Boundary Crossed

by Melissa F. Olson

  I eyed him suspiciously. “What is this, a quilting bee?” I retorted. “Do you really expect me to believe you tracked me down just to play catch-up?”

  A long moment ticked by with Quinn’s face frozen on neutral. “Yes, I asked,” I muttered.

  “What did he say?”

  “He’s looking into it,” I said tiredly. This particular subject had been an ongoing source of disappointment for me. “Apparently there aren’t many witches who study the scientific or historical connections between different types of magic, or if there are, they don’t talk to each other. Simon’s been doing research, but he said it isn’t easy to find records of nulls, and the ones that he’s found show no particular connection to boundary witches.”

  “What about the other way around?” Quinn asked. “Has he found boundary witches who have connections to nulls?”

  I shook my head. “That’s even harder, apparently. Nobody’s wanted to admit to being a boundary witch since the Inquisition.” Not that I could really blame them.

  “You could ask Maven,” Quinn pointed out. “She’s known a few nulls.”

  I considered that for a moment, then shook my head. “Maybe after Simon exhausts all his options. Right now I’m still trying to get her and Itachi to see me as a useful employee. I’m not sure asking for favors is the right way to go about it.”

  We sat there in silence for a few more minutes, staring at John’s house. “What exactly is your plan with this?” Quinn said eventually. “You’re hoping the bad guy makes a run at her during the three hours a day you happen to be watching?”

  I thought of the dreams I’d been having. “It’s not that,” I told him stiffly. “It’s just that these are the only three hours of the day when I’ve been getting any peace.” He opened his mouth to respond, but before he could say anything, I added tartly, “See, some of us actually have a hard time letting a murderous kidnapper get away with it.”

  Quinn didn’t meet my eyes, just stared straight ahead out the windshield. His jaw tensed and untensed, as if he was trying to decide whether or not to speak. Finally he sighed and reached into the breast pocket of his leather jacket. He pulled out a wad of paper and tossed it to me.

  “What’s this?” I clicked on the car’s reading light and unfolded the bundle, scanning the top few lines. “Phone records?”

  He nodded. “For Victor, Darcy, Kirby, and Nolan. Those weren’t easy to get, by the way. Vampires almost exclusively use prepaid cell phones.”

  “You pressed some people,” I summarized. I looked down at the list of numbers, but nothing jumped out. “Is there anything here?”

  “Not really. They all mostly called each other, like a closed loop. And Itachi and Magic Beans. Kirby contacted his fraternity brothers, of course. Darcy called a few clothing stores.”

  I let my hands rest in my lap and stared at Quinn. “Do Maven and Itachi know you’re doing this?”

  He shook his head. “And I could get in a lot of trouble if they found out. Technically, neither one ordered me not to pursue the case, but if they knew I was following up on my own, they’d probably be pissed.”

  “Then why do it?” I asked.

  He finally turned his head to stare at me, his cool eyes assessing mine. “Oh,” I said stupidly. “You did this for me.”

  “Some of us have a hard time letting a murderous kidnapper get away with it,” he said, throwing my own words back at me.

  At that moment John’s hybrid car finally pulled into the driveway, and with a breath of relief I watched as my brother-in-law stepped out of it, wearing his denim jacket, and opened the back door to pull out Charlie’s car seat. I caught a glimpse of the familiar tuft of dark hair as he swung the car seat around the door. John reached back into the car and pulled out something else, too, and I found myself leaning forward a little as I tried to make it out: a wide, thin package on a hanger.

  “It’s a tux,” Quinn mused. His night vision was no doubt a hell of a lot better than mine. “Huh. He doesn’t really seem like a tux kind of guy.”

  I rolled my eyes. “It’s for my dad’s sixtieth birthday party,” I explained. “My mom had the bizarre idea that black tie would be fun. So now all the Luther Shoes employees who are going have to run out and rent tuxedos, the poor bastards.”

  Quinn’s mouth quirked. “I take it you’re not a fan of formalwear.”

  “I’m a fan of comfort, durability, and movement,” I said archly. “Not sequins.”

  “But you’re going to the ball anyway?”

  “I have to.” My mom was going all-out for this stupid thing, even though my dad, as a general rule, didn’t like fuss. When I’d suggested that I would be better off manning the kids’ room— most parties have a kids’ table, but in this case Mom had actually hired a nanny service to take care of the guests’ kids so everyone could enjoy the party—she’d put her foot down and said I was to be charming, polite, and engaged. Apparently I had used up all the sympathy points I’d had left over from my multiple stab wounds. “And don’t call it a ball. It’s a friggin’ birthday party.”

  “Where is it?”

  I flushed and muttered, “The Glenn Miller Ballroom.”

  Quinn’s face broke out into a grin, and I swatted him.

  Chapter 26

  The next day was a cool, overcast Friday, and Simon came over in the early afternoon so we could do my magic lesson before I had to go babysit Charlie. The dogs announced his presence at one o’clock, and I went outside to meet him, figuring I could avoid his having to deal with the herd. When I stepped out, though, Simon was already halfway to the front door. He usually wore khakis or jeans and a button-down shirt to our practices, the kind of outfit a young professor would wear to class, but today he had on threadbare green cargo pants and a quilted vest over a long-sleeved hoodie with paint on the sleeves. I was immediately suspicious, especially when I noticed that his outfit included a pair of galoshes.

  “Simon?” I said warily. “Why are you wearing that?” As I stepped off the porch, I caught sight of his station wagon in the driveway. “And why is there a goddamned canoe tied to the top of your car?”

  “We’re going to canoe out into the lake,” he said, his voice obnoxiously cheerful, “to see if you can sense life underwater.”

  I glared at him. I don’t like large bodies of water. Oh, I’m fine in bathtubs and the occasional swimming pool, but anytime there’s wild, natural water under me, I have a tendency to freak out. Let’s just say there was a reason I joined the army instead of the navy.

  My dislike of water extends to a serious discomfort with boating, since I actually fell out of a boat the first time I died. “Not a chance,” I informed him, folding my arms across my chest.

  “Look, you need a new location, Lex,” he argued. “We’ve been doing the woods for weeks, and it’s too easy for you now. It’s time for a new challenge.”

  “Yeah, your lips are moving, but all I hear is ‘Lex, I want to do an experiment on you,’” I grumbled, not moving an inch toward the boat. “I’m a boundary witch, Simon, not a magical guinea pig.”

  “It’s not that, I promise,” he cajoled. “But I know Lily’s been helping you work on controlling your emotions. And fear is a really strong emotion. You need to learn how to focus despite it.”

  Shit. I really wished that wasn’t such a good argument. But when I was in the army, we rarely dealt with one problem at a time under ideal conditions. Instead, my unit was usually facing several different obstacles at once, in 110-degree heat. And the army trained us with that in mind. I had to admit, this didn’t seem much different—if I ever did get into a situation where I would need to use magic to protect Charlie, I would probably be terrified.

  So I went and got my own galoshes, muttering under my breath about mad scientists, and begrudgingly got into the car.

  I guided Simon down the scrubby access road to
ward what Sam and I used to fondly refer to as “the lake.” I’m still not sure if it had an actual name, or if it was just considered an offshoot of the nearby Sawhill Ponds. It was a tiny, green patch of water—Sam and I could swim across it by the time we were ten—and when we were kids, my dad and some of the neighbors had pitched in to stock it with fish. Then my dad got too busy with Luther Shoes to fish much, and I hadn’t been to the lake in years. For obvious reasons.

  It was just as I remembered—green water, tiny rocky beach. If anything, it seemed even smaller. But it suddenly struck me as menacing. When Simon opened up the back of the station wagon, I grabbed myself a life jacket, tugging the straps and snapping the buckles very carefully. I looked up when he laughed. “Jeez, Lex, you look like you’re preparing for the firing squad. I promise we’ll stay shallow. And look, the lake is calm.”

  I eyed the murky water, which seemed menacing against the overcast skies. It was true that it wasn’t moving much—the breeze wasn’t nearly strong enough to create anything approaching waves—but I couldn’t shake the feeling that the water was my enemy. What bothered me was that I couldn’t see what was going on underneath the surface. Admittedly, I probably wouldn’t run into a whirlpool here, but there could be giant rocks or long tendrils of seaweed just waiting to latch onto us and trap us underwater.

  Still, I forced myself to follow Simon, helping him drag the small fiberglass canoe into the shallows. It felt way too light, practically fragile, and I had to choke down my misgivings as we climbed inside. Simon paddled out, not commenting on how hard I was clutching the sides of the canoe, until we were about thirty or so feet from the shore. “Is this far enough?” I asked him through clenched teeth.

  “Sure.” He laid his paddle on the floor of the canoe, alongside our feet, and let the boat drift. “Okay, turn on your mindset,” he instructed. This was his preferred term for the meditative state of mind that I perceived as thermal-imaging goggles. I had to admit, “mindset” was a lot easier to say.

  I closed my eyes and obeyed. Well, I tried to. But every time I visualized putting on my thermal-imaging goggles, the rocking of the canoe would suddenly unnerve me and I’d lose my grip. I took a few deep breaths, trying to relax my body, and tried again. Nothing. I opened my eyes and glowered at Simon. “You just had to bring a canoe,” I said accusingly. “It couldn’t be a nice flat-bottomed rowboat, could it?”

  He just smiled benignly. “Try again,” he encouraged. “There’s no rush.”

  I harrumphed and closed my eyes again. This time I didn’t try to drop straight into my tunnel-vision frame of mind. Remembering our first lesson, I tried concentrating on what I could hear around me: birds, some chirpy bugs, the slight ruffle of the breeze through the trees near the shoreline. I took a deep breath, letting myself relax. Forcing myself to remember that it was okay.

  I took a slow, calm breath. And just like that, I could switch into my mindset. “Got it,” I murmured.

  “Good. Now extend it down.”

  I felt myself frowning. I had never tried that before, because I’d always been on the ground. Carefully, without opening my eyes, I did as he asked.

  The first spark was straight under my feet, maybe six inches below the canoe. I assumed it was a fish—the area residents were probably still stocking the pond—but unlike with most of the aboveground animals I’d detected, I couldn’t crack open my eyes to confirm what I was feeling. The second spark was a few inches from the first one, loitering near the drifting canoe’s bow, unaware of its occupants.

  “Now go farther, Lex,” Simon said softly.

  I nodded at him without looking, and began to widen the beam of my focus. Five sparks. Eight. Thirteen. My God, that one was big. Were all of them fish? Maybe some crayfish? Wait, no, crayfish were only in running water, right? Then what were they, snails? Leeches? I shuddered, my breath coming faster. I hated leeches.

  “Lex . . .” Simon said soothingly. “It’s okay. Pull back. Turn it off.”

  I barely heard him. Thirty sparks of life, and that was in maybe a ten-foot radius. What if I extended it farther? Could I? Sure, it seemed possible, but it might be a bad idea.

  Unfortunately, as my brain was still putting that together, I had already done it, pushing my senses out thirty, fifty feet. Oh, no. There were so many sparks now, too many for me to count. Just then something bumped the bottom of the canoe near my feet—a large fish, probably, but I squeaked in fear. What if it was a big rock? What if the canoe tipped and we fell in?

  Panicking, I reacted defensively. My intention was to break my mindset, like I always did when I was overwhelmed, but without meaning to I sort of tugged on it, gathering it back to me. It resisted, like it was stuck on something, so I began to pull in earnest, as though there was an enormous net under the surface of the water and I was holding the edges, reeling it in—

  “Lex,” Simon was shouting. I felt a sprinkle of water, not more than a handful, spatter on my face. My mindset finally broke, and my eyes flew open, my breath coming hard and fast as I stared at the horrified look on Simon’s face. He wiped his wet hand on the knee of his pants, looking at me with awe and regret and maybe . . . fear. Why was he so freaked out? I was the one who was having the panic attack. Although I actually didn’t feel nervous anymore, which was strange. Instead, I felt . . . fantastic.

  I was panting so hard that it took me a few seconds to hear it: the blurp, blurp, blurp from the surface of the water. My thoughts frozen, I tilted my head carefully—I wouldn’t risk falling in—to see over the side of the canoe. My eyes flew to the source of another blurp, and I watched as the pale white belly of a dead fish popped to the surface, squishing into a space between two other bellies. I gasped, but it was too late to protect myself—my tunnel vision widened, and I finally saw it: dead fish after dead fish, bubbling to the surface in a gruesome landscape all around the canoe, the sight broken up by the occasional frog or slimy black leech.

  I had pulled the death-essence right out of them. Hundreds of them.

  Chapter 27

  I don’t remember getting back to the shore. Simon must have paddled us both in. His voice was buzzing at me, but I wasn’t registering a word he said. I was flying high, my brain tumbling in cartwheels inside my skull. The second the canoe hit dirt, I leaped out and took off in a dead run, leaving my galoshes behind when they fell off. I didn’t mind. Bare feet were easier, anyway.

  It was half a mile back to the cabin, and I had never run so fast in my life. I felt superb. My arms and legs pumped, hurtling me along the sandy shoulder of the little unmarked road, and I felt like I could run all the way to the state line. I could run forever.

  I didn’t slow down until I was a few feet away from my front door. Then I skidded to a sloppy halt, bumping my hip into the doorknob. If it hurt, I didn’t feel it. I grinned at the door for no reason, breathing only a little bit hard. Feeling a sudden twinge of pain, I glanced down at my feet. My breath caught in my throat.

  The tops of my feet were grimy, with streaks of dark red. That didn’t make sense: the lake water wasn’t red, it was green. Confused, I put a hand on the door for balance and leaned sideways to check out the bottom of my left foot.

  It was covered in oozing red lines that dripped right onto the porch. Still not understanding, I glanced back the way I had come. Red footprints traced my path down the driveway and onto the porch. That was the first moment I realized it was blood.

  And the high crashed down around me, letting in the agonizing pain of my sliced-up feet. I screamed. From inside the cabin, the dogs barked and howled in sympathy.

  Ten minutes later, I was sitting on the counter in the mudroom with my legs in the utility sink next to me, sobbing as I rinsed off my feet. Simon had been pounding on the door for most of that time, even rattling the doorknob to test the dead bolt, but I had no intention of opening the door to him or anyone else. Probably ever again. Eventually, he too
k the hint, and the knocking stopped. I was left alone with my thoughts and my bloody feet.

  The army teaches you to handle panic, of course. There are a number of big training sessions focused solely on that, and I’d done okay when faced with scary situations in Iraq. But this was different. As I ran the cold water over my feet, trying to clear the blood long enough to see the actual cut, my thoughts tumbled around in a babbling craze, because the scary thing in question hadn’t come from an insurgent or a raid or even the barrel of a gun. It had come from within me. I had pulled the life out of those fish, which was bad enough, but then I had used it to fuel my body and ignore pain.

  I turned the water off, trying to see the cuts on my feet before the blood obscured them again. I’d gotten all the dirt and lake slime off, but there were dozens of small cuts on each foot. Most of them were superficial, but there were two on my left foot and one on my right that looked deep. I was trying to decide whether any of them needed stitches, but between the blood and the tears that continued to course down my face, I couldn’t fucking see them. I blew out a shaky breath, frustrated.

  Then a terrible thought crossed my mind. I’d felt high, juiced after pulling the life out of those fish. Like a junkie who’d finally gotten a fix. But what was making me high, exactly? I had a sudden suspicion.

  I pointed at my left foot and murmured the words Simon had taught me, the simple little charm that cleaned an object for you. As I said the words, I moved my finger downward, pointing into the sink because that’s where I wanted the mess to go.

  There was a spark of atmosphere in the mudroom, like the pressure right before a thunderstorm, and then every single piece of dirt, blood, pet hair, and dust in the entire room flew into the sink, immediately followed by all the dirty laundry on the floor, the odds and ends I’d taken out of my pockets before putting clothes in the wash, a few pieces of jewelry I’d taken off in the mudroom and forgotten about, and so on. A hailstorm of stuff flew past me to get to the sink, and I almost fell off the counter.