Darker Days

Chapter Thirty-one

Dad was right about the beautiful. I’d never seen—or imagined—anything quite like the Shadow Realm before. Dark sky with no moon or stars, and air as thick as the bathroom after Mom—the hot water hog—got done showering. Everything had a slight sheen to it. A small sparkle. We’re not talking vampire in the sun kind of glow, but an occasional twinkle.

On either side of us, tall buildings that seemed to hum with a life of their own lined the street. Bathed in an assortment of dark colors—blues, purples, and deep reds—they towered into the sky, some stretching so high that they disappeared from sight.

We’d landed on a sidewalk beside the narrow roadway. It seemed normal. Pale concrete, complete with sidewalk cracks and spots of dead, yellowing grass peeked through. The road was a little different. One lane of oddly shimmering blacktop that, every once in awhile, seemed to emit small puffs of white smoke.

We started walking, careful to stay on the path. The grass beyond looked innocent enough, but Dad’s words from childhood bedtime stories echoed in my head. Everything in the Shadow Realm can and will kill you if given the proper chance.

Every now and then, I’d hear something—almost like a whisper. About three blocks in, I realized the sounds seemed to be coming from the middle of the road. Stopping, I stooped low and extended a hand to examine the blacktop. Smokey was in my face in an instant, teeth bared and growling.

“Okay, okay. I get it.” I rocked back on my heels and withdrew my hand. Standing, I pulled a piece of paper from my pocket. An old receipt from Starbucks. I let go and the paper fluttered to the ground, landing on the blacktop. It hit the surface, and I was surprised when it sent ripples out in every direction.

“I think it’s liquid or something.” No sooner had I leaned back in for a closer look did the paper dissolve in a puff of smoke and flame, fizzling into extinction.

“Huh. I guess that’s where the hotter than hell stuff started.” I looked down at the corgi circling happily at my feet. He barked twice and licked my shoe, leaving a trail of yellow slime behind. “I guess I owe ya.”

Smokey waggled his butt in response and trotted ahead.

The trees overhead were a serious contradiction to the lava-like roadway. Like a winter wonderland, the branches and leaves were encased in what looked like ice. Stunning, they were the only thing here that wasn’t dark and creepy. They reminded me of the branches that used to overhang the sledding trail in Penance Park until they’d crashed through the power lines a few years ago during an ice storm and had to be hacked back into oblivion.

Lukas, equally amazed by the foliage, reached for a low hanging branch before I could stop him.

With a hiss, he jerked back his hand, tilting it upward. An oozing red line leaked from the tip of his pointer finger down to the joint. The leaf fell from the branch and fluttered to the ground, but instead of landing gracefully on the sidewalk, it embedded itself in the concrete with an audible thwap. A moment later, it crumbled into nothingness, leaving behind a powdery green pile.

“Oookay, so local plant life—off limits.” I stepped back and pulled Lukas with me. “Let’s get moving.”

As if agreeing, Smokey barked once and started forward, his body almost waddling on short legs.

Both sides of the road were lined with buildings and stretched as far as my eyes could see in every direction. Some were dark with no signs or numbers on the front and appeared abandoned, while others seemed occupied. Occasionally, I’d catch a glimpse of something peering out from one of the windows. A human-like figure here, a stooped, fanged thing there, shadowed in a strange illumination. Thankfully, they were all inside while we stayed—arguably safe—on the outside.

After a while, Smokey stopped and turned with a snort. Across the street was an impressive onyx building with tinted glass and an opulent revolving door. It was bigger than most of the others, its twinkle just a bit brighter and more pronounced. It stretched into the cloudless sky, thousands of small illuminated windows covering its front. From the street, you could see people—or what passed for them here—moving around inside.

“Value Far Corporation,” I said out loud. The company my dad worked for. Valefar’s company.

“This is the place?”

“It is,” I answered in a grim tone. The black, tar-like river stretched out in front of us. “No idea how we’re going to get across, though.”

Lukas scanned the area and sighed. “Nothing to use as a bridge.”

“Too wide to jump.”

“Can you shadow across? It’s nighttime. That’s just one big shadow, right?”

I closed my eyes and focused on the other side of the road. After a few minutes, I was sure nothing had happened, and opened them. “Apparently not.”

“Now what?”

“Do you wish to cross?” A deep, velvety voice—James Earl Jones with an otherworldly twang—filled the air.

We whirled around. A man in his late twenties in worn jeans and a brown bomber jacket, stood with his arms folded. He wore a disturbing smile and reminded me of the creepy janitor at school. The one that watched the students in the hallway a little too closely.

“The river. Are you looking to cross?”

“We are,” I answered simply.

“Then it’s your lucky day, little demon. I can help you across.”

I ignored the little demon comment. It shouldn’t be insulting, right? That’s what I was. “How?”

He flashed a wicked smile and snapped his fingers twice. To our right, the tar began to churn and spit. Something began to rise from the muck. Something pale and long. A concrete path. Wide enough for a single person, it went from our end all the way to the other. “It’s my job. Think of me as the Ferryman…” He twirled around, then bowed. “Only with a bit more style.”

Lukas started forward. He made it to the edge of the sidewalk when the man grabbed his arm.

“Of course, you’ll need to pay the piper.”

“Pay?” Lukas pulled his arm free. “Money?”

The man shook his head and laughed. “Unnecessary. A small token will do.”

“A small token,” I repeated carefully.

“A strand of your hair.”

“That sounds—innocent,” Lukas said with a shrug. “Strange, but innocent.”

“Anything but.” I narrowed my eyes. “A strand of hair can do a lot of damage in the wrong hands.”

The man shrugged and took a step closer. “I could take it from you. At least if you give it willingly, you get to cross the road.”

“Why do you want it?”

He waggled an unnaturally long finger and clucked his tongue. “Would you believe I like the way it smells?”

Without hesitation, I pulled a strand free. I knew this was a bad idea. Epically stupid, even. But I needed to get my parents away from Meredith. And to do that, I needed to get across that road to Valefar. And apparently, to get across the road, I had to give in to this guy’s freaky Pantene fetish.

Smiling, he took the hair and waved us ahead. “Carry on.”

Without looking back, I stepped onto the concrete bridge and started across. The road was longer than it looked. Much longer. It took us close to ten minutes to walk across. Each time it seemed we were coming to the middle, the path ahead shimmered and stretched.

The further we got from the edge, the noise I’d heard earlier, the faint whispering, grew louder. Suddenly, they didn’t sound so much like whispers, but screams.

“What’s that?” Lukas stopped and pointed.

In the road—water—the stuff I’d thought was white smoke rising from the surface was something else.

“Are those—” He sounded sick.

I couldn’t blame him. Closer now, we could see the shape of the white puffs rising from the black surface. Faces. People. And those whispers? Not so much whispers as screams for help.

“Souls, I’d guess.” A white puff rose from the blackness a few feet from the bridge. A woman’s face, her mouth open in a scream that sent the tiny hairs on the back of my neck twitching, floated up to knee level, then dissipated in a soft pop. I shuddered and tugged at Lukas’ sleeve. The less time we spent here, the better it would be for my sanity. “Let’s keep moving.”

When we finally made it to the other end, my feet were starting to hurt.

“This is it.” We stood in front of the tinted glass revolving door. Something inside me stirred. Dual voices in the back of my head fought each other. One screaming for me to push forward—that this was where I’d been destined to end up. The other telling me to turn around. That once I stepped over that threshold, there was no turning back.

If it’d been anyone other than Mom, I would have gone with voice number two. She’d kept me away from Dad’s side of the family for a reason—and I trusted her. But her involvement trumped everything. The prize went to voice number one as I stepped up to the spinning glass door and tucked myself inside.

The lobby wasn’t what one would expect to see in hell—on first glance. Bustling and bright, the walls were bathed in a crisp coat of white paint and the soft, beige carpet was in pristine condition.

A bubbly blond woman sat behind a massive semicircle desk on the other side of the room, armed with a smile and teeth so white they almost sparkled. She was chatting with a tall man in a black pinstriped suit and a leather briefcase.

That was all on first glance.

We stepped up to the desk and the room flickered. It was like someone had flipped a switch. Suddenly, the white walls were blackened and stained with something that looked suspiciously like dried blood. There were things stuck to the wall in places—chunks of something. I couldn’t make out what, and I didn’t really want to. The beige carpet was thread bare and burned, still smoking in some places. The receptionist was no longer a blonde with a cheerful smile, but a stooped, hairless thing with black skin and squinty blood-red eyes. When it smiled, it bared several rows of sharp, decaying teeth that dripped slimy black liquid. The stuff pooled at its pointed chin for several seconds before falling with an audible plop to the desk below.

The desk itself was a thing of horror. Made of bone and skin and oozing blood. The goo trickled down the sides, collecting on the floor by the base of each leg. To the left of the receptionist sat a large pinkish, purple glob. It gave a wet squishing sound as the creature picked it up and took a large bite, bits slipping down its chin and mingling with the black slime.

I bit down on the inside of my cheek to keep from crying out in surprise—and terror. Cool. I had to play it cool. Demons were a lot like dogs. They could smell fear. Squaring my shoulders, I took a deep breath and hoped my voice didn’t shake too bad. “I’m here to see Valefar.”

Like a mega rubber band, the nightmare snapped back to the previously pristine room. There was no way Lukas had seen what I had. He’d be freaking. Hell, I was freaking. Acid churned in my stomach, and I was having a hard time not screaming out loud.

“And do you have an appointment?” Her voice was deceptively sweet, and even though the illusion was back in place, I could still hear the wrongness. The off-pitch canter and the slight, nearly unnoticeable warble.

Craps. “I don’t, actually.”

The creature shook its head. Blond curls bounced back and forth as ruby lips turned downward. “I’m sorry, then. He’s a very busy guy. I can take your name and see if he has time to squeeze you in?”

Wasn’t she a helpful little monster? “Darker. My name is Jessie Darker.”

The room flashed again. White. Black. White again.

The receptionist grinned. “Well, then. There’s always time for a Darker.” She pointed to the doorway behind her desk. “Through that door. His office is on the top floor.”

Lukas took my arm and started to lead me around the desk. The blonde’s hand shot out. “Afraid not, hunny bun. She goes up. You stay down.”

“No way,” I said. “He comes with me.”

She rolled her eyes. “If you want up, then you’re going alone.” She turned to Lukas and winked. “He’ll be fine here with me. Stained mortals are just too yummy for words.”

Oh. Yeah. Because that made me feel better. “He’ll be safe?” Because if she gave me her word, then Lukas would be fine. She wouldn’t be able to hurt him.

The receptionist nodded with a little too much enthusiasm.

“From you and anything else that might come across him, right?”

She flashed a mock frown. “You know your stuff. You have my word. He’ll be safe.”

I pushed open the door and stepped through. As it closed behind me, I heard her mumble, “Spoilsport.”