Grave Dance (Alex Craft, #2)(53)

Pul ing up a search browser, I dove into the task of solving those mysteries.

Several hours later, I’d gained a serious crick in my back and learned that the rune I thought looked like health was, in fact, very similar to an archaic version of the rune, though the older version also meant life. Is that the spell that animates the constructs? I’d added the idea to my list of notes on the case—a very short list.

I pushed away from my laptop and stretched. I’d gone through a pot of coffee since I’d started scouring the Net, but my gritty eyes were blurring with exhaustion. I’d even switched gears at one point and searched maps for the kelpie’s “thundering gate.” After al , I had multiple directions from which to attack this case. Finding the kil er would lead me to a counterspel for my friends and it would fulfil my obligation to Malik.

I searched the Net as wel as studied several maps as I looked for the gate. The major interstates passing through Nekros had stylized gates, though they were just decoration, the recent beautification project downtown had added green space, some of which was gated, and even some “art” that looked more like gates than anything else, but none of those were near the river and thus they were not good candidates. Most of the warehouse district had chain-link fence blocking off the river, as did many of the link fence blocking off the river, as did many of the residential areas, but I couldn’t see why they’d be considered “thundering.”

With my muscles cramping and my butt asleep from too many hours in a chair, I final y switched off the computer and gave the research a rest. Time for a little legwork. But first, lunch.

Falin woke as I ransacked my fridge.

“What else did she say?” he mumbled, stil half asleep.

Then his eyes popped open. He glanced at where the afternoon sun stretched across the floor and groaned. “I fel asleep? You should have woken me.”

I shrugged and pul ed a cardboard container of Chinese takeout from the top shelf of the fridge. What day had I ordered it? I didn’t think it was more than a week ago.

“I got some stuff done,” I said, though what I’d actual y done was establish where I wouldn’t find useful information.

Falin joined me at the fridge, his movements smoother and clearly less painful than before he’d fal en asleep. He glanced over the limited contents before plucking the carton of Chinese from my hands.

“Hey!”

He chucked the carton back on the top shelf and shut the fridge door. “I’l buy lunch,” he said. Then cut off my protest with, “I need to stop by my office to grab Nori’s case files.

We can grab lunch afterward.”

“I have a lead to fol ow up on as wel .” Okay, what I had was a plan to drive around town near the Sionan and search for a gate, but it was kind of a lead. “We should divide and conquer.”

“You think I’m letting you out of my sight? Alex, you’re a magnet for trouble, though, in the trouble’s defense, you go out looking for it. What with tearing holes in reality in the middle of populated streets and wandering the wilds using raw meat to draw out a fae wel known for tearing people to shreds and eating them, it’s a wonder you’re not completely entangled in trouble.” He shook his head.

entangled in trouble.” He shook his head.

Like he was in any shape to help me should “trouble”

come cal ing. Though I guess his point was to prevent the situations I occasional y—Not typical y! Real y!—stumbled into. Before I had a chance to respond, he continued.

“Besides,” he said, “I need your car.”





Chapter 16


As it turned out, Falin did let me out of his sight, and at his own insistence. He requested that I wait in the car while he ran inside his office, so I sat in my own car, in the mid-August heat, glowering. Granted, his reasoning was sound.

Letting on to Nori that Falin and I were friends probably wasn’t in anyone’s best interest, but I couldn’t help feeling that our very association was a secret he didn’t want his fae acquaintances to know. Hey, girls have feelings.

When he returned he carried only a single distressingly thin folder. It was my car, so I was driving, but with the case file so close, I was tempted to hand off my keys. I didn’t. I’d seen Falin drive before, and I didn’t trust him behind the wheel of my car.

“So what does it say?”

“I’m stil on the first page, Alex,” he said, his head bent over the file as I drove.

He tore two pages from the file, folded them, and shoved them in his pocket. I twisted in my seat, never actual y taking my eyes off the road, but only just barely.

“What was on those pages?”

“Court business.”

Right. As in none of my business. Why was he real y here? I didn’t know.

He’d finished reading the file by the time we reached the restaurant. I debated driving through to save time, but I wanted to get my hands on the file before he changed his mind and decided not to share. Folding myself into one of the uncomfortable particleboard booths that tended to the uncomfortable particleboard booths that tended to populate al fast-food chains, I pored over the file, barely noticing the chicken nuggets I ate while I read.

The main thing I learned was that Nori couldn’t document worth a damn, and unless she’d left out a lot—or the two pages Falin removed had contained the useful information