Grave Dance

PC ran a circle around us, dragging his leash behind him before finally stopping to lick Falin’s hand. The man didn’t so much as twitch.

“What happened to you?” I whispered, still trying to regain my breath. I turned Falin’s head to an angle that looked more comfortable—and one that I hoped would give me a better view of his head injury, but I couldn’t make out a thing under his blood-soaked blond hair. Oh, this is bad.

And there was more blood than just from his head wound. My grave-sight made his clothing appear worn and moth-eaten, but the remaining fabric was saturated with blood all along one side from the middle of his chest down to his pants.

“Caleb,” I screamed. Please be able to hear me. “Caleb, help me!”

The front door opened and Caleb rushed out, Holly a few steps behind him. I tried to shift my legs from where they were pinned under Falin’s body without jostling him—which I failed at miserably. His brows scrunched together, his grimace making his sharp features draw in pain, but he didn’t open his eyes.

“What—?” Caleb stopped short, still several feet away. Holly kept running. She dropped to her knees beside me. “Alex, what happened? What’s wrong?”

What’s wrong? Clearly the unconscious fae sprawled in our driveway. But Holly wasn’t looking at him. Was he glamoured?

“Holly, go back inside,” Caleb said, not moving.

She looked between Caleb and me, her indecision clear on her face. “What’s going on?”

“Just do—” Caleb cut himself off, then lowered his voice to a more civil volume and said, “Wait inside.”

I think he would have said “please” if his nature had permitted, but it didn’t. Holly’s frown etched deeper and she looked at me, her eyes asking me what I wanted her to do.

I wanted help for Falin. Now. I didn’t know what Caleb’s issue was, but Holly couldn’t see Falin if he was glamoured, so she couldn’t help. Swallowing the sour taste of adrenaline, I nodded. “I’ll explain later.”

Holly scowled, but she pushed herself up and stomped across the front lawn. When the door slammed behind her, I looked at Caleb.

“Help him?”

He shook his head. “It would bring more trouble down on you and on my house.”

“He’s hurt. We have to do something.”

Caleb didn’t move. “Get up, Al. Let’s go. I’ll call someone to deal with him.”

Falin didn’t need “dealing with”—he needed help. And I wasn’t about to leave him until he got it.

“Please, Caleb. Help him. Please.”

At my words, I felt the potential for imbalance between us. He owed me a favor because I’d listened to Malik—I’d forgotten about that favor—but I’d asked him for help, and he was so against the idea that if he did help, I would be the one indebted to him. I didn’t care.

“Please,” I said again.

He winced. “Alex—” He shook his head and then exhaled a long breath. “For you, Al. Not for him. We should get him inside.”

Caleb knelt to lift Falin off of me. Falin was easily sixfive and well built, but Caleb lifted him without so much as a grunt. He hauled him into a fireman’s carry and I winced.

“I think he has a stomach injury.”

If Caleb heard me, he ignored me as he headed around the side of the house toward the stairs to my loft. PC pranced at his heels, dragging his leash. My legs tingled with pins and needles as I climbed to my feet, but I forced them to work anyway. After fishing my dagger out of the grass and shoving it back in its boot sheath, I jogged to catch up with Caleb.

I closed my shields when I reached the stairs. In my grave-sight the steps were rotted and pitted, and I didn’t want to fall through the staircase. I hurried up the steps, my knees wobbly from the adrenaline rush as I tried to catch up with Caleb while watching Falin’s disconcertingly limp head loll to the side with Caleb’s swift steps. It wasn’t until I reached my door that I realized, as it was my grave-sight that let me see through glamour and I’d closed my shields to the grave, I shouldn’t have been able to see Falin. Of course, glamours were easier to see through when you knew they existed.

Caleb slung Falin onto my bed, careless of the other man’s injuries. Then he stepped back as I made a hasty job of trying to get Falin’s limbs into positions that looked comfortable—or at least natural. I peeled his shirt away from his chest, wincing in sympathetic pain as the fabric stuck to the tacky blood.

Drying blood caked Falin’s torso, but dark, wet blood still glistened along a long gash that started just under his ribs and disappeared into the top of his pants. Blood oozed from the deep laceration, and my breath caught in my chest.

“We need to get him to a hospital, or a healer, or . . .” I turned to face Caleb. “Where do fae go when they’re injured?”

Caleb didn’t answer. He just stared at the man on my bed. Not moving.

Okay, Caleb was obviously limited help. Very limited. So it’s up to me. “Hospital,” I said. After all, the hospital in the Quarter would be up-to-date, with all the most current healing magics. I reached for my purse and my cell phone, but Caleb grabbed my wrist.

“Leave him. He’ll be fine.”

“Fine? Fine? Caleb, I’m pretty sure he’s mortally wounded!”

“Yes. If he were mortal.”

Oh, right. I glanced at the bed. I didn’t know a lot about injuries, but this one looked bad. Definitely hospital bad. Maybe morgue bad. But I also didn’t know a lot about fae healing abilities.

Was Caleb right? Could he heal from this on his own? Or was Caleb’s personal dislike clouding his judgment?

I sank onto the mattress beside Falin and swiped a strand of blood-crusted hair from his face. His cheek twitched as the hair pulled away, but he gave no other response.

“You’re sure?” I asked without looking up.

Caleb rested his hands on my shoulders and squeezed lightly in what was probably meant to be a reassuring gesture. The heat of his palms blistered against my skin, but only one part of my brain registered the pain as the remainder focused on the prone form in front of me.

“Let him rest,” Caleb whispered. “I was making spaghetti. You should come downstairs and have some dinner.”

“I can’t leave him here alone. What if he wakes and doesn’t know where he is?”

Caleb’s grip tightened. “Exactly.”

Huh?

I shrugged him off and turned to face him. He frowned at me.

“If he wakes up confused and uncertain . . .” His voice trailed off. “You shouldn’t be here with him alone.”

“He’s injured.”

“He’s lethal.”

I scowled at Caleb and he sighed. Then he stepped back, shaking his head at me.

“Think about it, Al. Where has he been this past month? What has he been doing? Who did this to him?”

“I don’t know.” I sounded miserable, and I hated it, but it was true. I didn’t know why he’d up and disappeared two days after Coleman’s death, or why he hadn’t made any attempt to contact me since then. I didn’t know what had happened that he’d ended up in this condition in my front yard, or why he’d come to me at all. I just didn’t know.

“Dinner, Al. Then you can check on him.”

I nodded reluctantly. There wasn’t much I could do for Falin besides sit and fret, and I needed food. Pushing myself away from the mattress took more effort than I’d expected. My adrenaline had finally stopped rushing and the absence left me drained. Shuffling to my nightstand, I opened the tiny drawer and dug out the few healing charms I owned. I’d made them myself, and my spellcasting being the dismal thing it was, they weren’t all that potent, but they couldn’t do any harm. I’d focused the spell into small wooden disks, and I placed the three of them on Falin’s chest. There was no shortage of blood to activate them, and they hummed slightly as the spell sprang to life.

Turning, I found Caleb already at the door leading down to the main portion of the house. He didn’t comment on the charms, but held the door for me. PC had already trotted down the stairs, so with an unconscious and half-dead fae in my bed, I abandoned my apartment.

“Is someone planning to tell me what’s going on?” Holly asked as I pushed spaghetti around my plate.

I looked up, and Caleb lifted his eyebrow but said nothing as he poured himself a second glass of wine. Guess it was up to me, but how was I supposed to explain a mortally injured man Holly hadn’t even seen? Of course, there were plenty of invisibility spells on the market, and Holly knew Falin was FIB. Guessing he was fae wasn’t a far leap.

“Falin’s back,” I said, my voice flat as if it didn’t matter.

Holly dropped her fork. “Outside?”

“He was glamoured. He’s hurt. Pretty badly. He’s unconscious upstairs.”

She looked from me to Caleb and then back. “And we’re here eating spaghetti?”

I cringed. Yeah, that’s pretty much the situation. I rolled a meatball from one side of my plate to the other.

“He’s fae,” Caleb said, running his finger along his wineglass. The crystal sang under his touch. “Our options were to take him to Faerie or give him time to rest and heal. The latter was more feasible.”

I could feel Holly’s disbelieving stare on me, and I hunched a little further over my plate. I think it’s time to change the subject. That, or I was going to feel even worse about leaving Falin upstairs. Maybe I should call a healer despite what Caleb said.

I accepted the glass of wine that Caleb all but pushed under my nose, and then I looked at Holly. “So where did you go this morning?”

“Go?” She made a soft snorting sound under her breath.

“I’ve got this crazy landlord-turned-nursemaid who’s barely permitted me to get out of bed.” She said it with affection, but there was definitely a strand of irritation mixed in. She looked at Caleb. “You know I’m going back to work tomorrow, right? I mean, I’m a little bruised and cut up, but I’m fine.”