Only The Dead Don't Die | Book 4 | Finding Home Popovich, A.D. (any book recommendations txt) 📖

She flashed him the stop-talking-smack evil eye. “On you. Dat summer ya drank it. Everyday. Ya cain’t be zombified.”

“Aunt Matilda, be straight with me. What’s happening to the world? To humanity?”

She glanced away. “I only see tings Spirit wants me to see.”

Strange, it was unlike her to admit powerlessness. “So, you’re claiming a piece of glass is a cure for the entire infected human race?” He had insulted her. He knew it. But he had to understand.

“It don’t cure just anyone—only da good souls,” she snapped back. “Oh, dey think it do. But it be short-lived. It just makes dem crave da livin’ more. Don’t let dem deadbloods and evil spirits know ya got it. If dey do—” Terror pierced through her eyes into his. “Der be no ting I can do to protect ya, boy. Dey. Will stop. At nothing!”

“To clarify, I’m the keeper of the, uh, Andara?” Luther tried keeping the skepticism out of his voice.

Aunt Matilda pressed the amethyst crystal to her forehead. “And protector of da girl child. She be someting powerful when she be growed up. Must keep her safe.” She closed her eyes and seemed to breathe in his thoughts. “Oy, but da blue-eyed one. A dark secret she be a holdin’ onto.” Her eyes sprang open. “A traitor be a hidin’ in da mist. She be one of dem! The ones dat started da zombification curse.” She eyed him questionably.

Was she talking about Scarlett? “Scarlett’s on our side. She says we’re in a battle to save humanity from the Ancient Ones who wish to obliterate or enslave mankind,” Luther explained according to his feeble understanding.

Aunt Matilda closed her eyes and swayed in a trance-like state while she communicated in what seemed like a two-way conversation. “Our bloodline was bedeviled to battle the Ancient Ones for centuries,” she recited in perfect English. “Ah, I see now. Da blue-eyed priestess changed sides. She be a fightin’ da good fight. Dis time.”

This time? What the hell does that mean? “Aunt Mattie, please help me understand. Did humans start the Super Summer flu—or is there more to it?”

She stared into the jumping candle’s flame. “It be a cosmic battle of good against evil. And da evil be a winnin’. Yo only chance—disappear in da forest with yo friends. And start over. Finding home . . . Finding home . . . Finding home . . .” she sang in an eerie melody.

“Where’s this forest?” He couldn’t deny his hope that such a place existed. Free of Zs and people in general wanting to kill them.

“Spirit don’t tells me everyting,” she snapped back. “All I know’d, it be a place hidden in da veils of time, where da new seeds of humanity can thrive in peace and enlightenment.”

A Heaven on Earth existed? “You’ve got to come with us!” Luther had a sudden image of her burned to death at the stake. He quickly deleted the thought from his mind, not wanting her to see it.

“If I go, dey find ya for sure. My final purpose–lead them on a wild goose chase. Doncha fret, done paid my fair to da boatman. Gonna go home.”

He presumed she was referring to Haiti. “Is it safe there?”

“No place safe!” She jerked her head to the side in a peculiar position and mumbled. “ ’Cept for da forest vision Spirit be a wantin’ me to see. Now ya get. Dey be a comin’. I can smell dem deadbloods. Dey be a plannin’ a massive attack. Go.”

“Wait, Twila, the girl, says she can heal the deadbloods?” He needed confirmation Twila wasn’t nuts.

“Don’t know nothin’ ’bout dat. And I don’t wanna know. I know’d enough already,” she spat. “But, she be important.”

Aunt Mattie had told him so much and yet not what he truly needed to know. Why? Why was this happening?

She snorted with disgust. “Da vendetta go back centuries. We be a payin’ da karma of dem greedy souls. Now, give yo favorite auntie a hug. Ya turned out to be one of da good ones, unlike yo sorry ass uncle and father. I’m gonna miss ya, mon chérie.”

He choked up by the finality in her voice, knowing it was the last time he would see her.

She parted the curtain for him, and he ducked out to the bustling street fair. The light so bright, he didn’t see Justin until he quipped, “I thought you’d never come out of there. Things are getting way weird. Let’s get outta here.”

Sparks darted through the air. Prana, he suddenly realized based on Twila’s talks. A definite change had occurred after visiting Aunt Matilda, as if he had been empowered with unlimited strength. And courage.

“So, did she read your fortune for a hundred LSCs?” Justin razzed.

“She gave me the family discount,” was all he said when a jet ripped a white gash across the sky. People started running out of the tents. “I’m not liking this.” He glanced at Justin’s flat-bed dolly of food. We need more food than that.”

“I spent my LSCs on beans, potatoes, and rice. All that’s left is the freeze-dried crap.”

“I don’t care what it is. I’m not leaving without a shitload of food. Lead the way.” They would need it, wherever they were going. With or without Zac.

They double-timed it, maneuvering the dolly through the frantic crowd. Panic swept across the faces of people clutching their purchases and clambering for the exit. Their auras turned murky red. Focusing internally, Luther managed to switch off the new ability. It was too disconcerting.

A burst of energy exploded inside him, as if scolding him. He wasn’t stupid; he headed the warning. They had to get out of there before someone had a heart attack and turned the market into an all-you-can-eat buffet.

“There,” Justin said.

They made it to the survival food tent just as an Enforcer