Seventh Grave and No Body

by Darynda Jones

  “Their eyes are unseen yet everywhere. They are blind yet they miss nothing. Twelve beasts lurk in the shadows. Twelve more lurk in the hearts of men. They wait. They watch for the uprising, when the daughter of the ghost god will stand alone on the rock and await the thirteenth’s decision. With her. Against her. It does not matter, for she was made for this day. A day of death and a day of glory. With or without him, she will taste the victory of her enemy’s blood on her tongue.”

  Holy.

  Shit.

  I sat stunned. That was a little too close to home. How much had she heard last night? I’d only just learned this stuff myself, and she couldn’t have overheard me tell Cookie. She’d already been at school. But how did she know about the thirteenth warrior? How did she know he could tip the scales in the uprising of Satan and his army on this plane?

  Without further ado, Amber snapped back to the present and held out her hand. “Three dollars, please.”

  I replaced my lagging jaw and dug into my bag for some ones. Either Amber was one of the best actresses I’d ever seen, or she just channeled Edgar Cayce.

  “Hon, did you hear Reyes and me talking last night?”

  “Pfft, no. I was out like a lamppost.”

  Kids and metaphors didn’t always mix. I handed her a five and told her to keep the change.

  “Sweet,” she said, stuffing the money into a cup beside her. “Next!” she yelled, effectively kicking me out.

  I stepped out and saw Ubie. Still stunned by Madam Amber, I asked, “What are you doing here? Is there something new on the case? Is it Dad? Did you find him?”

  He raised his brows and waited for me to notice the fact that he was holding Cookie’s hand.

  “Oh. Oh! So, you’re here in a nonprofessional capacity.”

  “Yes, pumpkin. I’m surprised you’d forget so easily after all the trouble you went to to get us together.”

  Cookie blushed a pretty pink.

  “Next!” Amber shouted from her blanket tent. She was so impatient.

  “I’ll go next,” Cookie said. “She practiced on me, so this should be short and sweet.”

  Quentin was busy checking out two kids trying to juggle samurai swords. Middle school boys and samurai swords. Those boys had very brave parents. Or really good health insurance.

  I sidled up to Reyes and said, “Did you hear any of that?”

  “I did. And can I just say, what the fuck?”

  “Right there with ya. You know, part of the prophecies say that those who can serve and protect the daughter will be drawn to me. Maybe all of this, everything, me moving into that building, meeting Osh, meeting Quentin, knowing Pari, who can also see the departed, and now with Amber, maybe it’s all part of some big plan. Some kind of security system for Beep.”

  “I’m beginning to wonder. And I’m really beginning to wonder who the thirteenth warrior is. If he could tip the scales and he could tip them out of our daughter’s favor in her most desperate hour, maybe we should see to it that he doesn’t live long enough to choose.”

  “I’m beginning to wonder. But how will we know who he is?”

  “Next!” came Amber’s insistent shout.

  “Your turn. Maybe she’ll shed more light onto this situation.”

  He nodded, then ducked, really low, to get into the tent. I stepped closer and listened in, but Amber went through the usual routine with him. No trances, just her giggles and fascination with my affianced, which was utterly charming.

  He paid up, lest he face the wrath of Amber the Astonishing, and ducked back out again. Not an easy task for someone who was six-four.

  After a round of games and some of the unhealthiest fare in the state, Reyes, Osh, and I left Cookie at the carnival. She’d promised to help tear down.

  “Okay,” I said, sidling up to her, “don’t forget about the plan tonight.”

  “How could I forget about the plan?” she said, rolling her eyes. “It’s ridiculous.”

  “No, it’s not. If it works, it’s not ridiculous. And it’s going to work.”

  “Okay, but I don’t even own a shovel.”

  “I have two. No worries.”

  “I’m going to regret this, aren’t I?”

  She asked it as though there were a chance I’d soothe her qualms. “Duh.”

  I did a little research when we got home, before going to bed. Osh took Sophie again, lounging against her armrest as I typed in everything from the Twelve, to hellhounds, to the thirteenth warrior, which yielded much Antonio, so that was fun. But I found nothing on my current-slash-future predicament.

  Having synchronized our watches earlier, Cookie snuck into the apartment right on cue.

  “Are you ready?” she asked, whispering.

  “Ready as a drunk virgin on prom night.”

  I went to the bedroom. Reyes was fast asleep, his breathing deep and rhythmic. I hated to wake him. I didn’t, however, hate to wake Osh. He’d supped on the souls of many a desperate man in his time, and he deserved to be deprived of a few hours of blissful slumber. Someone had to go with us. No way was I going out into the night without backup. There were beasts out there. Twelve of them. Once we got to the cemetery, we’d be safe. Consecrated ground and all. It was the in between here and there I worried about. But the only time we could dig up a grave with any hope of going undetected was at night.

  So, I tiptoed over to him, put a hand on his mouth, and leaned close to his ear.

  “Osh,” I said, kneeing his hip. “Wake up.”

  “I wasn’t asleep,” he said from behind my hand.

  I snatched it back. “Sorry.”

  “So, grave digging, huh?”

  “How’d you know?” I asked, holding a shovel in my other hand.

  “Okay, that was a good drive,” I said, looking over at a traumatized Cookie as I pulled to a stop in the cemetery.

  “You ran three red lights.”

  “Yeah, but it’s two in the morning. No one was around. And I didn’t want to be sitting ducks for any hellhounds that might happen along.”

  “And you drove through the university campus where there are no streets.”

  “Yet plenty of sidewalk.”

  Osh grabbed the shovels out of the back and followed us to Lacey’s grave.

  “Hey, guys,” she said with a wave. “Who’s the hunk?”

  Osh grinned, and if the departed could blush, she would have.

  “Um, sorry. I didn’t know you could hear me.”

  “Not at all. Which one?”

  “Oh. Over here.”

  Lacey led Osh to her gravesite.

  Cookie and I lagged behind, partly so I could ask her something and partly because we were hoping Osh would do all the work.

  “Have you noticed anything strange about your daughter?” I asked Cook, not certain how to bring up tonight’s event.

  “Something?” she asked. “As in only one thing?”

  I chuckled and relayed what had happened at the carnival to an astonished Cookie.

  “Yeah, I was right there, too.” I stopped her and put a hand on her arm. “She’s special, Cook. And I don’t mean a little. I think we were destined to meet. I think she’s going to somehow be a key player in my daughter’s life.”

  Cookie sat on a headstone, and while normally that would be a tad profane, I understood her need to sit down. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “I don’t either. I was floored, Cook. She was amazing. And those cards? Where did she learn to do that?”

  “I asked her that, too.”

  “And?”

  “Prison, apparently.”

  “She’s such a smart-ass.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  I summoned Angel and made him and Lacey be the lookouts. “No flirting either,” I said in warning. “I need lookouts, not make-outs. Got it?”

  “Sheesh, pendeja, chill your blue jeans. She’s so bossy,” Angel said to Lacey, hooking a thumb toward me.

  And again with the almos
t blushing as they went off to be our lookouts.

  Luckily, Lacey was right. The ground had recently been disturbed, so digging was way easier than I thought it would be, which still meant it was one of the hardest, most effortful things I’d ever done in my life. I’d dug a lot in Uganda, but apparently I was in much better shape then.

  Osh sat against a headstone, scanning the area while Cookie and I dug. It was my own fault. I should have blackmailed him into actually helping, but I got the feeling he was enjoying the Cookie and Charley Show.

  We were getting somewhat of a rhythm, though. Two hours later, Cookie was wheezing and involuntarily moaning every time she swung the shovel, like a tennis player every time she hit the ball, while I just sweated like a running back during Super Bowl. Every once in a while, I’d accidentally dump a shovelful of dirt on Cook’s head. It seemed to upset her tremendously, and never one to take an insult lying down, she would accidently dump a shovelful of dirt on my head, too.

  “Wouldn’t it suck if we did all this work and Lacey’s body was still in there?”

  “Bite your tongue.”

  “I heard that!” Lacey said from afar. Dead people had really good hearing.

  Osh strolled up to us, chewing on a blade of grass like we had all the time in the world. Reyes would figure out I wasn’t back home soon enough; then I’d have hell to pay. Literally.

  “So, you two have been at this for two hours and —”

  “Dog!” Lacey screeched in the distance. She’d been doing that all night, scared to death one of the hellhounds would show up.

  “— and you’ve managed to shave off only the top layer of dirt.”

  I gaped at him. “This is much more than the top layer. This is at least —” I held up a hand to get a visual calculation. “— four and a half inches.”

  “Out.”

  Cookie and I couldn’t have scrambled out of the grave fast enough. Which, at four and a half inches deep, wasn’t difficult.

  Osh took both shovels, tested their weight and balance, chose one, and then went to work.

  An hour later, Cookie, Lacey, and I sat in the graveyard, watching a slave demon who looked like a nineteen-year-old kid – a very well-built nineteen-year-old kid – dig up a grave shirtless, his wide shoulders shimmering in the moonlight.

  “I’m going to hell,” Cookie said, unable to rip her gaze off him.

  “Well, if you go, there are probably others who look like that. It might not be such a bad place.”

  “I want to have his demon babies,” Lacey said.

  Angel scoffed behind us, the only one besides Osh actually doing his job.

  Just then we heard a thunk, and Osh looked up over the grave. “Found it.”

  We hustled over as he scraped dirt off the coffin and opened it. Sure enough, no body.

  “Told you,” Lacey said. “You know, the more I think about it, the more it had to be Joshua, my ex. Maybe he hid my body somewhere else. He was so obsessed with it when I was alive. Can I haunt him?”

  “You sure can. I advise it, actually. It’s very therapeutic. But I’m not sure it’s him.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked as Osh jumped out of the grave. Like literally. Freaking demons.

  “You said there are two more graves with missing bodies?”

  “Yes, I can show you.”

  We walked to the other two graves, and I took the names, dates, and lot numbers down.

  “I have a feeling that once we find your body, we’ll find the others, and these two have been here awhile. I’m thinking someone who works here is stealing them.”

  “But why wait until they’re buried?” Cookie asked. “Wouldn’t it be much easier to steal bodies while they’re in the morgue?”

  “If my assumption is right, which it usually is, this is someone who has access to the equipment here and knows the schedule. It’s a lot harder to sneak a body out of a morgue than one might think. It’s better to steal the bodies after they are in the ground where no one will notice they’re missing, don’t you think? Much less likely to get caught that way.”

  “True. Sick, but true.”

  We took another trip through Albuquerque in the dark, but this time we had to make a quick pit stop at a convenience store, one that I happened to know used fake cameras out front, and called the police. We told them someone was digging up a grave at the Sunset Cemetery. We told them to hurry. Then I called Ubie from my cell and explained what was about to happen, how there would be a grave robbery soon and that the detective on the case needed to look into the cemetery’s employees, specifically groundskeepers, and to check out the culprit’s property once he was found, as there were two more missing bodies.

  The horizon was just beginning to brighten when we pulled up to the apartment building. We hurried in, and I fought Osh for the first shower. Literally and quietly, so as not to wake up the demon in the next room. I went for the hair. Grabbed handfuls. It was a dirty trick, but I was a dirty girl. Again, literally. I had dirt in places I didn’t know existed.

  Once victory was mine, I closed the bathroom door, flipped on the light, then pulled back the curtain to turn on the shower. Reyes stood there. Leaning against the tile. Arms crossed. Deadpan expression in place.

  “Oh, hey,” I said, smiling brightly. “I was just looking for you.” When he didn’t say anything, I continued. “You would not believe what happened while I was taking out the trash.” I scoffed and pointed to my hair. “Yuck. That’s all I have to say.”

  “Grave robbing is a federal offense.”

  I gasped. “What? I would never. We weren’t robbing. We were just digging. Exercise is good for Beep. And did you follow me?”

  “Your every move.”

  My jaw fell open. “I am so indignant right now. I was trying to let you rest.”

  “Mm-hm.”

  “And if you were there, why didn’t you help us dig?”

  “Because it was far too amusing watching you do it.” He stepped out of the tub and kept walking until he’d backed me against the wall. “And you left without me. At night. When the hellhounds are free to roam the lands and eat little girls for breakfast.”

  “I took Osh.” I couldn’t imagine how bad I looked.

  “You left. At night.”

  “Are we going to have this conversation again? I. Took. Osh.”

  “Why?” he asked, seeming genuinely confused. “Why would you take a risk like that for a dead body?”

  I tried to push past him. He didn’t let me. “It’s what I do, Reyes. Someone stole that sweet girl’s body.”

  “She took her own life.”

  “Reyes,” I said, scolding. “She had a disability. She felt hopeless and lost. You cannot fault her for that.”

  “And what about me?” he asked, leaning closer, but not to seduce. Not to lure. To intimidate. He slipped a hand around my throat, gently and methodically, his signature move. “Do you know how I would feel if the Twelve got to you? Hopeless and lost doesn’t even begin to describe it.”

  “There’s a guy out there stealing the bodies of young girls out of their graves.”

  “And they are already dead. It couldn’t have waited until after we settled the matter with the Twelve?”

  “You get ahead of yourself. That should be if we settle the matter with the Twelve. What if I don’t make it? I could do this now. I could solve this case now, so I did. Why put off until tomorrow…,” I said, letting my voice trail off.

  “Then why would you not wake me? Why would you risk your life and the life of our child for something so inconsequential?”

  “I couldn’t risk you, too,” I said quietly. “I’m compelled to help the departed, Reyes. It’s like my calling. If they are in pain, in need, in straits, I feel compelled to the marrow of my bones to help them. It’s just who I am.”

  He dropped his arm and stepped back. “I think I know why your people let you come. Why they let you leave your plane to come here for what amounts to menial labor.”


  This was going to be interesting. “Okay, I’ll bite.”

  “You’re a god, and yet you want to help. Gods don’t help, Dutch. Gods have to know when to aid their people and when to step back and let them learn from their mistakes.”

  “So my stint on Earth is supposed to help me become a better god?”

  “Yes. Because no being can live in a perfect world. Life is destined to fight to survive. To thrive. To prosper. To have more than the have-nots. All life destroys in order to live. You can’t fix everything, but you would try.”

  “Are you saying I’d be a horrible god?”

  “I’m saying you are a horrible god. You risk the wrong things for the wrong causes. You strive for perfection instead of taking pleasure in the imperfect.”

  He started to walk out, but I put my arm across the doorway to block him. He looked down at me, his deep mocha gaze shimmering angrily.

  “You’re wrong,” I said, matter-of-fact. “You, Mr. Farrow, are far from perfect.”

  I dropped my arm and turned from him. Partly because I needed a shower really bad and partly because there was a grain – just a grain – of truth to what he’d said.

  16

  Never underestimate the power of termites.

  — BUMPER STICKER

  I showered and then made a cup of Satan’s blood as Osh took his turn. I was exhausted, but the sun was in full swing, and I had things to do. Cookie came over and made herself a cup, too.

  “Every inch of my body is sore,” she said. “And my head is going to fall off at any moment.”

  “I’m really sore, too,” I said, playing along.

  “No, you’re not. He busted you, didn’t he?” she said, taking one look at me as I sulked behind my mug.

  “Yes. He followed us out there.”

  “Seriously?” she asked, sitting on Osh’s bed. “And he didn’t help?”

  “Right? But that’s not all. He said I’m a horrible god.”

  She gasped. “He didn’t.”

  “He did.”

  “Well, we all have to be horrible at something, sweetheart. Take me, for example. I’m horrible at selling vacuum cleaners.”