Seventh Grave and No Body

by Darynda Jones

  “Pick it up and pour some on me, then douse the place. I’ll break the lantern and hightail it out of here.”

  “No. What if you aren’t fast enough? You’ve lost so much blood.”

  “Farrow,” he said, handing the reins over to him. “Do it now and get out before I bleed out.”

  He nodded. Osh took me as Reyes grabbed the gas can and proceeded to douse my uncle in gasoline. Its scent made me gag, and tears rushed down my face. It wasn’t very long ago that I’d had a similar experience. The memory caused an upwelling of emotion. Such tragedy happening to me was one thing. The same thing happening to those I loved was quite another.

  “That’s enough,” I said, clawing at Reyes’s shoulder. My hand slipped in the slick blood there, and my nausea jumped into warp drive.

  Reyes lifted me into his arms again and rushed up the stairs two at a time as Osh took over, sprinkling the foul-smelling liquid over the contents of the room – careful not to spill any on Sylvia, lest it look suspicious – and up the stairs. He helped Uncle Bob up them as he ascended.

  Uncle Bob offered me one last smile, then nodded as he pushed the lantern to the floor. The gas caught fire immediately and spread like a beautiful dancer across the floor.

  “I’m right behind you,” Ubie said. “But I need to inhale a little smoke first.”

  “Reyes, make him come,” I said, pleading with him.

  “Pumpkin, it has to look very, very good.” He gave Reyes another warning scowl, and this time Reyes obeyed.

  He whisked me out to a frantic Cookie. Without another word, he indicated for her to follow us and carried me to our cars. Osh followed us out and climbed into Misery to drive her back for me as we piled into Reyes’s ’Cuda.

  Cookie had gotten ahold of the captain, so the cops were already on the way by the time we pulled onto the highway. We stared straight ahead as they passed us with lights flashing and sirens blaring. The glow of a fire lit the sky in the rearview, thick gray clouds billowing into the air, and my uncle had been drowned in gasoline. The fumes alone could catch a wayward spark and burst him into flames. If he made it outside, he’d be okay. The downpour would keep the heat at bay and it would also keep the flames from spreading into the brush. Purposely setting a fire was never a good idea in New Mexico. The rain had been a godsend.

  We rushed home to change out of our bloody clothes so we could meet the ambulance at the hospital. I had to leave Reyes and Osh to see to their own duct tape. Even though the Twelve had disappeared, we had no way of knowing if they would stay that way. Reyes called Garrett to escort us to the hospital.

  A group of officers lined the front of the building. One of their own had been injured. They were there to pay their respects as the ambulance pulled up. We pulled in right behind it, and Cookie was out of Misery, running after the ambulance before I could stop her. I pulled around to park, staying close to the emergency entrance, trying to decide if it was too soon to call her an ambulance chaser.

  “Robert!” Cookie screamed, dodging a cop and sliding under the arm of an EMT. The girl could move when she wanted to. “Robert,” she said, and I jogged up to the melee. Despite a polite officer trying to gently urge her back, Cookie had a death grip on the gurney as they unloaded Ubie from the ambulance.

  “She was throwing gasoline everywhere, going to torch the place,” he was telling the captain, who’d apparently ridden in the ambulance back. “She doused me, then took the stairs, sprinkling fuel as she went up. I couldn’t see what happened. I guess she just slipped. She fell down the stairs. Next thing I know, the place is burning and she’s unconscious at the bottom of the stairs with a broken neck.”

  Another ambulance pulled up with the other suicide-note victim. He was alive, and they were pumping his stomach.

  “Robert,” Cookie said, and when his gaze landed on her, I thought the heavens had opened up for the second time that day.

  Captain Eckert let her walk beside the gurney as they rushed him inside to prep for surgery. Fortunately, the bullet hadn’t hit anything vital. I teased him that it must’ve hit his brain, then. Or his penis. He laughed, clearly relieved to be alive.

  As Cookie, Garrett, and I sat in the waiting room, Reyes and Osh strolled in like they owned the place. They both wore hoodies, and Osh had donned his top hat, which looked painfully sweet when coupled with a 49ers sweatshirt. But they had to cover the duct tape somehow.

  Reyes sat beside me, his heat blistering as Osh went straight for the vending machines. He walked back to us with waters for Cook and me, even though we both craved coffee like there was no tomorrow.

  “How did you do that?” Reyes asked as I took a sip. He’d pushed the sleeves of the hoodie up. His forearms corded. His hands strong yet almost elegant as he gazed at them.

  I turned to him with my brows raised in question.

  He looked at me from beneath his lashes. “I had my hand around your wrist in the cabin. You… slipped through my fingers.”

  “I had to get to Uncle Bob,” I said, mesmerized by his probing gaze.

  “You did the same with the handcuff in front of the asylum,” Garrett said. “It was like you passed through it.”

  “Really?” I asked, thinking back and taking another sip. “I just slipped my hand out.”

  He shook his head. “You couldn’t have.”

  “Hmm,” I said. I poked my wrist with my index finger to make sure it was all there, not overly worried about it either way.

  Reyes took my hand in his then. He brushed his fingers over the inside of my palm, up my wrist, as though examining it, as though testing it, as a magician does when he taps his top hat before making a rabbit disappear.

  “Then the knife,” Reyes said, his voice now soft, accusatory. “You tried to take your own life.”

  “So did you, if you’ll remember,” I volleyed.

  Frustration flared within him, but he bit it back, kept it to himself.

  “You have to heal,” I said, worried about both him and Osh. He was scorching, and I was beginning to realize he grew hotter when he was injured and needed to heal. “You need to rest.”

  “We need to get to safe ground first,” he said. “Hold on.” He unfolded from his chair and strode to the socialite standing in a dark corner, which normally would have made me a little testy, but she was dead. What could they do?

  Captain Eckert walked up to us then, his face somber.

  I froze as I tried to get a read, then jumped out of my seat in alarm. “Uncle Bob —!”

  “He’s fine,” he said, urging me to sit back down. I didn’t. After a moment, he said, “The other victim didn’t make it.”

  “I know,” I said, nodding to the seat on the other side of me, where one Mr. Trujillo sat petting a weary Rottweiler named Artemis. Before Reyes and Osh arrived, we’d been making plans on what to tell his wife. How to get her a message before he crossed. Like so many departed, he was more worried about his family and their well-being than about the fact that he’d just passed. He schooled me on where to find the life insurance policy and the extra keys to the Harley-Davidson he’d bought during a midlife crisis, stating explicitly that his wife could not, under any circumstances, sell it to his cousin Manny, because Manny was an asshat. His words.

  The captain nodded; then his gaze darted to Reyes, a curious look on his face, before he went back to talk to a few of his officers standing nearby. He knew more than what he was telling me, and I wondered what all Uncle Bob had said to him in the ambulance. What could he have said, though, with the EMT right there?

  Reyes seemed completely unconcerned. He stood in the corner, talking to the socialite. Apparently, the departed who’d helped us battle the Twelve were okay. He walked back to us, his expression grave.

  “They’re still here on this plane.”

  Osh nodded. “I know. I still feel them.”

  I didn’t feel anything but anger at that point. What the hell would it take to kill them? And how hard was it to get one’s hands o
n a small nuclear device? Just in case.

  “We need to leave tonight,” Osh said.

  “What?” I glanced from him to Reyes. “What do you mean? Leave where?”

  Reyes drew in a deep ration of air, as Cookie looked on in concern. “We need to get to sacred ground. They’re from hell. They shouldn’t be able to cross it.”

  “Reyes, I can’t leave. My uncle is in the hospital. My father is missing. And someone has been taking pictures of me for what looks like years.”

  Reyes gave me a look that should have had me shivering in my boots. It failed. I was not about to leave my uncle.

  “We got lucky,” he said, his expression firm. “Next time, it might not be so easy.”

  “And once again: I stabbed myself through the heart with a dagger.”

  He flinched at the memory.

  “There was nothing easy about that. But I found my light. I can keep doing whatever it was I did. I can keep them at bay.”

  He stepped closer and lowered his voice even further. “It took a syringe and one small lunatic to bring you down.”

  That time I flinched at the memory.

  “One dose of a sleeping agent, and you couldn’t even stand, much less fight off a pack of hellhounds. It’s too risky. Osh has a plan.”

  “Oh, now we’re letting the Daeva decide?” I asked, mocking him. “Suddenly we trust him?” I’d trusted him all along. Reyes was another story.

  “We have no choice,” Reyes said, and I felt the defeat he’d been hiding, an oppressing sense of failure, engulf him.

  Guilt washed over me. “Reyes, I didn’t mean —”

  “Stop,” he said, lowering his head and gazing with his sparkling brown eyes from underneath his impossibly thick lashes. He hated my empathy. I hated that he hated my empathy. There was certainly nothing I could do about either.

  I stepped even closer. Placed my palm on his shadowed jaw. “Never.”

  He buried a hand in my hair and pulled me so close, our mouths almost touched. “I failed in every way possible,” he said, his voice hoarse, husky. “There’s no way to make that right, Dutch. But I can try to keep you safe from here on out. I can try to keep our daughter safe.”

  “You didn’t fail.”

  One corner of his mouth lifted sadly. “You’re such a bad liar.”

  “I’m an excellent liar,” I said, placing my mouth on his before he could argue any more.

  He opened to me immediately, drank me in as though begging for forgiveness. Instead, he left me struggling to satisfy my body’s need for oxygen and wanting to find a dark corner of our own.

  He broke off the kiss, then said, “You’re also a sucker.”

  Feeling a cold strip of metal at my wrist, I gasped and looked down. He’d handcuffed me to him. With handcuffs! Real ones! I lifted our cuffed wrists, appalled. “Oh, this doesn’t look odd in a room full of cops.”

  He lifted a shoulder. “I don’t trust you as far as I can throw you. Sue me.”

  I gasped again, glancing at Osh, who had a shit-eating grin on his face.

  “It was my idea,” he said, quite proud of himself.

  “This is so wrong. I am not leaving Uncle Bob.”

  “He’s out of surgery,” the captain said, walking up to us. “And coming out of the anesthesia as we speak.” He spared a quick glance at the cuffs, then motioned for us to follow.

  I stood aghast. What if I was in real trouble? What if I was being kidnapped by a man with handcuffs? One glance was all my imprisonment warranted?

  I set my shoulders and followed him. “I’m not leaving my uncle,” I said to Reyes as we walked toward the ICU.

  “How much you want to bet?” he asked, making it sound like he was trying to seduce me. Of course, Reyes could read the phone book and make it sound like he was trying to seduce me. Or a grocery list. Or an instruction manual. I had a most wicked thought of him reading the instruction manual of something that used a coupling, like an engine, perhaps. I loved that word: coupling. I wondered what it would sound like sliding off Reyes’s tongue, the deep timbre of his voice slipping like warm water over my skin.

  Coming to my senses before I melted on the spot, I glared at him. “And what holy ground?” I asked, taking Cookie’s arm as she fell into step beside me. “Where are we going?”

  Osh and Garrett were following us even though they wouldn’t go in to see Ubie. Clearly they wanted in on the conversation.

  “A convent,” Osh said. “Doesn’t get much more sacred than that.”

  “That’s fine and dandy, but what about you two?” I asked Osh softly. Cookie and I were walking arm in arm. Reyes and I were walking cuff-in-cuff. “You guys are, you know, from hell as well. Can you go onto sacred ground?”

  “We were born human,” Osh said. “We can pretty much go anywhere you can.”

  “Oh.” I didn’t know, but it made sense. Reyes had been to the cemetery, and that was consecrated ground.

  “But the hellhounds can’t?” I asked suspiciously. How much did they really know? “You’re certain?”

  Reyes shook his head. “No, we’re not, actually. But it’s worth a try.”

  I took a deep breath. “Well, we can’t go just yet.”

  “Dutch,” Reyes said in warning.

  “No, I mean it.” I lowered my voice again even though I was certain the captain could hear everything. The halls echoed worse than an amphitheater. “We are not going to do it on sacred ground without the bonds of holy matrimony to make us legit, and no offense, but I ain’t going eight months without a piece of that ass.”

  Reyes pulled us to a stop, wrapping his long fingers around my wrist so the cuff didn’t chafe. The entire entourage stopped as well as he grinned down at me. “Are you asking me to marry you, Dutch?”

  I pressed my mouth closed in admonition. “No, you already did that. I’m asking you to marry me now. We can’t disrespect the Big Guy like that. It’s just wrong. And Beep needs her baby daddy’s name.”

  He seemed stunned speechless. Cookie certainly was, but only for a few seconds. Her face brightened and she pulled me into a hug. “Oh, sweetheart. We can make this work. We’ll find a justice of the peace or a priest or something tonight. I know a homeless man who was an ordained minister and had a small church in the valley before he went crazy and started going to all the local Catholic churches to drink the holy water, fearing contamination by Beelzebub.” She glanced at Reyes, embarrassed. “Sorry, that’s what he calls your father.”

  An impish dimple appeared. “I’ve called him worse.”

  She sighed, her expression slightly lovesick. “We already have the license. It’ll be so romantic.”

  “Cook, I’m not sure we can manage this all tonight,” I said, loving her enthusiasm.

  “You’d better,” Reyes said. “We leave at dawn. Saints or sinners, we are going to holy ground.”

  I sighed aloud. “Fine. We can manage it tonight.” I looked at her. “How hard can it be?”

  18

  mawage ’mah-’wahge n.

  1; a bwessed awangement

  2; a dweam wifin a dweam

  — T-SHIRT

  The hospital staff actually let us all go into the ICU: the captain, Reyes, Cookie, a couple of detectives, and me. Gemma came rushing in as well, her face as pale as Ubie’s sheets. We hugged, the cuffs making it awkward, before we continued inside.

  When we walked in, the Iron Fist was there, the judge who hated me. Or at least she used to hate me. I doubted her feelings had changed very much, but she seemed to tolerate me rather well. It was nice. And had been at the hospital visiting her grandmother when she heard the news about Ubie. It was kind of her to stick around to see him.

  Ubie was groggy, which made him all the funnier. They gave him free rein on a morphine drip, which could not be good. He gave me a sleepy wink and told Cookie she looked like angel hair pasta. Not sure what that was about, but she literally melted. Clearly I was out of the loop. Either that or Ubie meant an angel
but was thinking of food and in his dazed state blended the two. It happened. I once stayed up for two weeks straight and blended coffee and sex. I asked a server to bring me a coffeegasm. He said they didn’t serve them but if I’d wait until he got off work, he’d do his darnedest to fill my order. He was cute.

  I leaned forward and hugged Ubie’s big head, afraid I’d hurt him if I hugged anything else.

  He managed a drunken smile and said, “It’s all taken care of, punky.” He hadn’t called me punky since I was a kid. It brought back fond memories. And a few disturbing ones, but nobody was perfect. How I loved this man with all my heart.

  “I’m so mad at you,” I said into his ear, partly to hide the annoying onset of wetness gathering between my lashes. How could he risk his life like that all to set up a scene to make sure Reyes didn’t get arrested for murder? Or, at the least, manslaughter. Maybe he felt he owed Reyes. He was indeed the arresting officer over a decade ago.

  “I know, sweetheart.” He tried to pat my arm and patted Will Robinson instead. Normally that would be awkward, but considering the circumstances…

  I laced the fingers of my cuffed hand into his. The deal was done. He’d been thoroughly and undeniably shot. Everyone saw that. He’d almost died. He’d heard the confession of Sylvia Starr before she fell down the stairs and broke her neck. He’d almost become a charcoal briquette for Halloween, not nearly so effective a costume as his Spidey outfit, in my humble opinion. Uncle Bob in tights was a sight to behold. Sure I’d needed therapy afterwards, but who doesn’t need a little counseling now and then? And he’d tried to save Mr. Trujillo, Sylvia’s final victim. If there was anything I could do, now was the time.

  I kissed his cheek, whispered one teensy word in Latin, then stood back and let the others take turns wishing him a speedy recovery. His cheeks flushed instantly, his pallor returning to health as he gave me a sideways, suspicious glance. I didn’t think I healed him completely. Just enough to ease the pain and mend his innards. Just enough to make what I was about to ask him tolerable.

  We spoke a few minutes more before we were all ordered out. “I have one quick favor to ask,” I said before we got run out completely.