Grave Dance (17 page)

“—my associate, Falin Andrews.”

Falin shook Corrie’s extended hand, his glamour holding against the smal quantity of iron in the ring. The old man glanced at Falin’s gloved hand and then gave him a slow, scrutinizing appraisal.

“May we come in?” I asked, trying to get Corrie’s attention away from Falin.

“What is it you want, Miss Craft?”

As in, no, we couldn’t enter. Okay. I could work with this.

Somehow.

I forced a smile. “My current case involves runes I’ve never seen before, and I haven’t been able to find them in my research.” Or at least not in four hours of Internet searching. “I’m told you might be able to help me decipher them.”

He twisted his thick lips and ran a wrinkled hand over the few remaining hairs on the top of his head. “Do you have a copy of these runes?”

I nodded and riffled through my purse until I found the page where I’d sketched the runes. Corrie accepted the paper, and then patted his chest until his fingers found a thick leather cord. He pul ed the cord until a mass of charms emerged from under his shirt. He flicked through the charms, final y stopping when his fingers landed on a silver charm shaped like a pair of glasses. He detached the charm and flipped it upside down before reattaching it. One of the charms around him shimmered and changed.

“I’m always having to change from a nearsighted to a farsighted charm,” he said as he dropped the knot of charms back under his shirt. He smiled, as if sharing some inside joke. “You’l understand one day. Now let’s see what kind of runes you have here.” He lifted the page and studied the runes I’d meticulously copied from the charmed disk. As his gaze moved down the page, his eyes grew wider, his bushy white eyebrows lifting. “Now this is interesting. Very bushy white eyebrows lifting. “Now this is interesting. Very interesting.”

He stepped back, vanishing from the threshold. I waited, but he didn’t return.

I stuck my head inside and peeked around the half-open door. “Uh, hel o?”

“Try to keep up,” Corrie cal ed as he shuffled down the hal and disappeared around the corner.

“Sounds like we’ve been invited in after al ,” Falin said, pushing the door open wider.

If Corrie hadn’t already disappeared deeper in the house, I’d have dawdled endlessly in the entry hal . The wal s were lined with shelves and every square inch was fil ed with knickknacks. But this wasn’t just a col ection of junk—it was a col ection of
magical
junk. As soon as I passed the ward on the doorway, the press of hundreds of different charms and enchantments tumbled over me, threatening to overwhelm me.

They thundered through my senses, deafening my mind to anything else. Getting out and reorienting myself would have been best, but it was too late for that, and thinking above the magical roar to command my legs to move was beyond my ability. There was nothing malicious in the room, or at least nothing obvious, and not even anything terribly powerful. I felt a train that puffed out magic smoke, a dol that made children laugh, a mirror that reflected the image the viewer desired most, a spoon that kept soup hot, and other smal , frivolous charms. But there were hundreds of them. And they overloaded my senses.

I rarely shielded with more than my bracelet and my mental shield of living vines, but now I had no choice. I squeezed my eyes closed and forced my focus inward—at least as much focus as I could summon. Outside my wal of briars I visualized a second wal enclosing my psyche. This wal I saw as a bubble of unbroken mirrors, the reflective surface deflecting the feel of magic.

As the bubble solidified in my mind, the roar of magic As the bubble solidified in my mind, the roar of magic dul ed and then fel away into eerie magical silence. I always felt blind, deaf, and dumb when I shielded this hard and completely cut myself off from the ebb of the world around me, but for now, it was better than being overwhelmed.

“Alex!”

My eyes flew open at the sound of Falin shouting, and shouting extremely close to my ears.

Falin stood with his face so close to mine that our noses brushed. The warmth of his palm pressed against the back of my neck, and I realized it wasn’t new warmth, but that he must have been standing there like that for some time. He must have been cal ing my name for a while too. When he saw my eyes open, he let out a breath of relief, and the warm air rol ed over my skin. He stepped back and my gaze snapped to the gun in his hand.

“Were you planning to shoot something?” I smiled as I asked the question.

He didn’t smile back. “Was it a trap?”

“What?”

“A trap? Did we walk into a trap? What happened? You went completely unresponsive.”

“Oh.” I shook my head. “No trap. Just a nonsensitive col ector showing off his trove. Where did Corrie go?”

Falin pointed at the hal , but he didn’t move, and he stared at me several more seconds before he final y holstered his gun. Then, apparently satisfied that the danger had passed, he headed for the hal . I fol owed, my steps slow and heavy. We found Corrie in a bedroom that had been converted into a library. He sat at a round table in the very center of the room, my page of runes directly in front of him and stacks of oversized and irregular leather-bound books piled around him.

“Where did you find these?” he asked, his nose buried in a grimoire with pages so thin and weathered that he used a tool instead of his fingers to turn them.

tool instead of his fingers to turn them.

“Did you hear about the magical y constructed beast that attacked pedestrians in the Quarter?”

Corrie looked up and squinted at me. “Oh, you’re that girl.

Yes, I recognize you now.” He rubbed a finger against his chin, making the loose skin jiggle. “How interesting.”

He pushed away from the table and scurried to one of the bookshelves. “Where are my manners?” he said as he hauled a book with a cracked leather spine off the shelf.

“Take a seat. I made tea.”

I’d have preferred coffee to tea, but as I saw where his finger pointed, I realized it wouldn’t have mattered what he served. In the center of the table sat a black iron kettle and three deceptively delicate teacups on saucers. Iron teacups, of course. Where did he even find these things?

His book thumped on the table and Corrie grabbed the kettle. He poured the tea and passed out cups as if we were dol s gathered at a child’s tea party. I gulped back the nausea clawing at my throat as he pushed a dark saucer into my hand, and I set it on the table as soon as possible.

Falin held on to his cup and saucer, his gloves apparently shielding him. When Corrie turned to walk back to the other half of the table, Falin bumped my leg with his. I met his gaze and he lifted the mug and shook his head. The message was clear:
Do not drink.

Not that I’d planned to in the first place.

“How is the tea?” Corrie asked, sipping from his iron cup with his pinkie crooked. He didn’t look at me when he asked, but at Falin. And he more than just looked at him—

he watched Falin, waiting.

Falin obediently lifted his cup, but he stopped before it touched his lips and blew on the steaming liquid. “Stil too hot for my taste.”

The old witch set his cup down, the iron making a horrid
skritching
noise as the cup ground against the saucer.

“You’re fae, aren’t you?”

Falin stared at him for several long heartbeats, his Falin stared at him for several long heartbeats, his expression unchanging. “Yes.”

“Ha, I knew it!” Corrie jumped to his feet. “Get out of my house. You’re not welcome here. And you.” He turned to me. “Were you knowingly associating with a fae or were you tricked?”

I blinked at him. He’d asked two questions with opposite answers. I picked one. “Yes.”

“Good girl. Wait . . . which is it? Did you know he was fae?”

“Yes.”

Corrie’s face flushed with color. “Then you’re a fool and you can get out too. Both of you. Now.”

Falin and I exchanged glances and then both pushed back our chairs, letting the legs scrape on the floor as we stood. The irony was that if I’d been ful y human I could have lied, and probably avoided being kicked out. But I wasn’t.

“What are you waiting for? Get out.”

“My runes,” I said, holding out my hand for the paper.

Corrie snatched it off the table, clutching the page between his wrinkled hands. He glanced between it and us and then stepped back, pul ing the page closer to his chest.

“This I’d like to keep.”

If I’d thought he would share what he learned I’d have let him; after al , I could always recopy the runes. But he wouldn’t. I knew he wouldn’t. I shook my head and extended my hand farther.

Corrie took another step back. “No. I’m keeping this.”

“What would you like to trade for it?” Falin asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

Corrie looked down at the page. His eyes glimmered with either greed or lust—it was hard to tel which, but whichever demon he struggled with also had to contend with his prejudice.

Prejudice won.

The old witch tossed the page toward us. “I don’t trade with Faeries.”

with Faeries.”

That settled that. I picked up the paper, folded it, and then left.

Chapter 17

W
e spent the rest of the afternoon—and the remainder of my gas tank—searching for the kelpie’s “thundering gate.”

We drove down as many riverfront roads as I could find and walked the riverside areas of two of the three parks that butted up to the Sionan. By the time we left the second park, dusk had fal en dangerously dim and I squinted at the shadows merging my blue car with the asphalt. I blinked, keys in hand. It had gotten dark fast. You couldn’t tel by the weather, but winter was on its way, and the days were growing shorter. Which meant fewer hours I could be out and about.

“Want to drive?” I asked, turning toward Falin.

“You can’t see?”

“Maybe I’m just being nice.” I tossed my keys in his direction. I heard more than saw him catch them as I headed for the passenger door. “Just be nice to her. And obey traffic laws.”

“Of course.” I could almost hear the smile in his voice.

Since I couldn’t see much of anything anyway, I closed my eyes, just a blink. Or so I thought. When I opened them again, Falin was parking the car. I stretched, reaching for the door handle. Then I stopped. The air didn’t resonate with magic—we weren’t in the Glen, which meant he’d taken me somewhere other than home.

“Where are we?”

“My apartment. We won’t be here long.” He slid out of the car, but leaned back in when I didn’t move. “I need to pick up some supplies.”

up some supplies.”

“Supplies?”
I had the suspicious feeling he meant things he would need in order to move into my loft for a few days.

When I stil didn’t emerge, he walked around the car and opened my door. “I need an extra gun and ammo, for starters. You’re being targeted and I’d prefer to be prepared.”

I didn’t have any response for that. His help had been indispensable this morning, but he was injured. He needed to rest, not fight magical constructs. Besides, I wasn’t exactly comfortable with his jumping back into my life and playing white knight. On top of that, I wasn’t sure I could trust him. Caleb seemed convinced that Falin was here on the Winter Queen’s business, and I wasn’t positive he wasn’t.

What is his agenda?

Falin led me into the large brick apartment complex, and we rode the elevator to the seventh floor. At his front door, he hesitated, his hands moving to his pockets but not reaching inside them. He sighed, his shoulders sagging with the soft sound. When he looked up again, he gave me a weak smile.

“Wait here a moment,” he said, and walked to the door next to his. He knocked.

It took his pounding on the door several times before the music in the apartment muted and a woman in her early twenties answered. She wore her hair in a messy ponytail, brown strands escaping around her face. A long blue streak of paint decorated one cheek where it must have transferred from her paint-stained hands when she’d brushed her hair behind her ear. She scowled when she opened the door, but when her gaze landed on Falin, her features softened, her eyes widening as she smiled.

“Falin. Hey. Long time no see. I was starting to worry,”

she said, wiping her hands on the thighs of her overal s.

“Please, come in. I’l , uh—” She glanced at her paintcovered fingers. “I’l just clean up. You want a drink or something?”

something?”

“Actual y, Tess, I locked myself out of my apartment. Do you stil have my spare key?”

“Oh, yeah. Of course.” She opened the door wider to motion him inside, and for the first time her gaze landed on me. She froze, the door hanging half open. “Oh. You have company. Let me get you that key. I’l be right back.”

She shut the door and I glanced at Falin. He stared at the molding above Tess’s door, his thumbs hooked in his belt.

When the door opened again, Tess handed him a smal box.

From where I stood, the heavy wards draping the box were obvious, as were several nasty spel s set to trigger in the event of tampering. I shook my head, and huffed under my breath. The box had been coated in a classic massproduced pandora-trap charm.

“You got ripped off,” I told Falin.

He looked up, his finger hovering over the box. His eyebrow lifted in a cocky question mark, and I held out my hand for the box.

He started to hand it to me, but hesitated before dropping it in my palm. “There are built-in penalties for getting the code wrong,” he warned.

“Yeah, feels like a shock for the first incorrect code, sickness for the second, and a knockout spel after that until the box runs out of juice.” I kept my hand extended and he dropped the smal box in my palm.

I wrapped my senses around the box and then, with the tip of my finger, I traced the rune for loyalty into the lid. The second rune was love. The third . . . I hesitated, my finger hovering over the lid. I didn’t recognize the third rune, but I traced the design I felt.

The box popped open.

Falin stared at me. I smiled at him; then I removed the key and tossed first it, and then the box, to him. “Next time shop for charms with a sensitive.”

He palmed the key and stared at the box. “What’s the He palmed the key and stared at the box. “What’s the trick?”

“Not real y a trick.” I shrugged. “Low-grade pandora-trap charms sit around waiting for the right answer, and if you’re sensitive, they practical y broadcast what that answer is. A higher-grade pandora-trap includes a blanket spel that covers that broadcast.”

“Huh.” He shot a disappointed glance at his spel ed box and shoved his key in his apartment door. Once he returned the key to its box, he flashed Tess a dazzling smile and handed it back to her. “You’re a lifesaver, Tess.”

“Yeah. I know. See you around.” She shut the door and a moment later, the music in her apartment turned up again, twice as loud as when he’d first knocked.

Falin said nothing as he ushered me inside his apartment. The air inside smel ed stale, like the one-room apartment hadn’t been opened during the month he’d been gone. I wrinkled my nose and glanced at the layer of dust coating every surface of the otherwise immaculate room.

Falin crossed to the closet and grabbed an empty duffel bag. He dropped it beside the TV on the dresser and pul ed open a drawer.

“So what was the third rune?” I asked as I looked around.

“I didn’t recognize it.”

“Just a symbol I can remember easily.” He shrugged, unbuttoning his oxford. “I know only two runes.”

Love
and
loyalty
. Love was no surprise. While true love spel s

were

considered

gray

magic

since

they

compromised someone else’s free wil , 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 class 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 wel , so his chest looked smooth and but the dressing as wel , 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 ass and sleek thighs. My hands clenched at my sides as the tactile memory of tracing my fingers over al that skin gripped me.

I ripped my gaze away and tucked my bal ed fists under my armpits before my hands did something to embarrass 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 button on
I bet.
“She likes you,” I said, hitting the POWER button on his desktop.

His presence suddenly fil ed the space behind me. Then his arms slid around my waist, pul ing my back against his chest.

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

“Please tel 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 assassin
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 al day, but I couldn’t
see
that he was fine. Wel , actual y, 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 stal him.

“Falin?” I said his name the same way I’d normal y say

“please” but with none of the debt incursion.

“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’l 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 stil wanted to get a look at that wound.

“Falin,” I said again, but this time it was just his name, meant to cal 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 smal sections of the wound, which were dark against the shimmer of his soul under his skin, but I could see enough to reassure 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 pul ing a shirt out of the top drawer and shrugging into it, he commenced shoving 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 passed as normal. I stepped closer to see exactly how much Falin was packing, and he knelt to pul 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 pissed when I cracked his first pandora-trap, so I assumed 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 wil y-nil y look at anything I tried to hide, I guess I’d be peeved too.

He unlocked the safe and pul ed out three guns and several magazines, as wel 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.