Grave Dance

Someone released a sharp scream and I whirled around. Beside me, the raver pressed a hand over her arm—an arm soaked in blood. The hydra can hurt them? My racing heart stumbled in my chest, missing several beats as my gaze snapped to where Death dodged the lunging heads, his hands darting out whenever one got too close. The head always drew back smaller, down one more soul. Then two heads rushed him at once.

No!

I thrust my power into the head lunging for his back, and jerked at the souls inside. One. Two. Three souls popped free. Then I was falling forward, the bridge rushing up to slam into my knees. The gray man stood above me, jabbing his cane into the nostril of a head filling the space where I’d been.

“Watch your own back, girl. He’ll watch his,” he said as he pulled his cane free. “We could use more room to maneuver. The beast is targeting you. Lead it to the bank. We’ll cover you.”

Right. I pushed to my feet, then immediately dove to the side as another head lunged forward. I made it only a few feet with each sprint, but true to his word, the gray man covered my dash off the bridge. Two men in uniform met me on the bank.

“Bullets won’t pierce its skin,” I said, turning back to reach with my power again. The hand I lifted shook too hard to hold straight.

“It’s fae, right?” one of the men asked as he snapped a clip into his gun. A gun I wasn’t familiar with but bigger than the Glocks that most of the homicide detectives carried. It was also spelled. He pulled the trigger and one of the heads exploded.

I blinked at him, wide-eyed, as he squeezed off three more shots. Another head scattered into mist. We’d already destroyed two, and while he lined up another shot, the collectors finished off the last three heads. Then all that was left was a lumbering body. The collectors tore into it as the gunman squeezed the trigger twice more.

He smiled as the beast vanished and a disk the size of a tabletop hit the ground. “Spelled iron,” he said, clearly thinking his bullets had done the trick. I so wanted to disillusion him, but I didn’t. He turned to me and held out his hand. “Name’s Tucker.”

“Alex Craft.”

Tucker’s vest had ABMU stitched on the front. anti–black magic unit? When John arranged backup, he didn’t skimp. Or maybe I was earning a reputation for trouble.

I left Tucker showing his gun to several of the uniformed officers and used my ability to sense magic to track where Holly’s ruby amulet had fallen. I found it in the grass near the foot of the bridge. Then, clutching the amulet in my fist, I made my way to the three collectors, who were huddled over the charmed disk.

“You okay?” I asked, nodding at the raver.

She shrugged the shoulder of her uninjured arm. “I’ll heal, but this has gone too far. We’ve got to find that accomplice.”

“I don’t think they’re going to show here,” the gray man said, spinning his cane like a baton, his colorless eyebrows drawn tight. “I told you this sounded like a trap. And judging by the escalation of the aberrations, I believe you have gone from potential tool to potential threat. That one was out for your life, the compulsion spell included just for good measure.”

I didn’t disagree.

I clutched Holly’s amulet tight as my trembling fingers threatened to fumble it to the ground. “So, what now?”

Death moved closer to me, wrapping his arm around my waist, which earned him a frown from his companions. Not that he seemed to care. “Now we try to figure out where the accomplice will go next. We have to find him, or her, before the ritual is attempted again. And hopefully before any more of these”—he hiked his thumb at the copper disk—“are created.”

I agreed. There must have been thirty souls in that construct. Where was the reaper collecting the souls? He had to be reaping in more than just Nekros—we’d had a lot of unexplained deaths, but not that many.

I frowned at the disk. “Are you thinking the accomplice is a witch who can work glamour or a fae who can craft spells?”

They looked at each other and shook their heads. Yeah, okay, the accomplice was a big mystery. I’d never heard of a human who could use glamour. Of course, even those fae who could use Aetheric energy—like Caleb—couldn’t create a jumble of spells like those contained in the disk. So a really, really rare something, who had found a relic that allowed interaction across planes. I gnawed at my lower lip. Occam’s razor said the simplest solution was typically right. So maybe we’re not looking for one accomplice who can use multiple types of magic, but two accomplices.

I fidgeted with the amulet in my hand. There was more than just Holly’s magic woven into it. Tamara’s was also present. As a gift last year, Tamara had charmed all of Holly’s favorite pieces of jewelry with a spell that would all but prevent her from losing them. She could not only track the amulet, but the charm made the amulet actively try to return to Holly by urging whoever found it in Holly’s direction. I could feel the charm, and it was active, but it wasn’t urging me anywhere. That meant Holly was either dead—unacceptable—warded, or otherwise out of the spell’s range.

Possibly somewhere like Faerie. The glamour, the archaic runes, the location of the lost collector—everything keeps pointing back to Faerie.

“If we assume the accomplice is a witch, and judging by the runes she’s using, a very old one, we are most likely looking for a changeling.” I glanced at the sky. We were far enough from the city that the light didn’t reach here, so for as far as I could see, everything was inky darkness speckled with hundreds of pricks of light. I had no idea how much time had passed, but it felt late, or early, depending on your perspective. “Rianna told me that the magic of Faerie protects changelings except during sunrise and sunset. If changelings are caught out of Faerie during those times, all their years catch up to them. We can’t be more than a few hours from dawn. The changeling is probably heading back so he or she isn’t caught by dawn.”

Which meant I was going to Faerie.

Decision made, I collected PC and waited for the FIB to arrive. The gray man and the raver left, but Death waited with me. I sat on the bridge, leaning against his shoulder.

“Wake up, Alex,” he said, shaking me gently.

I pried my eyes open. Agent Nori, her suit as crisp as if she’d just finished starching it, strolled across the bridge. I pushed to my feet, resituating PC in my purse as I stood.

“Miss Craft,” she said, hitting all the consonants hard.

“As I’m sure you’ve heard, I have a warrant for your arrest.”

“But you aren’t really arresting me, are you? Because I haven’t done anything.”

She frowned, her eyes cutting to the side as if judging who was in hearing range. “No. I’m not. You’re being taken to Faerie for your own protection.”

“Great. Then let’s go.”

The look she gave me was torn between suspicion that I was pulling a trick and the possibility that I was an idiot. I seriously hoped I wasn’t the latter.

The accomplice was acting in Nekros, and the only door to Faerie led to the winter court. Rianna had demonstrated that it was possible to not belong to a court and still use its door, but I was hoping I’d find the accomplice in the winter court. I was also hoping that going willingly would earn me some favor. Yeah, lots of hoping and not a lot of facts, but I had to work with what I had. I wished Falin were here. He knew Faerie, and he would know the best way to search for the accomplice—and Holly—once I got there.

“What’s with the dog?” Nori asked as she opened the back door of her sedan.

“Long story.” I slid across the seat, Death following me. I fell asleep on the drive and felt no better for the rest when Death woke me. The steps of the Eternal Bloom loomed outside the passenger-side window. I swallowed the dread crawling up my throat and clutched PC a little tighter.

“Please check—Oh, hello, Agent Nori,” the Bloom’s bouncer, who appeared to be either a faun or a satyr, given the hooves evident under his loose pants, said as we entered. He stepped aside, leaving the path to the VIP section of the bar clear.

Agent Nori removed her gun and handed it to the bouncer, who, in return, gave her a claim stub. Then she headed for the inner door.

“Shouldn’t we sign the ledger?” I asked as Nori marched me past it. They were always so insistent about that damn ledger. I glanced at the bouncer, hoping he’d back me up, but his attention was devoted to cleaning his fingernails with the tips of the horns sprouting from his head.

“Time isn’t an issue for you, Miss Craft,” Nori said, motioning me forward.

I stared at the door. This is it.

Death followed me all the way to the threshold, and that was apparently as far as he could go. Still he held on to my arm, his fingers sliding down to my wrist, my hand, until he clutched just the tips of my fingers. Then we were too far away to touch.

“Come back to me,” he whispered as the door closed.

Oh, I intended to. But now I had to visit Faerie.

Chapter 29

There were fewer fae in the bar than in my previous visits. Those who were present glanced up as we entered, and then immediately looked back down, apparently intent on their beers. A hush rolled over the bar.

They’re afraid of Nori? Or more likely, the authority she represented.

I clutched PC tight, hugging him to my chest. As I did, I caught a glimpse of my hands. Once again blood stained the undersides of my fingers and coated my palms. Damn. I’d forgotten about that. I stopped to dig my gloves out from under PC and Nori turned. The thin membrane slid across her eyes as she blinked and her wings released a sharp keening sound, but she said nothing as I pulled the gloves on. She, I noticed, didn’t have blood on her hands.

No one tried to stop us as she escorted me to the old hardwood growing out of the center of the room. Then we were in the frozen halls of the winter court, stars caught in ice over our heads and silent ice guardians lining the sprawling cavern. I faltered, coming to a complete stop a step past the pillar.