The Trouble with Twelfth Grave (Charley Davidson #12)(15)

“Keep going.”

“I tried everything. Nothing worked. Nothing…” I’d begun to panic. Osh’s reaction made me realize even more how bad things were. “And then about an hour later, the glass exploded, and he came out as well as all the innocent people who’d been trapped inside.”

The astonishment on his face turned to something akin to terror. “He opened the gates of a hell dimension on this plane?”

“I don’t know. I guess.”

“When?”

“Three days ago. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you guys the minute it happened.”

I scanned the room to assess reactions. So far, everyone seemed more confused than worried, though Cookie was leaning toward the latter. The only exception was Angel. My beautiful boy.

“I should’ve told you. I was just so taken aback. I thought I could find him and fix it.”

“What are we talking about?” Garrett asked him. “What needs to be done?”

Uncle Bob spoke then, his patience quickly waning. “Pumpkin, you need to let the rest of us in on what’s at stake here.”

I offered him my best apologetic expression, then returned to Osh. “He’s still Reyes.”

“Untie me.”

“No,” I said, jumping forward. I knelt before him again. “He’s still Reyes, Osh.”

He nailed me with an expression I’d never seen from him. Pity. “He stopped being Reyes the moment he entered that hell dimension, love. Untie me.”

“We need a plan.”

“We need to get the fuck off this plane.”

“Osh, not everyone here can do that.”

One corner of his full mouth tilted up. “Not my problem.”

His statement shocked me. I wouldn’t have been more stunned if he’d slapped me upside the head. “You’re going to leave us?”

He held my gaze a long moment before having mercy on me. “No, sweetheart. I just wanted you to feel betrayed.”

I eased back onto my heels. “Why?”

“Because you need to get used to it. He’ll kill you, sugar, and everything you love, starting with the people in this room.”

Cookie gasped.

Gemma popped out of her chair.

Garrett turned to look out the window.

I shook my head. “No,” I said, standing my ground. “He’s still Reyes. Somewhere inside, he’s still Reyes.”

The ropes that held Osh fell off him like paper ribbons. Garrett tensed, readying for a battle. A battle he would’ve ultimately lost, but he would’ve put up one hell of a fight.

Osh clamped both hands onto my arms, then stood and pulled me up with him. We locked gazes, his teeth clenched like he wanted to shake some sense into me.

“I’m not budging on this, Osh.”

“You’re the god eater. You can take care of this right here and now.”

I pushed away from him.

Uncle Bob stepped between us, glared at Osh a second, then turned to me. “What’s he talking about?”

“Some stupid prophecy.”

“It’s not a prophecy,” Garrett said. “You’ve done it here, on this plane.”

“Once, and I didn’t even know what I was doing.”

When the men started to argue about the logistics of my devouring my own husband, which screamed cannibal in my humble opinion, my temper soared. Just a little. Just enough to cause a tiny quake to shake the room around us.

All conversations ceased.

“The answer is no. I would never resort to such a tactic with my husband, so the argument is moot. We need a plan. Not conjectures and innuendoes. A solid plan.”

“We need two plans, actually,” Osh said.

Garrett sank onto the love seat by the window. “What do you mean?”

“The problem is twofold. Even if we could somehow capture a volatile deity—and then, what, stuff him in a bottle?—you have another issue that even an act of God couldn’t fix.”

I frowned. What else could there be? “What are you talking about?”

“The god glass. The hell dimension. You said the gates were opened.”

“They were pretty much destroyed,” I said with a nod.

“Then you have created a dimension within a dimension. An anomaly. A singularity.”

“What? Like a black hole?”

“In a sense. The new dimension will grow, slowly at first, then faster and faster as it feeds off this dimension. As it gains mass. Eventually, it’ll take over.”

I walked to Garrett and sat beside him. “So, yeah, that’s bad.”

“Sounds bad,” Angel said.

Osh shook his head. “That’s not the bad part.”

“It gets worse?” I asked.

“To be blunt, the demons residing within said dimension will inherit the Earth.”

“There are demons?” Cookie asked. “No one mentioned demons.”

Uncle Bob raised his hands and patted the air to slow things down a bit. “Okay, okay, a singularity, but first things first. Let’s deal with Reyes, try to bring him back or capture him or whatever we have to do. Then we can worry about the Earth-devouring hell dimension, which, believe you me, is not something I ever thought I’d hear myself say.”