Eighth Grave After Dark

I heard a crash and turned to Reyes. He stood on unsteady legs, his expression blank, void of emotion. He’d knocked over a small table. The shattered glass of a vase shimmered on the floor. I doubted it registered.

“We’re ready,” he said to me, to the Loehrs.

We led them to the door, the room deathly quiet.

“They’ll need protection,” I said, glancing around at everyone who had gathered to say their good-byes.

I could now see imprints of light on people, like fingerprints. Their character, their pasts, their probable futures, all written in their auras. The lights shifted and danced on and around them and were as easy for me to read now as the morning paper.

Just like in the prophecies, there were twelve summoned and twelve sent. Mr. Wong summoned the hounds from hell for Beep’s protection. Satan sent his twelve parasites, hid them among us. But he also sent the gods of Uzan. Reyes and I would have to become hunters. We’d have to find them before they found Beep. It would take time, but we had to succeed.

Still, the prophecies spoke of an army, Beep’s army beyond the twelve. Her confidants who help her wage war on Reyes’s father in the future. And they were there with us now. Every member of her army had somehow found us. Become a part of our lives.

I marked them all as we led the Loehrs to their car. The sentry, the scholar, the spiritualist, the healer. I even marked the three guardians, and it just goes to show that the bravest hearts often lie in the least likely candidates. No matter where Beep’s path led, these people were destined to be in her life.

The departed who had gathered on the lawn watched. They’d just wanted to see her. They shuffled closer for a glimpse, their faces full of hope. Hope. It was an emotion I hadn’t expected from them. Then one by one, they disappeared.

Sensing my distress, Mrs. Loehr granted me temporary custody. Holding her to me, fighting the sobs that threatened to wrench free, I looked at the Thirteenth Warrior, the one who, according to prophecy, would tip the scales either for or against her. The one who would be the doom of every being on earth if he failed: Osh’ekiel.

Beneath the powerful exterior lay the heart of a king. And he would love her. The question was, would she accept him? Would she see the good buried beneath the bad? Would she recognize that he was created that way? It wasn’t a choice. It was an imposition. I marked him last as he ran a fingertip over the folds of her tiny ear.

The sob finally wrenched free as I handed my daughter back to Mrs. Loehr. I couldn’t believe I was losing her after having just met her, but the thing that broke my heart even more was the fact that neither Reyes nor I would be there on that fateful day. The day she would challenge the devil to a duel. While I could see that as clear as the stars in the sky, what I couldn’t see was why we weren’t there for her at the appointed time. Would we die before it happened? Nothing other than death could keep us from her in her time of need, so then why would we not be a part of her army? Why would we not fight side by side with her?

Only time would tell—and fate could be altered. This could all be altered. I knew how the universe worked now. Time was anything but linear. Prophecies were anything but concrete. We could change it all.

They buckled Beep into her car seat and turned to say … what? What did one say in such a situation?

“Wait!” I ran into the house and grabbed Beep’s registration form for her birth certificate and a pen. Then I stepped onto the porch and gestured for my husband to join me.

“What do we name her?”

He shook his head sadly.

“We need to name her after you.”

“No,” he said, a line appearing between his brows at the thought. “We can’t name her anything that will lead my father’s emissaries to her. Her name has to be completely untraceable.”

“How about common? Or, at least, not completely uncommon.”

I bent to write, and he nodded, giving me the go ahead.

“This is ink. No erasing.”

“I trust you completely.”

I tried to smile, failed, then wrote a name on the registry. My celestial father, for all intents and purposes, was named Ran-Eeth-Bijou. My mother, Ayn-Eethial. And my name, the name they gave me when I was created, was Elle-Ryn-Ahleethia.

My hands shook as I wrote Beep’s real name: Elwyn Alexandra—a version of Reyes’s middle name—Loehr. My vision blurred as I looked up at my husband for approval.

“It’s perfect.”

I folded the paper, put it in the envelope with a note I’d written Beep weeks ago, and took it to the Loehrs. As we stood below the starry sky, I couldn’t watch them take Beep away. I closed my eyes, the act only encouraging more tears to fall. Then I just listened. I listened to the sound of the engine as the Loehrs backed out of the drive, tires crunching on pebbles and dried grass. I listened as they wound through the mountain pass, until their car was only an echo bouncing off the canyon walls. I listened until the only sounds I heard were the soft sobs coming from Cookie and Amber. The stalking-off of Osh. The beat of the hounds’ paws as they followed the car. They would never leave her, and that was no small consolation. Then I heard the thud of Reyes’s knees hitting the ground, his breath catching in his lungs.

I felt arms around me. Pats on my shoulder. Promises that it would get better. But my sorrow only grew. It built and spread and swelled until it swallowed me whole. I glanced up at the stars, at Beep’s planet, and I could no longer suppress the force inside me. A primal scream surged out of me with the release, the energy bursting forth in a blinding flash, and I exploded into a million shards of light.