The Trouble with Twelfth Grave

“I’m sure he was wretched.”

As her reality sank in, her physical state became an issue. She smoothed her housecoat and patted the curlers in her hair.

“Good heavens, I can’t go nowhere looking like this.”

“What do you mean? You’re perfect.”

“Nonsense,” she said, smoothing her housecoat once more. But something captured her attention, and her gaze flitted back to the door leading to the hall.

I turned to see that Charlie was back. Arms full. Fists restocked.

Leaning over, I whispered in Mrs. Blomme’s ear. “That’s Charlie Newell, your great-grandson.”

A hand flew to her mouth as a new moisture threatened to push past her lashes to follow the first. “My goodness, isn’t he beautiful.”

“He’s gorgeous. And you have a great-granddaughter here, too. Charisma.”

Mrs. Blomme found a chair and sank into it, and I knew I’d lost her. No way would she leave these children to their own devices. They needed order and discipline. But mostly they needed spoiling.

“Can I stay just a little while longer? Can I watch over them?”

I knelt beside her. “Of course you can.”

I said my thanks to Mrs. Newell, a single mom with two inquisitive children on her hands.

“Did you, um, make contact?”

She was gracious enough to let me in to do my thing, an openness I found surprising, and I couldn’t help but wonder if she wasn’t a tad sensitive herself.

“I did. And you were right. It’s your grandmother Blomme.”

She smiled to herself in thought, wiping her hands absently on a dish towel.

“I just have one question,” I continued. I gestured toward the hall. “What’s with the gravy boat?”

She giggled and shrugged. “Some kids have security blankets; some kids have gravy boats.”

I laughed with her. “That needs to be a T-shirt.”

I still couldn’t help but wonder why Mrs. Blomme could see her granddaughter and great-grandson but not her great-granddaughter.

Ah, well. A mystery for another day.

After explaining to Mrs. Newell that her grandmother was going to be hanging out for a while, a fact she took with no small amount of enthusiasm, I left. I had much to do, including solve a couple of murders and hunt down a recalcitrant deity. But first, I had a skip tracer to harass.

2

I don’t want to look pretty.

I want to look otherworldly and vaguely threatening.

—MEME

Half the time I sat at the Newells’ house, my stomach growled. I hadn’t slept, not deeply, in three days, and I’d hardly eaten as well. Anxiety kept my stomach full.

But I had a long night ahead of me. I needed sustenance, so I drove through Macho Taco, ordered three taquitos with extra salsa and a Mexican latte with extra foam, because anything worth having was worth having extra, and started for an irascible skip tracer’s house on the other side of town. Luckily, at this hour on a weeknight, the town was nearly deserted.

I headed east on Menaul and had barely managed a bite when I picked up a hitchhiker. A departed thirteen-year-old gangbanger named Angel, also irascible. Though I hadn’t met him until a decade after his death, Angel and I had become fast friends. And now he was my top—not to mention only—investigator. He popped into the passenger’s seat of Misery, my cherry-red Jeep Wrangler, in all his gangbanger brilliance. Red bandana low over his brows. Dirty A-line T-shirt. Gaping chest wound.

Angel popping in was not unusual. Angel pretty much popped in and out as he pleased, but this pop seemed direr than most.

The moment he appeared, he turned to look out the window, his shoulders hunched, his mouth oddly silent. Like, seriously, it emitted no sound whatsoever. He was only quiet when he was upset, hiding something, or secretly checking out a hot girl on the horizon. Since there were no hot girls around …

I knew this would take my full attention, so I pulled into the parking lot of a strip mall, one replete with a nail salon, a gym, a bizcochito bakery—where has that been all my life?—another gym, a burger joint, and a psychic, the only open shop on the strip. She must’ve known we’d pull in there. Eerie.

“Okay,” I said between bites. “What has your panties in a twist?”

He didn’t turn to look at me. He was upset. When he hid things, he tended to look me right in the eye, as though that would throw me off the scent. In his defense, he’d died young.

“I can’t find him.” Disappointment edged his voice.

“Angel, it’s not your fault. I can’t find him, either, hence my siccing you on his trail.”

“You don’t understand.” He shifted in the seat but continued his vigil. “I can feel him, I just can’t find him.”

“What do you feel?” I asked, dread inching up my spine. If Angel was feeling what I’d been feeling for the past three days, we could all be in a world of hurt. All as in the entire human race.

“Anger,” he said softly.

Yep. We were screwed. But none of this was Angel’s fault. If anyone was at fault, it was my boneheaded husband. Cause I damned sure wasn’t taking the blame.

He turned to me at last, his brown eyes shimmering in the low light, his peach fuzz darker because of it. “The question is, mija, what the hell are you going to do with him when you do find him?”

“You’re right,” I said between crunches. “That is the question.”

“If you have a plan, now would be a good time to implement it.”

I swallowed the salsa-drenched taquito, then gaped at him. “Dude, did you just use the word implement? In a sentence? Correctly?”

“For real?”

“That’s a mighty big word there, buddy.”

“Ay, dios mio.” He looked back out the window, but I felt the weight on his shoulders lift, if only a little. “Are you gonna tell me what this is about?”

“Yes. Just, not yet.”

“When?”

“I’m going to talk to Garrett. He’ll know what to do. I’ll summon you the minute I know something.”

He nodded, seeming to accept my conditions. Without argument or endless negotiations involving me in a state of undress. Something was definitely off.

“Sweetheart, what’s up?”

He shrugged and looked out the window again.

I rested a hand on his cool one, and without turning his gaze toward me, he turned up his palm and threaded his fingers into mine. That act, that one, simple gesture, terrified me. I knew Reyes could be a problem, what happened could change everything, but for it to affect Angel to such a degree was unexpected.

I set my jaw, preparing to hear something I didn’t want to, and asked, “Bottom line, Angel: Could he kill? Do you believe him capable?”

He glanced down at our hands. “That’s the problem, corazón. Could Reyes kill? Hell, yes, but only to protect you. Or Beep. Could Rey’azikeen kill?” He pulled his lower lip in through his teeth, turned once again to stare out the window, then spoke so softly I had to strain to hear him. “By the millions.”

* * *

By the time I got to Garrett’s house, the clock had struck one. Thirty-eight. Ish.

Garrett would be asleep, which was why I didn’t go to him earlier that day when I realized I was in a tad over my head. I could ambush him. Tell him what happened with the god glass and the smoke and the angry deity, and he’d be too sleepy and disoriented to reprimand me. Win-win.

Garrett Swopes had been one of the more reluctant believers in my circle of friends, but since he’d come to terms with who I was and what I could do, he’d become an invaluable asset. He was also a top-notch researcher, which was weird. Before he began exploring old texts and ferreting out ancient prophecies in one form or another, I had no idea he could read.

I grabbed the cupcakes I’d stolen from Cookie’s apartment, the one right across the hall to which I had a key, wound up Garrett’s walk, took out another key labeled “Secret Key to Garrett’s House, Shhh,” and let myself in.

Since I’d had the key made without his knowledge or, more importantly, his consent, the last time I used the key, I told Garrett I’d picked the lock. The schmuck believed me. I could pick locks, just not in a super timely manner. Those things were harder than they looked.

I used the light on my phone to traverse the harsh landscape of Garrett’s abode. Books, papers, and manly things lay strewn about along with a couple of empty beer bottles and a half-empty bottle of wine. Since when did Garrett drink wine?

I finally made my way back to his bedroom and things just got curiouser and curiouser. Garments of all shapes and sizes peppered the floor, and since I doubted Swopes was a double D, I had to assume he was with a woman.

Yep. He lay sleeping on his back, his torso bare except for the double D draped across him.

This was awkward.

I sat on a weight lifting bench he had in a corner, trying to figure out if I should wake him or not. My sitting there in the dark, staring at a couple post-coitus, could be considered creepy by the more conservative of the population. Then again, Garrett had a great torso. At least half of said population would totally understand.