The world around me lost the rich hues of life as a gray patina covered everything. My vision doubled as I saw both the land of the dead and the land of the living. In my grave-sight, the trees darkened, withering, their thick green leaves turning brown, and the officers’ clothing decayed, the cloth becoming threadbare and moth-eaten. Under those mottled rags, their souls shimmered bright yellow. I looked away.
Unfortunately, opening my shields exposed me to more than just the land of the dead. The Aetheric—the plane in which raw magic existed—snapped into focus around me in swirls of brilliant red, vivid blues, and every other color imaginable. The magic twisted, tauntingly close, but I ignored the raw energy. It wasn’t supposed to be visible, even with my shields open. Witches didn’t physically interact with the Aetheric plane. It wasn’t possible. Or at least it shouldn’t have been. But I’d been able to see the Aetheric, to reach it, ever since the Blood Moon a month ago.
Being able to do something didn’t mean I should. Or that it was safe.
I ignored the colors, forcing my eyes to focus on the decaying forest as I reached out with my senses, feeling for the grave essence leaking from the dead. And there was no shortage of dead in the floodplain.
The grave essence from a dead doe reached for me like cold wind trying to cut into my skin. And to think I was hot a minute ago. Her remains were no more than fifty yards from where I stood, but I pushed my senses farther, skimming over the traces of small animal bodies and not letting the grave essence sink into my being. I trekked deeper into the floodplain, my magic flowing around me.
The path washed out not far from where the first foot had been found, and the mud made squishing, sucking sounds under my boots until even that gave way to dark water. Foliage, simultaneously healthy and decaying, withered as my gaze moved over it, and I hoped my attention didn’t damage the plants. I’d once crumbled a set of stairs when my powers pushed the land of the dead into reality.
“Anything?” John asked, trudging behind me.
Yeah, lots of things. Small animals mostly. Not exactly what we were looking for. I waved him off and kept walking. The water splashed up to the knees of my waterproof suit as I waded through it, my steps slow, both from the water rushing around me and because I was concentrating on feeling the grave essence while holding it at bay so I didn’t accidentally raise any shades.
Something . . . I turned in a small circle, reaching with my mind, my power. Yes, there was something. My power told me it was touching a body, a human body. Male. And I felt a female too. And . . . two more males?
“This isn’t good.”
John stopped beside me. “You found something?”
“Bodies. And I hope I’m wrong, but I’m sensing four different essence signatures.”
“A fourth victim?”
I wasn’t sure, so I didn’t answer. I wished I could close my eyes and concentrate just on the feel of the bodies, to get a better sense of where they were located, but it was hard enough to navigate the flooded forest with my eyes open. I waded farther in, the water lapping up to my midthighs. I slipped once, and only John’s quick reflexes kept me from landing on my ass in the murky water.
“We might be getting too deep,” John said as one of the officers, the shortest in our group, lost his footing and slipped forward in the current. He dug in his toes and righted himself a moment later.
I shook my head at John. “We’re almost there.” I could feel the bodies just ahead.
The rushing water broke around a fallen tree a couple of yards in front of us. The ancient hardwood’s giant roots stretched out in every direction, dirt still covering them, so the root-ball formed a massive mound. The tree hadn’t fallen in this particular flood—moss covered the mound and saplings clung to the root-packed earth. The grave essence emanated from somewhere around that tree, and not only grave essence but a dark knot of magic.
I stepped closer, searching with both my power and my eyes. Then I saw them.
“Feet.”
“Where?” John asked, looking around.
I pointed. In a hollow near the base of the tree was a neatly stacked pile of bloated and decomposing feet. John’s bushy eyebrows drew together, his mustache twitching downward as he frowned. He mopped sweat off his forehead before tilting his head to the side and giving me a confused look.
He doesn’t see them? I pointed again, but I wasn’t wearing gloves, so I didn’t want to contaminate the scene. Trying to figure out the differences between what I could see and what he could see was impossible while staring over multiple planes of reality, so I closed my mental shields, blocking my psyche from the land of the dead—and whatever other planes it touched. My grave-sight faded. The gray coating of the world washed away, as did the swirls of the Aetheric. And so did the feet.
I blinked as I clasped my shield bracelet back around my wrist. Releasing my grave-sight made dark shadows crawl over my vision—I couldn’t peer across planes without paying a price—but when I squinted I could make out the hollow where I’d seen the feet. An empty hollow. Or, at least, it looked empty, but I could still feel the grave essence and the taint of magic lifting off the dead appendages. The essence raked at my shields like icy claws, trying to sink under my skin, into my mind. I shivered. The feet were definitely there.
“John, we have a problem,” I said, leaning back and trying to shove my hands in my jean pockets—which were blocked by the rubber hip waders. I dropped my hands by my side as everyone looked at me. “There’s a pyramid of feet stacked in that hollow. I counted four and at a guess, they are all lefts.”
One of the uniformed officers stepped forward. He lifted a long sticklike object with a glass bead on the end. Spellchecker wand. He waved the wand over the hollow. The bead flashed a deep crimson to indicate malicious magic, but the glow was dim, the magic only traces of residual spells.
Stepping back, the officer shook his head. “No active spells, sir.”
I stared at the empty-looking hollow. “If they’re not hidden behind a spell, it has to be glamour.”
“Crap,” John said, and turned toward the cop beside him. “Someone get the FIB on the phone. We’ve got a situation.”
The FIB, as in the Fae Investigation Bureau. Glamour was exclusively fae magic, which meant John had just lost jurisdiction.
I slouched in the front of John’s police cruiser, one foot on the dash, one hanging out the open door. I’d rather have been out of the car—or more accurately, out of the floodplain. The FIB had arrived and ruffled the cops’ feathers. In turn, the cops dashed around, trying to look busy. I was just trying to stay out of the way. But being in the car made me claustrophobic. Actually, if I was honest with myself, it was more than that. Ever since the Blood Moon, being locked inside a car made me jumpy and made my skin itch. I had a sinking suspicion the sensation had something to do with the iron content in the metal. No wonder Falin drove that hot plastic convertible.
The thought of Falin Andrews made my gaze twitch toward the rearview mirror and the two FIB agents reflected in it. I’d met Falin a month ago when he’d been working undercover as a homicide detective on the Coleman case. In truth he was a FIB agent—and a fae—and during the course of the case he’d ended up under my covers as well. But I hadn’t heard from him in several weeks. As the two FIB agents approached, I could see there was no shock of long blond hair or a towering swimmer’s build among the agents who’d responded to John’s call. I wasn’t sure yet if I was grateful or disappointed.
“Miss Craft?” A woman in a tailored black power suit approached the car.
Here we go. I nodded, jerking my foot from the dash as I stood.
“I’m Special Agent Nori.” She didn’t extend her hand. “You were the one who found the remains in the hollow?”
Again I nodded, sliding my hands into my back pockets. It had been nearly an hour since I’d released my grave-sight, and my vision was returning to normal, but I still squinted as I studied Agent Nori. She was a couple of inches shorter than me in her fat-heeled pumps, but she stood completely straight, making the most of her height. She wore her dark hair slicked back like shiny black armor and her piercing eyes were set close enough that her sharp features seemed to come to a point in the front of her face. Or at least, that’s what she looked like currently. Being an FIB agent meant she was probably, but not necessarily, fae. What she might look like under her glamour was anyone’s guess. I could have dropped my shields and found out, but one, it would have been rude, and two, and perhaps more important, my eyes glowed when my psyche peered across planes, so she would have been able to tell. I wanted to get out of here without any trouble.
“Can you tell me how you were able to pierce the glamour?” she asked, which was exactly the question I’d feared. Luckily I hadn’t been waiting idly. I’d been planning my answer.
“I was helping the police search for the remains of the . . . remains, by using my grave magic. The glamour didn’t hide the grave essence emanating from the feet.” I left out that I’d been able to see them. Fae didn’t tend to like it when people could see through glamour. You could lose your eyes for less.
She pressed her lips together and jotted something on her notepad. “So you followed this . . . essence? Then what?”
“I tracked where the grave essence originated. I could feel that the body parts were there. That no one else was able to see the feet was a good hint we might be dealing with glamour.” All true—just not all of the truth.
Agent Nori clicked her pen closed. “Miss Craft, when you realized glamour was involved, you didn’t for a moment think it might have been more prudent to inform the FIB rather than let the mortals blunder around the scene?”
I bristled at the insult toward John and his team. I had a lot of friends in the Nekros City Police Department. Placing a hand on my hip, I lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “They hired me.”
“Yes, well, I’m sure they appreciate your help, Miss Craft. Your services will no longer be needed.” She turned, gravel crunching under her pumps as she walked away. A few feet past the car, she glanced back over her shoulder. “You realize, of course, that this means we’ll have to look into the independent fae in the area.” The smile that spread across her face made her brilliantly red lips stretch to flash a lot of white teeth, but it wasn’t a happy smile.