Eleventh Grave in Moonlight(11)
Had he somehow gained access to memories I’d lost? Or had he seen the future? No. That was impossible.
“I saw seven become one. The thirteenth. The most powerful. I saw you devour them all and become … become what you are. All for him.”
Artemis growled by my side, but when I turned back, the angel was still standing stock-still. His head bowed, he gazed at me from beneath thick lashes. His stunning face void of any expression. But time was screaming toward us. I could only hold it for so long.
“Parker, enough with the cryptic shit. What did you see?”
“Ice.” He smiled, then a soft laugh overtook him. “Ice. First hell, in your infinite anger, then everything else.”
“Hell? You saw hell freeze over? Like literally?”
But it was too late. Time had bounced back with a thunderous roar. Parker said something else, but the rebound of time drowned it out.
“In or out,” the EMT said, oblivious. “Now.”
“Fine.” I rose and stepped down from the van.
The angel was gone. Artemis followed me out, and I called to Parker just before they closed the door, “Grant Guerin!”
He nodded, then disappeared.
I could only wrap my head around three words: What, the, and fuck.
* * *
I called Cookie on the way to the pediatrician’s place where Mrs. Foster worked as an office manager.
“So, you know how you go into a situation expecting one thing and something else comes along and blindsides you? Something you never saw coming?”
Which is the definition of blindside. “I do, actually. What happened?”
I relayed what happened in tremendous detail, telling her how Parker began worshiping me in the middle of a cross-examination, how he knew I was a god, how he believed I’d somehow managed to get his wife preggers which, oddly enough, I had. It was a whole transfer of mystical healing elements when I’d kissed him, but I wasn’t about to go around claiming I could help couples get pregnant. I’d have to change the name of my business to Davidson Investigations and Fertilization Clinic. Then I gave Cookie time to absorb it all.
After a few minutes, she asked, “Charley, what the hell did you do to that poor man?”
“Fuck if I know.” I was just as lost as the next person. “He called me a god eater. He said he saw seven become one.”
Artemis had hitched a ride. She was sticking her head out the window. The closed window. My closed window. She may have been incorporeal to the rest of the world, but to me she weighed about a thousand pounds. And driving with her in my lap was like trying to steer in a full-body cast. This could not be safe.
“Well, let’s think about it. He saw seven become one. That makes perfect sense. You are the descendent of the seven original gods from your dimension, right? Once all the other gods merged down to one, you were all that was left. You were the thirteenth.”
“Oh, right. I hadn’t thought of that. But I had nothing to do with their joining. Two gods merge to become one. To become stronger. And they just kept doing it until I was the only one left.”
“He called you a god eater?”
“Yes. What the hell is a god eater?”
“I don’t know. Sounds ominous.”
“I was going to say pretentious, but okay. Hey, I know. We should call Garrett. He’s our research and development guy. Maybe he’s come across something like this in his reading.”
When one looked at Garrett Swopes, research and development was so not the first thing that came to mind. He was more a combination of GI Joe and a Chippendales dancer. But he’d really gotten into the whole research gig. He could know something.
“I’ll get right on it.”
“You okay?”
“I will be just as soon as you figure out what’s going on with my husband.”
I loved it when Cookie called Ubie her husband. I was such a romantic. “You didn’t happen to come up with a reason for me to be visiting the office manager of a pediatrician’s practice, did you?”
“How much do you know about copiers?”
* * *
“Copiers?”
The young girl behind the desk took the tried-and-true attitude of sheer boredom and transformed it into an art form. She barely looked out of high school. Nobody mastered the epitome of boredom like a teenager. Sadly, as we aged, we lost the delicate intricacies of the skill set. It was rather like losing an ancient language or a potato soup recipe.
“Did you say copiers?” she asked again above the earsplitting screams of a surly toddler. I’d fought demons and malevolent gods and even Lucifer himself, and nothing terrified me more than an angry two-year-old.
“Yes. If I could just talk to your office manager—”
“We already have a copier.” She popped her gum and continued to stare.
I forced a smile. A plastic one I’d found on sale at a consignment store a few weeks back. “Yes, but you’ve never tried the Eureka Mighty Mite.”
“That’s a vacuum cleaner.”
“Or the CLS550.”
“That’s a Mercedes.”
Holy shit, she was good.
“Look, is the office manager in or not?”
After drawing in a long, deep breath that sucked most of the oxygen out of the room, she called out, “Eve!”
I froze in anticipation as Mrs. Foster, a.k.a. Reyes’s abductor, walked around a corner. Reyes had been right when we talked about them a few weeks ago. While Shawn Foster had light coloring to the extreme, Mrs. Foster had dark hair and eyes. She looked in her early fifties, her short hair curled and styled to perfection. Her crisp business suit and thick-heeled pumps perfectly matched. She looked about as much like a child abductor as I looked like, well, the grim reaper. But the moment her gaze landed on me, her emotions rocketed into overdrive.
She stopped short and stared a long moment before catching herself. “Can I help you?” she asked, walking forward.
Did she know who I was as well? Shawn Foster, her would-be son, had busted me casing their house. Had she done the same?
“Hi,” I said, offering her the same plastic smile I’d flashed her colleague. Thank goodness it was BPA-free. “I was wondering how happy you are with your copier.”
I tried to register the emotions bombarding her nervous system, but they were all over the place. Surprise. Dread. Suspicion. Distrust. But mostly extreme interest sprinkled with a healthy dose of fear. So, mostly negative.
“Salespeople aren’t supposed to come to the front desk during business hours. What was your name again?”
I held out my hand. “Buffy. Buffy Summers-s-s-sault.” I seriously had to quit watching Joss Whedon reruns.
“And you work for?”
“Malcolm Reynolds? Maybe you’ve heard of him? He owns Serenity Office Supply?”
Holy crap on a crack pipe, I was usually better at this. It was her reaction to me. She either knew who I was or … or what? Knew what I was? But how could she? Shawn could see my light. Could she as well? Was it a family thing? But he wasn’t even her biological son. I didn’t get it.
Or maybe she knew Shawn had hired me, which would make a lot more sense. I’d have to warn him.
“Okay, well, I think we’re pretty happy with our copier. Do you have a card, though? Just in case?”
“Yes.” I nodded to emphasize the fact that, indeed, I most definitely had a card. Just not on me. “Yes, I do. In my car.”
“How about a brochure?”
“Yep.” I nodded again. “In my car as well. I seemed to have forgotten everything.” I knocked on my head to make sure it was still attached. “Still there,” I said with a nervous laugh.
The entire time we spoke, the receptionist’s jaw dropped in increments until her mouth hung open at an odd angle. Add a little drool dripping down one side of her chin, and I was right there with her. Idiot. Of the blithering sort.
“You know what? I’ll go get our extra-special promo pack with all my information and be right back.”
Mrs. Foster inclined her head as though agreeing that might be best, but she reminded me of a duck. Or that saying about a duck where it’s just chilling on the surface, all calm and collected, but underneath the water it’s paddling its little webbed feet like crazy. She looked cool on the outside, but her insides were churning like a gathering storm.
I took off before I could do any more damage. So much for stealth. I only hoped she wouldn’t connect any of the dots. Shawn had come to me, after all. Unless he told her of his pursuit, she couldn’t know. I crossed my fingers just in case the act really did have some magical ability to bring one luck.
The look on my husband’s face when I stepped off the elevator, however, would suggest otherwise.
6
A lot of people are only alive because I shed too much hair to ever get away with murder.
—MEME
I stepped off the elevator into the parking garage and stopped short as I spotted my husband leaning against a concrete column about fifty feet from me. But he graced me with only a quick glance. I could feel his anger from where I stood. I’d been having problems lately deciphering his emotions, he was so tightly wound, but there was no mistaking the quiet rage pulsing around him.
He was angry about my investigation. Well, he’d just have to get over it. I raised my chin and started toward Misery. That’s when I noticed what he was glaring at, and my apprehension eased. A bit. He stood between me and an angel.