Eighth Grave After Dark (2 page)

“Hey! Wait!” I threw the cinnamon dress at him. “You're not supposed to see me before the wedding.”

He flashed a set of startlingly white teeth. “I think that only applies to the bride.”

“Oh, right.” When he indicated the closet again with a questioning gaze, I decided to question him back. “Do you know how many times I've tried talking to her? She won't stop crying long enough to catch her breath, let alone tell me what's wrong. Why did I get this closet?”

His grin spread. “Because it's the only one in the room.”

He had a good point. He'd been forced to use a closet in the next room, but still.

“Want me to take care of her?” he asked.

“No, I do not want you to take care of her. Wait, you can do that?”

“Just say the word.”

Sadly, I considered it. Her sobbing was taxing, probably because she was a tax attorney, and yet I heard her only when the door was open.

“Check this out,” I said, walking to the door. I opened it, and we were met with loud wailing. After a moment, I closed the door again. Crickets. Metaphorically. “This door is incredible,” I said, opening it again and closing it several times in a row to demonstrate.

“You need to get out more,” he said.

“Right? I'd kill for the delightful d
é
cor of Macho Taco.”

His face held his expression steady, not wavering in the slightest, but I felt an involuntary pang of regret ripple through him.

I let go of the door and straightened. “No,” I said, walking to him.

He pushed off the doorjamb and waited to wrap me in his arms. His heat whispered across my skin and bathed me in warmth as one arm slid around my back while he let his free hand caress Beep, the fugitive I'd been harboring for almost nine months. I felt it was about time to evict her, but the midwife Reyes had hired told me she'd come in her own time. Apparently, Beep lived in a different time zone than I did.

“No,” I repeated, blasting him with my best stern face. “We've done okay. We now have a semi-solid plan in place to blow this Popsicle stand once Beep is born that could actually work, if the planets align just so. I've had lots of time to practice my mad skills in grim reaperism slash supernatural being. And I've learned a lot about why I never became a nun: no closet space. This is not your fault.”

“At least your father isn't trying to kill us.” He stilled, shocked at his own statement, then said, “I'm sorry. I didn't mean—”

“Don't be ridiculous.” I dismissed his statement with a wave of my hand. My father had died a few days before we sought refuge at the convent, and I was still searching for his killer. Well, my uncle, a detective for Albuquerque PD was, but I was helping every chance I got. “Reyes, it's not your fault your father is evil. Or that he's the most hated being this side of Mars.”

“That's not entirely true,” he said. When I silently questioned him, he added, “Not everyone believes in the devil.”

“Good point.” I was not about to argue with him about his father. He felt guilty that his father would do anything in his power to kill us. To kill Beep, actually. She was the one prophesied to destroy him. I'd tried repeatedly to convince Reyes that this wasn't his fault—to no avail, so I changed the subject instead. “What's with all the dead people on the lawn?”

Departed had been showing up for about a week, standing in what would be considered our front lawn. If we had a lawn. If this were a house and not a converted convent.

A worried expression flashed across Reyes's face so fast, I almost missed it. Almost. “I wish I knew.”

He'd been worried a lot lately. I could tell the situation was draining him, and I couldn't help but wonder if he didn't feel like he was in prison again. He'd spent ten years there for a crime he didn't commit. And now once again, for all intents and purposes, he was incarcerated. We both were. We were prisoners of a sort, stuck in this place, and while I was certainly going a bit stir-crazy, my restlessness couldn't compare to his. Still, one foot across that invisible line, the one that marked the sacred, blessed ground from the rest of the area, and that foot would be gone. Along with part of a leg.

We'd fought the Twelve before, and while we didn't exactly lose, we sure didn't win. They came back angrier than ever. Their snarls every time I stepped too close to the border were proof of that. They wanted a piece of me, but it was hard to blame them. I did have a killer ass. Or, well, I used to.

I walked back to the mirror and held up the dress, the one that had to be let out due to the fact that my ass had grown in sync with my belly. Reyes stayed close behind, his hand warm at the small of my back, his heat seeping in and easing the ache there. He was very therapeutic, especially now that the nights were getting cooler.

“They won't talk to me,” I said, trying to decide if cinnamon had been my color all along and I just didn't know it. It did match my eyes quite nicely, which were the color of the amber in which the mosquito was preserved in
Jurassic Park,
but it also made me look a little deader than I liked. “The departed on the lawn. I keep thinking they need help to cross, but they just stare straight ahead, their expressions completely blank. Maybe they're zombies.” I turned this way and that. “Either way, it's unsettling.”

Reyes pressed into my backside and rubbed my shoulders with what I'd come to realize were magic hands. He was clearly the Magic Man Heart had sung about. I'd had no idea anything could feel that good. On bad days—the days there was just no settling Beep—it rivaled an orgasm.

Wait, no, it didn't. Nothing rivaled an orgasm. But it came damned close.

“You're bright,” he said, bending until his breath fanned across my cheek.

“I know, but—”

“You're
really
bright.”

I laughed and turned into him. “I know, but—”

“No,” he said, his eyes sparkling with humor, “you're even brighter than normal. Your light is so bright, it fills every corner of the house.”

Of course, only he would know that. I couldn't see my light, which was probably a good thing because how would I put on makeup if all I saw was a bright light? No, wait, he wasn't the only one who would know that. There were others who could see it. The departed, obviously, but also Osh, our resident Daeva, a slave demon who'd escaped from hell centuries ago. And Quentin, a Deaf kid we'd adopted as part of our gang, who mostly hung out with Cookie's daughter, Amber. And Pari, one of my best friends. And Angel, my departed thirteen-year-old sidekick and lead investigator.

I blinked, realizing all the people who would have known that my brightness levels needed adjusting. “Why didn't anyone tell me?”

He lifted a shoulder. “There's not anything you can do about it, right?”

“Right.”

“Then why bring it up?”

“It's important, that's why. Maybe there's a reason. Maybe I'm sick.” I felt my forehead. My cheeks. My chest. Then I lifted Reyes's hand and pressed it to my chest, glancing up from beneath my lashes as impishly as I possibly could. “Do I feel feverish?”

He darkened instantly. His gaze dropped to Danger and Will Robinson, aka my breasts. His gaze did that often, unruly thing that it was. Danger and Will loved the attention.

“You shouldn't tempt me,” he said, his voice growing ragged.

A tingle of desire sparked to life, causing a warmth to pool in my abdomen. “You're the only one I should tempt, seeing as how we're hitched.”

He wrapped a hand around my throat ever so softly and led me back against the mirror. It wasn't his actions that jump-started my heart, but the raw lust that consumed him. The dark need in his eyes. The severity of his drawn brows. The sensuality of his parted mouth. My girl parts tightened when he dipped his hand into my shirt. His thumb grazed over a hardened nipple, and a jolt of pleasure shot straight to my core.

“I'm here!” Cookie called from down the hall, her voice breathy, winded from the stairs.

I almost groaned aloud at the interruption. Reyes's grip on my throat tightened. He tilted my face up to his and whispered, “We'll continue this later.”

“Promise?” I asked, unwilling to relinquish the impish bit.

He covered my mouth with his, his tongue hot as it dived inside me, as he melted my knees and stole my breath. Then, a microsecond before Cookie walked in, he pushed off me with a wink and strolled to look out the window. Still weak from his kiss, I almost stumbled forward.

“I'm here,” said Cookie Kowalski, my assistant who moonlighted as my best friend, as she rushed into the room.

It took me a sec, but I finally tore my gaze off my husband. Cookie's short black hair had been flattened on one side, making her look lopsided. Her mismatched clothes were rumpled and a purple scarf dangled off one shoulder, perilously close to falling to the floor. Though Cook was considered large by society's standards, she wore her size well. She had the beauty and confidence of an eccentric, wardrobe-challenged countess. Normally. Today she looked more like a frazzled scullery maid.

I fought a grin and chastised her for her tardiness. “It's about time, missy,” I said, tapping my naked wrist to make my point clear.

She gasped audibly, then looked at her watch. Her shoulders sagged in relief. “Charley, damn it. The wedding isn't for hours.”

“I know,” I said, stepping closer as she sat some bags on a bench at the end of the bed. “I just like to keep you on your toes.”

“Oh, you do that. No worries there. I'm like a ballerina when you're around.”

“Sweet.” I leaned over to peek inside a bag. “I also want to thank you again for having the wedding here.” She did so to accommodate Reyes and me, since we couldn't leave the grounds.

“Are you kidding?” she asked. “This place is perfect. Who gets to have a wedding in a historic convent surrounded by a lush forest adorned with the colors of autumn? Me. That's who.” She gave my shoulders a quick one-armed squeeze. “I am beyond thrilled, hon.”

“I'm glad.”

“And, by having it here,” she continued, pulling out a fluff of pink material from one of the bags, “neither you nor Reyes will be ripped apart by hellhounds during the ceremony. I'd love to get through this without getting blood on my wedding gown.”

“It's so always about you,” I said, and she laughed. Mission complete.

She took a ribbon off the material, then noticed Reyes's tousled state. “I'm not interrupting anything, am I?”

He turned, but only slightly, not wanting to expose the evidence of exactly what she'd interrupted. “Not at all,” he said, pointing outside. “We were just talking about all the departed—”

“—who have passed on over the years,” I said, stopping him from making a grave mistake. “And, boy, are there lots.” I snorted. “Like millions. Maybe even billions.”

Cookie stopped what she was doing—namely rummaging through another shopping bag—and turned toward me, her movements slow. Methodical. Calculated. “There—” Her voice cracked. She cleared her throat and started over. “There are dead people on the lawn, aren't there?”

“What?” I dismissed her suspicions with a wave of my hand. Because that always worked. “Pfft, no way. Why would there—? I mean, what would they be doing on—?”

“Charley,” she said in warning, her hangover voice low and alarmingly sexy.

I bit down, cursing myself for my utter lack of finesse. This was her wedding day, and her nerves had been stretched thin enough without a last-minute addition of the recently departed to the guest list.

“Only a couple,” I said, strolling nonchalantly to Reyes's side and looking out the two-story window. I was such a liar. There were at least a hundred departed standing in front of the convent. Silent. Unmoving. Unblinking. This was going to be the creepiest wedding ever. At least they weren't coming inside, but the wedding was actually outside in a little clearing behind the convent. Thankfully, they hadn't invaded that area. Much.

Reyes leaned down to me and whispered into my ear. “Your nearness isn't helping my condition.”

I glanced at his crotch. The fullness caused a flush to rise in my cheeks. But he was right. Now was not the time. “Sorry,” I whispered back before turning to Cookie again. “What's that?”

She was busy staring out another window, and I thanked God she couldn't see the departed. “The curtains for the nursery came in,” she said absently.

“Oh!” I rushed forward, snatched them out of her hands, and shook out a panel of pink taffeta. “I sure hope it's a girl,” I said, trying to change the subject.

“Of course it's a girl,” she said, scanning the grounds. “All the prophecies say so. Where are they?”

“The prophecies?”

“The dead people.”

“Right.” I looked out over the weathered grounds. The grass had yellowed over the last month, the trees burning with the bright oranges, golds, and reds of autumn.

“They're gone now,” I said, adding to the long list of sins I was committing in a house of God. “Those people love playing hide-and-seek. Seriously, it's like a thing with them.”

I looked up at her, worried she wouldn't believe me, but her gaze had drifted somewhere else, namely to Reyes's reflection in the window. His shirt still hung open, the white material a stark contrast to the dark skin beneath, the muscles leaving shadows along the upside-down T of his chest and the rungs of his abs. “Good Lord,” she said to me, her tone silky soft.

I agreed completely. “Good Lord indeed.”

We both gawked a solid minute before he realized what we were doing. He dipped his head, unable to suppress a brilliant smile, and cleared his throat before announcing he got the first shower.

“I don't know how you do it, hon,” Cook said when he left.