She still had the hair and lipstick of a thirties pinup girl, though, which was surprisingly disorienting. “There, now. You see why I’d rather not spend all eternity in this, don’t you?” She turned around, showing off the bustle. “My lord, when I think of what we had to go through each day, just to greet the gentlemen! This house was a museum for a while, you know, and one of the displays was about women’s clothing. This little box of moving pictures would run through all the different periods, and I had the best time trying out styles!”
I just stood there gaping at her. I wasn’t sure what I’d expected, exactly, but probably not someone so . . . chatty. “Now, I’m told that modern trollops opt for something more like this”—she waved her hand again, and the elaborate gown vanished, replaced by a tight-fitting, simple black cocktail dress. She still had the ankle-strap pumps. “Why, just think of how many more tricks my girls could have turned each night if they hadn’t needed to fuss with pantaloons, stockings, and corsets!” She gave me an elaborate wink.
“Ms. Evans—” I began.
“Please call me Nellie. And, oh! I haven’t asked for your name yet; what terrible manners. You’ll have to forgive me, I’ve had no one to talk to for ever so long.” She looked at me expectantly.
“Lex,” I said. “Lex Luther.”
I rarely phrase my name that way, but if Nellie had ever heard of Superman’s archnemesis, she didn’t show it. “Such an unusual name,” she exclaimed. “And who are your people? You’re a proper witch of the demimonde, I can see it all over you, so you must have a coven.”
I blinked, not quite sure how to respond to that. Finally I settled for the truth. “I was adopted, I’m afraid. I don’t know my people.”
Nellie folded her hands over her heart dramatically. “Well, if that isn’t the most tragic thing I’ve ever heard!” she cried. “You poor thing. I would embrace you, but I’d pass right through, you know, and I’m told it’s quite unnerving.” A tiny, malevolent smirk appeared on her face and vanished immediately. I remembered all those potential buyers who’d been scared away from the property.
“What does ‘demimonde’ mean?” I couldn’t help but ask.
She gave me a look of genuine surprise. “Why, the half-world, of course. The world beneath the world.” Her eyes flashed flinty. “My mother brought me up in the demimonde, and her mother before her. We may not have had much, but there were always those willing to pay for what we could do. Why, when it was fashionable, I ran séances out of that very parlor.” She nodded her head toward one of the decrepit doorways. Her smugness faltered a bit as she gave me an admiring once-over. “Then again, on my best day I had nothing like the kind of influence you employ. It’s a shame you don’t know your people; I bet there’s a story there for sure.”
“Ms. Evans,” I started again, trying to get back on track. “I’m here to ask you a question. Some strange things have been happening in Boulder, about thirty miles northwest of here.”
Her smile began to change, growing craftier. “Aye, I’ve felt it my own self. That’s how I’m able to appear so clear and strong, you know. Why, I wager you can’t even see through me just now.” I couldn’t get a grip on her speech patterns: it was like she’d come to the country as an immigrant, received an education, and was then exposed to half a dozen different dialects. Which, given her background and the house’s museum status, was probably exactly what had happened.
“You’re right, I can’t. But, ma’am, if you’ll pardon my forwardness, you don’t seem surprised by it.”
“No, ’course not.” She looked confused. “Is it not a good thing, then, having your little fragment of the line reawaken?”
“The moon line, you mean?” I asked.
I’d been too eager. Nellie Evans’s eyes narrowed with sudden mistrust. “Who sent you to me, then?” she asked suspiciously. “I haven’t had a single visitor in near on five—no, six years, and you show up asking questions about the lines? How did you know to find me here?”
“A vampire told me about you,” I said. “Do you know that word, vampire?”
Her face darkened. “Aye,” she snarled. “The baobhan sith, my ma used to call them. ’Twas one of the very same who put me here. I’ve no love for the vampires, though they had plenty of love for me.”
My thoughts snagged on that phrase, and I simply had to ask. “Were they drawn to you?”
“Yes, that’s a good word for it.” She gestured around, at the once-grand house. “That is how I was able to build my business so quickly, and compete with the likes of Mattie Silks and her gang . . . well, for a bit, anyway. They paid top dollar for my blood.” She glared at me. “Which one sent you, then, hmm?”
Moment of decision. If I told her the truth, would she be more or less likely to give me answers? Less, probably. But if I lied, she might be able to tell, or she might ask me follow-up questions I couldn’t answer.
I rolled the dice. “Her name is Maven,” I said. “She’s the cardinal vampire of the state, meaning she’s in charge.”
No recognition, but it wasn’t like Maven was using the same name. “And what does she look like?” Nellie demanded.
I held up a flat hand. “About this tall, orange hair, pert nose. Very powerful.”
She studied me for a moment, thinking that over. “Dresses in layers, does she? All decked out with jewelry and extra petticoats like she’s trying to hide?”
“Yes.”
“I knew it!”
Then Nellie threw a tantrum.
There was really no other word for it. She cursed and stomped, which was odd because her heels made no noise on the wooden floors. She threw her arms up and muttered under her breath about leeches and slaves and retribution. Then she did some further cursing that deeply impressed me, and I have heard some creative expletives in my day. I just stood at ease, waiting her out.
Finally Nellie calmed down enough to whirl around and face me. “Do you have any idea who you’re working for?” she demanded. “Pale Jennie, she’s the devil herself.”
“Tell me more about the moon lines,” I said calmly.
“And why would I do that?” she contended. “Why on earth would I help the likes of her?”
“If you don’t, people will die.”
She snorted. “I don’t care about that.” She gestured around herself. “Look at me! Look at this place! What concern is it of mine if others suffer the same fate?”
“Well, then, what do you want?”
Another glare. “You’re suggestin’ you’d trade me for the information?”
I shrugged. “Maybe. What do you want?” Remembering Hugh Mark, I ventured, “To cross over the line?”
Instantly, terror erupted on Nellie Evans’s leathery face. “No! No, please. I don’t want to cross over,” she blurted. “I like it here.”
Interesting. “What, then?”
She thought it over for a few minutes, tapping one toe soundlessly on the floor. “I want one of them motion-picture boxes,” she said finally.
“A television?”
She nodded. “I want one set up in here so’s I can learn about the world outside these walls.” She shot an annoyed look around the brothel.
There was enough room on my credit card for a small TV and some bunny ears, and even if he ever found it, I doubted the owner of the building would much care. “If you answer all my questions, and the information turns out to be good,” I said carefully, “I’ll come back with a television.”
Nellie pursed her lips. “That’s not right,” she complained. “How do I know you won’t just leave and never come back?”
Kind of a fair question. Shaking out my wrist, I removed the small women’s Rolex watch I was wearing. My father had given it to Sam as a college graduation gift. Nellie’s greedy eyes lit up at the flash of silver. “This watch belonged to my twin sister,” I told Nellie. “Her husband gave it to me after she died. I said I would wear it until my niece is old enough to take it. It’s the most expensive thi
ng I own, not to mention irreplaceable.” I looked around for a moment, then crossed to a decrepit little coat closet and set the watch on the highest shelf. “Now I have to come back. Deal?”
“Deal,” Nellie said, looking satisfied.
I went back over to the grand staircase and sat down, giving Nellie my full attention. “Tell me about the lines, please.”
Curt nod. “When my ma came to this country,” Nellie began, “she met with some of the Indians. They recognized her for what she was, so they treated her with more respect than they did near anyone else with a white face. Showed her where her magic was strongest.”
“The moon lines?”
“They’re not actually called ‘moon lines,’” Nellie corrected, “that’s just the wolves’ term for them. To the rest of us, they’re called ley lines.” She shot me a triumphant look, like she’d just solved all my problems for me.
“But what are they?”
Nellie waved a hand toward the closest boarded-up window. “You have electricity that moves through those black ropes, right? The ones that hang on tall poles?”
I nodded. “Power lines.”
“Aye, exactly. Ley lines were once the power lines for magic, buried deep, deep underground. The Indians believed the lines fueled all magic.” She frowned. “Only, as time passed, the ley lines began to fade. This was long before my years walking the earth. It was like a fire dying: one bit cooling at a time, starting on the edges and moving inward until the last glowing ember fades.”
There’s something wrong with magic. How many times had I heard that phrase from Quinn or Simon? Everyone agreed that the Old World’s magic was weaker than it used to be, and it was now much more difficult to change a human into a werewolf or vampire. And according to Simon, there used to be lots of magical creatures, but now most were extinct. “Do the ley lines still . . . um, work? Is that still where magic comes from?”
She shrugged. “Ma said they were sleeping. There’s a word for it, something that’s out of the picture for years and years, but not really dead . . .”
“Dormant.”
Nellie snapped her fingers at me. “Aye. The ley lines are dormant. Not dead, though. That’s why there are still places where magic works a little better than others. And your Boulder is one of them.”
“But why?” I asked, though I didn’t really expect her to have the answer. “I mean, why did they go dormant?”
She hesitated for a moment, like she was about to say something embarrassing. “The Indians may have believed that ley lines fueled all the magic, but me ma said different. She claimed witches fueled the lines, and the lines in turn fueled the demimonde.” She shrugged again. “If she was right, and witch magic alone is what powers those lines, then it’s the lack of witch magic that made them fade.” She gave me a crafty look. “And witch magic that woke up the line, or at least your little part of it.”
The weight of her words settled on my shoulders. No one I’d met in the Old World knew why magic was fading, not even Maven—or if she knew, she’d kept the information closely guarded. But Nellie’s account could explain a lot. Witches had been targeted by humans since the Inquisition, and many witches had willfully chosen to stop practicing magic. Even active clans, like Clan Pellar, needed less and less magic to solve their everyday problems thanks to improvements in technology, transportation, and communication. And the witches in Colorado had stopped using apex magic because of their agreement with Maven.
Simon was definitely going to freak out when I told him.
“My little part of it,” I echoed, feeling almost numb with the shock of it. “But it seems so limited to Boulder, and parts of Denver. If the ley lines go on for miles and miles, why is it just this one part?”
She looked around in frustration. “If I could just draw a map for you . . .”
“Here.” I pulled my phone out of my pocket and pulled up a map of the Boulder-Denver area. “It’s small, but it’s something.”
“Yes, yes.” She didn’t look too surprised to see the phone, but smart phones had probably been around the last time her house had seen visitors. The former madam sat down on the step and crowded in close to me. My body automatically anticipated the smell of her breath or the closeness of her body heat—something—but she was just made out of air.
“There,” she said, tracing a line on the phone. The screen didn’t react to her finger at all. “The main line in these parts runs northwest and southeast. Boulder to Denver, but extending forever in either direction. But there was another line, southwest and northeast, here.” She traced another line that connected to the first right over my hometown.
“Hang on,” I said, zooming in on the phone. “Can you show me again?” I asked.
Shrugging, Nellie retraced the lines, and I saw the exact spot where they connected.
Right over Chautauqua.
Chapter 32
“It’s a crossroads,” I breathed.
“Aye. Or it was, back when the lines were active.” Her face was serious now, no more guile or attempts at manipulation. “The crossroads of two ley lines,” she said, shaking her head, “now, that made for some powerful magic. And someone has found a way to wake up that little fragment.”
“Fragment . . . vestige,” I said aloud, remembering the Unktehila’s words to us. The vestige was the sun it revolved around. “Someone is controlling the vestige of the ley line.”
“Someone is powering it,” she corrected, “stirring it up, like hot coals in a fire.”
“Power the ley lines, the ley lines power magic,” I mumbled. To Nellie, I said, “How would you do that?”
She shrugged. “There must be a specific spell. But it’s not our kind of magic, so I’m not familiar with it.”
Not boundary magic, then. “It has to be a witch?” I said, hearing the desperation in my voice. “You’re sure?”
“Of course.” Her look was a little disdainful now, like I was being intentionally stupid. “Haven’t you ever noticed, girl, that of the three remaining demimonde creatures, witches seem the least powerful, on the face of it? The wolves and the vampires, they have all that strength and healing and speed. Doesn’t that seem unfair to you?”
Well, it did now. Without waiting for my response, she continued, “It’s balance of power, you see? Without witch magic, the ley lines die, and it becomes harder and harder for the vampires and the wolves to reproduce.”
My brow furrowed. It was entirely possible that Nellie Evans was messing with me or that she was just plain wrong. But my gut told me she was right. “They don’t know,” I whispered. “The other witches. Why don’t they know?”
Nellie shrugged again, starting to look bored. She reached down and ran her hand over her shoes, changing them to match my own lightweight hiking boots. She wrinkled her nose in disgust and switched them back to the heels. “Even in my time, that knowledge was a rare thing. Without my ma’s connections, I wouldn’t have known. Most witch clans are like the werewolf packs: They only care about their own members. What is it to them if vampires are having a hard time reproducing? Good riddance, we all thought.” A greedy smile. “Plus, the economics. The less access there was to magic, the more in demand it became. And the more we got paid to use it.”
Holy shit. It was like goddamned global warming all over again. Suddenly I felt like the pull of gravity on my body had increased, sinking me into the floor with worry. A trades witch had caused all of this: the werewolves, the Unktehila, the vampires losing control. It seemed like more than enough to start a war.
“Would the witch have to be in Boulder to do the spell?” I asked, praying the answer was no.
But Nellie nodded. “Aye. The vestige, as you call it, that little bit of ley line, would need direct contact.”
I let out a few very unladylike words that made Nellie do a double-take, admiration on her face. There were a number of different witch clans in Colorado, but as far as I knew, only one of them was in Boulder . . . which meant someone in Clan
Pellar had done all of this.
But who? Reactivating the ley line vestige had provoked the werewolves, which had technically forced Maven to break her covenant with the witches. Any witch in Colorado had ample motivation to want to break the pact with Maven, especially the ones who were upset about losing their access to apex magic. I trusted Lily and Simon—even though Simon had changed his mind about the covenant, there was no way he’d go on letting the Unktehila kill innocent people—but it could be any one of the other witches. Maybe I could go to Hazel, explain my suspicions, and ask if she would help me identify the spell used to activate the vestige?
Except Hazel might be the one who’s doing all this. The realization struck me like a physical slap. Hazel had more motivation than anyone to stir shit up in Boulder, because breaking the pact with Maven would pacify the other clans who were still pissed about her deal. And if Hazel couldn’t be trusted, neither could Simon and Lily, because if they even suspected one of their family members was involved, they’d close ranks around them, right? That’s what family does.
I was so screwed.
By the time I got back in my car, it was twelve thirty. Four and a half hours until sunset. Maven was expecting me to tell her everything I’d learned from Nellie Evans, a conversation that had every possibility of kicking off a war. Whichever side I chose, I would be pitted against someone I cared about.
And that wasn’t the only time crunch, I realized. It had now been a full week since the last full moon. That meant the Wyoming werewolves, the pack that occasionally visited Tobias, could change again starting tonight. Would they make another attack on the borders? Hell, for all I knew, they were already in town, just waiting for the sun to set before they changed form.
Boundary Lines (Boundary Magic Book 2) Page 21
