A Darker Past (The Darker Agency #2)(3)
“And by collect, I’m betting you don’t mean newspaper money.” I took the paper from him. “Fred Swain,” I read aloud. Then I saw the address beneath his name. Sacramento. As in, California. “Are you nuts? I can’t go from New York to California. Definitely not on a school night.”
He hopped off the desk and whirled on me, lips twisted in fury. His brows furrowed, and he clenched his jaw to the point I was sure he’d break a tooth. Valefar might move like a human. He might crack jokes and give me ridiculous food-based nicknames. But he was a demon. A dangerous, ill-tempered, sneaky-with-his-own-agenda demon. He got off on intimidation as much as he did on making deals.
Every muscle in my body screamed for me to slip from the chair and scurry to the back of the room where I could hide in the closet, but that’s exactly what he wanted. “Let me give you a friendly little reminder, Cookie. If I tell you to burrow deep and dig for China wearing a top hat and Santa Claus costume, that’s what you do. We crystal?”
I nodded, mouth as dry as the desert.
Satisfied that I’d been properly cowed, Valefar flicked his hand to the left and flashed an impish grin. His moods were like the freaking wind. Brutal and devastating as a natural disaster one second, then calm and peaceful the next. It was enough to give a girl whiplash. “Besides, what’s the big deal? You’re a Shadow demon. Public transportation is for chumps.”
Huh. I’d never really given much thought to it, but he had a point. Most human-demon hybrid kids—okay, all of them until I came along as far as we knew—didn’t inherit any demonic abilities. Sure, we were a little tougher to take down than your average human, but that was the extent of our flash. Except in my case, Dad’s ability to shadow—travel from one place to another instantly by simply blending into the darkness—had somehow gotten passed down to me.
Mom had been doing a lot of research, trying to find an answer, but had come up with zilch. We were no closer to understanding why I’d inherited the demon gene than we were three months ago. I still didn’t know whether it was a blessing or a curse.
One of the most important things I’d learned, though, is when things that shouldn’t happen do happen, the demon shit eventually hits the fan.
The few times I’d shadowed, aside from traveling to the Shadow Realm and back, had been mostly an accident. I hadn’t made a habit of using the ability because, the pathetic truth was, the whole thing scared me. It felt strange, yeah, but also good. Right. Right in a way that was kind of crazy and unhinged. I’d been meaning to have a sit-down with Dad about it—if there was anyone who could give me the rundown, it’d be him—but I hadn’t wanted to take up any of his free time. He and Mom spent so many years apart because of his demonic status. Now that they’d finally gotten each other, I didn’t want to get in the way.
“When do I have to go?”
“I’d prefer you got it taken care of now.” He winked. “And by prefer, I mean insist.”
Chapter Two
Before he left the classroom, Valefar gave me Fred’s crystal. When you made a deal with a demon, they took a strand of your hair and crystallized it. While it made an awesome piece of New Age jewelry, that stupid little rock had an epic downside. It was like a demonic LoJack system. With it, the demon, or in this case, the demon’s butt monkey—AKA, me—could find you anywhere. My instructions were to transport Swain to the Shadow Realm to settle up his account.
As soon as the bell rang, I slipped into the girl’s restroom at the far end of the Math wing and shadowed into Fred Swain’s apartment, touching down in a closet. If there was a trick to landing, I was going to have to figure it out. This time it was a closet. Next time, it could be worse. What if Val sent me to collect on some poor shmuck that lived on a boat? Shadowing into the middle of the ocean didn’t sound like my idea of a good time—especially since my swimming expertise capped out at the doggie paddle. Becoming shark chow would put a cramp in my newly found love life.
I’d never been to California before. This wasn’t how I pictured my first trip out West, either. Kendra and I had talked about a road trip for senior year spring break, but both her mom and mine shot that down before we could even pitch the entire plan. Go figure. I was allowed to face down evil in all its chomptastic forms, but forbidden to leave home for a week of normal partying without parental supervision. Where the hell was the balance in that? I made a mental note to bring it up next time Mom got on one of her normal life kicks.
I stepped from the closet, trying not to disturb anything. Val had given me instructions on how to collect Fred’s soul. You’d think a process like that would be complicated, but the way the demon described it, the whole thing was scary simple. All I had to do was touch him and shadow us to the Shadow Realm. Wham, bam, enjoy eternity in Hell, ma’am.
I looked around and cringed. I had no idea what Swain made the deal for, but it sure as hell wasn’t money. The place was a dump. The closet door wobbled on its hinges and didn’t open all the way because a huge part of the floor was peeling up. The walls, probably once white, were a kind of nicotine yellow, and matched the oddly shaped grease stains on the wall above the stove. Even the fridge was beaten up. The handle was missing, and the door was dented like someone had tossed a bowling ball at the center. As for the grout between the floor tiles? I wasn’t even going to speculate what was growing in there. A dark, semi-fuzzy substance snaked between the ceramic, making me wonder when the last time—if ever—the floor had been washed.