A Darker Past (The Darker Agency #2)(17)

Mom’s mouth fell open. “Quartz didn’t work?”

“Didn’t even tickle him. All I know about him is that he was flinging lightning like bananas from a monkey. Had to be an Elemental.”

“I can give you a sketch,” Lukas said. “Maybe that will help identify him. He seemed to know of Valefar and was very interested in Jessie’s ability to shadow.”

Dad slammed a hand down on the desk. Several of the boxes wobbled, one toppling over the side, and I jumped about ten feet in to the air. “You shadowed in front of him?”

“Um, I didn’t realize we were keeping it on the demonic down low…”

He whirled on Mom. “We need to find out who came out of that mirror.”

She threaded her fingers through his and nodded. “Anything not killable with quartz is going to be a problem, though that doesn’t sound like an Elemental demon. They’re quartzable on their best days.” She fixed her attention on Lukas. “We’re going to check out the basement at Town Hall. You’re in charge.”

My mouth fell open. “Seriously? Put the embodiment of rage in charge? I’m deeply wounded.”

“The ex-embodiment,” Lukas corrected with a shift of his shoulders. He was trying not to grin, but I saw the smirk anyway. “I’ve proven myself to be the more responsible one.”

Was he kidding? He’d nearly leveled half the town a few months ago. Granted, he’d been toting Wrath around, but still. “Give me one example.”

He folded his arms. “That harpy a few weeks ago.”

“No way,” I said, jabbing a finger at him, then turned to Mom. “He’s the one who instigated the whole thing.”

Lukas ignored me and kept going. “Last month, there was the nest of hellhounds behind the park.”

“Oh no. I’m not taking the blame for that one. You totally looked at them crooked. Then set them off by sneezing. We would have been fine if you’d been quiet.”

He didn’t waiver. “And then, last week, there was the gulan.”

“Oh. Well, that one I take a little credit for.”

Mom balked. “A little credit? Didn’t you throw a soda can at it?”

I had, but it’d only been half full. Not like I chucked a rock or fired a bottle rocket at its head. “It was going to charge.”

“It was eating!” Lukas exclaimed.

He seemed to be forgetting a crucial detail. “It was eating a person.”

Mom grabbed her coat and poked me in the arm. “Am I going to have to separate you two?”

I rolled my eyes and threw an arm around Lukas’s shoulders despite the fact that both my parents were standing right there. He didn’t like touching me with parental supervision. Especially Dad. “Aww, that’s my mom. The Drama Diva.”

“Anyway,” Mom said. She was fighting a grin. “There’s some research that needs to be done. All the information is in the file on your desk.”

“Consider it done,” Lukas said.

“Suck up,” I whispered as they walked out the door.

…

Since my parents left about an hour earlier, we’d been answering phones and doing drone work. Verify this. Check out that. One hundred percent mindless and boring. So boring, I was thinking about knocking over one of the Darker trinkets from Town Hall in hopes that something exciting would pop out.

Finally, we’d finished most of what Mom wanted us to handle. Well, Lukas had. I’d supervised while surfing the Internet. Found a really cute pair of boots, too. Sadly, I lacked the funds to follow through. Mom and I were in better shape than we were a few months ago financially, but we weren’t out of the woods. Dad offered to chip in, but Mom refused, too independent for her own good.

I shook my head at Lukas and made my way into the small kitchenette area at the back of the office waiting room. The song blasting from the speakers on my laptop changed, and Lukas gave a satisfied grunt.

“Thank God,” he said with a sigh. “That was horrific.”

I rolled my eyes. “You haven’t been around long enough to form that kind of opinion.”

His brown eyes grew round as he leaned against the fridge. “I’m over one hundred years old. How can you say I haven’t been around long enough to know good music?”

“Spending time locked in a stuffy old box doesn’t count.” I nudged his arm. “Unless you neglected to tell me about a picture window or a radio with really good reception?”

“Smart ass,” he said. Tried to do it with a straight face, too. He failed. Lukas was funny. Some things he’d adapted to so well. Modern food and television—he loved television—and all kinds of transportation. He’d helped Dad restore the Mustang and was already saving up to buy his own car—not that he could drive yet. Kendra let him practice with her car once. After he took out a tire on the curb in the old Shop Rite plaza, that’d been the end of that.

Other things weren’t such a smooth transition. He still didn’t like today’s language. Slang literally made him cringe. And although he thoroughly appreciated the view several of my tighter shirts offered, he was, for the most part, scandalized by today’s clothing. He didn’t expect women to wear bonnets and floor-length tweed skirts anymore, but no amount of coercion brought him around to the yay side of the miniskirt fence. And the sagging pants thing? I couldn’t count the times he’d gone up to strangers on the street, and in all seriousness, politely told them their pants were falling down.