Page 42 of Sweaty Nights & Gator Bites

Kota placed a comforting hand on my shoulder. “What do you sense, Dea? Is there anything that can help us track him?”

I closed my eyes and reached out with my spiritual senses. The energy here was chaotic. It was a toxic tornado of fear and pain. Concentrating, I tried to look deeper. Beneath it all, I could feel Garrick's dark presence. He was a stain on the fabric of the bayou's magic.

As we began to search the area for clues, Adèle's voice echoed in our minds. “Stay vigilant. There's more to this than meets the eye.”

Kota snorted and said, “Yeah, he’s getting bolder and escalating like a serial killer.”

We moved carefully, documenting everything we found. The markings, the symbols, the faint traces of dark magic that clung to the air. Each piece of evidence brought us closer to understanding how unhinged Garrick had become but not much else. Nothing would tell us how we could predict his next move and stop it before it happened.

“We have to stop him,” Lia said with a growl as if she’d read my mind. “Before anyone else gets hurt.”

Phi nodded in agreement and cocked her head to meet Lia’s gaze. “I have a feeling she’s important to the ecosystem here like Melanie was. Do you think she was one of the gators?”

“I really hope not,” I replied as my heart lurched. Focusing on the vibrations of the land under my feet wasn’t much help in terms of distraction. The subtle pulse had changed drastically over the past few days.

I tried to connect with the spiritual plane as my sisters worked. The victim's lingering fear and pain refused to let go of me. I needed to see if she was hanging around. My power worked a little too well. A gasp left me and I fell to my knees. Images washed over me in a wave. I watched her final moments play out in a series of disjointed, terrifying images. There were flashes of a dark figure before I felt the searing pain of the magical assault. The victim's desperate screams for help would haunt my nightmares for the rest of my life.

Lia clasped my shoulders and crouched in front of me. “Are you alright?”

I tried to smile and reassure her, but I couldn’t. “It's her,” I said softly. “She's still here. There was so much pain and terror. Whoever did this, enjoyed it.”

“Focus, Dea." Adèle's voice startled me and caught me off guard. “Use your connection to the spiritual plane to find any clues the victim might have left behind.”

“I’ll try,” I replied.

“Try what?” Lia looked confused.

“Adèle suggested I try and see if the victim left clues behind,” I explained and then took a deep breath. Centering myself, I reached out once more. The victim's spirit was weak. She was barely a whisper. However, there wassomething there. A glimmer of insight. I followed it and pieced together the fragments.

“She knew her attacker,” I said, my voice trembling with the weight of the revelation. “She was surprised, but not entirely. There's something about the magic... it's familiar to her.”

“Perhaps she was one of Garrick’s helpers,” Kota postulated. “With that revelation, I say we head back to Willowberry and analyze everything further. There's more going on here than we realize.”

Lia looked up from typing on her phone. “Terrance is sending a team to pick her up. They don’t have a coroner yet, but he said he would expedite it in case they can gather information that will help.”

“We should also ask Remy if he knows her. She might not be working with Garrick,” Dre said as we headed back to the car.

Stepping over a large root, I considered what I’d learned. “I can’t say with certainty who she is or what she was doing, but she knew Garrick and was surprised by his treachery. Maybe our actions are impeding his plans.”

Dani sighed and shot me a small smile. “That would be nice, wouldn’t it? I would love to stop that asshole.”

The bayou was darker and more foreboding as if it too, mourned the loss of another life. The victim's spirit issued a silent plea for justice as we left the swamp. “We'll find who did this,” I promised her. “We won't let them get away with it.” The oppressive humidity of the bayou seemed to seep into my very bones as I stood there, looking back at the lifeless body of another victim.

“What was that?” Dre asked.

“I was talking to her,” I gestured to the victim, making everyone stop.

Lia took a step back toward the victim and asked, “Is it just her reaching out to you?”

“Ummm,” I hummed. “It feels like there are more. Her message is just the clearest.”

Dani pursed her lips and thrust her hands on her hips. “You should try to connect with any other ghosts out here. Otherwise, you might keep getting pulled back out here. Everyone deserves to be heard.”

“That’s a good point,” Kota agreed.

“It’s worth a shot,” I added. It didn’t take much to extend my spirit powers and mentally call out to the spirits around us. I closed my eyes, trusting my sisters to watch my back while I tried to pick through the voices. That part was difficult. A dozen people or more were clamoring to tell me something. I stood there silently and listened.

“What did the spirits say, Dea?” Dani asked in an urgent tone.

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