Our snail’s pace final y led to a gravel lot a block down the road. We parked and headed back toward the bridge—
the walk back didn’t take half the time the drive had. Roy fol owed, his hands bal ed in the front pockets of his shimmering jeans, but his head snapped back and forth as if he thought a col ector might descend on him at any moment. When we crossed Lenore he lost his nerve completely.
“I’l catch back up with you later,” he said. Then he vanished without waiting for me to say good-bye.
I tugged the bil of my cap down and avoided meeting anyone’s gaze as Tamara and I reached the edge of the gathered crowd. Not that anyone was looking around the crowd—everyone wanted to see the tear.
crowd—everyone wanted to see the tear.
“So you have a plan to get us to the front of this crowd, not to mention behind that gate?” Tamara asked as we joined the onlookers.
I shrugged. “I met Bel once.”
“Yeah? And did you get on wel enough that he’s likely to let us pass?” The tone she used betrayed the fact that she anticipated a no, and I didn’t need to reflect on my short conversation with Bel in his limo to know she was right.
Tamara stood on her toes, her neck straining as she peered around the shoulders of the people in front of us. In my boots, I was as tal as or tal er than al but the tal est men in the crowd, so I didn’t have to strain to see over people like Tamara did. I strained to see, period, though the media and security lights helped.
Bel had obviously intended to invest in some sort of industrial enterprise, but judging by the vacant lot, he had never gotten around to moving forward with the project. A nine-foot chain-link fence ringed the property, but it was an old fence, rusted and dilapidated. One section of it had fal en completely, and it looked like people had been using the opening as a path for years. Two of Bel ’s thugs guarded the opening, stopping anyone who pressed too close, and Bel ’s lawyers held the front gate.
“There has never been any legislation put in place making it il egal to own an opening into the Aetheric. Unless you return with a warrant, you have no grounds for entering this property,” a middle-aged man with flame red hair the same color as Hol y’s said to a uniformed officer as we wove our way nearer the front gate. Hol y’s father was a big-shot defense attorney with a high-powered client list, and while I’d never met him—Hol y’s relationship with her father was almost as screwed up as mine, one of the many reasons Hol y and I got along so wel —I had the feeling we were looking at him now.
I touched Tamara’s shoulder and pointed to a clearer spot about twenty feet away. Most of the crowd had spot about twenty feet away. Most of the crowd had gathered around the front gate, so we might see more if we moved farther along the fence. Excusing ourselves as we stepped around people, we slipped through the crowd. I kept my head down as we passed cops and reporters, but they weren’t paying us any attention. We managed to find a better spot right up against the fence, but between my ruined vision and the flashing police lights blowing any shot I had of my eyes adjusting to the darkness, I couldn’t see a thing more than a yard or two into the vacant lot.
“Can you see the tear?” I asked, leaning closer to Tamara.
“Yeah, a little, and Alex, I don’t like this. Those skimmers are drawing raw Aetheric energy with no filtering and minimal training. I don’t even think they’ve drawn a protective circle.” She shook her head in disbelief. “The raw magic filtering through the air is throwing off my senses, but I’m not sensing a circle at al . Lots of other spel s, though.”
Yeah, I was picking up on that too. Magic was everywhere. Most of the crowd wore charms, Bel ’s security had laid down a perimeter ward along the gate so they’d know if anyone tried to sneak in, and beyond the gate . . . I let my senses reach out, trying to sift through the magic in the air. I closed my eyes, stretching my senses, and a hand closed on my biceps. I yelped, my eyes flying open.
“What are you doing here?” a familiar and none too happy voice asked.
“Falin.” Busted. I turned to face him. “Hey, yeah, about that . . .” I told him about spotting the rune when Channel 6
reran Lusa’s footage and about the assumptions I’d made from there, as wel as my thoughts on the soul col ector’s presence. His pissed expression didn’t change through my explanation, and I ended with a shrug. “It seemed like it was worth the risk.”
“It might be enough for us to get a warrant,” he admitted after a moment’s hesitation, and his grip on my biceps loosened. “Now you should get out of here.” He wrapped an loosened. “Now you should get out of here.” He wrapped an arm around my shoulders as he tried to steer me away from Tamara and the fence. “Come on. I’l take you home and cal about the warrant on the way.”