A Darker Past (Entangled Teen) (The Darker Agency) (19 page)

Chapter Twenty-Five

“Are you okay?” Lukas dragged me to my feet and pulled a piece of debris from my hair. The chimera had brought the ceiling down on our heads—Dad had pushed us to safety. We were trapped on all sides, but alive.

“I think so. Ma? Damage report?”

No answer.

“Ma?” I turned and squinted against the darkness. The faint red glow coming from the Vile Root muck was just enough to see that Lukas and I were the only ones here. My heart started to pound erratically. A cold sweat broke out against my neck. “
No
!”

I shoved Lukas aside and threw myself at the rock barrier. A little voice inside screamed that this was suicide—I could bring the entire thing crashing down on top of us—but I ignored it and began yanking rocks from the pile. A set of strong arms pulled me away, and even though I struggled, it was only halfhearted because I knew he was right.

“Jessie,” he whispered against my ear. “Please, stop.”

I pulled free and went back to the wall, and narrowly avoided sticking my hand into a smear of Vile Root crap. “Can you guys hear me?” There was no answer, and my heart skipped a beat. Knowing they were in there, powerless, and possibly crushed, was sucking what little air there was from the small space. “Dad?” I tried again.

A few more minutes passed. Some of the most agonizing of my life. But finally, Dad called, “Jessie?”

The air rushed back into my lungs. “Oh my God. Are you guys okay?”

“We’re fine,” he said. “You two?”

“We’re okay,” Lukas answered. “But trapped. No sign of the chimera.”

“We killed the one on this side. The others probably ran off. The wall between us has too many large rocks. Can you dig yourselves out into one of the other tunnels?”

“Look,” I said, dropping to my knees. There was a small opening with a brighter red glow coming from the wall across from the one that separated us. “I bet we can make this big enough to slip through.”

Lukas nodded and went back to the rocks. “I think we can get out, Damien,” he called to Dad. “What about you? We don’t have the weapons.”

“We have them,” Mom confirmed. “The ceiling only caved in on this side. We’re free to continue down one of the paths.”

I was on my feet and at the barrier between us in a second. “I don’t like it. Splitting up is a bad call.”

“Fine,” Mom said from the other side. “Supply us with an alternative, and we can go from there.”

Damn her and that stupid voice of reason.

“Nothing’s changed, Jessie. We came here to get the prison, and we still need it.” Her voice was a bit louder. She must be leaning against the rocks.

I placed a hand against the cool stone and took a deep breath. I trusted Dad to have her back, but it wasn’t the same. I knew her moves. Her strengths and weaknesses—the few there were. It should be me by her side.

I sighed. There was no choice. “I guess we’ll tunnel out and meet you outside.”

“Be aware of everything,” Dad said. “Remember what I told you when you were younger. Everything in the Shadow Realm is out to kill you. This cave is no exception. It will prey on your weaknesses. Your fears.”

I nodded, even though he obviously couldn’t see me. “Be safe.”

I heard their footsteps fade as they walked deeper into the cave, and turned back to Lukas. He’d already started moving some of the smaller rocks from above the opening I’d found. “They’ll be all right,” he said, lifting a chunk of rock and taking care not to touch the patch of Vile Root fluid. “Damien knows his way around.”

“He’s human. Just like Mom. Just like me.”

Lukas rolled his eyes. “He’s not human.”

“Might as well be.” I took the next rock from him and set it down at my feet. “Remember, he told us this place strips you of your demonic mojo.”

He stopped moving rocks and turned to face me. “Your parents are two of the most capable people I’ve ever known. Klaire is intelligent and resourceful, and Damien is smart and careful. Even without the use of his demonic abilities, I still believe him to be lethal.”

“Huh,” I said, punching him lightly in the arm. “Someone has a guy-crush.”

He didn’t respond, instead turning back to the rocks, but I could have sworn he’d rolled his eyes.

We were careful, pulling rubble from above the opening rather than under it, and before too long, we were able to squeeze carefully through. Lukas insisted on going first, and it was in my blood to argue, but I bit my tongue. The chivalry thing was as much a part of him as those big brown eyes I loved. Letting him take the lead was the polite thing to do. Last month, Kendra had pointed out that I’d probably need to play the femme fatale once in a while to ease Lukas’s old-fashioned brain. I was beginning to think she was right.

When he didn’t scream bloody murder or poke his head back through the hole to tell me to stay back, I assumed it was safe and climbed through the opening. Before the roof caved in, we’d been traveling down the narrow tunnel, taking extreme care to avoid touching the walls. When the cave-in started, we’d been standing in the middle of a four-way intersection of sorts. Now, the intersection was gone. And so were the walls.

The entire tunnel had changed.

“Whoa…”

“This must be what Damien meant,” Lukas said. His eyes were wide as he scanned what used to be the tunnels. We were in a room now, and in the middle was a massive wooden canopy bed complete with heavy draping and a pristine white bedspread. Next to it was a large, borderline gaudy chest with six drawers and an antique-looking mirror. “My God…”

“How did we end up here?” I stepped up to the bed and pressed down on the mattress. Soft—and solid. Not an illusion. “And more importantly, whose bedroom is it?”

“It’s my parents’ bedroom,” he said, breathless. He was looking a little pale. “No matter how much time passes, I will never forget this place. How is this possible?”

“It’s not,” I said, crossing the room and tilting his head toward mine. “Look at me. This is not possible. It’s not real. This is the cave messing with us. That’s all. Remember, Dad said this place would dig around inside our heads and muck things up.”

He nodded, and for a second I was sure I’d gotten through to him, but movement at the door changed all that. I turned to see what had caught his eye. A petite woman with long raven hair and a beautiful, but sad, smile. Her hands were clasped behind her back, and as she took a step into the room, Lukas sucked in an audible breath. “Mother?”

Hell in a hailstorm…

“My boy,” she said with a sigh. The very definition of graceful, Sarah Scott glided across the floor and over to her son. “I am so sorry…”

It was obvious Lukas was struggling with this. He tensed, and I knew a part of him understood this wasn’t real, but there was also a part that didn’t care. I couldn’t blame him. If I’d been in his situation, having lost my mother and everything I cared about, only to see her over a hundred years later—illusion or not—I didn’t know how I’d react.

With a shaky hand, he reached out to touch the side of her face, eyes widening when he found her solid. But when he went to put his arms around her, she pulled back and brought her hands to the front. In them was a small, unassuming wooden box. The one he’d been trapped in for over a hundred years. The box containing the Seven Deadly Sins.

“No…” he whispered, tripping over his own two feet in an attempt to put some distance between them.

“Yes,” Sarah said. Her voice took on a hard, cold tone, and her eyes narrowed. “This is where you belong. You have violence and rage in your heart. You don’t deserve to be free because you are a monster.”

He backed himself against the wall, head shaking and mouth forming silent words. I threw myself forward and stepped between them as Lukas sank to the ground and let his head fall forward. “Don’t,” I snapped, and sank down with him. “She’s not here. The box isn’t here. Your mother would never do this to you, Lukas.”

“How do you know?” He growled. He lifted his head to meet my gaze, and I choked back a gasp. His eyes were blood red. The same red they’d been when Wrath was close to the surface. “Before I was trapped in that box, I was a horrible person, Jessie. I planned to do horrible things.”

“You intended to protect your family,” I snapped back, taking his hands. “To protect your mom. You were a good guy then, and you’re a good guy now. This is not real.” I stood and faced off against the fake Mrs. Scott. She was smiling like she had some big secret.

She laughed. Her voice was delicate and musical, but had an odd otherworldly echo to it. The sound trickled through the room and bounced off the walls, surrounding us. “I’m very real.” She spread her arms wide and laughed again. “Everything you see is
real
, Jessie Darker. It is all truth. In fact, it’s more truth than you’ve ever gotten, little girl.”

Obviously, Lucifer was going to put protective measures in place to guard his treasures, but the number one rule when dealing with all things demonic was to remember they didn’t—
couldn’t
—lie. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that while I may not be the real Sarah Scott, my words are spoken with candor.” She gestured to Lukas who was watching us, still on the floor. “He
is
a monster. Stained and weak of heart. Human or demon, it matters not. He is a paradox and will only mean your end.”

“He’s my end? So I guess that means you aren’t going to kill me?”

“Kill you? No. To kill you would be to anger forces far greater than I. Your companions, on the other hand…”

“Jessie?”

“Ma?” I whirled away from the Sarah impersonator as Mom and Dad burst into the room. I started forward but pulled up short when the fake Mrs. Scott, no longer behind me, popped up behind Dad.

The scream built in my throat, but never came. Dad’s eyes widened, and he convulsed a half second before the red stain spread across the front of his shirt. He looked down at it, confused, then back up, meeting my gaze with a look of terror. He sank to his knees, and Mom went with him, screaming.

Sarah stepped aside, a blood-covered hand stretched out in front of her. She turned it over several times, examining it. When she finally looked up, her lips were set in a grim line. “Your father is not an inhabitant of this cave. While inside these walls, Damien of the House of Pride is nothing more than human. Give up the search for the prison and get him beyond the cave entrance, and he will recover. If you do not, he will die.”

There was a horrible creaking sound, and the door to the room fell away. It crumbled and turned to dust, drifting to the ground as the walls of the cave rumbled back into existence. Several yards ahead was the entrance.

“You will
not
be warned again.” In a puff of thick, black smoke, the demon with Mrs. Scott’s face was gone.

I rushed to where Dad was. Mom had his arm pulled across her shoulders and was trying in vain to lift him to his feet. I got on the other side, but it was no use. He was just too heavy. “Lukas,” I called, hoping to God he’d snapped out of it. “I need your help.”

He didn’t say anything, but was off the ground and in my place in a matter of seconds.

Mom was pale. “Damien? Damien, can you hear me?”

Dad’s eyes fluttered open, and he gave a weak smile. “I’ll always hear you, Klaire.” He pulled away and propped himself up against the nearest wall. “Go with the kids. Get the prison. I can make it out on my own.”

He took a single step away from the wall and went down like a sack of quartz powder. Mom and Lukas dropped to help him back up. We had to get him out. But we needed the prison. Kendra’s life depended on it, and I wasn’t willing to walk away from that.

“I can do it,” I said. Of course I knew damn well Mom would object, but in the end, it’d be pointless. We were there for a reason. She couldn’t argue that.

“The hell you can,” Mom cried. She almost let go of Dad’s arm in the process.

A knot twisted in my stomach. “I don’t wanna freak you out because, well, we’ve obviously got enough dust kicked up at the moment, but
I
can do this. In fact, I think I’m the only one who can.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“The demon said something to her before you and Damien arrived,” Lukas said. He didn’t look happy about it, but it seemed he was on my side. “It said it wasn’t allowed to hurt her. The rest of us are fair targets, but not Jessie. For all intents, she is off-limits.”

Mom’s face, if possible, grew even paler. “Why? Did it say why?”

“Ma, we don’t have time to talk this out right now. Dad needs out of this cave, and Kendra needs away from that bastard before he changes his mind and sucks out her soul.”

I had to give my mom credit. She was a tough lady used to making tougher choices. Until recently, she’d done her damndest to persuade me away from agency business. A normal life, free of bloodshed and demon doggie drool was all she’d ever wanted for me. After I made the deal with Valefar to save her life, her vision for me went out the window. Although she would always try to protect me, I could tell by the look on her face that this time she knew there was nothing to be done.

“Lukas goes with you,” she said through clenched teeth.

“No way. I’m the only—”

“That goes without saying, Klaire,” Lukas responded, taking my hand. I opened my mouth to argue again, but he clamped his hand over it. “I will protect her.”

Mom nodded and helped Dad toward the entrance. I turned to Lukas. He was watching me with an odd expression.

“Protecting me, huh? Well, who’s gonna protect you?”

Chapter Twenty-Six

I only looked back once—and it’d been a mistake. As Mom helped Dad to the exit, the walls shifted again and closed around us. They were gone. And we were on our own.

Lukas’s tightened his fingers around mine. “What if we can’t find the prison?”

“You should know by now that the word
can’t
doesn’t have a place in my dictionary.”

He looked like he wanted to argue, but simply nodded, and we started walking.

The farther in we went, the narrower the tunnel became. Patches of Vile Root Blood, along with a green and sticky substance, dotted the corridor. The ceiling seemed to get lower, too. If I were claustrophobic, it might have been a serious problem. By the time we got to a point where Lukas and I had to walk single file, his head was nearly touching the roof.

There were torches on the wall, their flames flickering to cast eerie shadows on the path in front of us. Every six or so feet, a crude wooden stake, wrapped in some kind of cloth, burned bright. They had to be like the flames in the Archway. I’d bet a year’s worth of hot chocolate that Lucifer didn’t hire someone to come down here and keep them from going out.

We walked on for a while, and I knew it wasn’t the time for random chatter, but the silence was driving me nuts. “So, something you said earlier is bothering me.”

Behind me, Lukas’s footsteps slowed a bit. “Oh?” He tried to play it off like he was surprised, but it was impossible not to notice the tension in his voice.

“You said Valefar had his hand in all of it.”

“Did I?” He walked even more slowly now.

“You did.” I stopped and turned. His brow was twitching. “So, that sounds like
something
.”

His shoulders tensed, along with his arms. He stopped walking. “Something?”

“Yeah. Like there’s something you’re not saying.”

He sighed. “Things are going to be complicated sometimes, Jessie.”

“Okay, whoa.” There was nothing but cave tunnel for as far as I could see in either direction. The Vile Root muck was less now, which was good because the walls had become so narrow that our shoulders were brushing the sides. “What does
that
mean?”

He grabbed my hand. “It means that there are some things I cannot tell you.”

“Why not?”

It was there in his eyes. That spark. Anger. It was different this time, though. Potent and very real. “Because that is just the way it is.”

“That’s not really an answer,” I fired back.

His eyes flashed red, and a horrible growl spilled from his lips. “You—” He doubled over, letting go of a scream that rocked me from the inside out. His hands came up, each slamming into the wall on either side with enough force to knock rubble loose.

I took a step back.

Lukas took a step forward.

The torches flickered, then went out, drowning us in complete darkness. While that would normally have been comforting, the sound that came from Lukas in that moment chilled me to the core. More rubble broke loose.

There was a sizzle, and then the flame was lit again. But I almost wished it’d stayed off. Lukas was in front of me, inches really, but he wasn’t himself. Distorted face and lips peeled back to reveal razor fangs, he advanced.

“Don’t,” I said as calmly as I could manage. “This is another one of your fears. You said you were afraid to hurt me, remember? The cave is playing on that.”

But was it his fear—or mine? The way my heart threatened to hammer right out of my chest suggested it could have gone either way.

He snapped his teeth and came closer. I took the hint and ran.

Lukas roared, and I heard him behind me. Footsteps rhythmically pounded the ground, getting closer and closer. I bit back a yelp as my shoulder grazed the cave wall, just missing a patch of Vile Root. Narrower. The walls were closing in, and it was slowing me down.

My elbow hit the wall and I cried out, shifting and kind of shuffling along. The walls were too close now to stand facing forward. Sliding sideways was the only way to move.

I started to panic. I wasn’t claustrophobic, but what if I got stuck? What if I got trapped and couldn’t go any farther, and Lukas, in his snarling and demonic incarnation, was the thing standing between my death and freedom? Would I fight him?
Could
I?

But all the questions turned out to be moot because it didn’t happen. A few feet in, the opening widened, and in my haste to free myself, I went down on both knees. I scrambled to my feet, intent on putting more distance between Lukas and me, but froze when the scene changed again.

The cave was gone, and I was surrounded by trees. Leaves crunched beneath my feet as I took a step forward. I was in the middle of what looked like a dense forest. “What the—”

Something crashed into me from the left, sending me to the ground with jarring force. The air expelled from my lungs, and I fought not only to breathe, but to shift around to defend myself.

Snarling filled the air. “Questions,” Lukas spat. His weight on top of me was like a house, crushing and unmovable. “Always asking questions.”

It was that moment that I realized where I was. What this was. I’d been right. This wasn’t about
Lukas’s
fear of hurting me. This was
my
fear. The woods. The clearing. Even the tree to my right. All of it came rushing back. This was where Garret attacked me a few months ago after Vida, the girl infected by Lust, slapped a whammy on him.

“Lukas, don’t,” I wheezed, trying to get my hands free. This was all me. I had to get control over it.

He growled again, lips parting to give me a not-so-welcomed peek at a forked, black tongue. “You are an abomination. Not one of them. Not one of us. My Lord shall rise and wipe your stain from this earth.”

He brought his hands down and locked them around my neck. The demon who’d been wearing Sarah Scott’s face had said I couldn’t be harmed. Maybe it was fear rearing its ugly head, but this sure as hell didn’t feel harmless.

“Lukas,” I croaked, trying to suck in a lungful of air. Once my hands were finally free, I brought them to my neck, trying to pry his grip away. Not real. Just the cave. “Lukas,” I said again, this time with a bit more strength. I closed my eyes and focused on him. On his smile and the way he looked at me, always so full of admiration and wonder. I pictured him. Lukas Scott. Not a rampaging demon, but an old-fashioned gentleman with a fiercely protective streak that rivaled my own. A man out of time, born in one world, then thrust head first into another. Someone, I believed, who was made just for me.

When I opened my eyes again, the cave was back and Lukas stood in front of me, a horrified expression on his face. “Jessie,” he started, taking a step back. The guilt in his expression made my chest feel heavy.

I grabbed him before he got too far and pulled him close, throwing my arms around his neck and holding tight despite his efforts to move away. “Don’t,” I whispered into his hair. “It was all on me. My fear. I’m the one that’s sorry. It doesn’t matter anymore, though.”

“It matters,” a chilling, familiar voice said behind us. We jumped apart and whirled on the newcomer. “Because a house divided against itself cannot stand. And the House of Pride is, indeed, divided.”

My blood ran cold, and I tried to speak but couldn’t push the words past my lips. My tongue felt heavy and goose bumps sprang to life all along my skin. “Ma?”

Lukas took my hand and tugged me back. “Remember what you said to me earlier, Jessie. That’s not Klaire.”

I shook him off and took a step toward her. The cave was upping its game. The demon in front of us was Klaire Darker right down to the small, almost unnoticeable, uneven section of her left eyebrow. She’d been thrown through a glass door by a possessed football player four years ago. It’d never grown back. “No. I know it’s not her.”

She laughed. As with Lukas’s mother, her voice had a demonic echo. But where his mother appeared as she was in life, my mom was different. She smiled, and her lips parted to reveal jagged black teeth. Her eyes, so beautiful and blue in reality, were soulless and red.

“Smart little cookie,” she drawled. “The question is, how smart is she?”

“Smart enough,” I said warily. She was trying to bait me into something, and I wasn’t going to bite.

“Is that so?” She took another step closer. “Well, baby girl, I think you might be surprised. There are quite a bit of
darker
things infesting that prideful family tree of yours.”

“I know all about it.” But something told me I didn’t. She wasn’t hinting at the Belfair blood whizzing through my veins. This was something else—and it wasn’t good. This was a diversion tactic, but unfortunately, it was working.

More laughter.

“Jessie,” Lukas warned. He was still trying to drag me away, which was stupid. Where she was was where we needed to go. In fact, I had a feeling that we were close.

“Listen to
Wrath
,” Demonic-Mom said. “He’s not trying to deceive you.” She winked. “Much.”

“He’s not Wrath anymore,” I said. Was it stupid to argue with a demonic version of my mom? Totally. But there was a nagging feeling bubbling up in my gut. I remembered what the fake Mrs. Scott said about Lukas being my end. Now here was fake Mom implying he was deceiving me?

All the air left my lungs. I knew the cave was trying to sidetrack us and that I shouldn’t let it get to me, but I couldn’t help it. I whirled on Lukas. “Demons don’t lie. They can’t.”

“It’s trying to distract you,” he said. “Nothing more.”

“It’s working.” I studied him. He looked the same as he always had. Dark hair and liquid brown eyes. But there was a nervousness there. In his eyes and in his voice. Like he was afraid I might uncover something…

“Jessie, please—”

“This has something to do with my dad. With whatever it is that you refuse to tell me.”

Demonic-Mom still blocked our path, but she wasn’t actively keeping us from passing. She didn’t need to. Her plan had worked.

“Why must you know everything?” Lukas fired back. There was a familiar simmer in his gaze. He leaned forward, eyes narrowing to thin slits. “You push and push and never think that maybe there’s a reason—”

I bit down hard on the inside of my bottom lip and sucked in a deep breath. “Do not finish that sentence.” This was his transformation to demon making him act like an ass. That’s all. That, and the cave trying to pit us against each other.

Maybe it was my tone, or it could have been the look on my face—one I was pretty sure must have been a cross between hurt and feral—but he softened. “All you need to know is a single, simple truth.” His expression was fierce, but there was no more anger. He stepped up to me and took my face in his hands. His skin, normally so warm and comforting, was cold and clammy. “Damien loves you. He loves Klaire. There is nothing on this earth he wouldn’t do to keep you both safe. Right now, you need to focus on what we came here to do. Get that prison.”

Secrets were never a good thing, but as I was learning, they were sometimes a necessary evil. The thing you hated surrendering to, but occasionally needed to embrace to get by. Like making a deal with a particularly tricky demon in order to save a loved one’s life.

Dad did love us. I knew it as sure as I knew my own mind. And Lukas was right. Bickering with him over this now was giving this bitch demon what it wanted. Me. Sidetracked. I could let it go.

For now.

“Fine. But this isn’t over.” I turned away from Lukas and back to Demonic-Mom. With my sweetest smile, I said, “Move aside. We’re passing through.”

She smiled, but it was full of unspoken rage. Taking a single step to the left, she stepped out of the path, and I started forward. Lukas followed. She was silent as I passed, but when he moved by, she laughed. “Not this one.”

I pivoted and lunged forward, but I was a fraction of a second too late. She grabbed him by the throat and spun him toward the opposite cave wall, pinning him there. With his feet about a foot off the ground, he clawed and thrashed, trying to free himself from her grasp. It wouldn’t work. He might be turning into a demon, but in here he was only human. And so was I.

Good thing I came prepared.

The demon let out a scream, face contorting to reveal it’s true self. Putrid green skin and sunken, milky-white eyes. It was taller than it had appeared in its Mom-skin, standing over seven feet tall with broad shoulders and long, thick arms. It was impossible to tell its height for sure, though, because it was hunched over Lukas, foul yellow slime dripping from between its teeth. I didn’t recognize the breed, so I didn’t know exactly what would take it down, which didn’t matter much since Mom had the bag with the weapons. What I did have was my trusty fairy dust.

I yanked the vial of quartz powder from my pocket and dived forward, flicking it into her face. She released Lukas, and he fell to the ground, coughing and sputtering for air. The demon growled, and the air around it shimmered. I blinked. Just once. And suddenly it was Mom again, only this time, the normal version.

It laughed and spread its arms wide. With a little jiggle of its hips, it said, “You can’t kill this form.”

“I think you’re underestimating the fact that I’m a teenager. I know you’re not my mom. If I hurt you, she’s not going to feel a thing. At one point or another, every kid wants to punch a parent in the head. You’re doing me a solid.”

She had a fraction of a second to be surprised before I pounced. Quartz tossed in her face, I flicked my lighter and let it fall. There was a spark, and a moment of triumph rippled through me, but it was short lived. The demon yelled, definitely in pain, but not lighting up like the Fourth of July like it should have.

It stomped out the flame, skin smoking and blistered. Half of Mom’s blond hair had been singed off, along with the entire left arm of her shirt. The smell of burned hair and flesh permeated the cave, and I choked back a series of gags. It was right up there on my list of ick with the stench of burned popcorn.