Page 43 of The Exorcism of Faeries

She recognised Gold Stitch’s car but didn’t realise until a few moments later that she’d never actually seen it before. Though, she was convinced people looked like their cars and pets. The lead anatomist of a masked secret society driving an olive Ford Capri from what looked like the 1960s was almost comically fitting.

She parked near him but selected a spot with a streetlight and he had not—ever in the shadows. Atta locked her car and slid into his.

“Do I look like my car?” she asked by way of greeting.

“Excuse me?”

God, she wanted to rip that stupid mask off. “Do I look like my car?”

The mask rotated in the direction of her car, goggles shining. “Em. I suppose so?”

Atta huffed. “Never mind. I think we should look at a different cadaver than the one we found last night.”

“Why is that?” He pulled out onto the main road.

“Because I don’t know what Stage 4 is, but I think it’s Lauren Kennedy.”

Gold Stitch’s head snapped toward her. “No.”

“So you know about her.”

“Obviously I do.”

“Then let’s take her.”

“That’s a death sentence. We can’t thieve a body from under the Society’s nose, Atta.”

There he was using her name again, damn him.

“We should at least go collect a sample.”

He sighed so heavily she had to stifle a chuckle because he sounded like he was about to say,‘No, I am your fatha’ to Luke Skywalker.

“All right.”

“All right?” Atta squealed.

That low, thunderous rumble of a laugh of his sounded in his chest and Atta’s cheeks heated. “Do you know where she is?”

“As a matter of fact, I think I do.”

She noted that he wasn’t wearing gloves this time, and her attention snagged on his hands as they gripped the wheel.

Atta didn’t know her way around Dublin as well as she should, but she definitely knew they weren’t headed to college.

“This is a café,” she said blandly when he pulled into a car park. “There are Infected bodies under this café?”

“No.” He got out of the car and leaned his head back in. “But you’ve got the underground part right. Come on.”

Atta climbed out and followed a masked man onto a secluded walkway into a dark, wooded area. One of these days, she was going to pay for being so trusting. Or was it reckless?

“Where are we going?” she whispered, stepping more quickly to walk next to him.

“You’ll see.”

A tree rustled above them and Atta gasped, grabbing Gold Stitch’s arm and squeezing it to her chest before she realised what was happening. An owl glided out from the branches near the top, swooping down past them and into another tree with ahoo.

Realising it wasn’t a monster or villain or anything else that goes bump in the night, Atta let out a breath, then noticed she was clutching her masked man’s arm like her life depended on it. She looked up into his goggles and dropped his arm, stepping away abruptly. “Sorry,” she murmured, rubbing at the back of her neck.

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