DEANDRA
Something twisted in my gut like I'd eaten week-old seafood. The empathic residue from the crime scene was sticking to me with all the persistence of a tourist asking for directions to Bourbon Street. Even sitting in the back seat of Lia's SUV as we drove back to Willowberry Plantation, I couldn't shake the supernatural hangover clinging to my consciousness. The local ghosts were throwing what could only be described as a supernatural tantrum, buzzing around my empathic abilities like caffeinated mosquitoes. Underneath all that delightful chaos, there was a presence lurking that made my usually unshakeable optimism want to pack its bags and relocate to somewhere safer—like maybe the surface of the sun.
"Pull over," I said suddenly, gripping the door handle so hard I probably left fingernail marks. "Like, right now."
"What's wrong?" Lia glanced at me in the rearview mirror. I could feel her concern mixing with exhaustion.
"Oh, you know, just the usual. Dead people are throwing a supernatural tantrum back at the cemetery." I tried to keep my voice light, but even I could hear the edge creeping in. "There's something we missed, and the spirits are being about as subtleas a Mardi Gras parade about letting me know. They’ve been following me since we left."
Dani turned to look at me. Her eyebrows did that thing where they try to escape into her hairline. "What do you mean?"
"They’re agitated and trying to tell me something terrible is about to happen. They’re pulling at my consciousness like needy children. We need to go back. When the dead start getting chatty, it's never to discuss the weather," I replied.
Lucas, who'd been following us in his truck with Noah, pulled up beside us when Lia hit the hazards. "Change of plans," Lia called to them through the open windows. "Dea's picking up spirit vibes at the cemetery."
"And they aren’t leaving her alone," Noah surmised.
Lia nodded and rolled up her window. Lucas made a U-turn, and then Lia did the same. I loved how dealing with one crisis after another over the last year had trained everyone to just roll with the paranormal punches.
The return trip to St. Louis Cemetery felt like swimming upstream through a river of dread. Let me tell you, that's not nearly as fun as it sounds. By the time we reached the entrance, the sun was doing its dramatic exit across the sky. I loved how it painted everything in those gorgeous golden tones. It would have been romantic if we weren't investigating supernatural murder scenes.
"The police tape's still up," Kota observed as we approached the cordoned area. "At least something's going according to plan today."
"Maybe we will be able to find the dead guy this time," I said as I ducked under the yellow barrier. My motto was, when life gave you supernatural lemons, you had to make otherworldly lemonade.
We made our way through the cemetery like we were walking through a supernatural minefield. The moment my feettouched the ground where the body had been, I got smacked with the empathic equivalent of a freight train loaded with existential dread. It was driven by someone with serious anger management issues.
"Holy crawfish on a cracker," I breathed, nearly stumbling backward into Phi. "Okay, so apparently we've got a full-blown ghostly block party happening right where our missing corpse used to be chilling. And judging by the emotional residue, nobody's having a good time."
Spirits were everywhere. Dozens of them were clustered around the empty chalk outline like they were waiting for the world's most depressing concert to start. They weren't the usual peaceful dead I typically dealt with. These were fragments. Pieces of something that had been violently ripped from the natural order like pages torn from a book.
"What the hell happened here?" Dre wondered.
I knelt in the center of the outline and pressed my palms to the cold stone despite the way it made me want to curl up and weep. "Well, the good news is they're definitely trying to communicate. The bad news is they're absolutely terrified, which, you know, isn't exactly encouraging."
Opening myself to their whispers was like tuning into a radio station made of broken glass and anxiety. After several long seconds, the first clear words finally came through. “The Collector comes. The binding weakens. We are pulled toward?—”
Faster than you could say supernatural crisis, they scattered like tourists when someone mentioned a hurricane was approaching. They left behind their terror and a phrase that kept echoing through my head. “Too late, too late, too late.”I got absolutely nothing else.
"Well, that was cheerfully ominous," I said with a frown. That was incredibly frustrating. We came back hoping to get someinformation. I accepted Kota's hand to help me up. "I learned one thing. They mentioned someone called the Collector. He sounds like a perfectly delightful individual."
Adèle’s voice interrupted my thoughts. “The veil is thinning further here," she projected to all of us. "This location has become a nexus point.I believe that was the reason for the murder."
"What does that mean?" Dani asked.
"We should probably leave before whatever's trying to break through decides to make a guest appearance," Lucas said grimly.
“That’s a good idea. You need more information,” Adèle agreed.
We trudged past a bewildered uniformed officer. Yeah, our brief return visit probably made about as much sense to him as quantum physics being explained by a drunk parrot. Back at the cars, we loaded up and took off. The drive home was about as tense as a family dinner during election season. Each of us was lost in thoughts about our latest supernatural discovery. Just as we pulled onto the highway, Lia's phone decided to ring.
"Hey, Cami," Lia answered through the car’s stereo system.
"Hey," Cami's voice was warm but stretched thinner than praline paste. "I hate to add to your already insane day, but I'm stuck here managing a tour group that showed up three hours early. I promised Mack and Genevieve we'd practice some protection spells and enchantments tomorrow. Problem is, our greenhouse is completely cleaned out of the herbs we need. Any chance y'all could swing by a few shops for me?"
I looked at my sisters. All of them looked about as energetic as wilted lettuce after our adventures. We couldn’t say no. Cami had been holding down the fort at Willowberry while we played supernatural crisis managers. She was keeping our mundie tour business running and our magical cover intact. We'd do justabout anything for her after everything she'd done for us since Phoebe’s spell brought her back.
"Of course, what do you need?" Lia said without hesitation.
