“Lex?” Quinn said, looking worried. “What’s going on?”
I blew out a breath. “This part you can overhear.” I pulled out my own phone and called Maven.
She answered in a low voice. “Hello, Lex.”
“Maven,” I said, as clearly as possible, “I’m calling to resign.”
Quinn’s eyes widened, and he stood up and came over to me. In my ear, Maven said, “Excuse me?”
“Our deal is not working out,” I told her. “I quit.”
I enunciated very clearly. There was going to be no confusion about this.
Maven paused for a long moment, then said, “Of course, you can leave my employ whenever you want. But Charlie will no longer be under my protection. Nor will you.”
“To be fair,” I said, a little testily, “we haven’t been feeling a whole lot of protection lately.”
Quinn flinched. I might have gone a little too far, but it was too late to take it back.
Another pause from Maven, then: “All right, Lex. I release you from my employ. I hope you know what you’re doing.”
Me too. “I ask you for one parting favor,” I said, accidentally picking up on her formal language. “May I please borrow your Jeep tonight? Just as a friendly gesture.”
Her voice had a touch more warmth as she replied, “Of course. No strings attached. Please return it to Magic Beans anytime tomorrow.”
I hung up the phone. Quinn immediately began to speak, but I held up my hand. “Don’t,” I warned.
“Why—” he began, but I threw my arms around him, hugging him tight. I breathed in his familiar scent, taking comfort in it. I didn’t say anything. If I told him what I was planning, he’d never let me leave alone. And Katia would die.
When I stepped back, his eyes were troubled. He wouldn’t look at me, and with a jolt I realized why: he was afraid I would press him.
I’d done it once before, under circumstances not so different from these . . . but I’d sworn that I never would again. My cheeks flared red with shame. I’d worried that I couldn’t trust him, but maybe he felt the exact same way.
“I wouldn’t,” I told him, my voice cracking. “I made a promise.”
Quinn finally risked a glance at me, his eyes sad. “And I know that it means nothing next to the promise you made Sam,” he said frankly. “You’d do anything to protect Charlie, and I don’t blame you. But if you quit Maven’s service . . .” He gave me a helpless look. “You’re sidelining me again.”
“This isn’t—that’s not—” I sputtered, but I knew he wasn’t wrong. All of a sudden Katia wasn’t the only person I could lose tonight. “Please,” I said at last. “Please, Quinn, trust me.”
I held up a hand to touch his face; he turned his head to plant a kiss on my palm. I could see what it was costing him, but he nodded. “All right,” he said at last. “Go.”
I started to turn away, stopped. “If you can get away tonight, please go watch that place we stopped earlier.” I gave him a pointed look and then sent my gaze around the room, to indicate that someone could be listening. “Or send Clara, if she recovers.”
To his credit, Quinn picked it up quickly and nodded. “I will.” He brushed my hair back from my face. “I love you.”
My throat seemed to close up, so I brushed a kiss across his lips and exchanged my personal cell phone for the Jeep keys on the table. I kept the burner Morgan had left for me.
On my way out the door, I heard Quinn’s cell phone start ringing, heard him answer it. “Hello, Maven.”
A couple of years earlier, Maven had paid a lot of money to get her Jeep tricked out. It had bullet-resistant windows, a lightproof storage area where vampires could hide during the day, and one other cool feature that most people didn’t know about: you could turn the GPS tracking on and off with the touch of a button. As soon as I got in the Jeep, I turned the tracking feature off. I couldn’t risk being followed.
I drove home first. The roads weren’t slick, so I went as fast as I dared, especially on the back roads. It was well after dark, but Simon, Lily, and I had cleared this route of ghosts. For better or worse, I was able to concentrate on what I needed to do.
At the cabin, the dogs immediately began their frantic chorus of barking. I waded through them and opened the back door, allowing them to race out into the fenced-in backyard. Then I hurried to my bedroom and dug through a pile of clothes until I found the backpack with my ghost-laying supplies. I tore things out of it, tossing them aside, until I found the encrypted walkie-talkie.
The walkie-talkies had a range of about fifty miles, more than enough to contact Simon out at the farm. I switched on the handset and found the button that made a single beep. I hit it three times very quickly, our code for “Anyone there?”
I waited for two minutes, all I could afford, and tried again. This time there was a crackle of static; then Simon’s voice exploded over the line. “About fucking time! This is Phoenix; what the hell’s going on?”
I almost cried. Suddenly code names didn’t seem so silly. “Phoenix, this is Griffin. Can you talk?”
“Can I talk? I’ve been sitting next to this thing in my room for the past two days!” I gave him a second, and he said in a calmer voice, “Yes, I’m alone.”
“Okay, listen, because I don’t have much time.” As I spoke, I stood up and began darting around my room, throwing stuff into the backpack. The first thing I grabbed was Valerya’s bloodstone, from the dish by the window where I kept my assorted crystals. It was on a cord, which I put over my head with one hand, settling the bloodstone against my chest. I immediately felt better. “Katia is in trouble. I know you guys have been trying to play fair with the witch clans, but I’m asking you to blow it all up and come help me.”
I held my breath. I could have given him more information, of course, or tried to plead my case, but I knew what I was asking. I wouldn’t manipulate him into it.
Simon paused for only a heartbeat before answering. “Tell me what you need.”
Chapter 35
“Well, that was satisfying,” Simon said half an hour later as he climbed into the Jeep. We were a quarter of a mile from the Pellar farmhouse, and he was a little breathless from running. He’d dressed in dark clothes and carried his favorite messenger bag, which functioned as sort of a witch emergency kit. He half stood to deposit a cardboard box on the back seat, and when he settled back down his coat pocket gaped enough for me to see the outline of a pistol. Jeez. He was ready for war.
“What’d you do?” I asked as I put the Jeep in Drive.
“I threw Marissa Shaw into a wall and zapped her unconscious.” He was positively gleeful. “I know apex magic has gotten us in trouble, but damn, that felt good.”
Despite the circumstances, I couldn’t help but glance over and smile at him. Then I looked at the box in my rearview mirror. There were holes punched in the top. “So you brought . . .”
“Yeah. I gave her a sedative, though.”
“Thank you,” I said sincerely.
“It’s okay . . . but what exactly are we doing?” he asked.
My smile faded. “Morgan has Katia. She wants me to use Charlie to break your mother’s ward.”
“What?!”
I gave him the short version of events, including Quinn’s comment about the blitzkrieg. “Morgan’s right. Maven won’t be able to put out all the fires fast enough to stop Morgan from crashing your mom’s meeting tomorrow,” I concluded. “Lily’s off the board, too, so she won’t be able to be your mom’s plan B.”
Simon groaned. “So you’re saying my evil sister is using Sybil and Charlie to get what she wants. Again.”
“Yes.” I pressed down hard on the accelerator, causing Simon to brace himself on the dash. He didn’t say anything about my speed.
“Okay, so what are we doing?”
I told him. I was concentrating on the road at the time—I hadn’t cleared this path yet, and it’s hard to speed with ghosts popping in and out of sight—but h
is tone was wary when he answered. “Lex . . . I don’t know about this.”
“Really?” I risked a sideways glance. Simon looked pale. Shit. “I figured you of all people would be . . . interested.”
“You know all those books and movies about what happens when science goes too far? They exist for a reason. Are you sure you want to cross this line?”
“No, I’m not,” I admitted. “But I’m not putting Charlie at risk, and we don’t have time to do this the normal way. If you’ve got another idea, I’m all ears, but otherwise . . . this is my only chance to save Katia.”
My voice broke a little at the end. I was trying very hard not to think about the way my aunt had sounded on the phone. It wasn’t just that she’d clearly been hurt. It was that she sounded resigned to it.
“Still.” Simon was stubborn. “The risks—”
“Are mine,” I interrupted. “I’m sorry, but I’ll do this with or without you, Simon. If it goes wrong, though, I’d rather you were there to zap me unconscious.” Simon knew the same “human Taser” spell that Lily favored, and it would be able to affect my biological systems. Thank you, nuances.
Simon sighed. “All right.”
We drove first to John’s house, where I went through the house and opened the garage door. I backed John’s car out so Simon could back the Jeep in. He waited for me to come inside before he pressed the button to lower the garage door, smiling a little wistfully. “Doesn’t it seem like we were just hanging out in John’s garage, talking shoe sizes?” he said with a little smile.
“Honestly? That feels like a month ago.”
When we got to the living room, Simon’s jaw dropped at the sight of all the blood. “I can’t believe he’s still alive,” he blurted, then winced and glanced at me. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay. Besides, most of this”—I gestured at the walls—“was Clara tearing up some werewolves.”
He let out a low whistle. “Remind me not to piss her off.”
We stepped carefully around the bloodstains—I felt a little like I was following those old-fashioned footprints they used to use to teach people how to dance—until we reached the kitchen. I gestured at the back door, where three bodies were still stacked in a wobbly pile. “There. No one has had time to do anything about them. And it’s not like John’s coming home from the hospital tonight.” My voice cracked, dammit. Simon laid a hand on my shoulder. His other hand was already holding a pair of surgical gloves. “Do you want to call and check in?” he asked kindly. “I can handle this part myself.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You can?”
“Hey,” he said defensively. “I’ve been working out!”
I smiled and went to the kitchen landline, which John insisted on keeping. I boosted myself up onto the counter to sit, and dialed my father’s cell phone. He would be honest with me, where my mom might try to sugarcoat things.
“Hello?” came my dad’s gruff voice.
“It’s me. How is he?”
“In surgery.” There was a heaviness in his tone that frightened me.
“Dad?”
“We just got an update. They . . . well, they can’t believe he’s alive, honey. Apparently his heart stopped on the table, and they barely managed to get it beating again.” My stomach sank. Whatever power I’d lent John with my blood had worn off. “They’re doing everything they can to stabilize him, but they found some other injuries.”
Shit. I had been so distracted by John’s blood loss, I hadn’t checked him thoroughly. “What other injuries?”
“He’s got a hema . . . hema-something, I don’t remember the name, but it’s blood in his kidneys, like he was hit.” My dad sounded worried. “Did he and Quinn get in a fight or something?”
“No, no . . .” Shit. One of the werewolves must have hit John while Clara was busy. Why hadn’t I thought to ask Sybil about the fight? I was losing control of the situation. “I don’t know how it happened. Maybe he fell or something before we were hanging out tonight.”
“Well, ordinarily it wouldn’t be life-threatening, but with the blood loss . . .” His voice was heavy. “They’re doing everything they can,” he repeated. “Blossom is on her way, and I’ve called Pastor Sean to come too.”
I felt like my insides were being run through an industrial shredder. My parents had invited their pastor to the hospital to pray over John. They wouldn’t do that unless they were really worried he could die. “Blossom’s not going to like that,” I said without thinking.
“She’ll have to deal with it,” he said a little sternly. “Prayers won’t hurt anyone, whatever you believe.”
I made myself take a breath. “Listen, Dad . . . I sent for Sashi.” I was pleased at how clear I sounded.
My dad grunted, startled. “To . . . say goodbye?”
“Oh, no,” I hurried to say. “No, she’s a trauma specialist, remember? I told her what happened, and she’s coming.”
There was a much longer pause this time, and I knew my dad was thinking it through. From his perspective, Sashi wouldn’t be able to do anything for John that wasn’t already being done, but he wasn’t going to say that, since calling her had obviously made me feel better. “If you think that’s best,” he said finally. “You know we love Sashi. We’ll make sure she gets in to see him. How’s Quinn?”
“Better. His doctor thought it was just, um, some kind of panic attack. Not a heart attack.”
My dad made a hmph noise. “Just make sure he takes it seriously. I know he’s young, but he should get a full cardio workup when he gets a chance.”
That would be a very interesting day for some hapless doctor. “I’ll tell him, Dad. I’m having a little trouble with my cell phone, but I’ll call back to check in, okay?”
“We’ll be here.”
Simon came back into the kitchen, pulling off the surgical gloves. He stopped when he saw my face. “Is he . . .”
“Alive? For now.” If I talked about it, I was going to cry again, so I hopped off the counter. “Come on, let’s go.”
Simon followed me without a word.
Chapter 36
It should have been at least a forty-five-minute drive from Boulder to Denver, but there was no traffic at three thirty in the morning and I decided to push Maven’s deal with the police as far as I could. Luckily for me, our route passed through the main streets in Boulder, which I had already cleared of distracting ghosts. We made it to the Denver city limits in less than a half hour, but then I did need to slow down so I could navigate through the remnants.
It was even more difficult than usual, since I felt like my brain was full of skittering bugs. John could die. Katia could die. I’d burned my relationship with Maven, possibly forever. And I was about to do something I’d never thought I’d even consider.
“Lex?” Simon had asked me something, obviously more than once.
“Sorry, what?”
“I said, did you bring that stone?”
“Oh. Yes. It’s in my backpack, in a drawstring bag.”
Simon leaned between the seats to dig through my backpack and emerged with a simple cotton bag the size of a cell phone. “Can I touch it?” he asked.
“You’re going to have to, for it to work.”
Simon upended the bag into one hand, exposing a chunk of cassiterite as big as his thumb on a black silk cord.
Crystals were powered by gravitational magic, which often clashed with the magic used by witches. I didn’t really know why some stones worked for witches and others didn’t, but I was happy to use the ones I knew about: labradorite, obsidian, bloodstone, amethyst, a few others. Cassiterite was a threshold stone, and I’d found that it could work as a sort of telephone to ghosts.
The first time I’d used it to talk to a ghost during the day, I’d gotten a small, store-bought rock. This piece of cassiterite was bigger and of better quality than the first, purchased from a grumbling Blossom Wheaton, who’d become my reluctant—and price-inflating—source of high-quality crystals.
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“What do I do?” Simon said uncertainly. He wasn’t used to being on the student side of our student-teacher relationship.
“Um . . .” I hadn’t really tried to verbalize how I used the crystals, and I struggled for the right words. “Well, when I use it, I kind of hold it in both hands and concentrate on seeing with my magic. It’s gravitational magic, and you’re a different kind of witch than me, so I suppose it might not work for you at all. But it’s worth a try.”
Simon looked thoughtful. “Okay. I can try a few things. Anything else I should know?”
I pursed my lips for a moment. “Well . . . she’s probably going to be kind of pissy. I haven’t been visiting.”
“Really?” He sounded surprised.
I rolled my eyes over to him. “She’s not actually my family, you know. I used to come in exchange for information, but nothing’s been going on.” I shrugged. “Our last deal was up six months ago. So she’s either going to be pissed or desperate, or some combination of the two.”
“Great,” Simon said dryly. “How could that go wrong?”
Finally, we reached the commercial area around Market Street. In the nineteenth century, Denver had a booming red-light district near what is now Coors Field. I have no idea how many brothels existed in that era, but I know one of them was owned by a boundary witch named Nellie Evans. Nellie had gotten into a disagreement with Maven and “killed” her, only to discover Maven was an extremely powerful vampire. Maven hadn’t been very forgiving, and she’d put an end to Nellie’s life by cutting off her head.
Nellie hadn’t moved on, either because she couldn’t or because she’d chosen not to. As it turned out, boundary witches left fully sentient ghosts, and Nellie was willing to give me information on boundary magic—for a price. She would not, however, go into detail about her family’s history, or explain why she preferred being a bored ghost in a run-down old brothel to moving on. She also did not want to discuss how she had failed to notice that Maven was a vampire when she was alive, though I’d asked.
Boundary Broken (Boundary Magic Book 4) Page 23
