“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.”
“I can’t just conjure up a story.”
“Well, then, I guess I already have my sound bite.”
I glared at her. “You broke a major story when you discovered the tear—which I’d love to learn how you found, by the way, because that little tidbit wasn’t in your broadcast and I can’t see you heading out this evening thinking, ‘I know, I’ll go poke around abandoned warehouse lots and see if a story turns up.’ Especially not in those heels.” I nodded at her purple slingbacks. “You got your story, and because of Bell’s barricade, Witch Watch is the only show that has footage of the rip up close. So why do you have to put a target over my head just to ride the coattails of your own success?”
“The tear will be old news soon unless I dig up something to add as a new development. My original footage is already viral and streaming from countless places on the Net. I need something fresh. Now I imagine you’re here for one of the cases you’re working.” She lifted the hand holding her mic, not to shove the mic in my face but to point at me with one of her perfectly manicured nails. “Scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours. And because you asked, I’ll tell you how I found the tear—that is, as long as what you give me is good.”
I glanced at Falin. He scowled at Lusa, his face hard, ungiving, and totally unreceptive to her idea. I, on the other hand, was inclined to capitulate. I’d worked with Lusa before, and I knew she kept her word. Which meant she’d help me out if I helped her, but it also meant she wasn’t kidding about using me as a sound bite. But perhaps more important than that, while the woman could be extremely irritating if you were the story she’d latched on to, she was a damn fine researcher and investigative journalist.
And I happened to have a page full of runes I needed researched.
“Off the record,” I said, nodding at the blinking light on the camera behind Lusa.
“Micky, take a break,” Lusa said, handing her mic to her cameraman. “Come on, Craft. There are fewer people closer to the bridge.”
I started to follow her, but Falin grabbed my arm, stalling me.
“You really think this is the wisest plan?” he asked, his voice a hissed whisper beside my ear.
I considered the decision again, staring at him as I tried to puzzle out which part he objected to. I hadn’t learned anything from the file he took from the FIB office, so it wasn’t like he could say any of the information I had on the case was privileged—everything I had I’d learned myself, mostly just by living through the events. Runes were witch magic, so though the glamour proved the constructs had some tie to the fae, the individual runes didn’t, so sharing them didn’t breach any rules about “issues best kept amongst the fae” as Malik had put it. No, I didn’t see anything at all he could object to about my sharing the runes with Lusa.
“I’m sure.” In fact, I didn’t see any downside. If I gave her the runes and she turned up nothing, then I’d lost nothing. But if she did find something . . . well, that could be very beneficial.
Falin continued to frown and Lusa sauntered back to us. She pursed her lips. She hadn’t heard what we’d said, but our body language probably told her all she needed to know about our conversation.
“Detective Andrews,” she said, studying him, “I heard you were jettisoned from the force for going MIA during the Coleman case.”
Falin didn’t answer, but pulled his jacket aside to reveal the FIB shield at his waist.
“My mistake, Agent,” she said before turning back to me. “Are we still on for a little tit for tat?”
“Yeah. I’ll be right there.” I shot her a smile and then focused on Falin again. “It’s a good idea,” I told him. “Weren’t you going to get a warrant?”
“I’m more concerned with getting you out of here.”
And I was more concerned with my friends not spending a moment longer than necessary carrying some shadowy, crystallized spell that was just waiting to overwhelm them at an unknown moment.
“I’ll keep my head down,” I promised.
He huffed out a breath and rolled his eyes. “Because you’re so good at that.”
As if to accent his point, Lusa chose that moment to turn and call out, “Miss Craft.”
Falin and I both cringed. Okay, so keeping my head down wasn’t one of my strong suits.
“I have to go,” I said, and then jogged to catch up with Lusa. Falin didn’t stop me this time.
Lusa headed away from the news vans and cop cars to where the fence ended at the steel supports of the Lenore Street Bridge. The traffic on Lenore had died down. Everyone who was interested in seeing the commotion had apparently already arrived, so the bridge was still, quiet, and rather dark. Safety lights dotted the span at evenly spaced intervals, but I could have wished for a little more light, especially as Lusa trudged deeper and the bridge towered over us.
I had to say one thing for her—I’d told her I wanted this off the books, and she’d found a place where no one was likely to overhear or disturb us. And she wasn’t done yet. Once we stopped, she fished a silver necklace from the top of her blouse, pulling the chain until a half dozen charms spilled over her collar. The air around us hummed as she tapped into the raw magic in her earrings and channeled it into one of her waiting charms. A spell buzzed to life around us.
“You’re a sensitive, right?” she asked and I nodded.
“Good, then you know that I activated a privacy bubble. No one but us can hear what we say. Now, why are you really here?”
I’d rather have heard how she found the hole in reality first, but I wasn’t in a position to demand she show me hers before I showed her mine. Opening my purse, I dug out the page of runes I’d copied. Then I unfolded the paper and passed it to Lusa.
“Those are sketches of runes from a magical construct. As you can probably tell, they aren’t exactly common. When I watched your broadcast, I noticed similar runes cut into the ground around the tear. My theory is that whoever sent the construct also cast the ritual that opened that tear. I’m here to prove that theory, and to find out anything I can about the witch who is responsible.”
“Nice. This might actually be newsworthy.”
She’d threatened and goaded me but hadn’t actually thought I could provide her with a story? Figures.
“So do you know what the runes do?” she asked, and I shook my head.
“I did a little cursory research, but so far I haven’t turned up anything definitive.” I paused, letting her study the runes for a moment before I asked, “You’ve used Aaron Corrie as a source before, right?”
Lusa furrowed her brow, which I’d never seen her do on TV—probably because the thought lines that crawled across her forehead weren’t terribly attractive. “Dr. Corrie? Yes. He wasn’t able to identify the runes either?”
I made a rude sound and Lusa looked up, surprise on her face.
“He’d like to identify them. Unfortunately he doesn’t care for the company I keep,” I said, and her lips formed a perfect O, but she didn’t look surprised. Since she knew the man, she surely knew his stance on the fae. I didn’t ask whether she thought Corrie had disapproved of my company due to the fact that I lived in a fae’s house or because I’d partnered with an FIB agent—the fae-phobic geezer had plenty of reasons not to trust me—but as long as she didn’t guess my heritage, I didn’t care. “Since you’ve worked with Corrie before . . .” I trailed off, and Lusa’s glossed lips stretched in a slow smile.
“I like the way you think, Craft. I suppose you’ll want to know what Dr. Corrie and I turn up on the runes?” she asked, but obviously she anticipated that I’d agree because she didn’t wait for me to answer before saying, “So, we’ve got a tear into the Aetheric surrounded by odd runes, and a magical construct built from the same runes, that, when dispelled, opened a hole into the Aetheric.”