Grave Dance Part 2

"She's in shock, but her injuries aren't serious. What the heck were you two doing? Why didn't you get off the street?"

I didn't answer. Both Tamara and Holly knew I was on close personal terms with a soul collector, but I wasn't about to tell Tamara that Death had been here. When I blinked at her without answering, Tamara shook her head.

"You want to tell me what happened?" she asked, sounding more like a cop than an ME-if you hang around enough cops, it rubs off.

"The beast was a glamour. I disbelieved it." Or at least, it was partially glamour. The magic in the disk felt familiar and definitely witchy, not fae. And then there was that mist that Death vanished. What was that creature? Had that strange fae sent it? He'd warned me that I would regret revealing the feet.

"Yeah, you disbelieved a glamour out of existence. Everyone on this street will probably relate the same thing. But how do you explain that?" Tamara pointed to where Holly and I had faced the beast.

Two feet above the sidewalk was a fist-sized patch of darker air. Swirling colors escaped the dark patch, reaching out of it in amorphic tendrils.

The Aetheric.

I'd merged realities.

I shot Tamara a panicked glance. I couldn't close the rift-I didn't know how. We could cover it . . . Maybe if we moved a table over it, no one would notice.

Yeah, like a direct hole into the Aetheric wouldn't be noticed on a street full of witches.

People were already looking up, their attention leaving Holly. Several crept forward, reaching for the escaping tendrils of raw magic, their expressions a mix of suspicion and amazement. A tangle of green energy wrapped around a male witch's extended finger, and he gasped. Then, his eyes full of wonder, he looked up, his gaze falling on me.

c.r.a.p. I couldn't explain the tear. I looked away, not even willing to try.

Tamara glanced down at the charm wrapped in tissue on my palm. "What's that?"

"It fell out of the beast when it vanished." I held it out for her inspection.

The front of the copper disk was engraved with runes. A couple of them looked familiar from a cla.s.s I'd taken back in academy, but I was pretty sure they were the archaic forms. Several of the runes I'd never seen before, but despite the fact that the beast had been mostly glamour, the runes didn't look like the twisting, hard-to-focus-on fae glyphs I'd run into a month ago. Crimson wax sealed the back of the disk.

I was a sensitive, and a d.a.m.n fair one. I could sense magic, could often tell the purpose and sometimes even recognize the caster. But the spells on the disk were beyond my abilities. Luckily, Tamara was an even more skilled sensitive-at least when it came to witch magic.

She studied the disk, biting her lip as she turned it over with the tissue. Leaning forward, she peered into the thick wax.

"This magic . . . There are spells twisted on top of spells," she whispered. "I can't decipher a thing in this mess, but the signature of the magic . . . it's familiar." She looked up. "Alex, whoever charmed this disk-I think they're also responsible for the spells on the feet."

Chapter 3.

The panic caused by the construct's attack paled in comparison to the utter chaos that overtook the street once the officials arrived. Every law enforcement ent.i.ty in the city wanted to claim jurisdiction. The FIB showed because the glamour implicated the fae, the NCPD came because it was an attack on citizens on a city street, the MCIB-Magical Crimes Investigation Bureau-arrived because of the nature of the crime, and the OMIH-Organization for Magically Inclined Humans-came because witches were involved. Even a representative from the AFHR-Amba.s.sador of Fae and Human Relations-made an appearance.

With no one clearly in charge, I decided to side with the people who tended to bat a paycheck my way every now and then: the good old-fashioned police. I turned the charmed disk over to their antiblack magic unit. The ABMU officer dropped it into a magic-dampening evidence bag, and then, after making me repeat what happened on the street twice, turned me loose. I didn't mention Tamara's suspicions that the caster who'd charmed the disk had also been responsible for the feet in the floodplain. The ABMU had the very best forensic spellcrafters in the city; they would unravel the spells on the disk.

"Did you see where it came from?" one woman asked another as I pa.s.sed beyond the police barricade.

I hoped she was talking about the magical construct and not the tear into the Aetheric. After all, a beast rampaging through a major metropolitan area was not an everyday occurrence. Aside from the time a bear had escaped from a Georgia zoo a couple of years back, I couldn't remember hearing of any similar situation. But the beast was gone, and the tear was still here. And it was drawing attention.

I'd merged planes of reality before, but last time-well, actually, the only other time-I had been in a private residence. A private residence that happened to belong to the governor of Nekros. He was a big mover and shaker in the Humans First Party, an anti-fae/anti-witch political group. The governor also happened to be my father, and ironically, fae, but neither of those facts was common knowledge. He must have paid a considerable amount to keep the events surrounding the Blood Moon quiet, and neither my very short arrest nor the fact that an entire suite of rooms in his home now touched multiple realties had shown up in the papers.

I didn't personally have the required money or influence to hide a patch of merged reality in the center of the Quarter. Especially not with a street full of witnesses, the media already arriving with cameras out and recording, and a whole slew of legal alphabet soup on the scene. So I did the only thing I could: I avoided questions about the tear.

Or at least I tried.

"Miss Craft, why am I not surprised to see you here?" a sharp female voice asked.

I cringed, and then tried to hide the reaction as I turned. "Agent Nori," I said to the FIB agent I'd had the displeasure of meeting the day before. "Is there something I can help you with?"

"Doubtful, but I need your statement. Tell me what happened here."

"My friends and I were finishing dessert and talking about our day. Everything seemed normal enough. Then I noticed the fae who threatened me at the swamp. He was watching me. I pointed him out just before we heard the screaming. We all looked in the direction of the sound, and that was when we saw the beast. It came from somewhere up the street." I pointed to where the cars were being cleared from the road. "I lost sight of the fae in the panic that ensued. Several witches tried to conjure against the beast. My friend Holly threw a fireball at it, and the beast charged her. When I disbelieved in the construct, it vanished."

"It takes a h.e.l.l of a lot of conviction to destroy a fully autonomous glamour." She frowned at me, her dark eyes searching my face. When I didn't say anything, she continued, "So, what can you tell me about that?" She pointed at the hole in reality.

I forced a casual shrug. "Maybe something to do with the beast?" It wasn't a lie. It was a question.

Agent Nori's frown etched deeper, the movement tugging on her high cheeks. "Do you make a habit of disbelieving glamour, Miss Craft?"

I'd have liked to say no, but there was photographic proof from a month ago that showed me walking through furniture and candles at a crime scene. In my defense, I hadn't been able to see those glamoured objects, not even as hazy outlines like I'd seen with the beast. "I don't go out of my way to do it, if that's what you mean."

"And do tears into the Aetheric appear anywhere you disbelieve glamour?"

"No." At least I could answer that one definitively.

Agent Nori stared at me a long moment, as if trying to decide if I was lying. Or maybe she was trying to determine if I was capable of lying. Fae couldn't-though they could bend the truth until you'd swear up was down. At the floodplain, Nori had hinted that she knew I had fae blood. Now she appeared to be weighing how much sway it held over my words.

She must have reached some conclusion because after a moment she said, "The ABMU has a charmed disk in evidence. It looks like witch magic. You are aware that fae rarely use complex charms?"

I nodded. By "rarely use" she actually meant that most couldn't use witch charms. The Aetheric resisted something about the fae nature. When I used my second sight, I could see the magic bend away from their very souls.

"Knowing that," she said, "you still insist that the attack was committed by a glamour?"

I faltered. I'd disbelieved the creature, not dispelled it. That fact indicated that its form was held together by glamour. But, it was undoubtedly a magic construct. When I didn't say anything, her gaze moved past me.

"I'm sure I'll see you around, Miss Craft." She walked away, and I let out a relieved breath.

Relief felt premature as a pair of heels clicked a fastapproaching tempo on the sidewalk behind me.

"Alex Craft, a moment of your time," said a perky, and far too familiar, voice.

I didn't turn. Not immediately at least. I recognized the voice: Lusa Duncan, the star reporter of Nekros's most popular news program, Witch Watch. And if I knew Lusa, there was a camera pointed at me right now. Taking a deep breath, I pasted on my professional smile and prepared myself to face the press.

She pushed her mic at me as soon as I turned. "Word in the Quarter is that the police have called you in to consult on the Sionan floodplain foot murders and that the FIB is now involved. What can you tell us?"

Is that seriously what the news guys are calling the case? Not that it mattered-my answer was the same.

"No comment," I said. I gave a quick nod to her cameraman, whose name I still didn't know, though I'd seen his face often enough over the last few months that I probably should have known his name as well. Then I tried to duck around Lusa.

Not that she let me.

Lusa was a pet.i.te witch-a full head and shoulders shorter than me, even in her heels-but she was 110 percent ambition and excessively tenacious about following a story. She sidestepped, blocking my path, and shoved her mic at me again.

"What can you tell the people of Nekros about the attack in the Quarter today?"

I sighed. I didn't want to appear dodgy on the six o'clock news. "Nothing more than anyone else here could tell you. I'm not sure where the beast came from or why it was on the street. We were lucky it was only a glamour."

"Yes, lucky. Do you think this was a targeted attack?"

Possibly. It was very possible the killer was upset that I'd revealed the mound of feet in the floodplain. Tamara was also on the case. She could have been the target. But I wasn't about to speculate on the news.

Instead I said, "I think we need to wait for the NCPD's a.n.a.lysis."

Lusa hurried on to her next question. "What can you tell me about what appears to be Aetheric energy slipping into the street? Witnesses say the . . . tear is in about the same place as where you unraveled the glamour."

"Maybe something to do with the beast?" I gave her the same line I'd fed Nori, though Lusa seemed to swallow it as more credible than the FIB agent had. Hitching my purse strap higher on my shoulder, I stepped around Lusa. "If you'll excuse me, I need to check on my friend."

This time Lusa let me go, and I hurried toward the ambulance idling across the street. Holly sat in the back of the vehicle, two paramedics hovering over her and Tamara at her side. Holly's eyes were still a little too wide, as if the shock of the attack hadn't quite pa.s.sed. A flame of freckles dusted her nose and cheeks, bright against her paler-thannormal skin. She usually hid the freckles behind a complexion charm, but the medics had taken the charm to avoid possible magical interactions with the healing spells.

"How're you feeling?" I asked as I approached.

"They say I won't even need st.i.tches," she said, but I could tell her frail smile was held in place by will alone. "You know, I've used the expression that I felt like I'd been mauled after particularly bad days in the courtroom. I was wrong-this is worse."

"Just wait until tomorrow. You'll be stiff and sore too."

"Gee, thanks, Alex. You always give me something to look forward to." She shook her head, but her smile looked at least a little less forced.

When the paramedics finally released her, with instructions to rest and watch the bite on her shoulder for signs of infection, Holly allowed Tamara and me to help her down from the ambulance-which was a testament to how shaky she still felt.

"You're not still planning to make your trial?" Tamara asked as she grabbed Holly's purse.

Holly shook her head. "No. I'm calling it a day. I already contacted Arty about covering for me."

Of course she had. She'd probably still been bleeding when she'd had someone bring her the phone. I shook my head. If Death hadn't been there, hadn't warned me . . .

But then again, if the spell truly had been targeting me, Holly might not have been injured if I hadn't run back for her. Had Death been here for Holly, the beast, or me?

Holly was in no condition to drive, so we deposited her in the pa.s.senger seat of her car. I'd dropped my shields and peered across planes during the attack, and though it had been nearly an hour since I'd dispelled the construct, shadows still ate at my vision. Which left only Tamara to drive-we'd have to come back for the other cars later.

I slid into the backseat of Holly's car, but as we pulled away from the curb, I noticed Lusa standing not far away, interviewing one of the pedestrians who'd been on the street. The man pantomimed thrusting his hand out like he was shoving it through something-or, more than likely, into a beast. Then he splayed his fingers as if to demonstrate suddenness and pointed to the hole.

Oh, I didn't even want to know what kind of fallout I'd be dodging from this one.

"No comment," I said, and hit the END b.u.t.ton on my cell phone. It immediately buzzed again. "I need an antireporter charm," I muttered. Yeah, and if I managed to create that, I'd make as much money as if I created a spell to reduce chocolate to zero calories. Of course, I was searching for a way to break glamour, and that charm appeared to be just as improbable.

"What do you think I should do, PC?" I asked, looking at my Chinese Crested.

The mostly hairless gray dog glanced up at his name. Then he grabbed a stuffed penguin and dropped it at my feet.

"Yeah, I don't think that's going to help, buddy."

He stared at me, his big brown eyes hopeful. When I didn't move, he nudged the penguin closer with his nose, and the crest of white hair on his head-the only hair he had aside from the puffs on his tail and feet-bobbed with the motion.

"Oh, all right." I tossed the toy across the room, and PC took off, his nails clinking on the hardwood as he scrambled for the penguin. When he reached it, he stood there, squeezing it so it squeaked. Then he took off again, prancing around the one-room apartment with the toy. What he didn't do was bring it back-we hadn't quite got that retrieve and return thing down. I shook my head. Little goof.

My phone buzzed again, and with a sigh I hit the b.u.t.ton to turn it off completely. I wasn't likely to score a new client without my phone, but clients weren't the ones calling right now. Tossing the phone on the counter, I turned back to my computer. I'd spent the last hour searching the Web for spells and charms that could detect glamour. So far I'd run across some sketchy-sounding potions that used exotic-and probably fake-ingredients, and I'd found a couple of folklore-based glamour-piercing tricks, which, a.s.suming they worked, would be even less feasible than my using my grave-sight whenever I left the house. After all, walking around peering through a stone with a naturally bored hole wasn't exactly inconspicuous.

But I didn't like the fact I'd run up against glamour two days in a row. I wasn't a big believer in coincidence, and with first the glamoured feet and then the construct, plus the fae from the floodplain showing up in the Quarter . . . Yeah, I'd feel better with a glamour-piercing charm.

Not that I was finding one.

I closed the search browser. I was just going to have to fashion my own charm. Yeah, because I have such a successful history of spellcrafting. At least none of my charms had exploded recently.

As I closed my laptop, the electronic buzz of my TV turning on hummed through the room. My spine stiffened. I'd reactivated my wards when I came home, and the door that separated my over-the-garage efficiency from the main house hadn't opened. I should have been alone.

I whirled around, groping blindly for a weapon as I turned. My fingers landed on the hard plastic of my cell phone-which wasn't much of a weapon, but it was better than nothing.

Thankfully, it was also unnecessary.

Roy Pearson, a thirtysomething former programmer-being deceased complicated the whole holding-down-a-job thing-knelt in front of my television. He was focused, his gaze locked on where he slowly depressed the channel b.u.t.ton one click at a time. I might as well not have been in the room for all he noticed.

"Roy, you can't just materialize in my bedroom and turn on my TV!"

The ghost looked up, his concentration faltering, and his finger pa.s.sed through the front of the TV's control panel. With a frown, he shoved his thick black-rimmed gla.s.ses higher on his nose and his perpetually slouched shoulders sagged more than normal. "Sorry. I wanted to see if I was on again."

I dropped the unneeded phone-turned-makeshift-weapon back onto the counter. "Shock news doesn't age well. I think your interview probably got trumped today," I said as I walked across the room to change the channel for him.

A few days ago I'd helped Roy give Lusa at Witch Watch an exclusive-and heavily censored-interview about his part in the Coleman case a month ago. Roy had finally been able to tell the story of how he'd died, and I'd completed my part of a bargain with Lusa that kept a damaging tape of me from being aired-win-win situation. The interview had been broadcast several times already, and one national newspaper had run an article about it, including a half-page photo capturing Roy looking spectral and spooky, me beside him, my eyes glowing pale green and my hand locked with the ghost's as I channeled energy into him so he would appear on camera. But despite all the press the interview had garnered, I had the feeling that the construct attack and the tear into the Aetheric would eclipse Roy's story.

Lusa appeared on the screen as I flipped to Channel 6. She was back in the studio, but a digitally imposed box beside her head rolled footage of the small hole in reality surrounded by crime tape. My picture popped up on the screen, and I groaned.

"What did you do this time?" Roy asked, staring at the screen.

"Hopefully nothing that will start another media circus." Once upon a time I'd actually liked Witch Watch-that was before I started appearing on the show semiregularly. I'd better find out what's being said.

I b.u.mped the volume up and listened to Lusa's report as I sketched a plan for the spell I intended to cast.

"-are still debating jurisdiction over the tear, but the Organization for Magically Inclined Humans has officially confirmed that what we're seeing is pure Aetheric energy slipping out of the hole. Rumor has it that billionaire Maximillian Bell, founder of the controversial spellcrafting school for norms, Spells for the Rest of Us, made an offer for the property and has attempted to buy access to the tear. The possible implications and dangers of raw magic slipping into reality are actively being debated all over the nation, so for now, the tear is being contained within a circle and the area is off limits to civilians. In other news-"

I muted the TV again. All things considered, if whatever she'd said about me had been short enough that I didn't catch it before hitting the volume, it probably wasn't devastating. At least, I hope not.

"I'm going to cast my circle," I told Roy as I gathered a quarter-sized wooden disk and a carving knife and headed for the small circle cut into the floor in the corner of the room.

The ghost shrugged, not looking up from the cereal bowl he was attempting to shove from one side of the kitchen counter to the other. When I'd first met Roy, he hadn't been able to interact with anything on the living side of the chasm between his plane and mine. He'd received a serious power boost a month ago when I'd been overflowing with energy I couldn't control and I'd siphoned a load of it into him. Ever since, he'd become a champion poltergeist: knocking things over, pushing b.u.t.tons, and even managing to hold a pen long enough to write his name in uneven, crooked letters.