MIDNIGHT AUTO PARTS

HAILEY EDWARDS
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products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual
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Edited by Sasha Knight

Copy Edited by Kimberly Cannon
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Cover by Damonza
Illustration by Marouane Hs
 CONTENTS

Midnight Auto Parts

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Join the Team
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About the Author
Also by Hailey Edwards
 MIDNIGHT AUTO PARTS

The Body Shop, Book 3

The whole dying thing sucked, but Frankie isn’t going to dwell. She’s
focusing on the positive. She’s alive. Ish. Her family is safe. Her business is
booming. She’s even got a boyfriend. Everything is coming up roses in
Thunderbolt, Georgia.
Until a client decides she needs more time and makes a run for it in her
loaner body. Too bad for the client, the last thing Frankie does before a
loaner hits the showroom floor is microchip them for this very reason.
Finding the runaway soul will be a piece of cake.
Or it would have been if she hadn’t bumped into Carter, who’s working
a case that gets tangled up in Frankie’s repo. Missing women. Stolen cars.
Alien abductions? The only way to get Frankie out of trouble is to help
Carter uncover who’s behind it all. And pray the answer isn’t her client.
A mud-spattered monster truck rumbled into the parking lot at The
Body Shop, kicking up loose gravel as it prowled toward me.
Muscular bubblegum-pink body. Airbrushed ribbons erupting in
purple flames from the jaws of a dragon ready to devour the competition.
Tires taller than I could reach on my tiptoes.
The driver pumped the brakes seconds before the full bottom lip of its
bumper hit my knees, giving me a prime view of its glistening white fangs
and bloody red gums. Glittering emerald eyes with curling lashes replaced
the headlights, since competition trucks tended to either fold the blank
space into their custom wrapper design or add drawn-on headlights to
balance out the overall look.
A petite Latina woman with her hair braided into a crown stuck her
head out the window opening.
“I won.” She gripped part of the frame inside the door with both hands
and swung out like a gymnast. “It was amazing. I was amazing.” She kissed
the truck’s doglike nose. “She was amazing.”
Her fire-resistant suit, quilted with patches from her sponsors, sagged a
bit on her frame. But that was to be expected when the loaner I provided her
stood a good six inches shorter than the client had in life.
Mini Vasquez, the original owner of the body, had chosen Camaro as
her loaner nickname, after her first car. Her oldest brother had stolen her
keys three months after she turned sixteen and totaled it while he was racing
with friends. As far as matches go, Camaro was a perfect fit for Tameka. In
spirit if not in height.
“What I’m hearing is—” I stifled a laugh, “—you had an amazing time
at your farewell rally.”
A girl around sixteen or seventeen sat in the passenger seat with tears
streaming down her wide cheeks. She wore a suit identical to her mother’s,
but the similarities stopped there. Even seated, I could tell she was tall. Her
skin was warm brown, and her hair had been braided in zigzagging rows
then twisted into a tiara threaded with purple ribbons. As if she were a
princess about to inherit the family throne and rise to become its queen.
“Keshawn,” Tameka called to her daughter. “Come meet Frankie.”
Her dismount rivaled Tameka’s for grace, then she shuffled over with
red eyes and a swollen nose. “Hi.”
“I hear you’ll be Pink Panic’s driver next season.” I passed her a mini
packet of tissues. “She’s a beast.”
From the initial interview with Tameka, nailing down her family history,
I knew that Keshawn had gone pro last year, after graduating high school
early and starting college classes online.
Tameka had felt blessed to have experienced those first steps into
adulthood alongside her daughter, but for Keshawn, losing her mom to a
brain aneurysm on a grocery run meant those first steps had also been their
last ones taken together.
“Yeah.” She blew her nose. “But it won’t be the same without…”
At the reminder of why they were here, to return the loaner into my
keeping, Keshawn burst into fresh sobs. Tameka threw her arms around her,
held her close, and swayed while humming a tattered lullaby.
“How much would it cost?” Keshawn stared at me over her mother’s
shoulder. “To keep this body?”
If I had a nickel for every time someone asked me that, us Marys would
never have to work again.
“Even if the loaner was for sale, and it’s not, my magic doesn’t work
that way.”
I could seat a soul in a body for a limited amount of time, but I couldn’t
make it stick.
Necromancers earned their livings doing just that. Making it stick. That
was how they created vampires. I didn’t possess that power. I never had.
Even after everything that happened to me, I still couldn’t forge a
permanent bond between a soul and a vessel.
“You’re a con artist.” A switch flipped inside her, and grief took a
backseat to anger at God, the universe, everything. Which she had no
problem directing at me. “You’re selling pipe dreams to anyone desperate
enough to buy in.”
“Hush.” Tameka gripped her daughter’s chin. “I raised you better than
that.”
“Momma, she could make it so you didn’t have to go. You could stay.
With me.”
“Baby, that’s not how this works. Frankie gave me a chance to say
goodbye, to spend a whole week with you on the road, doing what we love.
Now it’s time for you to apologize to Frankie, who doesn’t deserve your
anger, and for me to honor my contract.” She placed her key ring and its
cluster of plush tchotchkes on Keshawn’s open palm then folded her
trembling fingers over it. “I love you, I’m proud of you, and you better
believe I’ll be cheering from Heaven so loud you’ll hear me over the crowd
chanting your name.”
Their final embrace hurt to witness, and I hooked a thumb over my
shoulder. “I’ll wait for you inside.”
Tameka nodded to me while stroking her daughter’s hair and
murmuring her final words.
After punching in the code, I let myself into the office then rested my
forehead against the door.
Rules were rules.
I couldn’t bend them, not even once, not even an inch, or I risked future
clients believing I was okay with them being broken. And I wasn’t. I
couldn’t let myself be. Or I would undermine my ability to provide for my
family. As murky as my future was, I wanted their paths forward to be
crystal clear without me.
Already I had reverted to the version of myself who clipped coupons,
only shopped sales, and panic-sold anything I thought I could live without
for a few extra dollars. Matty and Josie had blamed my recent dry spell at
work, a drought which had ended thanks to Mr. Collins, my previous client,
rallying spirits to trust me again. But thanks to my untimely demise—ten
days dead and counting!—I couldn’t stop falling into old penny-pinching
habits. Every time I looked ahead, I saw only what I would leave behind.
 “Breathe,” Kierce murmured in my ear, his voice rich with power,
shooting tingles down my nape.
“I was hyperventilating again, huh?”
The steel band cinching my lungs tightened another notch until my
nostrils burned. I couldn’t suck down enough oxygen each time it hit me,
really hit me, I had died. That I walked and talked, ate and drank, the same
as always, couldn’t compete with the lingering tautness of my still-sensitive
skin or the knowledge of how it felt to be boiled alive by a god to prove a
theory to himself.
“You’re not dead.” His lips brushed my earlobe. “You’re every bit as
alive as I am.”
None of those assurances helped much, since I hadn’t been convinced
how alive he was from the start.
As I rotated within his arms, I braced for the sight of him, for this new
perception of his truest self.
Rather than a pale complexion, I perceived the moonlight glow of his
skin. His gray eyes weren’t misty as I had first thought but shimmered as if
crushed diamonds spangled his irises. Within them, I saw forever. Bright as
the moon, as vast as time, and mine for the taking. The gentle promise they
held, the infinite horizons they contained, scared the spit out of me. Even
the individual strands of his black hair managed to gleam like they were
dipped in stardust, reflecting the deep, dark light of the nebulous corona
ringing his head.
Though the ocean-blue Hawaiian shirt printed with pink hula girls,
yellow surfboards, and neon-green palm fronds that kept finding its way
into his weekly rotation did help take the edge off.
“You’re staring at me again.” His touch echoed down to my bones.
“Would you like me to dim myself?”
As hard as I tried, I had yet to master the trick myself, forcing me to
confront this all-encompassing him.
Until I learned to mute myself too, I avoided looking in mirrors or
glimpsing myself in reflective surfaces. What I saw through my own eyes
was bad enough. Pearlescent skin was nice and all, but this wasn’t me.
The only thing saving my sanity at the moment was the fact neither
Matty nor Josie could perceive those changes in me. The Suarez brothers,
on the other hand, saw the new me just fine. They barely glanced in my
direction for fear of Matty registering the differences, but that could only go
on for so long before he worried that I had fallen out with our mechanics
and confronted me. I didn’t want to lie to him, so, yeah. I had to figure out
how to break the news without breaking my siblings’ hearts.
“Yes,” I breathed, hands fisting in his shirt, senses reeling from
overstimulation.
“I don’t mind.” His knuckle skated down my cheek. “I can only imagine
what you’re going through.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong.” I risked squinting at him through my lashes.
“But you went through this too.”
“That was…”
“…a long time ago,” I finished for him, hating how his brush with
divinity had stolen his past and terrified it would do the same to me. In
time. How long did you have to live for your mind to develop the holes as
wide as those in his memories? A century? Two? Three? Was there a magic
number?
An ear-splitting roar shook the window in my office as Pink Panic
revved her engine then sped away.
“I should go.” I withdrew from him, grateful for his patience with my
slow adaptation to my new reality. Which, despite that patience, must seem
like a rejection of it…and him. “Tameka will be waiting for me.”
Before I could open the door, frantic taps on the glass drew my attention
to Badb and then beyond her.
To the parking lot.
The empty parking lot.
Cursing under my breath, I shoved through the door with a hard drop in
the pit of my stomach.
I turned my head left. I turned my head right.
There was no sign of Tameka. Or Keshawn. Or Pink Panic.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” I fumbled out my cell and dialed Josie.
“We’ve got a runner.”
Thank God the chip I injected under the skin of every new loaner meant
we could track Camaro easily.
“Ah, yes.” She breathed in deep. “I love the smell of repo in the
morning.”
“That makes one of us.” I kicked the outer wall of the shop. “How soon
can you get here?”
 I caught my gaze swinging up to her apartment, but she had moved out.
For the time being. Until the sting of Armie’s final betrayal lessened, and
she made peace with knowing he’d used her to gain access to our homes
where he had then mounted cameras to spy on us, she was rooming with
Carter.
Whether Carter had made the offer or Josie extended it to herself was
less clear.
“I’m at a nursery on Whitemarsh Island right now. I talked Carter into
buying a friend—or seven—for her oakleaf hydrangea.” Her words muffled
as she spoke with Carter. “I can be there in thirty.”
“I can help.” Kierce’s expression grew distant as he conferred with
Badb. “We can help.”
“Aww. Let him. He needs to learn the family business if he’s sticking
around,” Josie wheedled. “Repos are a part of it.”
“I want to learn,” he said, listening in on our conversation with the same
superhuman senses developing in me. They swept through me in waves of
sensation that often sent me crashing to my knees. I had to learn to control
them if I didn’t want them to control me. “Teach me.”
But that meant looking at the big picture, and I would rather pretend I
was blind for a little longer.
“Listen to the man,” Josie urged. “He has the right idea.”
“You’re only saying that because it was your idea,” I pointed out to her.
“But fine. You win. We’ll go.”
Even if Keshawn held her pee like a pro, she had to stop for gas
sometime.
This hadn’t been their plan, not when Tameka rolled up, which meant
they hadn’t been road trip ready.
Plus, the handoff of keys today had been symbolic. Monster trucks
weren’t road trucks. You didn’t run errands in them. They drank methanol.
As in gallons per minute. Their max was around five or six miles per
gallon, but that assumed zero flash.
However you looked at it, these trucks were sprinters. Not marathoners.
Which worked in our favor.
“Go pack a bag with a change of clothes.” I nudged Kierce toward the
stairs. “Meet you in ten.”
As I climbed behind him, I dialed Matty and got Pascal. “Close shop
now and meet me at the wagon.”
 The decision would hurt our already sore bottom line, but I preferred
releasing Pascal early to costing Matty even one of his precious hours.
Better safe than sorry. With repos, especially ones involving car chases, you
never knew what you were driving into.
“What’s wrong, Francita?” He stuck his head out of the nearest open
bay door. “What’s going on?”
I waved to let him know everything was okay, pointed at the phone,
then let myself into my apartment.
“We’ve got a repo.” I stuffed a spare outfit and toiletries in a bag.
“Kierce and I are going after her.”
“Not Pink Panic lady.” He made a production out of groaning. “I had
mad respect for her.”
“Pink Panic Jr. must have convinced Tameka to run. I hope we’ll be
back tonight, but I can’t say for sure.”
Some repos fought harder than others, and Keshawn had enough
gumption in her for both of them.
“Since he’ll be off early,” Pascal, who must have heard my worries
clinking together like coins, reasoned, “I’ll leave Matty with a list of
customers to reschedule.”
“Thanks.” A flicker of relief allowed me to breathe easier. “I owe you
one.”
“We’re family, Francita, you owe me none.”
Ending the call, I slung the bag over my shoulder, exited onto the
landing, and locked my door.
As the latch clicked, a loud squawk from behind me shot my heart into
my throat, and I spun to find Badb hopping down the rail toward me. I
could have argued with her, but that would waste even more time. Besides,
I already knew the drill.
“Are you serious?” She had taught me specific tells for when she
wanted certain items from her treasure trove. “You’re such a brat.”
Ducking back into my apartment, I snatched the cat bed she slept in. A
sharp cry reminded me to fetch her mirror while I was at it. I stuck it in my
pocket then got an earful that convinced me she wanted cat food.
“We could be back in thirty minutes.” I doubted we were that lucky, but
optimism never hurt anyone. “I’m not bringing every little thing you own—
that you’ve stolen—on a road trip that might not last an hour.”
 After clicking her beak at me, she sailed away. She had spotted Kierce
below and landed on his shoulder. I had zero doubts she was whining, but
oh well. We had to get a move on, or we would be too far behind to catch
up until the mother/daughter team required food or sleep. Even that might
not give us a break.
With two drivers, they could alternate who ate and who slept, not that
Tameka required either.
Thanks to Badb ordering me around, I was the last to arrive at the
wagon, loaded down with her junk.
As I drove us to Bonaventure, I chewed my cheek until bright copper
notes too sweet to be mortal blood teased my tongue. I would have spat it
out if I’d had a tissue handy, but no such luck. I had to swallow it, and the
way it slid down my throat wasn’t right. The taste. The texture. All of it was
wrong.
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
Poor Pascal would be stuck in the men’s room until dark, but he
promised it was fine.
Now I really owed him one. He would be bored out of his mind. Not to
mention dodging sunlight for hours.
With a drowsy Matty tucked onto the backseat, I returned to the shop
and helped him to his apartment.
“Lock up behind me.” I dithered in his entryway. “And don’t forget to
arm your security system.”
These days, we each had a private home security system for our
apartments in addition to the coverage in the shop and on the property. I just
wished we had invested before Armie violated our privacy.
“Harrow isn’t going to lunge from the bushes to kidnap me the second
you leave my side.”
“I know that but—” I let him push me out onto the landing. “I just don’t
want anything to—”
“I’ll be fine.” He shut the door in my face then yelled through the wood,
“Love you, Mary.”
“Love you too,” I sighed, tromping down the stairs while firing off a
text to urge Josie to hurry over.
While I was gone, the cat bed had appeared on the front bench seat
between Kierce and me. The crow it held gazed with adoration at herself in
her mirror, its bells jangling in her claw. I just shook my head and, with a
soft click, fit my cell into the phone mount with the tracking app open on
Tameka’s location.
“I could wait with him until Josie arrives.” Kierce draped his arm across
the seatback, and his fingertips brushed my shoulder. “I’m almost fully
recovered from my injuries. I can likely cover the distance from there to
you.”
To choose between them made my stomach hurt. “I need backup more
than he needs a babysitter.”
“Then why are you grinding your teeth?”
“This is the first time since everything happened that I’ve left him
alone.”
Post kidnapping, Matty had only gone as far as from his apartment to
mine or the garage or my office.
With his gaze, Kierce traced my profile. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Nope. Nah-uh. Not even a little bit. “Let’s find Tameka first.”
To convince him I was too focused to chat, I studied the fast-moving dot
that indicated the loaner. At the same time, I made a big production of
keeping an eye out for the notifications announcing Josie’s arrival.
When my phone pinged as motion was detected out in the parking lot, I
snorted at the screenshot of her sticking her tongue out at the hidden
camera. Had I not been driving, I might have watched to make sure she
reached Matty safely. But no. I couldn’t bring myself to do that. To spy on
her.
If I tracked her frame to frame, I would feel no better than Armie.
“The flashing dot represents the loaner.”
Quickly swiping the notifications off my screen, I nodded to Kierce.
“That’s right.”
“What does it mean when it disappears?”
“No. It blinks, it doesn’t…” I cut my eyes back to the map, “…work
like that.”
Heart in my throat, I guided the wagon onto the shoulder of the road.
We waited a minute. Five minutes. Ten minutes. But the dot didn’t
return.
Tameka had vanished, and she had taken Camaro with her.
B etween packing a bag, dropping off Pascal, driving Matty home,
and seeing him up to his apartment, we gave the Ezells a solid
thirty-minute head start. They had used that time to reach South
Carolina. But the dot had blinked out near Savannah National Wildlife
Refuge, a nature preserve straddling the state line between Georgia and
South Carolina, providing a sanctuary for migratory waterfowl and other
birds.
I really hoped we didn’t have to go in there.
“You’re worried about how much time it takes to get your siblings
settled before you leave them.”
Jerking my attention to Kierce, I read his understanding and didn’t
bristle. “Yeah.”
“You place your family first.” He appeared to choose his words with
care. “You’ve watched over them all of your lives. There’s nothing wrong
with protecting them when they’re unable to do it for themselves.”
“I’ve come too close to losing Josie and Matty to let anyone stand
between me and their well-being.”
“You want me to call you selfish, tell you that your priorities are
wrong.”
“I doubt anyone wants to hear that, but I worry it’s true.”
“Then we can be selfish together.” Kierce, who was holding his new
phone, his first cellphone, while Badb played a puzzle game, stared out his
window. “Your well-being matters to me. Sometimes it’s all that matters. It
frightens me. What I would do to keep you…” he cleared his throat, “…
safe.”
“I want to keep you too.” I felt my lips curl and couldn’t press them flat
again. “Safe, I mean.”
Kierce angled his head toward me, watching me in profile, and he rested
his hand on my thigh.
Heat swept through me, but I kept it cool. “I have enough mojo to mark
loaners with magic now, right?”
“There’s not much you can’t do if you set your mind to it.” He tore his
focus away from the obsessed crow, not seeming to notice I was melting
under his touch like butter left on the stove. “But that was always true.”
A flush tingled in my cheeks, and I shook my head. “What am I going
to do with you?”
Birdlike, he tilted his head to one side, studying me. “What do you
mean?”
“You flatter me.”
“Am I not good at it?” A wrinkle formed between his pale eyes. “I mean
what I say.”
“You’re very good at it because you mean what you say.” I reached over
to touch his hand, but Badb nipped me to quit blocking the screen. “We
might have to implement screentime rules with that one.”
“She has become rather obsessed with it,” he admitted. “She’s barely
slept since you gave it to me.”
No one could function in society these days without a smartphone. Josie
teased me that I only liked how it put Kierce at my fingertips, that I could
track his location. But they were required for everything. From paying
parking meters (which, okay, he couldn’t drive yet), to buying groceries
(though Badb acted like it was her duty to feed him), to providing two-
factor authentication for the online accounts he didn’t have.
Okay.
Fine.
Maybe I did like having a connection to him until the Badb-inspired
summoning token inked into my skin worked again.
“They make lockboxes with built-in timers you can put electronics in,” I
murmured, distracted by the soft ping announcing we had arrived at the pin
on the map. Limehouse, South Carolina. “There’s nothing here.”
 Just trees, trees, and road. And more trees.
Keen eyes fixed on the horizon, he wondered, “Do you think they’ve
abandoned the truck monster yet?”
A click of my teeth trapped my laughter before it hurt his feelings. “If
not yet, then soon.”
No successful escape plan, even one hatched on the fly, would involve a
huge, noisy, bright-pink truck.
Guiding the wagon onto the shoulder of the road, I reclaimed my cell.
“I’m going to take a look around.”
Standing in the damp grass, I shot Josie a text to let her know about the
disappearing loaner and, just in case, I shared our location with her.
Kierce appeared right behind me, startling me when he had been so
careful to normalize himself lately.
As I thought it, I could have kicked myself for not noticing sooner.
Dimming himself was a kindness, and I was grateful for it, but I had been
viewing it like slapping on or peeling off glamour. A toning down of his
appearance. Avoiding the use of his powers as usual? That smacked of
diminishing himself too.
Those who were different got sorted into neat and tidy boxes to make
them fit in better. Labels made everyone more comfortable except for those
stuck wearing them. What right did I have to tape the box he had existed in
since becoming the Viduus closed just as he was prying up a corner?
“Kierce?” I waited for him to step up beside me. “Does it bother you
that I’m struggling to adapt?”
“No.” He caught me by the arm. “Why would you think that?”
“I’ve been asking you to hide who you are, because I can’t handle the
truth. My truth.” I pounded a tight fist over my heart. “It’s not you. I’m the
problem. I’m the one who can’t pull it together.”
“Your acceptance of me isn’t conditional on your acceptance of
yourself.” He slid his fingers into the hair at my nape. “You’ve more than
proven that to me.” He applied the slightest pressure, tipping my head back.
“I wish you could see yourself the way I do.”
A mirror can’t show your worth.
He told me that once, and it stuck with me.
But a mirror couldn’t help me now, when I feared I wouldn’t recognize
what stared back at me.
 “You’re mighty assertive lately.” A smile tugged at my mouth. “I don’t
hate it.”
A response parted his lips as the rumble of a familiar engine tore my
focus away from his lips.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” I planted my palms on his chest,
pushing him back, lamenting the glide of his hand that signaled the moment
ending. “What is she doing here?”
The hulking black truck had become a fixture around The Body Shop in
recent weeks, as had its driver.
A throaty complaint from Badb caught Kierce’s ear, and he frowned.
“I’ll be right back.”
Carter, dressed for work, parked behind the wagon and joined me with a
cheddar puff bag in hand.
She noted Kierce trailing Badb into the woods then focused on me.
“What brings you out here?” I anchored my hands on my hips. “Are you
trying to give Josie back?”
“Do I look like someone who wants to wake up in a chokehold from the
pothos on her nightstand?”
“You let her plantify your house?” I clucked my tongue. “Big mistake.”
“I figured that out after I made her mad two nights ago and found the
damn plant curling around a steak knife handle the next morning.” She
rubbed her eyes. “I haven’t slept since.” She blinked orange dust off her
lashes. “Josie is…”
“…my little sister,” I reminded her curtly before lifting my eyebrows.
“Now, you were saying?”
“Josie is a fantastic houseguest, and I can’t believe I have the honor of
hosting her?”
“Much better.” I caught my attention swinging to her front passenger
seat. “Why are you here, really?”
Harrow’s absence reminded me he was recovering from gunshot
wounds he earned during our last case.
And I hadn’t called him or called on him, and I didn’t plan to either.
“Josie mentioned you were on a repo,” she hedged, balling up her trash.
“You tracked the loaner here?”
“The signal cut out on this spot. We were searching the area for clues to
explain the blip.”
 “That’s exactly what I thought when I drove up to Kierce fisting your
hair.”
“Carter.”
“Did he find any clues down your throat?” She snickered. “Or under
your tongue?”
“Carter.”
“That level of aggression comes across as frustration. Sexual frustration.
Please tell me you’ve kissed.”
“We’re taking things slow.” I aspired to sound patient and mature.
“Kierce looked ready to devour you, so forgive me for questioning your
definition of slow.”
For his sake, we had decided to take our time, but we had kind of stalled
out after my untimely demise. I was too freaked out over my new
appearance, my new existence, and too stressed about my heightened senses
to tolerate more stimulation.
And Kierce, from his looks to his touches to his voice, was a buffet for
my senses.
“You know why I’m here.” I dropped my arms down by my sides.
“Why are you here?”
“Well, it’s like this.” She flicked her gaze skyward with a sigh. “Do you
believe in aliens?”
“Infinite realms exist beyond this one, so why couldn’t one of them be
inhabited by little green men?”
Or little purple women? Wings? Horns? Tails? Some daemons sported
them. Fae too. Why not aliens?
Surely the universe was open to all hues, genders, sexual orientations,
and appendage combinations.
“Life on other planets versus infinite lives layered beneath the fabric of
our world.”
“You’re getting too philosophical for me.” I checked for Kierce, but he
wasn’t back yet. “What’s wrong?”
“We’ve gotten two reports of abductions from this exact location.”
“And your first thought was to blame aliens?”
Josie was a lot. As her sister, I could say that. But even she couldn’t
have driven Carter crazy this fast.
“A blinding light took the victims, cars and all, and they haven’t been
seen or heard from since.”
 Cars and all.
“I see.” I kept my tone neutral. “You think there’s a chance my repo
was…abducted by aliens?”
The GPS malfunction and the absence of Pink Panic were both
concerning, but I doubted Marvin the Martian had anything to do with
either.
“I hail from another world myself, so I’m not one to throw stones at
interdimensional glass houses.”
Faerie, one of the closest realms to this one, had a bad habit of leaking
over into our world. On Samhain in particular, the barriers thinned to the
point where powerful fae could cross it. Protections were in place now to
monitor the influx of fae seeking asylum, or a free lunch, but the new laws
held no sway over the oldest predators who had come here to hunt for soft
pink flesh centuries earlier.
“What you’re describing is a pop culture classic. What are the odds
humans got it right?”
“They get almost everything wrong,” she agreed. “Most of that is our
doing, though. Supernaturals spend an inordinate amount of time writing
scientific journals and popular fiction based on fabricated weaknesses and
abilities. That way, if a human ever does come across us, they refer to
folklore, thus falling flat on their faces, and we get to live to hunt another
day. Probably with a full stomach to boot.”
“There are infinite worlds beyond this one, but there has been no formal
contact from life on other planets.”
Kierce’s voice drew my attention as he waded from the trees with Badb
on his shoulder.
“Oh?” I couldn’t help my smile at the sight of him. “Does your god
monitor atmospheric breaches?”
“All gods track potential sources of power.” He scratched Badb’s cheek
while she made chittering noises. “But humans have filmed too many
movies demonizing aliens, and autopsying them, to make Earth appear
hospitable to intergalactic races.”
“Why couldn’t they glamour themselves and hide among the populace
like everyone else?”
Lord knows the fae had done it since the beginning of time. For
survival. For amusement. For snacks.
 “Glamour is a defense mechanism developed by the inhabitants of
worlds that intersect with Earth to camouflage themselves among the most
abundant species. To cultivate it in the modern age, with every slip of the
mask broadcast worldwide on social media, would result in generations of
casualties.”
The theory glamour evolved primarily to mimic humans, and human-
adjacent species, had never crossed my mind. I saw it as a magic trick for
anyone wanting to appear as anything. But it made perfect sense to blend
with the dominant lifeform. Huh. We really do learn something new every
day.
“Everyone and their momma,” Carter added, “would livestream alien
autopsies from their phones.”
“That’s a bit harsh.” I reflected on world history for a beat. “Okay, so,
you’re probably right.”
Nonhumans, without basic rights to protect them, would be classified as
animals or worse. But that was after the initial wave where lawlessness
would reign and mass graves would be filled with the victims of mortal
curiosity.
“I’ve seen humans dissect enough fae to know I’m right.”
A hush fell over us then, a moment of silence for the lost, but she was
quick to break it.
“Your loaner vanished.” She produced a bag of cheddar puffs from
wherever she kept her endless stash of emotional support snacks. “The
monster truck driver.”
Josie staying with Carter was her choice, but I would have to talk to her
about safe topics. I doubted that Josie would volunteer any information on
Tameka, given how little Josie had to do with running the other family
business, but Carter might have questioned her after she mentioned we had
a runner. Still. I knew from experience Carter was an expert at getting
people talking, and our survival hinged on a less is more policy when it
came to how much was known about what happened below the shop.
“Yes.” I kept my tone businesslike. “Tameka Ezell.”
One-handed, she typed away in a note app while crunching her snack.
“What was she in life?”
“A gremlin.”
Gremlins were first documented during World War II when their
mischievous streaks resulted in aircraft, and other mechanical,
malfunctions. No one was sure where they came from, but they arrived in
droves. They tended to be more populous in war-torn regions, but America
had its enclaves. Though American gremlins usually applied their talents in
the automotive industry or in R&D for big tech companies.
And, apparently, they also built and drove competition monster trucks.
“The other victims are human.” She sucked her teeth. “One married into
the Hardeeville warg pack, here in South Carolina. The other is a feeder for
a vampire in Hilton Head.”
Hardeeville rang a distant bell, but I wished it unrung after recalling
why it struck me as familiar.
Harrow had inherited land from his uncle in Hardeeville, but that
pointless reminder certainly wasn’t my guilt talking because I had been
thinking how I hadn’t visited Harrow or even sent him a fruit basket.
Before my thoughts galloped too far down that path, I pulled on the
reins. Hard. I didn’t have time for regrets or whatever had the gall to make
my chest pinch whenever I thought of him.
Right now, Tameka was my more immediate concern.
For the mother and daughter duo to have disappeared on the same
stretch of road, under the same conditions, there must be some commonality
between them and the other victims.
Prior to offering Tameka lease terms, I had consulted with her in person,
well, in spirit. No red flags there. No flash of crimson when I performed my
due diligence on her situation to verify the facts she gave me either. I had
even spoken with Keshawn over the phone to get a better sense of the
family dynamic, but I had felt good about Tameka. I never would have
pegged her for a runner.
Kierce angled his head toward Carter. “When were the others taken?”
“The wifey was talking to her husband when the call cut out, so we have
that one pinned down. It was at 3:45 yesterday.” Carter checked her notes.
“The feeder was reported missing later that night. Near nine. Her master is
paranoid about cellphones, so she keeps the tracking features turned off on
hers.”
“It’s 2:12 p.m.,” Kierce read off his phone. “There’s no synchronicity
there either.”
“When did you go modern?” Carter snatched the cell out of his hand to
examine it. “And why is it in one of those bumper cases like you buy for
toddler tablets?”
 “Badb,” he and I answered together.
“She has a habit of stealing it, getting mad it doesn’t recognize her face,
then throwing it.” I shrugged. “A tactical case felt like a smart investment,
even if the phone was free when I signed up for a fourth line.”
“Have you ever considered telling her no?” Carter passed it back. “Or
punishing her when she’s bad?”
The slow blink from Kierce proved the thought had never crossed his
mind.
“She’s a wild animal.” I leapt to his defense a beat too late. “Wild
animals are, well, wild.”
“Wild animals don’t know what facial recognition is, let alone pitch
tantrums when their screen time has limits.” She rolled her eyes. “They do,
however, know suckers when they spot them.”
“Well.” I made the word bright. “We’ll just leave the finding of missing
motorists to the professionals.”
“Huh.” Her forehead arrowed into a tight vee. “You’re going to allow a
loaner on the loose?”
A twinge of guilt hiked my shoulders up around my ears, but I refused
to get sucked in again.
“You’re already investigating,” I reasoned, smile flashing, “and I’m
confident in your abilities.”
“You’re afraid Harrow is going to show, huh?” She popped a cheddar
puff in her mouth, the bag crinkling in her hand, further stumping me on
how she managed to hide them all over her person without the rustling
noises giving them away. “I hear you didn’t visit him in the hospital.”
The twinge became more of a full-on twang of regret. “Yeah, well, I
heard he kidnapped my brother.”
Silver gleamed in Kierce’s eyes as they settled on her. “Do you want
Frankie and Harrow to hold hands?”
Happy to play with fire, she crunched another puff. “What would you
do if I said yes?”
Static crackling across his skin, he growled, “Frankie is free to make her
own choices.”
A flash, so faint I might have imagined it, illuminated a distant cloud in
the bright sky.
“Carter,” I warned, uncertain if a redcap could survive a direct hit from
a lightning bolt.
 “Why do folks say don’t poke the bear?” She jabbed the air near Kierce
with her finger. “It’s fun.”
“Carter wants us to be one big, happy family,” I explained as shocks
zinged up the arm closest to Kierce.
Harrow did what he did for valid reasons. How he went about it? That
was bass-ackward.
As long as I had known him, I had one rule: Do unto my family, and you
better believe I’ll do unto you.
From my perspective, he was lucky I called us even for old time’s sake
after cutting him out of my life.
A wicked glint in her eyes, she asked me, “Would it kill you to kiss and
make up with him?”
Lightning arced overhead, drawing closer, as Kierce absorbed this.
“Kiss Harrow?”
“You’ve spent way too much time around Josie.” I turned my back on
her, fisted his tee, and tugged on it to get his attention. “She doesn’t mean it.
She knows that I’m with you.”
As his arms slid around my waist, his gaze devoured my lips. “I haven’t
even kissed you yet.”
“From the mouths of babes,” Carter whooped with devilish glee. “I
knew it.”
“We’re leaving.” Flames engulfing my cheeks, I broke away from
Kierce. “See you later, Carter.”
To keep Josie from getting nosy, I texted her an update and warned her
about the other missing persons in the area.
After we reached the wagon, Kierce caught me by the wrist. “I didn’t
want to push you.”
“It’s fine.” I ignored the cackling redcap while unlocking his door.
“Carter is just a pot stirrer.”
How had I not seen it sooner? She and Josie were a match made in
Heaven. Or Hell. No. Definitely Hell.
“What if it’s not fine?” His warm fingers glided across my stinging
nape, twisting my hair around his fist. “What if…sometimes…I want to
punish those who upset you?”
“Then I would say that’s very sweet.” I let him guide my head back
until our gazes clashed. “But I have to own up to the fact my family—and
most of our friends—are obnoxious. If you punished them every time they
said or did something that ducked my goose, my social circle would be
reduced to scorch marks.”
“It doesn’t bother you then?” He traced my features with hungry eyes.
“When they tease you?”
“Mostly they’re teasing out of love, so no. I don’t mind. I know it’s
coming from a good place. I even let them get away with it, to a certain
extent.” I trembled when he traced my jaw with his fingertip. “If they were
being cruel, or trying to cause real trouble, I would put my foot down.”
“You don’t need me to protect you.” He seemed to absorb my every
detail. “That’s what you mean.”
“I can protect myself.” I booped his nose. “I’ve been doing it all my
life.”
A whirring click prompted me to cut my gaze toward Carter only to
discover she had photographed us.
Before I could demand she erase the photo, she yelped and stumbled
back, flinging her hand.
And Badb flew away with the phone, rising up and up until she reached
a height that appealed to her.
“Don’t you dare.” Carter held out her open palm. “You bring that phone
back here this instant.”
“I wouldn’t threaten her if I were you.” Kierce released me with a sigh.
“She takes those personally.”
Heart pounding in my ears, a flush burning my sensitive skin, I shut my
eyes and counted down from ten while reminding myself of the reasons I
was taking this slow. But when he looked at me a certain way, or his fingers
tangled in my hair, chills blasted down my spine in a rush of anticipation.
No sooner had I caged my hormones than Badb opened her beak,
allowing the phone to plummet, smashing itself to bits on the road. Carter
howled with rage, picked up a rock, and hurled it at her.
With a squawk, Badb zipped to the nearest tree, plucking small
pinecones and tossing them at Carter.
“I would ask if we should stop them, but their aims are terrible. I don’t
think we have to worry about them hurting each other.” I watched for a
while, tempted to film it as payback, when a lavender haze hit the air in a
swirling cloud that coalesced into a furious feminine figure. “Oh no.” I slid
down into a crouch between Kierce and the wagon. “Hide me.”
 Gripping his thighs, I braced my forehead on his knees, wishing with all
my might that demigodhood came with a side order of invisibility.
D emigodhood, of course, had failed to provide me with the one
superpower that would save me.
“Why would I…?” Kierce tensed as the purple haze finished
solidifying before him. “Hello.”
“Don’t you hello me.” Madam Vionette Fontenot—mentor, friend, and
force of nature—gave Kierce no consideration for his status or title. “Step
back and let me see what she’s done to herself now.”
“Stay put, Kierce.” I kept my head down and eyes on the grass. “Don’t
move.”
“Frankie Talbot, I hear you back there.” Vi drew closer. “I see you too.”
Still hiding behind Kierce’s knees, I yelped when she shoved her head
through them to glare at me. “Hi.”
“No, ma’am.” She waggled a finger and sent her bangles clacking. “You
have some explaining to do.”
“You okay over there, Frankie?” Carter grunted when a pinecone hit its
mark. “Fucking bird.”
“One of her friends has come to visit,” Kierce explained to Carter,
ignoring the woman with her head protruding through his knees. “Do you
require assistance with Badb?”
“I do not.” She took off one boot and flung it with all her strength. “I
have the situation under control.”
 Ring-bedecked fingers snapping at the end of my nose brought my
attention swinging back to Vi.
“I’m waiting.” A single dark braid escaped the floral wrap on her head.
“Start talking.”
“Now isn’t the best time to have this conversation.” I cut my eyes
toward Carter. “Call me later?”
“Ha.” She sat back on her haunches, still half in/half out of Kierce.
“You wouldn’t answer.”
Unscheduled calls from her, which were as rare as rain in the desert,
always quenched my worries. But not this time. I had been trying to avoid
trapping myself under her speculative gaze until…I don’t know…our
monthly video chat? I couldn’t push it out further without this happening.
An in-person scolding.
“Sure, I would,” I lied through my teeth. “I’ve been trying to reach you
for weeks.”
That much was true, but those old worries had expired to make room for
new ones.
“I haven’t gotten any messages from…” Her face mottled with ire. “I’m
going to tan Rollo’s hide.”
“Yes.” I kept right on clinging to Kierce like a barnacle. “Do that.”
“I see you, cher.” She mimed pinching my arm, and I had no trouble
recalling the bite of her freakishly strong fingers. “You’re not getting away
without explaining this to me.”
“Come back here,” Carter hollered, her voice fading, “and say that to
my face, bird.”
Peering around Kierce, who monitored their antics, I watched the crow
taunt Carter. Badb lured Carter down the road using the boot Carter had
thrown at her as bait, dangling it from her beak just shy of Carter’s grasping
fingers.
That was when it hit me. They were moving away from us. Fast.
Badb was giving me privacy. With an irate Vi. Who had yet to break eye
contact with me.
“You did this.” I gripped Kierce’s (very nice) thighs and shook him.
“You egged Badb on.”
“Me?” He threw out a hand to brace on the wagon. “Badb requires no
encouragement to misbehave.”
 “Yes.” Of all the times for another layer of his ice to thaw, allowing this
teasing side of himself to emerge, he had to melt when I couldn’t enjoy it.
“You.”
“Flirting with your boyfriend isn’t going to distract me.” Vi clapped her
hands. “Get in the wagon.”
With a swirl of purple motes, she breached the door behind me, landing
on the bench, waiting for me.
“Do you mind giving us a minute alone?” I was grateful Kierce helped
me stand. “This is gonna get ugly.”
Had Vi been in the flesh, she would have pinched my ear and led me
around by it while yelling at me.
Another sensation I had no problem conjuring from my time spent in
New Orleans with her.
“I’ll keep an eye on Carter,” Kierce offered. “Make sure Badb doesn’t
lead her into oncoming traffic.”
A very inappropriate snort blasted out of my nose, and I cleared my
throat. “You are bad.”
“Yes.” The amusement slid off his face, and he angled his chin away
from me. “I am.”
That emotional land mine had been buried so deep, I hadn’t felt the
activating click when I stepped on it.
“I’m only teasing.” I fisted his shirt and shook him until he cracked a
tiny smile. “We’ll pick this up later.” I let him go. “I have to get in there
before Vi comes back out here, and nobody wants that. Trust me.”
With his tight nod cramping my stomach, I rounded the wagon and
climbed behind the wheel.
“I just put it together,” Vi said softly, her gaze skating between Kierce
and me. “I understand now.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.” I hung my head. “I was—am—
having trouble with being dead.”
“Dead?” Her shriek rattled the glass. “You died?”
“Wait.” I backpedaled as fast as I could without making things worse.
“What did you mean?”
“No.” She gripped my chin between her fingers, or she would have, if
she could touch me. Lucky for me, the worst she could do was mime the
action, which was threat enough. “What did you mean?”
 “I died. Ten days ago.” I bit the inside of my cheek. “But Kierce assures
me I’m not actually dead.”
“You’re lit up like a Christmas tree on the spiritual plane, which is how
I spotted you all the way from New Orleans.” She released me. “Your
powers have been fluctuating, so I wondered if I caught you in flux. I
watched for a bit, whenever you were home, but when you didn’t dim, I
panicked and rushed over.” She wiped a tear off her cheek. “How?” She
scowled at the wet mark on her hand. “How did this happen?”
From start to finish, I told her. All of it. Leaving nothing out.
By the end, I was breathless, and she was sobbing and blaming herself
for not being there for me.
“You couldn’t have saved me.” I squeezed her ethereal hand. “Not
against a god.”
“I could have tried.” Her nose was swollen, and her eyes were puffy.
“You haven’t told anyone?”
“Kierce was there. He knows. Everyone else thinks I survived.”
The all-encompassing light of the divine had blinded us. That was how
Harrow ended up getting shot.
“I taught you better than that. You pour that misery around like bourbon
sauce on warm bread pudding. The more you share, the less your burden.
That is how you survive what would otherwise break you.” An annoyed tear
escaped her, and she dashed it away. “Are your powers different? Do you
have new ones? Have any of the old ones atrophied?”
Straight into problem-solving mode. She couldn’t help it. Her big heart
always kick-started her brain.
“I did mention the part where I haven’t accepted I’m dead, right?”
“Couyon.” Her palm went through my forehead instead of smacking it.
“Since when has ignoring a thing made it go away?”
Weakly, I injected hope into my expression. “There’s always a first
time?”
“First time for everything like...” she adjusted the bangles on her wrists,
“…dating a demigod?”
“He’s more like a god’s personal assistant.” I gaped as it dawned on me.
“That was what you meant?”
Forget the shimmery skin. Forget the blazing aura. Forget death. Kierce
was what had caught her eye.
 “You haven’t been in a relationship since you came to me.” She twirled
a finger in the air. “I’m not blind. I can see the bond forming between you
two.”
“On the spirit plane?” I realized my hand had lifted to cover my heart.
“What kind of bond?”
Had the summoning mark Kierce placed on me bound us tighter than I
thought?
“What do you think?” She thumped my forehead. “Quit distracting me.”
Curious to know more about the bond thing, which was news to me, I
let her get back to her point.
“He can teach you.” She cut him a glance. “That man is ancient.” A
frown tugged at her mouth. “Anything worth knowing, he can tell you.” Her
eyes grew darker. “The aura of death surrounds him.”
“He does work for Dis Pater.” I spat out the name. “The god who killed
me.”
“I don’t like this.” She thinned her lips. “You need to find out who
possessed his crow to feed you intel.”
More like find out if it had really been Badb or another god, etc.,
appearing to me in a form I would trust. I might have questioned it more
had I not been suffering from a concussion, but then I was dead, and all my
curiosity burned up along with the flesh off my bones.
Bitter?
Why, yes. I was. This was not part of my five-year plan.
“Yeah.” I tapped the fuzzy purple dice hanging from my rearview
mirror. “I just sort of shut down after.”
“You’ve been through a lot the last couple of months.” She stroked
above my hair, and the gesture soothed me. “You’ve got a right to grieve
your losses. You’ve got a right to take a moment to breathe. But you don’t
get to curl up in a ball and let this ruin you. You’re too strong for that.”
“Thanks, Vi.” I studied the shimmery hands folded on my lap. “I don’t
know what to do.”
“You don’t have to do anything except what you’ve always done. Learn
how to control your new powers and keep yourself safe.” She leaned
forward to catch my eye. “You want to live so close to Savannah? So near
those damn necromancers? Then you better be able to take on the whole of
the Society and win.” I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “Or you could
pack up and move your family to NOLA. With me.”
 For her to ask, and mean it, tightened my throat. “And see Rollo every
day for the rest of my life?”
A life that stretched infinite and unflinching before me? The reminder
soured my stomach.
“He’s always had a crush on you.” She tutted at my expression. “That’s
the problem.”
That was not the problem, but I was done rehashing the old argument.
“Mmm-hmm.”
Suspicious of my easy acquiescence, she hummed softly. “You’re
talking big picture, aren’t you?”
“Do I have responsibilities? Do I have a duty to do…whatever it is
demigods do? Would it be so selfish of me if I elected to stay home and
keep living my life instead of using those powers for the greater good?” I
admitted my biggest fear. “I don’t want to attract the wrong kind of
attention.”
“You don’t mean the Society.” She leaned back. “You’re afraid your
divine parent would notice you.”
A prickle on my nape gave me a taste of how it might feel to earn the
full weight of their attention.
“Yes and no. Kierce and Ankou are both subject to their gods’ whims. I
don’t want that.”
“They’re not born of gods, though.” She retied her head scarf. “They’re
sworn into the gods’ service.”
Ankou relished his role, that much was clear, but Kierce was frayed
along his edges. His retreat from the world might have saved his sanity, but
it was clear he remained exhausted and disconnected to a degree that
troubled me. Waking him, fully shaking off his malaise, might provide the
catalyst for an entirely different man to emerge than the one I first met
walking through the cemetery with mud on his shoes.
“You’re thinking too big.” She mimed rubbing my shoulder. “Start
smaller, like telling your siblings.”
“Smaller would be learning I was the necromancer messiah risen from
the dead to save the world.”
“You are ridiculous.”
“What? I’m serious. That’s much smaller than telling my siblings. Tiny
in comparison to what Josie will do after she finds out I kicked the bucket
and didn’t tell her, and it will break Matty’s heart.”
 “I love you, cher, I do, but no. You’re too caught up on how this will
affect everyone else to process what it means for you. This happened to
you. Prioritize yourself for once. Let everyone else worry about themselves.
You have a right to boundaries. You deserve your own thoughts and
feelings and priorities.” She glanced at Kierce. “I can’t imagine Matty and
Josie approved of him in the beginning, and yet there he stands. A choice
you made. For yourself.”
“Yeah.” A smile tickled my lips. “His weird matches my weird.”
A strobe of light in the woods drew my eye beyond the window to the
trees.
“What’s wrong?” She twisted in her seat. “What did you see?”
A piercing white beam exploded from the limbs and swept over the
wagon, including Kierce, Vi, and me.
High-pitched whining filled my ears, and I screamed for Kierce, but I
couldn’t even hear myself.
Lavender mist burst inside the cab, and then the brightness dimmed to
nothing.
The seat beside me was empty, so I stumbled out and into Kierce’s
waiting arms. “What was that?”
“I don’t know.” He glanced over his shoulder. “It came from the
woods.”
“Hold on.” I thumped back against the side of the wagon. “I have to
check on Vi.”
Before I could finish dialing Rollo’s personal number, it flashed on my
screen as an incoming call.
“What have you done now?” he yelled in my ear. “Mamaw’s
unconscious.”
“What?” Stomach tumbling like clothes in a dryer, I slid lower. “She
was fine a minute ago.”
“I’m here with her body, maringouin.” His fury was palpable. “You
better start explaining.”
Maringouin meant mosquito. As in I was a pest. To him, I always would
be.
Quickly as possible, I explained what brought me here, where here was,
and what I had seen.
Halfway through, Rollo started cursing a blue streak in Creole. Kierce’s
temper was getting up, so I dispatched him to locate Badb and Carter. Since
her phone’s guts littered the road, he set out on foot to search for them.
They couldn’t have gone far, but I would be lying if I claimed that I wasn’t
anxious being left alone.
“If she doesn’t wake in the next five seconds—” Rollo’s temper boiled
on the other end of the line, “—I’m gonna drive to your shop, snatch you up
by the scruff, then drag you to the first necromancer I can find and tell them
who you are, what you’ve done, and order them to turn you in to the
Society for punishment.”
Oh, yeah. He had a crush on me. Those were definitely the words of a
man in love.
Vi really had to move past her generation’s he’s only mean to you
because he likes you mentality.
When a man treated you like dirt, it was because he wanted to scrape
you off his shoe.
“I didn’t ask her to come. I didn’t know to expect her before she
appeared to me.” I spun it around on him. “Why didn’t you call to warn
me? Why would you let her zip out to the middle of nowhere on a whim?” I
clicked my teeth together before I pivoted toward blaming Vi for dropping
in unannounced. “What can I do? How can I help?”
“Forget her number.”
The call ended with a snarl that would have made a warg proud and did
a fine job of breaking my heart.
Rollo never had cared for me, but after I took his spot as Vi’s
apprentice, he enjoyed hearing from me about as much as receiving a letter
from the IRS. I understood he was hurt, but that was years ago. Did he plan
on holding it over my head for the rest of my life?
Butt thumping onto the grass, I drew my knees to my chest and rested
my forehead on them.
A warm beak nudged the hair from my eyes moments later, and Badb
rasped comforting noises at me.
“They were a mile up the road.” Kierce waded through grass to reach
me. “Already on their way back.”
For him to have gone that far and returned, Rollo had been chewing me
out for longer than I thought.
“How is your friend?” Kierce crouched beside me. “Did she return to
her body?”
 “She’s unconscious.” I rubbed the phone screen with my thumb. “Rollo
will call with an update soon.”
Otherwise, I would be driving to New Orleans to see her condition for
myself.
A doctor, an old family friend, as in he had been the Fontenot family
doctor since Vi’s mother was a little girl, lived next door. Jean-Claude
Dancosse. He was always on standby when she traveled via astral
projection.
Usually Jean-Claude waited in the next room with a vintage comic book
spread across his lap. He would have reached her bedside in seconds. He
would be, right this very minute, working his magic on her. She would
wake up in no time.
Vi would be okay. I had to believe that. I couldn’t wrap my head around
the alternative.
“This isn’t your fault.” Kierce smoothed his palm down my back with
halting strokes. “You couldn’t have anticipated this.”
“I should have told her—and Matty and Josie—the second I understood
what happened to me, but I was a coward. I could fool my siblings for a
while, I knew that, but then I convinced myself Vi wouldn’t notice a damn
halo the next time she checked on me from the spirit plane. I knew she
would find out, and I knew I would get an earful when she did, but I didn’t
expect her to appear out of thin air on the side of a road. That was my
mistake. Scaring her so badly she projected herself into an unknown
situation.”
“Vi couldn’t have located you if she hadn’t reached out to Josie or
Matty,” he reasoned. “The spirit plane is vast. She can check on you when
you’re home, because it’s familiar ground, but she couldn’t have isolated
your whereabouts without help.” He waited to see if that made a dent in my
self-loathing. “Josie had already told Carter where you were, and you
updated Josie on the situation here. She would have told Vi exactly what
she was walking into before she decided to visit you.”
“You’re right.” I hadn’t seen through my guilt to the facts, but Kierce
was right. Vi had a fail-safe for every possible outcome. She was neither
impulsive nor reckless. “Her first line of defense is her grandson. Rollo
hates me. He wouldn’t have anchored her if he felt she was at risk, and
definitely not for my sake.”
“Rollo.” Kierce repeated the name as if committing it to memory.
 As dragging steps neared, I craned my neck for a glimpse of Carter. “Oh
Lord.”
Her other boot was now missing, and so were the top buttons on her
dress shirt. She must have—what? Ripped them off and flung them at
Badb? Sadly, I could picture her doing just that. With malicious glee.
A few yards from where I sat, she gave up and dropped onto the grass to
catch her breath.
That was when my phone blared, further hollowing out my stomach as I
picked up on Rollo. “Well?”
“Anyone ever tell you your voice buzzes at a frequency not meant for
human ears?”
The dulling edge of his hostility told me Vi was okay, but I knew better
than to ask to speak to her. He would only laugh in my face and block my
number on her phone. I had experience with that trick.
There was nothing for it but to beg. “Please, Rollo, tell me.”
“Since you ask so nicely, I’ll answer. Mamaw was in shock from
snapping back into her body, but she’s as tough as old shoe leather.” His
jubilant tone conveyed how worried he had been when her eyes didn’t open.
He was too hyped up on relief to make me work for the rest. “She on bed
rest for forty-eight hours, per Jean-Claude, but she make a full recovery. No
spirit work for a month, which will get her hoppin’ mad, but I can’t help she
pay the cost of the damn fool thing she do.”
Another thing about Rollo was his accent thickened as his mood
improved, which was proof enough for me that Vi was out of danger.
“Tell her I love her, and I’m glad she’s okay.”
“I’ll do no such thing.”
He hung up on me before I could protest, but she knew both those
things without him saying them.
“Rollo is an asshole, huh?” Carter had fallen onto her back at some
point. “Power-hungry jerk.”
“He is an asshole,” I agreed, “but he loves Vi more than anything in the
world. I can’t fault him for that.” Our love for her was the one thing we had
in common. “She raised him as her own. They’re very close.”
“It sounds like he grew up expecting to be the heir apparent,” Carter
said, barely able to move and yet a distinct crunching noise came from her
vicinity, “and didn’t care much for being usurped.”
 “No one usurped anyone.” I puffed out my cheeks. “I was raw power
and hormones without a clue what to do with either, except get in trouble.
Rollo was quiet and competent. He had been given small lessons here and
there all his life. It was natural for him to be upset when a total stranger
walked in and took his place when the next apprentice to come into the
house should have been his first and not her second.”
“So,” she drawled, “he’s a crybaby and an asshole.”
A snort ripped free of me, but it was time to get down to work. “We
need to search these woods.”
“Hold on.” She shot upright on the spot. “What happened to leaving this
to the professionals?”
“They took my client, my loaner, and hurt my friend.”
The whole reason the flow of my clients had dried up in the first place
was because the spirit community learned about the dybbuk targeting my
lessees. Spirits had been too afraid to book my services and risk becoming
targets.
If word got out I had lost another client, I would be shoved back to
square one. Tameka might be a repo, which meant any fallout was her own
choice, but any blowback so close to the dybbuk fiasco could ruin my
reputation for good.
And harming Vi?
Well, I wouldn’t be me if I stood back and watched rather than getting
my hands dirty.
“Then let’s do this.” She sat upright then stood. “I’ll call in backup, and
we’ll get boots on the ground.”
“Badb will help.” Kierce traced her arc across the sky. “We didn’t notice
anything peculiar during our initial search, but we didn’t go far. I didn’t
want to leave Frankie alone for long.”
“Turn on location services on your phones,” she ordered, heading for
her truck. “I’ll radio this in.”
Leaving her behind to coordinate the effort, Kierce and I entered the
forest with Badb as our scout.
The light—tractor beam?—hadn’t damaged the foliage one bit. No burn
or char marks. No broken limbs or bent leaves. How had it spared the forest
yet teleported the other victims and their vehicles?
“Why didn’t it take us?” I couldn’t move beyond how he and I escaped
unscathed, and even Vi was only sent back to her body. “It left the wagon
too.” I slipped in a patch of leaves wet from yesterday’s rain, but he caught
me by the elbow. “Not that I’m complaining.”
“I’ve been wondering the same thing.” He kept hold of me, and I didn’t
mind one bit. “Perhaps its power doesn’t affect divine beings?” His lips
twitched in the promise of a smile. “Or their vintage wagons?”
There was a whole lot more steel in old cars than in new ones. “Good
point.”
I had to start thinking of myself in those terms. This incident with Vi
woke me up in more ways than one. It was okay to fool myself. That didn’t
hurt anyone. Faking like everything was okay when it put my loved ones at
risk? I couldn’t justify my take no prisoners attitude while endangering
them.
I had shown myself grace. Okay. Fine. I had wallowed more than a pig
in a sty. For a whole ten days.
Now it was time to stand up, dust myself off, and get serious about
figuring out this new me.
For their sakes. And, yeah, maybe for my own.
“Alien technology or not, it’s harder to disappear a vehicle than a
person.” Kierce held a branch aside for me to duck under, which was good
since I hadn’t noticed it and would have smacked right into it. “Any ideas
why they would want what must seem to them like outdated technology?”
“Maybe they crash-landed and need the parts to repair their ship?”
“Then why not steal unoccupied vehicles?”
“What if their tech only works in close proximity to their ship?” I felt
like an idiot saying it out loud, treating it as if it were a possibility. “The
majority of humans believe aliens visit Earth to perform experiments on
them—most involving anal probing for whatever reason—or to breed
human women or to eradicate mankind or to steal our planet because theirs
is dying or to further their goals to colonize the universe. Something along
those lines.”
“The abductees have all been women,” he reminded me, his jaw tight as
possibilities sank in.
Women were popular targets for predators, so that didn’t surprise me.
The light show and vehicle snatch were unconventional methods of
abduction, but that didn’t mean it was dreamed up on another planet.
“Tractor beams aside, how are they disappearing tons of metal from an
active roadway?”
 The universal symbol for alien was a small, neon-green man with a
giant oval head leaning out of his silver flying saucer to watch as a cow was
sucked out of its pasture inside a cone of blinding light.
“Magic is the only logical answer.”
Magic was my first thought. How could it not be? But the vehicles
made it dicey. “Iron repels magic.”
“Black magic could accomplish it, but not without sacrifice. Iron-
touched fae are rare, but they do exist.”
Iron-touched fae. Say, gremlins. Like the one I was hunting.
One gremlin because Tameka lost her magic in death. Only Keshawn
retained hers, but gremlin talents weren’t a magician’s disappearing trick.
Even if they were, to have a role in this, Keshawn would have had to know
where to go and what to do. Which meant she would also know what
happened to the others.
As much as I wanted to avoid further involvement with the 514, I didn’t
have much choice if Tameka was involved in this. I was allowed to run my
business in peace because it harmed no one. Leasing to Tameka for the
purpose she gave, one confirmed by her daughter, meant nothing if they had
lied to me. But that didn’t make sense either. Pascal became obsessed with
Pink Panic after meeting Tameka. He tracked her wins across the circuit.
She had accomplished what she set out to do. She couldn’t be responsible,
right?
“We need to get the makes and models of the vehicles from Carter, see
if those have any relevance.” I touched my pocket then let my hand drop.
“We’ll have to walk back to tell her.”
“Badb has offered to replace her phone,” he said after a moment. “She
feels bad about breaking it.”
I doubted that very much, but Badb had him wrapped around her little
claw.
“Carter probably has insurance on it,” I rushed out. “Most folks do. Her
cell provider will replace it.”
“Ah.” Crinkles fanned out from the corners of his eyes. “You don’t want
her to steal one.”
“Remember the tracking app? Everyone uses location services these
days. Phones cost an arm and a leg, so people want to find them if they get
lost. Or if, say, a crow steals it. Carter enforces the law. She would be in
trouble if she got caught breaking it by the owner, who was desperate to
save their score in Candy Crumble.”
“I’ll let Badb know.” His focus slid outward before returning to me. “I
passed along your concerns.”
Once the road came into view, I noticed two patrol cars parked behind
the wagon.
And sitting on the passenger seat of the nearest car smiled a man I
wasn’t eager to see again.
A polished man in his midfifties with silver streaks at his temples exited
the second patrol car wearing a politician’s smile and the suit to go
with it. The amusement in his gaze, as if he could read what I thought
about him, curdled my gut, but I held my ground. With Kierce on my right
and Carter to my left, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Everything in
me screamed to run, to hide, to jump in the wagon and drive.
But this had been a long time in coming. Chief Leer was a sharp man,
and he was aware I had been using his resources for my own purposes. Of
course, he would be curious about me.
“This is Chief Leer.” Carter arched a brow at his approach in silent
question. “Our fearless leader.”
“I don’t know if I would call me fearless.” His bright-white smile
matched the rest of his gleaming façade. “I had a fright when I heard one of
my top agents was sprinting down US-17 barefoot and tearing off her
clothes. I came right out when I read the report, but you don’t appear to
have lost your mind, Carter.”
A tug on her untucked shirt did nothing to make her more presentable.
“Looks can be deceiving, sir.”
The cause of her earlier meltdown chose that moment to land on my
shoulder to bolster my confidence. Carter, however, gave serious
consideration to punching the crow, if the fist clenching and unclenching
down by her side was any indication.
 “This must be Frankie Talbot.” Leer stuck out his arm. “I’m honored to
meet you at last.”
Aside from locking gazes across an elevator at the hotel where Harrow
had kidnapped Matty, we hadn’t interacted with one another. I would have
preferred it to remain that way.
Had Carter not elbowed me, I wouldn’t have taken his hand, but I did it
for her. “Same here.”
“Your tone says otherwise, but that’s fine.” He let go after holding on a
second too long. “I understand it must have come as a surprise to learn
we’ve kept an eye on you over the years. To find out the way you did,
through Detective Harrow, who I understand is a friend of yours, must have
been a bigger shock.”
The careful way he framed the delicate nature of my relationship with
Harrow told me Leer believed the old adage about attracting more flies with
honey than vinegar. He wanted on my good side, which made me question
his next move.
“I see you giving Carter side-eye.” Leer tapped his temple. “But she
hasn’t been spying on you for me.”
Curling her lip, she growled at her boss. “Frankie knows better than
that.”
“Now?” I bumped her shoulder. “Not in a million years.” I pretended to
think about it. “At the start…?”
“That’s fair.” She deflated on the spot, a cheddar puff bag crinkling in
her fist. “I didn’t know you then.”
“Same.” I projected my sincerity at her. “I trust you.”
“And this must be the death god I’ve heard so much about.” Leer
studied Kierce. “It’s a pleasure.”
With no one to nudge him, Kierce ignored the outstretched hand until
Leer dropped it to his side.
A few weeks ago, I would have considered he didn’t grasp the social
faux pas. Now? Oh, he knew.
“If you’ve heard so much about me,” Kierce said, his frigid tone lifting
gooseflesh down my arms, “how is it you don’t know I am merely beholden
to a death god and not one myself?”
To learn the 514 had been keeping tabs on Kierce since he entered my
life wasn’t wholly unexpected—he was collateral to their interest in me—
but hearing Leer admit it out loud didn’t earn him any points.
 “It’s a turn of phrase.” I slid my hand into Kierce’s, offering him my
support. “Nothing more.”
“Ms. Talbot is right.” Leer massaged the base of his neck in a calculated
aww shucks gesture I wouldn’t buy for a penny. “It’s the Southern
gentleman in me.”
Head tilting at a hard angle, Kierce returned Leer’s frank assessment. “It
makes you lie?”
A snort I turned into an unconvincing cough made my eyes water.
“Southernisms veer toward politeness,” he admitted, “rather than the
literal truth.”
“I prefer the literal.” Kierce rubbed his thumb over the back of my hand.
“I prefer the truth.”
“Boss.” Carter jerked her head toward her truck. “Let me give you an
update.”
“We’re all friends here.” He spread his smile around our circle. “I’m
sure they’re already in the loop.”
“We’re not friends,” Kierce informed him without hesitation. “I do not
wish to hold your hand.”
I buttoned my lips fast enough to hold in my guffaw this time, but my
eyes leaked tears.
“You mean the handshake?” Leer frowned at his palm. “It’s a human
custom I’ve adapted over time. I’m sorry if I offended you.”
“I need to make some calls.” I tugged Kierce toward the wagon. “It was
nice meeting you.”
“Ms. Talbot.” Leer took a healthy step in my direction. “What do you
think of our little organization?”
“Boss,” Carter hissed at him, proving he was improvising. “What are
you doing?”
“Ms. Talbot has been instrumental in solving two major cases in the past
couple months. Her natural talent for investigation can’t be taught.” He
placed a hand over his heart. “I wanted to thank her in person for her efforts
on our behalf.”
Certain this was heading nowhere good, I murmured, “You’re
welcome.”
“Have you considered a career in law enforcement?” He took another
step closer. “We’re always looking for potential to nurture, and you’ve
proven you’ve got what it takes to be one of the 514.” His whole vibe, a
paternal pride almost, didn’t do him any favors when I was touchier than
ever about my parentage. “You don’t have a history of working in law
enforcement, which lends you a unique perspective.” He snapped his
fingers like he had only just thought of it. “We could partner you and Carter.
Permanently. She could keep you safe on the job, freeing you up to use your
other…skills.”
And there it was, the other shoe dropping. Natural investigative talent
my foot.
“I appreciate you allowing your officers to assist me in my endeavors
where they overlapped with yours, but I have a job.” Two of them, if you
wanted to get technical. “I enjoy spending time with my family and our
friends, Talbots are big on that, so I don’t have time to take on more work.”
“You don’t have to answer today.” He held up his hands, palms out.
“Take all the time you need.”
A stinging pain nipped down my spine like angry ants marching, and
whispers rose on my periphery.
Surges in my abilities were fewer and further between now, probably
because I had locked myself down so tight, but the faint voices reminded
me the veil grew thin when I lost my temper.
“Frankie said no.” Kierce crackled with energy behind me. “That’s her
answer.”
“There’s no need for shows of force.” Leer backed up to the patrol car.
“I’ll give her space.”
Without another word, Kierce stretched an arm around my shoulders,
turning from Leer, and guided me to the wagon. He opened the passenger
side door, sat me on the front seat, then knelt before me. He rested his
palms on my knees, the heat of his skin warming me through the fabric of
my pants, thawing the cold brush of the grave against my senses.
“You must learn to mute the spirits,” he cautioned me, his touch gentle,
“or they will overwhelm you.”
“It will only get worse?” I had suspected that for a while. “Until I’m
like you?”
“Signs point to that, yes.” He gave me a moment to process. “I can
subdue the voices, for the most part, as long as I haven’t been injured or
expended too much energy.” His eyes gleamed silver and bottomless for a
heartbeat, reminding me how I once set a circle around him to quiet the
spirits when he was too weak to block them out himself, before his gaze
dimmed to its usual misty gray. “You’re so much more powerful than I am.
You can do this.”
More powerful than Kierce? I swallowed to wet my dry throat. No. He
must be mistaken. Or he could be, I don’t know, flattering me. Maybe he
was alluding to inner strength. Determination? Resolve? Courage?
Any of those sounded like a better alternative than having more
potential, therefore more problems, dumped in my lap.
“Walk me through it.” Setting those worries aside, I placed my hands
over the tops of his. “Explain it to me.”
“There’s a simple spell I can teach you that will shield your mind until
you learn how to use your new powers. It’s a temporary fix, and I can’t
guarantee how long it will work. Eventually, you must listen to the voices
long enough to learn what they want from you. Only then can you decide on
a permanent solution that will appease them.”
“A quick fix suits me fine.” I ignored the susurration on the edge of my
hearing. “How does this work?”
“Draw this rune in your blood on your skin.” He traced it over the top of
my thigh. “I’ll guide you through the hymn to activate it after you’re done.
This binding will dull your senses, but only on the spirit plane.” A flicker of
concern brightened his eyes. “Use it when you feel an episode coming on,
but you must wipe it off as soon as you’re certain you no longer need it.”
A hymn. Not a chant. Not a spell. A hymn.
Welcome to life as a demigoddess, Frankie.
The uptick of his concern caused mine to spike too. “What happens if I
forget?”
“The magic will sink into your veins, and your powers will diminish.
Over time, they might disappear.”
“All of them?” I recoiled from his touch. “Everything? Even the ones
I’ve always had?”
“They’re a part of you, every one of them, like the color of your hair or
your eyes.”
Shock from discovering the side effect of his cure spooked away the
voices, for now, and I drew in a deep breath.
“It’s over.” I leaned forward, resting my forehead against his shoulder.
“I’ll think on what you told me for next time.” The glimmer of hope that the
episodes would end after fulfilling my destiny—to kick the bucket in
spectacular fashion—faded to nothing. “There’s no such thing as an easy
fix, huh?”
“Not in my experience.” He buried his face in my hair. “What should
we do about Leer?”
We. I liked being part of a we. It was nice. Very nice. We.
“Hmm.” A wicked smile curled my lips. “Are you offering to sky
barbeque him for me?”
“You prefer to mete out your own justice.” He edged perilously close to
rolling his eyes. Definitely a Josie habit. “Will you still work this case, even
with Leer supervising?”
I wasn’t a cop. I wasn’t a private eye. I wasn’t an investigator. But I was
stubborn.
Thanks to a lifetime of mediating fights between my brother and sister, I
was good at sticking things out until I got to the bottom of a problem, but
Chief Leer had viewed me as an asset back when I was mostly a
necromancer, making me an even more valuable commodity as a
demigoddess.
Unless I severed ties with this side of the 514, I risked exposure on the
job and presented myself as an ideal candidate for blackmail in exchange
for my secret. I had to step back and let the professionals do their jobs. Or
Leer, no doubt about it, would find a way to make me an offer I couldn’t
refuse.
“I’m standing in quicksand.” I flexed my toes inside of my shoes. “The
only way to quit sinking is if I stop struggling.”
“You’re returning home then.” He stroked a hand down my back. “I’ll
let Carter know.”
From the hard set of his jaw, I could tell he wasn’t in any hurry to let
Leer anywhere near me. “Thanks.”
Shame gnawed on me for abandoning Camaro, and Tameka, but Leer
posed a substantial threat to my family if he got it in his head to make
himself a nuisance in order to recruit me.
Scooting across the bench until I sat behind the wheel, I waited to see
how Carter took the news. The earlier tension in her spine released as she
turned and waved goodbye to me with a glint in her eye.
Carter was not happy. I read it on her face. Leer was either brave or
stupid to ignore the signs.
 A minute later, Kierce returned with Badb in tow. She glided in ahead of
him, situating herself on the cat bed. He got in, shut the door, then fastened
his seat belt with a frown of concentration.
Every time he performed tasks he intended to master, he ticked them off
his mental checklist, which reminded me. “When do you want to start your
driving lessons?”
Had we fallen into a student and teacher dynamic, I wasn’t sure my
libido would have recovered until he graduated me from baby god school.
This tit-for-tat exchange suited me better. Each of us lacking where the
other was proficient meant we could exchange our knowledge freely
without any debt or obligation.
“My schedule is clear.”
With a finger wave to Carter, I pulled onto the road and pointed us
toward home. “Tomorrow?”
“Why not tonight? I can see in the dark.” Kierce traced the piping detail
in my seat. “For that matter, so can you. Your vision should be much
clearer.”
Curiosity would be the death of me. If I hadn’t already died. As if he
had ripped the blind from my eyes, I quit throttling my senses and
experienced them. Fully. I unclenched that mental muscle straining against
any newfangled extrasensory feedback and relaxed into a full spectrum of
colors and visual textures that defied description because no words existed
to detail this filter placed over my new reality.
If the daylight contained this many secret facets, I couldn’t wait to
explore the dark.
“This means I’ve been manipulating my powers this whole time,” I
squeaked, drawing Badb’s interest.
“Yes.” Kierce chuckled at the hands I slapped over my mouth. “You
have been.”
And the soft pride in his voice made me wonder what else I had
unconsciously been doing to amuse him.
F or eight excruciating minutes, I held out, but my mouth conspired
against my brain, and words tumbled out faster than I could snap
my jaw shut. “What else have I been unconsciously doing to amuse
you?”
Kierce shook his head, his glamour flickering. “I’m not laughing at you,
Frankie.”
The clench of his shoulders, as if expecting a verbal hit to land, left me
wishing I could wipe the question out of the air like an eraser across a
chalkboard. And it convinced me there was more to his reaction.
Had Dis Pater laughed at him? Mocked him? Had other god bloods like
Ankou?
Had they hurt him? Jabbed him through the bars of his cage? Yanked his
feathers?
Worse ideas kept intruding on my thoughts, leaving dark footprints
through my mind.
The second I cut into the parking lot at the shop, I had to get out. I
needed air. I needed to not be confined. Fuck. Where was this rage coming
from? This fury on his behalf when I had no idea if I was right about his
response unnerved me.
Matty was the imaginative one. It came from living half in dreams. I
was too practical by nature. And if not by nature, then necessity. But dark
images kept bombarding me like fact. Like truth. Like memory.
 “I believe you,” I said when I sensed his presence behind me.
“You’re angry.”
“Furious.”
A cautious note entered his voice. “Why?”
Because your god is a monster. Because he doesn’t deserve you.
Because he’s twisting you to his whims.
Judging Kierce, how he got into this situation or why he hadn’t gotten
out of it, was unfair. It wouldn’t fix anything. Only a better understanding
of him and his circumstances would do that. I wasn’t sure why the edge of
my temper cut toward him anyway. This—all of this—was Dis Pater’s fault.
Not Kierce’s.
“It came on me so fast.” I held out my hands, and they trembled. “I’ll be
fine in a minute.”
Fear I would have to lean into his quick fix for the spirits if I roused
them made it slightly easier to calm.
“You always do that.” He circled my wrists with his fingers. “You brush
off any concern for yourself.”
“Habit,” I muttered, knowing he was right but still unwilling to explain
the root of my temper.
“You were remade. Some might say reborn. You’re new. You should
have broken. Transformation would have broken anyone else.” He turned
over my palms. “But your will is so strong, the urge to protect the ones you
love so engrained in you, you’ve cut yourself off from your potential to
protect them.”
From the gentling in his tone, I didn’t have to glance up to be wary.
“Where are you going with this?”
Thumbs tracing patterns on my skin, he sounded torn between sharing
or withholding. “I have a theory.”
“Hit me.” I squared my shoulders. “I can take it.”
“I suspect it ties into your difficulty in looking at me without a filter.”
“You’re gorgeous and celestial and…everything…all at once.” I started
fidgeting. “Who could blame me?”
“You’re all those things and more.” His earnestness almost convinced
me. “So much more.”
“Agree to disagree.” Once I started fidgeting, I couldn’t hold still. “Your
theory?”
 “You have a skewed perception of yourself. You don’t see yourself as I
do, as everyone else does. You—” he shook his head as if struggling to find
the words, “—don’t believe you’re worthy.” He dragged a hand through his
hair. “Of me.” He barely got out that last part. “You wish to appear as an
equal in my eyes to bridge a gap you imagine exists between us.”
“I’m a peacock is what you’re saying.” I hid behind my palms. “I’m
shaking my tail feathers at you.”
Males of the species were showstoppers, so asking Kierce to wear
glamour, dulling himself, was the only way for me to be the flashier one.
Basically, I was jumping up and down while yelling pick me, pick me at
the top of my lungs.
“Frankie.” He dragged my arms away from my face. “It’s just a theory.”
“No. You might be onto something. I wouldn’t want to run away and
never look back otherwise.”
“A mirror can’t show your worth.” He tugged me closer. “A mirror
can’t reflect your heart. A mirror can’t reveal your soul. You’re so much
more than a trick of silver under glass.” He searched my face. “Your worth
is so much greater than mine. I’m the one who falls short. Not you. Never
you.”
“You’re worth more than your looks too. You’re a good man, Kierce. A
kind man.”
“And, as Josie frequently reminds me, a weirdo.”
“That might be your best quality.” I pressed my face into his chest. “I
like being with a fellow weirdo.”
“Then let’s be weirdos together.”
“Why are you two always making heart eyes at one another?”
The sound of Matty’s voice whipped my head toward him. “We’re not.”
“Josie has made me watch enough anime for me to recognize heart eyes
when I see them.”
“That was hentai,” Josie clarified behind me. “And I gave you that
DVD boxed set forever ago. As a joke.” Her eyes rounded. “Wait.” She
spluttered a laugh. “You watched it? Ha. Loser.” She tapped her chin with a
fingertip, her grin sly. “When you say you’ve watched enough, how much is
enough cartoon porn?”
Pretty sure the soul—Matty’s actual soul—up and left his body upon
Josie airing his secrets so publicly.
 “Porn?” Kierce’s forehead pinched as he clued in to Matty’s
embarrassment. “What’s porn?”
“I’m so glad you asked, Kierce.” Josie pressed her index fingers
together, twisting them back and forth. “When one tentacle monster loves
another tentacle monster, sometimes they shove their—”
“Hey,” Matty shouted awkwardly. “What’s up with the repo?”
To spare my brother more shame, I brought them both up to speed. And
then I told them about Vi.
“What I’m hearing is Matty’s extensive knowledge of tentacle monsters
might come in handy.” Josie had an uncanny talent for twisting the knife.
“Maybe he should take a few days off to be a special consultant for the 514.
He has visual aids, after all, so he could educate the officers on first contact.
You might want to bring travel-size lube to pass out among your new
friends, though. I’ve heard things get slippery fast.”
“I hear Paco calling,” Matty said as he spun and powerwalked into the
safety of the shop.
Never mind the fact that if Matty was here, Paco couldn’t be, or that
The Body Shop was closed today.
“You can’t hear Paco,” she yelled, trailing after him. “He’s a ghost.”
I let her chase him a minute to get it out of her system, then I caught her
by the ponytail and yanked her to a stop. Her growl would have been more
menacing if she hadn’t also stamped her foot like a toddler. I cracked a
smile where she couldn’t see.
Sweet relief coasted through me at their squabbling. Josie was a long
way from healed from what Armie had done to her, to us, but she was a
fighter. She had never met a challenge she couldn’t best. She wouldn’t give
up on taking back her life or her home. She wouldn’t give up period.
Thank God.
With a feigned sigh, I ordered, “Let him go.”
“How about you let me go?” She turned within my grip to face me.
“That hair is attached, you know.”
As much as I hated to hit her where it hurt, scalp notwithstanding, I was
reminded of the task she had undertaken in her spare time. “Any luck
finding Ankou’s tree?”
The question erased her earlier playfulness, and determination set in.
“Not yet, but I’m close.”
 No one stood a better chance of locating a specific tree than a dryad,
and Josie had sources all over.
With her fully distracted from Matty, I released her. “Good work.”
“There’s a charged patch of soil on the edge of town I’m going to
investigate later. It could be a grave, an unofficial one, I mean. Either
forgotten or hidden. They can have peculiar energy plants don’t like.”
Peculiar energy sounded promising. “Do you want me to go with you?”
The afternoon stood wide open until dark, when Kierce wanted to try
his hand driving on empty roads.
“Nah.” She waved off the offer. “I already told Carter she has to take
me.”
Carter, who had a search to organize, was an unlikely choice. “She
agreed to this?”
“I won’t say she agreed, but she’ll do it.” She wiggled her eyebrows. “I
have my ways.”
“Ways I don’t want to know about.” I wrinkled my nose. “Otherwise,
it’s going well between you?”
Rather than a snappy response, she fell silent, her chin angled away
from me.
“I think she likes the company. Having someone to come home to,” she
murmured. “That sort of thing.”
When she didn’t elaborate, which was unJosielike, I had to prod her.
“How about you?”
“The distance helps as much as it hurts,” she admitted. “I want to be
with you and Matty but…”
“We’re not going anywhere.” I folded her in a hug that left her
wheezing. “Take all the time you need.”
Her eyes were glassy when she withdrew, but she refused to let her tears
fall. “Since you’re clearly desperate for my company, I’ll be nice and let
you go with me instead of Carter.”
Ankou’s tree aside, I was glad for the excuse to hang out with her.
“When?”
“Now is as good a time as any.” She grinned over my shoulder.
“Coming, Birdfriend?”
Warmth from Kierce’s nearness caressed my spine as he asked her, “Do
you require my assistance?”
 “I’m sure Frankie and I can handle it, but it’s not bad.” She rolled her
eyes. “Having you around, I mean.”
From Josie that was a gold-star endorsement, and Kierce understood the
weight of her approval.
Had I not long suspected she began accepting Kierce to spite Harrow, I
would be more impressed with her invitation. As it was, I dared to hope
Kierce was carving out his own niche with my siblings. Even this, a simple
good faith gesture, was more of a welcome than Josie had ever shown
Harrow.
And there I went, thinking about him again.
Harrow.
This whole cutting-people-out-of-your-life thing was harder than I
thought it would be.
First Armie. Now Harrow. Small as my social circle was, I couldn’t
afford to lose more people from it.
“I would be happy to accompany you.” He inclined his head to her. “I
have a vested interest in the tree.”
“We all do.” A cold light entered her eyes. “Anything Armie planted is
poison.”
Since he fed me its fruit, and he had made no secret he wanted me dead,
her literal interpretation might not be far off base. He must have expected
me to rise as a god blood, like him. But thanks to my parents, and Dis Pater
being a homicidal glowworm, I woke as a demigoddess instead.
Dis Pater claimed I would have died young, for a necromancer, but that
could have meant two hundred or more years. Had Armie’s fruit accelerated
my demise? Had my episodes not been escalating with the passage of time
but through an increase in my consumption? I didn’t know. I might never
know. I wasn’t sure it mattered, in hindsight. He got his wish. I died. Now it
was up to us to make sure no one else got a one-way ticket stamped to an
eternity of servitude.
“I’ll text Matty,” I volunteered. “Let him know where we’re going.”
A pinch in my chest made it difficult to type the message. I didn’t like
leaving him alone.
But if I smothered him, I would be clipping his wings when he deserved
to fly for as long as possible.
>We’re off to tree hunt.
>>I hope you lose Josie in the woods.
 >That’s not nice.
>>Josie’s not nice.
>She has her moments.
Despite the warning voice telling me not to baby him, I couldn’t help
but ask.
>Will you be okay alone?
>>I won’t be alone. I’m going to see Leyna.
>Should I know that name?
>>She’s a friend of a friend who invited me to a party tonight.
Teeth clenched against the urge to drill him for details, I restrained
myself.
>Sounds like fun.
>>I’ll check in.
>>Good luck tree hunting.
“He’ll be okay.” Josie picked at a fingernail until it tore then slung her
hand. “He will be okay, won’t he?”
That it fell to me to reassure her was nothing new, but the weight of it
tipped some internal scale.
Retrieving my keys from my pocket, I mashed my lips firm. “We won’t
give him a choice.”
I had to come clean to my siblings. Tonight. Already I had lost my nerve
too many times. Fear still tingled down my spine from what happened to Vi
earlier. There was every reason to believe Ankou wasn’t done with me yet.
And, when he came, my family deserved to be prepared for the chaos
trailing in his wake.
T alahi Island nestled between Savannah and Tybee Island on the
Atlantic Ocean and, according to a pine tree (a loblolly, whatever
that is), who heard it from a lacebark elm, who was told by a queen
palm, a six-foot-square patch of sandy soil existed where nothing grew and
no animals dared tread.
That was how we found ourselves parking at a nearby Sharky Shake
Shack, following directions from the air plant the queen palm left on the
ground for Josie, with the request from the air plant that she place it on a
new tree in a safe area where it could grow in peace away from its annoying
siblings.
“Oh.” Josie slowed in front of Kierce and me, carrying on with the
plant. “I see what you mean.”
From her perch on my shoulder, Badb cracked open a peanut she got
from who knows where and rained husk down the front of my shirt. She
offered me a piece of shell. Not a peanut, mind you, but still. I gave her a
head scratch for effort. Minimal as it might have been.
A queasy sensation swamped my senses when I stepped from the
pavement onto sand, and I clutched at Kierce’s arm as I drank in our
surroundings. “Do you feel that?”
No tree. No bush. No flower.
The land was barren.
“Yes.” He gestured for me to stay back. “I’ll go first.”
 That tweaked Badb’s tail feathers, and she shot off to follow him, but
Josie was happy to wait with me.
“Hmm. True. Good point.” She picked a dead leaf off the plant. “The
sun is much better over there.”
The spiky ball of green fronds rested on her open palm. Unmoving.
Unspeaking. Just there.
I had often thought Josie had it easier than me when it came to our gifts.
Anyone could see who she was talking to, so she didn’t stand out as more
than an overenthusiastic plant mom. Meanwhile, I was always talking to
thin air, throwing crazy vibes that earned me even crazier looks from
anyone who caught me.
Thankfully, the few businesses had closed for the day, so there was no
one around to see either way.
“Frankie.” Kierce met my gaze, and his was troubled. “Would you mind
coming here?”
Stepping off the curb, I breathed through the roiling in my stomach.
“Not at all.”
“That’s not a happy face.” Josie rocked forward to join us. “What did
you find?”
“Stay there.” He threw his hand out toward her as he crouched. “There’s
active death magic here.”
“Yikes.” She took a healthy step back, clutching the air plant. “We’ll
wait over here then.”
Death magic was neither good nor bad. Like most magic, it simply
existed. How it was manipulated, well, often that was the problem. For
Kierce to be wary, he must have sensed darker powers at work.
“A divine tree was here.” He sifted the soil through his fingers,
exposing hairlike roots shriveled from sun exposure. “The earth has been
corrupted beyond my ability to sense more.”
“Corruption.” I squatted beside him. “Why does that not surprise me?”
“Ankou and his god aren’t inherently evil.”
“You could have fooled me.”
“Perhaps I ought to have said their powers, their divine spark, isn’t
evil.”
“You would know better than me.”
Evil is as evil does.
 Explaining her clientele, and their more unique requests, Vi relied on
that phrase often. I wasn’t sure if it was meant to soothe her conscience or
mine, but I never questioned Vi’s choices. She was a good person. I trusted
her motives. If she helped someone who landed more firmly in the black
than moral gray areas, she had her reasons. Ankou’s magic straight from the
tap might hold myriad possibilities, but he had left his morals behind along
with his humanity, if his treatment of Josie was a barometer for his past
actions.
“We need to figure out who took it.” He shook loose grains from
between his fingers. “And find them.”
“Would he have sent his acolytes to dispose of it?”
Its fruit would be evidence of what he had done to me, yes, but also
dangerous to anyone who stumbled across it. Though, looking at it that way,
he wouldn’t have given up the tree for its chaos potential alone.
For the tree to be gone, Ankou either had other plans for it, or someone
else did.
Either choice would keep me up nights until we located and destroyed
it.
With the amount of foot traffic this area must see on a daily basis,
someone must have noticed the tree thief. I doubt anyone would report it,
though. They would likely believe either the city or the county had decided
to remove it. Maybe even one of the buildings’ tenants. Not that there were
many.
A grocery store. A community center. A gas station.
“More than likely, yes.”
“Let me grab a sample for Vi.”
A blight could be the result of a curse, a spell, a charm or have any
number of magical origins. Figure out what caused the problem, and we
were one step closer to a solution. And identifying the culprit.
When I reached Josie, she fell in step with me, tracing a path back to the
wagon and my bowler bag filled with supplies. Including empty vials for
taking samples. I was digging out gloves when she finally hit her limit for
keeping her mouth shut. Honestly, I was impressed she lasted a whole sixty
seconds.
“Well?” She leaned over my shoulder, watching me gather my things.
“Were my contacts right?”
 “They sensed where the god tree was rooted, but it’s not there
anymore.”
“As in death magic killed it?” She read my reaction. “Or as in someone
dug it up and took it with them?”
“I’m not sure.” I shut the tailgate on the wagon and threw her the keys.
“But we’re going to find out.”
Maybe Carter could pull some strings, discover if any of the shops had
security cameras that might have recorded the theft. That would give us a
date, time, and potential ID.
“The keys are a hint to stay put,” she told the plant. “She’s bossy like
that.”
“You and your new friend can wait in the wagon or go get some ice
cream,” I tossed over my shoulder. “I don’t want you anywhere near this
until we contain it.”
While Josie and her plant buddy wandered off, debating the merits of
various trees as potential homes, I returned to Kierce.
He took a vial from my hand and followed my example as I filled mine
with sandy soil, leaving room for a piece or two of splintered root. We
capped them at the same time, and he passed me his. I stored them in a
small velvet pouch lined with nulling fabric enchanted by a local coven for
just such occasions.
“You’re smiling.”
Turning away, I packed them in my bowler bag until I could send one to
Vi. “Am I?”
Missing that I meant it as a rhetorical question, he said, “Yes.”
“You’re just so cool.” I did my best to conceal my blush. “I can’t help it.
I only mean to think it, but my face says it anyway. I’m sorry if it’s making
things awkward.”
To have someone interested in the same things as me, capable of the
same magic as me, was a delight. I tested the opposites-attract theory with
Harrow. I embraced magic. He despised it. And himself for what powers his
heritage granted him. The push and pull between our views exhausted me at
times, but I told myself he was worth it. Relationships are work, right? I
hadn’t been afraid of investing in him.
But with Kierce…
He was kind. Adorably clueless. A vault of ancient knowledge. And he
liked cemeteries.
 That last one might not seem earth-shattering, but it appealed to the
taphophile in me.
“I like when you think about me.”
“You must cruise through life with a grin then,” I joked, kind of. “What
do we do next?”
Willing to let me off the hook, he planted his palms on the dirt. “Do you
remember when I told you that we could draw strength from grave soil?”
Perking up, I leaned closer. “Yes.”
“This ground has been touched by death. That means we can consume
its power.”
“Isn’t its power tainted?” I scrunched up my face. “Is chowing down on
that healthy?”
“The blight is too weak to harm us. We’ll metabolize the residual magic
and convert it to clean energy.”
“Then the blighted soil goes back to being regular dirt?”
“It will be cleansed, yes.” He hesitated, over the verbiage or the idea.
“Would you like to try?”
Mirroring his position, I calmed my nerves. “I’m full of death-y energy,
so what’s a little more?”
“You’ll only need this skill when you’re injured or have burned through
your magic.”
“When?” I swallowed past a lump in my throat. “Not if?”
Life since we met had been bumpy, sure, but I wasn’t normally attacked
by gods and crazy people.
“Master this ability, and you won’t require Aretha’s assistance except in
dire circumstances.”
Dollar signs flashed before my eyes when I recalled how much work
she had put into keeping me alive in the last few weeks. She was worth
every penny, but ouch. I could only hope having already died, I would cost
less in the future.
“You should have led with that. I’m nothing if not cheap.” I bit my
bottom lip. “I meant to say practical.”
More of that hesitance seeped out of him. “Can I make a confession?”
Wary of what he wanted off his chest, I still owed him the chance to
unburden. “Sure.”
“I erased your debt with Harrow.”
“You…?” I wobbled back, landing on my butt. “You did what?”
 “He paid Aretha for her services, but that debt never sat well with you.”
He set his jaw. “Or with me.”
“I don’t…” I couldn’t get my tongue to work. “But he…?”
“I asked Aretha for an estimate, paid her, and she refunded Harrow.”
“Thank you, Kierce. Really. You didn’t have to do that.” There. Finally.
I got the words out. “But I owe the money to you now, and it feels weird
having debt between me and my—” don’t say birdfriend, don’t say
birdfriend, don’t say birdfriend, “—boyfriend.”
A wave of dizziness swept through me at hearing the claim made out
loud. Boyfriend. Kierce was my boyfriend. The actual Viduus was my
actual boyfriend. I couldn’t tell if I was about to swoon or vomit.
“That’s why I convinced Pascal to source the cab for a 1976 Toyota
Land Cruiser FJ40. He says the rest will be trickier, but he’s confident he
and his brothers can have it built and running in a few months.” He looked
pleased with himself, which proved how skilled Pascal was at convincing
people to fund projects on his restoration bucket list. “I have an open tab at
The Body Shop, as of yesterday, after Pascal won the auction, and you will
charge me as a regular customer—parts and labor—until the debt is
squared.”
“You don’t have to let us off the hook that easy.” I gripped his hand,
certain my palm was sweaty. “We can afford to pay you back. You don’t
have to commission a build you don’t need.”
“I want to learn how to drive and help with your duties, which means I
need transportation.”
The permanence of him purchasing a vehicle, the promise it made that
he wanted to stay here, with me, set velvet-winged moths free in my
stomach. “You could buy a used one much cheaper.”
“Modern vehicles don’t appeal to me. Vintage ones don’t either, if I’m
honest.” He tipped his head back. “I would prefer to purchase land enough
for a horse or two, but I must adapt. I can’t stand with one foot in the past
without hobbling my present.” He slid his gaze to mine. “And I want to be
an asset to you.”
“You okay, Mary?” Josie called from a safe distance. “You’re not
making yourself sick?”
From her perspective, I could see how it would look that way to her, but
we hadn’t gotten started yet.
 “Fine,” I yelled back, shaking Kierce’s admission off me. “Let’s handle
this. We’ll talk cars later.”
“All right.” He resumed his position and waited for me to do the same.
“Close your eyes and repeat after me. There’s a hymn for this, and you’ll
want to memorize it.”
With a tight nod, I shut my eyes and opened myself to the power within
me, preparing to listen.
Aside from the usual routine of seating spirits inside their loaners of
choice, I hadn’t used the new powers I sensed at my fingertips. I had been
too afraid. Kierce gave me the courage to push past the walls I had been
erecting for myself. He gave me the confidence to trust in his voice as I
picked up the hymn and sang softly with him.
Energy broke against me like ripples skating across the surface of a
pond, and I dug my hands deeper.
Cold power teased the tips of my fingers, numbing them, creeping up
my hand into my arm. As it seeped into my chest, spreading toward my
heart, I almost caved to the fear rising in me. But as my teeth began to
chatter, a burst of warmth ignited within my core, melting the chilly
discomfort until pleasant heat hit me in a refreshing rush of energy my body
interpreted as adrenaline.
Pounding filled my ears, and my eyes shot open onto a world gilded
with buttery yellow light.
“How do you feel?”
His multilayered voice echoed, clenching my abdomen with longing.
“Good,” I croaked through a parched throat. “I’m all tingly.”
In my pants.
Kierce cleared his throat.
That was the point when I realized I was checking his pants for signs
of…tingles…too.
“I am so sorry.” I slapped my palms over my eyes. “I don’t know what
came over me.”
“You’re having a natural reaction.” He placed his hands on my
shoulders. “Give it a moment to dissipate.”
“You should have warned me.” Heat lashed my face. “I didn’t know I
was groping lust dirt.”
“Lust,” he said, blinking slowly. “Dirt.”
 “You need to go back to the wagon. Tell Josie to drive you home or
anywhere you want to go.” I held in a groan from deep in my soul. “I’m
staying here. With the air plant. We’ll climb a tree together and—”
“You were examining me for signs of arousal.”
The surprise in his voice convinced me living in the wild as an air plant
was the right move for me.
“I’m a plant now.” I curled over my knees, pressing my forehead to the
dirt. “I can’t understand you.”
“Frankie,” he chuckled my name. “Look at me.”
“Plants can’t look at people.”
“There’s new research that suggests otherwise.” His voice lowered to a
pleading rumble. “Frankie.”
The second I drew my hands down my face, he was there, brushing his
soft lips over mine.
He speared his fingers through my hair, angling my head in a way that
spoke to past experience whether he recalled it or not. He held me there, his
teeth raking my bottom lip, his mouth demanding I let him in. I darted my
tongue out to taste him, and his groan of satisfaction thrummed through me,
heady as a drug eager to addict me. I curled my hands in his hair, refusing
to let him retreat an inch from the fire burning through me, consuming me.
“Get a room.”
We only broke apart when lack of oxygen screamed in my brain, but I
couldn’t let him go. He seemed to have the same problem, his grip on me
unbreakable, his heart pounding between us so hard I worried it might
shatter.
A hard jab of pain radiated out from the crown of my head, and I yelped
as it smarted a second time.
“Badb,” Kierce growled, shielding me as best he could from the next
pebble to rain down.
“Heh.”
Head swinging toward the source of the laughter, I spotted Josie and her
plant egging on Badb. “Mary.”
“Ahem.” She cut her eyes left. “Unless you want to be an internet
sensation?”
Three teenagers stood on the sidewalk with their phones pointed at us.
The two girls were swoony, but I caught the boy, who was younger, flipping
the camera forward and back to cut his disgusted expressions into the video.
I had no idea how long they had been standing there, watching the show,
but they must have arrived during our kiss. Had they strolled up during the
hymn, or before I satisfied my curiosity about how Kierce tasted, she would
have gotten our attention sooner.
“What does she mean?” Kierce’s fingers slid from my hair. “They’re
filming us?”
“Yes.” I transferred my glare onto the kids, who scattered with cackled
laughter. “Probably to show their friends the mating rituals of old people.” I
snorted at his growl of annoyance. “I’m joking. Mostly. I mean they could
splice it into a clip on how cringe we are, but we were only a passing
amusement.”
“They stole our first kiss.” A sterling gleam brightened his eyes. “They
had no right.”
Old as he was, I wasn’t surprised to learn Kierce was possessive or held
chivalrous views.
Honestly, in an age where every kiss and touch were documented and
scattered across the internet into the homes and lives of total strangers, I
couldn’t blame him for his anger in having our first kiss recorded for mass
consumption or possibly dumped and forgotten in a digital trash can.
There was a feed the beast mentality I had adjusted to as popular culture
evolved around us that Kierce had yet to experience until now. People
wanted to be relevant. They wanted to be seen, heard, envied. And when the
inevitable happened, and they ran out of fresh content about their own lives,
they looked to others to provide sustenance for them and their followers.
Today was, apparently, our turn on the menu.
“This is the world we live in.” I cupped his cheek in my palm. “They
didn’t mean any harm.”
“You’re not upset.” His gaze dipped to my mouth. “You don’t mind?”
“My boyfriend kissed me.” I fizzed with happiness. “Who cares who
saw it?” I swiped my thumb across his tight lips. “I’m not going to let them
ruin my buzz.” I dropped my hand. “Are you?”
“No.” He rested his forehead against mine. “I kissed my—girlfriend?—
and she liked it.”
The thread of worry under his bravado pinched my heart, forcing me to
recall his fears of inadequacy.
“Very much.” I brushed my nose against his. “So much she might even
let you do it again later.”
Minus the audience.
L ong after we returned home, minus Josie, who had convinced the
chatty air plant to come live with her, probably to spy on Carter in her
absence, I couldn’t sit still. Too much energy swirled within me from
the cleansing. I scrubbed my apartment then organized my office then
mulched around Elmo. I was about to wash the wagon, which didn’t need it
since the cleaning spell kept it spotless, when Kierce found me.
“Let’s go for a run.” He tossed me my orange vest. “You need to burn
through your excess.”
“Okay.” I jerked it on before I registered I was already sprinting. “First
one to Bonaventure wins.”
The cemetery wasn’t far, especially not when I was motivated, but
scenery blurred past in a daze.
“Feeling better?”
Glancing over my shoulder, I spotted Kierce exactly one step behind
me. “Yes.”
“Good.” He closed the gap. “Then you won’t mind a little competition.”
“Bring it on.” I was euphoric from the slap of sneakers on pavement.
“Let’s do this.”
Had I any doubt Kierce had been letting me win up to that point, he
crushed them when he pulled ahead of me. One length. Two. Three. The
man might as well have wings on his feet. “Push harder.”
 “I am pushing.” A pleasant burn hummed through my muscles from the
exercise. “I can’t go any faster.”
Running was the joy for me, not the destination. Plus his legs were like
three times as long as mine.
“Then you’ll lose.”
Swooping in wide circles above his head, Badb cheered Kierce on with
eager clicks of her beak.
To have siblings was to be competitive. Mostly with each other. And
with Rollo. The jerk. But sometimes it spilled over into other aspects of my
life. Like now. With my bird— Crap. My boyfriend.
Leaning into the burn, I pushed myself harder and harder.
Until I broke.
And an unprecedented rush of energy whooshed through my limbs,
propelling me faster and faster.
Until I left Kierce in my dust.
The rush fueled me, propelling me toward the finish line, refusing to
ease up even as impact with the front gate loomed before me.
There was time. I could have stopped. I could have skidded. I would
have bounced off the wrought iron.
Instead, I leapt, clearing the metal without brushing the top with so
much as my toe.
A triumphant whoop parted my lips, but it turned out I was better at
jumping than landing.
I hit with my feet, rolled my ankles, tumbled to my knees, then flipped
end over end into a heaping pile of browned palm fronds someone had
raked together. I lay sprawled out on my crunchy bed, stars in my eyes,
marveling at how good I felt after a massive wipeout that should have
broken bones.
“Frankie.” Kierce dropped to his knees beside me. “Are you all right?”
“I…” a cough lodged in my throat that might have been a laugh, “…
won.”
“How’d you do that?” A small blue face appeared above me. “Jump like
a bleedin’ cricket?”
Tommy, the youngest of the Buckley Boys, bounced on his feet about a
foot above the ground.
“Look at ’er.” Johnny, the oldest, sounded shocked. “She’s dead as
doornails.”
 “Not dead.” Bannon, the middlest, squinted at me. “Her head’s got one
of them shiny things.”
“A halo,” I supplied, since it was the closest approximation, and the
boys nodded in unison.
“Frankie isn’t dead,” Kierce reassured them. “She—”
“Look it.” Tommy jabbed a finger at Kierce. “Now hers matches his.
Black an’ everything.”
“That ain’t right.” Bannon crossed his arms over his chest. “She weren’t
yours to take, Reaper.”
“Reapers don’t got halos,” Tommy reasoned. “He’s somethin’ else.”
This was a prime opportunity for me to try out my explanation with a
captive audience.
Kierce clasped hands with me, hauling me into a seated position, but I
pulled free before he lifted me onto my feet. I wanted to remain at their
level. He seemed to understand this and fell back, giving them space to
crowd around me.
“It’s like this.” I folded my legs under me. “I died a few days ago
and—”
“I called it.” Johnny slapped the other boys’ shoulders. “Welcome to the
club.”
“—but then I woke up alive.” I chuckled as they scratched their heads.
“Turns out one of my parents was a god. Who knew? Now I’m like this.” I
spread my arms. “Stuck somewhere in between.”
That part could use a polish before I trotted it out in front of Josie and
Matty, but practice made perfect.
“She’s a demigoddess,” Kierce told them, and their jaws threatened to
unhinge.
“She’s like you.” Black clouded Bannon’s eyes as he glared at Kierce.
“This your doin’?”
Um. Yeah. That bit should also be worked over before my siblings
attacked Kierce in a rabid frenzy.
“No,” I rushed to reassure them. “Another god did it.”
“Why’re all them gods in Savannah?” Tommy looked to the others.
“Why’d they hurt Frankie?”
Yet another point I wish I could tick off my fingers, but it was a
mystery. “I wish I knew.”
 Had there always been this much divine activity in the city, I would
have heard about it from the spirits. I had an awfully persistent voice in my
head warning me their interest in Savannah and its surrounding areas was a
recent development, and that it was somehow my fault for attracting their
attention.
“We’ll keep an eye out.” Johnny made it a promise. “No charge.”
“What he said.” Bannon jerked his head in a nod. “Any gods around
’ere will ’ave to go through us.”
“We’ll help.” Tommy tugged on my hand. “It’ll be okay, Frankie.”
Warm tears rolled down my cheeks. “Thanks, boys.”
A blink later, they were gone, off to peddle gossip and investigate. Too
bad they couldn’t transport items like a ghosty USPS. I could have sent the
vial for Vi off with them instead of paying for overnight delivery.
“Well.” I wiped my face dry. “That was exciting.”
“Too exciting.” Kierce fingered a hole in my jeans. “I shouldn’t have
taunted you.”
“I like when you play with me.” I examined the skin beneath the tear.
“Unless that sounds weird?”
“You enjoy teasing.” He sat beside me. “I enjoy it too.”
“Teasing or being teased?” I couldn’t find so much as a speck of blood.
“And where is my road rash?”
After a brief consideration, he decided, “Both.” He pulled my hand
away from my knee. “How do you feel?”
“Good. I’m not hurt. I should be, but I’m…” I put two and two together
then. “The lust dirt.”
“Yes.” Amusement curled his lips. “The lust dirt.”
“You’re saying the energy we consumed healed me before I drew
blood.” I wiggled my finger in the hole again. “That’s crazy.” A flash of
how ruined he had been the night Ankou attacked him left my throat dry as
dust and desperate to avoid a repeat. “Ankou hurt you so badly you couldn’t
heal here, even so close to the cemetery. How did he cage you anyway?”
“He’s an osteokinetic.” He tapped the tip of my shoe. “For that reason,
his god gifted him with one of his toe bones. Ankou can shape bone like
putty, but divine bones are rare. They can injure or even kill gods if their
wounds are severe enough.”
“He tried to kill you.” I placed a hand over his chest, where the worst of
the damage had been. “What an asshole.” I couldn’t shake the certainty the
cage aspect had been a taunt. “Why aren’t you madder about that?”
“Ankou knows what he’s doing. He incapacitated me and insured I
wouldn’t be there to guide or protect you. He would have come for you, if
Dis Pater hadn’t intervened, to guarantee your death before my return.”
“Well, he got what he wanted,” I said flatly. “Too bad we still don’t
know why he wanted it.”
An incoming text drew my attention to my pocket, and I pulled out my
cell.
As if talk of Ankou and his freaky bone manipulation skills had
summoned bad news, Carter supplied it.
>>We found bones.
>Whose?
>>That’s the million-dollar question.
>>Want to meet for coffee?
A quick check of the time quirked my brow.
>How do you know I’m not home in my pajamas?
>>Josie tracks your phone. She says you’re at Bonaventure. With
Kierce.
>She’s tracking him too?
>Scratch that. Of course she’s stalking him. She can’t help herself.
Probably because she didn’t try very hard not to be a bratty little sister.
>>Is that a yes?
>Yeah. Sure. Text us the address.
“The crime scene techs found bones.” I couldn’t shake my unease.
“Carter wants to meet for coffee.”
“Are they related to your missing loaner?”
“She didn’t say.” I tapped my phone against my chin. “Are you up for a
rematch?”
His slight hesitation betrayed his concern over my recent impression of
a tumbleweed in a tornado.
“I have more energy to burn.” I rose with a grunt I was shocked to
realize was only habit not necessity. “I understand if you’re too scared to
—” Dirt sprayed my cheek as he sprinted for the gate. “Hey.” Laughter
bubbled out of me as I scrabbled to catch him. “It doesn’t count if you don’t
say ready, set, go.”
“Ready, set, go,” he called back to me, not slowing down.
“I had that coming,” I mumbled to myself.
 Judging by my smile, I didn’t mind one bit.

W I M , S ,I
pictured it as a hot chocolate bar. Hand-cut marshmallows, seventy-five
percent cacao drinks, hand-whipped cream. The short coffee menu featured
heavy mocha undertones, and the tea menu was nonexistent. The lack of
cheddar-based options made it a peculiar choice for Carter.
The fact she sat at a table with two cupcakes pierced with candles and a
lighter made it even weirder.
Cautious of what ill omen her choice in snack heralded, I approached
her slowly to ensure my sister wasn’t hiding under the table, poised to jump
out and scare ten years off my life. Though I couldn’t recall any holidays,
birthdays, or special occasions matching today’s date, siblings required no
excuse to terrorize one another.
“Sit.” Carter kicked out two chairs. “Have a salted caramel cupcake.”
As Kierce and I lowered ourselves onto our seats, she lit the candles
then propped her phone facing us.
“Happy first kiss day to you,” Josie sang. “Happy first smooch day to
you. Happy first liplock, Frankie and Kierce-y. Happy you finally reached
first base to you.”
“I vow to spend tonight switching stakes in your garden so that you
don’t know what you planted until it sprouts. Then I will pick all your
underripe fruit and vegetables and feed them to the crows. Crows I’ll let
Badb handpick from the local flock to join her in feasting until they poop
seeds across your garden, mixing fruits and vegetables all willy-nilly and
ruining your carefully segregated raised beds.”
“You monster,” she breathed, clutching her throat.
“Blow out the candle,” Carter prompted Kierce. “Then make a wish.”
While he considered what to ask for, or perhaps whether she was pulling
his leg, I jumped on mine.
“I wish Josie’s secret recipe for fried chicken, the one so secret even she
can’t remember it, gets lost. Forever.”
Josie sucked in a shocked breath, horror plain across her face. “You…
you…”
 The fact she couldn’t find a word bad enough to pin on me almost
brightened my mood. “Yes?”
“Oh. Wait. Ha. Sucker.” She stuck out her tongue. “You told us your
wish, so it won’t come true.”
“Damn it.” I pounded my fist on the table. “Then I’ll have to get
revenge the old-fashioned way.”
“I’m almost afraid to ask.” Carter leaned forward. “What’s the old-
fashioned way?”
“Where are you?” I twirled the dessert in my hand. “I have a cupcake
with your name on it.”
That I would gladly smash right between her eyes if I could sneak up on
her fast enough.
“Hang up now.” Carter mouthed the words to me. “Track her phone
later.”
Turnabout was fair play, and I wasn’t abusing the family plan on our
tracking app nearly enough.
“Fear me.” I mashed the end button on Josie then turned on Carter.
“Why did you help me strike fear in the heart of your roomie? You’re the
one who has to sleep down the hall from her.”
“Josie left a ball of hair the size of a yorkie in the shower this morning.”
Part of me wondered at them using the same shower. The rest of me
didn’t want to know. Ever.
“Do you want my wish?” Kierce offered me his cupcake. “I haven’t
used it yet.”
“One per customer,” Carter chided, but her expression was grimmer
without Josie on the line.
“She’s right.” I let my candle extinguish itself in my frosting. “You
should use yours for what you want.”
A faint crinkle of his eyes told me he had selected his ask for the
universe, then he blew out the candle.
“Do I eat it now?” His earnestness made my heart squeeze. “To make it
come true?”
His tastes as the Viduus fell on the bloodier side of the scale. Blue
steaks. Seared ahi. Smoked oysters. Lots of sushi. A stray vegetable
sneaked in here or there, but he made no efforts to round out his diet.
“You don’t have to, but the baked goods here are top-notch.”
“Then I’ll decline.” He held it out to me. “Would you like—?”
 “Yes.” Carter snatched it out of his hand. “I would.” She placed it
before her. “Thanks.”
Unable to look away, even though I wanted to, I watched her crush
cheddar puffs in their bag. I couldn’t stop my throat from bobbing as she
sprinkled crumbs over the top of the cupcake, really getting in there,
mashing them into the frosting. “What have you done?”
“Have you ever heard of Chicago-style popcorn?”
“Yes.” I saw where this was headed and explained to Kierce. “It’s half
cheddar and half caramel.”
“This is no different.” She jabbed a fork into her creation. “Salted
caramel cupcake plus cheddar puff.”
“A Chicago-style cupcake.” I glanced away after the first bite. “A
classic flavor combo no one asked for.”
“Now that I’ve tormented you on Josie’s behalf, we need to get down to
business.” She kept shoveling it in. “Bones.” She paused to sip from her
drink. “Dozens of them.”
Leaning forward, Kierce rested an elbow on the table. “Animal, human,
or other?”
Other covered a lot of ground when it came to the paranormal
community.
“The ones I saw weren’t humanoid.” She waved her fork. “I should
have species confirmation soon.”
“A large concentration of bones,” he mused, “could indicate a burial
ground.”
A chill swept through me at the thought of disturbing a mass grave.
“Which would rule out animals.”
“Unless it’s a cache,” Carter countered, a certainty in her expression that
worried me.
“An animal with a pantry that large is either a voracious predator,” I
mumbled, “or an old one.”
A hiss whistled through Kierce’s teeth, and the mark on my forearm
throbbed in time with my heart.
And then it all.
Just.
Stopped.
“H M P ?”
Buzzing in my ears made hearing difficult, but that line breached the
haze.
“You have one job. It’s obeying me. You’re not doing your job.”
Weightlessness nestled me in a bubble that drifted above the scene
shrouded in mists below me.
“I’m sorry,” an inhuman voice replied in a chipper tone. “I didn’t quite
get that.”
“How fucking far is it from fucking Manchester to fucking
Portsmouth?”
A sudden crash beneath me dumped enough adrenaline into my system
to bring my brain back online. I fell to the floor beside a round speaker that
must have been a virtual assistant of some flavor who’d just received their
pink slip.
“Ouch.” I rubbed my tailbone. “That hurt.”
“You expected it to hurt, so it hurts.” A fit man in his midsixties sat in a
chair behind an expansive desk. “Next time, don’t expect pain from your
incorporeal body, and you won’t experience any.”
“Dis Pater.” I recognized the distracted, self-important voice. “Why am
I here?”
“Good question.” He propped his feet on top of his desk. “I summoned
Kierce, but I got you.”
“Kierce?” I scrambled to stand, but the floor squished like a bouncy
house beneath me. “Where is he?”
“The same place he always is, I imagine.” He leaned back in his chair
and stared at the ceiling. “This book is slowly killing me.” He lifted a hand.
“I know, I know. I always say that at this point.” He dragged that same hand
down his face. “But this time, I mean it.”
“Where is Kierce?”
“There’s so much research involved,” he lamented. “Why did I think
cozies were a good idea?”
A growl rumbled up the back of my throat as I stomped over to him.
“Where. Is. Kierce?”
 “Look out the window.” He flipped a manicured hand at me. “Then
either help me or fuck off.”
Through the glass, I spotted Kierce stalking toward the cottage. “Why is
he out there?”
“I know you’re new, but I didn’t realize you were stupid.”
A twitch set up camp beneath my left eye, and it took every ounce of
my self-control not to punch him.
“Do you think I let just anyone in here?” He dropped his legs. “This is
my home. No one can just waltz in. I have gods’-bone wards, mouthy girl.”
Bones were a hot topic today. “The best money can buy.” He kicked off his
shoes and flashed an awful lot of pale toes missing their tips. “You
shouldn’t have been able to pop in.”
A door slammed open somewhere to the right of us, and Kierce burst
into the office seconds later.
“Frankie,” he breathed and then turned a venomous glare on Dis Pater.
“What is she doing here?”
“I didn’t invite her.” He put his shoe back on. “Are you sure you didn’t
bring her?”
“She’s astrally projecting herself,” Kierce determined. “You can’t be
outside your body for long, Frankie.”
Luckily, Carter was with said body, so it would be safe.
Unluckily, Vi would murder me if she found out I had astral projected
on a whim.
Not that I intended to end up here. There was no intent. Just poof. Here I
was.
Maybe the summoning token had something to do with it? The
tattoolike design on my forearm allowed me to call Kierce to me. The last
time I smeared blood on it, it hadn’t worked. Kierce hadn’t been healed
enough. Maybe this meant it was operational again and my newly minted
godhood twisted it into a two-way street?
“Kierce,” Dis Pater spoke his name softly. “You’re focusing on the
wrong thing.”
Shoulders snapping back, Kierce marched to the god then knelt at his
feet.
I got the distinct impression none of those actions had been performed
by choice.
“Master,” he rumbled in a warning growl. “What do you wish of me?”
 “The Alcheyvāhā have been disturbed, and I want you to find out who
is responsible and their agenda.”
“Alcheyvāhā?” He tasted the name but shook his head. “I don’t
recall…”
“Oh. Right.” He flicked his wrist toward Kierce. “There you go. That
should clear up things.”
Understanding flickered across Kierce’s features, and rage chased it, or
so I thought. There and gone so fast, I couldn’t be certain I hadn’t misread
him. But I didn’t think I had. “Kierce?”
Kierce, if he heard me, kept his full attention trained on his god.
“Now go.” Dis Pater poured himself a glass of amber fluid he drained in
one gulp. “Take your little friend with you.”
A tight pinch in my midsection exploded into a full-body yank that
jerked me into darkness.

“J . I’
again. The oak tree will pulverize me.”
I opened my eyes to find Carter cradling me in her arms. She knelt on
the tiles, rocking with me as a horrifying array of plant-based dooms spilled
from her mind into the chaos of Mallow as the cashier paced next to us,
chanting at herself to be calm, that paramedics were on the way.
“I’m good,” I croaked to Carter, then told the cashier, “Low blood
sugar.”
The sound of my voice startled Carter, and she flung me off her. Skull
bouncing off the floor, I grunted at the brief sting. The energy Kierce and I
had consumed earlier must have worn off. Either that, or I had used it up
after my spectacular crash landing at Bonaventure.
“Frankie.” Carter scooped me up again, dusting me off like the five-
second rule applied to people. “Are you okay?”
“Depends.” Tense as a board in her arms, I had to ask, “Are you going
to drop me again?”
Sirens blared a warning that coaxed a fresh burst of energy from the
already frantic cashier.
 As soon as they pulled in, the cashier rushed out to greet the
paramedics, and Kierce materialized in a corner. He must have been waiting
on her to leave so she wouldn’t remark on his sudden appearance. He strode
over, let out a relieved exhale, and lifted me into his arms.
“Do you want to stay?” Concern warred across his features. “Let them
examine you?”
“No.” I thumped my head against his chest. “I absolutely do not.”
More than likely, those were human paramedics, and I had no good
excuses for the glitter in my veins.
“We better hurry then.” Carter rose and shoved us toward the counter.
“Use the employee exit.”
With more grace than I had ever possessed, Kierce navigated the rear of
the store and located the door. Carter pushed it open and pointed to a bar
across the way. Kierce hustled through the alley, and we let ourselves in
through the back, ending up in a hallway leading to the bathrooms.
Safe from immediate detection, we walked out of the bar and into a
diner one street over. I got looks for Kierce carrying me, but I was enjoying
the ride, and the excuse to snuggle against him.
“You must be newlyweds,” the hostess cooed. “This is the sweetest
thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Yeah.” Carter nudged Kierce toward a booth in the back. “They’re
lovey-dovey all right.”
The bird reference earned her a scowl from me, but she pretended not to
notice.
“You can put me down.” I patted Kierce’s chest. “I was winded for a
minute, but I’m fine now.”
Once the three of us sat, Carter got right to the point. “What the hell
happened back there?”
“He was summoned by his god,” I answered for us. “For some reason,
my soul went along for the ride.”
“Your soul?” She rubbed her arms like she was scrubbing off spirit
cooties. “You left your body behind?”
“It’s called astral projection,” Kierce explained. “It’s dangerous for
someone with her talents.”
The number one reason Vi hadn’t wanted me toying with astral
projection was the tendency for people like me to wander into the spirit
world and forget to come back. I had experienced the sensation before,
when I snuffed out souls, but my siblings had always been there to pull me
back. To leave my body and travel hundreds of miles to a place I had never
been? That was new.
On the upside, I had shot right back to my body without a hitch. Maybe
the true danger had been while I was alive. Had I gotten lost, I would have
died. Now that I had gotten death out of the way, I might learn the control
required to utilize the skill.
“What I’m hearing is,” Carter drawled, “we’re not telling Josie about
this.”
“That would be for the best.” I chewed on the inside of my cheek. “I
need to talk to Vi about it but…”
After her ordeal, she would require time to heal, and I didn’t want to
heap more worries on her plate.
But, proving I could be taught, I did text her a brief summary of events.
Rollo wouldn’t show her anytime soon, assuming he didn’t delete it
outright, but it was the best I could do. It would have to be enough.
Kierce held my hand under the table but set his sights on Carter. “I must
examine the burial ground.”
“Why do you sound certain that’s what it is?” She faked interest in the
menu. “You weren’t before.”
“I have been given this task.” He flexed his jaw. “I have no choice but
to fulfill my god’s will.”
A twitch of his fingers in mine hinted he wasn’t happy about that, and it
made me wonder again how it was he became the Viduus. I bet he
questioned it too. His life had been erased from his memories with time. Or
so we had assumed. Now that I was aware of Dis Pater’s penchant for
memory erasure when it was convenient for him, I was no longer certain of
anything except Kierce was bound into Dis Pater’s service. Eternally.
A call interrupted whatever question had Carter leaning forward, and
she rose to take it outside.
“Dis Pater had a name for the remains.” I thought back on it. “Alchy?
Alcheyv?”
“Alcheyvāhā.” Kierce drew circles on the table with his fingertip. “They
were old gods.”
“The burial ground…” the blood in my veins turned to ice, “…it’s full
of god bones?”
 After learning about Ankou’s gift of bone manipulation, this
development didn’t sit well with me.
Paired with the disappearance of his god tree? Yeah. I wasn’t happy
about this one bit.
Too many of his favorite toys were appearing in the same place at the
same time to be a coincidence.
“How did I miss it?” He wiped away the design as if it held potential. “I
should have sensed it.”
Ankou’s god tree pinged on my radar, so how could a heap of god bones
not cause a blip?
“I was wondering.” I dove through the opening he left me. “About what
Dis Pater said.”
“I’m sure he said a great many things when he had you alone.”
“It sounded like he…” I searched for a polite way to ask but found
none. “Did he take your memories?”
“Of the Alcheyvāhā?” He read into the gap I left for suspicion Dis Pater
had stolen more. “Yes.”
“That’s why you didn’t know they were there,” I realized while dread
blossomed in my stomach.
Because if Dis Pater could hit reset on Kierce, what assurances did I
have he wouldn’t delete me one day too? Just lift us each from the other’s
minds and set us marching off in opposite directions?
“I remember what I knew about them before, and I remember his
specific instructions on forgetting too. He had good reason for what he did.”
He noted my disbelief and, in some ways, mirrored it. “This time.” He
shook his head. “We must return.” He didn’t sound happy. “There will be
repercussions for disturbing the gods’ rest.”
“What about the abductions?” I gazed after Carter. “What would old
gods want with all those vehicles?”
The people, sadly, had plenty of uses. Particularly for gods. Starting
with the old favorite—sacrifice.
“I don’t know.” His gaze locked with mine. “But we’re going to find
out.”
O nce the coast was clear, not a flashing light to be seen or siren to be
heard, Carter and I sneaked over to Mallow to retrieve our vehicles.
The cashier was on her phone, her animated expression convincing
me she was recounting the earlier incident to a friend and didn’t notice as
we pulled out without using our headlights. A pang of remorse struck me
for the girl, but I hadn’t exactly planned for my soul to get sucked from my
body and sent on an East Coast beachside vacation.
With Carter leading the way back to the abduction site in her truck, I
had a moment alone with Kierce.
“Dis Pater mentioned his home is warded with a god bone.” I flexed my
foot. “A toe bone, I assume.”
“I’ve never met a god with all ten.”
The matter-of-fact way he stated it caused me to splutter a laugh. “Are
you serious?”
“Sandals were on trend for thousands of years.” He raised his eyebrows.
“I’ve seen a lot of feet.”
“They’re easier to hide too. Feet, I mean.” Much easier than hands.
“Slap on socks and shoes, and no one would know how many of your toe
bones have been used to fortify your home or other holdings. It’s clever,
really.” A new thought struck me. “How common are osteokinetics?”
“Among the death god pantheons, it’s a common talent.”
“But it’s still unusual for Ankou to carry around a god bone, right?”
 “Few are as exceptional at bone manipulation as Ankou, and his god
enjoys flaunting it.”
To get a better grasp on him, I finally worked up the nerve to ask, “Who
is his god?”
“I’m forbidden to speak the names of the gods. We’re not allowed to
reveal who we serve.”
Good old plausible deniability. “The crow at the train shed called Dis
Pater by name.”
“Yes.” His expression locked down tight. “I remember you told me
that.”
Briefly, I considered thumping my forehead on the steering wheel.
“Does it mean she was a god too?”
“For her to know how to mark a soul for Him, she’s either a goddess or
a well-informed god blood.”
That would mean a third god had an interest in Thunderbolt.
Dis Pater. Ankou’s god. And an unknown.
“How is this my life?” It was nuts, or I was. “People talk to gods, pray
to them, but they don’t talk back.”
And prayers, despite what I had been taught, usually went unanswered.
Not even when you were small and terrified of the creatures prowling
the corridors in the night, dressed in their habits, masquerading as nuns. No
god had ever stepped out of a stained glass window to protect me. I had to
learn to protect myself, and my family. Even that hadn’t saved me when a
god finally appeared to me. No. Dis Pater had focused his energy on me like
sunlight through a magnifying glass, only ending the torment when my
heart quit beating. Whether it had restarted or not, he hadn’t cared one whit.
“Gods have been a part of my life for so long I can’t recall a time when
they weren’t as real to me as you are, but they prefer simpler existences.”
Kierce angled his face away from me. “They meddle in the affairs of
mortals for entertainment, which is well documented through myth and
history, but even the kindest of gods aren’t benevolent. They don’t grant
wishes or favors without cost.”
As Carter slowed ahead of us, pulling onto the side of the road, we got
our first look at the bustling techs and handful of officers posted to continue
their exploration of the woods. Traffic slowed down as drivers
rubbernecked to catch a glimpse of what was causing the excitement. They
probably expected a wreck. I had no doubt it would be reported as one to
keep nosy locals off the scent. Hmm. Or a manhunt.
They had to explain the heavy police presence and blinding use of
spotlights somehow.
Guiding the wagon off the road, I asked, “Can one god use another’s
bone without their consent?”
“Yes.” He stared out his window. “But it would create a vulnerability to
that god in their wards.”
“But another magic user could? Like a witch or fae?”
“The risk would still be there, but the odds of a minor practitioner
drawing divine attention are minimal.”
“Okay, so if Alcheyvāhā are old gods, with no use for their bones, why
weren’t theirs scavenged before now?”
“They’re protected by gods like Dis Pater to prevent other gods from
using them for their own gain.”
Dead gods meant zero security risks. The bones could be used without
fear of retribution.
“What were they?” Carter mentioned animal bones, and I wanted a
mental picture. “The Alcheyvāhā?”
“Beast gods. Divine animals. Blessed creatures.” He furrowed his brow
as he gazed out into the night. “Before the rise of man, they maintained the
balance between animals and nature.”
Surely if so many gods were still bumping around, they should be too.
“How did they die?”
“The gods of man hunted them to extinction.”
A grimace twisted my features. “That tracks.”
“Yes,” he said softly.
A rap on the glass drew my focus away from Kierce to find Carter
standing outside my door.
No sooner had my head cleared the cab than she hung a lanyard with a
laminated ID around my neck.
“Wear this at all times.” She tossed Kierce one over the wagon. “You
too.”
“I take it SPD isn’t handling this?” I hadn’t noticed the wrapper on the
patrol cars until now. “Are these a 514 kind of unit? They look too intent on
their purpose to have no idea what’s really going on.”
 “Chief Leer worked out a deal where our guys can borrow patrol cars in
surrounding areas to investigate any suspected paranormal activity. Our
range is limited by design. The 514 is too new to butt heads with the big
dogs. For now. This deployment was trickier, crossing state lines always is,
but it looks like he knew what he was doing.”
Camouflage was always a good idea when you didn’t want to attract the
attention of larger predators. Or, in this case, bigger organizations. Leer, as
much as I was reluctant to admit it, was clever. But I didn’t appreciate his
designs on me.
“Frankie.” Carter ruffled her hair, leaving powdery orange streaks.
“About the chief.”
“You don’t have to apologize for him.” I bobbed a shoulder. “You and
me? We’re cool.”
“Good.” She gusted out a breath. “He’s accomplished a lot with the 514
in a short time, but it’s because he never accepts the word no.” She
appeared to admire that about him. “You’re going to be the first.”
“Yes.” I had more secrets to guard than ever. “I will be.”
“Hold on.” She stepped back then loosed a shrill whistle. “Officer
Kim.”
A young woman with black hair in a tight French twist popped her head
out of a patrol car. She located Carter and slid out with an orange bag on her
shoulder. She lifted the strap over her head then offered it to Carter.
“Thanks.” She directed it to be given to Kierce. “There are basic
supplies in there, if you need them.”
Kim’s gaze caught on him, her eyes widening, and she bowed at the
waist.
For a split second, I questioned whether she could perceive his corona
or some indicator of his status.
“Annyeonghaseyo.”
Her words sailed right over my head, but he awarded her a faint smile.
“Ne, annyeonghaseyo.”
Upon hearing the word again, I realized it had a familiar ring. Korean.
They were speaking Korean.
And, now that I was homed in on her, I couldn’t ignore that either Kim
belonged to the local roller derby team, or a suspect had clocked her good.
The curve of her cheek was mottled with bruising she had covered with
concealer but sweated off in the Georgia heat.
 A few minutes of conversation later, Kierce turned his head toward me.
“Officer Kim is studying abroad.”
“Sorry, miss.” A flush climbed up Kim’s throat, and she bowed to me.
“I apologize for my rudeness.”
“You’re fine.” I took the bag. “I thought I recognized a few words from
watching K-dramas.”
“It’s not often I meet a fellow Korean in this part of the country.” She
glanced between us before settling on him again. “You must be an overseas
Korean. You barely have an accent.”
One more effusive word, no matter how well meant, would have
shattered the brittle smile on his lips.
After helping Kierce into the backpack, I led him away. “It was nice
meeting you, Officer Kim.”
As the night swallowed us whole, he shook off his unease, more
comfortable in the dark.
“The skeletons were left intact as near as they can tell.” He plowed
ahead. “Officer Kim told me.”
“Okay.” The distance in his voice made my stomach hurt. “That’s a
good thing.”
He hummed an agreement and set out ahead of me without looking
back. I let him get away with holding in whatever was bothering him,
hoping quiet support would loosen his tongue. I worried prying too deep
would read as obsession with Viduus lore rather than genuine concern for
him.
Carter hadn’t given us directions, but we only had to follow the lights to
locate the dig site.
As we stepped up to the lip of a large depression, I sucked in a gasp at
what lay before us.
A skeleton that could have fooled me into believing it was a prehistoric
herbivore curled into the fetal position. The scale was mind-blowing. The
creature had been a hulking beast. Had there been even the slightest chance
a fully intact dinosaur had taken a nap here millions of years ago and never
woke from its slumber, I would have called in paleontologists myself to
preserve this miraculous fossil from harm.
But whatever the Alcheyvāhā had been, whatever form they had taken, I
couldn’t help but wonder what this site had to do with the abductions.
Coincidence be damned, the two must be connected. Too bad I wasn’t in
any way, shape, form, or fashion qualified to be here figuring out what was
going on.
“I don’t know my nationality.”
Snapping my attention to Kierce, I wasn’t sure how to comfort his
longing to know more about his past. I had gone out of my way to avoid
learning about mine, which, in hindsight, hadn’t done me any favors.
“You don’t have to identify any particular way.” I believed that much.
“People carve out their own paths rather than follow in their parents’
footsteps every day.” I returned my attention to the pit’s contents. “I have
been called Nordic, Scandinavian, Finnish in coloring, but who knows? All
I can tell you for certain is it was easier claiming to be a necromancer than
admitting I had no idea why my powers were wonky.”
Even now, I didn’t have those answers. I might never learn the truth of
my origins. I was okay with that.
“You and Matty and Josie.” He lowered his head. “You’ve all made
your own way. Together.”
“They’re the family I chose.” I wormed a finger into his tight fist. “We
don’t look alike, act alike, or hold the same views. Our powers are worlds
away from each other. Josie and I represent life and death while Matty’s
gifts lie in between. And that’s okay. We love one another, trust one another,
and depend on one another.”
“They helped shape you into the person you are today.”
“Exactly.” I rested my head on his shoulder. “Every person we meet
leaves their mark on us.”
“I don’t remember who shaped me. I don’t remember what those marks
mean for me.”
“Our pasts are set in stone. We can’t change them, so why obsess over
them?” I tilted my head to see him better. “Look to the future, Kierce.
That’s where the opportunities lie. That’s where you have room to grow into
the person you want to be.”
“There is one mark I will always remember.” His lips pressed against
the top of my head. “Yours.”
Pushing up onto my tiptoes, I awarded him with a chaste kiss,
marveling I had the right to do so whenever the urge struck me. That this
godlike creature had decided he wanted to be mine.
“You’re thinking how cool I am again, aren’t you?” He traced the arch
of my brow. “I can see it in your eyes.”
 “I’ve got to work on that.” I sighed, but even that probably didn’t
convince him. “You read me too well.”
I viewed his decision to stay with me as being equivalent to
immigrating from one country to another. As far as acclimating to life full-
time on Earth, he was light-years ahead of where I had anticipated. He
adapted quickly, learned fast, and was always paying attention. Granted, he
had spent time here on god business before we met, but still. I might never
shake the awe of standing beside him. Of being welcome to touch him.
And I was losing my train of thought…
“God bones.” I straightened, tugging on the hem of my shirt. “What
does Dis Pater expect from you?”
“An investigation.” The prospect sobered him. “And a resolution.”
“How am I the only person who keeps getting roped into things who
isn’t a detective? I’m starting to feel like I need to buy a deerstalker hat and
pipe to fit in.”
“How often were you pulled into these types of things prior to Duncan
Phelps’s death?”
The night Lyle killed Phelps and framed my loaner for the murder, that
was my first step down this road.
“Never.” I spluttered a laugh. “Josie and I were more part-time bounty
hunters than investigators.”
“Do you think that would still be the case if Harrow hadn’t returned to
Savannah?”
“Yes.” I didn’t have to think about it. “I wouldn’t have trusted the police
to help if not for him.”
His knowledge of my talent and how I applied it had convinced me the
only way forward was through aiding him in his case using my necromancy
skills.
Hmm.
His hello, I’m back blackmail should have been a clue he and I were
never going to work out.
“How is Harrow?”
The question shouldn’t have caught me off-guard, but it did. “Carter
says he’s recovering well.”
“You don’t want to see him?”
“I was tempted to, I won’t lie, but he’s proven himself a threat to my
family.”
 “For what it’s worth, I think he loves you too much to ever harm them.”
His championing of Harrow knocked me off kilter the same as a
physical shove in his direction.
“He’s lucky to be breathing after the stunt he pulled with Matty.”
A vague noise passed for his answer, and that didn’t make swallowing
any easier.
“Are you trying to tell me something?” I fisted the back of his shirt.
“You’re Harrow’s friend now?”
“Do you think you would have made up with him, eventually, if you
hadn’t met me?”
As fair as it might be for him to ask, I didn’t want to consider his
question for fear of my answer.
“Where is this coming from?” I tightened my hold on him. “Are you…
breaking up with me?”
“What happened today, you visiting Dis Pater, inside his home,
unnerves me.”
“I’m not afraid of him.” I eased back from Kierce. “I’m more afraid of
losing you.”
One kiss didn’t mean he was mine, but it made me think he could be.
That he might want that too.
“I had grown used to thinking of you in mortal terms, and mortals are
no match for the gods.” Shadows darkened his gaze. “I know you’re
stronger now, that you could defend yourself, but the worry lingers.”
“I get that.” A shiver tripped down my arms. “I remember being
helpless as I watched you almost die.”
A low blow, maybe, but I wouldn’t give him up without a fight. Even if
that fight was with him.
“I remember too.” He shut his eyes. “I’m sorry.” He opened them, and
they were graveyard mist and the dark of the moon. “Can you forgive me?
If I promise to do better going forward?”
“As long as you want to go forward.” I heard my voice crack. “You
shouldn’t feel obligated to me.”
“Obligation isn’t what I feel when I look at you.”
A current ran through me until my toes curled. “Oh?”
An urgent caw from overhead ruined the moment as Badb sailed in for a
landing on a nearby limb. A red string hung from her beak that she offered
to me. I accepted it, and its familiar magic hit me hard.
 Curling my fingers around it, I demanded, “Where did you find this?”
“She saw something shiny a mile away,” Kierce told me. “She went to
investigate and noticed the string hanging from the…” He hesitated, their
conversation heating up if her hops were any indication. “I believe she
found the truck. She says there were no bodies. But that string had snagged
on something. She sensed your magic in it, so she brought it back.”
“I need to check out the truck.” I waffled only a minute. “I’ll help you
with the bones when I get back.”
“You’re not going alone.” His gaze drifted to the pit, cordoned off with
police tape. “Your sister would kill me.”
“Just once, I want to be the one who inspires dread instead of relying on
my sister to put the fear of God in people for me. How is it fair that a dryad
is scarier than a necromancer? I’m embarrassed for me.”
“Your sister isn’t wholly a dryad,” he pointed out, like that made it any
better.
“I’m not wholly a necromancer.”
“You’re adorable when you pout.” He brushed a fingertip over my
bottom lip. “I’ll try harder to be terrified of you going forward.”
“Thank you.” I darted out my tongue, relishing the flash of silver in his
eyes. “I would appreciate that.”
Given the green light, Badb launched into the night sky, flying low and
slow to guide us to Pink Panic.
And, hopefully, to answers.
S ure enough, Pink Panic rested in a small clearing at a sharp angle
with her doors thrown wide open.
Keys hung from the ignition, but the engine wouldn’t turn over
when I tried it. Dead battery? No clicking or ticking sounds. Nothing. No
Tameka. No Keshawn. No sign of how they got here or where they had
gone either. Just insects and night birds calling.
Badb hopped on the passenger seat and pecked at the seat belt buckle.
Checking with Kierce, I verified, “That’s where she found the string?”
Her caw confirmed it before he could, and I scratched the top of her
head in thanks.
A quick search of the interior netted me a wrinkled brochure for
Grandview Women’s Club, but that was it. I tucked it into my pocket to
research later.
“There are no signs of a struggle.” Kierce examined the rear of the
truck. “I don’t smell blood either.”
Unlike Tameka and Keshawn, my dismount wasn’t athletic or elegant.
More of a slow slide then a plop.
As I began my own investigation of the exterior, I was struck by an
impossible realization.
“There are no scratches on the wrapper. There’s no way a truck this size
reached this point without a mark on it.” I smoothed my hand down the
truck’s flank. “There’s a local witch—Fifi Dern—who does odd jobs for
The Body Shop. The Suarez brothers introduced me to her years ago. She’s
the one who cast the spell on the wagon to keep the interior and exterior
spotless. I’m sure she’ll answer a few hypotheticals as a professional
courtesy. She ought to be able to tell us whether a witch is responsible.”
While it was fresh on my mind, I fired off a text to her. “Has Badb
located any of the other vehicles?”
“No.” He waited a beat, and then she took flight. “She’s going to search
farther out.”
We had already gone a long way from the pit, and where Carter knew
where to find us.
“I’ll text Carter and…” I mimed throttling Badb. “I keep forgetting her
phone is busted.”
“She called you earlier to set up the meeting at Mallow,” he reminded
me.
“She borrowed that phone, but I can try.” I hit redial. “Um, hello. I’m
looking for Carter.”
“One moment,” Officer Kim said, and I made a mental note it was her
number.
A gruff voice growled across the line a heartbeat later. “Yeah.”
“Badb found Pink Panic. I’m going to drop a pin so you can see it for
yourself.”
“You don’t sound upset, so I assume no remains were with the truck.”
“Thank God, no. There was nothing else here.”
“Wait for me.” Carter exhaled. “I’ll be there in ten.”
Off in the distance, Badb cried out, and Kierce’s eyes flashed silver as
they spoke.
“She found a car.” Muscles fluttered along the underside of his jaw. “It’s
occupied.”
The combination of the mundane phrase and his grim expression gave
me chills.
“I have to go.” I had a gut feeling it was better for us to see the scene
before the 514 got there and restricted our access. “We’re heading deeper.”
“Frankie—”
After ending the call, I pocketed my phone. “Let’s get a look around
before the others arrive.”
With another loaner caught up in yet another of the 514’s cases, I had to
beat them on scene and perform my own search before the officers began
second-guessing Carter’s decision to give us lanyards.
“All right.” Kierce guided us in, using Badb’s directions. “Do you feel
that?”
“No?” As soon as I stepped even with him, an oily sensation swamped
my senses. “Make that a yes.”
A thicket awaited us, one Badb was careful to sail over, not letting a
feather brush so much as a leaf.
Unfortunately, Kierce and I didn’t have that option. We had to wade
through, much to my belly’s dislike.
“This is like where Ankou planted his tree but ten times worse.” I
rubbed my tender stomach, but it didn’t help. “Do you think it’s been here?”
“I’m not sure, but death magic was present not long ago.” His eyes
tightened at their corners. “A large amount of it to be this potent.”
Once we breached the tangled vines and bushes, we found a late-model
SUV with its driver door open.
The smell hit me within six feet of the vehicle, and I braced myself to
discover the source.
A mutilated body, more bone than flesh, slumped across the front seats
with an arm thrown out as if to grab the passenger door handle. Tattered
remnants of clothing led me to believe the victim had been female. “She
was…eaten.”
An animal had done this, of that there was no doubt. But had it killed
her or scavenged her remains? The truck had been empty, so what happened
here? Had the Ezells escaped before whatever did this got them? Had this
woman not survived the transition from road to forest and the smell lured in
predators? Only forensics could tell us that.
As if I knew anything about forensic science I didn’t learn from
watching crime documentaries.
“Badb has found another vehicle,” Kierce said into the quiet.
“The driver?”
“The car is empty.”
“Thank God.” I dropped a pin on this location and sent it to Carter.
“Let’s go.”
As much as I wanted to poke around, I couldn’t with my stomach so
tender. I didn’t want to vomit on an active crime scene and ruin any
evidence that might help us pinpoint what had done this. I was a chicken for
rushing away with the first excuse I could find clutched tight in both hands,
but I didn’t care.
The carnage wasn’t the problem. I was a necromancer. I had seen and
done worse. No. Blood, meat, and bone didn’t bother me. Selfish fear for
my own skin coated my spine with cold sweat. I was terrified that I had
done it again, enabled someone to hijack a loaner that I had failed in my
duty to protect.
And, if I bungled that, how much more of my life would come tumbling
down? How could I provide for my family if claims of gross negligence
ruined my reputation, forcing me to shut down my side of the business?
Demigodhood was nice and all, but it didn’t pay the bills.
Once we cleared the thicket, saliva quit flooding my mouth, and I could
swallow again. “You’ve seen this kind of thing a lot, haven’t you?”
The scene had affected him, but there was a certain grave acceptance in
his posture and expression that told me this was merely the latest in a never-
ending line of deaths he had been called upon to witness.
“Death has been my life for as long as I can remember.”
“Dis Pater could probably help with that.”
“This doesn’t have to be your fight, Frankie.” His voice rang hollow.
“But he has made it mine.”
“When Tameka and Keshawn disappeared with my loaner, it became
my task.” I hadn’t wanted to get in bed with the 514 again, but here I was,
fluffing my pillow. “They weren’t with the truck. Keshawn might still be
alive.” I longed to practice my primal scream. “Camaro was meant to return
to her family at the end of her contract. I don’t want to explain to her
mother how I let a soul hijack her daughter’s body and then lost it in the
woods the next state over.”
Business troubles from the dybbuk consuming my clients’ souls was
bad enough, but I couldn’t do my job without loaners. If word got around
that I was losing bodies to runaway clients, I would either have an overflow
of repos who didn’t fear the consequences, or I would never book another
lease. And I wouldn’t deserve to either if I couldn’t temper the effects of my
actions.
“Besides.” I touched his arm. “You’ve done this alone for long enough,
don’t you think?”
His next step faltered, and he caught himself with a palm against a
nearby tree.
 “What better way to learn my powers,” I reasoned, “than by receiving
on-the-job training?”
“You’re the daughter of a god. These tasks are beneath you.”
“I’m not afraid of getting my hands dirty.” I forced myself to breathe. “I
have to accept the changes within me. And I will. I’ll try, anyway. But I’m
never going to be Dis Pater. I’m not going to have minions I keep in cages
or dispatch on missions I’m too lazy to oversee for myself.”
“You’re young.” He sounded infinitely sad. “Your views might change
over time.”
“I hate to tell you this, but Matty is in a similar boat to me. After his
body dies, he’s essentially immortal. Just trapped on the dream plane. A
dryad can live as long as the tree they bond to, but there’s precedence for
dryads slipping into a new tree before the old one dies.” Necromancers
tended to live for around five centuries, so Matty and I had always worried
about leaving Josie behind. “She’s not fully dryad either. There’s no
predicting her lifespan.” I wouldn’t quit until I found a way to keep us all
together. “That means there will always be someone there to tell me when I
have my head up my ass. Siblings aren’t afraid to point out your failures,
weaknesses, mistakes, if you have food stuck in your teeth, or much of
anything. I think it’s safe to say that I’ll enter my eternity with a boot print
on my butt.”
“When you look into that future filled with your loved ones, do you see
me?”
A breath caught in my throat, the unexpected question tilting the ground
beneath my feet before the world righted itself again. “There’s room in the
big picture for you, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Content with that response, he didn’t press for more details, and I was
glad. I had no idea what today, or tomorrow, would bring. I couldn’t
promise either to anyone until I got my situation under control. And if my
sister killed me for dying, then I would be really and truly dead and the
future wouldn’t matter either way.
Damn it.
Even in the comfort of my own mind, I feared my sister’s wrath more
than beginning this new life.
Matty had always known his physical body would decline over time
until only his soul remained, and the downside to his immortal half-life
were the restrictions placed on him. We could visit him in our dreams,
though. I would take that in a heartbeat over never seeing him or hearing his
laugh again.
But I figured I would live a few hundred years, doing the necromancy
thing, and then die.
Instead of a new five-year plan, I had to think bigger. More like five
decades or five centuries.
“Good.” He took my hand, brought it to his lips, and kissed my
knuckles. “I’m glad.”
We trudged together to the car, hand in hand, but Badb was right. There
were no signs of a struggle, no body, and no blood. There was nothing to
indicate foul play had met this driver, but I did find a burner phone in the
glovebox. The victim had made one call. I snapped a picture of the number
then returned the cell to where I found it.
“This car has minor scratches.” I walked a circle around the vehicle.
“Nothing like it would get if someone drove it this far in. Not that you
could. There’s not enough space between the trees.”
The minor cosmetic damage must have been present prior to the driver’s
abduction.
“There were deep gouges on the SUV.”
Ashamed to admit it, I told him, “I didn’t notice.”
Panic had run away with my thoughts before they could settle on
anything useful.
“I should return. Make a more thorough examination.” He glanced over
his shoulder. “You can wait here with Badb or—”
Had he sensed man or beast in our vicinity, he never would have made
the offer, but I wasn’t interested.
“Ha. Ha. Ha. No. That’s how you get killed in horror movies. I’ll stick
with you.”
“Are you sure you want to revisit the scene?”
As much as I didn’t want the answer to be yes, I had to ask, “Can we
dispel the magic?”
“Not today.” He jerked his chin, indicating the sky, soft with pinks and
purples. “You haven’t slept. Your body is still burning through the dregs of
the…lust dirt…but it’s like a sugar high. You’ll crash eventually. You need
to be somewhere safe when that happens, or with someone you trust. You’ll
be helpless.”
“What?” I balked at the news. “You’re just now telling me?”
 “I hoped to use it as a teachable moment. I thought if I waited for you to
notice the drag, especially after your expenditure at Bonaventure, that you
could begin learning your limits.” His mouth twitched. “But it appears your
limitations outstrip mine. You’re not tired at all, are you?”
“No.” As I examined how I felt, really paid attention to my body,
surprise painted a frown across my face. The answer was good. “I’ve been
awake nearly twenty-four hours, and I’m still perky.”
“I caution you now because of what we found. You must remain alert in
the presence of a predator.”
“Okay.” I hoped this wasn’t a don’t think about a pink elephant
situation. “I’ll let you know if I start drifting off.”
With a tight nod, we returned to the previous site. We lucked out,
coming at the scene upwind from the smell. Able to focus past the rank
scent, I paid attention to the details I hadn’t absorbed last time. The gouges
in the driver side door Kierce mentioned, as if the creature had opened the
SUV like a can of tuna. Plastic on the door curled into shavings. Fabric on
the seat spewed foam and springs where the beast clawed at the material to
drag the body partway out the door for easier consumption.
Viewed from this angle, I decided the victim hadn’t been reaching for
the opposite door handle.
As the creature tugged her from behind the wheel, she must have tipped
sideways into the front passenger seat. The drag marks indicated her arms
had been drawn up over her head while it feasted.
This time, rather than snoop around, I left the examination of the SUV’s
contents to Carter’s people.
“Are you up for a lesson?”
As fast as this situation was spinning out of control, I was glad for a
solid task to latch onto. “Sure.”
The appraisal he swept over me confirmed I hadn’t sold my eagerness to
learn, but I was too nauseated.
“Use your senses to identify the edge of the death magic where it seeps
into healthy earth.”
As far as assignments go, it was a light one. He read my struggle to
keep from tossing my cookies and let me off easy, allowing me to drift
along the perimeter without wading any deeper into the cloying power
saturating the area.
 “Okay.” I shook out my arms. “This is where the gross sensation
begins.”
Eyes half shut, I navigated a circle, keeping to the outside edge of the
darkness.
“Good.” Kierce beamed like I had performed a miracle instead of trying
not to hurl. “Now do it again.”
“You think the first time was beginner’s luck?” As I began retracing my
path, I detected a spark of power. Lighter, brighter. Its cold burn cleansed
me, and the nausea eased. “Are you doing this?”
That same pride wreathed his features. “Define this.”
“Oh, so that’s how you want to play it.” I huffed at his teachable
moment. “There’s a trail of light energy. It’s containing the death magic. I
think. Almost like a ward.” I squinted at him. “Did you use me to map it for
you?”
“This was your doing.”
“Magic doesn’t just happen.” I finished my circuit. “How am I
responsible?”
“The darkness recoiled from where you stepped earlier, but it returned
in seconds.”
“A circular path gave it nowhere to retreat but into itself.” I made a
guess. “The second lap anchored it?”
A ward set in place by my footsteps caused me to trip over my own feet
with numb comprehension.
“That was my hypothesis, yes, and it appears you’ve proven it true.”
A faint wave of dizziness struck me, and I leaned against a tree to catch
my balance.
“Frankie?”
Exhaustion weighted my limbs, dragging me down. “I’m fine…”
“B ijou,” a familiar voice singsonged as chapped lips brushed my ear.
“Bijou.”
“No.” I swatted at air but couldn’t touch Ankou. “Get away
from me.”
“But I like you. You used to like me too. Remember the fun we had?”
“You lied to me. To Josie. To everyone. None of it was real. It was as
fake as the skin you wore.”
“Do you really want to pick this fight when your boyfriend hides his
true face from you too?”
“It’s not the same.”
“You have no idea how alike we are.”
“No.” I ruffled my hair. “Get out of my head.”
Oxygen flooded my lungs as I gasped awake, clawing at my bed to
escape the dream of Ankou.
Bed. I was in my bed. In my apartment.
Safe. I was safe. I was…
…drawing blood on Kierce’s arm from raking my nails at a dream.
Kierce had assumed the position, sitting on my mattress with his back
flush against my headboard. His legs bracketed mine where he held me in
his arms, my spine to his chest. Before I snapped alert, my head had been
resting on his shoulder, judging by the warmth at the base of my skull.
 Ankou hadn’t tiptoed into my dreams since I died, and I convinced
myself it meant he couldn’t reach me. Either he had been biding his time,
waiting for the right moment, or the toll of neutralizing and then
metabolizing the death magic had scraped my mental barriers low enough
for him to slip in through the cracks of my consciousness.
“Oh, God.” I recoiled from the crimson smears, less sparkly than my
own, on my fingertips. “I’m so sorry.”
“I don’t care.” Kierce pulled me back to him. “How do you feel?”
“We need peroxide, antibiotic cream, and bandages.” I wriggled against
him. “We need to treat that.”
“Breathe.” He pressed his lips to my temple. “The wounds have already
closed.”
A quick glance confirmed he was correct, and my heart slowed from its
sprint.
“The good news is—” Matty stepped into my line of sight, jolting me.
The look on his face made me consider rushing back to finish hearing what
Ankou had to say. “Josie was playing housewife at Carter’s and missed this
fiasco.” He walked closer, looming over me. “The bad news is, I was here
for the whole thing. You slept for nine hours, Mary, and I couldn’t breach
your dreams to check on you. All I could do was sit here and wait for you to
wake up so I could yell at you.”
An oneiros barred from my dreams? Had Ankou learned a new trick?
“I’m sorry—”
“Nope.” He mashed a finger to my lips. “You don’t get to talk yet.” He
waited until I offered a meek nod. “You never bar your dreams to me. Even
the gross ones I wouldn’t force my worst enemy to sit through. If you
planned to change that, you would have warned me so I wouldn’t panic. But
you didn’t warn me.”
“Mary—”
“Still talking.” He glared at me. “There’s something wrong with you. I
can sense it. Josie can too. You haven’t been the same since Kierce carried
you out of that train shed with grill marks on you. But we let it go. We gave
you space. We gave you time.” He glowered. “What have you given us? A
heart attack.”
“I was wrong…” I squinched my eyes, waiting for him to shush me
again, but apparently I had been given the floor, “…not to explain things to
you and Josie sooner.” I sank back into Kierce’s arms, taking comfort from
knowing he could fill in any blanks I left empty. “I’m ready, now, as I’ll
ever be.” I wet my lips. “But I would prefer to only say this once.” I inhaled
deeply. “Can you get Josie here before I lose my nerve?”
“Already on her way.”
“Okay.” I withdrew from Kierce. “Good.” I smacked my lips. “I need to
drink a gallon of water and take a shower before she gets here.”
“Keep the door cracked, so we can hear if you try to escape out the
window,” Matty grumbled, tapping a foot. “We both know I’m not afraid of
dragging you in here naked to face the firing squad.”
A peculiar look crossed Kierce’s face, but Matty just shrugged at his
expression.
“Part of the psychological trauma of having siblings is you’re bound to
see them naked at some point.” Matty massaged his temples. “There’s not
enough therapy in the world to heal some memories.”
That explanation didn’t appear to answer Kierce’s unspoken question,
so I tried my luck.
“Josie, being a dryad, was a nudist as a child.” I snorted at the reminder
of her youthful shenanigans. “She could strip so fast, it was like magic. She
would be talking to you one minute and then bam. Naked as the day she
was born.”
“We spent a lot of hours wrestling her into clothes before the sisters
caught her.” Matty turned somber. “The punishment was…” He shook his
head. “Josie couldn’t help it. She came into her powers young and had no
one to teach her. She took what plants told her as gospel. Including when
they shared stories the oldest trees recalled about nymphs, who danced
naked under the moonlight and seduced men. God only knows what other
ideas they put in her head.”
“She was too young to grasp the difference between nymphs and
dryads.”
“Frankie and I were kids too. We didn’t have the answers.” He shared a
pained glance with me. “All we knew for certain was, the sisters would
punish Josie if they glimpsed her ‘wicked heathen’ wildness.” A shudder
rippled through his limbs. “Which meant we both became expert-level
naked-sister wranglers.”
Thankfully, she grew out of the worst of it before her preteen years.
“Frankie hasn’t told me much,” Kierce hedged, “about your time as
children.”
 A creeping dread swept through me at the reminder. “Nothing to tell,
really.”
“Mary,” Matty scolded me. “You know that’s not true.”
Tales of our childhood at St. Mary’s Home for Children earned me pity
from Harrow. Pride came later. But that first slap of shock across his face
was the expression that stuck in my memories. I didn’t want that to be the
case with Kierce. I didn’t want a matched set of sympathies to bookend my
mind.
“You were raised by the Perchten.” Kierce found a wrinkle on the fitted
sheet of particular interest then began smoothing it with his fingertips. “The
handmaidens of Frau Perchta.”
“What?” Matty and I screeched together.
We had known the sisters were something other. Something terrible.
But we never found a name for them.
“How do you know that?” I twisted away from Kierce to goggle at him.
“Even we didn’t know that.”
“A spirit told me. Years ago. Decades most likely. I didn’t track time
well then.” He dipped his chin lower. “She visited St. Mary’s nightly to
watch over her son.”
“Where did you bump into this spirit?” Matty demanded. “Why not tell
us this sooner?”
“My god sent me to investigate a string of suspected murders. The
victims were all young children. Their souls burned so brightly he couldn’t
help but notice the influx. I located St. Mary’s, spoke to what spirits I could
find, then confronted the creatures.” He risked a glance at me. “I didn’t
mention it, because Frankie hasn’t entrusted that part of her history to me. I
didn’t want to obligate her to share.”
“Good answer,” Matty mumbled then his eyes sharpened on Kierce.
“Did you see her then?”
“Frankie?” Kierce lingered on my features, as if reassuring himself of
his answer. “No.”
“What are Perchten?” I cut to the heart of it. “Who is Frau Perchta?”
“Frau Perchta—or Berchta—was a goddess who cared for the
Heimchen, spirits of unbaptized children. She’s an Alpine deity. Sightings
of her, or her followers, on this continent are rare. I credit ignorance for
why the nuns weren’t identified until after they had done harm.”
 “A goddess who cares for children’s spirits?” Matty burst out laughing.
“You’re pulling my leg.”
“Wait.” I lifted a hand to quiet Matty. “Hurting kids is how they got
identified?”
As the guardians of orphaned children, these Perchten should have been
in their element.
“The Catholic church demonized Berchta when it was discovered the
people prayed to her to guard their children instead of calling on the Virgin
Mary,” Kierce explained. “They renamed her Perchta, and rather than a
benevolent goddess, they painted her as a twisted crone with a hooked,
metal nose who carried a knife in her skirts to slit the bellies of anyone who
disrespected her.”
“Those lies would piss me off too,” Matty said, “but the nuns who
raised us weren’t misunderstood. They were straight-up evil.”
“Belief.” I followed the logic. “The scare tactics of the church
transformed Berchta from her true self into Perchta.”
Had that been the reason the nuns hid behind their quasi-Catholic
personas? Revenge? Mockery? Hatred? Their purpose had been twisted
until they became the monsters they once guarded against.
“And, through their belief, Perchta she became,” Kierce agreed, his tone
grim.
“These Perchten ate children.” Matty crossed his arms over his chest.
“For misbehaving?”
Ours had for certain, but he appeared to struggle with affixing a label
onto our childhood nightmares.
“They did,” Kierce confirmed, his expression distant. “Misbehavior was
the excuse for punishing children as the Perchten saw fit, yes, but they also
despised children who failed to complete chores or disobeyed their orders.
A worse fate than the children they would eat was when Perchten slit their
bellies, stuffing them with straw and stones.”
Glad to find our tormenters had their limits, I told him, “We never
bumped up against that.”
“We were almost counted in that number. If not for Frankie taking us
out of there, we would have been.” Matty frowned. “You knew what they
were doing. Why not put a stop to it?”
A curious tilt of Kierce’s head proceeded a soft question. “What makes
you think I didn’t?”
 “St. Mary’s burnt to the ground thirty years ago.” Matty scowled. “The
sisters attacked a teenage pyromancer, and he burst into flames. He killed
himself in the process, but he took them out with him.”
As if he expected the answer, Kierce nodded. “Where did you hear
that?”
“From a kid who was there at the time.” Matty hesitated. “Are you
saying it’s not true?”
“How many children were harmed in this sudden explosion of fiery
power?”
“None that I know of.” I checked with Matty who agreed that was the
story he had heard too. “But we were gone by then, already living on the
streets, so it’s hard to say for sure.”
Had Matty not dream-walked into the mind of a boy about his age, one
who had picked on him mercilessly before I broke his arm, we wouldn’t
have known that much. Had I wondered at how quickly Matty heard the
news? Yes. Had I also suspected he had been tormenting his bully in his
sleep? Also yes. Did I care he was maybe taking his revenge fantasies a step
too far? Nah. Matty might have sparked the occasional nightmare as a child
but only when provoked and never anything drastic. He didn’t have the
heart for it.
Lucky for him, he had me. I could still recall the oddly satisfying snap
of bone if I tried hard enough. Josie wouldn’t have stopped at the boy’s arm,
which left me as the henchman of our group to spare others from
experiencing the firsthand rage of a murderous dryad.
“Our paths almost crossed then.” Kierce stared at our joined hands.
“Strange, isn’t it?”
“Quit being romantic and focus.” Matty horned in. “Are you telling us
you did it?”
“What else could I do after identifying the Perchten?” A line bisected
his brow. “I destroyed St. Mary’s to conceal their bodies but also to prevent
more from taking their places. Lightning kindled the fire, not the self-
sacrificing pyromancer hero from your story. The decision left twenty-four
children homeless, but I judged the trade to be worthwhile.”
“They were moved into another facility.” I set his mind at ease. “We
made sure of it.”
Penance, perhaps, for not doing more for the kids we left behind. They
had suffered as much as us Marys, but we hadn’t given them a second
thought as we escaped, leaving them trapped there. We had been too afraid
of getting caught, of being dragged back to St. Mary’s, never to leave it
again.
“Thank you.” Kierce shut his eyes for a moment. “For telling me.”
A yelp shot out of me as the door slammed open, revealing Josie, whose
gaze zeroed in on me.
“Start talking.” She blew in like a storm and stomped over to stand next
to Matty. “We’ve been patient. We gave you time. We gave you space. We
gave you—” Matty whispered in her ear, and she cleared her throat. “I see
Mary here read you part of the riot act while I was en route. Let’s skip to
when you explain yourself.” She mirrored his pose and began tapping her
foot. “Well? What’s up with you? Spit it out.”
So much for the shower. And the drink.
“You might want to sit down for this,” I said weakly, swinging my legs
over the edge of the mattress.
“I prefer to loom,” she declined, “the better to instill fear in your heart.”
“I’ve already had too much excitement.” Matty sank onto the floor in
front of the bed. “You take over.”
That earned him side-eye from Josie, but she was too worked up to hold
still.
“You remember how badly burned I was after the train shed,” I began,
my heart kicking up speed.
“Hard to forget.” Josie started pacing. “Aretha said it was a miracle you
survived.”
“She more than earned her fee healing you,” Matty agreed. “She worked
a miracle.”
“No.” I linked my fingers in my lap. “She was too late.”
“Too late?” Josie’s voice jumped an octave. “What does that mean?”
“Kierce brought you home. Aretha treated you. We were here the whole
time.”
Panic sank claws into my chest, and I expanded my lungs. “I didn’t
make it.”
“You didn’t make it,” Matty repeated, looking to Josie. “Is she speaking
English?”
“I don’t understand.” Her knees wobbled, though, and she joined him on
the floor. “Use smaller words.”
Nothing for it but to rip off the bandage. “I died.”
 “And Kierce brought you back,” Matty supplied, waiting for me to
elaborate.
“No, Mary.” I dropped my chin to my chest. “I died.”
“B-b-but you came back,” Josie babbled. “You’re sitting right there.”
Hand trembling, Matty gripped my knee as if checking to see if I was
real. “Are you a vampire?”
“She’s not a… That’s not… No. She can’t be.” Josie lunged at me,
capturing my jaw between her palms. “I want to see your teeth, Mary.” She
wedged her thumb past my lips. “Open up and flash your fangs.”
“I donth hath fangths,” I mumbled around her fingers.
“She’s not a vampire.” Kierce extracted her more gently than I would
have if I had gotten to her first and set her back a few feet. “Necromancers
can’t be resuscitated. Not even half-blood necromancers.”
Jabbing a finger of accusation at me, she demanded, “Then what are
you?”
Shoulders bowing in, I made myself small. “A demigoddess?”
“You don’t sound convinced.” Matty climbed onto the bed next to me.
“Are you sure?”
“There’s no denying it.” Kierce returned to me. “I can perceive the
divine energy beneath her skin.”
“You told him before you told us?” Josie deflated. “You get that we
don’t care if you’re undead, right?”
“He was there.” I could never forget his rage against Dis Pater. “That’s
why he knew before you.”
“She’s as alive as I am,” Kierce said, eliciting the same blank
expressions that I had given him.
As much as I would prefer skipping the gory details of how I
transitioned, and whose fault it was, I didn’t want to end up in this situation
again. I didn’t want anyone else to get hurt because I kept my secrets. I did
my best to calm my galloping heart then dove into the story of what had
really happened that night.
“A god killed you.” Josie’s fists balled on her lap. “Just to see what
would happen?”
“Where do we find him?” Vials of dream sweet appeared on Matty’s
palm. “See also: How do you kill a god?”
“Only a god can kill a god.” Kierce shook his head. “They’re truly
immortal.”
 “They’ll die without any worshippers.” I shut my mouth with an audible
click. “Not that we have any way to identify their followers or convince
them to switch teams.” I rubbed a finger between my eyes. “They’ve
adapted their perception of prayer to intercept enough energy to keep
themselves going. Death gods can prey on the beliefs of anyone who visits
a cemetery. Their energy seeps into the ground, into the bones, and then into
the souls who have chosen to linger.”
“We can’t let him get away with killing our sister,” Matty growled, his
sweet disposition slipping.
“You can’t square off against a god and win.” I slung my arm around his
thin shoulders. “Especially not a death god. It’s right there in the name.” I
hugged him close. “I still eat, sleep, drink, pee, etc. I’m still me. I’m just
juiced up and possibly immortal.”
That last bit hit them over the head with a resounding thud, and their
reactions were complicated to say the least. Joy Matty wouldn’t be alone.
Fear we would lose Josie. Anger this world kept kicking us harder no
matter how far we came from where we started at St. Mary’s. And,
eventually, acceptance.
Not the real deal. Real acceptance would take time. For all of us.
This was more of a Band-Aid slapped over a crack spreading through
the wall of a dam about to burst.
“I’m sorry you didn’t feel like you could tell us.” Josie crawled to me
and rested her head on my lap. “I’m a lot. I know I am. You and Matty are
saints for putting up with my crap. I can’t keep my mouth shut, and I can’t
stop being angry, but I’m here for you, Mary. Always.”
“You have nothing to apologize for.” I raked my fingers through her
hair. “This was a me thing. I couldn’t grasp what happened to me, the
changes I see in myself.” I had felt myself die. Horribly. Painfully. “I
thought I had to accept it, or begin to accept it, before I could break it to
you guys.”
“You always think you have to be strong for us.” Matty ruffled my hair.
“You can lean on us, Mary. We’re here for you. Next time, maybe bring us
your confusion. Let us help you figure things out. You can admit, I don’t
know, when you’re scared or mad or hurt.”
“You’re allowed to have feelings,” Josie added. “You’re not some rock
the world breaks against before it reaches us. You’re a person. You’re
allowed to be confused and admit you don’t have all the answers.”
 “It would be a relief.” Matty dragged a hand down his face. “If there
were things even you don’t know.”
“I’ll do better,” I promised them. “It’s just hard for me.”
“That’s our fault.” Josie turned her face into my leg. “You became this
way for us.”
“I would do anything for you two.” I pinched her arm, and she yelped,
jumping back out of my reach. “Including ground your butts and take away
your phones for disrespecting me.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Matty slumped against me, his head on my shoulder.
“What happens next?”
“Kierce is going to teach me how to god,” I said, “and I’m going to
teach him how to people.”
Rubbing the red mark, Josie grinned. “Can I watch?”
A flash of embarrassment threatened to strike before her devious tone
reminded me. “You.”
“Meep.” She leapt to her feet and scurried behind the kitchen counter.
“The cupcakes were a joke.”
“Not funny.” I stole a pillow off the bed. “You’re going down this time,
Mary.”
“I’m so lost.” Matty collected a pillow from the couch. “However, I
won’t let that stop me.”
“Two on one isn’t fair,” Josie wailed, darting left and right to avoid our
swings.
“She’s right.” Matty smacked me in the back with his pillow. “You
scared ten years off my life.”
“Hey.” I retreated under the onslaught. “I apologized, didn’t I?”
“She kissed Kierce,” Josie yelled as a distraction. “She laid a big old
smackeroo on him.”
“You kissed Kierce and didn’t tell me?” Matty hesitated, and I whacked
him in the face before he got his arms up again. “Actually—” the fabric
muted him, “—I’m okay with that. I don’t need or want to know.”
“Yeah, well, I do. I want details.” She climbed onto the counter and
began chanting, “Spill, spill, spill.”
“I make food on that.” I recoiled from her grubby bare feet leaving
prints on my granite. “Get your butt down from there.”
“You never cook,” Matty pointed out. “You might unbox takeout on that
counter but—”
 A firm knock on the door froze the pillow fight, and we fell silent then
exchanged loaded glances.
Mouth set in grim lines, Kierce strode toward the door to identify our
uninvited guest.
And if I slipped a knife from the butcher block into my palm, well, that
was my life lately. No one could blame me for being cautious.
“I ’ll get it.” Kierce, who had tucked himself in a corner when the
fight broke out, as he was still not a fan of pillows, volunteered to
answer the door. Probably to show off the results of his recent
lessons in how to human. First things first, he called out, “Who is it?”
“Carter.”
He glanced back to check with me, and I nodded encouragement. He
progressed to the next step, which required him to peek out the hole in the
door to verify the person’s identity. He lingered there then gave me another
quick look before twisting the lock and opening the door.
“Well, that took thirty years.” She crossed the threshold then froze.
“Another day, another pillow fight.”
With a sigh, she marched to the counter and executed a precise chop to
the bend of Josie’s legs with the side of her hand. Josie’s knees buckled, and
Carter caught her mid-fall, swinging her up into her arms. An impressive
feat when Josie was a good foot taller than Carter.
Meanwhile, I used the distraction to replace the knife and pretend I
hadn’t been arming myself.
“My hero,” Josie cooed at her, kicking her feet and linking her arms
behind Carter’s neck.
“Not hardly.” She opened her arms and let Josie tumble onto the floor.
“Quit being a brat and stay off the counter.”
 Both the tone and the warning rolled off her tongue with such ease, I
could tell this wasn’t Josie’s first offense. I wished I could pretend I had no
clue how or why that might be, but I had witnessed Josie dancing on one
too many bar tops while shaking her booty at hot guys, and girls, for that to
be true.
She also had a particular dance for Matty and me that was part
Macarena and part please God make it stop she pulled out for special
occasions. Had Carter not arrived when she did, I had a sneaking suspicion
Josie had been about to launch into her routine.
“I ordered steaks and potatoes from your buddy’s restaurant down the
street,” Carter told me, ignoring Josie’s grunts of pain. “We need to talk,
and you need to eat.”
The mention of food was enough to perk up my stomach and produce a
growl worthy of a rabid dog when I realized she meant Bash was doing the
cooking.
“Food sounds amazing.” I went to help Josie to her feet. “Can you rustle
up salads for us too?”
Grumbling her answer, she started to leave but stopped with a hand on
the doorknob. “I forgot.” Her fingers went limp, and a surprised kind of
laugh parted her lips. “I don’t live here anymore.”
Her quiet words grabbed my heart in both hands and squeezed like it
was a stress toy.
“This is still your home.” Matty jogged over, slinging his arm around
her neck and dragging her into a headlock. “Come on.” He hauled her onto
the landing. “Let’s go pick some fresh veggies. Kierce hasn’t touched any
of your things. You’ve got dressings and vinaigrettes for days in your
fridge.”
With Josie snarling promises of revenge, Matty led her off tucked under
his arm.
“How do you do it?” Carter asked as she shut the door. “Josie is like a
kid on a permanent sugar high.”
Some of that might be my fault for spoiling her as best I could when we
were young. “Love.”
Carter snorted and invited herself to flop onto the couch. “How was
your nap?”
“Inconvenient.” I rubbed my face with my palms. “I lost a whole day.”
A whole workday.
 No, no, no.
Meaning the shop had been closed too.
Meaning we had to reschedule customers again.
Meaning we might not have customers in the near future if I didn’t
figure this out fast.
Now more than ever we couldn’t afford to lose both sides of the family
business.
“I took the liberty of escorting Pedro to and from work today.” Kierce
rested his hands on my shoulders. “I hope that’s all right with you. Matty
consented, and so did he.”
A weight slid off my shoulders, and I don’t just mean his hands when I
pivoted in his embrace and locked my arms around his waist. I mashed my
face into his shirt and held on while the initial shock moved through him.
Soon enough, he melted around me, his heart pounding in my ear. “Thank
you.”
“I’m glad to have finally been of some use.”
“That won’t go over well,” Carter warned him, hunching lower on the
couch.
“Finally?” Pinching his hip like I would Matty, I growled up at him.
“How can you say that?”
Hand pressing against his side like he was staunching a lethal wound, he
widened his eyes. “I—”
“You don’t have to do things for me to earn your place here. You don’t
have to earn your place period. It doesn’t work like that. You don’t have to
perform favors or chores or—” I snapped my mouth closed the second his
expression warned he was ready to dig in and fight back. “We haven’t
known one another for long, but in that time, you’ve given me a reason to
smile, to be happy. You helped me accept myself long before this
demigoddess crap and gave me peace on a sore point that’s plagued me my
whole life. I—”
“Demi…goddess.”
Fingers bunching the fabric of Kierce’s shirt, I muttered a curse under
my breath. I had gotten so worked up over Kierce devaluing himself, I had
forgotten Carter was there. On the heels of that thought trotted another one.
I wouldn’t have spoken freely if I didn’t trust her.
Had she not been twitching with facial spasms, I might have basked in
the warm glow of that realization.
 “Um, yes, well.” I cleared my throat. “You remember the train shed
incident?”
From there, I fed her the highlights of what really happened and where I
stood now.
“The chief can’t learn about this” was her immediate response. “He’s
already hot to recruit you.”
“I don’t plan on telling anyone about this.” I lifted a shoulder. “Except
for family.”
The inclusion in the Talbot family unit forced Carter to look away, but
Kierce rewarded me with a radiant smile that lit up his face until it hurt to
see how much it meant to him to belong. Yet another reason why it pained
me he felt he had to trade favors for status.
A pang struck me, a reminder of our last case and how things might
have gone differently for so many kids if their protectors didn’t charge so
much for safety that those under their care—and I use that word loosely—
were too insecure in their place to form true friendships or put down roots.
Kierce wasn’t a lost child on the streets of Savannah, but he was under
the thumb of someone far worse. He had no sense of home, no sense of
worth, no sense of self. And I wanted him to understand that even if we
couldn’t make a relationship work, friendship was on the table.
But after that kiss…
I would rather spread him out on a table, honestly.
Thundering footsteps on the stairs announced my sibling or siblings’
return.
Matty let himself in carrying a large basket overflowing with lettuce,
tomatoes, cucumbers, and carrots. I peeled myself off Kierce then sanitized
the counter so he could set down his harvest. I dug out a mixing bowl,
cutting board, and knife. I set them aside for Josie then removed a second
cutting board and knife.
“Kierce.” I crooked my finger. “I bought some ahi tuna steaks, if you
trust me to sear them.”
As nonexistent as my kitchen skills were, I figured even I couldn’t
botch a quick toss in the pan.
“I trust you.” He pulled a stool up to the bar and sat. “Wait.” He angled
his chin. “Badb wants to watch.”
Knife in hand, I scowled out the window, searching for her. “This isn’t a
three-ring circus.”
 “You could have fooled me,” Carter muttered from the relative safety of
the couch.
“I was going to make a point about not selling tickets to the show, but
it’s gone now.” I caved to the interested stares which were, quite frankly,
insulting. “I bought a sauce from the store.”
Sliding off the stool, he came to stand next to me. “However you
prepare it is fine.”
For a man used to eating whatever his crow delivered, I suspected that
to be true. “Here goes then.”
While I heated a pan, he sliced vegetables for the salad he wouldn’t—or
couldn’t—eat, and I couldn’t stop the bubble of warmth bursting in my
chest. I bumped his elbow every now and then, just because. I fought a
smile when he started bumping back. Had I not been afraid of burning his
food, or him cutting off a finger, I might have escalated things, but I wanted
to impress him. Well-done steak wouldn’t do it. I needed to get this right.
Matty, perhaps sensing my thoughts, joked to Kierce, “You realize
Frankie isn’t a domestic goddess.”
Carter’s snort swung Matty’s head toward her, and he blanched to have
teased me in front of her.
As tempted as I was to let him sweat, I showed him mercy. “She
knows.”
That he had slipped up in front of her with such ease told me I wasn’t
the only one who viewed Carter as part of the family. Though it shouldn’t
have surprised me when he never would have agreed—as if Josie ever
asked for permission—to let her room with Carter if he didn’t believe the
redcap was trustworthy.
“She blabbed it after you left.” Carter had a cheddar puff in hand. “Now
we all know her secret.”
“I would have told you.” A flush crept up my neck, but it wasn’t like I
could deny it. “Eventually.”
Josie bopped through the door with an armload of dressings,
vinaigrettes, and other salad fixings.
“The delivery guy is downstairs,” she announced, stalling out at the
stove. “Mary, you cooked?”
Under her bulging eyes, I sliced the tuna steak, pleased to find the
middle nice and red. “Yep.”
 “Wow.” Jars and bottles clanked as she placed them on the counter.
“This must be love.”
A mule kicked me in the chest. No. Wait. That was just my heart. Good
thing my rib cage contained it.
“I’ll grab the takeout.” Carter rose with a crinkle of her snack bag.
“Save any big reveals until I get back.”
Josie’s fingers went to the hem of her shirt, but I clutched her wrist until
the door shut on Carter. “No.”
“Oh, come on. It would have been funny.” She palmed her boobs and
jiggled them. “Big reveals?”
“If I know you, and I do, you’ve already found a way to accidentally
drop your towel in front of Carter.” It hit me after Carter mentioned them
sharing a bathroom for absolutely no reason except Josie staking her claim
on Carter by invading her territory. “Is there anything you haven’t revealed
to her?”
A coy smile lit her face before she attempted to mask it with innocence.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I told you we should have tattooed a warning label on her forehead.”
Matty walked up behind her and thumped her skull. “It’s the least we owe
her future victims.”
“You wanted maneater,” I reminded him, “but she’s a womaneater too.”
“Yeah.” He reflected on that conversation. “Shortening it to eater just
didn’t have the same ring to it.”
“This is why I moved out.” Josie huffed, and we let her get away with
the lie. “You’re both mean to me.”
From there, they devolved into bickering and pillows got involved way
too close to the food for comfort.
“Come on.” I hooked Kierce’s arm and carried his plate to the table.
“Give me your honest opinion.”
We sat across from one another, and I pretended not to notice carrots
sailing through the air behind us.
Kierce lifted the plate to breathe in the scent, set it down, then speared
the centermost piece.
Nails digging into my palms, I waited for the verdict, weirdly invested
in pleasing him.
He popped the slice into his mouth and shut his eyes, savoring the
flavors.
 “Perfection.” His eyes opened on his plate, and he took another bite. “I
prefer it this way.”
This way? Oh crap. As in without the sauce. The sauce I had been
relying on for flavor. Which I had forgotten to add. There wasn’t a speck of
seasoning on his meal.
“I give up.” I banged my forehead on the table. “I’ll have to live on
Josie’s cooking until I die.”
“That’s what sisters are for.” She came to inspect my work. “The even
sear on this is impressive.”
“If Josie hadn’t distracted you,” Matty added, leaning over Kierce’s
shoulder, “this would have been a gold-star effort.”
“Me?” Josie laughed out loud. “I distracted her?”
Ignoring them as they returned to their pillow fighting, I homed in on
Kierce to gauge his sincerity.
“I ate a raw diet for centuries.” Kierce speared another slice. “This is a
luxury.”
“Does that mean what I think it means? That you caught your own food
and skinned it?”
“Wildlife is plentiful in Abaddon, and I had no reason to leave between
tasks.”
“What happens to Badb when you go home?”
“As long as I’m able to protect her, I bring her with me. She enjoys the
hunting.”
Curious if that was the reason why she spoiled him with purloined
meals when they were here, I missed it when Carter returned loaded down
with bags of food and sodas tucked under her arms. The smell hit me like a
two-by-four to the gut, and I didn’t waste time stealing the top container
and digging in.
O ne look from Carter convinced my siblings they didn’t want to stick
around for the next part, the actual reason she had come to visit. I
would have expected them to kick up a fuss about me working
another of the 514’s cases, even if it involved one of my clients, but they
left without making a peep.
Either they were tired of me ignoring their advice, which had never
prevented them from sharing it, or learning the worst had already happened,
that I had died, put them at ease.
“We located tracks leading from a point between the trees to the SUV
where you found the body and back again, but there’s nothing beyond that.”
Carter sat on the armrest of the couch. “The paw prints are the size of my
head.”
Cradling Badb, the brat, Kierce and I talked it out with Carter. “No
tracks at either of the other vehicles?”
“None.” She tugged at her collar. “I could almost believe that aliens did
lift these women in a cone of light off the highway then lower them into the
middle of the woods when they were finished.”
“The creature who ate the second victim doesn’t fit.” I attempted to
place Badb on a pillow beside me, but her beady black eyes pierced me, and
I settled back in with her. “Has the autopsy been done yet?”
There was always the very, very, very slim chance a cougar had been at
fault for the gory scene.
 “We put a rush on it,” Carter confided, “but it’ll be tomorrow at the
earliest.”
A familiar expression lit her face, and I spotted her angle before she
mustered up the courage to ask.
“You’re hoping I’ll swing by the morgue,” I guessed, and she proved
me right with a grin.
“I wasn’t going to suggest it,” she hedged, “but since you offered, that
would be a great help.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“The bones are another matter.” Kierce, who had been staring off, deep
in thought, tuned in to us again. “Three distinct irregularities confined to a
five-mile radius. There must be a connection between them.”
Disappearing women and vehicles. Obvious predation. And the surfeit
of bones.
“I can’t see one yet,” Carter admitted, “but I agree.”
“A predator that size would have been noticed.” I couldn’t move past
that point. “The amount of meat it required would be massive. Either more
people would have gone missing, or the deer population would have dipped
low enough hunters grumbled about it.”
“Perhaps it’s a shifter.”
Carter and I whipped our heads toward Kierce as his theory solidified
into possibility.
“That could explain why there hasn’t been a noticeable hit to the local
ecosystem,” Carter said. “If we’re dealing with a beast who’s human part of
the time, it could be filling the bulk of its dietary requirements at a grocery
store or butcher shop.”
“The disappearing paw prints could be a result of shifting,” I allowed.
“When did you find them?”
“Long after the area had been good and trampled.” She flipped her gaze
up to the ceiling. “This case has the chief bouncing on his tiptoes. He’s been
wanting to forge stronger relationships with South Carolina. This gives him
the opportunity to spread his vision and, potentially, extend the 514’s
reach.”
“Too much growth too fast will bite him on the butt eventually,” I
warned. “He has enough on his plate if he expects to stand against the
Society, as well as the local shifter packs, covens, and clans. Their leaders
will ignore yet another governing body until the 514 targets one of their
own. Then it’ll get bloody. Fast. Without the proper infrastructure, the 514
will buckle the first time pressure is applied.”
Paranormal factions governed themselves for a reason, but the problem
with self-government within an ecosystem of predators was they often only
policed themselves for crimes against each other. Not other factions.
Certainly not humans, who many viewed as food. Leer had taken on a big
job with a big dream, but if he wasn’t careful to manage his people and his
resources, he would have a big flop on his hands.
“I agree with you, but he’s optimistic.” She fluttered her hand. “That’s
politics, and I don’t care about big pictures the way he does. I care about the
work and the people we put in the field. One of the reasons it works so well
between him and me is he rarely leaves his office. He prefers wading
through bureaucracy to weeds.”
The thumps coming from above our heads convinced me Matty and
Josie were dancing an Irish jig.
“I’m not great with subtlety,” Carter confessed, “but I’m starting to
think the stomping is my cue.”
“You might be right.” I rose to walk her out the door. “Do you mind if
Kierce and I head back for another look around?”
“As long as you wear your lanyards, you’ve got access to the scene.”
She touched her pocket. “I had one of the guys fetch me a new phone, so if
anyone gives you trouble, you tell them to call me. If they won’t, you call
me. After I’m done with them, they’ll be too busy rocking in a corner to
give you more grief.”
“I’m so glad you’re on my side.”
“What can I say?” Her gaze drifted up again. “I’m a sucker for
troublemakers.”
As I stretched off my long nap, I brushed paper in my rear pants pocket
and remembered the brochure I found in Pink Panic. I almost mentioned it
to Carter, but it didn’t mean anything yet. I should Google before I got her
hopes up it was a clue and not a parking lot handout Tameka had yet to toss.
After she left, I turned to find Kierce tracing my outline with a softness
in his eyes that turned my heart to goo. “What are you thinking?”
“That the next time we kiss, I hope it’s not under the influence of lust
dirt.”
There was no hesitation. No momentary pause. He hadn’t considered
withholding his answer.
 “The next time?” I pretended to appraise him. “You seem confident I’ll
come back for more.”
Rather than the flush I expected on him, he held my gaze, his gone
silver. “You will.”
The sudden urge to rub my thighs together at the command in his tone
made me second-guess the type of man who was waking up in Kierce. I was
a sucker for the low growl in his voice, the possessive edge in his tone. He
was still my sweet little weirdo, but he was developing a dark edge whose
gleam invited me to linger, to test myself against his sharpness.
A ping drew my attention to my phone. Fifi Dern had texted me.
>>I know you’re not contacting me about a problem with the spell on
your wagon. It’s flawless. So, what brings you to my inbox?
Leaving out details on the victims, I explained the situation then waited
while she processed the details.
>>Magic can do just about anything in the right hands, but I’ve never
heard of an auto theft ring using it to pluck vehicles they want right off the
road. Let alone with people inside. That would edge into human trafficking,
right?
I understood why her thoughts would veer toward auto theft ring, but I
doubted that was the case here.
>Got any other ideas?
>>Got any more details?
>I’m not at liberty to share.
>>Okay. Hmm. Some fae steal to cause mischief, but that much iron?
Only a gremlin could handle it, and they tend to steal for parts. They like
taking things apart then putting them back together in new configurations.
They’re inventors, tinkerers, project junkies.
Gremlins like the missing Ezells, for instance.
>Thanks for the help.
With the brochure fresh on my mind, I plugged the GWC into the search
bar on my phone.
Aside from their nationwide meeting schedule, each chapter operating
out of a local community center, they didn’t offer much information to lure
in prospective members. I checked the time. It was too late to hope for more
than an informative voicemailbox, but I might as well try.
Much to my surprise, a woman answered the phone on the fifth ring in a
voice as soothing as aloe after a day at the beach without sunscreen.
“Grandview Women’s Club. This is Cora. How can I help you?”
“A friend gave me one of your brochures.”
“Do you need help?”
“What kind of help?”
Silence filled the connection before Cora lost the gentle tone. “You said
a friend gave you a brochure?”
Scrunching up my face, I forced out, “Yes.”
“Then you know what kind of assistance GWC offers our members.”
“I think I made a mistake in calling.”
“Speak to your friend.” Her voice softened a bit. “Maybe come to a
meeting?”
“Yeah.” I examined the brochure for an indication of what services they
provided, but the photos only showed happy women engaging in a variety
of activities, and the text wasn’t helpful either. “Maybe.”
“There’s one tomorrow night. Seven o’clock at the Talahi Island
community center.”
“Talahi Island?” A ringing started in my ears. “Thanks.”
A commotion outside the door ended with a shriek and a thump, and I
shot out onto the landing.
“Franie,” Matty slurred behind me. “You’f always been…my favrit
smister.”
“Oh God.” I sniffed his breath and recoiled from the stink. “How much
did you two drink?”
“Giddyup,” Josie cheered from somewhere below us. “Ride ’em,
cowgirl.” She giggled. “It’s me. I’m the cowgirl. Yeehaw!”
Peering over the railing, I spotted her riding Carter piggyback. That
explained the thump. Josie had leapt onto my back more than once using
the stairs to give her a boost. The redcap carried her with ease to her pickup
and dumped her, not in the cab, but in the bed of the truck.
“They have homebrew in Matty’s bathtub,” Carter called out the
warning. “I heard strawberry wine and something about watermelon sugar.”
“Pretty sure those are both song titles,” I yelled back, “but I’ll drain it,
whatever it is.”
When I checked on Matty, he had slumped over Kierce’s shoulder and
was drooling down his back.
All in all, I was impressed with Carter and Kierce. They handled
drunken Marys almost as well as I did.
P
rested in a pit deep enough for me to stand in without the top of my head
giving me away. The scene was very Jurassic Park, with the massive bones
in their mostly half-buried state. The techs had left sometime during my
nap, but a few guards remained to keep away the curious.
After seeing the paw prints for myself, I had to ask, “Do you think it’s
possible the gods missed one?”
“An Alcheyvāhā?” Kierce crouched, caressing the nearest bone with his
fingertips. “The one certainty in this world is there are no certainties.”
“It struck me one might have been left behind to guard the others’
remains.” I squatted next to him. “It’s crazy to think the other gods left all
this power up for grabs with no one to watch over it.” A zing raced up my
arm. “They’re still humming with energy.” I slung out the sensation. “They
must have been fierce once.”
“Yes.” A frown gathered across his forehead. “I think they must have
been.”
“Who would have known about this place?” I rubbed the tingles from
my fingers. “Only god adjacents?”
“No one outside the gods should be aware this place exists. Master
spoke freely because the site had been discovered and requires divine
intervention to ensure none of the bones are stolen and misused.”
That, and he wiped Kierce’s mind like tissue when the mood struck him.
“Master.” I let the word sit there between us. “I’ve heard you call him
that before, and I get that you’re bound in his service, but it still makes me
want to claw out his eyes then feed them to Badb.”
“No one has taken issue with his treatment of me.” His mouth curved
slowly. “Until you.”
This man kept spreading fissures through my heart as I learned more
about him. A living legend. A myth. A demigod or the next best thing. Yet
he was kept like a pet in a cage and only released when his master required
him to flit out into the human world and perform tasks for him like he was a
carrier pigeon and not the Viduus. No. Not even that. Like he wasn’t a
person with his own thoughts and feelings.
 Except, when I met him, he hadn’t had much of either. Dis Pater had
wrung Kierce dry of individuality.
“Yeah, well.” I ignored the heat blooming in my cheeks. “Someone has
to look out for you.”
Kind enough to give me a moment to allow my face to cool, Kierce
returned his attention to the bones. “We need to determine whether any
have been taken.”
“These appear to be intact skeletons.” As if they had all gathered here to
curl up and die. “The small bones, those are the tricky ones.”
I wasn’t saying Vi and I had spent time digging up skeletons, for
reasons, but I wasn’t not saying it either.
Kierce raised his eyebrows, but I pretended not to notice, figuring he
had done his share of skeletal reconstructions too. Though, I had to admit,
likely not for the same purpose.
Prior experience in grave robbing—borrowing—convinced me magic
had done the heavy lifting in excavating these remains. The sides of the pit
were smooth and square without a hint of shovel or pickaxe marks.
“There’s a simple way to check.” He indicated a nearby skull. “Place
your palm on the crown.”
Full contact zapped energy up my arm like a static shock on steroids,
and I fell on my butt.
Good thing I had plenty of cushion. I seemed to be doing that a lot
lately.
“Are you all right?” Kierce seized my wrist. “What happened?”
“The residual magic.” I scrubbed my fingertips on my pants. “It’s
intense.”
“I didn’t expect you to be so sensitive to it.” His gaze held apology.
“How about you observe?”
“No.” I slipped out of his hold and slung feeling back into my hand.
“I’m ready for it this time.”
A flicker of hesitation stirred doubt within me, but he read my resolve
to master my new powers.
Matty and Josie knew what I was, Carter too, and they supported me. I
had to be ready to support them right back if another god came knocking.
To do that, I had to master my new talents. And fast.
“Place your hand on the bone,” he said again. “Then shut your eyes.”
 Hissing through my teeth, I did as he asked then gasped when light
flickered behind my lids. “Weird.”
“Focus on the skull,” he murmured. “Let your energy radiate down
through its spine, straight to its tail.”
The light show blinked on and off, but as I stroked the bone with my
thumb, grounding me to the beast, I saw a hazy outline form. It wasn’t a
diagram, exactly, so much as a knowing. There was a visual element. I
could picture…something…but a rush of information tingled through my
skin, and I knew. “It’s intact.”
“Good.” Pride shone through his voice. “You’re correct.”
“That’s what you were doing earlier.” I opened my eyes. “You were
checking for missing pieces.”
Maybe he had a hint of osteokinetic in him. And, I suppose, that meant I
did too.
“I wanted to know the answer before I put you to the test.” He indicated
the next skull. “Knowledge and memory reside within the skulls. You can’t
ask any other bone, or it can only tell you about itself.” He let a sigh part his
lips. “There are more than a dozen skeletons here.”
“We better get started then.”
T he next morning, I was feeling more myself than I had since the
train shed. There was a certain joy to be found in tormenting
siblings with hangovers. Dare I say it was a special glee belonging
to me alone. Since I was The Responsible One, I often had a front row seat
for Josie and Matty’s regrets. This time, however, I had to admit they had
outdone themselves.
Years ago, Matty egged Josie on to Frankenstein random vegetables and
fruits into what they now called fruitables. Which they fermented into
alcohol. It always—always—knocked them for a loop. And they never
learned their lesson.
Honestly, I don’t think they wanted to learn aside from which fruitables
produced the strongest buzz.
As the morning sun stabbed Matty in the eyeballs, I was doubly grateful
I abstained from their nonsense.
“Oops.” I bounced the wagon through a pothole on the way to
Bonaventure. “Sorry about that.”
“There were never this many potholes before,” he whined, his eyes
swollen.
“Oh no.” I tapped the brakes. “A possum crossing the road.”
“You always blame a possum.” He curled in a ball against the door.
“There aren’t that many in Georgia.”
 “Maybe they all moved to Thunderbolt?” I dialed up the music.
“They’re everywhere these days.”
“Why aren’t you punishing Josie?” He covered his ears with his palms.
“She did it too.”
“Carter is handling her punishment.” I chuckled imagining what she
would cook up for our sister. “You’re the one who thought it would be a
hoot to get drunk on bathtub gin, or whatever you call it, during your
workweek. You knew you had to wake up early, and yet you chose to
party.”
And, since he was about to take a long nap, Pascal would be the one
stuck with the consequences.
“I found out my sister died.” He glared at me through red-rimmed eyes.
“I was traumatized.”
Smarting at how much truth I heard in his accusation, I hardened my
resolve. I was an old pro at how the blame game was played when it came
to mediating between my siblings. He had thrown a red herring in the hopes
I would give him a pass. I might have, if he and Josie hadn’t broken my no
drunks on the stairs rule.
They were going to break their necks one day if I didn’t keep
hammering their thick skulls until they got the message. Then again, maybe
that was the missing step. Maybe I ought to let them take a fall and then
shove the warning into their brains along with any leaking gray matter.
Idiots.
Not to be distracted, I pushed him harder. “How long does it take for
that poison brew to ferment?”
“Two weeks.”
“You two planned this two weeks ago. Before I died. Don’t blame my
death for your bad decisions.”
“But we wouldn’t have gotten into it last night if—” He sagged against
his seat belt. “I’m sorry, Mary. You don’t deserve that. How can we ask you
to share your concerns with us if we throw them back at you to excuse our
bad behavior?” He rested a hand on my shoulder. “I was upset about what
happened to you, but I could have told Josie no when she suggested we
sample our latest batch.”
“She suggested it, huh?” I rolled my eyes. “You sure that last bump
wasn’t us rolling over Josie after you threw her under the bus?” I wished I
could keep myself from caving, but it was a lost cause. “Brat.”
 “But you love me.” He leaned his head on my shoulder. “I’m your
favorite brother.”
“My only brother.”
“I’m your favorite sibling too,” he said sagely. “You just won’t admit it.
Not even to yourself.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
Because I did love him, and I was a giant sucker, I relented and made
the rest of the drive smoothly.
A grin split my cheeks when I rolled into my usual parking space to find
Kierce waiting on me with Badb.
Rushing through the usual routine with Matty, I seated Pascal within
him for the day.
Paco, who was up in the Suarez rotation, had requested the day off, so
his little brother was on deck.
“You’re sure you want to teach him to drive in the wagon?” Pascal
slung an arm around my neck without evidencing so much as a twinge from
Matty’s overindulgence. The guy had a cast-iron stomach. Even when the
stomach in question belonged to someone else. “He’s a cool guy, don’t get
me wrong, but the wagon? Don’t we have a clunker you can use for this?”
We’d had a ratty little pickup a few years ago. We let Josie drive
customers home after dropping off their vehicles or pick them up once we
finished with their cars. She’d sold veggies and fruits out of the back of it at
the farmers’ market in town as well as hauling her gardening supplies. I’d
had big plans for the Suarezes to finish rebuilding the transmission before
moving on to the body work. I figured we could have it wrapped to
advertise the shop, but then the Suarezes carved a classic car repair niche
via Matty.
We’d started specializing, learned it was cheaper to send customers
home in a rideshare than to let Josie run wild in any garden centers she
passed by while playing chauffeur to customers, and we let it go to a
neighborhood kid with a knack for rebuilding cars for the cost of repairs we
had already done.
“I backed into the parking spot. All he’s got to do is drive a straight line,
turn, and then we’re home.”
“It’s your car, Francita.” He raised his hands. “You do what you see fit
with her.”
 Had he been alive, I had no doubt the wagon wouldn’t have been a gift
for me but for him. From him.
Much like Kierce’s rather specific interest in a 1976 Toyota Land
Cruiser FJ40. What can I say? Pascal had a knack for conning people into
financing his wish list of project cars. He might not get to keep them, but it
was enough he got to restore them.
“You’ve been friends with us for too long.” He dredged up a sigh. “You
ignored my guilt trip like a pro.”
“Don’t blame yourself.” I patted his shoulder. “I learned early how to
tune out siblings.”
“Even other people’s siblings?”
“Especially those.”
His good-natured grumble about how he had experienced real
hangovers in his day as I slapped a cold electrolyte drink in his hand, just in
case, made me smile.
“Oh. I forgot to ask. Have you guys heard anything about
disappearances near Limehouse?”
“Limehouse? That in South Carolina?” At the wagon, Pascal settled on
the backseat and made the sign of the cross. “I haven’t heard anything, but
I’ll ask Paco and Pedro when I get home.”
With a firm hand, I nudged Kierce behind the wheel then shut him in so
he couldn’t change his mind and bolt. Tempted to mimic Pascal’s motions, I
circled the vehicle to claim the spot beside Kierce. “This is going to be
fun.”
Kierce, hands resting on his thighs, didn’t appear convinced by my
enthusiasm.
“Place your hands at ten and two…” I walked him through the basics
while we sat in the parking lot, then I encouraged him to turn the key.
“Check your mirrors then ease your foot off the brake. Yes. Just like that.
Now place it on the accelerator.”
Knuckles white where they gripped the steering wheel, Kierce followed
my instructions, jolting when the wagon moved forward. He cut a panicked
look at me, and Pascal jabbed a finger into his cheek to force his head
forward again.
We lurched home in bursts of acceleration that broke Kierce out in a
cold sweat.
 As soon as the shop was in sight, he declared, “I’ve learned enough for
one day.”
Shoving open the door, he stepped out of the wagon to suck in deep
breaths.
“Guess this means we’ll practice parking next time.” I slid over behind
the wheel. “Just a word of advice? Maybe don’t leap from moving
vehicles?” I heard the question in my tone and knew it came from doubt I
should be giving advice to anyone on that score. “Also? Put the car in park
before you exit the vehicle.” I indicated the flat area where we sat. “Had
this happened on a hill, the car—and its passengers—would have rolled
away.”
“I apologize.” He wouldn’t look at me. “I didn’t think it would be so
difficult.”
“That’s what I’ve thought after every lesson you’ve given me.” I patted
the seat. “Do you want a ride?”
“No.” He stumbled back a step. “I’ll walk.”
After shutting the door, I guided the wagon the last few yards to the
parking lot and turned in. “Well?”
“Well, what?” Pascal drawled from the backseat. “Are you waiting for
me to say I told you so?”
“You just did.” I twisted to face him. “Be nice, Pascal, I’m warning
you.”
With a grunt, he exited the wagon and headed for the garage, shaking
his head the whole way.
I didn’t get a chance to open my door before Kierce was there, doing it
for me.
“I’m sorry I was so careless.” He held out his hand for mine, helping me
exit. “I put you and Matty at risk.”
“This is a flat stretch of quiet road. It’s a great place for you to learn to
drive.” I invited myself to cinch my arms around his waist. “You do have to
be cautious while operating a vehicle or people will get hurt, but I won’t put
you in a situation where that’s a concern until you’re ready. Just breathe.
You did great.”
“Your definition of great concerns me.”
“The first time Matty drove,” I recalled, “he was so nervous he vomited
on himself.”
 Not his fault, really, when St. Mary’s made us walk anywhere we
wanted to go. We had only been in the van used for school trips once, so it
wasn’t surprising he had motion sickness from the hunk of junk I had
bought for us. I saw now that the sisters had done their best to narrow the
scope of our world and teach us as few life skills as possible so that
independence frightened kids with more malleable personalities.
Even if we had stuck around to age out of the system, us Marys would
have been the first three in line to receive our diplomas come graduation
day. Better behaved children might not have known the fear that clawed my
insides raw at night, but Josie was a hellion, and Matty and I had known the
sisters for what they were: monsters.
“The first time Josie drove, she ran straight into a tree. She spent the
next month sobbing that she was a murderer and healing its injuries.” I
snorted. “She didn’t drive for a year after that.”
A curious lilt in his tone, he asked, “What about you?”
“I was never afraid of cars. I learned how to hot-wire them early.” I had
been taught by the kids I ran with back then. “I stole cars for about a week
before I felt too guilty. Without transportation, people can’t pay their bills.
They rely on cars to take their kids to school, the doctor, after-school
activities.” I sighed. “I couldn’t stomach that job and got put on another.”
Pickpocketing was more my speed. I chose targets who could afford a
minor loss.
Guilt still clawed at me, but I blocked it out by hugging my siblings
after I got in from a night’s work. I had done it for them. I would have kept
doing it too. Had I not been a budding necromancer, I couldn’t have earned
enough to break the cycle. I was one of the lucky ones.
“Is that what drew you to operating a car repair shop?”
“Huh.” I reflected on what I had told him. “I never considered that.”
The subconscious mind was a tapestry of past regrets, future fears, and
randomness collected throughout our days woven together into the fiber of
our beings.
“Why did you choose it then?”
“The reasons I gave you for not stealing a car are valid for why people
repair them no matter the cost.”
People skipped meals to afford parts. They begged family or friends for
loans. They worked extra shifts.
 Good mechanics were hard to find, and car repair was as necessary as
groceries in rural communities.
Amazing how much business you could accumulate if you charged fair
rates, kept your promises, and did your best to patch holes in the supply
chain before your bottom line tripped and fell into them.
“Then you made a wise investment in your future.”
“Seems that way.” I shrugged off the past. “We’re lucky we can afford
to specialize these days.”
We still performed bread-and-butter routine services. Oil changes. Tire
repairs, replacements, rotations. But the real money was in the classic car
restoration. A niche I owed entirely to the Suarezes.
Though, to be fair, many of the cars weren’t classics during the
Suarezes’ lifetime.
They were just, well, cars.
A horn blared in the distance, drawing our attention, and Carter rolled to
a stop in front of the shop.
The window whirred as it lowered, and she called, “Hop in, you two.”
Crinkles fanned out from Kierce’s eyes as he smiled at her ordering us
around like her underlings.
Once we got in and put our seat belts on, I met her gaze in the rearview
mirror. “Bossy, aren’t we?”
“Oh?” Her sly grin promised mischief. “Your sister likes it.”
“Eww, eww, eww.” I plugged my ears with my fingers. “I don’t want to
know what she likes.”
As I hummed to drown out what she said next, a spear of heat struck me
in the abdomen and yanked.

T
to tell I was answering a summons.
Again.
Dis Pater sat at his desk with his back to me. His laptop was open as he
typed away on his next cozy. The chapter heading, containing a cat icon,
gave him away. I read over his shoulder from where I drifted on a
horizontal lean. I really needed to get the hang of this astral projection
thing.
“What possessed you to name your character Kitt Gato?” I fixed my tilt
but couldn’t get my feet to hit the floor. “Could you not decide on his age
and thought Kitten Cat was a good middle ground?”
A long-suffering sigh bowed his shoulders before he hit save and spun
in his chair. “You again?”
“Looks that way.” I spread my hands. “I assume Kierce is en route?”
“He is the one I summoned, so…” He winged his eyebrows high. “You
do the math.”
“Are you an asshole to everyone, or am I special?”
A flicker of something crossed his features before he scoffed at me.
“You’re not special.”
“Ah. You’re just an asshole then.” I shot him two thumbs-up. “Good to
know.”
“Are you stalking Kierce?” Elbows on his armrests, he steepled his
fingers. “Are you obsessed with him?”
“No.” I huffed at his nerve. “I’m not an obsessed stalker.”
“That’s exactly what an obsessed stalker would say.” He snapped his
fingers. “Oh. That’s good. I can use that.”
While he jotted down his idea, I drifted to the window. Sure enough,
Kierce was racing for the cottage.
“What would you do if I told you to stay away from him?”
Dis Pater’s voice drew my attention back to him. “Ignore you.”
“You’re not afraid?” He resumed his earlier pose. “I am a god.”
“You also murder people just to see if they’ll die or change into
something more interesting.”
“Again.” He shrugged. “I’m a god.”
The door crashed open on a windswept Kierce before I could bite back
at Dis Pater.
“Report.” He spun in his chair, turning his back to us. “What have you
discovered?”
“Eleven of the skeletons are missing small bones,” Kierce gritted out,
searching me over for injuries.
“They probably thought we wouldn’t notice,” I said smugly, submitting
to Kierce’s examination.
 “We?” Dis Pater glanced back at us, his gaze calculating. “You helped
him?”
Keeping my mouth shut seemed like a great idea in the moment, so that
was what I did.
“Can you sense their power?” His eyes gleamed bright. “What happens
when you touch them?”
Oh yeah. I wasn’t saying a word. Clearly, I had already shared too
much.
“What would you like me to do, Master?”
There was that word again. Master. Kierce used it as a diversionary
tactic, but it set my blood on fire.
Pretty sure Dis Pater heard my teeth grinding, because he smiled at me.
“Find them, of course.”
“I’ll take my leave then.” Kierce bowed to his chuckling god. “I’ll
contact you as soon as I have them.”
“Take your little friend with you.” He flicked his wrist in my direction.
“If she’s going to keep sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong, she might
as well be useful. Besides, with the two of you working together to find the
bones, you can return them to their resting place that much faster.”
“You’re going to put them back?” I heard my doubt. “You don’t want to
use them?”
“Listen, mouthy girl, some things are sacred even to gods.”
“Gods killed the Alcheyvāhā, who were also gods, so…” I watched for
his reaction. “What’s the difference?”
“Kierce, your puppy is yapping.” He exhaled. “Take it on a walksie, or
I’m driving it to the pound.”
The next flick of his fingers clenched my torso in an invisible fist and
flung me away.

C ,I
an eye to find Carter’s face an inch away.
“Don’t eat me,” I breathed, heart rattling against my ribs.
“I’m not a fucking vulture,” she snarled at me. “I don’t go around eating
people who look dead.”
 “I fainted again?” I groped the seatback then decided lying down was
good. “Ugh.”
“You slumped over midsentence.” She inspected my temple. “You need
to get a handle on this.”
Pressure caused my ears to pop, and then Kierce was there, leaning over
me. “Are you all right?”
“If I don’t figure this out, and soon, I’ll have to wear a helmet twenty-
four-seven.” I groaned at the brush of his fingers across my cheek. “It’s that
or risk brain damage.”
“I don’t understand how he’s summoning you.” Kierce drew me against
him. “We’ll figure it out.”
Withdrawing from the cab, Carter jumped down from the running
board. “Should I take you home?”
“I’m good.” Kierce, and me too, I guess, had our marching orders. “I’ll
see if I can’t get through to Vi. She would know if it’s possible to block the
connection to Kierce that’s causing this.” I curled a protective hand over the
summoning token inked onto my forearm, the one resembling a tattoo of
Badb in flight. “She might know a way to give me a warning anyway.”
A heads-up I was about to go bye-bye would allow me precious seconds
to get flat on my back. That could prevent future head injuries. But the idea
of leaving my body behind, without protection, was terrifying. I had seen
the worst almost happen to women who passed out drunk on crowded
streets. I had given up on filling my pockets to call the cops when someone
was in danger. That did not endear me to the other kids who had to ditch
their plays to avoid being spotted by officers who recognized them or their
tricks.
So far, I had been lucky with my blackouts. Carter had been there both
times to guard my body. Eventually, luck had a way of running out.
A call distracted Carter, who walked away from the truck wearing a
scowl that morphed into a snarl.
Before I could ask what was wrong, she slammed my door then climbed
behind the wheel. “Carter?”
“There’s been another abduction.” Her laugh was manic. “A bean sidhe
from Florida in a sedan.”
“Then we’ve got witnesses.” I leaned forward then groaned as my head
swam. “What did the officers see?”
“Nothing.” She screwed her eyes shut tight. “They’re gone too.”
E ight patrol cars lined the road ahead, forcing Carter to drive farther
down to find an opening. As soon as she threw the truck into park,
she was out the door and prowling toward the scene, leaving us in
our seats.
“At least she parked,” Kierce said dryly, “before jumping out and
leaving her passengers behind.”
“Aww.” I poked him in the cheek then fed his earlier words back to him.
“You’re adorable when you pout.”
“I must begin tracking the missing bones.” He peered out the rear
window. “I can’t help Carter.”
“Don’t beat yourself up over it.” I reached for the door handle. “She’ll
understand.”
These events and victims were connected in ways we had yet to
determine. With us pulling on one end, and Carter on the other, we would
unravel the case that much quicker.
With that hope in mind, we set out into the woods, following the flow of
officers to find our way.
While we waited on Carter to update us, Kierce and I hung back to
avoid interfering with those who were organizing search grids and cocked
an ear for any useful information.
“…both women…”
“…reported a bright light…”
 “…gone when we got here.”
He and I exchanged a weighted glance, but we remained in the
background until Carter arrived wearing a scowl so sharp it could carve
diamonds. She noticed us but tended to her team and received a report from
several officers before venturing over to us.
“Two female officers were taken,” was her curt greeting. “We’re
contacting their families now.”
“Humans?”
“A white witch and a kobold,” she clipped out. “The witch, you met
earlier. Byeol Kim. The kobold is Stephy Tate.”
Meaning humans, witches, and fae had been taken. Their affiliations
with vampires and wargs made a fine cross section of the local paranormal
population. Had I believed for a second aliens were at fault, I could grasp
why they would require such a broad sampling. Since I didn’t, I couldn’t
explain what, aside from gender, the victims had in common.
“The officer with the…?” I traced a circle over my cheek. “How did that
happen anyway?”
“Tate laughed it off when I asked, said Kim got clipped during an arrest
two nights ago.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah.” She shrugged. “Perks of the job.”
“Hey.” I tugged the brochure from my pocket. “Can you look into this?”
“Grandview Women’s Club?” She cocked an eyebrow. “Are you
considering a membership?”
“I found that in Pink Panic. I wasn’t sure if it was junk mail or what, so
I called them last night. A woman answered the phone and asked if I needed
help. Not like how can I help you but are you in danger vibes. I tried to get
details out of her, but she clammed up fast. It might be nothing, but it could
be something.”
“Okay.” She took the paper from me. “I’ll get someone on it.”
“There’s one more thing.” I scrolled to the photo I had snapped, the one
with a number I had yet to call, and as I scanned it, I got a jolt of
recognition. “Can I see that for a second?” She returned the brochure, and I
verified my hunch. “It’s the same number.”
“That’s the burner phone from the third victim’s car,” Carter said,
craning her neck to see the picture.
“Her last call was to the Grandview Women’s Club.”
 “Good work. You’ve established a link between two of our victims.”
Carter’s smile came on slow. “But maybe in the future don’t touch the
evidence without gloves on? I’ll have to contact forensics and let them
know to eliminate you from the suspect pool.”
“I would appreciate that.”
“We would also appreciate access to the burial ground,” Kierce said.
“Then we’ll get out of your way.”
With a tight nod, she granted permission before dissolving back into the
heart of the chaos.
“We need a bone from each skeleton that’s missing pieces,” he told me
quietly. “Then we can leave.”
“Okay.” I twisted my hair into a bun to keep it out of the way. “I’ll start
here, and you can start there.”
We crawled down, separating to focus on our tasks, but this time, when
I palmed the beasts’ skulls, there was a change in vibrancy. Determined to
figure it out on my own, I focused on the map behind my eyelids. When
that didn’t help, I decided to compare the feedback against the nearest skull.
And that was when I discovered… “More bones have been taken since we
were here last.”
“Yes.” Kierce simmered with rage at the further desecration. “Three
more.”
“The same number of women from this last batch of disappearances.” I
frowned. “What does it mean?”
“I’m not sure.” He rubbed a hand across his jaw. “Collect your bones,
and I’ll collect mine.” He thrust out a bag with a crinkling liner. “Place
them in here and cinch the top closed when you’re done.”
Pocketing god bones sounded like a terrible idea. “What will we do
then?”
“We’ll use them to track the missing pieces.”
“I thought only skulls could map their bones?”
“Yes.” His expression softened. “But this is similar to a witch casting a
tracking spell.”
“So, just to recap, a skull knows all its bones, but individual bones can
recognize each other?”
“Gods’ magic pumped through flesh and bone, from life into death,
binding them into eternity.”
 While I filed that away under cool new powers, I set to work selecting a
small bone from each skeleton. I was tucking them into my pocket when
Kierce returned for me, and we left to find Carter. She sat on the tailgate of
her truck, holding a paper map while two officers indicated large areas with
a marker.
“We’re leaving.” I waited as she called a break in their strategizing. “I’ll
call and update you later.”
“Do you need a lift?” She didn’t glance up from her task. “I can have
someone run you home.”
“I’ll call a Swyft.” I tugged Kierce away from the crowd and opened the
rideshare app. “You and I will gather any supplies you think we might need
then pick up the wagon and leave from the shop. That’ll give me a chance
to check on Matty and Josie before we head out again.”
“Should we bring them coffee?” Kierce kept a hand in his pocket. “Paco
told me it was a hangover cure.”
“For Paco, maybe. Pascal hates coffee.” Personal tastes carried over
from life, regardless of the fact they used the same set of taste buds—
Matty’s—for everything. “Thanks for thinking of them, though.”
“You don’t drink the way they do.” He sounded curious, not
judgmental. “They enjoy being drunk?”
“This isn’t going to win me points, but I’m too uptight. I don’t like to
lose control. I do go out drinking for birthdays or whatever, but it’s not a
release to me the way it is for them. They surrender their worries to it for a
few hours and feel better for it. After the hangover. I end up feeling guilty
for not being responsible or panic imagining what could have happened to
Matty or Josie without me looking out for them.”
Last night’s shenanigans drove home that my siblings required more
than a designated driver for nights out. I was convinced they required a
designated sitter for nights in too. Maybe I should break down and install
baby gates. That would save me lots of hassle. Maybe those plastic twisty
knob covers for the doors too.
“I can’t remember being drunk,” he admitted, “but I don’t enjoy losing
control either.”
“That sounds like a challenge.” I checked on our ride. “We’ll have to
buy some beer and—”
“You don’t have to put in the effort to give me an experience you don’t
enjoy.” He trailed a knuckle down my cheek. “That’s not fair to you.”
 The people pleaser in me recoiled in horror at having failed him, but…
A sense of relief swept through me, loosening my shoulders, the second
he passed on the idea. That told me I hadn’t wanted to do it, but I would
have done for him what I often did for my siblings when an idea struck
them. I would have gone along with it for his sake. I probably would have
had fun, I usually did, but it was nice for someone to hear my reluctance
and not push until it faded to acceptance.
“The next time Josie and Matty get a wild hair to make poor life
choices, I’ll let you know, and you can decide if you want to join them.” I
pictured how very fast that could go very wrong. “I’ll supervise.”
A small blue car pulled onto the shoulder several yards away, a glowing
Swyft sign stuck to the windshield, and I waved to reassure the driver.
We had few safe topics of conversation, so we kept quiet during the trip,
each of us lost in thought.
To ensure I didn’t forget, I texted Carter an update that might make
more sense to her than to us.
>Three more bones have gone missing.
>>Three more women too.
No surprise, she made the connection faster than Kierce or I had, but
she wasn’t a cop for nothing.
>>Anything else?
>Not off the top of my head.
>>Keep me updated.
“I’ve been my own boss for so long, I’ve forgotten what it’s like to get
ordered around all the time.”
Kierce glanced at me, his gaze a million miles away. He looked ready to
comment but remained quiet.
Soon enough, the driver pulled into the shop’s parking lot, and we
exited the car.
“I thought you left with Carter?” Josie, who had been watering the herb
garden in front of the office, shaded her eyes from the sun. “I didn’t expect
to see you back until closing time.”
“She’s got her hands full at work.” I couldn’t resist teasing her. “Kierce
and I are off to do important god things.”
“God things, huh?” She spluttered a laugh. “You got used to divinity
fast.”
 “No.” Kierce rubbed circles on my lower back. “You’re wrong about
that.”
“She’s teasing.” I smiled up at him. “Sometimes joking can help you
feel less afraid.”
Pascal exited the garage while Kierce reflected on what I had said, the
mechanic flashing a wide grin.
“Francita, I had a brilliant idea after you left.” He slapped his hands
together. “Come and see.”
Trailing him into the open bay, I saw his brilliance first thing. “Why is
there a golf cart in here?”
Rusted from a life outdoors and dented from years of hard use, it
slouched on its flat tires in exhaustion.
“I got to thinking about our exciting trip to work this morning, and it hit
me that the cemetery is so close Kierce doesn’t need to learn to drive a car
to help out. He can use this. It’s electric. It goes nice and slow. He can
practice making turns, backing up, and using his mirrors.” He jogged over
and indicated the set of side mirrors and the rearview mirror he had
installed to make the poor golf cart more practical. “He can build up his
confidence with this and then move to a regular vehicle.”
“How much did this cost?” I pinched the bridge of my nose. “No.” That
was being too optimistic about it. “How much will it cost to get it running
again?”
“I got it for free,” he rushed to assure me. “All it cost me was a basket
of Josie’s apples.”
Snorting at his answer, Josie folded her arms across her chest. “Then it
wasn’t free, was it?”
“How much?” I pinned him with my stare. “Will it cost more than a new
one to fix?”
The problem with mechanics was, they enjoyed a good project. They
enjoyed them so much, they would convince themselves it was cheaper to
buy a clunker and fix it themselves. From my experiences in filing invoices
for many such free projects over the years, that was never the case.
“Let me worry about it.” Pascal patted the roof. “I’ll have it ready in no
time.”
“I’ll pay for the repairs,” Kierce volunteered, inspecting the cart. “I
could drive this to Bonaventure?”
 “It’s not street legal,” I warned him, “but no one will stop you from
puttering around out here.”
Golf carts, go-karts, four-wheelers, dune buggies. Lawn mowers. We
shared the road with them all.
“You heard the man.” Pascal whooped and grinned. “Operation God
Cart is a go.”
The urge to groan was strong, but I restrained myself. “Kierce and I are
heading out.”
With only so much time left before I had to be back for Pascal at closing
time, I was eager to get moving.
Unable to hug Matty without making it awkward for Pascal, I settled for
squeezing Josie.
“Don’t think I don’t know I was your second choice,” she huffed in my
ear. “I saw that hesitation.”
“Keep him safe.” I held her tight. “Keep you safe too.”
“Just because you died once,” she warned me, “don’t think I won’t kill
you if you kick the bucket again.”
An inspection of the supply kit I kept in the wagon earned Kierce’s
approval, and we set out to begin our hunt. We made it four or five miles, to
a small memorial park, before Kierce asked me to pull over so we could try
our luck finding the missing god bones.
“There are no graves here.” I carried the bag to a concrete bench. “I
don’t sense any energy either.”
Look at me, using my demi senses like I knew what I was doing.
“We require space without competing energies for what we’re about to
do,” he explained. “As it is, we can only activate one bone at a time, or we
risk changing their resonance.”
“Okay.” I pretended to understand. “That sounds bad.”
A faint smile crinkled the corners of his eyes, but he wasn’t fooled.
“Each bone carries a memory of itself as a whole. The hymn I’m going to
teach you would isolate the strongest memory and latch onto it. That would
be fine, but it then erases the others’ echoes, scrubs them clean. It renders
them useless.”
“We could always go back for another bone, right?”
“How would you know which skeleton it belonged to if the bone lost its
connection to the whole?”
 Understanding sank in that it wouldn’t be as simple as asking a skull for
help again, which, honestly, still blew my mind a little. “Oh.”
“I learned it the hard way.” His smile stretched across his face. “Dis
Pater was furious.”
“He taught you?” I pictured the smug god typing away in his office.
“That’s hard to believe.”
“He was different then.” Kierce glanced away. “He was a young god
and cared more for his things.”
“You’re not a thing.” I reined in my temper. “You don’t belong to him.”
“Come on.” He lifted the supply kit. “We need to get started.”
Unhappy to be shut down, I grasped there was much I didn’t understand
about their dynamic. But he shied away from sharing details he feared
might stoke my fury higher where his god was concerned. The only way I
would get him to open up was if I learned to shut my mouth and listen
without judgment.
Okay, fine, the without judgment part was never going to happen.
I was already judging Dis Pater plenty, and I didn’t know half the story.
Kierce selected a lush patch of grass and sat with his legs folded lotus
style then rooted through the bag. I joined him, positioned across from him,
and marveled at the ease with which he handled the supplies. I must have
been wearing a dopey grin again, because he paused with an abalone shell
on his palm.
“I’m not as cool as you seem to believe.”
“I didn’t say a word.” I mimed zipping my lips. “I don’t want to weird
you out.”
“How are you talking if your lips are zipped?”
“Ha.” I grinned at him. “Your sense of humor is on the rebound, I see.”
“How could it not be, living with your family? You all laugh and joke so
often.”
“I’m not sure if it’s good you’re picking up things from us. The world
can’t handle another Talbot.”
A spark of energy broke across my senses as he removed a bone from
his pocket.
“Why did it do that?” I reached out and touched it, but the static shock
didn’t repeat. “Did you feel it?”
“No.” He examined the bone. “Perhaps removing it from the insulating
pouch is what you sensed?”
 “The pouch.” I palmed my forehead. “I should have put two and two
together.”
“No.” He placed the shell on the grass. “I should have explained it to
you.”
“You’re fine.” I watched him set his first bone into the shell. “You’re
learning as I’m learning.”
Not everyone was a born teacher. I discovered that firsthand after I
failed to teach the Buckley Boys how to read. Kierce was still remembering
how to human. Expecting him to teach too? A learning curve was always
going to be part of the process. For both of us.
“I should have let you do this, but you can watch this time since we
have several more in case this effort doesn’t pan out.” He selected a few
herbs, ones I used in summonings, and sprinkled them over the bone.
“Follow my lead.”
“I…” A prickle lifted the hairs down my arms. “Nothing.” I rolled my
shoulders. “Please, continue.”
The words were low and sweet and coaxing. Beautiful. Kierce had
honed his voice to suit each hymn with precision, but there was a flatness in
his tone that left me curious if he had grown numb to wonder from the
repetition of these rites. I let him cycle through the chorus twice before
joining in. Only then did he come to life, our voices twining, and a
peacefulness swept over him that made my heart ache.
A clicking noise alerted me the hymn had been successful. The bone
was spinning like a compass needle.
“We just follow it?” I gawked as it fell still. “It’ll adjust as we
approach?”
“Yes.” He lifted the shell with care. “This will guide us, like to like.”
The cool factor was too high for me to resist a tiny squee that erupted
into full-on plotting.
I wonder if Josie and Matty would donate a toe bone each?
I could string them on a necklace and use them to find my siblings no
matter where they had gone.
Yeah. No. That was a creepy intrusive thought even for me. And yet…
No.
Definitely not.
I was certainly not lopping off their pinky toes in their sleep.
Probably.
 Though it would give just the tip a whole new meaning.
“You drive,” Kierce, oblivious to my scheming, said, “and I will course
correct for us.”
“Works for me.” I paused at an alert from a text message. “Let me check
this first.”
We got in the wagon, but I waited to crank it until I finished skimming
Carter’s update.
>>We have a development.
>Oh?
>>Over the past six months, officers have responded to 911 calls made
by Tate’s neighbors at the apartment complex where she resides.
Complaints about screaming, objects shattering against the shared walls,
threats of bodily harm yelled down the halls for anyone to hear. There’s also
a record of a violent altercation between Kim and her boyfriend in the front
yard of their rental house.
>How have the men not been arrested?
>>Domestic abuse is complicated no matter who the victim is, but a
cop getting beaten at home?
>They must have worried that information would tarnish their
reputations within the department.
>>They’re damn strong women, both decorated officers, and it pisses
me the hell off this was happening to them. I could tell when I interviewed
the other officers on their shift that the news wasn’t surprising, but they
would never rat on one another.
>What do we know about the woman who went missing with them?
>>Not enough.
>>I’m sending some of our people—from the 514—to interview family
members of all the victims. See if we can’t pin down other similarities.
There’s got to be another common thread we can tug on.
>The first victim married into a warg pack, so the alpha would have
handled issues from within, and the vampire clan would have dealt with any
incidents the second victim reported. What are the odds of your people
determining whether the wife and donor had any pending complaints?
>>They’ll do their best, but we can only press so hard without just
cause.
>Let me know what you learn.
>>Same goes for you.
 “The local police departments would have interviewed their families
already, wouldn’t they?”
“That’s why agencies like the 514 exist. To help humans, and others in
need of protection from large paranormal organizations, get justice. But it’s
an uphill battle.” I pulled out and began driving in the direction the bone
pointed. “Anyone pitting themselves against a pack or clan or the Society—
whoever—must be ready to fight for their convictions. The 514 is so new
the badges haven’t lost their shine. I’m not sure how far they’ll get with the
victims’ families.”
“You worked with them for protection from the Society,” Kierce
ventured, as if only just realizing it.
“I did.” I kept the part where Harrow blackmailed me into it to myself.
“I needed the 514’s help in the event the Society took issue with my loaners
killing their vampires.”
“Lyle killed them.” Kierce sounded thoughtful. “You didn’t need the
514, in the end.”
“No, I didn’t, but there was a part there in the middle where I couldn’t
sleep at night for fear I had cost a person their life. Then it was lives.” I still
carried that guilt. “I’m glad the 514 didn’t have to go to bat for me. I don’t
want the Society to remember I exist.” I took the next turn at Kierce’s
instruction. “The 514 was able to keep my name out of the official reports
by presenting evidence of a dybbuk to the Society.”
Harrow had been willing to lie for me, though. I would never forget
that. Too bad I also couldn’t forget what he had done to Matty. Hard lines
were harder to stick to when the person crossing them had been a friend.
“You’re not a necromancer now,” he reminded me gently. “The Society
has no claim to your actions.”
“I’m part necromancer.” I let his words circle my brain. “That’s always
been the problem.”
“That was before.” He didn’t mention the dying part. “You’re a
demigoddess with a death affinity now.”
The unbearable weight that had crushed my lungs since I came into my
magic lightened enough for me to take a full, deep breath and consider what
he was telling me. “I’m not the same person I was.”
“You’re still you, Frankie.” He gestured for me to turn again. “You’re
the same person at heart.”
 “The Society can’t touch me.” I spoke the words out loud like a
talisman. “I’m free of them.”
As good as the affirmation sounded, I couldn’t shake years of
conditioning in the blink of an eye.
The Society, and how it wielded its influence, had terrified me for too
long.
“You’ll come to believe it.” Kierce read me with ease. “In time.”
Time I, more than likely, had in abundance. I would outlive the few
necromancers who had heard of me, such as the sentinel who came to arrest
me that long-ago night after Lyle turned me in and Harrow took the blame.
There was bittersweet comfort in knowing I would regain my anonymity.
One day.
A warm sensation in my pocket drew my hand to feel around for the
source. As my fingertips brushed the bag holding my portion of the bones, I
hissed at the contact burn. “What’s happening?”
“Hold still.” He noticed my pinkened fingers and pushed my hand clear.
“Let me get them.”
Burnt flesh tickled my nose seconds later as he withdrew his hand,
along with the bones that had melted through the insulated fabric containing
them. “I’m pulling over.” I jerked the wagon off the road and threw her in
park. “Why are they a million degrees all of a sudden?”
“I don’t know.” He kept hold of the bones, despite his blisters. “They
must be—”
“Drop them.” I gripped his wrist and shook his hand empty. “Don’t just
sit and watch your skin flake off.”
“Your seat.” A sliver of white bone glinted on his palm. “I know how
much this car means to you.”
“The car is spelled, and even if it wasn’t, that’s your hand.” I reached
for my bowler bag and pulled out a tin of healing salve I had left over from
one of Aretha’s many treatments. “You are more important to me than a
hunk of metal.”
The wound had cauterized so quickly there were only dried flecks of
blood and exposed tendons.
Gently, I applied a thick layer then wrapped his hand with a bandage.
His accelerated healing would kick in and do the heavy lifting, now that he
was eighty percent healed, but this would help with the pain. And it must be
excruciating. Yet Kierce hadn’t so much as winced at the charring.
 “Thank you,” he said thickly, his head so low I could only see the part
in his hair.
“Now.” I wiped my hands clean and packed away the supplies. “Any
ideas what went wrong?”
The two bones from my pouch had fallen onto the floorboard after
singeing the seat, which was repairing itself before our eyes, but they
seemed to have finally quit smoldering. They weren’t eating holes in the
floormats anyway. But the shell, herbs, and bone we had been using for
directions had taken a spill.
“They must have reacted to…” his lips parted as he glanced out the
windshield for the first time, “…that.”
A wall of shimmering energy, at least a mile wide, cascaded before us in
a rippling curtain that reflected the forest back at us.
“Now we know why they wanted the bones.” I reached for my phone,
aware Carter ought to hear about this before anyone else. “They used them
to build a ward.”
Any hope the missing bones had no link to the abductions gasped its last
breath.
So did any hope we could blame this on aliens, tractor beams, or flying
saucers and call it a day.
>We found something.
>>Drop a pin and send it to me.
>Maybe come alone?
>>That bad, huh?
>Definitely not good.
“Carter is on her way.” I pocketed my phone. “We need to lock down
the burial ground.” I sat back with a grunt. “Any idea how we do that?”
With a sweep of his hand, he indicated the watery barrier. “There’s only
one way.”
“We can ward the grounds until after the case, but then what? We can’t
leave it there forever, can we?”
“We could, but out of respect for the old gods, we won’t force them to
rest in a fractured peace.” He appeared to choose his words with care.
“There are Alcheyvāhā burial grounds all across the world.”
“How do they handle security?”
“The locations are only known to the gods, and, for brief periods, god
bloods like me. Anyone else who stumbles across them isn’t allowed to
retain that knowledge.”
Dread coated the inside of my mouth. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“The bones have leached so much power into the ground, it would be
foolish to relocate them.”
“You would create more areas rich in death magic.” I followed his logic.
“The soil alone would be a powerful ingredient in spells, and practitioners
would pay through the nose by the ounce if it hit the black market.”
Put that way, it was smarter to contain them in their original resting
places. Someone must be watching over the sites, but Dis Pater was quick
to tug on Kierce’s leash and demand he handle suppression, which was odd
now that I thought about it.
“Out of all the death gods, in all the pantheons, in all the world, why is
Dis Pater in charge of this?”
“Gods have their various duties. They must each contribute in order to
earn their portion of the worship that fuels their existence. The preservation
of Alcheyvāhā burial sites is one of his. That’s been true for as long as I can
remember.”
“So, you’ve done this before?”
“Dealt with the aftermath of a discovery? Yes. But no one has ever
taken a bone. Let alone several.”
Hard as it was to trust his recall, knowing Dis Pater poked holes in it as
it suited him, Kierce must have been given back all his memories.
“I’m missing something here.” Brain whirring, I faced him. “What
happens after we collect them?”
“We’ll return them to their places and ensure no record remains of the
findings.”
“Um, about those records.” A sour taste rose up my throat. “People
don’t count, right?”
“There can be no evidence left behind.” The weight of his words
pressed down on his shoulders, and he traced the edge of the bandage
crossing his palm. “The information is too dangerous for any mortal to
possess.”
“By mortal, I assume you mean non-god.” I puffed out my cheeks. “You
can’t have Carter.”
“I know.”
“You can’t have the others either.”
 “I know.” The shadow of a smile darkened his features. “That’s one of
the many reasons why I…” A blush tipped his ears red. “I respect you.”
“You’re cute when you get all flustered.” I pinched his cheek. “I respect
you too.”
Had he been a different sort of man, say, one like Ankou, he wouldn’t
have warned me. He would have let the 514 help him achieve his goals then
killed anyone who held enough information to be a threat to his mission.
But even Kierce only had so much room for interpretation of his orders. I
would have to remember that and prepare my own contingencies.
“There are witches who can wipe minds.” I mulled over that option,
aware it meant I had to consort with black witches because of its taboo
nature. “Maybe Aretha will have a less illegal—and invasive—idea.”
A few weeks ago, I would have called Harrow and gotten his opinion.
But that wasn’t an option now.
“The 514 might have someone on staff,” he offered, thinking along the
same lines as me.
“True, I considered that, but it would leave a paper trail. And I don’t
want Leer to have any clue what the 514 has stumbled across. We can tell
Carter, to help her protect her people, but that’s it. Leer strikes me as the
kind of man who would leverage a find like that to his advantage.
Especially since he’s expanding his reach. He could get himself, and
innocents, killed for it.”
“We’ll find a way,” he promised me, tilting his head. “Badb says Carter
is here.”
While we waited for her to park, Kierce and I exited the wagon and
began examining the barrier.
“This is the same as what Dis Pater uses at his home.” I held a hand
several inches away from it. “Right?”
“If multiple bones were used in its creation, which seems to be the case,
it’s far more powerful. Unless it’s meant to stand against gods, one is
enough. Two is an excess. More than that is…” He struck me as being at a
loss, which told me he had never come across such protections. “It makes
me wonder what’s worth so much risk to protect.”
I was starting to suspect I knew the answer, but I wanted to see it for
myself first.
“Dis Pater told me you can’t just appear in his living room. How do you
get inside his ward?”
 “He has made an exception for me. The magic recognizes me.”
“Hmm.” I wet my lips. “I’m going to try something.”
I touched the curtain of magic, tasted the spark of creation, and darkness
flooded my vision.

A I
grass next to me.
“Frankie.” Kierce framed my face with his hands. “What possessed you
to do that?”
“I can astral project inside Dis Pater’s protections.” I pounded a fist into
my chest. “It was worth a try.”
“It wasn’t worth the risk.” His silver eyes reflected me back at myself.
“You could have…”
“…died?” I injected humor into my voice. “Been there, done that.”
“Death is multifaceted.” He brought his forehead down to mine. “Don’t
tempt fate.”
“I’m sorry.” I thought back to the seconds before contact. “I felt called
to it.”
“You were mumbling.” He withdrew, his hold on me never wavering.
“What did you dream?”
“Wouldn’t I have to be asleep to dream?” I focused on those moments
before my eyes opened, but the wisps of recollection failed me. “If I was
talking, I don’t remember what I was saying.” A shiver chased down my
spine. “Do you think it was Ankou?”
Now would be a great time to confess he had visited my dreams, but I
couldn’t form the words.
“I don’t know, but I promise we’ll find out.” He released me when
footsteps pounded toward us. “She’s awake, Carter.”
“What possessed you to stick your hand into a ward?” She crouched
over me. “Are you trying to get me killed?” Her glare raked over me. “Your
sister knows you’re involved in my case. Do you really think she’s the
forgiving type? Josie? I would come home to find that damn plant from
Little Shop of Horrors waiting for me in my bedroom.” She sucked in a
breath through her teeth. “I get that you’re a demigoddess, and that’s great
for you. The rest of us aren’t so lucky. I haven’t lived this long to be taken
out by a vengeful dryad. Can you imagine the shame? I’m a fucking
redcap.” She wiped sweat off her brow. “Why am I so afraid of her?”
“You’re smart.” I patted the top of her head. “That’s why.”
“You could always ask her to return home,” Kierce suggested, eager to
put distance between her and me. “I could find somewhere else to stay.”
“Oh no. No, no, no. She’s made friends with my plants.” Carter’s gaze
held a manic gleam. “I didn’t even have plants until she bought them.
They’re hers. They’re on her side. Who knows what they would do to me if
I kicked her out? I might wake up with a vine wrapped around my neck.”
As gently as possible, I asked, “Should you live with someone who
terrifies you?”
“I…” She swallowed hard, her throat bobbing. “I think that’s what I like
about her.”
“Um. Well. Yes.” I cleared my throat. “Just make sure you’re open
about where you stand, okay?”
“I’m not going to hurt her,” she growled at me, which wasn’t a great
sign.
“Perhaps you ought to walk off your temper.” Kierce tightened a hand
on my shoulder, like he could pick me up and snatch me away if she
showed signs of aggression. “You’re Frankie’s friend, but you’re still a
potential threat.”
Either Carter was getting better at ignoring my blood, or I had healed
before she got a chance to catch a good whiff. She hadn’t seemed affected
by my minor injuries. Just angry at herself getting stuck between a rock and
a rabid dryad. Unless… Had godhood cured that problem too? Altered my
blood until the scent no longer attracted her? “She’s not going to murder me
and wet her cap in my blood.”
“He’s right.” She rose and took a step back. “I shouldn’t come at you in
anger when you’re weak.”
“Injured sounds nicer than weak.” I pushed into a seated position. “This
was my fault. I wasn’t thinking.”
What transpired between Kierce, Dis Pater, and me wasn’t a level of
transparency I could offer friends or family yet. Too much of it was
Kierce’s private business. I had been swept along with him, not given the
tasks myself. Until I got a handle on that part, I owed it to Kierce to conceal
aspects of his duties.
 Otherwise, I would be as good as volunteering those same friends and
family for erasure when the time came.
Mouth set in a grim line, she demanded, “You’re sure this wasn’t
another out-of-body episode?”
“No.” I flexed my fingers. “This was me learning how mosquitos feel
when they hit the bug zapper.”
“We need to mark the boundaries of this ward,” Kierce told her, his tone
apologetic. “The next person to touch it might not be as fortunate.”
Hard to tell with me as the control whether it would kill a normal
person. Or if it had spanked me harder because it was forged with god bone,
and I had god blood. Most wards of this magnitude included a spell
component that repelled the curious. Because they couldn’t very well hide a
secret with a stack of bodies piling up outside their front door.
“We have a few good witches on the 514 payroll.” Carter palmed her
phone. “I’ll get them out here.”
“This will only get harder. The secrets.” I owed her the warning as well
as myself. “Between you and me, and you and Josie.”
“There have always been aspects of the job I can’t share with others.
Josie will have to understand that.”
“She might not forgive you for withholding information relevant to
Frankie’s safety,” Kierce said softly.
“Yeah. I’m aware. Trust me.” She tapped out a message. “That’s why I
don’t do relationships.”
“I don’t want to get in the way if—”
“Something would have to be there before that concerned me, and
there’s not.”
Had she not sounded so certain that she was telling me—and herself—
the truth, I might have dumped a bucket of ice-cold reality over her head.
But she had a big case on her hands, one with missing officers she ached to
locate, so I decided to let her puzzle it out for herself in her own time.
Before she finished texting, her phone rang, and she answered with a
growl. “What?”
An idea was forming, one she wouldn’t like, so I was glad for someone
else providing her with a target.
“We need to know what’s in there, and I’m thinking if the ward repelled
me, it’ll repel the witches too.” We might be in it for the long haul if we
hoped to break through. We could be there for hours. Or days. “We only
found one set of human remains. The other victims could still be alive. If
there’s even a slim chance they’re in there, we need to extract them as soon
as possible.”
Stormy gray eyes growing darker, Kierce didn’t miss a beat. “You want
to attempt astral projection to the other side.”
“Both times I was in Dis Pater’s home, I made it out okay.”
“We don’t know how or why you materialize where you do,” he argued.
“You won’t be following me this time. How will you know where to go or
how to get there?”
“I have to talk to Vi.” I bit my bottom lip. “She can walk me through it.”
“She hasn’t contacted you since…” He left the rest unsaid. “Do you
have a way to reach her?”
Calling was out, I knew that. He did too. But, in extreme emergencies, I
did have a second option.
“I have a workaround, but I hate using it.” Surveying the undulating
ward, I accepted I had no choice. “I’ll owe someone a big favor after this.” I
stalked after Carter. “We need to leave. Will you be okay here?”
“Backup is three minutes out.” She eyed me with caution. “Where are
you going?”
“Home.” I dusted off my pants. “I need to consult with a friend who
might have some insight.”
“Good.” She aimed a sharp glance at Kierce. “Protect her.”
“With my life,” he vowed, his eyes sparking silver, his glamour slipping
a bit more.
We made quick work of reaching the wagon and strapping in for the
ride.
“Brace yourself.” I set my phone in its holder and dialed on speaker.
“This could get ugly.”
“The fuck?” a gritty male voice answered with disbelief. “I thought you
done lost my number.”
“Hey, Jean-Claude.” I aimed the wagon toward the shop. “Can you do
me a tiny favor?”
“Ha.” He groaned low in his throat. “There ain’t no such thing as tiny
favors with you.”
“I need to speak to Vi.” I flexed my hands on the wheel. “It’s an
emergency.”
“That twat Rollo still playing gatekeeper?”
 “Yep.”
“Fine, fine.” He exhaled, and I swear I could smell his clove cigarettes.
“What you want?”
“Smuggle Vi your phone.” I held my breath. “Rollo doesn’t police your
access like he does mine.”
“That’s ’cause I helped bring his dumb ass kicking and screaming into
this world, and I can take it kicking and screaming right back out again.”
A laugh tickled the back of my throat, but I held it in. “What will I owe
you for this?”
“A month with Momma Jean and a case of Josie-bee’s peach chow
chow.”
“Done.” Relief left me giddy. “When should I be ready?”
“Gimme an hour.”
“You’re the best.”
“Tell me what I don’t know.”
The call ended with Kierce studying me with interest, so I set about
explaining myself.
“Jean-Claude is Vi’s family doctor. He lives next door to her in the
Quarter. Momma Jean, his namesake, is his grandmother. Her favorite thing
in the world was the peach chow chow Josie cans when she gets her hands
on Chilton County peaches from Alabama. So, I’ll get my chat with Vi, but
it’ll cost me an out-of-state loaner for a month and a few jars of Josie’s
finest.”
“Would you like me to go with you to New Orleans when the time
comes?”
Used to making the drive solo, I grinned at him. “Vi would be thrilled to
meet you.”
Focus drifting to his hands, he asked, “What about you?”
“I’ve already met you.” I poked his shoulder, teasing him. “But I would
love for you to come with me.”
I regaled him with stories of my time in New Orleans as I drove with an
eye on the time, most of them—like my first Mardi Gras—were slightly
edited versions of actual events. Had I told him the full truth, the reason
why I didn’t drink even when visiting Vi, I might come off less as
responsible and more as a lesson learned the hard way.
After I parked the wagon, Kierce and I took the stairs up to my
apartment at a jog. The allotted time ran out as my butt hit the couch,
Kierce right beside me. Stuffing down my guilt, I prepared to pitch my idea.
Phone held in a death grip, I dialed Jean-Claude with my fingers
crossed. “Hello?”
“Rollo will start patting down my visitors if he figures out what you’ve
done.”
“I’m so sorry, Vi.” I couldn’t stem the tide of words given the
opportunity to speak them to her. “I should have told you sooner. It’s my
fault you got hurt. I should have sent you away the second you—”
“I’m grown, and grown folks do what they do.” She scoffed at me.
“What happened out there?”
Afraid of the consequences of involving her further, but aware she was
already neck-deep in trouble of my making, I tested a hunch. “Do you know
anyone who can wipe memories?”
“I know all sorts of folks.”
“Do you have a more specific answer for me?”
“Depends on if you’ve got a more specific question for me.”
“Let’s say a whole lot of people have been exposed to a whole lot of
information they shouldn’t know.” I figured, with Vi, the blunt approach
would work best. “Let’s also say there’s a higher power who has plans to
erase those people, permanently, rather than risk that information leaking.”
“I would say you’re gonna need two things: a technomancer and a
powerful witch.”
Carter had volunteered witches from the 514, but using them created a
new set of problems with erasing memories. Namely theirs. Same with the
technomancer. A big guy. Built like a tank. Bald. Wore a nice black suit
with a lifelike white moth broach. We had been expecting a woman, but he
did a bang-up job of identifying and removing the cameras and
microphones Armie had hidden all over our homes and the shop, so I
trusted him for this gig too. Not that he would thank me for that faith in his
talent if he left with money in his pocket but holes in his memory.
Still. Needs must. “I can swing that.”
“Then you’re set. Get the witch to soften the memories into a blur. It’s
easier on the mind if they can’t recall specifics than if a block of time
outright disappears from their recollections. It’ll get you in less trouble too,
if you get caught. You, for whatever damn fool reason, are tempting fate
with your antics. For someone who’s kept clear of the public eye, you’re
stripping naked and dancing in the spotlight these days.”
 The smell of ozone filled my nose, and I noticed Kierce’s fingers
crackling with energy.
Lacing my fingers with his, thrilled I could touch him this way, I told
him, “She didn’t mean it literally.”
“Your young man’s there? Hello, young man.”
“I’m not young.” He watched his powers dance across our skin. “And,
perhaps, not wholly a man.”
“Such is the way of gods, yes?” She gentled her tone. “Nothing and
everything all at once. Unique even amongst yourselves. I’m not surprised
to learn Death done sunk his hooks in my Frankie, but I warn you. I’ve seen
what the love of gods does to mortals. They don’t survive it. Frankie might
be more like you than me these days, but her heart’s soft. She’s a good girl.
She’s my girl. Hurt her, and you won’t survive me.”
Solemn in the face of her threat, he paid her the respect she was due.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Now, cher, you know Papa Legba and I go way back. Loas protect me,
and I am not afraid.”
The subtle reminder she had gods and spirits on her side too eased my
worries a smidgen, and the prod for me to get to the point of the call wasn’t
lost on me either. Not when we had so little time before her grandson came
to check on her. Then we would both get in trouble with Rollo, and I had
caused enough of that for her to last a lifetime.
Swinging my gaze to Kierce, I asked for permission he granted with a
nod that promised we would figure out how to protect those already
exposed to the knowledge of the burial ground’s existence. I should’ve
stuck to my guns when it came to keeping my divine experiences to myself,
but I needed help, and it was Vi who had always saved me from myself.
Magically speaking.
Thirty minutes later, Vi was cursing me in Creole I couldn’t translate. I
spoke fluent Vi, though, so it was safe to assume she was calling me an
idiot, questioning whether I had a brain in my head, or demanding if I
wanted to die from stupidity. Those were the top three her apprentices got
hit with most often. Or maybe that was just me.
Another twenty minutes later, she had run out of steam and promised to
call me the next morning.
As much as I hated to end the call without an actionable plan, I refused
to push while she was recovering from the ordeal I had put her through.
That left me with a free night and a few possibilities on how to spend it.
First things first, I had to drive the Suarez du Jour to Bonaventure and
get Matty back.
With Carter working, and Matty not tied down to anyone, there was no
reason us Marys—plus Kierce and Badb—couldn’t stay in, watch a movie,
and begin healing the rift created by my secrets.
And, if luck was with me, I might have thought up a way to do a little
covert detecting of my own.
T he level of comfort oneiros craved meant Matty had the largest,
plushest couch and the softest pillows. His apartment was the
natural choice for movie nights even before Josie moved in with
Carter. We had a few configurations us Marys used to ensure maximum
comfort without crowding one another. The ideal position meant we could
stretch out but not touch. Even as adults, we had broken into plenty she (or
he) is touching me fights.
But, with Kierce joining us, I strove to be more mature as I staked out
our cushion for the evening.
Using the spinner from a game we had lost forever ago, Matty flicked
the arrow and waited for it to land on a letter. The spinner was our secret
weapon, the key to our eclectic taste. Mostly because none of us liked to
watch the same thing, and it saved time and drama to let fate select for us.
“Looks like we have an R.” He scrolled to the menu on our favorite
streaming app. “Racing for Love. Red Moon Rising. Rate our Date—”
“That one,” Josie and I said together then grinned at each other.
“It sounds horrible.” Matty smiled back at us. “I’m in.”
Once I was snuggled into Kierce’s side, he tapped my arm. “The goal is
to find the worst option?”
“Not really but yes.” I chortled at his confusion. “Half the fun of having
siblings is tormenting them.”
 “No one wants to watch drop-dead-gorgeous twentysomethings date
other drop-dead-gorgeous twentysomethings.” Josie, who had been in
charge of snacks, flopped beside me. “Unless they’re sadists.”
“Or masochists,” Matty interjected. “The suffering we inflict on
ourselves, hour after hour, by watching pretty-girl and pretty-boy problems
play out on screen is more rewarding than the show.”
Kierce made a thoughtful sound but settled in to watch with Badb on his
shoulder.
Partway through the first episode, Kierce asked, “Why do they call it
reality television?”
“That’s the million-dollar industry—I mean question—isn’t it?” Matty
shook his head. “It’s so scripted.”
“Are you trying to tell me that Trish doesn’t really want Logan to give
her a pink carnation?” Josie sucked in a shocked breath. “Just because she
was making out with Andy in the closet five minutes ago and had a heavily
implied threesome last week—complete with night-vision footage of three
sets of toes rubbing one another—doesn’t mean her love for Logan isn’t
real.”
“How can you tell any of them apart?” I tossed Badb a piece of popcorn
she caught in her beak. “Trish and Andy could be identical twins. The
whole female cast is interchangeable. There’s more variety in the guys, but
that’s not saying much. And who’s cleaning the furniture? They never wear
shirts, and their abs are always glistening. You can’t tell me that’s not oil.
Do they budget for new furniture weekly or what?” I noticed everyone
staring at me. “What?” I munched grumpily. “I have questions, okay?”
“You’re focusing on the wrong things.” Josie hit me between the eyes
with a piece of popcorn. “This isn’t a show about oil, furniture, or even
love. It’s about abs. Boobs. And more abs. And then more boobs.”
“She’s not often right,” Matty allowed, “but I’ll award her the point this
time. Frankie, you’re putting too much thought into what’s supposed to be
mindless television. Watch the flexing abs and the bouncing boobs and
enjoy yourself.”
When Kierce rested his arm across my shoulders, the brush of his hand
over my nape could have passed as accidental, but the slide of his fingers
under my hair proved the touch was intentional. A slow twirl of his fingers
and a slight tug tipped my head back, and Kierce leaned down to brush his
lips across my ear.
 “You could watch me instead,” he murmured, his grip tightening, and
my stomach tumbled at his tone.
Resting my head on his chest, I stared up at him, watching the gray in
his eyes glimmer into silver.
We sat like that for an eternity, until Badb pinched my finger in her
beak. On accident. Probably. I jerked up to find my popcorn eaten, and her
stomach as round as a beach ball. The last kernel rattled in the bottom,
trapped under my thumb, which I had been using to balance the bowl on my
lap.
As I sucked the drop of blood off my skin, I became aware of eyes
boring into me.
Matty and Josie sat shoulder to shoulder. Having abandoned all pretense
of watching the show, the two of them stared at Kierce and me while
polishing off their snacks. Neither exhibited a lick of remorse over being
caught. They just grinned, their chipmunk cheeks stuffed with popcorn.
“Kierce and I should get going.” I cleared my throat and fed Badb the
final kernel. “Good night, siblings.”
“I told you watching live reality TV wouldn’t work,” Matty said to Josie
as I nudged Kierce ahead of me.
“We were just getting to the good part,” she called after us. “Hair
pulling always leads to—”
“Ick.” Matty made gagging noises. “You told me that part would fade to
black.”
“I lied.” She cackled with glee. “Sucker.”
Leaving them to it, I shut the door behind us with a bang then slumped
against it. “I’m so—”
Warm lips descended on mine, crushing my apology between us. Kierce
braced a hand against the door, leaned in, and pressed his body into mine.
Legs turning to jelly, I gripped his collar, holding on for dear life as he
devoured me. I was breathless and trembling, plastering myself against him,
eager to see how far this burst of hunger would take us, when I tumbled
backward into nothing.
Strong arms snaked around my waist, catching me before I cracked my
skull on the floor in the entryway of Matty’s apartment. As I clung to
Kierce for a wholly different reason, my heart attempted to climb out of my
chest. Hanging off Kierce, I glared upside down at Josie, who had fallen on
her butt in shock.
 Below us, a horn honked, and I grasped the situation.
Carter came to fetch Josie and drive her home, Josie burst out the door,
phone to her ear, and I got caught making out with my boyfriend, who had
decided to ravish me on the landing.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” she ventured. “Carter is in a rush, so I
didn’t look where I was going.”
“It’s our fault.” I let Kierce tug me upright. “We were, um, blocking
your path.”
“Let me help.” Matty hooked his hands under Josie’s arms and lifted her
onto her feet. “No running.”
With her gaze already latched on Carter, she didn’t even pause to
embarrass me. Just hugged Matty and me then skipped down the stairs. She
ran to the truck, blowing Carter a kiss as she walked in front of the
headlights, then climbed in while Carter pretended to wipe off the kiss then
throw it out her window.
“I am going to bed,” Matty announced then shut the door in our faces.
“I should apologize.” Kierce threaded our fingers. “But I’m not sorry.”
“That makes two of us.” A laugh bubbled out of me. “You always
surprise me.”
“I surprise myself.” He led me down to my landing. “Is that all right to
confess?”
“That I cause you to burst into spontaneous kissing frenzies?” I was
delighted to have that effect on him. “Who doesn’t want to hear that from
their boyfriend?”
Boyfriend. I had a boyfriend. Me. I couldn’t remember the word ever
making me so giddy.
“It’s coming back to me.” His thumb stroked my knuckles. “The
wanting.” He raked his free hand through his hair. “It’s overwhelmed me
twice now.” He opened his mouth, then shut it. “I don’t think I would have
stopped.”
A kiss, even a heated kiss, was a long ways from having sex against my
brother’s front door standing on a metal staircase in clear view of the road.
But for someone unused to the rush of hormones whispering bad ideas in
their ear, I understood why Kierce worried he might be moving too fast for
me. Or maybe it was too fast for himself, but he hadn’t quite interpreted the
signals from his lust-addled brain correctly.
 Which, go me. Much like most of my new powers, I had never wielded
that one before.
“I would have stopped you if you did anything I didn’t want.” I bit my
bottom lip. “You’ve got to promise you’ll do the same if I overstep.”
Each time my brain attempted to slip me an intrusive thought about how
hard he had been against me, I got twitchier. I was horrified to admit I
might have orgasmed from a single thrust of his hips through our layers of
clothes if we had gotten that far.
Heat sparking in my face, I considered blaming my new demigodhood
for my raging hormones.
Several long seconds later, Kierce rumbled, “I don’t think I would have
stopped you either.”
“Don’t say things like that.” I groaned as possibilities filled my head. “I
haven’t been with anyone in…”
“…a long time?” The edges of his smile curved. “Are you saying I
tempt you?”
“You’ve tempted me since the moment I saw you walking the cemetery
at night like you belonged there.”
Like he might belong with me too.
On a low growl, his forehead came to rest against mine, and I held still
while he gathered himself. “It shouldn’t hurt so much. This wanting.”
A shiver danced down my spine as we stood on the stairs under the
moon. As if he had spoken those words to me before, in another life, in
another time, in another world. As if they rang through our histories,
echoing in the present.
I blamed that on the demigodhood thing too.
A blur drew my attention down to the office where Johnny skidded to a
stop as he noticed me.
“Hey.” I crossed my fingers my earlier gambit had paid off. “Got news
for me?”
“Hey yerself.” A flash of blue light, and he stood next to me. “Me and
the boys sat in on that meeting.”
“You sent the Buckley Boys,” Kierce said slowly, “to the Grandview
Women’s Club meeting?”
“Yep.” I focused on Johnny enough to tousle his hair. “What did you
learn?”
 “The club’s a ruse.” He tapped under his eye. “They don’t knit or
crochet or read them steamy books.”
“Okay.” I leaned against the railing. “What do they do then?”
“They figure out how to hide women and kids who’re getting walloped
at home.”
“They aid domestic abuse survivors,” I murmured, sharing a glance
with Kierce over my shoulder.
“That’s what I said.” Johnny huffed. “They was all hyped about some
new place to live where there was room for everyone.” He rolled a shoulder.
“There was some kind of problem there, but they didn’t know what. Mostly
they answered calls and told people everything was going to be okay.”
“I don’t suppose you heard any names?”
“I heard ’em say Rosalie Morgan.” He scratched his head. “And Patricia
Morgan, I think.”
“Sisters?”
“Yeah. Twins.”
“Thanks.” I could pass the names on to Carter if the internet failed me.
“I appreciate the help.”
“We’re happy to help, ain’t we?” He grinned. “I’ll add this to your tab.”
If I wanted a life outside of reading to the boys, I might have to invest in
audiobooks and a sound system.
Quick as a blink, he zipped away in a smudge of blue light, leaving
Kierce and me alone.
With an idea I hoped our lanyards would excuse if we got caught.
G od help us all, the golf cart was ready for its first trip to Bonaventure
bright and early. The thing was in worse shape than Harrow’s
Chevelle had been before Josie skewered it with a tree, but it ran.
Somehow Pascal had convinced the poor old thing to crank, so today I rode
shotgun as Kierce gave driving another shot. Had I owned a rosary, I might
have been tempted to loop it around my wrist a few times.
Matty elected to walk alongside us the whole way, since that was the
golf cart’s top speed.
Well, that, and the rear bench was a nest of springs with no foam or
fabric.
“You’re doing great.” He shot Kierce two thumbs-up seconds before
Badb snatched a cracker from his hand. “For once in his afterlife, Pascal
had a good idea. How do you feel behind the wheel, Kierce?”
“I prefer this to the wagon.” His posture was looser, his grip easier. “I’m
less anxious.”
“I don’t blame you.” Matty snorted. “Frankie would murder you for
totaling her baby.”
“I’ve been thinking about why this works.” I ignored my brother.
“Maybe it’s the openness of the cart?”
Not quite the same as trotting along with nothing but a horse beneath
him, but still. Baby steps.
“Hmm.” He puttered along without a hitch. “You might be right.”
 “It does happen occasionally.” I tested the rusted bar in front of me, the
flaky metal one good push from breaking. “Pedro will have a cow when he
sees this with his own eyes.”
“You mean with my own eyes?” Matty patted the side panel. “He lives
for a challenge.”
The Suarezes would take on the project as a matter of pride in the
family name. Pascal guaranteed their cooperation when he ran the idea past
me first. Paco and Pedro would refuse to lose face if he couldn’t deliver, so
they would be happy to help. As if I could ever think badly of any of them.
“I need to touch base with Carter,” I announced as we rolled into our
usual parking space.
“Call her.” Matty waved Kierce on. “We can handle the switch today.”
As anxious as it made me to turn care of my brother over to someone
else, I trusted Kierce to get Pedro seated in Matty. And besides, I would
prefer Matty not learn that I had fallen into old habits and dusted off my old
breaking and entering skills last night.
While Kierce handled my morning tasks for me, I dialed Carter. “Hi,
um, there.”
“Hi, um, there to you too.” She sighed. “Why do you sound so guilty?”
“Have you had a chance to look into the GWC yet?”
“There’s not much information out there on it, so we’re meeting with a
club rep later today.”
“So, here’s the thing.”
“Oh God.”
“I received a tip about the GWC that prompted me to invite myself
through the back door of the community center on Talahi Island.”
“You broke in?”
“Nothing was broken,” I rushed to assure her. “We—I—located a locker
the club uses to hold their materials between meetings and found a chapter
handbook that might interest you.”
“Fuck.”
“The official line is—” I cut through her negativity, “—GWC is a group
of like-minded women who meet monthly to teach healthy lifestyle choices,
encourage civic involvement, support women’s arts and education, and
advocate for children. They also offer aid for victims of domestic and
sexual violence as well as promote awareness and prevention within the
community.”
 “Okay, I’ll bite.” Her voice thinned. “What’s the unofficial line?”
“That Rosalie Morgan started a halfway house thirty years ago for
abused women in honor of her little sister, Patricia, who was attacked by her
husband and left for dead. Patty’s Place is where women go to get back on
their feet away from the people hurting them.”
“Okay.” She exhaled across the line. “We’ll subpoena their records and
get a member—”
“The roster was stuck in the back of the handbook,” I said meekly.
For a moment, Carter was so quiet I worried the call had dropped, but
then she made a noise like she was sucking her teeth. “Did you recognize
any of the names?”
“Every one of your missing persons are listed. Including Officers Kim
and Tate. No mention of Tameka or Keshawn, but there are aliases aplenty.
Lots of Mary Todd Lincolns for some reason.”
I wasn’t the best with presidential history, but I did know one abstract
factoid about Mary Todd Lincoln. She was known for a photo taken by
William H. Mumler, a spirit photographer, in the 1800s. It depicted her late
husband, Abraham Lincoln, standing behind her with his hands resting on
her shoulders.
“She was a women’s rights advocate,” Carter mused, her tone
thoughtful.
“There are so many Marys, I doubt we ever match all the names to
faces.”
“We pulled surveillance from the community center, but the cameras
facing the building are dummies, and the ones from surrounding businesses
only record static in that direction. We’ll be lucky to get any faces. Names
will give us somewhere to start.”
“I don’t suppose you noticed anyone digging up a tree?”
“On the recording? No. Should I be concerned about a missing tree?”
Well crap. So much for an easy answer. “No? I don’t think so. It’s
probably unrelated.”
God, I hoped Ankou wasn’t tangled in this mess.
A voice called for her in the background, and Carter sighed. “Let me
know if that changes.”
“Will do.”
A memory of the purple ribbons on Pink Panic surfaced in my mind,
and I Googled to see what the color signified. Several illnesses and causes
shared it, but the one that caught my eye was domestic violence.
Proof the Ezells supported abuse awareness and prevention had been
there in the paint job all along. That, paired with the brochure, had me
second-guessing myself. Had Tameka been a victim of abuse?
At the time of her death, she was single. Her only serious relationship
had been with Keshawn’s father. But since Keshawn had never met Tey
Rose, and Tameka severed contact with him years ago, I let it go.
Had her advocacy been her link to the other missing women? Or had her
past led to her abduction?
Pedro and Kierce exited the men’s room, interrupting my jumbled
thoughts, and Pedro’s jaw fell open.
“Ay, dios mío.” He winced at our ride. “That’s the ‘small side job’?”
“That’s her.”
“Does it handle better than it looks?” His fingers twitched with the urge
to get started. “Kierce, you like it?”
“I prefer it to the alternative,” he said grimly, no doubt flashing back to
sitting behind the wagon’s wheel.
“He made the drive without any hiccups today.” I let Pedro climb in
next to him while I took up position on the driver’s side, the better to coach
him while I walked home. “This is a better investment than the car.”
“You might be right, mija.” Pedro’s expression shifted into thoughtful
lines, and he tapped Kierce on the shoulder. “The car would still be a
worthwhile investment. If you’re ready to upgrade when the time comes,
you can. If you prefer the golf cart, you can keep it and sell the car for a
profit.”
Having seen the tree trunk at Bonaventure stuffed with gold, gems, and
cash, I knew money wasn’t a concern of Kierce’s. But I wouldn’t steal
Pedro’s excitement to work on a new project car if Kierce had no
objections.
“I like the idea.” Kierce offered Pedro a hesitant smile. “Options are
good.”
“There we have it.” Pedro rubbed his hands together. “We’ll overhaul
both vehicles.”
For a man who worked on cars for a living, his excitement at the
prospect of more work was endearing.
We made it halfway home before a flicker of purple caught my eye, and
Vi fell in step beside me.
 A new crucifix adorned her neck, no doubt a gift from a client. “Are
you sure you want to do this?”
“Good morning to you too.” I checked her over, but she could
manipulate how she appeared, which meant I couldn’t gauge her health
based on her projection alone. “How are you feeling?”
“I drank a pot of chicory coffee this morning and ate my weight in fresh
beignets.” She did a little dance. “I feel like a new woman.”
“That’s the caffeine and the sugar talking.” I couldn’t help the pang of
longing that pierced me to be so far from her I couldn’t bask in her
comforting warmth whenever I was on the receiving end of one of her
legendary hugs. “Not to be a party pooper, but didn’t we agree to a nice,
safe video chat?”
“Some things are best taught in person.” She fidgeted with her bangles.
“I can’t get used to the sight of you. You’re so bright. Makes me wish I had
worn sunglasses.” She drew a circle with her finger. “But there’s darkness
too. How does it shine so?”
“The halo thing?”
“Your soul.” She clucked her tongue. “We need to get you upstairs and
into bed to begin.”
Sure enough, we had already reached the shop. I hadn’t noticed the
looseness in my gait as my muscles stretched during the short walk. I
needed to start running again. Get back into a routine. So much was
clogging my brain with no way to flush it with my schedule so packed with
such dire tidings.
Pedro inclined his head to Vi in a show of respect then set out for the
garage.
Josie wouldn’t be here for an hour or so yet, and after last night, her
absence ached like a sore tooth.
“I examined your dirt,” Vi said as I hit the stairs leading up to the
apartments. “There’s so much divine contamination, I couldn’t sense any
other energies or magics.”
“Thanks for checking.” I let us into my apartment, holding the door
from habit. “I appreciate it.”
After climbing in bed to prevent my body from taking a nasty tumble, I
settled in for instruction.
“This path is fraught with dangers, cher. I wish you didn’t have to walk
it, but I’m not surprised to find us here. You must gain control over your
astral self. Otherwise, demi or no demi, you’re going to end up adrift. Trust
me when I say you don’t want that.” She pursed her lips. “I wish we had
another place to begin, but I’ll stick by you. All you need is an anchor. A
person who can bring you back to yourself.”
“I will anchor her.” Kierce sat on the mattress beside me. “And if I fail,
I will fetch her brother or sister.”
The doubt undercutting his confidence made me determined to prove to
him that he was enough. That I trusted him to watch over me and to do
whatever it took to revive me. “It won’t come to that.”
A soft clicking noise announced Badb’s arrival, and she perched on my
shoe, eyes hooked on me.
“She says she’s got this.” Kierce’s lips twitched. “She also wants me to
remove your shoe, just in case.”
“I would rather put my faith in you than wake up without a toenail.” I
had been on the receiving end of her loving ministrations during
nightmares, and my big toe throbbed thinking about it. “I appreciate the
offer, Badb, but I’ll keep my shoe on for this one. Between the two of you,
I’ll be fine.”
With a ruffle of her feathers, she seemed to accept my decision, but she
kept her perch.
“Kierce.” Vi stood over me. “Hold Frankie’s hand. Tight. You want her
to feel it.”
Lacing our fingers, he sharpened his gaze on me. “I won’t let go.”
“Close your eyes, Frankie.” Vi softened her voice. “Let yourself drift.
Don’t think. Just feel. Let the floating sensation you experience before
falling asleep wash over you. As you relax, allow the weightlessness to lift
you. Higher and higher and know that I’m right here.”
Lulled by the cadence of her voice, I did as she commanded and let
myself go.
Gravity fell away, bit by bit, and I tingled with the same prickling
awareness as when I visited Dis Pater.
“There you are.” Vi crushed me against her chest, delighting me to learn
two astrally projected souls could touch. “My girl.” She kissed my cheeks.
“You’re doing great.”
Slowly, I opened my eyes to find myself a foot or so above my body.
“That is so weird.”
 “Be quick and be careful.” Kierce locked gazes with me. “Don’t push
yourself.”
Weirder still that he could be holding my hand but also watch my soul
hanging out above him.
But cool. Very cool. And…safe.
His ability to view me in any form made me feel safe.
“He’s right.” Vi broke into my thoughts with a sly grin. “We should get
going.”
“How will we get there?” I brushed my pants but let my arm drop. “The
dirt is in my pocket.”
“Kierce, bébé, I need you to sprinkle the dirt over your joined hands.”
She tapped the side of her nose to draw my attention. “As long as your
physical body is in contact with the foci, you’re golden.”
A distant tickle in my palm was all the feedback I received from his
following her orders.
“Now, Frankie, give me your hands.” She held them to her chest. “Close
your eyes and focus on the place you want to go. Remember how it felt,
how it sounded, how it smelled.”
Reality warped around us. I didn’t have to see it to know. I had gotten
used to how it felt when Dis Pater summoned Kierce. So, I wasn’t surprised
when I opened my eyes to discover we had left the house. It was exciting to
realize we had actually gone where I wanted us to be.
Without the metaphysical hook inserted in my middle, yanking me
willy-nilly up the coast.
“Look at that.” She pinched my cheek. “You’re a natural.”
All the yo-yoing between here and Manchester-by-the-Sea was to thank
for it, but I was still proud.
“Wait.” I turned a circle. “We’re inside the ward?”
“That’s where you wanted to go, so that’s where we went.”
“Huh.” I spotted the barrier three feet to my left. “I expected it to repel
us or for us to have to walk through it.”
“That is the power of your magic.” She anchored her hands on her hips.
“Your young man ought to feel better about you flitting around the country
after this.” She chuckled. “He’s the cutest thing. There’s tension in him,
though. Like he’s an egg about to crack.” She cocked an eyebrow. “Wonder
what that’s about.”
“Let’s explore.” I sidestepped the question. “We don’t have long.”
 Chuckling, she followed behind me while I picked a direction and
started walking. Sort of. I was lifting my feet and planting them on the
ground, but there was no tactile feedback in my legs or sounds of leaves
crunching. The sensation was bizarre and made me wonder if this was how
the dead experienced locomotion.
“There’s a fire.” Vi indicated smoke curling up toward the moon. “We
ought to check there.”
Necromancers tended to have excellent night vision, and mine had
improved upon my death. That must be why I hadn’t noticed the darkness.
“Did we lose time?”
“No.” Her mouth drew tight. “There’s magic at work here.”
Music blared, and laughter rang out into the night. Two grills sizzled
with food, and a cooler full of drinks without ice sat open to anyone who
wanted one. Around the bonfire, more than a dozen women set the pace for
a wild dance with preteens of both genders. Most far younger.
There were more women than there were missing bones, which meant
the bulk of them must have been inside before the ward shot up around
them. Otherwise, there would be no bones left in the pit.
“Look at their faces.” Vi sucked in a breath. “Bon Dieu.”
Bruises blackened a few eyes. Scabs crusted split lips. A few wore
casts, and all were scarred. Whether inside or out. The joyful act they put on
for the children dimmed farther away from the roaring fire.
That was where I went to hear the topic of conversation among two
women, likely in their sixties.
Mirrors of each other, I must have found Rosalie and Patty. But which
was which?
“It’s not safe,” one twin was saying. “How can we take in more when
we’re all in danger?”
How were they in danger? From what? That ward was as good as it got.
And these women? They had to be our missing victims.
“That thing killed Genevieve.” She made the sign of the cross. “Ate her
breasts to pelvis.”
The thing in question must be the mystery beast, but this location was a
good thirty miles away from the abduction site. Why would it follow them
out here? Unless… Had they taken something from it?
Please don’t be a cub. Please don’t be a cub. Please don’t be a cub.
 “Five women,” she croaked when her sister remained silent. “We’ve lost
five and counting.”
Ears ringing with the horror of learning the beast had killed so many, I
couldn’t make it make sense.
“There was always going to be a cost,” the second finally murmured.
“This is the price we pay for freedom.”
As it sank in that they were allowing these deaths to continue, my skin
crawled with the wrongness of it.
The Morgans wouldn’t have spent their lives saving victims only to
victimize them.
Plenty of folks got their jollies taking advantage of others, but the
Morgans had created a trusted name for themselves through a lifetime of
dedication to a cause. Power corrupted, yes, but their morals wouldn’t
decay so quickly after achieving their ultimate goal. Would they? Not to say
living in isolation, a breath away from death, wouldn’t unravel the strongest
moral fiber. But this? It didn’t sit right with me.
“Human sacrifice wasn’t a part of the bargain,” the first twin argued.
“We can’t welcome more women into the commune if we can’t protect
them. Do you know what they’re calling this place? Commune Doom.”
A community populated with women here of their own free will,
perhaps, but kept ignorant of the cost.
“We stole the bones.” The second one eyed her sister. “There’s no going
back.”
Yep.
We had found our thieves.
But how had they known the bones were Alcheyvāhā? Had they
known? Or had they only recognized them as powerful enough to protect
this community they were building? Had the discovery sparked the idea? Or
had they been searching for a solution to make their dream a reality?
A slow churn started in my gut as pieces began clicking together in my
head, creating troubling connections between the missing god tree, the
missing bones, and the missing women.
“We could return them,” the first twin pleaded. “We could pray and beg
forgiveness.”
“He doesn’t forgive,” the second said, “and neither will They.”
God? Or gods? I definitely heard a capital H and T in there.
 “I’m going to bed.” The first twin shook her head. “There’s no
reasoning with you when you’re like this.”
“Make sure you eat before you go to sleep.”
Hand over her stomach, the first twin rose and muttered, “I’m tired of
eating apples.”
“Eat,” she said again, and her insistence prickled my nape.
“Fine. I’m going.” The first twin trudged away. “May their deaths be on
your conscience.”
Long after they were gone, the second remained, gazing into the fire. “I
have no conscience.”
Determination had taken its place, sunk its roots so deep in her soul that
nothing but the iron will to live at any price remained. I recognized it.
Easily. I had seen it in the faces of street kids when I had been one of them.
But I had been lucky. I had Josie and Matty to grind down the calluses left
by the world before the soft skin beneath them became titanium.
Their conversation convinced me of one thing. It was Patty I was staring
at and Rosalie who had left.
“We should see what else we can learn.” Vi drew her shawl tighter, as if
the conversation had chilled her. “We only have the next ten minutes before
Rollo gets more insistent and Kierce begins to fret.”
“You’re right.” I walked away, brain whirring. “I need to find Keshawn
and Tameka.”
With that goal in mind, I searched the faces of the gathered women, but
recognition failed to spark.
About to give up, I experienced a twinge in my chest, a pull angling me
to my right.
“Frankie.” Tameka’s eyes rounded as she noticed me and then Vi. “How
did you…? Never mind.” She waved for me to follow her. “What matters is
you’re here. Let’s get away from all these eyes and ears.”
She led me into the shelter of the trees, but I had to stop her there. “I
don’t have much time.”
“I wanted you to know I didn’t plan this. I meant to honor my contract.”
She worried a ragged fingernail. “Keshawn panicked that day. I’m all the
family she has, and she couldn’t deal with losing me. Her actions were
impulsive and wrong, but they came from a good place.” She placed her
palms together in prayer. “I’ll do anything to make this right. Please don’t
punish her. She’s a good girl. She’s just hurting.”
 “I can’t get into that right now.” I needed facts, and fast. “What is this
place?”
“Two minutes,” Vi said softly, and I ground my teeth, eager for answers.
“The Morgans wanted to go bigger than their club support network and
halfway houses. They wanted to establish a sanctuary where women could
escape their abusers. They found a bone with magical powers and used it to
anchor a ward around this place, but then women started dying. Inside the
barrier. There’s no cell reception. We can’t call for help. If you don’t get us
out of here, we’re all dead.”
Bones of divine beasts go missing, and the women in possession of
those bones are killed.
That was not good. Very not good. Extremely not good.
“What about the Morgans?” I cut my eyes toward the bonfire. “They
can’t get you out?”
“There’s a second ward in the center of the commune. The Morgans
pitched their tents inside it.”
The sisters had built in another layer of protection for themselves,
which made them look guiltier.
Pressure on my hand alerted me my time was spent. “Can you think of
anything else?”
“Not really. Except for one thing. There’s some kind of tree—”
“An apple tree,” I hazarded a guess.
“Yes.” Her brow pleated. “How did you know?”
“I overheard the Morgans talking.” I exhaled. “Whatever you do, don’t
eat the fruit.”
“No worries there.” A laugh burst out of her. “The Morgans won’t
share.”
The nature of the Morgans’ work, their eagerness to help others, would
have made it easy for Ankou to tempt them through pleas to their god. The
blasted thing had been planted right across the street from where the GWC
met. This had to be it. Ankou’s tree. We had found it.
“Okay.” I filled my lungs to buy a moment to think. “I’ll see what I can
do from the outside.”
“Please.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “I want Keshawn out
but—”
The purple swirl of energies surrounding Vi engulfed me as she took my
hands in hers. “We have to go.”
 “Please don’t leave her here.” Tameka lunged for me. “I don’t want her
to be next.”
More warmth, more pressure. Kierce was signaling me, and I couldn’t
ignore him if I wanted him to trust me the next time. As much as I wanted
to linger, to learn more, I took one look at Vi and withered under her
knowing glower that warned she would cross state lines to paddle me if I
didn’t follow her orders.
“Let him bring you home” was all she had to say before a weighted
layer of reality settled over me.
Opening my eyes, there was Kierce, his fingers laced with mine, his
lightning crackling over our knuckles.
“Hi,” I rasped, glancing around for Vi. “Where is…?”
A text chime echoed through my head as I settled into my body. Kierce
put the phone in my hand before I could ask him to pass it to me. I
struggled with holding it, my fingers weirdly numb. After a frustrated nod
from me, he took it and read the message.
“Vi made it home safely. She’ll call you in four hours and warns you
better sleep until then.”
“Thank God,” I mumbled, tingles spreading through my body as my
limbs woke.
I had so much to say, so much to tell him, but unlike when Dis Pater
summoned me, I was ragged with a bone-deep exhaustion. Vi must have
known to expect this, but she let it sneak up on me. Which was fair. Had I
known a fight was ahead of me, I would have prepared for it. I would have
battled it, for a moment or two at least, when it was clear I required the
prescribed rest.
As it was, I could only curl around Kierce’s arm and sink into the
welcoming darkness.
F our hours almost to the minute, I woke from my nap to find Josie
and Kierce preparing a late lunch in the kitchen. She was walking
him through how to toast bread for BLTs made with garden-fresh
veggies and her homemade sourdough. As I lay in bed, watching them
through slitted eyes with a warm feeling in my chest, I tried picturing her
beside Harrow with such ease and failed spectacularly.
A heartbeat, maybe two, and the image disintegrated beneath my doubt
those two could be allowed in a kitchen together where knives were on
clear display. As I looked within myself, searching for any signs I wished I
was experiencing the fantasy instead of the reality, I found nothing left for
Harrow but regret. Had he not come after Matty, we might have
reconnected in a new way. As friends. But it wasn’t meant to be.
“Why are you asking me?” Josie crunched on a lettuce leaf. “I’ve never
been in a serious relationship.”
“You’ve been in relationships,” Kierce countered, buttering more bread.
“Why does it hurt?”
The wanting.
That was what he meant.
“You should ask Frankie.” She coughed into her fist. “Then again, no.
Don’t do that. She’s only ever loved Harrow, and that’s like saying cheddar
puffs are an actual cheese product. Which they are not. You don’t want
those details. The Harrow ones, not the dietary ones. No good has ever
come from hearing about your girl—or boy—friend’s ex. Or, since we’re on
the topic, from reading the ingredient list on anything boxed or bagged.”
Kierce was quiet for a moment, focusing on his tasks, and then he
sighed. “I considered killing him.”
“Please don’t count on me to be your conscience.” She groaned. “I
would bring popcorn to the show.”
For a second, he appeared to contemplate if that was permission. “Have
you always hated him?”
“No.” She set to work on three small salads. “I never liked him, but he
earned my hate. He was isolated with his uncle, you know? He was
brimming with magic and had no outlet for it. He was ashamed of it.” She
shook up the dressing. “He saw Frankie practicing out in the open, and he
was envious. Not that he knew that. For him, she was like a taste of the
forbidden. A way for him to have it both ways. To experience magic
without doing magic. As long as it was her fault for tempting him, he got to
keep the moral high ground.”
The raw honesty in her words, so different from how seething they
came out whenever she talked to me about Harrow, tightened the muscles in
my stomach. I thought she hated him for breaking my heart. She had never
specified, and I had never asked for clarification. She was so angry at him.
All the time.
And now…hearing her unburden herself to someone else…I began to
maybe understand why.
To hide my snooping, I faked a loud yawn and wobbled to my feet.
“Hey, you two.”
“I knew I could count on the scent of bacon to wake you.” Josie
grinned. “I told Kierce he should have put an extra crispy slice in your hand
as an anchor. There’s no way you wouldn’t come back for it.”
Bacon was expensive. A luxury item. And, yeah, okay. I might have
gone through a phase where I ate it by the pound for the simple reason I
could afford it. It tasted better paid for with cash I had earned the right way.
Sadly, I had eaten so much of it that I went years unable to stomach the
smell. Which explained why she always cooked it in her apartment and not
mine. The scent lingered, and… Ugh. Just thinking about it made my
stomach wobbly.
“I’m not a baconoholic.” The meal they had prepared together made my
mouth water. “Ignore her.”
 Josie bit into a carrot then jabbed Kierce with the tip. “Have you ever
known me to lie?”
“Yes,” he said without hesitation.
A low groan tore out of her, and she clucked her tongue. “We’ve got to
work on that.”
“Josie says I’m a bad liar,” he informed me. “We’re going to work on
it.”
“Kierce. No.” The groan tapered into more of a moan as she thumped
her head on the counter. “We don’t tell those we’re plotting against that
we’re plotting against them. It spoils the fun.”
“I appreciate the heads-up.” I joined them in the kitchen. “Kierce, I have
intel but…”
“You’ve got time to eat.” Josie nodded to him, and they carried the food
to my table. “Then I’ll leave and you two can get back to whatever has
Carter’s tail in a twist.”
Josie and I ate BLTs with side salads while Kierce opened a plastic
container filled with sushi that had come unrolled, likely from impact with
the ground after Badb dropped them in a bag from overhead.
Since the crow herself was absent, which meant Josie had already
known Kierce had his own meal ready to eat, I figured she had made the
extra food for Pedro. She was sweet like that. Sometimes.
Topics of conversation included plants, music, and poison gardens.
About what you would expect from a death god’s assistant and a dryad. The
fact Josie acted and spoke like a grownup made it difficult for me to quit
staring at her. Carter’s influence, if I had to guess, was to blame. Or maybe
to thank. But it was weird. Very weird. I wasn’t sure I liked it.
The only thing missing from our impromptu lunch was Matty, but I
would fill him in later.
“I’ll do the dishes.” I pushed back from the table. “It’s the least I can do
to thank you guys.”
“I’m going to run a plate down to Pedro. I crossed an heirloom with a
purple tomatillo. I’m going to ask his opinion since my sister didn’t notice
she was scarfing down a Josie Talbot original.”
“I ate it too fast to notice.” I patted my belly. “That ought to tell you
how much I enjoyed it.”
“We used to eat too fast to taste it too,” she told Kierce. “We had to, or
we couldn’t swallow it.”
 Done with his meal, he cleaned up his area. “Why not?”
“The taste. The texture. The smell.” She chuckled. “We ate anything we
could fool ourselves into believing was edible.”
“Kierce doesn’t want to hear about our adventures in eating expired
food.” I patted my stomach again. “Neither do I when I’m this full.” I slid
my gaze to him. “We spent a lot of time in grocery store trash bins and
sifting through fast food restaurant garbage.”
The former was more questionable than the latter. Expired dairy and
meat left out in the sun had gotten us sick more than once. But it was a
special kind of hunger that allowed you to convince yourself to put a half-
eaten hamburger or chicken nugget in your mouth and pretend the
preexisting bite marks were your own.
With a wiggle of her fingers, she made her exit. “See you lovebirds
later.”
The bird jokes, I had come to accept, would be a part of my life as long
as Kierce was.
As I set to work cleaning up after lunch, I updated him on Vi and my
visit behind the ward.
No sooner had I wrapped up than my phone rang with a video call from
Vi I answered on my TV.
“This is a fresh perspective.” She peered around inside the frame.
“Where am I?”
“The new TV can receive phone calls.” I dried my hands and dragged
Kierce to the couch with me. “Neat, huh? Now I’ll be able to see your
beautiful face even better when we have our monthly chats.”
Too bad Matty hadn’t reminded me, or we could have tried it out
sooner.
Life had been too crazy lately to recall small details like how to utilize
my fancy new TV’s full potential.
“Well, ain’t you a mess getting a permanent?” Her chuckle was short-
lived. “You told him what we saw?”
“I did.” I scrutinized her, since she couldn’t hide via video, but she
looked good. Healthy. Like I hadn’t done her irreparable harm. Perky too.
Like she hadn’t required four hours to recover. Though she had been
zipping around without her body since before I was born and might not
require any rest to recoup her energy. “The darkness is troubling.”
 Head shaking, her earrings glinted sterling. “Whatever is hunting those
women is a dark blight.”
“Not a dark blight.” Silver gleamed in Kierce’s eyes as he leaned
forward, bracing his elbows on his knees with a predatory focus that lifted
the hairs down my arms. “Anunit.” Badb glided to rest on his shoulder, her
feathers puffed and her beady black gaze wide as she cawed and flapped her
wings. “But how?”
“Anunit was a Mesopotamian goddess of war.” Death followed in the
wake of all battle gods. That tie-in was the sole reason I knew the rather
obscure goddess. “And the moon.”
“Myths are flawed things.” Kierce stroked Badb to calm her. “The
original Anunit was Alcheyvāhā. It’s been said her ebony fur was spangled
with white stars that glimmered in her coat. Her fangs were longer than a
man’s arm. She devoured sunlight and dreams, and she was fiercely loyal to
her mate. It’s said, after the gods killed him, they banded together to hunt
her before she swallowed the moon and cast the Earth into endless darkness
in her grief.”
The moon was alive and well in the sky, but the women had danced
around their bonfire for light and warmth. Safety too. Most predators
spooked at fire. Divine ones? Likely not.
“She sounds lovely.” I suppressed a chill. “You think she survived?”
“No.” Kierce sounded certain and then baffled by his surety. “None of
them did.”
“Anyone with that much fury could manifest in the afterlife.” I chilled
at the reminder of how close I had come to death at the clawed hands of a
water spirit not so long ago. “Could she have become a guardian of the
burial ground?”
Forehead gathering into a furrow, Kierce asked, “How could she have
remained hidden for so long?”
Any creature her size, with her appetites, would have ignited a local
legend about a beast in the woods that ate travelers who wandered off the
road. Or had their cars plucked up like Hot Wheels and set down again in
the forest. Whatever. Since no such lore existed, there must be a reason why
she had been absent until now.
“The bones.” Vi worried her bangles on her wrist. “Either Anunit
anchored her soul to them, or some of them are hers. Perhaps she woke
when they were disturbed?”
 Many ancient cultures had believed in sacrificing fierce warriors or
ferocious beasts to protect their king, or queen, in the afterlife. Why should
the Alcheyvāhā have been any different? Someone had to create the burial
ground for them. They hadn’t just fallen over dead in convenient proximity
to one another. Unless their murderers had been so frightened by them, they
created the mass graves to keep an eye on them even in death.
Whatever her role, Anunit was making the women pay for the Morgans’
crimes in blood.
“What if it’s an initiation thing?” I toyed with the hem of my jeans.
“Bring a bone to buy your way in?”
“Buy their way in…” Vi’s eyes flashed up to mine. “Your loaner said
they couldn’t leave.”
“A bone was required for each woman to enter the ward.” Kierce kept
flexing his hands. “It’s the only explanation that makes sense.” A glittering
fissure threatened to crack open his façade to expose the divine visage
beneath, and I didn’t flinch away from it. “We need to return the bones we
took before Anunit turns her anger on us.”
Throat gone dry, I hadn’t considered he and I had been carrying homing
beacons in our pockets.
Worse than drawing a dead god’s notice, I had brought mine home with
me, making my siblings vulnerable.
“We have to go back.” I wiped a hand over my mouth. “We need to find
Tameka and get answers.”
Keshawn was the one who had known where to take her mother to hide
her. She could explain how word had spread about the commune. Tameka
could act as our go-between and…
…the bottom fell out of my stomach.
The god bones. The Morgans had told others where to find them. The
path they had paved with their good intentions might have just killed every
single person within their ward.
Dis Pater had tasked Kierce with fixing this. Kierce couldn’t ignore his
master. He had to act.
Already a dangerous energy vibrated around him, stemming from the
Morgans’ abuse of a sacred place.
“Return the bones.” Vi made the sign of the cross. “Then gather fresh
soil, and we’ll go again.”
 Maybe it would turn out not making time to ward the burial ground had
been a good thing if we had to keep zipping there and back again.
“Thank you.” I hated how my voice broke. “I’m sorry to drag you into
this mess.”
“When I agreed to mentor you, I promised to share my knowledge and
my aid so long as you never abused your powers. When you became my
friend, I knew you would uphold your vows. Now you’re the next best thing
to a daughter to me, and you’re out of your damn mind if you think I’ll let
you face this alone.”
Tears pricked the backs of my eyes, but I glanced at the ceiling to keep
them from falling.
“We should go.” Kierce stood and inclined his head toward Vi. “We’ll
return soon.”
“See that you do.” Sudden fierceness turned her sharp. “Be careful out
there.”
After ending the call, I braced to tell him my other news. “Ankou’s tree
is inside the commune.”
The bits and pieces I had overheard made me more confident when I
strung them together for him.
“That explains…a lot.” He shut his eyes. “Has anyone else eaten from
it?”
“The Morgans won’t share, which makes me wonder if they’re addicted
to whatever it’s doing to them.” I had to believe the fruit was to blame for
their willingness to turn a blind eye to Anunit as she took out the women,
one by one. “Could the Morgans have saved Anunit’s victims with the
fruit?”
Pomegranate from the divine tree Kierce gifted me had saved Badb
once from certain death.
“Divine fruit reflects the one who planted the tree, and their purpose in
doing so.” He stared at me from under his lashes. “I doubt any fruit borne
from Ankou’s seed would heal or help. It would be as mischievous as he, its
purpose the same. A twisted solution to those who consumed it, one that
consumed them as well.”
“Rosalie is pushing back, but Patty is a lost cause.” I decided that when
I realized why Patty was urging apples on her sister. The fog was clearing
from Rosalie’s mind, and Patty wanted to cloud her judgment again. “Why
do we need more dirt?”
 “The soil you used this morning is ash.” Kierce’s gaze touched on the
trash can in the kitchen where he must have swept the remains. “It glowed
hot, like coals, then glittered and charred like wood but didn’t burn where it
touched us or the nightstand.”
“I forgot you sprinkled it over our hands.” I massaged my temples.
“There’s a vagueness to my memories, like some of what I saw and heard is
still slowly returning to me. It’s different from when Dis Pater summons
you.”
“His power tugs me to him. I don’t expend any of my own. Perhaps the
same is true for you.”
“But projecting myself inside the ward was all me, which left me
physically and mentally tired?”
“Ask Vi. She knew to anticipate it, so she must experience it too.”
“I would love to hear I will outgrow the sluggishness, but there’s always
a cost to performing magic.”
“Yes.” He carved a path toward the door. “Everything has a price.”
As the women in the commune were discovering, and we would too, if
we didn’t make amends with Anunit.

P
road edged past it.
Though it was on the shoulder, clear of regular traffic, officers had set
up roadblocks to protect anyone from driving into the equivalent of a brick
wall.
From the number of uniforms milling around a tent set up near the tree
line, more officers were using magical means to determine the exact shape
and size of the affected area.
Kierce and I wore our lanyards and kept out of their way. No one
stopped us as we collected plastic bags of fresh soil. Three of them. To cut
down on the number of trips out here. Curious whether Carter was in this
location or the previous, I dialed her number, but I got no response despite
knowing she had replaced her phone.
“Do you think Anunit is denning at this location or merely hunting?” I
put the question to Kierce after we were safe inside the wagon. “The bones
are at the other site, but she can’t very well rain vengeance down on the
thieves if they’re here and she’s there.”
I blinked, and Kierce was gone.
I blinked again, and Kierce was back.
Mashing my lips flat, I grumbled, “You made your point.”
A god, even a dead one, shouldn’t have a problem blipping between
locations.
Anxious to be rid of the bones in my pocket, we returned to the
abduction site. Though abduction might not be the right word. Voluntary
abandonment site? Park and ride? I wasn’t sure anymore.
Halfway there, my phone rang, and I answered it on speaker. “Hey.”
“Hey back.” Carter’s voice came out faint with exhaustion. “What’s
up?”
“Kierce and I just collected our dirt. I called to see if you were there, but
we must have missed you.”
“Yeah.” Her breath rustled across the receiver. “We found another
body.”
Regret that I hadn’t clued her in to what we had learned so far reared its
ugly head. “Eaten?”
“Shot between the eyes.”
“What?” I felt my jaw go slack. “You’re sure the death is connected to
the case?”
“The victim was Officer Tate’s husband. He was shot with her service
weapon.”
“After her abduction?” Kierce tilted his head. “Did he help with the
search efforts?”
“We called him,” she agreed. “He wanted to come out, and I wanted a
look at him.”
I could have told her you couldn’t judge a monster by the face it wore,
they hid too well in plain sight for that, but she would have learned that
lesson before I was born. “Are you sure he left?”
“Volunteers were split into teams, and every team leader performed roll
call before and after the search to ensure no one was left behind. He was
accounted for. He left. Then, later, he came back. He parked a mile or so
down a service road on the back end of the search area and walked in. He
had camping gear in his truck and overnight supplies in a backpack he
wore. We found his remains about half a mile from the second car, but there
were no signs of predation.”
“His wife is still out there then.”
Had she struggled to collect her entrance fee? Or had she known he
would come and waited for him? If she intended to vanish off the face of
the Earth, behind an impenetrable wall, why not first guarantee her safety
free of the consequences of her actions?
“We haven’t found any evidence to indicate either woman is in the
area.”
For them to have disappeared together, I would have expected them to
both end up behind the ward. Did that mean the second officer had gone
ahead, unaware of what the other woman intended? There were no clear
answers. Only yet another mystery requiring us to find one of them to ask.
“That reminds me.” I could have kicked myself for forgetting, even if I
had plenty of excuses. “You mentioned wanting me to visit the morgue.”
“That was the plan.” Her laughter turned bitter. “The Hardeeville Police
Department got ahold of the remains and won’t let us near them. The HPD
doesn’t have a large enough paranormal presence to intercede in such cases.
Yet another reason the chief is salivating to make a deal with them. To have
more control over para cases outside our immediate jurisdiction. As it is,
we’ll have to send someone to disappear the evidence.”
Better to lose the remains than allow even a glimmer of awareness
among humans of what stalked the night beyond their driveways and
streetlamps.
“I’m sorry to hear that, but I might have a source that’s just as good.” I
just had to find Tameka again. “I can get inside the wards. Part of me can
anyway.” Eager to return, I filled her in quickly on everything we had
learned so far. “I’ll update you when I know more.”
“You do that,” she said, hope a fragile thing.
Our conversation had spanned the tail end of the journey to the burial
ground, which held fewer patrol cars than last time despite the recent
murder. Movement through the trees proved there were plenty of officers
here. They must have been receiving too many inquiries from the public
about the heavy police presence and decided to downplay the situation. I
couldn’t say I blamed them when the truth would do humans, and us, more
harm than good.
 The grim atmosphere engulfed us after Kierce and I exited the wagon,
but there was no turning back now.
O fficers eyeballed our lanyards, then us, and dismissed us as they went
about their business.
“I had planned to do this after we located the missing bones,”
Kierce told me after we reached the pit. “I would have made a small
sacrifice to honor the dead and ask their forgiveness for disturbing their
rest.”
A shiver of concern coasted through me. “What kind of sacrifice?”
“Blood is traditional.” He produced his half of the bones. “For Anunit, I
think meat would be better.”
“I assume we would personally donate the blood, but what about the
meat?”
“Give me a moment.”
Before I could nod, he was gone, leaving me standing alone with the
remains of gods people were killing and being killed to possess. Had I ever
doubted Dis Pater’s reasons for wanting the site forgotten, I could have
shared his viewpoint after this. But he was right to believe such power,
which had gotten the gods killed in the first place, was too dangerous to
place in the hands of mortals.
A rustle of leaves drew my head up, and I found a pair of golden eyes
peering out at me from the trees.
As my heart attempted to climb out of my throat, my calves tensing to
run, Kierce returned at my elbow.
 “Kierce,” I hissed, trembling in the knowledge I was being hunted, and
he followed my line of sight.
“We beg your forgiveness, Anunit, Eater of Moons, Mother of
Darkness. We sought only to collect what was taken and return them to their
rightful places.” He knelt, extending his arms toward the beast. “We offer
you this meat—” and he held a dripping side of raw beef across his
forearms, “—as apology for our trespass.” He dipped his head, never
making eye contact. “Please, if this offering is not enough to sate your
righteous anger, I ask that the pound of flesh you take be from me.”
“You’re out of your mind.” I dug my nails into his shoulder. “Why
aren’t you running?”
There was a lot more than one pound of flesh on a corpse, and she was
gulping them down in bulk.
“You cannot outrun me,” a feminine voice purred in my head. “He is
wise not to tempt me.”
“You can talk.” I switched my grip on Kierce to hold me upright. “Did
you kill—?”
“I do not answer to you, and you would be wise to remember this.” She
hummed as the wind shifted, blowing the scent of raw, bloody meat to her.
“Tell your consort I will accept his offering.”
Almost choking on the title she had given him, that of my consort, I
coughed to clear my throat.
“Which one?” I stepped forward, placing myself between them. “The
cow or him?”
“I am not so cruel as you suppose.” She prowled forward, as
translucent as a spirit, but Kierce had been right. Her fur was black, and
stars glinted among the strands. The creature she most resembled was a
gryphon. Her body reminded me of a panther, but her head was that of a
fox, and her stubby horns belonged on a goat. Her tail was a sweep of
feathers, and one of her wings was absent. Her smooth back, rippling with
muscle, convinced me she had been born without it, not lost it. “He has
shown me the proper respect, and I will allow this…cow…to purchase my
goodwill.”
Tension radiated from Kierce, and he made to stand, to protect me, but I
pressed down on him.
“Frankie,” he questioned, searching my face.
 “She agreed to accept your offering.” I held him steady. “Let’s just hold
still and let her take it.”
Concern shrouded his features. “How do you know?”
“She just said…” I became acutely aware of moving my lips, of the
gentle vibration of my vocal cords. Neither of which had been present
during our exchange. “You didn’t hear her.”
His already pale cheeks blanched in a rush, leaving his complexion
bone white. “She spoke to you.”
“You didn’t hear me either,” I realized, deciding that meant I had
addressed Anunit in my head.
“You are godspawn. He is godmade,” Anunit saw fit to inform me.
“Your power outstrips his.”
“Um,” I said intelligently, shriveling at the idea of being more powerful
than the Viduus.
No.
Than Kierce.
I had to stop romanticizing his role as a myth and accept him as the man
before me. There was no use in untangling legends from one Viduus to the
next. I would have to see him as Kierce, just Kierce, to make a relationship
of equals possible. And that was what we had to be for this to work.
If I possessed more raw power than him, including private
conversations with deities we were bribing not to eat us, Kierce surpassed
me in his working knowledge of our shared powers, divine politics, and life
experience.
“Tell him to hold still.” She had the nerve to sound amused. “I would
not want to nip his fingers.”
“I’ll do it.” I hefted the meat out of his arms and knelt to meet her. “Just
in case.”
As her whiskers tickled my wrist, she jerked back with an ear-splitting
yowl. “Who are you?”
“Frankie Talbot.” I curled my fingers into my palm like that might
protect them. “Nice to meet you?”
“Who is your sire? Your dame? From whence did you come?”
“I’m an orphan. I was raised by…” I cast my thoughts back to what
Kierce had told us, “…the Perchten.”
“No.” She recoiled from me. “That is not possible.”
 “I assure you, it is.” I almost laughed at her indignation. “My siblings
and I—”
Breath left her lungs in a gust, and she padded forward. “You have
siblings?”
“We’re not blood relatives.” I ignored the urge to defend us Marys. “We
chose one another.”
“I see.” The great beast searched my face but found only more
confusion to twist her features. “You and I will meet again, Frankie
Talbot.”
Quicker than a blink, she stole the meat and loped into the trees,
disappearing like a phantom.
As soon as she was out of sight, I lost all coordination in my limbs and
melted into a puddle on the dirt.
“I should have asked her.” My teeth chattered as my adrenaline ebbed.
“About the women.”
“We had to save ourselves first.” He lifted me, gathering me against his
chest, and buried his face in my neck. “Though I suspect that was more
your doing than mine.”
“You couldn’t hear her?” I wriggled closer to him. “You’re sure?”
“Growls and yips. That was all. I wasn’t aware you were speaking to
her either.”
“Why?” I wrinkled my nose at the iron tang in the air and the sticky
substance on my arms. “Why me?”
“She’s a spirit.” He sounded thoughtful. “I could smell eternity on her.”
“All I could smell was chicken.” I pretended to sniff my shirt. “I think
it’s coming from me.”
Pride stretched his cheeks as he gazed down at me. “You held your
ground against a divine creature.”
“This must be how I seem to you when we start talking about your
title.” I pinched his cheek. “You’re adorable when you geek out.”
“She had language.” He stroked my cheek thoughtfully. “She articulated
words?”
“Yes.” I laughed, surprised not to have found it strange. But when you
were talking mind to mind with a divine animal…I mean…why not? How
was her ability to speak any stranger? “That’s good, isn’t it?”
“Very good.” He smiled. “It means you can appeal to her to spare the
lives of the others.”
 “She called me godspawn and you godmade. Do you think that’s the
difference? In the talking thing?”
“Perhaps,” he allowed. “You can speak the divine tongue. That you
were never taught makes me curious if the children of gods are born
knowing it. Anunit would speak, I imagine, a version of the language that
predates even that.” He still eyed me as if I were a wonder. “You might
contain multitudes of languages that require only a spark to set them alight
within your mind.”
“That is just too weird.” I checked the woods for signs of Anunit but
found none. “We need to return the bones to their skeletons.” I shivered. “I
don’t want to give her a reason to pay us another visit.”
Then there was Vi. She was waiting for us. And boy would I have a
story to tell her.
“Return them to the original configuration,” Kierce warned me, turning
away. “Ask if you need help.”
Using the method he taught me, I managed to determine placement on
my own. Though I did request he check behind me. I worried any mistakes
would result in Anunit showing up at the shop and deciding the siblings that
had interested her looked tasty.
Armed with Kierce’s seal of approval, we left the burial ground. Stinky
and stained as Kierce and I were, I was more grateful than ever for the
magic keeping my wagon pristine inside and out.
Pedro was deep in conversation with a customer when we reached the
shop, so I waved to him and hit the stairs. I half expected Josie to be
waiting for us in my apartment, but the coast was clear. She must be
working in the garden, tending her plants. I bet they missed her. They were
so used to receiving her undivided attention.
Were plants like dogs, who took offense when their owner came home
smelling like other dogs? I ought to ask her sometime. She might laugh at
me, but it would make her smile.
After shooting Vi a text, Kierce and I showered. Not together. Sadly.
We reconvened in fresh clothes with damp hair, and I texted Vi that we
were ready.
The baggies of soil we collected from outside the commune had already
been set into place within easy reach for him. A ripple of purple static in the
air preceded her arrival, and I was quick to close my eyes to prepare for our
next foray into the unknown.
 “Calm your mind.” She tapped a finger between my eyes. “I’ll be right
here, but you lead us this time.”
Calming my mind was easier said than done, but eventually, Kierce’s
presence, his firm clasp of my hand, allowed me to slip into a meditative
state that snapped like a rubber band around my middle.
Stumbling, as much as one can stumble without substance, I found
myself in the commune.
Without Vi. Damn it. I botched it. I slingshot myself here without her.
Darkness yawned overhead. The bonfire roared. The women danced.
The children laughed.
And in the shadows, Anunit watched their weak attempts to reassure
themselves.
Her gaze lifted to mine, her lips curving in the promise of a smile, and I
drifted toward her.
“Playing with your food?” I stabbed the thought toward her. “Is the
meat tenderer after they’re limber?”
With a wide paw, she patted the space beside her in invitation.
And, though I could hear how my siblings would scream at me for
getting closer, I did as she requested and sat.
As much as I was able, given the whole floating thing keeping me
buoyant.
“These women have known pain and suffering.” She flexed her claws in
the dirt. “I respect them. I even admire a few. I have spent enough time
here, watching from the shadows, to understand why they stole from us.”
“Then can’t you forgive them?”
“And permit them to continue their desecration? No. I will not allow
it.”
“One of the women here can see me. Let me talk to her. She can explain
the situation to the Morgans.”
“You are welcome to try.” Her warm breath fanned my face, the scent
oddly sweet. “But understand that I am soul-bound to this purpose. Even if
I pardoned them their trespass, I am called to hunt them.”
The cow must have bought us some goodwill if she summoned me for a
chat so soon.
Mind whirring, I pressed for answers. “What are the parameters of your
binding?”
 “Until the day every bone is returned to its rightful place, I am to claim
one life in exchange.”
“You kill a person per day?” I cringed away from her. “Why didn’t you
just explain…?”
“Precisely.” Anunit tipped her great head toward me. “I am dead. None
in this place can hear or see me. I have no means of defining what is owed
or how they might survive paying their debts.” Her whiskers flicked
forward. “They could not understand my tongue even if I could speak to
them.”
Ah. She had reached out, not because of the offering, but because we
could talk.
Thinking back on what Kierce had told me, I asked, “How do I
understand it?”
“That is an interesting question, is it not?” She resumed staring at the
fire. “You are out of time.”
A shove thrust me back into my body, and I shot upright, gasping for
breath.
“What happened?” Vi brushed her fingers across my brow. “Your soul
was snatched.”
“Soul snatched,” I panted, sliding the pieces around in my mind. “That
sounds about right.”
“Now ain’t the time for jokes.” She hardened her tone. “You could have
been lost.”
“It was Anunit.” As I flexed my fingers, I was reminded I was back in
my own skin. “I think.”
Maybe she sensed the tickle of my intrusion against the ward and ripped
me through it.
“You saw her again?” Kierce’s knuckles had turned white. “She was
there?”
“Yes.” I swung my legs over the side of the bed. “I spoke to her.”
Muttering in Creole, Vi began pacing while I filled them in on what
Anunit had told me.
“We need to go back. I have to find Tameka.” I stifled a yawn. “She’s
the only one we can warn.”
“Your young man and I will talk while you rest.” She gripped my ankles
and swung them back onto the mattress with a huff. “Sleep is essential. You
will not neglect it. Not in this.”
 “Those women can’t afford for me to lose that much time.” I fought off
the drag of heavy eyelids. “Take me to Bonaventure. Let me top off my
energy there.” I sank deeper into my pillow. “Please…Kierce…”

I
where I leaned against a gate at Bonaventure with my hand stuck in dirt up
to my wrist. A worm slithered over my knuckles as I drew back my arm,
but I was too disoriented to care. I couldn’t see Kierce from my slump, but I
sensed him. “How much time?”
“Thirty minutes,” he said, his footsteps hurried as he sank down beside
me. “How do you feel?”
“Like I could sleep for a hundred years.”
“You managed to stave off the worst of the exhaustion from astral
travel.”
“Can I take another hit to perk up more? I don’t want to harm the
cemetery or its inhabitants.”
The blight radiating from the tree Ankou had planted was gone. Kierce
and I consumed the death magic and left untainted earth behind. That was
well and good for problem areas, but Bonaventure was home to many of my
friends. First and foremost, the Suarez brothers. I would rather wince my
way into battle than harm them. Or the Buckley Boys. Or Daisy Mae. Or
any of the others.
“Faith keeps these grounds fertile. You won’t harm any spirits as long as
you stick to the edges and keep away from the marked graves. Bonaventure
is famous, which means its soil is rich with belief. The magic is clean. Pure.
It’s not tainted the way Ankou’s tree poisoned its surroundings. You can
take less but reap more. Your bond with this cemetery will only strengthen
its effects.”
Sinking my fingers into the soil, I sang a low hymn that drew warm
tingles up my arm and into my chest. I pictured it as plugging myself into
an outlet to charge the way I did for my phone, but with fewer cords and
more creepy-crawlies. At a certain point, I sensed the connection slow and
withdrew from the dirt.
 “There.” I blew the cobwebs from my thoughts. “That’s better.” I
glanced around. “Where’s Vi?”
“I’m here,” she called, drawing my attention to where she stood with
Johnny and the boys.
Whatever she told Johnny made him grin, and he flashed away before I
could ask what brought him here.
“Oh good.” I drew my legs under me. “We need to get back to Tameka.”
“Are you sure it’s a good idea to revisit the commune so soon?” The
wind tugged on Vi’s wispy form. “Will that goddess come after you again?”
“Anunit accepted the offering,” Kierce thought it through, “but it might
have spared us in the moment. Unless she tells you otherwise, we might
have only bought a temporary reprieve.”
“I have to risk it.” I was grateful the other Marys weren’t in earshot. “I
have to try at least once more.”
“We.” Vi clamped her hand around my wrist, as if she could shackle
me. “We have to try.”
Tears stung my eyes at her ferocity, and I was grateful all over again for
her friendship as we returned to my apartment where it was safe to leave
my body with Kierce while Vi and I carried a message of warning to the
only woman who could hear us.
S ame night sky. Same bonfire. Same dance. Same laughter.
If the eerie monotony of it broke me out in chills, how much
worse must it be for those trapped here?
Whatever refuge the Morgans had envisioned for these bruised and
battered souls, this couldn’t have been it. This was another form of torture.
Perhaps not physical but mental for certain. These women had lived in fear,
and now they lived in terror.
“We stick together.” Vi walked up beside me. “We start at the fire.”
“No.” I sensed a low hum in my bones. “Not there.” I stepped forward
and was rewarded with a stronger resonance. “This way.” I retraced my
steps from our first visit, ducking into the brush where Tameka had brought
me to beg for her daughter’s life, and discovered a campground littered with
tents. “Here.”
Women armed with knives and guns and flashlights—so many
flashlights—patrolled the perimeter.
One of them I recognized. Keshawn. The remnants of her intricate
braids were tangled atop her head as if she had given up on styling her hair
or even washing herself.
Since Keshawn wasn’t able to see me, I skipped over her and went in
search of her mother.
Most of the residents were sleeping. The ones who weren’t had gone to
bed only to stare at the ceiling. I imagined they were the ones fresh off their
shifts, too worked up for rest, but a few sported dark circles under their eyes
that convinced me this was part of their nightly routine.
The lying awake. The wondering who would be next. The fear it would
be them or someone they loved.
We searched the tents and surrounding area before soft conversation
drew us to a small gathering in a makeshift cemetery. Five women stood
over what appeared to be the most recent grave, though it must have been
days old now, supporting a woman who sat in the mud with no care for her
clothes, her head braced on her knees.
Stinging energy swept through me, and I sensed without turning that
Tameka had appeared behind me. “How many have died?”
“Too many,” she rasped, frailer than the last time I saw her.
Jerking her head for us to follow, Tameka led us into a tent she zipped
behind us.
“I don’t have much time, but we know what’s been preying on the
women here.” I did my best to sit, but I must have resembled a drifting
balloon. “A divine beast. A goddess named Anunit. She bound herself to
the bones of her kin, and when the Morgans began stealing them, she was
summoned to fulfill her oath of protection.” I saved the worst for last.
“Anunit will take one life every night until the bones have been returned to
their proper resting place.”
“Speak to the Morgans,” Vi told her. “Convince them what must be
done.”
Vi tapped her finger on my palm to remind me time was running out.
“Do this for me,” I bargained, “and I’ll wipe Keshawn’s debt clean. The
ward will fall, you will come to the shop, and you will return the loaner.
Then we’ll be even.”
“I’ll do it.” Eyes bright with unshed tears, she sprang to her feet. “I’ll go
now.” She reached for my hands but couldn’t touch them. “I can’t thank you
enough for this. Really, Frankie. Thank you.”
Seeing as how no one had been afraid of me a day in my life, the
urgency edging her actions, her fraught desperation to please me, I
attributed to the obsidian corona marking me as someone she ought to fear.
And I hated how different her treatment made me feel.
“I’ll be back in two hours.” I checked with Vi, who frowned when she
realized I planned to skip the nap and recharge via magic yet again but
nodded. “Have their answer ready for me then.”
 “I can’t promise anything.” She fisted the tent zipper. “I’ll do my best,
though.”
“The bones are the cost of Keshawn’s pardon,” Vi said, sparing me from
being the bad guy.
“Then you’ll have the bones.” Newfound determination carved hollows
in her cheeks. “With or without the Morgans’ blessing.”
Striding out with a sense of purpose, Tameka set herself to her task.
“We have a few minutes left,” Vi told me in the quiet. “Do you want to
locate the Morgans? Get their take on this latest attack?”
“Good idea.”
We retraced our earlier steps, but the sisters seemed to have vanished
into thin air. Vi and I only had so much time left, and the commune
encompassed a large tract of land. We couldn’t search it all. That meant
ditching the Morgans to focus on another problem.
“I can’t sense the bones from outside the ward.” I had been turning that
over in my head for a while now. The Plan B to save us from the promised
death branded onto anyone who touched those bones. “I need to determine
if I can sense them now that we’re on the inside. Watch my back?”
There had been no immediate indicator pinging in my head, but with so
much magic thick in the air, and so many bones in play, I might not be able
to distinguish individual signatures.
The tree, at least, would be easy to locate since the Morgans weren’t
keeping its location—only its purpose—secret.
“Of course.”
Together we walked until we reached the ward and then we edged along
its rippling surface until I felt Kierce caressing my hand in a plea to return
to him. Time was up. Again. I should have gone with Tameka. They
couldn’t see or hear me, but I could have helped her present an argument to
the Morgans complete with a firsthand account. This had been a waste of…
A cold presence began thrumming in my head. “Do you feel that?”
“All I feel is Rollo counting down the minutes on my wrist.” She
scanned the area. “What do you sense?”
Allowing the hum to guide me, I walked until the cold turned to ice and
pierced me. “Bones.”
About to kneel and investigate for signs of the bones, I bent my legs…
and tumbled forward into nothing.
“D ,” I ,
stuck in one of Matty’s long socks that had been tugged up past my elbow.
Flexing my fingers, I discovered it was filled with…dirt?
How long had I been out? Had I missed my window to meet with
Tameka?
There was only one way to find out, and it involved dragging my sorry
carcass out from under the covers.
I tensed as movement fluttered near the window, jerking as Badb lit on
the tall headboard behind me.
“Hey.” After freeing myself, I scratched under her chin. “Where did
Kierce get off to?”
Nibbling on my finger with her beak, she chased me out of bed and into
the kitchen where a brown bag I recognized as coming from a local diner
leaked congealed grease on the table. The crow ripped a tear in the side of
the paper, revealing two clamshell containers that smelled like heaven had
been scooped into them. I breathed in deep, filling my lungs, and noticed a
small detail she was usually too clever to forget.
The receipt.
Ripping it off the bag, I read the name of the intended recipient and
gasped, “How could you?”
Badb decided to clean her feathers rather than answer, which was about
what I expected from her.
“You hate Mr. Mittens. I respect that. I do. But this is going too far.”
Mr. Mittens, the cat, lived one street over. His owners lavished him with
gifts. Or they would have, if she hadn’t stolen a solid half of them for
herself. She kept her thefts confined to punishing Mr. Mittens, but I could
tell something had changed that put his owners on her naughty list right
alongside him.
“I will eat this.” I was magnanimous about it. “Because I don’t want it
to go to waste.” And also because it smelled delicious. “Then we’re going
to talk to Kierce about boundaries.”
I gobbled down her gift then showered and dressed before searching out
other signs of life.
 A commotion in the parking lot drew me down to check on Kierce, who
stood beside the golf cart.
The hyena cackling beside him was definitely Matty, which meant
Kierce had performed the switcheroo.
Uncertain how I felt about that becoming a habit, I moseyed on down to
find out what set Matty off.
“You boys having car trouble?” I cocked an eyebrow. “Anything I can
do to help?”
“You could maybe not tell Josie that Kierce committed vehicular
shrubslaughter?” Matty wiped tears from his eyes. “That shrub came out of
nowhere.” He tried and failed to pull himself together. “It wasn’t Kierce’s
fault.”
“A possum crossed in front of me,” Kierce mumbled, looking anywhere
other than at me.
“And Kierce proved the brakes do, in fact, work.” Matty slapped him on
the back. “He saved us from a dangerous collision.”
The top speed of a golf cart might be thirty miles per hour. Cut that in
half for the one he was driving. An accident at fifteen miles per hour was
more jarring than most people realized, especially without a seat belt to
protect them.
Forearms braced on the roof, sweat on his brow, Kierce slanted Matty a
glance. “You’re mocking me.”
“In this family…” he backed away grinning, “…that’s how we show
love.”
“I would ask if you’re okay,” I said as Matty passed me, “but you must
be if you’re tormenting Kierce.”
“There are things for which I will always have energy, and that is one of
them.”
“You sound fancy.” I squinted at him. “Who are you seeing tonight?”
Much like the Buckley Boys, whose accents thickened when excitement
made them forget to enunciate, Matty often embraced his chameleonic
nature to set his dates at ease. Since he avoided relationships, he never had
to come clean about, well, much of anything, really.
“A soon-to-be SCAD grad who invited me to watch her performance in
a Broadway melody.”
Savannah College of Art and Design was the SCAD in question, but he
didn’t usually go for performers. Even if he was a bit of one himself.
 Humming a showtune, he climbed the stairs to prep for his night out as I
went to inspect the damage.
“The good news is, the golf cart was already in such bad shape, I can’t
tell anything happened to it.”
More interested in me than the cart, Kierce asked, “What’s the bad
news?”
“There’s definitely a limb stuck in the undercarriage, so Paco will know
when he spots it first thing.”
“I froze when I saw the possum. Matty started yelling at me to swerve. I
did, and then he was screaming at me to stay on the road.” Kierce rested his
forehead on his forearms. “I am a failure.”
“You’re learning. Learning takes time.” I stepped behind him and linked
my arms around his waist, resting my face against his back. “You can pop
in and out in a blink. You don’t have to do this.”
“I want to help you, and that means mastering this machine.”
Because Matty couldn’t blink from here to there and back again like
Kierce, and Kierce couldn’t take people with him when he did it.
“Thank you for handling the drop-off,” I ventured. “The sock idea was
inspired. I’ll have to remember that trick.”
“You’re welcome, though I might have done more harm than good with
the golf cart.”
“We have to make mistakes to learn from them.” I chuckled at his
obvious disappointment. “You’re trying, and that’s more than anyone else
has ever done for me.” I lifted a finger. “More than any guy, anyway.”
“I’m glad.” A frown settled onto his face. “I’ve been thinking.”
“Oh? Let’s walk and talk.” I set out in the direction of the garden.
“What’s bothering you?”
“The bones.”
“Ah.” I slowed down to straighten a tomato cage. “What specifically?”
“I am…thorough…in my duties.” He addressed a shining fruit. “No
mortal knows of the burial ground.”
That sounded a lot like he was confessing to multiple cleanups in the
wake of previous discoveries. But if he feared scaring me away by
admitting to atrocities, he didn’t know me very well.
Kierce was bruised by the world’s rough handling. The gods’ too. That
was why he retreated from the chaos of our world into the static existence
of his. He wanted no part of Earth or its people. But I sensed no malicious
intent in him. Just because he had no interest in humans didn’t mean he
wanted them dead.
No.
I saw Dis Pater in this. His crimson fingerprints smeared those crime
scenes.
Kierce might be his instrument, but I doubted Kierce would call what
Dis Pater required of him justice.
And he would dismiss me if I told him I could accept the dark parts of
his past while also asking him to dim himself. Did he view it as me picking
and choosing what pieces of him I found worthy? Desirable? Was he still
half convinced I was intrigued by his legend, the myths of all those who had
come before him, rather than him?
There was only one path forward. If I wanted this to work, I had to try
harder at accepting more than his god aspect. How I made peace with his
zoomorphic appearance before his divine radiance probably said a lot about
me. What, I didn’t know. But definitely something.
“You want to know how the Morgans knew where to find the bones.” I
decided not to play into those deep-seated fears, uncertain if they were his
or mine. “You’re worried they didn’t stumble across them but that someone
told them where to go.”
And I had an excellent guess as to the culprit.
Someone who intercepted prayers and answered them to suit himself.
Someone who thrived on twisting the heart’s wishes into dread.
Someone whose help cost more than anyone could afford.
“Yes.” Kierce rubbed a leaf between his fingers. “I am.”
“They have Ankou’s tree.” I was certain of it. “Who’s to say this wasn’t
all his idea?”
“He shouldn’t be strong enough to appear to them yet, but the tree is a
powerful conduit.”
Mention of the Morgans reminded me. “What time is it?”
“You slept for ninety minutes.”
“That sounds weirdly precise.”
“Vi told me you would return to the commune in two hours, so I asked
Badb to wake you at a certain time by matching the number I wrote on a
pad of paper to the stopwatch app I left running on my phone.”
“Smart.” I grinned. “You and her.”
“Thank you,” he said dryly, his gaze lifting to spot her in the night sky.
 Now that I was running on all cylinders again, I had to check on how
well Tameka had done her job convincing the older women to return what
they had stolen before more was taken from them.
“Let’s hope the Morgans are more forthcoming after Tameka offers
them a solution.”
“Frankie.” He still hadn’t looked at me. “This situation is spiraling
beyond our ability to contain it.”
“The thing about the modern age that old gods might not appreciate is
the transfer of information is instant. Proof is a snapshot and text message
away. Evidence is a video on your phone you email a colleague. It’s not like
the olden days when you could smite a whole village and be done with it.
There are digital trails, ones a technomancer can’t fully erase. There are
eyewitnesses to the scene and the crimes. How is a god like Dis Pater—
who’s always typing away on his laptop—not aware of this?”
“There are lines the gods honor and lines the gods cross. Their logic is
unfathomable.”
“You’re saying they do what they want and justify it any way they want,
and no one can fight back.”
“Yes,” he said softly. “Some are too weary to even try.”
“Good thing you’re not one of them.” I wouldn’t let him be. “We have a
deal. We’re going to handle this. I’m not one hundred percent sure how yet,
but one problem at a time. First we have to find out if the Morgans want to
do this the easy way or the hard way.”
The grit in my tone, or maybe his inclusion in my plans, brought his
attention swinging to me and affixed it onto my face. “I admire the fight in
you.”
A flush threatened me, but I did my best to play it cool when he looked
at me in something like awe.
“Yes, well, blame it on having siblings. You can’t spend your whole life
knocking heads together at home, hoping it smacks some sense into them,
but not apply it to the outside world as well.”
That wasn’t entirely true, but standing between Matty and Josie—my
two extremists—had made me an unwitting middle ground that refused to
be tread on. The habit of mediation did work small miracles in a customer
service industry like ours, but I hadn’t inflicted the talent on anyone else
without invitation.
 The good people of Commune Doom were about to count themselves
among the first.
“You remind me of…” his brow furrowed, “…I’m not quite sure.”
A smidgen of jealousy threatened to stain his earlier compliment, but
the persistent ring of my phone forced me to check the ID, which told me it
was Carter. “Hey.”
“We found our missing officers.”
“You didn’t say alive, so is it safe to assume they’re dead?”
“Kim was eaten by your creature, probably the same day she went
missing. Her remains were found in a tree, as if cached there. Tate died the
night before last, after emptying her service weapon. We found holes in tree
trunks from the bullets, but there were no signs of blood. Either she didn’t
hit the target or…”
“She hit the target, but it didn’t matter.” Anunit could be as substantial
or insubstantial as she chose. Her paw prints, or lack thereof, proved she
could materialize at will or slink about immaterial and invisible to the eyes
of anyone who lacked the ability to perceive the dead. “I’m sorry, Carter.”
Anunit likely gave precedence to victims caught in the act over those
already in the commune. Those were trapped like fish in an aquarium she
could scoop out as necessary to meet her quota.
“Me too,” she said gruffly. “We have to stop this thing before it takes
more lives.”
This thing. The angry words ruffled my feathers for no good reason.
Anunit was protecting her family. As a victim of a purging that cost Anunit
her entire species—pantheon?—I couldn’t blame her for what she had done
to keep them safe in death the way she must have felt she failed to do in
life. But more death wasn’t the answer. The scales of justice don’t balance
with the more atrocities you heaped on them.
“You mentioned an inside source.” She stirred me from my thoughts.
“How did that pan out?”
“That has yet to be determined. I should have an answer for you soon.
Just not yet.”
“You’re not in danger, are you?”
“Not exactly,” I hedged, aware she could leak details to my sister.
“Frankie,” she warned in her best redcap voice.
“Oh.” I faked brightness and enthusiasm. “I see a customer. Gotta go.
Byeee.”
 “There is no customer. The shop is closed.” Kierce appeared to consider
this. “You lied to Carter.”
Carter wouldn’t buy it for a minute. She knew our shop hours too well.
But it did get me off the call fast.
“I did.” I winced under his questioning gaze. “I need answers before I
drag her into this.”
The more she knew, the harder it would be for a witch to wipe her mind.
Assuming a witch could erase a fae’s memories. Carter was old. How old, I
didn’t know, but old. With age came certainty of your identity and an
expectation of behavior. Carter’s mind would rebel against any
inconsistencies, and a rebellious mind could cost Carter her life.
Appearing to catalog this reasoning, he tipped his head to one side.
“That’s acceptable?”
Afraid I had taught him a new trick—that lying was okay to protect
loved ones—I backpedaled. Fast.
“Between me and you? No. A relationship can’t survive lies, even when
they’re meant well.”
The tightness in his expression smoothed before it finished gathering. “I
agree.”
“Good.” I rubbed my face, tired all of a sudden. “Maybe I shouldn’t
have suggested a walk.”
“You’re exhausted.” He pulled my hands away. “You’re spending too
much time outside your body.”
Part of me wondered if that was why I shone brighter—I was loosening
my soul’s tether to its shell.
Not the best mental picture to hold in my head when I had more trips to
make before I was done.
“I hope I have a solution for that.” I quirked my lips. “We need to learn
the Morgans’ ruling first.”
Uncertainty warred across his features. “What happens after that?”
“Tameka buys her daughter’s forgiveness by digging up the bones from
inside the commune.”
Not gonna lie. I felt dirty phrasing it that way. I felt worse realizing that
was how it had to be.
More than the hurt her daughter stealing a loaner would do to my
reputation, lives were on the line here. I couldn’t turn away from the
women and children inside the ward with no way out. I had to act, even if it
grated on me how I achieved the action.
“The person who set the ward will sense when it begins to falter.”
That was the problem rolling around in my head too. “Could Tameka
make a gap to weaken it?”
There would be a reckoning long before she dismantled the entire
barrier. I had known that. But she had the best chance out of anyone. There
must be a way to use her to our best advantage. The biggest one, I had to
admit, was even more mercenary.
Tameka was dead. She couldn’t be killed again. The Morgans couldn’t
harm her, and neither could Anunit.
That not-quite-invincibility, paired with her desperation to save her
daughter, made her motivated too.
“If she starts on the farthest edge of the commune, she might have time
to dig up two or three bones.” He considered this with a frown. “The person
maintaining the ward will pinpoint the issue in minutes, but enough
distance would buy her time before they caught up to her.”
“I didn’t notice motorized vehicles on the inside,” I murmured. “They
would have to track her on foot.”
That would give her a head start if she moved fast enough.
“Holding the bones will make her a target in more ways than one.”
“Anunit will notice her too, especially if she carries them on her
person.”
Scenarios poured through my head, visions of how it could all go
wrong, including what I would tell Camaro’s family if I returned her to
them in pieces. The other family business was falling apart and falling to
the wayside as this divine drama disrupted our lives.
From the time my powers manifested, and I learned who the Society
was—and what they did to people like me—I had lived on the fringes. I had
kept my head down and been careful to only offer services they deemed
beneath them or were incapable of providing. That was my comfort zone.
Not this.
To blackmail and coerce good people in bad circumstances wasn’t me.
But I was doing it anyway.
“You don’t want to force her.” Kierce dipped his chin. “I wish there was
a better way.”
“Me too.”
Ready or not, it was time to return to Commune Doom.
T he entire commune was in an uproar, so finding Tameka was easy.
She was the one with her hands tied behind her back with rope
while Patty quizzed her on what evils she had welcomed inside the
ward. I had to admit, it was clever. Blaming her for the deaths of her fellow
refugees. Short-sighted, though. As an excuse, it would only buy them
twenty-four hours before the others learned the truth.
Unless the Morgans found the victims’ bodies and hid them first.
“You did this to us.” Patricia cast her voice for all to hear. “You brought
death within our midst.”
Rosalie, I noticed, elected not to be present. That, or Patty purposely
excluded her.
“We only just got here.” Keshawn stood on the fringe with her hands in
fists. “What about the ones who died before we arrived? If you had been
honest about the threat, if you had sent word through the club, I never
would have come.” Her chest heaved. “I brought my momma here. Why is
she being punished?”
“Keshawn…” she gentled her voice, “…you’ve helped women all over
the country to relocate during your tours. Tours of duty, we call them.” She
softened her features. “You more than earned your place here. So many of
the women and children present owe their lives to you.”
“I couldn’t have done it without Mom,” Keshawn protested. “She’s the
reason I got to travel—”
 “She might have been a rising star on the monster truck circuit, but you
are so much more.”
Might have been.
Not might be.
The reasons for the torches and pitchforks became evident, and I could
have kicked myself. Or Keshawn. The Morgans had believed Tameka was
alive. The truth must have come out when she went to them to ask for
permission to remove the bones to their rightful place. Now that she had
given them a doorway, the Morgans would be fools not to walk through it if
they had no intention of honoring the request.
“The Morgans are gonna run.” Vi sounded as tired as I felt. “Bet the
other one is packing their bags.”
How did they expect to cross the ward? Had they stayed because they
could leave at any time? Or had the same person who goaded them into
using the bones offered to protect them as part of the bargain?
“We need to defuse this situation more than we need to check escape
routes.”
“How do you figure we’re going to do that? Your loaner is the only one
who can see us.”
“There is that.” I tunneled my fingers through my hair. “Think, think,
think.”
An insane idea sprang to mind that would either fix the problem or
create a host of new ones.
“Anunit.” I spread my hands. “We summon her.”
“We’re trying to save these people from her.” Vi had earned her right to
sound skeptical of my plan. “Not ring a dinner bell for her.”
“Whether they know it or not, they’ve paid their tithe for today.”
“If you’re sure.”
With an exhale, I willed myself to believe it. “They’re safe from her.”
For now.
“Then let’s do this.” Vi took my hand, and I took hers. “I’ll sing
harmony.”
Without candles or lighters or herbs or crystals, I was winging it. I had
this knot in my gut, an odd tangle of confidence that I could do this without
those props. I was more now than I had been. I had more magic. I could do
this. All I had to do was partake in the lifeblood of the gods.
Faith.
 Matty, Josie, Vi, Kierce.
They believed in me. Not in a worshipful way—that would be weird—
but with a no less profound certainty. And that was before I ascended. Then
I was just me.
Searching deep within myself, I identified that shimmer of power in my
core and dipped a hand in, allowing the magic to sluice over my skin and
drip from my fingertips. I launched into the sweet chorus of a French
lullaby Vi had taught me. I suffused it with my will, pictured Anunit in my
mind, and sang.
The gathering continued to churn with unrest, the women fearful and
uncertain, but I narrowed my focus to Anunit. I prayed she would come, or
as near to it as I was able, that she would help us and not decide she felt
snackish.
Keshawn screamed, her voice splitting the night in two like kindling
after the fall of an ax. Anunit. Her presence weighted my shoulders, lending
her mass even as the others couldn’t see her. Vi sucked in a breath and made
the sign of the cross.
“Anunit.” I risked it all on my interpretation of her emotional
investment in this. “Please, help her.”
“You ask me to reveal myself in front of them.” Her rasping voice
slipped through my head with the roughness of a fox tongue. “There is a
reason I am an ambush hunter.”
“You can be harmed in your corporeal form, the same as me.” I
stiffened my spine. “They’ll scatter if you drop in on their party.” I stepped
closer. “All I’m asking for is a distraction.”
“What is this tethered soul worth to you?” Anunit eyed my client. “Her
daughter’s life?”
“What’s it worth to you for all your bones to be put safe where they
belong?” I jabbed a thumb into my chest. “I can do that.”
Until I said it, really thought about how she was both incorporeal and
corporeal, I hadn’t grasped a basic truth. She could have broken the ward,
retrieved the bones, and returned them herself. She must be able to sense
them. So why hadn’t she?
The binding.
Curse more like it.
“You can’t touch them. You’re as trapped as they are, aren’t you?”
“Magic requires sacrifice. Great magic requires greater sacrifice.”
 “To protect the ones you love, you agreed to be this…guardian…but you
can’t save yourself.” I thought back on old legends, myths, the bread-and-
butter of my childhood. “Someone has to choose to save you. Someone
affected by the curse has to be the one to lift it.” I stared at my hands, which
had dug bones as surely as the other women. “I qualify.”
“I pardoned you.” She sniffed, but her ears canted forward, alert. “You
have nothing to fear from me.”
“Or do I?” I recalled Kierce’s fear and used his logic for my argument.
“Did you pardon me for good or only in the moment?”
A gleam lit her eyes, but it was doused almost as fast. “I do not always
select my victims. I do not always have the facilities to do so of my own
accord. During such times, instinct takes over.”
The warning was clear. I would be stripping off my protection. I would
be as vulnerable as the others.
But not quite. I was a demigoddess. There had to be perks to that.
Right?
“Your friend needs to decide.” Vi shifted her weight. “They’re about to
hamstring her mother.”
Hoping against hope this wasn’t a colossal mistake, I demanded of
Anunit, “Do you accept my bargain?”
“Yes,” she hissed into my mind.
Power radiated down her spine, and she stepped from the spirit plane to
the earthen one, taking form before the crowd.
Screams assailed us in an instant. The women scattered like ants after
someone stomped on their hill. Their warnings rang out, alerting others to
the danger. More than half of them, by my estimation, had stayed behind
with their children.
The ensuing chaos accomplished the immediate goal of sparing Tameka,
but I had lost sight of Anunit.
Vi and I rushed to Tameka, but it wasn’t like we could untie her.
“Mom.”
Fear brightened Tameka’s gaze as Keshawn fought against the surge of
bodies to reach her.
“Hide,” Tameka pleaded with Keshawn. “You can’t stay out here in the
open.”
“I’m not leaving without you.” Keshawn stepped up behind her mother,
using a knife from her pocket to cut her free. “You can forget that.” She
embraced the loaner with hot tears rolling down her cheeks. “It’s my fault
we’re in this mess. I’m so sorry. I was selfish, and now…” Her bottom lip
trembled. “I’m scared.”
“It’s going to be okay.” Tameka broke the embrace and hauled her
daughter away. “I know what to do.”
“Let me help.” Keshawn clung to her mother’s hand like a small child.
“Please.”
Vi and I were right behind them, and I had to admit, “Two sets of hands
are better than one.”
A warning and a plea filled Tameka’s voice. “Frankie…”
“Frankie?” Keshawn dug in her heels. “She’s here?” She glanced
around. “Can she help us?”
Had I not been on the receiving end of similar dressing-downs as the
one Keshawn gave me the day she kidnapped her mother from The Body
Shop parking lot, I might have indulged the speck of pettiness left in me
that encouraged me to throw her words back at her. I could remind her I
was a charlatan, a fake, a scam artist who preyed on the grieving.
But I had been intimate with death for so long, I didn’t have it in me to
blame those experiencing their first great loss for the things they said or did.
Within reason. My only gripe with Keshawn was that she had stolen
Camaro when she took her mother.
“Only in spirit.” Tameka dragged her daughter back into motion. “She
came to tell me how to get us out of here.” Her sense of direction was better
than mine. No doubt the result of searching for ways out. She aimed straight
for the location where I found the first bone. “We have to dig up the anchors
the Morgans used to create the ward.”
“You want to collapse the ward?” Her mouth fell open. “If we do that,
the commune…”
“This place was a good idea, but it was made the wrong way. Until the
bones have been returned to the graves the Morgans stole them from,
people will keep dying.” Tameka dropped to her knees, using her daughter’s
knife to dig. “This is no utopia. It’s a slaughterhouse.”
Keshawn stood frozen behind her mother when she should have been
falling to her knees to atone. That was a problem for someone who could
speak to her, and that someone wasn’t me. Instead of pressuring Tameka, I
turned my attention toward locating the next bone.
“Dad beat you.”
 Now it was Tameka frozen in place, but she thawed just as quickly.
“Who told you that?”
“Grams.” Keshawn shook off her daze. “She warned me about men
when I was old enough. She always thought it was her fault you stayed with
Dad, because she stayed with Grandpa.” She lowered herself next to her
mother. “Even after she had you, she couldn’t escape him. They got married
out of high school. She didn’t have an education, a job, or money. She
couldn’t support you on her own. Then you showed up on her doorstep
bruised with a baby in tow, and she promised herself it wouldn’t happen
again. That the cycle would be broken with me. The beatings, the threats,
the psychological abuse.”
“She had no right to lay that on you.” Tameka dug harder and faster.
“Our choices weren’t your fault.”
“They weren’t yours either.” Keshawn found a stick and got to work.
“You had no good ones.”
“I could have left sooner. I should have left sooner. I saw what Daddy
did to Momma.”
“And you internalized it. Part of you grew up believing that was just
how it is. It was like that for so many of the people you grew up with. Same
for Grams. You both normalized it. You lived it every day. How could you
not?”
“I’m starting to regret paying for those psych classes,” Tameka
mumbled. “Don’t analyze your mother.”
“It’s rude,” they said together, as if this conversation was familiar then
faced each other and smiled for a precious few seconds before returning to
the task.
A shadow had fallen across Vi’s features as she listened to the mother
and daughter go back and forth.
She was no stranger to domestic abuse, having set broken arms for her
neighbors and wept tears of rage with her friends. I had witnessed both
during my time in New Orleans under her roof. Yet she had never, to my
knowledge, abused her power to exact revenge on behalf of those who had
been hurt.
She did use some of her money, which was its own kind of power, to get
the ones who wanted lawyers the best representation she could afford. More
often than not, it was in vain. The victims returned to the abusers who
refused to let them go.
 That was the cycle Keshawn’s grandmother wanted broken. That was
the fire she had lit in this girl’s soul. That was the generational power of
women lifting up women, and it was beautiful.
“I see your thoughts all over your face, cher.”
“I’ll pay for her to relocate to the Quarter, if she’ll go.” I kept my voice
down to avoid distracting Tameka with problems for another day. “What do
you think?”
“The girl doesn’t have the gift. That much is clear.” Vi pursed her lips.
“Just because she can’t apprentice doesn’t mean we can’t put her to work.
We can find ways to help her help others that won’t end in tears and blood.
If she wants it. I ain’t making nobody do nothing. That’s the quickest way to
get nowhere fast. I don’t want more trouble than I’ve got on my doorstep.”
She pinched the back of my arm, and I yelped. “And don’t go thinking I
mean you.”
“I found it.” Keshawn held up a bone the length of her palm. “What do I
do with it?”
“You give it here.” Tameka crammed it in her pants pocket. “Where
next?”
The question had been addressed to me, and I had my answer ready.
“Twelve feet to your right.”
The women hustled to the spot, Tameka directing her daughter as I, in
turn, gave her instruction.
Once I had them settled into their tasks, I took a chance on contacting
Anunit from a short distance.
“You’ve spent more time among these women than anyone else. Do you
know who told them about the burial ground? The Morgans couldn’t have
just stumble across it. They must have planned for it.”
“I woke when the first bone left the safety of its resting place. I do not
know what came before. There is a darkness in this place that is not of me
or of my doing. The Morgans go there each night, behind a ward I cannot
penetrate. They return in the morning full of purpose and magic, their
breath heavy with apples they refuse to share with the others.”
Fresh screams rose behind us, from the direction of the bonfire, and
Anunit fell silent in my head.
“We need to hurry along.” Vi rubbed her hands. “I’ll stay with
Keshawn. You take Tameka down one.”
“All right.” I angled myself in Tameka’s line of sight. “Come with me.”
 A brief hesitation tensed her shoulders, but the panicked cries must have
convinced her to listen.
“This one feels bigger than the others.” I paced as she dug, wishing for
substance. “Be careful with it.”
“Got it,” Keshawn hollered behind us, tugging a thighbone from the
dirt.
“Go on down.” Vi walked with Keshawn to Tameka, her hands shooting
out a few times to help the girl with her burden before cursing her own
limitations. “We’ll finish here. You get Tameka started on the next one. We
only need maybe two more.”
I couldn’t fault her logic, not when Keshawn couldn’t hear or see us to
take our cues. It was better for us if I directed Tameka where to begin then
we let Keshawn come behind us. As yelling and weeping grew, I found
myself fisting my hair and tugging with frustration. I couldn’t do anything
but course correct when Tameka got too far to one side or the other.
God, I was unraveling as Anunit roared and chased the others, who
must be scared out of their wits.
A warm, steady pressure in my hand sent my fingers curling into my
palm. “Almost time.”
“Five minutes.” Vi leaned over Keshawn’s shoulder. “She’s got the last
one.”
Rocking back on her heels, Tameka wiped the sweat from her brow.
“Where do we hide them, Frankie?”
“Somewhere remote.” We couldn’t risk someone else finding them.
“Keep watch over them.”
Gathering the bones, Tameka watched her daughter unearth her last one.
“When will you be back?”
“An hour.” I balled my fists, hating I had no better answer. “I’ll send
people sooner, if I can.”
Astral travel was quicker, but we needed all hands on deck. That meant
I had to come in person. With as much backup as I could beg, borrow, or
steal.
“An hour.” Tameka drew herself up taller. “We can make it that long.”
Determination hardened Keshawn’s jaw as she did her best to meet my
stare where she figured my eyes would be. “Thank you for this, Frankie.”
About to tell her she had more than earned her way into my good
graces, I spied a pair of yellow slits glowing in the darkness.
 Gone was the intelligent spark in Anunit’s eyes. Wildness stared back at
me, her lip quivering over her teeth.
“No.” I made it an order. “Anunit.” I slid through Keshawn to stand in
front of her. “Stop.”
A growl revved up her throat, and she leapt as the whirlpool in my
stomach twisted me out of time.
“B ijou,” a sultry voice murmured next to my ear. “Eternity looks
good on you.”
A shudder tickled my spine as he circled me. “Fuck off,
Ankou.”
“Aww. Come on. You’re not still mad, are you?”
“You wanted me dead. I’m dead. Move on with your afterlife.”
“Nah. Things are about to get interesting. I think I’ll stick around a
while longer.”
Dread swam laps through my stomach. “I’ll tell Kierce—”
“Kierce isn’t the good guy here. Just like I’m not the bad guy. I simply
am.”
“An asshole.”
His chuckles lifted the fine hairs down my nape as his presence swirled
away like water down a drain.
Long fingers raked through the tangles matting my hair. A dull snag
jarred me awake the rest of the way.
The being who stared down at me with universes in his eyes and
crushed-diamond skin was so beautiful. I ached to behold him. The silky
tips of his hair framed his face, accentuating his sharp cheekbones and a
jaw poised to break from gritting his teeth. His silken lips stretched thin,
and he radiated an aura of menace that highlighted the dark radiance from
his halo. He was glittering and dark and wonderful.
 “And he’s mine.”
“I don’t think that last part was meant for public consumption,” a
familiar voice teased from behind him.
“Aretha?” I jolted at her presence, twisting to see her better. “How’ve
you been?”
Ouch. That hurt. Moving was a bad idea. Every breath caused my chest
to twinge.
The faint slur left Kierce primed to jump in, the flex of his muscles as
he held himself back a dead giveaway. How had I ever wanted him
dimmed? He was so beautiful in his own skin.
“I can’t complain.” She bent over me with a penlight in her hand,
prompting me to track it with my eyes. “Business is good.” She appeared
satisfied with my reflexes and gripped my wrist between her fingers to
check my pulse. “He Who Shall Not Be Named has fully recovered thanks
to yours truly. He’s still tender, but he’s not in any danger of springing fresh
leaks when he gets out of bed to pee.”
Aware she wouldn’t have shared without his consent, that she was
sharing this likely by request, I prompted her. “You’re telling me this why?”
“He wanted to know if you had asked about him.” She peeled the sheet
down to my waist. “It’s all pathetic. Very pathetic. Like a kicked-puppy
pathetic.” Her fingers ghosted over my chest, and she shook her head. “But.
He did you wrong. He did your family wrong. He did a wrong in every
meaning of the word. I respect your right to your feelings. I’m not pushing
you to reconcile. I’m just passing along information he wanted you to have
in case you care whether he lives or dies. That’s it.”
“You heaped a lot of guilt into that update.”
“Yes, well, I got to thinking after our talk. About how I never dated him.
I had a boyfriend then, and Samuel was emotionally unavailable, but that’s
not the point. The point is I think I might want to.” She began sterilizing her
instruments to pack them away. “We spent so much time together while I
was treating Lyle, and he was still flashing this No Vacancy sign in the
relationship department, but now you’re with Kierce. And Harrow has
burned every romantic bridge you guys ever built between you. I can still
smell the kerosene.” She gathered her trash. “So?”
“You get that you don’t have to ask my permission.” I blinked at her.
“He’s not my…anything…anymore.”
“But he was your something once, so I wanted to make sure.”
 “He’s a big DIY project,” I warned her. “You’re sure you want to take
on that much work?”
“I like ’em hot, broken, and pining for someone else.” She spread her
hands. “It’s a curse.”
“Well,” I said, tempted to laugh at her eagerness, “now I know why you
went into the medical field.”
“So, about that blessing. I have it?”
“You don’t need it but ohmyfuckingGod.” I jerked upright, heart in my
throat. “How could I forget?”
“Um.” Aretha frowned at my mad scramble to sit upright in bed. “That
would be the painkillers.”
“Painkillers,” I groaned, hating how they allowed memories to seep
through the cracks of my subconscious.
“I loaded you up when you wouldn’t stop screaming.” Aretha rattled off
her update. “I couldn’t find the source of your injury. I was about to call an
ambulance to take you to the hospital—”
“No hospitals.”
“—but Kierce said it might cause more harm than good.” She put a
hand on my shoulder to hold me still. “We stuck your arm in a sock full of
dirt, which, okay. Weird. But it did help.”
“Weird sums up my life lately.”
“Since there’s nothing else I can do for you,” Aretha said, checking her
smartwatch, “I’ll see myself out. I’m running late for a consultation.”
With a quick wink for me, she gathered her things then exited the
apartment.
“Vi has forbidden you from astral travel for the next forty-eight hours
minimum.” Kierce, who had yet to unclench his jaw, tossed his lot in with
hers. “I agree with her, that you require time to recover.”
“That’s fine.” I finger-combed my hair out of my face. “I need my body
for what comes next.”
Concern tightened his lips into a thin line. “What’s that?”
“Keshawn and Tameka cleared us a path. The two of them are trapped
behind the ward, sitting on a pile of bones I asked them to protect. I can’t
leave them there.” Breaking from him, I rolled off the opposite side of the
bed onto my feet. “I need a boost to finish healing myself and then I’m
heading to the commune.”
A heartbeat behind me, Kierce growled, “Frankie—”
 “The last thing I saw was Anunit lunging for Keshawn. I stepped in
front of her. I have to know if…”
Had I cost Keshawn her life by sticking to my guns? Had the very bones
I asked her to find killed her?
“I called Vi and explained the situation,” Kierce cut in. “She retraced
your astral trail back to the commune and checked on Keshawn. Anunit
wasn’t aiming for her. The Morgan sisters had sensed the disturbance in the
ward and stepped out to confront the Ezells. That was who Anunit meant to
attack before you got in the way. Anunit wasted no time correcting her
error. Rosalie Morgan is dead.”
Today’s tithe had been paid, which meant Anunit had chosen to kill her.
Either to protect us, and our plans, from detection or to punish one of the
two women responsible for disturbing her slumber.
“Okay.” I puffed out my cheeks. “That doesn’t change the fact I have to
go back for the Ezells.”
“How did I know you would say that?” Kierce scooped me into his
arms. “Come on.”
“I’ll text Carter.” I linked my arms behind his neck. “We’ll need her
witches to tear down the ward now that there’s a weak spot.” Outside, I
marveled to find the landing empty. “Where are Matty and Josie?”
“Matty’s on a date, and Josie’s doing laundry at Carter’s.”
“And…what?” Shock zinged down my spine. “You didn’t tell them?”
“You had no visible wounds, and you woke as soon as your soul
returned to your body. You were lucid, but you fell asleep within minutes,
so I elected to let you rest.” Kierce hit the ground with long strides that
carried us to the repaired golf cart. “I called Aretha as a precaution, but
there was no reason to panic Matty and Josie.”
Call me crazy, but it almost—almost—sounded like Carter and I were in
good company when it came to fearing how my sister reacted to bad news.
“I can drive to the cemetery.” I regretted not bringing my purse with my
keys. “We’ll get there faster.”
“No.” He placed me gently on the bench seat then slid behind the wheel.
“I’ll drive.”
As Kierce sped out of the parking lot, as much as one could be said to
speed in the battered old thing, I was overcome with a warm, fizzing
sensation in my middle. “You’re bossy now, huh?”
 “Anunit couldn’t harm your physical body. That’s why Aretha couldn’t
treat you.” He clamped down on his words then he gathered himself to try
again. “Anunit rent your soul.”
“Oh,” I exhaled on a whisper as the implications sank in.
“No one has survived an attack. We assumed she became tangible, made
her kill, then returned to her intangible state. Anunit shouldn’t have been
able to touch you, let alone harm you.”
“I cast my soul inside the ward,” I reminded him gently. “She’s a soul
too.”
“She has a connection with you,” he countered. “I don’t like it.”
“That part is as much a mystery to me as it is to you.”
Attention fixed on the road, he made a gesture off to his side that
puzzled me until Badb landed on me. I would have grumbled at her choice
of turning my head into a perch, but she was disgruntled from what I
assumed was Kierce hushing her while he focused on the task before him.
With quiet descending around us, I did as I should have already done
and texted Carter.
>Can you meet us at the commune?
>With your best witches?
>>Give me thirty to round them up, and we’ll head that way.
The next five minutes of texting solidified our plan of action. Plan A,
anyway. Kierce and I were Plan B.
As soon as he and I figured out a Plan B. Or was I on to Plan C now?
Like the days, the letters blurred.
Practice had done Kierce good as he pulled into a parking spot beside
the restrooms without a problem.
“I’m impressed.” I meant to lean over and kiss his cheek, but a hiss
parted my lips. “Owwie.”
“Wait there.” He circled the cart and lifted me into his arms. “I’m sorry
in advance.”
Looping my arms behind his neck, I smothered my wince. “For...?”
With me tucked against his chest, he approached the fence. Muscles
coiling, he exhaled softly then leapt the gate. He landed hard, jarring my
teeth and igniting a twinge in my chest, but we made it in one piece. As
soon as he checked me over, he set me down, allowing me to choose my
own recharging point.
 Between the two, Bonaventure Landing had more space, so we stepped
over the rope onto the grass. Sweat dampened my palms, reminding me I
broke rules in Bonaventure often, but I did it after everyone had left for the
day.
“Hey.” I rubbed my fingers together. “That reminds me. The sock dirt?
It came from Bonaventure?”
“From Elmo.” A faint smile played across his lips. “He was closer.”
“And it worked?”
“In a pinch,” he said, after a brief deliberation. “Straight from the source
is best.”
“Huh.” I considered how that might work, Elmo being a god tree and
all. “Good to know.”
With Elmo a finite resource, I would avoid using him to replenish
myself except in emergencies.
“I’ll stand watch.” Kierce remained just this side of the rope fence.
“You can do this.”
With his endorsement ringing in my ears, I located a promising patch of
bare earth, for fear I would harm any nearby vegetation, and sat with my
legs folded under me. I rested my palms on the dirt, letting the grit anchor
me.
Nervous energy spurred me into the hymn Kierce had taught me, and he
joined in after the chorus, helping slow me down. Energies had tickled my
fingertips on contact, but they stung as our voices drew magic up into me.
The faint burn settled into a comfortable warmth as it spread through me,
healing me, and my heart kicked up a notch as the surge of strength hit my
bloodstream like adrenaline.
This was nothing like cleansing the polluted area around Ankou’s tree.
This was different from the first time I fed on Bonaventure soil too. This far
in, nestled among the graves, felt like a hot cup of cocoa on a cold night or
a fuzzy blanket in winter. This was a roaring fire while it sleeted outside.
This felt right.
That intangible quality that had been tender dulled to a twinge and then
to blessed nothingness.
Juiced and ready to go, I led Kierce to the nearest exit and climbed over
the gate while he hovered behind me with his arms outstretched in case a
fresh pang caused me to slip.
 We reached the golf cart, and Kierce insisted on helping me in before
driving us back to the shop.
“Where did Badb go?” I searched the skies. “She ditched us at the side
gate.”
“She’s pouting.” He kept his eyes forward. “She claims a shipment of
crickets arrived at the Dinkel’s.”
“For fishing?” I didn’t know them but recognized the name from
running past their mailbox. “Or…?”
“They breed small reptiles.” He flexed his fingers. “They caught her
carrying off their box and fired table salt at her from a pest control gun.” He
exhaled through his nose. “They’ll never know peace now.”
“Harsh.” I clucked my tongue, absolutely not considering the merits of a
pest control gun that worked on thieving crows. “They should have let her
have the crickets. It would have been cheaper in the long run.”
As Mittens and his owners had discovered since Badb moved in.
After Kierce parked his ride near the garage, we switched out vehicles. I
didn’t even have to jog up the stairs to retrieve my purse or keys. He did it
for me.
There were definite perks to having a boyfriend.
Especially one whose backside looked that good while running errands.
T o gently send the message I was driving, I posted up outside the
driver side door on the wagon with my hand out for the keys. He
dropped them in my palm with a faint smile that told me I wasn’t
fooling him. I got in, heart thumping for the task ahead, and waited until
Kierce settled next to me before speeding off to meet Carter.
He didn’t say anything but kept eyeing the speedometer with obvious
concern.
“I have a bit of a lead foot.” I slowed down to the legal limit. “Pascal
always says that everyone goes five over and the police give you ten.” I
recalled my position as his driving instructor. “But we must obey the law.
Signs are posted for a reason. Do as I say, not as I do.”
When we arrived at the commune, spotlights had been switched on,
illuminating the area. Five white vans idled off the shoulder of the road,
their headlights adding another splash of light in the darkness. Officers with
firearms in hand had been posted in the grass next to the vehicles’ open
doors, ready to secure anyone we managed to free. We passed more of the
evac teams on our way to the command post where we found Carter
speaking with two men and a woman.
After she caught my eye, I stepped up beside her, drawing everyone’s
attention.
Kierce, however, remained outside, his gaze turned up to the sky. No
doubt searching for Badb.
 “This is Frankie.” Carter gestured toward me. “She can answer your
questions.”
Questions rained down after I warned them Anunit was on the prowl
and cautioned them against handling any bones they found inside the ward.
I leaned into the cursed object angle to avoid giving them intel on god
bones and their potential uses while there was an exposed pit of them
nearby.
The witches had already devised a plan for disabling the ward and
wasted no time adapting the strategy to account for Anunit as they gathered
their things and trekked out into the woods. On their heels, Carter and I
emerged to discover a patch of runny white gunk streaking the back of
Kierce’s shirt.
“Your bird did that?” Carter wrinkled her nose. “What did you do to
make her mad?”
“Ignored her earlier.” He shrugged out of his beloved shirt, leaving him
in a white tee. “She was sharing a story about how the neighbors wronged
her, but I was driving. I told her I had to focus and to tell me later.”
“She’s like that. Petty. Strikes when you least expect it.”
“Leave the shirt.” Carter pointed to a chair that she must have been
using, based on its orange spots. “This is a stealth mission. Not a luau.”
With reluctance, he parted with his beloved Hawaiian, and we went to
join the witches.
“Can you narrow it down for us?” The shorter guy greeted me with a
toothpaste commercial smile. “This is denser than we expected. To make
the most of what we can do, we need to refine our attack as much as
possible.”
“No problem.” I located the area I had marked for Carter and let myself
probe for weaknesses along the barrier. “The disruption begins here.” I
found a stick and stuck it in the dirt as a marker then homed in as the
energies fluctuated next to me. “It ends there.” I marked it too. “This is the
entirety of it.”
“Thanks.” He posted up beside me. “This will make things easier.”
“Unless it doesn’t,” grumbled the taller of the pair. “This ward is thicker
than any I’ve ever seen.”
That happened when you used god bones. Lots and lots of them. It was
overkill, really.
 Had the Morgans possessed an ounce of divine blood, we couldn’t have
broken through. The only hope we had now was that their inability to kindle
the bones’ full potential meant we had a chance.
“I agree.” One of the women took position behind the first stick. “This
is insane.”
“Insanely cool,” another of the women enthused. “A cursed item really
did this?”
“Those details are classified,” Carter said in a sharp tone. “The anchors
aren’t present, so they don’t matter.”
“Oh, they matter.” Smiley Guy grinned at her. “But we’ll save that for if
this doesn’t work.”
A pulse of dread hit me in the chest. “Do you think you can do it?”
“I guess we’re about to find out.” He chuckled. “Step back, sweetheart.”
“Yeah,” the first woman scoffed at his high-handedness. “We wouldn’t
want you to get hurt.”
“We womenfolk are so delicate,” the second woman chimed in. “A stiff
breeze could shatter us.”
“Focus on the job,” the second guy barked, “not the idiot.”
As the witches fell in line, joining hands to begin their work, Kierce
stepped up beside me.
“He called you sweetheart.” His expression shaded toward
consideration. “I don’t like him.”
“I don’t like him either.” I lifted a shoulder and dropped it. “But we
need him.”
A rumble left his chest, coating his next words in lethal potential. “Do
we?”
That was when I noticed the guy was staring at me. Oh. Actually. Not
me. Kierce. And it appeared he liked what he saw. Not that I could blame
him. “Maybe not.”
The shift in my perspective caught Kierce off-guard until he registered
the reason for it.
Once certain the witch wasn’t eyeballing me, Kierce resumed watching
the ward, waiting for it to break.
“You’re hot and bothered if he’s looking at me, but he can look all he
likes at you?”
“I don’t care if he looks at me.” A curious light had entered his eyes.
“Do you?”
 Before I could turn his earlier jealousy around on him, a wave of sharp
energy struck me. As I stumbled back, I sucked in a breath. Two of the
witches were unconscious. The other three stood dazed from the impact.
Around us, the trees had lost leaves and branches. Even entire limbs.
But the surge hadn’t felt that strong.
“Kierce?” I ran my gaze over him, checking for injuries, but he hadn’t
so much as rocked on his feet. “We have two witches down.” I pointed
toward the tent. “Find Carter. Tell her to send EMTs.”
Until Harrow reentered my life, setting off a chain reaction, I hadn’t
required more than practical wound care. As in pouring peroxide over
Josie’s skinned knee or wiping antibiotic ointment over Matty’s cut toe
before wrapping it in a superhero bandage. That sort of thing.
Post-Harrow, or maybe it was fairer to say post-Ankou, I had considered
taking a first-aid class. Or three.
That knowledge would have done me good right about now when I had
no clue what to do for either the witch with the laceration across her
forehead or the one with a visible break in his wrist. The best I could do
was sit with them, in case the attempt brought Anunit running, and pray I
could protect them if it did.
Five long minutes after the blowback, the crunch of boots on leaves
heralded the arrival of the medics.
Carter was among them, a minor cut on her cheek that sealed itself as I
watched her fae healing kick in.
She came straight for me, looked me over, then demanded, “What the
hell happened?”
“I showed them where to strike, and they did. There was some kind of
rebound.”
Leaning around me, she pleated her forehead. “Kierce, you okay over
there?”
Eyes widening at her concern, he blinked too late to conceal his
surprise. “Yes.”
“Okay.” She pointed at me. “Don’t move.”
Behind her back, Kierce’s brow gathered wrinkles like bees gather
pollen.
“Looks like you made a friend,” I teased him. “Feels good, huh?”
“Her care for me is out of concern for you.”
 “Maybe.” I couldn’t say for sure, since my friendship with her was new
too. “Maybe not.”
There was no salvaging the remaining witches, Carter told us after she
returned with an update.
“They’re alert, but they’re not all there.” She crunched on a cheddar
puff. “What next?”
“Kierce?” I sawed my teeth over my bottom lip. “Any ideas?”
“You and I can attempt to drain the ward in this section.” He held his
palm out to the magic, testing how it responded to him. “Working together,
we might create a hole large enough to fit through.” He pursed his lips.
“Without the witches’ help, if one of us isn’t holding it open, assuming it
works at all, then the other will be trapped inside with the rest.”
A loud caw announced Badb before I saw her. She landed on my
shoulder, back to Kierce, even though it meant putting her tail in my face.
Lord. What a drama corvid.
“We have to try. We can’t leave those people trapped in there.”
“I’ll take volunteers,” Carter decided. “If you two can get it open, and
hold it, they can begin an evacuation.” She locked stares with me. “Are my
people safe in there?”
“From the glimpses I’ve gotten, Anunit hasn’t taken more than the curse
demands from innocents, but I can’t make any promises. She did attack
Rosalie Morgan, but that might have been personal. Still. The thieves are
corralled for the time being. The curse can pick among them at its leisure. If
we can get through, if we change that, she may react with violence. There’s
no way to know.”
“Then I’ll ask for brave volunteers.” She dragged a hand down her face.
“And I’ll go in myself.”
“Josie isn’t going to be happy about that.” I restrained myself from
grabbing her arm. “Neither am I.”
“I can’t ask these officers to do what I’m not willing to.” Her lips
twisted with old bitterness. “This is a prime example of why relationships
don’t work for me. I can’t make promises. I won’t. Not if I can’t keep
them.” She shook her head. “I can’t prioritize your sister and also do this
job to the best of my ability.”
“Does that mean you want to prioritize her?” I hesitated. “Is that the
problem?”
 For a second, I thought she might confess…something…but she only
steeled her resolve.
“I’ll be back.” She pivoted on her heel. “Don’t budge.”
“She’s bossy today.” I checked to ensure the sticks I used to mark the
opening remained in place. “And it sounds like Josie’s plan to wear her
down is working like a charm.” I squinted at the ward, hoping to find proof
the witches had made progress, but I saw none. “Too bad Carter’s not happy
about it.”
Kierce made a thoughtful noise in the back of his throat, but his
attention was elsewhere.
Probably he was bargaining with Badb to get back in her good graces.
I wished him luck with that.
Since Kierce and I had been taken off the bench, I broke Carter’s order
and trudged back to the wagon. It had seemed pessimistic to bring my bag
into the woods with me and undermine the witches’ confidence, but there
was nothing for it. Kierce and I needed those supplies. Which meant I had
to fetch them.
When he fell in step with me, I wasn’t surprised but pleased to have a
man who felt like a partner. There was no hesitation in him. Where I went,
he followed. If I had a problem, he helped solve it. And that was…nice.
Really nice.
Kierce never made me feel like a damsel. He saw in me the potential to
slay my own (metaphorical because what kind of monster would kill actual)
dragons, and he sharpened a blade to press into my hand. Then he noticed I
had no clue what to do with it except wave the pointy end at threats and
taught me how to defend myself rather than shove me behind him while he
drew his own (again, metaphorical, because I wasn’t thinking about his
actual) sword.
(Not even a little bit.)
W e sidestepped Carter giving a rousing speech to her gathering of
officers, and they each scanned us as we walked past. I wasn’t
sure what she told them, but several of them stepped forward,
volunteering, as we gathered our supplies then returned to where Carter had
left us.
“If Vi saw me do this, she would spank me so hard I couldn’t sit for a
week.” I stuck bone-white candles in a perfect arc in the dirt. A circle,
which would have been better, was an impossibility. That left me a half
circle with the ward cutting down the middle. “This is risky, but I don’t see
another way.”
As I sprinkled amethyst and citrine chips between me and the energy
barrier, I started getting twitchy.
Examining my design, Kierce made his own calculations before
confirming the mechanism with me. “The energy will gather left to right,
running along the candles, gaining momentum to strike the ward?”
Clicking my lighter open and shut, I faked bravado. “Like falling
dominos.”
This was a brand-new application of my magic. I wasn’t in the business
of smashing wards. I set them as a precaution, but that was it. I had no
offensive magic. Or I hadn’t before. Death might have changed that.
Brimming with energies harvested from Bonaventure, I was ready as I
would ever be to try something new.
 “You’re sure it won’t hit the ward, ricochet, and knock you
unconscious?”
“That’s what happened to the witches.” I utterly failed at sounding
certain. “But I’m a god?”
“A demigoddess, yes.” He dusted a leaf off my arm. “Which might
mean you only hit yourself harder.”
“There is that.” I sucked in my bottom lip then popped it out again.
“What do you think?”
“That I would rather do that for you.”
“Test the ward ram?”
“Taste your lip.”
A flush tingled across my nape, and I chuckled, shoving him back
gently.
“Well?” Carter’s voice rang out from behind us. “Are we ready for
round two?”
Kierce and I turned as one, and I offered her a smile. “Maybe?”
“Love the confidence.” She wiped orange stains across her pants.
“When do we start?”
The volunteers toddled after Carter like cautious ducklings trailing their
impatient mother.
“Now is good.” I stepped into the half circle, and Kierce joined me.
“Any last-minute suggestions?”
“Yeah,” Carter said, though I had meant Kierce. “Don’t die.”
After shooting her a thumbs-up, I faced the ward, leaning in close to
Kierce. “Ready?”
Indecision rippled across his features, but he wiped his expression clear.
“Ready.”
Humming softly, I crouched and began lighting the individual candles.
Magic swept along the wicks, igniting in the air around us, setting off
the expected chain reaction.
The true test would be when it reached the end, striking the ward. I
faced it head-on, watching as the energies I set loose rammed the barrier
with teeth-jarring power that sent me stumbling back.
“Hold,” Kierce barked, a general on a battlefield. “Look.”
A hole the size of my foot wobbled in the glimmering wall like a bubble
blown from a child’s toy.
 “Allow me.” Kierce shoved his fingers in, gripping each side of the
opening, straining to expand it. “It won’t budge.”
Wedging myself in beside him, I slid my hands between his palms and
into the hole. As I thrust my forearms wide, the gap expanded with a
whisper of pressure against the resistance of my skin.
“It’s working,” I panted, contorting myself around him. “We’re doing
it.”
“You’re doing it,” he corrected, withdrawing when his efforts made no
difference. “Can you hold it?”
“I think so?” I did my best to stretch an opening three feet around, and
the officers ducked through in a neat line. Carter brought up the rear,
hesitating to stuff a bag of cheddar puffs into my back pocket, and I turned
words she had used against me around on her. “If you die, my sister will
never forgive me.”
“Why do you think I’m leaving my last bag of cheddar puffs with you?”
She snorted. “Motivation.”
“I like that you’re more invested in returning to the sweet embrace of
carbs than my sister.”
Pride wouldn’t let her accept my offer to lower the gap to accommodate
her height. She took two steps back then leapt through it headfirst. She hit
and rolled in a purposeful tumble that ended with her in the iconic
superhero pose of one knee down and the opposite fist planted in the dirt.
Josie would have given her left kidney for a picture, but my hands were
otherwise occupied, and Carter stood too fast for Kierce to follow my
instructions on how to snap one for her.
Oh well.
Josie wouldn’t know it, but I would consider hoarding the memory as
payback for the time she lied about rubbing Kierce down with sunscreen.
Within minutes, the officers had crept into the darkness beyond the
trees, leaving Kierce and me alone.
“Let me know if you get tired.” Kierce rubbed hesitant circles across my
shoulders. “I’ll go through if you can’t hold it open.”
Cute how he thought I would let him square off against Anunit without
me.
“I’m good for now.” I leaned into his touch as much as I was able.
“Thanks for the massage.”
 As he grew more confident, his pressure increased, and he dug in where
my muscles had begun aching from maintaining my position. I debated
sitting, figuring I could guide the opening lower with me, since it was
flexible, but it felt risky for the folks coming out to have to crawl on hands
and knees to escape the commune. Especially if they were being chased.
“You’re welcome.” He cocked his head to one side. “Badb says she’s
got a bead on them.”
“Really?” She had been flying overhead for a while with nothing to
report. “That’s odd.”
The ward contained the air above the commune, which explained the
lack of cell service.
What had changed? Had the hole made that big of a difference? How
could she see through it now?
The same realization must have dawned on Kierce, because his eyes
gleamed silver and furious.
“She used Carter as a distraction and followed them.” He swallowed
hard. “She’s inside the ward.”
“Why would she do that?” I wobbled, and the circle shrank. “There’s no
reason for her to go too.”
“I knew she was angry with me but...”
“Badb is a tad on the petty side, but she wouldn’t spite you like this.”
Had Mr. Mittens been involved, sure. She would spite him all day, every
day. She basically already did. “Maybe she’s worried about Carter?”
“There’s something else.” His focus grew distant. “I’ll do my best to get
us answers.”
From my estimation, the officers had been inside for thirty minutes
before we detected motion.
It felt twice as long, since Kierce had been silent for half that time.
The rustle transformed into a black missile that shot through my arms,
smacking me in the chest. Impact surprised me so much, I almost released
my grip, but I got an earful soon enough. Badb was shrieking at us with
urgent wing flaps as she dropped a stick in my lap.
No.
Not a stick.
A bone.
“She says Anunit has rounded up the officers.” Kierce blinked his eyes
clear. “She won’t let them leave.”
 “What? Why? The terms of the curse are clear.” I gave up and sat to rest
my back. “The officers didn’t steal…” A groan slipped out of me. “Ask
Badb where she got this.”
After a brief pause, he told me, “From one of the officers.”
Nice to know everyone listened to my instructions. “Where did they get
it? Were there more?”
“They found a small collection of them. Two of the officers are witches
and wanted to use them to take a crack at the ward from the inside.” He
hesitated. “Carter was bringing up the rear. She got there too late. They had
passed the bone around by then.”
“Tameka and Keshawn were guarding several.” I gripped the brittle
clavicle. “For them not to stop the officers, something must have happened
between the time Vi left them and the officers reached them.”
With help hours away, and Rosalie Morgan killed in front of them, I
couldn’t blame Tameka if she had run to protect Keshawn. I would have
done the same for either of my siblings.
“Do you believe they left the cache behind to distract Anunit?”
Panic could have made that seem like a great idea. Anunit wanted her
bones back? Give them to her.
The problem being there was a price to be paid for stealing them in the
first place.
“Maybe.” I freed one arm to rest my trembling muscles, and the hole
narrowed to the circumference of my wrist where it stuck out the other side.
“Or maybe she chased them away.”
That close to her prize, but having claimed the elder’s life, Anunit might
have settled for protecting what Tameka had been guarding. But that didn’t
solve the problem of the trapped officers.
“Carter won’t leave her people behind,” he said what I was thinking.
“She’ll stay with them.”
“Which means—” I dumped out my bag on the ground with my free
hand, “—we have to go in after her.”
“I will go.” Kierce rose, and Badb glided onto his shoulder. “You must
remain here to hold the gate.”
“I can speak to Anunit. I’m more valuable inside than outside.”
“Where do we bring the survivors if there’s no way out?”
“No way out.” I got to my feet, careful to raise my arm slowly, bringing
the gate with me. “You’re brilliant.” I yanked him down by his shirt collar
and planted a smacking kiss on his cheek. “We’re going about this all
wrong. We’ve been trying to save the people from Anunit. What we need to
do is save the Alcheyvāhā from the people.”
“Shift our focus from evacuating the women to gathering the bones?”
“Gather them and put them back where they belong.” I spread my
hands. “Not only does that solve the Anunit problem, but we can cut the
legs out from under the ward from the inside if we collect them all, right?
Collapse the barrier, and we clear a path for the survivors out of the woods.
Carter and her team can handle it from there.”
“Anunit might not follow us.”
“We haven’t stopped her from collecting her tithe. Not even once. Her
ability to turn incorporeal means we can’t cage her. Her ability to turn
corporeal means she can kill at will. She’s already dead, so we can’t
mortally wound her.” Acid churned in my gut at the conclusion raking my
insides with certainty. “We have to keep Anunit off our backs while we fix
the Morgans’ mess. That’s the only way to end this.”
“All right.” Kierce slung my bag with the bone onto his shoulder. “We
both go.”
With him convinced, I only had to talk myself into believing I hadn’t
just condemned us both.
Careful not to lose my grip, I stretched the gate as wide as my arms
would go and held it while Kierce swung his leg over and ducked to enter.
Badb flew after him, leaving me to figure out how to get in. I ended up
hitting my knees, crawling through, and allowing the gate to seal behind
me, trapping us with everyone else.
“We’ve already cleared this area.” I reoriented to our surroundings.
“Let’s move to the next one.”
Pooling our talents, we scanned as we walked the perimeter, searching
out every single bone.
Then came the fun part of digging them up and stuffing them in my
bowler bag.
We were alone. No one spotted us. No voices carried to us.
Inside the ward was as vast and dark as a cave, and we already knew the
predator who lurked within it.
One of the talents I had inherited from my necromancer parent, or so us
Marys always thought, was excellent night vision. Handy for late-night
runs, it was critical on the nights I spent weeding graves in Bonaventure.
Without that ability, I would have been caught and probably banned from
the cemetery.
Since Lyle ran me down, Josie forced me to wear a headlamp, but it
wasn’t for the sake of my vision. It was part of her Stay Visible, Stay Safe
campaign to keep me from becoming a speed bump.
Kierce, I noticed the first night we met, had the same gift. He never
stumbled, wobbled, or teetered. He always knew where he was going and
where to put his feet. Even Badb, who ought to have had a crow’s limited
vision, was eagle-eyed in the dark. A benefit of the bond allowing him to
see what she saw?
“She sees something.”
His voice, after so long in the quiet, startled me. “Oh.”
Widening her circle, Badb cruised, silent and dark as the night, until I
couldn’t see her anymore.
To make up for Kierce’s distraction while he spoke to Badb, I dug twice
as hard to reach our goal.
“We’re close to where Anunit is holding Carter,” he said after a minute.
“She’s going to monitor them.”
Blinking clear of his connection to her, he noticed my hands, and a
frown carved his mouth.
“You’re bleeding.” He glanced up at me. “You shouldn’t be.”
The rocky soil made every inch of progress twice as difficult without
tools. The sharp stones must have nicked me.
“The energy from Bonaventure must have been spent healing me then
holding open the gate.” The cuts didn’t hurt. I hadn’t noticed the injuries.
Thanks, adrenaline. “We’ll patch me up later.”
Unhappy with that, but unable to offer a better solution, Kierce resumed
his duties next to me.
Slowly, we crept around the outermost edge, my bag growing heavy. We
passed close enough to Carter at one point, I swear I heard her voice. I
would have written it off as wishful thinking had Kierce not clamped his
hand over my wrist and shaken his head once.
Fear wasn’t a new experience for me. I had felt it plenty. For my
siblings. Friends? Not so much. Most of mine were dead, which meant they
were safe. Or they had been before Thunderbolt became a hotbed of divine
activity. But to know Carter was nearby, in danger, and I couldn’t go to her,
was a whole new and wholly unpleasant sensation.
 When Badb returned to perch on my shoulder, I knew we had left the
immediate danger behind us.
Except Kierce maintained his faraway look, as if his view was different
than mine.
“My duck,” a motherly voice issued from not-Badb. “You’ve a terrible
habit of courting danger.”
“W ho are you?” I tensed when Kierce failed to react to her presence.
“What did you do to him?”
“Sure, he’s fine.” She glided down to land on a fallen limb.
“A bit dazed is all.”
The last time she visited me, her advice on marking a soul for Dis Pater
got me killed when he arrived to collect. I wasn’t interested in what her next
suggestion cost me. “You never told me your name.”
“Me?” She winked one beady black eye. “I’m just a bird.”
Before I could press for the reason for her visit, Kierce lunged where
she had been with a snarl in his throat. The crow exploded into the sky, and
his hands closed over air.
“Who was that?” He shot to his feet, scanning the area. “What did she
want?”
“She didn’t tell me her name, and someone scared her off before she got
down to business.” I hooked a bone and ripped it free then rose and moved
on to the next spot. “We have to keep going. Whoever she is, I’m sure she’ll
be back. We’ll get our answers then.”
“This is the second time an omen has appeared to you.” His fists
clenched at his sides, and his jaw popped with the force of his gritted teeth.
“The eyes of more than one god are upon you.”
“We’ll figure it out,” I soothed him. “Is Badb okay?”
 “That thing wasn’t my friend.” His eyes cut left. “Badb remains with
Carter.”
Casting out my senses, I located the next bone and drummed up a
distraction. “What is an omen?”
“A sign of good or bad things to come.” He inhaled then exhaled
slowly. “They can take any form.”
“She must be using a crow as camouflage. I don’t think twice when I
see one now. I write it off as Badb.”
A faint ripple in the air stole the words from his mouth as the barrier
shimmered on its mores.
“You’ve done it.” He touched the ward but only hissed from the burn.
“It’s close to breaking.”
“Excellent.” I tugged on his arm. “Then we really need to finish up
before Anunit comes calling.”
From the rough count I was keeping, I estimated we had two-thirds of
the stolen bones.
As attuned to the magic as Anunit was, she would come investigate the
disturbance. Though she knew it was me, and was aware of my intentions,
that might not save me.
Perhaps he performed the same mental calculations before suggesting,
“We could go faster if we—”
“Nope.” I cut him off and dragged him along with me. “We stick
together.”
Even with Badb acting as a scout, she might lose Anunit if she went
incorporeal. Then we would have no warning we were under attack until it
was too late. Kierce and I could see Anunit in either form. It made the most
sense for us to watch each other’s backs until the cursed beast made her
move.
“Are you certain you don’t want to learn your divine parentage?”
Had my thoughts not kept circling back to that very question, I might
have snapped that a promise was a promise. Us Marys didn’t want to know
our parents. That was the vow we made. Never to search for them. But if I
bit off his head, it would be my own guilt I was chewing.
Because I was considering it.
And that was damning in and of itself.
Knowing who sired me might explain the sudden divine attention on
me, but I had no interest beyond that in my lineage. None. I didn’t care who
gave birth to me or who played sperm donor. They had both given me up,
given me away, and they hadn’t looked back.
“Let’s survive Anunit first.” I clung to an easy out. “Then we’ll discuss
next steps for…everything else.”
As we entered the final stretch, with only three bones remaining, we
heard the first leaves rustle.
Panic banged a drum in my chest as I groped the damp earth in search
of fragments, but I sensed the exact moment the sand ran out in our
hourglass.
An inquisitive sound trilled into the night.
I ignored her and kept digging, but Kierce groped blindly in the dirt
while staring her down.
“You came to make good on your word,” she rasped into my mind.
“I’m doing great.” I wanted to lift my head, but I couldn’t stop now.
“Thanks for asking.”
“You knew the risk, and you chose to step in front of the girl.”
“I thought she was your target.”
“The elder did not deserve your mercy?” She sounded amused. “Or
mine?”
“She made her decision, but I’ll grant her the grace of saying someone
put the idea in her head. I would have been more sympathetic if she hadn’t
doubled down on her choice, trapping these women where they would be
preyed upon. She had ample opportunities to correct her mistake.”
Granted, by the time Tameka confronted Patty, I believed, in hindsight,
she was already too far under Ankou’s influence to be swayed.
“I’ve got it.” Kierce tucked his find into the bag. “We need to move.”
“Keep behind me.” I shielded him as I walked, Anunit pacing us a
dozen yards away. “Do you feel it?”
“There.” Kierce sank to his haunches next to me and began scooping
dirt. “Keep her occupied.”
“Yes,” Anunit said dryly. “Entertain me while he plays in the dirt.”
“Did you harm any of the officers?”
“No.” Her gaze dropped away. “I have taken my tithe for the day.”
“Will you let the others go when the ward comes down?” I turned a
circle. “Anunit?”
But Anunit wasn’t there.
 Whispers rustled through the trees. Limbs snapped. Leaves crinkled.
Children cried softly.
Women spilled out, pulling up short to discover Kierce and me. They
turned to flee, but Keshawn pushed through them to the front, spotted me,
and broke into the first smile I had ever seen on her face.
“Frankie.” She skimmed over the others. “Mom.” She waved an arm
over her head. “She’s here.”
“Frankie?” Tameka wedged through the crowd, tears filling her eyes
when our gazes met. “Frankie.” Her cheeks flushed with emotion. “Thank
God you’re okay. Your friend told me you were safe, but Anunit—”
“We lost the other bones,” Keshawn, who noticed what Kierce and I
were doing, blurted.
“You ran after Anunit attacked Rosalie.” I waved away their worries
with a dirty, bloody hand. “I don’t blame either of you for praying she chose
to protect the bones over pursuing you.”
“No.” Keshawn took her mother’s hand. “We ran after what she did to
you.”
“You must have been as shocked as me,” I said, “to discover I could be
harmed in that form.”
“I thought if Anunit attacked me, I would lose the body but my soul
could remain with Keshawn.” Tameka let out a shuddering breath. “I was
terrified when she sank her claws in you. All I could think was that if she
did that to me, I couldn’t escape. Then any hope of seeing my daughter in
the afterlife would be gone.” She swallowed. “We went back for them, after
we calmed down, but they were gone.”
“A friend of mine has them.” I flexed my cramping hands. “Want to get
out of here quicker?”
The mother and daughter beamed at the chance to pitch in, and I was
happy to give it to them.
“Kierce, can you mark the remaining bones?” I trawled my fingers
through decaying vegetation for a hint of white. “They know what to look
for.”
While he got them started, I resumed my task, focused on what was in
front of me.
On my periphery, I noted the women shifting, uncertain what to do, but
I didn’t have time for soft words or promises of safety. I almost melted with
relief when I lifted a muddy bone and freed myself to move on.
 And then reality began to twist and warp, the ward screeching
dissonance as watery streaks appeared in the barrier.
“Stay put,” I snapped as the women made a break for freedom. “We’re
almost done here.”
Unwilling to give up the ground she had gained, one woman planted her
feet and waited, staring up at the sun.
“Got mine,” Keshawn called, rising with her prize in hand.
“Got mine too.” Tameka rose with a wobble in her knees. “Let’s get
these to—”
The ward crashed around us with a bone-jarring thud that dropped
everyone but Kierce and me to their knees. Illumination from the spotlights
blasted the women in their faces, and they shut their eyes against the glare.
The deer-in-the-headlights looks didn’t last long before they ran past the
commune’s borders the way a spooked herd of antelope fled a pursuing
lioness.
Arm in arm, the Ezells came to me and offered up their finds.
“We’ll go with you.” Keshawn tipped up her chin. “We want to help.”
The thought of moving even an ounce more dirt made my fingers throb
with a plea to rest them.
“I’ll take that deal.” I was grateful when Kierce helped me to my feet.
“I’m running out of juice.” I turned my ankle on my first step. “Fast.” I
didn’t fuss when he took the bag from me and passed it to Tameka. “I can
walk.” I put out my hands. “You don’t have to carry me around like a
fairytale princess.”
Ignoring my protest when I wobbled again, he scooped me into his arms
and rolled me against his chest. I rested my sweaty forehead over his heart,
breathing him in, but that was a bad idea. His scent calmed my jangled
nerves, and sleep beckoned me.
The toll of healing my injuries, then tearing open a gate and holding it,
was gnawing through my reserves until spots danced on the edge of my
vision in a taunting promise if I shut my eyes, I would feel so much better.
“Not now,” I groaned, fisting his shirt. “I need...”
“I know,” he gritted out, his jaw taut. “Hold on.”
“What’s wrong?” Tameka hustled to match Kierce’s stride. “What can
we do?”
The cotton sensation stuffing my mouth prevented me from answering.
 “Exhaustion,” Kierce explained when I remained silent. “She’s
expended too much energy.”
The way I kept topping off instead of letting myself rest and heal would
catch up to me eventually.
All I could do was pray I could outrun it for a while longer.
“Tell us what to do.” Keshawn bounded up on my other side. “We want
to help.”
A rumble in Kierce’s chest led me to believe he was talking, but if he
was, I didn’t hear his words.
W ith supreme effort, I cracked open my eyes to a view of the
ceiling over the wagon’s backseat, and an exploratory twitch of
my fingers confirmed the sock was back on my arm, its dirt cool
on my skin.
“Hello, Imposter.” Josie leaned over me. “You might be asking yourself
where you are, how you got here, and why I’m here.” She grinned, and fear
skipped down my spine. “You’re at the burial ground. As to how you got
here, Tameka drove you. In your wagon. Because you were unconscious,
and Kierce isn’t rated for gas-powered vehicles.”
“Josie—”
“I’m here because my former roomie, who could have been my future
ex-girlfriend, thank you very much, called to let me know what happened to
you.” She kept smiling, and dread sank deeper into my bones. “When she
told me what you did—and it’s a long list—I thought…my sister would
never do those things without telling me, so I came to see for myself.” She
poked my cheek. “You look a lot like my Frankie, but you can’t be her. She
has more sense.”
“Where’s Matty?” I croaked, expecting him to pop in next. “He’s
okay?”
“You don’t get to ask those questions, Imposter.” Josie produced a water
bottle. “You also need to lift your head and drink. I tried pouring water into
your mouth on my own earlier, which explains the wet sensation you’re
probably experiencing.”
Since the inside of my mouth felt sticky and tasted foul, I did as she
instructed, grateful for the cool sips.
“I’m sorry.” I dropped my head again. “I could have handled this
better.”
“Yes, you could have,” she grumbled, stroking my hair, “but Matty and
I don’t make it easy on you.”
“I don’t mind—”
“Mary, please, let me get this out before the rage swallows me whole
again.”
Meekly, I mumbled, “Okay.”
“Your whole life was about us. Taking care of us, loving us, providing
for us.” She capped the water. “You help people fix their regrets in death,
and I never wanted Matty and me to be one for you. I wanted you to live
your own life, have your own dreams, and not worry so much. But then…”
“Everything happened,” I said, sparing us from uttering the word died.
“Yeah.” She cast her gaze far away before reeling back in. “You got a
second chance. How you use it? It’s up to you. If you want to do more of
this saving-the-world stuff, then do it. You’ve earned it. Just maybe update
us from time to time? I’m not making any promises, but we might be less
hysterical if you kept us in the loop.”
“I can do that.” I asked the question I had been dreading. “How long
was I out?”
“Forty-five minutes, give or take.” She hooked her hands under my
arms. “Let’s try sitting up, shall we?”
The recuperation time kept getting worse. Apparently even divine
bodies had limitations.
There was something comforting in that. Limits were a good thing. The
alternative was too…vast.
The world dipped as I regained my equilibrium, but I soaked in the
scenery as I gained my bearings.
And I don’t mean the forest.
Kierce labored in the pit among the bones. His shirt slicked to his spine,
the white fabric translucent where it outlined his musculature. His dark hair
dripped sweat, and mud streaked his cheeks and forehead. A certainty swept
through me, almost déjà vu, but I couldn’t put my finger on what about this
moment had struck a chord with me.
“Can I have more water?” I accepted the bottle from Josie and chugged
it. “Why am I so thirsty?”
The longer I watched Kierce, the hotter my skin grew until I was
amazed when I didn’t burst into flames.
“I can’t imagine,” she drawled, snorting, then pressed a second cold
bottle into my hand. “Go on.”
“I will take this water to him—” I huffed as I exited the wagon, “—but
not for perverted reasons.”
“It’s not like you salivated until you ran out of drool and were forced to
rehydrate.” Her eyes laughed at me. “Therefore, I would never assume you
only wanted a fresh bottle of water as an excuse to allow you to ogle him
from close-up.”
“You’re not fooling anyone.” I rolled my eyes at her. “You made that
exact assumption.”
“And you’re a perverted water-bottle-toting ogler, but I was trying to be
nice.”
A flush blasted into my cheeks as I spun on my heel and aimed for
Kierce before our conversation drew his attention.
Gentle rustles in my wake piqued my curiosity, and I glanced back to
find Josie had sent a sapling tree to follow me with its branches outspread
to catch me if I wobbled over the uneven ground.
“You’re awake.” Kierce spotted me the second I reached the pit. “How
do you feel?”
“Pissed off I left you to handle this on your own,” I grumbled. “My
battery was slower to recharge this time.”
“You’re pushing too hard. A magical fix won’t help much longer. You
need real sleep soon.”
“I’m not the only one.” I chuckled when the tree formed its roots into a
set of stairs I took down to his level. “We’ve all been working overtime on
the case. We’ll deserve a week’s vacation when we’re done.”
“I like the sound of that.”
“Water?” I forced him to take it then nudged him against the dirt wall.
“It’s nice and cold.”
“I’m almost done.” He drank deep, the muscles in his neck flexing.
“Two more.”
 As I processed that, I recalled who else should have been helping.
“Where are Keshawn and Tameka?”
“They don’t have long left together. I suggested they go eat then wait
for us in Josie’s garden.”
“I offered to drive them. Just to make sure they don’t get lost,” Josie cut
in, staring down at us. “But Kierce was all blah, blah, trust, blah, blah. He
let them take a Swyft.”
The bone I had chosen tumbled from my fingers. “And you listened?”
“What?” Josie sat on the rim, swinging her legs, looking like a kid
again. “I can listen.”
“I’m aware you can, I just didn’t know you ever did.”
“Oh.” She snapped her fingers. “That reminds me. The vanishing-car
thing was driving Carter bonkers, so I asked the Ezells. Keshawn was the
brains behind it. On nights when a drop-off was scheduled, she got her
witchy BFF to cast a daylight spell to temporarily blind any other motorists
to what happened next.”
“Weird that it banished Vi, but spells cast on someone other than their
intended target can go awry.”
“The girl was in the woods that day, checking they hadn’t left evidence
behind. You guys got too close to her hiding place, so she hit the area with a
blast of light to conceal her escape. Maybe she panicked and used more
oomph than usual?”
“Maybe.” I pursed my lips. “That doesn’t explain the disappearing
trick.”
“Oh! You’ll love this part.” Her eyes glittered. “Keshawn used her
gremlin magic to fold the car into a cube. A cube! Like one of those car-
crusher things in the movies. Then carried it into the woods as far as she
could get before the magic ran out and it unfolded to its normal size.” She
winced. “Apparently, it’s a rare type of magic that her mother forbade her to
practice because of how often young gremlins overestimate how much time
they have left and end up crushed under whatever they’ve stolen.”
“Ah, the lure of the forbidden.”
“From there, Keshawn called gremlin friends to dismantle the vehicles
and disappear them.”
“Clever,” I had to admit. “Kierce?” I noticed he had finished his drink.
“Do you need me?”
 “Yes,” he said too earnestly for the moment, then held out his hand and
dropped a bone on my palm.
Using the technique he taught me during our first visit, I located a skull
Kierce had flagged as the head of an incomplete skeleton. I checked to see
if I held its missing piece. Nope. I moved on to the next and got lucky there.
As it turned out, I didn’t have to rely on magic to tell me where to place it.
The earth had created a cast that made it as simple as matching a final
puzzle piece to the whole.
As I returned it to its resting place, a sharp gasp snapped my head
toward Josie.
Except I couldn’t see my sister.
But I heard her scream.
There was always a firm snap when you broke a shaken glow stick to
ignite it.
That was how I felt.
Ignited.
I leapt out of the pit. I don’t know how. I don’t remember.
Patty stood with Josie plastered against her front, a living shield, and
held a blade to her throat. Not quite blood, not quite sap wept from a thin
line under her chin. The woman glared at me over Josie’s shoulder, her eyes
sparkling with hatred, her teeth bared in a rictus grin.
“You ruined everything,” she spat, black saliva stringing from her jaw.
“Our life’s work.”
“Let my sister go.”
“My sister is dead. My twin. The other half of me.” Her hand trembled.
“Why should I spare yours?”
A distraction. That was what I needed. To buy us an opening.
And then we had to make it count.
“You ate from an apple tree.” I sensed Kierce behind me. “How did it
make you feel?”
“Like a god,” she whispered, her eyes frantic in their search of me, as if
I hid fruit in my pocket.
“Where did you find the tree? How did you know where to look?”
“We prayed for a miracle, and God sent us one.”
“Let me guess.” I registered the hand motion Josie was making at her
side and kept talking. “A man came to you in a dream and told you where to
find a tree that would grant you the power to build the safe haven you and
your sister always dreamed of creating.”
“We didn’t understand, at first, but our eyes were opened after we ate
the fruit.”
A long tree root arched above her head, the tip a flat diamond shape like
a viper.
“After you ate the fruit, you knew where to find the bones and how to
use them,” I surmised, certain Ankou had feasted well on both Anunit’s
rage at having been woken to find her people missing parts and her grief
over the innocent women she was forced to kill in retaliation. Never mind
the buffet of terror the women trapped in the wards fed him. “Why take so
many bones?”
“Each person required a token to pass through the ward.” Her hand
trembled, drawing fresh blood-sap. “It wasn’t greed but necessity.”
“And since you had them, you might as well use them.”
“The world turned their backs against those women. Against me. It was
our duty—our calling—to protect them. Why shouldn’t we use the power
offered to us?” Her lip snarled up at one corner. “Your trespass has angered
Him. He took back his gift. I’ve been barred from the tree.”
Finally, she reached her point. “You want me to help you get more
fruit.”
As punishment for their failure, Ankou must have reinforced the ward
around the tree when the outer perimeter collapsed.
“Tear down the barrier, and I’ll set your sister free.”
Holding Josie’s gaze, I read her intent and let her see mine too. This
woman was a victim. Her sister had been too. Ankou trailed them like
footprints left in sand. But she was threatening my sister now, and that I
couldn’t allow.
Neither would Josie.
The root snaked around the woman’s neck, cinching like a noose and
hauling her down to restrain her.
With a snarl, the woman swiped the blade across Josie’s throat, splitting
open her skin and spilling pinkish-brown fluid from the deep gash.
Slapping a hand over the wound, Josie stared at me through wide eyes.
“Mary?”
That earlier spark, kindled by the woman threatening my sister, burst
into a flame.
 And I roared.
Magic speared Patty, piercing her chest, cracking open her ribs, and her
soul flickered like a candle.
Just like a candle, I blew it out.
The gory mess of woman sprawled in a puddle of entrails I welcomed
the crows to feast on.
Rising into the air, feet lifting off the ground, I glided as if in astral form
toward my gasping sister.
I planted a hand on the earth, so rich with the magic of the Alcheyvāhā,
and I drew their energy into me. Kierce screamed my name from a great
and terrible distance while I gorged, and as their magic gilded my insides, I
placed a hand over Josie’s wound and forced every ounce of my will into a
single command:
Live.

“F ,” B . “F
might have been a crepe myrtle once.”
The tree stood five feet tall, a perfect miniature apple tree, its limbs
heavy with gleaming black fruit. The ground wept blood around its poison
roots, and its rancid scent made bile rise up my throat.
“Where am I?” I imagined my words echoed. “How did I get here?”
“Oh, come now.” The crow fluttered its wings. “You must remember.”
“No.” I picked at the fraying edges of my memories. “I…”
“You’ve been searching for this, haven’t you? This tree. Now you’ve
found it. Well done.”
The distant roll of my voice thundered around us. “I have?”
“You worked so hard, my duck.” The crow sailed onto my shoulder.
“Why not take a rest?”
“Hmm.” I scratched her head, and wrongness unfurled within me. “Do I
know you?”
“I’m a friend is all. Just a bird. A kindly little feathered thing come to
help you.”
“Help me?”
 “You’ve worked up an appetite. Why not rest by this tree? And look.
There’s fruit. Why not take a bite?”
Why not take a bite?
The smell. The blood. The bile.
“No.” I swatted the bird off me. “Get away.”
“Aww.” Her eyes reflected hurt. “I’ve helped you before, haven’t I?
With the girl? Let me help you now.”
A tickle on my nape preceded the weight of a wide palm encircling the
back of my neck, and the ember glowing in my gut heated a few degrees,
burning away increments of my confusion.
“I’ve been looking for you.” Warm lips brushed the shell of my ear.
“Frankie.”
The gentle but possessive touch, a soft caress of his voice across the
syllables of my name returned it to me and made it mine again. “Kierce?”
“I’m here.” He rested his forehead against my temple. “You’re safe.”
Slowly reality crept in, filling in the blanks. Most of them. Enough for
me to grasp the situation.
“I don’t remember how I got here.” I sounded broken in my own ears.
“What happened?”
I was back at the commune. In the flesh. Not astral projecting.
“You dematerialized, like I do.” He stroked my cheek, my chin, my jaw.
“I followed you.”
Followed me from…the pit. Where the Morgan…died. After she…
“Oh, God.” Hazy memory crystalized into bone-juddering horror.
“Josie.”
“Josie is fine.” Kierce kept soothing me. “You saved her.”
“She’s alive?” Tears flowed down my cheeks. “You promise?”
Time warped around me, leaving me cold with uncertainty how long I
had been gone from her. Not too long, surely. Ten or fifteen minutes?
Twenty max?
“I promise.” He wiped them away with his thumbs. “I wouldn’t lie to
you about that.”
“The crow.” I gripped his wrist. “She was here.”
“The omen.” He nodded. “What did she want?”
“For me to eat from the tree.” I flinched from the prospect of its mealy
fruit rolling on my tongue. “Who is she?”
 “Someone like me, or Ankou, I suspect. A mere omen wouldn’t possess
the information she gave you on how to summon Him by marking Little’s
soul as His. She wouldn’t press you to eat from this tree either.” He kept his
touch gentle. “She must have hoped to earn your trust by offering her
knowledge for free.”
“So, the next time I would remember her good turn and do as I was
told.”
“That would be my guess, yes.”
“Except her advice got me dead, so… Yeah. No. She’s not going to be
my one phone call any time soon.”
“I doubt she has a phone,” he said, perfectly serious, and I did my level
best not to laugh even if it would have felt good right about now.
“How do we destroy the tree?” I battled nausea standing so near it. “I’m
not leaving it here.”
The oily sickness seizing my guts was familiar, convincing me it had
been the cause for my queasiness at the scene of Anunit’s first kill. The first
we found, anyway. Maybe the tree had wanted a taste of the rich earth
surrounding the god bones. I doubt, with Anunit on patrol, it got one before
the Morgans brought it to its current location.
That I could sense it now, and I hadn’t before, meant the ward
protecting it had fallen. The only reason I could think for that would be if
the Morgans’ sequential deaths had weakened it and then collapsed it.
“Do you remember how you called divine fire down on Patricia?”
“No.” I noticed my sooty hands for the first time. “I don’t…” I shook
my head. “There are gaps.”
Gaps large enough to drive a semi through with one of those Home
Depot skeletons riding it bronco-style.
“That’s all right.” He tipped my head up to look at him. “We’ll do it
together.”
“Yeah,” Josie panted, her voice scratchy as she stumbled from the tree
line. “We will.”
“Mary.” I tore away from Kierce and threw myself at her. “Oh, God,
Mary.”
“You are badass.” She rubbed her hands up and down my back. “I am
so in awe of you right now.”
The smell of her, the familiar touch, anchored me deeper into my skin.
 “You’re just saying that because…” I saved your life, “…you lost too
much blood.”
Horror reared up in me, sharp and fresh, as I traced the new pink scar on
her throat with my fingertip.
“Yes, well, maybe Carter will be so grief-stricken she’ll carry me
around like a princess.” She kicked me in the shin. “It’s not fair short girls
with tall boyfriends have all the fun.”
“Ouch.” I laughed and kicked her back. “Stop being a menace.”
The teasing helped. So much. It made me feel like me again.
“How did you get here?”
“After you vanished, Kierce poofed, so I tracked your phones. You were
together, so I decided to join the party. I took the wagon, and then I ran, and
then I realized running fucking sucks. Please don’t make me do it again.”
“We found the tree.” I gripped her shoulders, angling her toward it.
“Any ideas on how we destroy it?”
“Yank this fucker out by the roots then burn it.” She didn’t wait for my
permission. She waved to the nearest tree, a poplar, and it bent in close as if
she were about to share a secret. “Can you lend us a hand?”
Bark creaked as it twisted, flexing its limbs. The thickest two wrapped
the apple tree’s trunk like a fist. Wood groaned as the poplar righted itself,
ripping the apple tree out of the earth. Its roots writhed like worms, its
branches thrashing, but divine or not, it was only a tree. Without help, it
couldn’t take us on, and no aid was coming for it.
“Set it there, please.” Josie indicated a bare patch of soil. “We’ll handle
it from here.”
With a popping moan, the poplar righted itself, cleaning the ichor off its
leaves with one firm shake.
“Kierce?” She peered around me. “Care to do the honors?”
About to protest that I could handle it, I jumped back when twin
lightning bolts struck the apple tree. Fire gnawed its fleshy bark, sizzling
through its heavily veined leaves. Fruit exploded as the temperature rose to
unnatural heights, and sweat drenched me as the flames grew taller,
hungrier.
“Oh, no you don’t.” Josie made a sweeping gesture with her hand. “Get
back here.”
A younger, more flexible tree scooped up three apples attempting to roll
away in a cage made of its limbs.
 Josie went to fetch them, but Kierce cut in front of her. He crossed to
the small tree, removed his shirt, and used it as a sling to carry the fruit. He
tossed the whole thing into the fire while I did my best not to gape at the
ripple of pale muscle exposed to moonlight.
He stood over the fire, bringing down lightning each time the flames
lowered, ensuring the tree burned to fine ash. I scouted the area to make
certain no more fruit had escaped while Josie crouched over the hole where
the vile tree had been planted, drawing out any concealed roots. She coaxed
them to the flames, and they burned themselves on her command.
Certain we had destroyed the tree, we stared down at the remains,
debating what to do with them.
“We need to cleanse the earth.” I trembled with fatigue. “We can’t leave
it like this.”
“You’re right.” He cupped my elbow and led me to the hole. “Besides,
you need to get your strength back.”
Strength, yes. I would welcome some relief. The side order of lust? That
I could do without.
“What about you?” I searched his face. “You must be exhausted.”
“I’ll rest when you’re safe.”
Heaving a sigh, I stuck my fingers in the dirt and parted my lips on the
now-familiar hymn.
As energy suffused me, I sensed eyes on the back of my head. I
remained focused on my task, but then I pivoted toward the source of the
sensation. I found Anunit easily and locked gazes with her.
“The final bone.” I breathed past my heart dropping into my feet. “Do
you still have it?”
“Yes.” Kierce patted his pocket. “I brought it with me.”
“Tell your consort not to fear,” Anunit rumbled. “He is yours, and you
are ours.”
“What does that mean?” I rubbed a knuckle between my eyes. “The
part about me being yours.”
“You drank of our energies. You welcomed our magic into yourself.”
“I’m sorry to be just another person taking advantage of you.” I
smoothed a hand over my aching chest. “My sister was dying, and I didn’t
think. I reached for help, and your magic came to me.” I swallowed the
excuses filling my mouth, grateful Kierce and Josie couldn’t understand us.
“I will pay whatever price you demand of me.”
 “I am weary of my vigilance. I tire of my burden and wish to know
peace. I have watched you, Frankie Talbot, and I have seen your heart. I
will absolve you for your crime, if you agree to act in my stead.”
Karma bit me on the butt swiftly this time, twisting the same terms I set
down for Tameka onto me.
“Desecration of your people’s graves is wrong, but I won’t kill them for
it.”
“That was my wish and my curse and my burden. I offer you a different
path. Protect us. Watch over us. Keep us safe always. In exchange, we will
gift you our magic whenever you need it. Come to us to heal. To grow
strong. We will name you guardian and bless you in ways you cannot
conceive of.”
“Always is an awful long time.” I preferred firmer start and end dates
on employment offers. “Are you sure about that?”
“I trust in your sense of honor.” She slid her golden gaze toward Josie.
“Consider what benefits a dryad might reap were she to sink her roots in
our soil.” Her sharp eyes glinted, aware she had caught me fair and square.
“Are there not trees who have existed for a thousand years? How much
longer might your sister live with our essence flowing through her veins?”
Clever to dangle a solution for Josie’s longevity, the greatest new fear
plaguing our family, in front of my nose. “Do you mind if I confer with
Kierce? He has more experience in god bargains than I do.”
“He will tell you not to take it. To avoid gods and their schemes.” She
rolled a shoulder. “He would not be wrong to caution you against trusting
us. He was trapped by honeyed words once.”
A sliver of hope she knew what he had forgotten about himself stirred in
me. “How can you be sure?”
“He wouldn’t be the Viduus otherwise.”
That fast, her logic dissolved the sliver into nothing. “There is that.”
“Make your decision.” She swished her tail. “You have minutes before
the curse takes me again.”
“That’s why you waited until now. You wanted a ticking clock to hold up
to my ear.”
“I admit that was part of it, but you were unconscious for some time. I
could have hunted then. Would it have been better if I had claimed another
life or waited to propose this compromise?”
 Head hanging loose on my neck, I locked gazes with Kierce then Josie.
“I’m about to do a stupid thing.”
“How stupid?” Josie stepped forward, and the trees leaned in. “Mary?”
But Anunit had taken my wrist in her mouth, and before Kierce could
lunge for me, she vanished us.
A weightless sensation buoyed me as I drifted above the pit, the reality
of my situation sinking in.
“This is my astral self.” I jerked my hand from Anunit’s mouth.
“You ripped out my soul?” Josie must be beside herself. “You can’t just
snatch people out of their bodies.”
“You have proven yourself proficient at astral travel. You will find your
way back when we are done.”
Blood soaked the dirt before me—Josie’s—driving home how valuable
this bargain was for my sister. “What do I have to do?”
“Just as you did before, you will consume my energies once I return to
my grave. You will inherit my gifts, and the guardianship of my people.
Then at long last, I will be at peace. I will return to my slumber, to my mate,
and I will be done with the greed of this world.”
“I should wait for Kierce.” I balked at the magnitude of the transition.
“He can guide me through this.”
“You seek a way out of our bargain.”
“It’s a lot. I’ve barely had time to accept I died. That I’m a
demigoddess.” I laughed, and hysteria edged it with a bitter mania. “I’m
doing my best. I’m trying to adapt and survive. To move on. But this? This
is the kick I don’t need while I’m down. I want time to think it over, but
you’ve made certain I don’t have that.”
 “I could take your consort’s life as payment—since he holds the final
bone—and be done with it.”
“Threats don’t make me trust you more.”
“Merely a counteroffer.”
“Yeah.” I scoffed at her offhand tone. “Right.”
Ears flicking forward, Anunit listened, but I couldn’t pick out anything
worth her attention.
“Well?” I held out my arms to my sides. “What are you waiting for?”
Whatever she had in mind, whatever this would cost me, I wanted it
finished before Kierce and Josie got here and talked me out of it.
“The rest of you to arrive.”
“The rest of…” I dropped my arms to my sides. “You mean my body?”
“What else would I mean?”
“You could have asked me to meet you here. You didn’t have to soul-
snatch me again.”
“I decided this course of action would expedite matters.”
Twenty minutes later, Kierce appeared on the rim of the pit, cradling my
body against his chest.
Anunit took one look at him and began to growl. Had I not already
agreed, I would have folded like a paper fan. “I said I’ll do it.” I sank my
hand into her ruff, as if that would hold her. “Leave him alone.”
“You are certain?” She searched my face. “You will accept this
burden?”
“You haven’t left me with much choice.” I sensed she required verbal
consent to proceed. Ha. As if I had any say in the matter. “Yes, I accept.”
“Thank you, Frankie Talbot.”
The form under my fingers grew warmer, realer, and I clenched my
spectral hand in her soft fur.
“Keep the final bone. A link between us. I will not abandon you before
you understand your role.”
Before I could exhale with relief, she clamped her jaw on my shoe. Not
my spectral foot. My actual foot. She slung it off while Kierce shielded as
much of my body as he could. But Anunit struck fast as a snake, and he
couldn’t do more than watch as she sank her teeth into my now-bare foot.
Blood flowed down Kierce’s arm, wetting the soil. I didn’t hurt. Yet. I
saw the wound, but it was like I was watching it happen to someone else.
“Blood to seal our pact?”
 “Yes.” She swallowed once. “And bone to bind it.”
“B-b-bone?” I gaped at her bloody maw then my bloody foot and
understood. “You bit off my toe?”
My toe.
She hadn’t even let me choose which one I wanted to lose. She went
straight for the pinky. My favorite.
Okay, so I didn’t have a favorite, but still.
She could have asked before hobbling me for life.
“I would recommend not going into shock away from your body,” she
counseled. “It is simply a toe.”
“Kierce was right.” I did my best to steady my thudding heart. “He’s
never met a god with all ten toes.”
Bumping her head under my chin, she rasped a laugh. “And, like as not,
he never will.”
With those parting words, she dissolved into swirling motes that sank
into her bleached skull.
Then Kierce was there, on his hands and knees, reaching an arm into the
pit for me, but my soul was anchored in the bottom until I completed this
task.
“Patch up my toe, will you?” I drummed up a smile for him. “I’ll be
with you in a minute.”
“Frankie…” His eyes flashed silver and wild. “Whatever she promised
you—”
“The bargain has been struck.” I kept my lips frozen in place. “It’ll be
okay.”
Only the fear of further harm coming to my body convinced him to
return to it and leave me to my fate.
There was nothing to do but plant my palms on the soil and begin the
hymn that would change my life.
No sooner had the first words left my mouth than magic yawned awake,
reaching out and finding an echo of itself already within me. That first
touch, a confirmation, exploded into a torrent I couldn’t break free of or
control.
This wasn’t the peaceful humming embrace of Bonaventure or the bitter
foulness of cleansing a site of death magic. It was alive. I shivered as wild
energies infused my veins, igniting a feral pulse in my chest. As power
swept over me, foreign voices kindled in my head, their presence a
cacophony beyond my comprehension.
A small white stone tumbled to the earth in front of me, as if the magic
that had bound Anunit to flesh had been holding it, and it spun as it dug
itself a hole. It might have been a seed for how the wash of spirit blue light
grew from it. But I had been a necromancer too long not to identify a distal
phalanx.
My freaking toe.
The brightness swept across the pit, smacking into a wall. No. Building
one.
All it required of me was to provide the Alcheyvāhā magic with a living
vessel. It did the rest. Or maybe it was more honest to say that Anunit, the
original guardian, was guiding the power through one final act. I was
christened with illumination, the glare forcing my eyes shut as the last of
the magic spent itself.
Humming with energy, I drifted up and out of the pit then made my way
to Kierce.
“This is awkward.” I stared down at where he held me. “I usually wake
up back in my body.”
“The mechanics are the same.” His voice was hoarse, like he had been
screaming my name, and I wished I had seen another way out. “Close your
eyes and focus on the sensation of me holding your hand.”
Maybe it helped, seeing where he laced his fingers with mine, supplying
yet another anchor to my body.
“I can do that.” I followed his instructions, allowing myself to retrace
the now-familiar path back with only a slight hiccup as my soul brushed its
shell. Then I was waking in his arms. “Hi there.”
On the upside, I appeared to have been spared from the lust dirt effect
by Anunit soul-snatching me. As far as wins go, it was a small one, but at
least it was something.
Dull footsteps thumped toward us, wheezing inhales identifying the new
arrival before she stepped out.
“Didn’t…I…just…say—” panting breaths sawed from Josie’s lungs,
“—no…more…running?”
Sweeping my gaze over her, I cocked an eyebrow. “It took you this long
to catch up?”
 “Running…is for…the devil.” She bent over, hands braced on her
thighs. “You think this is…fun?”
As a matter of fact, I did enjoy running, but I knew a rhetorical question
when I heard one.
Once she had caught her breath, mostly, I experienced a stroke of
inspiration. “Can you bury this place?”
“I can do better than that.” Josie rubbed her hands together. “I can put it
to sleep.” She spread her arms to encompass the forest and curled her
fingertips. “Don’t be shy. No one will hurt you. This is the gig of a lifetime,
I promise.” She opened her eyes, and they shone verdant green. “Come on.”
Dirt shifted and rocks clattered as she summoned, coaxing life to her as
twelve sapling trees grew around the edge of the pit, taller and taller, until I
could identify the variety.
“Good.” She twirled a finger. “Let’s tighten that circle, shall we?”
“Weeping willows.” I held my breath. “What did you mean? About
making them sleep?”
As the trees grew up, they grew out, their trunks thickening. Leaves like
tears dripped off their branches. The limbs wove together, creating a canopy
that blocked the sky. Their trunks’ girth increased until each one of the trees
brushed its neighbor, forming a wall.
The trees shuffled their root systems to draw up dirt from elsewhere and
fill in the pit until it was level, covering the bones from view. Then lush
grass sprouted in a carpet that filled the ring with small purple flowers
poking up through the blades, a variety I had never seen.
“There’s a story the trees told me when I was little, about how a young
mother left her baby by the river one night. The mother was poor and sick
and couldn’t care for her, so she left the baby where the neighboring village
women collected their water every morning. The baby cried and cried until
the wind blew the limb from the weeping willow above her into her basket.
The willow, having never seen a baby, wasn’t sure what it could do to help.
It was only a tree, and the baby was hungry.”
“Please don’t tell me the willow eats the baby.”
“What?” She wrinkled her nose. “No.”
Holding up my hands in surrender, I shrugged. “Just checking.”
“Anyway, the willow asked her friend, the pine tree. It kept a colony of
bees as pets, and it offered their honey for the girl. The baby nursed the
honey from a willow leaf, but it grew restless and afraid as the night grew
darker. And so the willow lifted the baby in a swing made of her branches
and swayed until she fell asleep.” A flick of her fingers coaxed the willows
to illustrate her point. “She rocked the girl until the women came, and
though it wanted to keep the baby, it was only a tree, and it let a young
woman with no children of her own take her.”
“That’s a nice story.” I cringed when her eyes narrowed to slits. “Ah. I
see. You weren’t done yet.”
“But the baby couldn’t sleep, and the young woman grew tired. She
sneaked back to the willow one night, the baby in her basket, and
considered placing her in the water to float downstream to another village.
The willow, fearful the baby would drown, took her from her basket—
frightening the woman—and showed her how to soothe the baby.” She
mimed holding an ax, ready to swing. “The woman, fearing the tree was
possessed by an evil spirit, brought men to chop it…”
“Don’t stop now.” I wiped a hand over my mouth to hide my smile.
“I’m on the edge of my seat.”
“I always forget how it ends.” She shuddered. “I only ever think about
how wonderful it must have been to have a tree for a mother, even for a few
hours.” She rubbed her jaw. “These willows can’t rock the gods to sleep,
but they’re still the most peaceful trees I can think of.”
“I’m sure they appreciate it.”
“That’s good,” Josie said, her voice thick, “but I think I’m—”
Eyes rolling up into the back of her head, she fell on a bed of grass that
sprung up beneath her seconds before impact.
Scrambling off Kierce’s lap, I crawled to her, glancing back to snap out,
“Call Aretha.”
“Carter,” Josie murmured, her eyes active behind their closed lids.
A dryad’s power wasn’t bottomless, and Josie had expended tons of
energy. First protecting herself then making this grove. She had depleted
herself for my sake, and it was as good a time as any to test Anunit, and the
value of her gift.
Josie had dropped close enough to the burial ground for me to grab her
ankle and spin her body until her foot passed between two tree trunks. I
bent, half in and half out of the ward, to dig a small hole in the freshly
sprung grass. After wrestling her knee to bend it, I stuck her foot in the soil
then buried it to the ankle.
 With that done, I grabbed her by the shoulders and shook until she
groaned at me. “Put down roots.”
“Curse…” She rolled onto her side, tucking her face into my stomach.
“Bones…”
“I was granted permission for you to use this grove.”
Foot twitching, she formed rootlets in place of her toes on instinct.
“Whaaat…?”
“I was going to break it down for you later, but later is now. Put down
roots. Draw magic from the earth. Heal yourself. Then we can talk.”
“Carter is on the way.” Kierce’s shadow fell across me. “Aretha is
farther out, but she’s en route too.”
“Good.” I stroked Josie’s hair. “Thanks.”
“Will she be all right?”
“She’s drained, but this should help.”
In all the years I watched her do this to replenish herself, I never
imagined I would be doing the same. She drew strength from nutrient-rich
soil and nearby plants and vegetation. Now I drew strength from faith,
belief, and magic-rich soil. I found I liked having one more thing in
common with my sister.
Lowering himself to sit beside me, Kierce asked, “Can you tell me what
happened in there?”
I told him everything.
And I expected him to scold me, to fret, to caution I had gotten in too
deep with yet another god.
But tension eased from his shoulders, and his expression grew
thoughtful. “You made a fine bargain.”
Dumbstruck by his calmness, I gawked at him. “You’re not mad?”
“I have no right to be mad when the decision was yours to make.”
“Yes, well, I still would have preferred to get your opinion ahead of
time.” I hesitated. “It’s really okay?”
“You had no other choice.” He touched my cheek. “She made sure of
that.”
C arter fussed over Josie, who miraculously woke after Carter took my
place, cradling Josie’s head on her lap. The redcap, already smeared
in cheddar puff residue, frantically snacked until Aretha arrived on
the scene. Aretha declared the patient dehydrated and anemic and
prescribed plenty of fluids, supplements, and bed rest. All of which Carter
wrote in ink on the back of her hand in bold print.
The highlight of the day—no, the week—had to be Carter’s insistence
on carrying Josie out of the forest.
Delicate, Josie was not. She was tall and gangly and muscled from her
labors. But Carter persisted.
Kierce tolerated my snickering behind their backs as Josie swooned in
her savior’s arms for ten minutes.
Then he lifted me over his shoulder, gripping my thighs against his
chest, and plowed ahead of them.
“Quit stealing my thunder,” Josie called out to Kierce. “Let me savor
my princess moment.”
“You heard her.” I pounded on his back. “Put me down.”
“You have your princess moment,” Carter puffed. “Frankie’s having a
potato sack moment.”
“Hey, Kierce.” Josie kicked her feet with delight. “Is that true? Is
Frankie your sack?”
 “I haven’t been with a man since dinosaurs roamed the earth,” Carter
said, sighing, “but even I know that’s not—”
“Dinosaurs?” Josie squealed loud enough to make my ears ring. “You
saw dinosaurs?”
“That was sarcasm.” Carter rolled her eyes. “I’m not that old.”
Aretha was gone by the time we reached our vehicles, and Carter had
left her truck idling with the lightbar flashing to deter anyone driving by
from thinking oh, free truck. That was where she took Josie. I was trying to
watch how she planned on getting Josie in the truck when it was so very tall
and Carter was so very not, but Kierce turned, cutting off my view.
“Hey.” I wiggled against him. “It was just getting interesting.”
As I slid down the front of his sweat-slick torso, I decided things were
much more interesting here.
“What the hell?” Carter yelped. “You’ve got more arms than an
octopus.”
“Maybe you were right.” I leaned against the wagon while the blood
rushed out of my head. “There are some things we aren’t meant to see.”
“I’ll drive.” He opened the passenger side door and helped me in.
“Just…fasten your seat belt.”
With those words of confidence ringing in my ears, I strapped in and
wished I was the praying kind.

T ,K
wagon into The Body Shop parking lot.
Josie and Carter were sitting on the tailgate of her truck, eating a pizza
and drinking beer.
The process of parking took about five minutes.
Roll, roll, brake. Roll, roll, brake. Roll, roll, brake.
Never had riding in the wagon made me queasy—I wasn’t prone to
carsickness—but I was about to toss my cookies. Even the smell of pizza
when I stepped out had my stomach churning. I had to keep upwind of it to
avoid making a mess.
Kierce emerged with sweat slicking back his hair and misting every
inch of exposed skin. I didn’t miss the tremor in his fingers when he shut
his door or when he dropped the wagon’s keys into my hand.
“I have lemon-lime soda.” Josie held up the green bottle. “Y’all look
like you could both use a swig.”
Nothing worked as well as ginger ale at easing upset stomachs, but I
was desperate.
“I’ll take you up on that offer.” I held my breath, snagged the bottle,
then retreated to a safe distance. I cracked it open, took a long drink I hoped
didn’t come back up, then passed it to Kierce. “Try this.”
“I’ve never tasted soda.” He turned the plastic bottle this way and that.
“It’s lemon-lime flavored?”
“Mostly it tastes like burning tongue to me, but it can help settle your
stomach.”
“Burning…tongue?” Kierce thrust it back at me. “I’ll pass.”
“That’s not the taste.” Josie snorted. “It’s…well…the sensation.”
Carter bit into a slice of pepperoni pizza with cheddar puffs layered on
top. “Y’all aren’t selling it.”
“When we were little,” I explained to Kierce, “we dreamed of affording
soda like normal kids.”
“We drank what was popular,” Josie agreed. “I don’t think we ever
stopped to consider if we liked it.”
The ability to pull out a debit card and pay for cans, bottles, cases of
sodas was a milestone achievement for the children we had been, but the
shine had worn thin. We didn’t drink it often these days, but there was
always some in one of our fridges. To prove it wasn’t a luxury. To make it a
pantry staple.
“I texted the Ezells to let them know to meet us here,” Kierce said.
“Have they arrived yet?”
We had given them all the grace we could spare, but it was time to
officially reclaim this repo.
“Listen to you.” Josie patted his shoulder. “Using technical terms like
text correctly in a sentence.”
About to chastise her, I snapped my mouth shut when he smiled like he
enjoyed her teasing.
And that was what it was—teasing. Not the taunting jabs she exchanged
with Harrow. There was no malice or unkindness. She was gentler with
Kierce. Still sharp—that was Josie for you—but careful not to wound him
as he gained his footing among us Marys.
 “That reminds me.” Carter licked her fingers clean. “Your loaner’s kid
helped us sort out Tate and Kim.”
From the sound of things, Keshawn was earnest in her desire to make
amends. “I’m almost scared to ask, but do go on.”
“Kim, a longtime Grandview Women’s Club member, had been wait-
listed for the commune. But she got on scene, put two and two together, and
decided to let herself in through the back door. She knew Tate was in a bad
spot too, so Kim explained how to get in and left Tate to follow on her
own.” Carter sighed. “The problem was Kim didn’t know the location of the
commune, she figured it was in the woods near the bones, and Anunit killed
her before she got anywhere close.”
“Poor Kim.”
“Meanwhile, Tate decided she didn’t want to go into hiding. She faked
her disappearance, waited on her husband to come looking for her, like she
knew he would, and she killed him. Kim gave her a bone as an entry key,
and Tate failed to return it. The following night, after she killed her
husband, she met Anunit.”
Anunit would have held us accountable for the bones if they hadn’t been
in the pit before Josie sealed the area with her weeping willows. “You must
have returned those to Kierce while I was out.”
“She did,” he confirmed it. “I placed them back where they belong.”
“Thank God,” I exhaled, grateful to be ticking off the boxes to close out
this case.
“Your loaner is back there.” Carter hooked a thumb over her shoulder.
“They’ve had time for goodbyes.”
The edge in her voice told me she wasn’t thrilled with their behavior
either, but I considered us even.
“In that case, I’ll get to it.” I left Kierce and the others behind, winding
around the shop until I located the Ezells. They stood side by side, their
arms around each other, Keshawn with her head resting on her mother’s
much lower shoulder. “Hello, ladies.”
The pair of them turned and met me with smiles, honest ones, and I
found my lips curving too. “Ready?”
“Yes,” Keshawn beat her mother to answering, which earned her a
chuckle from Tameka.
“Then let’s get started.” I gestured toward the garage. “After you,
ladies.”
A , C ,
for me to prime for the next loaner.
Armed with Vi’s contact information, and my offer, Keshawn stepped
into a Swyft and set out for home. After the past several days, she had a lot
to think about before deciding if New Orleans was right for her.
With the loaner sorted, and my stomach settled, I was ready for my
share of the pizza when I rejoined the others.
“Are you expecting more company?” Josie hopped down from Carter’s
tailgate, gaze fixed up the road. “There’s a truck pulling onto Downing
Street.” That was our street. “It just turned on its blinker.”
“Hey.” Carter’s gaze sharpened. “I know that old beater.” She set her
slice back in the box. “Josie, maybe you ought to head in.”
There was only one person who would cause that phrase to pop out of
her mouth.
“Is that Harrow?” Josie cracked her knuckles. “What does he want?”
“Looks like we’re about to find out.” I folded my arms across my chest.
“Let’s see what this is about.”
Sure enough, the truck pulled into the lot, and Harrow stepped out with
his hands lifted in the air like he was being held at gunpoint.
“I apologize for arriving unannounced.” He jerked his chin toward the
truck. “Matty’s in there.”
“Matty?” Josie marched toward him. “What are you doing with him?”
“Jo.” Carter caught her around the stomach and tugged her back. “Let
him talk.”
Jo? Carter had given her a nickname? That sounded serious.
But it wasn’t as important as getting to the bottom of this.
“Captain Tilly called me about thirty minutes ago. An officer had pulled
over someone in a Chrysler Pacifica who was asking for me. She asked if I
knew Matty, I said yes, and she explained he had been pulled over for drunk
driving.”
“Matty would never do that in a million years.”
“I explained to her that he was diabetic, and his blood sugar was low.”
He slanted his face away from me, as if afraid to see how I was taking the
news. “The symptoms of hypoglycemia and drunkenness are similar.” He
shrugged. “Since I vouched for him, she released him into my custody
without filing charges.”
“Thanks.” I rushed over to check on him. “I appreciate you bringing
him home.”
I wrenched open the door to find Matty lolling on the seat, his eyes open
but unseeing.
“We need Aretha.” I glanced over my shoulder at Josie. “Let’s get him
up to his bed.”
Harrow moved in to help me carry him, but Josie broke free of Carter
and bumped him aside. Raising his hands again, he backed away and
allowed Josie and me to lift Matty out. I hooked my hands under his arms,
and she hitched a leg to either side of her hips. He sagged between us, but
we were old pros at this.
“I’ll get the door.” Kierce jogged ahead of us. “Do you need anything
else?”
“Just Aretha,” I panted out. “Carter—”
But Carter was already behind the wheel of her truck, and she spun out
to fetch the med witch as we climbed to his apartment.
“She forgot to close the tailgate.” Josie sounded numb. “All that pizza
gone to waste.”
She didn’t care about the pizza. She cared about Matty. But if she
focused on him, his limp and still form, she would allow our greatest fear to
seize her. That he was gone. That he had slipped away from us. That the
vague and distant tomorrow we kept putting off thinking about was actually
today, and we had missed it. His final moments, and we had been elsewhere
when we should have been with him.
On the landing, we hustled Matty inside and arranged him on the bed.
Drawing up my courage, I faced the gnawing dread within me and
placed my palm on his forehead.
Cold energy swirled through his body, reaching out to meet my warmth.
For a split second, I almost felt relief, but then comprehension crashed
down around me.
His soul was…gone.
Gone.
But someone—or something—was slithering around inside him.
“Matty...” I stared at our brother’s twitching body. “He’s…” I
swallowed hard. “He’s not in there.”
 As tremors clenched him in teeth-clicking spasms, the blood leached
from her cheeks. “Then who is?”
“I don’t know.” I brushed the hair off his clammy forehead. “But I’m
going to find out.”
T hirteen stressful hours later…

A , I
body. All the practice flitting back and forth to the commune must have
honed the skill. For once, I was cognizant of my soul going slippery as I
was whisked away to Dis Pater’s study. Leaving my unconscious brother
behind.
“What do you think about Blythe Montfort falling in love with the new
mailman?” He sat with his back to me, staring down his screen. “Has it
been overdone? I did kill the old one in the last novel.” He rested his chin
on his palm. “It doesn’t have to be the mailman. There’s FedEx, UPS,
DHL.” He tilted his head. “Maybe Kitt is the one who needs a romantic
interest.”
“I could see you writing cat porn.”
A sigh moved through his shoulders. “And the stalker returns.”
“Whatever you want with Kierce, make it fast.” I tapped my foot a mile
a minute. “I don’t have time for this.”
Matty had yet to wake, and I was coming apart at the seams trying to
figure out what was wrong.
“I’ve been tolerant of you, mouthy girl, but even my patience has its
limits.”
 An orange tabby prowled around the corner, twitching its ears at him.
“Oh, Buttons.” He fished a cat treat out of a bag on his desk. “I’m sorry,
daddy’s little angel boy.”
“I’m not your little angel,” the cat purred. “And I have no use for your
apologies.”
“Oh, hey, Anunit.” I kept it casual, like I had expected her to pop in.
“You know this guy?”
Stumbling back, Dis Pater hit his desk and fell flat on his ass. He
scrabbled, frantic, pulling his laptop onto his head with a thwack that left
him dazed for all of two seconds before terror set in again.
Oh, yeah. They knew each other. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be ready to
pee his pants.
“How did you get past my wards?” He sat there, legs splayed. “It’s not
possible.”
“Your wards do not affect Frankie Talbot, and so they do not affect me
in her presence.”
“Y-y-you,” he spluttered, jabbing a finger at me, his face edging from
red to purple. “What have you done?”
“I have given this child the power of her people, so that the spirit of the
Alcheyvāhā will live on in her.”
“Hold on. My people?” A cold sweat broke down my spine. “What
does that mean?”
The cat savored his fear for a moment longer then shook out its fur and
yowled at the top of its lungs.
Without another word, she left me turning over what she let slip, and I
couldn’t stop my brain gnawing on it. If Anunit was a distant relative of
mine, would it explain why she could speak to me? Why she accepted our
gift in exchange for our lives during that first meeting? Why, after all this
time, she had placed her mantle on someone else’s shoulders?
And if it did mean those things, did I want to find out? Would knowing
my ancestry ignite my curiosity over my parents? I didn’t want to meet
them. I didn’t want to give them space in my brain or in my heart. But if I
knew my lineage, then I might figure out why the gods had it in for me.
And how to protect my family from their wrath.
“Get out.” Dis Pater threw his keyboard at me, or maybe at the formerly
possessed cat. “Now.”
 Kierce burst in the door as his god ramped up his temper tantrum, but
this confrontation was inevitable. Dis Pater expected a report on the
Alcheyvāhā situation, a resolution, and boy howdy did I have one. But
having Anunit drop in to scare him straight? That was icing on the cake.
“All decisions involving the care and keeping of the Alcheyvāhā burial
sites now go through me. Kierce, you’re absolved from performing any
duties pertaining to the Alcheyvāhā. I’ll oversee cleanup myself.”
Without murdering and/or lobotomizing anyone.
“You want to handle it on your own? Fine. Works for me.” Dis Pater
smoothed a hand down his shirt. “Kierce will explain the protocol to you.”
“I have my own protocol, but thanks.” I focused on the cool weight of
Matty’s hand in mine, picturing the chair where I sat beside his bed. “I’ll
leave you to your work, and you can leave me to mine.”
With ease earned from extensive practice over the last week, I willed
myself back into my body.
Unable to catch a breath until I checked Matty over, I sighed to find his
condition remained static.
“What did I walk in on back there?”
Hard to believe I had kicked a hornet’s nest in the time it took Kierce to
walk through the front door.
“Dis Pater wanted his update, but he didn’t get to his point before
Anunit possessed his cat.”
“Buttons is a housecat.” His mouth fell open. “Anunit was inside Dis
Pater’s home?”
“Um, yes.” I tapped his chin until his teeth clacked together.
“Apparently, she can go wherever I go.”
Kierce sank onto the floor, his head down, his body frozen.
“You okay there?” I cupped his cheek. “You’re kind of pale, and you
don’t have much color to spare.”
“Before, you were a curiosity.” He scrubbed his hands down his face.
“Now he’ll view you as a threat.”
“Will that cause problems for us?”
“Gods exist to cause problems.”
“That sounds like a yes.” I smoothed my thumb across his jaw. “Too bad
for him, I’m not giving you up.”
“You might not have a choice,” he rasped, leaning into my touch.
“There’s always a choice, and I choose you.”
 And as soon as my brother was safe, I would devote my full attention to
breaking Kierce free of Dis Pater’s control. Let him find a new Viduus. This
one was mine.
 JOIN THE TEAM

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 ABOUT THE AUTHOR
USA Today best-selling author Hailey Edwards
writes about questionable applications of otherwise
perfectly good magic, the transformative power of love, the family you choose for yourself, and
blowing stuff up. Not necessarily all at once. That could get messy.

www.HaileyEdwards.net
A L S O B Y H A I LEY E DWA R D S

The Body Shop

Fair Market Value #1

Amber Gambler #2
Midnight Auto Parts #3
Cheater Slicks #4

Black Hat Bureau

Black Hat, White Witch #1

Black Arts, White Craft #2
Black Truth, White Lies #3
Black Soul, White Heart #3.5
Black Wings, Gray Skies #4
Gray Witch #5
Gray Tidings #6
Gray Court #7
Gray Seas #8
Gray Days #9
Gray Dawn #10

The Foundling

Bayou Born #1
Bone Driven #2
Death Knell #3
Rise Against #4
End Game #5

The Beginner’s Guide to Necromancy

How to Save an Undead Life #1

How to Claim an Undead Soul #2
How to Break an Undead Heart #3
How to Dance an Undead Waltz #4
How to Live an Undead Lie #5
 How to Wake an Undead City #6
How to Kiss an Undead Bride #7
How to Survive an Undead Honeymoon #8
How to Rattle an Undead Couple #9

The Potentate of Atlanta

Shadow of Doubt #1
Pack of Lies #2
Change of Heart #3
Proof of Life #4
Moment of Truth #5
Badge of Honor #6

Black Dog Series

Dog with a Bone #1

Dog Days of Summer #1.5
Heir of the Dog #2
Lie Down with Dogs #3
Old Dog, New Tricks #4

Black Dog Series Novellas

Stone-Cold Fox

Gemini Series

Dead in the Water #1

Head Above Water #2
Hell or High Water #3

Gemini Series Novellas

Fish Out of Water

Lorimar Pack Series

Promise the Moon #1

Wolf at the Door #2
Over the Moon #3

Araneae Nation

A Heart of Ice #.5

 A Hint of Frost #1
A Feast of Souls #2
A Cast of Shadows #2.5
A Time of Dying #3
A Kiss of Venom #3.5
A Breath of Winter #4
A Veil of Secrets #5

Daughters of Askara

Everlong #1
Evermine #2
Eversworn #3

Wicked Kin

Soul Weaver #1