Boundary Haunted

  By Melissa F. Olson

  Scarlett Bernard novels

  Dead Spots

  Trail of Dead

  Hunter’s Trail

  Disrupted Magic series

  Midnight Curse

  Blood Gamble

  Shadow Hunt

  Boundary Magic series

  Boundary Crossed

  Boundary Lines

  Boundary Born

  Boundary Broken

  Nightshades series

  Nightshades

  Switchback

  Outbreak

  Short Fiction

  Bloodsick: An Old World Tale

  Companion Pieces: Stories from the Old World and Beyond

  Also by Melissa

  The Big Keep: A Lena Dane Mystery

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2019 by Melissa F. Olson

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by 47North, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and 47North are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781542000048

  ISBN-10: 1542000041

  Cover design by Kirk DouPonce, DogEared Design

  Cover photography by Elizabeth Kraft

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  “Come on, guys,” I urged, patting my leg. “One more mile.”

  Cody was panting too hard to even acknowledge me, but Chip shot me a sideways look as if to say, You’ve got to be kidding.

  It was the first Thursday in March, and I’d decided to take advantage of the warmer weather—and my unconventional work schedule—to bring two of my rescue dogs into Chautauqua Park in downtown Boulder to run the trails. March is too early for actual spring in the mountains, but the barren-looking landscape was softened by bright sunlight, which warmed the sleeves of my dark hoodie.

  I hadn’t been sleeping well lately, but for the first time in ages, I felt awake and content. Chautauqua was one of my favorite places in the world, and this was the best time to be there: a weekday morning while most of the CU students were busy cramming for midterms. The dogs and I had the place . . . well, not quite to ourselves, but close.

  For once, though, Chip and Cody didn’t seem to share my enjoyment. They had a special pass to run the trails off-leash, but for the last two miles, it had been a constant struggle to keep them from slowing down or wandering off. It felt more like I was herding them than anything else.

  Chip was in the lead, but now he began to drift to the side, like he might go lie in the shade by himself. “Come on, Chip,” I called. “Keep going!”

  I was trying to encourage him, but it backfired: when he heard his name, the big dope trotted into my path and slowed to a stop right in front of my knees.

  “Dammit!” By some miracle I managed to jump over the dog without falling on my ass, but I had to plant my arms on the ground and push off. It was damned close to being a cartwheel.

  Okay, fine. It was more or less a running handspring. I stumbled to a stop and turned to face the dogs, who were skulking after me, looking embarrassed. “What is with you two today?” I muttered, dusting off my hands and resting them on my knees. At least this particular trail was deserted, so I didn’t have to worry about ending up on YouTube.

  They wagged their tails, still panting hard. I sighed and looked around. There was a little outcropping on the path just ahead of where we’d stopped, where a scrubby tree created some shade. I led the dogs toward it, pulling my sling backpack around so I could reach my water bottle and the collapsible dog bowl.

  The bag was just big enough for the water, a cell phone, and my Beretta M9 in a nylon holster. I didn’t go anywhere unarmed anymore, although I’d left my shredder stakes in the car for this daytime run.

  I set the bowl in the shade and filled it with water, then straightened up to watch the dogs gulp it down like we were in the Sahara. Only a year ago, we’d run this whole trail without so much as a water break. Now that I really looked at them in the bright sun, though, I could see flecks of gray in Chip’s muzzle, and Cody flopped tiredly onto his side in the shade, still panting.

  Fear and worry churned in my empty stomach. As a boundary witch, my magic involved the line between life and death, which had some odd ramifications on my life. Boundary witches have a special connection with vampires, which was how I’d ended up dating one, and we can see ghosts at night. I’d also died several times and been brought back by my own magic. My best friend, Lily, called me “death-resistant,” and it was as good a description as any.

  This resistance to death went down to the cellular level . . . which meant my aging had slowed to practically a stop. I tried not to think about it, but there were moments like this when it hit me all over again. The dogs were getting older. And I wasn’t.

  Even worse, the humans in my life were getting older too. Eventually they would die, and I would still be here—or rather, I’d be somewhere else, because I wouldn’t be able to stay in Boulder once it became obvious that I wasn’t aging.

  The water bowl was empty, so I scooped it up, shook it to get rid of the extra drops, and tucked it back into the bag with the water bottle. “Let’s go, guys,” I said gently, and started off on the trail again, this time at a pace that allowed the dogs to walk.

  I needed to push this out of my head. It’s fine, I told myself. Chip and Cody had a lot of good years left. There was no reason to freak out about—

  I stumbled to a halt.

  We were still a few hundred yards from the road, but I’d felt some kind of energy coming off an area to my right and maybe forty yards from the path. It was like a physical pull.

  Whatever it was didn’t seem to affect the dogs, who continued on for a few seconds before they realized I’d stopped. They turned back to look at me, their wagging tails slowing as they looked at me with genial confusion, waiting for the reassurance of my voice.

  But I couldn’t speak. My mind was too full of whatever was gleaming at me.

  I’m not sure how else to describe it. When I’d first been discharged fro
m the army, years ago, I could sort of feel the weapons safe I kept in the third bedroom. I was depressed and isolated, and it was as though that safe glowed in my subconscious—an easy and complete solution to all my problems.

  I hadn’t felt suicidal in years, but the odd energy pulling at me from just up the trail reminded me of that gleam—or kind of how I felt when I was near Maven, the most powerful vampire I’d ever met.

  But it was the middle of the day. Feeling the strange pull in broad daylight was so jarring it nearly made me dizzy. Automatically, I glanced around to see if anyone else could feel it, but the trail was still empty. My eyes went down to the dogs, but they just gazed up at me with the vacant pleasantness of Labs, their ears lifting hopefully in case we were stopping for treats.

  “Sam?” I said aloud, to my dead twin sister. “Any ideas?”

  I don’t know.

  I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and dropped into my boundary magic mindset.

  All witches can look at the magical spectrum in one way or another, but boundary witches can only see life forces and ghosts—and ghosts are only visible after dark. I wasn’t sure what else to do, though. Ignoring the gleam of energy didn’t really feel like an option.

  My brain’s interpretation of the magical spectrum is kind of like looking at heat through thermal-imaging goggles, only with different colors: living things are blue and vampires glow red. My eyes were on Chip when I opened them, and I immediately took in the warm blue of the life essence in his chest, and a fainter blue outlining his limbs and head. Cody, when I looked over, was practically identical.

  Steeling myself, I raised my eyes to the area where I’d felt the gleaming—and my breath caught. This was a faint yellow-gray outline in the shape of a human body—except unlike most humans, who always had a bright glow in their center representing their soul, this form was the same faded yellow all over.

  I usually saw yellow only when someone was dying. I thought of that color as death-essence.

  I blinked hard to return to my regular vision. I pulled the sling bag around on my chest and unzipped the side compartment, pulling out my M9, holding it low and close to my body. The dogs picked up on my sudden tension and began to rise, but I held up a flat palm. “Stay,” I said firmly. They sat back down, but they didn’t look happy about it, and I figured I had only a couple of minutes before they decided to follow me anyway.

  I crept forward, glancing over my shoulder every minute or so to reinforce my command to the dogs. Finally, I cleared the tall grass—and found myself looking down at a human corpse.

  He was probably in his seventies, dressed in a faded white T-shirt and black CU sweatpants. There was obviously no point in checking for a pulse—the man’s eyes were wide open, staring up at the blue sky, one hand out to the side, one flat on his chest. He didn’t smell, but his skin was mottled gray, and I wondered how long he’d been out here. A few hours? A day? The flies had just begun to find him, and as I watched, one landed on his open left eye.

  Before I backed away, I saw a bright red medical alert bracelet. I was tempted to get close enough to read it, but I could hear the dogs whining behind me and I doubted they would stay put much longer. Besides, this man was beyond medical help.

  As I walked back to Chip and Cody, I put the M9 back in my bag and pulled out my cell phone. I probably should have dialed 911, but there were still a few people at Boulder PD who weren’t exactly members of my fan club. Instead, I called my cousin Elise, a detective in the department. She would know it was serious if I was calling her at work.

  Sure enough, Elise answered on the second ring. “Lex? Everything okay?”

  My mouth felt dry, and I swallowed hard so I could speak. “I’m fine, but I’m at Chautauqua Park, I was hiking, and . . . there’s a body.”

  To her credit, Elise hesitated for only about three seconds. “I’m on my way.”

  I put the phone away and took out the dogs’ leashes. My hand was shaking a little, and it took two tries to clip the leash onto Cody’s collar. I told myself it was just adrenaline. There was a thigh-high boulder near where I’d turned off the trail. I led the dogs back to it and sat down, staring at the sky without seeing anything.

  Just before Christmas, I’d used boundary magic to do something that still horrified me. I had raised the dead.

  I’d needed to question someone so I could save my aunt’s life, but the boundary witch who’d told me how to perform the ritual, Nellie, had tried to convince me that bringing someone back was too dangerous. “Once you raise the dead,” she had warned, “they’ll begin to call to you.”

  It was an odd statement, especially coming from a ghost, but Katia would have died if I hadn’t intervened. At the time, it hadn’t felt like I had much of a choice.

  A couple of weeks later, when Katia and I had both recovered from our injuries, I’d returned to Nellie’s brothel to ask her about the warning. Nellie hadn’t toyed with me, or even demanded some kind of payment for information. She just gave me a surprisingly sad smile and told me I would understand soon.

  Was this what she’d meant? Was I now some kind of psychic bloodhound for dead people? Did that include only the recently dead, or people who hadn’t been laid to rest in a grave? What were the rules here?

  Every time I thought I understood what it meant to be a boundary witch, I got blindsided again. A lot of that was because I’d been raised with no knowledge of magic. This time, though, I’d walked myself right into this mess without asking any questions. I had raised a fucking dead person. The image of the poor woman’s face filled my head, and I felt a great swell of hatred—for myself, for my magic, for my stupid decisions.

  Chapter 2

  My thoughts were still churning two hours later, as I sat on the same boulder and watched Elise talking to the small group of people working around the body. One of them was the patrolwoman who’d taken my statement, but I hadn’t bothered to remember anyone’s names. I was starving, I wanted a shower, and I was struggling to stay awake. I’d put Chip and Cody in my car when the police had arrived so they wouldn’t drive everyone nuts, but that had left me with nothing to do but sit and wait for the police to dismiss me. It had been so long since I’d had a full night of sleep, but it wouldn’t look great if I nodded off thirty feet from a dead body.

  Finally, Elise finished her conversations and turned to walk toward me. “Well?” I asked my cousin, squinting up at her in the stark afternoon sunshine.

  Elise sat down next to me, snapping off a glove so she could push her short honey-blonde hair behind her ear. “I’m not supposed to tell you,” she said in a low voice, “but his name is James Cumberland; he’s a retired professor at CU. His bracelet says he has a heart condition. We’ll do an autopsy, but the medic says this looks like a textbook natural death.”

  I breathed out a sigh of relief. It was sad that Cumberland was dead, but if he had been murdered, I would be spending a lot more time with the Boulder Police than I cared to. I was in BPD’s good graces at the moment—against my wishes, Quinn had once pressed the police chief to believe that I was a model citizen—but there was no reason to push it.

  “Are you okay?” Elise was studying my face. “You look tired. And . . . well, a little rattled.”

  “I did just find a dead body,” I reminded her, trying to keep my voice even. It wasn’t Elise’s fault I was here.

  “Yeah, but . . . you know.” Not finding a polite way to phrase it, she waved a hand as if to say, You’ve seen plenty of dead people.

  She was right, of course. Elise didn’t know about the Old World, but she knew I’d spent ten years in the US Army. Normally, a nonviolent, natural death wouldn’t shake me. But Nellie’s words kept ringing in my head. They’ll begin to call to you. I didn’t want to think about that night.

  Elise was still looking at me, still waiting for some kind of response. “I guess,” I said carefully, “coming across him just brought up some bad memories.”

  “Oh. Oh.” Elise gave
me a worried look and briefly rested her arm around my shoulders. “I’m sorry, Lex. I didn’t mean to be flippant.”

  I realized that she thought I’d been talking about Iraq and the people I’d lost there, and I almost choked on a broken laugh. Great. Now I’d used my dead friends as an excuse to get out of a conversation.

  So can anyone attend this pity party, or is it invitation only?

  Sam’s voice in my head sounded amused. I pushed out a breath and managed not to snap at her out loud. My cousin was already concerned about me. This was not a good moment to announce that I had psychic conversations with my dead twin sister.

  “Can I go now?” I asked Elise, my voice coming out shrill and unsteady. “Do they need me for anything else?”

  “No, we’ve got your statement, but . . .” Abandoning her professionalism, Elise turned sideways to hug me, which was a surprise. Elise was a lesbian, and although Boulder PD was a lot more liberal than many police departments, I knew my cousin tried to keep a low profile. Hugging what appeared to be a random female witness wouldn’t help that, but she didn’t care.

  Touched, I hugged her back. “What are you doing the rest of the day?” she asked when she finally pulled away.

  I had a feeling that if I said “nothing,” Elise or one of my other family members would be showing up at my cabin later to make sure Lex was emotionally stable. Again. Luckily, for once I really did have normal human plans. “I’m helping Katia move,” I told her, checking my watch. I’d already texted to say I was running late.

  “Oh, right.” Elise looked relieved. “Tell her hi for me.”

  “I will.” I yawned, unable to help myself, and stood up without looking back toward the professor’s body. I was ready to get the hell out of there.

  “And get some sleep,” Elise called after me. I waved a hand over my shoulder and hurried toward the car.

  An hour and a half later, I was hauling an overstuffed love seat up a second set of stairs. Well, I was trying to, but my moving partner was having a hard time. “Can we stop for a second?” Simon begged, his face already red.

  I lowered my half of the couch carefully onto the hard floor of the landing, holding it steady. Above me, Simon propped his side on the steps and leaned on the wall, panting. “Goddamn . . . broken elevator . . .” he mumbled between breaths.