"For what purpose?" I whispered aloud so my sisters could hear as I sent it back to our familiar.
"To anchor something between life and death. The body was likely a sacrifice. A battery to power whatever ritual was being performed," Adèle explained.
Detective Payne was looking between us with that expression cops got when they knew they were out of their depth. "I don't suppose you have any theories about where a dead body might walk off to?"
"Unfortunately, we might," Lia replied diplomatically. "We need to examine the scene more closely. Can you give us some space?"
He nodded and moved the other officers several feet away while we investigated. The six of us knelt where the body had been. I let my senses expand despite the psychometric hangover from my earlier vision. The echoes I felt here were stronger than at Lafayette Cemetery. The victim’s pain and terror turned my stomach. I couldn’t imagine how Dea felt. As an empath she was sensitive to emotions. She was also the one of us that could speak to ghosts. I nearly puked when I felt the purpose and intent behind the act.
"Whoever did this is escalating," Dea gasped as she stood up. "The cemetery symbols were preparation. This was the real ritual."
"But what were they trying to accomplish? And is his spirit still here? Is that how you know?" Phi asked.
Before Dea could answer, my phone rang. Cyran's name flashed on the screen. I had a sinking feeling that our day was about to get even worse. "Bad timing," I muttered as I answered. "Hey, Cyran. We're kind of in the middle of a crime scene, so?—"
"Dani, I need you and your sisters to accelerate your research into the old families." His voice was unusually tense and cut through my attempt at diversion. "Something's been brought to my attention that can't wait."
I put him on speaker and grabbed Lia. Jerking my chin, I pulled her further away from the cops as the others followed. When the leader of the Light Fae sounded worried, it was time for everyone to pay attention. "What kind of something?"
"The reunion I mentioned? The families involved have a shared history. They did a ritual during the yellow fever epidemic of 1853. They bound something, Dani. Something that should never have been bound."
My blood turned to ice water. "What kind of something? And could it have to do with the dead body that vanished from a crime scene today?"
“It was an entity from beyond the veil. It fed on death and disease,” he explained. “It grew stronger with each life the epidemic claimed. The families worked together to imprison it, but the binding required specific anchors. Symbols carved into strategic locations throughout the city.”
I looked at my sisters, seeing my horror reflected in their faces. This was connected to the crap we’d been looking into all morning. "Cyran, I think someone's been tampering with those exact symbols."
"Then we may already be too late. The entity was bound using the deaths from the epidemic as a power source. If it's been feeding on the ghost energy from Baron Samedi's rifts..."
"It could be strong enough to break free," I finished as my mouth went dry. "How long do we have?"
"I have no idea. The original binding was set to weaken over time,” he began, “assuming the entity would eventually starve without a food source. But with all the supernatural disturbances we've had in recent years..."
"It's been snacking," Kota interjected grimly.
"Yeah. I'm sending you everything I can find about the families involved and the original ritual," Cyran continued. "Butyou guys need to understand. If this entity breaks free during the reunion, when all those bloodlines are gathered in one place..."
"It'll have a buffet of the exact families that imprisoned it," Lia concluded when he didn’t finish. "Perfect revenge and a power boost all in one."
“We will be in touch,” Dre promised and then hit the button ending the call. “Why can’t these cases ever be simple? We seriously need a vacation.”
Nodding in agreement, I said, “We need to schedule time to do the Camino de Santiago. There isn’t going to be a great time to go given how complicated life is now, but we need to do it.”
“We will set aside the time. For now, we need to stop another power-hungry asshole,” Kota replied.
“That asshole’s been using Baron Samedi's accidental dimensional damage to harvest ghost energy," Dre pointed out, getting us back on track. “They perverted Marie's family protection spells to create spirit traps. And now they're using all that collected power to free some kind of death-eating monster that was locked away over a hundred and fifty years ago."
"That about sums it up," I said as I stared at the empty chalk outline where a murder victim had been lying just hours ago.
"And we don't have long to stop it before it turns Cyran's reunion party into a supernatural massacre," Lia added.
"Also, accurate," Dea muttered.
"Anyone else miss when our biggest problem was choosing between vanilla and chocolate wedding cake?" Dre asked.
"Every damn day," I muttered. But even as I said it, I knew that wasn’t true. Admittedly, the supernatural crises had completely derailed my dreams of elegant parties and happy celebrations. But I just couldn't deny that we were good at solving these problems before they became catastrophic. We'd saved the city before, and we'd do it again.
CHAPTER 3
