Grave Dance Part 16

Love and loyalty. Love was no surprise. While true love spells were considered gray magic since they compromised someone else's free will, charms meant to attract love or help the bearer find love could be purchased at gas stations, to say nothing of charm stores. But loyalty-that was a rarer rune. There was probably a good story behind it, and I made a mental note to ask at some point.

"So I imagine you took a cla.s.s on runes in school," Falin said as he peeled off his shirt. He winced with the movement, though his glamour covered not only the wound but the dressing as well, so his chest looked smooth and touchable. No, not touchable. Fine. Or, er, unhurt.

"Unhurt" was a much safer description. I tore my gaze away.

What were we talking about? Runes, that was it. Runes were a nice safe topic.

"Yeah, my academy required me to take four years of rune theory. I don't use them a lot, though, so I only remember the common ones off the top of my head. What about you? Do the fae have schools that little fae kids go to and learn about Faerie and being fae?"

"Doubtful."

"You don't know?" I asked, glancing back over my shoulder.

That was the wrong move. Falin had discarded his ruined pants and now dug through the top drawer of his dresser in nothing but his glamour-and not a glamour that included clothing. From where I stood, I had a perfect view of his broad shoulders, the line of his spine, his trim waist trailing into slim hips and a tight a.s.s and sleek thighs. My hands clenched at my sides as the tactile memory of tracing my fingers over all that skin gripped me.

I ripped my gaze away and tucked my balled fists under my armpits before my hands did something to embarra.s.s me. Now would be a good time to remind yourself he's the Winter Queen's lover. But I'd never met the Winter Queen, so she wasn't the best cold-shower solution in this situation. I needed something else to think about.

"So, do you and Tess date?" I asked, wandering around the furniture. The apartment barely looked lived in. Falin owned a large couch, a dresser with a TV on top, a computer desk with computer, a folding card table and two chairs-little else as far as furniture, and nothing that I could pretend held my interest.

"Tess? No. She stores a key for me because I wind up here without one a little too often. Occupational hazard."

I bet. "She likes you," I said, hitting the POWER b.u.t.ton on his desktop.

His presence suddenly filled the s.p.a.ce behind me. Then his arms slid around my waist, pulling my back against his chest.

"Jealous?" He lips brushed my neck as he asked, sending a shiver down my spine.

"Please tell me you have clothes on." I knew he didn't have a shirt-my halter top left enough of my back bare that his skin against mine was obvious.

"Mmm-hmm," he said, the sound vibrating over my skin.

His embrace was deliciously warm-not blisteringly hot, but a wonderful, content-making warm that made my body tingle with his nearness. It was also completely unacceptable. What is wrong with you, Alex? This morning Death left your skin singing with a ghost of a kiss, and now you're going all melty because of Falin? I seriously needed to get my head examined. Logic demanded that I couldn't desire two men at once, right? But I could. Oh, it left me confused, but it didn't drown the desire. An a.s.sa.s.sin and a soul collector-how screwed up is that?

I tried to shrug away from Falin, and the movement brought my elbow in contact with his side. He sucked in a breath and I winced on his behalf. Half spinning as I stepped out of his arms, I rounded on him.

"I'm sor-" I caught the apology in time. "Are you okay? Did I reopen it?"

"It's fine." He straightened as if his posture could prove his health.

He could say he was fine all day, but I couldn't see that he was fine. Well, actually, his glamour made his smooth chest look perfect, but obviously it wasn't.

"Drop your glamour so I can see that wound."

He grunted in response, turning away from me, and I grabbed his arm to stall him.

"Falin?" I said his name the same way I'd normally say "please" but with none of the debt incursion.

He turned, emotions warring for his expression. Obstinate resistance flashed across his face with a quick thinning of his lips and narrowing of his eyes and then gave way to something softer, but by the time he stepped forward that had faded and a smile I could only describe as sly curled his lips.

He reached out, cupped my face with both of his large hands, and leaned forward. "If you're that concerned, you can kiss me and make it better."

"No."

The smile spread wider, as if that was exactly the response he'd expected. "You'll change your mind," he said, and then turned, and with the way he said it, I half expected him to ruffle my hair or tweak my nose as he sauntered away.

I shook my head, not sure if I should laugh or throw something at him.

Either way, I still wanted to get a look at that wound.

"Falin," I said again, but this time it was just his name, meant to call his attention. As soon as he turned, I cracked my shields. My grave-sight snapped into focus. I dropped my shields so I could see through his glamour, and as I stepped forward to study the wound, I realized that this once the decay benefited me because I could see bits of the gash through the rotted gauze-I just had to be careful not to touch it. I didn't want his dressing ending up like my poor porch. I caught sight of only small sections of the wound, which were dark against the shimmer of his soul under his skin, but I could see enough to rea.s.sure myself that I hadn't reopened the wound with my careless elbow. I also saw enough to be amazed at how much he'd healed since this morning.

Falin frowned at me when his gaze landed on my glowing eyes. "I told you I was fine," he said, turning his back on me and heading to his dresser. After pulling a shirt out of the top drawer and shrugging into it, he commenced shoving clothes into the duffel bag. "Try not to make anything in my apartment decay. I'd like to get the security deposit back when I leave."

"Right." I slammed my shields in place and my vision returned to normal-or at least to the shadowed landscape that pa.s.sed as normal. I stepped closer to see exactly how much Falin was packing, and he knelt to pull a false floor out of his bottom drawer.

Another pandora-trap charm locked the safe in the bottom of the drawer. He reached out with one hand, and then paused, glancing up at me. "What, do you want to do it?"

I backed away, holding my palms up flat in front of my body. The charm on the safe had been created by the same person who cast the charm on the box, so it had the same flaws. Falin hadn't been p.i.s.sed when I cracked his first pandora-trap, so I a.s.sumed that wasn't the issue now. Note to self: He doesn't like me breaking his glamour. Of course, if our roles were reversed and someone could w.i.l.l.y-nilly look at anything I tried to hide, I guess I'd be peeved too.

He unlocked the safe and pulled out three guns and several magazines, as well as his FIB badge, an extra harness, and an extra pair of knives. Some of these disappeared to various concealed locations under his clothes and the rest went in his duffel bag.

I blinked at the haul. "Are you planning to go to war? Sure you don't want to pack an a.s.sault rifle as well?"

He looked up from the bag. "You have met yourself, right?" He zipped the bag closed.

"So should I get a gun too?"

"I'd fear the day." He grabbed a blazer and pulled it over his shoulder rig. "You do have a good blade," he said, nodding toward the dagger concealed in my boot.

"It was a gift."

"I never doubted as much. If you're going to carry a dagger, you need to learn to use it."

I frowned at him. "I know how to use it. I stick the pointy end in things I don't like."

That earned a c.o.c.ky eyebrow lift and he picked up his duffel bag. "Ready?"

"You do know I haven't invited you to crash at my place."

"You'd rather stay here?" He gave an open-palmed wave that encompa.s.sed the small apartment.

"No, that's-" I stopped as one side of his lips twitched in a grin he couldn't hide. He was. .h.i.tting my b.u.t.tons on purpose. "You're insufferable, you know that?"

"And you're a danger to yourself." He grabbed my keys off the dresser where he'd tossed them when we first walked in. "Come on, let's go."

"Did you hire a maid?" Falin asked as he stopped in the doorway of my apartment.

I hadn't walked much farther than the threshold myself. The bed, which I'd put sheets on this morning, but nothing more, was now made, with a comforter I hadn't seen since last winter tucked in and turned down. The clothes that usually lived in a pile in front of my dresser were gone, and the books I'd left precariously stacked on different surfaces in the room were now lined up neatly on my bedside table. The dishes in the sink were missing, and PC, who was bouncing at my knees, had a large pink bow in the thin crest of hair on the top of his head.

"Who was here?" I asked the dog as I scooped him up from the floor. I attacked the bow one-handed. Someone had come in my house. Had entered my s.p.a.ce, violated the masculinity of my dog, and . . . and . . . cleaned?

I couldn't get the bow loose. Picking up on my agitation, Falin stepped forward to try to help. Of course, three adultsized hands trying to attack one very small bit of twine securing the bow didn't actually help. PC squirmed in my arms, also not happy about the situation.

"You hold him. I'll get the bow," I said, shoving the dog at Falin.

"I take it you didn't request your house cleaned?" Falin asked, his voice a whisper near my ear as I leaned over PC.

"Of course not. I-" I stopped because I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. A mug jumped out of the dish drainer and headed across my kitchen floor. I threw open my mental shields as the mug hopped up to the counter and the cabinet opened.

As my grave-sight filled my vision, the bow under my fingers rotted, the fibers fraying and the twine holding it in place eroding to nothing. But across the room, in my little kitchenette, I caught sight of a small round figure as it jumped to the bottom shelf of the cabinet and used stubby arms to carefully set the mug next to the rest. Green quilllike hair trailed down the creature's back, over the counter, and fell almost to the floor.

"Ms. B?" I called, which made the small brownie turn. She hopped to the counter, then down to the floor.

"Just finishing here," she said as she scurried across to the other counter. She grabbed another mug out of the dish drainer and headed back for the cabinet.

I stared for a moment, feeling strangely disconnected. Then I stumbled toward the bed, which in my grave-sight sagged under the rags covering a mattress with exposed springs. "I think I need to sit down," I mumbled.

Falin caught my wrist as I reached the bed, and tugged me upright when I would have sunk onto the sagging mattress.

"Don't you think you should . . ." He pointed at my eyes.

Right, I didn't want my apartment rotting away around me. I closed my shields, annoyed at the sudden darkness pressing around me. Only then did I sink down onto the bed. I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes and said, "I'm guessing Rianna sent you?"

"That she did," Ms. B's surprisingly full voice said from the kitchen. "Came to find you and discovered cream on the doorstep but no one keeping the house."

I heard her bare feet scurrying over the hardwood floor, and then the bed shifted as she jumped up beside me. I opened my eyes to find her looking over the dingy and rotted bow that my magic had destroyed. It was large enough that she used both of her small hands to grip the frayed material, and the way her lip protruded made me feel guilty about destroying the d.a.m.n thing.

"The house looks great, Ms. B," I said, because I suddenly felt like I had to say something and I couldn't apologize for the bow.

She looked up and tucked the bow in the leather belt cinching her burlap dress. She waved a hand through the air as if to dismiss my implied thank-you and then looked up at me. "The girl said you'd have a message."

I nodded, guessing that "the girl" was Rianna. "Tell her to meet me at Central Precinct tomorrow evening at six thirty."

"Consider it told." She hopped off the bed, her hair twitching as it trailed after her. When she reached the door, she jumped, turned the k.n.o.b, and then saw herself out.

I stared at the door for a long moment after it closed.

"So, a brownie," Falin said, walking around the side of the bed. "You want to explain how you befriended a brownie?"

"Not really."

He looked at me, leaning back with his thumbs hooked in his pockets, and I glanced away. I flipped on the TV to have something else to focus on. Lusa's face showed up, but she clearly wasn't in the studio. What is she up to now? Hopefully something that would pull attention off me. I walked over and turned up the volume.

"-we're approaching the anomaly now. Ted, can you focus on that?" She pointed and the camera focus zoomed over her head.

The scene was dark. Wherever she was broadcasting didn't have many lights, and I could just make out the shadowy shapes of tree limbs. As the camera zoomed, I caught the glint of moonlight off a reflective surface. Water? A bad feeling crept into my stomach.

"Are you getting it?" Lusa's voice asked from somewhere offscreen, and the camera zoomed more. "Okay, folks at home, I don't know if you can see this, but it appears that we're looking at another tear into the Aetheric. The one we saw two days ago was bursting with raw power, but this one has only a couple of wisps coming through. This thing is huge."

The camera zoomed closer, and she was right, it looked like a person-sized rip in reality. c.r.a.p. I felt like I was moving in slow motion as I turned toward Falin. His expression darkened, his full lips pressing tight. He tore his gaze from the screen and fixed on me.

"Did you?"

I shook my head. I'd ripped open those small, dimesized holes when we'd fought the ravens, the hole in the Quarter during the first construct attack, and, of course, the room-sized hole I'd created in my father's mansion, but unless I'd merged reality from a distance or the tears moved, I hadn't caused this one. I squinted, searching the fuzzy screen of my old TV set and trying to make out details of the tear's location.

The cameraman panned, zooming out to pull Lusa back on the screen. She rehashed information about the tear in the Quarter and about what the officials were currently debating. Come on, Lusa, tell us where you are.

As she spoke, someone crossed directly in front of the tear, pausing to look at the camera. Because the camera was focused on Lusa, the person's face was blurred. I was pretty sure the figure was male. His height was hard to judge, though he was taller than the tear. He wore a long dark coat, which even after the sun set, was far too warm. A pa.s.serby? A gawker?

"Can you tell who that man is?"

Falin tore his gaze from the TV long enough to frown at me. "What man?"

"That one." I pointed to the figure in the background, and Falin's frown turned puzzled. "You can't see him?" I asked.

He shook his head. Okay, then. That meant, most likely, that the man was a ghost or a soul collector. The tear in reality scared me, but the fact that it was present at the edge of the river and that there was a spectral figure near it worried me even more.

"This is Lusa Duncan with Witch Watch live at Lenore Street Bridge, signing off."

I was on my feet before the last words were out of Lusa's mouth. I had my purse over my shoulder and was halfway out the door before I realized Falin wasn't with me. True dark had fallen and he still had my keys, which meant I wasn't driving myself anywhere.

"You coming?"

He stared at the TV and shook his head. "I don't think you should go anywhere near that tear."

"What? Why?" I hadn't been the one to rip reality. I was sure of that. I hadn't been anywhere near the Lenore Street Bridge recently, which meant someone else had the ability to merge planes of existence. I wanted to find out who. Maybe there was someone out there who could teach me how not to merge reality. Also, the riverside location worried me. Call it a hunch-which was surely nothing definite-but a twisting feeling in my gut told me the tear needed to be checked out in relation to my case.

Falin shook his head again. "Alex, what you can do, when you make the land of the dead manifest in the mortal plane or bring the Aetheric here, is called planeweaving. It is a fae ability."

"You think?" The fact that the ability had gone into hyperdrive around the Blood Moon when, supposedly, my fae soul had awakened, was a good indication of the connection between the two.

Falin ignored my sarcasm. "Planeweavers are rumored to be responsible for a lot of things. The folded s.p.a.ces, the fact that Faerie and the mortal realm touch only in small doorways, the fact that the fae can't reach the Aetheric . . . There are legends and myths that date back even farther than the oldest living fae's memory." And that would be a long time. He stepped forward. "But, Alex, planeweavers don't exist anymore."

"I think I'm going to beg to differ on that one."

One side of his mouth lifted in a lopsided smile. "Yes. Of course you exist, though it would be best if the courts don't learn what you are. What I mean is that there are no fae planeweavers in Faerie. No feykin planeweavers either."

"And outside Faerie?"

"If the courts knew about a planeweaver, they would be in Faerie whether they were mortal, kin, or fae. Which is why, if you don't want to be dragged off to Faerie, you need to keep your head down. The tear in the Quarter already has rumors circulating in the courts. You can't be seen near that one." He pointed at the TV screen and then reached out and smoothed a loose curl behind my ear. "Officially, as far as anyone in Faerie knows, the only planeweavers that exist are a pair of mortals. They serve the high king, and rumor says they are the only reason he's held the high court for over a millennium-but they are changelings, mortal captives of Faerie, which is as good as saying sterile, so there will be no more from their lines. I've heard rumors that the Shadow King has a changeling planebender, which is similar though not quite the same. Again, his planebender is a changeling, mortal, and the end of a line. There were apparently more mortal planeweavers in centuries past, but fae planeweavers have been extinct since the age of legends."

And recently the legends had been returning.

The dread I'd been feeling since Lusa's special report had aired intensified, and the clenching in my stomach moved to my lungs until it was hard to breathe. "I'm not a legend. But whoever opened that might have been." I nodded at the screen, which was replaying Lusa's footage. I'd already faced a legend forgotten in time-I didn't want to think about how much worse a legend not forgotten might be. "So now what?"

"I'll go check out the tear. You stay here, and stay inside. We don't know when more of those constructs could show up."

Right. I frowned at his back as he took my keys and walked out the door. Of course, he was probably right. I couldn't afford to add any more a.s.sociations between me and the tears in reality. The only people who knew for sure that I could merge planes had been with me on the night of the Blood Moon, and that was a short list: Falin, Death, Rianna, and Roy . . . maybe Casey-I had no idea how much she remembered. My father also knew, of course, and at this point Caleb, Holly, and Tamara suspected that at least I could punch holes to the Aetheric. But everything else was speculation and rumor.