Grave Dance (29 page)

Final y Death turned to me.

Final y Death turned to me.

“We . . . lost one of our own. He was hunting for the accomplice and was on Faerie’s doorstep when it happened.”

L o s t?
What could hurt, let alone destroy, a soul
collector?
I chewed at my bottom lip. “How is that possible?

You guys aren’t physical.” Wel , to most people, me not included.

And maybe to the two planeweavers belonging to the high court. Or possibly an awoken legend. I thought about the tear and the fact that al the grass inside the circle had been withered, as if brushed by the land of the dead.

Counting the facts that the magic used originated in three realms: mortal, faerie, and spirit; and that a col ector had been physical enough to be kil ed, it al added up to someone touching multiple planes.

In a voice quiet enough that I hoped the goons in the front seat wouldn’t hear, I laid out those thoughts to the col ectors. They looked surprised by my conclusion, as if they hadn’t considered it.

“I cannot discount that possibility, but there is another explanation that is more likely,” Death said after I finished.

“There is a relic. It was either lost or hidden in Faerie centuries ago, but the last time it surfaced, it al owed mortals and our kind to meet in—” He paused. “A fold in realities. Sort of a
between
space where both touch.”

“So you think this accomplice found the relic?”

I must have asked the question louder than I meant to because the goon in the passenger seat turned around again. “Who
are
you talking to?” he asked. “And why are you sitting like that?”

Yeah, it had to be pretty strange to look squished when nothing appeared to be around you. Not much I could do about it, though. I shrugged. “I’m uncomfortable. Could you take the cuffs off?”

He snorted and shook his head. “We’l be there soon.”

Then, thankful y, he turned back toward the front.

Then, thankful y, he turned back toward the front.

Death readjusted so he could bend his arm behind my head. He rubbed his thumb in smal circles along my spine, massaging the sore muscles. I nearly moaned.

“Yes, we believe the relic has resurfaced,” the gray man said as if the goon’s interruption hadn’t occurred. “It transcends several realities, but it causes ripples, smal disturbances.”

“What does the relic look like?”

The col ectors exchanged another long glance.
Oh, come
on, they want me to go looking for someone who found a
relic, but they won’t even tell me what it is?

The raver final y shrugged. “It has changed through time, depending on who used it and for what reasons.”

“And now someone is using it to kil ?” Would that make it a weapon of some sort?

“The situation is more dire than a dozen untimely deaths,”

Death said. “From the evidence we’ve seen from the accomplice’s ritual sites—”

Sites, plural.
Which meant there were more than the police knew about.

“—we believe they are attempting to use the relic as a focus to open permanent paths between our planes. You have looked across the planes. I’m sure you understand the possible implication of the space between realities becoming too thin.”

I swal owed, or tried to, but my mouth had suddenly gone dry. If the Aetheric was always in reality and anyone could grab magic, burn themselves out like the skimmers . . . I shivered.
And the land of the dead?
The world as we knew it would be changed forever.

“That’s why they want me?” I whispered.

Death nodded. “With your ability to merge planes and the relic as a focus . . . But, Alex, they may want you, but they don’t
need
you. The last ritual was close. The next may succeed.”

Which would destroy the world. I thought back to what Which would destroy the world. I thought back to what Fred had said about the world decaying.
Let that be a
warning and not an unchangeable outcome.
“We’d better hope the accomplice shows at the bridge.”

And speaking of a bridge, the car crossed the river and then turned onto an old gravel road. I frowned. The only thing in this direction was a cemetery.

“We wil be at the bridge,” the gray man said. “But in case the accomplice does not show . . .”

“Trust me, I’m already looking for the bastard. Knowing they are attempting to royal y screw up reality definitely doesn’t give me
less
reason to search.” But first I had to get away from the skimmers.

The gray man nodded as if pleased with my answer. The crunch of tires over gravel fel away and the car slowed to a stop.
Why the hell are they taking me to a cemetery?

“If you manage to find the accomplice, cal us,” the raver said.

“Cal —?”

“With this.” Death leaned forward, his lips brushing mine, but there was more than just smooth lips to the kiss. Power rol ed into me, cold, foreign magic, and I felt the spel sink into my very flesh. It tingled, burning like ice against my skin. Then Death’s warm lips soothed away the sting.

“Was that real y necessary?” the raver asked Death as he broke the kiss. “You could have passed her the spel through any contact.”

Death smiled, his eyes glittering in the light from the streetlamps. “Yes, it was necessary,” he whispered, answering her but staring at me.

I looked away, ignoring the twisty, fluttery feeling fil ing my stomach. “So how does this work?”

“You can feel the spel , yes?” the gray man asked, and at my nod he said, “Good. When you find the accomplice, and they are outside of Faerie, use the spel . We wil feel it. We wil al feel it.”

As in al the soul col ectors? I imagined every soul As in al the soul col ectors? I imagined every soul col ector in the world appearing around me and then I shivered, making a mental note not to poke at the spel . I nodded as the goons jerked the back car door open.

Time’s up.

“Be safe. We hope to see you at the bridge,” the gray man said before vanishing.

The raver swiped her hand through the air, orange nails flashing like claws. “What he said.” Then she also disappeared.

I glanced at Death, expecting him to vanish as wel , but he didn’t. As the goon dragged me out of the backseat, Death fol owed. He locked one hand on my arm and used the other to steady my purse against me so PC didn’t tumble unceremoniously to the ground. The goons pul ed me away from the car, Death right beside me. Then the raver appeared next to him.

“What is the holdup?” She cocked a hip as she stared at him. “It’s not like you can enter.” She nodded at the cemetery gate. “Come on.”

He didn’t fight her when she wrapped her hand around his arm, but he didn’t look away from me either. “I’l be at the bridge,” he said.

Then he vanished and I was left with the goons as half a dozen skimmers poured out of vehicles. Al of us headed for a graveyard.

Chapter 27

T
he goons hauled me around tombstones and monuments, heedless of my dragging steps. I real y could have used a moment to focus on my shields, but they didn’t give me one.

The media had a tendency to portray grave witches as creepy goths hanging out in cemeteries. While it was true that I tended to do most of my work in cemeteries, I certainly didn’t enjoy hanging out in them. There were too many bodies, too much grave essence clawing at my shields and searching for weak spots. It was always a relief to leave a graveyard.

The moon provided the only light, so I was once again relying on my psychic vision and not my eyes. I’d been happy when I woke to find it had mostly faded, but now as I stared out at the darkness, I wished it had lasted a little longer. My psyche was touching the other planes, but only slightly, so the scene around me was like a watercolor of crumbling monuments that had been left in the rain, so the image faded and blurred until it could barely be seen. I could have cracked my shields and straddled the planes properly, but without a circle and with so many bodies surrounding me, the tidal wave of grave essence would be dangerous.

“You guys picked a cheery spot, didn’t you?” I said, rambling because I tended to do that when I got nervous.

Neither goon answered, but a rotund skimmer with rings on al of his pudgy fingers frowned as he kept pace with us.

“It’s temporary.” He hugged his arms over his chest as if guarding against a chil . Even at one in the morning, the temperature had to be in the high eighties and there wasn’t temperature had to be in the high eighties and there wasn’t a breeze. I guessed he wasn’t cold. The man looked around, a little too much of the white of his eyes showing.

“You don’t think ghosts real y exist, do you?”

He’s asking a grave witch that?
Not only did ghosts exist, but this graveyard boasted several, and currently they were doing what most ghosts stuck for eternity in a graveyard tend to do—they were fol owing the strangers. Us.

There were no truly old bodies in Nekros, but this was one of the oldest and largest graveyards in the city. Or real y, below the city. We couldn’t have been more than a dozen miles from the old bridge.
Not like they’re going to
take me there.

The goons stopped in front of a large mausoleum. The engraving over the arched doorway read BELL.

No surprise there.

They pushed me into the cool, stagnant air inside the mausoleum. The pudgy skimmer pul ed out a cel phone and used the LCD screen as a flashlight. Goon One had a Zippo.
Way to come prepared.
Stil , what they could see with their makeshift lights was probably more reliable than the washed-out ruins I saw, so I let the goons guide me.

That way I wouldn’t slam PC into anything that didn’t exist in my vision.

They stopped in front of a sarcophagus and Goon One fumbled with something under the carved rim. The
click
was loud in the dark stil ness, and the skimmer with the phone jumped. Then the large stone lid swung aside to reveal a staircase.

Okay, this is a little too spy movie for me. Tell me Bell
doesn’t have a secret hideout under his family
mausoleum.

But he did.

I descended the stairs into a wel -lit room. A generator roared somewhere out of sight, and a hiss whispered around the room as fresh air was pumped into the underground space. Judging by the number of cots pushed underground space. Judging by the number of cots pushed against the far wal , Bel wasn’t the only person staying here. No wonder Roy hadn’t been able to warn me until Bel made his move—they’d been hiding in a cemetery this whole time.

“Welcome,” Bel said, not rising from a large wooden chair that had been placed in the center of the room like it was a throne.
Would that make him the king of sewer rats?

He smiled at me, and his dark eyes glinted, but not with mirth. No, with madness.

Magic clung in clumps around him. They weren’t spel s exactly, but high concentrations of magic forced with no skil into crude charms—like square pegs pounded into round holes. With a jackhammer.

“Forgive the unorthodox manner of your employment,” he said, but he slurred the words. I didn’t think alcohol had anything to do with his condition. “You see, we ran out of magic. You wil be wel compensated.”

Bullshit.
He was a fugitive, and from the hungry look of the gathered skimmers, the lot of them were addicted from their brush with the Aetheric. They wanted a fix. Even if I did open a rift for them—which wasn’t an option—most would burn like a moth in a flame.

“Like I told you before, you can’t hire me to open a hole into the Aetheric.” I’d have liked to say I
couldn’t
do it, but that would have been a lie, and the words stuck in my throat.

Bel blinked at me. Then he nodded at the goons behind me. The rasp and clack of a gun cocking fil ed the room. A cold shiver shot down my spine and I froze, rooted to the concrete under my feet. The hard muzzle of the gun pressed into the flesh under my ear. My heart crashed in my chest, knocking the air out of my lungs, but I didn’t dare breathe too hard.

I could die right here, in this hole in the ground, and no one would ever know. The skimmers were crazy enough to do it. No one even looked surprised as they watched the do it. No one even looked surprised as they watched the goon press the gun hard enough against my skin to make my pulse burst like explosions in my ear.
And I’ll be just
another cemetery haunt.
Death wouldn’t be able to reach me, and I’d be stuck until I was forgotten and faded away.

I glanced at the ghosts who had fol owed us into the mausoleum. They flitted about, chattering to themselves.

One woman, so indistinct that she was barely a shadow, smiled at me. I don’t know if she realized I could see her, or if she just thought I’d join her soon.

Not tonight I won’t.

Okay, points for bravado, but even if I could open the rift in reality—which I wasn’t sure I could do on command—

there were no guarantees that Bel would release me. And who knew how much damage the skimmers could do in their blissed-out madness if they had unlimited access to the Aetheric? It just wasn’t an option. I had to find some way out of this that didn’t endanger an unknown number of people while the skimmers fed their addiction.

“You’re awful y silent, Miss Craft,” Bel said, and the gun barrel ground harder into my skin.

I swal owed, tasting acidic fear. My dagger hummed in my boot, but even if my hands hadn’t been bound, the only thing I would be able to accomplish by drawing it would be to get myself shot. Of course, I did have one other thing. I had the whole damn graveyard. The idiots had dragged me off to a grave witch’s seat of power. Not that grave magic was the least bit effective against the living, but what I real y needed was a big enough distraction for me to get the hel out of here.

My gaze shot to the ghosts stil flitting about the room.

They might just provide me with one.
But first I had to persuade Bel to remove my cuffs.

“Okay, Bel , you made your point. I’l perform a ritual.” I didn’t specify which ritual, but I doubted he’d notice.

“Splendid! And I told you to cal me Max. Now, how long wil the ritual take to prepare?”

wil the ritual take to prepare?”

“Not long.” Or at least I hoped not. “But if I’m going to do this, I’l need your men to uncuff me”—
and get the damn
gun away from my head
—“so I can draw a circle.”

“My people can draw the circle for you.”

No. That wouldn’t work. I needed the cuffs off. Getting out of here would be a hel of a lot easier if I could use my hands. “I need to draw it. My magic is . . . peculiar.” Okay, that was almost a lie. My magic was peculiar, that was true, and I did need to draw the circle to have an excuse to be freed, but the two statements had no connection. It was amazing what vagueness and implication let me get around. I’d remember that the next time I dealt with fae.

Bel frowned, but after a moment he nodded and the goons unlocked the handcuffs. The release from the irritating constraints was a shock, which made being free more painful than being bound. I pul ed my arms to the front of my body and rubbed my aching wrists, which were red and puffy. PC licked my hands, offering his own comfort.

“Do you need something to draw the circle with?” Bel asked, and before I could respond, a young woman with hair she clearly hadn’t brushed since she woke stepped forward and handed me a stick of chalk.

It wasn’t the nearly invisible wax chalk I usual y used for indoor rituals but a fist-thick stick of neon pink sidewalk chalk.
Right.
I accepted it, frowning as the powder coated my fingers, and then I looked around. The ghosts in the room were losing interest in the skimmers and floating off.

That wasn’t good. I needed the ghosts to be interested.

Very interested.

The ghost who’d smiled at me earlier hovered near the stairwel . I started to make my way toward her, but one of the goons grabbed my arm before I made it two steps.

“Where are you going, Miss Craft? You wouldn’t think about double-crossing me, would you?” Bel asked and nodded to Goon Two, who leveled his gun. “Betraying me could be very bad for your health.”

could be very bad for your health.”

“Just trying to decide the best place for my circle.”

“How about right here in the center of the room?”

Because there are no ghosts in the center of the room?

But in truth, as I had no plan to invoke the circle, it didn’t matter where I drew it. I moved to where Bel had indicated and began dragging the neon pink chalk across the concrete floor. It would have been easier if my purse and PC hadn’t been dangling around my torso, but I wasn’t sure how the next few minutes would play out and I wanted PC

with me, just in case I didn’t have time for anything but running.

“Pssst, hey,” I whispered, trying to get the closest ghost’s attention as I drew the most meticulous—and fluorescent—

circle of my life.

The ghost didn’t look at me, but one of the skimmers did.

“Are you talking to me?”

“No.” I flashed him some teeth and then drew the last foot of my circle.

Once I straightened, I handed the chalk back to the woman who’d given it to me. My entire palm was coated in bright pink powder. With a grimace, I wiped my hand on my thigh and then moved to the center of the circle.

“I’m going to start now,” I told Bel , but I didn’t activate the circle.

I glanced around. There were only three ghosts left in the room.
Damn.
Not that there was anything I could do about i t.
Well, here goes.
Resituating PC, I clutched the purse and dog to my chest and closed my eyes. Then I took off my charm bracelet, shoved it in my pocket, and threw my shields open wide.

Grave essence crashed into me. I’d never worked in a graveyard outside of an active circle before, and any other time, I would have said it was a suicidal y stupid idea. Now it was a matter of necessity. Taking on the essence of dozens of graves was like diving headfirst into an iceberg, but I didn’t stop or even try to slow the flow. I let the essence but I didn’t stop or even try to slow the flow. I let the essence pour into me, fil me, and mingle with my magic. Wind ripped around me, tearing at the underground room. More than one of the skimmers made strangled, startled sounds.

And I’ve only just begun.

I opened my eyes.
Now
the ghosts were staring at me, more flowing into the room as my body fil ed with the grave.

Roy had once told me that normal y I looked like any other mortal, maybe just a little clearer than most, but once I started channeling the grave I lit up, glowing like a beacon.

That was another reason I raised shades only inside a circle—not everything in the land of the dead was friendly.

I could feel the dead al around, the bodies cal ing to me and promising release from the war raging in my body as my life, my heat, railed against the grave essence seeping into every cel of my being. So many bodies, so very many bodies, and many so much older than the graveyard was reputed to be, far older than Nekros. My power brushed against something ancient, powerful, and
aware
, and I recoiled, drawing back before it noticed me.
I have
enough.

Now to get down to business.

The ghosts hovered around me, their faded and shimmering clothes and hair whipping violently in wind blowing across the land of the dead and through me like a violent storm, but though the ghosts were curious, they kept their distance. My gaze skittered over the female ghost who’d smiled at me, and I reached out toward her, palm up, arm extended. She stared at me, and then ever so slowly, floated forward to take my hand. As soon she touched me, I pushed the grave essence mingled with my magic and life into her. I’d manifested Roy several times over the last month. Usual y I siphoned only enough power into him to make him visible, occasional y tangible, but this ghost I poured magic into, like I had that night under the Blood Moon.

“What is that? Is that a tear?” one of the skimmers asked.

“What is that? Is that a tear?” one of the skimmers asked.

“It looks different,” another said.

“It looks human shaped,” said a third.

The swarm of ghosts realized what I was doing before the skimmers did. As the woman’s form fil ed out, her dress blooming to a deep burgundy and her hair darkening, the other ghosts swarmed forward.

“Help me,” I pleaded to her as I released her hand.

I’d fil ed her with my own life force as wel as my magic, but I couldn’t compel ghosts. They didn’t have to obey me. I couldn’t make them.

But this time I got lucky.

As the other ghosts closed in around me, I saw the woman rush toward the goons. Screams fil ed the room, but I couldn’t see beyond the press of shimmering bodies surrounding me. The ghosts reached for me, their translucent fingers clawing at me as they al tried to touch my skin, my power. And I gave it to them.