Chapter 1

A mud-spattered monster truck rumbled into the parking lot at The Body Shop, kicking up loose gravel as it prowled toward me. Muscular bubblegum-pink body. Airbrushed ribbons erupting in purple flames from the jaws of a dragon ready to devour the competition. Tires taller than I could reach on my tiptoes.

The driver pumped the brakes seconds before the full bottom lip of its bumper hit my knees, giving me a prime view of its glistening white fangs and bloody red gums. Glittering emerald eyes with curling lashes replaced the headlights, since competition trucks tended to either fold the blank space into their custom wrapper design or add drawn-on headlights to balance out the overall look.

A petite Latina woman with her hair braided into a crown stuck her head out the window opening.

“I won .” She gripped part of the frame inside the door with both hands and swung out like a gymnast. “It was amazing . I was amazing.” She kissed the truck’s doglike nose. “ She was amazing.”

Her fire-resistant suit, quilted with patches from her sponsors, sagged a bit on her frame. But that was to be expected when the loaner I provided her stood a good six inches shorter than the client had in life.

Mini Vasquez, the original owner of the body, had chosen Camaro as her loaner nickname, after her first car. Her oldest brother had stolen her keys three months after she turned sixteen and totaled it while he was racing with friends. As far as matches go, Camaro was a perfect fit for Tameka. In spirit if not in height.

“What I’m hearing is—” I stifled a laugh, “—you had an amazing time at your farewell rally.”

A girl around sixteen or seventeen sat in the passenger seat with tears streaming down her wide cheeks. She wore a suit identical to her mother’s, but the similarities stopped there. Even seated, I could tell she was tall. Her skin was warm brown, and her hair had been braided in zigzagging rows then twisted into a tiara threaded with purple ribbons. As if she were a princess about to inherit the family throne and rise to become its queen.

“Keshawn,” Tameka called to her daughter. “Come meet Frankie.”

Her dismount rivaled Tameka’s for grace, then she shuffled over with red eyes and a swollen nose. “Hi.”

“I hear you’ll be Pink Panic’s driver next season.” I passed her a mini packet of tissues. “She’s a beast.”

From the initial interview with Tameka, nailing down her family history, I knew that Keshawn had gone pro last year, after graduating high school early and starting college classes online.

Tameka had felt blessed to have experienced those first steps into adulthood alongside her daughter, but for Keshawn, losing her mom to a brain aneurysm on a grocery run meant those first steps had also been their last ones taken together.

“Yeah.” She blew her nose. “But it won’t be the same without…”

At the reminder of why they were here, to return the loaner into my keeping, Keshawn burst into fresh sobs. Tameka threw her arms around her, held her close, and swayed while humming a tattered lullaby.

“How much would it cost?” Keshawn stared at me over her mother’s shoulder. “To keep this body?”

If I had a nickel for every time someone asked me that, us Marys would never have to work again.

“Even if the loaner was for sale, and it’s not, my magic doesn’t work that way.”

I could seat a soul in a body for a limited amount of time, but I couldn’t make it stick.

Necromancers earned their livings doing just that. Making it stick. That was how they created vampires. I didn’t possess that power. I never had. Even after everything that happened to me, I still couldn’t forge a permanent bond between a soul and a vessel.

“You’re a con artist.” A switch flipped inside her, and grief took a backseat to anger at God, the universe, everything. Which she had no problem directing at me. “You’re selling pipe dreams to anyone desperate enough to buy in.”

“Hush.” Tameka gripped her daughter’s chin. “I raised you better than that.”

“Momma, she could make it so you didn’t have to go. You could stay. With me.”

“Baby, that’s not how this works. Frankie gave me a chance to say goodbye, to spend a whole week with you on the road, doing what we love. Now it’s time for you to apologize to Frankie, who doesn’t deserve your anger, and for me to honor my contract.” She placed her key ring and its cluster of plush tchotchkes on Keshawn’s open palm then folded her trembling fingers over it. “I love you, I’m proud of you, and you better believe I’ll be cheering from Heaven so loud you’ll hear me over the crowd chanting your name.”

Their final embrace hurt to witness, and I hooked a thumb over my shoulder. “I’ll wait for you inside.”

Tameka nodded to me while stroking her daughter’s hair and murmuring her final words.

After punching in the code, I let myself into the office then rested my forehead against the door.

Rules were rules.

I couldn’t bend them, not even once, not even an inch, or I risked future clients believing I was okay with them being broken. And I wasn’t. I couldn’t let myself be. Or I would undermine my ability to provide for my family. As murky as my future was, I wanted their paths forward to be crystal clear without me.

Already I had reverted to the version of myself who clipped coupons, only shopped sales, and panic-sold anything I thought I could live without for a few extra dollars. Matty and Josie had blamed my recent dry spell at work, a drought which had ended thanks to Mr. Collins, my previous client, rallying spirits to trust me again. But thanks to my untimely demise—ten days dead and counting!—I couldn’t stop falling into old penny-pinching habits. Every time I looked ahead, I saw only what I would leave behind.

“Breathe,” Kierce murmured in my ear, his voice rich with power, shooting tingles down my nape.

“I was hyperventilating again, huh?”

The steel band cinching my lungs tightened another notch until my nostrils burned. I couldn’t suck down enough oxygen each time it hit me, really hit me, I had died. That I walked and talked, ate and drank, the same as always, couldn’t compete with the lingering tautness of my still-sensitive skin or the knowledge of how it felt to be boiled alive by a god to prove a theory to himself.

“You’re not dead.” His lips brushed my earlobe. “You’re every bit as alive as I am.”

None of those assurances helped much, since I hadn’t been convinced how alive he was from the start.

As I rotated within his arms, I braced for the sight of him, for this new perception of his truest self.

Rather than a pale complexion, I perceived the moonlight glow of his skin. His gray eyes weren’t misty as I had first thought but shimmered as if crushed diamonds spangled his irises. Within them, I saw forever. Bright as the moon, as vast as time, and mine for the taking. The gentle promise they held, the infinite horizons they contained, scared the spit out of me. Even the individual strands of his black hair managed to gleam like they were dipped in stardust, reflecting the deep, dark light of the nebulous corona ringing his head.

Though the ocean-blue Hawaiian shirt printed with pink hula girls, yellow surfboards, and neon-green palm fronds that kept finding its way into his weekly rotation did help take the edge off.

“You’re staring at me again.” His touch echoed down to my bones. “Would you like me to dim myself?”

As hard as I tried, I had yet to master the trick myself, forcing me to confront this all-encompassing him .

Until I learned to mute myself too, I avoided looking in mirrors or glimpsing myself in reflective surfaces. What I saw through my own eyes was bad enough. Pearlescent skin was nice and all, but this wasn’t me.

The only thing saving my sanity at the moment was the fact neither Matty nor Josie could perceive those changes in me. The Suarez brothers, on the other hand, saw the new me just fine. They barely glanced in my direction for fear of Matty registering the differences, but that could only go on for so long before he worried that I had fallen out with our mechanics and confronted me. I didn’t want to lie to him, so, yeah. I had to figure out how to break the news without breaking my siblings’ hearts.

“Yes,” I breathed, hands fisting in his shirt, senses reeling from overstimulation.

“I don’t mind.” His knuckle skated down my cheek. “I can only imagine what you’re going through.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong.” I risked squinting at him through my lashes. “But you went through this too.”

“That was…”

“…a long time ago,” I finished for him, hating how his brush with divinity had stolen his past and terrified it would do the same to me. In time. How long did you have to live for your mind to develop the holes as wide as those in his memories? A century? Two? Three? Was there a magic number?

An ear-splitting roar shook the window in my office as Pink Panic revved her engine then sped away.

“I should go.” I withdrew from him, grateful for his patience with my slow adaptation to my new reality. Which, despite that patience, must seem like a rejection of it…and him. “Tameka will be waiting for me.”

Before I could open the door, frantic taps on the glass drew my attention to Badb and then beyond her.

To the parking lot.

The empty parking lot.

Cursing under my breath, I shoved through the door with a hard drop in the pit of my stomach.

I turned my head left. I turned my head right.

There was no sign of Tameka. Or Keshawn. Or Pink Panic.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” I fumbled out my cell and dialed Josie. “We’ve got a runner.”

Thank God the chip I injected under the skin of every new loaner meant we could track Camaro easily.

“Ah, yes.” She breathed in deep. “I love the smell of repo in the morning.”

“That makes one of us.” I kicked the outer wall of the shop. “How soon can you get here?”

I caught my gaze swinging up to her apartment, but she had moved out. For the time being. Until the sting of Armie’s final betrayal lessened, and she made peace with knowing he’d used her to gain access to our homes where he had then mounted cameras to spy on us, she was rooming with Carter.

Whether Carter had made the offer or Josie extended it to herself was less clear.

“I’m at a nursery on Whitemarsh Island right now. I talked Carter into buying a friend—or seven—for her oakleaf hydrangea.” Her words muffled as she spoke with Carter. “I can be there in thirty.”

“I can help.” Kierce’s expression grew distant as he conferred with Badb. “ We can help.”

“Aww. Let him. He needs to learn the family business if he’s sticking around,” Josie wheedled. “Repos are a part of it.”

“I want to learn,” he said, listening in on our conversation with the same superhuman senses developing in me. They swept through me in waves of sensation that often sent me crashing to my knees. I had to learn to control them if I didn’t want them to control me. “Teach me.”

But that meant looking at the big picture, and I would rather pretend I was blind for a little longer.

“Listen to the man,” Josie urged. “He has the right idea.”

“You’re only saying that because it was your idea,” I pointed out to her. “But fine. You win. We’ll go.”

Even if Keshawn held her pee like a pro, she had to stop for gas sometime.

This hadn’t been their plan, not when Tameka rolled up, which meant they hadn’t been road trip ready.

Plus, the handoff of keys today had been symbolic. Monster trucks weren’t road trucks. You didn’t run errands in them. They drank methanol. As in gallons per minute. Their max was around five or six miles per gallon, but that assumed zero flash.

However you looked at it, these trucks were sprinters. Not marathoners. Which worked in our favor.

“Go pack a bag with a change of clothes.” I nudged Kierce toward the stairs. “Meet you in ten.”

As I climbed behind him, I dialed Matty and got Pascal. “Close shop now and meet me at the wagon.”

The decision would hurt our already sore bottom line, but I preferred releasing Pascal early to costing Matty even one of his precious hours. Better safe than sorry. With repos, especially ones involving car chases, you never knew what you were driving into.

“What’s wrong, Francita?” He stuck his head out of the nearest open bay door. “What’s going on?”

I waved to let him know everything was okay, pointed at the phone, then let myself into my apartment.

“We’ve got a repo.” I stuffed a spare outfit and toiletries in a bag. “Kierce and I are going after her.”

“Not Pink Panic lady.” He made a production out of groaning. “I had mad respect for her.”

“Pink Panic Jr. must have convinced Tameka to run. I hope we’ll be back tonight, but I can’t say for sure.”

Some repos fought harder than others, and Keshawn had enough gumption in her for both of them.

“Since he’ll be off early,” Pascal, who must have heard my worries clinking together like coins, reasoned, “I’ll leave Matty with a list of customers to reschedule.”

“Thanks.” A flicker of relief allowed me to breathe easier. “I owe you one.”

“We’re family, Francita, you owe me none .”

Ending the call, I slung the bag over my shoulder, exited onto the landing, and locked my door.

As the latch clicked, a loud squawk from behind me shot my heart into my throat, and I spun to find Badb hopping down the rail toward me. I could have argued with her, but that would waste even more time. Besides, I already knew the drill.

“Are you serious?” She had taught me specific tells for when she wanted certain items from her treasure trove. “You’re such a brat.”

Ducking back into my apartment, I snatched the cat bed she slept in. A sharp cry reminded me to fetch her mirror while I was at it. I stuck it in my pocket then got an earful that convinced me she wanted cat food.

“We could be back in thirty minutes.” I doubted we were that lucky, but optimism never hurt anyone. “I’m not bringing every little thing you own—that you’ve stolen —on a road trip that might not last an hour.”

After clicking her beak at me, she sailed away. She had spotted Kierce below and landed on his shoulder. I had zero doubts she was whining, but oh well. We had to get a move on, or we would be too far behind to catch up until the mother/daughter team required food or sleep. Even that might not give us a break.

With two drivers, they could alternate who ate and who slept, not that Tameka required either.

Thanks to Badb ordering me around, I was the last to arrive at the wagon, loaded down with her junk.

As I drove us to Bonaventure, I chewed my cheek until bright copper notes too sweet to be mortal blood teased my tongue. I would have spat it out if I’d had a tissue handy, but no such luck. I had to swallow it, and the way it slid down my throat wasn’t right. The taste. The texture. All of it was wrong.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Poor Pascal would be stuck in the men’s room until dark, but he promised it was fine.

Now I really owed him one. He would be bored out of his mind. Not to mention dodging sunlight for hours.

With a drowsy Matty tucked onto the backseat, I returned to the shop and helped him to his apartment.

“Lock up behind me.” I dithered in his entryway. “And don’t forget to arm your security system.”

These days, we each had a private home security system for our apartments in addition to the coverage in the shop and on the property. I just wished we had invested before Armie violated our privacy.

“Harrow isn’t going to lunge from the bushes to kidnap me the second you leave my side.”

“I know that but—” I let him push me out onto the landing. “I just don’t want anything to?—”

“I’ll be fine.” He shut the door in my face then yelled through the wood, “Love you, Mary.”

“Love you too,” I sighed, tromping down the stairs while firing off a text to urge Josie to hurry over.

While I was gone, the cat bed had appeared on the front bench seat between Kierce and me. The crow it held gazed with adoration at herself in her mirror, its bells jangling in her claw. I just shook my head and, with a soft click, fit my cell into the phone mount with the tracking app open on Tameka’s location.

“I could wait with him until Josie arrives.” Kierce draped his arm across the seatback, and his fingertips brushed my shoulder. “I’m almost fully recovered from my injuries. I can likely cover the distance from there to you.”

To choose between them made my stomach hurt. “I need backup more than he needs a babysitter.”

“Then why are you grinding your teeth?”

“This is the first time since everything happened that I’ve left him alone.”

Post kidnapping, Matty had only gone as far as from his apartment to mine or the garage or my office.

With his gaze, Kierce traced my profile. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Nope. Nah-uh. Not even a little bit. “Let’s find Tameka first.”

To convince him I was too focused to chat, I studied the fast-moving dot that indicated the loaner. At the same time, I made a big production of keeping an eye out for the notifications announcing Josie’s arrival.

When my phone pinged as motion was detected out in the parking lot, I snorted at the screenshot of her sticking her tongue out at the hidden camera. Had I not been driving, I might have watched to make sure she reached Matty safely. But no. I couldn’t bring myself to do that. To spy on her.

If I tracked her frame to frame, I would feel no better than Armie.

“The flashing dot represents the loaner.”

Quickly swiping the notifications off my screen, I nodded to Kierce. “That’s right.”

“What does it mean when it disappears?”

“No. It blinks, it doesn’t…” I cut my eyes back to the map, “…work like that.”

Heart in my throat, I guided the wagon onto the shoulder of the road.

We waited a minute. Five minutes. Ten minutes. But the dot didn’t return.

Tameka had vanished, and she had taken Camaro with her.