Grave Dance (39 page)

Chapter 37

I
stepped through the shadow into total darkness.

Oh, the nightmare realm had been dark and ful of shadows that were more physical than any shadow had a right to be, but during my hours in Faerie I’d become accustomed to seeing the world il uminated with no obvious source of light. When I stepped through the doorway I’d created, reality crashed down on me with a darkness that crawled across my vision and left me blind. The weight of the grave, which I’d been blessedly free from for several hours, also returned to bash its chil ed fists against my shields.

“Fuck,” I whispered, my head swinging back and forth as I tried to make out something, anything.

A hand closed over my mouth as an arm snaked around my waist and I froze, a scream brewing in my chest. But the arm dragging me backward was a familiar warm without being hot.

Falin.

I let him move me as I continued to blink, trying to focus.

Cloth brushed against bark as he pressed us both into the cover of a tree, but stil I couldn’t see. I blinked at the impenetrable darkness fil ing my vision. It didn’t help. I was blind. I probably had been since the fight with the hydra.

Faerie just liked my eyes better.

Damn.
I cracked my shields, trembling as the first traces of grave essence dug deeper into my psyche, but as I released my shields, the shadows parted.

“Cut the light show,” Falin hissed, his voice a harsh

“Cut the light show,” Falin hissed, his voice a harsh whisper.

“I need to see.” Because I definitely wasn’t hot on the idea of walking around blind, especial y if Kyran was correct and this was near the accomplice’s ritual. I looked around, trying to get my bearings.

When I’d first realized the shadows were cast by trees, I’d thought we were in a forest, but now I saw we were in a smal wooded patch in one of Nekros’s parks. In the distance I could hear the rush of the river, and a few feet in front of the tree Falin had pressed me behind was a large, emerald green wal .

A wal that was breathing.

“Is that a dragon?” Hol y asked from where she knelt behind an unkempt bush huddled against my tree. Her fingers trembled as she clutched the amulet that she once again wore around her neck with one hand and PC with the other. Or maybe it was PC trembling. He was remarkably quiet, so he obviously realized something was wrong.

“A construct,” I said.

“Yeah, and there are two more,” Falin whispered as he eased his daggers out of their sheaths.

His blade glimmered in the moonlight drifting through the tree limbs as he pointed. On the other side of the clearing a blue dragon stretched wings that must have been twenty yards across, which caused a silver dragon to pause as it paced the outskirts of the clearing. No, the dragons weren’t pacing. More like patrol ing.

The three constructs were guarding a circle that had been erected in the center of the clearing. The barrier buzzed a faint red in my senses, preventing me from feeling the magic inside the circle, but I could
see
the energy and it swirled in a chaotic storm. The shadows we’d seen in the nightmare realm truly were dancers. They spun and leapt through the air as the magic whipped around them like they were cogs in a giant magical conductor. And in the very center of the circle stood a hooded figure playing a pair of center of the circle stood a hooded figure playing a pair of panpipes that looked a little too real in my second sight.

The relic the collectors are searching for.

“Come on, be here,” Hol y whispered as she patted her pockets. A smile broke across her face and she pul ed out her cel phone. She cued the phone to display our GPS

location—the riverwalk park not far from the Magic Quarter

—and then dialed 911.

“Tel them to bring the real y big guns,” I muttered, staring across the clearing. The accomplice stood inside the circle, but where was the reaper?

He wasn’t in the clearing, or in what I could see of the trees beyond. I peeked farther around the tree and Falin dragged me back.

“You’l give away our position. Look at me,” he said, and then reached up and placed his palms over my eyes. When he pul ed back an extra weight pressed against my face. I lifted my fingers, but he grabbed my hand, stopping me.

“They’re just sunglasses to dampen the glow of your eyes, but don’t touch. Your magic tends to screw with glamour.”

Good point.
I dropped my hand as I peeked out from our hiding spot again. Stil no reaper, but we did have the accomplice.
Death said to summon him once I located
the accomplice.
I activated the spel he’d pressed into my skin and a blaze of unfamiliar magic surged through me, building, until it burst from my skin.

I rubbed my gloved hands over my arms to chase off the tingle the spel had left behind.
Well, now I know how a flare
gun feels.
I looked around, expecting Death to just miraculously appear. He didn’t.

Okay, then.
I glanced back at the ritual. Magic continued to build in the circle as the dancers twisted and jumped. I shivered, remembering the pain I’d felt in the last ritual site.

“We’ve got to disrupt that spel .” The amount of energy in the circle had grown thick enough to stain the air like multicolored fog. I blinked.
That can’t be.
Clutching PC, I peeked out from our cover. Falin grabbed my shoulder as if peeked out from our cover. Falin grabbed my shoulder as if he was afraid I’d rush into the clearing, and I pressed myself against the tree. “Is it just me, or are the tops of their heads vanishing?”

Everyone peeked out to see. Hol y threw a hand over her mouth and made a smal strangled noise, but she didn’t scream. Falin only nodded, his face grim.

Goose bumps prickled over my skin, my dread reaching the saturation point and trying to pour out of my skin. Death had said souls were the fuel of life, and I’d thought he was hinting only at the souls powering the constructs. But this ritual . . . I stared at the slowly dissolving bodies. This ritual was being fueled by the dancers—by their movement and by their very essence, body and soul.
Those feet . . .
Al those feet. Al lefts, and none with tool marks.
And when I
raised the shade, the foot had forgotten it had a body, and
it had danced.
It was the dance. They would dance until there wasn’t enough left of them to complete the next dance step. Until they were only a single foot.
We have to stop
this.

I turned to Falin. “I suppose suggesting that you shoot the piper would be too easy a solution to actual y work?”

“We were in Faerie,” he said with a grimace.
Which
means no gun.
“The only weapons I have on me are the daggers, but they’re enchanted and would never make it through the circle.”

Damn.

“So we have to break that circle.”
But how?

“I have an idea.” Hol y said. “Can I borrow a knife?”

I nodded and squatted as I struggled with the skirt of my gown. Curses burned my tongue as I wrestled with the material blocking my boots, but I bit them back. Once I drew the dagger, I passed it to Hol y and she handed me PC.

The smal dog’s ears quivered, but he looked up at me with eyes that trusted I’d get him home safe. I wished I had the same confidence.

Hol y used the dagger to scrape a sheet of bark from the Hol y 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 smal 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, al 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 hel of a chal enge, but probably not impossible. But three? I shook my head. We needed help.

Where are those collectors?
I poked at the spel again, just to make sure I’d real y 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,” Hol y said, but her eyes didn’t meet mine when I turned. “We can cause a disturbance, draw the dragons away, and someone smal , someone who wouldn’t be noticed, can affix the disruption charm to the side of the circle.”

“Someone smal ?” That definitely knocked Falin out of the running, and I was far from short. Hol y was petite, but I the running, and I was far from short. Hol y 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. Hol y, 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. Stil 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. Hol y 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 wil 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 al .

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. Al 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 col ectors, but found only Death, the gray man, and the raver.

“I was expecting more.”

“More?” Hol y asked, unable to see the col ectors.

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

The raver shook her head as she sank into a crouch.

The raver shook her head as she sank into a crouch.

“Damn, those things are huge.”

Falin had clearly figured out that the col ectors 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 col ectors, 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 col ar with a bit of ribbon made from glamour. In theory, since PC was a nul , he would soar through the barrier as though it didn’t exist, but the glamour and the charm would stick and the disruption spel would activate. Or at least that was the plan.

“Ready?” Falin asked.

Hol y 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 Hol y 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.”

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 smal 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 smal 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 spel stayed behind. Streaks of red lightning shot through the barrier around the spel , the sparks spreading like a fast-creeping frost.