Fourth Grave Beneath My Feet

by Darynda Jones

  “Reyes, what the hell? What happened?”

  He captured my gaze with a determined expression. “If anything happens to me, you need to know they hunt in twos. If you see one, if one comes after you, Dutch, I promise you, there is another one nearby. If you see three, there will be one more waiting in the wings. Never, ever trust them.”

  “Can’t I just do what I did last time when I flashed my nuclear light on them?”

  “No.” He pulled me toward him until my forehead was on his. “While they’re inside a human, they’re protected from light. Even from yours.”

  I hated feeling so vulnerable, so paper thin. “I can’t fight them, Reyes. They’re too strong.”

  “You could if you knew how, but you aren’t there yet, so don’t even try. Just call your guardian and run.”

  I lay beside him and kept my hand on his ribs. “I’m pretty good at running. I mean, I’m not fast or anything, and I wind easily … never mind.”

  He could’ve been the poster boy for seriousness when he said, “There’s something really motivating about having a bunch of demons on your ass.”

  “I’m sure there is.”

  “Just run and don’t stop. Promise me.”

  “I promise I’ll try to run without stopping, but I really do wind easily.”

  I’d managed to wrench a soft laugh out of him. He leaned in to nibble on my ear. Sharp ripples of desire shot through me at lightning-quick speed and pooled low in my abdomen. I couldn’t believe it. I finally had Reyes Farrow in the flesh, alone in a hotel room, and he was bleeding profusely. I was the one who would’ve taken advantage of him given the chance, but now was hardly the time. And it killed me to admit that.

  As his mouth moved down my neck, I wrapped my arm around his head and whispered, “Tell me a story about my ancestors. About another grim reaper.”

  He was quiet for so long, I thought he wouldn’t oblige. Then he lay back in thought. “There was a boy named Cynric whose father took him to his village elders. The man claimed the boy was possessed. That he saw spirits and knew things no one could know. After an inquisition that lasted for days, the boy still wouldn’t talk. He was stoned to death.”

  I cringed. “So this isn’t a happy story?”

  “Not many of them are. Afterwards, the village suffered a rash of sicknesses and deaths. They thought the boy had cursed them before he died.”

  “Did he?”

  “No, another did. He’d only been repeating what his little sister had told him. She was the reaper, not the boy. But she had suffered an illness as a baby and couldn’t talk. Only he could understand her.” He pointed to his head. “They spoke with their minds and their hearts. In her grief, she became crazed and unleashed her powers without realizing what she was doing. A reaper does not always know what he or she is capable of until great emotional trauma.”

  “Did the girl live very long?”

  He nodded. “Compared to most reapers, yes. Into her seventies, if I remember right. But she had to live with what she’d done. She became a recluse, and eventually insanity took hold.”

  “That’s awful. If she was a celestial being, how could she kill so many? How could she get away with that?”

  “Reapers are given agency at birth. They are the seekers of souls, but they may—” He thought a moment. “—they may, on occasion, hunt them down, for lack of a better phrase. It is their right.”

  “Well, that’s a right I’m certainly never taking advantage of.”

  To lead us no longer into temptation, I tossed my pillow at his ankles, plopped my head at his booted feet, and lay perpendicular to him across the bed. He had given me so much information, I wanted some time to absorb it all, but I didn’t want to leave him. Not like this. Not ever, as long as I lived. Or until I had to get back on the case. Whichever came first.

  I had another family. An otherworldly family. How cool was that? And I could kill people with my mind. Okay, that part I wasn’t actually buying, but I had an otherworldly family. I wondered what their names were. Maybe I had an aunt Myrtle. Or an uncle named Boaz. I’d tried to convince Uncle Bob to change his name to Boaz once, but he refused. Not sure why.

  As I lay there, contemplating all the advantages of having an otherworldly family, I felt my lids grow heavy. Reyes’s heat was making me sleepy. Having him close by was comforting, and I’d almost fallen asleep when he said, “You could move farther up. You’d be more comfortable if you were farther up.”

  I chuckled. “No, you’d be more comfortable if I were farther up. Perv.”

  And before I knew it, I was dreaming of Reyes and beaches and Cookie-a-ritas with little umbrellas brushing across my palm. That’s when I felt Reyes’s fingers brush across my palm. I wondered if he’d done it on purpose. When he rolled on top of me with a growl, pinning me down with his immense weight, I was pretty sure he had. But before I could protest, his mouth was at my ear.

  “Shhh,” he said, his breath warm. At first I thought he was just frisky, but he seemed rigid, tense, ready to strike. Or beat the crap out of me. What the hell?

  I started to struggle, but then felt his fingers at my palm again. Only this time the heat of his touch was instantly replaced by the cool metal of a gun. I stiffened as he unholstered Margaret and tucked her into my hand.

  “What—?”

  I didn’t get far before his mouth was on mine. But while his mouth performed a magic spell, his tongue pushing past my lips, rendering me useless, his hands were doing something else. Then I felt the long cool metal of a knife as he pulled it out of the back of his waistband. He returned his mouth to my ear and whispered, “Call the dog.”

  My pulse skyrocketed. “Why?” I asked, my voice nothing but a breathless whisper.

  He lifted just enough to look into my eyes, his own full of an unspoken apology. “Because this isn’t my room.”

  He kissed me again, his mouth hot on mine, and yet every muscle in his body was stretched taut with eagerness. His heart raced on top of mine, his pulse roaring in my ears. I put my hand over the side of the bed and snapped my fingers.

  Artemis lifted into my palm, materializing out of the ground, and nuzzled my hand for a split second before pricking her ears. A low growl rumbled from her chest as the door eased open. She lowered onto her haunches and waited.

  The door pivoted slowly, then stopped at a forty-five-degree angle. Not enough for me to make out the intruders. All I could see past Reyes’s shoulder was a hand on the doorknob. The intruder started forward a heartbeat before Artemis attacked. With a bark that vibrated against the walls, she bound forward through the half-open door and onto a possessed woman, if the feminine scream was any indication.

  Reyes’s weight vanished, and in the next heartbeat, another assailant crashed into the room after having been thrown there. The door banged against the wall, and I could see the woman struggling with Artemis on the sidewalk, fighting something she clearly couldn’t see in its entirety. Even I had a problem staying focused on Artemis’s huge body as she ripped the offending soul out of her.

  But before I could see exactly what happened to the demon, the one Reyes was fighting spotted me. He let out a shriek of rage and fought Reyes’s hold to get to me. It was the strangest sensation, to be wanted so desperately by a man who took no heed of the fact that his spine was bent so far out of position, it started to crack under the pressure. I could hear the sharp snaps of bones breaking, of tendons ripping and vertebrae dislodging, yet the man couldn’t take his eyes off me. He wanted me so passionately, his free arm stretched out, his eyes begging me to come closer.

  And they were blue. The man’s eyes. I could just make out the demon behind them, the smoky black essence wafting off him, but the host the creature had possessed had blue eyes. So clear, they looked like a swimming pool sparkling on a hot summer day. And they watered as the pressure Reyes was placing on his throat cut off his air supply. But still he didn’t care. He clawed his way toward me with one arm, the other having been b
roken. It lay limp on the ground beside him, useless.

  As he lunged for me in one last valiant effort, his reach appeared to lengthen. Black, razor-sharp claws appeared out of the man’s hand. The darkness of night did nothing to deter the demon from unmasking himself, from reaching out. I could see only his hand, but I knew at least that part of him was unprotected.

  I leaned over the side of the bed, ignoring Reyes as he yelled at me to get back, the claw so close, centimeters away. One more ounce of effort, and he’d shred my face. I held out my hand, palm up, leaned in, and blew. As though blowing magic fairy dust, particles of light from inside me floated toward the demon, landed on his claw, and in one great burst of energy, he screamed and stumbled out of his human host.

  Writhing in agony, the demon thrashed along the ground, his high-pitched cries like a thousand jet engines taking off.

  Artemis pounced in the next instant, sank her teeth, locked her jaw, and ripped the life out of the beast. Killing it was almost an act of compassion at that point, it was in so much pain. I watched as its thick gaseous blood spilled onto the floor, then evaporated.

  Before I realized he was angry, Reyes jerked me to my feet and looked me over from head to toe. Then he focused on my face, his own picture of astonishment. “What the fuck was that?” he asked, anger sharpening his voice.

  But adrenaline rushed down my spine and through my body. I looked past him toward Artemis. She was busy sniffing the room with the enthusiasm of a hunting dog on the trail of a fox, certain she’d found the scent of another demon. She jumped through the wall into the next room before I could call her back.

  Afraid I was going to be sick again, as that seemed to be my MO lately, I stumbled past him toward the miniscule bathroom near the door. He picked me up when I tripped, but I fought his hold and hurtled myself toward the toilet. The fact that I was spelunking in a porcelain bowl used for years by men with bad aim didn’t deter me from my mission. I gulped stale air and swallowed back bile as my stomach heaved unsteadily.

  Reyes knelt beside me, and I felt a cool cloth at the back of my neck.

  “That’s what’s driving them crazy.” He leaned forward and buried his face against my neck. “The scent of fear—your fear—is like the scent of heroin to a bona fide addict.”

  “Well, I can’t help it,” I said.

  “I know. It’s my fault, and I’m sorry.”

  I looked up and realized for the first time that the demon had struck him. He had three bloody gashes across his face, the uppermost a mere centimeter from his lower lashes. I took the washcloth from him and dabbed at the cuts.

  “Did you kill him?” I asked.

  “No. He won’t be running marathons anytime soon, but we need to get out of here.”

  * * *

  Reyes accompanied me home in silence, probably unsure what to think of me. I wasn’t sure what to think of me either, so we didn’t really have a lot to think about. He saw me up the stairs and to my door, but I didn’t let him help me in. I was tired of suddenly being an invalid, unable to walk and chew gum at the same time.

  I opened my door and stepped inside. “Can I put something on that?” I asked, indicating the cuts on his left cheek. He dabbed them with the hem of his T-shirt, sopping up the small rivulets of blood that had escaped. They were already healing, but antibiotic ointment wouldn’t hurt.

  He ignored me and looked around my apartment. “Call your boy,” he said, his tone coarse.

  “What boy?” I asked, suddenly very tired. “I don’t have a boy.” At least I didn’t think I had a boy. I couldn’t remember ever being in labor, and I was fairly certain that wasn’t something a girl could easily forget.

  “That kid that always hangs around. Call him.”

  “Angel?” I asked, and as soon as I thought it, in he popped.

  He looked around in surprise, spotted me, then glared from underneath his bandanna. “Are you for real going to keep doing that?”

  “Hey, it wasn’t even me this time.” I pointed to Reyes, and Angel’s bravado dwindled.

  He took a step back as Reyes took a step forward.

  “Stay here,” Reyes said to him in a tone that brooked no argument.

  But he was talking to Angel Garza. The kid had never met an argument he didn’t like. He bit down and squared his shoulders. “You stay here, pendejo.”

  Reyes was on him before I saw him move. He had Angel by the collar of his dirty T-shirt, his face inches from his own. “Do you have any idea what I can do to you?”

  Angel’s eyes widened before he caught himself. “I know you can go back to hell.”

  I struggled to get in between them, pushing at Reyes’s hold.

  After a moment, Reyes released him and offered him an apologetic gaze. “Stay here for her,” he said, softening his tone.

  With a shrug, Angel straightened his shirt and said, “For her.”

  That seemed to satisfy him. He snapped his fingers like calling a dog, and Artemis appeared. She jumped on him, her huge paws leveraging her weight against his chest as her stubby tail wagged in delight. He rubbed behind her ears and nuzzled her neck.

  “You stay here,” he said into her ear, “and don’t let her get into any trouble. Got it?”

  When he raised his brows in question, she barked in affirmation, and I suddenly felt very outnumbered.

  I frowned at her. “Traitor.”

  She barked again, completely unmoved by my accusation, and jumped to play with Angel, easily tackling him to the ground. Angel laughed and tried to get her in a chokehold. It was odd how her jaw could open to accommodate the girth of his throat. His gurgling screams of agony seemed to make her happy, and that was good enough for me.

  “I just need to make sure they didn’t follow us here,” he said.

  “You should really let me take a look at your wounds.”

  “The last time you looked at my wounds, you almost passed out.”

  “That was a long time ago.”

  “Two months. Give or take.”

  “Fine,” I said, sending him off with a wave. “Go do your cool manly things while I stay home under the ever-watchful eye of a gurgling thirteen-year-old gangbanger.”

  There was something so wrong with that picture.

  * * *

  I awoke to the cool sensation of a hundred-pound departed Rottweiler sprawled over me as though I were a human mattress. I wasn’t really alarmed by the fact that her right paw covered my face almost completely, cutting off my flow of oxygen, or the fact that my legs had gone numb as her shoulder was wedged into my hip bone, but more by the fact that as her head hung over my ribs, she was snoring. Really? Even in death? Snoring just seemed superfluous for some reason.

  I had so much to think about—demons, my heritage, my apparent long-term commitment as the grim reaper, a contract I did not remember signing—but nothing beyond the thought of coffee penetrated my cranium. And oxygen. And the fact that I had to pee like a champion racehorse. There was an odd pressure on my bladder that went by the name of Artemis.

  I moved a gigantic paw off my face and wiggled out from under the Rottweiler with herculean effort. When I landed on the floor, her head hung off the side of the bed, but she had yet to wake up. I couldn’t help it. I leaned in to nuzzle her whiskers. Her lip twitched and formed a snarl every time I kissed her nose. She would have made a great Elvis impersonator.

  I managed to get to my feet and make it to the bathroom. After a quick pit stop and a rendezvous with Mr. Coffee, I sneaked to the living room window, careful not to disturb Angel or Aunt Lil as they lay crashed on varying articles of furniture. It still amazed me that the departed slept. Especially with all the hammering going on next door.

  Even through the noise of construction, I’d heard a truck pull up. It was too early for a delivery truck to be at Dad’s bar, so my curiosity got the better of me. Maybe it was my new neighbors, though that would be silly, as their apartment was still being renovated. My digs could use some renovating.
I’d have to talk to Mr. Z later. Convince him new countertops would add to the value of the whole building.

  Surprisingly, there was a moving van outside, but it was pulled up to the back of the bar. With curiosity piqued, I hurried to my bedroom window for a better view. Yep, someone was moving in. I looked at the second-floor windows and gasped. Aloud. A man was opening the blinds and dusting off the sills as though readying the place for a new tenant.

  In my offices.

  My father was renting out my offices right out from under me. I was appalled. Offended. And more than a little ticked. After a quick wardrobe check—surely plaid boxers, a T-shirt that proclaimed that I was cooler than refrigerated air, and pink bunny slippers would do for a quick trip across the alley—I put my coffee cup down and headed to my dad’s bar. The more I thought about it, the faster I walked. And the faster I walked, the angrier I became.

  A crisp wind whipped around me when I exited my building, but I ignored it. My father was renting out my offices. Of all the gall.

  I strode past two men struggling to offload a desk and ducked into the bar through the back door.

  “Dad!” I yelled, stalking past my startled stepmother, who’d just come in from the front. She’d apparently brought the traitor breakfast. I could only hope he’d choke on it. And past Sienna, the gorgeous new bartender who’d hit on Pari. She wore an appreciative grin when she noticed my boxers.

  Gemma stepped out of Dad’s office just as I got there, her face a picture of surprise. “Charley, you’re not dressed.”

  “Where is he?” I asked, stepping past her.

  “Dad? He’s upstairs, I think.”

  If I’d been in my right mind, I might have paid heed when the tiniest hint of a smirk flitted across her face, I might have caught on to the fact that all was not as it seemed, but I was on a mission. I turned and took the stairs two at a time. Not the easiest thing to do in bunny slippers. And the long leaps caused my boxers to wedge into unmentionable places, but a quick readjustment once I reached the landing set things right.