The Dirt on Ninth Grave - Darynda Jones Page 0,123

memories back. He just wanted you to have a job while you were here, and them to still have jobs when you came to your senses.”

Holy cow, I would miss her. “I don’t know what to say, Dixie. I owe you so much.”

“Nonsense,” she said as she pulled me into a hug.

We stayed for a while, eating Reyes’s huevos rancheros and chatting. I really wanted to say good-bye to Lewis, but I wasn’t sure he would come in. Francie and Erin had made it, though. They were both still grieving, but Francie seemed different. Completely taken aback by what happened to Shayla.

Erin had done a small drawing and presented it to me in private. It was of Reyes, and she’d captured him with stunning accuracy. That was one of the longer hugs of the day.

Lewis eventually dragged himself in, looking haggard and distraught. Red, swollen eyes and a broken heart will do that to you. I explained that my memories had come back, and he was genuinely happy for me despite his sorrow.

“I just want you to know,” I said to him, “Shayla told me she’d had the best days of her entire life with you. She loved you and wanted you to know how great you are.”

He lowered his head, and his shoulders shook a couple of times before he got his emotions under control. I pulled him into a hug, and he broke down completely, crying into my hair. It was okay. I cried into his as well.

When he couldn’t take it anymore, he tore away from me and went to work. At one point, Francie tried to console him. I felt genuine concern from her. Affinity and compassion and empathy. Lewis all but ignored all of it. Ironically, it seemed to crush her.

“I never saw him,” she said to me when I went to talk to her. “And when I do finally see him, it’s too late.”

“Give him time, hon.”

She gave me a quick hug. “I always liked you even though I didn’t always show it.”

“I always liked you, too.”

By the time Bobert walked in, aka, my uncle Bob, I couldn’t hold back. I ran to him, threw my arms around his neck, and burst into tears. How he got an entire month off work, I’d never know, but I owed him everything. He’d coordinated my round-the-clock surveillance. He’d made sure I was being watched almost every second of the day. Too bad none of those seconds were when Ian or Kuur had showed up. We might need to discuss the holes in his administrative skills.

“I missed you, Uncle Bob,” I said, and the sudden wetness in his eyes said he’d missed me, too.

I pretty much stayed glued to his neck for the next half hour until it was time to go home at long last. After another round of hugs and a promise from Reyes that we would drop in at the funeral home to say good-bye to Shayla, we left the Firelight Grill.

We swung by for my stuff and packed up the few belongings Reyes had in the motel room, and then Reyes and I sat arm in arm in the back of the rented SUV. He seemed relieved. Happy.

“Have you heard anything?” I asked him, and I didn’t have to elaborate.

He placed a powerful gaze on me. “Only that she’s healthy and doing well.”

I nodded. That was enough. It had to be. For now, anyway.

I nestled closer as we left the lovely town of Sleepy Hollow and wondered when I should tell him what my dad had found out. Namely about him. About when Lucifer had stolen the god glass from none other than God Himself. He used it to trap a god just as James was going to do with me. Only Lucifer, because he’s Lucifer, had ulterior motives. Craving the power of a god for himself, he had trapped one only long enough to harness its energy and create his only son with it, Rey’aziel. His plan all along had been to take over Reyes’s body, and with the power of a god at his fingertips, he could finally challenge the God Jehovah. He would finally have a shot at taking over heaven.

When Michael tried to kill me, he had talked about casting out the three gods of Uzan, very pleased with himself at the promise he’d gotten from Reyes. That we would do it. We would cast them out. All three of them. Problem was, one of them was the god Lucifer used to create Reyes. And of the three, the Razer, as he was known across the span of dimensions, was the most violent. The most bloodthirsty.

His name said it all, because that’s what he did. He razed. He demolished. He destroyed. And I was married to him.

I squeezed the god glass pendant in my pocket. My father was right. It could come in very handy one day.

^*

Does not denote ennoblement under the sovereign laws of peerage and is not a hereditary title. It must be earned.