Eleventh Grave in Moonlight

“It’s going to sound crazy. One thing can’t possibly have anything to do with the other.”

“You might be surprised.”

“It’s just, later that night, the little girl disappeared.”

I covered my shock by wiping my hands on a napkin and sitting back in thought.

“It was all over the news. About two months ago?”

About two months ago I’d been sequestered away in a convent. I missed a lot. “Did they ever find her?”

She shook her head. “No. She’s still missing. I can’t tell you who it is, but it’s public knowledge.” She took out her phone, pulled up a webpage, then laid her phone on the table and looked away. Girl was good. Nobody could prove she’d told me a thing.

I leaned over and glanced at the page entitled Find Dawn Now. It had been set up by friends of the family and offered a reward for any information on the whereabouts of three-year-old Dawn Brooks. Brown hair. Blue eyes. And beautiful.

I could look into it more later and ask Uncle Bob what he knew about the case.

Tiana’s phone darkened, and she pulled it back to her. “The mother came in a couple of weeks ago with her baby boy, Dawn’s little brother, for a checkup. She was a basket case. So different from when I first saw her.” Tears shimmered in the young girl’s eyes. “She broke down in Dr. Schwab’s office. I don’t think she’s doing very well.”

The walls of my chest tightened. “I can’t imagine that she is.” At least I knew where my daughter was. I knew she was safe. Well cared for and loved. This poor woman had no clue, and statistically, children missing that long, those that weren’t taken by an estranged parent, were rarely found alive. “Do you think Mrs. Foster had something to do with her disappearance?”

“I know how it sounds.” She sat back, dejected. “I get it. I just found it odd. The whole thing. They had just come in for a one-month well child visit for the little brother. It was just weird, you know? Eve gets all pale and freaks out. Goes to the bathroom to call her husband. Makes some excuse to leave work early, then that very night the girl is abducted from her home, and Eve is out sick the rest of the week.”

“She called in sick?”

“She missed four days of work.” She bowed her head as though ashamed. “I know how thin it sounds, but something just wasn’t right. So, I… I’m the one who called the police. Or, well, I had my cousin Elias call the police and talk to the detective in charge of the case. I was afraid someone would get the recording and know it was me. I could get into a lot of trouble.”

“Not if there was a threat of danger or wrongdoing, Tiana. Don’t feel guilty.”

“Maybe. But it didn’t do any good. They looked into it. Eve and her husband said they were home that night, watching a movie. Their son corroborated.”

A current of electricity rushed over my skin. It carried dread and suspicion. “Their son?”

“Yeah, I guess he lives with them? He’s getting his graduate degree or something. He’s really nice looking. I met him when he came to pick up his mom for lunch one day.”

“Tall? Blond?”

“That’s him. Shawn Foster.”

“I’ll look into it, Tiana. I promise.” If Mrs. Foster was still up to her old abduction tricks, I wanted to be the first to know. But what startled me most was the whole supernatural slant to all of this. Could she really see auras? Had she seen my light? Had she seen Reyes’s darkness when he was a baby?

Considering everything I knew thus far, it was a strong possibility Reyes’s darkness was why she took him in the first place. That would also explain, to a degree, why he wanted me to drop the case. He was so sensitive about the whole son-of-Satan thing.

“Also” – I pointed to her sub – “are you going to finish that?”

I thought about skipping my business class, but I’d need those skills once I took over the world. Still, I was running a little early, and since Osh’s digs were close, I decided to pay him a visit.

Osh was a Daeva, a slave demon, who had escaped hell much the same way Reyes had. Only Reyes had used a map. The tattoos on his shoulders and back were literally a map of the void between hell and this plane. Osh navigated the void using only instinct and skill. Few demons were that clever.

I hadn’t seen him since I forced him to swallow my soul so I could sneak up on one of the malevolent gods without my bright-ass light giving me away.

But swallowing a god’s aura, even for a Daeva, was lethal.

I trapped the malevolent god and got back to him before he exploded with all the energy he’d ingested, but the ordeal had taken its toll.

All the lights were out at Osh’s. Before I’d tried to disintegrate his innards with my energy, he’d been on Ubie patrol, taking a shift, tailing my rascally uncle to keep Grant Guerin from killing him. But since the incident, he’d been lying low.

I knocked lightly, waited a whole three seconds, then let myself in. He never kept his house locked, in the hope of a thief stopping by. I’d agreed, when we first met, to let him feed off the souls of those who did not deserve them, but I mostly meant murderers and rapists and pedophiles. Still, if someone had the gall to break into another person’s domain, that someone had better be willing to accept whatever may come.

His house, a really nice two-bedroom in the traditional Santa Fe style with muted colors and warm hues, was completely dark. I took out my phone and turned on the flashlight.

A voice originating from a dark corner startled me. “You’re not a thief.”

I turned to see Osh – or Osh’s shadow – sitting in a recliner. “Am too. I stole a Jolly Rancher from Circle K when I was seven.”

“So, I can sup on your soul?”