Darynda Jones - Second Grave on the Left

Then again, no. If I had listened to him, if I had stayed away, how long would this have gone on? How long would they have tortured him? How many pieces could they rip him into before he died?

“Dutch,” Reyes said in warning. He raised his blade. “Please.”

Wouldn’t they have found me eventually anyway? Wouldn’t I face this fight regardless? Unfortunately, it was a fight I couldn’t win. There were simply too many of them. Reyes was right. If they got through, if they found a way into the heavens, another war would begin, and it would be my fault. I could not be the catalyst for war. The portal had to be closed.

I let my lashes drift shut for the last time, and Reyes didn’t hesitate. I heard the swing of the blade slicing through the air as if it were splitting atoms. And again, the world slowed. My heart stilled, and I decided to face my fate head-on. I opened my eyes just as a demon jumped, his gaze zeroed in on my jugular. The air rippled around me as Reyes’s sword swung full force. A microsecond later, I stood whole and uninjured, while the demon lay in pieces. Reyes had decapitated the demon in midair.

Then time came crashing back as demon after demon attacked. Reyes turned and thrust as he sliced through each one, his skill with the blade undeniable. And somewhere in the back of my mind, I reveled in the fact that he didn’t kill me, that he was fending them off, fighting them for me. One by one they went down, but they still advanced. They still closed in. And they knew Reyes’s weak point.

One demon stood in the midst of the turmoil. Watching the battle unfold. It seemed smarter than the rest, more determined. It studied Reyes, the way he fought, the cleanliness of his kills, then it looked down at the corporeal body beneath its feet and struck. Its long serrated fingers sliced through Reyes’s chest and the god before me stumbled. The robe that offered him protection evaporated and he grabbed his chest as dozens of demons descended like vultures, taking complete advantage of the moment.

By sheer will, he crawled to his feet, shook them off, swung his blade, and persevered. His robe enveloped him once more, weaving around the hard contours of his muscles, linking over the expanse of his chest.

But the moment it materialized, the demon struck again, burying its talons in his shoulder. The robe vanished again and he fell onto his palms. The sight of such a powerful entity being brought to his knees shattered me from the inside out. I shot forward, but he turned and pinned me to the spot with a glare, his shoulders hunched, the beast in him unleashed.

“Leave,” he growled as he disappeared beneath a sea of demons. My lungs seized at the sight, and this time, my knees gave completely. I sank to the floor in shock, watching the pile of spider demons grow. Regret flooded every molecule of my being. Then the others turned toward me in unison. Dark fluid dripped from their teeth as they closed in, taking their time, their only obstacle clearly busy.

“Charley, run,” Angel said, pulling me to my feet. I wobbled up and eased one foot behind the other only to be brought up short by the sting of breath on the back of my neck.

Fear gripped me so hard, the world spun, the edges of my periphery darkened, and I realized one thing that was enough to bring tears to my eyes. I was about to die.

My eyes drifted shut as the creatures closed in. I was the grim reaper, for heaven’s sake. Literally. Reyes said I could fight them, but how? I didn’t even own a sword. But I was bright, damn it. I had that going for me. So bright, the departed could see me from continents away. Or so I’d been told. If the demons had been banished from the light, why could they get close to me? Why were they not banished in my light?

My eyes flew open.

The moment I thought it, the moment the idea popped into my head, a visceral force sparked inside me, vibrated with energy, shook with need, churned and grew, building and building until I could no longer contain it.

“Angel,” I said, unable to control the energy swirling within me, “run.”

Three things happened simultaneously. Angel’s hand left mine, the prickly points of razor-sharp teeth pierced the skin around the back of my neck, and light exploded out of me in every direction, flooding the room with brilliance, saturating and swallowing every shadow. The roar of raw energy consuming everything in its path drowned out the screams of demons. They burst into flames, burned like paper into ashes, and when the light returned to me, tucking itself safely inside the core of my being, I stood for a long while contemplating the utter coolness of what had just happened.

“Charley,” Uncle Bob said, bursting into the room, “what was that sound?” Dad was on his heels as they rushed down the steps.

“Wait,” I called to them, holding up a hand. “Just stay there a minute.”

“Is that Farrow?” Uncle Bob asked.

“Call an ambulance.” I inched closer and realized that Reyes’s incorporeal self was nowhere around. My heart seized until I heard his voice echo off the walls.

“It’s still vulnerable.”

I swung around to see him crouching on a shelf, balancing on the balls of his feet, one hand raised, gripping the hilt of his sword. The tip of the blade was at rest on the ground in front of him. It was almost as tall as I was. His robe billowed around him, up and over his head to fill every corner of the room. It swelled and receded, and I felt like an ocean of dark mass had swallowed me. He was the most magnificent being I’d ever seen.

And he was here. He was alive. “I thought I had vanquished you, too.”

He turned his head, but I couldn’t see his face. “I’m no demon. I was forged in the light.”

“The light from the fires of hell,” I reminded him. He didn’t respond. Suddenly I was angry. Why did everything about being a grim reaper have to be so difficult? “Why didn’t you just tell me I could do that?”

“As I said, it would be like telling a fledgling it could fly. You have to know you can do it on a visceral level. Had I told you, I would’ve been doing you no favors.”

“What if I hadn’t figured it out, Reyes?”

His hooded head tilted to one side. “Why question such things? You did it. You succeeded. End of story. But that is still vulnerable,” he said, eyeing his corporeal body, the tattered, shredded shell of the man he used to be.

“You’ll be fine when we get you to a hospital.”

“To what end?”

I turned back to him. “What do you mean?”

“Do you think that was it? Do you think my father will just give up? That was a win for him. He now knows a portal walks the Earth. He’ll stop at nothing, and he’ll find a way to take you down. To rip you apart limb from limb to get at your core, your essence. And he now knows your weakness.” He glanced back at his body. “You don’t understand what will happen if my father gets ahold of me. There’s a reason I need to ditch my corporeal self, Dutch. It’s a chance I can’t take.”

“Charley, I need to get to him. He’s dying.”

I could hear the sirens of an ambulance growing louder. “Just one moment,” I said to Uncle Bob. I didn’t know what Reyes would do if Uncle Bob got near him. “What do you mean? What reason?”

Reyes toppled from the shelf to land effortlessly in front of his physical body. “They can find me. They can track me through this body,” he said.

“You already told me that. But there’s another reason. What is it?”

He shook his head. “You cleared the path. Now I can finish this.”

The realization of what I’d done stunned me to my toes. I stepped closer. “Why didn’t you just kill me when you had the chance? Why do this?”