Grave Dance(6)

“Can I help you?” I yel ed the question louder than needed, but I wanted to ensure that the officers also heard me. They would want to question the fae.

He paused, then hurried forward in a blur of movement.

He crossed from the far edge of the parking lot to the front of John’s car before my heart had time to crash in a loud, panicked beat. The cops yel ed something I didn’t catch above the blood rushing in my ears.

“Can I help you?” I asked again, not daring to look away from someone who could move as fast as this fae. I slid back a step, and then another, the movement far too slow.

“Are you daft?” he asked, his thin lips splitting with the words to reveal pointed teeth.

I blinked at him, startled, but not because of the implied insult in his words, or because of the threat in his insult in his words, or because of the threat in his expression. No, my shock came at the sound of his voice.

The voice that emerged from that thin, awkwardly threatening body was a rich, deep baritone that made even such an angry question sound musical. He had the kind of voice that, in the old folktales, would have drawn children and young women from their beds. Unfortunately, most of those stories didn’t end wel .

“I don’t know what you mean,” I said, taking another step back. Across the parking pit, gravel crunched under the cops’ running steps. Close. Maybe not close enough.

“Those feet were hidden for a reason.” The fae’s gaze moved over my head, and his eyes narrowed. “This is your fault, and you wil regret your actions,” he said. Then, as the cops neared us, he turned, dashed back to the tree line, and disappeared.





Chapter 2

“So, the cops couldn’t find him?” Hol y, my housemate and best friend, asked as her fork slid smoothly through the slice of triple-chocolate cheesecake sitting in the center of the table.

I nodded. “He issued his threat that I would regret leading the police to the feet, and then he ran. Once he reached the tree line, he might as wel have been gone.” I’d been jumpy for hours after leaving the floodplain, but today, in the afternoon sun, my tension seemed foolish. “The only thing I regret at the moment is that the FIB took over the case.”

Hol y shot a conspiratorial glance at the third person at the table, my other best friend, Tamara, and then leaned forward. “Did you-know-who show?”

I frowned at my fork. “You-know-who” would be Falin, the only FIB agent the three of us knew on a first-name basis.

Wel , actual y, I knew him a lot better than just that. Even so, two days after we’d closed the Coleman case, he’d taken off without so much as a good-bye.

I stabbed the cheesecake with a little more force than the smooth texture required. “He’s probably working some far more important case,” I said, then swal owed the bite of cheesecake without tasting it. “Good riddance. He’d complicate things.”

Hol y pul ed the cheesecake away from me. “Okay, so I know we have to eat this before it melts—whose idea was it to meet for lunch at an outdoor café anyway?—but don’t scarf it. These kinds of calories have to be savored.”

Tamara murmured in agreement and brandished her Tamara murmured in agreement and brandished her fork. “Oh, I’m in calorie bliss over here,” she said. “And today was Alex’s location choice.”

I shrugged. “I raised a shade to settle an insurance claim this morning. The family refused to believe their father had left a chunk of his estate to an il egitimate son’s widow, so I spent over two hours graveside while the shade verified the wil line by line. I was cold. Besides, it’s not half as hot as it was a couple of weeks ago. The mid-nineties are practical y a blessing in August.”

“Uh-uh,” Hol y said, and made a production of sipping her iced latte. But though we were at an outdoor café, it was a café in the middle of the Magic Quarter—Nekros City’s center for al things magical and witchy. This café boasted the very best charms available for keeping customers cool and comfortable regardless of the temperature. And despite her protests, Hol y wasn’t so much as breaking a sweat in her crisp courtroom-ready suit. “So, was there anyone

else interesting ?” she asked, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively.

“Hardly.” I had to reach across the table to get to the cheesecake, but that didn’t stop me.

“Oh, come on.” Hol y pushed the plate forward. “It’s been a month since I’ve seen you pick up a guy. You’ve always accused me of being a workaholic, but ever since your business picked up, al you do is raise the dead.” She set down her latte, pul ed out her hair clip, and shook her red locks free. Then she smoothed her hair back again and twisted it effortlessly into a slick bun. She looked every inch the hotshot public prosecutor she was—less obvious was the fact that she was a witch in her own right. “I have court again this afternoon, but after that my caseload wil be lighter. Let’s go barhopping tonight. You need to get out.”