Seventh Grave and No Body

by Darynda Jones

I reached down and touched his wrist as though taking his pulse. Surely someone in the room would realize how futile an act that would have been. They were all aware of the direness of the situation. I glanced up and saw Willa, Jessica’s sister, sobbing into her mother’s shoulder, her fingers entangled in the purple blouse her mother wore. I’d always liked Jessica’s mother.

  When I thought no one was paying any particular attention to me, I closed my lids and slid my fingers around Dustin’s fragile wrist.

  I didn’t do this. Healing the sick was not my job, so I had no clue what I was doing, but I did know Latin, and that seemed to be working like a charm lately. “Resarci,” I whispered, asking the Big Man upstairs to forgive me if I was crossing any of his boundaries in attempting to do what I was attempting to do.

  When I’d finished, however, I felt nothing. No power coursing through me. No lightning bolts shooting from my fingertips. No seas parting before me. Not that New Mexico had many seas, but…

  I’d failed.

  I let the wetness gathering between my lashes spill over them. What was the point in hiding anything now? I picked up the little guy’s scraped arm and kissed the inside of his palm.

  Unfortunately, that got me some attention. I put his hand back and tried to hurry out of the room, but it was packed with grieving family members. My escape proved harder than I thought it would be.

  Before I got halfway to the door, the beeps on the heart monitor quickened and grew stronger. In another instant, Dustin moaned and moved his head from side to side. Even I stood in awe as he slowly opened his eyes. Just barely. The lights clearly bothered him because he squinted, then closed them again, but Willa cried out to him.

  “Dustin!” she said, gently draping herself over his fragile body, petting his face with her fingertips, smoothing back a stray lock of brown hair. “Dustin, please,” she said.

  He fought to open his eyes again. A nurse rushed into the room to check his vitals. Another nurse was fast on her heels, weaving through the crowd to get to him.

  Dustin tried to focus on his mother, but he couldn’t quite keep his lids from drooping down before he managed it. He tried again, his irises rolling unsteadily until he found something else to focus on: me.

  I gave him a quick grin as recognition registered on his swollen face. After a nod of affirmation, I tossed him a wink, then placed an index finger over my mouth as discreetly as I could. Dustin nodded with a wince, but couldn’t seem to hold back a mischievous grin.

  My lungs seized and tears flowed freely now. Had I done it? Did I actually save a child’s life?

  Before anyone could ask questions, I excused myself and wound through people to the exit. The nurses, as astonished as anyone, were kicking everyone but the mother and grandmother out anyway, so I blended in as the crowd, now hopeful, was ushered out of the tiny cubicle.

  As I passed Dustin’s chair, I rejoiced that he was no longer in it. I didn’t know what happened, but I didn’t care. I beamed as we were led to the huge metal doors, but I was brought up short by a soft, feminine voice.

  “Charley?”

  I stopped as everyone else kept going. Turning around, I smiled sadly at Willa. “Hi. Um, I was just visiting an old friend when I saw you in there. I’m so sorry I —”

  “Stop,” she said, her voice cracked, her cheeks flush. “It was you. Mom saw you pick up Dustin’s hand. She saw what you did.”

  “What?” I asked, backing away from her. “I didn’t do anything.”

  She caught my shoulders in her hands. “I know what you are. I was listening that night when you told Jessica.” Her sadness returned with the thought of her departed sister. “She was just scared, Charley. She was just, I don’t know, a stupid kid.”

  “Willa, I was kidding that night. You know how kids joke around about those things.”

  “Five minutes ago, I would have believed you.” She put a hand on my face and looked at me with such awe, such regard. “Not anymore. I know what you did. How can I ever repay you?”

  Jessica put a cool hand on my shoulder. “Tell her I love her. Please, Charley. I will never ask anything of you again. We were not on the best of terms when I passed. I just want her to know that I love her.”

  I crossed my arms and put my hands on Willa’s. “She sent me here, you know. She’s the one who saved Dustin. If not for her, I would never have known about him.”

  She covered her mouth with both her hands as a sob racked her slender body. She looked like a pixie with short brown hair and big brown eyes. She was always so stunning.

  “Oh, my god,” she said, her voice hitching.

  “She wants you to know that despite your differences, she loved you beyond measure. She always has.”

  Willa collapsed into my arms, holding on to me as though her life depended on it. Her mother walked up behind her and put her hands on her shoulders as they shook. Willa leaned back.

  “I will never forget this,” she said, kissing my cheek and then picking up my hands and kissing them, too. “I will never forget this. Please tell her I love her, too.”

  “You just did.”

  Jessica was sobbing from behind me, her head on my shoulder. “And my mom. Please, Charley.”

  “And you, Mrs. Guinn. Jessica loves you very much.”

  She hiccupped with every breath she took and could only manage to nod her head. “He’s asking for you,” she said at last, squeezing Willa’s shoulders.

  Willa nodded, gave me one more quick hug, then rushed to her son’s side. Jessica hurried after them.

  I walked out dazed and confused. Reyes was right there.

  “Did that really just happen?”

  “You’re Val-Eeth,” he said, reminding me. “You’re a god on your plane. I told you. You’re capable of anything.”

  “Yes, there. But here? On this plane? In this world? It already has a God, in case you’ve forgotten. Do you think he’ll be upset that I’ve done this? That I’ve invaded his turf?”

  “I think that he’s glad to have you. I just wouldn’t make a habit of it.”

  As we left the hospital and headed for Misery, I picked up a rock in the tread of my left boot. I stopped and leaned against the building to pick up my foot. As Reyes surveyed our domain, I squeezed my lids together and practiced my Latin before removing my hand from the brick building.

  “Race you,” I said, running past him for a head start.

  The exuberance of being in the lead, the sweet scent of victory, lasted approximately 0.7 seconds. It was the boots. And the fact that he had the prowess and strength of a freaking panther.

  We finally made it back to the office. Reyes went to check on things at the bar while I hurried upstairs to check on my wayward assistant. I like to surprise-attack her sometimes. Keep her on her toes. I wasn’t paying her to play spider solitaire. Unless I was playing spider solitaire. Then we were good.

  I opened the door to my office slowly. Cookie was at her desk, so I tiptoed across my office floor.

  “I hate you with the force of a thousand suns,” she said. I hadn’t even scared her yet.

  “Why do you hate me today?”

  She sat at her desk with an ice pack on her head. “It’s hit. The caffeine withdrawal. I think I need a morphine drip.”

  “That’s weird,” I said, picking up her stapler. Hers was much cooler than mine. “My head is fine today.”

  She whirled toward me, then reeled in agony. “What?” she asked, fire blazing behind the depths of her killer blues.

  “Yeah. I’m fine. I thought you said it was going to last two weeks.”

  “It should have. It’s your supernatural crap.” She waved an index finger at me. “Why did I do this? I don’t even like you anymore.”

  “Sure you do,” I said, adding a sprinkle of cheer to my voice. “I’m like crack. People don’t want to like me, but once they get a taste, they always come back for more.”

  A nasally groan oozed out of her. “Why can’t I quit you?”

&n
bsp; “I just told you. I’m like crack. You never listen.” When she groaned again, I laughed. “Cook, I told you not to give up caffeine just because I had to. It’s hardly fair for you. We can get two coffeepots. Mr. Coffee has been saying he wants a friend anyway. And I think by friend he means he wants a profile at Match.com.” I winked conspicuously at her.

  “Or,” she said, jumping to show me something she’d printed out. “We can get one of these newfangled single-cup brewers. Then you just buy the different kinds of coffee. They have flavors and everything.”

  I snatched the paper out of her hand. “What mad genius is this?”

  “They’ve been around for years now.”

  “It’s brilliant. I’ve never seen anything so brilliant.”

  “No,” she said, erasing the air. “I can do this. It’s just two weeks, right? What’s two weeks in the grand scheme of things?” She leaned back and put the ice pack on her head.

  “Well, a lot if you have work to do. Any updates?”

  “No. And please step back. If my brain explodes, I don’t want you to get any brain matter on your D and Gs.” She loved my Dolce & Gabbanas. Sadly, I loved them more.

  “Aw, that’s so considerate.”

  “This is like the worst hangover I’ve ever had.”

  “Not so. The worst one involved your head in my toilet for seven hours while you moaned the chorus to ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.’”

  “Oh, yeah. Freaking tequila.”

  “Right? So, I kind of just healed a kid.”

  She straightened again. “Charley, really?”

  “Yeah. It was pretty amazing. To know that he is going to live. I’ve never felt such purpose.”

  “But you really healed someone? I mean, you can do that?”

  “Apparently,” I said with a shrug.

  “Then what the hell are you waiting for? Lay your hands on me, baby.” She leaned back in her chair and spread her arms wide.

  “I don’t think it works on just anyone.”

  “And I’m not just anyone. Come on, give it your best shot.”

  I giggled as I watched her wait. When she did her motherly glare thing, I finally leaned over and put an index finger on her head. “Resarci,” I said, and waited.

  Cookie blinked and then shook her head to test it, at which point she clawed at her temples with both hands and groaned. “You’re not even trying. Put your back into it.” She reclined again.

  “I just don’t think it works this way. I think your illness has to be pretty dire.”

  She plopped her elbows on her desk and pointed to her head. “You think this isn’t dire? You think my brain is somehow expendable?”

  “I didn’t say expendable.”

  Draping herself over her desk melodramatically, she put the ice pack on the back of her neck.

  “What’s on the agenda for the rest of the day?”

  “We still have the suicide-note victims. But Robert said they may have found something.”

  “Really? He didn’t tell me.”

  “Yeah, he said to put that case on the back burner for today while they work this lead.”

  “Hmm, okay. What next?”

  “We have Amber’s carnival in a couple of hours. Besides that, you don’t have anything until tomorrow morning. You’re meeting with the priest at the Amityville house.”

  “Sweet. A possessed house that knows my name. But this whole two hours of free time is weird. I never have free time.”

  She pulled herself up onto her elbows again. “No, I never have free time. You have all the free time in the world, which is why you make paper airplanes out of my memos.”

  “Good point. And that’s another reason why you need to get back to work. Chop, chop. I’m not paying you barely enough to survive on for you to drool uncontrollably on your desk.”

  15

  Lead me not into temptation.

  Follow me instead! I know a shortcut!

  — T-SHIRT

  Two hours later, Cookie, Reyes, Osh, and I found ourselves roaming the halls of the Roadrunner Middle School during Carnival. It was their big annual fund-raiser for library books and educational field trips. A noble cause, but I could’ve done without the moans of agony from my sidekick. She was really taking the whole caffeine withdrawal hard. While I, on the other hand, had grown quite fond of the blood of Satan. A little creamer, a dash of sweetener, and voilà! Fake coffee. I could live with it for the next eight months or so until Beep decided to make her grand entrance.

  “I’m not saying I’m going to resent Beep for the loss of my girlish figure,” I said to Cook, who was only half listening through the fog of agony, “but seriously, have you seen my ass?”

  “Charley!” Amber said, waving us over. She was wearing a long blue veil with gold trinkets dangling off it, and she had on heavy liner and a stark smattering of blush for effect.

  Quentin stood beside her, a tall, beautiful, blond-haired blue-eyed devil who made Amber’s heart go pitter-patter. I’d met him when a demon had decided to possess him to get to me, because Quentin could see things others couldn’t. Namely, my light.

  Fortunately, Artemis took care of the demon, and Quentin became a very good friend.

  “Hey, you,” I signed to him before pulling him into a big hug. “I didn’t know you were coming.”

  “I invited him. I wanted him to meet Osh.” She spoke and signed at the same time, ever aware of the rules of Deaf culture. And she was getting really good. I loved it.

  “Oh, he’s outside patrolling,” I said, doing the same.

  “Okay, Mom, do you want to be first?” she asked.

  Quentin smiled shyly to Cook and accepted a hug from her. Then, in an act that rather surprised me, Quentin held out his hand to Reyes.

  Reyes took it and offered an approving smile.

  It was a big step. Quentin had been afraid of him for the longest time. He could see the departed almost as clearly as I could, but he could also see Reyes’s darkness. I’d seen it only a couple of times, but had I not known him, the darkness would have scared me, too. So Quentin accepting Reyes as one of the good guys was a very big deal in my book.

  “Or you can, Aunt Charley,” Amber said.

  “Fantastic,” I said, having no idea what I’d just agreed to.

  Cookie pointed to a sign on the floor painted in bright blues and yellows.

  MADAM AMBER: A TELLER OF FORTUNES

  “You’re a madam?” I asked, taken aback. “Do you think that’s appropriate at a middle school carnival?” They weren’t kidding when they said kids grow up fast.

  “Not that kind of madam,” Cookie said.

  “Or you, Uncle Reyes,” she said, twisting on her toes shyly.

  Reyes glanced at her in surprise.

  “I don’t have to call you that. I just thought since I’m losing Uncle Bob.”

  “You’re losing Ubie?” I asked her. “Is he dying again? You know he just says that to gain sympathy.”

  “Well, no, you know, since he and Mom hooked up, the term uncle seems a little weird. So I thought since you’re marrying Aunt Charley, maybe —”

  Reyes took her hand into his and bowed over it, sweeping a light kiss on her knuckles. “I’m honored.”

  She beamed at him and threw her arms around his neck before planting a kiss on his cheek, leaving a heart-shaped imprint of ruby lipstick. Apparently, fortune-tellers and ladies of the night had a lot in common, including their choices of color palette.

  “I totally have to go first,” I said. I never had the patience to wait in line. “I have a lot of questions about my future. Be prepared.”

  Amber skipped in excitement and clapped her hands as she held open her tent, which looked alarming like Cookie’s bedspread.

  “Wish me luck,” I said to Quentin.

  “She’s good,” he promised.

  I gave him a thumbs-up, winked at Reyes, then sat at the short table she’d set up. The curtain fell and Amber sat across from me, becoming Mada
m Amber, a teller of fortunes. She started laying out tarot cards, flipping one at a time to reveal my sordid future. Or sordid past. Either way. I took a closer look and picked up one of the cards.

  “Amber, these are gorgeous.”

  “Thank you. I made them in art.”

  “You made these?” I asked, astonished. They were lovely, with flowing colors and soft angles. “Wait, they let you make tarot cards in art?”

  “Yeah, our teacher is very New Agey.”

  “Ah. Well, I’m completely impressed.”

  She squirmed in delight, but I thought now might be a good time to broach a subject that needed to be broached. Perhaps with a nice cameo.

  “Hon, are you okay with Uncle Bob dating your mom?”

  “Are you kidding? I love Ubie. He’s like a hero and one of those crazy uncles rolled into one.”

  “He is that.”

  “And he makes awesome spaghetti.”

  What a great kid. I hoped Beep would be as wonderful. As outgoing and accepting of her circumstances. No theater productions. No drama.

  “Oh, my god, I totally lost a press-on.” She held her hand up to the glowing crystal ball and snapped a shot of it to post on one of the gazillion social networks she belonged to.

  I had to remind myself, I did the same thing once when I’d slipped in the bathroom on my Clorox ToiletWand and broken my toe.

  “Okay, are you ready?”

  “Dang straight. Hit me, O wise one.”

  She giggled, then slid a hand over the cards, letting it hover before touching one.

  “Death,” she said, and I wondered how I knew she’d go there. Tarot readers went straight to the Death card every time I’d had my fortune read. Which, including this one, was twice.

  “A new beginning,” she added. She touched the card with one hand, her lids drifting shut as she took my other hand into hers. Then she flattened our palms together until my hand was resting on hers. After a moment of concentration where I felt a ripple of electricity course between us, she began. “Twelve have been summoned and twelve have been sent.”

  At first her knowledge of the Twelve surprised me, but I remembered she heard a lot across the hall. She was a smart one. Still, she nailed the look. Her back was straight and her lids closed as the trance seemingly overtook her.