Fourth Grave Beneath My Feet (21 page)

“This is Mark, Fabian, and Theo. Guys, this is Charley. She sees dead people.”

I rolled my eyes. I closed them first so no one would see, but the minute my lids
locked down, my eyes did somersaults.

She laughed and patted my back hard enough to dislodge my esophagus. Maybe she was
perturbed that I was late. “Just kidding.” She waved a dismissive hand at them. “Nobody
can see dead people. You should join us.”

Before I could answer, she shoved me into the nearest chair. This was going to be
the worst dates I’d ever been on. Though she had good taste, I’d give her that. They
all had varying degrees of dark hair and tan skin. Mark and Fabian were Hispanic,
and Theo was Caucasian with something else thrown in for good measure. Possibly Asian.

“So, Mark,” she said, sitting beside me, “have you ever been arrested for kiddie porn?”

Oddly enough, my forehead dropped into the palm of my hand.

But Mark was good-natured enough to laugh it off. “Well, so far nobody’s found my
stash.”

After an appreciative laugh, she turned to Theo. “How about you?”

Theo was a little less accepting. “Am I being interrogated?”

Pari snorted. “What? Absolutely not. But have you?”

After an hour of the guys pretending they weren’t on an interview and me pretending
I was just there to eat despite the fact that I never got any food, I came to one,
noticeable conclusion: Pari was a big fat liar.

“So?” she asked after they’d left. I was exhausted. Trying to read every emotion while
wading through hers was like trying to sprint in five feet of water.

“So?” I asked in return.

“Sooooo?” she asked again, believing that drawing out the
O
would make me spill quicker. She raised her brows and waited for my answer.

“Pari, the only one who lied throughout this entire conversation was you.”

She balked. “You were reading my emotions?”

“Par, I can’t weed through them like you obviously think I can. I can’t pick and choose.
It’s an all-or-nothing kind of gig.”

“Oh. So?” She raised her brows expectantly.

“Well, I did manage to figure out three things.”

“Wonderful.” She shimmied in her chair and settled in for the telling of my great
and mighty insights.

“You’re afraid of squirrels. You’ve never been to Australia. And you’re a convicted
felon.”

Her face fell. “I could’ve told you that.”

“Yes, but you didn’t. Now, why is that?”

With a defensive shrug, she said, “It was a long time ago. I was really young.”

“How young?”

“Twenty. Okay? Now, what did you think about—?”

“What were you convicted of?”

“Chuck, we aren’t here about me. So, which one did you like?”

“They were all three pretty great, though I’m having a hard time seeing you with an
investment broker. But you have good taste, I’ll give you that. So, what were you
convicted of?”

“Fine,” she said, grinding her teeth. “In a word, hacking.”

I could not have hidden my surprise if someone had paid me to.

“What? I was young.”

“You’re a computer whiz?”

“
Was. Was
a computer whiz. Now I’m not allowed near a computer. It’s the terms of my probation.”

“So, that means you’ve been on probation for almost nine years.”

“Yeah. I got ten years’ probation for hacking into a federal vault and funneling money
to my mom’s bank account. I thought it would be funny. And it was until I got caught.”

“You funneled money?”

“Eighteen dollars.”

“Wow.” Apparently everyone knew how to funnel money but me. I was so behind the times.
“I just never knew. But really? Only eighteen dollars?”

“That’s why I only got probation. Like I said, I just thought it would be funny.”
Her shoulder lifted into an innocent shrug. “And I’d get bragging rights. You have
no idea how addictive bragging rights are in the hacking world.”

“Obviously. But you have a computer in your office.”

“I can have one for business purposes.” She raised a finger to make sure I knew she
was serious. “No Internet of any kind.”

“But you do have Internet. I saw Tre looking at porn on your computer.”

“What?” She seemed appalled.

“Like you don’t do the same thing.”

“Yeah, but I don’t work for me. He does.”

“That’s why you were trying to rewire everything,” I said, the truth hitting me like
a brick.

“He was looking at porn?”

“You were trying to hide the fact that you have Internet.”

“Yes, yes,” she said, growing annoyed. “It’s so frustrating. I can’t even have a computer
with a modem. So I have to work around that.”

“I am so in awe of you right now. I always wanted to be a computer whiz, and I would’ve
been if not for Paul Sanchez.”

Her brows rose in question.

“He told me computers were alien technology and they used them to track us.”

“Weren’t you abducted by aliens once?”

I nodded. “Exactly why I stopped going around them. By the time I figured out Paul
was wrong, I’d sailed past my prime. Now, thanks to him, I can hardly program a universal
remote.”

She blinked. “So, about my dates?”

“You can do better.”

I looked up into the eyes of the bartender Dad had hired, only she was looking at
Pari, and the invitation dripping off her in spades was like looking at a waterfall
of sin and sensual degradation. A fact that was not lost on Pari if the dreamy expression
on her face was any indication.

“I’m Sienna—” She slid a card across the table toward Pari. “—if you want to interview
me.”

One corner of her mouth lifted into a wickedly dimpled grin before she turned and
started out the back door.

“So,” Pari said, gathering herself in a rush of emotion, “you’re just going to walk
away?”

Sienna flashed a gorgeous smile and walked back to us. And I was so not doing the
interview thing again.

“I have to get something to eat before I die. And I need a mocha latte. Do they have
those here?”

Pari shrugged, suddenly very disinterested in anything I had to say.

“Thanks for caring, Par.”

“What do you do, Sienna?”

The woman sat in my seat when I stood, making it clear I was not welcome. I felt so
appreciated. I strolled to the front and ordered a
carne adovada
burrito, a sweet roll, and a café mocha. Then I had to figure out how I was going
to pay for it. I pulled out my cards. Three of them. Everything I had left.

“Okay,” I said, trying to cipher in my head, “put three twenty-seven on this one.”
I handed it to her. “And two fifty on the flowery one.” I handed her the flowery one,
too.

The girl took the cards from me and rolled her eyes. I could’ve knocked the shit out
of her. She’d have good reason to roll her eyes then. But knocking the shit out of
rude people wasn’t my style. Heckling them every chance I got was. Hopefully she’d
screw up soon. I didn’t have all day.

“And four whatever is left on the blue one that looks like a camel died on it.” She
went to take it from me, and after snatching it back, I leaned in and said, “If it’s
not too much trouble.”

She gritted her teeth and said, “Not at all,” before jerking it out of my hand. Then
she mouthed the word
loser
as she swiped it and punched in numbers. Oh, yeah, this girl was going down. She
had no idea who she was messing with. And, sadly, she didn’t seem to care.

I hoped her drawer came up short at the end of her shift. Karma’s a bitch.

She pushed the sales key on the register, and an alarm went off. Damn it. Did my card
not go through? Maybe I mixed them up. But why would an alarm go off? Didn’t the little
machine just decline the card and go on its merry way?

The manager, a twenty-something guy who would forever look like he’d just gotten his
braces off and was late for a chemistry exam, ran over with a humongous smile on his
face.

“You won!” he said, his enthusiasm more than I could bear at the momen—

Wait. I’d won?

“It’s our anniversary, and your order has been randomly chosen as today’s lucky winner,”
he said, squealing like a kid on a roller coaster. He clapped his hands together,
his excitement suddenly infectious.

The surly girl’s mouth dropped open, and I couldn’t help the smug expression I offered
her. Oh, the agony of it all. The anguish. The torture! In your face, girlfriend.

No. No, I had to be the bigger person. It wasn’t her fault she was born a
loser.
I mouthed the word. It was infantile, but I did it anyway. She rolled her eyes again.

I turned to the manager with an expectant smile. Maybe I’d won a cruise. Or a yacht.
Or a small island. “I won?”

“You won,” he said. Everyone around me started clapping. Except for Iggy, the homeless
guy in the corner. He didn’t seem to care. But everyone else was super-excited for
me. “You won a year’s supply of our famous sweet rolls.”

I stilled. This … this couldn’t be real. A year’s supply? “No way!” I shouted. This
was so much better than a yacht. Especially since I lived in a desert.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. He hurried to the back, then reappeared with a booklet of some
kind and a camera. After the surly girl took pictures in which I was fairly certain
she cut off my head, I walked to the back room again to wait for my burrito and was
congratulated by a few customers as they passed by my table. I felt like a celebrity.
Like I’d won the lottery. Or an Academy Award.

Since Pari was busy being seduced by an Egyptian goddess, I decided to give them some
alone time. And to let my nerves calm down a bit. That little adrenaline rush was
more taxing than I thought it would be. I strolled back one room and sat in a center
booth.

As I sat waiting for my number to pop up on the marquee, my mouth watering as I imagined
the red
chili
in the burrito and the butter dripping off the sweet roll, I decided I had to get
out more. Two months without the sugary goodness of a sweet roll was entirely too
long to wait. What the hell had I been thinking?

I hadn’t been thinking. I’d gone crazy. Gemma was right. I had a disorder. I’d have
to see if there was an OTC I could use. Like a salve. Or a medicated powder.

I was so into my musings that it took me a while to sense the darkness sitting nearby.
So close, I could taste it on my tongue. The raw acidity of rotten eggs filled my
mouth and nostrils until my stomach heaved in reflex. I fought the feeling and looked
to the side toward a man staring at me in a tweed suit and tan fedora. He had his
legs and hands crossed and looked like he could have been a professor at the university.

“This is quite an honor,” he said, nodding an acknowledgment.

He had a smooth English accent, the tenor to his voice pleasant but not very deep.
His smile was kind and affectionate, but I didn’t miss the darkness lurking just behind
his eyes. Still, if this was a demon, why wasn’t he scrambling toward me with drool
dripping off his chin? Wasn’t that what they did?

“To be close enough to you to taste the sweetness of fear wafting off your flesh.”
He tilted his face up and drew a deep ration of air in through his nostrils. Then
he closed his eyes as though savoring what he found there.

And he was right. I was afraid. I couldn’t move, I was so afraid. What if he came
after me? What if he pounced? I’d be dead before I could say,
Um, Reyes?

He refocused on me with a sheepish expression. “Forgive me. I’ve heard stories of
the girl with no fear, so please excuse my surprise.”

“Surprise of what?”

“You’re afraid of me.”

“I’m not afraid of you,” I said, lying through my chattering teeth.

“Of course you are.”

“Those stories were exaggerated anyway.”

The next expression he offered held more wolf than sheep. “I doubt it. Something happened.
Your aura has been damaged. So it would be horridly unfair of me, but I’m finding
it difficult to hold back. I seem to want nothing more than to rip out your jugular
with my teeth and smell the copper in your blood.”

“I have a guardian.”

“But I’m here on a mission,” he said, ignoring me. “I have a message.”

“Have you tried texting?”

“If the boy will stop hunting us, we will leave you alone to live your life and die
naturally, though I have to warn you, traditionally reapers don’t live long in corporeal
form. Still, you shan’t die by our hands. We will not interfere in your life in any
way. We’ll only—” He turned up a careless palm. “—watch from afar.”

That was disturbing.

“But when your body dies,” he continued, lowering his head in warning, “you’re fair
game.”

“The boy?” I asked.

He smiled. “Rey’aziel.”

“Reyes is hunting you?”

“You didn’t know?”

I shook my head. It seemed the only movement I could manage. “No.”

“Did you think he just happened upon my soldiers at that ridiculous contest?”

“You mean the fights?” I asked, frowning. “I hadn’t given it that much thought.”

“He has been hunting us down like dogs.”

“Not like dogs.” I shook my head once more. “You don’t deserve the high praise of
such a comparison.”

A lecherous grin stole across his face. “There she is. The girl with no fear. It is
no wonder he is obsessed. He always was such a clever boy.”

Surely he was talking about someone else. Reyes was no more obsessed with me than
he was with dryer lint. He just needed me alive for this war that supposedly hovered
on the horizon. He’d told me so on several occasions. “So let me get this straight,”
I said, trying to wrap my head around the goings-on of the underworld. “He stops hunting
you, and you stop attacking him.”

“We have never attacked him, dear girl. We have no need of him just yet.”

“I would beg to differ. I saw what your demons did to him in that basement.”

“Touché, but that was only to get to you. We can get to him anytime. Those tattoos
are there for a reason, love. You, on the other hand, are protected. A treasure not
so easily gained. But you do have part of it correct. If he stops hunting us, he’ll
live much longer in his physical form, fragile as it is. No more stab wounds. No more
gashes of which to tend.”