Seventh Grave and No Body

by Darynda Jones

  “I’m fine,” he said, scanning the area warily.

  “We have to get them out,” I said to him, indicating the Dealer and Reyes, but the Dealer was already up, his head bowed, his hands clenched into fists as he glared from underneath his dark lashes.

  Reyes had told me the kid was a champion fighter, and in hell, one could only assume that meant fighting to the death. He said the Daeva, or slave demon, was the fastest and strongest fighter in the games, not only among slaves but any of the demons there, too. He’d been a champion, afforded luxuries other slaves didn’t have, which led to his ability to escape centuries before Reyes had.

  He was clearly in his element. Even with his back raw and dripping with blood and remnants of flesh, he stood deathly still. Watching. Learning. That had been his gift. His stillness. His patience. His ability to wait out his opponent, to let the fighter get the upper hand just long enough for him assess the beast’s strengths and weaknesses before attacking, because once the champion attacked, it didn’t take long for his opponent to die.

  I literally felt the force of his anger as he pushed it aside, turning it off so he could appraise the situation.

  “Holy fuck,” Garrett said, rushing toward Reyes.

  I was right behind him. I dropped Zeus and slid onto my knees as Reyes braced a hand against a counter. He tried to lift himself off the ground but couldn’t quite manage it. Garrett was there instantly, helping him to his feet as I took his other side.

  “We need to leave,” the Dealer said, his eyes unblinking as he continued to scan the area. “Now.”

  He didn’t have to tell me twice. Garrett and I eased Reyes toward the door. I slipped on his blood but was able to right myself before making a bigger disaster of an already disastrous situation.

  “The knife,” the Dealer said, and I knew he couldn’t just pick it up without some kind of protection. No demon could.

  “There.” I nodded toward a dirty dishrag on the floor.

  But we didn’t wait for him. We hurried out the door and up the stairs, Reyes’s feet tripping as we almost carried him up. Or, well, Garrett almost carried him up. I felt more like a hindrance than a help.

  Reyes had definitely taken the worst of the attack. Not only was his back in shreds, but his shoulder had almost been ripped off as well. The jaws on those beasts could manage it effortlessly. I shuddered at the thought as we burst through the front doors and into the glorious sunlight.

  Feeling safe for the first time, I lifted my head toward the sun. If we made it to our vehicles with no one noticing us, that would be the third miracle for the day. I’d already used up two, the first being my last trip to my vehicle, covered in blood with no one the wiser. The next being the fact that I had nary a mark on me. But Reyes sure did.

  After we exited out the gate, I started for Reyes’s ’Cuda, but Garrett steered him in the opposite direction. Artemis followed us out, bouncing around and whining helplessly. I understood completely.

  “My truck,” Garrett said, indicating the bed with a nod. “He needs to lie down.”

  “We have to get him to a hospital this time. He’s lost too much blood.”

  “No.” The Dealer brought up the rear, then sprinted past us to let the tailgate down. I saw him wince when he pulled the handle and lowered the gate.

  “Look, Dealer or Daeva or whatever your name is,” I said as we eased Reyes onto the tailgate. Garrett jumped in, hooked his arms under my man’s shoulders, and dragged him into the bed. Reyes’s head lolled back and Garrett carefully lowered him onto the metal bed.

  That time I winced. His right shoulder was mangled, and I honestly worried his arm would come clean off. Blackness blurred the edges of my vision. I almost fainted, but the Dealer wrapped an arm around my waist.

  I pushed off him. “We have to get him to a hospital. Look at his shoulder.”

  He regarded Reyes’s unconscious form, then turned to me. “Got any duct tape?”

  8

  Most of what I call “cooking” is just melting cheese on stuff.

  — T-SHIRT

  We snuck Reyes – who’d woken up mid-trip and insisted on going home instead of to the Daeva’s house – up the stairs and into my apartment. The Dealer drove Garrett’s pickup, since he was better equipped to fight the hellhounds should they show up, and Garrett drove Reyes’s ’Cuda to our place. We avoided the interstate in favor of a residential, and thus less traveled, route. We couldn’t risk someone in a truck seeing Reyes and me covered in blood in the bed of a pickup and have them call the police.

  “It’s okay, Mrs. Allen,” I said to my elderly neighbor as she cracked open her door for a peek. “We’re rehearsing for a play.”

  “That was so lame,” Garrett said, huffing with the burden he carried. The Dealer seemed to be handling it okay, but I felt pain radiate out of the kid with every movement. The slashes on his back were deep.

  “I know,” I said, acknowledging my lame reason we were all covered in blood. “It was all I had.” I was still quaking from our most recent efforts and in fear for Reyes’s life.

  “We aren’t safe here,” the Dealer said as he helped Garrett carry a grimacing Reyes up the second flight of stairs. We totally needed an elevator. “We’re making a big mistake coming here. My place is much safer.”

  “They can’t come in here, demon slave,” Reyes said from between clenched teeth, echoing the Dealer’s earlier words, “or don’t you feel that?”

  The Dealer paused, absorbed whatever it was he could feel that I clearly couldn’t, then nodded. “That’ll work.”

  “What?” I asked, rushing ahead of them to open my door. “What will work?”

  “The whole area has been blessed. It’s not exactly sacred ground, but it’ll do for now.”

  “Blessed?” I asked Reyes, wanting to help but not knowing where I could touch him without it causing him even more pain.

  “After the basement.”

  “Oh. Right.” We’d had an infestation of demons in the basement once. I’d never thought about having the place blessed to keep them away. Then it hit me. “I knew that new bug guy looked familiar. He was a priest or something, wasn’t he?”

  Reyes tried to nod but cringed in agony instead.

  He must have had holy water in that canister instead of bug spray. “No wonder I’ve been seeing so many spiders lately.” Holy water may fend off demons, but spiders were completely unfazed by it.

  I made a mental note to call a real bug guy ay-sap. Not that I had anything against spiders. I liked them as much as the next girl. Not.

  After much effort, bickering, and fussing on my part, we got both the Dealer and Reyes cleaned up, duct-taped, and on the road to recovery. I could hardly look at Reyes’s wounds. Or the Dealer’s, for that matter. There was only so much flayed flesh I could take, and I’d been feeling quite nauseated as it was.

  We put Reyes in my bed, which still butted against the head of Reyes’s bed, where there used to be a wall before Reyes went all This Old House on me. I had yet to discard mine. Artemis curled up on the end of it, resting her head against Reyes’s leg. Then we put the Dealer on the couch and Garrett in a rather comfortable recliner we’d moved into my apartment from Reyes’s.

  They all fell fast asleep. Garrett didn’t want to let on how hurt he was, but I’d have bet my bottom dollar he had a cracked rib or two. His arm and ribs were also scratched up, but because his injuries were nothing compared to Reyes’s and the Dealer’s, he didn’t feel he could complain.

  After I said my belated hellos to Mr. Wong, the departed Asian man hovering in the corner of my living room, I sat at my kitchen table and listened to the men’s shallow panting as they all tried to heal. But I couldn’t get the image of the beasts out of my head. I had never been so scared of something I could barely see. In an effort to take my mind off them, I picked up my phone, called Cookie at the office, and broke down, sobbing, until she finally hung up on me, locked the doors, and rushed over with Belvedere slopping
in his fishbowl to get the story firsthand.

  As the guys slept, I also called Uncle Bob over. The three of us sat at my tiny kitchen table, watching Belvedere do the dance of his people as I quickly and quietly explained everything that had happened. Through tears of shock and grief, I fought past my stupor and told them about the man who had attacked me, his horrific death, and the fact that I’d gone to the Dealer’s house. How the Dealer had burned my clothes trying to protect me. How we went back and were attacked again. And I told them about the Twelve. They had a right to know. If I was going to bring them into this, into my life, they had a right to know everything. I’d considered looping in the captain since he now knew more about me than most, but decided to leave that up to Ubie. The bottom line was, we had a dead body on our hands. A missing dead body, but a dead body nonetheless.

  “Would they —? Would the Twelve hound beast things have taken the body?” Cookie asked, her expression grave as she held my hand.

  “I have no idea.” I sobbed into a paper towel, as I was out of tissues. Shopping for the mundane was never my strong suit. “I’m sorry,” I said, blowing my nose for the fifteenth time. “I think I’m hormonal.”

  “You’re suicidal,” Ubie said, his ire rising. “Why the hell did that bastard take you back to the asylum after what happened the first time?”

  “Trust me, Uncle Bob, the last place Reyes wanted me to go was back inside. He was a tad angry. But you can’t go there,” I said, handing him the license I’d found in the freezer. “This is the guy who attacked me, but he was really after Reyes. Either way, you can’t go there. Promise me.”

  “Pumpkin, that’s a crime scene.”

  “Not if you don’t tell anyone.”

  He bit back a curse.

  “Ubie,” I said, leaning forward, pleading, “you can’t go in there and you can’t send anyone in there. You could be sending them to their deaths. The only reason Reyes and the Dealer are alive is because of their heritage.”

  “Is that what you call it? Their heritage?”

  “Uncle Bob, I’m not kidding. These beasts are like nothing I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a lot.”

  After a long, thoughtful moment, he drew in a deep breath of resignation. “I’ll run a background on this guy, see what I can dig up, and let you know.”

  “Thank you. Are you going to tell the captain?”

  “I don’t know yet. I’ll have to think about it.”

  “I’m so sorry to put you in this position.”

  “Pumpkin,” he said, taking my hand, “this is not on you. You’re not like us, and we all know it. I’m just glad I can be here when you need me.”

  I was taken aback by his admission, and the waterworks flowed again. I lunged forward and hugged him. “Thank you.”

  “I like him,” Cookie said, nodding toward the kid sleeping on Sophie, my couch.

  I kissed Ubie’s cheek, then released him. “You like all kids.”

  “Not my own,” she said, teasing.

  “I heard that.” Amber, Cookie’s offspring, had come in and was standing behind me.

  “Oh, I had no earthly idea you were there.” Cookie winked at me as Amber started scouring my cabinets. “How was school?”

  “You know those days where you wish the earth would open up and swallow your teachers whole?” she began. Then her gaze landed on the sleeping beauty sprawled across Sophie. His shoulder-length black hair splayed across a throw pillow, and an arm was covering half his face, but those didn’t detract from the fact that he was gorgeous. Her gaze slowly meandered toward the other sleeping beauty set up in the recliner. Then she rose onto her toes and could just see into my bedroom, where the third sleeping beauty lay resting.

  “Is Reyes okay?” she whispered, worried and wondering what had happened. I could feel curiosity rise like a tide within her.

  “He’ll be fine,” I replied.

  “Sweetheart, why don’t you go raid our own cabinets? Aunt Charley’s food is dangerous. It has green fuzzy stuff on it.”

  “Not on my Twizzlers,” I protested.

  “Um, okay,” she said, her gaze latching back on to the Dealer and staying there. “Can I bring you anything? Crackers? Coconut water? Bubble gum?”

  I almost laughed, but couldn’t quite get past my stupor enough to do it. And I’d even showered for the third time that day, but my mottled senses refused to bounce back to their state of stasis: extreme ADHD.

  “We’re good, hon,” Cookie said. “You run along.”

  “Okay, but don’t forget about my carnival. You guys have to come.”

  “I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” I told her as she hugged me good-bye. After she left, I asked Cook, “She’s joined the circus? I had no idea.”

  “No. Don’t worry about it. You don’t have to go.”

  I straightened. “Of course I have to go. I live for carnivals. Carnivals and Oreos, but not necessarily in that order.”

  I really didn’t live for either, but I needed a drink so bad, I’d started babbling. A mocha latte would hit the spot, but noooooo. I had to be carrying a Beep around. I was never going to survive this whole pregtastic thing.

  “I’m going to run a search on this guy,” Ubie said. He stood to leave and Cookie followed suit.

  “Okay.” Guilt leached into me once again. He did have a job to do, and this was a lot to lay on an officer of the law. Oh, so yeah, there’s this dead guy on my property, but you can’t tell anyone or investigate or anything. Also I burned my bloody clothes. Does that seem suspicious at all? I was the worst niece ever.

  “You realize your sister is coming over in an hour,” Cookie said.

  I dropped my forehead into my palm. “I totally forgot. She’s going to kill me.”

  “She’s just excited about the wedding and the baby. I’ll call her.”

  “Thanks, Cook.”

  “And I’ll bring dinner over in a few. You just keep watch over the guys.”

  “Will do.”

  After they left, I went to check on my affianced. He lay sleeping with his good arm thrown over his forehead. I leaned in to check on his wounds. What little the duct tape didn’t cover was already fusing, his cells merging at an incredible rate to make him whole again. I could only pray the internal damage to his shoulder was doing the same.

  I wanted to lie down beside him, to curl him into my arms, but I didn’t want to risk waking him, so I strolled back to my living room and sat on the coffee table near the Dealer so I could check on him. He lay on his back, as did Reyes, a feat that floored me. Their backs had been ripped to shreds. How they were able to get sleep while lying on them was beyond me. His arm, lean and sinewy like Reyes’s, covered most of his face, but I could tell he was awake.

  “What’s your name?” I asked him, sipping a cup of water.

  “I can’t tell you my real name,” he said without removing his arm.

  “Why?”

  “Knowing a demon’s real name gives you power over him. I’m surprised you know Rey’aziel’s.”

  That was the second time that day I’d heard something along those lines. The priest had said the same thing.

  “Well, we are affianced.”

  He removed his hand at last, letting it hang over Sophie’s arm. His bronze irises shimmered in the low light as he studied me. There was simply something about him, something alarmingly attractive but not in the usual way. There was nothing sexual about my interest. I just trusted him. I had no idea why, really, but I’d trusted him from the moment I saw him.

  “And yet,” he said, gazing at me with the same regard, “Rey’aziel has never told you your real name, has he? So who has more power?”

  “I do,” I said, matter-of-fact, completely full of shit.

  One corner of his mouth lifted. “Good. You’ll need that confidence in the days to come.” He glanced down at my abdomen. “May I?”

  I leaned away warily. “May you what?”

  “Feel her?”

  Looking
down at Beep, I hesitated, then nodded, unsure of what he meant.

  He brought his arm around, wincing at the pain it caused, and placed his hand gently on my abdomen. I couldn’t imagine he would feel anything. She was little more than cells. Her heart hadn’t even started to beat yet. But I felt her warmth like a tiny light pulsing inside me.

  His lids drifted shut as though the act soothed him, eased his pain. “What’s her name?” he asked, keeping his lids closed.

  I glanced over to see if Garrett was awake. He was. He looked on silently as the Dealer, the slave demon from hell who had no reason to help us and yet risked his life to do that very thing, somehow connected with my daughter.

  “You show me yours and I’ll show you mine,” I told him.

  He grinned, his fingers sliding dangerously close to Virginia, my girlie part. Clearly Beep was lower than I thought. “I’ll tell you what you can call me. How’s that?”

  “That’ll work. I looked up your utilities and stuff. They’re all under the name of the guy you rent from. I can’t believe that, despite everything I have to go on, I can’t find a thing about you.”

  “I’ve been around a lot longer than you, sugar. I’m careful.”

  “I’ll buy that. So what can I call you?”

  He finally lifted his lids, his bronze irises feverishly bright when he said, “Osh. You can call me Osh.”

  “Osh,” I said, absorbing the name, associating it with the demon who looked like a kid lounging on my sofa. Such an unassuming name for such a dangerous, dangerous boy. “I like it. You got a last name?”

  “It’s not my demon name, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “Not at all.” I took out my phone. “I just need to know what to put your number under. If anyone found my phone and read ‘The Dealer,’ I could be in trouble.”

  He flashed me a brilliant smile. “It’s Villione. It was given to me many centuries ago, after I first arrived on earth.”

  I stilled a moment before punching the name into my phone. “Does it stem from what I think it does?”