Third Grave Dead Ahead

Chapter 3

“A long time ago, in a galaxy pretty much exactly like this one, a little girl was born to a set of wonderful parents named Mom and Dad.”

“I already know this part.”

“She had a head of dark hair,” I said into my phone, ignoring Gemma, my slightly OCD sister, as I steered Misery onto the interstate toward Santa Fe. Hopefully, there were no cops around, because I really didn’t need another ticket for talking on the phone while driving.

Garrett had dropped off Misery after he checked for any mechanical damage from the fender bender, and Misery seemed to have forgiven me, so we were good to go. I set Cookie on the mundane task of checking out the good doctor’s background, then tore out of the office so fast, papers went flying behind me.

“And she had shimmering gold eyes that the nurses cooed over for days,” I continued.

“The nurses cooed? That’s what you’re telling people?”

“The mom so loved her daughter, she sacrificed her life to give the little girl a chance at one.”

“I don’t think it was really a choice.”

“On the day her daughter was born, the mom died and crossed through the infant, as the girl was made of magic and light, but this saddened her father. Not the light thing. He didn’t know about that. But the mom passing thing.”

“Yeah, I got that.”

I charged past a trucker who clearly didn’t get that ninety was the new seventy-five. “And the little girl lay in the nursery for three long days.”

“Three days? Are you sure?” Gemma asked, doubtful.

Gemma and I had been sisters my whole life, and she’d always known that I could see the departed, that I’d been born the one and only grim reaper this side of the Milky Way, which resulted in my assisting Dad and now my uncle Bob with their cases. But we’d never been particularly close. I figured my whole status as death incarnate had put her off, and I’d only found out recently that it wasn’t my job title that kept her at a distance, but my insistence that she stay far, far away. I never dreamed she’d take me seriously.

“Yes, stop interrupting,” I said, swerving to miss a tire in the road. Of all the places to leave a tire. “Where was I? Oh, right. No one came to get her. No one came to see her, except for a plethora of dead people who’d gathered around, standing vigil until her father could fight through his grief long enough to come back and take the little girl home.”

“I don’t think it was three days.”

“The infant remembered all of this because she had really good short-term memory for a newborn.”

“Obviously,” Gemma said. “Get to the good part.”

Gemma was a psychiatrist, which meant she could take care of everybody’s problems but her own, just one of a dozen ways we were alike. But our looks was not one of them. While I had dark hair and gold eyes, she was the classic blond-haired, blue-eyed beauty that set men’s hearts aflutter. I could set men’s hearts aflutter, too, but I owed my success to mad skill. The things I could do with my mouth.

“So, you already know I remember the day I was born?”

“Duh, you told me a thousand times when we were little.”

Wow, I didn’t remember that. “So, I told you about the huge scary being enshrouded in an undulating black robe that filled the entire delivery room, like ocean waves crashing against the walls, and how he hovered in a corner, stayed with me for three days, promised me Dad would be there soon, though I never actually heard his voice? And how I was deathly afraid of him because his mere presence seemed to sap my strength and steal my breath?”

After a long pause that had me wondering if she’d fallen asleep again, she said, “No, you didn’t mention that part.”

“Oh, okay, then.” I thrummed the fingers of one hand on the steering wheel to the classic rock playing in the background, happy I could get back to my story. “So, that happened, then on the third day, when the little girl’s father finally showed up to take her home, she really wanted to ask him, ‘Where the fuck you been, Dad?’ but she lacked the motor skills necessary to speak. A year passed and the little girl was a happy camper. She hadn’t seen the big scary creature again, and her dad seemed to genuinely like her. Except when she ate pureed peas, but that was his own fault. Then he brought home a woman named Denise, and camping pretty much sucked from then on.”

“Okay,” Gemma said, “I get the whole stepmother thing. Go back to the powerful-being thing.”

Reyes was probably the one and only mind-blowing part of my life Gemma didn’t know about, besides that night with the 122nd Fighter Attack Squadron. They’d been celebrating the promotion of one of their comrades. I helped. Damn wine coolers. I learned a lot about evasive maneuvers that night. And my boundless will to survive even the most voracious of hangovers.

“Okay, I’m going to give you the Schoolhouse Rock version.”

“Are you driving?”

“… No.”

“Are you sure? I hear road noise.”

“… Yes.”

“Okay, I’ll have to settle for that version. I have a nine o’clock.”

“Got it,” I said, glancing at my watch. “So, I’m born and this massive being is there, cloaked in black and such. And he’s just amazing but scary. And he called me Dutch.”

“Wait a minute.”

“You have a client in like five seconds. Can you hold your questions until the end?”

“He called you Dutch? When you were born?”

Wow, I was a little surprised Gemma picked up on that. “You remember, don’t you?”

“That night, when you stopped that man from abusing that kid. The boy we saved called you Dutch.”

She was good. When Gemma and I were in high school, I was helping her with a school project late one night on the seedier side of town. She’d wanted to capture life on the streets for a video about the harsher side of Albuquerque. We were huddled in the corner of an abandoned school, basically freezing our asses off, when we noticed movement in the window of a small apartment. We realized in horror that a man was beating a teenaged boy, and my immediate and only thought was to save him. Out of desperation, I threw a brick through the man’s window. Miraculously, it worked. He stopped hitting the boy and came after us. We ran down a dark alley and were searching for an opening along a fence that blocked our path to freedom when we realized the boy had escaped as well. He was doubled over on the frozen ground, coughing and trying to breathe past the pain.

We stumbled back to him, and when he looked up at us, blood streaked down his face and dripped from his incredible mouth. We tried to help, but he refused our offer, even going so far as to threaten us if we didn’t leave.

We had no choice. We left him there, injured and bleeding, but I’d gone back the next day and found out from the landlady the family had slipped out in the middle of the night and stiffed her for two months’ rent. She also told me his name. Reyes. That was all I had — for years that one name sustained me. When I finally found him over a decade later, I wasn’t completely surprised to find that Reyes had spent the last ten years in prison for killing that very man.

And that night, the night we’d tried to save him, he called me Dutch.

“I can’t believe you put that together,” I said. “It took me years to do that.”

“Well, I’m smarter. So, is there a connection?”

“Yes. That being and Reyes Farrow are one and the same.”

After taking a moment to absorb that nugget, she asked, “How is that even possible?”

“Well, you’d have to know a little more about Reyes.” While I rarely told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about Reyes to anyone but a select few individuals whom I’d probably placed in mortal danger by doing so, Gemma already knew so much and I’d kept her at arm’s length for so long. I wanted our relationship to be what it once was. I wanted to be close to her again. Our stepmother Denise had driven a wedge between us that I was no longer willing to leave wedged. No more wedgies. Period.

“Before I tell you, I have to know three things,” I said.

“Okay.”

“One, are you sitting down?”

“Yes.”

“Two, are you mentally stable?”

“More than you’ll ever be.”

Well, that was uncalled for. “And three, how do you spell schizophrenia?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Nothing. I just wanted to see if you’d tell me.”

She exhaled loudly. “You were saying?”

“Okay, but just remember, I warned you.”

“Wait, no you didn’t. There was no warning.”

“Right, I know, that was my warning. ‘Just remember, I warned you,’ was my warning.”

“Oh, sorry.”

“Are you finished?”

“Yes.”

“Can I continue?”

“Charley.”

“Okay, here goes. Reyes Farrow is the son of Satan.” Whew. I’d said it. I’d laid it out there. Bared my soul. Spilled my guts. And then I waited. And waited. I checked my phone. Still connected. “Gemma?”

“As in, the Satan?”

“Yes.”

“Because I had a client who’d changed his name to Satan once. Are you sure that’s not Reyes’s dad?”

I tried not to laugh. “No, Reyes Farrow is the gorgeous and stubborn and unpredictable son of Satan, and many centuries ago, he escaped from hell to be with me. He waited for me to be born, then chose a family and was born on Earth himself. Only to later be kidnapped and traded off to the man who raised him, Earl Walker. But he sacrificed everything to be with me, Gemma, knowing that when he was born, he wouldn’t remember who he was or who I was. And the memories of his past have been coming back to him over the last few years, kind of like things are revealed to me. Slow as molasses in January.” I passed a truck hauling cows, their big sad eyes looking on as I drove by. Poor little guys. “Did you hang up on me?”

“Okay, I have an opening Tuesday at four. I’m going to pencil in a two-hour session, just in case.”

“I’m not crazy, Gem. You know that.”

With a reluctant sigh, she agreed. “I know you’re not, but I’ve never even believed in Satan and you’re telling me he’s not only real, but he has a son? And that son has been stalking you since you were born?”

“Yes. Well, basically. And he’s been in prison for the last ten years for killing the man who raised him, the man from that night.”

“Holy cow, he killed him? That doesn’t happen often.”

“I know. It’s rare for an abused child to turn against his abuser, but it happens.”

“So, Reyes was the being who used to follow you?”

“Yes. From what I’ve found out, he used to have seizures as a kid, and it was during those seizures he would leave his body and become that being, or the Big Bad, as I used to call him. He was this huge, larger-than-life entity that would save my life whenever I was in danger.”

“That was him? When you were, what, four or five?”

“I can’t believe you remember that. He was there over and over. When that convicted sex offender tried to play house with me, the Big Bad was there. When a classmate tried to run me down with his dad’s SUV in high school, the Big Bad was there.”

“Oh, I remember that. Owen Vaughn tried to kill you.”

“Right, and the Big Bad stopped him.”

“Owen seemed so normal. Did you ever figure that out?”

“No. He hates me to this day.”

“Bummer.”

“Yeah, and one time this man was stalking me in college and decided to get to know me better one night while he held a knife to my throat and the Big Bad was there.”

“You didn’t tell me that,” she said, her tone scolding.

“You weren’t talking to me anymore.”

“I wasn’t talking to you, because you told me not to.”

“I know. Sorry.”

“Any more life-threatening situations you’ve been in?”

“Oh, yeah, tons. The abusive husband of a client felt the need to end my life with a chrome-plated.38 once, and Big Bad was there. And the list goes on. So, for the life of me, I was never really certain why he scared the bejesus out of me. Nothing scared me growing up. I’ve been playing with dead people since the day I was born, so it’s good thing, yet the Big Bad scared me. Which brings me to the reason I called.”

“Which was to give me nightmares for the rest of my life?”

“Oh, no, that’s just a plus. Why was I so scared of him?”

“Hon, for one thing he was this powerful, massive, black smokelike being.”

“So, you’re saying I’m a racist?”

“No, Charley, I’m saying you have the instinct to preserve your life just like the rest of us. And you couldn’t help but see him as a threat. You are too driving. Where are you going?”

“Will you think on it and get back to me?” I asked, completely unsatisfied with her answer. Absolutely no Freudian theories in there whatsoever. No Jung or Erikson. Not even a hint of Oprah. “Which brings me to the second reason I called. I’m headed to Santa Fe to see him. And remember how he was injured in the basement of my apartment building a couple of weeks ago?” She knew that Reyes had been injured. She didn’t know why.

“Yes.”

“Well, a funny thing happened on the way to eternity. Demons escaped from hell — several hundred, actually — and they were torturing his physical body to try to lure me to them.”

“Demons.”

“Demons.”

“As in—”

“Yes. Hellfire and brimstone.”

“And why would they try to lure you to them?” she asked after a long moment, her voice a bit shaky.

“Because, as the grim reaper, I’m the portal to heaven, and they want it.”

“’Kay.”

“But, you have to understand, Reyes is the portal out of hell, and they want that, too.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“I know, right? Thanks for telling me, Rey-Rey. And remember his tattoo from that night? It’s a map to the gates of hell, but that’s another story. So, he’s all, ‘I’m too vulnerable like this. I’m going to let my physical body die,’ and I’m all, ‘No, you’re not,’ and he’s all, ‘Yes, I am,’ and I’m all—”

“Charley,” she said, totally interrupting. “None of this is possible. What you’re saying—”

“Stay with me here.” I could hear the breathless panic rising in her voice. But really, she was part sister and part therapist. No one was more qualified for me to talk to about this stuff. I had discovered this really cool ability that night and ended up vanquishing all the demons, but the things they did to Reyes. I could hardly think of it without growing light-headed. She probably didn’t need to know that part.

“I’m trying.”

“So anyway,” I said, charging ahead before I lost her, “to keep him from basically committing suicide, I bound his incorporeal self to his physical body.”

“You did what?”

“I know. But I was desperate. He was going to kill himself. If you saw what he can do with that blade. Oh, did I mention his ginormous sword? And, no, I’m not speaking metaphorically. Though, I gotta say—”

“Charley, wait,” she said, interrupting again. “You bound him? What exactly does that entail?”

“You’re not usually this slow.”

“You’re freaking me out!” she literally screamed at me, and I realized we should have had this conversation face-to-face. I could hardly read her emotions over the phone. She really should take that into consideration.

“I know, sorry.” Maybe I needed to explain myself better. “Well, in other words, he can’t leave his physical body. He’s bound to it. And now Reyes Farrow, one of the most powerful beings in the universe, wants to talk.” My stomach clenched every time I thought about it. “And!” I added, almost forgetting the best part. “Dad comes into the office this morning and wants me to quit.”

“Seeing the son of Satan?”

“No, my investigations business.”

“Oh, right.”

“So what do you think?”

“About Dad?”

“No, I’ll deal with Dad.” Though, maybe I should worry. The last time he was behaving strangely, a man attacked me with a butcher’s knife. A sharp one. The knife, not the man. “About Reyes. I’m on my way to see him as we speak.”

“Charley, I can barely wrap my head around this, and my nine o’clock is here.”

“Seriously? You’re going to leave me now?”

“For the time being, I’d say run. But that’s just me. Call me in an hour.”

“Not likely,” I said, but she’d already hung up. Geez. I was totally counting on her.

It was a lot to take in. I understood that. Heck, Reyes Farrow was a lot to take in. And right now, I needed to be concentrating on Dr. Yost’s missing wife instead of traipsing about the country, hoping for an audience with the prince of the underworld. He was so angry after I bound him that he’d refused to see me. Thus my surprise when Neil Gossett called.

And now, everything was coming to the surface. All the emotion surrounding Reyes bubbled and simmered inside me. I had searched for him for so long, kept him in my prayers every night, only to find that he’d been in prison for over ten years for murder. I was disappointed, but for purely selfish reasons. I’d wanted to be with him. I’d wanted to save him that night when Gem and I were in high school, to take him away from that horrible situation, that horrible man. But he’d refused our offer of help. When I learned that he’d killed the very man who’d beaten him so badly that night, I felt like I’d failed. And I didn’t even know who he was at the time, that he was literally the son of Satan. I’d only recently found out.

“Being raised in hell had to suck,” I said aloud.

“Are you talking to yourself again?”

I looked over at the thirteen-year-old departed gangbanger who’d popped into the passenger’s seat. “Hey, Angel. How’re things on the other side?”

I’d met Angel the same night I met Reyes. He died over a decade ago when his best friend decided to do a drive-by without consulting him first. Since he was the driver, he was a tad surprised when his friend started firing out the window of his mother’s stolen car. In an effort to stop him, Angel paid the ultimate price. But the way I saw it, the price I paid on a daily basis was much heavier. No idea what I did to deserve the little shit. Not that I’d trade a single minute.

“Pretty cool,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders. He wore a dirty T-shirt and a red bandanna to frame a face caught between childhood innocence and teenage hellion. “My mom’s getting all kinds of new clients. She got this review or something in the paper, and they said she was the best cosmetologist in the city when it came to the pixie, whatever that is.”

“Wow, that’s awesome.” I socked him on the shoulder and he grinned in sheepish agreement.

“I guess,” he said. “So we got a case?”

“We do indeed. There’s a doctor near the university who tried to off his wife.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“A rich guy?”

“Yep.”

“And he committed a crime? Get outta here.”

I nodded and let Angel gloat. Nothing pleased him more than rich people doing stupid things. “Are you done?” I asked after he went into all the reasons rich people should get harsher sentences than poor ones instead of vice versa.

“There should be a scale. The richer you are, the more you risk.”

“Are you finished now?”

“I guess.”

“Do you feel better?”

“I would if you’d let me see you naked.”

“So this doctor,” I said, interrupting before he got too carried away, “he did something to his wife, then reported her missing. We don’t have a body, so I need you to follow him.”

“Did he get the job done?”

“That’s what I need you to find out. I’m hoping he’ll lead us right to her. You know, like revisit the crime scene or something.” I gave him all the info on Dr. Nathan Yost, including a physical description and his home address.

“Okay, but if he did it, why not just arrest him?”

“I don’t arrest people.”

“Then what are you good for?” he asked teasingly.

I offered him my best smile. The award-winning one, not that abominable runner-up. “That is a topic of great debate, handsome man.”

“Well, I don’t think this is a good idea.” He was playing with the air-conditioning vent, the sprinkling of potential along his chin and above his upper lip giving him that almost-a-man look. He had rich brown eyes with thick eyelashes and a square jaw any cholo would be proud of.

“You might be right,” I said, turning back to a motorcyclist with a death wish, if his swerving in and out of traffic was any indication. “He might not lead us anywhere, but it’s all I’ve got at the moment and I really want to jump on this.”

“No, you. Going to see him.”

Angel had never taken to Reyes. He didn’t seem able to see past the whole son-of-Satan thing. “Why do you say that?”

He sighed in annoyance, as if he’d already told me a thousand times. “I’ve already told you a thousand times. Rey’aziel is not what you think he is.”

The mere mention of Reyes’s otherworldly name sent a tingle over my skin. “Hon, I know what he is, remember?”

He looked out the window for almost a mile before saying, “He’s really mad.”

I nodded. “I know.”

“No, you don’t.” He turned back, his huge brown eyes narrowing seriously. “He’s angry. As in disrupting-the-universe angry.”

I wasn’t sure what he meant, but okay. “He’s that mad, huh?”

“I didn’t even know he could do that shit, that he was that powerful. I just don’t think now is a good time to go see him.”

“I did bind him, Angel.”

He looked at me pleadingly then, worry drawing his brows together. “And you can’t undo it now. Please, Charley. If you set him free … there’s no telling what he’ll do. He’s so pissed.”

I chewed my bottom lip a moment, guilt assaulting me. “I don’t know how to anyway,” I admitted.

“What?” he asked, surprised. “You can’t unbind him?”

“No. I’ve tried.”

“No! No, don’t.” He waved a hand as though erasing the notion. “Just leave him. He’s already causing all kinds of crap all over the world. Who knows what he’ll do if you unbind him?”

“What do you mean? What crap is he causing?”

“You know, the usual. Earthquakes. Hurricanes. Tornadoes.”

I tried to smile but couldn’t quite manage it. “Angel, those things are happening all on their own. Reyes has nothing—”

“You really don’t know?” He looked at me like I was part blithering and part idiot.

“Angel, how can Reyes affect the weather?” I’d never taken Angel for a conspiracy theorist. Who knew?

“His anger is throwing everything off balance, like that ride at the fair that spins and turns at the same time. Haven’t you noticed?”

Ah, yes, many a child had lost his lunch to that ride. “Honey—”

“Did you know there was an earthquake in Santa Fe? Santa Fe!” When I started to argue again, he held up a hand and said, “Just don’t unbind him, whatever you do. I’ll go follow this pendejo doctor.”

He was gone before I could say anything else. I couldn’t possibly give credence to his claims. What he suggested was impossible. Reyes’s anger causing natural disasters? I’d made a few people angry in the past, but not enough to cause an earthquake.

I picked up my phone just in case and called Cookie.

“What’s up, boss?”

“Question, was there an earthquake in Santa Fe?”

“You didn’t hear about that?”

“Holy cow. Where the hell was I?”

“You totally need to watch the news.”

“Can’t.”

“Why?”

“It’s too depressing.”

“Right, because hanging with dead people isn’t.”

Well, that was just rude. “So, really?” I asked. “An earthquake?”

“The first one of that magnitude in over a hundred years.”

Crap.