The Curse of Tenth Grave

by Darynda Jones

  “So, Strawberry told me the names are important for a reason. That you’re writing them for my daughter. For Beep—Elwyn. Is that true?”

  He blinked as though I’d stumped him. Stepped closer to a wall. Ran a chubby finger over one of the names he’d carved. But he didn’t respond, and I didn’t want to push him too far.

  “Okay, Rocket,” I said, stuffing a hand down my pants. Well, the pocket, anyway. “I’ll show you the gate.”

  “Everything,” he said, his voice suddenly far away. “Everything.”

  I left the god glass be, walked to his side, and examined the name he was tracing. It was in Arabic, a language I knew but couldn’t read. The next was in Spanish. The one underneath that Korean.

  “Everything?” I asked.

  “What will happen when he finds out what you’ve done?”

  “Who? No, wait. What’d I do?”

  “The son,” he said, his voice sad. Despondent. “The sun cannot marry the moon.”

  “Rocket.” I turned him to face me. It was like turning a Zamboni. Not with the steering wheel, but by standing on the ice in front of it and pushing. “When you say the sun cannot marry the moon, do you mean like the sun in the sky?”

  He shook his head. “No, Miss Charlotte. He is the son and the brother and the father. He is the destroyer and the darkness. He is the everything.”

  “So, I’m not the sun in your metaphor?” I asked, more than a little disappointed. “I’m the moon?” I’d just figured the sun was in reference to my bright-ass light. How on earth did I rate the moon? Then I remembered I loved the moon, and I was happy again.

  Rocket placed his hands on my arms. “Don’t tell him what you’ve done, Miss Charlotte.”

  The guy had never known his own strength. His fingers bit into my skin, and when he shook me, my teeth rattled.

  “Don’t ever tell him. The son is the most dangerous of the three.”

  “The three?” I asked from between clattering teeth. “The three gods of Uzan?” I gaped at him. “Is that who you’re talking about?”

  “He is the most dangerous, Miss Charlotte. He will scorch the world and everything in it. He will turn the mountains to ash and the seas to salt. And there will be nothing left but the dust in the wind.”

  Aw, I loved that song.

  He let go of me, and I knew the moment he did what was going to happen. He disappeared. I shot forward to try to grab him, to try to keep him with me a bit longer, but he was gone by the time I realized I may have overshot my mark. I stumbled forward and caught myself on the opposite wall. With my face.

  My face had been through a lot already, and the day was still relatively young.

  I rubbed my cheek and replayed what Rocket had said. None of it boded well for the world, but Reyes would never do that. His daughter lived on this world. He would never burn it to the ground. He would never destroy it.

  Unless … I’d been heading back down to the basement to make my escape, singing “Dust in the Wind,” when I stopped halfway down the stairs. Unless he found out what I did.

  I covered my mouth with a hand, suddenly worried he’d find out the truth. Then I remembered I had no idea what that truth might entail or why Reyes would care. Did it have something to do with the god glass and the fact that I was carrying around an entire dimension in my pocket? I didn’t do anything but trap a minion of evil inside a hell dimension. How mad could he be?

  Rocket didn’t even look at the god glass, and he’d been so excited. I felt like I’d ripped him off in some way. Like I’d cheated him out of a little excitement.

  Next time.

  It wasn’t until I’d scurried out the basement window that something else he’d said hit me. The moon. In my original language, my celestial language, there was a word that sounded like we would say “the moon.” It sounded a bit more like dtha-muhn. It would be like comparing Luke, as in moon, to look, as in muhn. Could that have been what he was saying all along? The words were similar, but the meanings were worlds apart.

  The word dtha-muhn in my language could be used in a number of ways, but it all boiled down to one simple concept: the idea of a single omniscient overseer of life. And, more specifically, one who takes it at will. Like a slayer. Or an assassin. Or an executioner. In the celestial realm, the only comparison I could come up with would be the angel of death.

  But I was none of those. Gods didn’t take life. They gave it. Created it, even. Or at least that’s what I’d grown up believing. But then I looked at the gods of Uzan. They seemed capable of nothing but death and destruction. Surely that wasn’t what Rocket meant.

  I dropped off the salsa to a very grateful Cookie and tried to dismiss the idea, but it lingered in the back of my mind all the way to the station, where I had a certain cop to harass. Two, actually.

  At least Beep was safe. I could be grateful for that. Right?

  10

  I think senility is going to be a fairly smooth transition for me.

  —TRUE FACT

  Beep is safe.

  I repeated that mantra over and over, certain that if I said it enough, I’d believe it.

  “Hey there,” I said, making my voice as deep and sultry as I could. Officer Taft looked up from the paperwork he’d been filling out on his computer. Or playing Pac-Man. It was hard to tell. I’d caught him just as his shift started, knowing that would probably be the only time I could before he ventured out to make our streets a safer place.

  “Davidson,” he said, glancing around to make sure no one noticed me talking to him. He was so touchy about his rep. And, quite frankly, it wasn’t that great. “Is she here?”

  Strawberry Shortcake¸ a.k.a. Rebecca, was Taft’s little sister. I’d been playing messenger for some time, and while I loved the position, the benefits sucked.

  “I want a raise,” I said, sitting uninvited in the chair beside his desk.

  “I don’t pay you.”

  “Exactly.”

  His mouth thinned across his face as he went back to what he was doing. He wasn’t bad looking. Not at all. He’d filled out, in fact. Had started lifting weights. Or eating more doughnuts. It was hard to say. Either way, he looked good. Older. More coppy. Especially with his sharp blue eyes and dark military cut.

  “She’s fine,” I said in answer to the burning question he wanted to ask.

  He gave me his attention again. “Really? She’s not, you know, lonely?”

  “Please. That kid never met a stranger, even in the afterlife, and there are definitely beings she should avoid there.”

  “Is she in danger?” he asked, alarmed.

  “No, Taft. She’s perfectly safe and playing up a storm with Rocket and the gang.” I’d noticed a photo sticking out from underneath a form. “What are you working on?”

  He followed my gaze and scooped up the pile of papers before I could get a better look. “Nothing.”

  “Fine. So, I’m working the Adams case, and I noticed in the report that you were the first officer on scene.”

  “You’re on the Adams case? Did the boyfriend hire you?”

  “Taft, you know I can’t tell you that. You look good, by the way.”

  He sat back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “Okay, let me have it.”

  “What?” Some people were so suspicious.

  “The only time you tell me I look good is when you want something.”

  “That is so not true.” It was, actually, but I could argue with a parking meter. “I just want to get an idea of what you think of the case.”

  “Do your own legwork, Davidson.”

  He went back to punching keys, chomping dots and fruit and following it up with a discreet fist pump. I was almost impressed. “I didn’t even glance at your legs. I’ve been hired. For reals. They’re going to pay me and everything.” I hoped. “And I have permission from the higher-ups to interview you.”

  He stopped playing and leveled a dubious smirk on me. “How high?”

  “High
-ish. Mid-level-y?”

  “Why don’t you bug your uncle?”

  “Not his case. It’s Joplin’s. Joplin hates me.”

  “I can’t imagine why.”

  “Right? So, the car?”

  “Fine, what do I think?” He handed me a file folder, put his elbows on the arms of his chair, and clasped his fingers. “I think a beautiful, smart woman suffered a horrible death at the hands of her jealous boyfriend.”

  “Really?” I opened the file. It held his report only. But I had yet to read it, as it wasn’t in the file Parker slipped me. “You’re liking the boyfriend for this?”

  “Who else? Have you seen the mountain of evidence against him?”

  “I haven’t seen any of it.” And I hadn’t. Not literally.

  “His fingerprints were in the car.”

  “They were dating.”

  “The prints were in the blood, Davidson. After the incident occurred. In more than one place.”

  “He found the car. He opened the door and touched the blood, which was apparently everywhere, when he searched for her.”

  “What’s there to search? He opened the door. She wasn’t in the car. The car was drenched in blood. He was drenched in blood.”

  “There was a sleeping bag in the backseat. He thought she might be in it. He crawled inside to check it.”

  “So he crawls through buckets of blood to check a sleeping bag he could have checked by going around to the other side and opening another door?”

  He had a good point, but there was an explanation. I just wasn’t telling him what it was. Ammunition should this go to trial. That door handle was tricky and would only unlock with the remote. The interior door locks didn’t work on it. If they didn’t figure that out on their own, they would look incompetent, and that always helped.

  I handed the file back to him. “That’s all circumstantial.”

  Taft leaned forward and played his trump card. “He’s done it before.”

  After taking care to guard my surprise, I gauged his emotions. He wasn’t lying. “What do you mean?”

  “Have you even checked into this guy’s background? Did three years. Man two.”

  Manslaughter? Damn it. Parker didn’t mention that part. It would make my job harder, but not impossible. I didn’t care what the guy did in his past life. He was innocent of killing Emery Adams.

  “So, that’s why you guys are jumping on the arrest so fast.”

  “Pretty good reason, if you ask me. Once a murderer—”

  “Manslaughter is a far cry from murder.”

  “He was directly responsible for another person’s death. If that’s not murder…”

  * * *

  Feeling more ill equipped to handle this case than I had, I flew back to the office to check on Cookie’s progress and to do a few background checks of my own, all the while trying to figure out how to get close to a god without being detected. If one or both of the gods of Uzan were hijacking humans and discarding their dead bodies willy-nilly, they needed to be stopped sooner than later. This wasn’t just about Beep anymore.

  Well, it was mostly about her, but people were dying, and I couldn’t help but take a little of the blame. We’d been warned, Reyes and I. We’d been told not to consummate our relationship, though admittedly we weren’t warned until the deed had been done. Several times. In more than one location. And on a variety of surfaces.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” Cookie said, rushing over to me. She handed me a file on Lyle Fiske. After my conversation with Taft, I dreaded looking at it.

  “So,” I said, regarding her hopefully, “thumbs-up or thumbs-down?”

  “It’s debatable. I will say after what you told me about him, take everything you read here with a grain of salt.”

  “Will do.”

  I read for several hours from the plethora of info she’d dug up on both Lyle Fiske and Emery Adams before doing my own investigation on a third cog that just didn’t quite fit. Why was Parker so convinced of Fiske’s innocence? Or was this about something else? And why did he purposely leave the man two conviction out of Fiske’s file? I was certain he did that on purpose.

  Cookie took off to pick up Amber from school while I read late into the afternoon. Fiske was a fraternity president at UNM. A kid died in a hazing accident on his watch, and it happened to be around the time fraternity hazings were under fire from the media, activists, and politicians. To make an example of him, the judge sentenced him to five years for negligent homicide. He got out early for good behavior.

  His record would make it more difficult for a jury to acquit him no matter how much Nick Parker tried to sabotage the case. And his career in the process.

  A search of the shady ADA’s digital footprint showed that he had been in the same fraternity as Lyle. He did say they were old college buddies. He failed to mention the frat connection. Or the hazing accident.

  A general background search didn’t reveal a whole lot on Emery’s grieving father other than the fact that he’d made a couple of bad business investments over the years. Who hadn’t? I still couldn’t believe Martian Barbie didn’t take off.

  I did find out Emery had wanted to become a nurse when she’d started college. Specifically, a trauma nurse. She ended up getting her doctorate in medicine but went on to get a Ph.D. in hospital administration.

  She drove the speed limit. Paid her bills on time. Even finished reports early.

  I sat back, suddenly realizing what was going on. How could I have been so stupid? Emery Adams was a robot sent from an alien world to study our strange ways. Clearly she was missing the point of being human.

  I texted Cookie to let her know I was going to check out Emery’s car. I almost stopped in the restaurant to check on the rascally son of Satan, but I stopped myself. It wouldn’t do any good, so I drove back to the station.

  I began my investigation by harassing a couple of cops at impound, then headed to where they were keeping Emery’s car. The one supposedly drenched in so much blood, they couldn’t decipher the true color of the interior until they looked up the car title.

  I would visit the actual crime scene later. It was getting dark, and the car was found in a remote area. One thing about New Mexico: we had our fair share of remote areas.

  Squaring off against a curmudgeonly guard who had zero intention of letting me see the car, I fought the urge to recommend trying Rogaine. The CIB had already gone over the car with a fine-toothed forensics kit, so it wasn’t like I could contaminate the evidence.

  Fortunately, Parker had arranged for me to have full access to everything, so the guy had no choice but to let me see it.

  Unfortunately, it didn’t take long for blood to spoil.

  The officer shrugged his round shoulders, found the keys, and led me to the car as slowly as he possibly could. The smell hit me long before the reality of it did. I wasn’t even close enough to see inside. I had to stop, put my hands on my knees, and take a deep breath.

  “You sure you wanna do this?” the officer asked. I got the feeling he didn’t want to get any closer to the car than necessary, either.

  I nodded, filled my lungs, and held my breath as he unlocked the car and stepped back, not wanting to be anywhere near it when I opened the door.

  I scanned the interior from where I stood, hoping Emery would still be inside just waiting for someone who could see the departed to show up so she could tell them who killed her. Was that too much to hope for?

  ’Parently.

  She was nowhere to be found. Had probably crossed the moment she left her still body.

  Speaking of which … if the killer left all this blood out in the open, clearly having killed someone inside, why take the body? Lyle discovered the car that night around midnight. Maybe the culprit had planned to come back for the car and dump it. Why else leave it out in the open like that? Unless the body had some kind of incriminating evidence, but if the killer was so worried about evidence, surely he would know that the car would be c
overed in incriminations of every size and shape.

  Yet there was none. CIB found no evidence pointing to anyone other than Lyle Fiske. No other fingerprints. So suspicious fibers or stray hairs. I couldn’t walk to my kitchen without leaving some kind of incriminating evidence behind. I could find hair in places I’d never visited in my life. And yet there was none in the car. Not even from her dad? Her best friend? A coworker?

  Besides the blood, the car was pristine.

  So, naturally, anything Fiske had touched or shed would seem highly suspicious. And Taft said he’d done it before. He’d killed before.

  I bit my lip, fought a wave of nausea, and stepped even closer. I wasn’t wrong. Fiske did not do this. But whoever did knew a lot about crime scene investigation. Enough to do a bloody good job of framing him.

  I opened the door. Perhaps it was because I hadn’t eaten in a while or I’d been stressed about Beep or I’d been manhandled by a large child, but my face once again headed straight for the ground. This time all on its own.

  * * *

  “You okay?” the officer asked as he held out a paper cup.

  We were in a cage that held weapons and ammunition and file cabinets. It smelled like metal and dust and gunpowder, which was way better than Emery’s car had smelled. I feared Eau du Death would never take off. The mere thought of it caused my stomach to clench yet again, and I fought the heave with everything I had. I failed.

  The officer kicked a metal trash can over to me as I fell to my knees and made the most humiliating retching sounds I’d ever heard from man or beast. They echoed off the metal that somehow muffled and amplified the sounds at the same time.

  Ignoring the laughter coming from outside the cage—there were several cops hanging around—I wiped my mouth on a sleeve and sat back on the chair. At least now I’d have some interesting fodder next time I played Never Have I Ever.

  * * *

  Cookie texted me saying she was taking some files home and to pick them up from her when I got in.

  Mr. Adams had mentioned that Emery was very close to her grandfather. If someone was stalking her or if she’d received any threats, he might be the only one she’d tell.