Page 46 of Cheater Slicks

“Divide and conquer?” I noticed a few spirits shying away from Kierce and knew we had to be cautious. “You can take the left, and I’ll take the right.”

A long caw rent the air, comforting me that Badb was in the skies watching over us.

Kierce must have told her where to meet us, since I hadn’t noticed her trailing us earlier.

With more confidence than I felt, I peeled off to the right in search of spirits eager to chat.

“You’re a neck-romancer,” a dark-eyed girl asked, hiding behind a tree. “You romance ghosts, right?”

“Um.” The kid might have been eight or nine, and her clothes placed her death in the eighties. “I’m more of a neck-friendancer.” I rubbed a finger between my eyes. “I’m friends with ghosts. That’s what I meant to say. I have a boyfriend. Who’s alive.” As far as I could tell. “So. Hi. I’m Frankie. Nice to meet you.”

“With lines like that, I believe you.” She burst into bubbling giggles. “I’m Tina.” She craned her slim neck, which seemed longer than it had been a minute ago. “What brings you to the cemetery? Are you looking for someone?”

“I have a few questions for anyone who might have seen or heard anything about a recent auction.”

Recentkept the time frame vague enough I could hope a spirit would remember, but it was a crapshoot.

“Those happen all the time.” She teased her hair-sprayed bangs to even greater heights. “You’ll have to be more specific.” She shook glitter off her fishnet-gloved hand. “Ghosts aren’t great with time anyway.”

A niggle in the back of my mind prompted me to pay closer attention.

I could have sworn she was younger than ten when she made the neck-romancer comment, but her face seemed thinner than when I had first noticed her. Up close, she also appeared taller. Almost like she was aging in front of me. Her self-awareness struck me as peculiar too.

Most ghosts had a loose grip on time made worse by the fact they didn’t realize how fast it slipped past them, but she was aware.

And the longer we talked, the more her speech and posture altered with subtle but visible tweaks.

“You’re not a spirit,” I said, taking a shot in the dark.

“Don’t tell me you haven’t bumped into one of my kind yet.” She laughed, delighted. “Am I your first?”

Definitely maturing before my eyes, but I wasn’t sure how she managed the trick. Spirits could alter their appearances, but to change so much? Had she been playing at being a kid and was older? I could see her using that trick to attract prey…

Oh.

Crap.

She lowered part of her glamour, revealing green slitted cat eyes, which she winked at me.

“You’re a nekomata.” I jolted at the realization. “Definitely my first.”

Nekomata were cats who gained the ability to shapeshift into humans and could then feast on their souls. Few cats achieved what was, for them, a sort of divinity. Parasitic though it may be.

“I’m honored then.” Her smile grew more pointed with needlelike teeth. “Hunting is good here, so I’m always around. Funerals are a particular draw, and auctions aren’t so bad either.”

“What do you know about the last auction?”

“Offer me a good deal—” she flexed her fingers, and tiny claws pierced their tips, “—and I’ll tell you.”

This was better news than I could have hoped for, in the sense she would know dates and times. Better than a spirit anyway. Which, honestly, might not be saying much. Still. It was worth a try. If I couldn’t get information out of her, there was an entire cemetery full of potential witnesses to canvass.

Carter would have been proud. I had almost sounded like a professional investigator there for a minute.

“What kind of deal?”

The cool voice washed over my shoulder as Kierce stepped up beside me, and I said, “Hi, honey.”

A faint stain painted his cheeks at the endearment, tempting me to tease him more often. “Hello.”

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