Grave Dance (Alex Craft, #2)(75)

As Jenson crowded my space, Falin moved to block his path, but I touched his arm, stopping him. This was something Jenson and I had to work out for ourselves. In the years I’d been working with the cops, I’d learned that for some of them, there were only two ways for me to earn any respect: be helpful in putting the bad guys away and be able to hold my own. Jenson had always been one of the former—or so I thought—but if he was swinging toward the latter, Falin running interference for me would only make things worse.

So I stood up straighter, exaggerating the inch or two of height I had on Jenson and tried to minimize my trembling.

Jenson had decided to get in my face, and though I wasn’t about to get in a catfight at a crime scene, I would meet his chal enge.

“That’s a rather ironic insult, al things considered,” I said, my voice low since it didn’t have to carry far at this distance. I let my gaze flicker to one tusk so he knew exactly what I was talking about.

exactly what I was talking about.

The blotchy color fil ing his cheeks flushed a deeper crimson. “You think that’s funny?”

Funny? “I’m not fol owing. Do you have a problem with me?” My newfound heritage? My job? My abilities? What exactly was he lashing out at? Yeah, I’d figured out he was feykin, but it wasn’t like I was going to out him.

“Yeah, I have a problem with you.”

I stared at him, waiting. “Okay. What’s the problem?”

Jenson sneered, his upper lip rol ing back from his tusks.

Then he brushed past me, knocking me with his shoulder hard enough to send me stumbling. I kept my feet under me, but only just barely. What the hell was that about?

I glanced at Falin, who looked just as perplexed as he watched Jenson’s retreating back. Jenson’s issues with my, or maybe his, heritage—or whatever his issue was—

wasn’t a problem I needed to waste energy on tonight.

Time was slipping away from me, the night speedily rushing toward morning. I closed my eyes for a moment, no more than a second, and the world felt like it swayed around me.

Damn. I needed to wrap this up, get home, and get some sleep before I col apsed where I stood—which was starting to feel like a real possibility.

I turned my attention to the tear in reality.

I wasn’t sure what the area looked like if viewed just on the mortal plane, but with my psyche crossing several planes of existence, the scene was a mess. Residual magic hung in the air and pooled on the ground in murky patches. The smel of burned grass stung my nose, and the evidence of a struggle showed both in the way the Aetheric moved around patches of magic it didn’t like and on the ground. Numbered plastic markers littered the area, alerting the techs to evidence that needed to be processed.

Most marked footprints, but here and there I saw a rune drawn in the dirt. Or at least what was left of a rune.

Footprints obscured most, and the one that had drawn my attention on TV had a long tunnel of dirt bisecting it where it attention on TV had a long tunnel of dirt bisecting it where it looked like someone’s heel had been dragged across the ground.

Damn.

I walked closer, trying to find some pattern in what remained of the runes. I felt the residue of the circle as I reached the outer edge, and I stopped before crossing it, letting my senses stretch. Unlike the charms I’d felt in the tent city, the circle definitely held the signature of the witch behind the murders and I shivered at the touch despite the fact that a magical circle was completely neutral magic.

“This is where the witch cast the circle.”

“I guessed that much,” Falin said, and when I glanced at him in surprise, he pointed toward the ground. “That’s where the dead grass starts.”

I blinked and looked around. All the grass was withered and gray in my grave-sight, so I never would have known that if he hadn’t told me. What kind of ritual kills all the grass in the area?

I had no idea, but there was only one thing left to do.

I crossed the edge of the circle.

Crossing someone else’s circle, even one long ago dispel ed, into someone’s ritual space is always a little uncomfortable for a sensitive. The area is almost guaranteed to be saturated with that witch’s magic, and even the trace of beneficial and friendly magic can be overwhelming. Not that I was expecting friendly spel s on the other side of this barrier.

What I expected even less was to find no magic at al , but that was exactly what I found.

I blinked. Over the last few hours I’d grown so accustomed to seeing the world through hazy swirls of Aetheric that their sudden absence was jarring. I glanced behind me. Outside the edge of the circle the Aetheric stil hung over the world, but inside the circle there were only a few thin wisps, like what the skimmers had been drawing from the tear. I’d heard of magical dead spots before, but from the tear. I’d heard of magical dead spots before, but that wasn’t what I was looking at, and I knew it. This was more like depletion. But what kind of spell uses that much energy?

Something major, that was for sure, and whatever it was, I definitely didn’t like it.

I squinted. I wasn’t used to my grave-sight opening multiple planes of existence to me, but I knew there were more planes than I had names for. I occasional y caught glimpses of different planes that didn’t “fit” with the land of the dead or the Aetheric, though those two were my only constants. Now I tried to look for another plane, one that might give me a hint of what had happened in this circle.