I just have to keep it that way.

I'd have to wait to check out the tear after the commotion died down. If it dies down. I sighed, fed and walked PC, then called Holly to check on her. They were holding her in the hospital overnight for a sleep study, but if nothing unusual happened, she was scheduled to be released in the morning. I wasn't sure if that was good or bad news. I was about to head downstairs and visit Caleb when Roy appeared in the center of my room.

"Alex, you aren't going to believe this," he said, his shimmering form all but vibrating with his excitement. "That guy you sent me to follow, Maximillian Bell? He just claimed responsibility for a tear in reality."

Chapter 18.

Wait, Roy-slow down," I said both to give myself a second to absorb his words and because the excited ghost looked like he might flit back into the deep realms of the land of the dead at any moment. "Which tear? The one at the Lenore Street Bridge?"

Roy scrunched his face around his thick-framed gla.s.ses. "I'm not sure where. A phone call came in, and then everything happened in a flurry. At first I thought I'd missed something. That his men had nabbed you despite his instructions to follow you discreetly-"

That would have been good to know before now. "-But then Bell and a bunch of his followers-that school is a cult, by the way-piled into cars and drove down to the river."

"That has to be the same tear Lusa found." I rolled from my heels to the b.a.l.l.s of my feet. So Bell was on the scene. And claiming the tear? "Roy, did you actually see Bell rip the tear into the Aetheric?"

The ghost shook his head, pushing his gla.s.ses farther up his nose when they slipped forward. "He got the call, hurried to the site, and then told the reporter and the officials that the tear was his possession and on his land, so they were trespa.s.sing."

"So Bell might not have had any idea the tear was there until Lusa ran her report." Which made a lot more sense. After all, if he could rip a hole in reality on his own, why would he have approached me? Unless he found someone else to do it.

But who?

"Did you see another ghost at the scene?" I asked, remembering the figure I'd spotted in Lusa's footage, the one Falin hadn't been able to see. "Probably a man with dark hair. It looked like he was wearing some sort of trench coat?"

"You mean the reaper?" the ghost asked, and his form shimmered out of focus as he shivered. "Yeah. That's why I got the h.e.l.l out of there."

A soul collector? The collectors were a secretive bunch. I'd "known" Death most of my life, but in truth, I didn't know anything about him or the other collectors-I didn't even know his name. What was a collector doing walking around a hole into the Aetheric?

Lusa was no longer on the screen of my TV, most likely because Bell had kicked her off his property. The studio reporter rerolled Lusa's footage of the tear, keeping his own running commentary as he pointed out parts of the tape. He paused to enlarge the shot when the cameraman had zoomed in on the tear, and a symbol scratched into the dirt caught my attention.

"Is that a rune?" I stepped closer, squinting as I all but shoved my nose against the screen trying to make out the small shapes in an already overzoomed image. The symbols sure looked like runes, but the magnification had degraded the image quality to the point that someone could have drawn a tic-tac-toe board in the dirt and it probably would have looked like a rune.

I leaned back as the camera panned. Then a clump of pixels at the bottom of the screen jumped out at me. "That's definitely a rune." It was that same d.a.m.n rune I'd spent half the morning staring at because it looked familiar but I couldn't place.

"Got you," I said, jabbing my finger against the TV screen.

Roy hunkered down beside me and looked from where my finger pressed against the screen to my face. He shoved his gla.s.ses farther up his nose again. "Alex, are you talking to the TV?"

"Not at all." I jumped to my feet, unable to stay still any longer. The rune proved that the tear and the constructs were connected. Maybe they weren't from the same ritual, but they were definitely cast by the same witch or coven of witches-the chance that two unconnected witches would suddenly start casting unheard-of spells using the same rare runes was too unlikely. "This is the break we need."

"Would 'we' include me?" Roy asked, floating beside me as I paced. "Because if it does, I'm lost."

"I'm thinking out loud, but sure, 'we' can include you." I grabbed my purse and dug out the page of runes. "We've only had the end results of the witch's spells thus far. First there were the feet filled with dark magic. Then the constructs that left only a spelled disk behind. We knew the two were created by the same person or group because the magic felt the same, but we haven't been able to get anywhere with the remains of the spells. But this rune"-I pointed to the fourth rune down on the page-"was cut into the dirt around that tear. Whoever ripped that tear has to be responsible for the other two as well, but now we have a crime scene. There has to be something at that site that will lead back to the caster." And I wasn't there. I glanced at the TV but a commercial was currently playing. "Roy, can you go check out the scene? Let me know what's going on?"

"With that reaper there? No way." He fanned his hands out away from his body to accent his no. "Being a ghost might not be the best gig in the world, but I have no idea what happens after the reapers nab you. The devil you know and all that."

"Right, the soul collector," I said, pacing again without really hearing the rest of what Roy said. "Why is he there? Does he have a part in this? The collectors take that . . . soul mist . . . that appears when the constructs are disbelieved. Does he provide that?" But why would he? Why would a collector be involved at all? "He might just be pa.s.sing through."

I dug my phone out of my purse. I needed to update Falin on the runes. He'd need to make sure the area was treated as a crime scene-especially if Bell had claimed ownership and had his people tromping through the place. I woke the phone but then hesitated as I pulled up the address book. I didn't actually have Falin's phone number. My phone had been destroyed by the time we'd started working together on the Coleman case, and I hadn't replaced it until after Falin had disappeared. Come to think of it, I hadn't seen him use a phone since he reappeared, so I wasn't even sure he had one on him. d.a.m.n.

I shook my head and dropped the phone back in my purse. "I have to go to the scene."

But Falin was right-I did not want to draw Faerie's attention. If there was some other planeweaver out there ripping holes in reality, the courts could drag him or her away. I needed to stay far from the tears. And even if I wanted to go, how would I get to the scene? It was dark, so I couldn't drive. Besides, Falin had my car.

But what about the case? And Holly? And Caleb-who wouldn't be protected by anything but his wards tonight. Wards that this morning's adventure proved were easy enough for the spell to circ.u.mvent.

I chewed my lip and walked over to the TV again. They were replaying the same clip I'd already seen twice. I didn't need to see the tear's discovery again. I needed to see what was happening at the scene right now. One of Lusa's "Breaking News" bulletins would be great. Of course, I guess she'd already done that.

The anchorman rolled the film where the collector crossed in front of the tear, his features out of focus. What was he doing there?

"Okay, that's it. I'm going to the scene." There had to be a crowd by now. I would just try to blend in.

Picking up my phone, I hit the second number on my speed dial and then turned the speaker on while it rang. As I waited, I twisted my shoulder-length curls up on top of my head, then secured-and covered-them with a cap that read WITCHITUDE across the front. As far as disguises went, it was weak, but much more and I'd look like I was trying to hide. I'd just tucked the last of my escaped curls under the cap when a groggy-sounding female voice answered the phone.

"Alex? You woke me at four this morning. I'm trying to catch up those hours, plus I had a day full of dead bodies with no cause of death and I . . ." Tamara said, and then her bed squeaked as if she'd sprung to her feet. "Wait. Did something happen? Is Holly-?"

"She was fine when I talked to her last. She's staying at the hospital for observation tonight. But something did happen, and I need a favor, and, uh, a ride."

"Do we know which side of the bridge the tear is located on?" Tamara asked as we headed south toward Lenore Street.

I shook my head. The Lenore Street Bridge wasn't a high-traffic pa.s.s. The Sionan River separated the skysc.r.a.pers and booming metropolis of downtown Nekros City from the Magic Quarter and the Witches Glen, but the Lenore Street Bridge was in the southern part of the city. On the western side of the Sionan-the Quarter side-Lenore Street was practically a country road, since the suburban sprawl hadn't yet spread that far south. On the eastern side-the city side-Lenore Street was a fairly minor road in the warehouse district. It certainly wasn't a street I traveled often.

"We'll look for the crowd." And there was bound to be one. Witch Watch had been replaying Lusa's footage for the last hour, so aside from the media frenzy guaranteed to flock to the site, gawkers had probably gathered by now. There were always gawkers. Several law enforcement agencies would descend on the new tear as well, even if they hadn't realized the site was a crime scene-and though I couldn't yet prove a crime had taken place there, I had no doubt that Tamara or I would pick up the magical signature from the witch responsible for the recent murders. Finding the right location wouldn't be an issue.

I was right. Empty cars dotted the side of the road as we neared the river, and by the time the old steel bridge came into view, the crowd gathered on the other side was easy to spot.

"I guess I should have parked on the gra.s.s," Tamara said, drumming her thumbs against the steering wheel as traffic stopped, stranding us in the center of the bridge.

"I'm sure we won't be stopped long. See, we're already moving again." Okay, it was more like crawling, but at least we were moving.

I squinted as I tried to make out anything in the shadows on the far side of the bridge. My gla.s.ses were in my purse and I dug them out. They tended to help with the blurriness that plagued my sight after a ritual, but they couldn't do much for my night blindness. Still, it couldn't hurt to try. I shoved the gla.s.ses on my face and leaned forward. Then I jumped as Roy materialized on the console between Tamara and me.

"Okay, that wasn't the spot I was aiming for," he said, glancing down at the gearstick pressed against his inner thigh. "This isn't a stick shift, is it? She's not going to change gears on me, is she?"

"Like you'd feel it if she did, but no. It's an automatic."

"Alex?" Tamara's voice sounded concerned, but I couldn't see her clearly through Roy's shimmering form. I smiled in her direction anyway. She couldn't see the ghost, so she wouldn't have trouble seeing me.

"Roy's back," I told her before focusing on the ghost again. "So, did you see anything important?" I asked. It had taken some coaxing-he was still unnerved about almost running into the soul collector near the tear earlier-but I'd talked him into doing some reconnaissance for me.

I was hoping for news about what was happening closer to the tear, but Roy was still staring at the gearshift precariously close to his crotch.

"Uh, Alex. I can definitely feel that gearshift. And the console."

"Oh, for crying out loud." I pushed the seat belt off my chest and twisted in my seat until my shoulders were cattycorner to the pa.s.senger-side door. As soon as my bare shoulder lost contact with Roy, the gearshift slid harmlessly through his shimmering leg.

Roy released a relieved breath and let his head roll back as if he'd been spared unspeakable torture. "You should warn me before you do that."

I rolled my eyes. "Hey, you're the one who materialized touching me. Not my fault."

Once upon a time, when the highlight of any week in academy was a visit from Death in which he let me experiment with making objects tangible to him, I'd actually had to focus to accomplish things like letting him interact with a mug of coffee. Not anymore. Now if I had physical contact with something, anyone-or any being-touching me could interact with the item as well. Alex Craft, the nexus at which realties converge-lucky me.

"So, anything?" I asked Roy again.

"Huh? Oh, yeah. Bad news. Bell has private security and barricades. He's not letting anyone but his inner circle near the rift."

"d.a.m.n."

"What's wrong, Alex? d.a.m.n what?" Tamara asked as the car crawled off the bridge. Traffic had improved marginally in that Tamara no longer had to sit on the brake, but she wasn't using any gas either. I related what Roy had told me and Tamara clicked her tongue. "I swear, if I rolled out of bed just to stand three hundred yards from that tear, I'm going to be p.i.s.sed."

She wasn't the only one.

The taillights in front of us flashed red, and Tamara sighed. To our right, blue lights strobed in the dark, illuminating the crowd milling outside a tall chain-link gate. News vans hugged the perimeter, shining bright spotlights at the gate, but Roy was right: no one was being permitted inside.

"Roy, can you go out for another look? Also can you try to find out what Bell and his people plan to do with the tear?"

"Nope. I've done my brave deeds for the night. That reaper was still out there the last time I checked." He crossed his arms over his incorporeal chest. "I'm staying with you. Unless the reaper comes over here. Then, I guess, I'll go hang out at my grave, or something. As far as Bell is concerned, when I was out there a few minutes ago he and his followers were huddling around that rift."

Great. I'd been afraid they would be. That was where I'd seen the runes. I could only hope they weren't trampling all over the evidence of the ritual.

Our snail's pace finally led to a gravel lot a block down the road. We parked and headed back toward the bridge-the walk back didn't take half the time the drive had. Roy followed, his hands balled in the front pockets of his shimmering jeans, but his head snapped back and forth as if he thought a collector might descend on him at any moment. When we crossed Lenore he lost his nerve completely.

"I'll catch back up with you later," he said. Then he vanished without waiting for me to say good-bye.

I tugged the bill of my cap down and avoided meeting anyone's gaze as Tamara and I reached the edge of the gathered crowd. Not that anyone was looking around the crowd-everyone wanted to see the tear.

"So you have a plan to get us to the front of this crowd, not to mention behind that gate?" Tamara asked as we joined the onlookers.

I shrugged. "I met Bell once."

"Yeah? And did you get on well enough that he's likely to let us pa.s.s?" The tone she used betrayed the fact that she antic.i.p.ated a no, and I didn't need to reflect on my short conversation with Bell in his limo to know she was right.

Tamara stood on her toes, her neck straining as she peered around the shoulders of the people in front of us. In my boots, I was as tall as or taller than all but the tallest men in the crowd, so I didn't have to strain to see over people like Tamara did. I strained to see, period, though the media and security lights helped.

Bell had obviously intended to invest in some sort of industrial enterprise, but judging by the vacant lot, he had never gotten around to moving forward with the project. A nine-foot chain-link fence ringed the property, but it was an old fence, rusted and dilapidated. One section of it had fallen completely, and it looked like people had been using the opening as a path for years. Two of Bell's thugs guarded the opening, stopping anyone who pressed too close, and Bell's lawyers held the front gate.

"There has never been any legislation put in place making it illegal to own an opening into the Aetheric. Unless you return with a warrant, you have no grounds for entering this property," a middle-aged man with flame red hair the same color as Holly's said to a uniformed officer as we wove our way nearer the front gate. Holly's father was a big-shot defense attorney with a high-powered client list, and while I'd never met him-Holly's relationship with her father was almost as screwed up as mine, one of the many reasons Holly and I got along so well-I had the feeling we were looking at him now.

I touched Tamara's shoulder and pointed to a clearer spot about twenty feet away. Most of the crowd had gathered around the front gate, so we might see more if we moved farther along the fence. Excusing ourselves as we stepped around people, we slipped through the crowd. I kept my head down as we pa.s.sed cops and reporters, but they weren't paying us any attention. We managed to find a better spot right up against the fence, but between my ruined vision and the flashing police lights blowing any shot I had of my eyes adjusting to the darkness, I couldn't see a thing more than a yard or two into the vacant lot.

"Can you see the tear?" I asked, leaning closer to Tamara.

"Yeah, a little, and Alex, I don't like this. Those skimmers are drawing raw Aetheric energy with no filtering and minimal training. I don't even think they've drawn a protective circle." She shook her head in disbelief. "The raw magic filtering through the air is throwing off my senses, but I'm not sensing a circle at all. Lots of other spells, though."

Yeah, I was picking up on that too. Magic was everywhere. Most of the crowd wore charms, Bell's security had laid down a perimeter ward along the gate so they'd know if anyone tried to sneak in, and beyond the gate . . . I let my senses reach out, trying to sift through the magic in the air. I closed my eyes, stretching my senses, and a hand closed on my biceps. I yelped, my eyes flying open.

"What are you doing here?" a familiar and none too happy voice asked.

"Falin." Busted. I turned to face him. "Hey, yeah, about that . . ." I told him about spotting the rune when Channel 6 reran Lusa's footage and about the a.s.sumptions I'd made from there, as well as my thoughts on the soul collector's presence. His p.i.s.sed expression didn't change through my explanation, and I ended with a shrug. "It seemed like it was worth the risk."

"It might be enough for us to get a warrant," he admitted after a moment's hesitation, and his grip on my biceps loosened. "Now you should get out of here." He wrapped an arm around my shoulders as he tried to steer me away from Tamara and the fence. "Come on. I'll take you home and call about the warrant on the way."

"No, you won't," I said, but he was already dragging me forward. I glanced over my shoulder at Tamara, who looked unsure if she should interfere or not. "I'll be right back," I told her before turning to Falin again. I was okay with him leading me to where other people couldn't hear us discuss-okay, argue-about why I needed to stay-after all, there were aspects of my life I wasn't sharing with my friends, let alone strangers-but I wasn't about to leave. "I came here to-"

I didn't get a chance to finish as a female voice, smooth and camera-ready, said, "Alex Craft."

c.r.a.p. I didn't bother smiling as I glanced toward the voice. "Lusa." And her cameraman, of course. What, do I have a sign over my head attracting everyone I'd rather avoid?

I'd no sooner had that thought than I spotted Agent Nori in the crowd. Luckily, she at least wasn't looking my way.

"So, what brings you to the river tonight, Miss Craft?" Lusa asked, pushing a mic toward me.

"I could ask you the same question."

She smiled. "A story. You?"

I glanced from the mic in my face to the blinking red light on the camera. "I imagine the same thing as everyone else." I nodded toward where I imagined the tear was located. The tear wasn't the full reason I was here, but it was one of the reasons.

Unfortunately, Lusa seemed to realize that. "No," she said. "There is more to it than that. You know something, and I'm betting it's newsworthy. I've got a nose for this type of thing."

I scoffed under my breath. "Lusa, I doubt your nose is real."

Her perfectly straight teeth clicked audibly, and color bloomed in her cheeks. The color faded again instantly, her camera-ready persona snapping back in place.

"Well, how about this," she said, dropping her mic to her side. "How about I run my next story with the spin 'Alex Craft seen poking around the scene, likely checking what damage her latest tear into the Aetheric is causing' ? "

At my side, Falin stiffened, his fingers digging into my shoulder hard enough to hurt, though I didn't think he was aware he'd tightened his grip. I fought wincing-which would have looked like guilt to the camera-and tried to step out of his grasp. It didn't work; he might as well have turned into a solid ice sculpture.

"You can't run that story," he said, his voice a low warning.

"Detective Andrews, the public has the right to the truth."

"Except that isn't the truth. I didn't open that tear."

"Well, the public also has the right to draw their own conclusions." She smiled, a big, hungry display of teeth.

"You can't run that story. I've already been pulled off the street once by someone who wanted me to open a hole to the Aetheric." I was appealing to her better nature, which I wasn't sure she still had under her reporter instincts, but it was Falin who responded to my words.

He stepped around me, his eyes catching, and locking, on mine. Right-I hadn't told him about my little chat with Bell. Not that now was the time to go into it. I focused on Lusa, who seemed much less concerned about my safety.

"Give me a better story and I'll run with it instead."