Second Grave on the Left cd-2

by Darynda Jones

* * *

  The strangest thing happened on the day I was born. A dark figure was waiting for me just outside my mother’s womb. He wore a hooded cloak. It undulated around him, filling the entire delivery room with rolling black waves, like smoke in a soft breeze. Though I couldn’t see his face, I knew he was watching when the doctor cut the cord. Though I couldn’t feel his fingers, I knew he touched me when the nurses cleaned my skin. Though I couldn’t hear his voice, I knew he whispered my name, the sound deep and husky.

  He was so powerful, his mere presence weakened me, made air difficult to draw into my lungs, and I was afraid of him. As I grew older, I realized he was the only thing I was afraid of. I’d never been plagued with the normal phobias of childhood, probably a good thing, since dead people gathered around me en masse. But him, I was afraid of. And yet he showed himself only in times of dire need. He’d saved me, saved my life more than once. So why was I afraid? Why had I dubbed him the Big Bad growing up when he seemed anything but?

  Perhaps it was the power that radiated off him, that seemed to absorb a part of me when he was near.

  Jump ahead fifteen years to a frigid night on the streets of Albuquerque, the first time I’d seen Reyes Farrow. My older sister, Gemma, and I had been on recon for a school project in a rather bad part of town when we noticed movement in the window of a small apartment. We realized in horror that a man was beating a teenaged boy. At that moment, my only thought was to save him. Some way. Somehow. Out of desperation, I threw a brick through the man’s window. It worked. He stopped hitting the boy. Unfortunately, he came after us. We tore down a dark alley and were searching for an opening along a fence when we realized the boy had escaped as well. We saw him doubled over behind the apartment building.

  We went back. Blood streaked down his face, dripped from his incredible mouth. We found out his name was Reyes and tried to help, but he refused our offer, even going so far as to threaten us if we didn’t leave. That was my first lesson in the absurdities of the male mind. But because of that incident, I wasn’t completely surprised when I found out more than a decade later that Reyes had spent the last ten years in prison for killing that very man.

  That was only one of several truths I’d recently found out about him, not the least of which was the fact that Reyes and the Big Bad, the dark being that had been following me, watching over me since the day of my birth, were one and the same. He had been the thing that saved my life over and over. The thing that studied me from the shadows, a mere shadow himself, and protected me from afar. The thing I was most afraid of growing up. Hell, the only thing I was afraid of growing up.

  It was mind numbing to realize the smoky being from my childhood was a man made of flesh and blood. Yet he could leave his physical body and travel through space and time as an incorporeal presence, one that could dematerialize in the span of a heartbeat. One that could draw a sword and sever a man’s spinal column within the blink of an eye. One that could melt the polar ice caps with a single glance from underneath his dark lashes.

  And yet every revelation brought more questions. Only a week ago, I found out where his supernatural abilities stemmed from. I saw into his world when his fingertips brushed down my arm, when his mouth scorched flames over my skin, and when he sank inside me, causing the surge of orgasm to unlock his past and pull back the curtains for me to see. I watched the birth of the universe unfold before my eyes as his father — his real father, the most beautiful angel ever created — was thrown from the halls of heaven. Lucifer fought back, his army vast, and in this time of great turmoil, Reyes was born. Forged from the heat of a supernova, he rose quickly through the ranks to become a respected leader. Second only to his father, he commanded millions of soldiers, a general among thieves, even more beautiful and powerful than his father, with the key to the gates of hell scored into his body.

  But his father’s pride would not be subdued. He wanted the heavens. He wanted complete control over every living thing in the universe. He wanted God’s throne.

  Reyes followed his father’s every command, waited and watched for a portal to be born upon the Earth, a direct passage to heaven, a way out of hell. A tracker of flawless stealth and skill, he negotiated his way through the gates of the underworld and found the portals in the farthest reaches of the universe, a thousand lights identical in shape and form. A thousand reapers hoping for the privilege to serve on Earth.

  But Reyes looked harder and saw one made of spun gold, a daughter of the sun, shimmering and glistening. Me. I turned and saw him and smiled. And Reyes was lost.

  He defied his father’s wishes for him to return to hell with our location, waited centuries for me to be sent, and was born upon the Earth himself, forsaking all that he knew for me. Because the day he was born in human form was the day he forgot who he was, what he was. And more important, what he was capable of. He gave up everything to be with me, but a cruel twist in fate sent him into the arms of a monster, and Reyes grew up with his every move dictated by a predator of the worst kind. Slowly, he began to remember his past. Who he was. What he was. But by that time, he’d been sent to prison for killing the man who raised him.

  * * *

  I awoke with a start on the floor of my bathtub and bolted upright. The hard slippery surface being what it was, mostly hard and slippery, I dropped just as quickly, my palms sliding out from under me. I hit hard. Thus, on my second attempt, I took it a bit slower, glancing around for Reyes and swearing to get some nonslip bath appliqués.

  There was no blood. No signs of a struggle. And no Reyes. What had happened to him? Why was he so mutilated? I fought the image of him in my mind. Mostly because I grew faint the moment it appeared. Queasy.

  Then I remembered what he said to me: Beware the wounded animal. Only he’d spoken in Aramaic — one of the thousands of languages I’d known inherently from the moment of my birth. His voice had been a low, pain-filled growl. I had to find him.

  After hustling into a pair of jeans and a sweater, I threw on some boots and gathered my hair into a ponytail. I had so many questions. So many concerns. For the last month, Reyes had been in a coma. He’d been shot by a prison guard firing warning shots near a gathering of inmates who looked like they were going to riot. The day the state was going to disconnect life support, Reyes seemed to magically wake up, and he strolled out of the long-term-care unit in Santa Fe like he didn’t have a care in the world. That was a week ago, and nobody had seen or heard from him since. Not even me. Not until today.

  Was he still alive? What had attacked him? What could? He was the son of Satan, for fuck’s sake. Who would mess with that? I had a couple of resources I could check out, but as I was leaving my apartment, my landline rang.

  “Make it quick,” I said when I picked up.

  “Okay. Two men from the FBI are here,” Cookie said. Quickly.

  Crap. “Men in black are at the office?”

  “Well, yes, but they’re actually in more of a navy.”

  Crapola. I so didn’t have time for men. In any color. “Okay, two questions. Do they look mad, and are they hot?”

  After a long, long pause, Cookie said, “One, not really. Two, no comment at this time. And three, you’re on speakerphone.”

  After another long, long pause, I said, “Okie dokie then. Be there in a jiff.”

  Before I could do it myself, a long arm reached over my shoulder and disconnected the call. Reyes stood behind me. The heat that forever radiated off him soaked into my clothes, saturated me in warmth. He eased closer, allowing the length of his body to press into my backside. I responded to his nearness with a flush of adrenaline, and when he bent his head, his breath fanning across my cheek, my knees almost gave beneath my weight.

  “Nice catch, Dutch,” he said softly, his voice like a caress.

  A rush of delight rippled down my spine and pooled in my abdomen. Reyes had been calling me Dutch since the day I was born, and I had yet to find out why. He was like the desert, stark and beautiful, harsh and unfo
rgiving, with the promise of treasure behind every dune, the allure of water hidden just beneath the surface.

  I twisted around to face him. He refused to give up any ground he’d gained, and I had to lean back to look at him, to drink him in. His dark hair curled over an ear and hung slightly mussed over his forehead. His lashes — so thick, he always looked like he’d just woken up — shadowed liquid brown eyes. They sparkled with mischief nonetheless. He let his gaze wander at will, let it slow when it reached my mouth, dip when it reached the valley between Danger and Will Robinson. Then it rose and locked with mine, and I knew in that moment the true meaning of perfection.

  “You look better,” I said, my tone airy. The wounds that had been so deep, so potentially fatal, had all but vanished. My head spun with a mixture of relief and concern.

  He lifted my chin and brushed his fingers over my throat where it was still swollen from his momentary lapse of reason in the shower. He had a strong grip. “Sorry about that.”

  “Care to explain?”

  He lowered his head. “I thought you were someone else.”

  “Who else?”

  In lieu of an answer, he put his fingertips on a pulse point. He seemed to revel in the feel of it, the proof of life flowing through my veins.

  “Is it the demons you told me about?” I asked.

  “Yes.” He said it so matter-of-fact, so casually, one would think demons tried to kill him on a regular basis. He’d told me about them only last week, when I found out who he really was. He’d said they were after me, but to get to me, they’d have to go through him. I thought he was speaking metaphorically. Apparently not.

  “Are they—” I stopped midsentence and swallowed hard. “—are you okay?”

  “I’m unconscious,” he said, edging closer, his tongue wetting his full mouth.

  My stomach somersaulted, but only in part because of the tongue. “You’re unconscious? What do you mean?”

  He had braced a hand against the countertop on either side of me, imprisoning me within his sinewy arms. “I mean, I’m not awake,” he said a heartbeat before nipping my earlobe with his teeth, just hard enough to send a quake skimming over the surface of my skin.

  The deep tenor of his voice reverberated through my bones, liquefying them from the inside out. I fought hard to focus on his words instead of the turmoil each syllable generated, each touch. He was like chocolate-covered heroin, and I was an addict through and through.

  I’d had him inside me before. I’d known heaven for a brief period of time, the experience so surreal, so earth-shattering, I was certain he’d ruined me to all other men forever. Seriously, who could compete with a being created from beauty and sin and fused together with the blistering heat of sensuality? He was a god among men. Damn it.

  “Why aren’t you awake?” I asked, struggling to redirect my thoughts. “Reyes, what happened?”

  He’d been busy nibbling his way to my collarbone, his hot mouth evoking seismic activity at each point of contact.

  I really hated to interrupt, but … “Reyes, are you listening to me?”

  He raised his head, a sensual grin playing at the corners of his mouth, and said, “I’m listening.”

  “To what? The sound of blood rushing to your nether regions?”

  “No,” he said with a husky chuckle that made me tingle everywhere. “To your heartbeat.” He leaned in again, began the aerial assault again.

  “Seriously, Reyes, how did you get hurt?”

  “Painfully,” he whispered into my ear.

  My chest constricted with his answer. “Time-out,” I said, grabbing the wrist of a hand that was doing the most amazing things to my girl parts.

  He twisted his hand around and wound his fingers into mine. “You’re putting me in time-out?”

  “Yes,” I said as a shaky sigh slid through my lips.

  “If I don’t go, do I get a spanking?”

  A burst of laughter escaped before I could stop it. “Reyes,” I said in admonishment. “We need to talk.”

  “So talk,” he said, stroking my wrist with his thumb.

  I placed an index finger on his shoulder and nudged. “Let me rephrase that. You need to talk. Please tell me what happened. Why are you unconscious?”

  He let out a slow breath and leaned back to focus his liquid brown eyes on mine. “I told you last week, they found me.”

  “The demons.”

  “Yes.”

  “What do they want?”

  “The same thing I want,” he said, his eyes raking over my body, “but perhaps for different reasons.”

  He’d explained before that they wanted me, the portal, a way into heaven. I had no idea they would go to such lengths. “Are you still alive?”

  “My corporeal body is like yours. It’s harder to kill, much harder, than most humans’.”

  Relief flooded every cell in my body. I took a deep breath and said, “Tell me what’s going on. Exactly.”

  “Exactly. Okay, they’re waiting for exactly one of two things to happen.”

  “Which are?”

  “For my body to die so they can take me back to hell or for you to find me. One would give them access to the key,” he said, indicating the smooth, flowing lines of his tattoos with a nod. Amazingly, his tattoos were a map to the gates of hell. Without it, the hazardous journey through the void of eternity rarely ended well for any entities trying to escape. “And the other would give them access to heaven.” He looked at me point-blank. “Either would make them exceedingly happy.”

  “Then tell me where your physical form is, and we can … I don’t know, hide you.”

  He shook his head in regret. “Afraid I can’t do that.”

  My brows shot together. “What do you mean, you can’t do that? Reyes, where are you?”

  A humorless grin tipped one corner of his mouth. “In a safe place.”

  “You’re safe from the demons?” I asked, my voice full of hope.

  “No,” he answered. “You’re safe from the demons.”

  When he went for a jugular again, I pulled back. “So, they know where you are? They’re trying to kill you?” What he was proposing sounded like my worst nightmare. Injured and helpless somewhere, with a madman trying to kill me. I’d never considered the culprit to be demonic, but now that I had new fodder, surely my reoccurring nightmare would update its software to reflect an evil presence. Wonderful.

  With a loud sigh, he stepped back and sank into the chair at my computer desk, propping his feet up and crossing them at the ankles. “Do we really have to do this now? I may not have much time.”

  My heart stumbled in my chest. I wondered how much time he had. How much time we had. I didn’t have a table and chairs, but I had a snack bar with a couple of barstools. I sat at one and turned to him. “Why won’t you tell me where you are?”

  “Lots of different reasons.” His gaze slid over me like a veil of fire. He could ignite my deepest desires with a single glance. I decided right then and there no more reading romance novels by candlelight.

  “Can you tell me what those reasons are, or should I guess?”

  “Since I probably can’t stay all day, I’ll tell you.”

  “At least we’re getting somewhere.”

  “The first one is because it’s a trap, Dutch. Set for you and you alone. Why do you think they haven’t killed me yet? They want you to look for me, to find me. Remember, you don’t see them, they don’t see you.” He’d mentioned that before, but the truth was difficult to comprehend. Not to mention disturbing.

  “And if I see them?” I asked.

  He let his gaze travel over me once more. “Let’s just say, you’re hard to miss.”

  “So, we’ll do this incognito. You know, like Navy SEALs or SWAT or something.”

  “It doesn’t work that way.”

  “That’s not good enough for me.” My hands curled into fists. “We have to try. We can’t just let them kill you.”

  “You haven’t heard t
he second reason.”

  That sounded foreboding. “Okay, so tell me.” I crossed my arms and waited.

  “You won’t like it.”

  “I’m a big girl,” I said, raising my chin a notch. “I can handle it.”

  “Fair enough. I’m going to let my corporeal body pass away.”

  Every muscle in my body stilled.

  “It’s not like I need it,” he continued with a callous shrug. “It slows me down and, as you have witnessed yourself, makes me vulnerable to attack.”

  “But in the camera, when you woke up from the coma, you disappeared. You dematerialized your human body.”

  “Dutch,” he said, casting me a chastising gaze from underneath his dark lashes, “not even I can do that.”

  “Then how did you just disappear? I saw the tape.”

  “I can interfere with electrical devices anytime I want to. So can you, if you concentrate.”

  I never knew that. “I just thought—”

  “Wrong,” he said, his tone absolute. He was so testy when he was being tortured.

  “Fine. I was wrong. It’s not like being a supernatural entity came with a manual.”

  “True.”

  “But that’s no reason to let your corporeal body pass away. I mean, what will happen to you? You just said that if you die, they’ll take you back to hell.”

  “Even they don’t know if they can take me back to hell or not. That’s simply what they’re hoping for. There’s one surefire way to find out, I guess,” he said, raising his brows at the challenge.

  “Wait, you don’t know what will happen? If they can take you back?”

  He shrugged. “Not a clue. But it’s doubtful.”

  “But what if they can? What if you’re sent back?”

  “That’s not likely to happen,” he insisted. “Who would do the sending?”

  “Oh, my god. I can’t believe you’re willing to take such a risk.”

  “It’s riskier being alive here on Earth, Dutch,” he said, an angry edge to his voice. “And it’s a risk I am no longer willing to take.”

  “Riskier for who?”

  “Riskier for you.”