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 tal as or tal er than al but the tal est 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.
Bel 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 fal en completely, and it looked like people had been using the opening as a path for years. Two of Bel ’s thugs guarded the opening, stopping anyone who pressed too close, and Bel ’s lawyers held the front gate.
“There has never been any legislation put in place making it il egal 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 Hol y’s said to a uniformed officer as we wove our way nearer the front gate. Hol y’s father was a big-shot defense attorney with a high-powered client list, and while I’d never met him—Hol y’s relationship with her father was almost as screwed up as mine, one of the many reasons Hol y and I got along so wel —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 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 passed 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 al . Lots of other spel s, though.”
Yeah, I was picking up on that too. Magic was everywhere. Most of the crowd wore charms, Bel ’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 assumptions I’d made from there, as wel as my thoughts on the soul col ector’s presence. His pissed 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 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’l take you home and cal 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’l 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 al , 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.”
Crap. 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 ful reason I was here, but it was one of the reasons.