So either someone had dug up a really old grimoire or we were dealing with a witch who had been around a long time. I thought about the glamour-coated constructs. I knew a place where a witch could live long enough for magic to revolutionize around her more than once. Faerie.
I asked about what spel s the runes might have been I asked about what spel s the runes might have been used for, but Lusa and Corrie were stil in the identification stage of research, so I wrapped up the cal in several hurried whispers. Lusa wasn’t happy, but I couldn’t afford to keep playing twenty questions with a reporter when it might get me caught crouching in the dining room by the FIB.
Now to get out of here. As I turned toward the door, a dog started barking upstairs. PC.
I stopped, stuck in indecision. I was on the run. I didn’t know where I was going. I didn’t know if I’d even be okay in the end. But Caleb was in Faerie by now, and Hol y was missing, so there was no one here to take care of PC if I didn’t make it back soon.
I couldn’t leave my dog. I took the stairs as quietly as possible. When I reached the top, I cracked the inner door and PC barreled out.
“Hey, buddy,” I said, dropping my purse on the top step so I could pick him up. “I’m going to put you in my purse, and then we are going to be real y, real y quiet and sneak out of here, okay?”
He yipped, just happy to see me, and I sighed. It was times like this when I wished someone had invented a charm that made dogs understand English. Well, here goes nothing.
I slipped the dog inside my purse. He was a smal dog, but it wasn’t that big of a purse, and his front legs and head popped out the top. I placed the strap of the purse across my chest, and PC didn’t squirm, so he seemed to feel secure. Stil , I kept a tight arm on the purse as I crept down the steps and out the back door.
“Two steps sideways to one step forward. When the world decays, you must do what is against your nature to do or the knights will fall.”
I startled at the voice in my head, and whirled around.
“Fred?”
The large stone gargoyle crouched down on the side of the porch, its wings curled tight around its body. If I hadn’t the porch, its wings curled tight around its body. If I hadn’t been able to see the slight blue tint of the soul, I would have thought the gargoyle nothing more than a smal stone boulder.
“What does that mean?” I whispered, but the gargoyle didn’t answer. I waited several moments, but I couldn’t stand there waiting for an explanation of the cryptic . . .
premonition? Riddle? I had to get away from the house and out of sight.
It wasn’t until I reached the street where the cabbie had dropped me off that I real y considered where I was going.
Or real y, realized that I had nowhere to go. If I cal ed a friend, I might put him in danger either from the constructs hunting me or the fae trying to drag me to Faerie. Not to mention the fact that the FIB probably had fabricated some sort of warrant for my arrest by now, and most of my friends were in some branch of law enforcement.
Where could a girl with a newfound tendency to merge realities, a ghost, and a smal dog go to hide? Wel , there was one option, though I hated considering it. There was one place no one in his right mind would ever look for me. I pul ed out my phone and cal ed my father.
I huddled under the sheltering wings of the granite angel that had stood overlooking a cemetery three blocks from Caleb’s house for the last forty years. The statue protected me from the casual onlooker, but I could peek out to see the gate and a bit of the road beyond. It seemed to take a lifetime before I heard gravel crunch under tires and saw a black Porsche with mirrored windows rol to a stop outside the smal cemetery gate.
I wished I could have sent Roy to check out the driver and make sure it wasn’t the FIB or one of the skimmers, but he hadn’t been able to enter the cemetery. The gates of a cemetery were meant to keep the dead inside, which also cemetery were meant to keep the dead inside, which also effectively kept ghosts trapped if they entered. He’d headed out to check on Bel ’s activities—and maybe actual y get an address this time—so I was on my own.
Well, let’s hope for the best.
I hopped down from my perch, my legs protesting after being curled against my body so long. I ignored the pins and needles as I turned and col ected my purse—and the dog currently sleeping in it. Then I made my way around the grave markers toward the car.
The Porsche’s doors clicked, unlocking as I approached.
I stil couldn’t see who was inside, which made my hair stand on end and my scalp feel a little too tight. If it was in fact my ride, I’d be happy about the heavy tinting, but if it wasn’t . . .