“Yes, ma’am.”
“Tell me more about this plan.”
I nodded. “The way I see it, we have two options: We either cut off the sandworm’s power supply, which means putting the ley line back to . . . sleep, or whatever, or we figure out where it’s going to appear again and kill it the old-fashioned way.” I smiled, not in a nice way. “Since we don’t know enough about ley line magic, I’d like to pursue the second option, with Simon and Lily’s help.”
She leaned back in her chair and gave me a measured look. “Are you sure about those two? They’re Pellars, after all.”
I considered it for a moment. Was I? Was I absolutely certain they weren’t involved in waking up the vestige, even tangentially?
“Yeah,” I told her. “I’m sure. If I go after the Unktehila tonight, they will help me. Not because of any pact, but because they’re my friends.”
She sat there for a long moment. Her eyes were pointed more or less in my direction, but they’d gone distant. Finally she said, “Very well, then, Lieutenant. You’ll be in charge of killing the Unktehila. I’ll send Quinn and Opal with you. They’ve both proven themselves, and can help keep the situation under wraps. Quinn will also get you whatever he has in the armory that might help.” She stood up. “Wait here a moment.”
Maven rose and left the room, disappearing into the coffee shop. She was gone for a while, but I didn’t dare so much as walk to the office door and peek out. I just waited, feeling like I’d just survived three rounds in the ring with a tiger.
Finally, Maven returned to the office and held out her hand to me. In it was a small container, like an oversized jewelry box.
“What is this?” I asked, accepting the box. She nodded at me to open it. Inside was a large, clear marble made of some kind of translucent glass or stone, just slightly too big for my thumb and forefinger to fit around it. I raised my hand to touch it, but stopped when my fingers were a couple of centimeters away. I decided I didn’t want to touch anything that seemed to give off its own heat.
I looked back at Maven. “What is it?” I asked again.
“As you know, thirteen years ago I made a bargain with Hazel and the other witch clans, in exchange for stopping Trask,” Maven said. “They had to give up their apex magic, which included the dangerous spells used for combat. This deal would last for a period of two decades.” There was a weary smile on her face. “I never dreamed I would want to stay in Colorado longer than that.”
None of that explained the bauble in my hand. I raised my eyebrows, lifting the box a little. “I couldn’t just rely on a promise,” she explained. “I knew of a witch in Portugal who could channel clan magic into crystal or glass, imprisoning it. She went to every clan in the state and siphoned strength into one of these.” She nodded toward the bauble. “The one you’re now holding contains all of Clan Pellar’s apex magic.”
“Oh,” I said in a small voice.
“If this Unktehila is really as powerful as you say, you’re going to need every weapon at your disposal,” Maven said soberly. “It would be irresponsible of me to send Simon to fight it without his full power.” She nodded at the glass container. “Break it, and Clan Pellar has its apex magic back.”
I sucked in a sharp breath. “Are you sure you want to do that? Considering one of the witches in Clan Pellar is responsible for activating the vestige?”
Maven quirked a smile. “That’s the least of my concerns at the moment. Besides, no one else in the clan will know the apex magic has been returned to them. Why would you try a spell you didn’t think you could use?”
I nodded, thinking that through. I would have to tell Simon that he could use his powerful magic again, and if I was wrong about him being trustworthy . . . he could tell everyone else, and they would have some serious juice to turn against Maven’s interests.
It was a test.
Maven saw that line of thought travel over my face. “Yes,” she said softly, “a lot depends on the choices you will make tonight.” She glanced at the bauble again. “I leave it up to you.”
I stared into the depths of the tiny crystal ball for a long moment, feeling its weight in my hand. Then I tightened my grip on the box and jerked it up, tossing the ball in a shimmering arc toward the ground.
Chapter 35
The ball shattered on the concrete office floor with a hard crack, exactly the same sound as when Sam had once dropped my mother’s favorite snow globe. Instead of exploding into fragments, however, the bauble instantly dissolved into a violet-hued vapor that rose a few inches off the ground and vanished into the air. A moment later there was no sign that the crystal sphere had ever existed.
“Is that it?” I asked Maven, raising my eyes to her.
“That’s it,” she assured me. “Good hunting.”
I got up and went out into the big auditorium room, doing my best to ignore the three ghosts that still glowed in there. Simon sounded breathless and hyper when he answered his phone. “Lex!” he cried. “I think I figured it out.” Lily’s voice said something in the background, and he amended, “Okay, we figured it out.”
“Figured what out?”
“Where the Unktehila’s gonna strike! Where are you? We’re at the BioLounge, and I can show you everything on the map, but Lily forgot her phone and I think my battery’s—”
His voice cut off abruptly, and I checked my own phone. Crap. I didn’t have time for science show-and-tell, but I wasn’t far from campus, and I’d need to pick them up anyway. I jammed the phone into my pocket and headed out to the car.
I had been taking magic lessons from Simon and Lily since I’d learned about being a witch. Most of the time, one of them came over and we did it at the cabin, but once or twice I’d stopped to pick up Simon after his office hours, which he held in the BioLounge, a sort of makeshift coffee shop that had been set up in the basement of the Henderson Building, underneath the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History. There was kitschy, eclectic furniture; small, interesting exhibits; and best of all, free tea and coffee. It didn’t surprise me to learn that many of the associate professors preferred to hold their office hours there, rather than in cramped, windowless offices.
Tobias finally called while I was parking rather illegally outside the Henderson Building. I told him to meet me there with whatever pack members he’d found. Maven would be calling Quinn to tell him about my plan, so I texted him to meet us at the BioLounge too. Might as well get everyone in the same place.
The museum was closed by now, but Lily was waiting by the door to let me in. “Hey,” she said as she pushed the heavy door open for me. “Simon ran upstairs to get his phone charger . . . and you should probably know he’s had at least three espressos.”
I grinned. “I sort of got that impression on the phone.”
“Also,” Lily began, gesturing for me to follow her down the stairs, “I think I probably owe you an apology.”
I blanched for a second. “Oh, because of your sisters?” I waved it off. “I get it. They were just being protective.”
She snorted. “I would have used the words ‘stuck-up bitches,’ but sure. Protective. Anyway, if I had known they were planning to treat you that way, I never would have invited you. Sybil in particular was in rare form.”
My rush down the stairs slowed a little. Sybil. Now, if there was any witch with an especially strong motive for wanting Maven deposed and the clan freed from their agreement, it was Sybil. She wasn’t her mother’s golden child, and she was dying to prove her worth. Wouldn’t dissolving Maven’s pact with the witches be a great way to do just that?
But I couldn’t exactly come out and say that to Lily. “How far do you think she would go?” I asked instead.
Lily paused and turned around to look at me. “To keep us apart? Well, if you get any breakup notes from me, you should probably take a close look at the handwriting.” When I didn’t laugh, Lily stepped toward me. “Lex? What is it?”
Shit. I really didn’t want
to accuse her sister of anything, certainly not without serious proof. I backpedaled. “Listen, there’s something I need to tell you and Simon. I think we’ve figured out what’s been causing all this unrest in the Old World lately.”
“What—” Lily began, but her brother’s voice cut her off.
“Lex!” I turned to see Simon bounding down the last few stairs. He was practically bouncing from caffeine and excitement, and it was pretty spectacular to see him this way after weeks of him looking like death. And I would know. “Come on, I gotta show you this.” He grabbed my hand and tugged me down the short hallway into the BioLounge, which was deserted except for tables. Most of the tables were covered in large maps and other documents. He pulled me toward the biggest one.
“Simon—” I began, but I was immediately shushed.
“Just hang on a second; this took me all day.” We stopped at a large piece of butcher paper with a hand-drawn sketch, sort of like a family tree. The top of the tree was a little stick figure wearing what appeared to be a wizard hat. Below him, in three branches, were crude drawings of a vampire, a witch, and a werewolf. I particularly enjoyed the vampire fangs, which were the approximate size and shape of walrus tusks.
“Why do I feel like you drew this and not Lily?” I wondered aloud.
“Shush. See, we already know that witches evolved from the same source as vampires and werewolves,” Simon began, pushing his glasses higher on his nose. “Magical conduits. And they were created when magic bonded with one evolutionary strain of the human species.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I got that back in Magic 101.”
“Magic also bonded with certain metals, and a specific family of plants called Solanaceae, commonly known as nightshades.” He pointed toward a second sketch lower on the same sheet, of a variety of plant species. “But that’s as much as we know about how magic works, right?”
Without waiting for my answer, he reached for the stack of papers on an adjoining table and pulled out a chart that could have been subtitled “Biological Classification for Dummies.” It was a colorful pyramid explaining the order of classification I dimly remembered from high school science class: life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, etc., all the way down to species. “This is the chart I show my students,” Simon continued. “You can trace every single organism, including Old World organisms, up this pyramid, and the sandworm—the Unktehila—is no different.”
“Simon . . . no offense, but can you maybe move on to the point? We’ve got a time deficit here.”
“Yeah, Lex has something important to tell us,” Lily said pointedly.
Simon ignored her. “Almost there. I’ve been examining the scale we found, and comparing both the scale and the physical characteristics of the Unktehila with all known species. I’ve traced it back to the order Squamata, which is a group of scaled reptiles that includes the green anaconda and the Komodo dragon. When the order began to speciate into multiple families, magic stepped in and formed a new species. The Unktehila.”
“Okay . . .” I spotted the scale on a nearby table and picked it up cautiously. I flexed it back and forth for a moment, which was like trying to bend a piece of iron. Damn, that thing was thick. And apparently bulletproof. How the hell were we going to kill this thing?
“Considering its preferred climate and the fact that it’s venomous,” Simon went on, “I’d guess that it belongs to the same superfamily as the Gila monster and the Komodo: Varanoidea. It simply didn’t evolve legs, because it didn’t need them.”
“That’s really interesting, Simon,” I said patiently, “but what does it tell us about finding and killing the fucker?”
Shooting me a be patient look, Simon held up a finger. “One: I’m guessing it may be semiaquatic, much like the anaconda. Some of the legends about this thing are likely connected to the Native American myth of the water panther. Two: It’s definitely cold-blooded, so it’s going to seek out heat, which speeds its digestion. The fact that it was able to digest a meal as large as a human body as quickly as it did suggests that it has a heat source, which is probably where it goes during the day. It can’t be too far from Boulder, though, because whatever’s going on with the city’s magic seems to be limited to this area. Otherwise there’s no reason for the thing to come here at all.”
He looked at me expectantly, and I realized I was supposed to put this together. Now it was my turn to roll my eyes. “Stop being such a frickin’ teacher, Simon, and tell me . . .” My voice trailed off as all the clues registered. None of that would have meant much in most American states, but this was Colorado.
“The hot springs,” I breathed. “It’s going to the hot springs.”
Simon, the jerk, actually applauded, like I was the star pupil in a class of one. “Exactly.”
“But which one? There must be half a dozen in Colorado, and none of them are very close to Boulder.”
“There are more than that, actually, but that’s not the point. Here, look.” He pulled me to another table, where he’d laid out a simple road map of Colorado, the kind you can get at rest stops and gas stations. Simon had circled about thirty different towns with a black marker. “These are the locations of all the natural hot springs near us,” he announced.
Two of the black circles were fairly close to Boulder, and the rest all a distance away. I bent forward to examine the map. “So it could be either Idaho Springs or Steamboat Springs, assuming this thing doesn’t need to follow the road system.”
“Oh, yeah. Where this thing’s going, it doesn’t need roads,” Simon intoned, a manic grin on his face.
“Simon . . .”
“I mentioned the espresso, right?” Lily said dryly.
Simon hurried to add, “But listen, remember the first gastric pellet?”
“The homeless guy?”
He shook his head. “Technically, that was the second. The first gastric pellet was the one found in Golden Gate Canyon Park.” He pointed at it on the map, and I leaned forward to see.
The park was almost exactly halfway between Boulder and Idaho Springs.
Chapter 36
“This is great, Simon,” I said appreciatively. I was finally starting to put together a real plan on how best to use my resources, which was so much better than floundering around putting out fires. “But it’s not enough to know the general area; this thing moves too fast. We need a way to lure it out, to herd it to a specific spot where we can kill it,” I concluded. “Any ideas?”
Simon hesitated for a long moment, then said reluctantly, “If my theory is right, the Unktehila’s sight isn’t the greatest, especially in dim lighting. It mostly gets around underground by sensing tremors. Above ground, in an area with a natural heat source, it must mostly rely on smell to hunt.” He gestured toward his mouth. “It does the forked tongue thing, like snakes and the Komodo.”
I remembered seeing it flick its tongue out, just before it identified me as a boundary witch. It could smell my blood, like vampires. “Okay, so?”
He took a deep breath, pushed it out. “So, it can probably distinguish the smells of individual people, and it does have a particular hatred of me, so . . .”
Lily squeaked as we both understood his meaning. “You want to use yourself as bait?” I said incredulously, at the same time as Lily said, “Si, you can’t!”
“Remember what it called me?” Simon said, looking at me. “‘Wounded disruptor.’ It doesn’t know that I’ve been healed. We can use that.”
Lily looked back and forth between our faces. “You guys can’t be serious. Si, I know you’ve staked a couple of vampires, but that does not make you a badass.”
“It’s the best way we can draw this thing in, Lil,” he told his sister. “Don’t worry. Lex will have my back.”
Tears rushed to my eyes, and I had to blink rapidly to keep them from falling. Even after what had happened with Atwood, Simon was still willing to count on me in a fight. I just nodded.
“Mom’s gonna be pissed,” Lily mutt
ered.
“Don’t tell her, then.”
That reminded me of why I’d really come here, what I had to tell them—not to mention our very serious time crunch: Quinn and the werewolves would arrive any minute. “Guys, there’s something else you need to know.” As briefly as I could, I told them about werewolves coming into the state and killing Travis and Allegra. Both Pellars were shocked, and more than a little angry.
“There are werewolves in Colorado and you’re just now getting around to telling us?” Simon snapped.
“Yes,” I said simply. “I believed there was an external force pushing them to break the arrangement with Maven, and I wanted to figure out what that was before I told the clan that the pact had been broken.”
Simon and Lily exchanged a look, as if telepathically deciding who would respond to that. “We’re a lot more than ‘the clan,’ Lex. We’re your friends,” Lily pointed out. “You should have said something.”
I looked back and forth between the Pellar siblings, who wore identical determined, wounded expressions. “Your father—” I began.
“Was killed by a werewolf? So what?” Simon snapped back. “That was over thirteen years ago, and the werewolf who did it is dead. Assuming that all werewolves are evil because one of them killed our dad is shortsighted at best. It’s also bigoted, hateful, and prejudiced.”
I felt shame creep over my cheeks. I had assumed Simon and Lily wouldn’t be able to set aside their prejudices and see the werewolves as a diverse group, because that was how I’d reacted, until Sam had set me straight.
“You’re right, and I’m sorry,” I told them. “But there’s another reason I didn’t know if I could tell you. It turns out that the person behind all of this has to be a witch.” I told them about ley lines and the recently activated vestige in Boulder. Simon’s face got excited as I explained the theory that witches power the lines, but his excitement faded to fear as he absorbed the implications. And then anger, as he followed that line of thought through to the logical end. “You thought it could be one of us?” he said, hurt and outrage written all over his features.
Boundary Lines (Boundary Magic Book 2) Page 24
