“Okay, Bea, hop out,” Eva said.
“What? No! I’m coming with you!” Bea cried.
Eva snorted a laugh. “Cariño,you have no business breaking into a building in the middle of the night.”
“Oh, and you do?” Bea replied, crossing her arms over her chest. “If it weren’t for me, none of you would even know that Jess needs help!” Bea scrunched her brows together in such a fierce scowl that Eva actually took a step back. I didn’t blame her; it was like Bea was channeling Xiomara with that expression on her face.
Eva cleared her throat. “Yeah, but that doesn’t mean you should get in trouble.”
“It doesn’t mean you should get in trouble either. Just get in, Eva, I’m coming whether you like it or not!”
Eva looked first at Zale, who shrugged, and then at me in a silent bid for help.
“We haven’t got all night, here!” Jess shouted in that faraway voice.
“Okay, okay,” I told her. Then I turned to Bea. “Bea, we’ll take you with us, but only if you stay in the car as a lookout.”
“Fine,” Bea said, mollified. Eva and Zale slid into the backseat with her, and Jess vanished to make room for them.
Zale shuddered violently as he sat. “Holy shit, turn that AC down!” he exclaimed.
“It’s not the AC, it’s the spirit energy,” I told him.
His expression lit up, and he looked eagerly around the inside of the car. “That’s so sick. Is she seriously in here with us right now?”
“Let’s get a move on!” Jess growled from somewhere near the trunk of the car. A moment later, Nova pulled away from the curb, and down the main drag.
There was only one morgue in Sedgwick Cove. The police station was too tiny to house one, and there was no real hospital within theborders. Instead, we had a single funeral home overlooking the sea, another of Sedgwick Cove’s repurposed grand Victorian houses. There was a sign on the side of the building which read, “Blackleach and Graves Funeral Services.” I actually giggled out loud when I saw it.
“What are you laughing at?” Nova snapped.
“Sorry, it’s just… the name is a little on the nose, isn’t it? I mean, Graves? For a funeral home? Come on, that’s funny!” I explained.
No one else laughed, though I thought I heard Jess give a snort of appreciation.
“Okay, moving on,” I mumbled.
Blackleach and Graves looked normal from the outside, but the services they offered were anything but. As Bea had explained it to me, because the various covens had their own unique funereal traditions, Blackleach and Graves served as a kind of staging area for rituals and spellwork. The rooms that typically held coffins and viewing areas were instead full of altars, candles, and all sorts of ceremonial items—from dried herbs and shrouds, to incense and pyre materials. And of course, in the basement, there was a morgue.
“Can someone explain to me why we have to break in?” Zale asked, sounding more hesitant now that they had actually arrived. “I mean, it’s not like anyone around here is going to bat an eye at a spirit hanging around. I bet they’d just let us in.”
“Jess says it’s a secret, what she can do,” Bea said, before anyone else could weigh in. “She can’t risk the wrong people finding out.”
“How does she know we’re not the wrong people?” Eva asked.
Bea shrugged. “I don’t know. But she’s trusting us.”
“Like I have a choice.” I felt rather than heard Jess’ sarcastic reply. “Desperate times, and all that.”
We all got out of the car. This close to the water, the sound of the waves crashing against the rocks was a constant roar that masked the sounds of our approach.
“Are we sure there’s no one here?” I whispered, as we mounted the steps into the wide front porch.
“Ms. Graves used to live on the top floor until a few years ago, buther arthritis got so bad, she couldn’t manage the stairs anymore; so she took a ground floor apartment around the corner. It should be empty,” Eva said, though she sounded like she was trying to convince herself as much as me.
Nova reached into her pocket and pulled out a tin.
“Since when do you know how to pick locks?” I asked her.
