Boundary Lines (Boundary Magic Book 2) Page 3

  “Maven’s answer to Air Force One,” he explained. “She bought it shortly after she took over, and lends it to her people when we might need to be out after dawn.”

  Ah. “The compartment in the back is lightproof?”

  He nodded. “Lightproof, armored, and climate controlled. Cost a fortune.” He shook his head a little. “Maven doesn’t put on airs or throw around money, but she invests where it counts.” His tone was admiring, and I wondered if things had gotten easier or harder for him now that we’d taken Itachi off the board.

  “How will she get home?” I asked.

  A faint smile crossed his lips. “She’ll ride her bike.”

  Ah, Boulder.

  When the last lights of the city were behind us, Quinn glanced over at me. “The thing in LA,” he said. “Did you find out what you needed to know?”

  “Yes,” I said shortly. “She was eaten by werewolves. I don’t really want to talk about it.”

  Quinn nodded, his face falling into its usual implacable expression. I regretted my curt tone. There had been a time when that dispassionate look was the only one I ever got from Quinn, and I’d hoped we were past that. But I just couldn’t talk about Sam right now. “Tell me about the vampires who disappeared,” I prompted instead.

  He nodded. “Every full moon, ten of us take a shift patrolling the state borders, watching for any signs of werewolf activity,” he began. “We’ve found natural wolves a couple of times, but never any weres, at least for as long as I’ve been in Colorado. But on the last full moon, two people didn’t report in.”

  “Maven told me that much. Who are they?”

  “Travis disappeared from Dove Creek, and Allegra went missing out of Julesburg.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Just Travis and Allegra? Don’t vampires ever have last names?”

  A brief smile twitched across his face, and I felt like I’d scored a point. “Of course we do, on all our legal paperwork. But those change every few decades, or so I’m told. We typically just use our first names within our own territories. It’s easier to remember—and easier not to expose someone by mistake, like if you were to refer to me as Quinn Adams after I’d already changed my name to Quinn . . . Merlin.” He lifted his hand off the wheel long enough to wave it dismissively. “Or whatever.”

  I laughed. “Merlin? Your example of a fake last name is Merlin?” He glared at me, but the smile was obvious in his eyes. “Oh shit,” I blurted. “Don’t tell me that’s your last name now.”

  Quinn laughed out loud, a sound I’d heard only a few times. It made something in my chest loosen. “No, Quinn is currently my last name.”

  “So what’s your current first name?”

  “Arthur,” he said airily. I laughed, unable to tell if he was kidding or not.

  “Back to Allegra and Travis,” I prompted. “Maven brought up the possibility that they might have just . . . defected.”

  He considered that for a moment. “It’s possible,” he allowed.

  I tried to think through the implications of that. “Hypothetically,” I said in a careful voice, “if Allegra or Travis, or anyone else, for that matter, decided they wanted to leave Maven’s enclave, would there be consequences?”

  His brow furrowed. “You mean like, would Maven hunt them down and kill them for leaving?”

  “Well . . . yeah.”

  “Technically, vampires are not supposed to jump territories without permission,” he told me. “We have to be careful with things like population control and population density, and if everyone starts crossing borders willy-nilly, it increases the chance of all of us getting discovered by the foundings.” That was the Old World term for ordinary humans, and it was always used dismissively, the way you would say “cattle.”

  “But Maven’s still trying to lock in control after the takeover,” Quinn continued, “and frankly I don’t think she has the resources to hunt down defectors right now. That’s part of why she waited this long before sending us after Allegra and Travis—she’s been spread too thin to deal with it. Most likely, if someone leaves, they’ll make Maven’s permanent shit list, to be punished later. I sure as hell wouldn’t want to be on her shit list, but leaving the state isn’t like an instant death sentence or anything.”

  “Hmm.” This was enough to give me a headache. There were too many possibilities, too many suspects, including Travis and Allegra themselves. Once again, I felt like it was my first day at a new job. Everyone else could think faster and clearer than I could because they had decades or even centuries of experience with the Old World, and I had known about it for less than two months. I sighed. “So is it safe to assume Maven didn’t kill them herself? I mean, if she had, there’d be no reason to send us on this little quest.”

  “True,” he conceded. “I think that’s a pretty safe assumption, yes.”

  Great. So that was one person who probably didn’t kill them. “Did Travis and Allegra . . . er . . . know each other?”

  He shot me a wry smile. “You mean like, biblically?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “No. Travis was a bit of a dandy, and Allegra was really down-to-earth. I can’t see her spending more than two minutes with him.”

  There was something in his tone—admiration, maybe? He glanced over at me, and discomfort crossed his face. “Listen, Lex, there’s something else you should know. Allegra and I, we used to . . . date. Years ago.”

  “Date,” I repeated.

  He sighed. Vampires, I had discovered, don’t technically need to breathe, but most of them do out of habit, and to blend in. “We used to sleep together. Recreationally.”

  “Oh.” I mulled that over for a moment. Quinn was a relatively new vampire—we had never discussed the specifics of his turn, but I knew it happened between five and ten years ago, in Chicago. I also knew that he had been sold to Maven against his will . . . and that sometime in between getting changed and coming to Boulder, he had attacked his human wife. In that context, it made sense that he’d want to sleep with another vampire: he was wary of hurting humans. Which was pretty ironic given his job as Maven’s fixer.

  But then, I knew better than anyone that there was a big difference between hurting someone on orders and hurting someone because you couldn’t make yourself stop.

  Still, it was hard to picture Quinn—or any of the other vampires I’d met—craving sex or intimacy at all. They seemed so remote, so detached from their emotions. Yeah, Quinn had shown a little interest in me, and we had kissed, but in that moment, I realized I wasn’t sure how far that interest extended.

  I groped for something to say, but what came out of my mouth was, “I wasn’t sure you guys . . . did that.” Oh, great recovery, Lex.

  “What, have sex?” He rolled his eyes. “I’m a vampire, Lex, I’m not dead.”

  “Well—”

  “You know what I mean,” he replied, a little irritated. “Our bodies can do all the same things human bodies can; we just choose whether to prioritize them. It takes energy—blood—to turn on biological functions, but it can be done.”

  I thought that over. “So you get to decide whether or not you’ll . . . um . . . crave intimacy?”

  “Yes. Just like I can devote energy to having a heartbeat, sweating, or even eating, although I can’t digest food the way you can,” he said matter-of-factly. “Our bodies adapted to power our basic functions first—hunter instincts, feeding capabilities. Everything else depends on how much blood we drink, how often.”

  “Huh.” Science was never my particular interest, but that made a lot of sense, in terms of how vampires had managed to stay hidden within the human race for so long. It also said something about Quinn that he’d chosen to devote energy to human emotions when he didn’t have to.

  We rode along in silence for a few minutes, and then I couldn’t help but ask, “Did you love her?”

  “No.” His voice was weary. “We got along okay, and we both needed somebody. I care about what happens to her, but I most
ly just thought you should know about it since you and I are . . . you know.”

  “Interested in each other?” I suggested. It made my heart pound hard in my chest, but I was too goddamned old to play games.

  “Yes,” Quinn said simply.

  I didn’t know quite what to say after that, so we rode in peaceable silence for quite a while. I was just starting to doze off in my seat when we saw the sign for Julesburg.

  “Where exactly are we going?” I finally asked.

  “Maven keeps these little chambers buried underground for us to hide in if we get caught away from home,” he explained. “They’re safer than a hotel. We’ll start there, see if we can pick up Allegra’s trail.”

  “I don’t suppose it’s a gigantic underground chamber?” I said hopefully. “Like the size of a building, with lots of great ventilation and maybe some skylights?”

  He smiled. “Nope, sorry. I know you’re claustrophobic, so you can stay on top and guard the entrance.”

  “Guard duty?” I said, brightening. “I love that plan. I crush it at guard duty.”

  We drove all the way through Julesburg, a former stagecoach station whose only real claim to fame was its connection to corruption and torture. The town was named after Jules Beni, a station manager who was guilty of helping the horse thieves instead of stopping them. According to legend, Beni was killed by his former boss, Jack Slade, a gunslinger who shot off each one of Beni’s fingers and sliced off his ears to keep as trophies.

  Unlike many former Wild West towns, for some reason Julesburg never really caught on as a tourist destination. Today, the population still hovered at a little over a thousand people.

  We followed Highway 138 past Julesburg and were nearly to the Nebraska border before Quinn turned off onto an unmarked road headed east into fields of . . . well, something. It was too dark to make out the crops, but eventually the field terminated next to some scrubby woodlands. Quinn pulled off onto a little one-lane offshoot of the road and turned off the Jeep.

  “Who owns this property?” I asked him.

  He shrugged. “This one’s been tied up in will probate for years and years. I don’t think anyone’s ever discovered one of Maven’s vaults, but if someone did, the foundings would just write it off as some weird construction error.”

  “What do you mean, construction error?”

  “Come see.” He hopped out of the Jeep, and I grabbed my flashlight and followed him. We walked about fifty feet into the grass, nearly to the edge of the woods, before Quinn found the spot he wanted and dropped his duffel bag next to it. I played my flashlight over the overgrown grass as he leaned down and dug his fingers in, like he was feeling around for something. I was about to ask what he was doing, but by then he was pulling up a four-by-four piece of sod, revealing a green metal circle underneath. It was flat and smooth like an oversized sewer cover, but larger and raised about four inches above the ground, with concrete underneath. Obviously a lid. I crouched down to tug at it, but Quinn grabbed my arm. “Let me,” he urged. “The edges on these things can be sharp.”

  I nodded, understanding. There was death magic in my blood, and Quinn was afraid he wouldn’t be able to keep himself from attacking me if I started bleeding. I had more faith in him, but this wasn’t the time to get into it. I gestured toward the lid. “Be my guest.”

  Quinn reached down with one hand and easily lifted the steel cover, which came up with a sucking pop. There was a cavernous hole underneath, the interior so dark that my flashlight beam barely penetrated it, even when I crouched down. It smelled like concrete and earth, but the air wasn’t particularly stale.

  Directly below us I could just make out a small metal stepladder, but there was nothing around it except for gray concrete. “Uh, Quinn?” I said. “Is this a septic tank?”

  “We prefer to think of them as ‘portable emergency storage chambers,’” he deadpanned.

  Well, that explained the “construction error” concept—if anyone ever found this, they’d just figure a tank had been installed and then the homeowners had changed their minds. “That’s . . . kind of brilliant,” I admitted.

  Quinn nodded, then frowned. “I smell blood.”

  Before I could respond, he abruptly planted one foot on the concrete rim and dropped into the hole, landing without a sound. If I hadn’t seen the little stepladder, I might have worried he’d just drop down forever, like in Looney Tunes cartoons.

  I leaned down as far as I could before fear enveloped me. Septic tanks were what, eight feet by twelve feet? Something like that? I shivered. Not that different from the inside of a Humvee. “Quinn?” I called. “Um, is she down there?”

  “No, but there’s something written on the wall.” His grim voice wafted up out of the darkness. He sounded far away now, and I wondered just how deep the tank was. “It’s too dark, even for me. Can you pass down the lantern?”

  “Yeah.” I pulled the camp-style lantern out of his duffel bag, switched it on, and put one hand on the rim of the concrete lip to steady myself so I could lean forward and lower it down by its long cord.

  The concrete was old, or maybe I just put my hand on exactly the wrong spot, but the palm-sized piece directly under my hand crumbled off, and my fingers slipped off the lip. I tried to jerk backward to right myself, but my center of gravity was too far over the chasm by then. I tumbled forward into the hole, and the next thing I felt was the impact of concrete on my skull.

  Chapter 5

  “Lex!”

  To my surprise, I did not wind up as a skin-bag of shattered bones on the floor of the concrete tank. Instead I found myself awkwardly positioned in Quinn’s arms, as though we were dancing and he’d led me into an elaborate dip. Only my head was about three inches above the floor of the concrete tank.

  I was disoriented from my head smacking into the concrete opening on my way down, so it took me a few moments to get my bearings and realize he had caught me. It didn’t help that the heavy-duty lantern was rolling away from us, sending light spinning across the walls. It finally came to rest against the wall of the tank, leaving my left side bathed in light, the right side in darkness. “Thanks,” I said, my voice coming out dazed and thick. “Think I hit my head.”

  Quinn didn’t answer or even move to help me up. He just froze in place, his arms locked around my back, our faces less than a foot apart. I heard a miniscule tap . . . tap . . . tap . . . on the concrete just below me. Like something dripping. My fingers rose to touch my temple where it had hit the concrete, and came away bloody. Only then did I finally register the long, warm trickle of hot liquid that ran down the side of my head into my hair.

  I didn’t think I was seriously hurt, but head wounds bleed like a son of a bitch—and Quinn was captivated by the magic in my blood.

  “Hey—” I squirmed to get away from him, but his body was locked in place. I could only see one of his eyes in the half-light, but his pupil was dilated to the edge of the iris, his nostrils flaring. “Quinn!” I yelped, wriggling harder. His weight finally shifted, but it was in the wrong direction, pressing me to the floor. Holding me down.

  Talk to him, commanded a voice in my head. Make him see you.

  “Quinn, you have to push past it,” I whispered. “You have to get over this if we’re going to work together. Be together.” I felt like I was babbling, and the words didn’t seem to have any effect on him. “Please, I know you can do it.”

  He showed no sign that he’d even heard me, just relaxed his own weight down on top of mine, leaning against my body, smothering my options. For a moment I had that specific, explosive sense of terror that’s familiar to so many women—but Quinn had no interest in raping me, and my fear dissolved as he began nuzzling the side of my head, straining toward the blood. I didn’t fight him as he licked at the wound, instinctively understanding that it would only make him use more strength, trap me further. He pulled back to meet my eyes, and a flare of new pain ignited in my head. He was on vampire autopilot now, trying to pres
s his victim into submission.

  But I do not press. And I am no one’s fucking victim.

  His hand came up and brushed against my cheek, intending to turn my face sideways for better access. But that freed up my arm, and for just a moment, I could move.

  I could have clocked him. I almost did: Violence was the time-tested Lex reaction, after all. But I knew that if I hit Quinn, the best-case scenario was that it would bring him back to his senses. Once he was in control again, he would hate himself for attacking me, even though he wasn’t really causing me any harm just yet. No, what I really wanted was to show him he could stop himself. So without thinking much about it, I grabbed his face hard, turned it toward me, and pressed my lips against his.

  His body went completely rigid for a moment, frozen again. I could probably have stopped there, but instead I traced my fingers along his cheek and slid them into his hair. I nipped lightly at his lips, then more urgently, and at last he relaxed, his mouth softening against mine. And before I knew it, he was kissing me back, tentatively, as though he’d just woken up. As our lips opened I tasted blood in his mouth, my blood, but it was no more than if I’d bitten my own lip, and by then I was too caught up in the kiss to be bothered. When I didn’t pull away, Quinn’s arms went to my hips, firmly flipping us over so that I was on top of him, in control, and I smiled into his mouth. He was back.

  Still kissing him, I scooted down his body until I was more or less in his lap, and then sat up so he was forced to either follow me or break the kiss. He propelled himself upward, his mouth moving from my lips down the line of my jaw and down my neck. I shuddered with pleasure, opening my eyes to see stars. A tiny hole of stars. Anyone could come along and put the lid back on the septic tank, and then we’d be trapped in here forever, buried alive.

  The claustrophobia slammed down on me, and I forgot all about my hormones. Terror raced through my body, crushing my chest, and Quinn went still as he sensed, or maybe smelled, the change in me. I scrambled off his body and stood up unsteadily, lunging for the stepladder. But in my haste, I somehow managed to kick it farther away. The ladder crashed into the lantern, sending the light swinging wildly around the small space, and I was sobbing for breath now, convinced I couldn’t get enough air.