Page 11 of Coven of Corpses

“Oh?” Demmy sounded worried, and Cody disliked the small glimmer of satisfaction he received from hearing it. After all the spooky cases Demmy had run into at full speed, it was gratifying to hear him concerned. But Cody didn’t enjoy how it made him feel. Must be his night for weird feelings.

“Yeah. But you share first. I have a feeling yours may be worse.”

“Mac found something out in the yard.”

As Demmy explained about the hex bag—another fucking term he never wanted to learn and now knew about—Cody’s pulse increased, and a tingle of fear crawled up the back of his neck.

“She thinks it’s for protection?” Cody asked, then started when he realized Jugs stood beside him.

“What’s going on?” Jugs asked. “Demetrius okay?”

“Dammit, Jugs just scared the crap out of me,” Cody grumbled.

“Oh, tell him I said hi,” Demmy said.

“Demmy says hi, and to give me some space so we can talk dirty.”

Jugs made a face. “You’re just not right, you know that?” Jugs leaned in a little closer and said, “That wasn’t for you, Demetrius. You’re a saint for being married to this yahoo.”

“Yahoo?” Cody said to Jugs’s back as he walked off.

“You should tell him that’s what you say when you orgasm,” Demmy suggested.

Cody laughed. It was spontaneous and loud, and it felt good. Like blowing the dust off an old part of himself that had been quiet for a while. “You’ve been married to me too long.”

“Never long enough,” Demmy said.

“You say that like you like me or something.”

“Or something.”

“Anything else?”

“Oh, yeah. Before Mac showed me the hex bag⁠—”

Another shiver of fear went through him just hearing Demmy say the phrase. Was that going to become part of their daily lives now, like checking the phase of the moon or greeting each other with the word ‘nix’ to make sure they weren’t a shape-shifting water sprite?

“Amelia sent me a text.”

“Uh oh. My parents acting up or something?”

“No, nothing about them. But Isaac Wilkerson came to their door.”

Cody grunted as he set off along the front aisle that ran the width of the store, checking each intersection for any sign of Tracey. “The guy with the police radio?”

“That’s the one.”

“We know way too many seniors out at Parson’s Pines.”

“Amen to that. Anyway, Isaac heard that a body had been found out in Parson’s Woods. He wanted to know if we were looking into anything suspicious.”

A body in Parson’s Woods. Again.

Cody was still holding the leaf that had fallen from Tracey’s hair, and he looked at it. Lots of oak trees in Parson’s Woods. She’d mentioned the name of another woman who had been with her and Heath, but Cody couldn’t think of it at that moment. All he could really think about was how scared Tracey had been. And worse yet, how scared she’d been of Heath, her boyfriend, who, although usually strange and slightly threatening, seemed to be very much not himself.

“This will sound unrelated, but I have a feeling it’s not,” Cody said. “I just saw Tracey here in the store.”

“Mumm? From the library?”