Page 1 of Midnight Auto Parts
Amud-spattered monster truck rumbled into the parking lot at The Body Shop, kicking up loose gravel as it prowled toward me. Muscular bubblegum-pink body. Airbrushed ribbons erupting in purple flames from the jaws of a dragon ready to devour the competition. Tires taller than I could reach on my tiptoes.
The driver pumped the brakes seconds before the full bottom lip of its bumper hit my knees, giving me a prime view of its glistening white fangs and bloody red gums. Glittering emerald eyes with curling lashes replaced the headlights, since competition trucks tended to either fold the blank space into their custom wrapper design or add drawn-on headlights to balance out the overall look.
A petite Latina woman with her hair braided into a crown stuck her head out the window opening.
“Iwon.” She gripped part of the frame inside the door with both hands and swung out like a gymnast. “It wasamazing.Iwas amazing.” She kissed the truck’s doglike nose. “Shewas amazing.”
Her fire-resistant suit, quilted with patches from her sponsors, sagged a bit on her frame. But that was to be expected when the loaner I provided her stood a good six inches shorter than the client had in life.
Mini Vasquez, the original owner of the body, had chosenCamaroas her loaner nickname, after her first car. Her oldest brother had stolen her keys three months after she turned sixteen and totaled it while he was racing with friends. As far as matches go, Camaro was a perfect fit for Tameka. In spirit if not in height.
“What I’m hearing is—” I stifled a laugh, “—you had anamazingtime at your farewell rally.”
A girl around sixteen or seventeen sat in the passenger seat with tears streaming down her wide cheeks. She wore a suit identical to her mother’s, but the similarities stopped there. Even seated, I could tell she was tall. Her skin was warm brown, and her hair had been braided in zigzagging rows then twisted into a tiara threaded with purple ribbons. As if she were a princess about to inherit the family throne and rise to become its queen.
“Keshawn,” Tameka called to her daughter. “Come meet Frankie.”
Her dismount rivaled Tameka’s for grace, then she shuffled over with red eyes and a swollen nose. “Hi.”
“I hear you’ll be Pink Panic’s driver next season.” I passed her a mini packet of tissues. “She’s a beast.”
From the initial interview with Tameka, nailing down her family history, I knew that Keshawn had gone pro last year, after graduating high school early and starting college classes online.
Tameka had felt blessed to have experienced those first steps into adulthood alongside her daughter, but for Keshawn, losing her mom to a brain aneurysm on a grocery run meant those first steps had also been their last ones taken together.
“Yeah.” She blew her nose. “But it won’t be the same without…”
At the reminder of why they were here, to return the loaner into my keeping, Keshawn burst into fresh sobs. Tameka threw her arms around her, held her close, and swayed while humming a tattered lullaby.
“How much would it cost?” Keshawn stared at me over her mother’s shoulder. “To keep this body?”
If I had a nickel for every time someone asked me that, us Marys would never have to work again.
“Even if the loaner was for sale, and it’s not, my magic doesn’t work that way.”
I could seat a soul in a body for a limited amount of time, but I couldn’t make it stick.
Necromancers earned their livings doing just that. Making it stick. That was how they created vampires. I didn’t possess that power. I never had. Even after everything that happened to me, I still couldn’t forge a permanent bond between a soul and a vessel.
“You’re a con artist.” A switch flipped inside her, and grief took a backseat to anger at God, the universe, everything. Which she had no problem directing at me. “You’re selling pipe dreams to anyone desperate enough to buy in.”
“Hush.” Tameka gripped her daughter’s chin. “I raised you better than that.”
“Momma, she could make it so you didn’t have to go. You could stay. With me.”
“Baby, that’s not how this works. Frankie gave me a chance to say goodbye, to spend a whole week with you on the road, doing what we love. Now it’s time for you to apologize to Frankie, who doesn’t deserve your anger, and for me to honor my contract.” She placed her key ring and its cluster of plush tchotchkes on Keshawn’s open palm then folded her trembling fingers overit. “I love you, I’m proud of you, and you better believe I’ll be cheering from Heaven so loud you’ll hear me over the crowd chanting your name.”
Their final embrace hurt to witness, and I hooked a thumb over my shoulder. “I’ll wait for you inside.”
Tameka nodded to me while stroking her daughter’s hair and murmuring her final words.
After punching in the code, I let myself into the office then rested my forehead against the door.
Rules were rules.
I couldn’t bend them, not even once, not even an inch, or I risked future clients believing I was okay with them being broken. And I wasn’t. I couldn’t let myself be. Or I would undermine my ability to provide for my family. As murky as my future was, I wanted their paths forward to be crystal clear without me.
Already I had reverted to the version of myself who clipped coupons, only shopped sales, and panic-sold anything I thought I could live without for a few extra dollars. Matty and Josie had blamed my recent dry spell at work, a drought which had ended thanks to Mr. Collins, my previous client, rallying spirits to trust me again. But thanks to my untimely demise—ten days dead and counting!—I couldn’t stop falling into old penny-pinching habits. Every time I looked ahead, I saw only what I would leave behind.