Fifth Grave Past the Light (6 page)

We eventually found a bed with a mattress that felt like clouds. I lay there curled in Reyes’s arms. His warmth and steady breathing lulled me into a state of utter relaxation, but I couldn’t quite sleep. Not because I wasn’t at peace. Just the opposite. I’d never felt so at peace. So at ease. So at home. His presence was like a salve that soothed my frenzied thoughts, that calmed the roiling seas within me, and I didn’t want to miss that feeling for a second, so I lay there and drank it in.

His room didn’t have much yet. It didn’t even have a clock, but it did have a bed, a couple of nightstands with lamps, a chest of drawers, and a chair in one corner with a copy of a Jack Williamson novel in it. Scattered on the floor was everything from George R. R. Martin and Tolkien to Ursula Le Guin and Asimov. He was a reader. And he liked fantasy and science fiction. It was like he was created for me and me alone. His taste, his temperament, his utter perfection. Admittedly lots of other women liked those things as well, but I chose to believe he really was created just for me. The only thing missing from his collection was
Sweet Savage Love.
I’d have to lend him a copy.

On the other side of his bedroom was mine. Our headboards butted against the same wall. Or they would butt against the same wall if I had a headboard. The one that came with my bed had an unfortunate incident one night when I’d mixed tequila and champagne with a rock band from Minnesota. In all honesty, I don’t think I was even in the room when my headboard bit the dirt. Possibly not even in the apartment. I woke up in the stairwell with a new Blue Öyster Cult T-shirt and a slight case of internal bleeding. But I recovered quickly after crawling back to my apartment and kicking out the wayward souls who’d taken over my digs, including a guinea pig and an iguana named Sam.

Honestly, who brings an iguana to a party?

I lay there a long while, basking in the warmth of my man before easing out from under his arm and searching out a bathroom. I was just going to pee, then run back for round two of snuggle-palooza. Then I saw his shower. And I knew the true meaning of happiness. Two minutes later, I was thoroughly enjoying a massage beneath a waterfall made of stone and marble. Jets of water pulsated over my skin and kneaded my muscles. I named this ingenious invention George and decided to leave my own shower, Hector, for him. Some loves were just meant to be.

I turned to see Reyes standing at the shower entrance.

“It looks good on you,” he said, his full mouth forming an appreciative grin. “The shower.” His arms were crossed, his gaze sultry, and it took a moment for my eyes to adjust. He stood in all his naked glory. Long limbs and sinuous muscle molded into absolute perfection. Like he’d been sculpted onto this plane then airbrushed, the artist clearly fond of fluid lines and deep shadows.

“I thought it might be a bit much,” he continued, “but I’ve changed my mind.”

“This?” I asked, astounded that he would question George’s worth. “This… this masterpiece?” I threw myself against his stone exterior. George’s. Not Reyes’s. “How could you ever doubt him?”

“Him?”

“George.”

“His name is George?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I just named him.” I tried to snap my fingers, but they were wet so I came away with more of a squishy thud than a snap. I’d take it. “Keep up, mister, or before you know it, life will pass —” I squeaked when he stepped inside and drew me against his chest – the airbrushed one – then bent down to nibble on my neck. An electric current shot down my spine before I came to my senses. “Hey, wait,” I said, pulling back, “you
are
the son of Satan. Maybe we need a safe word.”

His grin morphed into something wickedly charming. “Okay, how about, ‘Oh, my god, it’s so big.’ ”

Laughter burst out of me before I could stop it. Not that it wasn’t. “That would be a safe
phrase,
but okay.” I thought about it, then said, “How about ‘Is that all you’ve got?’ ”

He nuzzled my neck again, causing a surge of pleasure to cascade over my skin. “That sounds more like a challenge.”

“Good point. But it does get the adrenaline pumping.”

He pushed between my legs. “Among other things.”

An hour later, we were sprawled on a rug on his bathroom floor using towels as pillows. I lay staring at the ceiling, stewing in astonishment for several reasons. First, I had no idea a showerhead had so many creative uses. Second, Reyes’s stamina was a thing of beauty. Third, I was beginning to feel him on a deeper level. In the same way I could glean emotion off him, off anyone, I was beginning to feel all the little intricacies of his physical reaction to stimuli. The same pleasures that raced across his skin, that bucked inside him, that burst as he reached orgasm, rushed through me with a supernatural intensity. I had never experienced anything like it.

“How are you?” he asked, regarding me from beneath an arm he’d thrown over his face.

“Pretty good, actually.”

He took my chin and pulled my gaze to his. “No, really, how are you?”

“What do you mean?” I’d just been on a turbo-powered roller coaster ride and lived to tell the tale. How much peachier could a person be?

“You came here tonight for a reason, and as much as I’d love to believe otherwise, it was not for this.” He glanced around, indicating our recent activities with a nod.

And his seriousness surprised me. “I had a few questions. But I didn’t think you’d be into the touchy-feely stuff.”

He ran a thumb over my bottom lip. “That depends entirely on who I’m touching and who I’m feeling.”

“Oh, right. Well, I have to be honest, all of this was for nothing.” I also indicated our recent activities with a glance and a nod.

“Really.”

“Yeah, I got an email the other day. The ambassador to Nigeria said I inherited a million dollars from a Nigerian uncle. He’s holding it in escrow for me. All I have to do is send him a money order for twenty-five hundred, and that million is all mine.”

“You don’t say.”

“I had no idea I even had an uncle in Nigeria. Looks like I don’t need your crappy million after all.”

“The ambassador sounds like a really nice guy.”

“Right? I’ll have to send him a cheese ball to show my gratitude.”

“But I lost the bet,” he continued. “I owe you two now.”

“That’s true. I almost forgot. Can I get that in small, nonsequential bills? I like to hit the strip clubs occasionally.”

He grinned, but then grew serious again. “Do you want to talk about what’s really bothering you?”

“Something’s bothering me? I had no idea.”

“Your boyfriend.”

I glanced toward his shower in surprise. “George? It’s just a fling, Reyes. Nothing will come of it.”

“Your other boyfriend.”

“You know about Dead Duff?” That was fast. We’d only just started seeing each other. And we’d kept it so secretive. Meeting in a smoky bar, in a dark hallway.

“No, your other boyfriend.”

I thought a moment. “Donovan, my biker dude?” I did miss him. Too bad so many of my boyfriends ended up in Mexico, running from the law. That could be a sign of something.

“No, your other – Fuck, how many boyfriends do you have?”

“Including Herman, the maintenance guy at the Jug-N-Chug who talks to celery?” If I didn’t know better, I could’ve sworn Reyes ground his teeth. I couldn’t blame him. I mean, who talks to celery in this day and age?

“Yes, including Herman.”

“Oh, okay, then.” I started naming all my menfolk under my breath and counting on my fingers. I knew he was talking about Garrett, but why give him the satisfaction? He was just so fun to rankle. After a minute, I ran out of fingers and had to raise my feet so I could use my toes as backup.

Reyes growled and rolled on top of me before sinking his teeth into my neck.

“Okay, I’m sorry!” I screamed, trying to talk past an inane attack of the giggles his nibbling caused. A combustible energy rushed over my skin when he removed his teeth and started suckling my neck instead. He curled me deeper into his arms. “Wait,” I said, suddenly breathless, “you’re not a vampire, are you? Living off my blood and compelling me to forget? I’ve seen the show.”

After another growl, I laughed and tightened my hold, but my muscles protested. It surprised me. “I think I’m sore.”

He stopped and raised his head. “You don’t know?”

“No. I might be.” I raised a leg to test it. “I’ll have to think about it.”

“Here, let me check.”

He stood, pulling me with him, and threw me over a shoulder like I weighed nothing. Sadly, that just wasn’t the case. I squeaked out a protest that was more giggle than complaint. “What are you doing?”

“I’m going to perform an exam.”

“An exam?” I laughed as he carried me to a small area he’d set aside for a dining room table and laid me across it. A startled gasp escaped me when my back touched the cold wood. “Oh, my god,” I said with a shiver.

“Stay here,” he said, all business. “I have this covered.”

“This is freezing,” I cried, but he was gone.

Then I heard him rummaging around in his kitchen. I covered Danger and Will in an attempt to preserve their dignity. Also, it seemed like the right thing to do.

He walked out with a variety of sparkling new kitchen utensils. A whisk, a spoon, a spatula, and several other ominous-looking devices for which I had no name. He dumped them on the table beside me.

“And just what are you planning to do with those?”

“I’m going to give you an exam. Make sure everything is okay down there.”

I kicked at him. “No, you aren’t.”

When I tried to rise, he pushed me back down with a hand on my chest. “Trust me. I took a correspondence class.”

“From prison?” I asked, shocked.

“And I have a lot of experience in this area.”

“You’ve been in lockdown for ten years. How much experience can you have?”

When I kicked out again, he took my ankle and placed my foot back on the table as he sought out the perfect tool for whatever dark machinations he had in mind. He picked something up. It was silver and shiny and foreboding. “I’m going to have to plug this one in.”

“No!” I said, suddenly laughing so hard, my stomach hurt.

Holding my ankle with one hand, he tossed that appliance aside and picked up something else, keeping it low, hidden from my sight. Then he turned to me, growing even more serious. “You have to trust me.” He leaned closer, watched me from underneath his lashes. “No flinching,” he said, a soft warning reverberating in his tone. “This is a flinchless game of concentration and control.”

“Reyes, you are not —!” I gasped aloud as something smooth and cool settled between my legs. I anchored a foot against his shoulder as insurance against whatever he was planning.

He nudged the utensil just inside, causing a sharp current to spike within me, then he knelt and feathered his tongue across the sensitive folds at my apex. A delicious warmth stirred with each touch, with every nudge, pooling deep in my abdomen, building and pulsating immediately.

He hadn’t been lying. He clearly had experience. He knew exactly how much pressure to apply, when to go deeper, how long to stay there. I writhed under his expert touch, grabbed handfuls of hair, begged for release. He spread my legs farther apart with his shoulders, sucked softly as I became engulfed in liquid fire. I expected him to enter me, to take over, to pleasure himself as well, but he didn’t. He lured me closer to the edge. Red hot embers spread through me once more, searing my flesh from the inside out. And then the tendrils that wound through me exited my body and entered his. I felt it the minute his pleasure met mine. I heard a soft gasp. Felt a cool rush of air as he breathed in.

He removed his toy and replaced it with his fingers. Just as I could feel his reactions, he could feel mine. He was riding the same wave I was. Absorbing the same blistering heat, the same energy. The contact of our essences caused a friction, a biting arousal as he churned and whipped me into a frenzy until the sweet sting of orgasm rocketed through me. I welded my teeth together, braced myself as the rush crashed against me and drowned every cell in my body in warm honey.

With a moan, Reyes reached underneath to finish what our connection had started. I grabbed hold of his hair and brought his mouth to mine, and with a soft groan, he wrapped his free arm around me, locking me to him as he spilled his seed onto my stomach. He trembled with the force of his climax, his breathing labored, his muscles like marble until slowly he relaxed against me.

“That was amazing,” I said at last.

He nodded. “Told you. Correspondence course.”

I laughed as he helped me off the table and led me to the bathroom. We visited George, chatted about everyday things like wine, cars, and the horrid taste of shampoo when I accidently swallowed some; then we found his bed again and I lay with him until he fell asleep.

He was simply stunning. His lashes fanned across his cheeks, his lips slightly parted, his breathing deep and even. He looked like a little boy. Content and serene.

With a deep regret, I wiggled out from under him despite his sleepy protests and grabbed articles of clothing as I tiptoed to his door. What amazing willpower I had. What fantastic self-control. I’d come over for one reason, and everything but that reason seemed to be resolved. When I reached the door, I saw what looked like another note. But this was his door, not mine. I peeled it off, then angled it until I could read it by the light of the fire.

With a smile spreading slowly across my face, I dropped everything I’d just picked up and went back for more.

I woke up to a very warm Reyes pressed against my backside and a very cold Artemis curled against my front. It wouldn’t have been so bad if she were a smidgen warmer than the arctic circle. Artemis was a gorgeous Rottweiler who died a few months ago. She’d been protecting me ever since, and she had an incredible way of ripping demons to shreds and sending them back to hell, then rolling over for a belly rub.

Unfortunately, she snored. Why a departed Rottweiler who didn’t actually need oxygen would snore was beyond me. I nuzzled her neck, then wiggled until I was out from under covers and arms and paws. Reyes lay there, his face the picture of innocence. True, it was a sexy, sensual kind of innocence, but it did magical things to my nether regions. I wanted to get one last kiss before the evening ended but didn’t dare wake him again. I’d be sore enough as it was. He had an arm thrown over his forehead, his right palm open. The burns from the bullet were already healed.

The next time I gathered articles of clothing and headed for the door, I actually made it out of Reyes’s apartment. The frigid air in the hallway startled me. I shivered and hurried to my own apartment about ten steps away. I hadn’t locked it. I would never learn.

Unfortunately, my apartment was just as cold as the hallway. I changed into a pair of pajamas that said
instant human. just add coffee.
and scurried between my sheets. Figuring I’d never get any sleep, I contemplated for the thousandth time what it would mean if Reyes was setting fire to half of Albuquerque, albeit the seedy half.

And Garrett. What had he gone through? What had him so utterly obsessed with the dark underbelly of hell? Had he really been tortured? How was any of that even possible?

As I lay wondering about things I didn’t want to wonder about, I heard a scratching sound under my bed. Had Artemis followed me? The sound started out as a faint scuffing but grew louder the longer I lay there. It wasn’t like a dog pawing, but more like someone scratching on wood, as though trying to claw through it. Then again, that could just be my imagination getting the better of me.

Not much scared me, but someone scratching under my bed as I lay on it was way too urban legend for me. Next I would hear a drip only to discover it was the blood of my boyfriend hanging dead from a tree. Luckily, I had no trees in my apartment. Then I thought,
Hey, a tree would add a nice touch.

No, I didn’t need to think about things like that at the moment. Someone was definitely under my bed. Scratching.

I inched to the side, leaned over it slowly, and pulled up the bed skirt. A set of huge blue eyes stared back at me and it took every ounce of strength I had not to scream like someone being mauled by a wild animal. I bit down and met her gaze. She looked about seven, judging by the size of her eyes and the shape of her round cheeks. She was lying on her back, scratching the wood that held my mattress. Blond hair, tangled and matted, hung over her eyes, partially obstructing her view. Her childlike face was dirty, her hair completely covered in a slick, oily mud. I couldn’t tell what she was wearing, but she looked absolutely frantic. She clawed at the wood with a panicked aggression. Her eyes wide, searching. She was terrified. Period. She wanted out of wherever she was.

“Hi,” I said as softly as I could. She didn’t miss a beat. She continued to claw and stare at me as though trying to escape, and my heart sank.

Just then I realized most of her fingernails were jagged and broken. They wouldn’t have broken on my bed. The dearly departed come fully assembled. Or torn apart. If her fingernails were frayed and broken, it happened while she was still alive. But she kept clawing anyway, splintering the wood with her nails, trying frantically to get out of wherever it was she was trapped.

I climbed off my bed and lay flat on the floor beside her.

“Honey,” I said, reaching out, hoping to ease her fears.

She paused, but only for a moment. She stared at me as though she couldn’t quite figure out what I was or what I was doing there. Then she went back to clawing.

Angel, my departed thirteen-year-old investigator and partner in crime, once said that my touch, as the grim reaper, was healing. I reached under the bed and put my hand on her shoulder. She stared straight ahead, eyeing the boards under my bed, but she did seem to calm a bit. Then she slowly started to claw again, only with less of a frenzied panic. She clawed absently at the board in front of her face.

She had a pixie face with a bow-shaped mouth and huge eyes. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she had wings. If pixies did exist, I was fairly certain they would look exactly like her.

Because I didn’t know what to do for her, I stayed beside her the rest of the night with my hand on her shoulder. I fell asleep that way, on the floor. Sometime in the early morning hours, Artemis had joined me. I felt like Reyes and I had joint custody, taking turns with her. I didn’t mind her sleeping with Reyes, though, because waking up with a ninety-pound dog on my back was not as fun as one might think. I liked air. I liked to breathe without my lungs being on fire. So when I woke up with Artemis literally taking up the length of me, her frigid body like ice, the fact that I was shivering should not have been surprising. Normally I was under the safety of covers when she slept with me. The floor did not conduct heat well.

Then I remembered why I was on the floor. I startled and glanced under the bed. The girl was still there, only she had scooted to the corner farthest away from me and lay curled into herself, her knees on the floor, her eyes peering out from underneath her dirty hair. And she was lovely. With the sun peeking over the horizon and casting a soft glow in the room, I was able to see her in a different light. I could see the departed in any light, but the darker the area, the grayer the departed became. Now I could see the blond hair beneath the mud more clearly. The crystal depths of her blue eyes.

My hand was still under the bed and there was something in it. I pulled it out and opened my palm. It was fragments of wood from where she’d scratched. I rolled over onto my side. This meant I had to kick Artemis off me. She’d been snoring, and moving her was like moving a small mountain.

“Oh, my god, Artemis, scootch over. Dogs,” I said to the pixie. She didn’t seem amused. It happened. Once I managed to settle on my side, I lay there a long while, hoping to coax her closer. To coax her to cross.

Then I heard breathing, panting, and not from Artemis. I rolled onto my knees and looked over my bed. There in a far corner of my room between my nightstand and leopard skin floor lamp, was another girl, only this one was older. She looked about nineteen, but she was very similar to the pixie. Matted blond hair, slick oily mud from head to toe. She wore only a short gown. Her bare feet were covered in scratches, as though she’d fought back, kicking at someone, or she’d tried to run before dying. I wondered if the girls were related. Then I noticed ligature marks on her neck. I hadn’t seen them on the pixie, but her hair and position had made it impossible to be sure. I could get a probable cause of death of this one at least. She had been strangled, and judging by the broken blood vessels in her eyes and the swollen face, that was very likely the way she’d died.

Artemis woke up and began sniffing under the bed. I was worried she would scare the pixie. Instead, the girl seemed fascinated by her. Her features softened and she almost smiled. Almost.

“You keep an eye on this one, okay?” I said to Artemis, and I went around the bed to try to talk to the other one. Like the pixie when she first showed up, this one was terrified, staring off into space with wide eyes. She kept her hands up as though trying to defend herself. When I touched her arm, she curled into herself even more. She ducked her head behind her arms and whimpered.

Sometimes my job sucked. What had these girls gone through? What made them scared of their own shadow? Having recently gone through a bout of PTSD, I could understand the “scared of your own shadow” thing, but normally death brought with it a certain amount of healing. People didn’t suffer their own ends for eternity. Yet these girls seemed stuck in the moments they’d died.

I needed a plan. First coffee. Then Uncle Bob. Something must have happened. Surely these girls had been reported missing.

Cookie was going to be in class all day. For a second, I actually thought about postponing it, then realized the world would be a safer place with her in that class. I couldn’t let the world down.

I visited the ladies’ room and sat atop my porcelain throne. That’s when I heard more whimpering coming from the living room. No way. Another one? Feeling better – there was nothing like ninety pounds resting on your bladder at dawn – I peeked into my living room. I didn’t see anyone besides Mr. Wong at first. The sounds were coming from somewhere near him, but he wouldn’t be making them. He was a permanent fixture, had been here since I rented the apartment, and was being his usual self, hovering in a corner, silent as the moon. Since he’d never said anything, had never even moved from that spot, I doubted he would be whimpering now.

I tiptoed to Sophie, my secondhand sofa, and saw a third woman. And while this one was blond as well, she was not a natural blonde. She looked Hispanic. Around twenty-five. But she had the same matted hair, only the blond in hers hung in uneven patches as though it had been bleached in a hurry or under duress. And she had the same terrified expression. Exhibited the same mindless behavior.

What the hell was going on? I would never figure it out without a caffeine fix. I turned to have my morning meeting of the minds with Mr. Coffee. We talked every morning about lots of different things. He mostly gurgled and let off steam while brewing the elixir of life. I mostly yawned and complained about mornings, the weather, men. Whatever struck my fancy.

Once he’d finished his rant, something about how I only loved him for his carafe, I realized I had run out of clean cups. And dish soap. After a quick trip to the bathroom and back, I washed a few cups with shampoo, then reached in the top cabinet for my hidden treasure of gold. Nondairy creamer. Some people would call me a sellout, a charlatan for using the fake stuff, but the fake stuff made me happy. Much like puppies did. And George. Reyes’s shower.

But when I opened the cabinet, I found another woman holed up inside it. I jumped back, let out something that resembled a squeak on a rusty wheel, and clutched my heart. One would think that, since I was the grim reaper, I’d be used to the dead showing up unexpectedly. Nope. It still got me every time. On the bright side, the rush of adrenaline helped. Not a lot. I still needed a caffeine fix, but at least I was awake enough to realize I quite possibly had my underwear on inside out. Something didn’t feel right down yonder.

I approached the woman with caution when another movement caught my attention. I had to look up. Up! And there on my wall was another woman. This one looked about thirty. She could’ve been a natural blonde. Wasn’t sure. But she was crawling up my wall toward the ceiling. She scurried to a corner and curled into it.

I did a 360, turning to assess my surroundings, and counted no less that five more women in varying states of terror. They were all filthy, all covered in the same oil, and from what I could see, all strangled. My heart sank for them. They couldn’t have all died recently. I would have heard something in the news. Then I realized their clothing and hairstyles were from different time periods. While one looked almost recent with a Faded Glory button-down, another actually looked from about twenty years ago, chunks of her hair pulled into a ponytail with a fluffy neon scrunchy. The terror in their eyes, the mindless fear that paralyzed them, ripped through my heart.

My front door opened.

“Good morning,” Cookie said as she walked in, almost ready to face the world. She looked like she hadn’t gotten much sleep, and she had a rather nasty shiner.

“Hey, you,” I said, pretending not to notice. I poured her a cup and added all the fixings.

“What do you think?”

“What? Oh, you mean your black eye? I hardly noticed.”

“Don’t say that,” she said with an indignant gasp before pointing at her eye. “I earned this puppy. I’m going to milk it for all it’s worth. Amber made me breakfast.”

“No way.”

“Way. And it wasn’t half bad once I picked out the shell fragments.”

“Nice.” I took a sip of my coffee. Smacked my lips. Took another sip, then handed it to Cookie. “Here, taste this.”

She took a sip, then handed it back, smacking her lips, too. “What is that?”

“Not sure. Mr. Coffee has never let me down.” I took another sip. “Maybe it’s not him. I ran out of dish soap and had to use shampoo. I’m not entirely certain I rinsed well.”

“You did your dishes with shampoo?”

“It was either that or my apricot body scrub.”

“No, good call. A little shampoo won’t hurt you.”

“Right? I just don’t know what my day would be like without coffee to give it a good kick start. Is it wrong that every time I run out of creamer, I become slightly suicidal?”

“Not at all. I became suicidal once when Jug-N-Chug ran out of French vanilla flavoring syrup.”

“I hear ya.” Coffee was that place where the sun comes up over the horizon and lights the heavens in a burst of vibrant colors. Shampoo remnants didn’t change that fact.

“Is your aunt Lil here?” she asked.

Aunt Lillian had died in the sixties and was now a semipermanent roommate. Thankfully, she traveled a lot. “I think she’s still in Africa. She loves that place.” Speaking of dead roommates, I perused the woman hanging – literally – in my space bubble. “When you get a break in class, I need you to do some research.”

“Okay, on what?”

“I have an apartment full of departed women.”