A Darker Past (The Darker Agency #2)(24)

“Lukas understands, and while I can’t say he’s thrilled, he’s willing to deal with it. The alternative was death. It’s simple, really. You’ll need to be patient while he adjusts to the changes.” He stood and took several steps away from the table and paused in the doorway. With a look that screamed business, he added,” And I won’t subject you to the demonic sex talk, but remember what I said about Lukas changing. He’s going to feel things much stronger than he used to. All emotions will be amplified… All of them. I better not find them amplified on you.”





Chapter Nine


Mom was standing in front of the coffee machine when I came downstairs the next morning. She had the pot in hand with her face over the opening, just breathing it in.

“Rough night?” I asked, sniffing the air. Blah. Hazelnut. The woman was trying to kill me.

She snapped to attention, embarrassed, and set the pot down. “Just tired. I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night.”

I held up my hands and backed slowly toward the door. “Whoa. Stop right there. I do not want to know.”

She rolled her eyes. “I was in my room, looking at case files all night, Jessie. Get your mind out of the gutter.” Huh. See that? We thought alike. Mom poured a cup of coffee, then sat down at the table. “Hurry up and get dressed. I got a call from Cassidy about ten minutes ago. We need to go to the Belfair house.”

That was surprising. “Did she suddenly remember something about the mirror?”

Mom shook her head and downed the entire cup in a single gulp. When she set it down, there was a grim look in her eyes. “Kendra found a member of the coven dead on their couch this morning. Murdered.”

My stomach roiled. Kendra wouldn’t even step on a spider because the very idea of death scared her so badly. “What?”

Mom nodded. “Cassidy thinks whoever killed the witch purposefully placed her there as a warning.” She leaned back and sighed. “We don’t need this right now.”

Damn right we didn’t. I felt sick. The darkest thing about Kendra was the shade of her lip gloss. For her to have been the one to find the body… “Did Cassidy say how she was?”

“How who was?” Lukas asked, pushing through the office door. He looked exhausted, and I remembered what Dad said about demons not needing sleep. But, he wasn’t a full-on demon yet, was he?

“Mom will fill you in,” I said, leaning in to kiss him on the cheek. He turned pale and stumbled away—exactly like I knew he would. I didn’t want to give the poor guy a heart attack, but sometimes I couldn’t resist the funny. I went to kiss him again, but he sidestepped me, watching Mom from the corner of his eye. “Hang tight for five and lemme finish getting ready.”

…

The drive from the office to Kendra’s house seemed to take twice as long as normal. Mom hit every light, and we had to stop four times for people crossing the road. Seriously. Who the heck was out walking around at ten a.m. on a Saturday? By the time she pulled into the Belfair driveway, I was ready to scream.

I wasn’t even over the threshold when I demanded, “Where is she?”

Cassidy, normally stone-faced and brooding, shook her head and pointed toward the stairs. “Her bedroom.”

I left Mom and Lukas to deal with Cassidy, raced up the steps, taking them two at a time, and pushed through the door without even knocking. Kendra was curled up on the corner of her bed. Her knees were tucked tight, and her head was down. Every few seconds her shoulders would quake softly.

“Ken?”

She picked her head up, and when her eyes met mine, the corners of my own eyes began to sting. I wasn’t a crier, but put me in a room with someone who was—especially if I cared about them—and I was a damn waterfall.

“It was horrible, Jessie,” she whispered. Her breath hitched, and she hiccupped. “You can’t even imagine… Horrible.”

I rushed forward and threw my arms around her. “I’m so sorry.”

She pulled away and sniffled. Swiping her hand across her eyes, she shook her head and said, “I’m sorry. I’m being a total girl. It’s probably no big for you. I mean, you must see this kind of thing all the time.”

I leaned sideways so I could look her in the eye. “I’ve never seen a dead body, Ken. Not a human, anyway.”

Her eyes widened, and she swiped the back of her hand under her nose, then hiccupped again. “Really?”

“Really,” I confirmed. “We’ve taken down tons of baddies, but humans…humans are different. I can’t even imagine…”

“I got up this morning and saw someone on the couch,” she said, eyes fixing on some unseen object over my shoulder. “I thought it was my mom, and I panicked because I could feel it, ya know? That something was really wrong? Everything was too quiet. The air was just too still.”

I nodded, encouraging her to continue.

“I wanted to run. Even before I knew what I was looking at, I wanted to run. It took everything in me to walk into that room.” She sucked in a deep breath and shrugged. “Mom says we can feel it. Death. It blips our radar. Anyway, I did it. I walked up to the couch. She was lying on her back, and her eyes were open, staring up at the ceiling. Just…empty.”

I grabbed her hands and squeezed. “You don’t have to talk about this.”