Grave Dance (19 page)

Chapter 18

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ait, Roy—slow down,” I said both to give myself a second to absorb his words and because the excited ghost looked like he might flit back into the deep realms of the land of the dead at any moment. “Which tear? The one at the Lenore Street Bridge?”

Roy scrunched his face around his thick-framed glasses.

“I’m not sure where. A phone cal came in, and then everything happened in a flurry. At first I thought I’d missed something. That his men had nabbed you despite his instructions to fol ow you discreetly—”

That would have been good to know before now.
“—But then Bel and a bunch of his fol owers—that school is a cult, by the way—piled into cars and drove down to the river.”

“That has to be the same tear Lusa found.” I rol ed from my heels to the bal s of my feet. So Bel was on the scene.

And claiming the tear?
“Roy, did you actual y see Bel rip the tear into the Aetheric?”

The ghost shook his head, pushing his glasses farther up his nose when they slipped forward. “He got the cal , hurried to the site, and then told the reporter and the officials that the tear was his possession and on his land, so they were trespassing.”

“So Bel might not have had any idea the tear was there until Lusa ran her report.” Which made a lot more sense.

After al , if he could rip a hole in reality on his own, why would he have approached me?
Unless he found
someone else to do it.

But who?

But who?

“Did you see another ghost at the scene?” I asked, remembering the figure I’d spotted in Lusa’s footage, the one Falin hadn’t been able to see. “Probably a man with dark hair. It looked like he was wearing some sort of trench coat?”

“You mean the reaper?” the ghost asked, and his form shimmered out of focus as he shivered. “Yeah. That’s why I got the hel out of there.”

A soul col ector? The col ectors were a secretive bunch.

I’d “known” Death most of my life, but in truth, I didn’t know anything about him or the other col ectors—I didn’t even know his name.
What was a collector doing walking
around a hole into the Aetheric?

Lusa was no longer on the screen of my TV, most likely because Bel had kicked her off his property. The studio reporter rerol ed Lusa’s footage of the tear, keeping his own running commentary as he pointed out parts of the tape. He paused to enlarge the shot when the cameraman had zoomed in on the tear, and a symbol scratched into the dirt caught my attention.

“Is that a rune?” I stepped closer, squinting as I al but shoved my nose against the screen trying to make out the smal shapes in an already overzoomed image. The symbols sure
looked
like runes, but the magnification had degraded the image quality to the point that someone could have drawn a tic-tac-toe board in the dirt and it probably would have looked like a rune.

I leaned back as the camera panned. Then a clump of pixels at the bottom of the screen jumped out at me. “That’s
definitely
a rune.” It was that same damn rune I’d spent half the morning staring at because it looked familiar but I couldn’t place.

“Got you,” I said, jabbing my finger against the TV screen.

Roy hunkered down beside me and looked from where my finger pressed against the screen to my face. He shoved his glasses farther up his nose again. “Alex, are you shoved his glasses farther up his nose again. “Alex, are you talking to the TV?”

“Not at al .” I jumped to my feet, unable to stay stil any longer. The rune proved that the tear and the constructs were connected. Maybe they weren’t from the same ritual, but they were definitely cast by the same witch or coven of witches—the chance that two unconnected witches would suddenly start casting unheard-of spel s using the same rare runes was too unlikely. “This is the break we need.”

“Would ‘we’ include me?” Roy asked, floating beside me as I paced. “Because if it does, I’m lost.”

“I’m thinking out loud, but sure, ‘we’ can include you.” I grabbed my purse and dug out the page of runes. “We’ve only had the end results of the witch’s spel s thus far. First there were the feet fil ed with dark magic. Then the constructs that left only a spel ed disk behind. We knew the two were created by the same person or group because the magic felt the same, but we haven’t been able to get anywhere with the remains of the spel s. But this rune”—I pointed to the fourth rune down on the page—“was cut into the dirt around that tear. Whoever ripped that tear has to be responsible for the other two as wel , but now we have a crime scene. There has to be something at that site that wil lead back to the caster.” And I wasn’t there. I glanced at the TV but a commercial was currently playing. “Roy, can you go check out the scene? Let me know what’s going on?”

“With that reaper there? No way.” He fanned his hands out away from his body to accent his no. “Being a ghost might not be the best gig in the world, but I have no idea what happens
after
the reapers nab you. The devil you know and al that.”

“Right, the soul col ector,” I said, pacing again without real y hearing the rest of what Roy said. “Why is he there?

Does he have a part in this? The col ectors take that . . .

soul mist . . . that appears when the constructs are disbelieved. Does he provide that?” But why would he?

Why would a col ector be involved at al ? “He might just be Why would a col ector be involved at al ? “He might just be passing through.”

I dug my phone out of my purse. I needed to update Falin on the runes. He’d need to make sure the area was treated as a crime scene—especial y if Bel had claimed ownership and had his people tromping through the place. I woke the phone but then hesitated as I pul ed up the address book. I didn’t actual y
have
Falin’s phone number.

My phone had been destroyed by the time we’d started working together on the Coleman case, and I hadn’t replaced it until after Falin had disappeared. Come to think of it, I hadn’t seen him use a phone since he reappeared, so I wasn’t even sure he had one on him.
Damn.

I shook my head and dropped the phone back in my purse. “I have to go to the scene.”

But Falin was right—I did not want to draw Faerie’s attention. If there was some other planeweaver out there ripping holes in reality, the courts could drag him or her away. I needed to stay far from the tears. And even if I wanted to go, how would I get to the scene? It was dark, so I couldn’t drive. Besides, Falin had my car.

But what about the case? And Hol y? And Caleb—who wouldn’t be protected by anything but his wards tonight.

Wards that this morning’s adventure proved were easy enough for the spel to circumvent.

I chewed my lip and walked over to the TV again. They were replaying the same clip I’d already seen twice. I didn’t need to see the tear’s discovery again. I needed to see what was happening at the scene right now. One of Lusa’s

“Breaking News” bul etins would be great. Of course, I guess she’d already done that.

The anchorman rol ed the film where the col ector crossed in front of the tear, his features out of focus.
What
was he doing there?

“Okay, that’s it. I’m going to the scene.” There had to be a crowd by now. I would just try to blend in.

Picking up my phone, I hit the second number on my Picking up my phone, I hit the second number on my speed dial and then turned the speaker on while it rang. As I waited, I twisted my shoulder-length curls up on top of my head, then secured—and covered—them with a cap that read WITCHITUDE across the front. As far as disguises went, it was weak, but much more and I’d look like I was trying to hide. I’d just tucked the last of my escaped curls under the cap when a groggy-sounding female voice answered the phone.

“Alex? You woke me at four this morning. I’m trying to catch up those hours, plus I had a day ful of dead bodies with no cause of death and I . . .” Tamara said, and then her bed squeaked as if she’d sprung to her feet. “Wait. Did something happen? Is Hol y—?”

“She was fine when I talked to her last. She’s staying at the hospital for observation tonight. But something did happen, and I need a favor, and, uh, a ride.”

“Do we know which side of the bridge the tear is located on?” Tamara asked as we headed south toward Lenore Street.

I shook my head. The Lenore Street Bridge wasn’t a high-traffic pass. The Sionan River separated the skyscrapers and booming metropolis of downtown Nekros City from the Magic Quarter and the Witches Glen, but the Lenore Street Bridge was in the southern part of the city.

On the western side of the Sionan—the Quarter side—

Lenore Street was practical y a country road, since the suburban sprawl hadn’t yet spread that far south. On the eastern side—the city side—Lenore Street was a fairly minor road in the warehouse district. It certainly wasn’t a street I traveled often.

“We’l look for the crowd.” And there was bound to be one.
Witch Watch
had been replaying Lusa’s footage for the last hour, so aside from the media frenzy guaranteed to the last hour, so aside from the media frenzy guaranteed to flock to the site, gawkers had probably gathered by now.

There were always gawkers. Several law enforcement agencies would descend on the new tear as wel , even if they hadn’t realized the site was a crime scene—and though I couldn’t yet prove a crime had taken place there, I had no doubt that Tamara or I would pick up the magical signature from the witch responsible for the recent murders.

Finding the right location wouldn’t be an issue.

I was right. Empty cars dotted the side of the road as we neared the river, and by the time the old steel bridge came into view, the crowd gathered on the other side was easy to spot.

“I guess I should have parked on the grass,” Tamara said, drumming her thumbs against the steering wheel as traffic stopped, stranding us in the center of the bridge.

“I’m sure we won’t be stopped long. See, we’re already moving again.” Okay, it was more like crawling, but at least we were moving.

I squinted as I tried to make out anything in the shadows on the far side of the bridge. My glasses were in my purse and I dug them out. They tended to help with the blurriness that plagued my sight after a ritual, but they couldn’t do much for my night blindness. Stil , it couldn’t hurt to try. I shoved the glasses on my face and leaned forward. Then I jumped as Roy materialized on the console between Tamara and me.

“Okay, that wasn’t the spot I was aiming for,” he said, glancing down at the gearstick pressed against his inner thigh. “This isn’t a stick shift, is it? She’s not going to change gears on me, is she?”

“Like you’d feel it if she did, but no. It’s an automatic.”

“Alex?” Tamara’s voice sounded concerned, but I couldn’t see her clearly through Roy’s shimmering form. I smiled in her direction anyway. She couldn’t see the ghost, so she wouldn’t have trouble seeing me.

“Roy’s back,” I told her before focusing on the ghost

“Roy’s back,” I told her before focusing on the ghost again. “So, did you see anything important?” I asked. It had taken some coaxing—he was stil unnerved about almost running into the soul col ector near the tear earlier—but I’d talked him into doing some reconnaissance for me.

I was hoping for news about what was happening closer to the tear, but Roy was stil staring at the gearshift precariously close to his crotch.

“Uh, Alex. I can definitely feel that gearshift. And the console.”

“Oh, for crying out loud.” I pushed the seat belt off my chest and twisted in my seat until my shoulders were cattycorner to the passenger-side door. As soon as my bare shoulder lost contact with Roy, the gearshift slid harmlessly through his shimmering leg.

Roy released a relieved breath and let his head rol back as if he’d been spared unspeakable torture. “You should warn me before you do that.”

I rol ed my eyes. “Hey, you’re the one who materialized touching me. Not my fault.”

Once upon a time, when the highlight of any week in academy was a visit from Death in which he let me experiment with making objects tangible to him, I’d actual y had to focus to accomplish things like letting him interact with a mug of coffee. Not anymore. Now if I had physical contact with something, anyone—or any being—touching me could interact with the item as wel .
Alex Craft, the
nexus at which realties converge—lucky me.

“So, anything?” I asked Roy again.

“Huh? Oh, yeah. Bad news. Bel has private security and barricades. He’s not letting anyone but his inner circle near the rift.”

“Damn.”

“What’s wrong, Alex? Damn what?” Tamara asked as the car crawled off the bridge. Traffic had improved marginal y in that Tamara no longer had to sit on the brake, but she wasn’t using any gas either. I related what Roy had told me wasn’t using any gas either. I related what Roy had told me and Tamara clicked her tongue. “I swear, if I rol ed out of bed just to stand three hundred yards from that tear, I’m going to be pissed.”

She wasn’t the only one.

The tail ights in front of us flashed red, and Tamara sighed. To our right, blue lights strobed in the dark, il uminating the crowd mil ing outside a tal chain-link gate.

News vans hugged the perimeter, shining bright spotlights at the gate, but Roy was right: no one was being permitted inside.

“Roy, can you go out for another look? Also can you try to find out what Bel and his people plan to do with the tear?”

“Nope. I’ve done my brave deeds for the night. That reaper was stil out there the last time I checked.” He crossed his arms over his incorporeal chest. “I’m staying with you. Unless the reaper comes over here. Then, I guess, I’l go hang out at my grave, or something. As far as Bel is concerned, when I was out there a few minutes ago he and his fol owers were huddling around that rift.”

Great. I’d been afraid they would be. That was where I’d seen the runes. I could only hope they weren’t trampling al over the evidence of the ritual.

Our snail’s pace final y led to a gravel lot a block down the road. We parked and headed back toward the bridge—