Grave Dance (Alex Craft, #2)(71)

A hand wrapped around my arm, jerking me back. “This is what you consider keeping your head down?” Falin asked in a voice that had turned gravel y with anger. “Do you want to be dragged off to Faerie? Because if that’s you want to be dragged off to Faerie? Because if that’s your goal, I can take you there myself.”

I blinked at him and then my gaze snapped back to the scene beyond the fence. “She wasn’t supposed to die.” Or at least it hadn’t looked like she was supposed to die.

“What? What are you talking about? Jeez, Alex, your eyes are glowing like lanterns.” Falin lifted his hand as if blocking a glare and green light reflected off his pale skin.

Light from my eyes.

I didn’t have time to worry about that.

“He took her and she wasn’t dead yet.” I pointed at the knot of skimmers, but no one except me realized the woman was dead—apparently not even her own body noticed it was now unoccupied.

The col ector—or reaper, as Roy had cal ed him and maybe that was a more appropriate name—looked down at the souls he clutched. He stil hadn’t vanished the man, whose screams had given way to begging. The woman’s soul just looked confused, as if she stil didn’t understand.

Then the reaper vanished, taking the souls with him.

The woman’s body final y col apsed, hitting the ground without her ever making a sound.

A frenzy had already stirred the crowd outside the gate, but now it lifted to a new pitch, bordering on chaos. With two bodies on the ground, the police didn’t have to wait for warrants. They stormed the lot, pul ing the skimmers away from the rift by force, dragging them when they wouldn’t cooperate.

The skimmers might have been blissed out of their minds from contact with the Aetheric, but they noticed being dragged from the source. They struggled, screaming, fighting, and cursing. Fil ed with raw magic, their curses and their very anger, took shape. As an officer attempted to restrain one woman, a black and red cloud of unfocused rage lifted out of her and engulfed him. The officer jumped back, beating at his arms and chest as if swatting dozens of stinging insects. Another officer fel to his knees, of stinging insects. Another officer fel to his knees, grasping his throat as a sludgelike bubble of magic encased his head.

The anti??black magic unit officers were better prepared. Their personal wards and charms helped them shrug off the unfocused spel s, and now that the skimmers were using magic against them, they retaliated in kind. The first skimmer went down, unconscious under a spel . Then another. A third one got caught in a circle.

The remaining skimmers glanced at each other, and then scattered, Bel among them. Three officers went after the large man, and he turned. Magic pooled in his palms. A lot of magic.

“Look out,” I yel ed a moment before Bel flung the raw magic at the closest officer. Not that anyone besides Falin heard me.

The officer might have been warded against a lot of different spel s, but nothing can ward you against an assault of raw Aetheric energy. It slammed into his chest, knocking him off his feet, and the smel of burned flesh spread over the lot. Bel ran for the river and threw himself into the current. The officers chasing him stopped at the edge of the rushing water, the beams of their flashlights skittering over the choppy surface.

“He’s gone,” Falin said, shaking his head.

I scanned the water, waiting for Bel to surface for air. He didn’t. “Think he survived?”

“The current isn’t too dangerous here.”

True, and Bel had gone into the water absolutely bristling with magic. With that much raw Aetheric energy at his disposal, who knew what he was capable of? Unless the overload had completely addled his brain, which was possible. One way or another, he was gone and the skimmers’ claim on the crime scene was broken.

Four people left the vacant lot in body bags, nine more in Four people left the vacant lot in body bags, nine more in ambulances, and five in handcuffs. The rest of the skimmers escaped.

“It’s a little higher,” I said from where I stood outside one of the ambulances. “Like a cloud around his head and torso.”

The man in question groaned as another pus-fil ed blister burst open in an angry welt on his forehead. The healer leaning over him lifted his hands a couple of inches and glanced at me. I nodded to let him know he was now in the center of the cloud.

“Can you sense what color strands of Aetheric were used?” he asked.

I didn’t have to sense it. I hadn’t closed my shields, so I could actual y see the mottled miasmic cloud of magic, though that wasn’t a fact I was sharing. “Red, but it’s dark, so more than one color. Primarily red, though.”

The healer nodded and turned toward his patient again.

His fingers trembled, and he clenched his hands. His Adam’s apple wobbled as he swal owed, but then he forced his fingers straight again and nodded as if he’d come to some conclusion. His eyelids drooped as his gaze focused inward, and a thin string of energy appeared between his hands.

The string grew slowly, snaking almost unobtrusively through the cloud of magic. I watched, monitoring the curse.

The healer’s gently glowing spel wove through the mist, building a spiderweb of green channels. The curse final y noticed and a tendril of magic shot out the side.

“The cloud is dividing. The new section is pooling over his thighs.”

The healer spread his arms, making the thread of magic stretch. Muscles twitched in his face with the strain, but he kept the flow of magic even until his slowly building tapestry of magic disrupted the structure of the curse. The destructive mist shattered.