The Trouble With Twelfth Grave by Darynda Jones
But when the lights were out and the black light turned on, a gorgeous motif of bold strokes and sharp edges, punctuated by a skull here and there, shone through. It was an insanely cool effect.
“Camouflage,” Walter said before washing down a bite of pizza with her beer. “Genius.”
We all sat around Pari’s office and the back room of her thriving tattoo business, watching her work. I sat on the floor and used Osh’s leg as a headrest. He’d claimed the sofa in Pari’s office, and Nicolette, having completed her mission and safely disposed of the hazardous materials, sat on the armrest on the opposite end. He’d moved his legs so she could sit down, but Nic was too shy for that.
Garrett had stolen Pari’s office chair and was busy tearing into a slice of double pepperoni when Pari pinned him with her best inquiring stare.
“Well?” she asked him.
He nodded, then swallowed hard. “Incredible. You need to come to my house.”
“Yes, you do,” I said. “It’s very brown.”
“I like brown,” he said, defending his domain.
“I like brown food,” I offered. “Coffee. Chocolate. Caramel. How about you, Walter?”
“Tell you what,” she said with a humorous smirk, “you stop calling me Walter, because if you don’t, it will stick for years, and I’ll let you name the girls.”
I perked up. Literally. I pushed off Osh and sat up straight. “For reals?”
“Yes. Just leave me my dignity.”
“What? Dignity’s overrated.”
“That’s the deal.”
Damn, she was a hard negotiator. “Oh, hell, yes.” I jumped up and started pacing. “So many options.” I stared at her girls, a.k.a. her breasts, a long moment, and brainstormed. “Thelma and Louise? Sonny and Cher? Laurel and Hardy? Oh, my God. My brain is going to explode.”
One of Pari’s artists was giving an older woman her first tattoo. The woman was not taking it well. Her screams of agony were mucking up my concentration.
“You know,” Nicolette said, taking a sip of her own beer, “if any of us die under suspicious circumstances, Pari is screwed. She has our DNA all over her walls.”
Pari stopped and turned toward me with a gasp. “She’s right. What if you guys are murdered?”
I sat back down in front of Osh, leaning against the sofa, forcing him to scoot his legs to one side. “If something untoward does happen, we’ll just have to make sure we’re murdered far away from here. Right, guys?”
Everyone raised a beer in salute.
“No getting Pari convicted of our murders,” Osh said.
Pari, pleased with our solemn-ish oath, went back to work. “You know, this could be my new gig.”
“Painting blood on people’s walls to cover up a crime scene?”
“While that does have a morbid sense of coolness to it, no. Creating paintings with CAM phosphor. To the casual observer, they could be everyday scenes. You know, boring crap. But once the black light comes on, they could be dark and broody and ominous. Only in neon.”
“I would expect nothing less from you. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid?” I looked back at Cook with hope in my eyes.
She thought a moment, then shook her head and took another bite.
Not giving up, I went back to work. “This could take a while.”
“I know what you’re doing,” Garrett said. Only he was standing right over me.
I looked back at his former seat behind Pari’s desk and then back at him, wondering if he’d gained some kind of supernatural ability of which I should be made aware.
He sank to the ground next to me just as Osh’s legs wrapped around my torso, jump-starting my suspicions.
I put down my pizza and offered them my full attention. “I take it this is some kind of intervention.”
“Something like that,” Osh said.
Cookie sat on the sofa next to Osh. “We’re worried about you, hon.”
“Et tu, Walter?”
“Don’t blame her,” Garrett said.
I tried to stand, but Osh kept his legs locked in place.
“Charley, you know I have your six,” Cookie said, before examining our positions in reference to one another. “Or, like, your 9:45. Either way, we’re all here for you.”
“So what’s this about?” I asked my interrogator.
Garrett pressed his lips together in thought before answering. “We have less than a day to figure this out, to bring Reyes back, or have him either cast from this plane or cut down, and we’re here doing art projects and eating pizza.”
I cringed and lowered my head. “I know. I’m just … I’m fresh out of ideas. I have no clue what to do.”
“Bet you a nickel you do,” Osh said, offering me a reassuring squeeze.
I wrapped an arm around his leg. “You don’t understand. I don’t know who he is.”
“He’s Rey’azikeen,” Osh said.
“Exactly. We tried the whole luring-him-into-a-trap thing. That didn’t work.”
“Or did it?” he asked. “What did we learn from that?”
“That I’m completely incapable of resisting that man in any form.”
“No,” Garrett countered. “We learned that he is completely incapable of resisting you.”
I lifted a shoulder into a half-hearted shrug. How would that knowledge help us?
“And,” Osh added, “we learned that you are unwilling to do what is necessary.”
“What does that mean?”
“You’re a god, Charles,” Garrett said. He put a hand on my knee to calm me. “You’re the First Star, like in the book.”
I deadpanned him. “That’s a children’s book.”
“And it’s one I’m convinced is telling your story.”
Osh leaned forward and wrapped his arms around my neck, offering me a reassuring hug. “I agree.”
“What book?” Cookie asked.
“I’ll show you later, but I don’t get what any of this has to do with anything.”
“You can defeat him,” Osh said. “If you’re willing to.”
I broke free and stood. Nicolette’s dark eyes had rounded, and Pari had put her masterpiece on hold to listen.
“I get it. I’ve eaten other gods. I’ve even done it in this form. On this plane. I devoured the god Eidolon, but he was evil. Reyes is not.”
“We aren’t talking about Reyes,” Osh said. “We’re talking about Rey’azikeen.”
“Okay, fine, what do you know about him? I mean, surely you’d heard of him even in hell.”
“Of course I had. We even knew that Lucifer’s son, Rey’aziel, was created using the god Rey’azikeen’s energy. I just didn’t know that the godly part of him was still … in there.”
“Then, okay, what do you know about him?”
He leaned back on the sofa and stared at me from underneath his dark lashes. After a long moment, he said, “I’ve only heard rumors. Slave, remember? I didn’t exactly have access to classified information, even in hell.”
“And? What did the rumors say?”
“There were rumors that he was the creator of what we called dark matter, not to be confused with the theoretical gravitational force that binds the universe together. This dark matter was, well, dark.”
I pulled Pari’s desk chair around and sat. “Explain.”
He shook his head. “I just know the rumblings that permeated the underbelly of hell saying that he creates dark matter, and that dark matter is the darkness that swallows the light. It’s the evil that swallows the benevolent. It’s why he’s so good at what he does.”
“Why? What does he do?”
“You misunderstand. That’s not the worst part.”
I shifted in the chair and raised my chin, preparing for anything. “I’ll bite. What’s the worst part?”
“There were other rumors. Rumors that were spoken in hushed tones like some urban legend that kids are afraid to talk about.”
“What did they say?”
&n
Was all this true? Was the god Rey’azikeen truly so dark, so scary, that even the demons in hell only dared to whisper about him? “Why would such a thing be so hushed in a place like hell?”
“Because he’s the sibling of the God Elohim. It’s like a television evangelist with a brother in prison. It’s … dirty.”
My hackles rose to razor-sharp spikes. “Reyes is not dirty.”
“Hey,” he said, raising his hands in surrender. “You wanted the rumors, you got the rumors. That’s all I know.”
I wasn’t entirely certain I believed him, but I was worried Nicolette would never be the same after this, so I dropped it. For now.
I stood and started pacing again. “This is my fault. If he does something awful or gets kicked off this plane or killed or all of the above, it’s my fault.”
Osh stood and blocked my path to get my attention. He put his hands on my shoulders, and said, “No, sweetheart, it’s not. You just need to make a decision. If he does stir up shit, are you willing to do what it takes to stop him?”
* * *
Cookie and I stayed with Pari after everyone left to make sure she was okay. An hour later, she kicked us out, saying even she needed sleep. She did look exhausted. Stress had a way of aging a person.
So, Cookie and I drove home and sat in my apartment, the cavernous room seeming to swallow us. Or maybe I just wanted it to.
Reyes was still there, inside Rey’azikeen. He had to be. Either that, or the god Rey’azikeen desired me just as much as my ethereal husband did.
But why would he? In his eyes, I was human. Nothing more and nothing less. Sure, a god lay underneath the flesh and blood of my human side, but it was apparently a god he had never liked. According to tidbits I’d heard here and there, in our previous existence, we had been enemies. So I was human. Strike one. And an enemy. Strike two.
Then why seduce me? Why bring me to my knees?
Perhaps that was the point. To bring me to my knees. To show me what he was capable of in any form. To show me what I was incapable of in any form—namely, resisting him.
I hadn’t even considered going to bed when I got home. I knew what would happen the moment my mind drifted. He would invade. And, as bad as I hated to admit it, his invasions were like water on a parched desert. I craved them. Thirsted for them.
Bottom line, I missed my husband.
But he was toying with me. The god Rey’azikeen. Keeping me awake. To disorient me? To distract me? To impair my judgment or slow my reflexes?
It would help if I could figure out what he was searching for so blindly. It would give me the upper hand, especially if I knew where to find it. But I’d searched the apartment for signs of the god glass. It had shattered when he’d come back through it. I found nary a sliver of glass, much less its ashes.
Then the ashes of what? The embers of what?
My mind was too worn to think about it anymore.
Cookie had no inclinations toward sleep either once she found out there was a set of children’s books that supposedly mapped out my entire history in a few thousand words. No way was she going to drop this. So, she raided her closet for soft clothes, as did I, except I couldn’t wear her clothes, so she sent me home to raid my own closet, and we sat in my apartment, drinking the elixir of life out of coffee mugs that advised any passersby A FUN THING TO DO IN THE MORNING IS NOT TALK TO ME.
My soft clothes felt heavenly. Probably because the bottoms had little angels on them perched on clouds. An inside joke from Mr. Farrow himself. My T-shirt, which read MAJESTIC AS FUCK, wasn’t quite so angelic.
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about these,” Cookie said, reprimanding me.
“I only learned about them this morning.”
“Which gave you an entire day.”
She had me there. We both read in silence, Cookie on book one, The First Star, and me on book two, The Dark Star.
The book began with the First Star—me, if Garrett were to be believed—hunting and fighting malevolent gods that were tormenting kingdoms throughout the galaxies, both known and unknown to seers like the one who wrote the book I was holding.
In the seers’ eyes, she was a hero, fighting injustices from one kingdom to another, using her wits to outsmart her enemies and her strength to battle them, for the more she fought, the greater their numbers. Fortunately, the more battles she won, the stronger she grew. With every victory, the star consumed her enemy. She gained its power until she became a star a hundredfold strong.
She became known throughout all dimensions as the Benevolent One, the Sentinel, the Star Eater.
But then came her downfall. She fell in love with one of her prey, the Dark Star, the most beautiful star in all the heavens. The most beautiful and the deadliest.
He’d been born with a very specific purpose: to use his darkness to create realms with no windows so that those cast inside could never again see the light the heavens had to offer. They would live in eternal darkness and damnation.
But over the millennia, he had grown too dark. His immeasurable power uncontrollable. He became a threat to those benevolent stars who would rule their kingdoms with kindness and tolerance.
And so, the Dark Star’s Brother, Jehovahn, summoned the Star Eater.
The Dark Star, upon hearing this, grew enraged at the betrayal and ravaged Jehovahn’s kingdom and its people.
Yet inside he grew anxious. Impatient, even. He’d heard stories for centuries about the First Star. He longed to meet her. Hungered to battle her. Despite his immense power, she was stronger. Her strength surpassed any star’s from any kingdom in the known universe, and he wanted nothing more than to devour her whole.
But she made a show of truce. She met him among the rings of Saturn, stood before him in all her glory, so bright she nearly blinded him, and offered the Dark Star mercy if he surrendered to her demands.
He declined her offer with a shadowy grin, and what would later become known as the Battle of a Hundred Years began.
The harder he fought, the more ground he lost. She was his equal in every way.
With each new battle, with each new blow, she begged him to surrender. Promised him quarter. But he wouldn’t hear of it.
When it became clear, however, that he could not beat her, a thought came to him. He could make use of the beauty he was famous for. He could make her fall in love with him.
And so, during the next days of battle, he purposely let her get closer than was comfortable, for she could easily devour him whenever she chose. But he worked to earn her affection. He touched her face. Pressed against her. Brushed his mouth across hers. With each lingering touch, he courted her. Enticed her. Invited her to love him. Not realizing he had unshielded his own heart in the process.
His efforts were for naught, however, for the First Star had loved him always. Had longed for him always. Which was why he was still alive.
“Are you sure these are children’s books?” Cookie asked after a while.
“I was just wondering the same thing.”
We eyed each other a moment, then went back to reading.
At night, the Dark Star worked hard to create a kingdom within a kingdom just for her. A lightless realm within another galaxy far, far away from her own. One where she would live out eternity alone and miserable. Slowly going insane.
“A lightless realm?” I said aloud. “A hell dimension? Did the author mean a hell dimension?”
“What?” Cookie asked, absorbed in her own book.
“In the book, the Dark Star creates a lightless realm to capture the First Star. Does he mean a hell dimension?”
Cookie thought a moment, then nodded. “Think about it. What is hell but a place of torment? And how tormenting would it be disconnected from all light? Men have created tortures with that very thing in mind.”
We went back to reading again.
When the realm was finished, when the constructs were in place, he pretended to surrender. Pretended to be in love with her. Pretended to swear his fealty.
She dropped her guard for only a second, but it was long enough for the Dark Star to cast her inside, lock the gate, and destroy the key.
He had won. At last.
The victory that had been so far from his grasp was suddenly his. But for some reason, he didn’t celebrate. He grew even more disenchanted with the world and even more tortured than he had been. Darker than he had been. For he realized too late that his love had not been a pretense.
And she was gone. The kingdom he’d created was impregnable. No way in and no way out. Thus, the Dark Star raged against all creation for centuries. Until he had another idea.
Beneath his Brother Jehovahn’s kingdom lay a lightless realm with fire so hot, it would melt anything it touched. But the Dark Star knew all the secrets of the realm, for he had created it. He knew how to handle the fire. And, more importantly, he knew how to steal it.
So, in a moment of desperation, he stole into the lightless realm and took the fire it held so dear. Without thought, he used it to melt the gates of the kingdom he’d created and release the First Star.
But she had been imprisoned for so long, the First Star’s mind had been compromised. She ran and hid among the other stars in the heavens, wondering if her mind was playing tricks.
Jehovahn had grown so angry at His little brother’s actions, He came up with a ruse of His own. He commissioned the Dark Star to create his best lightless realm, one that was even more inescapable than his last.
The Dark Star wanted to go after the First to explain, but Jehovahn told him He needed the realm immediately for a malevolent ruler that, because of the Dark Star’s imprisonment of the Star Eater, the only sentinel in the heavens, had become too callous. Too brutal.
So, the Dark Star created a lightless realm even worse than the last and encased it in Star Glass. He gave it to his Brother, explained how to open and close the gate, then went in search of the Star Eater. Went in search of his true love.