Page 87 of Midnight Auto Parts

“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 jarredawake to cold wrought iron jabbing me in the back 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 Idrew 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. “Wehave 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.

Same 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.”

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