A Darker Past (The Darker Agency #2)
Jus Accardo
Chapter One
There were terrors on this earth the likes of which some people would never comprehend. Foul, dark things with the ability to snatch you up and gobble you down before you could say hell in a hailstorm. I knew, because I’d seen a few firsthand. Demons, ghosts, monsters straight from the pages of Grimm’s Fairy Tales—the original one. Yep. They were all real.
But, to put things in perspective, the Tooth Fairy? Not so real. At least I hoped not. The idea of some tutu-wearing weirdo with a molar fetish skulking in the dark corner of kids’ bedrooms gave new meaning to the word ick.
How did I know all this? My mom owned and operated the Darker Agency. A detective agency dealing in the staples. Missing loved ones, cheating spouses, child support dodgers… But our real specialty wasn’t the typical Monday through Friday sludge. Our real specialty put us neck deep in things that were just a bit…darker.
If your family pet suddenly went bonkers, snarling and snapping with an extra row of razor sharp teeth and green acid drool, you’d probably want to give us a call. Or maybe your recently deceased husband planted himself in the deep end of your luxury in-ground swimming pool and refused to move on. Yep. That’d be us, too. We did it all. Everything that scurried in the dark, making up the long list of nightmare creatures straight from hell. Things plucked right from the brain of a first grader searching for the monster under his bed.
My own personal version of hell—aside from zombies and Seth Rogan movies? Math.
Mr. Fritz droned on at the front of the class about triangles and percentages as my best friend Kendra slipped me a small piece of white folded paper. I took it, even though I had no desire to answer the question I knew was scrawled out in elegant cursive, complete with letters dotted in tiny hearts.
Well? I’m dying here. Need details.
Kendra lived her love life vicariously through me. Kind of hysterical if you thought about it. She’d had six boyfriends since second grade. I was on my first. I sighed and scribbled back, No details. Watched a movie. Went home, then refolded the paper and slipped it back beneath my desk.
She enthusiastically unfolded the note, then frowned. It was exactly the reaction I’d expected. Kind of a sour face. Like she’d been sucking on cloves. After a quick peek at Mr. Fritz, who was still obliviously spamming the room with his opinion that math was the single most important subject in the curriculum, she responded.
Why!?!?!?
This one was easy. Because my boyfriend was born in the eighteen hundreds…
Lukas Scott, my eighteen-going-on-one-hundred-and-forty-eight-year-old boyfriend. Born in Penance, New York in the year 1864, Lukas had the misfortune of getting shackled to a crazy girl named Meredith Wells by his family in order to further their financial standing. When he caught his would-be bride tramping it up, he did what any rational guy would do.
He threatened to narc.
The problem? Meredith was a witch. Not the fresh-faced, swathed-in-pink taffeta-and-glitter kind, either. She was seven different flavors of crazy, double dipped in an assortment of nuts. With the help of a tricky demon, she cursed Lukas to spend eternity fused with Wrath, one of the Seven Deadly Sins. He’d spent decades locked in an ancient box with the other sins until someone—cough-cough-Meredith-cough-cough—tricked Damien, my dad, into opening the box.
I glared at the note, then, before handing it back, added, I’m fine with the pace of things. Which was mostly true. Before I met Lukas, my unbreakable policy was to avoid dating. I treated it as though it were white chocolate—possibly the most vile and gross thing known to man next to demon dog drool—and stayed far away. A little unusual for a seventeen-year-old girl, yeah, but I had good reason. My entire life, I’d watched my parents suffer for love. Mom, a human, and Dad, a demon, were forced to live apart due to factors beyond their control. Then I met Lukas and my resolve crumbled like over dried mud in the summer sun. It was fine, though. It all worked out. For my parents, too. They were finally getting their shot at happy, and I was over my boyfriend fear.
Would I have liked a little more kissy time? One look at Lukas and anyone would know the answer to that. With dark hair and liquid chocolate eyes, he was tall with strong arms and a killer smile. Equal parts chivalry and danger. It was no wonder I turned to goo whenever he came near. Unfortunately, he came from a period in time where, in polite society, men’s hands never roamed past the wrist and naked shoulders were equal to soft-core porn. That’s not to say he didn’t cave once in a while. I was a bad influence on his resolve, he told me.
I kind of loved that.
Kendra took the paper from me, opened it, and frowned again. If she wasn’t careful, her face would freeze like that. Really. I’d seen it happen. Of course, there’d been a gypsy curse involved, but still…
“You’re impossible,” she mouthed.
I hadn’t noticed him come over, but when I looked up, Mr. Fritz was standing over us. He looked from Kendra to me, gaze boring into mine. “And I must know, Jessie Darker.” Huh. It was true what they said. His left eyebrow was just a little bushier than the right. “What is so enthralling that it surpasses the knowledge I’m trying to impart?” He held out his hands, giving his fingers a slight wiggle. Craps. He wanted the note.
Kendra glanced at me and biting down on her bottom lip, handed the slip of paper to Fritz. A weird smell filled the air. I held my breath as he unfolded it and the rest of the class waited, knowing he would read it out loud. Just last week he’d read a note Amy David passed to her bff, explaining in great detail what she and Tommy Moore did in his basement the previous evening. But Fritz didn’t say a word. He grunted and tossed the paper back onto Kendra’s desk before continuing on with the lesson.