The Yanti Read Free

the others, she had grabbed Karl’s body; and then, with a fast fairy-leap through the air, had deposited it a mile up the side of Pete’s Peak. There was no way she was going to allow his measly murder to get pinned on her.
    She had to dispose of his body in a more permanent fashion.
    His death—at her own hands—was not going to cause her to lose a minute of sleep. After all, the beast had murdered Steve
and
her mother, and enjoyed it. He had been a mere pawn of Sheri Smith, true, but a willing one.
    Outside, away from the mansion, Ali checked to make sure she was alone, then invoked her magnetic field and floatedonce more into the air. Yet she did not rise high, barely above the treetops. Karl’s body lay well-hidden beneath a row of bushes, but she remembered the spot well. She reached it less than a minute after leaving the Smith residence.
    To her disgust, his blue eyes had popped open. She had to bend and force them shut. His red lips had darkened; they strained into an unnatural grin. Rigor mortis must be setting in. His flesh was practically brittle—and the same temperature as the ground. For a moment she considered digging a six-foot hole and burying him. Her fingers were as strong as steel forks—she had no need of a shovel. But fresh holes left visible signs, and it was possible—as more of the details surrounding the last few days emerged—that the police might search the forest, even this far up the mountain.
    In the end, she decided, it would be safer if Karl just disappeared.
    The truth be known, she had considered the idea of dumping him in the ocean even before she’d left her house. That was why she had a roll of duct tape in her coat pocket. Dropping to her knees, she gathered a host of rocks and began to stuff them inside his shirt and pant legs. Soon he was twice his normal weight, and it was then she began to wrap him in the strong adhesive, around and around, as a mother spider might spin a web about a tasty morsel. Once more, she felt not a twinge of remorse as she worked, and when he was all but a gray mummy lying on the green grass, she did not pause to say any final words in his memory. Just picked him up, threw him over her shoulder, and soared into the sky. Had he been alive, she would not have been able to carry him. His living field would have interfered with her fairy magic. But as it was, carrying him was no different for her than clasping a bag of meat.
    Ali flew a long way, west over the dark sea, over a hundred miles out, before she dropped him. She was a quarter of a mile high in the sky at that point, and the eastern rim of the world had begun to glow with the faint light of a new dawn. It had been a long night. As she turned in the air and headed home, accelerating at mind-numbing speed, she heard a far-off splash as he hit his final watery grave. It was only then that Ali Warner remembered that she had once cared for Karl Tanner. But if she shed a tear for his early departure, then it was lost on the wind that scarcely managed to penetrate her magical green field.

CHAPTER

2
    N ira Smith was asleep on the couch when Ali arrived home. Cindy Franken was awake in front of the TV, but slumped in her seat. Her friend quickly stood and turned off the set as Ali entered. She acted embarrassed.
    “I was just watching it to stay awake,” Cindy said.
    “No problem.” Ali gestured to Nira, who was tucked under a shawl Ali’s mother had knitted the winter before she had died—or supposedly died. In reality, the
human
part of Ali’s mother had passed away less than twenty days ago, thanks to Karl Tanner and Sheri Smith. But the fairy aspect of her mother, Amma, was still alive in the elemental kingdom.
    “Did she eat anything before she passed out?” Ali asked.
    “I made her a grilled cheese sandwich. She gobbled it down like there was no tomorrow.” Cindy added, “On top of that, she drank two glasses of water.”
    “She didn’t want milk?”
    Cindy frowned. “Your milk