it, bitch,” he snapped, taking a step back. He hugged the cases close like they were precious, eyes darting back and forth to keep watch for any harm that might come to them.

I didn’t answer. I didn’t
know
what to say. George was cranky on his best days, but I’d never seen him downright rude.

People were running around like quartzed demons. Cursing, screaming, and the occasional shoving match everywhere you looked. It was insanity squared…then I took a closer look through the broken storefront. People were inside, frantically filling their pockets and arms with as much as they could carry.

“Oh my God—you guys are
looting
Flankman’s?” I whirled on George—who was still standing there glaring at me. “Pete Flankman is your
friend
, George! What the hell?”

“Are you eyeballing my beer, kid?” Eyes narrowing, he set one of the twelve packs down and took a step forward. “You thinkin’ of taking it from me?”

My mouth fell open. “Have you gone bonkers?”

George snarled and leapt forward, swinging the remaining twelve pack at my head like a baseball bat. I moved to get out of the way, but the corner of my shoe clipped the curb and everything started tilting upward. Something strong wrapped around my waist and suddenly I was flying backward just as George slammed the case of beer down where I’d been. An explosion of glass and amber-colored liquid erupted from the wrecked cardboard box and oozed out onto the concrete. With a growl, George left the smashed case, retrieved the other, and lumbered off toward the street without another word.

“Hell in a hailstorm…” I huffed.

“It’s Greed,” Lukas whispered, warm breath tickling the side of my face. Inopportune moment aside, I realized something right then—I liked the sound of his voice. Odd time for a revelation. Still, it just…hit me. He had a really nice voice. Warm and deep. It reminded me of hot cocoa—and there was nothing nicer than hot cocoa.

For a moment, I didn’t move. I was tilted back, arm raised at a slightly odd angle and leaning against him. He’d caught me before I hit the ground and dragged me away from the curb. I was pretty sure his intention hadn’t been to
whisper in my ear
, but it gave me warm tingles regardless.

Kendra would have a blast-o-million if she could see this.

“Do you see him?” I managed to pull myself away and move aside as a tall woman missing one shoe came blasting from the store. She had an armful of clothing and a Twix bar dangling from her teeth and was giggling like a loon.

“I don’t think Greed’s here anymore,” Lukas said, taking a step toward the burning building. “I don’t feel him.”

Sirens wailed as two fire trucks came speeding up the road. A whole slew of new people. “Oh, craps. Will they be affected? Like if they go in?” Then it hit me. “Even bigger craps—will
we
be affected?”

Lukas shook his head. “Anyone arriving after the initial infection has a very slim chance of being affected. If someone particularly susceptible were to happen along, then yes. Otherwise, it’s safe.”

I couldn’t really classify this disaster as
safe
, but whatever. “Okay. Small favors. I’ll take what we can get. Any idea how to diffuse the situation? If Greed is gone, how come the people aren’t going back to chill? Back in The Pit, soon as you calmed down, everything was fine.”

He looked a little pale, and I felt guilty about bringing it up. “What happened earlier wasn’t on purpose. I didn’t infect anyone, I just lost control and some of the anger Wrath harbors leaked out. As soon as I regained my senses, Wrath’s influence faded.”

“So you’re saying no one
new
will go all grabby?”

He blinked twice then nodded slowly. “Yes. And for those affected, it will wear off in time.”

More sirens, these from the Penance PD. “Oh great. Barney Fife is here.”

“Who?” Lukas dodged something and pulled me with him. A pair of red women’s pumps flew past, narrowly missing our heads, followed by an unboxed toaster from the middle of the chaos.

“What are you doing here, Jessie?” Binkie—err—Officer Barnes yelled, jumping from his squad car. A second later, his entire face lit up. “Is Klaire here, too?”

I rolled my eyes. “Don’t you have more important things to worry about at the moment? Like, oh, I dunno, the
riot
going on inside Flankman’s?”

He looked past me, eyes wide, then cleared his throat. “Of course I do. I was just making sure she wasn’t—” he shuffled sideways then started toward the door, “…inside.”

As
Officer Barnes
was swallowed by the crowd, three more police cars pulled up in front of the building. Thank God. No way was one small town cop going to be enough to get this under control. Four probably wouldn’t do the trick either.

Luckily for them, I was more than happy to help. “Come on,” I said, motioning to Lukas.

We stepped over the remains of the storefront and into the main room. It was a disaster. There were two kids fighting over a small pile of candy while two women—I guessed their mothers—battled it out over a canned ham. Behind them, Officer Barnes was trying to restrain Mrs. Mesher, the elderly woman who lived down the road from Kendra. She swung her cane, catching him across the shin as he snapped the cuffs into place.

A loud clatter rang above the din, and I whirled to see a man swinging a baseball bat at the beverage cooler. Because opening the door would have been too easy, right? He hit it once. Then twice. On the third swing, the glass shattered, but did he stop there? Of course not. He swung again, hitting the shelf. Bottles exploded, assorted liquids shooting in every direction.

I managed to duck a projectile can of Pepsi but wasn’t so lucky with the two liter bottle of root beer that landed at my feet. The plastic bottle bounced twice and slammed into my shin, fizzing and spitting until the cap shot off and caramel colored soda covered me from head to toe.

“Ick!” I flicked my hands and pushed a strand of wet hair from my face.

“That was
mine
!” the man screamed, rushing forward.

There was probably no point in telling him three more sat on the floor by the cooler, along with an entire row still up on the shelves. I spread my legs apart, ready to take him on, but it was unnecessary. Lukas intercepted him before he got halfway across the room.

Charging like a bull, he tackled the larger man, forcing him down to the ground. The man struggled, but Lukas dodged him and delivered a sharp jab to the side of his face. The man’s eyes rolled back, and his head lolled to the side.

I held my hand out to help him up, not bothering to hide the smile on my face. “Impressive.”

He returned the grin with one of his own. “Don’t look so surprised.”

From the corner of my eye, I saw something move. A blur of blonde and bright blue. When I turned, Kendra was standing over a man, lips pulled back in an angry snarl.

“That’s
mine
,” she growled.

“Uh oh…”

“What?” Lukas said, scanning the room.

I pointed to Kendra. “Greed infested normal people are bad—green infested
witches
are probably worse.”

His gaze swiveled. “Your friend is a witch?”

I nodded. “Kendra doesn’t have very good control over her power.”

“Do I want to know what you mean by that?”

“It means she could do some serious damage. We have to stop her.” I let go of his hand and started forward. “Kendra?”

“Don’t come any closer,” she snarled. Bending down, she scooped up the box at her feet.

I peered over the rim. The box was full of shoes and Kit Kats. Figured. There was no one on planet Earth who had a bigger shoe fetish then Kendra. “Trust me, I don’t wanna take your shoes away.” Another step. “I just wanna get you out of here before someone gets hurt.”

She backed away, lips pulled back in an angry snarl. Funny, little known facts about witches. They’re usually very moody and hard to get along with. They prefer night over day and prefer to only associate with their own kind. Kendra’s mom was the stereotypical witch. Surly and combative, she worked as a night guard at the corrections facility and rarely left the house during the day unless necessary.

Kendra, on the other hand, was an anomaly. She was bubbly and thrived on sunshine. Her favorite place in the whole world was the beach, and she had always kind of been afraid of the dark.

Kendra set down the box and closed her eyes. I held my breath as her lips began to move, chanting something too low for me to hear. It took a moment, but when I realized what she was doing, every muscle in my body tensed. A spell. She was going to try to do a spell.

I took a step back, dragging Lukas with me. “Oh… This isn’t going to end well…”

Kendra’s eyes flew open and a loud crash filled the air. Then another. To our right, the remaining beverage cooler doors exploded one by one. A chorus of screams erupted, and people dove for cover. A few feet away, an old woman cried out and fell to the floor clutching her arm. Seeing blood, I dropped to my knees, dodging projectile glass to crawl to her side and check on her.

But I only made it a few feet. The ground was solid one moment, and gone the next. My world tipped sideways, then upside-down and I was flying backwards through the store. I hit the far wall hard, teeth banging together with a brain-jarring snap. The sound echoed inside my head and caused my ears to ring.

A warm hand grasped my arm, tugging me upright. Lukas. My vision cleared to see him standing over me, brows furrowed with concern. “Are you all—” The air whooshed from his lungs, the sentence stolen, as a large man plowed him over on his way to the door.

“Craps!” I watched him go down as Kendra took me by surprise, hitting like a Mac truck with no brakes. Stars bloomed behind my eyes as I tipped back and lost my footing. I crashed to the ground again, jamming my left shoulder and bending the fingers on my right hand back at a completely unnatural angle.

“I’ve spelled myself,” she said with a wicked grin. “I’m faster and stronger than you. You can’t take them away from me!”

Spelled herself? Oh, she was going to be sorry later. I gave her a quick once over to search for extra appendages. A tail, spikes…another set of horns… But whatever the side effect, it wasn’t plainly visible.

Kendra kicked out, but I managed to roll away as the pointy toe of her favorite black boots sailed by, inches from my face.

“Not cool, Ken!” I scrambled back to my feet as she turned for another round. This time, as she passed, I jumped back and grabbed a chunk of her hair. Girl move? Totally. But it did the trick.

Kendra let out a howl as I yanked back. She teetered for a moment before losing her balance. Unfortunately, so did I.

I went stumbling inelegantly forward into Lukas, knocking us both to the ground. When we untangled ourselves, I turned around, and Kendra was gone.