Page 2

A n overwhelming desire to needle Rollo into admitting—into a recording app this time—that he needed my help itched on the tip of my tongue. But Matty and Vi were more important than exacting petty vengeance for old slights. And, okay, fine, astral projections never came through clearly on recordings.

For all his faults, and they were legion where I was concerned, he had done me a good turn. To plead his case in person—well, sort of—took balls when he must have believed I would snub Vi as punishment for how he treated me. But, as usual, he overestimated his own importance. Especially to me.

Rollo wasn’t a factor in my decision. He didn’t enter into my calculations whatsoever.

Lord knew it would deflate his ego quicker than a fistful of nails stuck in a tire sidewall if I told him so.

I wasn’t sure why I didn’t come out and say it, relish knocking him down a peg, but I held my tongue.

There was no fun in kicking him while he was down. No. I would wait until he got back up to cream him.

“You talk to crows now, yeah?” Rollo invited himself into Matty’s apartment, perching on the arm of the couch to watch me pack necessities for my brother while Kierce readied a bag one floor down and Josie caught a Swyft to Carter’s place to collect her things. “I always said you were birdbrained.”

Then again, maybe I should rethink the tongue-holding thing.

“Hilarious.” I waited a beat to see how Badb would react, but of course she gave him a pass and not me. “What do you want?” I swept through the silent apartment, checking that I had turned off the lights and unplugged any questionable electronics. Already my thoughts had turned to my next big ask, and my gut clenched at what a no would mean for this trip. “You got what you came for.”

A promise from me to spend a week in the Quarter, determining the root cause of this soulless condition, locating the missing spirits, then doing my damnedest to return them to their bodies.

Obviously, if it took longer, Rollo might regret the invite to stay at Vi’s after I made myself at home in my old room. Oh well. He might think he was man of the house, but I had my own set of keys.

“Don’t be like that.” He traced a crease in his pants over his knee. “You would have come either way.”

Already, he was rewriting events to soothe his ego, telling himself he hadn’t come crawling but I begged to help him, and he let me out of the kindness of his heart. As if he had one. “For Vi? Of course.”

Silence fell between us, but I only waited on him, knowing he had sought me out for a reason.

“Mamaw says you died.” He continued studying the pattern in the fabric as if he might be considering a second profession as a tailor. “That you were reborn a goddess.”

“Demigoddess, but yeah.”

“How was death?”

I almost tore into him for being an insensitive ass before picking up on the subtle earnestness burning in his brown eyes and bit my tongue. “For me, it was like being drop-kicked onto the surface of the sun.”

Dis Pater had stood there while I burned in his radiance. As my flesh sizzled and organs cooked, muscles peeled and bones charred. He watched me die. No. He killed me with his indifference. My skin had regrown taut and new and strange, and I was still learning how to live in it.

“Believe it or not, I’m sorry to hear it. Everyone deserves a peaceful death and a short walk to the pearly gates.” He ducked his head, as if in prayer, but surely not for me. “What happens if Mamaw moves on?”

The tenor of his maudlin thoughts should have clued me in to what was on his mind, but I wasn’t used to reading more than stale malice from Rollo. His question required switching mental gears and facing hard truths that cut both ways. Anything I predicted for Vi might also come true for Matty, and I wasn’t sure if I could bear speaking against a full recovery for either of them, even if I knew in my heart we both ought to temper our expectations.

“We won’t let that happen.” I slung Matty’s duffle over my shoulder. “Vi and Matty will be fine.”

“Hmm.” A spark of his usual antagonistic self glinted in his eyes. “Are you saying that as a god or…?”

“Demi,” I corrected him again, glad to see him smoothing over the hairline cracks in his facade.

The fissures of vulnerability had been freaking me out a little, reminding me he was human underneath.

Done securing the apartment, I exited onto the landing and waited for Rollo and Badb to catch up to me.

“I should go.” Rollo tipped his head to one side. “See you when I see you.”

Swirling purple energies twisted his features, smudging his outline until nothing remained of him.

With a cracker in her mouth, stolen from Matty’s crow bribery stash, Badb ditched me to go snack.

I found Paco shooting the breeze with the last customer of the day, trading notes on the best local fishing holes. He spotted me, shook hands with Mr. Brawns, then ambled over as the GTO pulled out of the lot.

“Jefa.” He mashed the button to close the bay door with his elbow. “Going somewhere?”

I had been so eager to set eyes on my brother, I had forgotten I still carried his duffle over my shoulder.

“New Orleans.” I filled him in on our unexpected guest and the news he brought with him. “I hate to ask, with you guys already doing so much to help out with Matty, but I’m hoping a Suarez will come along for the ride. I want Matty’s body nearby, so there’s no delay in treatment.”

Much easier to think of it in terms of a medical condition. Treatable. Curable.

From the time I had spent running the other family business, I knew how to care for a body sans soul. To request one of the Suarezes drop everything and come with us was a purely selfish ask. A big one. But I couldn’t help myself.

“I’m sure you’ll find a taker.” He wiped a hand over his mouth, failing to hide his smile. “Pascal for sure.”

“Can I trust him not to hijack Matty to go out drinking and dancing?”

“No.”

“Can he behave around that much good food?”

“No.”

A groan tore out of me as I imagined the trouble Pascal could get into if I didn’t set down rules.

“Pedro might be swayed to save you from our little brother, but you know me. I’m a homebody.” His lips parted as deep grooves carved his brow, but he only shook his head, as if deciding against what he might have said. The dark expression looked foreign on Matty’s usually friendly face. “I’ll keep an eye on the shop until you get back, though.”

“Thanks.” I squeezed his arm, trying to convince myself it wasn’t thinner today. “I appreciate it.”

“I’ll lock up and meet you in ten.”

Sweat beaded in my palms as I stepped into the parking lot. We were closing The Body Shop for a week, and it made me want to hurl. Our customers were understanding, mostly, but we had been failing to hit our deadlines for months now. Divine drama had us closing early, opening late, asking for extensions.

As much as it terrified me to consider it, we might lose our core clientele if we weren’t more careful. We could go back to allowing drive-up customers rather than requiring appointments, but that meant taking on busy work instead of the more lucrative classic rebuilding projects that were the Suarezes’ passion.

Worry I might trash the reputation they had built over the last several years weighed on me as I opened the trunk on the wagon and tossed Matty’s bag in, leaving the hatch open for the others to do the same.

Then I set out to warm up our ride to Bonaventure in case it needed convincing to crank.

Footsteps crunched on gravel, and then Kierce stood beside me. “Are you taking the god cart?”

The nickname for his wreck of a golf cart had stuck, thanks to Pascal’s enthusiasm.

“That was the plan.” I searched his face. “Is that all right with you?”

Bafflement splashed across his features. “You don’t have to ask.”

“You bought it, and you’re paying for its restoration, so I kind of do.”

“Then you have my permission.” He continued eyeing me like I was ridiculous. “Be safe.”

“I’ll keep an eye out for possums,” I teased, unable to help myself from reminding him of the time when he swerved to miss one and ended up plowing into a shrub. Vehicular shrubslaughter, Matty called it.

I swear I could almost hear him belting out a laugh as he poked gentle fun at Kierce.

God, I would give anything to hear it again. Carefree and infectious. You couldn’t not laugh with Matty.

The god cart rumbled to life without protest, and I pulled around to wait on Paco.

Drumming my fingers on the wheel, I scanned the area for Anunit, but she was nowhere in sight.

Now that I thought about it, I hadn’t seen her since she stalked Harrow from the office earlier. But, given how she waltzed into the shop the morning after she named me the official guardian of the Alcheyvāhā, casual as if she had done it a hundred times before, I wasn’t too worried about leaving her without saying goodbye. I was sure she could find me again if she needed me.

“Everything’s shut down and locked up tight.” Paco slid onto the bench seat next to me. “I’ll come by at dusk every day you’re gone and check on things at the shop. I’ll send one of the Buckley Boys if I run into any trouble.”

Most spirits had a range of mobility, a certain distance they could travel from their graves or where they had died, but those boys got around in pursuit of gossip to spread from cemetery to cemetery as though they were still the newsies they had been before the yellow fever outbreak in 1876 ended their lives.

No sooner had I parked the god cart at Bonaventure than a blue, spectral puppy shot out from between the bars of the fence to yap at me before sprinting away. A teen girl with dripping wet hair cut through a promenading couple in hot pursuit. I watched them a moment longer, smiling, but I had no time to visit.

“Mr. Gray?” I called to a man decked out in English riding attire. “Would you mind fetching the Suarez brothers for me?”

At the end of a shift, I typically exorcised the Suarez on duty from Matty while he sat in the front seat of the wagon to allow Matty time to slowly rise to awareness within himself. I could have gone ahead and released Paco for the night, as usual, but fear clenched my throat in a fist when Matty sat empty for too long.

“I would be delighted, Ms. Frankie.” He touched a crop to the side of his helmet. “Back in two shakes.”

Thirty seconds later, which led me to believe one shake must be worth fifteen, Pascal and Pedro appeared wearing matching expressions of concern.

“ Mija , has something happened?” Pedro glided forward, hovering six inches above the earth. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. Better than fine.” I almost believed myself. “I’ve got a lead on Matty’s soul.”

“That is good news.” Pascal evaluated me with his head tilting. “So why are you making that face?”

“I have a huge favor to ask you both. No hard feelings however you decide. Promise.” I linked my fingers at my navel. “Would one of you be willing to come to New Orleans with me?”

From my constant handling of their souls, they had developed a unique bond to me and were able to travel farther than they would have otherwise. They couldn’t roam more than a dozen miles from my location, but they wouldn’t have trouble if they wanted to sightsee without me when it was over and done.

“Are you serious?” Pascal let out an ear-splitting whoop. “Count me in.”

Already picturing the amount of trouble he could get himself into with that gleam in his eyes, I nearly wept tears of relief when Pedro speared his little brother with a hard stare and said, “I’ll go too.”

“I call dibs on Matty.” Pascal folded his arms across his chest. “Right, Francita?”

“We don’t know how long this will take or what we’re up against. I’ll take all the help I can get.” The gentle crinkle of Pedro’s smile betrayed his amusement over how swiftly I embraced a twofer rather than taking Pascal on solo. “Have either of you been to New Orleans?”

“Not like this.” Pascal swept a hand down his translucent form. “But I went plenty when I was alive.”

“A few times,” Pedro said, his gaze fixed on Pascal as if blaming him for those trips.

Out of the three brothers, Pascal struck me as the most likely to be found on a bench sleeping off a night spent on Bourbon Street. Either because he was too drunk to secure a room before conking out or too broke after drinking his paycheck. His stories reminded me of Matty in the way he had lived his life to the fullest, like he was on borrowed time. Probably why I had such a soft spot for the youngest Suarez.

“Then you’re in for a treat.” I winked at Pascal, really trying to sell my angle. “The dead party harder than the living in NOLA.”

With a sigh, he caught my meaning. “You’re not letting Matty out of your sight, are you?”

“Trust me.” I ignored a pang for dashing his hopes, but this wasn’t a vacation. “You won’t need a body to have the time of your afterlife. The best parties are held in St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, and the Fontenots own a mausoleum there. Vi has tons of interred family who can show you around and make intros.”

“I’ll take the nightshift with Matty.” Pedro raised his eyes to the heavens. “Pascal can work days.”

That arrangement was the best possible outcome, and I was doubly grateful for Pedro making it happen.

Pascal was now free to clock out at dark and go party while Pedro kept Matty safe during the night.

“You’re not going to round us out?” Pascal squinted at Paco. “This could be a family vacation.”

Hadn’t I just been thinking it wasn’t one? Oh, yeah. I would owe Pedro big time when this was over.

He was definitely taking one for Team Talbot by volunteering to help me wrangle his little brother.

“Too much has been happening lately.” Paco scuffed his foot. “I’d feel better about Frankie being gone if someone kept an eye on the shop.” His gaze slid past the gate. “And on Bonaventure.”

“Me too.” I hoped he read how much I meant it in my expression. “We’ll miss you, though.”

“I’ll be here when you get back.” He chucked me on the chin. “Be safe, jefa .”

To make the transition easiest on Matty, we all returned to the god cart, and Paco reclined on the bench seat.

Palming his forehead, I murmured the soft words to release his spirit, and he rose above Matty in a blue-limned outline of the man he had been.

The alien stillness in Matty urged me to grasp the nearest Suarez and shove him into my brother before I could think too hard about why he remained static. I couldn’t tear my gaze from Matty until Pascal, who happened to be closest, sucked in a huge breath. As he settled into his borrowed skin, he pulled himself into a seated position using the front top strut.

Pedro, unbothered by the springs erupting from the backward-facing seat behind me, mimed sitting.

After a round of goodbyes to Paco, I cranked the god cart, backed out, and began the drive to the shop.

With Matty’s body beside me, cutting up and joking with Pedro and me, I could almost convince myself this was any other trip home after a long day at the shop, but playing pretend wouldn’t get my brother back, and I wasn’t leaving New Orleans without him.