A Darker Past (The Darker Agency #2)(31)

She sank back into her chair and sighed. “It couldn’t wait until morning?”

I followed her lead and sat down on the couch. “It couldn’t. You know me. I obsess. I really am sorry. I should have left a note.”

“You’re seventeen. You shouldn’t have gone at all.”

“In my defense, I’m not an average seventeen-year-old, Ma.”

She wanted to argue. The hard set of her jaw and serious glint in her eyes all but screamed it. But she sighed again, like she was tired. I felt bad for making her worry. I did it far too often, and pretty soon I’d be turning her platinum-blond hair gray.

She glanced over at the clock above the door. “Go get dressed. We need to head out to the Archway.”

“At this hour?”

Mom nodded. “Cassidy called. They found another body.”

…

The Archway was a sacred place to the coven. Equal to holy ground. Kendra once told me it was where the ashes of fallen coven witches were spread, turning the small section of earth into a place of great power. If the demon dropped a body there, it was a serious message to Cassidy. He didn’t care that her family hadn’t conspired with the Darkers in a long time. He was still pissed.

Cassidy stood at the edge of the clearing, in front of small stone altar. She was wrapped in a ski jacket and matching hat, and was tapping her feet in the snow. With an annoyed sigh, she said, “Good, you’re finally here.”

“Yep. The party can officially start,” I mumbled. The witch looked up, and I swore she rolled her eyes. Twice, even. “So what’s the deal?”

“You said you found another body?” Mom gestured to the ground. There was nothing there but mashed-in snow, like there’d been a lot of traffic. Or, maybe a struggle? But that was it. No body. No blood.

“It’s been taken care of,” Cassidy said. There was a momentary gleam of sadness before her expression reverted to its normal cold-as-ice.

Mom knelt down and picked up a handful of snow. After a quick inspection of the ground, she stood and faced Cassidy. “Could have been a struggle here.”

Hah! I’d known it.

Letting the handful of snow fall, she added, “Tell me exactly what happened.”

“Sandra, one of my coven members, came here to pray just before dawn. She found Alicia, another coven sister, already dead, spread on the snow before the altar. The word prison was burned into her skin.”

I jumped right in. This was serious. Two days wasn’t a long time, and we still didn’t know anything about the prison the demon wanted, much less where to find it. “Where’s the body?”

“As I said, I’ve dealt with it. I’m sure you can both appreciate that we have our own rituals and rules.”

Mom nodded and gave me a stern look. “Of course. We understand. And the cause of death?”

Cassidy’s face paled. “That demon did this.”

“I’m trying to be thorough,” Mom said. She was getting irritated. “The best way to stop this thing is to figure out what kind of demon it is. In order to do that, I need to know all possible information—like how it kills.”

Cassidy hesitated, but said nothing.

Mom folded her arms and flashed the witch her cut-the-bullshit glare. “Do you know what happened here? This thing obviously knows your family as well as it does mine, and if this keeps up, pretty soon you won’t have a coven left. Do you know anything about the demon or not?”

I’d been friends with Kendra forever, and it’d always been the same. Outsiders didn’t matter. Helping people in need? Nope. The only thing she cared about, the only thing that mattered, was her coven. Her power.

Her gaze rose to meet Mom’s with a spark of anger, white hot and menacing. “You,” she said, voice low and deadly. “This is your fault.”

For a minute, Mom was stunned silent. I was, too—and that didn’t happen often. Ever the trooper, though, Mom collected herself and pinned Cassidy with an equally frigid stare. “My fault?” she repeated, the very definition of calm. “I’m sure you won’t mind telling me why this is my fault.”

“Your family,” Cassidy corrected. The way she said it made the word family sound like a curse. “Your family and its disregard for the safety of others.”

“Disregard? We put our asses on the line to help people every—” I should have kept my mouth closed. Mom was handling this, but that was the line. Generations of Darkers put themselves at risk for the safety of others, sacrificing everything for the greater good. Hearing someone imply otherwise wasn’t going to fly.

“Jessie,” Mom snapped, then reverted back to her cucumber-cool demeanor. I wasn’t fooled, though. She was pissed. Fuming, even. The woman could keep her temper under the most insane circumstances. But question her family and all the good it had done to help people? That’s when things got messy. If I had to guess, there wasn’t much keeping her from reaching out and choking Cassidy Belfair. Horrible as it was, I would have paid good money to see that. I might have even given up chocolate for an entire month. “What does my family have to do with your dead witch?”

“I believe the demon’s name is…” She reached into her purse and pulled out a pen and jotted something onto her hand. When she lifted it, palm side up, there was a single word on her skin.