Grave Dance

I twisted the strap of my purse in my hands as I focused on her nose, not her eyes. “I was mistaken about his involvement.”

“I see.” She drew the word out so it had multiple syllables. “Be that as it may, he’s still wanted for questioning in an open case. If you encounter him again, give me a call.” She pressed a card into my hand. “And, Miss Craft, let me give you a little friendly advice. Those who don’t have loyalty to a court don’t have loyalty to anyone. Be careful with whom you associate.”

“Right.” I slid into my car and got the hell out of there, silently wishing luck to Malik as I drove away.

Chapter 7

I called Caleb on my way to the Magic Quarter to meet Rianna, but he didn’t answer his cell. I didn’t like the idea of walking into the Bloom alone, but Tamara was working late and I wasn’t going to call Holly. That left me with only one other person.

“Thanks for meeting me here,” I said as Roy popped into existence in the passenger seat of my car. A ghost for backup in Faerie probably wasn’t much backup at all, but he was the best I had. If nothing else, at least he was a second pair of eyes.

“Hey, no problem. It’s not like I have a lot of better prospects to haunt,” he said, folding his hands behind his head. “So, what’s on the agenda? A little breaking and entering? Some undercover work? Or just a little good old spying?”

I pulled into a metered spot a couple of blocks from the Bloom—that was as close a parking spot as I could find. “Actually we’re going to meet with an old friend of mine.” I paused, my hand still on the stick shift. There was an issue with bringing Roy along that I hadn’t thought of before now. “I’m meeting Rianna.”

Roy’s hands fell and his face screwed up tight. “Tell me you’re going to manifest me.”

“Uh, no.” By “manifest,” Roy meant he wanted me to pump him with enough energy to make him physical in the land of the living. The first time I’d done it he’d punched Rianna. At the time that had been a good thing, as she’d still been under Coleman’s control and on the opposite side, but Roy had deeper reasons to hate Rianna—she’d been involved in his death. Unwilling though she might have been, Roy was having a hard time forgiving his murderer. I guess I couldn’t blame him. “Try to play nice,” I said, giving him a pleading smile.

His fists balled by his side, but after a moment he gave me a sharp nod. “Fine.” He stood—straight through my car, which was rather disturbing—and walked to the sidewalk.

I hurried to catch up.

He sulked as we walked to the Eternal Bloom, his shoulders slumped and his gaze down. After two attempts to start a conversation with him—which both received only noncommittal sounds in response—I didn’t bother trying to converse with someone that no one else on the street could see. I would make it up to him later. Maybe I’d buy him some Legos—the little blocks were light enough for him to pick up if he concentrated. Roy floated through the main door when we reached the Bloom. I, on the other hand, had to pull it open.

“Hullo, lass. Welcome to the Eternal Bloom,” the bouncer, a red-bearded man perched on the stool in the entry said, his accent thick. “Check all iron items here, and do’na forget to sign the ledger.”

“No iron,” I said, pulling a pen from my purse.

The entry wasn’t large, just a short room with enough space for the bouncer, his stool, and the pedestal with the ledger balanced on top. I saw only one door, but I knew there was another one not accessible to the majority of the bar’s clientele.

As I stepped up to the pedestal and ledger, the short man stood on his stool. Even with the stool’s height, he only reached my chin, but he peered around my shoulder, watching me write my name, and most important, the date and time. I wrote as legibly as possible. I was about to step into a pocket of Faerie—I wanted to make sure I emerged on the same day I entered.

“Ah, a VIP,” the bearded bouncer said once I put my pen away. He puffed on the pipe clenched between his teeth and then blew a smoke ring in the air. The sweet, tobaccoscented smoke stung my eyes and tickled my chest. I coughed, waving a hand in front of my face to clear the air. When I blinked away the moisture in my eyes, I found two doors along the back wall where there had been only one before.

The little man smiled around his pipe. “Enjoy your visit, lass.”

“Right. Thank—” I stopped myself before I thanked the man. Hitching my purse higher on my shoulder, I glanced back at Roy. “Coming?”

“Yeah, right behind you,” he said, but he was staring at the newly appeared door, a frown etched hard in his shimmering face.

Maybe I’ll owe him more than Legos for backing me up in there.

I jerked open the door and then hesitated. Roy wasn’t following.

“We won’t be long,” I promised.

The ghost bit his lower lip. “I can’t go.”

Okay, that was a little much. I knew he was mad at Rianna, I got it, but he’d said he’d back me up. He must have seen my thoughts on my face because he shook his head.

“It’s not . . . her. It’s the door. It feels wrong. Definitely not safe.”

I stepped back into the entry, letting the door swing shut, and studied it. Safe? Well, I wouldn’t describe Faerie as safe for anyone, but the fact that he said it felt wrong did concern me. The door was some sort of portal to another place—it might not be safe for Roy. Hell, it might not be safe for me. But that was another story.

I thought back. I’d seen a ghost, or at least a spirit, in the Bloom before. Well, actually I’d sort of created a ghost when I’d jerked the spirit from a dead, animated body of a slaver’s pet grave witch. “I’ve seen ghosts in there,” I told Roy, leaving off the rest of the story.

“Yeah, but did the ghost leave?” He stepped back, farther from the door. “It feels like a cemetery gate.”

That wasn’t good. Cemetery gates kept ghosts—and other, rarer forms of the dead—locked inside. Even newer cemeteries typically had a ghost or two, the older ones many more, though the ghosts rarely started their spirit-life in the graveyard. Like some sort of spirit roach motel, the ghosts could enter the cemetery, but they couldn’t leave. While Roy might get annoying once in a while, I definitely didn’t want to get him stuck in Faerie.

“Okay, stay here,” I said, and realized the bouncer was studying me, his bushy red eyebrows drawn together and his pipe in his hand.

“Lass, talking to invisible faeries isn’t uncommon here, but I happen to know none are present.”

In other words, he thought I was crazy. I gave him a tight smile.

“Ghost,” I said by way of explanation, and the little man squinted as if that would help him see the spirit among us. I ignored him, turning my attention back to Roy. “I shouldn’t be long. If I’m not out in an hour or two . . .”

I trailed off. If I wasn’t out soon, what was he supposed to do? He couldn’t come after me, and unless he tracked down another grave witch—and last I’d heard, the closest one not in Faerie was over a hundred miles away—he couldn’t communicate with the living. A ghost really was terrible backup.

I didn’t finish the sentence. With a quick wave good-bye, I jerked the door open and let myself into the VIP area of the Eternal Bloom.

I signed another ledger inside the door, again printing carefully. The attendant, a sour-faced fae with long, donkeylike ears and cloven feet, nodded, taking the pen from me and shooing me farther into the Bloom when I would have dawdled in the doorway.

The Eternal Bloom hadn’t changed since the last time I was here. The giant tree growing through the floorboards and blooming with an impossible arrangement of shimmering blossoms dominated the center of the room, its large limbs spreading to form a leaf-and-flower-filled canopy over the tables in the bar. I didn’t stare at the tree long—it had nearly entranced me last time.

In the far corner, a new fiddler had taken the place of the one whose strings I had severed to halt the eternal dance. A small cluster of dancers spun around him, but not yet a third as many as I’d freed during my last visit. I could just barely hear the lively jig the fiddler played over the murmur in the bar, and I moved farther away so I wouldn’t be drawn into the dance.

The crowd in the bar boasted a mix of the grotesque and the beautiful. While some of the patrons either still wore their glamour or were, in fact, human, many were very obviously fae, other. Small, large, winged, floral, too-manylimbed, too-few—they were a dizzying display rarely seen on the streets. While the fae had announced their presence and needed mortal belief, they kept their own counsel more often than not and had no interest in becoming sideshows—not that I blamed them. I let my gaze move quickly, not lingering long enough to cause offense as I searched for Rianna. I spotted her at a small round table at the very back of the room.

She stared at her drink as I approached, never glancing up. Her note had said she needed my help, but she didn’t appear anxious, and certainly not fearful as she sat in the crowded bar. If anything, she looked dejected and worn down. Her narrow, slumped shoulders were thin under the drab gray gown she wore and her skin was pale, sickly. If she was in danger, I would have expected her to be watching the other patrons, to glance nervously from person to person as she scanned the room, or at least to glance at the door once in a while, looking for me, since she’d asked me to meet her here. But she didn’t look up from the wooden mug in front of her, not even as my approach put me only tables away. Of course, maybe she didn’t have to—she’d brought a guard dog.

The huge black dog stepped around the side of the table when I approached. The thick hair on its back stood up, and it glared at me, its black irises ringed with red as if splashed with blood. A low growl tumbled from behind rust-colored teeth.

Rianna’s head snapped up at the sound, her sunken green eyes a little too wide. Then her gaze landed on me, and her thin lips spread into a weak smile. She jumped to her feet.