“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
“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 stil unnerved about almost running into the soul col ector 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 stil 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 passenger-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 rol back as if he’d been spared unspeakable torture. “You should warn me before you do that.”
I rol ed 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 actual y 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 wel . Alex Craft, the nexus at which realties converge—lucky me.
“So, anything?” I asked Roy again.
“Huh? Oh, yeah. Bad news. Bel has private security and barricades. He’s not letting anyone but his inner circle near the rift.”
“Damn.”
“What’s wrong, Alex? Damn what?” Tamara asked as the car crawled off the bridge. Traffic had improved marginal y 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 wasn’t using any gas either. I related what Roy had told me and Tamara clicked her tongue. “I swear, if I rol ed out of bed just to stand three hundred yards from that tear, I’m going to be pissed.”
She wasn’t the only one.
The tail ights in front of us flashed red, and Tamara sighed. To our right, blue lights strobed in the dark, il uminating the crowd mil ing outside a tal 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 Bel and his people plan to do with the tear?”
“Nope. I’ve done my brave deeds for the night. That reaper was stil 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’l go hang out at my grave, or something. As far as Bel is concerned, when I was out there a few minutes ago he and his fol owers 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 al over the evidence of the ritual.
Our snail’s pace final y 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 fol owed, his hands bal ed in the front pockets of his shimmering jeans, but his head snapped back and forth as if he thought a col ector might descend on him at any moment. When we crossed Lenore he lost his nerve completely.
“I’l catch back up with you later,” he said. Then he vanished without waiting for me to say good-bye.
I tugged the bil 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.
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 Bel once.”
“Yeah? And did you get on wel enough that he’s likely to let us pass?” The tone she used betrayed the fact that she anticipated a no, and I didn’t need to reflect on my short conversation with Bel in his limo to know she was right.