Page 51 of Cheater Slicks

With no clue as to who else could be gunning for me, I elected to focus on the easy target.

“What are the odds Dis Pater rummaged through his closet for this relicafterI pissed him off?”

The saint bone hadn’t changed hands, so he must have been saving it for a rainy day.

Too bad I hadn’t checked the forecast before I smarted off to him about my new guardian role.

Based on the degree of decline in Matty’s cognitive function, he was among the first victims if not victim zero. Which meant Dis Pater must have gone out of his way to expose my brother to contaminated food or drink in Thunderbolt slightly before or simultaneously as the outbreak spread through New Orleans. His friend, Leyna, must have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Had he known I had connections to the city, or had the bone dictated the secondary location? I could see it going either way, but the existence of the toughs indicated auctions were a regular side gig for the god to rake in money or power or both.

As Vi had taught me, if you had arcane trinkets to unload, you couldn’t find more eager bidders than in New Orleans.

Dis Pater struck me as petty, but would he go through that much trouble just to put me in my place?

Considering he killed me out of curiosity, yeah. I could see him deciding I had stolen the Alcheyvaha from him, so he would take items of equal value from me. I just didn’t see why the burial grounds mattered so much to him.

I had taken a job off his hands. I was freeing up more of his time to write. As much as he harped on deadlines and bills, he ought to be grateful.

“The only documented cases are in the Savannah and New Orleans areas, and with both Matty and Vi afflicted, I’m inclined to agree this is a punishment.”

Heart in my throat, I asked, “I can’t count on you if I have to go up against Dis Pater, can I?”

“He’s my master,” he said simply.

Kierce mashed his lips into a hard line, promising he would fight every step of the way, but until I found a way to free him from Dis Pater—and I hadn’t begun to look—we might find ourselves on different sides of a fight neither of us wanted.

Already I was making contingency plans that didn’t rely on his help, knowing what it would cost me to shut him out. But I refused to pay with the souls of innocents, even if it got my heart banged up in the process. “Do you think your bond to Dis Pater is what tipped the scale with Rollo?”

Until Kierce pitched in, Anunit and I had been struggling in vain to cut the final cord binding Rollo.

“I don’t think so, or I would have had more luck with Matty that first night. Rollo hadn’t been part of the parade for long. He was more lucid than the others. There was more to grip.”

“If we can’t pry Vi and Matty out, if they’re too far gone, I’ll have to visit Dis Pater and bargain with him for the finger bone. Destroying it might be the only way to free Matty and Vi, and everyone else.”

“I pray it doesn’t come to that.”

“Me too.”

* * *

The Midnight Paradecould have been a movie projection the way its revelers never missed a beat.

Of all the choice locations in the Quarter, I wondered why this one was special. “What anchors them to this street?”

Kierce, cocking his head birdlike, considered it. “Perhaps the saint lived on Ursulines?”

“Or died here?” That was always an option. “Midnight is the witching hour, but I don’t get why they’re only visible for ten minutes before vanishing. I don’t see why they would be visible at all, really.”

Unless the spirits had to materialize daily to maintain the tenuous connection to their bodies.

“The parade is a rather specific manifestation. We would have to know the saint’s name to determine the particulars.” He considered it. “That or the name of the person who turned the finger into a relic.”

By the time we heard drums, we had positioned ourselves in the middle of the street.

We held our ground as the parade swirled around us in a blur of dancers, singers, and musicians.

Halfway through the crowd, I spotted Matty and had to lock my knees to keep from running to him. That I had to prioritize Vi gutted me. I wanted my brother back. Now.Tonight.But I had to be smart about it.

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