Eleventh Grave in Moonlight(53)

Then again, what did I know? It could have been created with all kinds of luxuries. All kinds of amenities to make the long, lonely hours of an eternity in solitary confinement more bearable.

But my gut reaction to the words hell and dimension would suggest otherwise.

I ran my fingers along the warm surface of the pendant. I used to think that it was always warm because I carried it in my pocket, against the heat of my body. I later came to realize its warmth was probably more a product of what it housed. Maybe all hell dimensions were hot. I would think there would be a need for a cold one, or perhaps a really humid one, just to add a little variety.

The image of the little girl Eidolon had killed, so utterly terrified and unable to even move, flashed in my mind again. But Jose Cuervo came to the rescue. He was such a great guy.

I realized Reyes had been watching me spill my guts to Dr. Mayfield and get wasted at the same time from the comfort of Captain Kirk. He’d been drinking, too, but his tastes were a little more uptown. He was probably drinking scotch or bourbon or some other drink that sounded sexy when it rolled off the tongue.

I was pouting. I’d refused to take the comfort any of our furniture had to offer. Instead, we sat in a corner, Jose and I, brushing up on our bladder-capacity skills. So far, so good.

I stopped studying the pendant and studied my husband instead. Studied how he always folded his shirtsleeves in the evenings, or pushed them up, depending on the shirt, to expose his forearms. He did it on purpose. He had to know what his forearms did to me. And his biceps. And his shoulders. And pretty much every other part of him.

He sat, bathed in fire. His legs outstretched. His shirt and jeans unbuttoned. Boots thrown under the coffee table.

Just when I was going to give in, to throw in the towel and seek out the porcelain pot, Reyes spoke. “Send me.”

“Okay, but I don’t know how that’s going to help. It’s my bladder that needs emptying.”

He didn’t look at me when he said it. He was busy studying the fire while I was busy studying him. “Send me inside. I was born and raised in a hell dimension. I can go in and bring them back.”

The god glass? Was he honestly suggesting I send him into the very dimension for which the god glass had been created?

“No.” I rose and stumbled to the bathroom. Not because I was drunk but because I had a cramp in my left butt cheek. I always forgot to stay hydrated when fighting evil gods and arguing with arrogant angels.

Then again, all angels were arrogant. I was 99 percent certain.

I peed, did a drive-by in the kitchen on the way back to my corner, and sank down to curl up with a fresh bottle of my new BFF.

“Is it me, or is it harder to get drunk all of a sudden?” Normally I’d be puking my guts up after even half a bottle of Jose. But I was pretty good. Aside from that whole world-tilting-to-the-left thing, I felt great.

Reyes pushed off the captain and walked up to me. No, he swaggered up to me, a severe expression on his beautiful face, his shirt open, showing the expanse of his chest. He stopped and towered over me. “Send me.”

Now I was just getting annoyed. “No. Kuur is in there. You remember Kuur? The supernatural assassin who has killed beings from dozens of dimensions just because he can? Yeah, him. And let’s not forget the god that killed your sister.”

“You don’t think I can take them?”

“I’m not willing to risk it either way.”

“It was meant for me, anyway. I’d like to see what my Brother had in store for His sibling. What kind of god He is.”

What kind of god indeed. I wondered that, too, but I wondered it even more so about myself. Clearly, I was not the girl I thought I was. I only pretended to want peace? I was in the Peace Corps, for heaven’s sake.

He sat beside me, drink in hand. “It can be an experiment.”

“Reyes, I cannot tell you how hard of a no this is. It is not going to happen, so give it up.”

“Send me in, wait sixty, then call me back. I’ll scope out the place.”

“I may not be Miss Know-It-All when it comes to all this god stuff, but I do know that time works differently in every dimension. Sixty seconds here could be six hundred years there.”

He sank down beside me, our shoulders touching. “The time slip isn’t that much. If anything, it could be maybe a year. Or it could be the opposite and I’d come back so fast I didn’t get to see anything. At which point we can reevaluate and decide what to do next.”

“No, I think Kuur said a few seconds was years there.”

“We’ll never know until you send me in.”

I sat Jose aside. “Reyes, why? Is this some kind of quest for revenge against Mae’eldeesahn?”

His smile held about as much humor as a pit viper’s. “No.”

“And what if something goes wrong and, I don’t know, I can’t get you back?”

“The priest did it. You told me.”

“Yes, but, there are no guarantees. This information came from an evil demon assassin.”

“What part of life is guaranteed? It’s all a guessing game, including this glass. This dimension.”

“Do you resent Jehovah for it?”

“Yes. I’d like to know what I did that was so bad He had to create an entire dimension just for me.”

“I’d like to know that, too. Only I want to know why I agreed to have my memories erased. What did I do that was so bad I wanted to forget?”

He took my hand and brushed the backs of my fingers over his mouth. His eyes shimmered, and for a moment I forgot what I was going to say. I wished Shawn’d had the opportunity to get to know him better. His almost brother.

“Shawn was kind of fascinated with you. He wanted to get to know you.”

He nodded and looked down in thought. “Thirty seconds.”

I laughed. It was so like him to skip over the emotional parts of any conversation. Or any part that cast him in a positive light. “We’re negotiating now?”

“That’s all I need. Thirty seconds.”

“Reyes, no.” I turned to face him. “I’m not risking your life on a fool’s errand.”

“Fool’s? You said there were innocent people in there. That the priest would send people of his village there whom he couldn’t control or whom he got angry with.”

“Or obsessed with. Remember, he sent Joan of Arc. She was never the same coming out as going in.”

“But she was in there for how long?”

“I don’t know. Kuur made it sound like weeks. Possibly months. And she was only twelve.”

He took the god glass out of my hand. Unlike every other celestial being that gazed upon the pendant, Reyes seemed only mildly interested. Most, including yours truly, became instantly mesmerized. I’d always assumed Jehovah had done that on purpose in order to lure Reyes closer so he could be trapped. Perhaps I was wrong. Reyes seemed the opposite of mesmerized. Though he was curious. Who wouldn’t be?

“I want to see it. The dimension.”

“According to Kuur, you already have.”

He straightened.

“He said they trapped you, Mae’eldeesahn and Eidolon, to transport you to Lucifer. When you came out, you were disoriented.”

Astonished, he laid his head back against the wall. “I don’t remember.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Well, it couldn’t have been that bad, right? If I’ve already been there and came back normal.”

Someone snorted. I was pretty sure it was Jose. “Normal? Got a pretty high opinion of yourself, eh, Mr. Farrow?”

His grin, that wicked, sensual thing he wielded like a weapon, touched me in all the right places. “I guess you’re right.”

I climbed onto my knees, then climbed him. Or, well, straddled him. “I have a better idea, anyway. You send me.”

All traces of humor vanished in an instant. “No.”

I started to climb off him. He clasped my hips and held me to him.

“Why not send me?” I asked, sounding a bit like a petulant child. But it was my glass now. If anyone had a right to go in …

“It’s not safe.”

“Oh, but it’s safe enough to send you? That’s logic for you. Of the penis-wielding variety.”

“We’ll flip for it.”

“If I had a penis…” I thought for a moment. “I’ve got it! We’ll send Cookie, but only for a few seconds. Wait. What did you say?”

One corner of his mouth battled for control. Grin versus scowl. Which would come out on top?

I raised my arms in victory. “And the grin takes the gold.”

He gave me a moment, the grin taking on a personality of its own.

“Okay. Sorry. Yeah, let’s flip.”

I shifted to the side so he could reach into his pocket. He took his time, his fingers brushing against Virginia, stirring her.

“Wait a minute.” I narrowed my eyes in suspicion. “This is a trick.”

“It’s a coin.” He held it up and showed me both sides of the quarter. “How is this a trick?”

I settled back on his lap, his crotch wedged against Virginia, my unruly vajayjay. “I don’t know, but it is. I can feel it.”

He tossed the coin. It flipped over and over in the air, then he slowed time, reached up and wrapped it in his hand.

“I knew you’d cheat,” I said.