Grave Dance (12 page)

“I wanted to fol ow up, Miss Craft,” Bel said from inside the limo, and I wasn’t sure what kind of charm or spel he used, but his voice projected perfectly. “Do consider my offer. I’m wil ing to make it very lucrative for you. Now drive safely—the roads can be dangerous.”

A chil crawled down my spine, as if a ghost had trailed an icy finger along my skin, but the only ghost in the car was Roy, and he was out of arm’s reach. Was Bel threatening me? I glanced at him. His posture was relaxed, a smile stil dangling on his wide face, but his words
felt
threatening.

He lifted his hand as he spoke to someone inside the limo, and the window rol ed back up, the reflective tinting limo, and the window rol ed back up, the reflective tinting showing me as a distorted image of myself—and I didn’t like how freaked out that image looked.

“Roy, do me a favor,” I whispered as the limo rol ed away.

“Snoop on Bel . Make sure he plans to leave me alone.”

Roy nodded. “Wil do.” He vanished, stepping further into the land of the dead, where he could travel faster.

Ghosts. Terrible backup. Excel ent spies.

I caled John as I drove but reached his voice mail. I didn’t tel him about Bel . After al , Bel hadn’t hurt me, taken me anywhere, or prevented me from leaving—eventual y. His lawyers would eat me alive if I tried to press charges. When Roy returned and I found out what Bel planned, I might change my mind, but for now I left a message letting John know I might be able to raise a shade from one of the feet. I wasn’t sure he could stil get me into the morgue, since the FIB was now involved with the case, but I knew he’d cal if he could swing the time for a ritual.

When I got home, I stopped first at the main portion of the house. I needed to update Caleb on my progress—or lack thereof—and check in on Hol y. Caleb didn’t act surprised that the kelpie wasn’t terribly helpful, but his concern bled across his features as I told him about the FIB’s arrival.

Hol y was antsy, ready to take on the world and none too happy about everyone babying her. I made it a short visit.

PC greeted me at the door when I reached my apartment. He bounced—I’d never realized dogs were so bouncy until PC—the movement making the patch of white hair on the top of his head flop.

“Hey, buddy,” I said, picking him up before he hurt himself. He lathered a kiss on my chin and then squirmed, ready to be put back down. “Al right, al right.” I plopped him on his feet and he immediately charged the door, whining.

“Can I get something to eat first?”

“Can I get something to eat first?”

He looked at me with shiny black eyes and whined again.

“Nature cal s, I guess.” Food would have to wait on tiny doggy bladders.

I grabbed PC’s leash, and after hooking him up, opened the door and let him charge out in front of me. I’m pretty sure the six-pound hairless dog thought he was a sled dog

—he sure pul ed like one. Halfway down the stairs, we passed our resident gargoyle.

I’d never seen the gargoyle move, but it traveled around the yard. I assumed by its current position it was either headed up to the bowl of cream I kept on the porch or had just drained it and was coming down. I’d have to check on my way back inside.

“Evening, Fred,” I said as I squeezed around its hulking stone wings. I didn’t expect an answer.

I got one anyway.

“They come,”
its gravel y voice said inside my head.

I froze.

“Who comes?” I asked, ignoring PC’s attempt to pul me down the last few steps. “When?”

The gargoyle remained silent.
Great.
I looked around, squinting, and trying to force my grave-sight-damaged night vision to see through shadows in the dusk-fil ed night.

Nothing.

Gargoyles—or at least this particular gargoyle; I’d never spoken to any other—were psychic but didn’t always differentiate the present from the future. Last month the gargoyle had told me it missed cream when I was away.

Then I’d lost three days while passing through a door to Faerie.

“Who?” I asked one more time.
Bell’s men? Fae? Hell,
reporters?

I received no answer. PC whined again, but I hesitated another moment, listening for sounds that were out of place in the quiet neighborhood. Then I leaned down and eased the dagger out of my boot. I hadn’t heard anything, but that the dagger out of my boot. I hadn’t heard anything, but that didn’t mean nothing was out there. Of course, the gargoyle’s words didn’t mean anything dangerous
was
out in the night. I couldn’t jump at shadows because an undefined “they” were coming. Who knew how long it would be before “they” arrived?

I stuck to the path of charmed stepping-stones that led from the stairs of my loft to the front yard. They twinkled under my feet as PC zigzagged across the path, pausing at every odd piece of grass to hike his leg. As we rounded the front of the house, he stopped, one foot in the air, his ears cocked.

What do you hear?
I didn’t ask the question aloud. If something was out there, I didn’t want to announce my presence. Clutching the dagger, I searched the growing darkness, but I couldn’t see much of anything aside from the twinkle of streetlights. I’d removed the glamour-detecting charm when I visited Caleb, and I was now seriously wishing I’d remembered to clip it back onto my bracelet. Okay, so I was jumping at shadows, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

I dropped my shields. My eyes might have been bad, but I didn’t need them to see on a psychic level. The yard snapped into focus in shades of gray and swirls of color. In the center of the driveway, leaning heavily against Caleb’s car, was a man, his soul shimmering a bril iant silver. He stepped forward, and then he stumbled, doubling over.

I squinted, trying to pick out details under the glow of his soul. The Aetheric twisted away from him, as if an aura separated him from the magical plane—which meant he was fae. At my feet PC sniffed the air, then yipped and wagged his tail in greeting. As I made out the sharp features, the wide chest slimming down to trim hips, and the long, bril iantly white hair, I realized why.

“Falin?”

Chapter 11

F
alin Andrews—the infuriating but irresistible man who had invited himself into my life, chiseled himself a place in my world, and then disappeared without a word.

Giddy excitement at his return attacked my stomach even as anger at the way he’d left burned my cheeks. Then he stumbled again, fal ing against Caleb’s car. The side mirror snapped off with a crack and thumped against the door, swinging from a few wires. It was better off than Falin. He crashed to his knees on the pavement and neither my excitement nor my anger mattered.

I ran into the front yard, dragging PC with me by my death grip on his leash. The little dog yipped happily as he fol owed at my heels, but I barely heard him over the rushing in my ears.

Stil on his knees, Falin swayed, his eyes half closing.

One of his hands—gloved as always—gripped his side, where something dark spread along his shirt. The other hand groped outward, his fingers sliding over the side panel of Caleb’s car.
He’s hurt.
Bad. I was stil yards from the driveway. I needed to cal an ambulance, to get help
.

But I had a dagger in one hand and PC’s leash in the other.

I dropped both.

I patted my pockets as I ran, hoping I had my phone. I didn’t.
Crap.

Falin swayed again. His hand fel from the car.
He’s
going to black out.

“Falin,” I yel ed, trying to get his attention, to keep him focused. I was almost there. Just a short sprint left.

focused. I was almost there. Just a short sprint left.

Falin looked up. His hair clung to one side of his face, the pale locks dark and sticky. “Your eyes are glowing,” he whispered.

Then his eyes rol ed back in his head.

I lunged forward, grabbing his shoulders as he col apsed.

It was a messy move to start with, and his added weight overbalanced me, sending me sprawling. My ass hit the pavement as Falin’s back slammed into my stomach, and the air whooshed out of me. But I caught him, his head hitting my chest instead of cracking against the pavement.

Of course, judging by the blood matting his long hair, someone might have already cracked his skul .

PC ran a circle around us, dragging his leash behind him before final y stopping to lick Falin’s hand. The man didn’t so much as twitch.

“What happened to you?” I whispered, stil trying to regain my breath. I turned Falin’s head to an angle that looked more comfortable—and one that I hoped would give me a better view of his head injury, but I couldn’t make out a thing under his blood-soaked blond hair.
Oh, this is bad.

And there was more blood than just from his head wound.

My grave-sight made his clothing appear worn and moth-eaten, but the remaining fabric was saturated with blood al along one side from the middle of his chest down to his pants.

“Caleb,” I screamed.
Please be able to hear me.
“Caleb, help me!”

The front door opened and Caleb rushed out, Hol y a few steps behind him. I tried to shift my legs from where they were pinned under Falin’s body without jostling him—which I failed at miserably. His brows scrunched together, his grimace making his sharp features draw in pain, but he didn’t open his eyes.

“What—?” Caleb stopped short, stil several feet away.

Hol y kept running. She dropped to her knees beside me.

“Alex, what happened? What’s wrong?”

“Alex, what happened? What’s wrong?”

What’s wrong?
Clearly the unconscious fae sprawled in our driveway. But Hol y wasn’t looking at him.
Was he
glamoured?

“Hol y, go back inside,” Caleb said, not moving.

She looked between Caleb and me, her indecision clear on her face. “What’s going on?”

“Just do—” Caleb cut himself off, then lowered his voice to a more civil volume and said, “Wait inside.”

I think he would have said “please” if his nature had permitted, but it didn’t. Hol y’s frown etched deeper and she looked at me, her eyes asking me what I wanted her to do.

I wanted help for Falin. Now. I didn’t know what Caleb’s issue was, but Hol y couldn’t see Falin if he was glamoured, so she couldn’t help. Swal owing the sour taste of adrenaline, I nodded. “I’l explain later.”

Hol y scowled, but she pushed herself up and stomped across the front lawn. When the door slammed behind her, I looked at Caleb.

“Help him?”

He shook his head. “It would bring more trouble down on you and on my house.”

“He’s hurt. We have to do something.”

Caleb didn’t move. “Get up, Al. Let’s go. I’l cal someone to deal with him.”

Falin didn’t need “dealing with”—he needed help. And I wasn’t about to leave him until he got it.

“Please, Caleb. Help him. Please.”

At my words, I felt the potential for imbalance between us.

He owed me a favor because I’d listened to Malik—I’d forgotten about that favor—but I’d asked him for help, and he was so against the idea that if he did help, I would be the one indebted to him. I didn’t care.

“Please,” I said again.

He winced. “Alex—” He shook his head and then exhaled a long breath. “For you, Al. Not for him. We should get him inside.”

inside.”

Caleb knelt to lift Falin off of me. Falin was easily sixfive and wel built, but Caleb lifted him without so much as a grunt. He hauled him into a fireman’s carry and I winced.

“I think he has a stomach injury.”

If Caleb heard me, he ignored me as he headed around the side of the house toward the stairs to my loft. PC

pranced at his heels, dragging his leash. My legs tingled with pins and needles as I climbed to my feet, but I forced them to work anyway. After fishing my dagger out of the grass and shoving it back in its boot sheath, I jogged to catch up with Caleb.

I closed my shields when I reached the stairs. In my grave-sight the steps were rotted and pitted, and I didn’t want to fal through the staircase. I hurried up the steps, my knees wobbly from the adrenaline rush as I tried to catch up with Caleb while watching Falin’s disconcertingly limp head lol to the side with Caleb’s swift steps. It wasn’t until I reached my door that I realized, as it was my grave-sight that let me see through glamour and I’d closed my shields to the grave, I shouldn’t have been able to see Falin. Of course, glamours were easier to see through when you knew they existed.

Caleb slung Falin onto my bed, careless of the other man’s injuries. Then he stepped back as I made a hasty job of trying to get Falin’s limbs into positions that looked comfortable—or at least natural. I peeled his shirt away from his chest, wincing in sympathetic pain as the fabric stuck to the tacky blood.

Drying blood caked Falin’s torso, but dark, wet blood stil glistened along a long gash that started just under his ribs and disappeared into the top of his pants. Blood oozed from the deep laceration, and my breath caught in my chest.

“We need to get him to a hospital, or a healer, or . . .” I turned to face Caleb. “Where do fae go when they’re injured?”

injured?”

Caleb didn’t answer. He just stared at the man on my bed. Not moving.

Okay, Caleb was obviously limited help. Very limited.
So
it’s up to me.
“Hospital,” I said. After al , the hospital in the Quarter would be up-to-date, with al the most current healing magics. I reached for my purse and my cel phone, but Caleb grabbed my wrist.

“Leave him. He’l be fine.”

“F i ne ?
Fine?
Caleb, I’m pretty sure he’s mortal y wounded!”

“Yes. If he were mortal.”

Oh, right. I glanced at the bed. I didn’t know a lot about injuries, but this one looked bad. Definitely hospital bad.

Maybe morgue bad. But I also didn’t know a lot about fae healing abilities.

Was Caleb right? Could he heal from this on his own? Or was Caleb’s personal dislike clouding his judgment?

I sank onto the mattress beside Falin and swiped a strand of blood-crusted hair from his face. His cheek twitched as the hair pul ed away, but he gave no other response.

“You’re sure?” I asked without looking up.

Caleb rested his hands on my shoulders and squeezed lightly in what was probably meant to be a reassuring gesture. The heat of his palms blistered against my skin, but only one part of my brain registered the pain as the remainder focused on the prone form in front of me.

“Let him rest,” Caleb whispered. “I was making spaghetti.

You should come downstairs and have some dinner.”

“I can’t leave him here alone. What if he wakes and doesn’t know where he is?”

Caleb’s grip tightened. “Exactly.”

Huh?

I shrugged him off and turned to face him. He frowned at me.

“If he wakes up confused and uncertain . . .” His voice

“If he wakes up confused and uncertain . . .” His voice trailed off. “You shouldn’t be here with him alone.”

“He’s injured.”

“He’s lethal.”

I scowled at Caleb and he sighed. Then he stepped back, shaking his head at me.

“Think about it, Al. Where has he been this past month?

What has he been doing? Who did this to him?”

“I don’t know.” I sounded miserable, and I hated it, but it was true. I didn’t know why he’d up and disappeared two days after Coleman’s death, or why he hadn’t made any attempt to contact me since then. I didn’t know what had happened that he’d ended up in this condition in my front yard, or why he’d come to me at al . I just didn’t know.

“Dinner, Al. Then you can check on him.”

I nodded reluctantly. There wasn’t much I could do for Falin besides sit and fret, and I needed food. Pushing myself away from the mattress took more effort than I’d expected. My adrenaline had final y stopped rushing and the absence left me drained. Shuffling to my nightstand, I opened the tiny drawer and dug out the few healing charms I owned. I’d made them myself, and my spel casting being the dismal thing it was, they weren’t al that potent, but they couldn’t do any harm. I’d focused the spel into smal wooden disks, and I placed the three of them on Falin’s chest. There was no shortage of blood to activate them, and they hummed slightly as the spel sprang to life.

Turning, I found Caleb already at the door leading down to the main portion of the house. He didn’t comment on the charms, but held the door for me. PC had already trotted down the stairs, so with an unconscious and half-dead fae in my bed, I abandoned my apartment.

“Is someone planning to tel me what’s going on?” Holy asked as I pushed spaghetti around my plate.

I looked up, and Caleb lifted his eyebrow but said nothing I looked up, and Caleb lifted his eyebrow but said nothing as he poured himself a second glass of wine. Guess it was up to me, but how was I supposed to explain a mortal y injured man Hol y hadn’t even seen? Of course, there were plenty of invisibility spel s on the market, and Hol y knew Falin was FIB. Guessing he was fae wasn’t a far leap.

“Falin’s back,” I said, my voice flat as if it didn’t matter.

Hol y dropped her fork. “Outside?”

“He was glamoured. He’s hurt. Pretty badly. He’s unconscious upstairs.”

She looked from me to Caleb and then back. “And we’re here eating spaghetti?”

I cringed.
Yeah, that’s pretty much the situation.
I rol ed a meatbal from one side of my plate to the other.

“He’s fae,” Caleb said, running his finger along his wineglass. The crystal sang under his touch. “Our options were to take him to Faerie or give him time to rest and heal. The latter was more feasible.”

I could feel Hol y’s disbelieving stare on me, and I hunched a little further over my plate.
I think it’s time to
change the subject.
That, or I was going to feel even worse about leaving Falin upstairs.
Maybe I should call a healer
despite what Caleb said.

I accepted the glass of wine that Caleb al but pushed under my nose, and then I looked at Hol y. “So where did you go this morning?”

“Go?” She made a soft snorting sound under her breath.

“I’ve got this crazy landlord-turned-nursemaid who’s barely permitted me to get out of bed.” She said it with affection, but there was definitely a strand of irritation mixed in. She looked at Caleb. “You know I’m going back to work tomorrow, right? I mean, I’m a little bruised and cut up, but I’m fine.”

He smiled at her but al he said was, “If you’re up to it.”

I frowned as he focused on his plate again.
Hadn’t he
said she’d left this morning?
Maybe he’d been mistaken, but the fact that he hadn’t pushed the subject made me but the fact that he hadn’t pushed the subject made me think he’d already discussed it with her. Apparently it wasn’t any of my business. Not that I could complain about anyone else keeping secrets. I had more than enough of my own.

We finished dinner in a series of awkward silences separated by short bits of conversation. Afterward, as I headed for the stairs to my loft, I found I had a tagalong. A rather large, unhappy-looking tagalong.

“You planning on babysitting me al night?” I asked Caleb as I took the stairs two at a time.

“Actual y, I was planning to tel you to grab some PJs and spend the night in the main portion of the house.”

Oh, he couldn’t be serious. I glanced back as I pushed open the door to my loft. He looked deadly serious.

“I’l be fine.” I didn’t need a babysitter. He was overreacting. He had to be.

I checked on Falin. The three healing charms had puttered out already, and I tapped into the magic stored in my ring and channeled power into them, giving them a slight recharge. It wasn’t much, but it was something. Then I checked the wound. It had stopped bleeding, which was good, but I couldn’t have said for sure whether it actual y looked any better.

When I turned, I found Caleb stil shadowing me, and stil looking just as determined about my not staying in my own loft.

“I want you downstairs, behind a locked door and my wards. You and PC can stay in the guest room,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest. “You owe me a debt, and I’m cal ing it in.”