Grave Dance (Alex Craft, #2)(61)

“Did you hire a maid?” Falin asked as he stopped in the doorway of my apartment.

I hadn’t walked much farther than the threshold myself.

The bed, which I’d put sheets on this morning, but nothing more, was now made, with a comforter I hadn’t seen since last winter tucked in and turned down. The clothes that usual y lived in a pile in front of my dresser were gone, and the books I’d left precariously stacked on different surfaces in the room were now lined up neatly on my bedside table.

The dishes in the sink were missing, and PC, who was bouncing at my knees, had a large pink bow in the thin crest of hair on the top of his head.

“Who was here?” I asked the dog as I scooped him up from the floor. I attacked the bow one-handed. Someone had come in my house. Had entered my space, violated the masculinity of my dog, and . . . and . . . cleaned?

I couldn’t get the bow loose. Picking up on my agitation, Falin stepped forward to try to help. Of course, three adultsized hands trying to attack one very smal bit of twine adultsized hands trying to attack one very smal bit of twine securing the bow didn’t actual y help. PC squirmed in my arms, also not happy about the situation.

“You hold him. I’l get the bow,” I said, shoving the dog at Falin.

“I take it you didn’t request your house cleaned?” Falin asked, his voice a whisper near my ear as I leaned over PC.

“Of course not. I—” I stopped because I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. A mug jumped out of the dish drainer and headed across my kitchen floor. I threw open my mental shields as the mug hopped up to the counter and the cabinet opened.

As my grave-sight fil ed my vision, the bow under my fingers rotted, the fibers fraying and the twine holding it in place eroding to nothing. But across the room, in my little kitchenette, I caught sight of a smal round figure as it jumped to the bottom shelf of the cabinet and used stubby arms to careful y set the mug next to the rest. Green quil like hair trailed down the creature’s back, over the counter, and fel almost to the floor.

“Ms. B?” I cal ed, which made the smal brownie turn. She hopped to the counter, then down to the floor.

“Just finishing here,” she said as she scurried across to the other counter. She grabbed another mug out of the dish drainer and headed back for the cabinet.

I stared for a moment, feeling strangely disconnected.

Then I stumbled toward the bed, which in my grave-sight sagged under the rags covering a mattress with exposed springs. “I think I need to sit down,” I mumbled.

Falin caught my wrist as I reached the bed, and tugged me upright when I would have sunk onto the sagging mattress.

“Don’t you think you should . . .” He pointed at my eyes.

Right, I didn’t want my apartment rotting away around me.

I closed my shields, annoyed at the sudden darkness pressing around me. Only then did I sink down onto the pressing around me. Only then did I sink down onto the bed. I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes and said, “I’m guessing Rianna sent you?”

“That she did,” Ms. B’s surprisingly ful voice said from the kitchen. “Came to find you and discovered cream on the doorstep but no one keeping the house.”

I heard her bare feet scurrying over the hardwood floor, and then the bed shifted as she jumped up beside me. I opened my eyes to find her looking over the dingy and rotted bow that my magic had destroyed. It was large enough that she used both of her smal hands to grip the frayed material, and the way her lip protruded made me feel guilty about destroying the damn thing.

“The house looks great, Ms. B,” I said, because I suddenly felt like I had to say something and I couldn’t apologize for the bow.

She looked up and tucked the bow in the leather belt cinching her burlap dress. She waved a hand through the air as if to dismiss my implied thank-you and then looked up at me. “The girl said you’d have a message.”

I nodded, guessing that “the girl” was Rianna. “Tel her to meet me at Central Precinct tomorrow evening at six thirty.”

“Consider it told.” She hopped off the bed, her hair twitching as it trailed after her. When she reached the door, she jumped, turned the knob, and then saw herself out.

I stared at the door for a long moment after it closed.

“So, a brownie,” Falin said, walking around the side of the bed. “You want to explain how you befriended a brownie?”

“Not real y.”

He looked at me, leaning back with his thumbs hooked in his pockets, and I glanced away. I flipped on the TV to have something else to focus on. Lusa’s face showed up, but she clearly wasn’t in the studio. What is she up to now?

Hopeful y something that would pul attention off me. I walked over and turned up the volume.

“—we’re approaching the anomaly now. Ted, can you

“—we’re approaching the anomaly now. Ted, can you focus on that?” She pointed and the camera focus zoomed over her head.

The scene was dark. Wherever she was broadcasting didn’t have many lights, and I could just make out the shadowy shapes of tree limbs. As the camera zoomed, I caught the glint of moonlight off a reflective surface. Water?

A bad feeling crept into my stomach.

“Are you getting it?” Lusa’s voice asked from somewhere offscreen, and the camera zoomed more. “Okay, folks at home, I don’t know if you can see this, but it appears that we’re looking at another tear into the Aetheric. The one we saw two days ago was bursting with raw power, but this one has only a couple of wisps coming through. This thing is huge.”