The Trouble with Twelfth Grave (Charley Davidson #12)(42)

The First Star, having regained her senses and realizing what the Dark Star’s Brother was up to, begged Him to let her cast the Dark Star into the lightless realm of her own kingdom, for it was not as severe. Not as cruel. In fact, it was a virtual paradise compared to the one the Dark Star had unwittingly created.

If Jehovahn would allow this, she would do the Brother a favor in return. Anything he asked of her.

“Even though My little brother sent you to a lightless realm of his own making, trapped you in there for centuries, you would forgive him?”

“I would and I have,” she said, for she loved him, and love is forever.

Jehovahn allowed her to cast the one she had grown to love into the lightless realm of her kingdom, but the Dark Star, betrayed yet again, vowed revenge.

He easily escaped the First Star’s realm, only to be followed out by two other stars, malevolent ones, who used the lightless realm he’d created for Jehovahn, the Star Glass, to capture him and take him to the ruler of the realm beneath, the realm made of fire.

For stealing his fire, the goblin ruler used the Dark Star’s immense power, his infinite energy, to create a son. A son with a map through the void of the oblivion that lay between realms. A map that had been branded on his flesh. He would use the son to help him escape his lightless realm and battle for the heavens in which the Dark Star’s Brother shone. The heavens he would one day rule.

The son, now having no memory of his former life as a star, was tested at every turn. If he failed, he was beaten. If he succeeded, he was beaten harder. On and on, over and over, until he fought back. Until he learned to kill. Until the darkness swallowed him whole.

His goblin father, pleased with his dark son’s progress, watched him rise through the ranks of his army to become a general.

The father’s dream was getting closer and closer to becoming a reality, but the son could not completely forget the brilliant star he’d once seen. Glimpses of her flashed in his mind’s eye, and he longed to see her once again.

So, the dark son used the map to navigate the oblivion between the realm beneath and a kingdom he did not recognize.

Then he saw her, shining brilliant in the distance, brightest even among a billion other stars. She spoke to another Star, a familiar Star, and he realized she was going to be sent to that Star’s kingdom as one of its own. To advocate. To lead the lost.

Just before she was sent to the kingdom to become a guide there, she turned and saw him. And she smiled. She smiled a microsecond before she disappeared into the ethereal winds that would sail her to her new life.

Being closer to the kingdom, the son decided to join her. He gave up everything, even his memory, to be born into the kingdom as one of their own.

But his goblin father, upon learning of his son’s deceit, sent emissaries to the kingdom to foil his son’s plans. And so the dark son, born to good parents, would soon see how cruel his goblin father could be. For when the First Star was born into the kingdom, her departed mother’s soul shining around her, she saw him. She saw his darkness as he waited. She saw his ruination. And she was afraid.

For her sake, the dark son retreated to his life of misery, the life his goblin father had arranged for him. He would emerge only when the First Star needed him. Only when she was in distress. He would help her, but her fear kept him at arm’s length. Never to touch her. Never to know her.

But he watched over her as she grew up and fulfilled her duty to the kingdom’s Star. The Star known as Jehovahn.

“Are you finished?” Cookie asked, tapping me on a leg with her book. Having read the first one, she sat waiting impatiently for the next.

But I sat completely stunned. “I just don’t see how this can be a children’s book,” I said, repeating our earlier sentiments. “Much less an internationally bestselling one.”

“Is it … accurate?” she asked.

“I don’t know. It certainly seems so.”

I’d had every intention of reading the third book, but I needed time to absorb what I’d just read. While Cookie read, sucking in a soft breath here and there, I made more coffee, because one needed copious amounts of coffee when one couldn’t sleep, then I announced my need for fresh air. Cookie barely took note. I threw on some shoes and a jacket and went for a walk.

The crisp night air felt good. I walked to the UNM campus and strolled the beautiful grounds.

The book, for all intents and purposes, was spot-on. At least from what I’d been told. I still didn’t remember much of my godly past, and it had been suggested that the God Jehovah had taken some of my memories. But why would He?

The only fallacy I’d found was in the telling of who created the hell dimension within the god glass. From everything I’d been told, Reyes didn’t build that hell dimension. God had built it for His little brother. But with the author so right on everything else, why would he get that wrong?

“Given up on me yet?”

I turned to see Reyes following me, strolling aimlessly just as I was. Or pretending to. His walk was that of an animal, full of power and grace, stalking its prey.

I continued my walk and let him follow, not knowing if we were in a dream or reality. Maybe it was both.

“Never,” I said, dipping my fingertips in a fountain as I walked. “They’re coming for you. The angels.”

“Aren’t they always.”

“They’re sending an army.”