Grave Dance (Alex Craft, #2)(102)

“It’s a crazy idea,” I told PC between wheezing breaths.

He looked up at me with his big brown very freaked-out eyes. The sound of the skimmers crashing through the underbrush was getting closer. I had to get moving again.

I headed toward the sound of running water. Tricking a carnivorous horse who liked to drown and eat people who climbed on her back was a crazy idea. But I didn’t have any better ones.

Once I reached the riverbank, I pul ed my dagger and pressed the point into the flesh of my finger. The last cut hadn’t even healed yet, and here I was bleeding into the river again. I only hoped her curiosity would get the better of her and she would answer.

I stood on the bank, shivering and waiting with the bridle clutched behind my back for what felt like a long time. Every sound from the wood made me turn, expecting to see the skimmers rushing toward me. Then the water swirled as a large dark head emerged.

“You do taste tempting,” she said, her large nostrils flaring as she inhaled my scent. “Have you changed your mind? Care for a ride?”

“Actual y, yes.”

The horse blinked at me. I hadn’t spent a lot of time The horse blinked at me. I hadn’t spent a lot of time around horses, only one summer when my father sent Casey and me to camp, so I wasn’t familiar with al of their expressions. I hadn’t realized that a horse could project pleased surprise, maybe even anticipation. She swam for the bank and then climbed up onto the damp sand. I’d forgotten quite how big she was until I found myself staring at an eye-level flank.

She leaned forward, stretching her front legs and lowering herself. “Climb on.”

Okay, this is it. I stepped forward, reaching for her thick neck. Then I tossed the bridle over her head. Malik had said as long as I tossed it, it would catch her.

It worked.

The kelpie screamed, a loud, equine yel of fury. “Release me this instant.”

“A favor, and I wil let you go.”

Her dark eye rol ed in the socket, focusing on me, and she whipped her large head around like a dog shaking out his coat. Water and seaweed flung off her, hitting me, but I didn’t release the reins.

After a moment, she huffed and turned her head toward me. “Name your request.”

Now the tricky part. I had to get the wording right or she’d find a loophole, which she would probably exploit as on opportunity to eat me.

Goon One, or maybe Goon Two—hard to say which, stepped out of the forest beside me. Damn, out of time.

“I request a ride for myself and my dog, above the water.

You wil carry us to the old bridge as fast as you can and al ow us to dismount unharmed.” I hoped I hadn’t missed anything.

“Fine.”

The kelpie lowered her front legs again and I scrambled onto her back as the goon ran toward us. I had time to see him lift a gun. Aim it at me. Then the kelpie went from standing to an unnatural gal op and the world flashed by standing to an unnatural gal op and the world flashed by me.

I clung to the reins with one hand, my purse and PC with the other, and kept my knees pressed hard against the kelpie’s sides. I’d never ridden bareback, and I expected to fight to keep my seat, but the kelpie’s scales were sticky, holding me in place. Well, how else would she keep her riders locked on her back while she drowned them?

The trees blurred as she gal oped past, and then the giant arch of the bridge loomed ahead of us. She slowed to a canter and then stopped at the base of the bridge. I slid down to my feet, my legs trembling with more than just exhaustion.

The kelpie shook her head and the bridle slid free. She looked at me, and huffed a breath smel ing of rotted fish in my face. Then she turned, stepping into the river.

“You have not made a friend this day, feykin,” she said as she sank under the water.

“I know.” But I didn’t apologize.

She stopped with just her dark eyes and pointed ears above the water. “Perhaps your pursuers wil desire a ride.”

Then she vanished.

Maybe I’d grown jaded, but I couldn’t force myself to care if she ate the goons.

The colectors were waiting for me in the center of the bridge. I didn’t see the cops as I made my way along the bank, but I imagined that wherever they were they could see me. Wonder what they thought of that entrance?

I put PC and my purse under the bridge, tucked away out of sight behind a support pil ar.

“Stay,” I said, pointing at him. He whined, but lay down, the bag shifting with his movement.

If I had to get out of here quickly, it was going to be hard to reach him, but he’d been through a lot tonight. If things to reach him, but he’d been through a lot tonight. If things went badly, I wanted him out of harm’s way.

Death smiled as I climbed the bank, relief making his hazel eyes brighter. I didn’t bother fighting the answering smile that his summoned in me, but joined him and the other two col ectors. The center of the bridge seemed as good a place as any to draw my circle. A circle that I actual y planned to use this time.

“Looks like you made it just in time,” the gray man said, and pointed with the skul that topped his cane.

The water on the far side of the bridge bubbled and whirled as a large shadow expanded under the surface of the river. A giant green head emerged. It looked like the head of an al igator with a long, leathery snout stopping in a flat forehead and thick eye ridges—but the head alone was the size of an al igator.