Summoned to Thirteenth Grave

by Darynda Jones

  “I do.” Her breath hitched with the confession. “I’ve known for a long time what you were, how you help people, both alive and departed. Do you know how special that is? How special you are?”

  I socked her on the arm. “Stop. You’re gonna make me blush.”

  “That,” she said, pointing a manicured finger at me and shaking her head. “That’s what I’m talking about. You have all these abilities, all these gifts, and you take it all in stride, like it’s so everyday.”

  “For me it is, I guess. I’ve never known anything else.”

  “And yet you never complain.”

  I shifted, suddenly uncomfortable. “I wouldn’t say never. You should have heard me in Marmalade. Oh, my God, those poor wraiths. Having to listen to me rant for decades at a time. It’s a wonder any of them were still sane when I left. A hundred years of that is enough to drive anyone, supernatural entity or not, to the brink of any number of mental disorders. Know what I mean?” I snorted and elbowed her, but she sat gaping at me. She did that a lot.

  “A hundred years? What do you mean?”

  Oops. There were some things my sibling just didn’t need to know.

  “Oh, no, I just meant, you know, metaphorically. Like when I used to say I was going to stab you in the face a hundred times. I would never really have done it. Not a hundred times.”

  She narrowed her lids, so I took the opportunity to get to the heart of why I was sitting in the same room with my sister for so long. “I have something to ask you that might seem a bit odd at first.”

  She perked up. “Shoot.”

  “You told me that you’d been at the hospital the night I was born.”

  The face she made told me she hadn’t expected such a random question, but she inclined her head, thinking back. “I was. Uncle Bob took me, and we sat in the waiting room forever, and I know they’re called waiting rooms, but waiting for a baby to be born is brutal. We were there for hours.”

  I frowned. “Hours? Really?” Why would Uncle Bob take Gemma, who was only four at the time, to the hospital to wait for hours? “Maybe Mom wanted you there?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe. I just remember being really bored once the excitement of the vending machines wore off. Then I fell asleep.”

  “I have a love-hate relationship with vending machines.”

  “They’re so shiny,” she said. “And have such pretty things inside.”

  I gaped at her. “Gemma Vi Davidson, I had no idea we were so much alike.”

  “Except I’m not a supernatural entity with crazy otherworldly skills.”

  “Right. Well, other than that.”

  “Why are you asking about that night?”

  I almost skipped the truth, but she’d been so honest with me, I decided to go for it and tell her the truth about Marmalade and my quest. “Okay, so all the cards on the table. I’ve been in another dimension, and while it felt like a hundred years there, it was only ten days here on Earth. But that’s not the important part. The point is I had company.”

  Her eyelids formed a perfect circle.

  “There were these wraiths, and they were very friendly after the first twenty years or so. But they knew things about me. They were clairvoyant. And telepathic. And oracular. Anyway, all the stuff that’s happening with the infection? It’s supernatural. The wraiths warned me about it, and they said that to figure out how to stop it, I had to find out what really happened to Mom.”

  I pushed the Pause button to let her catch up. She stared for a long, long time, then slowly nodded. “Okay. I’m with you. I can do this. I’m not running. See?” She did a Vanna White, gesturing to herself. “This is me not running.”

  “Look at you.” I patted her on the back, pride swelling inside me. Or a bout of the giggles. It was hard to tell. “Nobody can call you a scaredy-cat. Anymore.”

  “But wait.” Her face grew even more serious. “What did they mean about Mom? She died in childbirth, right?”

  “That’s what I thought. That’s what I need to find out. But if you don’t remember anything unusual—”

  “Well, I did faint.”

  “Right. Uncle Bob found you in the hall. You don’t remember what led up to it?”

  “No. And I’ve tried. I can’t recall anything after the sugar rush and subsequent crash I got from the vending machine. Not until Uncle Bob lifted me into his arms in the hall in front of the nurses’ station.”

  “Wait, Uncle Bob found you in front of the nurses’ station? There were no nurses there?”

  She squinted, thinking back. “No. I don’t think so. Maybe they were all helping with Mom.”

  “Maybe.” I sat back for a moment, then jumped up. “I’ll let you get ready for bed.”

  “Ready for bed? I couldn’t sleep if you tranked me.”

  I laughed. “Okay, we’ll be in the commons if you want company.”

  “I’ll be there in a bit.”

  I nodded and started to leave, but I turned back to her. “You don’t have to, you know. We’re going to try to come up with a plan. It’s all going to be very … supernatural.”

  “Nope, I’m good. From now on, I am totally there for you.”

  I gave her my best, most polished smile and headed out in search of a Cookie. The Cookie. The one and only Cookie Kowalski Davidson. I picked up a hitchhiker named Pari on the way and found Cookie in the commons room. I didn’t know what else to call it. Living room didn’t quite fit. And living-room-slash-office-slash-kitchen-and-dining-area was way too long.

  “Did Quentin make it back?” I asked her.

  She’d been poring over a printout and started when Pari and I walked in.

  “Yes. How’s your sister? Oh, hey, Pari.”

  Pari claimed a spot on the office sofa. The sofa that was not made for comfort so much as durability. “Hey, Cook.”

  “She’ll be okay,” I said, going for the Bunn.

  “Good. Quentin and Amber are playing with that precious little boy.” She said that as though she could see him. When I turned back to her, coffee cup hovering at my lips, she stopped what she was doing and pinned me with her concerned mommy face. “Is he going to be okay? That sweet baby? How did he die?”

  “He’ll be fine, hon. I don’t know, but Q&A Investigations is on the job. They’ll figure it out.”

  A ghost of a smile brushed across her face. Q&A Investigations was Quentin and Amber’s very own private detective agency. Before I’d been booted out of the Milky Way, they’d even had an employee. Named Petaluma. Not sure what they’d paid her with, though. Neither of them did what I’d repeatedly told them to: cut their hair and get jobs. That was sometimes the best advice I could offer. It seemed salient, even when faced with questions like, “How do you find a dead body if it’s already dead?” or “Can we legally bug a suspect’s phone?” The PI biz was so complicated.

  The main entrance door opened, and we all turned to see Garrett and Uncle Bob walk into the room. My uncle Bob. The very man who liked to say he practically raised me but was more like that uncle who embarrassed the family by trying to order a chocolate sundae with extra tequila at Baskin-Robbins or causing the big throwdown at Christmas dinner because he brought a stripper named Caramel to the sacred event.

  My stepmother hated when he did that.

  God, I loved him.

  “Okay, what’s this surprise?” he asked Cookie before he realized there were other people in the room—namely, me.

  He dropped the armload of files he was carrying onto a chair and opened his arms. I put down my coffee cup and hurried over to be swallowed by him.

  “Charley,” he said, squeezing so hard I worried my insides would become my outsides. And I loved every pounds-per-square-inch of it. “We’ve been so worried. Reyes has been beside himself.”

  “Well, he can just stay beside himself. I’ve been there. It’s a great place to be. Warm. Lots of shade. Oh, hey, Reyes,” I said to my husband when he walked in on my rant. My teasing rant since I could feel him
getting nearer with every step he took.

  Thankfully, we healed much faster than the average Shade-demon casualty. He wore bandages under his T-shirt. At this point, I was thankful for two things: they were actually bandages and not duct tape, and he wouldn’t need them for long.

  I gave the G-man—a.k.a. Garrett—a quick hug, too, and went back to my cup-o-reason-for-living.

  Uncle Bob grabbed the files he’d brought and tossed them on the metal table. “Case after case after case. People going crazy. Mutilating themselves. Attacking their family members. Is this really an infection, or is it something else?”

  When no one else answered, I sat at the table and said, “It’s something else.”

  Shame warmed my cheeks as Reyes sat beside me. Cookie, Garrett, and Pari pulled up chairs on the other side of the rectangle. I looked over my shoulder. Even Gemma joined us. I smiled at her reassuringly as she sat at the farthest end.

  “We opened a hell dimension, Uncle Bob.” When he gaped at me, I added, “Not on purpose.”

  “So, it’s true?” He turned away and rubbed his stubbly jaw. After a long moment, he asked, “How do I go to the captain with this?”

  “Captain Eckert understands more than you think.” The captain and I’d had an encounter a while back. The guy knew a lot about the supernatural realm. Certainly more than most.

  “But a hell dimension?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure I’d put it in those exact words,” Reyes said.

  I agreed. “Even if you told him, Ubie, there’s nothing he can do. We’re working on it. Speaking of which, what the hell, Reyes?” I offered him my angriest grimace. “Why are these things so strong?”

  He opened his hands in helplessness. “I was creating the dimension to hold a god. They needed to be strong.”

  “Wait, what god?” Gemma asked.

  Reyes and I turned to her.

  “Me,” I said. “He was building it for me. Kind of. Long story short, he only thought he was building it for me. His Brother tricked him.” I looked up at him, unable to deny the sting of the entire situation. “You must have really hated me.”

  “Dutch,” he said, his tone low. “I was angry and confused. I thought you’d betrayed me.”

  Trying to lighten the mood, I said, “Historically, we’ve had a rather abusive relationship.”

  “Don’t,” he said softly, averting his gaze, but not before I saw the hurt in his eyes.

  I winced. If anyone knew about an abusive relationship, it was my husband. The monster that raised him had exacted every conceivable violation of mind and body humanly possible. And here I was talking about abusive relationships.

  I bit back a curse. “Reyes—”

  “What else do we know?” he asked, changing the subject.

  He was right. We had bigger fish to fillet. “Have your guys noticed anything that would tie the victims together? Any connection other than geography?”

  “Not a thing,” Uncle Bob said. “Even the CDC is looking into that. They’ve come up empty-handed as well. At least this explains why they can’t actually find a virus.”

  “Are they still looking in that direction?” Cookie asked.

  “Yes, but they’re also looking for possible environmental causes.”

  “Reyes,” I said, veering back to my original point, “I’d really like to know if there is anything tying these victims together. Something we’re not seeing.”

  “Anything particular in mind?” he asked.

  “No, but it’s happened before. On two separate occasions, the victims of our investigations could see into the supernatural realm.”

  He scraped a hand down his handsome face. “I guess there could be, but there are too many. Not that many humans can see past the veil.”

  “True, but there could still be a connection. Something completely out of left field. Something we’d never think of.”

  “How do you propose we find out?” Garrett asked.

  And that was the question. I looked at my husband. “If you think it’s safe, Reyes, I’d like to send Angel into the Shade. Will the demons go after him?”

  “I don’t know why they would. He can’t help them cross, and that seems to be their main goal.”

  “I’ll go in,” Osh said, materializing in a chair beside Pari. He wore his signature black top hat and duster.

  Pari, Cookie, and Gemma jumped, each in her own unique way.

  Cookie vaulted out of her chair, then caught herself and sat back down.

  Gemma lost her balance and toppled over. After dragging herself back onto her chair, she gave me a thumbs-up.

  Pari grabbed her chest and cursed. It was a very Pari-like reaction to any surprising situation. “Holy shit.” She fanned herself. “That was cool.”

  He dazzled her with his most charming lopsided grin. She reciprocated with a come-hither glance over a coy shoulder.

  My gaze bounced between the two of them. “Robbing the cradle, aren’t you?”

  “Sorry,” Pari said, snapping back to us.

  “I was talking to him. He’s just a teensy bit older than he looks. And the answer is no.”

  Osh tried out his grin on me. “It wasn’t a question, sugar.”

  It didn’t work. Well, it did, but … “The answer is still no.”

  He bristled. “Look, we have to stop this. Beep’s in danger thanks to Captain Dimwit over there.” He gestured toward Reyes.

  “Osh, he feels bad enough.”

  “No, I don’t think he does.”

  Reyes stood. Osh immediately followed. And the monthly hour-long stare-down commenced.

  Seriously? We were back to this?

  “Guys!” I shouted, holding up my hands. “What exactly happened while I was gone?”

  “Why don’t you ask your idiot husband?”

  “Osh,” I admonished, then turned to the man who’d abducted my heart eons ago. “Reyes, what is he talking about?”

  “Shit he doesn’t understand,” he said cryptically.

  Great. It was going to be one of those nights.

  “Well, I don’t care. Cut the shit, guys. We have to stick together on this.”

  Osh sat back down in a huff.

  “For the record, Osh, this entire situation is my fault, not Reyes’s.”

  “No, it’s not,” Reyes said.

  I ignored him. “And we have three days. We don’t have time for a pissing contest. Osh, the Shade demons did not like us invading their territory. I’m not sending you in there.”

  Before he could argue, I closed my eyes and summoned Angel.

  “It’s about time, pendeja,” he said when he manifested beside me. “Where the fuck you been?”

  I bolted out of my chair and tackle-hugged him. He hugged me back, his lanky arms locking me into his viselike grip.

  Angel was a thirteen-year-old juvenile delinquent who’d died in the nineties. He wore a red bandanna low on his brow. A dirty A-line tee covered his upper half, and baggy jeans on the verge of slipping off his hips cloaked his bottom half. A gangbanger any shot caller would be proud of. I’d missed that head of thick, dark hair, cinnamon-colored skin, and glossy brown eyes with lashes any girl would give her right kidney for. So unfair.

  He gave me a minute to take him in before turning into his usual self. He bent his head until his mouth was at my ear. “I saw a storeroom on the way in. Mira. We can check it out, yeah? Just you and me. You naked. Me watching you be naked.”

  I laughed and placed several tiny kisses on his peach fuzz–covered cheek. Angel wouldn’t be Angel without earning demerits for inappropriate conduct of a celestial being.

  “He gets more action with your wife than you do,” Osh said, baiting my husband.

  I rolled my eyes, then stabbed him with a warning glare.

  “Sit,” I said to Angel, offering him my chair while I took a seat on Reyes’s lap. And, no, I didn’t miss the smirk he cast Osh’s way.

  Angel scanned the room, greeting those who could see him a
nd pretty much ignoring those who couldn’t. After taking inventory, he looked back at me, his face full of concern.

  “I’m okay,” I said, shaking my head.

  “What am I looking for?” he asked, dropping it. He already knew where I was sending him.

  “Anything the victims might have in common. Why are the Shade demons targeting them? It could be completely random, but if it’s not, we need to know.”

  For some in the room, I was having a one-sided conversation, but everyone there had been on the team long enough to understand.

  Garrett spoke up then, addressing Ubie. “Can you get us a list of names?”

  He shuffled through the files and found the one he was looking for. “It’s being updated constantly, but here’s what we have so far. I can send you updated lists as we get them.”

  “Thanks.” Garrett took the file from him and read through the names.

  “Anything jumping out?” I asked.

  “Not offhand. I’ll do some checking.”

  “Thanks.” I turned toward the surly slave demon in the top hat. “Osh, with Angel here—”

  “I’m on Beep duty.”

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  He tipped his hat and vanished.

  “Seriously,” Pari said, “that is the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.”

  “Cook, Pari has something she needs you to look into. A name.”

  “Really?” Cookie said, tearing her gaze away from where Osh had been, just as impressed as Pari.

  I turned to my sister. “Gemma, I want you to get some rest.”

  “Does he do that a lot?” she asked, pointing to Osh’s vacant chair.

  I’d lost them all.

  7

  Coffee helps me maintain my “never killed anyone” streak.

  —T-SHIRT

  While the gang went to work, I walked over to Ubie. Well, I heated up my coffee, then I walked over to Ubie.

  “How are you?” I asked him as he straightened the folders.

  “I’m good, pumpkin. How about you?”

  “Fan-freaking-tastic. Mostly tastic.”