Katia was listening to all this very attentively, like she was waiting for a chance to be useful. “Morgan may also have a spy in the witch clan,” she suggested.
Lily looked back and forth between us, her expression mournful. “You think someone else in our clan betrayed Mom?”
“I honestly don’t know,” I told her. “There were a bunch of Clan Pellar witches at Morgan’s little meeting.”
She sighed. “That part doesn’t surprise me, all things considered. Si said he told you about how the younger witches have been frustrated. I don’t want to think they’d actually work for Morgan, though.”
She looked uncertain, and I felt a rush of sympathy. Lily had grown up with those witches, kind of like me and my cousins. Even if it hadn’t been her own mother being accused, this had to feel like a betrayal.
“Well, what exactly did the accomplice need to do?” Katia asked, pragmatic as usual. “How much involvement are we talking about?”
I thought about it, my eyes unfocused on the ceiling. I was picking up habits from Maven. “Go out on the dunes and shoot Matt and Cammie with silver bullets. Bury them in the sand—that would require some strength. Then, while we were out searching the dunes, sabotage Dunn’s car so the doors wouldn’t open from the inside.”
“And wait on the bridge to ram his vehicle into the water,” Quinn added.
I nodded. “Plus, distribute the flyers at Hazel’s house—although, honestly, that could have been someone else.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if it was,” Lily put in. “That was almost certainly a witch, but they might not have known where the flyers originated.”
“Okay, so the murders of the Ventimiglias and Dunn,” I summarized. “Does all of that sound like something a witch could do?”
Lily shrugged. “Everything except the car. It’s too . . . surgical? There are hexes that will disable a vehicle entirely, but I’ve never heard of a spell that can alter one small interior mechanism and leave everything else functional.”
“It sounds more like someone experienced with cars arranged that,” Quinn agreed. “That could be anyone.”
“Finn Barlow, the newest member of Dunn’s pack, trained as a mechanic in the marines,” I offered, remembering the file I’d read. “That’s not really proof, though.”
“It’s means,” Quinn pointed out, brightening a little. “Now we just need motive and opportunity.”
“Which will be really challenging, since we have no idea where the werewolves are,” I grumbled.
“There’s something else,” Katia said suddenly, looking over at me with sudden fierceness. “Did any of the werewolves actually see their murderer?”
It was a strange question, but I thought it through and shook my head. “Matt and Cammie were killed from some distance, and their attacker probably wore lots of layers to disguise their scent, which would make them hard to identify.” Hell, Simon and I had been unrecognizable out on the dunes, and we hadn’t even tried to hide our identities. “And Dunn’s car was tampered with while he was out on the dunes with us. Why do you ask?”
Katia folded her hands in front of her. “I think perhaps the killer knew you would get involved,” she said to me, looking uncomfortable. “Which points back to someone in Colorado. A witch.”
“Wait, what do you mean?” Lily asked. “Why do you think the killer knew about Lex?”
“Because if any of the three victims had seen their murderer,” Katia said, gesturing at me, “Lex could just bring them back and ask who killed them.”
Chapter 27
Whoa.
When Simon and Lily had first explained boundary magic to me, they had mentioned that raising the dead was possible. Since then, though, we’d rarely discussed it, much less considered it as an option.
Quinn, Lily, and I all shifted a little. The whole idea of raising the dead was just . . . unnerving. After an awkward silence, Lily ventured, “That’s . . . that’s really possible?”
Katia looked surprised. “Of course. My mother’s people talked about it sometimes. I had a great-aunt who would raise people for money, so their loved ones could say goodbye.” She shrugged. “I am not strong enough to do it myself, at least not without supplies and several days of preparation. But Lex is.”
“Wouldn’t she have to sacrifice another person to do it?” Quinn asked. “Like with Simon?”
That was how I’d saved Simon’s life. I’d stolen the life force from a very bad man and pushed it into my friend. I hadn’t really understood what I was doing, though—and besides, the guy had already been dying. I didn’t lose sleep over it.
“If she wanted the victim to stay alive, yes. That, I would not recommend,” she added, looking at me. “It would draw too much attention. But if she simply wanted to have a conversation with the victim, she could sacrifice an animal. Chickens are popular.”
Lily looked disgusted, and I suddenly wanted to throw up. I was a vegetarian, for crying out loud. I didn’t want to personally hand-murder an animal.
I had no idea what to say, but luckily Katia added, “Anyway. It doesn’t matter, if none of the dead saw their killer. I’m simply suggesting that whoever killed them knew that a powerful boundary witch would get involved.”
“Morgan knows what Lex is,” Lily said thoughtfully, “but none of us ever learned all that much about boundary magic. Our parents kept it from us.”
“We don’t know where Morgan has been or what she’s been doing,” Quinn reminded us. “Maven’s people lost track of her eighteen months ago. That’s plenty of time to do research.”
“And make plans.” Lily looked glum.
I sighed. “Okay, one thing at a time. We need to find Mary and Keith.” I shifted in my seat, and was instantly reminded of the restricting skirt. “And I need to get the hell out of this outfit,” I added.
Quinn pointed to a familiar duffel bag sitting on the carpet where the dining area turned into the small living room. “I brought you a change of clothes, your cell phone, and your keys.”
“I love you,” I told him with great sincerity. “Did you bring my bloodstone?”
He winced. “Sorry; didn’t think of it.”
“Wait, you brought keys?” Lily brightened. “You said those werewolves stole your car, right?” I nodded. When she’d stolen my car, Mary had at least had the decency to use the spare key, which I’d left on a convenient hook near the garage door. “If you have your key, like an actual physical key that fits into the ignition, I can find it for you. It’s a simple finding spell, like-for-like magic.”
My car was an ancient Subaru. It had never heard of LoJack or key fobs. “Lily,” I said solemnly. “I love you too.”
“Well, that cheapens it,” Quinn grumbled.
Lily got to work on her spell, and I went into the bathroom, where I foolishly glanced in the mirror. My disguise was a mess, with makeup smeared around my nose like my face had started to melt. A dark bruise had already appeared on my cheekbone where Heather had hit me, and the bump on my forehead was visible through the smudged concealer.
I popped out the brown contact lenses, yanked the rubber bands off the damned pigtails, and got in the shower. When I was finally satisfied that I’d shampooed away all the gold hair dye, I dried off and put on the clothes Quinn had brought me—jeans, a simple scoop-neck tee, and a soft flannel shirt with long sleeves. This time, when I checked the mirror, I actually recognized myself, bruises and all.
I went back out to the dining room, where Lily had spread a map of Colorado over the table. Quinn had a laptop open beside it, while Katia was in the kitchen fussing with the tea kettle. “Did you find them?” I asked.
“Yes.” Lily looked up at me. “Well, I found your car,” she corrected herself. “It’s just outside Allenspark.”
“Really?”
Quinn spun the laptop around so I could see the screen. “It’s here,” he said, pointing to the words “Longs Peak Campground” on the border of Rocky Mountain National Park.
“Huh.” The werewolves had stayed in Colorado, which I hadn’t expected. Then again, there were plenty of problems in Wyoming now, too. “Isn’t it a little cold for camping?” I asked.
Lily and Quinn exchanged a glance. “We were just talking about that,” Quinn said. “Mary’s no idiot. She wants us to think they’re either at the campground or in the park, and we could lose weeks trying to track them down. But—” He tapped the keys to zoom in, showing me a tiny building about a half mile from the campground. “I think they might be here.”
“Mike’s Mountain Inn,” I read. I glanced back up at Quinn. “Is it even open, this time of year?”
“It’s not,” he replied, “which is why I think they’re there. Mike’s does the occasional winter retreat for cross-country skiers, which means they have heat, but their website says the whole place is closed until after the holidays.”
“So Mary and Keith could break in and hole up for a while,” I mused. Katia came over and set a steaming cup of tea in front of me. She’d added milk, no sugar, the way I like it. I shot her a smile. “Thank you.” Then I looked at Lily, whose lips were pursed. “Lil?”
She shrugged. “I’m not totally convinced. I mean, it’s basically a guess.”
“I know, but it’s what I would do,” Quinn insisted. “The full moon is coming up. If Mary and Keith are planning to stay there, they’ll have great access to the national park when they need to change.”
Lily tilted her head, conceding.
“They’re scared because their alpha was killed,” I reasoned. “It makes sense that they’d try to hide out until this mess blows over.”
I couldn’t even really blame them. I sort of wished I could hole up until everything was solved—but then I thought of Ryan Dunn and the scratches on his windows, and I set my shoulders. “Let’s go talk to Mary,” I said to Quinn.
Katia wanted to come along and help in case there was trouble, but I pulled her aside and asked her to stay with Lily. “She may end up being the only chance of keeping peace within the witch clans,” I said softly. “If I know that, Morgan sure as hell does too. I don’t think she would kill her own sister, but . . .” I didn’t bother to finish the sentence. I didn’t need to.
Katia nodded. “All right,” she said reluctantly. “I will stay with her.”
“You still have that silver knife?”
She gave me an insulted look, and I held up my hands. “I withdraw the question.”
I kept my eyes closed for most of the hour-long ride, to avoid dealing with the ghosts that would be lining the highway. We didn’t talk much, although now and then I could feel Quinn’s eyes on me.
Eventually the Jeep slowed, and Quinn reached over to touch my hand. “There’s your car,” he said softly, and I opened my eyes to see the Subaru in an empty parking lot. I breathed a sigh of relief—not just for the car, but for the fact that there were no ghosts nearby to distract me. “Any sign of Mary and Keith?” I asked. I was looking, too, but his night vision was better.
“Nope,” he said, scanning the darkness. “The campground looks deserted. It’s too cold for fragile human bodies.” He shot me a grin, trying to break the tension.
“To the motel?”
“Yes.”
We decided to drive past the place first and look for signs of occupancy. Quinn drove slowly the whole way from the campground, so we weren’t obviously slowing down as we approached the motel.
Mike’s Mountain Inn was identical to any number of mom-and-pop motels around the state: a two-story log building in an L shape, with eight rooms on each floor and a big community room on the end where large parties could gather. These kinds of motels had been replaced by big chains in most parts of the country, but they were still viable businesses in Colorado, because they could open and close with the seasons, and because they catered to the kind of people who wouldn’t be comfortable in a generic Holiday Inn—what my dad fondly referred to as the three Hs of Colorado: hippies, hunters, and hooligans.
Unfortunately, those were the same kinds of people who often left ghosts, and even without my boundary mindset, I could see four or five translucent shapes moving at the windows. I didn’t spot any sign of the living, though. A single streetlight lit the parking lot, more for security than anything else.
“Did you see that?” Quinn asked abruptly, craning his neck to look back as we went past.
“What?”
“In the big room on the end—I saw a lit fireplace.”
I turned in my seat to look. I couldn’t see anything, but I trusted his enhanced vision. “Let’s go check it out.”
Ordinarily we would have parked a few blocks away and crept in on foot, but we had no chance of sneaking up on two werewolves. Instead, Quinn did a blatant U-turn and pulled the Jeep up in front of the party room, the headlights beaming inside. Or they would have beamed inside, but the interior windows had been covered with something. Quinn and I exchanged a look and got out of the car.
“Mary?” I called, looking at the building. “It’s Lex and Quinn. We just want to talk.” I had a hand on my revolver, but kept it in the holster.
One moment Quinn was standing next to me, and the next instant he’d whipped around to face the other direction. “What is it?” I asked, glancing over my shoulder.
“Don’t run,” he said softly; then the wolf stepped out of the shadows, into the streetlight.
The sandy-brown werewolf was the biggest I’d seen yet, easily reaching my waist. Its teeth were bared, and as it closed in I could hear a low growl from the back of its throat. “Back slowly toward the Jeep,” Quinn murmured.
“That’s not Mary,” I said under my breath. And this wolf was way too big to be Keith. Had Mary and Keith been attacked? Or could they have met up with someone else from their pack?
Quinn’s head jerked sideways again, and a second, mostly gray wolf came at us from the direction of the road, snarling softly. Long ropes of saliva dripped from its mouth, and I could see blood on its muzzle. The revolver was already in my hand, but I didn’t know who to target first. In seconds the gray wolf would be between us and the Jeep, but the brown wolf was bigger and closer. I pointed the weapon at him. Quinn and I had stopped moving now, but the wolves were advancing on both sides.
“Make a run for the building?” I whispered, but then I caught movement in the corner of my eye and cursed under my breath. “Second floor,” I said, and Quinn’s eyes jumped to the snow-white wolf prowling along the upper balcony, headed for the stairs. I took an involuntary step backward, bumping into Quinn, and the white wolf crouched and then leaped over the railing toward us.
Chapter 28
The white wolf landed gracefully about four feet away from my shoes. Close enough for me to see green eyes and enormous claws. I aimed the weapon at her, but just in case, I yelled as loud as I could, “Mary! I really don’t want to shoot this guy!”
The door to the lodge’s common room slammed open. I glanced up, expecting Mary, but saw another, equally familiar, face.
“Stop,” Tobias called, his hands going out in front of him. “She’s a friend!”
The three wolves swung their heads to face him for a moment, then looked back at me. It was eerie, and I didn’t put my revolver away just yet. “Tobias?” I said. “What’s going on? Where’s Mary?”
His attention was focused completely on the wolves. “I know her! She won’t hurt you unless you hurt her,” he said urgently. “But that gun has silver; you can smell it. Back down, please.”
The three wolves’ postures shifted as they began to relax. Then, one by one, they turned and trotted back to wherever they’d come from. The white wolf that had leaped from the balcony loped toward the stairs to resume her position, and I realized she faded completely into the white walls on the second story. Smart.
Tobias lowered his arms and grinned at me. He was skinny and on the tall side with an easy smile and college-kid features, though he was probably close to my age. He wore jeans and a
flannel shirt that was too cool for the weather, but wolves rarely got cold. “Hey, silver girl. How’ve you been?”
“Tobias.” I holstered the gun and stepped forward, letting him throw his arms around me. Werewolves were into touching. He smelled like woodsmoke and marshmallow, and there was a telltale white smear on his collar. “Were you . . . making s’mores?”
“Yep,” he said cheerfully. “Sorry if those guys scared you. That was Finn, Nicolette, and Lindsay. They don’t know you yet. We’re all a little on edge, and you smell kinda angry.”
I probably smelled pretty fucking scared too, but Tobias was too polite to mention it.
Finn had to be the enormous brown wolf. “The gray wolf had blood on her muzzle,” I said.
“Nicki? Yeah, we’ve been going to town on the local rabbit population.” He gave me a wolfish grin, and I couldn’t help but smile back.
“Where’s Mary?” I asked.
“Behind the building.” He pointed with a thumb. “She was in four legs, doing a scout. She’ll be done with her shift soon. You guys want to come in?”
Quinn glanced at me, questioning. I took a deep breath, trying to swallow the rest of my flight-or-fight response, and nodded.
We followed Tobias into the lodge’s gathering room, a big space with an open ceiling and faded red carpets that had seen many pairs of rough hiking boots. Benches lined the walls, but the space was dominated by a massive fireplace right in the middle of the room, with a bricks-and-mortar ledge all around it so people could sit and warm up.
There was a person curled up on one of the benches against the wall in the back corner, now sitting up and looking at us sleepily. I recognized them from Maven’s files, though it took me a second to remember the right name: Alex.
Keith was asleep on the bench opposite Alex’s, right next to the emergency exit, and he didn’t even stir despite all the noise. His mouth was wide open, a low snore audible over the crackling fire. I noticed there was a ghost in the same corner, a very faint one.
Boundary Broken (Boundary Magic Book 4) Page 18