A Darker Past (The Darker Agency #2)(9)
“We can—” Mom froze. “Jessie?”
Forget not feeling well. In that instant my entire world was spinning. My arms shot out, grabbing for the nearest stationary object. Mom’s lips were still moving, but I couldn’t make out the words anymore. Her hands came to my shoulders. I didn’t feel the weight of them—in fact, I didn’t feel anything except an echoing ring inside my head that kept getting louder.
“Need to get out of—”
Lukas understood right away what I was trying to say. He slipped his arm under mine and half dragged me to the far corner of the room, behind the thick black drapes.
“Hell in a hailstorm,” I mumbled just before the ground beneath my feet disappeared.
My stomach turned over, and a rush of icy wind cut through me as though I was wearing a bikini in a blizzard. The room swam for a moment, Lukas’s face blurred and became watery, and when my vision cleared, I was sitting in a chaise lounge across from a familiar set of aqua-colored eyes.
“Nice of you to drop by, Peaches.” Valefar leaned against his desk. He wore the same thing he always did. Black from head to toe, worn shit-kickers, and the kind of grin that made you wonder what he’d just been up to. In his case, he’d probably been drowning puppies or dropping water balloons full of ink on little old ladies. “Long time, no see.”
I stumbled to my feet, anxious to get away from the chaise. Everything in this office, from the furniture, right down to the clothes on Valefar’s back, were an illusion. Once in a while I’d get a glimpse of what really lay beneath the glamour—and it wasn’t pretty. The chaise was a foul, bloody thing with veins and what could only be described as twitching muscle. I had nightmares about it. I’d sit down and the damn thing would try to swallow me whole. Sometimes it would even laugh. A low, rumbling sound that jarred me from a deep sleep drenched in a cold sweat.
Rubbing my head, I said, “I really wish you’d give me some kind of warning before doing that.”
“I have a solution to that,” he said with a deceptively boyish grin. If he’d been human, that smile would have done a lot of girls in. But, that made sense, I suppose. If you could make yourself look like anyone, why be ugly? “My offer still stands.”
The offer in question was my own personal room in hell. Literally. Since I was one of his minions now, I should maintain a room at HQ—his words, not mine. There was something about the word minion. Creepy and cartoony all at the same time. I either thought about stooped, scaly things with razor-tipped teeth and warm, foul breath, or those funny little yellow dudes from that movie…
“Pass,” I said, folding my arms. “Was there something you needed?”
He pushed off the desk and began circling me. Like a vulture, I thought. Just waiting for the opportunity to swoop in and take a nice big bite. “You know, Cookie Dough, you’re the only one who has ever gotten away with talking to me like that. Even your father didn’t go there with me.” He stopped, bringing his face inches from mine. All the humor was gone, replaced by a look that would have scared even the most badass Monster Masher. I swallowed hard, holding my breath, and to my credit, didn’t back away. “Normally, I think it’s amusing. Fair warning, though. I’ve had a trying day.”
Message received. I clamped my mouth closed tight and bit down on the inside of my cheek. Valefar straightened and took a step back, expression thawing just a little. “There are rules in the Shadow Realm. Rules that, if broken, are punishable by things far worse than death.” He clapped his hands once, and a small, brown, leather-clad book appeared. Holding it out to me, he said, “You will need to learn these rules. Obey them. You get one free pass, and you’ve used it.”
I didn’t reach for the book. Other than the fact that I really didn’t want to know anything more about this world than I already did, a moment of clarity—what I called the flashes of reality I got when down here—showed the book was really covered in gore. Throbbing muscle and bits of blood-soaked skin. “You’re saying I screwed up? I broke a rule?”
He narrowed his eyes, and I noticed he’d added a piercing to his look since the last time I’d seen him. Through the right brow. It was a small silver thing that looked a bit like a dog. “You broke several.”
I had to tread carefully. If I’d broken a rule, it was because his instructions had been a joke, but I couldn’t really say that. Deep breath. “What rule did I break?”
“You brought a live human to the Shadow Realm.”
I blinked. Was he serious? Well, at least that explained the crazy-eyes I’d gotten when I marched Swain into the building. But how the heck else was I supposed to get him here? In a block of ice à la Walt Disney? “
If that wasn’t what I was supposed to do, you should have told me beforehand. All you said was bring him back!” My voice had exceeded the safe Valefar tone I’d adopted, but I didn’t care. It was hard for me to accept that my foreseeable future was going to be dictated by someone else’s whims, but to be expected to know something without being told? Um, no. My partial demon genetics hadn’t come with handy dandy ESP.
Another snap of his fingers, and the book was out of his hands and in the pocket of my jacket. Great. I’d have to steam clean the thing twice before I could wear it again. “We’re finished here.”