“I think she’s serious,” Osh said through his crushed larynx.
Having finally gained their undivided, I readied myself to tell them the most startling news since we learned the earth wasn’t the center of the universe, when Artemis jumped out of the floor and lunged right toward Osh and me. Carrying a demon in her jaws.
Because it was so unexpected, I screeched and jumped on the sofa like one would do to avoid a mouse. Osh scrambled back, too, as the demon hissed and howled from being burned alive by yours truly’s brilliant light.
Garrett rose as well, but he had no idea why.
Artemis was so happy she had a play toy. She shook it and growled at it and shook it some more, causing it more pain that it was already in. All the while her stubby tail wagged a million miles a minute.
The demon began to dissipate and evaporate into the air. When there wasn’t enough to shake anymore, Artemis jumped to me, her mouth open as she panted, proud of her work.
“Good girl,” I said, stroking her head. Then I pulled her into a headlock, too, for some playtime. “That’s her second one today,” I said to Osh.
“Artemis brought Charley a present,” Osh said, explaining it to Garrett. “A demon.”
“And it’s loose in the house?” he asked, appalled.
“No, it’s not.” I scrubbed Artemis’s fur and rolled with her over the coffee table and onto the floor. Sadly, she landed on top of me instead of vice versa. It knocked the air out of me, but that didn’t keep me from talking. Not much does. “There’s no demon in this house, huh, Artemisia? Well, there is one, but … you are such a good girl. Yes, you are.”
“You look like a mental patient,” Garrett said, sitting back down. “All I see is you rolling around, talking to my carpet.”
“Did you hear that?” I asked her as she gnawed on my jugular. “He called you carpet. Bad Garrett.”
Then she stopped and stared off into the great unknown. A low growl rumbled from her chest. Her lips pulled back to reveal a killer set of canines.
“What is it, girl?”
This only egged her on. I lay there trying not to giggle. This was very serious. Trespassers would not be given quarter. No mercy!
I’d shifted and saw nothing out of the ordinary, but in true canine fashion, the slightest noise set her hackles on edge. She lowered her head and eased toward the window. Then, like a bullet shot out of a gun, she leaped through the wall and was gone.
She was so entertaining.
I laughed and turned back to the two men watching me.
“There really is a game tonight,” Osh said.
“This is bigger than a game.” I scrambled up and sat next to him again. “It’s bigger than—”
“We get it,” Garrett said. “Total annihilation. But can’t it wait until after the game?”
“No. I have a plan, but first I have to tell you what my secrets are, because if I tell you my plan first without telling you … never mind. Just listen.” I cleared my mind and thought how best to tell them that my husband, their friend, was created from an evil god. I steadied my resolve and decided. “My husband, your friend, was created from an evil god.”
Osh took another sip of beer while Garrett thought a moment, then took another sip of beer.
“Okay, let me back up.” This needed more explanation. They needed to understand what it could mean for all of us.
“Do you remember in New York in the warehouse when the evil emissary Kuur tried to kill me?”
They both shrugged at the stupidity of my question and took another sip.
I bit my lip. Closed my eyes. Scraped up all the bits of courage that remained on the bottom of my courage barrel and swallowed them. I was about to reveal something to them that could change the fate of the world. The god glass had been buried in the 1400s for a reason. The monks who buried it meant for it to stay buried.
“He wasn’t trying to kill me.”
I felt, rather than saw, their interest pique.
“I’m a god. Apparently not just anyone can do that. But I can be trapped. He was trying to trap me, and that’s what happened to the evil god Satan used to create his son Rey’aziel.”
Osh was wearing his best poker face, the one where he barely looked like he was paying attention. But I felt something jerk inside him. Like a puzzle piece falling into place.
I continued. “Okay, the story goes like this. In desperation, God, the God Jehovah, created what is called god glass. It’s an entire dimension, a hell dimension, inside a piece of glass. It looks like a jewel. Like an opal. It is absolutely indestructible and a hundred percent inescapable. Only the person or being who puts you in it can let you back out again. Jehovah created it to trap one god.” I held up a finger. “To lock away one god and one god only inside a hell dimension. A vast nothingness that stretches on for an eternity.”
“Which god did he create it for?” Osh asked.
“That I don’t know. Kuur didn’t tell me everything. I doubt he actually knew everything. He was working for Lucifer. Surely the prince of the underworld wouldn’t reveal his whole hand.”
“If Jehovah created it, how did Lucifer get ahold of it to use it to create Rey’aziel?”
“See, that’s the thing. The details get fuzzy here. For some reason, this god didn’t get sent into the god glass, but I have no idea how it ended up in the hands of Lucifer. Neither do I know how, but he used it to trap one of the gods of Uzan for the specific purpose of creating a son. Reyes.”
I waited. Let them absorb the information.
When they didn’t say anything, I added, “After he created Reyes, Lucifer gave it to one of his worshippers here on Earth who, as you might imagine, used it for pure evil. A group of monks finally captured him, sent him into the hell dimension then, because god glass cannot be destroyed, traveled across the ocean, found a spot, and spent months digging a hole deep enough to bury it for what they’d hoped would be forever.”
“And Kuur dug it up?” Osh asked.
I nodded. “He found it and tried to use it to trap me. To get me off this plane so Lucifer could get to Beep. So he could kill the being destined to destroy him.”
“This is like a supernatural soap opera,” Garrett said, growing frustrated. “How the fuck does that shit happen? I thought gods were nice and benevolent and answered prayers and shit. But no. In this episode, the gods have all been possessed and are evil and plotting to destroy the world.”
“Gods don’t get possessed,” Osh said.
“Right. Sorry. So there are actually rules?”
Osh frowned. “The gods of Uzan, at least the ones I’ve met, are so far beyond anything Lucifer could have thought up, it’s unreal. And Lucifer used one of them to create the son.”
Then he did something I’d never seen him do before. He paled. The blood drained from his face as he sat there, stunned.
I studied the carpet. “This is bad, right? I mean, I don’t know. How much of Reyes is an evil god and how much is … Reyes?”
Osh’s hands curled into fists as he thought. “Wait,” he said. “Did you see it? The god glass?”
I pressed my lips together, then reached into my pocket and pulled it out. “I took it after I trapped Kuur inside.”
Osh’s jaw dropped. He didn’t move. “You … you trapped him?”
“Don’t act so surprised.”
“Sorry. So Kuur told you about Reyes? About how he was created?”
“No.” I went back to studying the carpet, resisting the urge to gaze lovingly at the god glass. It was like a drug. Mesmerizing. Pure. Beautiful. And yet inside lay a hell dimension. “No, Kuur didn’t tell me. My dad did.”
Garrett’s expression changed from frustration to concern.
“That’s how I got my memories back. My dad—he crossed through me to force me to remember who I was. What I was. And to pass on the information he’d gathered while he was doing recon in hell. He learned a great deal.” I looked at Osh. “You honestly didn’t know any of
this? You didn’t know how Reyes was created?”
He shook his head. “But it explains a lot.”
“Like what?”
“Rey’aziel. He was so different. So much more powerful than anything else Lucifer had concocted. Even more powerful than himself, which didn’t make sense. No one could figure out why. The Dendour put him through hell, literally and figuratively.”
“The Dendour?”
“Like … teachers. Trainers. Only worse.”
“And they put him through hell? Why?”
“Who knows? Jealousy, maybe? But he overcame every obstacle they threw at him. They tried every way they could think of to kill him. They beat him. Starved him. Tore apart his—”
“Stop,” I said, covering my ears. After a moment, I asked, “And Lucifer just let them?”
“He wanted his son to be strong, so yes. But now I know, they couldn’t have killed him. No matter what they did, he wouldn’t have died, so they got progressively harder and harder on him until—”
“Until?” I asked, almost desperate to know.
“Until he stopped them,” he said matter-of-factly. “He’d had enough one day and killed every Dendour there. Snapped their necks like they were twigs. Then he went in search of others. Anyone who’d wronged him in any way. They call it Auya s’Di.”
“Day of the Blood,” I said. I sat back and tried to imagine it, but how does one imagine a child growing up in a hell dimension? It was beyond my comprehension.
“To get a better concept of what he did that day, imagine a ten-year-old attacking and killing an army of trained soldiers with his bare hands, then going to search for more.”
“Are you saying Reyes was ten?” I asked, alarmed.
“Not at all. He was much younger at that time. If you’re comparing him to human years.”
Had he just been destined to be abused? First in hell from legions of demons and then on Earth with Earl Walker? My heart ached for him, but I felt something else from Osh that I couldn’t quite identify.
“What?” I asked him.
“Nothing.”
“Osh, I mean it. What are you thinking?”
“What if that part of him is still evil?”
“That’s what I’m trying to decide.”
We looked at the god glass in my hand. Stared at it.
“Who wants another beer?” Garrett asked.
It was a bit much to take in.
26
Don’t borrow trouble.
Gotcha.
So, then, can I rent it?
—CHARLEY DAVIDSON
“So, your plan?” Osh asked me after they’d both downed a few beers. It was good for them. Let them relax. Take it all in.
Apparently they were ready for more.
“Yeah, about that. You both have to open your minds.”
“Damn,” Garrett said. “This is going to suck, isn’t it?”
“Not for you,” I promised.
“For me?” Osh asked.
I nodded. “Sorry. But first think of this. We know what area one, if not two, of the gods of Uzan are in, right? I’m assuming it’s still there?”
“It’s making its way east, leaving death and destruction along the way, but yeah. It hasn’t caught on to the fact that we moved Beep and the Loehrs three days ago.”
“I think that, since I know the general area where it’s at, I can find it.”
“And what are you going to do then?”
“Why, trap it, of course.” I jingled the pendant, dropped it, scraped it back up, then held it up again, thankful it was indestructible.
Garrett laughed softly into his beer. Not because I’d dropped the pendant, but because of the sheer impossibility of our situation.
“Let me get this straight,” Osh said. “You’re going to walk up to it, open your little pendant, and tell him to jump inside?”
I snorted. “No. There is a process, and I know what it is.”
“And we can tell none of this to Reyes?” Garrett asked.
“Nope.”
“Not until we know where his allegiances lie,” Osh said.
“I’m pretty sure we know, but what will happen if and when, like me, Reyes learns his true celestial name?”
“The name he had as a god?”
I nodded to Garrett. “Yes. Which part of him is the stronger? Which part will take over? The good news is that when I learned my name, I was still me. For a little while. Until I exploded, lost my memory, and vacationed in New York State. But I’m back, and I’m still me.”
Osh shook his head. “That’s a lot to hope for considering the alternative. But you’re forgetting something.”
“What?”
“You’re forgetting that you are this bright-ass light any god within a thousand worlds can see. He’s going to see you coming.”
“Maybe not.”
When I didn’t explain, Osh questioned me with the quirk of a brow.
“This is where the open-mind thing comes in.”
“It gets better?” Garrett asked.
“This is a prime opportunity, Osh,” I said, trying to convince myself as much as him. “We can’t let it pass us by and regret it later.”
“Unless you have a better plan than walking up to him with your light beaming like a signal beacon and stuffing him inside that little necklace, I’d say we probably should.”
This was going to get tricky. Very, very tricky. But I knew Osh’s future to a minuscule degree. Could anything I do change that?
“But what if I could walk up to him undetected?”
Osh frowned. “Still a stupid plan, but how?”
I glanced at the carpet again. Thought about what I was doing. How many ways this could go wrong. Then I thought about Beep. I thought about her destiny. None of us mattered anymore. Not really. Not that we ever did. We were simply the foundation of what she was going to achieve.
“Charles?” Garrett said.
Whatever happened from here on out, this would change our friendship forever. I would be hated, and that was okay, too. If this worked, I would be saving my daughter’s life. Giving her another chance to do what she was meant to do.
If it didn’t … none of this mattered, anyway. I could not let this opportunity pass me by. I just hoped he would understand that.
I released a long breath. Slowed time. And attacked before he knew what I was doing.
* * *
Before Osh could react, I was on him. I lifted him off the sofa, threw him against a wall, and wrapped one hand around his throat.
He didn’t even fight me. He just looked down at me, his face the picture of confusion. He still trusted me so much, he didn’t fight back.
That would be his undoing.
“What the fuck?” he asked.
“You’re going to do what you do best,” I said. “You’re going to ingest my soul. You’re going to swallow my light so I can find the god and trap him in the glass while he’s walking around in human form. It’s the only time it can be done. The process requires blood, and gods don’t have that unless they’ve hijacked a human body. I can’t let this opportunity slip by. I’m sorry.”
He finally started to fight me, but there are few things more lethal than a mother whose child has been threatened. Also, I was a god. He wouldn’t have won. He must’ve known that because he stopped struggling almost the very second he began. Giving in. Sacrificing himself. The muscles in my chest contracted, tightened around my heart.
“It won’t work,” he said, panting with exertion and apprehension.
“I’m willing to take that chance.”
“You don’t understand.” He lifted a hand to my face. Ran a thumb over my chin. “I could live off your soul until the stars burn out. I can’t take you in one sitting. It doesn’t work that way.”
I tightened my grip on his throat, mostly for show. “Then make it work that way. I have to do this, Osh. It will never expect me if it can’t see my light.”
He bit back
a curse. “You could’ve just asked.”
“Not likely.”
He closed his eyes a long moment, then nodded. “It’ll kill me.”
I moved my hand to his sculpted jaw. Pressed into him. Closed the distance between us until my mouth hovered just under his. “I know.”
Then I put my lips on his, but in a surprising show of strength, he reversed our positions. He grabbed my throat, twisted me around, thrust me against the wall, slammed my head into it—twice—then lowered his mouth onto mine.
And he swallowed me. Siphoned the energy out of my body, the act painful and erotic at the same time. For both of us. He cupped my face with his free hand. Tilted his head. Deepened what boiled down to a kiss. Instead of slowing down, he sped up. Kissed harder. Pressed into me, wanting more and more of what I was offering.
His fingers dived into my hair, trapping it in his fist as he gorged on my soul. The act tapped something deep inside me. It curled inside me and then sprang taut. I dug my nails into the wall at my back. Pushed into him as it got closer and closer. Sharper and sharper. Until it exploded inside me.
I threw my head back, taking in air I’d never tasted before. Feeling drained and exhilarated like the atoms in my body had found a new playground.
Osh moaned. Fell against me. Buried his face in my hair a microsecond before he dropped to his knees. He clutched at his throat and curled into himself. His muscles contracted to the density of marble as he tried to hold all of me in. But he cracked. His skin splintered and broke, and the light that I’d carried around my whole life—a light that I have never seen—began to seep out of him.
He twisted around, his face a study in pain as he tried to hold in my essence. I kneeled over him.
“Hurry,” he said, his voice hoarse. His fingers curled and his back arched, and more fissures cracked over his body, light shooting out of them.
I didn’t have much time. My essence was too powerful for him to hold. It was like trying to contain a nuclear blast inside a lightbulb. It would explode sooner than later, shattering him as it did. He thrust his head back as another spasm of pain shot through him.
It would kill him. I knew that. I’d known it before I began. But it wouldn’t kill him immediately. I had time. I could find the god, trap him, and be back before it ate him completely.