Page 90 of Midnight Auto Parts

“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 alotlike 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.

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