Page 18 of The Grave Robber

I gave up and let the grin get a solid foothold. “Aunt Lillikes your voice,” I relayed.

“Oh.” Halle sat up straighter. “Thank you.”

“Okay,” Aunt Lil said, clapping soundlessly, “my job here isdone. I’m going to go check out that hottie at the bar some more. He may likeBetty, but she ain’t got a ring on her finger yet. Am I right?”

She disappeared before I could answer.

Halle folded her hands in her lap. “It’s very nice to meetyou, Lillian.”

Should I tell her?

“I hope we can become friends.”

This was getting awkward. “She’s gone.”

“Really?” Her shoulders dropped. “I had so many questions.”

“She does that. Pops in and out like a loose lightbulb. It’sokay until she decides to ride sidesaddle in my lap on the bike. I almost diedmaking this trip. Twice.”

She laughed softly, the sound like a summer breeze. “Wheredid she go?”

“To stalk Jason.”

She laughed again. I was on a roll. “He probably deservesit.”

“Agreed.”

She smoothed the skirt of her dress and asked, “Have youalways been able to do what you do? Like, since you were a kid?”

I thought for a moment before answering, wondering how muchto tell her. They say honesty is the best policy, but I’ve found people don’treally want to hear how bad they look in a swimsuit. “Since I was a kid? Yes, toa degree. But things became…amplified a handful of years ago.”

“Amplified how?”

I took the exit that would lead us back to Cruisers and mybike. “Do you remember the weird outbreak that shut Albuquerque down about fiveyears ago?”

She shot up again with the memory. “I do. That was bizarre.A virus caused people to go crazy and become violent overnight.”

I clicked my tongue. “That’s the one.”

“They had to quarantine the whole city and then it juststopped.”

“Thanks to a few of my closest friends.”

“They stopped the virus?” she asked in awe.

“It was never a virus. It was supernatural in nature.”

Her mouth rounded prettily. “I don’t understand.”

“Well, they kind of started it so it was pretty much up tothem to stop it. The important thing is, they succeeded.” When she simplywatched me, waiting for more, I obliged. “These friends are supernaturalentities themselves and kind of accidentally opened a hell dimension on Earth.The demons from that dimension possessed…certain people and turned themviolent.” She didn’t need to know they only possessed people with mentalillnesses. People like me. “I was one of them.”

She sucked in a soft breath and then covered her mouth withboth hands.

“One of my friends, one of the supernatural entities, wasable to extricate the demon inside me, with the help of a departed Rottweilernamed Artemis.”

“Dogs can become ghosts, too?”

I laughed. She would focus on that part. “They can, thoughlike humans, they usually cross.”

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