Boundary Lines (Boundary Magic Book 2) Page 11

  Turning my attention back to Tony, I tried, “Explain why you couldn’t stop. Explain why you lost control.”

  Tony’s eyes went distant for a moment, but the connection between us hadn’t broken. I could feel it. He just didn’t know how to respond. “I’m not sure what happened,” he said slowly, as though he were watching a video of the events and couldn’t quite interpret it. “Everything was intense tonight, deeper. Like I had a motor, and it’d just been souped-up.”

  That sounded unpleasantly familiar. “Hang on for a second, Tony,” I said, though I kept my eyes on him. To Maven, I called out, “I’m not sure it was their fault. Something is driving them. Maybe the same thing that’s been causing . . . other events.”

  “Kill him.”

  Her voice was so cold and hard, I had to look up again. When I did, she was sitting on the edge of the bar, her bloodied bare legs dangling below her. The pool cue was now jutting up at an odd angle, and I realized it was sticking out of a desiccated corpse dressed in Darren’s clothes. She’d gotten the answer she needed. “They broke my laws. I can’t afford to be soft now,” Maven said coldly. “Kill him, Lex.”

  “I can’t just—” I began, but I’d broken eye contact for too long. Tony began to buck and holler underneath me, trying to throw me off. I tried to open another connection, but he wasn’t having it, his eyes rolling wildly as he fought for leverage. Then all of a sudden his fingers shot up and planted themselves around my throat like it was magnetized.

  “What did you do?” he whispered, horrified. “Get out of my brain, you stupid bi—”

  The rest of the word was lost, as my shredder found his heart.

  Chapter 17

  When a vampire dies, the body rapidly decays, like time-lapse photography, until it catches up to where it would be if the vampire magic had never infected it. So a two hundred-year-old vampire would become brittle two hundred-year-old bones, and a three-month-old vampire would become a disgusting still-rotting corpse. I knew all that in theory, and I’d even seen it happen—but not while I was sitting on top of the corpse.

  Right underneath me, Tony’s body immediately began to desiccate, growing softer and sort of slippery, like his skin was loose underneath his clothes. I scrambled to get off, but I slipped on the bloated skin, catching myself about two inches away from his rotting face. I screeched and leaped to my feet, and for a few seconds I turned into a complete and total girl, shuddering and squirming around while I chanted “Ew, ew, ew!”

  Finally the revulsion passed, and I collapsed into a nearby chair, desperately wanting to shower in antibacterial gel. By the time Maven had hopped off the bar and sauntered over, Tony’s body looked like a weathered skeleton. She dropped into the chair next to mine, and we sat there silently for a long moment.

  “You didn’t have to kill them,” I said softly. I knew exactly how she’d respond, but I also needed to hear myself say those words out loud.

  “Yes, I did.”

  Behind us, I could hear Quinn pressing the minds of the human bar patrons one by one and sending them out the back door. He was telling each of them they’d witnessed an ugly bar fight and just wanted to go home now.

  “What about the bodies?” I mumbled, gesturing to the dead humans scattered around the bar.

  “Oh, we’ll make up a story,” Maven replied. She sounded utterly unconcerned with covering her tracks. “One of them went on a killing spree, or maybe we’ll just start a fire. We’ve done it before.”

  I just nodded, too numb to be outraged. “Could you make it an accident?” I implored, feeling like a child. “So none of them have to be remembered as a killer?”

  Her face didn’t change. “Sure.”

  “Thank you.” We sat quietly for a moment. I looked at my hands. There was blood on them, from when I’d rolled around during the fight. It wasn’t just my hands, though: my leather jacket. My jeans. My sneakers. Nothing was really saturated, but the red stains were all over me, like I’d rolled against a freshly painted wall. There was probably still a little dried blood in my hair from the night before, too. My back hurt where I’d hit the table, and my shoulder from when I’d clotheslined the guy. Mostly, though, I wanted a shower so bad.

  “You used a gun,” Maven said abruptly.

  I raised my eyebrows at her. “Was I not supposed to?”

  She shook her head, hesitated, and shrugged. “I’d prefer that you didn’t use firearms in highly populated areas, because of the noise. But it’s more that we—that I—never even really think of using guns. I know Quinn has some, of course, but that’s because he’s such a recent vampire.” She smiled faintly. “For us old ones, it’s considered very . . . tacky.”

  I snorted. I’d watched Maven reach into Itachi’s chest cavity and literally yank out his heart. Of course she didn’t need a gun. “Yeah, well, every one of you is faster, stronger, and has better reflexes than I do. I’m happy to be tacky if it means staying alive.” A new thought occurred to me. “Why didn’t you help me? When Tony almost had me, or when he was running away?”

  “I wanted to see what you’d do,” she said frankly. “How you’d handle it.”

  Ouch. It was the answer I’d expected, but it still kind of stung. Sensing my thoughts, Maven added, not unkindly, “I’m not running a charity, Lex. If you can’t handle one vampire I need you to press, you’re not much good to me.”

  I didn’t let myself react to that; I also didn’t give myself any time to question the wisdom of what I was about to say. “Speaking of handling things, I need to borrow some money.”

  That surprised her. As quickly as I could, I explained about the Las Vegas witch I needed to consult. “It might not even work, honestly, given that she would be using her magic on mine. But Simon and Hazel think there’s a chance,” I finished.

  Maven took in all the information, motionless as she listened to me. “Okay,” she said eventually. “Call Ryan first thing and have him set up her travel. On me. I’ll leave a note so he knows you have my approval.” Before I could thank her, she rose in her seat so she could watch Quinn press a witness. My eyes followed hers. He was talking to the last person. I checked my watch. Almost ten. It felt like about four in the morning.

  “Do you need me to help with . . .” I gestured at the bloody bar around us. “Cleanup?”

  Maven chuckled. “Go home, Lex. I know you’ve had a busy day, and tomorrow may shape up to be similar. Get some rest while you can.”

  I began to stand, but there was something else that needed to be said aloud. “It’s related, isn’t it?” I ventured. “To the werewolves, and maybe even Simon’s pellet thing.”

  “That,” Maven said in a strange, hollow voice, “is exactly what I’m afraid of.”

  I retrieved my car from the lot and started toward the cabin, but after a moment of thought, I texted John and asked if I could drop by for a minute. I was really asking if he was alone—John had recently indicated that he was seeing someone, although I had no idea if it was serious. But he texted Yes back almost immediately.

  I drove straight to John’s suburban house off Kings Ridge Boulevard, one of the nicer areas in Boulder.

  He was waiting by his front door, so I didn’t even have to ring the bell before he swung it open. John was half Native American, with strong features and lustrous black hair that stood up in tufts whenever he was tired, like he was now. Working all day and being a single parent all night had to be exhausting. “I know this is weird,” I said by way of hello. “But I just kind of wanted to see Charlie.”

  A smile broke over his face, and I felt a familiar twinge in my chest. John and I had been in love with each other for about five minutes in high school, back when everyone called me Allie, before I’d decided that I needed to serve my country. That girl had died a long time ago, though, and I’d come home from the war a different person, with a new name. While I was gone, John and Sam had grown toward each other, building something between them that eventually turned into a marriage.
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br />   I didn’t think I would ever see John without feeling a tiny sting of what-could-have-been, but he and I had missed our chance, and that was that. Neither of us would ever let our history or any other awkwardness keep me from having a relationship with Sam’s daughter.

  “It’s not weird at all,” he assured me, stepping aside so I could come in. Then he frowned down at my clothes. “Were you painting something?”

  I glanced down. I’d left the jacket in the car and zipped on a hooded sweatshirt, but you could still see a few dark stains on my jeans. “Uh, yeah, the back room at work.”

  He nodded, accepting my explanation without question, and I felt another stab of guilt for lying to one of the few people in the world who trusted me completely. “You know the way,” he said, gesturing for me to go ahead of him.

  John’s house was always messy, mostly due to Charlie’s burgeoning sideline in destruction, but we were family, so he didn’t bother apologizing for it. I removed my shoes, picked through the minefield of toys on the staircase, and tiptoed into Charlie’s bedroom, opening the door slowly so it wouldn’t creak. A pink mushroom-shaped nightlight shone above the crib, and I smiled down at my niece. She had kicked off her covers again, but she was dressed warmly in little polar-fleece pajamas with ladybugs on them. I leaned my forearms on the rail of the crib, drinking in the sight of her. I felt a great peace inside myself, which I knew came partly from knowing she was safe, and partly from the fact that my proximity to her was canceling out my connection to death magic. Around Charlie, I actually was the normal human woman I’d always thought myself to be.

  John came in and leaned over the other side of the crib, smiling down at his daughter. We’d been quiet, but Charlie stirred suddenly, stretching her limbs out as far as they would go before relaxing back into a starfish shape. “Sam used to sleep just like that,” I whispered, delighted.

  “I remember,” John said wryly. Then: “She looks more like Sam every day.”

  His expression was so complicated: sad, pleased, longing. I felt a sharp rush of grief. “I miss her,” I said simply.

  “Me too.”

  We stood there silently for a few minutes, just watching the baby sleep. She’s perfect, Sam. I sent the words toward my sister, hoping she’d somehow hear them. And even more precious than you knew. I couldn’t help but feel a touch of apprehension with that last thought. When she was alive, Sam hadn’t known that Charlie was a null. John still didn’t know, a blissful ignorance that was getting harder and harder for me to maintain. The Old World had an ironclad rule about never letting humans know about the supernatural. It was essential to their survival. Quinn had implied once that occasional exceptions were made, and I’d met one of those exceptions: an ex-Homicide cop in LA.

  But although I was hoping Maven would eventually let me explain the truth to John, I wasn’t looking forward to that conversation. Every parent worries about their kid. Telling John that he also needed to worry about vampires or werewolves kidnapping his daughter wasn’t going to be fun for anyone. But he deserved to know.

  Even if I got permission, however, I didn’t think I’d tell John how Sam had really died. He didn’t need to know that my sister, his wife, had died after a werewolf ate chunks out of her. I would go to my grave making sure no one else who loved Sam ever had to know.

  John sighed suddenly. “I can’t believe it’ll be a year next month. Sometimes it seems like I just talked to her.”

  “Yeah, I know the feeling,” I said honestly. Of course, I had talked to Sam recently. I knew for sure that her spirit was alive somewhere, thinking of us. I could take comfort in that.

  I wondered if there was any way I could give some of that comfort to John. Surely it couldn’t hurt to tell him a little bit of the truth. “I’ve been dreaming about her,” I ventured. “In the dream, she’s okay. She’s watching us, and she’s really proud of how you’re taking care of Charlie.”

  John’s eyes welled up, and he turned away so I wouldn’t see. I pushed on, careful to keep the tears out of my own voice. “So, you know, if you believe in twin ESP or whatever, maybe it’s true. I’m sure it is.”

  John nodded fiercely, and without looking at me, he reached across the crib and clasped my hand. I squeezed it and let go.

  I wanted to linger, to pull up a chair and stay there all night watching Charlie sleep contentedly, but Maven was right: I needed sleep. I got up on my tiptoes and leaned way over the crib wall so I could kiss my niece in her fuzzy pajamas. Charlie didn’t stir, her little face lost in whatever babies dream of.

  “Goodnight, babe,” I whispered. “Love you.”

  Chapter 18

  When I woke up at seven the next morning, I saw I’d missed a text from Simon, which had come in three hours earlier: drunk college student went missing at Chautauqua last night. Sitting up in bed, I called him immediately.

  “I don’t know much else, really,” he said by way of a greeting. He didn’t sound like he’d slept, which meant he was pushing himself harder than ever. “The missing kid’s name is Dave Banort. He and his two buddies were out partying last night, and Dave decided he had to take a walk in the park to sober up before class this morning. The park was closed, but his friends said he went in anyway. They reported him missing this morning when he didn’t show up to class.”

  “So he could still just be asleep behind a bush somewhere?” I said hopefully.

  “Maybe. BPD is searching the park now, but it’s a bit of a cluster-fuck because the county sheriff has jurisdiction over part of the park, too, so now they’re getting involved. And the park rangers. And I guess a bunch of the kid’s friends showed up wanting to help too.” He sighed. “Needless to say, the park will be closed until further notice.”

  Oh, fuck me. I’d forgotten all about talking to Maven about closing the park. I tried to comfort myself with the fact that the college kid had gone in there when it was supposed to be closed anyway, but it didn’t really help. I knew I’d dropped the ball.

  “If I’m right about this thing’s digestive cycle,” Simon continued, “he’ll spit out another pellet tonight, or maybe sometime tomorrow. Then he’ll go hunting again tomorrow night.”

  Simon no longer sounded excited about the prospect of a new creature. He sounded . . . defeated. “You don’t think they’re going to find him,” I stated.

  “Just the parts it didn’t like,” he said heavily.

  “Why nighttime?” I asked. “Is it nocturnal?”

  There was a pause. “Good question. It might be nocturnal, or it might sense that the best way to remain out of sight of its prey is to only hunt at night. Or it could be a supernatural thing. Most Old World creatures operate at night.”

  I blew out a breath. “Well, shit.”

  “Yeah. The only sort of good news is that Dave was a pretty big guy. It’s possible we’ll get a full forty-eight hours before it needs to feed again.”

  Dopey began dancing around on my outstretched legs, disrupting Raja, who was asleep on the other side of me. From the other room I heard Cody and Chip crashing around, and the puppy begin to whine. If I was awake, they assumed it was playtime. Still hanging on to the phone, I swung my legs over the side of the bed and went to let everybody outside, wearing panties and an oversized army T-shirt. There are benefits to living out in the middle of nowhere.

  “There’s something else you need to know,” I told Simon. “There was an incident last night with the vampires. It could be related to your sandworm.” I briefly sketched out the events from the night before. It was a risk, since Maven hadn’t given me explicit permission to involve Simon, but fuck it. People were being eaten, and I figured Simon was the best daytime resource we had. As long as I kept quiet about the werewolf case, surely Maven couldn’t get too upset. “So anyway, the guys seemed unnecessarily stirred up,” I concluded. “It could definitely be related to the sandworm’s sudden appearance.”

  “That’s what happened to the Walrus?” Simon said disbelievingly. “Damn.
I saw the thing on the news about the fire, but I thought it was just, you know, a fire.”

  “Did the whole place burn down?” I asked. I had no love for the Walrus, but it was kind of weird to imagine it being gone.

  “No, just the room with the dance floor. They found five dead, and a broken back window. The current theory is that the victims broke in to steal booze and passed out with cigarettes burning.”

  Probably not the most airtight story, but I supposed it would work. Meanwhile, there wasn’t much I could do for Maven or the vampires until nightfall, and the werewolf situation was at a dead end: If we were right, and the attacks were more of a symptom than a calculated attack, the best way to restore Maven’s authority was to figure out what was stirring up magic. It’s just that I had no idea how to do that.

  This investigation was getting complicated, and I was starting to feel flat-out useless. Simon was a biologist, and Quinn a trained investigator—he’d been a cop before he was turned. Aside from pressing one vampire for basically no information, I wasn’t helping much. “What can I do?” I asked Simon.

  “Not sure yet,” he admitted. “I’m not entirely sure what I can do, at this point, other than more research. What does your day look like?”

  I wandered over to the fridge to check my calendar. “I’m supposed to work a midday shift at the Depot, magical crises permitting. And I need to call Magic Beans this morning to pull the trigger on getting that Las Vegas witch up here.”

  “The only other thing I can think of doing is going to Chautauqua to look around for evidence,” Simon offered, not sounding very convinced, “but the cops will be crawling all over the park until nightfall.”

  “We could go back tonight, and stake the fucker out,” I said, mostly just thinking out loud. I probably had a little bit of time to kill before the thaumaturge would arrive; it’d be nice to do something useful. “Except that Chautauqua has like fifty miles of trails, and we don’t know where it will go, let alone how to stop it.”