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.
Behind her, Lukas got to his feet. With a nod in my direction, he dropped to the ground and while I watched, did a fancy pivot and twist and swept the demon’s legs. It went down hard, as surprised by the attack as I was. He was on it in an instant.
Without taking his eyes from the thing, he thrust his arm in my direction. “What’s next?”
I went to hand him my Bane Talisman—a simple wooden symbol carved from the trunk of a three-hundred-year-old Brazilian Pine tree that I’d slipped around my neck before we’d left the house—but he didn’t get it.
The demon bucked beneath him, and his hand hit mine, sending the talisman flying somewhere to the left, into the darkness. Lukas toppled sideways, and the demon was on its feet in front of me. “Turn back now.”
Other than the quartz, which did as much as a tickle attack, I had no physical weapons. But that didn’t mean I was helpless. Mom told me on more than one occasion my mouth was going to get me in trouble one of these days. I was hoping today was that day. “Or what? You can’t kill me, right? I mean, that’s what you said earlier.” I spre
ad my arms, heart hammering like a drum solo behind my ribs. “Hit me. I dare ya.”
The demon roared. Its attention was on me, which was good, because behind it, Lukas had pulled a knife from his boot.
“What? Nothing?” I taunted.
The demon’s arm twitched. Ironically, demons were known for their self-control. They didn’t go around inciting random chaos or ripping people to shreds just for the hell of it. They always had a plan. But they did have notoriously short tempers. Tempers that kind of got away from them sometimes when provoked.
“Must suck to have someone pulling your strings. Telling you who you can kill and where you can go,” I continued.
Another twitch. The illusion making it look like a charred version of Mom flickered, and a slightly extended moment of clarity made me cringe.
The thing screamed. The sound chased a chill up my spine. Not because it was intimidating, but because it was Mom’s voice the thing used. Lukas chose that moment to dive forward. He buried the blade to the hilt, the tip breaking through the front at the base of Mom’s neck. It wasn’t her, but it still turned my stomach to see it writhe in pain, choking on its own blood before falling to the floor, still and silent.
“You okay?” he asked, jerking the blade from the back of the demon’s neck. A wet suction-like sound echoed in the small space. A moment later, the illusion dropped, and it was back to the scaly green-skinned thing that it was in life.
“I’m good,” I replied. “You?”
“I am,” he said with a nod. “And us?” He was referring to the not-so-subtle hints the demon kept dropping.
I took a deep breath. “I don’t like secrets.”
“I don’t either,” he said.
“But you have them.”
He frowned. “Everyone has them, Jessie. But these are not mine to share.”
If they weren’t his, then that could only mean that Dad wasn’t telling us something. That bothered me, probably much more than it should. I thought about it for a second before reaching for his hand. “I don’t like it. I understand it. But I don’t like it.”
He didn’t need to know how amped it made me. That I wasn’t going to let this go, which would only make our current task harder. I inclined my head toward the far end of the tunnel. We were almost there.