Page 87 of Coven of Corpses

“All right,” Cody said. “We’ve got four again, with Amelia in the mix. How do we find the last one?”

Someone knocked on the back door. All of them jumped, and Demetrius looked down the heavily shadowed hallway. The light stopped just beyond the door to the bathroom, leaving the rest of the hallway dark.

“What do we do?” Amelia said.

“I don’t know,” Demetrius replied.

Tracey’s phone buzzed and she pulled it from her back pocket. After a moment, she went to the back door and unlocked it.

“What are you doing?” Cody said.

Clarabell came down the hall, followed closely by Lucia. Tracey closed and locked the door behind them.

“What in the fucking hell is going on?” Lucia demanded. She stood with her hands on her hips, shifting her glare between Cody and Demetrius. “I’ve got a homicide crime scene for the mayor and a vandalism crime scene spread across three blocks out at Parson’s Pines. Meanwhile, there’s a massive elm tree, half-burned from the inside out, blocking 118. The tree needs to be cut up and removed by the DPW. But our town no longer has a DPW, so I’m trying to coordinate that clean up with fucking Harriettville, all while trying to make sense of what I’m hearing from the residents of Parson’s Pines that the mayor was driving like a bat out of hell and trying to run someone off the road before she collapsed. After that, the goddamn tree uprooted itself and caused a shit ton of damage as it chased the Widow Monroe’s Cadillac out of the area.” She turned to Demetrius. “Which happens to be owned these days by you.”

Demetrius made a face and pointed toward his original body. “Actually, him.”

“Traitor,” Cody said with a grimace, then he looked at Lucia. “You know what’s going on around here. Why does any of this surprise you?”

Lucia’s shoulders slumped and suddenly she looked as exhausted as Tracey. “The sad part about it is, it doesn’t. But Jesus trout fishing Christ, it makes my job so much more difficult.”

“Everyone here okay?” Clarabell asked, looking around. She squinted one eye as she studied Demetrius. “You still Demetrius in there?”

“Yep,” Demetrius said.

“All right.” Clarabell reached into the messenger bag she wore around her shoulder and pulled out a ring binder. “We’ve got some time before he figures out where we’re at. Let’s dig in and uncover the other two descendants so we can finish this once and for all.”

“We just need one more,” Tracey said.

Clarabell looked surprised. “Oh?” She looked around the room. “Who’s replacing the mayor?”

“I am,” Amelia said, stepping forward.

Demetrius let out a breath and hung his head. He really hated that it was the best plan.

“Okay,” Clarabell said. “Let’s double check that and make sure. Then we’ll find the last one.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Cody sat back from the photocopied pages of tiny, elaborate script in the town record he’d been assigned to read, and said, “Huh.” His neck ached and his eyes burned, but what he’d just read sent a tickle of possibility through him.

“What?” Demmy was seated on the floor beside him, both leaning against the rear wall of the office, where a couple of file cabinets used to reside. Cody had pressed his leg against Demmy’s and the connection was warm and reassuring. All of them were reading by the flashlights on their phones. Clarabell had two battery pack phone chargers in her bag—because of course she did—which were being shared within the group. Soon after she had arrived, Lucia left to, as she put it, “handle the shit show of a circus out at the Pines.”

“I don’t know if it really matters,” Cody said.

“Oh my God, just say it.” Impatience gave Tracey’s voice an even sharper edge than usual.

Cody looked back at the paper. “From what I just read, Harriettville used to be part of Parson’s Hollow.”

“So?” Tracey said. “We learned that in high school.”

“We did?” Demmy said, again proving he was the most amazing husband in the world.

Tracey shrugged and looked back at her own papers. “I did.”

“So, why did that stand out to you?” Demmy asked. “Other than to throw it in Jugs’s face.”

“That’s just it,” Cody said, getting to his feet. He stretched and groaned, his ass numb from sitting on the floor. “We’ve been looking at longtime residents of Parson’s Hollow, but we could also look at people who’ve lived in Harriettville all their lives, too, right?”