Grave Visions (Alex Craft, #4)(70)

“You failed to mention the reaper in there,” Roy sputtered as soon as he was in yelling range. “I’m not going to go advertise I exist and get sent on to the hereafter.”

Crap. Roy called all soul collectors reapers, as in Grim Reaper. And if a collector was there, the kids were about to die.

I took off at a run. As Falin couldn’t hear Roy, he hadn’t been anticipating my sudden dash and his surprise bought me a several-yard head start. Add in the fact he had to contend with the heat from the glamoured fire, and he didn’t have a chance of stopping me. Nor did the firemen and cops yelling behind me.

I passed the charred wound that had once been the front door and then slowed. Ahead I could see hints of yellow glinting through chinks in the wall, but I couldn’t see the collector—the wall was still too intact. Let it be Death. If the collector was Death, he would listen to me. Let me try to save the kids. One of the other collectors? I was far less confident.

I needed to hurry. That said, I really didn’t want to get buried alive if the house collapsed. After all, the fire was still raging, even if I couldn’t see it.

Maybe if I could get the collector’s attention? I opened my mouth to call out, but then stopped. I didn’t have a single name to call out with—not even for Death. And the collectors were unlikely to respond to the monikers I’d given them. No, I’d have to make it to that room.

I glanced around. Sooty ash drifted from the ceiling above me and crumbled down the walls. The question was, how much of what I could see reflected mortal reality. Walking into a wall that was decayed in the land of the dead but still solid in reality would not only hurt, it could cause a deadly collapse. But if I sealed my shields so I saw only the mortal plane, I’d also see—and more important, feel—the fire. And that was assuming I’d be able to see anything at all with my shields closed.

I chewed at my bottom lip. I had an extra shield I’d spent the last few months erecting. In my mind’s eye, I saw it as a bubble around my psyche, as clear as glass but nearly impenetrable. It helped me gaze across planes without touching and merging them. But if I dropped that shield . . . I might cut a swath across reality, leaving a trail of other planes in my wake, but I’d be able to move through the house trusting my eyes—if I stumbled into something that reality disagreed with, my power would weave the planes so what I saw existed.

Probably.

I’d never actually tested that theory. Usually if I merged planes, I did it accidentally.

“I hope this works,” I muttered, popping the dome shield.

The wind from the other side of the chasm picked up, stirring the ash around me in a small whirlwind. The house creaked. I tensed. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.

When the house didn’t topple down onto my head, I took a tentative step forward. Nothing changed, and I let out the breath I’d been holding. Just get to the kids, Alex.

With that less than stellar mental pep talk, I began picking my way through the rubble, moving as quickly as I dared. The shields in my charm bracelet still held, buffering me from some of the torrent of realities around me, but with my main shield cracked and my dome popped, the grave pricked at me, distant corpses calling to my wyrd magic. Color also washed over the world, the Aetheric plane attempting to push into reality. I pointedly ignored both as hard as possible, focusing on the building.

I stumbled twice. The house quaked as reality shifted and the wall I tumbled into crumbled down to what I saw in the land of the dead. Maybe this wasn’t the best plan. But, if the ceiling did fall, it would disintegrate around me—hopefully before crushing me.

I finally reached the oddly intact wall. It wasn’t just one wall, but an entire room, complete with door. I paused before reaching for the handle. The door looked ready to fall off its hinges in my sight, but something had preserved this section of house, and I was guessing it was in a lot better shape than my gravesight indicated. If I pulled this small intact section into contact with what I saw across the chasm, I might destabilize the whole house. While I had a decent chance of surviving a small collapse, the structure would not crumble harmlessly around the kids.

Which meant I needed my shield back.

It took precious seconds to erect the shield. Through the rotted door, I could see one of the yellow glows dimming—I didn’t have much time. As soon as the bubble formed around my psyche, I grabbed the doorknob and twisted, throwing open the door.

The room beyond was a small bathroom, and while it was hard to be sure in my gravesight, it appeared that it hadn’t taken so much as smoke damage. A teenage girl huddled in the large claw-foot tub in the corner of the room. Molly. She clutched a smaller figure to her, who I was guessing had to be the three-year-old the neighbor had mentioned. Sam hid under a blanket, which almost completely concealed him so that if my gravesight hadn’t shown it as moth-eaten and rotted, it would have masked the glow of his soul. The boy glowed a brilliant yellow in the gaps of the blanket, but his older sister’s glow was dull, dwindling.

Death waited beside the tub.

He looked up as I burst into the room. Then his eyes closed, his head sagging. “You shouldn’t be here, Alex.”

“Don’t,” I said, stepping toward the tub. “Let me take them out.”

The girl’s head snapped up at the sound of my voice. Her wide eyes were sunken, as if she’d suffered a long sickness, her voice weak as she opened her mouth and screamed. The boy in her arms hunched lower, tucking himself against her without turning to look at the new potential danger.