Grave Dance

I called Caleb on my way to the Magic Quarter to meet Rianna, but he didn’t answer his cell. I didn’t like the idea of walking into the Bloom alone, but Tamara was working late and I wasn’t going to call Holly. That left me with only one other person.

“Thanks for meeting me here,” I said as Roy popped into existence in the passenger seat of my car. A ghost for backup in Faerie probably wasn’t much backup at all, but he was the best I had. If nothing else, at least he was a second pair of eyes.

“Hey, no problem. It’s not like I have a lot of better prospects to haunt,” he said, folding his hands behind his head. “So, what’s on the agenda? A little breaking and entering? Some undercover work? Or just a little good old spying?”

I pulled into a metered spot a couple of blocks from the Bloom—that was as close a parking spot as I could find. “Actually we’re going to meet with an old friend of mine.” I paused, my hand still on the stick shift. There was an issue with bringing Roy along that I hadn’t thought of before now. “I’m meeting Rianna.”

“Uh, no.” By “manifest,” Roy meant he wanted me to pump him with enough energy to make him physical in the land of the living. The first time I’d done it he’d punched Rianna. At the time that had been a good thing, as she’d still been under Coleman’s control and on the opposite side, but Roy had deeper reasons to hate Rianna—she’d been involved in his death. Unwilling though she might have been, Roy was having a hard time forgiving his murderer. I guess I couldn’t blame him. “Try to play nice,” I said, giving him a pleading smile.

His fists balled by his side, but after a moment he gave me a sharp nod. “Fine.” He stood—straight through my car, which was rather disturbing—and walked to the sidewalk.

He sulked as we walked to the Eternal Bloom, his shoulders slumped and his gaze down. After two attempts to start a conversation with him—which both received only noncommittal sounds in response—I didn’t bother trying to converse with someone that no one else on the street could see. I would make it up to him later. Maybe I’d buy him some Legos—the little blocks were light enough for him to pick up if he concentrated. Roy floated through the main door when we reached the Bloom. I, on the other hand, had to pull it open.

“Hullo, lass. Welcome to the Eternal Bloom,” the bouncer, a red-bearded man perched on the stool in the entry said, his accent thick. “Check all iron items here, and do’na forget to sign the ledger.”

The entry wasn’t large, just a short room with enough space for the bouncer, his stool, and the pedestal with the ledger balanced on top. I saw only one door, but I knew there was another one not accessible to the majority of the bar’s clientele.

As I stepped up to the pedestal and ledger, the short man stood on his stool. Even with the stool’s height, he only reached my chin, but he peered around my shoulder, watching me write my name, and most important, the date and time. I wrote as legibly as possible. I was about to step into a pocket of Faerie—I wanted to make sure I emerged on the same day I entered.

“Ah, a VIP,” the bearded bouncer said once I put my pen away. He puffed on the pipe clenched between his teeth and then blew a smoke ring in the air. The sweet, tobacco scented smoke stung my eyes and tickled my chest. I coughed, waving a hand in front of my face to clear the air. When I blinked away the moisture in my eyes, I found two doors along the back wall where there had been only one before.

Okay, that was a little much. I knew he was mad at Rianna, I got it, but he’d said he’d back me up. He must have seen my thoughts on my face because he shook his head.

I stepped back into the entry, letting the door swing shut, and studied it. Safe? Well, I wouldn’t describe Faerie as safe for anyone, but the fact that he said it felt wrong did concern me. The door was some sort of portal to another place—it might not be safe for Roy. Hell, it might not be safe for me. But that was another story.

I thought back. I’d seen a ghost, or at least a spirit, in the Bloom before. Well, actually I’d sort of created a ghost when I’d jerked the spirit from a dead, animated body of a slaver’s pet grave witch. “I’ve seen ghosts in there,” I told Roy, leaving off the rest of the story.

That wasn’t good. Cemetery gates kept ghosts—and other, rarer forms of the dead—locked inside. Even newer cemeteries typically had a ghost or two, the older ones many more, though the ghosts rarely started their spirit-life in the graveyard. Like some sort of spirit roach motel, the ghosts could enter the cemetery, but they couldn’t leave. While Roy might get annoying once in a while, I definitely didn’t want to get him stuck in Faerie.

“Ghost,” I said by way of explanation, and the little man squinted as if that would help him see the spirit among us. I ignored him, turning my attention back to Roy. “I shouldn’t be long. If I’m not out in an hour or two . . .”

I trailed off. If I wasn’t out soon, what was he supposed to do? He couldn’t come after me, and unless he tracked down another grave witch—and last I’d heard, the closest one not in Faerie was over a hundred miles away—he couldn’t communicate with the living. A ghost really was terrible backup.

I signed another ledger inside the door, again printing carefully. The attendant, a sour-faced fae with long, donkeylike ears and cloven feet, nodded, taking the pen from me and shooing me farther into the Bloom when I would have dawdled in the doorway.

The Eternal Bloom hadn’t changed since the last time I was here. The giant tree growing through the floorboards and blooming with an impossible arrangement of shimmering blossoms dominated the center of the room, its large limbs spreading to form a leaf-and-flower-filled canopy over the tables in the bar. I didn’t stare at the tree long—it had nearly entranced me last time.

In the far corner, a new fiddler had taken the place of the one whose strings I had severed to halt the eternal dance. A small cluster of dancers spun around him, but not yet a third as many as I’d freed during my last visit. I could just barely hear the lively jig the fiddler played over the murmur in the bar, and I moved farther away so I wouldn’t be drawn into the dance.

The crowd in the bar boasted a mix of the grotesque and the beautiful. While some of the patrons either still wore their glamour or were, in fact, human, many were very obviously fae, other. Small, large, winged, floral, too-many-limbed, too-few—they were a dizzying display rarely seen on the streets. While the fae had announced their presence and needed mortal belief, they kept their own counsel more often than not and had no interest in becoming sideshows—not that I blamed them. I let my gaze move quickly, not lingering long enough to cause offense as I searched for Rianna. I spotted her at a small round table at the very back of the room.

She stared at her drink as I approached, never glancing up. Her note had said she needed my help, but she didn’t appear anxious, and certainly not fearful as she sat in the crowded bar. If anything, she looked dejected and worn down. Her narrow, slumped shoulders were thin under the drab gray gown she wore and her skin was pale, sickly. If she was in danger, I would have expected her to be watching the other patrons, to glance nervously from person to person as she scanned the room, or at least to glance at the door once in a while, looking for me, since she’d asked me to meet her here. But she didn’t look up from the wooden mug in front of her, not even as my approach put me only tables away. Of course, maybe she didn’t have to—she’d brought a guard dog.

The huge black dog stepped around the side of the table when I approached. The thick hair on its back stood up, and it glared at me, its black irises ringed with red as if splashed with blood. A low growl tumbled from behind rust-colored teeth.

Rianna’s head snapped up at the sound, her sunken green eyes a little too wide. Then her gaze landed on me, and her thin lips spread into a weak smile. She jumped to her feet.

“Al!” She all but ran around the side of the table. Her arms wrapped around my shoulders, the rough material of her gown scratchy against the skin left bare by my tank top. “I was afraid you wouldn’t come.”

She stepped back. Before I’d seen her inside Coleman’s circle a month ago, I—and the rest of the world—thought she’d died four years back. It turned out she’d been kidnapped and enslaved in Faerie. When I’d destroyed Coleman, the silver chains holding her had dissolved, but she looked no better now than the last time I’d seen her. Roy called her the Shadow Girl, and she truly looked like little more than a shadow of the girl who’d been my best friend in academy. Her grayish skin lacked any rosy hint of health, her once-vibrant red hair now hung listlessly around her shoulders, and her eyes had the haunted look of someone who had seen too much pain and too much evil—which, considering she’d been enslaved to a megalomaniac, she probably had.

“Of course I came,” I said as I stepped back. A pang of guilt that I hadn’t come earlier, that it had taken a plea for help nailed to my porch to get me to the Bloom to see her, wiggled under my skin and whispered what a horrible friend I’d turned out to be. I ignored that voice. “It’s been too long,” I said, smiling. Both the smile and the statement were true—I really was glad to see her. We hadn’t had any time to catch up when I’d seen her last. But even as the words left my mouth, I could feel the awkwardness between us. What do you say to your best friend after she’s been enslaved by a psychopath and presumed dead? I fidgeted with my purse strap. “So, what’s happening? You said you needed help?”

She nodded and led me to the table. The enormous dog continued growling, lower now but no less threatening. He stepped in front of Rianna, blocking her from me with his own body. Rianna cooed at him under her breath. “It’s all right, Desmond. This is the old friend I told you about.”

The dog stared at me, and I felt a trickle of sweat trail down my neck as he caught me in the glare of those redringed pupils. The growl leaking out of Desmond’s throat ceased, but he kept his rust-colored canines exposed.

Her hand moved to the massive dog’s head, and he leaned against her legs, dropping his muzzle in her lap. “No, not a pet. More of a friend turned guardian. This is Desmond. He’s a barghest. Desmond, this is Alex Craft.”

Back at you, buddy. Not that I could say as much out loud. I mumbled a quick “Nice to meet you,” just to be polite. I hadn’t read much about barghests, but I vaguely remembered a tale suggesting that seeing one was a portent of death—not reassuring—but they were fae creatures, or perhaps lesser fae, so polite was the best approach. Not that Desmond seemed inclined to show me the same courtesy. Guess we’ll agree to ignore each other.

I jumped to my feet. “Are you hurt?” I asked, starting around the table. The blood had to be hers. It must have transferred to my hands when I hugged her.

I frowned at the fae dog and then at her again. What’s going on? When Rianna just stared at both of us, I finally returned to my side of the table and sat. We were both stubborn—spending half our lives as roommates during academy had provided plenty of opportunities for our unyielding natures to butt heads. She’d asked me to come and I wanted to hear what she had to say, so for now I sat. Desmond continued to stare over the table at me for several seconds before he sat back on his haunches and laid his head in Rianna’s lap again.

“So if you aren’t hurt, whose blood is this?” I asked as I lifted my purse with one finger. Thankfully the tissue I’d used earlier was still on top of the purse’s contents and I didn’t have to root around and risk getting the blood all over everything.

“The fae are not truly immortal, just unaging. Death for humans is expected, anticipated, and in some ways prepared for. Death among fae is always a shock. They do not prepare for it, and as a culture have few precedents for it. Property and titles are not passed down along family lines because such things are assumed to be owned forever unless traded, gifted, or lost in duels. There are dozens of faerie princes and princesses, but none will rule a court unless they duel or kill for it.”

She motioned me to be patient and continued. “Most duels are held under court supervision. Rules are established before the duel begins, but if it is a duel to the death, the winner takes all: property, titles, possessions, whatever the loser claimed as his own. When a fae is killed outside of a duel, it is less clear what happens to his property. But Faerie, well, sometimes Faerie has its own idea.”

Rianna nodded. “You killed Coleman outside a duel, but because of the magic of that night, we were technically in Faerie. The courts tried to claim Coleman’s property, but thus far, all claims have failed.” She took a deep breath and looked at my hands again. “I wasn’t sure, with how things played out that night, if you would be credited with his death—I mean, the Winter Queen’s knight shot and killed the body Coleman inhabited. But you, well . . . you have Coleman’s blood on your hands, so I think Faerie transferred his property to you.”

A sour taste crawled up my throat, and I swallowed, trying to rid the taste from my suddenly dry mouth. “His blood?” I stared at the red, tacky liquid and then scrubbed my palms on the thighs of my pants, desperate to wipe them clean.

I stared at the gloves and my throat constricted. I had blood on my hands. My eyes burned, my vision clouding over as moisture gathered. I blinked it back. I was angry, and freaked, but I wasn’t going to tear up. I wasn’t. I have a man’s blood on my hands. But he’d been a monster. If I hadn’t stopped him, others would have died.

I took a deep breath. Then another. It took three deep breaths to ease the tightness in my chest enough that I could speak again. I picked up the gloves, sliding them on with slow, careful movements to keep from jerking them on frantically. Then I looked at Rianna.

“I’d guess because this is the first time you’ve come to Faerie since the Blood Moon.” There was no accusation in her words, but I still felt the sting and cringed anyway. One of the few things she’d had time to say to me that night was to ask me to come here, to the Bloom, to see her. I hadn’t.

She wrapped her fingers around her wooden mug and stared at its contents, not meeting my eyes. “Faerie tends to take things more literally than the mortal realm does. When you’re not here, you probably won’t be able to see the blood.”

“You talk about Faerie like it’s sentient. It’s a place.” The fabric of her dress rustled as she shrugged. “Faerie is . . . It just is. I wouldn’t say the land is exactly a being, but it is certainly full of very old magic, which appears to have grown aware, for lack of a better word.”

We both looked at my now covered hands. Then she pressed her lips together and nodded. “Like I said, the courts tried to claim it, but all of his former holdings moved to a type of no-man’s-land, outside any of the courts’ control. They are incensed, to say the least, particularly the Winter Queen, as she thought her knight had claimed it for her. You should come to Faerie and see if the holding responds to you.”

Mention of the “queen’s knight” again—Falin. I made it a point not to think about him, or about the fact that he’d never called or made any attempt to contact me after the Coleman case. But being back in the Bloom, remembering what had happened here—or more accurately, what had happened after we’d left the Bloom, made heat lift in my cheeks and the ache fresh again. I dropped my elbows on the table and pressed the palms of my hands against my eyes. “I think I need a drink.”

“I have heard rumors. Most are not convinced you are fae enough to hold land in Faerie, but the blood . . . If you’ve eaten faerie food before and left Faerie unscathed, that perhaps proves you are fae enough.”

“Oh.” I shook my head. Everyone knew better than to eat faerie food. One bite of food or sip of wine would addict a mortal for life—she would never be able to eat anything else, as regular food would turn to ash on her tongue. Even if someone had the willpower to leave Faerie, she would eventually starve to death. There were talks about importing regulated faerie food for those who accidentally became addicted, but making fae food available outside Faerie increased the risk that mortals would come in contact with it. Currently there were very few cases of addiction, but it was also very difficult for mortals to get into Faerie, so the chance for accidental exposure was minimal.

Her thin fingers wound around the mug, dragging it closer to her side of the table. I didn’t think she was aware of the motion. She believes I can claim land in Faerie but is unconvinced I can eat their food? I felt a smile crawl over my face, but I knew it wasn’t a happy one. I wasn’t about to take the chance of getting addicted anyway.

“Whoa, slow down.” I threw up my hands. “I don’t want to claim Coleman’s holdings. They can rot for all I care. And I’m certainly not going to align myself with a court.”

Rianna’s frown stretched across her face, and if possible, her shoulders slumped further. “Al,” she said, her voice just above a whisper, “I’m part of Coleman’s property.”