Lover Avenged (Black Dagger Brotherhood #7)(119)

Did he pray for sinners, she wondered. If she remembered the Christian thing right, she believed he had to—so although he didn’t know Chrissy had been a prostitute, even if he had he would still have had to affect that respectful tone and expression.

This gave Xhex comfort, although she couldn’t have said why.

From out of the north, a chilly breeze blew, and she resumed surveying the landscape. Chrissy wasn’t staying here when they were done. Like so many rituals, this was for show. With the earth frozen, she was going to have to wait until spring, housed in a meat locker at the mortuary. But at least she had her headstone, pink granite, of course, set where she’d be buried. Xhex had kept the words of the inscription simple, just Chrissy’s name and her dates, but there was a lot of nice scrollwork done around the edges.

This was the first human death ceremony Xhex had ever been to, and it was utterly foreign, all this entombing, first in the box, then under the earth. The idea of getting stuck beneath the ground was enough to make her tug at the collar of her leather jacket. Nope. Not for her. In this respect, she was solidly symphath.

Funeral pyres were the only way to go.

At the grave, the officiant bent down with a silver shovel and roughed up the ground, then he took a handful of the loose dirt and pronounced over the coffin, “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”

The man let the granules of earth fly, and as the brisk wind took them, Xhex sighed, this part making sense to her. In the symphath tradition, the dead were raised upon wooden platforms and lit from below, the smoke wafting up and scattering just as this dirt did, at the mercy of the elements. And what remained? Ash that was left where it lay.

Of course, symphaths were burned because no one trusted that they were actually dead when they “died.” Sometimes they were. Sometimes they were just playing at it. And it was worth being sure.

But the elegant lie was the same in both traditions, wasn’t it. Being swept away, free from the body, gone and yet part of everything.

The priest closed the Bible and bowed his head, and as everyone else followed his example, Xhex glanced around again, praying that f*cker Grady was somewhere.

But as far as she could see or sense, he hadn’t shown yet.

Shit, look at all the headstones…planted into rolling hills that were winter-brown. Although the markers were all different—tall and thin, or short and close to the ground, white, gray, black, pink, gold—there was a central plan to it all, the rows of the dead arranged like houses in a development, with asphalt lanes and stretches of trees winding among them.

One headstone kept drawing her eyes. It was a statue of a robed woman who was staring up to the heavens, her face and pose as serene and calm as the overcast sky she was focused on. The granite she was carved out of was pale gray, the same color as what loomed over her, and for a moment it was hard to tell what was the grave marker and what was the horizon.

Shaking herself, Xhex looked over at Trez and, when he met her eyes, he shook his head imperceptibly. Same with iAm. Neither of them had tweaked to Bobby’s presence, either.

Meanwhile Detective de la Cruz was staring at her, and she knew it not because she returned the favor to him, but because she could feel his emotions change whenever those eyes of his landed on her. He understood how she felt. He truly did. And there was a part of him that respected her for her vengeance. But he was resolved.

As the priest stepped back and talk sprang up, Xhex realized the graveside service was over, and she watched as Marie-Terese was the first to break ranks, going up to the officiant and shaking his hand. She was spectacular in her funeral garb, her black lace head covering looking positively bridal, the beads and cross in her hands making her seem pious to the point of nun-ish.

Clearly, the priest approved of her dress and her serious, beautiful face and whatever it was she said to him, because he bowed and held on to her hand. With the contact between them, his emotional grid shifted to love, pure, undiluted, chaste love.

That was why the statue stood out, Xhex realized. Marie-Terese looked exactly like the robed female. Weird.

“Nice service, huh.”

She turned and looked at Detective de la Cruz. “Seemed fine. I wouldn’t really know.”

“You’re not Catholic, then.”

“Nope.” Xhex waved at Trez and iAm as the crowd dispersed. The boys were taking everyone out to lunch before they all headed into work, as one more way of honoring Chrissy.

“Grady didn’t come,” the detective said.

“Nope.”

De la Cruz smiled. “You know, you talk like you decorate.”

“I like to keep things simple.”

“‘Just the facts, ma’am’? I thought that was my line.” He glanced at the backs of the people walking off toward the three cars parked together in the lane. One by one, Rehv’s Bentley, a Honda mini-van, and Marie-Terese’s five-year-old Camry pulled out.

“So, where’s your boss?” de la Cruz murmured. “I expected to see him here.”

“He’s a night owl.”

“Ah.”

“Look, Detective, I’m going to take off.”

“Really?” He swept his arm around. “In what? Or do you like walking in this kind of weather.”

“I parked somewhere else.”

“Did you? You weren’t thinking of sticking around? You know, seeing if there were any late arrivals.”