Page 94 of Midnight Auto Parts

“Whether they know it or not, they’ve paid their tithe for today.”

“If you’re sure.”

With an exhale, I willed myself to believe it. “They’re safe from her.”

For now.

“Then let’s do this.” Vi took my hand, and I took hers. “I’ll sing harmony.”

Without candles or lighters or herbs or crystals, I was winging it. I had this knot in my gut, an odd tangle of confidence that I could do this without those props. I was more now than I had been. I had more magic. I could do this. All I had to do was partake in the lifeblood of the gods.

Faith.

Matty, Josie, Vi, Kierce.

They believed in me. Not in a worshipful way—that would be weird—but with a no less profound certainty. And that was before I ascended. Then I was justme.

Searching deep within myself, I identified that shimmer of power in my core and dipped a hand in, allowing the magic to sluice over my skin and drip from my fingertips. I launched into the sweet chorus of a French lullaby Vi had taught me. I suffused it with my will, pictured Anunit in my mind, and sang.

The gathering continued to churn with unrest, the women fearful and uncertain, but I narrowed my focus to Anunit. I prayed she would come, or as near to it as I was able, that she would help us and not decide she felt snackish.

Keshawn screamed, her voice splitting the night in two like kindling after the fall of an ax. Anunit. Her presence weightedmy shoulders, lending her mass even as the others couldn’t see her. Vi sucked in a breath and made the sign of the cross.

“Anunit.”I risked it all on my interpretation of her emotional investment in this.“Please, help her.”

“You ask me to reveal myself in front of them.”Her rasping voice slipped through my head with the roughness of a fox tongue.“There is a reason I am an ambush hunter.”

“You can be harmed in your corporeal form, the same as me.”I stiffened my spine.“They’ll scatter if you drop in on their party.”I stepped closer.“All I’m asking for is a distraction.”

“What is this tethered soul worth to you?”Anunit eyed my client.“Her daughter’s life?”

“What’s it worth to you for all your bones to be put safe where they belong?”I jabbed a thumb into my chest.“I can do that.”

Until I said it, really thought about how she was both incorporealandcorporeal, I hadn’t grasped a basic truth. She could have broken the ward, retrieved the bones, and returned them herself. She must be able to sense them. So why hadn’t she?

The binding.

Curse more like it.

“You can’t touch them. You’re as trapped as they are, aren’t you?”

“Magic requires sacrifice. Great magic requires greater sacrifice.”

“To protect the ones you love, you agreed to be this…guardian…but you can’t save yourself.”I thought back on old legends, myths, the bread-and-butter of my childhood.“Someone has to choose to save you. Someone affected by the curse has to be the one to lift it.”I stared at my hands, which had dug bones as surely as the other women.“I qualify.”

“I pardoned you.”She sniffed, but her ears canted forward, alert.“You have nothing to fear from me.”

“Or do I?”I recalled Kierce’s fear and used his logic for my argument.“Did you pardon me for good or only in the moment?”

A gleam lit her eyes, but it was doused almost as fast.“I do not always select my victims. I do not always have the facilities to do so of my own accord. During such times, instinct takes over.”

The warning was clear. I would be stripping off my protection. I would be as vulnerable as the others.

But not quite. I was a demigoddess. There had to be perks to that. Right?

“Your friend needs to decide.” Vi shifted her weight. “They’re about to hamstring her mother.”

Hoping against hope this wasn’t a colossal mistake, I demanded of Anunit,“Do you accept my bargain?”

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