Boundary Crossed

by Melissa F. Olson

  I was still browsing through them when the dogs suddenly left their various napping stations and swarmed toward the door, barking frantically. “Guys,” I yelled tiredly, but they ignored me. We went through this routine several times a day, and it was almost always nothing. The cabin was surrounded by woods on three sides, so there was plenty of wildlife out there. I rolled my eyes and waited it out, silently pitying the cat burglar who thought he could get into my cabin unnoticed.

  But instead of dying down, the tenor of the dogs’ cries changed from their usual “There may or may not be an animal in the yard!” barks to their “This is not a drill!” barks, finally transitioning into their “Code human! Code human!” barks. I trudged toward the front door, but the doorbell rang before I reached the entryway.

  I peeked through the small vertical window in the door, squinting against the twilight. The woman on the other side was a couple of years younger than me, maybe in her late twenties. She was pretty, with warm, dark-brown skin, blue eyes, and small dreadlocks that reached her shoulders. She had on a skintight denim jacket over a floor-length brown silk skirt and dark clogs. A nose ring sparkled in the automatic sensor light on the porch, and a hemp bag big enough to hold an LP record crossed her chest and rested on one hip. She saw me peeking through the window and shouted something, but I couldn’t hear her over the clamor from the dogs.

  “Guys!” I yelled. The dogs paused long enough to look at me, tails wagging proudly at their security prowess. I sighed and opened the door a few inches, wedging my leg into the crack so the pack wouldn’t run out. They crowded around my leg, trying to get a sniff of the newcomer.

  “Can I help you?” I asked politely.

  “I’m Lily,” she said, a little impatient. “Simon’s sister?”

  “Um. Oh,” I said stupidly.

  Seeing my embarrassment, the younger woman grinned. “Don’t sweat it, we get that all the time,” she said cheerfully. “I happen to have inherited more of our dad’s genes; he was black. Not in a young Michael Jackson way or anything—Dad would still be black, except he’s dead. Can I come in?”

  “Sure,” I said, a little dazed. My hostess instincts kicked in belatedly, and I remembered to ask if she’d prefer that I put the dogs away. “They’ll calm down in a couple of minutes, but some people are bothered . . .” I added.

  “I’m good,” Lily said, her voice still cheerful. “I like animals.”

  I backed up, and she expertly squeezed through the door after me, not leaving enough room for the dogs to run out. I held out my hand. “Sorry about them. I’m Lex, it’s nice to meet you.”

  We shook, which made the stitches in my back prickle uncomfortably. “Nice to meet you too,” she said. “Simon told me you have some stitches that need to come out?”

  “Oh, God, yes. Come on in.”

  Chapter 10

  In the kitchen, Lily began spreading medical scissors, tweezers, and a few other odds and ends on my island counter. We made a bit of small talk about Boulder and the weather, and after a few minutes she took off her jacket, revealing a black ribbed tank top and toned arms that were covered in black patterns from wrist to shoulder. “Wow,” I breathed. “Your tattoos are amazing.” Each arm was obviously planned as one piece, and instead of separate pictures the swirling ink seemed to suggest a random, always-moving design: part tribal, part Eastern, as if Native American carvings had procreated with Japanese calligraphy. It was only after looking at the tattoos for a few seconds that my eyes started to detect connections in the pattern, although I didn’t recognize any of the symbols or structures.

  “Oh, thanks.” Lily looked fondly down at her arms. “Designed them myself. I used to be a tattoo artist.”

  “What do they mean?” I asked, then caught myself. “Sorry, that was kind of a rude question.”

  “It’s okay,” Lily said, unruffled. “It’s a long story, is all. Another time.”

  “And Simon said you went to med school?” I said tentatively. I wasn’t really worried about the stitches—I’d taken my own stitches out before, so I knew it wasn’t that hard. I just didn’t know what else to talk about.

  “Oh. Yeah.” She rolled her eyes ruefully, as if med school was just a post-college rite of passage, like backpacking through Europe. “I did two years, but I got sick of not being able to add any magic to what we were doing. I mean, it’d be like you going into war armed with heavy rocks when you could be using guns. Simon told me you were a soldier. I hope that’s okay.”

  “Uh, sure.”

  She surveyed the counter. “Okay, I think I’m all set up here.” Pulling on a pair of surgical gloves, she made a quick motion in the direction of my chest. “Time to sit down and lose the shirt.”

  “Right,” I said, feeling a little awkward. It had been a while since I’d taken my shirt off in front of a stranger, even another woman.

  Lily cocked an eyebrow, clearly picking up on my discomfort. “Here, look.” Her fingers dropped to the hem of her tank top, pulling it up and exposing smooth brown skin and several more tattoos, not to mention small, firm breasts—she wasn’t wearing a bra either. She dropped the shirt back down. “Now we’re even.”

  A laugh escaped from between my lips, and I sat on the stool and started to unbutton my flannel shirt. “I can’t believe you just flashed me as an icebreaker.”

  “It might not be the best precedent to set,” Lily said agreeably.

  I peeled the flannel off carefully, with Lily helping a little. She handed it to me, and I stuck my arms through the sleeves again, pulling it on backward to cover my front.

  Lily let out a low whistle. “Wow,” she said admiringly, echoing my tone of voice from earlier. “Your scars are amazing.” I felt her touch the thick white line of older scar tissue that bisected my own tattoo, a black design on my shoulder with my unit’s shield and the words “US ARMY.” “What happened here?” she asked curiously.

  “Oh . . . everyone in my squad was getting them,” I said, deliberately misinterpreting the question.

  When I didn’t say anything else, she said quietly, “It’s good work.” She cleared her throat. “Right. Let’s get started on those stitches.”

  She soaked a cotton ball in iodine and started disinfecting all my fresh injuries from the healed-over stitches. I felt the cold liquid running down my skin and shivered, grateful for the backward shirt. After giving the iodine a second to dry, Lily started at the topmost injury—snipping the stitches with her little scissors and pulling them free with tweezers. “These are either infected or were just about to get infected.” I could hear the frown in her voice. “Simon should have taken them out as soon as he gave you Sybil’s charm.”

  “It’s not his fa-ault,” I protested, stumbling over my words from pain as she tugged at a stitch. “There wasn’t any time.”

  “Still,” she grumbled, but good-naturedly now. “My brother thinks he’s a goddamned cowboy. A nerdy, overeager, scientist cowboy, which is obviously the worst kind.”

  I smiled, although she couldn’t see it. “Which of you is older?” I said, though I was pretty sure it was Simon.

  A snort. “He is. I’m the baby. My sister Morgan is the oldest. The heir apparent, or so she thinks. Then it’s Sybil, who tries to keep up by being really tightly wound. Simon and I are more laid-back.”

  “Still, it sounds like you guys are close.”

  “I guess. Do you have brothers and sisters?” she asked.

  “I have a lot of cousins. We’re pretty tight,” I said truthfully. If there was one thing I’d learned about small talk in the last year, it was that “dead twin sister” pretty much ruined things for everyone.

  “Oh, cousins are the best,” Lily said agreeably. “Sibling enough to love you forever, but you never have to worry about them stealing your clothes.” She made another careful snip. “I like your earrings, by the way,” Lily added. “Is that a
griffin?”

  “Oh, thanks.” I touched one of the little silver studs. I didn’t wear earrings often, but when I did, I usually chose this pair, each one a tiny curled-up animal. “Yeah. My cousin Anna gave them to me. She has this weird idea that griffins are my spirit animal,” I explained. “She’s got a New Age streak, but we’ve mostly learned to adjust.” And at least it wasn’t a unicorn.

  Somewhere between the second and third line of stitches, the doorbell rang again. It was a sudden, shocking sound, given that the dogs were all still draped on various pieces of furniture when it happened. They hadn’t even made it to their first round of barks. I jumped, and Lily poked me hard with the tweezers. All four of the dogs leapt up like they’d been caught sleeping on the job, which was true. “My fault,” I called over the sound of barking dogs. “Can you stop for a second?”

  Still wearing the backward shirt, I padded through the cabin to the front door, peering through the window again. It was fully dark outside by now, but the automatic sensor light showed Quinn, looking handsome in jeans and a black leather jacket. Was that look a vampire thing?

  Using one foot as a stopper, I cracked the door open. The dogs, who had huddled around me, began freaking out in earnest—Cody and Dopey whined and pawed the floor, Pongo barked as loud as he could, and Chip actually began to howl. I’d never heard that sound from him before. “Hi,” I said over the racket. “You came over.”

  He nodded, his eyes taking in my backward shirt without any particular reaction. I was getting used to a general lack of readable reactions from Quinn. “The situation has changed a bit on my end. We need to talk, and I try not to discuss anything important over the phone.”

  “How did you find me?” I asked, eyebrows raised. “I’m not exactly in the phone book.”

  “From your chart,” he explained, practically shouting to be heard over the dogs’ racket. I started to open the door, but Pongo, usually the most levelheaded of my crew, let out a vicious growl and lunged at the door. “Oh,” Quinn added casually, “dogs generally hate vampires. Some cats, too.”

  I rolled my eyes. Further proof that dogs are smarter than people. “Of course they do. Hang on.”

  Closing the front door, I herded all four dogs into the adjacent mudroom, tugging at collars and doing some fancy blocking maneuvers to get them all in at once. As I straightened up, I realized belatedly that I had probably given Quinn a good view of my scarred, naked back through the window—and probably a pretty solid glimpse of my breasts, too. Great. I rolled my eyes as a blush crept up my neck.

  When I opened the door, Quinn was standing with his back to the house, pretending to survey the yard in the darkness. He turned when he heard the door open, but very slowly, checking his peripheral vision to make sure I was decent. Oh, yeah. He’d seen my boobs.

  “Darcy said that this wasn’t over,” I blurted, before I could let myself feel any more embarrassment. “She’s going to go after Charlie again.”

  Quinn nodded, his face still unreadable. “I’ve got two vampires guarding the entrances to your brother-in-law’s house, both of them stronger than Darcy. Your niece is definitely safe for the night.”

  “Thank you,” I said, meaning it.

  “We still need to talk, though.”

  I glanced down at my backward shirt. “Simon’s sister Lily is here taking my stitches out.”

  “Can I come in and wait?”

  “Sure.” I opened the door wider, but Quinn just stood there, cocking an eyebrow at me.

  “Oh, right,” I said, the blush returning. Apparently it was true. “Uh, please come in?” I felt so silly.

  As soon as he was inside, I pointed to the kitchen. “After you,” I said firmly.

  Quinn stepped into the kitchen only a heartbeat ahead of me, so I still saw Lily’s face when he entered: a fleeting look of embarrassment, followed by irritation. “Quinn,” she said stiffly.

  “Lilith.” Quinn’s voice was equally cool.

  “I’ll be done in a second,” she said. “And then she’s all yours.”

  I immediately decided that whatever was going on between them was none of my business.

  Lily went back to work on my stitches, keeping silent now. While he waited, Quinn wandered over to the bookshelves by the entertainment center, perusing the titles with his hands in his pockets. “Damn, that’s a lot of kids’ movies,” he said about my shelf of DVDs.

  “Yeah, but they’re all good ones,” I said, a little defensive. I don’t have many movies, and most of them either are animated or were made before 1960. “And I have a lot of cousins with kids. They come over sometimes.”

  If Quinn heard me, he chose not to respond. “Hey, The Best Years of Our Lives,” he said, grabbing a movie off the shelf and scanning the back of the case. “I love this movie. Haven’t seen it in ages.”

  “Yeah, it’s great.”

  “I haven’t heard of that one,” Lily said, gently tugging at another stitch with the tweezers. “What’s it about?”

  “These three veterans come back from World War II, and they all have trouble adjusting,” Quinn told her. “It won a bunch of Oscars.”

  “Were they in the army, like you?” Lily asked me, her tone casual.

  “Different divisions,” Quinn answered absently, still examining the back of the box. I realized he must have recognized the shield on my tattoo. Interesting.

  As that thought ran through my mind, Quinn looked up and met my eyes, changing the subject. “You have a lot of textbooks here for someone who didn’t go to college,” he pointed out, gesturing at the bookshelf in the corner.

  “Really?” I said innocently. “How many textbooks does someone who went to college have?”

  “Not nearly as many as someone who went to medical school,” Lily grumbled.

  “What about photography school?” Quinn offered, giving her a sly look. “Or education majors? You must have rooms full of books.”

  The witch glared at him sourly. “At least I can read, parasite. Do they even have textbooks at the police academy, or do you have to look at pictures of traffic tickets?” She jerked hard with the tweezers.

  Ow. “If you’re going to piss her off, Quinn, at least wait until she’s done with my back,” I said, keeping my voice as mild as possible.

  Quinn wandered over to stand in front of me, hands in his pockets. “How much longer?” he asked Lily.

  “I’m done,” she announced, stripping off her gloves. “You should clean the wounds with alcohol at least twice a day,” she told me, tossing things back into her hemp bag. “Let them get some air when you can, and I’d forgo a bra for the next couple of days. Call me if it starts hurting or itching again.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I replied. I got off the stool, turned around, and fixed my shirt with my back to Quinn, holding it shut with my hand. If he wanted to stare at my scarred back for the few seconds it took me to take the shirt off and pull it back on, let him. “I’ll walk you out.”

  “I can find my own way,” Lily said sullenly. Then she caught herself and met my eyes. “Um, it was really nice to meet you, Lex. Si said you weren’t interested in training, but we should grab a drink sometime. I don’t know many people in the Old World outside of my clan. Or vampires.” She said the last with exaggerated distaste before shooting a final glare at Quinn and flouncing out. I heard the front door close a moment later.

  “What the hell was that about?” I said, turning to face him as I buttoned the shirt.

  “Lily and I have this problem where when we’re around each other, we accidentally start bickering like . . .” He drifted off as—to my surprise—his gaze brushed down my front, stopping where my flannel shirt still gaped. Annoyed, I stubbornly resisted the impulse to glance down and make sure I was covered. Instead I let out a little whistle, a high note followed by a low one, to get his attention. Quinn met my eyes and looked a
way, suddenly embarrassed. “Like teenagers,” he finished in a mumble. “Sorry, didn’t mean to stare.”

  That took me aback. I had expected him to play innocent, or maybe make some lewd comment, not actually apologize. I was suddenly very aware that there were only a couple of feet between us. And that he looked like a Scandinavian Indiana Jones in that jacket. I cleared my throat. “You were saying something about the situation changing?”

  “Yeah.” He looked relieved to be back on sure footing. “My boss wants to meet you.”

  “Me?” I said, startled. “Why?”

  He shot me a “don’t be stupid” expression. “Because you’re a witch, but you’re unaligned with any of the witch clans. He wants to make sure you’re not a threat.”

  I thought that over for a moment. Ideally, I’d like to just try to forget that the Old World existed and go back to my life, but Darcy was still out there, and I wasn’t going to be able to relax until I knew my niece was safe. “Well, good,” I said, climbing to my feet. “I want to understand what Sid and Nancy wanted with my niece.”

  Alarm sparked in Quinn’s eyes, maybe the biggest reaction I’d seen from him yet. “You can’t go storming in there demanding answers, Lex,” he warned. “It’s very, very important that you show respect.”

  “You mean like the respect your boss showed for Charlie when he let Victor and Darcy go after her again last night?” I said tartly.

  “Technically,” Quinn pointed out, his voice cool, “that was my fault. I was supposed to clean up the Depot mess, and I should have spent less time working the police angle and more time looking for them. I just never thought they’d go after the same baby a second time.”

  “So you thought they’d go after some other baby instead?” I demanded.