Page 14 of Coven of Corpses

And for someone six foot five and over two hundred pounds, a good portion of that muscle, Cody had managed to come home, showered, and get into bed beside him without waking Demetrius. Either he’d been more tired than he’d realized, or Cody was part ninja. Or maybe a combination of both.

Either way, he was glad to have Cody home and their house quiet. For now.

He’d show Cody the hex bag tomorrow morning and talk about the implications, while Cody went over the details of everything he’d seen at the store. For now, he needed to get back to sleep and not try to figure out who in their small town knew about hex bags and thought they needed protection, or whose life had come to an untimely end out in the woods. That could wait until tomorrow.

He closed his eyes. He drew in a deep breath, filling his lungs. Slowly he exhaled, releasing all of it.

Tomorrow they would have a chance to talk.

Tomorrow he could find some time to slip away and pay a visit to the library.

CHAPTER FIVE

“Who are these people?”

Cody looked up. His youngest brother, Brady, sat on a folding chair near the front of the storage unit, a heavy photo album in his lap. With his dark hair in an undercut and his often bearded face now clean-shaven, he looked like a young conservative go-getter. Which might not be far from the truth if Cody had correctly understood Brady’s latest promotion in the Louisiana oil company where he worked. Their father leaned in over Brady’s shoulder for a look.

“I think those are your great uncles,” his father said. “Down on Grandpa Milton’s farm.”

Brady looked up, his expression scrunched. “We have a Grandpa Milton?”

“With a farm?” Roman put in. “How many acres?”

Cody could practically hear the dollar signs building in Roman’s mind as his older brother most likely—actually, very likely—thought about selling land for a large lump sum.

“Sorry, he would be your great-grandfather. Milton was my grandfather on my father’s side.” He looked at Roman. “And the farm was sold shortly after you were born.”

“Sorry for your loss of investment, Romes,” Grant said from farther back in the storage unit. He held up a white lace tablecloth. “But you can have this pretty and delicate tablecloth as a consolation prize.”

Cody restrained his laugh, then bent back to the bins of mismatched pots and pans their mother had assigned him to look through. More Teflon-coated cookware, the bottoms scratched and flaking. Why, exactly, had these been saved for so many years? And why hadn’t his parents told him about this storage unit before now? He could have been sorting through all this crap for years.

“Real estate is one of the best returns on investment you can make,” Roman said to Grant.

“I don’t know, Romes, cannabis has been pretty lucrative for us. Right Moms and Pops?”

“What?” Their mother popped up from behind a stack of boxes which, Cody saw with an internal groan, were marked with the ominous abbreviation MISC. She was in her mid-sixties, hair more gray than brown and done in a single braid that hung past her shoulders. Trim and lithe, standing just barely over five feet, she had often amazed Cody in that she had given birth to five boys, all almost six and a half feet tall.

“He’s talking about the drug house you’re running back home.”

That came from Cody’s brother Dave, who was out of sight somewhere behind a cluster of wooden chairs that appeared to belong to a large dining room set. How big was this fucking storage unit?

“It’s not a drug house,” Greg and Alice exclaimed together.

“It’s a cannabis operation,” Alice said, brushing at a smudge of dust on her zip up hoodie. “And, yes, Grant is correct, it has become quite lucrative.”

“As good as a real estate investment?”

“Probably better,” she said. “Considering it’s only been in operation around five years.”

“How are you, son?”

Cody turned away from the conversation between his mother and Roman to find his father standing beside him. He looked as tired as Cody felt: bruised skin under his brown eyes, a shadow of scruff along his narrow chin, more white now than brown, like his wavy hair.

“I’m fine,” Cody said. “Just trying to get through this box so I can open up another and go through it.”

“Your grandmother had a lot of stuff.”

“I see that,” Cody said, then added with emphasis, “now.”