Chapter Fourteen
Angry Valefar was a sight that stole your breath away. But Scared Valefar? I think it was ten times worse. When a guy like Val was worried, you knew it was big time. Infinite budget disaster movie big. He’d been quiet the last few minutes, pacing from one end of his office to the other like a caged animal jonesing for a kill.
“Go home. I need to deal with this.”
“Any”—a wave of dizziness washed over me and when it passed, I was standing back in the Archway again—“idea what I should do?” I finished, annoyed.
“Jessie?” Mom was a few feet from where I’d left her. The sun was just cresting the mountains, and the chill in the air made our breath visible.
“It’s bad,” I said, walking toward her. She was bent over the witches’ stone altar. Cassidy was gone.
“A Prince of Hell is involved. Of course it’s bad. Did he tell you how to take him out?”
I shook my head. Valefar hadn’t been any help. In fact, as far as help went, he’d been kind of the opposite. All my little visit did was make me twitchy. “He wasn’t in a chatty mood.”
She started toward me, stopping halfway across the field. There was six feet between us. Ten, tops. Any more than that and she would have been standing in the small patch of sun between us as it came over the mountain.
A thick tuft of purple smoke drifted up between us, closer to her, and I wasted no time. I took two steps back into the shadow of the trees and popped back out right behind Mom. “What—”
I grabbed her arm, dragged her into the shade, and shadowed again, meaning to bring us back to the office, but instead, ended up about eight feet from where we’d been. About eight feet from where Gressil had materialized. “Um, this is not where we were supposed to end up.”
“Worry about that later,” Mom shouted, ducking as the demon hurled the same kind of energy bomb he’d thrown at Lukas and me back at Town Hall. It sailed over Mom’s head and missed me by a fraction of an inch. She shoved me to the right as another zoomed toward us. “Get down!”
I ducked and rolled. The sun was almost over the mountain, and Gressil, the smart little demon that he was, was herding us away from the shadows and into the open space. I turned to make a break for the tree line, but wasn’t fast enough. Something cold and sharp knocked me down. I hit the grass, trying to take a breath, but my entire body was convulsing.
“Jessie!” Not my mom. A guy. Lukas.
Warm, strong arms wrapped around me, and the grass beneath me gave way to air. I wobbled on my feet, unsteady and spinning and still trying to force air into my lungs. “Lukas? Where did you—”
The rest of the question died on my lips. Gressil was approaching Mom across the field. She was smack in the center with the sun shining down. I had no way to get to her other than to run.
And that’s what I did.
I shoved Lukas aside and sprinted forward. The world tipped sideways as I went down hard on my left knee. Snow seeped through my jeans. A sharp pain shot up my thigh, bringing involuntary tears to my eyes, but I ignored it and sprang to my feet. My legs felt like rubber, and even though I knew my brain was sending the message to move faster, my body just wasn’t up for it.
A sound filled the air. A shrill, irritating screech. Over and over. A single word.
Mom!
It was from me.
Gressil reached her first. I wasn’t far behind, but the whole thing happened in a matter of seconds. The time it took for me to take a single breath.
“I will take what I need from the Belfair coven,” I heard him say, “but until you deliver my Master’s prison, I will kill a Darker each day.”
I skidded to a stop in the slush and grabbed his arm as his fingers closed around Mom’s neck. He picked her up like she was nothing. A rag doll or a pillow. Not a mighty warrior, but a feather-light child. I was knocked back to the ground as he swung her around, stopping for a moment to grin down at me. “Better hurry. There aren’t many of you left.”
“Nooo!”
With a devastating wave of the demon’s arm, Mom sailed backward. Through the field and into the tree line. She crashed against the largest oak in the front row, and time came to a screeching halt. Breathing stopped. The early morning birds, singing their oblivious song, grew silent. Everything, everywhere came to a sudden, painful halt.
I started to run.
Lukas reached her first, pulling out his cell.
I got there seconds later and dropped to my knees. She was so incredibly still. So silent. All I wanted in that moment was for her to open her eyes. Tell me I’d acted impulsively. Lecture me on another mistake. Launch into a speech about the beauty of a normal life.
But there was nothing.
Lukas’s voice floated, disembodied, in the background. It was garbled, and I couldn’t understand more than a word or two of what he was saying. A tremor ran through me, turning into an allover quake as I laid my middle and pointer fingers under my mother’s jaw, at her pulse point. A faint but steady rhythm fluttered beneath the tips.
“Hel…is on…ay,” Lukas said, kneeling beside me. He wrapped his arm around my shoulders, attempting to pull me close, but I jerked away.
“I tried—she’s—” And that was it. The only words that came. I meant for there to be more, but my brain wasn’t working right. Simple functions had all but shut down, focused on a kind of fear I’d never experienced before.
“She’s going to be okay, Jessie.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t answer. In seventeen years, I’d never seen my mom like this. We got hurt on the job all the time. Gushing blood and broken bones were just a part of the deal. This though…this was different. This was center of my universe, my rock, at her weakest and most vulnerable.
I was sick. The air was too thin, and bile surged up my throat. I wrenched sideways, dry heaving until my insides felt like they’d spill from my mouth. My internal organs were vibrating. Moshing to some phantom metal beat. A familiar itch rippled through me with violent ferocity. The disconcerting pull that told me I was being summoned.
No… “Not now.” I growled, sucking in a breath and holding it. The subtle flurry in my limbs expanded, and I resisted with every nerve in my body. In the distance, I heard the sirens. They wouldn’t make it in time. I submerged my fingers in the icy snow and bent forward, eyes squeezing shut with as much force as I could muster. Everything in that moment was so vivid. The chill in the air and the intricate swirls my breath made as I panted against the effort of remaining topside. The way my hands and legs stung from the penetrating, wet cold. Under different circumstances, I would have pulled up a handful of the white stuff and thrown it into the air like I’d done a million times as a kid. Maybe chucked a fistful at Lukas and laughed as he made that sour face he sometimes did.
But not this time.
“No… Please.” The tug grew stronger the more I fought it, and by the time it reached critical, there were tears in my eyes. I tried to call out for Lukas, to tell him to stay with Mom, but there was no breath in my lungs. All that escaped was a slight wheezing sound as my heart hammered against my ribs.
I wanted to stay.
But I needed to go.
I blinked. A simple, instant flutter of my eyelids. One minute I was kneeling next to Mom with my digits numb in the freezing snow, the next I was standing in a hallway, beneath a grossly ornate, vaulted ceiling, next to Valefar. He watched me with an odd expression, head tilted to the right and eyes narrowed in surprise. “Did you—were you fighting my summons?”
“Please,” I begged. I grabbed the front of his shirt and tugged hard. A small part of me was horrified. Begging a demon for a favor? I’d hit an all-time low. But this was different. This was Mom. “Send me back!”
“Impossible.” He shook his head. “I need you here right now.”
He brushed me aside and made a move to step away, but I grabbed his arm, not the least bit concerned with the fact that I was pleading. “I’ll do anythin
g. Add another twenty years to my contract if you want. Just send me back. Now!”
The desperation in my voice must have bled through. His shoulders tensed, and I knew it must only be a trick of the light, but he actually looked concerned. “What’s the matter?”
“My mom. The ambulance was just getting there. I have to go back. She’s—”
“Klaire was injured?” He turned away from me and motioned to a demon a few feet away, by the door. He leaned in and whispered something. The other demon nodded, and in a puff of black, was gone. “Etine will check on Klaire Darker. He will watch over her while you are away.”
I was only half aware that I was still shaking my head. “Please, Valefar. Just let me—”
He grabbed my hands and squeezed. Not painfully tight like I would have expected, but firm, yet oddly comforting. “Listen to me, Jessie. I do regret keeping you from Klaire’s side, but right now you need to be here. Were it up to me, I would allow you to leave.” The sound of my name on his lips shut me right the hell up. He rarely called me that. Cookie, Pumpkin, Snicker Doodle…but never Jessie. He pointed toward a door at the other end of the hall. “However, sadly, it is not up to me. Pity. I would have taken your offer for extended service in a human heartbeat.”
Numb, I let him herd me through the doorway and into a cavernous white room. In the middle, taking up 80 percent of the space, was a monstrous oval-shaped table full of people—demons—I didn’t know.
Well, that wasn’t accurate. I knew a few of them. Two, to be exact.
Valefar pulled out my seat, then took his own beside it. Down at the other end of the table, Lukas, wearing an expression of confusion, sat next to Dad, who looked ready to explode when his eyes met mine. He jumped from his seat as others milled around and stormed over to where we were.
Valefar leaned in and whispered, “For his own safety, keep Klaire’s injuries a secret. He must remain here.”
I wanted to ask him what the hell was going on, but Dad reached us before I had the chance. “What the hell are you doing, Valefar?”
“The ambulance arrived,” Lukas mouthed with the smallest hint of a nod.
The slightest rush of relief flooded my system. We were stuck here, but at least I knew she was safe. I turned back to Val as he yawned. “Nice to see you, too, Damien. I trust you’re enjoying your freedom?”
“What is she doing here?” Dad demanded.
“I’m—” I swallowed the rest of it, not trusting myself to speak. Valefar was right. Dad would rush off if he knew Mom had been hurt.
“In case you don’t recall,” Valefar said with a sideways glance in my direction, “I granted you your freedom. I was in need of a new Regent.”
My stomach tightened. Regent? That’s what Cassidy had called Gressil.
Dad’s temper flared, and my stomach clenched. Whatever a Regent was, I was fairly sure I wanted no part of it. I wanted to insist they tell me, but Dad, totally furious, kept going. “You have hundreds of minions suited for that. She is in no way qualified, nor does she know the rules of the Shadow Realm. This is insanity.”
“Does your Regent know the rules of the realm, Damien?”
Dad looked like he wanted to argue, but instead, and without even looking at me, he whirled around and stalked back to his seat across the table. Everyone else was settling in as well. “What’s—”
“Shh,” Valefar hissed. The door across the room creaked open, and his head snapped around. A tall man in an expensive-looking black suit walked in. Curly black hair and a smile that made the temperature drop. “Do not speak unless spoken to. Lucifer will not tolerate your chatter as I do.”
Lucifer? I opened my mouth to ask what he meant—he’d spoken to me, after all—but suit guy had stepped up to the end of the table and taken the seat on the end. All eyes focused forward.
Hell in a hailstorm.
Lucifer. The Lucifer.
“We have a problem,” Lucifer said. He braced both hands against the tabletop and pierced the group with a steely glare. “Gressil is free and looking for a way back home—”
As much as I needed to know the score on Gressil, his words turned to mush in my ears. All I could think about was Mom. Was she awake? Scared? God, she was probably wondering where I was.
Lucifer slammed his hand against the table, refocusing my attention. “…looking to free my brother, and as we all know, that cannot be allowed.”
“How did this happen?” one of the demons from across the table shouted. He was sitting beside a shorter demon with a wicked smile and slightly pointed teeth. Every few moments, I’d see him nod in my direction. The demon equivalent of hey, how you doin’? Or maybe he was contemplating ways to skin me alive. Either way, it was creepy and I had to look away.
Lucifer took a deep breath, and acid began to bubble in my belly. His gaze swiveled toward Valefar and me, and as he leaned forward on the table, for a second I forgot about Mom. With the King of Hell staring daggers of death at me, I was sure she’d understand. “How indeed? Do you have any light to shed on this, Regent?”
I opened my mouth, then closed it, dumbfounded, but coming up with an excuse wasn’t necessary. He hadn’t been talking to me.
Valefar bent his head. “My Lord. My new Regent is…unique. She spends most of her time—”
Lucifer growled. “Spare me the details, Valefar. I’m aware of your Regent’s pedigree.” He pushed off the table and clucked his tongue. “Honestly. A partially human Regent? Your standards are lowering with age, my friend, but enough about that. What I want to know is how you plan on fixing the problem?”
“She’ll recapture him, of course,” Valefar responded, picking his head up. He looked 100 percent confident. Good. That made one of us, at least.
“Just like that, yes? Tell me, do you think your timid pet will be a sufficient match for Gressil?”
Pet? I’d just been insulted by the King of Hell. Day complete.
Valefar chuckled. “My Regent is anything but timid, I assure you.”
Lucifer seemed to consider this. Finally, he said, “I suppose we shall see, won’t we? Your Regent unleashed a dangerous entity. One with the potential to interrupt the peace and prosperity we’ve worked so hard to achieve here. In addition to her fixing the problem, punishment is in order. Might I suggest a decade in the pit?”
I tamped down the urge to vomit. I’d bet a lifetime without chocolate that he wasn’t referring to the rough side of Penance, outside the Ledges. My imagination went wild. Everything from the typical movie scene—me chained to a huge rock with some horn-toting demon whipping me for all eternity—to being pushed into a literal, never-ending pit.
“It was me.” Lukas shot from his chair. Dad tried to drag him back to his seat, but Lukas jerked his arm free, facing Lucifer with a defiant glare. “I was the one who broke the mirror and set the demon free. She had no part in it.”
“Lukas,” Dad snarled.
Chivalry was kind of hot and all, but that didn’t make it any less annoying—or badly timed. I didn’t know much about what was going on here, but I got that the situation was deep. I mean, hello? Lucifer? There wasn’t any point in us both taking the fall. Technically, neither of us had broken the mirror. Lucy-Elaine had done it. Granted, I’d kind of provoked her, but still… Playing point-the-finger wasn’t going to get us anywhere right now.
I stood as well. “He’s trying to protect me, um…” What the hell did you call the ruler of hell? Your evilness? “Your Majesty…?”
Lucifer made his way around to where I was. With his dark eyes fixated on me, an icy chill raced up my back, and even though I was positive that it was just nerves, I found it hard to breathe. “Loyalty is an admirable trait, Jessie Darker. One I hold in high regard.” He turned to Lukas, whose gaze never wavered. “This dynamic intrigues me, so I will grant you both a favor. Leniency.”
I let out a breath, and Lucifer laughed.
“You will receive no additional punishment for releasing Gressil.” He wheeled
and started toward the door at the back of the room. When he got to the entry, he turned and pinned me with an icy glare. “This is for you and Lukas to resolve. No aid from Shadow Realm resources is permitted. Fix this problem—soon—or both your lives will be forfeit.”
Chapter Fifteen
One by one, in puffs of thick smoke, the demons around the huge round table disappeared until there were only four of us left in the room.
“Damien,” Valefar said, in an almost bored tone. “You’ll need to keep that boy on a leash if he has any hopes of surviving the next century.”
“He was doing his job,” Dad said with a growl. He stood and took a step toward his old boss.
“To protect your daughter. Yes, I’m aware. And, as I’m sure you know, that’s entirely unnecessary. Did I not protect you for thousands of years?” Valefar’s voice grew dark and his expression heated. I wanted to get back to Mom, but jumping into the middle of a demon scuffle seemed like a bad idea. “Do you dare imply my inability to keep my minions safe?”
“Of course not. You were always a good Master. You made sure we were all taken care of. Lukas is protecting my daughter from you.”
Valefar laughed. “From me? The little demon owes me fifty-five years of servitude. Do you really think I’d harm her?”
Dad slammed a hand down on the table. The noise echoed through the cavernous room, bouncing off the walls and reverberating in an almost eerie way. “This is a perfect example. Making her your Regent? You’re going to get her killed.”
Valefar looked ready to explode. In a deceptively calm voice, he responded, “Jessie Darker will not come to harm in my care. You, Damien, should know that better than anyone.”
Dad’s jaw twitched. “Do not—”
Enough was enough. “Stop!” I yelled. The meeting was over, and there were more important things to worry about now. To Dad, I said, “We have to go. Mom was hurt—”
His fury toward Valefar was instantly forgotten. “What?”
Valefar nodded. “We will do this another time, Damien. Take your daughter to the hospital and tend to Klaire Darker.”