Page 83 of Midnight Auto Parts

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, hecame 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 thewards. 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.

Officers 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 godskilled in the first place, was too dangerous to place in the hands of mortals.

---