Page 77 of Midnight Auto Parts

“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.

“Thatthingkilled Genevieve.” She made the sign of the cross. “Ate her breasts to pelvis.”

Thethingin 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? CommuneDoom.”

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 Alcheyvaha? Had they known? Or had they only recognized them as powerful enough to protect this community they were building? Had thediscovery sparked the idea? Or had they been searching for a solution to make their dream a reality?

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