Boundary Broken (Boundary Magic Book 4)

by Melissa F. Olson

  Sybil just gave me a tight nod. She’d gone quiet, and I could tell the wheels in her head were turning. She didn’t really believe us about Lily, but probably realized I wasn’t a good enough actor to fake this much concern. She was willing to let this play out a little.

  “I need to blindfold you for the first part of the drive,” I told her. Sybil glared and opened her mouth to protest, but I overrode her. “We have to drop off Charlie, and I don’t want you to know where. This is not negotiable. If you want to argue with me, you can ride in the portable coffin.”

  I could see Quinn suppressing a snort, but Sybil just gave me a dark look and conceded. I put one of John’s ski caps on her head and pulled it down over her eyes and part of her nose. “Leave it on,” I ordered.

  Quinn drove us straight to Elise’s duplex in Lafayette, which was more or less on the way to Simon’s apartment. He parked on the street and I jumped out, rushing around to unbuckle Charlie and grab her bear. I hoisted her onto my hip and hurried up the driveway.

  The security light flicked on, bright enough to make Charlie mumble and bury her head in my neck. I leaned on the doorbell, peering into the glass on the front door.

  The lights began to flick on throughout the house, and a moment later Elise came hurrying down the hall. My cousin had the honey-blonde hair and brown eyes that were the Luther trademark, but her cropped hair was currently standing up at all angles. She was wearing a ratty old robe thrown on over a Boulder PD T-shirt, and her right arm was tucked along her side, probably to hide her service weapon. Of all my family members, Elise was the most naturally suspicious—and the most well armed.

  Her confused irritation turned to just plain confusion when she saw me through the window. She unlocked and opened the door. “What hap—”

  I held a finger to my lips, then pointed at Charlie. Elise nodded. “What the hell happened?” she said in a loud whisper. “What time is it? What happened to your face?”

  Dammit, even half-asleep she was good. I had nearly forgotten about the bruises on my forehead and cheekbone. “It’s late. John’s had an accident. Can you watch Charlie for tonight?”

  Elise had reached up to rub her eyes, but now she froze. “What?” She was already opening the door wider to let us in. “What happened to John?”

  Quinn had offered to go up first and press Elise, but I’d demurred. We were using a story with my parents anyway, and I didn’t want to mess with anyone’s thoughts unless there was no other option. Instead, Quinn had moved to the passenger side and was slumped down with his head in his hands, looking miserable. If Elise glanced outside, she would see him looking badly shaken.

  “I was watching Charlie tonight,” I told Elise, as calmly as I could. Human or not, my cousin could practically smell a lie. “John and Quinn were using Quinn’s bandsaw, and John cut his arm. He lost a lot of blood. The ambulance took him to BCH; Mom and Dad are already on their way.”

  “Okay.” I saw Elise processing that, knew she was about to ask why I couldn’t keep Charlie. “Was Quinn hurt?”

  “No, but the EMTs think he had some kind of minor heart incident—myocardial . . . something.” I was keeping it vague on purpose. “He didn’t want to ride in the ambulance, so I need to take him to get checked out. Can you please take her just until tomorrow morning?”

  Elise frowned, in a mildly insulted way. “Of course I can.” She opened her arms, and I handed Charlie over carefully. It was a relief to give up the weight—I had been getting overheated, still in my winter coat in the foyer—but I immediately felt less grounded.

  “Jesus, the two of you get in more accidents,” Elise grumbled, hoisting Charlie higher on her hip. Then she paused. “Wait—Quinn has a bandsaw?”

  “He just got it. Where’s Natalie?” I asked, mainly just to change the subject. Elise’s soon-to-be wife was a medical examiner in Denver.

  “Sleeping like a log. She just got off a double shift.”

  “Okay. I gotta go. I’ll call you first thing in the morning, promise. Maybe we can take Charlie to breakfast, then visit John.” It seemed absurd as soon as I said it—how could this mess possibly be over by then?—but as I’d hoped, the words seemed to normalize the situation for Elise. “Okay.” She took a step back, already starting to turn toward the stairs. “When we get up, I’ll call the hospital and check in too.”

  “Night,” I said, and hurried back out the way I’d come.

  When we were a couple of miles away from Elise’s place, Maven texted—she was already at the farmhouse, and there was no sign of Lily or Katia. Hazel and Simon both seemed fine. She would wait around for an hour or so to make sure nothing happened.

  I took the ski cap off Sybil, who immediately started shaking her head and rubbing her bound hands against her face. “Goddess, that was itchy.” To me, she added in a subdued voice, “Is your niece okay?”

  “She’s fine. Now we need to get to Simon’s.” Beside me, Quinn pressed down hard on the accelerator. With Charlie out of the car, he was willing to use Maven’s arrangement with Boulder PD to do some serious speeding. I approved.

  We were only a minute away from the apartment building when Sybil said, “I’m going in with you.”

  Quinn and I exchanged a look. “It’s safer if you stay out here,” I told her.

  “Safer for whom?” she shot back. “And isn’t that exactly what you’d say if you were responsible for Lily disappearing?”

  I sighed.

  “I’m coming in,” Sybil insisted. “Are you going to make me hop?”

  We didn’t have time for this. I nodded at Quinn, who got out his pocketknife, leaned between the seats, and sliced along the duct tape binding her legs. I knew he’d be careful, but Sybil complained the whole time anyway. Typical. “It’s gonna look awfully weird if I walk in with my arms covered in duct tape,” Sybil pointed out when he was done.

  “Don’t push it,” Quinn told her.

  “There’s a blanket in the back,” I told him. “We can throw it over her hands.”

  That’s exactly what we did. I parked in the lot—Maven owned this building, and kept a few spots reserved for Old World business—and the three of us hurried inside.

  I expected Sybil to complain the whole way about her legs going to sleep or her wrists being tied, but she looked as grim and worried as I felt. Inside the main doors, we took the stairs down to the basement, and Sybil was moving so fast that I had to put a hand on her elbow to keep her from pitching down the steps. That was when I realized she believed me about Lily—or at least about something being very wrong.

  At Simon’s door, Quinn jerked Sybil’s arm so they were standing to one side of the doorframe. He held a finger to his lips. I went to the other side, turning my body just enough to fit my key in the lock. I turned the key as quietly as I could, checked Quinn to make sure he was ready, and kicked in the door, rushing in with the revolver in one hand and a shredder in the other.

  The main room, a combination dining-kitchen area, was empty—but it looked like there had been a hell of a fight. The kitchen floor was strewn with cast-iron frying pans and playing cards, and the floor-length cupboard where Simon kept the trash was dented inward. I nodded at Quinn, who planted Sybil against the wall and indicated that she should stay there. He and I moved down the hall then, checking the rooms. He disappeared into Simon’s bedroom while I went on to clear the bathroom, the closet, and the spare room. Quinn hadn’t come out, so I rushed back to the bedroom to check on him.

  He was kneeling next to Simon’s bed, gently shaking the covers. A person-sized lump was huddled under the blankets. “We’re clear,” I said, moving closer. “Who is that?”

  In answer, he said loudly, “Lily. Lily!”

  I ran forward, dropping to my knees beside him. Lily looked asleep, but even when he shook her hard, she didn’t move, didn’t make a sound.

  My heart plummeted, and I made myself say the words. “Is she—”

  “She’s breathing,” he said shortly. I cou
ld hear Sybil’s footsteps in the hall. Quinn looked around, saw a glass of water on the nightstand, and upended it on Lily’s face. Nothing happened.

  “Get out of the way,” Sybil snapped, hurrying to her sister’s bedside. Quinn backed up so Sybil could check Lily’s pulse, then lift her eyelids.

  Sybil looked up at me. “She’s been drugged.”

  “I thought your little potions didn’t work on people with witchblood,” I countered, feeling inexplicably angry at her.

  “They don’t. This isn’t magic. It’s regular, nonmagical belladonna,” she snapped. “Someone used a precision dose to knock her out without killing her. That’s very difficult. She’ll be out for . . .” She narrowed her eyes speculatively. “Maybe twelve to eighteen hours.”

  Long enough to miss the witch congress. If Sybil said Lily would live, though, I believed her. “Where’s Katia?” I demanded.

  “I don’t know!”

  “Okay,” Quinn broke in, holding up his hands. “Who would know how to dose Lily like this?”

  “Me.” Sybil thought for a moment. “Other than that, I can only think of Morgan and my mother. And Ardie Atwood, but nobody’s heard from her for a couple of years.”

  I very carefully did not look at Quinn when she said that last part. Ardie, her husband, and their kids had disappeared from Colorado shortly after Ardie had participated in an attempt to kill Maven. I was certain my boss wouldn’t have hurt the children, so I figured their father had moved them out of state. I had no idea if Ardie had been alive to go with them. I didn’t really care.

  “Morgan could do this?” I repeated.

  “Yes, but not in person. She can’t come into Colorado, unless . . .” Sybil trailed off, thinking.

  “Unless what?” I asked.

  “Unless the witch congress decides to take away my mother’s magic,” Sybil said, looking up at me. One hand was still on her sister, like she was afraid someone would steal Lily away. “That would destroy any of her active spells. But they don’t meet until tomorrow.” She shrugged, looking at her sister with a miserable expression. “Morgan could have sent the dose with someone else.”

  I looked at Quinn. “I don’t like this. Whoever came here must have arrived at almost the same time as Sybil and the werewolves hit John’s house. She’s attacking on multiple fronts at once.” God, I hated her.

  “A blitzkrieg,” Quinn muttered under his breath.

  Anyone who deals with military tactics learns the concept of blitzkrieg: a series of fast, concentrated attacks using more than one channel. The idea was to unbalance the enemy and make it impossible for them to adjust quickly enough to save themselves.

  “And it’s working,” I said. We weren’t adjusting fast enough. We were too busy reacting.

  Quinn nodded, looking grim . . . and a little pissed. I rarely saw Quinn actually get angry—he was usually the cool one, the detached investigator. But Morgan had attacked Katia and Lily, people who were important to me. That was enough to make even Quinn mad.

  He turned narrowed eyes onto Sybil. “Where is Morgan hiding?”

  “I don’t know,” she whined. “Somewhere in Wyoming. I haven’t visited her in person.”

  “Who would know?” I asked. “Who else is working for her?”

  Sybil’s lower lip trembled, but she was thinking. “There’s a whole pack of werewolves,” she said slowly. “I don’t know any of them, though. The ones I was with . . . I just met them tonight.”

  “That’s not all of you,” I said. “She has other witches, doesn’t she?”

  Sybil swallowed hard. “I only know of two. Marissa Shaw is from Clan Shaw, down in Pueblo. She was at the farmhouse keeping an eye on us. And Joanna Green used to be in Clan Pellar, but she left when Morgan did.”

  “What do they look like?”

  Sybil did her best to describe them. I didn’t think I’d met Shaw, but I was pretty sure Joanna Green was the timid woman who’d brought out the podium at Morgan’s big meeting. That didn’t really get us anywhere, though.

  Sybil stroked Lily’s hair.

  “You’re sure she’s going to be okay?” I heard myself asking.

  “Mostly sure. In the Middle Ages belladonna was used as anesthetic during surgery; in theory it shouldn’t do any lasting harm.” She was frowning. “But there’s always the possibility of complications.”

  “Is there an antidote?” Quinn asked.

  “Yes, but I don’t have it with me. It’s at the farmhouse.”

  I looked at Quinn. “We should—”

  The trilling brrrrrrrrring of an old-fashioned telephone erupted from the kitchen, cutting me off. I went out there, the other two at my heels, and found a small black burner phone on the counter, tucked against the fridge. “Is it Katia’s?” Quinn said, frowning.

  “No.” I went over to the counter and looked at the screen. The caller ID had been blocked.

  “Should you answer it?” Sybil said.

  “I think I have to.” I picked up the phone and hit the “Talk” button. “Hello?”

  “Lex?” Katia’s voice was raw and weak.

  My stomach contracted. I’d never heard her sound like that. “I’m here, Aunt Katia. What’s going on?”

  “I need . . . I need you to get somewhere you can’t be overheard. By anyone.”

  Quinn and I locked eyes. He gave a tiny headshake—don’t do it—but I couldn’t take the risk. “Hold on.”

  I walked briskly out of the apartment, the phone pressed to my ear, and closed the door behind me. I put twenty more feet of hallway between me and the door, then said, “Okay. I’m alone.”

  “Excellent,” a new voice purred. Fear erupted inside me like an explosion of adrenaline.

  “Hello, Morgan.”

  Chapter 34

  “Did you find Lily yet?” she asked, as though I had lost a shoe.

  “Yes. Nice way to treat your own sister.”

  “She’s alive, isn’t she?” Morgan said, unperturbed. “She’ll wake up tomorrow night with a headache.”

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” I blurted.

  A sigh. “You still don’t get it. It’s not your fault, really: you’re outclan, and a black witch on top of it. You don’t know any better.”

  “Oh yeah, I’m clearly in the wrong on this whole drugging-and-kidnapping issue,” I said sarcastically.

  “Lex.” Morgan was using the patronizing tone of a kindergarten teacher, which made me even angrier. “At some point you’re going to realize that there was never anything wrong with me. I’m just the only one not brainwashed by that scheming vampire bitch and her corpse-loving lackey. No offense, of course,” she added.

  It was a near thing, but I held my temper. Yelling at Morgan could have consequences for Katia. “Tell me what you want.”

  Her voice hardened. “All right. It’s very simple: bring Charlie to Wyoming.”

  I blinked. “You think I’m going to deliver my four-year-old niece to you? Did you get brain damage?”

  “I didn’t say bring her to me.” Morgan sounded impatient. “I said bring her to Wyoming. If she travels across the state line, she’ll break my mother’s ward. You can even pick up Katia while you’re here.”

  Her tone suggested she was being very generous. “And then what will you do?” I asked.

  “That’s not your concern,” she said primly. “But I told you once before: I have no interest in hurting children. I won’t lay a hand on Charlie; you have my word.”

  I was too busy trying to think ahead to snort at the concept of Morgan’s word. “You’re going to crash your mother’s congress, aren’t you? Turn the witches against her? Or maybe you’ll try to find Maven during the day, when she’s vulnerable.” A worse thought occurred to me. “You’ve had your people following her, haven’t you? You think you already know where to find her.”

  “Lex.” Her voice was sharp now. “You’re making this harder than it needs to be. And what exactly is your loyalty to Maven, anyway? She can
’t keep your niece safe—I’ve personally proven that for you. Twice. And she’s been neglecting you for months. What have you been doing lately? Errands?”

  I took a step back toward the apartment. I was sure it had been silent, but Morgan seemed to read my mind. “If you tell Quinn or Maven, I will kill Katia,” she said. “I’ve been doing a little experimenting. I think I’ve figured out how to make a boundary witch stay dead.”

  I froze, both from fear for Katia and paranoia for myself. Was she watching me? Could she have planted recording devices in the apartment?

  Of course she could have. With a bunch of werewolves and several witches working for her, there wasn’t much she couldn’t get away with.

  “You make some interesting points,” I said, my voice sounding strangled.

  “Good,” she replied. “Now, I’ll leave Katia with one of my employees at the Depot in downtown Cheyenne. Nice and public. But you should know,” she added, “if you arrive without Charlie, I’ve taken steps to make sure you and Katia will both die.”

  “Charlie’s not with me,” I said quickly. “I’ll need to go get her.”

  A pause, like she was checking a watch. “It’s two thirty now. I’ll give you three hours. That’s more than enough time.”

  “Wait—” I began.

  “See you soon, Lex.”

  And then she was gone.

  I stood there for a long moment, completely still, my thoughts churning. I was absolutely certain of one thing: I was not going to get Charlie. She wouldn’t be involved in this in any way. But that meant I had to come up with another plan.

  And I had no time to waste.

  I marched back to Simon’s apartment. Quinn and Sybil were sitting at the kitchen table. Quinn had sliced the rest of the tape off the Pellar witch, and they were both sitting there with their hands folded.

  I paused. They were awfully close to the door. I looked at Quinn. “Did you overhear that?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “I couldn’t make out any words.”

  I looked at Sybil. “Can you go sit with Lily, please?”

  I was a little surprised when she quietly rose from her seat and went into Simon’s room without a word. My face was probably pretty scary at the moment.