The Trouble with Twelfth Grave (Charley Davidson #12)(39)

One of Pari’s artists was giving an older woman her first tattoo. The woman was not taking it well. Her screams of agony were mucking up my concentration.

“You know,” Nicolette said, taking a sip of her own beer, “if any of us die under suspicious circumstances, Pari is screwed. She has our DNA all over her walls.”

Pari stopped and turned toward me with a gasp. “She’s right. What if you guys are murdered?”

I sat back down in front of Osh, leaning against the sofa, forcing him to scoot his legs to one side. “If something untoward does happen, we’ll just have to make sure we’re murdered far away from here. Right, guys?”

Everyone raised a beer in salute.

“No getting Pari convicted of our murders,” Osh said.

Pari, pleased with our solemn-ish oath, went back to work. “You know, this could be my new gig.”

“Painting blood on people’s walls to cover up a crime scene?”

“While that does have a morbid sense of coolness to it, no. Creating paintings with CAM phosphor. To the casual observer, they could be everyday scenes. You know, boring crap. But once the black light comes on, they could be dark and broody and ominous. Only in neon.”

“I would expect nothing less from you. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid?” I looked back at Cook with hope in my eyes.

She thought a moment, then shook her head and took another bite.

Not giving up, I went back to work. “This could take a while.”

“I know what you’re doing,” Garrett said. Only he was standing right over me.

I looked back at his former seat behind Pari’s desk and then back at him, wondering if he’d gained some kind of supernatural ability of which I should be made aware.

He sank to the ground next to me just as Osh’s legs wrapped around my torso, jump-starting my suspicions.

I put down my pizza and offered them my full attention. “I take it this is some kind of intervention.”

“Something like that,” Osh said.

Cookie sat on the sofa next to Osh. “We’re worried about you, hon.”

“Et tu, Walter?”

“Don’t blame her,” Garrett said.

I tried to stand, but Osh kept his legs locked in place.

“Charley, you know I have your six,” Cookie said, before examining our positions in reference to one another. “Or, like, your 9:45. Either way, we’re all here for you.”

“So what’s this about?” I asked my interrogator.

Garrett pressed his lips together in thought before answering. “We have less than a day to figure this out, to bring Reyes back, or have him either cast from this plane or cut down, and we’re here doing art projects and eating pizza.”

I cringed and lowered my head. “I know. I’m just … I’m fresh out of ideas. I have no clue what to do.”

“Bet you a nickel you do,” Osh said, offering me a reassuring squeeze.

I wrapped an arm around his leg. “You don’t understand. I don’t know who he is.”

“He’s Rey’azikeen,” Osh said.

“Exactly. We tried the whole luring-him-into-a-trap thing. That didn’t work.”

“Or did it?” he asked. “What did we learn from that?”

“That I’m completely incapable of resisting that man in any form.”

“No,” Garrett countered. “We learned that he is completely incapable of resisting you.”

I lifted a shoulder into a half-hearted shrug. How would that knowledge help us?

“And,” Osh added, “we learned that you are unwilling to do what is necessary.”

“What does that mean?”

“You’re a god, Charles,” Garrett said. He put a hand on my knee to calm me. “You’re the First Star, like in the book.”

I deadpanned him. “That’s a children’s book.”

“And it’s one I’m convinced is telling your story.”

Osh leaned forward and wrapped his arms around my neck, offering me a reassuring hug. “I agree.”

“What book?” Cookie asked.

“I’ll show you later, but I don’t get what any of this has to do with anything.”

“You can defeat him,” Osh said. “If you’re willing to.”

I broke free and stood. Nicolette’s dark eyes had rounded, and Pari had put her masterpiece on hold to listen.

“I get it. I’ve eaten other gods. I’ve even done it in this form. On this plane. I devoured the god Eidolon, but he was evil. Reyes is not.”

“We aren’t talking about Reyes,” Osh said. “We’re talking about Rey’azikeen.”

“Okay, fine, what do you know about him? I mean, surely you’d heard of him even in hell.”

“Of course I had. We even knew that Lucifer’s son, Rey’aziel, was created using the god Rey’azikeen’s energy. I just didn’t know that the godly part of him was still … in there.”

“Then, okay, what do you know about him?”

He leaned back on the sofa and stared at me from underneath his dark lashes. After a long moment, he said, “I’ve only heard rumors. Slave, remember? I didn’t exactly have access to classified information, even in hell.”