Jus Accardo - Darker Days

I’d been going to the same school as David Ogden since the first grade. He was the ruler of the nerd herd and pretty much defined the stereotype. Head of the math club, co-head of the chess club, and dressed in clothing that would make a Sunday school teacher cringe. He had a serious acne problem and glasses thicker than the paperback growing mold at the bottom of my book bag. A really sweet guy, but definitely not someone on the Penance Hot To Trot list.

In short, he was the kind of guy that got his jollies from HBO late night and the Victoria’s Secret catalog—not real time action.

Imagine his surprise when Hanna came over, hopped in his lap, and started sucking on his face like he was Ian Somerhalder.

Several seconds of shocked silence ticked by before the entire cafeteria erupted in hoots and hollers. Someone from the jock table—I couldn’t see who—tossed a handful of french fries at them. Someone else let loose a sharp wolf whistle and started chanting, “ Take it off, take it off !” I jumped from my seat to tear them apart, but Mr. Spoker got there first and dragged Hanna—kicking and screaming—from the room. I felt bad for David and his friends. They were probably going to have to walk around with their binders hanging low for hours after the show Hanna gave them.

I whirled and stalked back to the table where Garrett was still staring at Vida like she’d invented Cheese Wiz. With a roll of my eyes, I said, “Lust, I take it?”

Vida answered me with an over exaggerated yawn. “Not as smart as the last one, is she?”

Lukas gripped the edge of the table tighter and leaned forward. “Vida, where are the others?”

She blew him a kiss. “I know you’re not going to work with the little human here to put us back in that dreadful box. Not after what happened last time you betrayed us.”

Lukas didn’t answer, but Garrett did. He chuckled, tilting his head and grinning from ear to ear. “Little human. She’s so damn adorable.” Elbowing Lukas, he added, “Isn’t she adorable?”

Lukas rolled his eyes.

Vida laughed and pinched his cheek. Turning to me, she said, “I’m only going to give you this warning once, Darker girl. Back off, or else.”

“Like that’s the first time I’ve heard that before.” Well, it was actually. Today, at least.

Vida smiled. She rose and turned to Garrett who was still staring at her chest. “ This one will be fun.” She extended a scarlet-tipped finger and bopped him on the nose before turning and sashaying back into the crowd.

Kendra shook her head. “No one’s ass should shake like that. It’s unnatural.” When she turned back to me, there was a mischievous smile on her lips. Leaning across the table, she whispered, “ Little human ? Last time? Someone has some sharing to do…”

Craps. I glanced back at Garrett who was staring after Vida like a love-sick puppy. “Yeah…so about Lukas…”

I got away with telling Kendra that Lukas was one of Mom’s clients and needed twenty-four-seven protection because of something he’d gotten mixed up in. It wasn’t technically a lie…She’d let it go—for the moment—but I knew she wouldn’t let it rest forever. She and her mother, Cassidy, were a few of the only non-client humans—witches were technically human, therefore not considered Otherworlders—who knew about the things that growled and grumbled in the night.

And even though Kendra knew what the Darker Agency did, Mom forbade me to involve my friends in agency cases. I couldn’t blame her, really. I’d let Kendra help me hunt down a poltergeist a few years ago, and she’d broken her arm, inciting a ranting phone call and some serious threats from her mom. Cassidy Belfair was not the kind of woman you wanted to piss off.

By the time the last bell rang, even though we hadn’t seen Vida again, my skin was still crawling. The girl had presence. A creepy one. Lukas was on edge, too. He kept looking over his shoulder and standing very still, as if listening for something. Twice, I caught him sniffing the air—once he even sniffed Matt Hawker. That had been hard to explain.

In a badly timed attempt to multitask, I got caught passing a note to Sheri Reame in seventh period science and ended up with after-school detention. She’d slipped a paper into my locker earlier that morning offering to pay me two hundred bucks me to find out who her boyfriend was cheating with. Mom would freak on me if she found out, but it technically wasn’t a case . It was a simple exchange of information. I already knew who her boyfriend was playing the tonsil Olympics with—hell, half the school knew. So on the off-chance I was caught, I had a solid argument. At least I thought so.

Sometimes, Mom didn’t quite get my logic.

“This school is the perfect place for Vida to feed. She doesn’t need to work for it,” Lukas said, examining a red pen. He pulled off the cap and began shaking it—why, I had no idea.

I snatched it from him and stuffed it into my bag. “Nothing really happened today. Other than that thing with Vida at lunch. If she was feeding, wouldn’t there have been more…I dunno, porn star moments?”

He tilted his head. “Porn star moments?”

“Ya know, like sucking face and having gropefests?”

He scowled. “Why is it so hard for you to speak English?”

“That is English. Not my fault you can’t understand it.”

He took a deep breath and continued. “If I had to guess, they’re somewhere lying low and biding time. Attracting attention to themselves will only make their mission to find a witch and the one who opened the box harder.” Reaching across the desk, he picked up my cell phone and began pushing random buttons. “They know you’re going to try and recapture them in order to save the bodies they’ve taken. My best guess is they’re trying to figure out how to get rid of you.”

“Get rid of me?” I snapped, rescuing my cell. Mom had just replaced it last month after I’d dropped it in a pile of Hell Hound drool. That stuff ate through plastic quicker than you could say oopsie .

“They know you’re a Darker, and that equals trouble for them. They’ll need to get you out of their way if they hope to succeed.”

“How is that, anyway? I don’t look anything like my mom. Am I wearing a sign on my back? Kick me, I’m a Darker ?”

“I imagine one of them followed me to your mother’s office.”

“Maybe.” It was logical. Made perfect sense. And that’s probably why it irritated me. “So that thing about being born in Penance, was it true?”

“It was true.”

Aha! Now we were getting somewhere. “How old are you?”

“You ask a lot of questions,” he said, sighing. “It’s impolite to pry into people’s personal lives, you know.”

“This isn’t prying. It’s me trying to get the information I need to do my job.”

“My age has no bearing on the case. And I didn’t hire you—I hired Klaire.”

Ouch. That was a low blow. But I wasn’t deterred. Besides, pushing his buttons made him do this little scrunchie face. His lip curled up at the right hand corner, and his left eyebrow rose slightly. He probably meant to look annoyed, but it was totally hot. I didn’t date, but no one said I couldn’t enjoy the scenery once in a while. “What did Vida mean back in the caf—about the last time?”

“Who is Damien?” he countered without missing a beat.

I sighed. “You’re kind of annoying. Has anyone ever told you that?”

“No,” he replied, scowling. “But I get the impression people tell you that all the time.”

I bit down on the inside of my lip to keep from smiling. “Ouch. You’ve wounded me. Deeply.”