Текст книги "Eighth Grave After Dark"

Автор книги: Darynda Jones

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“No,” Gemma said. “Mom wants to explain.”

“I was just trying to teach you.”

“No.” I stood and paced. “No, you were so indifferent to me. You hated me. That’s not teaching. That’s punishing.”

“I never hated you.”

“You were completely indifferent to me. If not hate, then what?”

“I wasn’t indifferent.”

“You were a monster!” I yelled. “Why are you even here? Why are you even talking to me?”

Her shoulders shook a moment before she cleared her throat and tried to gather herself. No way was she making me the bad guy in all this. Tears may have worked on my dad, but they would not sway me an inch.

“I wasn’t indifferent, Charley.”

A humorless laugh escaped me.

“I was scared of you.”

I sighed, unable to believe she was pulling this shit.

“I was scared to death of you. You were something else, something … not human, and I was scared of you.”

“Oh, so now you believe in all this?”

“Please listen to her, Charley. It’s taken us a long time to get to this point.”

“So, you’ve been counseling her? Five syllables: antipsychotic. They do wonders.”

“You owe her at least a little of your time.”

“She treated me like shit my whole life. The only thing I owe her is my middle finger and a cold shoulder.”

“You’re right,” Denise said. “You’re absolutely right.”

“See?” I said to Gemma.

“If you will let me explain,” she said, “I will leave tonight and I will never come back if that is still your wish.”

“Can’t beat that with a stick. Shoot.”

Her cheeks were wet and her fingers shook as she stared down at her lap. “When I was little, my mother was in a car accident.”

Not her life story. Damn it. I had to pee. This could take forever.

“They had her in ICU. They’d stabilized her, so they let me and my dad in to see her. It was so scary seeing her hooked up to all those machines.”

I gazed longingly at the door, wondering if anyone would notice if I just slipped away for a few minutes. Beep was playing hopscotch on my bladder, and this was clearly going to take a while.

“My dad left to get coffee, and Mom woke up while he was gone. She looked at me sleepily and held out her hand right before the machines started going crazy. Her blood pressure dropped. The nurses and doctors came in and they tossed aside one of the blankets that was on her. A blue blanket.”

Blue wasn’t my favorite color.

“They were working on her, trying to bring her back. I guess she was bleeding internally. She woke up again while they were working on her, but the machines were still going crazy. She looked up at nothing and spoke. Just said things like, ‘Oh, oh, okay, I didn’t realize.’ She had a loving look on her face. When I looked over, I saw what she was talking to. An angel.”

I saw an angel once, too, but now probably wasn’t the time to bring it up.

“He disappeared. Everyone had forgotten I was even there. They took her back into surgery, performing CPR on the way, but she was already gone. When my father came back, he dropped his coffee. I tried to tell them there was an angel, but all he saw was the blanket. He thought it was a blue towel.”

I suddenly knew where this was going. When her father died, I was four. He came to me and asked me to give her a message. Something about blue towels. I was too young to understand. Later, I didn’t care.

“They came back and told us she was gone. My dad broke down. I tried to tell him about the angel, but all he saw was a blue towel.”

I was going to need a blue towel if I didn’t get to the bathroom soon.

“He said sometimes a blue towel is just a blue towel. That became our mantra. Anytime anything unexplained happened, we repeated it. But we didn’t talk about the actual event until about two years before I met Leland.”

Wonderful. We were jumping ahead in time. I crossed one leg over the other and tried not to squirm. Gemma sat beside her on the bench and put a hand over hers. They were always so close. I’d tried to understand over the years, but some things were just impossible to explain. Like UFOs and bell-bottoms.

“My dad had a massive heart attack, but he survived. Then one day we were having dinner and he looked at me and said, ‘Sometimes a blue towel isn’t just a blue towel.’ Sometimes it’s more. But by that point, I’d grown up. I was a bona fide skeptic. And—” She ducked her head as though ashamed. “And I didn’t believe him. After everything that had happened, I didn’t believe him. I chalked it up to the medication they had him on. But then, right after I met your dad, I was in a car accident.”

“So, the point of this story is to not get in the car with you or any of your relatives?”

“Charley,” Gemma said, her voice monotone. Nonjudgmental. I loved psychology.

“Your dad rushed to the hospital. He had to bring you girls. They said I nearly died.”

Nearly being the salient word.

“I guess because he was a cop, they let him bring you two in to see me.” She laughed humorlessly. “I was pretty out of it.”

Like now? I wanted to ask.

She looked at me at last. “That’s when I saw it.”

I had so many comebacks, it was hard to pick just one, so I remained silent.

“I saw your light, Charley. But only for an instant.”

“I didn’t know about your light,” Gemma said. “Not until Denise told me.”

“Join the club,” I said. “I can’t see it either.”

Denise stared wide-eyed for a moment before continuing. “I just figured I was seeing things. Then about a year later, I was having dinner with my dad again and I told him what I saw. He tried to tell me how special you were. I scoffed and repeated our mantra. ‘Sometimes a blue towel is just a blue towel.’”

“I’m not really sensing an apology here.”

Gemma scowled at me. If only she knew about the bladder situation. It was making me cranky. I didn’t want to go now, though. It would be my excuse to leave the room when they were getting ready to go home. I could hurry things along then.

“I slowly began to realize my dad had been right. You were special. Different. I didn’t know your father was using you to help solve his cases, though. He hid it from me for a long time.”

“I can’t imagine why.”

“It wasn’t until the park incident with the missing girl’s mother that I realized what he was doing. When I found out, I was livid.”

“Because he was paying attention to me?”

“Because I was so against believing what I saw with my own eyes. Despite everything that happened, I had convinced myself that the angel was a figment of my imagination. That my mother did not go to a better place. That supernatural beings like angels and demons did not exist. It went against everything I was trying tooth and nail to hold on to. There was too much hurt and too much suffering in the world for me to believe that an omniscient being would allow it all to happen. I became an atheist. People are just good or bad. There’s no devil making us do evil things.”

“Well, I have to agree with you on the people front.”

“But the devil front?” Gemma asked.

I let a slow smile spread across my face for Denise’s benefit. “I’m married to his son.”

“Charley, that’s not funny.”

This time I planted a serious gaze on my sister. “I wasn’t trying to be funny, Gem.”

She leaned forward and whispered to me. No idea why. “You mean—? Really? As in—?”

“Lucifer’s son. Yes.”

I was hoping that would send Denise running. Instead, she rambled on. For the love of—

“When you told me what my dad had told you that day in your apartment, the thing about the blue towels, my last desperate grip on atheism slipped through my fingers. I didn’t know what to do. How to handle it. But then everything happened so fast with your father.”

“After Dad died,” Gemma said, “Mom started going to church.”

“He’s in a better place, right?” she asked, sobbing into a tissue.

“Actually, last I saw him, he was in my bathroom.”

They both blinked up at me, their mouths forming perfect Os.

“What? I wasn’t naked or anything.”

“He’s here?” Denise asked.

“No. Not right now.” I glanced around just in case. “Not sure what’s going on with him. But I really have to pee, so is this a wrap?”

“No,” Denise said, her posture suggesting she was going to stand her ground. “I would like to ask for your forgiveness.”

“My forgiveness?” I said with a huff.

“Charley,” Gemma said, “you promised to listen.”

“I did. I am. But that’s all I promised.”

“No,” Denise said, patting Gemma’s hand, “it’s okay. Charley listened. That’s all I can ask. I just want you to know that I am sorry for any suffering I may have caused you.”

“There’s something you’re missing here,” I said.

“Okay.”

“You’ve known all along what I was. Or at least that I was special or had a gift or something along those lines. And you denied it and tried to make me feel like shit because of it. Is your knowing supposed to make me feel better? Because trust me when I say that makes you a bigger bitch than I thought you were.”

Gemma lowered her head, then spoke softly. “Sometimes we just need to forgive. Not for that person, but for ourselves.”

“You’re right, Charley. I fought the truth. Fought you. Fought my father and your father and even our Maker. I have no one to blame but myself.”

She stood, tucked the tissue in her handbag, then walked to the door. Without facing me, she said, “Thank you for listening. If you can find it in your heart, I want to be a part of your life. A part of Beep’s life. I’ll do anything you need me to do. I’ll help you with the baby. I’ll go to the store. I’ll change diapers. Anything.” Her voice cracked with her last plea. “Please think about it.”

She walked out, but Gemma had one last thing to say. “It’s taken her months to get through a whole day without crying about Dad. She’s come a long way, Charley. She has no family but us. Please consider her offer.”

“I’ll think about it. After I pee.”

8

ANXIETY GIRL!

ABLE TO JUMP TO THE WRONG CONCLUSION IN A SINGLE BOUND.

–T-SHIRT

When I got back from making number one, Katherine the Midwife was there waiting for me, gloves on, in her ready stance. Gawd, she liked sticking her fingers up Virginia.

“Hey, Katherine,” I said. “Time for another torture session?”

Reyes was there, too, looking rather ashamed of himself. As he should. Picking fights with hellhounds was not something to be proud of. I would’ve kicked him out of the room, but I couldn’t be too mad. I now had ammunition for when the time came to tell him about the Loehrs.

“Let’s have a look at you,” she said. “You fell?”

“Yes, in the woods.”

“I see that.” She lifted my shirt, and a burst of heat washed over me.

Confused, I looked in the full-length mirror and saw what Reyes saw. I hadn’t even noticed it before. I had scrapes all along one side of my back and over my rib cage.

Reyes didn’t say anything, but I could feel his desire to question me further.

“Okay, no broken ribs. You’re breathing okay?” she asked.

I nodded.

She checked Beep’s heartbeat, then said, “How about we do this right here? I’ll just check to make sure everything is intact.”

I knew the drill. She stepped outside the room while I removed my pants and my panties and draped the sheet over me. Then I lay down on the bed and called her back in. Reyes never took his eyes off me. His dark gaze was both reassuring and unsettling. He stared at me from underneath his lashes, his temper held in check by his own feelings of helplessness. I was right there with him.

Katherine the Midwife pushed my legs farther apart and did her thing. The lubricant was freezing and I jumped. “Sorry, hon. Let’s see what’s going on.”

But a barrage of thoughts and images crashed into me as I lay there. The thought of Reyes dragging a hellhound, a fucking hellhound, across the border to try to kill it sank in. That and the fact that someone, or something was trying to kill me in addition to said hellhounds. I wanted to continue to hate Denise forever and ever, but her loneliness—I’d felt it. I’d been feeling it for months. I just lived in a constant state of denial. And the business with the Loehrs. What had I done? What would my actions do to my marriage? Would Reyes forgive me?

It all came bubbling to the surface at the worst possible time. Two fingers. All the way up.

I bit down, covered my eyes, held my breath, but the emotions swirling inside me, the stress of living with a dozen hellhounds just waiting to rip me to shreds—no, waiting to rip Beep to shreds—and being so utterly helpless to do anything about it were getting to me. That combined with everything else, mostly Reyes and his antics and me and my antics, wrenched a sob from my throat.

“It’s okay, honey,” Katherine the Midwife said. “I’m almost finished. You’re dilated, but just barely. You’re about a two right now.”

She cleaned me up and pulled down the sheet, but it was too late. I covered my face with both hands and fought tooth and nail to hold back the emotions overwhelming me.

“This is a very emotional time, sweetheart,” she said, patting my knee.

I felt the bed dip, felt the heat of Reyes near me, felt his fingers push a lock of hair from my face, and cried some more. It was like I’d turned on a faucet and broke the handle. I couldn’t turn it back off again.

“I’ll leave you two alone, but everything looks good. No damage that I can see.”

I heard the door click closed as she left, and then Reyes pulled me into his arms.

“Freaking whore-mones,” I said, and he held me tight as deep, cleansing sobs overtook me.

*   *   *

When I woke up, it was dark outside. I lay there listening to the sound of Reyes’s breathing, deep and even, and I hoped beyond hope that he was asleep.

“I’m not,” he said.

“What time is it?”

“It’s only nine. You need to go back to sleep.”

“I will if you will.”

“Can’t.”

I rose onto an elbow and tried to make out his features in the dark. Moonlight streamed in from the open curtains and shimmered in his incredible eyes.

“Why can’t you sleep?”

“I don’t know, Dutch. I just can’t. I can’t make myself.”

“You can’t allow yourself. That’s what this is about, but eight months? Really? How did I not know?”

“Because you sleep like you’re comatose. And you snore.”

“You can’t watch me every second of the day. What good are you if something happens and you’re too exhausted to fight?”

“I know. Trust me. I’m not doing it on purpose. I just can’t sleep.”

I frowned, worried about him. “Why were you talking with Angel? What’s going on with you two?”

“He’s doing a little reconnaissance for me.”

“What kind of reconnaissance? You aren’t putting him in any danger, are you?”

“No.” He bent to nuzzle my ear. It sent warm shivers cascading over my shoulders.

“Okay, then tell me exactly what you’re doing.”

“No.” He trailed tiny, hot kisses down my neck.

“Tell me or we are never having sex again.”

He smiled behind a particularly sensual kiss where my pulse beat. “I’ll put the tux back on.”

My lids drifted shut with the thought as a ripple of desire shuddered through me. “Nope. You have to tell me first or that’s it. We may as well call the lawyer now because it ain’t happening.”

“I’ll do that thing with my tongue.”

My gawd, I loved the thing with his tongue. I had to stay strong. “Nope,” I said, my voice as weak as my resolve. “Not even then.”

“Katherine the Midwife left the lube. We could try anal.”

I stifled a giggle. “We are not trying anal.” I rolled away from him and onto my feet. “I need a shower anyway. I just want you to know that whatever happens from here on out is your own fault.”

“Really?” he asked, his expression full of interest.

“I tried to warn you. Don’t blame me when this becomes a knock-down drag-out war.”

“And just what do you plan on doing?”

“You’ll see. And, mark my words, you will not be happy.” I grabbed my robe from the closet with the sobbing tax attorney and left.

“Just remember,” he said as I closed the door. “I was a general in hell. War is my middle name.”

Oh yeah. This was going to be fun.

*   *   *

Hot water rushed over my skin, easing the aches from the afternoon’s events. I’d already begun to heal.

I called Sister Mary Elizabeth on the way to the shower, hoping it wasn’t too late. I’d promised to call earlier and give her an update on Quentin. He had been staying with them, but now split his time between the sisters and Reyes and me. We’d semi-adopted him.

“How’s Quentin?” she asked before I could even say hello.

“He’s good. He’s still watching movies with Amber. Or doing crack. Not sure which. So, have you heard anything?”

“I couldn’t find anything out about your nun, but we don’t have access to those records. Much of that kind of stuff is archived in the Vatican.”

“Wonderful.”

“But I did find one very odd occurrence that happened at that convent.”

“Hit me,” I said, pulling back the shower curtain and turning on the water. It took forever to heat.

“A priest went missing there in the ’40s.”

“Really?”

“Yep. He was visiting and just vanished.”

“Like, into thin air?”

“Not literally, but yeah, no one ever saw him again. There was a huge search. It was in all the papers.”

“Okay, well, thanks for looking into it. Anything else on the other front?”

“Besides the fact that heaven is in an uproar? Did I mention that?”

“Yep.”

“And did I mention how exhausting their chatter is?”

“Yep.”

“And how I’m slowly losing my mind with all the chatter?”

“Hey, it’s not my fault you can hear angels talking. Hellhounds.”

“No, I haven’t heard anything.”

“Well, can you ask?”

“I don’t ask and you know it. I just listen. It’s not a two-way conversation. I can hear them. I can’t communicate with them.”

“Of course you can. You’re a nun. You’re pure and good and wholesome. Like Wheaties. They’ll listen to you. All you have to do is ask.”

“Do you ever listen to anything I say?”

“I’m sorry, were you speaking?”

“You’re funny.”

“Thank you!” I said, brightening. “So, I keep meaning to ask you something.”

“Okay. Is it about abstinence again? I can’t keep explaining—”

“No, it’s about the night you found out I was pregnant with Beep. And now heaven is in an uproar. Why? I mean, are they mad at me?”

“Oh no. ‘Mad’ isn’t the right word. More like … frantic.”

“Why? Don’t they know about the prophecies?”

“Absolutely, but prophecies are thwarted all the time. I think they were just surprised it was really happening. I mean, you’re bringing something onto this plane that, well, maybe doesn’t belong? No, that’s not the right way to put it.”

“So, Beep won’t belong here?”

“I didn’t mean that. It’s more like … a birth like hers doesn’t happen every day. I’m not sure how to say this without going to confession right after, but from what I can tell, they are saying the daughter of a god will be born here. But that’s wrong. There is only one God, so I’m sure I’m misunderstanding them.”

“Right. I’m sure.”

“I did hear that she will change something that they hadn’t expected to be changed. It’s kind of freaking them out. It’s like when you expect your car to run out of gas before you make it to the station, but you’re still surprised when it does.”

“Okay,” I said, trying to grasp every nuance of her meaning. I gave up. “Bottom line, she isn’t in any danger from them, right?”

“From heaven? Absolutely not.”

“Oh, good. That’s good. Hey, how do you have a cell phone, anyway? I thought cloistered nuns had to give up worldly crap.”

“I’m not a cloistered nun, and I have a cell phone because, in my position, it’s beneficial. It’s all been approved.”

“I’ll need to see those documents.”

“No.”

“Have you ever considered the fact that the term ‘cloistered nuns’ sounds like an appetizer? Or a punk band?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, well, let me know if you hear anything. I’d like to lead a normal life someday.”

“Ten four.”

*   *   *

Showers were God’s reward for working hard enough to get dirty. I dried off, wrapped myself up in the plush robe Reyes had bought me, and stepped to a foggy mirror.

Before I could wipe it off, a letter appeared in the steam. I glanced around. No one was in there, but another letter appeared as though someone were tracing letters in the condensation with a finger. I stood back and waited for the full message to appear, then read it aloud.

“Spies.”

What did that mean? There were spies here? Did we have a mole in the convent? And if so, who? No, the bigger questions would be, whom was the mole spying for? Whom would he report to?

I reached up and hurriedly wiped off the mirror. Two things came to mind immediately. First of all, that was my dad’s handwriting. It was exactly the same, which was odd and a little disheartening that I’d have the same handwriting when I died. I had thought there was hope for me. I thought good handwriting skills were a perk of heaven. That maybe we’d magically know angelic script and have this fluid, flowing handwriting, but no. I was doomed. The second thing was that there were apparently spies among us.

But who? Who would be—?

It hit me like a nuclear blast. I strode down the hall back to my room. Reyes had left, but I knew one person who hadn’t.

I opened the closet door to the agonizing sobs of the tax attorney. Reaching inside, I grabbed her arm and dragged her out. As long as I kept ahold of her wrist, she couldn’t vanish.

She stumbled to her feet and raised a hand to her face, sobbing uncontrollably.

“Save it,” I said, jerking her arm to snap her out of it. “Who are you spying for? Who sent you here?”

For a split second, I actually suspected my husband. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d sent someone to watch me. But why would she be putting on a show like that?

No, I suspected it was someone who knew I’d try to help her, and they wanted her to get very close to both me and Reyes.

“Answer me, or I’ll—” Crap, I had nothing. What would I do? I was a portal to heaven and threatening to send her there didn’t seem like much of an incentive to talk.

But she stopped crying anyway and glowered at me.

“Who are you spying for?” I repeated.

Her glower twisted her pretty mouth into a defiant smirk.

Suddenly, I knew what to do with her. “I’ll mark your soul. You will be devoured by a soul-eater and cease to exist.”

A split second of fear flashed across her face, but she recovered quickly. “I’m not the only one,” she said. “You have no idea what’s coming.”

“Enlighten me.”

“Bite me.”

“Hmm, no, I think I’ll leave that up to Osh’ekiel.”

Her jaw dropped open. “The Daeva? He’s here?”

“You’re not a very good spy.” She tried to jerk out of my grasp, but I held her tight. “Once I mark your soul, there is nowhere you can hide that he won’t find you.” Then something else hit me. A scent. Lavender. It was coming from the closet and had seeped into her soul. “You pushed me!” I said, appalled, remembering the scent just before I went face-first down a mountainside.

She raised her chin and refused to talk.

Dang it. Where was a waterboard when I needed one? I wondered if an ironing board would work.

But then she had to open her big mouth and make me mad. Not a good idea. “She will never see the light of day on this plane,” the tax attorney said, quite enjoying herself. “He’ll eat her intestines for breakfast. You have no idea the plans he has for your daughter.”

Anger surged through me lightning quick, and before I knew it, I’d marked her. I saw a symbol brand into her soul like a flash of light; then it was gone and all that remained was the burned imprint of the mark.

She gasped, looked at the mark on her chest, stumbled back, but I kept my hold.

Soon, Reyes and Osh burst through the door. Reyes was beside me at once while Osh fairly crooned when he realized what I’d done.

“What have we here?” he asked as the woman cowered away from him.

I turned from him to Reyes. “Your father has sent spies. We have spies! Did you know we have spies?”

Osh’s gaze dropped with guilt. But Reyes’s gaze never wavered from the woman’s.

“Were you planning on telling me?” I asked my husband.

“Not today,” he said.

I stood aghast. No idea why. The guy had more secrets than Victoria.

I thought Sheila was scared of Osh, and she was, but when her gaze landed on Reyes, she screamed and fought my hold. Just as she slipped through my fingers, Reyes took hold of her shoulders. “How many more?” he asked as he shook her.

“I don’t—” She cried out when his fingers bit into her. “Two. Maybe three.”

“What are his plans?”

“I don’t know. I—I swear. He doesn’t tell us.”

He shoved her away from us, the revulsion he felt evident in every move he made. “She’s all yours.”

She caught herself, straightened, and raised her chin, resigned to her fate.

“Dinnertime,” Osh said with a wolfish grin, and what happened next made me pee a little.

We looked on as Osh backed her against the closet door, not as though he were about to eat her alive, but as though he were about to make love to her.

“He’s just waiting for the right moment,” she said in one last act of defiance, one last attempt to scare us shitless. It was working. On me, at least.

“And what moment would that be, love?” Osh asked as he caressed her neck and lifted her face to his, his touch as gentle as a summer breeze.

She curled her hands into fists at her sides, waiting for the inevitable. “That moment when no one is looking.”

He leaned into her, pressed his hips into her, ran his lips along her neck. “We’re always looking, love.”

The grin that spread across her pretty face was both sad and terrifying. Her gaze landed on me and her grin widened. “Not always.”

Before I could ask what she meant, Osh bent over her and covered her mouth with his, the sensuality of the act surprising. And arousing. A shimmer of light escaped from between their mouths, and Osh pulled back from her, just enough for me to see her soul passing out of her and into him. His eyes were closed, his hands holding her head as she stared wide-eyed at the ceiling. She seemed to weaken almost instantly, her fists relaxing, her arms falling limp. Then her body grew more and more transparent. She began to dissipate. Pieces of her drifted into the air like ashes until she disappeared completely.

Osh braced an arm against the door and rested his head on it, his shoulders rising and falling with each heavy breath he took.

“How did you know?” Reyes asked me.

“My dad, I think. He told me there were spies and it just made sense. Mostly because she didn’t make any.”

“Any?” Osh asked, still panting.

“Sense. She didn’t make any sense. She was way too put together, too smart to be so upset she couldn’t even talk to me. And why in here? Where Reyes and I slept?”

“And talked,” Reyes added.

I sat on the bench, Reyes still holding my hand as I said, “That was kind of amazing.”

“Thanks for the meal,” Osh said, crossing his arms over his still-heaving chest. His shoulder-length dark hair hid most of his face, but from what I could see, he was quite satisfied.

“I probably shouldn’t have done that. Isn’t that, you know, God’s job?”

“You are a god.”

“Not here. Not in this realm.”

“Since she was sent from hell, I doubt he minded.”

“From hell?” I asked, surprised.

Reyes looked down at me, his presence so powerful, I wanted to melt into him. “Who else would spy for my father?”

“You mean, she had been sent to hell and Lucifer sent her back? To spy on us? Is that even legal?”

“It would seem so,” Osh said. He laid his head back against the door, still recovering.

“Can you take someone’s soul who is still alive?” I asked him.

“Only pieces of it unless it’s been marked. Otherwise, I have to wait until those who have lost their souls to me die.” He bowed his head and looked at me from underneath his lashes, the wolfish grin back and darkening his features. “Then they’re all mine.”

“But, as per our agreement, you can eat only the souls of those undeserving of them.” I knew that good people had lost their souls to him. I’d saved one from him a few months back and made him promise to be more selective.

He lifted a shoulder in agreement. A reluctant agreement, but an agreement nonetheless.

“Hey,” I said, “I could mark my stepmother for you.”

Reyes sat down. “You can’t mark your stepmother.”

“Just a little mark. Barely visible.”

Osh laughed softly and stuck his hands in his pockets.

I grabbed a bottled water off my nightstand and nestled back beside the son of evil. “So, why do Daeva eat souls?”

Reyes spoke from beside me, his gaze hard on Osh’s. “It’s what they were created to do. Work. Fight. Entertain. Live off the suffering of others.”

“And what were you created to do?” he asked.

“Send people like you to their deaths.”

“Wait,” I said, holding up a time-out sign. “When did this turn south? We were all friends a minute ago. Weren’t we all friends?”

“It’s all good,” Osh said, sobering. “Rey’aziel tends to forget where he’s from sometimes. And that we were created by the same being.”

“But not in the same fires,” Reyes said. “Not of the same substance.”

Osh shrugged an eyebrow, unfazed.

“Maybe you’re a spy as well,” Reyes said.

“Maybe,” Osh replied. “And maybe you know more than you are letting on.”

“Maybe.”

So, now we were playing the maybe game. What was going on? They’d been getting along famously, then this. I decided to change the subject.

“So, explain to me this whole marking thing,” I said to Osh. “Are there others on earth who eat souls?”

“Yes,” he said without elaborating.

“Are they all Daeva?”

“No. I’m the only Daeva ever to both escape and make it through the void.”

He was right. Reyes’s tattoo was a map to the gates of hell. It was how he could traverse the oblivion, the void between this plane and his. He was literally a portal to hell while I was a portal to heaven. And we hooked up. Stranger things had happened; I was certain of it. He told me once that most all of those who tried to get onto our plane from hell never made it through the void. They were stuck there, slowly going insane. I wondered what would happen to one of those creatures if it finally, after centuries of living in the void, actually made it onto this plane. What would it be like?

A shudder rushed through me with the thought.

“You know,” I said, realizing something else, “all twelve hellhounds made it through the void and onto this plane. Someone had to have helped them.”

Reyes nodded. “I would guess that whoever summoned them had a hand in that.”

“But it took your father eons to create you, you who had the map imprinted on his body. He created a portal. Without the map that you and only you have, even he can’t cross onto this plane easily. Is that right?”