Chapter 18

O fficers eyeballed our lanyards, then us, and dismissed us as they went about their business.

“I had planned to do this after we located the missing bones,” Kierce told me after we reached the pit. “I would have made a small sacrifice to honor the dead and ask their forgiveness for disturbing their rest.”

A shiver of concern coasted through me. “What kind of sacrifice?”

“Blood is traditional.” He produced his half of the bones. “For Anunit, I think meat would be better.”

“I assume we would personally donate the blood, but what about the meat?”

“Give me a moment.”

Before I could nod, he was gone, leaving me standing alone with the remains of gods people were killing and being killed to possess. Had I ever doubted Dis Pater’s reasons for wanting the site forgotten, I could have shared his viewpoint after this. But he was right to believe such power, which had gotten the gods killed in the first place, was too dangerous to place in the hands of mortals.

A rustle of leaves drew my head up, and I found a pair of golden eyes peering out at me from the trees.

As my heart attempted to climb out of my throat, my calves tensing to run, Kierce returned at my elbow.

“Kierce,” I hissed, trembling in the knowledge I was being hunted, and he followed my line of sight.

“We beg your forgiveness, Anunit, Eater of Moons, Mother of Darkness. We sought only to collect what was taken and return them to their rightful places.” He knelt, extending his arms toward the beast. “We offer you this meat—” and he held a dripping side of raw beef across his forearms, “—as apology for our trespass.” He dipped his head, never making eye contact. “Please, if this offering is not enough to sate your righteous anger, I ask that the pound of flesh you take be from me.”

“You’re out of your mind.” I dug my nails into his shoulder. “Why aren’t you running?”

There was a lot more than one pound of flesh on a corpse, and she was gulping them down in bulk.

“You cannot outrun me,” a feminine voice purred in my head. “He is wise not to tempt me.”

“You can talk.” I switched my grip on Kierce to hold me upright. “Did you kill ? —?”

“I do not answer to you, and you would be wise to remember this.” She hummed as the wind shifted, blowing the scent of raw, bloody meat to her. “Tell your consort I will accept his offering.”

Almost choking on the title she had given him, that of my consort, I coughed to clear my throat.

“Which one?” I stepped forward, placing myself between them. “The cow or him?”

“I am not so cruel as you suppose.” She prowled forward, as translucent as a spirit, but Kierce had been right. Her fur was black, and stars glinted among the strands. The creature she most resembled was a gryphon. Her body reminded me of a panther, but her head was that of a fox, and her stubby horns belonged on a goat. Her tail was a sweep of feathers, and one of her wings was absent. Her smooth back, rippling with muscle, convinced me she had been born without it, not lost it. “He has shown me the proper respect, and I will allow this…cow…to purchase my goodwill.”

Tension radiated from Kierce, and he made to stand, to protect me, but I pressed down on him.

“Frankie,” he questioned, searching my face.

“She agreed to accept your offering.” I held him steady. “Let’s just hold still and let her take it.”

Concern shrouded his features. “How do you know?”

“She just said…” I became acutely aware of moving my lips, of the gentle vibration of my vocal cords. Neither of which had been present during our exchange. “You didn’t hear her.”

His already pale cheeks blanched in a rush, leaving his complexion bone white. “She spoke to you.”

“You didn’t hear me either,” I realized, deciding that meant I had addressed Anunit in my head.

“You are godspawn. He is godmade,” Anunit saw fit to inform me. “Your power outstrips his.”

“Um,” I said intelligently, shriveling at the idea of being more powerful than the Viduus.

No.

Than Kierce.

I had to stop romanticizing his role as a myth and accept him as the man before me. There was no use in untangling legends from one Viduus to the next. I would have to see him as Kierce, just Kierce, to make a relationship of equals possible. And that was what we had to be for this to work.

If I possessed more raw power than him, including private conversations with deities we were bribing not to eat us, Kierce surpassed me in his working knowledge of our shared powers, divine politics, and life experience.

“Tell him to hold still.” She had the nerve to sound amused. “I would not want to nip his fingers.”

“I’ll do it.” I hefted the meat out of his arms and knelt to meet her. “Just in case.”

As her whiskers tickled my wrist, she jerked back with an ear-splitting yowl. “Who are you?”

“Frankie Talbot.” I curled my fingers into my palm like that might protect them. “Nice to meet you?”

“Who is your sire? Your dame? From whence did you come?”

“I’m an orphan. I was raised by…” I cast my thoughts back to what Kierce had told us, “…the Perchten.”

“No.” She recoiled from me. “ That is not possible.”

“I assure you, it is.” I almost laughed at her indignation. “My siblings and I ? —”

Breath left her lungs in a gust, and she padded forward. “You have siblings?”

“We’re not blood relatives.” I ignored the urge to defend us Marys. “We chose one another.”

“I see.” The great beast searched my face but found only more confusion to twist her features. “You and I will meet again, Frankie Talbot.”

Quicker than a blink, she stole the meat and loped into the trees, disappearing like a phantom.

As soon as she was out of sight, I lost all coordination in my limbs and melted into a puddle on the dirt.

“I should have asked her.” My teeth chattered as my adrenaline ebbed. “About the women.”

“We had to save ourselves first.” He lifted me, gathering me against his chest, and buried his face in my neck. “Though I suspect that was more your doing than mine.”

“You couldn’t hear her?” I wriggled closer to him. “You’re sure?”

“Growls and yips. That was all. I wasn’t aware you were speaking to her either.”

“Why?” I wrinkled my nose at the iron tang in the air and the sticky substance on my arms. “Why me?”

“She’s a spirit.” He sounded thoughtful. “I could smell eternity on her.”

“All I could smell was chicken.” I pretended to sniff my shirt. “I think it’s coming from me.”

Pride stretched his cheeks as he gazed down at me. “You held your ground against a divine creature.”

“This must be how I seem to you when we start talking about your title.” I pinched his cheek. “You’re adorable when you geek out.”

“She had language.” He stroked my cheek thoughtfully. “She articulated words?”

“Yes.” I laughed, surprised not to have found it strange. But when you were talking mind to mind with a divine animal…I mean…why not? How was her ability to speak any stranger? “That’s good, isn’t it?”

“Very good.” He smiled. “It means you can appeal to her to spare the lives of the others.”

“She called me godspawn and you godmade. Do you think that’s the difference? In the talking thing?”

“Perhaps,” he allowed. “You can speak the divine tongue. That you were never taught makes me curious if the children of gods are born knowing it. Anunit would speak, I imagine, a version of the language that predates even that.” He still eyed me as if I were a wonder. “You might contain multitudes of languages that require only a spark to set them alight within your mind.”

“That is just too weird.” I checked the woods for signs of Anunit but found none. “We need to return the bones to their skeletons.” I shivered. “I don’t want to give her a reason to pay us another visit.”

Then there was Vi. She was waiting for us. And boy would I have a story to tell her.

“Return them to the original configuration,” Kierce warned me, turning away. “Ask if you need help.”

Using the method he taught me, I managed to determine placement on my own. Though I did request he check behind me. I worried any mistakes would result in Anunit showing up at the shop and deciding the siblings that had interested her looked tasty.

Armed with Kierce’s seal of approval, we left the burial ground. Stinky and stained as Kierce and I were, I was more grateful than ever for the magic keeping my wagon pristine inside and out.

Pedro was deep in conversation with a customer when we reached the shop, so I waved to him and hit the stairs. I half expected Josie to be waiting for us in my apartment, but the coast was clear. She must be working in the garden, tending her plants. I bet they missed her. They were so used to receiving her undivided attention.

Were plants like dogs, who took offense when their owner came home smelling like other dogs? I ought to ask her sometime. She might laugh at me, but it would make her smile.

After shooting Vi a text, Kierce and I showered. Not together. Sadly.

We reconvened in fresh clothes with damp hair, and I texted Vi that we were ready.

The baggies of soil we collected from outside the commune had already been set into place within easy reach for him. A ripple of purple static in the air preceded her arrival, and I was quick to close my eyes to prepare for our next foray into the unknown.

“Calm your mind.” She tapped a finger between my eyes. “I’ll be right here, but you lead us this time.”

Calming my mind was easier said than done, but eventually, Kierce’s presence, his firm clasp of my hand, allowed me to slip into a meditative state that snapped like a rubber band around my middle.

Stumbling, as much as one can stumble without substance, I found myself in the commune.

Without Vi. Damn it. I botched it. I slingshot myself here without her.

Darkness yawned overhead. The bonfire roared. The women danced. The children laughed.

And in the shadows, Anunit watched their weak attempts to reassure themselves.

Her gaze lifted to mine, her lips curving in the promise of a smile, and I drifted toward her.

“Playing with your food?” I stabbed the thought toward her. “Is the meat tenderer after they’re limber?”

With a wide paw, she patted the space beside her in invitation.

And, though I could hear how my siblings would scream at me for getting closer, I did as she requested and sat.

As much as I was able, given the whole floating thing keeping me buoyant.

“These women have known pain and suffering.” She flexed her claws in the dirt. “I respect them. I even admire a few. I have spent enough time here, watching from the shadows, to understand why they stole from us.”

“Then can’t you forgive them?”

“And permit them to continue their desecration? No. I will not allow it.”

“One of the women here can see me. Let me talk to her. She can explain the situation to the Morgans.”

“You are welcome to try.” Her warm breath fanned my face, the scent oddly sweet. “But understand that I am soul-bound to this purpose. Even if I pardoned them their trespass, I am called to hunt them.”

The cow must have bought us some goodwill if she summoned me for a chat so soon.

Mind whirring, I pressed for answers. “What are the parameters of your binding?”

“Until the day every bone is returned to its rightful place, I am to claim one life in exchange.”

“You kill a person per day?” I cringed away from her. “ Why didn’t you just explain…?”

“Precisely.” Anunit tipped her great head toward me. “I am dead. None in this place can hear or see me. I have no means of defining what is owed or how they might survive paying their debts.” Her whiskers flicked forward. “They could not understand my tongue even if I could speak to them.”

Ah. She had reached out, not because of the offering, but because we could talk.

Thinking back on what Kierce had told me, I asked, “How do I understand it?”

“That is an interesting question, is it not?” She resumed staring at the fire. “You are out of time.”

A shove thrust me back into my body, and I shot upright, gasping for breath.

“What happened?” Vi brushed her fingers across my brow. “Your soul was snatched.”

“Soul snatched,” I panted, sliding the pieces around in my mind. “That sounds about right.”

“Now ain’t the time for jokes.” She hardened her tone. “You could have been lost.”

“It was Anunit.” As I flexed my fingers, I was reminded I was back in my own skin. “I think.”

Maybe she sensed the tickle of my intrusion against the ward and ripped me through it.

“You saw her again?” Kierce’s knuckles had turned white. “She was there?”

“Yes.” I swung my legs over the side of the bed. “I spoke to her.”

Muttering in Creole, Vi began pacing while I filled them in on what Anunit had told me.

“We need to go back. I have to find Tameka.” I stifled a yawn. “She’s the only one we can warn.”

“Your young man and I will talk while you rest.” She gripped my ankles and swung them back onto the mattress with a huff. “Sleep is essential. You will not neglect it. Not in this.”

“Those women can’t afford for me to lose that much time.” I fought off the drag of heavy eyelids. “Take me to Bonaventure. Let me top off my energy there.” I sank deeper into my pillow. “Please…Kierce…”

I jarred awake to cold wrought iron jabbing me in the back where I leaned against a gate at Bonaventure with my hand stuck in dirt up to my wrist. A worm slithered over my knuckles as I drew back my arm, but I was too disoriented to care. I couldn’t see Kierce from my slump, but I sensed him. “How much time?”

“Thirty minutes,” he said, his footsteps hurried as he sank down beside me. “How do you feel?”

“Like I could sleep for a hundred years.”

“You managed to stave off the worst of the exhaustion from astral travel.”

“Can I take another hit to perk up more? I don’t want to harm the cemetery or its inhabitants.”

The blight radiating from the tree Ankou had planted was gone. Kierce and I consumed the death magic and left untainted earth behind. That was well and good for problem areas, but Bonaventure was home to many of my friends. First and foremost, the Suarez brothers. I would rather wince my way into battle than harm them. Or the Buckley Boys. Or Daisy Mae. Or any of the others.

“Faith keeps these grounds fertile. You won’t harm any spirits as long as you stick to the edges and keep away from the marked graves. Bonaventure is famous, which means its soil is rich with belief. The magic is clean. Pure. It’s not tainted the way Ankou’s tree poisoned its surroundings. You can take less but reap more. Your bond with this cemetery will only strengthen its effects.”

Sinking my fingers into the soil, I sang a low hymn that drew warm tingles up my arm and into my chest. I pictured it as plugging myself into an outlet to charge the way I did for my phone, but with fewer cords and more creepy-crawlies. At a certain point, I sensed the connection slow and withdrew from the dirt.

“There.” I blew the cobwebs from my thoughts. “That’s better.” I glanced around. “Where’s Vi?”

“I’m here,” she called, drawing my attention to where she stood with Johnny and the boys.

Whatever she told Johnny made him grin, and he flashed away before I could ask what brought him here.

“Oh good.” I drew my legs under me. “We need to get back to Tameka.”

“Are you sure it’s a good idea to revisit the commune so soon?” The wind tugged on Vi’s wispy form. “Will that goddess come after you again?”

“Anunit accepted the offering,” Kierce thought it through, “but it might have spared us in the moment. Unless she tells you otherwise, we might have only bought a temporary reprieve.”

“I have to risk it.” I was grateful the other Marys weren’t in earshot. “I have to try at least once more.”

“We.” Vi clamped her hand around my wrist, as if she could shackle me. “ We have to try.”

Tears stung my eyes at her ferocity, and I was grateful all over again for her friendship as we returned to my apartment where it was safe to leave my body with Kierce while Vi and I carried a message of warning to the only woman who could hear us.