The Trouble with Twelfth Grave (Charley Davidson #12)(71)

“Père,” I said, trying to draw him back to me. “I need to know if you sent those people into the glass pendant. Was that you?”

“Good luck with that,” Reyes said, still examining his nails.

But he glanced at me from underneath his lashes, an exquisite smile playing about his mouth before he pointed and said softly, “Careful. Hot.”

I turned back just as the priest started screaming. He grabbed at me, clawing and scratching, begging for help as the ground opened up beneath him.

I fell backwards, stunned, as the father did his best to crawl out of the pit and on top of me. Then I felt the heat rising from it.

The priest, half on top of me, began hammering at my face and chest, begging me to help him, pleading with me to stop the burning. The fire beneath us became unbearable, but I couldn’t seem to get away from him. He was all over me, digging his fingers into my skin, using me as an anchor to stay in this world when hell clearly wanted him in theirs.

I fought and kicked to get him off to no avail until Artemis rose from the ground beside us. She leaped forward and ripped into the priest with a ferocious growl, tearing him off me at last. I scrambled back and watched as the pit surrounding the priest grew larger and the fires grew higher. His screams echoed off the walls, and I clutched my throat, wanting to help but unable.

It all made sense, though. The scratches and bruises on the victims. The burns. In an attempt to get its man, hell had crossed onto this plane. It had burned innocent people, but the other wounds were caused by the priest. He’d tried to anchor himself to this plane, and the only people he could see were those who could see him. He clutched onto them to keep from going to hell. A place he clearly deserved to be.

The priest got a firm hold on Artemis, clasping his arms around her as hell tried to pull him under. Syrupy black tentacles twisted around him. Smoke rose in tendrils.

Artemis yelped. I lunged forward and grabbed hold, but something a few feet away caught my attention. The priest let go of Artemis and was almost sucked under, his arms flailing like a drowning swimmer. But my gaze darted to a figure standing a few feet away. Then another.

I scanned the area and found no fewer than twenty figures shrouded in tattered gray gauze. Their hands folded at their chests. Their faces not faces at all. They had no eyes. No noses. Only mouths sitting where mouths would normally be, the rest of their faces a total blank. Bone protruded from their heads, encircling them like a crown.

But their mouths were the scariest thing about them. Their lips, if one could call the cracked lines around their teeth lips, were pulled back from their teeth in an eternal smile. Their teeth blended in with their complete grayness. They were square and blunt and twice the size they should have been.

Somehow, they watched the priest, their faces focused on the screaming man. And he’d noticed them. His terror multiplied when they came into view.

And then, so fast I didn’t see them move, they were on him.

Reyes grabbed hold of my arms and jerked me out of the way as they descended on the priest like savage animals. Tearing into his flesh. Ripping parts of him off to eat.

The priest’s screams subsided as what was left of him sank into the pit of hell, the gate closing behind him.

The wraiths ate with vigor, the sounds of them gnawing on flesh and crunching bone sickening me.

When they were finished, they stood in one liquid movement, as though the move were choreographed. Artemis whimpered beside me, then growled, readying for a fight.

They turned, pivoting in space, their feet never touching the ground, until they all faced us. I swallowed as their heads bent and tilted slightly, focused on yours truly.

My lungs seized. Some things I could fight. These things I’d prefer to run from, but I couldn’t move. I had no idea what they were. I’d never seen anything like them. They couldn’t be demons. My light did nothing to them. Then again, if I’d learned anything, it was that there were as many species of demons as there were stars in the universe.

But these were wraithlike, disembodied gray entities, their robes drifting like gauze in a light breeze.

Still on the ground, I lay afraid to move, terror seizing my muscles and locking my joints.

Facing the horde, Reyes straddled me, stepping on either side of my waist, smoke billowing off him as he lowered his head and growled at the wraiths. They looked from Reyes, to me, to Artemis and must’ve decided to save the fight for another day. They inclined their heads, again in one liquid movement, then dissipated and drifted away.

The warehouse sat empty save for us. Completely normal, as though nothing’d happened. A breeze whispered through the broken panes of glass overhead, causing me to gasp and glance around in fear.

Reyes switched positions. He turned around and straddled me again. I thought he’d been unaffected by the wraiths. I was wrong. His chest fought to push air in and out of his lungs. His fists clenched at his sides. His biceps bunched into rock hard mounds.

“Where is it?” he asked for the ten thousandth time.

I shook my head, astonished. “Reyes, what were those things?”

He shifted his weight and lowered a booted foot onto my chest, pinning me to the ground. “Where is it?” he asked, his voice low and deadly serious.

I spoke as calmly as I could. “Get off me.”

“Where is the ash?” He squeezed his eyes shut, as though trying to remember, then refocused on me. “The ember? Where is it?”