The Trouble With Twelfth Grave

  He matched my speed almost instantly, and we squared off, as they say, preparing for battle.

  “At last,” he said, a knowing smile on his face. “The god eater emerges. Will you devour my heart as you have so many before me? Will you feast on my soul?”

  “I’m seriously considering it,” I said, only half lying. To keep him away from Beep, I might have no choice.

  But now I had a new problem. Rey’azikeen was painfully aware that Garrett knew where to find Beep. Where could I put Garrett so that Rey’azikeen couldn’t find him? And how would I do that without my bloodthirsty husband knowing?

  He seemed to have the uncanny ability to read my mind. He would know where I’d stashed Garrett. And if I involved anyone else, that person would be in just as much danger.

  No, I didn’t need to stash Garrett Swopes. I needed to stash the god Rey’azikeen. Even for just a few moments.

  I charged forward and shifted. He was ready, but the moment I started toward him, another thought hit me. If I could slow time, who’s to say I couldn’t speed it up as well?

  I reversed my hold on time, sped it up to roughly the speed of light, and slammed into him. He had no defense ready against a guided missile. I disintegrated his molecules along with mine, and I took him to the one place I feared. The place of my nightmares.

  I dragged him to the center of the sun.

  We crossed through the void of space in seconds, splashed into the corona, and careened through the layers of gas until we stopped at the core of the burning ball of gas. Then I did the unthinkable. I shifted us, body and soul, back onto the earthly plane, forcing us both to materialize into the center of a fireball with temperatures reaching twenty-seven million degrees.

  I’d surprised him. He gazed at me with utter shock on his face a microsecond before I dematerialized and left Reyes in my dust. Or, well, my solar gases.

  In the seconds it took me to get back, I came up with a plan to get Garrett to safety and was working on finding a way to get Reyes back when it hit me. I’d done it. I’d faced my nightmare.

  Then again, maybe it wasn’t a nightmare at all. Maybe it was a message, but from whom? Had someone planted that idea—the one where I accidently materialized in the center of the sun—in my head via my dreams?

  Stranger things had happened. Perhaps not to me. My life was completely and perfectly and incandescently normal. Gawd, I loved Pride and Prejudice.

  I materialized back in Garrett’s apartment, completely naked once again, smoke drifting off me.

  “Chuck!” Pari rushed forward and patted my hair, hopefully because she liked me. My hair could not afford to be on fire. It had been through so much this week already.

  “Again?” Garrett asked, incredulous.

  “I left him in the center of the sun, but I don’t think he’ll stay there long.”

  They stood speechless for a solid minute.

  “Is that a metaphor for something?” Garrett asked.

  I gaped at them. “Seriously, guys, we don’t have much time. We have to get you out of here and have them move Beep, this time without your knowing where.”

  He rushed to get me a T-shirt and a pair of lounge pants with a drawstring. I dragged them on in record time. They still hung off me, but at least they wouldn’t fall down.

  “Shoes?” he asked.

  “No, I’m fine. Let’s go.”

  “Charles, you need to go to the Loehrs. You need to move them somewhere I don’t know about.”

  “He can read my thoughts. I’ve caught him doing it more than once.”

  Garrett sank onto the arm of his sofa. “Then we’ve lost. He’ll find her.”

  “No. We just need to keep you hidden until I can get Reyes back. He’s in there, Garrett. He’s keeping Beep a secret. He wouldn’t even let Rey’azikeen see her. It’s like he’s blocking the memory of her. I have no idea how, but he’s in there. I just need to find him and bring him out.”

  He nodded. “I’ll get word to the others. Just to be safe. We’ll move the Loehrs again tonight. They’re not far.”

  He stood and headed for the door, only to find Rey’azikeen blocking his path. Completely naked, engulfed in fire with smoke billowing around him and lightning crackling along his skin, Rey’azikeen grabbed hold of Garrett’s throat and looked into his eyes.

  But he’d caught Garrett off guard. And he got what he’d come for.

  “There,” he said softly, a microsecond before he snapped Garrett’s neck again and disappeared.

  I ran and caught Garrett as he crumbled to the floor, healing him for a third time, when I realized he did it for a reason. Rey’azikeen. He broke Garrett’s neck again for a reason. To slow me down. He knew where to find our daughter, and he didn’t want me interfering.

  Garrett had been thinking of the location at the exact moment Rey’azikeen looked into his eyes. He saw it. He saw where Garrett had hidden her. And he wanted to get to her first.

  “Garrett,” I said, my voice breathy with fear, “where is she? Where did you hide her?”

  He shook his head, trying to clear it. “Did he break my neck again?”

  “Yes, and he knows. He saw her location in your eyes. Where is she?”

  His lids rounded. “She’s in Santa Fe. She’s at the Loretto Chapel.”

  “The church? The one with the staircase?” The Loretto Chapel in Santa Fe was famous mostly due to a staircase that was built there in the 1870s. Because of several anomalies surrounding the staircase, many believe the carpenter who built it was Saint Joseph, or even Jesus himself.

  He nodded. “They’re keeping her in a back room. I thought, you know, sacred ground.”

  I saw the famous church in my mind’s eye and materialized there in an instant. I showed up just in time to see Rey’azikeen lift Beep from her crib and cradle her in his arms. I showed up just in time to see a dozen hellhounds rise from the ground and emerge through walls, snarling and gnashing their teeth. I showed up just in time to see a hundred angels materialize around the vengeful god, Michael leading them, swords drawn, wings outstretched.

  Then I realized I was still straddling the earthly plane and the celestial one, because the room we were in was tiny. There weren’t a hundred angels surrounding us but a hundred thousand. They spread as far into the celestial realm as the eye could see.

  God had sent His army.

  The angels nearest to Rey’azikeen closed in, swords at the ready. The hellhounds, Beep’s guardians for life, crept forward, heads down, teeth bared. And Rey’azikeen stood in the middle of the mêlée, so impossibly beautiful with our daughter in his sinewy arms.

  The smoke that billowed around him covered his more carnal parts, but only to me. If another human walked in, they’d get an eyeful. They would no more see the smoke than the advancing hellhounds or the avenging angels.

  I lowered my hand to the ground, palm down, and lifted Artemis into it. She rose growling, bearing back on her haunches, readying to launch herself into the fray.

  In the next instant, time slowed as the forces charged. Swords arced from every direction with the sole purpose of shredding my husband. Three hellhounds had made it close enough to rip him apart. They lunged forward, their teeth centimeters away from tearing into his flesh.

  The whole thing played out like a dream. A nightmare. Partly because he was still my husband and partly because he was holding our daughter.

  I held up my hands and slowed time even more. Brought everything to a full stop. It was all going too fast. The world was spinning out of control. And a vengeful god was holding my daughter.

  Artemis awaited my command. My own general, a celestial being I’d named Mr. Wong, materialized by my side, sword in hand, head bowed awaiting my command as well. But I stood stunned. The picture frozen before me was the most surreal I’d ever seen.

  A dozen swords were suspended in midair, the razor-sharp tips a hairsbreadth from Rey’azikeen’s skin. His major arteries. His heart. One sword was even above him pointe
d down to sever Reyes’s spine at the neck in what I was certain would have been one skilled thrust.

  But the angels surrounding him had obeyed my command. I couldn’t imagine why. They stood suspended in time awaiting further instruction.

  The same held true for the hellhounds. Their jaws open wide, ready to rip into flesh and bone. But their teeth stayed steady, the needlelike tips pressed impatiently against his skin. One hound stood on a cabinet overhead, his massive jaw spanning the circumference of Rey’azikeen’s skull, salivating for the chance to bite down.

  I inched forward, glancing at the bundle in his arms. At the soft cheeks and large, dark eyes. So like her father’s.

  “Rey’azikeen, please,” I said softly. “Please don’t do this.”

  He tore his gaze away from her and planted it on me. “And what is it you think I’m doing?”

  “Reyes kept her location a secret from you. That tells me you mean her harm.”

  “Does it?”

  “Val-Eeth,” Mr. Wong, my most trusted advisor, said at my side, calling me by my celestial title: god. “He could vanish at any second. We must take him now or risk losing Elwyn Alexandra.”

  I nodded, knowing he was right. But I couldn’t give the order that would see my husband ripped apart. The order that would risk my daughter’s life. So I did something else instead. I summoned the one Being I hoped could get through to him. I summoned his Brother.

  He appeared on the opposite side of me, His power startling. The form He’d chosen was so startlingly similar to Reyes’s, I had to think that perhaps it was His true form. Perhaps He looked stunningly similar to His brother. Not quite as beautiful, but similar nevertheless.

  Rey’azikeen scoffed and scolded me with a glare. “Siccing the puritan on me? I thought you had better taste than that.”

  I ignored him and spoke to Jehovah, more than a tad annoyed with Him myself. “You sent Your army. You swore You wouldn’t.”

  The barest hint of a smile lifted one corner of his mouth. “I did not send My army, Elle-Ryn-Ahleethia. You did, just as I said you would.”

  I furrowed my brows in confusion.

  Rey’azikeen narrowed his lids on me, then focused his attention on his Brother.

  “You tricked me. You imprisoned me. You allowed the traitor Lucifer to use my energy to create his son.” Disgust lined Reyes’s face. Disappointment.

  “You took life, Rey’azikeen. Your temper could not be controlled.”

  He lowered his head and scowled from beneath thick lashes. “You’re wrong. I had perfect control.”

  Beep made a squeak and kicked out against the restraints of her blanket, but her face, so painfully perfect, turned up to look at the being holding her. And she seemed fascinated. Happy even.

  Jehovah drew in a deep breath. “I’d hoped through these trials you would learn all life is precious.”

  “You think I don’t know?” He glanced at me, his anger palpable.

  Then I remembered what he told me in the Jeep on the way to El Paso. Would I trust him when the time came? When he found the object he’d been searching for?

  Beep’s fascination sank in. She wasn’t scared in the least. In fact, she was the only one in the room perfectly content.

  She squeaked again, and I began to relax, realizing if he were to trust me, I had to trust him, just as our daughter obviously did.

  I stepped closer and called his bluff. “I have loved you since the first time I saw you.”

  He cast a suspicious scowl. “You’ve loved Reyes. Rey’aziel even. Not me.”

  “You’re wrong,” easing even closer. “Why do you think I begged Jehovah not to send you into that prison?”

  “The same prison you sent me into?”

  I grinned. “You did insist.”

  He ground his teeth, his long lashes trapping the glistening wetness between them.

  “You stole Lucifer’s fire to release me from the hell you created for me. You. Not Reyes. Not Rey’aziel.”

  He closed his eyes and bent his head, relief flooding every cell in his body as a slow, gratified smile widened his mouth.

  “You knew I’d call Him,” I said, surprised. “Your Brother.”

  One corner of his exquisite mouth rose to transform his smile into a lopsided grin.

  He’d wanted his Brother here to witness. He’d brought all this on to confront Him, to prove to Him what he’d become.

  But his Brother wasn’t finished with him yet. “This is how you control your temper? Your actions?” God asked him. “By ravaging? By pillaging?”

  I offered Rey’azikeen a conspiratorial smirk, encouraged him to reveal the real reason we were all there.

  “No, Brother. By this.”

  He took his right hand and sliced his palm open on Michael’s sword. Rich, dark blood rushed out, and he placed his palm on Beep’s forehead, then lowered his own and whispered a protection prayer in an ancient celestial language. A spell. An incantation.

  When he was finished, he lifted his palm. Beep’s skin absorbed the blood in a shimmer of light. It faded into her, and her only acknowledgment that her father had just cast a powerful protection spell over her was another soft squeak and a loveable wiggle, as though nestling against him.

  His face brightened and he beamed down at her.

  “What did you do?” I asked him, fascinated myself.

  “I have made her invisible to all who would cause her harm. Our enemies will not be able to find her until she wants to be found.” He looked at his Brother. “I will protect her with my life. And with that, I will prove who I am. I will prove that I’m worthy of—”

  “Forgiveness,” Jehovah said, His expression a mixture of surprise and knowing. “It was always there, Rey’azikeen, waiting. I knew you’d take it when you were ready.”

  He glanced back at me, the grin on his face turning playful. “Call me Reyes.”

  Jehovah nodded and disappeared without another word.

  I just wanted to be closer to my husband and daughter, so I picked my way through angel wings and hellhounds and swords, scooting the latter to the side as I walked through the statues, still at the ready.

  “Careful,” Reyes said. “An angel’s sword is very powerful.”

  I grinned. “So is my husband.”

  Humor shone brightly in his dark irises. “Perhaps you could call them off?”

  With hardly a thought, they vanished. A split second before they disappeared, Michael turned to me and nodded, confirming that we were good. Then he was gone. They were all gone, except Mr. Wong.

  I turned to him. “Thank you.”

  He performed a deep, reverent bow, then disappeared into a sea of shimmering light. Dude was so cool.

  I turned back and wrapped my arms around my husband and daughter.

  “I needed you to trust me,” Reyes said. “In all my incarnations. And I needed her safe.”

  I looked down at the bundle in his hands. At her rosy cheeks and pink mouth.

  “For what is to come,” he added.

  “And what is that?”

  “A demon horde.”

  I lifted a brow. “Yours?”

  He lowered his head in shame. “Yes. When I created the god glass and the hell within, I created hundreds of thousands of guards. Wraith demons. Depraved. Bloodthirsty.”

  “Because what’s a hell without a few thousand goblins?” I asked, teasing him.

  “They felt me awaken. I had to find her to keep her safe, but a part of me couldn’t let that happen. Couldn’t let me find her, just in case.”

  “Reyes.”

  He nodded. “It’s an odd feeling, not trusting oneself.”

  “I’m certain it is. The way I see it, if we can get through the last few days as unscathed as we have, we can get through anything as long as we’re together.”

  “I apologize for the deception.”

  I looked at our beautiful daughter. “You could have told me earlier.”

  “I had to prove this to
you. To prove I could be trusted.”

  “Maybe you needed to prove it to yourself even more.”

  “Perhaps. We’ll need that when the time comes. That bond. That unconditional trust.”

  “Which will be when?”

  He glanced at an imaginary watch on his wrist. “Any second now.” He looked down at me, his expression grave. “I fear the end is nigh.”

  I sighed aloud. “If it’s not one nigh, it’s another.”

  “So,” he said, playing with a tiny dark curl on the top of Beep’s head, “the center of the sun?”

  “Right. About that—”

  Before I could explain where that little nugget had originated from and ask him if Reyes had placed it in my dreams, Mrs. Loehr walked into the room. “Charley?”

  “Oops. Hold up, Mrs. Loehr.” I slipped off the loungers Garrett had given me, the T-shirt plenty long enough to cover my most valuable assets, and bent at Reyes’s feet. He stepped in the legs and I slid them up and tied them at his waist.

  We gazed at our daughter a good while longer, then handed her back to Mrs. Loehr, who was confused but thankful.

  When we showed up at Garrett’s, he was ready for us. Or, ready for Rey’azikeen. Kind of. He raised a gun the moment we appeared, aiming the barrel at Reyes’s heart. Not that it would have done any good, but it’s the thought that counts.

  “It’s okay, Swopes,” I said, raising my hands in surrender. “He’s Reyes again. And Rey’aziel, and Rey’azikeen. But he’s just going by Reyes for now.”

  Reyes, who was standing in Garrett’s loungers, cleared his throat and had the presence of mind to look repentant.

  “Reyes,” I said, “is there anything you want to say to Garrett?”

  Reyes lifted a shoulder. “Sorry I killed you. Repeatedly.”

  “Garrett,” I said, turning my admonishing attention to the most understanding guy on planet Earth, “is there anything you want to say to Reyes?”

  Before I could stop him, Garrett dropped the gun into his left hand and swung, his large fist making contact with Reyes’s jaw. The sound was awful, a hard, crunchy sound, and I didn’t know what was hurt worse, Reyes’s jaw or Garrett’s fist.

  But, being manly men, neither of them gave up the game. Neither showed weakness. They stood for an hour, give or take fifty-five minutes, glaring at each other nose to nose, before Garrett asked, “Beer?”