Summoned to Thirteenth Grave

by Darynda Jones

  True to her word, Kit showed up twenty minutes later with the file on Belinda Banks. How she managed a trip from her apartment to her office and then all the way out here in twenty minutes was beyond me, but I wasn’t about to question her enthusiasm.

  “She’s been missing for ten years,” she said, taking a seat at the metal table without so much as a “Glad you’re back.”

  Reyes, Uncle Bob, and Cook were there. Garrett swore he was onto something, so he was still deep in research mode in his room, and what a man did alone in his room was none of my business.

  “You think she’s still alive?”

  “I know she is.” I handed her a cup of joe and sat beside her with my own cup of joe. Joe got around. “But I don’t know for how long. She’s being kept somewhere with two children, a boy and a girl. I’m not saying they are hers, but they do call her Mommy.”

  She showed her palms in surrender. “Should I even ask where you got this information?”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  Reyes, Cookie, and Uncle Bob all agreed with head shakes of their own.

  “I’m going to stand over here and look out the window while I drink my coffee.” She slid the file over to us and walked to a large, dirty window, turning her back to us, giving us a better view of the dark mop of bedhead she had to deal with every morning. Poor kid.

  Cookie grabbed the file before any of us could. Which was probably best. She’d had a lot of coffee. It brought out her competitive side.

  She flipped through the pages. “Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Oh, this is interesting.”

  “What?” Uncle Bob asked, looking over her shoulder.

  “They had several suspects, but none panned out.”

  I put my weight on my elbows and leaned closer. “Were there any named Reyes Alexander Farrow?”

  Kit spared a surprised glance over her shoulder.

  “No peeking,” I said in warning.

  She averted her gaze again.

  “No Reyeses, but there was a Randy. If that helps.”

  I crinkled my nose in disappointment.

  “Still, this gives us a starting point. Amber and Quentin can ask Meiko about these men, see if any of them go by the name of Reyes.”

  “That’s just weird,” Ubie said.

  Cookie took out her phone and snapped shots of the important pages in the file. “We totally need a copier.”

  “Who’s Meiko?” Kit asked.

  “Why would someone go by your name?” Ubie continued.

  Reyes shrugged.

  “Who’s Meiko?” she repeated.

  “Maybe it’s someone you know,” I suggested, still on the Reyes thing.

  Kit finally turned around, exasperated. It was like she didn’t know us at all. “Who. Is. Meiko?”

  “He may or may not be Belinda’s son. We think he’s sick. We know he doesn’t have much time. We have to find them, Kit. We have to hunt this Reyes Alexander Farrow fucker down. We have to make him pay.” When Reyes slipped me the barest hint of a glower, I added, “The other Reyes Alexander Farrow.”

  He continued his vigil.

  “The one that’s not you. And as for you,” I said, focusing on Kit, “I need you to get out of town ay-sap.”

  “Um, no? What makes you think you can order me around? When I get to the office tomorrow—”

  “Hold on right there, Little Miss Sunshine.” I pointed an index finger at God to stop her. “We totally agreed on the phone you were leaving this town in your rearview mirror.”

  “We didn’t agree to shit,” she said. “You never even gave me a reason why.”

  I glanced at Reyes, then back to her. “It’s this infection, Kit. It’s not what you think. It’s supernatural. All of it.”

  “Supernatural? How do you—? Wait, never mind.” She took another sip.

  “The CDC can test until the stars burn out. There is no cure. Not a medicinal one, anyway. You can’t fight it.”

  “And you can?” she asked.

  “We’re the only ones who can.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s not good enough. I can’t leave, especially now. If we have a lead on this case, I need to follow up.”

  “Kit, we’ll do everything we can to find them before anything happens. And we could do that better if we knew you were safe.”

  The expression lining her pretty face wasn’t so much of a smile as a smirk with a dash of warmth mixed in. “Not on your life, twinkle toes. This is my case.”

  I narrowed my lids. “You aren’t old enough to have landed this case when it happened.”

  “No, but my father did. It’s one of the few that got away. A fourteen-year-old girl disappears without a trace? It bothered him. A lot. And to be honest, knowing there’s nothing I can do about the infection will free up that stressor. I’ll take this case. You take the supernatural thingamajig.”

  “Is that a professional term?”

  “In this situation, apparently so.”

  I knew when I’d been licked. Not Reyes-licked, but beaten-licked. Sadly.

  She gathered the file, downed the rest of her coffee, then headed back out into the night without so much as a “Great to see you.”

  I really liked her.

  * * *

  I had to practically force Cookie to go to bed. With the help of my lying scumbag of an uncle, we accomplished what quickly turning into Mission: Impossible. I watched Uncle Bob escort her to their room, my heart hurting, and asked myself for the millionth time why he would lie to me.

  “He must have a good reason,” Reyes said behind me, guessing my thoughts.

  “Maybe, but why not just tell me? He never lies to me. He’s one of the few people on Earth who never lies to me.”

  “What’s stranger,” he added, “is that he knows he can’t get away with it, so why try?”

  I hadn’t thought of that. Why would he lie when he of all people would know I’d spot it almost before it left his mouth? It made no sense.

  Reyes took my hand and escorted me to the stairs to our industrial suite, letting me go first.

  “Reyes,” I said, halfway up, “all of this is happening because of what we did. What I did. My need to release those souls from the hell dimension has caused the deaths of innocent people.”

  “This isn’t on you, Dutch.”

  “It’s entirely on me. All this sickness and destruction. The threat of an apocalypse. I mean, think about it. Who could’ve guessed that one day little Charley Davidson, coffee addict and aspiring dog groomer, would cause the extinction of the entire human race? This is going to look so bad on my résumé.”

  “I’m the one who created it.”

  “Yes. For me!”

  I’d reached the landing. I turned to Reyes, who was still on the stairs, so we stood at eye level. A level on which I very much liked to be.

  I rested my arms on his shoulders and clasped my hands behind his neck, letting my fingers tangle into his hair. His heat sank into me, and my body absorbed it as though it were water and I a scorched desert.

  He tightened his grip on the handrail and dropped his gaze. “I’m the one who shattered the god glass. Who opened the gate. I’m sorrier than you can imagine.”

  It didn’t matter what he said, how much he argued; none of this was his fault. He was only trying to escape a hell dimension I’d sent him into.

  After placing a tiny kiss on his cheek, I peeled his hand off the handrail and pulled him to the huge plate glass window to look at the beautiful city lights. To remind us both what was at stake.

  What would happen to this beautiful city, this beautiful world, if the Shade really did take over? We simply had no way of knowing, but the fact that it was a hell dimension, emphasis on hell, didn’t bode well.

  Still, I needed to focus on what I could do, not what I couldn’t. It wasn’t like I could collapse the hell dimension myself. Not in a million years, much less three days. It was too strong.

  Snapping out of my thoughts, I filled my lungs and hit r
eboot. “Okay, Cookie gave me everything she could dig up from when my mother died.”

  “Which was?”

  “Pretty much nothing. She died in childbirth at Lovelace. Even though I can’t fathom what her death has to do with any of this, I’m going to start there tomorrow. If nothing else, I’m going to find out if there was any foul play.”

  Reyes pressed into me from behind. “Sounds good,” he said, brushing his mouth along my neck. That one act sent tiny shock waves rocketing through my body.

  “Did you miss me?” he asked.

  I almost wept. “More than you can possibly imagine.”

  “I don’t know.” He nipped at an earlobe, and my knees almost gave beneath my weight. Which could have been a possible side effect of being weightless for so long. “I have a pretty big imagination.”

  I turned in his arms and looked up at him. “Reyes, how long were you in there? It was only an hour here on Earth. How long was it there?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  I leaned back. “Of course it does.”

  He leaned forward. “No, it doesn’t.”

  “Pretty please?”

  I was so not above begging, but I had to fight the urge to whimper when he slid his hands under my sweater and unclasped my bra. Then, with exquisite tenderness, he tested the weight of Danger and Will.

  “With cherries on top?” I added, my voice suddenly hoarse.

  His thumbs brushed over my nipples, and a spasm of pleasure rippled through to my core. The muscles between my legs tightened in response.

  “I lost count,” he said at my ear.

  “How high did you get before you lost count?”

  Absently, as though his mind were barely on the subject at all, as though it were a paltry thing, he said, “Seventeen hundred.”

  I snapped to attention. “Seventeen hundred?”

  He took his tongue off the rim of my ear and said, “Yes,” before replacing it with his teeth.

  Despite the tingle of delight his ministrations were causing, I leaned away from him again. “Seventeen hundred what?”

  He let out a frustrated sigh but didn’t look up. He was too busy studying my mouth, his intense gaze heating me from the inside out.

  “Please tell me hours,” I said. “Seventeen hundred hours. No! Better yet, minutes. Say minutes.”

  The barest hint of a grin broke through, but his attention seemed to have been hijacked by Danger and Will. He lifted the sweater and bra over my head and let them fall to the floor.

  Then he spent an inordinate amount of time memorizing their exact shapes before saying, “Let’s go with that.”

  “Let’s go with what?” I asked.

  He pressed into me again, his hands caressing the girls like they were the treasures of a king and he’d just been crowned. “Minutes.”

  “But it wasn’t really minutes?”

  “No, Dutch.” He wrapped a hand around my throat, the movement way sexier than it should have been, and pushed me into the glass. “It wasn’t really minutes.”

  The glass, ice cold against my back, was in direct contrast to the scorching heat pressing into me. With one skillful jerk, he had my pants around my ankles. The cool air hit me first, followed quickly by his blistering heat.

  But it was my turn. He could seduce me with that Cheshire grin of his alone, but it was high time I did a little seducing of my own.

  I pushed him back, unzipped my boots, and stepped out of my pants. He waited, his expression hungry, but when he started forward again, I held up a hand to stop him.

  “Off,” I said, instructing him with an index finger to remove his clothing as well.

  He complied, a wolfish smile on his handsome face. He peeled off his shirt, his muscles bunching with each movement, the effect mesmerizing.

  When he removed his pants, his erection showed just how much he appreciated the fact that I was back. The valley between hip and abdomen caught my attention while he finished undressing. Then he straightened and allowed me a long, lingering look at what I’d missed.

  My gaze traveled from the top of his gorgeous head to the tips of his perfect toes. I took in every line. Every curvature. Every shadow. I watched as the low light caressed his muscles, highlighting their existence with spectacular devotion, as though it loved them as much as I did.

  He’d filled out in the time I’d known him the way men do. He’d gained mass without even trying. His shoulders had actually widened, making the tapering to his lean hips even more pronounced. My great-grandmother could have done her laundry on his abs. And she would have enjoyed every second of it.

  I tilted my head to worship a whole other part of him. His ass, with the deep dips on the sides, was the stuff of legend.

  “Are you finished?” he asked, the humor in his voice unmistakable.

  “Not even close.”

  “Sucks to be you, then.”

  He started forward, but I held up my hand again. He stopped and crossed his arms, looking like Adonis, Aphrodite’s favorite in the flesh. But he remained in place, albeit with a slightly annoyed look on his face.

  I ignored his impudence. Instead, I laid my head back against the glass and closed my eyes. One by one, I dismissed the objects in the world around us. There was no glass at my back or tile at my feet. Then there was no room. No warehouse. No city. I focused until the only thing left was the man I loved.

  “Dutch,” he said, his voice edged with a warning, but I only concentrated all the harder.

  I sent out my energy. To caress him. To explore. I searched out his erogenous zones. Warmed them. Stroked them. I felt him tense and then weaken beneath my touch. When I brushed my energy over his cock, he sucked in a sharp breath.

  I finally opened my eyes. He’d thrown his head back, basking in the sensations I was causing, and I fought the urge to raise my arms in triumph. But I’d lost my concentration and bounced back quickly.

  He lowered his head and lifted his lids, taking me in from beneath his thick lashes. His gaze glistened with hunger and, if I didn’t know better, the exhilaration of challenge.

  “Are you finished now?” he asked.

  My mouth formed an unattractive pout. “I guess.”

  He was in front of me at once, his hands braced against the glass on either side of my head, one corner of his mouth tilted up in a grin that defined bloodthirsty. But he didn’t touch me. He didn’t have to. Apparently it was his turn to show off, and in the span of a heartbeat, he proved just what an amateur he’d married.

  Electricity arced off him and over me. It wrapped around my throat and the wrists at my side, locking me against the glass.

  He bent forward and whispered softly into my ear, “Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to play with electricity?”

  And then, with the skill of a surgeon, he sent electrical currents in soft waves over my skin. He spread my legs with it, just enough to give him easier access. Then he sent tiny, stinging waves feathering over my clit. A combination of pleasure and pain rocketed through me and settled in my abdomen.

  I gasped as the tendrils burrowed farther inside, ebbing and flowing, coaxing me ever closer to the edge. A second pulse of currents rushed up my stomach and over Danger and Will, hardening their nipples and causing a flood tide of sensation to wash over me.

  “Reyes,” I said, suddenly wanting nothing more than for him to bury himself between my legs.

  Clearly having too much fun, he tsked softly but didn’t release his hold. He did, however, close the distance between us. His heavy erection pressed against my clit, stroking the tender flesh there, and if he hadn’t been holding me up, I might have lost my ability to stand.

  “Reyes, please.”

  He closed his mouth over Danger’s peak and sucked softly, buckling my knees at last. When he released my wrists, I grabbed a handful of hair and forced his mouth to mine. My other hand sought out his thick cock, and I stroked it from base to tip.

  He had me on the floor in the next instant, wedging
his hips between my legs, driving his cock deep inside of me. The immediate spike of ecstasy caused the embers that resided in every molecule in my body to explode. They crashed into each other as an orgasm burst free and spilled over me in decadent hot waves.

  I whimpered into his mouth. The sound seemed to drive him over the edge as his own orgasm racked his body. He tensed, his muscles the consistency of solid marble, then shuddered and collapsed next to me.

  I turned onto my side to look at him. He had an arm thrown over his half his face, his dark hair hanging in wet clumps beneath it. But he wore a grin as wolfish as any I’d seen.

  “Fine,” I said after taking a long moment to catch my breath. “You win.”

  He laughed softly, and I marveled at the spectacular being next to me. Stunning and clever and brave, he never ceased to amaze me.

  “If you keep doing that,” he said, his lids closed, his voice sleepy, “I’m going to have to show you what else a god is capable of.”

  I giggled, turned his face to mine, and kissed him. “I think I’m safe for now.”

  With a grin worthy of a seasoned hustler, he said, “Then you don’t know me at all.”

  10

  I’m not sure I can physically handle

  much more of this “getting out of bed” nonsense.

  —MEME

  One would think, since we only had cots to sleep on, we would’ve made use of them both, one body per bunk. Instead, we both occupied one, Reyes on bottom with me draped over him like a rag doll and Artemis draped over me like a Rottie doll. I could only pray I didn’t drool as much as she did.

  Reyes’s arms encircled us both, and despite the paw partially blocking my airway, I fell into a sleep that bordered on cadaverous. It was positively euphoric until someone poked me in the ribs. Three times.

  I jerked awake and peered into the darkness, trying to make out the accoster’s identity. Not because it was dark. The departed practically glowed. But because it was insanely early and I hadn’t slept in a hundred years.

  Literally. I never slept in Marmalade, which sounded worse than it actually was. It just never occurred to me to get any z’s while there. Or eat. Or make pee-pee. Thank God, because there wasn’t a shred of toilet paper in the entire realm.