Chapter 2

Palms damp from the horror show on River Street, my hands slipped on the wheel as I guided the wagon into The Body Shop's parking lot. Pedro had closed up early and sat waiting on a bench welded from cast-iron radiators and pipes in the mini herb garden by the front office door. I figured Josie must have texted him about Ormewood—and Harrow—but then I recalled Josie mentioning that Matty had a big date.

"I'll drive Pedro home. Then we can discuss what to do about…" I made a vague gesture. "Everything."

"This calls for hamburger mac," Josie announced. "I'll have dinner ready when you get back."

The recipe was a throwback to when we bought cheap boxed dinners by the armfuls to stretch our cash. Half the time, we couldn't afford meat to mix with it back then. She cooked from scratch these days with fresh tomato sauce, courtesy of her garden. We could afford a pound of ground beef for the pot too. But the comfort factor remained high, despite the lack of powdered cheese topping.

"Thanks." I didn't bother shifting into park. "I won't be long."

She slid out, the spell on the car disappearing the dirty footprints left from her bare feet, and Pedro slid in.

Before Josie reached the stairs, a man built like a linebacker stepped from the shadows to greet her.

Cranking down my window as fast as my arm would go, I leaned out to yell, "Don't leave that bottomless pit alone with the food."

"Bottomless?" Armie slid his thumbs into his waistband and tugged his jeans down an inch to reveal tanned skin he earned from being Josie's gopher whenever he had the bad luck to visit while she was working out in the garden that was her contribution to the family's bottom line. "I can make that happen."

"Quit propositioning my sister and get your ass upstairs." She slapped his butt. "We have cooking to do."

"Make sure you wash your hands," I called out, snorting when she started playing the drums on his buns as he climbed to her apartment ahead of her.

"Hamburger mac?" Pedro studied me as he fastened his seat belt. "You must have had a rough night."

Guiding the wagon onto Downing Street, I ignored the tremble in my fingers. I hid it behind my next turn less than a minute later onto Bonaventure Road.

"Ormewood killed someone." I couldn't wrap my head around it. "A man. I don't know who he was, what he was, or why she targeted him. But she took him out in a parking lot on River Street. With her grandkids, who are now missing, in tow."

A minute later, the twin stacked granite pillars at the front entrance of Bonaventure Cemetery came into view, each one topped with a depiction of the Virgin Mary. The cemetery was full of them. Marys. It was part of the reason why, silly as it sounded, I felt such a deep kinship with this place. The hundred-plus-acre sprawl I got lost in on long walks when I couldn't shut off my brain didn't hurt either.

Since it was after hours, and I didn't want to advertise my habit of letting myself in whenever the call to ground myself became too loud, I took a right and parked in front of the black wrought iron gate before the second pillared entrance crowned by matching Stars of David, which led into the Jewish cemetery.

"They can't trace Ormewood back to you." He patted my knee with fatherly affection. "It will be okay."

That was usually the case, true, but that was before Harrow. "An old friend of ours was there."

"That's good news, yes?"

"He knows I was hunting the repo, and he knows what I can do." I tightened my grip. "And he's a cop."

"Ay, dios mío."He dragged a hand down his face. "How much trouble are we in?"

We.

The way he tossed his lot in with mine made the backs of my eyes prickle.

"Plenty." I reminded myself to breathe. "How much do you know about necromancers?"

"Not much." He peered out the windshield. "You're the only one I've ever met."

Only half, as far as we could tell, but it wasn't like I had anyone to ask about my parents.

St. Mary's burnt to the ground three decades ago, after the sisters backed a teenaged pyromancer into a corner, taking its records, if they kept any, with it. Most of us had been abandoned on their doorstep, so the sisters had nothing but vague guesses as to our species. I should know. I helped Matty break in once.

At the age of twelve, he began dream walking. He thought he was going insane. Or dying. He was so frail already, and the more time he spent sleeping, the thinner he got until I decided to risk it for his records.

Aside from learning he was an oneiros, we didn't discover anything else about him.

Any muscle tone he had now, he owed to the Suarezes' physical labor while he dream walked in peace.

"Necromancers are governed by The Society for Post-Life Management. Bloodlines determine which tier a practitioner belongs in. You have Low Society members with less power, therefore less clout. Then you have High Society members with more power and more of everything else too."

"Their club sounds snooty."

"Oh, it's snooty all right." How else could you describe a Society ruled over by a Grande Dame? "Without my parents' names, I couldn't join their Society even if I wanted to, but it doesn't mean they won't come gunning for me if they feel I'm breaking their laws."

"But you don't belong to their Society." He spread his hands. "Why are you beholden to their rules?"

"The High Society has the power to perform miracles, and the miraculous doesn't come cheap. Clients pay a small fortune for their services, and a percentage of every executed contract goes to the Society."

The only way for a human to become a vampire was via cash transfusion to the Society.

"You don't pay the tithe, so they don't want you encroaching on their business."

Even though our businesses overlapped not at all, they were territorial snobs. "Pretty much."

Plus, I charged a quarter of what they did for my services. Maybe less. But again—not that they cared to hear common sense facts—our client bases didn't overlap. They were charging for a one and done. I was charging a sliding scale for hours, days, or weeks with discounts for repeat clients.

"How sure are you that they would punish you for practicing your craft? Have you spoken to someone?"

The past rushed up, aided by my earlier run-in with Harrow, and swallowed me down in one gulp.

Cold flooded my system like glacier melt, and the soft whispers of the dead hissed in my ears.

"I got caught once. I was twenty." I clenched my jaw until it popped then pried it open before I lost my nerve. "I was working out of a foreclosure off Aimar Avenue. Someone tipped off the Society about it, so they dispatched a sentinel. He showed up as I finished a summoning. He handcuffed me and dragged me out onto the porch. Lucky for me, I still had the spirit primed and ready."

"He helped you?"

"More like I helped him. To possess the sentinel. It was the first time I had ever forced a spirit into someone. I hated it, I still feel awful about it, but I didn't know what else to do. The spirit, in the sentinel's body, reported the tip as a crank call. Then I exorcised him, put him in the loaner he was meant to have, and we got the heck out of there."

The sentinel was too disoriented to catch me a second time, but I kept his handcuffs as a reminder of how close I came to disaster and who was responsible for my brush with incarceration.

Deep lines bracketed his mouth. "Who tipped them off?"

"The same old friend who's going to invite himself over tonight, probably with a search warrant."

Aware Josie was waiting for us to get home, I reached over, pressed the heel of my palm to Matty's forehead, and exorcised Pedro with a gentleness perfected through long practice and mutual consent.

A glittering blue outline of a barrel-chested man with nebulous features formed above Matty, almost as though he were sitting on his lap. Pedro leaned over, kissed the top of my head with intangible lips I felt as a chill unless I focused on solidifying him, and spoke in a voice only I could hear.

"If you need us, you know where to find us, mija."

"Thanks, tío."

Miming the action of opening the door, he let himself out, walked through the gate, then strolled one of the paths leading to his grave where he would bed down for the day. To hold and control a body, even a willing one, took a lot out of a spirit. That was why the Suarezes shared Matty. Each could manage a day or two per week, depending on where they fell on the schedule, but a long stretch of rest was necessary between shifts to recharge them.

Halfway past the Holocaust Memorial, a lean spirit stepped from a mausoleum to shake Pedro's hand.

For a moment, I let myself enjoy the spectacle as the dead rose and went about their nightly routine.

Some visited with their neighbors. A few danced with their loved ones. Others strolled paths arm in arm.

The slight blur in their motions lent their actions a dreamlike quality that made watching them cathartic after that nightmare of a repo.

A loud yawn drew my attention back to my passenger, who stretched like an indoor cat sprawled in the perfect patch of sunlight from his favorite window.

"Hey, Frankie." Matty blinked a few times then twisted in his seat to face me. "What time is it?"

"Time for you to get a watch." I backed out onto the road. "I hear you've got a big date tonight."

"Who told you that?" He rested an elbow on the seatback and propped his chin on his palm. "Josie?"

"Who else?"

"That little twerp." He smothered a second yawn. "She must have hidden another plant in my room."

Probably it was an African violet. She claimed Saintpaulias were chattier than other gesneriads, to which she was addicted. On my desk alone, she wick-watered a Watermelon Snow and a Rose Bouquet in mason jars and a Winnie Woo and Toy Castle in mini yogurt jars. She claimed they cheered up my workspace. Most likely, they were spies.

Not having solid proof that her plants were secret agents wasn't the same as being wrong.

"Are you going to share the juicy details, or do I have to get them from Josie?"

"Josie is overselling it. This is a first date. That's all. Nothing big about it. Except for Josie's mouth."

"Aww." I pinched his cheek. "Cute." I grinned at the pink tint to his dark skin. "How did you two meet?"

"On a food run." He drummed his cheek with his fingers. "She's a sandwich engineer at Delhi Deli."

"Sandwich engineer," I echoed, thinking I could go for a butter chicken naan wrap right about now.

"Not everyone can peel back the veil for a living, Mary."

"I'm hungry, Mary, not condescending."

We bumped into the shop's parking lot, but Matty just sat there, staring at me. "You okay?"

Pedro must have given him a quick rundown of events before they parted ways.

"Loaners can't kill." I turned off the engine. "How did this one manage it?"

Loaners couldn't do harm. Murder? Impossible. I bound the spirits to the letter of their contracts.

"I meant Samuel." Leave it to Matty to dig in his heels. "Or should I say Harrow?"

"Harrow is a problem." I gusted out a sigh that pinched my lungs. "He knows too much."

"That's not what I asked," he said softly, popping his seat belt. "You guys have history."

The thing about Matty was, even with his body spending shop hours with us, he missed out on a lot. The guilt of his growing absence festered in his heart like a rancid splinter, but it wasn't like he could help his nature. To compensate, he overcompensated, meaning he picked at scabs until the wounds bled clean.

"I was surprised to see him." I rubbed my palms down my jeans. "More surprised he's with SPD."

"He hurt you." Pick. Pick. Pick. "Surprise is all you felt?"

Josie appeared in the window on the second floor with a kitchen towel draped over her shoulder and waved us in.

The second floor was hers. I was on the third. That put Matty on the top.

Anyone who wanted to get to him while his body was vulnerable had to get past us first.

The garage itself was built from cinderblocks and concrete. The three floors above it I added prior to our moving in. Each was its own studio apartment designed with a contemporary vibe. Lots of metal. Lots of glass. They weren't big, the footprint was only six hundred square feet, but they meshed our tastes well.

"Oh, no." I got out and waited on him to do the same. "Two seconds past hello, he got me furious."

"He brought up your past." Pick. Pick. Pick. "Probably threw it in your face."

"It hurt, okay?" I slowed my walk to the exterior stairs leading up to our apartments. "I haven't seen him in years. Tonight, he did what he always does. He implied I'm a lowlife preying on the innocent. That I deserve to spend the rest of my existence behind bars."

Without saying a word, barely looking at me, I felt Matty at it again.

Pick. Pick. Pick.

"The saddest part?" I began the climb. "For a split-second, I wished I could tell him how I had changed, throw it in his face that he was wrong for always assuming the worst of me. But, as usual, he was right. I'm a bottom feeder, and I always will be."

On the second-floor landing, Matty fisted my TBS tee, jerked my back against his chest, and wrapped his arms around my middle. He ducked to hook his chin on my shoulder then blew a raspberry on my cheek.

"Ack." I wriggled away from him and wiped off the wet spot. "That's disgusting."

"We've all done things we're not proud of, Frankie. You most of all. But you did it for us." He twisted the doorknob. "Don't let Harrow steal your accomplishments. You've earned them. The Body Shop wouldn't be here without you. You made us a safe place. A home. No one can take that away from you."

Maybe. Maybe not. But I had a bad feeling Harrow would try.