Page 7 of Midnight Auto Parts
“Carter.”
“Did he find any clues down your throat?” She snickered. “Or under your tongue?”
“Carter.”
“That level of aggression comes across as frustration.Sexualfrustration. Please tell me you’ve kissed.”
“We’re taking things slow.” I aspired to sound patient and mature.
“Kierce looked ready to devour you, so forgive me for questioning your definition ofslow.”
For his sake, we had decided to take our time, but we had kind of stalled out after my untimely demise. I was too freaked out over my new appearance, my newexistence, and too stressed about my heightened senses to tolerate more stimulation.
And Kierce, from his looks to his touches to his voice, was a buffet for my senses.
“You know why I’m here.” I dropped my arms down by my sides. “Why areyouhere?”
“Well, it’s like this.” She flicked her gaze skyward with a sigh. “Do you believe in aliens?”
“Infinite realms exist beyond this one, so why couldn’t one of them be inhabited by little green men?”
Or little purple women? Wings? Horns? Tails? Some daemons sported them. Fae too. Why not aliens?
Surely the universe was open to all hues, genders, sexual orientations, and appendage combinations.
“Life on other planets versus infinite lives layered beneath the fabric of our world.”
“You’re getting too philosophical for me.” I checked for Kierce, but he wasn’t back yet. “What’s wrong?”
“We’ve gotten two reports of abductions from this exact location.”
“And your first thought was to blame aliens?”
Josie was alot. As her sister, I could say that. But even she couldn’t have driven Carter crazy this fast.
“A blinding light took the victims, cars and all, and they haven’t been seen or heard from since.”
Cars and all.
“I see.” I kept my tone neutral. “You think there’s a chance my repo was…abducted by aliens?”
The GPS malfunction and the absence of Pink Panic were both concerning, but I doubted Marvin the Martian had anything to do with either.
“I hail from another world myself, so I’m not one to throw stones at interdimensional glass houses.”
Faerie, one of the closest realms to this one, had a bad habit of leaking over into our world. On Samhain in particular, the barriers thinned to the point where powerful fae could cross it. Protections were in place now to monitor the influx of fae seeking asylum, or a free lunch, but the new laws held no sway over the oldest predators who had come here to hunt for soft pink flesh centuries earlier.
“What you’re describing is a pop culture classic. What are the odds humans got it right?”
“They get almost everything wrong,” she agreed. “Most of that is our doing, though. Supernaturals spend an inordinate amount of time writing scientific journals and popular fiction based on fabricated weaknesses and abilities. That way, if a human ever does come across us, they refer to folklore, thus falling flat on their faces, and we get to live to hunt another day. Probably with a full stomach to boot.”
“There are infinite worlds beyond this one, but there has been no formal contact from life on other planets.”
Kierce’s voice drew my attention as he waded from the trees with Badb on his shoulder.
“Oh?” I couldn’t help my smile at the sight of him. “Does your god monitor atmospheric breaches?”
“All gods track potential sources of power.” He scratched Badb’s cheek while she made chittering noises. “But humans have filmed too many movies demonizing aliens, and autopsying them, to make Earth appear hospitable to intergalactic races.”