Eleventh Grave in Moonlight(2)

Reyes dipped his head, trying to hide a grin, as the doctor picked up her pen and started outlining again.

“Nice T-shirt,” Reyes said to me. Apparently, no one else in the room could hear him.

I was wearing my I LIKE IT WHEN MY PSYCHIATRIST PLAYS WITH MY MARBLES T-shirt. It was either that or my EXCUSE ME WHILE I FREUDIAN SLIP INTO SOMETHING MORE COMFORTABLE pajama top, but I didn’t feel that wearing pajamas to a shrink session would send the right message. I was a professional, after all. Also, I’d gotten mustard on it and had to change.

The kid on the ceiling had stopped moving. He was gawking at the ol’ ball and chain commanding the room from the corner pocket. That happened a lot when Reyes was around.

I nailed him with a fake scowl. I was on an assignment, after all.

“We need to talk,” he said.

Uh-oh. Nothing good ever came out of a conversation that started with “We need to talk.” I mouthed, “Later,” and shooed him away while the doctor took a few more notes.

He laughed softly, and for a split moment, the doctor lost her focus and let her gaze dart, just for a second, over her shoulder.

He winked, the saucy flirt, and dematerialized, leaving me alone with my psychiatrist again. I was pretty sure he’d been breaking a few HIPAA laws by being there, anyway.

“Did you hear something?” she asked.

“You mean besides the thunderous and devastating ramifications if I can’t figure out how to take this god down and he completes his mission?”

“Yes. Besides that.”

“If I could just get all my memories back … I know there’s something hidden, something important that will tell me how to deal with him. Like it’s on the tip of my tongue, only with more of a brain analogy.”

“Okay. So, why does your sister refuse to do regressive therapy with you? Besides the obvious?”

“Oh, that whole ethical dilemma thing on account of her being my sister and all? Yeah, well, she’s afraid it will bring out some strange new power in me and I’ll accidently blow Albuquerque off the face of the planet. Which is ridonculous.” I snorted and rolled my eyes. “I can totally control my powers now.”

She took more notes.

“Most of the time.”

She continued to write.

“I don’t think the ‘Lumpy’s Taco Hut incident’ should count. That place was an eyesore. People should be thanking me.”

She offered me her attention once again. “Lumpy’s Taco Hut? That was you?”

Shit. I forgot that whole thing was still under investigation. “Pfft, no.” Thank Reyes’s Brother, Lumpy’s had been closed due to code violations at the time and no one was hurt.

“Ah.” She shut her notebook. “Is there anything else you want to share? Anything you think I should be aware of?”

“No.” I shook my head in thought. “Not especially. Unless you count the fact that I’m going to take over the world.”

“The whole thing?”

“Well, I’m going to try to take over the world.”

“And you feel you’re prepared for world domination?”

I lifted a noncommittal shoulder. “I’m taking a business class.”

“Good for you.” She opened up her notebook again and jotted down a few more ideas.

“I told Jehovah, through his archangel Michael, of course, that I was going to do it, too.”

“Take over the world?”

It sounded silly when she said it out loud, but I could hardly turn back now. “Yes.”

“And how did He take that?”

“Not well, but you don’t know what He did. He created an entire hell dimension just to lock my husband inside and throw away the key. Though we weren’t married at the time. This was a few thousand years ago.”

Ever since informing Michael of my plans, God had sent a legion of His minions to follow my every move. They were like the heavenly version of the Secret Service. I’d threatened, and, for some reason only they knew of, they’d taken it seriously. But why? I was angry when I said it—and I certainly meant it—but that doesn’t explain why they would take me seriously. Unless I was a real threat.

Hell.

Yes.

“So, God talks to you?”

I snapped back to reality. “Oh, no. Not directly.”

“Right. He talks to you through His archangel, Michael.” She wrote down every word as she said it.

“Yeah. Kind of old-school, if you ask me, what with today’s technology. You know, I thought psychiatrists just sort of listened while the patient talked. You’re gonna run out of ink there, missy.” I laughed nervously.

She gave me a patient smile. “I have more pens in my desk.”

“Gotcha.”

“So, God is upset because you threatened to take over His world?”

“That’s the word on the street.”

“Are you worried?”

“Not especially.”

“Fair enough. Let’s get back to these powers. What do you plan to do with them?”

“Excuse me?”

“Your powers. I mean, surely you’re going to use them for good?”

I got the sneaking suspicion she was humoring me. I was good with that. I threw an arm over my face. “There’s so much, you know? So much I could do. I could cure cancer. I could end famine. I could stop all wars and bring absolute peace to the world.”

“And why don’t you?”

I lowered my arm slowly. “I’m still kind of figuring the whole thing out. I’m saying I could do all those things. Not that I know how.”

“That would be difficult.”

“That and I think that’s why the angels are here. Not, like, in this room, but all around me. Following me. Watching me. I don’t think He wants me to do any of those things.”

“And why wouldn’t He?”

“Autonomy.” When she raised her brows in question, I explained. “That was the deal. After that whole Adam and Eve fiasco—Eve got screwed, by the way—that was the deal. He gave humans complete autonomy. Earth is ours, and it’s up to us to help our fellow man or harm him. To heal ourselves. To do good things. No matter your religion, no matter your beliefs, the lesson is the same: be kind.”

I fought the urge to add another word to the end of that statement.

I lost. “Rewind.”

Damn it. I sucked at fighting. Urges or otherwise.

“It’s a good message,” she said when she came back to me, a microsecond before she started writing again.

“It is. And I have to tell you something else.”

“I’m all ears.”

I released a lengthy sigh and fessed up. “The whole regressive therapy thing? That’s actually secondary to the real reason I’m here.”

“Which is?”

I dropped my feet over Mr. Skarsgård and sat up to look her in the eye. Or the part in her hair. Either way, I wanted to study her reaction since I couldn’t feel her emotions. “Dr. Mayfield?”

“Hmm?” she said without looking up.

I cleared my throat and steeled myself. It had to be done. She needed to know the truth. To accept the things she could not change, so the prayer went, and there was definitely no changing this. Without further ado, I said softly, “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but you died two years ago.”

She kept writing. “Mm-hmm. And you can see me because…?”

“I’m the—”

“—grim reaper. Right. Oh, and a god, no less.”

Wow. I sat back. She took that really well. Either that or she didn’t believe me.

Nah.

I bit my lip while she continued to take notes, but my attention span was only so long. “So, yeah, I’ve been hired, in a manner of speaking, by the new leaser of this office. He’s been experiencing strange events. Just the usual stuff. Cold spots. Magazines moving from one corner on a table to another. Pictures falling off the walls.”

“I see. And he hired you because he thinks the place is haunted.”

“Actually, no. He thinks the landlord wants him to break the lease to use the office for his new juicing business, which is dumb because this would be a horrible location for a juice bar. But he thinks the landlord is trying to scare him off. To frighten him away. To send him fleeing in terror. In a word, he thinks he’s being punked.”

“But you disagree?”

“I do.”

“You think it’s really haunted?”

“Yes, I do. And I have to admit, at first, I thought it was you.”

“Naturally.”

“’Cause you’re dead and all.”

“But you’ve changed your mind?” She had yet to look up at me.

“Yes. I’m pretty sure it’s that kid crawling around your ceiling.”

She stopped writing, but she didn’t want to bite. I could see it in her expression. She looked at me at last. Eyed me a long moment. Probably wondered if she should give in. If she should feed my delusions by looking up. After a lengthy struggle in which I lost focus and contemplated the origins of marshmallows—seriously, what mad genius came up with that delicacy?—she slowly raised her lashes and looked toward the ceiling.

Thankfully, only I could hear her earsplitting screams. She dropped her pen and pad, fell to the ground, and crab-crawled backwards. In heels and a pencil skirt, no less. I was impressed.