Grave Dance

Holly used the dagger to scrape a sheet of bark from the tree and I felt her tap into her stored magic as she used the blade to carve small runes into the bark. Her magic surged, settling into the makeshift charm, and she let out a breath that sounded like she’d been holding it a long time. Jabbing the blade of the dagger into the dirt by her feet, she lifted the bark, examining the carvings. Then she passed it to me. “Disruption charm.”

I accepted the charm, feeling it tingle over my fingers. Damn, she was good. I couldn’t have crafted this charm on a good day, and she’d done it without a ritual or a circle and with only the magic she had stored on her person.

With a disruption charm, all we would have to do was touch it to the circle and the charm should bring the entire barrier down. But first we’d have to get the charm past the dragons guarding the ritual.

“Think you could hit that circle from here?” I asked, passing the charm to Falin.

Falin balanced the bark-turned-charm in his hand, bouncing it to check the weight. Then he shook his head. “It’s too light. I’d never be able to throw it that far.”

Which meant that one of us had to carry it to the circle. But how do we get past the dragons? I chewed at my bottom lip. One dragon we might be able to take. It would be a hell of a challenge, but probably not impossible. But three? I shook my head. We needed help.

Where are those collectors? I poked at the spell again, just to make sure I’d really activated it the first time. No rush of magic this time, so I trusted that the first wave I’d felt worked.

“I have another idea,” Holly said, but her eyes didn’t meet mine when I turned. “We can cause a disturbance, draw the dragons away, and someone small, someone who wouldn’t be noticed, can affix the disruption charm to the side of the circle.”

“Someone small?” That definitely knocked Falin out of the running, and I was far from short. Holly was petite, but I didn’t think she meant herself. Her eyes darted to where PC sat in my lap. “No. No, no, definitely not. Holly, he’s a dog.”

“He’s tiny, and the dragons are huge. They probably won’t even be able to see him.”

She had a point, but . . . I clutched PC closer. Still shaking my head.

“It’s not a bad plan,” Falin said. “Though I suggest we plan to become dragon bait only if they notice PC. Holly and I can take positions on either side of the clearing and you can send him at the circle from the center. If one of the dragons notices him, the person closest will attack. I’m sure the beasts are charmed to protect the circle from humanshaped threats, not from tiny dogs.”

His argument didn’t make my head stop shaking. If anything, it made me dislike the plan more. If someone did have to distract a dragon, that someone would be alone. I didn’t like it. Not at all.

I glanced at the circle. The dancers had dissolved to the point that most no longer had eyes, so their faces went up to the center of their noses and then stopped. They were dead. All of them. Oh, they kept dancing, but there was no saving them now. Of course, there was more than just the lives in that circle at stake. I shuddered, staring at the energy coalescing behind the piper. How much does she need to smash all the planes into reality?

“Alex?”

Death. I spun in my crouch, expecting dozens of collectors, but found only Death, the gray man, and the raver.

“I was expecting more.”

“More?” Holly asked, unable to see the collectors.

“We were the closest,” the gray man said, crouching to stay out of view. Right, Holly and Falin might not be able to see the collectors, but the constructs could.

The raver shook her head as she sank into a crouch. “Damn, those things are huge.”

Falin had clearly figured out that the collectors had arrived because his narrowed gaze was fixed on the space I was talking to. “Three of them?” he asked.

He was good. I nodded.

Death scoped the clearing, his jaw set hard as he knelt again. “We have to find a way inside that circle.”

And we were back to the circle.

Falin explained the plan currently on the table despite my running protest. He might not have been able to see or hear the collectors, but he knew they could hear him. And, unfortunately, they liked the plan. I was outvoted five to two—because I figured if PC understood what was going on, he’d vote against the idea.

But they were right. If one of us tried to run to the clearing and place the charm, the dragons would be on us in seconds. Using PC, we might avoid detection by the dragons until after the barrier was down. Maybe. I hated the plan, but they were right.

Falin affixed the charmed bark to PC’s collar with a bit of ribbon made from glamour. In theory, since PC was a null, he would soar through the barrier as though it didn’t exist, but the glamour and the charm would stick and the disruption spell would activate. Or at least that was the plan.

“Ready?” Falin asked.

Holly nodded, her freckles standing out hard on her pale face. I let out a deep breath that tasted of sour fear, but I nodded. Then the gray man went with Holly and the raver went with Falin. Death stayed with me.

I knelt in the underbrush, rubbing PC’s head, Death by my side.

“We’re going to watch out for him,” he said, and I nodded again. I noticed he didn’t say that PC would be okay. The same quality that made PC useful for this job would make him hard to keep tabs on once things turned nasty. “They are in position by now.”

I know. I crab-walked forward, carrying PC until we were almost in the clearing. If the dragons focused on my hiding spot I was screwed, but PC needed a straight line of sight for the circle.

I placed the small dog in the grass in front of me. He turned, immediately trying to climb back in my lap. Smart dog. I set him down again and shook my hand like I had a toy. He looked at my hand, his ears pricking with curiosity. I made a soft squeaking noise with my mouth, and PC’s tail lifted, wagging. It took a moment of shaking and squeaking, but I riled him up enough about the imaginary toy that he wouldn’t take his eyes off my hand. Then, in the ultimate act of deception, I reared my arm back and pretended to hurl the toy at the circle.

PC dashed after the imaginary toy. The small dog was a tiny streak of gray and white crossing the grass. As planned, he charged the edge of the circle. Cleared it. The disruption spell stayed behind. Streaks of red lightning shot through the barrier around the spell, the sparks spreading like a fast-creeping frost.

Come on, PC, come back. He stopped just inside the circle, his tail tucked as the dancers pounded past him, but he was still searching for the toy, his little head swinging back and forth.

I hadn’t exactly forgotten about the dragons, obviously, but I was so focused on my dog that I didn’t notice the approaching green dragon until a huge muzzle filled the space in front of me. The muzzle stopped, one giant nostril ridged with shiny green scales inches from my face. I froze, not moving, not breathing, not even blinking.

The dragon’s nostril flared, and the force of its inhaled breath dragged air across my face, making my hair and gown flutter. The dragon lifted its head and the giant muzzle disappeared. The muscles in my legs went soft with the sudden sense of relief falling through me. Relief felt too soon.

The head reappeared, the dragon peering into my hiding spot with an enormous red eye. The slitted pupil contracted, focusing. Damn.

I threw my shields open farther. Each construct I’d fought had been more solid, more real, than the last, and the dragon was the most real yet. But I knew it was a spell fueled by souls and wrapped in a glamour. I knew it. I just had to convince reality.

In my second sight, the eye was a swirling mass of nearly solid mist, the color and shape superimposed over top. Clenching my fist, I thrust my hand into the construct’s eye. My skin encountered a moist resistance, and I rejected the sensation. It didn’t exist.

The eye vanished. The dragon didn’t.

The dragon roared in rage as its eye disappeared, only an empty socket of white mist remaining. It jerked back, swiping me with the edge of its head. My breath exploded out of my lungs as I flew backward, but there was no time to recover before the enraged beast charged. One massive paw uprooted a tree as it reached for me and missed. Death grabbed me under the arms, hauling me to my feet, but then we both had to dive out of the way as the dragon lunged.

We scurried behind a tree, but we needed to either keep moving or turn and fight because the tree wasn’t going to stop the construct. And worse, its bellows of rage had the other two dragons running toward us. Fuck! Now what?

I peeked around the tree in time to see a silver blur dive in front of the dragon. Falin’s soul blazed brightly in my vision as he dodged the dragon’s swipe and then grabbed the talon on the back of the dragon’s foot and used it to vault onto the beast’s leg. He grabbed the wing where it connected to the body, and hauled himself higher, scrambling for the creature’s long neck. The rampaging beast didn’t even seem to notice Falin until the fae wedged his daggers between the dragon’s thick scales, digging for its spinal column.

Then the dragon thrashed.

It craned its neck and beat at Falin with its wings, but Falin clung to the daggers, wedging them deeper. Unable to reach the source causing it pain, the dragon rolled, its claws swiping out as it hit the ground. Falin dropped, diving into his own roll to avoid the beast’s lethal talons. The daggers didn’t follow, but the dragon didn’t die. It straightened, climbing to its feet and shaking dirt and uprooted grass from its scales.

“We have to help,” I yelled, picking up the skirt of my gown and rushing forward.

I reached with my power and grabbed at the souls inside the beast, ripping them free. I’d forcibly ejected three souls by the time I reached the edge of the clearing, and Falin had scrambled back up the dragon’s back. Death and the raver joined the fight, jerking souls free with every move. Previous constructs had shrunk with each soul freed, but either the spell had been improved or this thing had a lot of extra souls fueling it, because it didn’t change.