Page 21 of Cheater Slicks

“We have a few hours until dawn.” Josie pulled back with damp cheeks. “What do we do now?”

“You and Pedro head back to where you left off,” I decided, hating to send her out in this condition.

With a firm nod, Pedro promised me, “I’ll take good care of her,mija.”

Tears staining her cheeks, Josie blotted her face on her shirt. “What about you and Kierce?”

“I’m going to sit right here.” I sank onto the curb. “And wait to see if this Midnight Parade is literal.”

“You think they might circle back?” Pedro’s brow pinched. “Like a residual haunting?”

Until we grasped how cyclical this event truly was, we couldn’t begin to plot our next move. Pierre found them for us once, yes, but it didn’t guarantee they would come this way again. To move forward, we had to be sure that Ursulines Avenue at midnight was always thewhereand thewhenin order to prepare.

“Residual,” Josie repeated after him. “That’s a ghost that keeps reenacting its death, right?”

“Residuals repeat a set of actions at the same time, in the same place. Death, or other events with strong emotion, are most common, but there are no hard-and-fast rules.” I made room for her to sink next to me. “None of the revelers are dead, so it’s not quite the same.”

“What’s the point then?” She rested her forehead on her knees. “Why trap them in a loop?”

“I don’t know.” I wrapped an arm around her slumped shoulders. “But we’re going to find out.”

The Midnight Parade lived up to its name.

Revelers caught in its snare made one pass down Ursulines Avenue at midnight, and that was that.

To put her mind at ease, I texted Josie.

>You didn’t miss anything. He didn’t come back.

>>At least we have a time and place for tomorrow night.

>We need to visit St. Louis No. 1 before the sun comes up.

Bones creaking, I rose and stretched after sitting for so long on the concrete curb.

>Call a Swyft for Pedro. Send him on to the cemetery. We’ll meet him there and make the swap with Pascal.

Now that Pascal had had his fun, it was time for him to go on Matty duty and let Pedro rest.

>>Jean-Claude asked me to pick up a few things for him. Mind if I go do that?

>Not at all. Thanks for helping out. See you soon.

Hoping to steal a smile from Kierce, I put the Swyft app on his phone and let him do the honors. He got a kick out of performing simple human tasks. Usually. Tonight proved an exception.

“That’s our ride,” he announced, frowning after checking the car against his details twice.

With the driver blasting EDM at a volume I felt in my teeth, I had trouble scrouging up enthusiasm too. Conversation was off the table, so I settled for resting my head on Kierce’s shoulder, threading my fingers through his clenched ones.

Ten minutes later, we got out at the cemetery, my ears ringing. Pedro was already there, waiting on us. I lifted a hand in greeting, and he strolled over to join us in front of the gate.

The lock was bolted for the night, but we had never let that stop us. Old pros at climbing fences, we didn’t hesitate to swing over and join in the chaotic bustle of spirits getting up to all sorts of shenanigans.

“The Fontenot mausoleum is this way.” I cut around the raucous crowd rather than through them out of politeness, not because I would jostle them. “Have you been here before, Kierce?”

“Many times.” He soaked in our surroundings. “The spirits aren’t usually this active when I visit.”

“You got Frankie, and Frankie is good people.”

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