Grave Dance(101)

I pushed myself out of the dirt. “That’s good, because your timing is perfect.”

“Oh, you have no idea. I saw Bel run off last night, so I went after him. Man, that glowy stuff messed with his head.”

I guessed that by “glowy stuff” Roy meant raw Aetheric energy. I nodded. “Okay, but, Roy—”

He didn’t even pause, but paced as he spoke faster, his hands doing half the talking with him. “Wel , he and a few of his fol owers got away, and they were, like, high on magic.

Casting al kinds of random shit. Until they crashed. Now they want more. Bel sent his men to find you. Said he was going to make you open a path for him.”

Great. “He’l have to get in line.”

I waited to see if Roy would continue, but he’d apparently exhausted the story.

“So, uh, why are you hanging out here in the dark?” he asked as if he’d only just noticed the location.

“Because the FIB are after me. I need you to do me a favor. Can you see if anyone is in the house?”

“No. I just came from there. It’s empty.”

Perfect.

I stayed low as I crossed the backyard. Once I reached the back porch, the wrongness in the house hit me and I the back porch, the wrongness in the house hit me and I stopped. The wards had been busted open from the outside, and they had clearly put up a good fight before they went. I let my senses stretch beyond the now defunct wards, searching for any traps or alarm spel s. There weren’t any.

At least, not any of witch creation, and that was as good as I could ensure. I eased the back door open and slipped into the kitchen.

When I looked around, my sight showed everything in ruins, but the ruins were al where their unruined counterparts usual y sat. Cracked plates were in the dish drainer, pots and pans with rusted-out bottoms hung above a stove that should have been condemned, and even the broken chairs were tucked neatly under the bowed table—

al of which I took to mean that in reality, the house looked exactly like it always did. I think I’d expected the place to be trashed, left with obvious signs of a struggle from Caleb’s capture. But if the wards hadn’t been cracked open, I would never have been able to tel that anything at al was amiss in the house.

I didn’t turn on lights as I passed from room to room—the darkness made no difference in my vision at the moment, so turning on the lights would only alert anyone watching the house to my presence. As I didn’t know where the letter was, I didn’t know how long it would take me to find it, so it would be best to keep evidence of my search as quiet as possible.

Caleb had mentioned Hol y’s bed when we’d been on the phone, and I wasn’t sure if that was where he found the letter or where he put it, but it was as good a place as any to start looking. I crept to her room, pushing the rotted door open soundlessly. A large, weathered envelope sat in the center of a tattered comforter. I snatched it and dropped it in my purse. I needed to read it, but here definitely wasn’t the best place, as I had no idea when the FIB would be back.

“Now to figure out where to go next,” I mumbled, more to

“Now to figure out where to go next,” I mumbled, more to myself than Roy. I turned, and a low scream crashed through the room. I ducked, my eyes flying wide. Then I realized the sound wasn’t a scream; it was singing—and coming from my purse. Phone. I hadn’t even thought about turning the damn thing off before sneaking about. I sent the cal to voice mail. The phone went silent and then, before I could even turn the ringer off, began singing again. Who?

I could just make out LUSA on the cracked screen. The last time I’d seen her I’d given her a diagram of the runes used in the construct disks. It was possible she’d learned something, which might help me find Hol y. Or she could have heard there was a warrant out for my arrest.

I didn’t have time to be indecisive; I had to make the thing stop ringing. I slid my finger across the display to answer.

“What is it?”

“Alex Craft? Why are you whispering?” Lusa’s amiable voice asked on the other side of the line.

“That’s complicated. Did you contact Corrie? Were you able to learn anything about the runes?”

“You better believe I did. I took the runes to Dr. Corrie, like you suggested. We had to search back, way back, in his old tomes to find mentions of these runes and we stil haven’t identified most. Even his library gets a little spotty once you go back a few centuries, but it looks like none of these were in use as late as four centuries ago, and if you’re looking for when they would have been common, you have to search back at least six centuries. Though remember, that wasn’t exactly an age of sharing for witches, so the variation among practitioners and covens was pretty vast.”