Page 15 of Midnight Auto Parts

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 crunchingnoise 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 crybabyandan 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 victimsandtheir 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 mytake no prisonersattitude 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.

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