Free Second Grave on the Left by Darynda Jones Page A

bring on the apocalypse?”
    “No, you’re not listening.” She pressed her lips together before explaining. “I said he is powerful enough to bring on the apocalypse.”
    Okay, well, that was a plus. No prophecies of mass destruction.
    “And so that night during the séance, I summoned him. By name.”
    Goose bumps crept up my legs and over my arms in anticipation. Either that or Dead Trunk Guy had found me again. I glanced around just in case.
    “But, like I said,” she continued, “he’s not what you think. He’s not a demon.”
    “Well, that’s taking a frown and turning it upside down.”
    “From the gist of the conversation, he is something so very much more.”
    He was more, all right. “Pari,” I said, growing impatient, “what’s its name?”
    “No way am I telling you,” she said with a teasing sparkle in her eyes.
    “Pari.”
    “No, really.” She turned serious again. “I don’t say it aloud. Ever. Not since that day.”
    “Oh, right. Well—”
    Before I could say anything else, she grabbed a piece of paper and scribbled onto it. “This is it, but don’t say it out loud. I get the feeling he doesn’t like being summoned.”
    I took the paper, my hand shaking more than I’d have liked, and gasped softly when I read the name. Rey’aziel. Rey’az … Reyes. The son of Satan.
    “It means ‘the beautiful one,’” she said as I read it over and over again. “I don’t know what he is,” she continued, unaware of my stupor, “but he caused quite a stir on the other side, if you know what I mean. Chaos. Upheaval. Panic.”
    Yep. That would be Reyes. Damn it.

Chapter Five
    WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU GET SCARED HALF TO DEATH, TWICE?
    —T-SHIRT
    My head reeling, I left Pari’s shop stunned, wandering aimlessly toward home before I remembered I had a job to do. And a job I would do. Time to pull the curtains back on my shadow. Whomever Uncle Bob had assigned to follow me was about to have a very bad day.
    I opened my cell phone and answered as if it had been ringing. I stopped, incredulous. I looked around. Gestured wildly. “Meet? Now? Well, darn it, okay. You’re in the alley to my right? You’re that close? Are you crazy? You’ll be caught. Surely someone will suspect you might get in touch with me. Surely … Okay, fine.” I closed the phone, scanned the area, then eased between two buildings, the passageway leading to an alley, all the while throwing furtive glances over my shoulder.
    After my production of Casablanca meets Mission: Impossible, I hightailed it toward a Dumpster and ducked behind it, waiting for my shadow to appear. As I sat scrunched, feeling oddly ridiculous, I played with Reyes’s name in my head, let it shape and slide over my tongue. Rey’aziel. The beautiful one. Boy did they have that right.
    But why would he hurt Pari? I calculated ages. If Pari had been fourteen when she performed her little séance, then Reyes could have been no more than eight. Nine at the most. And he attacked her? Maybe it wasn’t him. Maybe she summoned something else accidently, something evil.
    “Whatcha doin’?”
    I started at the voice behind me and—having flailed a bit—fell back, my palms and ass landing in an illegally dumped oil slick. Wonderful. I ground my teeth together and looked up at a grinning departed gangbanger with more attitude than was socially acceptable.
    “Angel, you little shit.”
    He laughed aloud as I examined my filthy hands. “That was awesome.”
    Freaking thirteen-year-olds. “I knew I should have exorcised your ass when I had the chance.” Angel died when his best friend decided to take out the puta bitch vatos who’d invaded their turf by utilizing the drive-by technique of execution so popular with the kids today. Angel tried to stop him and paid the ultimate price. Much to my eternal chagrin.
    “You couldn’t exorcise a cat, much less a bad-to-the-bone Chicano with gunpowder in his blood. Besides, you hate exercise.”
    Chuckling at