Boundary Lines (Boundary Magic Book 2)

by Melissa F. Olson

  “Aren’t you all that way?” I said, then added more apologetically, “No offense.”

  “None taken. What I mean is that most of the vampires I know will try to solve problems with natural charm first, and if that doesn’t work, they start pressing minds. If that doesn’t solve the problem, they resort to violence. But Clara tends to jump straight to the third option.”

  “Wait, back up . . . You have natural charm?” I said, in mock surprise.

  He grinned at me. “Touché. I start with pressing minds, then violence, and if that doesn’t work, I turn on the charm.”

  “I hope I never see that day,” I said solemnly.

  Quinn laughed out loud, then winced at the way it jarred his wound. “Ow. Not cool.” He hesitated for a moment before saying, “Listen, speaking of pressing minds, this cop who hates you—”

  “Keller.”

  “I’ll pay him a visit tonight. Two minutes to press him, and then you’ll be off his radar for good.” He smirked. “I could even make him nominate you for citizen of the year or something.”

  I shook my head, remembering Keller’s accusation. That I was unstable. That he’d be watching me for signs of violence. “Thank you, but no. I don’t need you to fight my battles for me.”

  His smile shifted, becoming just a little patronizing. “Come on, Lex, the guy’s all over you, for no reason. It’s really not a big—”

  “No, Quinn,” I interrupted. “I don’t want to spend my life depending on mind control to make things run smoothly. It’s too much power. Too seductive. No offense,” I added.

  “This from the woman who can press me, but not the other way around?”

  “I’ve never pressed you,” I said honestly. He sort of shrugged, but using only his head. He hadn’t really said he’d stay away from Keller, so I pushed. “Promise me. Promise me you won’t press Keller.”

  Quinn tilted his head to look me in the eyes, assessing what he saw there. I couldn’t read his expression. “I promise I won’t press Keller,” he said finally.

  “Thank you.”

  I suddenly felt exhausted. It was only ten o’clock at night, but my vision was starting to get hazy with fatigue. I hadn’t really caught up from the missed night of sleep on Halloween. “I think I need some rest,” I said thickly. “Busy day tomorrow.” The police, the thaumaturge witch, and hopefully the ghost of Nellie Evans were all on my docket.

  “I wish I could help you with all of this,” Quinn said, sounding a little forlorn. He raised my hand and kissed the palm. “I never missed the daylight until I met you.”

  It was an offhand comment, but it touched me, and I raised my head to give him a gentle kiss on the lips.

  “Will you stay here, with me?” he asked.

  “Mmm-hmm.” I settled back down and closed my eyes.

  “Good.” But then his body tensed a little. “Lex,” he warned, “in the morning, I’ll be . . . out.”

  I opened my eyes, but didn’t look at him in case the fear showed on my face. We’d never really talked about what happened to him during the daylight hours. “Dead?” I asked.

  “Not exactly. I won’t rot . . . I won’t even look dead. I’m told it looks sort of like sleeping, but I don’t breathe or even have a heartbeat.”

  “Okay,” I said, nodding against his chest. “I can handle that.”

  He kissed the top of my head again, and I began to drift away in earnest. “Quinn?” I mumbled before I was all the way out.

  “Hmm?”

  “Is your first name really Arthur?”

  His quiet laughter followed me into sleep.

  Chapter 26

  I slept hard, but had to get up around four to pee. When I returned to bed and crawled in next to Quinn, I realized he was breathing again. I reached out and pressed my palm against his cheek. His skin was as warm as mine.

  At my touch, his eyes opened. He turned his head and kissed my palm. “Hi.”

  We were face to face, inches apart, and in the dim light from the hallway I could see that his color had returned. As my eyes adjusted, I couldn’t help but notice he was still shirtless, and his chest was no longer bandaged. I put my hand against it, feeling only a tiny ridge where the injury had been. “You’re better.”

  He nodded. “I went out and got something to eat,” he said lightly. “I hope you don’t mind.”

  I thought about that for a moment. Did I mind? I didn’t really care about him drinking someone else’s blood, but in the movies vampire feeding was always about sex, and the idea of him sleeping with someone else definitely bothered me. Then again, he’d fed from Simon and Lily, and that hadn’t been sexual.

  Well, if I wanted to know, I was going to have to ask. “Did you, um . . .” I blushed, not sure how to phrase it.

  His eyes narrowed in confusion, and then he made a sort of chuckling/snorting sound. “Sleep with her?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “No. I didn’t even do that before I met you. It’s true that feeding is intimate, but so is therapy or a prostate exam,” he told me. “Sometimes we press people to think they had sex, because it explains the slight amount of bruising.”

  “Oh.”

  “What I usually do is press someone not to feel pain and then bite or cut their wrist and drink. When I’m finished, I press them again not to remember what happened.” His voice was matter-of-fact, clinical, like he was explaining a root canal. “It’s a transaction, more than anything else.”

  “Oh.” I searched for the correct response to that, but all I could think of was, “Does it bother you?”

  His hand drifted up to play with a lock of my hair that had spilled forward. He twisted it around his finger, thinking. “It used to. It used to really scare me.”

  That seemed like an odd word choice. “Why scare?”

  “It’s . . .” he paused for a moment, searching for words. “This sounds kind of weird, but have you ever been addicted to something? Cigarettes or whatever?”

  I smiled ruefully. “I never smoked, but when I was overseas I got really into those horrible energy drinks, the ones that are all chemicals and caffeine. I won’t say how many I was drinking a day, because the number shames me, but let’s just say it was too many.”

  “Yeah, but remember how good that first one tasted in the morning? How much you looked forward to that?”

  I remembered. “It has a kind of power over you,” I said. “Not just physically—I would get withdrawal headaches—but emotionally, too. You think about it all the time, the next one, where it comes from, how good it’ll be . . .”

  He nodded. “That’s what blood is like for vampires. An addiction that never goes away, never gets better. There’s no twelve-step program for something you need to survive. And the fact that you have to victimize someone else to get your fix . . .” His eyes were troubled. “At the same time, it’s impossible to keep feeling that, every single time you feed. You become numb to it. And, slowly, most of us become numb to everything else, too. But I don’t want that to happen to me.”

  Without thinking about it, I inched forward and closed the gap between us, my lips meeting his. The kiss started out gentle, but then it was like a switch flipped for both of us. He shifted on top of me at the same time I shifted beneath him, like we had coordinated it beforehand. The skin on his chest was warm, but his fingers were cool as they traced the waistband of my jeans, tickling my sides. Effortlessly, Quinn scooted downward until his face was near my belly, and lifted the hem of my T-shirt just a few inches. He kissed my stomach, his fingers dancing at the buttons on my jeans. I writhed with pleasure as he opened the fly and kissed lower, his mouth heating up the fabric of my panties as he tugged the jeans off. His fingers brushed against the raised scar on my thigh, and I felt him pause for a moment, considering whether to stop and ask me. I really didn’t want that conversation right now, so I decided to distract him instead. Squirming, I pulled my shirt over my head, and he made a little interested noise, his mouth moving higher to exp
lore. I laughed breathlessly as his lips traced a straight line up between my breasts. I thought he’d stop there, but he kept going until our lips met again. This kiss was more urgent, forceful, and soon I was so lost in it that I gasped when his hands found my breasts, cupping them through the thin fabric of my bra. With a growl, I rolled Quinn over so that I was on top. He grunted appreciatively, and just to mess with him I scooted down his body until I was straddling his crotch, his erection pressing against me. Grinning wickedly, I wriggled my hips, and saw something new on his face: a very human, very urgent expression of lust. Moving vampire-fast, he rose to meet me, his fingers tearing at the front of my sports bra, and after that we lost ourselves.

  I managed to set Quinn’s alarm clock before I fell asleep again, lying on my stomach with Quinn half-draped over my back. When it went off at seven, I automatically reached over to hit the snooze, but by the time I opened my eyes enough to look for it, I had also realized that behind me, Quinn’s body had just sort of hit pause: no breath, no heartbeat, no more warmth.

  I wanted to be cool and well-adjusted about the whole sleeping-with-a-vampire thing, but in actuality it felt pretty icky now, like being covered by a corpse. I scooted quickly out from under him and off the bed, letting the blanket puddle on the floor, and backed up until my naked shoulder blades hit the wall. Then I made a surprised noise of pain and realized that my whole body ached from the fight with Tony and the fall in Chautauqua. Great.

  I got up, my movements stiff, and threw the blanket back over Quinn—not because he was cold, but because he looked so vulnerable lying exposed in the bed. I looked around on the floor for my clothes, intending to take a quick shower. That was when I noticed that at some point in the night, Quinn had brought the folding chair in from the kitchen. My jacket was still slung on the back, but he’d added a folded towel. I went and picked it up, uncovering a little packet of paper that had been set out underneath. He’d written my name on it, and drawn a little bow. A present. Smiling, I picked up the towel and wrapped it around myself, then unfolded the sheets of paper.

  The pages were newspaper clippings and bits of text culled from Wikipedia and Google books, all on the topic of Colorado madam Nellie Evans and her brothel, the semi-notorious House of Shadows. Quinn had used part of his night to do research for me, knowing I wouldn’t have a lot of free time today.

  I looked back over at where he lay on the bed, wishing I could thank him, but he was . . . damn, I didn’t want to say “dead to the world,” but the bad puns just kept popping into my head. I sat down and began to read.

  The House of Shadows had been built nearly a hundred and thirty years ago as a lovely Victorian home in downtown Denver. When the city’s red-light district began to spread, however, the owners found themselves alarmingly close to the ladies of the evening. They eventually gave in and sold the house to a woman named Nellie Evans, who turned it into one of the city’s nicer brothels. Nellie never achieved the fame or success of noted Denver madams like Mattie Silks, but she had a reputation for mischief that the newspapers of the time adored. There were stories of her and her protégé, a younger woman named Pale Jennie, racing horses and buggies through Main Street and dressing up in nun habits to sneak into a society party.

  Nellie’s House of Shadows prospered until 1895, when both she and Pale Jennie abruptly vanished. There were rumors that they’d gone west to ply their trade in the California mines, but Nellie had left behind her beloved cat, which everyone said was out of character. The general consensus was foul play, but the police barely bothered to investigate. No one much cared when prostitutes disappeared out of the red-light district.

  Huh. Reading between the lines, it was easy to draw a connection between Maven and this Pale Jennie. She had been great pals with Nellie for a while, which fit with Maven’s story—not to mention the complicated connection between vampires and boundary witches. Then Nellie had “killed” Pale Jennie, only to learn she was a bloodthirsty vampire. It was interesting that Maven had gone to the trouble of cutting off her head rather than drinking her blood to kill her, which might not have worked very well on a boundary witch. That implied that Maven had known what Nellie was, but not the other way around.

  After Nellie’s disappearance, the House of Shadows changed hands over and over, more often than any other building in the neighborhood. It quickly gained a reputation for being creepy, even making a number of “Haunted Denver” lists over the decades. Go figure.

  The house’s history took another turn in 1972 when an entrepreneur named J. J. Parks decided to buy the former brothel and turn it into a mini museum dedicated to the history of prostitution in Colorado. Denver was already the home of the Molly Brown House Museum, and I guessed he figured history buffs would be interested. It seemed reasonable, but the House of Shadows Museum only ran for a couple of years before complaints started filtering in from visitors: drafts that had no origin, bad smells, mustiness that couldn’t be aired out no matter how many windows were left open. Attendance plummeted.

  In 1979, Parks closed his museum and put the building up for sale, but it remained on the market for years, sliding into decay. Every now and then, according to a “paranormal investigations” webpage about the location, Parks would get an offer from someone who wanted to buy the property, tear it down, and put in a commercial business. Somehow, these plans always fell through. Since then, the only real visitors to the House of Shadows had been ghost hunters, including several from reality television shows, who found the usual: EMPs, cold spots, creepy sounds. The same haunted-house stuff they found at any number of locations, except this time I knew they were dead on.

  Damn. Stupid puns were everywhere.

  I refolded the pages and set them on Quinn’s dresser. I didn’t want to bring them with me to the police station in case Keller decided to search me. I took a shower and dressed in the same red shirt and jeans, which were rumpled as hell, but reasonably clean. I had to go without a bra, though, because mine had been shredded down the middle. I couldn’t help but smile a little when I saw it. No, I definitely didn’t have a problem with attraction to Quinn.

  As I swung my jacket on, I felt a weight shift in the left pocket of the jacket. I put my hand in slowly and pulled out my own cell phone, last seen skittering into the shadows at Chautauqua. He’d gone back to the park to find it for me. I smiled at it for a second. Quinn wasn’t exactly a “chocolate and flowers” kind of guy, but he knew how to show feelings where and when it counted. And he knew me, at least well enough to guess what gestures would mean the most to me. “Thank you,” I said to his still form, just in case he had some knowledge of what was happening. I was kind of glad he couldn’t see the stupid sappy smile on my face.

  As I walked over to the car, I called Elise, who owed me a favor, and got her to agree to look after the herd on the way home from her watch-three patrol shift. Then I set my jaw and drove to the Boulder Police Station, promising myself that this time, I would not let Keller get to me.

  Yeah, I know. Keep dreaming, Lex.

  Chapter 27

  The police station was already bustling when I arrived just before eight. It was shift change, and cops were rushing in and out, hurrying to clock in on time or hustling home to see their families. I saw Elise leaving, but she was engrossed in a conversation with another patrol officer and I didn’t interrupt them. If she knew I was there to talk to Keller, she’d just worry about me, or worse, try to get herself involved.

  I gave the receptionist my name and went to wait on one of the black leather benches, keeping an eye on the people moving in and out of the room. A couple of the patrol officers recognized me as Elise’s cousin and gave me cool professional nods, which is how cops greet all civilians who may or may not be at the station willingly. After a while, it appeared that Keller’s plan was to make me cool my heels. Typical of him, but I needed to be in Denver at nine thirty to pick up the thaumaturge witch from the airport, so after fifteen minutes, I went back up to the receptionist a
nd told her very politely that I couldn’t wait, but I would return when my attorney was available to join me.

  That got Keller’s attention pretty fast. In short order, I was admitted to an interview room, which was just like the ones you see on television, but smaller, with nice walls made of that burlap-like wallpaper. There was no one-way glass, either, but a video camera was mounted in one corner, and other detectives monitored from another room. I sat down in one of the chairs, and Keller bustled in a moment later holding a stack of manila file folders. Stevens followed on his heels, carrying a small notebook. They took the chairs across from me.

  “Good morning, Miss Luther,” Stevens began. “We brought a little visual aid to show you this morning.”

  “All of these cases,” Keller growled, holding up his short pile of file folders, “are the ones that are either unsolved, or were just opened recently.” He held up the folders one at a time like a game-show host. “First we have a botched kidnapping, six weeks ago.” He slapped a file folder down, out of my reach. It was well-thumbed, more than half an inch thick. “Then human bones turn up at Chautauqua”—he put down another file—“and, of course, a college student goes missing.” Another file. “They found another one of them pellets last night, with bones and clothes inside. Meanwhile, I find myself needing to open up a vandalism case for one John Wheaton.” He dropped the last file carelessly on top of the others. He didn’t mention the death of Billy Atwood or Simon’s injuries, but I figured that was because Quinn had pressed everyone at the scene into truly believing the whole thing was some kind of farm accident. “Funny thing is,” Keller went on, “you’re connected to all of them.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “How do you figure? I’m connected to John and Charlie, of course, but I had nothing to do with these . . . what did you call them? Pellets?”

  He glowered at me. “You brought Dr. Pellar to the police station to examine the first pellet. I saw you myself.”