Darker Days

Chapter Twenty-six

“Twice in one week?” Father Sanders greeted us at the door, then froze. I walked in, followed by Mom—and Ava, who was still cuffed, mouth covered in duct tape. Mom had wanted to leave her in the car, but I’d argued that not only would we be toast if someone saw her, but the Sins were slippery bastards. There was no point chancing her escape.

“Hello, Father.” Mom stepped up and took his hand. “It’s been too long.”

His eyes went wide, and he took a step back. “What—what is going on? What are you doing to that poor child, Klaire?”

“We’re here about the robbery last week,” she said, ignoring the question.

Father Sanders backed himself to the wall, eyes glued to Ava. I felt really bad because he looked ready to pass out. “I told Jessie the other day. Nothing was taken.”

“On the contrary, Father, something was taken. A box.”

“A box? What kind of box?”

“You’ve known me since I was a child, Father. Let’s cut the crap. You know damn well this is no child, and you know exactly why I’m asking about the box.”

My mouth fell open. “Ma!”

“You knew my father,” she continued, ignoring me. “I know you’ve heard the rumors about my family.”

Father Sanders watched us and said nothing.

Then I understood what she was getting at. “Are you saying he knows about the box?”

Mom was quiet. It was Father Sanders who answered. “It’s been in this church since the early nineteen-hundreds.”

“Simon Darker arranged to have it stashed here,” I said, finally understanding.

Father Sanders nodded. “Indeed.”

“Then you must’ve known why Lukas and I were here the other day. Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Against the rules.” He walked around us, making his way to the back of the church.

“Against the rules?” Mom asked, following him. “What rules?”

“Simon’s rules, of course.”

“I would think those rules don’t apply to future generations of Darkers.”

He turned to glare at us. “Those rules apply especially to future generations of Darkers.”

I threw up my hands and leaned back against the cool stone wall. “I’m confused.”

“Simon didn’t want this life for his family.”

I snorted. “And Lukas thought he was the one who set the Darkers on their career path through Simon.”

Father shook his head. “It was Simon’s death that sealed the Darker family fate. After putting the Seven Deadly Sins back into their box and securing its resting place, Simon went in search of the witch. He managed to trap her, but not before she wounded him fatally. While searching for answers to Simon’s death, his brother Charles took over what eventually became the Darker Agency. He spent his life tracking down demons and such, following leads to his brother’s death. When Charles finally passed on, his son took over. Then, after that, his son and so on.”

I could tell Mom was fascinated—she always had a thing about genealogy, and considering ours was so whacko, I had to admit it was kind of interesting—but we were here for a reason. “If we have any hope of saving the people infected by the Sins, we’ll need the box.”

The priest looked confused. “You already know it was stolen.”

“If our information is correct, the box has returned to its hiding place.”

He didn’t look like he believed her.

“Please,” I pushed. “Could we at least take a look?”

Mom placed a hand on his shoulder. “The Sins have located a witch powerful enough to free them from the box. Permanently. If we don’t find it before they do, there’s a chance she’ll be able to set them free. This is our only lead.” She nodded to Ava who was glaring at the priest. “I’ve been hunting the Sins down, but if I don’t return them to the box before their time is up, six innocent people will die.”

Sighing, he went to the middle of the room and bent down beside the podium. After a moment of searching, there was a metal click, and a loud rumbling. A second later, a rush of cold air filled the room.

Mom and I turned to the back of the church. Behind the altar, a narrow doorway had opened in the old stone.

Mom narrowed her eyes. “I thought you said you checked everywhere?”

I wanted to crawl under a rock. Under a piece of furniture? That was a rookie mistake. I thought about blaming it on Lukas. Saying he’d checked the front room while I’d checked the back, but that was low. Even for me.

We followed Father down a set of dark, narrow stairs to a cavernous stone chamber. Candles mounted along the walls burned to light our way, and I wondered how often someone came down here. They looked brand new.

“Holy Father—” Father Sanders stopped when he got to the middle of the room and fell to his knees, making the sign of the cross. At the other end, sitting on a slab of quartz, was a simple wooden box.

“That’s it?” I’d expected something garish. Inlaid with gems and bright shiny trimmings. This thing looked like it’d been nailed together by a fourth grader, then thrown around a football field for a few months.

Mom stepped forward and reached for the box, but Father Sanders stopped her. “Wait.” He moved to the right of the quartz slab, reaching up into a small overhang. When he pulled back there was a small pouch covered in dust wrapped around his fingers. “Take these.”

Mom held out her hand. “What is it?” She pulled the small string and dumped the contents into her palm. Two jagged bluish-gray crystals tumbled out.

“They’re chalcedony stones. Keep them on you at all times. They will prevent you from becoming infected should the Sins target you.”

Mom closed her fingers around the stones and nodded once. “Thank you, Father.”

By the time we left the church, we had the box, another Sin, and were one step closer to putting the Sins—and Lukas—back.

…

“So how does it work?” We had the box, and we had a couple of Sins downstairs. I was eager to get cracking.

I leaned against Mom’s desk. We’d come home from the church to find Lukas leafing through one of the office magazines. He told us Dad left an hour earlier after getting a report from his boss that there was a disturbance at the mall on the edge of town.

“Only one way to find out.” Mom nodded to the basement stairs. “Shall we?”

I clapped my hands and shimmied in my seat. I was sure she’d make me stay upstairs. “Oh! I get to come, too?”

She rolled her eyes. “If you promise to behave.”

Lukas snorted and grabbed the door, holding it open. “Unlikely.”

Mom snickered and guided Ava toward the stairs. She paused for a moment, looking from Lukas to me. “I’ll give you two a few moments. Meet me downstairs.” She disappeared around the corner.

I took Lukas’ hand and led him around to Mom’s office. She had a separate space from the main room, but she never used it. She said it reminded her too much of her father. It made sense. Everything inside had been that way for as long as I could remember. All the pictures on the walls and the books on the shelves. She’d cleaned off the desk top, but I’d peeked in the drawers once. All of Grandpa’s stuff was still there.

I closed the door behind me. “So, I got something for you.”

Lukas looked genuinely surprised. “Oh?”

When we’d gotten back to the car after chasing Ava, the stuff I’d bought for Lukas was still there. I held it out to him. “Yeah. Supplies. Paper, pencils,…some paint. No big deal.”

His lips split with a smile that lit up the entire office as he took the bag and peered inside. “Really?”

“Thought you might like to mess around with them. You said painting gave you peace and stuff…”

He wasn’t saying anything and I started to feel stupid. He just kept looking from the bag to me. Me to the bag. Over and over again. Of course, a notebook and some stupid pencils weren’t going to make him feel better. He was hours away from being stuffed back into eternal torment.

I shrugged, trying to play it off. “It’s stupid, I know. I just thought—”

He took my hand and pressed it to his lips, then held it tight against his cheek. “It’s amazing.”

My heart kicked into high gear. “Really?”

He nodded, leaning close. “No one has ever given me anything so thoughtful.”

His smile, the way he smelled, the spark in his eyes…they gave me courage. Forgetting for an instant that I didn’t know how to flirt—much less be sexy—I closed the distance and kissed him briefly. “Is it better than this?” I kissed him again, this time winding my fingers through his hair.

I heard the bag thud softly as it hit the floor. A second later, both his arms encircled my waist, dragging me close. He pulled away for a moment, eyes on mine. “I doubt there’s anything in heaven and earth that could be better than this.”

And that was it. The conversation was over. His lips returned to mine with a vengeance, fingers digging into the skin above the waist of my jeans, trying to pull us closer together. Something tickled my brain. A thought that whispered this wasn’t the time or place for this, but I didn’t care. We didn’t have a time or place for this. Now was all there was.

All there would ever be.

Confidence bloomed in the pit of my stomach and I pushed forward, backing him up against the wall. A small chuckle escaped his lips as the kisses dipped lower. First he was tickling my bottom lip with his tongue, then his lips, warm and soft, were trailing eager, hungry kisses down the side of my jaw.

I gasped, my fingers clenching as he hit the hollow of my neck. Head tilting back, I closed my eyes and reveled in the sharp tingling sensation that spread through my entire body. Hell in a hailstorm. Why the hell had I avoided kissing if this is what it felt like?

A few moments later, he pulled away, breath ragged and face flushed. “I’m—I’m sorry. That was…”

I grabbed the side of his face and tilted it toward mine. “Totally awesome? Hot as hell? Why, yes. It was.”

He grinned. “I don’t wish to disrespect you in any way, Jessie. You are…”

“Amazing?” I said with a nervous giggle. His gaze warmed my skin and made the butterflies explode from my stomach.

“I could lose myself completely in you… Fall from grace and never once look back,” he whispered. Mouth covering mine, he kissed me again—but it didn’t last long. “You are the most amazing person I have ever come across—and that makes you dangerous.”

Something in his eyes made the butterflies still. “Dangerous?” Although, I knew exactly what he meant. I felt the same way about him. In a matter of days. Lukas Scott, with his dark hair and liquid chocolate eyes, had made me forget about every one of my rules.

He nodded, letting go of me. With a wide step back, he said, “I want this—you. So much so, that my heart wants nothing more than to find a way to stay here. Any way to stay here. Even if it means helping Meredith free the other Sins.”

A lump formed in my throat. “Lukas…”

He shook his head. “I wouldn’t do it. I want to—but I wouldn’t.”

We stayed like that for a few minutes. Staring at each other as our breathing evened out. I wanted him to come closer, to kiss me again, but I knew he wouldn’t. I could see it in his eyes.

“We should get downstairs,” I said, pulling the office door open. I couldn’t stand it anymore.

He nodded and followed me around the corner and down the basement steps.

When we reached the bottom, Mom gave me a funny look, and for a second, the normal teenager in me was sure she knew exactly what we’d been doing. But after a moment, she simply nodded to Ava, and said, “We don’t know what to expect, so I want you to hang back.”

“You sure you don’t want me to take a bus out of town?” I stepped off the landing and froze. The basement I remembered was gone. “Whoa. I know I don’t come down here often, but when did we have the dungeon installed?”

Tony and another man—the one Meredith had introduced as Gluttony—were cuffed to a long chain that looked like it reached about a foot short of the door. Each had a cot with a brand new blanket and fluffy pillow. Not quite the Ritz, but better than jail, I was betting.

Ava was in the corner, still bound by the cuffs, but the duct tape had been removed. She scowled silently between Mom and Tony.

“I had your father install them. What was I supposed to do? Leave them huddled on the floor bound by duct tape?”

The one I didn’t know surged forward. He hit the end of his chains and stumbled back, snarling. Droplets of spit flew from his mouth, and I had to force myself not to gag at his stench. “Let me go!”

Beside him, Tony yawned. “Don’t mind him. He gets cranky when there’s not excess ta be had.” A moment later, he noticed Lukas standing off to the side and narrowed his eyes. “I’ve still got a headache from that knock ya gave me, kid. Not cool.”

“Apologies,” Lukas said with sincerity. “I acted rashly, but I was afraid you’d leave me no choice.”

“No real harm. If I hadn’t been so busy runnin’ my mouth, I’da clocked ya first.”

Mom stepped in front of me and turned to Gluttony. “Tell me where the others are.”

The Sin’s eyes widened and he backed away. “Go to hell,” he spat. “You’re going to put me back in there no matter what I tell you.”

She held the box out and flipped the latch. Gluttony’s eyes rolled back as he let out a deafening roar. With a snap, Mom slammed the lid down. “Yes, but I can make it quick, or drag it out. Looks painful.”

Gluttony’s expression changed. He started laughing. Eyes on Lukas, he said, “Whatever you do to me, it won’t compare to what we will do to him for betraying us. Again.”

Lukas’ face remained impassive, but I could see it in his eyes. Fear. Whatever the Sins had done last time, he helped put them back, and that had left its mark. It turned my stomach, knowing that soon they’d get the chance to do it all again.

I didn’t think. Snatching the box from Mom, I pointed it at Gluttony and flipped the lid.

“No!” he screamed. “Don—”

He doubled over, a low growl escaping his lips. In a brilliant flash of bright orange light, he threw himself backward against the wall, mouth opening in a scream that never came. His body convulsed, limbs twitching as a strangled gurgle rose in his throat. Stubby fingers wrapped into the fabric of his blue T-shirt, kneading the skin beneath in violent spasms. It almost looked like he was trying to dig the light from his gut. Was this what Lukas had to look forward to? Would I have to watch as he twitched and squirmed in agony, then disappeared in front of me?

The light collected at his middle, then moved up slowly, settling at the base of his throat. Pulsing several times like it had with Envy, it burst from his mouth, accompanied by an almost deafening bang, right before it crashed into the box.

The large man Gluttony had been wearing like a bad toupee collapsed.

Mom ripped the box from my hands. “What the hell were you thinking?”

“I—” I looked from her to Lukas. What wouldn’t sound stupid? The truth? That listening to Gluttony fling threats about what they were going to do to Lukas once he was beyond our reach was driving me cow-shit-crazy? “He wasn’t going to tell us crap.”

“Little lady’s right,” Tony said. “Glutt isn’t a snitch.”

Mom sighed. “If I open it again, will he get out?”

I rolled my eyes. “As if he’s gonna tell you the truth!”

Tony sighed. “Believe what ya want, but no. He can’t escape unless you let him out. Think of it like a one-way traffic jam. When there’s incomin’ traffic, outgoin’ can’t get past. As long as you don’t pop that puppy for any reason other than to stick one of us back in, you’re safe.”

Mom looked from him to Ava. “I don’t suppose either of you would like to tell us where the others are?”

The child sat in the corner, silently sticking her tongue out, but Tony answered, “My lot in life is live and let live. I’ve got nuthin’ against you guys, but I won’t betray my own.”

“Fair enough.” Mom nodded and raised the box. “I apologize in advance—especially if this is painful.”

Again, Tony shrugged. “It’s uncomfortable, but it doesn’t last long. Besides, it’ll give me some time to myself. We all try to keep our distance from each other, but it gets a little crowded in there.” He turned to Lukas. “Good luck, kid. I really don’t have anything against ya. Far as I’m concerned, ya did what ya hadda do.”

And with that, Mom opened the box again. Tony’s reaction was a little different. Maybe because he didn’t fight like Gluttony. Arms spread wide, he leaned his head back and smiled. The light that collected and glowed beneath his clothing was blue. It pulsed several times before rocketing the length of his torso and out his open mouth.

Tony—the real one—fell to his knees, gasping for air. Snapping the box closed and setting it down on the steps, Mom rushed forward to help him, but he waved her off. “I’m okay,” he choked out after a few tries. He climbed to his feet and smiled. Extending his hand, he said, “Tony Vitola—the real deal. Attorney. Nice ta meet ya.”

“What do you remember?” Mom helped him to the cot, then motioned for Lukas to help her pick the other man off the floor. They managed to get him on the other cot, but I wondered how long he’d stay that way. The guy was huge. That little cot wasn’t going to hold him long.

Tony pulled off his suit jacket and said, “Everythin’. From the moment it took me up until it left. I could feel it. Squirmin’ inside. I felt it leave—” He shuddered and sank back onto the cot. With a not so discreet sniff of his shirt, he cringed. “I need a showah.”

“I don’t suppose you could share anything useful?” Mom asked. She didn’t look hopeful, though. “Something that might help us find the others?”

Tony frowned. “Sorry. The one that was in me—Sloth—kept his distance from the others. He wasn’t lyin’ when he said he wouldn’t nark on em, but he didn’t know anyways.”

Lukas came up behind me. “What was it like?”

Tony rubbed a hand across his face and sighed. “I was in town on business. Needin’ a coffee fix, I head down to this town’s sorry excuse of a Starbucks. I make it to the front door and BAM.” He clapped his hands together and I jumped. “Suddenly, I was ridin’ shotgun in my own skin suit. Is that how ya feel?”

Lukas shook his head. “It’s much different for me. How much damage did he do?”

“Not a lot. He was a little like you, I guess. Not really interested in the carnage and chaos the others wanted. Mostly went around turnin’ people into slackers. Didn’t really hurt no one—then again, who knows? Not like he had the chance thanks to you.”

“Well, that’s a relief at least.” Mom sagged against the wall.

“Am I—can I go home? My wife Marie and the kid’ve probably got me dead in a ditch somewhere.”

“Of course,” Mom said. Pushing off the wall, she started for the stairs and motioned for him to follow. “This way.”

“Wait a sec,” I called. “Can I ask what you did? To become viable? I mean, there must’ve been a reason you were infected.”

An odd look crossed his face. He looked away for a moment, and just when I was sure he’d ascend the stairs and say nothing, he spoke. “I was fifteen. My parents went out most Fridays. Usually, they hired this chick Melissa to watch my younger brother Cody, but that night, she wasn’t available. I didn’t wanna do it—I had better things to do.”

Tony tilted his head up, lost in the memory. “I heard him callin’ for me—I heard the splashin’—but I ignored him. Thought he was just tryin’ to bug me. I didn’t feel like gettin’ off the couch to check.” He stared at me. “My parents came home just after midnight and found him in the pool. He drowned because I was too lazy to bother.”

From the corner of my eye, I saw Lukas grow pale. He opened his mouth, then closed it again, silent. I knew how he felt. What could you say to a confession like that?

But Mom knew what to say. She always did. Stepping close, she put a hand on his shoulder and gave a gentle nod. “I’m sorry.”

Tony gave her a thin smile. “It was my fault, and I’ve learned to live with it. Actions—or lack thereof—have their consequences.”

He climbed a few steps and stopped.

“I could feel it, ya know. That box is startin’ to call ’em back.”

“There’s not much time left,” Mom confirmed.

Tony turned to Lukas. “You’re not like me. You’re goin’ back in, aren’t ya?”

Face impassive, Lukas squared his shoulders and nodded.

Tony frowned and gave him a sad smile. Turning to me, he said, “Enjoy what time ya got left. That box? It’s startin’ to hum like the subway durin’ rush hour.”