Eleventh Grave in Moonlight

by Darynda Jones

  I put one of the cups down. Mostly because I started feeling silly when Sammy, Reyes’s head cook, walked in, took one look at me, and walked back out again, shaking his head.

  In his own defense, he prolly had to pee or something.

  “If I can’t die, then what happens if I really am hit by a semi? Or thrown into a huge meat grinder? Or locked in a car destined for a car crusher? I’m going to die.”

  Reyes handed me a sandwich.

  I took a bite. “Peanut butter and jelly?”

  “We have places to be.”

  “Another lesson?”

  “More or less.”

  He was really pushing the lesson thing today. He took a bite of his own sandwich as I continued.

  “So, yeah, car crusher. You don’t live through that. No amount of stitches will put me back together.”

  Reyes-Wan listened as he ate but didn’t offer an explanation.

  I took another bite and decided to talk with my mouth full. “I get that the supernatural side won’t die. Everyone has a soul.”

  That got his attention. He shot me a quick glance, then went back to his sandwich and checking the most recent delivery invoices.

  “Or not. Either way, my body will not survive.” I swallowed and thought about the alternative. “At least, it had better not.” When he didn’t say anything again, panic rose in my chest. “Right? I would die. I do not, in any way, shape, or form, want to be a living pile of hamburger. And I don’t want to be a zombie. Have you seen their skin? Not even sunscreen would help with that.”

  Silence. I hopped down off the counter and walked over to him. “Roda?” I asked, combining his name with Yoda’s. He didn’t find my sense of humor amusing. It happened.

  He spoke at last. “It doesn’t work that way. Not for us.”

  He turned to talk to Sammy as he walked into the kitchen again. Sammy had learned long ago not to put much stock in our conversations. He either thought we were bat shit or he didn’t give a rat’s ass one way or another.

  And who came up with the animals for these euphemisms, anyway? Why bat shit? Why not cow shit or grasshopper shit? And why don’t we give a rat’s ass as opposed to a hamster’s ass?

  My point being, I could pretty much say anything in front of Sammy. He took it all in stride. The angel standing beside the walk-in freezer, however, would just have to deal.

  “But I’m still human, yes? I was born a human.”

  “Yeah,” he said to him, completely ignoring me. “Just keep an eye on the driver.”

  “You got it,” Sammy said, noting my indignation with a barely suppressed grin “What are you going to do?”

  Reyes looked down at me at last. “We’re going to the beach.”

  Suh-weet.

  As Reyes took my hand and led me out, Sammy shook his head again. Probably because we didn’t have any beaches in Albuquerque. Not real ones, anyway.

  The lunch crowd was vast as usual, but with Dr. Feel Good being gone so much lately, the demographics had shifted from a large percentage of women to some actual men. Or so I’d thought.

  We stepped out, and the noise level dropped. A couple of women got on their phones, saying stuff like, “He’s here today,” and, “Get over here, stat.” Still more women either texted or took his picture with their phones. He was somewhat of an Internet sensation, and he was either oblivious or just didn’t care. It was fun to watch, all the while knowing he’d be going to bed with me at night.

  Delight shuddered through me. Not a gloating delight. More of a delight of disbelief. If someone would have told me two years ago I’d be spending my nights with this man … well, I might have believed them, but only because one look at him and I would have offered my services. But to be spending those nights with him in a marital capacity? Priceless.

  He walked to the men’s restroom and dragged me inside.

  “Hey, mister,” I said, playing coy. I batted my lashes and gave him my most innocent look. “I’m not supposed to talk to strangers. Or follow grown men into restrooms. What would my daddy say?”

  He pulled me against his chest, shoved a hand into my hair, and devoured my mouth with a kiss that should have been X-rated.

  As soon as Donnie, our bartender, finished making pee-pee, he left without washing his hands. I could only hope the alcohol would sterilize them. In his defense, the kiss was rather sexual. With sexual undertones and a sexy, noir slant to it.

  Reyes broke off the kiss and stared down at me. “You keep talking like that, and I’ll have to take you into a stall.”

  “You romantic, you.” In truth, he left me completely breathless, and the stall sounded pretty freaking good.

  “Ready?”

  “For stall sex? Hell, yes.”

  The grin that slipped across his face bore a strong resemblance to the one he’d worn the night he’d performed a vaginal exam with kitchen utensils. I melted. Or I started to until he took hold of me and said, “This time, I’ll steer for both of us.”

  Celestial storms slammed into me and around me and through me, and then a sun brighter than I’d ever seen—and I was from New Mexico, thank you very much—blinded me. All I could see was a single shade of blue and a single shade of tan.

  I cupped a hand over my eyes and kept the fingers of the other one curled in Reyes’s shirt. The image around me slowly came into focus. Actually, it was already in focus, I was just now figuring it out.

  “We’re in a desert.”

  Reyes nodded. He had yet to actually look at our surroundings. Instead, he chose to look at me, and I could not fathom why.

  “Oh, my God, Reyes.” I turned and surveyed the area. “This is stunning.”

  We were surrounded by exactly two things: a sky so blue it glowed and a desert such a rich golden red it took my breath away. My feet sank into the sand. It formed little hills around them. I reached down and sifted it through my fingers, then fell onto my knees. They sank into the warmth beneath them, too.

  “Are we where I think we are?”

  He kneeled beside me. “If you think we’re in the Sahara, then yes.”

  I gasped. I was standing—kneeling—in the Sahara. “Reyes, I don’t know what to say. I’ve never seen anything so … so perfect in my life.”

  “I brought you here for a reason.”

  “Yeah?” I sat down and played in the biggest sandbox in the world.

  He watched me, and I wondered what he must think of me. I must seem like the craziest kind of loser, fumbling around in his world, trying to navigate it like a child in a walker, running into walls and cabinets and knees.

  I shook off the sudden feeling of insecurity, chalked it up to the freaking Sahara. If there were any one thing that could make a person feel insignificant, it would be this vast terrain. Beautiful and deadly at the same time.

  I tossed sand, as blisteringly hot as it was, onto his jeans. “You could have warned me. Sunglasses would have been nice.”

  He flashed his perfect teeth and picked up a handful of sand. Let it slide through his long, strong fingers. Then he began the lesson of the day. “Pick up one grain of sand.”

  I picked up a handful and showed him proudly.

  He grinned patiently, so I sifted it down, trying to get down to one grain. I had to wipe my hands together and start over. Finally, after much effort, I had one grain of sand in my palm. I named him Digby.

  He took Digby, much to my dismay. I’d worked hard for the little guy.

  After placing Digby in his palm, he held him out to me. “This is how much of you is human.”

  “Okay.”

  “Look around you.”

  I did and then looked back at the man I’d always believed sane.

  “In comparison to this desert, this is how much of you is human.”

  “I don’t get it. That’s impossible. I’m human. I’ve always been human.”

  “So, in your mind, you believe that you are, what? Half-human and half-god?”

  “Well, up until a
few months ago, I believed I was 99 percent human and 1 percent reaper. Then I was told that 1 percent had been split in two: half-reaper and half-god.”

  “You can’t be half-reaper. That’s like saying a postman is half-human and half-postman.”

  “Or a lawyer is half-demon and half-human?” I heard that a lot.

  One corner of his mouth tugged. “Something like that. Reaping is your job, not your heritage, for lack of a better phrase. But you can’t be half-god and half-human. The human side of you is one grain of sand among the 3.6 million square miles that make up this desert. The god part is too powerful. You need to get past that, because it doesn’t work that way.”

  I studied Digby. “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “You keep talking as though your human body can die. And, yes, it can, but it would take something very powerful to achieve it.”

  I stood and abandoned Digby by walking a few feet away. “So, if I’m cut up and thrown into a wood chipper—”

  “Did the truck kill you?”

  “Well, no, but we went incorporeal. On purpose. If I were unconscious or bound—”

  “Dutch, this one grain of sand doesn’t control the shape of the desert. It doesn’t control the drifts. The hills and the valleys. It is infinitesimal in comparison to the desert as a whole.”

  “Okay.”

  “The part of you that is a god, the whole that is you. A sentient being with immense power.”

  “The wind shapes it,” I argued. “An outside force.”

  “Just like on the mortal plane, outside forces influence, but the body is still one. The more you understand that, the less your human part”—he held out Digby—“this miniscule aspect of your makeup, can control you.”

  “And this is important, I take it.”

  “There is another god loose on this plane.”

  Ah. Figured we’d come back around to that eventually.

  “Right now he is more powerful than you are because he knows one thing to be true above all others.”

  “And that is…?”

  “He cannot die. Not at the hands of anything less than a god.” He stepped closer. “And neither can you.”

  I nodded, trying to let it sink in, to force it to, but there was still a part of me that just couldn’t believe it. “I could trap him like I did Mae’eldeesahn.”

  He bit down, the subject clearly raw. “You got lucky.”

  No way on heaven or earth could I argue that. “I agree, but—”

  “We may have to fight him. But we have an advantage.”

  “Yeah?”

  “He is one god, just like I am one god. You, Elle-Ryn-Ahleethia, are thirteen. As far as I know, you are the most powerful god to ever exist.”

  I nodded again, feeling about as powerful as Digby at that moment.

  “You don’t believe me.”

  “No, I do. I get it. Sort of. It’s just kind of hard to comprehend the vastness of it. It’s like when you take a native out of the rain forest he grew up in to the open plains and he sees cows in the distance, he thinks they’re flies. His mind can’t comprehend such vastness. Such distance.”

  He reached out, ran the back of his hand along my cheek, his touch as light as air, but it was enough. The celestial realm hit me like a tidal wave, tossing me about again, tumbling me through space. Just for a second. Then we were on pavement.

  I swayed and looked down. Not pavement. After a quick scan of the area, I realized we were on top of a building. A very tall building.

  I wasn’t exactly afraid of heights, but they weren’t my favorite of the three dimensions. I much preferred depth. Deep buildings. But Reyes had placed us on top of the Albuquerque Plaza, the highest building in the city.

  Still feeling like a light breeze could send me hurtling to my death, I took hold of Reyes’s T-shirt again. Curled my fingers into it as though that one article of clothing could keep me from falling off, because Reyes hadn’t placed us on the center of the building top. Oh, hell, no. We were smack-dab on a nifty edge looking over a 350-foot drop.

  In his defense, the very top wasn’t flat. If he’d placed us there, we would have slid off. So there was that. But we were on the highest edge, and while the world looked super cool from that viewpoint, it was not a place I wanted to be.

  “Reyes, this isn’t funny.”

  “I didn’t mean for it to be.”

  “Why are we here?”

  He wrapped his arms around me. “I wanted you to see. You are the desert. You are the whole. Until you believe that, you’re in danger.” He looked out over the city. “You don’t know what Eidolon is capable of. Everyone in this city, in this world, is in danger.” Then he returned to me with a hard gaze. “Our daughter is in danger.”

  He was right. If I could do something, anything, to stop Eidolon, I had to try.

  He set me at arm’s length but held me tight. Still, for my own peace of mind, I kept my fingers curled in his shirt.

  “You can save everyone here. You are the most powerful god in all the dimensions combined.” He shook me. “You just have to believe it to the very depths of your soul.”

  I nodded. “I’ll try.”

  He relaxed. Pulled me to him. Kissed the top of my head. “That’s just not quite good enough.”

  And then I was airborne.

  15

  If at first you don’t succeed, it’s only “attempted” murder.

  —MEME

  Few things in life are as surprising as having your husband, the man you gave your heart and soul to, throw you off a 350-foot building. I should know.

  The second my feet left the building top, the moment I felt that thrust, I slowed time. And hung, quite literally, in midair. Stunned. Breathless. Slightly irked.

  “Reyes Alexander Farrow!” I screamed, because it seemed like the right thing to do.

  He stood on the top of the Albuquerque Plaza. Arms crossed. Smirk in place. “You stopped time quickly. That’s a good start.”

  He had a plan. Surely he had a plan. “Okay, I get it! I’m a god. I have to know this to the marrow of my bones. But it won’t do me any good if my bones are in a big squishy pile at the bottom of this building.”

  “You’re doing great,” he said, completely unmoved.

  “Reyes, this isn’t funny anymore. Time is going to bounce back any second—”

  “You’re a god. Time doesn’t bounce back unless you allow it to.”

  “—and when it does, I will hit that pavement so hard, you will wish you could die before I’m finished with you.”

  His white teeth flashed against his dark skin. “Then don’t hit the pavement. Become it.”

  “What the fuck does that mean?” I screeched.

  He laughed. Laughed! “Absorb it,” he said. “Stop being so human. Just be a part of all that is around you. A part of everything. Like a proper god.”

  “You. Are. So. Dea—”

  Before I finished my threat, time did indeed bounce back, and I fell faster than I ever imagined possible.

  I turned in midair. Not on purpose, because who the hell wants to see that? But I did. I barely had time to focus on the instrument of my death when I was there. Slamming into it. The excruciating pain riveted through my …

  Wait. Where was the pain?

  Then I felt it, but not my own. I felt it in others around me. Along with joy, annoyance, love … pretty much every emotion imaginable coursed through me like heroin.

  And I saw. Everyone. Everything. I saw every blade of grass. I saw every ray of sunshine. I saw every strand of hair on every person who walked through the plaza. That worked in the surrounding buildings.

  I saw good as though it were a physical thing. Bad as well, only there was less of it, thankfully. Love overshadowed hate. Altruism overshadowed greed. Confidence overshadowed jealousy. Though in each case, the margins were narrower than I would have liked.

  I saw a lizard scurry along a wall two blocks away. A child trip over her ball in her living ro
om on the other side of the mountains. An elderly man offer a homeless kid who’d been making fun of him five dollars to get something to eat in Seattle. A doctor wash the feet of his ailing mother in India.

  I absorbed it all. I basked in it all. Like bathing in light.

  “Well?” Reyes asked, pressing against my backside, his mouth at my ear.

  I leaned in to him as though I’d been standing on the sidewalk the whole time. Astonishment, and a fair amount of shock, had taken hold.

  Gazing up at him, I asked, “Have you felt that? Is this what Jehovah feels all the time? No wonder He likes us so much. We are amazing, complex beings.”

  “You even more so.”

  I shook my head. “That’s where you’re wrong.” Stepping out of his hold, I leveled my best serious stare on him. “If this has taught me anything, Reyes, it’s that humans are incredible. They are each worthy of life. Well, most of them. And each and every one deserves the right to be equal. To be safe. To be fed and sheltered. Part of me understands why He doesn’t step in. Why He doesn’t just make it all right. Their free will is an astonishing gift.”

  “One that most squander.”

  “No. Not most. There is more good in the world than bad. They are still learning.”

  “They?”

  I questioned him with a tilt of my head.

  “You said they.”

  “Well, yeah, but I meant—”

  He grinned and turned to walk away. “Mission accomplished.”

  “No, I meant us. We. I’m still human. And hey!” I caught up to him and tugged on his shirt. “You pushed me off a building.”

  “What about it?”

  “Well, that was rude.”

  * * *

  Nothing made a girl hungrier than being thrown off a building. Reyes and I sat at Rustic on the Green, eating an incredible green chile burger, when Cookie called.

  “Hey, Cook. How was Amber’s day at school?”

  “Oh, great. Thank you so much for having Osh stay with her. It really set my mind at ease.”

  “I’m glad. So, what’s up?”

  “First, how did your day with Mr. Farrow go?”

  “Wonderful. We went to the Sahara. And he threw me off a building. Other than the building thing, it was fab.”