Boundary Born (Boundary Magic Book 3) (21 page)

At last I spotted a small map stand just ahead, and I rushed toward it gratefully. The light from the solar torches wasn’t bright enough for me to see the image, so I risked pulling out Emil’s phone and turning on the screen. Bending so my face was as close to the stand as possible, I scanned the map carefully and determined that I was in something called the Crossroads Garden, which seemed as likely a place as any for the most powerful boundary witch in history. Since he wasn’t here, though, I kept scanning. How would a super-witch kill a little time in a botanic garden? No pun intended. I ran a finger down the list of exhibit titles, hoping something would jump out at me.

And then something did. My eyes nearly skipped right over the words, and I had to go back and reread them to make sure. I smiled to myself. Yeah, if I were Lysander, I’d probably find it amusing to lurk near that particular exhibit. I looked up, oriented myself away from the remnants, and stole along the path toward one of the Botanic Gardens’ most famous acquisitions.

Chapter 38

In August of 2015, the Denver Botanic Gardens made national news when a rare flower called
Amorphophallus titanum
bloomed for the first time. The name literally means “giant misshapen phallus,” but as fun as that name is, the plant’s nickname is even better: the corpse flower.

It takes fifteen years for one of these giants to bloom for the first time, and when it does, it emits a terrible odor that famously smells like dead bodies. The petals are also a dark purple, sort of like rotting body parts. The corpse flower evolved this way to attract carrion bugs, which pollinate it, but their rarity and the long gestation period make them something of a tourist attraction at gardens around the world.

As soon as I read the name, I remembered the news stories about the Denver corpse flower, which the Botanic Gardens had rather unimaginatively named “Stinky.” It drew huge crowds to the Gardens, and several of my family members went to visit it, but I passed on their invitations. Even back then, I’d smelled enough corpses to last a lifetime.

Stinky was housed inside the greenhouse complex, which was a straight shot along the cobblestone path where I was standing.

In just a few minutes, I was close enough to see the nearest door to the greenhouse building—and it was standing wide open, allowing weak light to spill through. My heart thudded with adrenaline, and I was so focused on moving quickly and avoiding the remnants that I didn’t see the long object lying across the cobblestones in front of me. I tripped, sprawling forward as the cell phone flew out of my hand and skittered away into the darkness.

I cursed under my breath, rubbing at my skinned palms. I wasn’t usually that clumsy. Rising to all fours, I turned around and squinted down to see what I’d stumbled over. There was just enough light coming from the solar lanterns for me to make out a black jacket, black pants, and a badge hanging on a belt. I gasped and fell back onto my ass. It was the security guard.

After I got over the initial shock, I quickly reached forward to check the carotid pulse at the man’s neck, hoping someone had just knocked him unconscious. Nothing. I held my hand in front of his nose, checking for a breath. But he was dead and, as far as I could tell from the little solar-powered lights, without a mark on him.

Fear turned my stomach into fluttery acid. I’d hoped that the draugr would wait to kill again until he learned whether or not Emil had succeeded in taking me. There was no way to know if he’d decided to “feed” out of boredom, or if he’d figured out that Emil was dead and I was still loose. I stood up on slightly shaky legs, trying to make a decision: keep going or go back and wait for help? But if I called Simon and Lily, Quinn would insist on coming too, and then the draugr could press him into doing anything.

The decision ended up being moot, anyway. Despite my efforts, finding the cell phone in the dark proved impossible. I had no idea where it had slid off the path, and it was one little object in an enormous cluster of plant life. I swore under my breath. So much for my plan to call Lysander when I got close.

Then I smelled it.

The stench wafting along the cool night breeze was almost comically bad. It did smell like a dead body, but also like Charlie’s poopy diapers from when Sam had been breastfeeding, and a little bit like rotten eggs. In fact, if those three scents got together and had an olfactory baby from hell, that would be the smell of the corpse flower. What else could it be?

But the corpse flower supposedly only smelled when it was blooming, and as far as I knew, that wouldn’t happen again for at least a few years . . . unless there was someone with power over life and death in there, manipulating it. I holstered the revolver and lifted the shotgun, stepping forward with my eyes trained on the open greenhouse door.

I crept through the open doorway into a short corridor with a cluster of drifting remnants. There was another open doorway just a few feet down the hall. He had turned on a bright light inside that room, and that’s where the smell was originating. My eyes were watering, but I stepped forward resolutely, keeping my weapon raised and my footfalls soft. When I reached the doorway, I put my back against it and peeked around the side.

Lysander was there in all his mammoth-sized glory, standing in front of the greenhouse window in his big coat. He had his back to me, but I could see that his arms were raised and waving like a conductor. I looked beyond him and recognized the famous corpse flower in full bloom. As Lysander moved his hands, the plant’s enormous single petal—it probably had a more scientific name, but I didn’t know it—peeled down from its center stalk, displaying bruise-purple coloring on the inside. The stench worsened. Then Lysander waved a hand, and the petal closed back up again.

He was
playing
with it.

The flower weighed nearly a hundred and fifty pounds, and watching him manipulate it was fascinating, like watching a time-lapse video in reverse. But I tore my eyes off it and aimed the Ithaca at the back of Lysander’s head. I let out a silent exhalation and began to squeeze the trigger—

“I don’t really think it smells much like death. Do you?”

I froze, though he hadn’t so much as craned his head to look at me. “A hint of it, certainly, but not enough to earn its name.” He paused, and when it was clear that I wasn’t going to answer, he finally lowered his arms and turned around, dry amusement on his face. “You don’t really think that in my thousands of years of life no one’s
ever
tried to shoot me in the head?”

Well, there went the element of surprise. I considered lowering the Ithaca—but then again, why take his word for it?

I pulled the trigger.

I had loaded the old 12-gauge with three-inch magnum shots, the heaviest ammunition I could handle, and just for the hell of it, I slam-fired all four shots in a row. It was literally the most damage I could do short of an actual grenade.

The shells should have blown at
least
part of his head off. Instead, his temple just looked a little dented.

While I was still gaping, Lysander turned back toward the corpse flower, raising one hand, and I felt something sort of brush past the part of me that was witch, like a breeze ruffling my hair. Then the corpse flower withered and collapsed, as did the pretty decorative plants surrounding it. Plants don’t have souls—they don’t even glow in my boundary mindset—but Lysander seemed to be drawing the very life out of them. As he did, the damage to his head repaired itself. He began turning around to face me. Was it my imagination, or had he shrunk a little?

“Neat trick,” I said, my heart ricocheting around my ribs. “How fast can you do it?”

Quick as I could, I dropped the Ithaca on its sling, drew the big Smith & Wesson revolver, and fired bullet after bullet into Lysander’s head. I’m an excellent shot, and I wasn’t standing very far away, so every single .357 round impacted his skull.

But Lysander didn’t fall. Instead, he stretched out both his arms, and there was a fleeting rush of power in the room. I instinctively closed my eyes, like you do for a gust of wind, and when I opened them, all of the plants in the greenhouse were dry husks on the floor, and Lysander was looking at me calmly, a terrible smile spreading over his face. I might be able to play with the essence of people, but Lysander could suck the life out of anything. And now his face was perfectly healed, although it was a few inches lower than it had been. At least that was something.

“Interesting,” he said condescendingly, as though I had tried to eat peas using a knife instead of a spoon. “My turn.”

He pointed toward me, his fingers flicking outward. I dove to the side and managed to avoid most of the raw force he sent careening toward me, like a souped-up version of the Pellars’ catapult spell. The edge of it caught my shoulder, though, and I spun sideways, jarring my back against the door frame.

“Let’s take this outside,” Lysander declared. He raised his hand to flick at me again, and this time I was too off-balance to dodge. The energy hit me in the stomach and I shot backward, straight through the greenhouse window, and was airborne for what felt like an hour. I passed through several remnants as I flew, sending bursts of bleakness through my mind as I crashed down on the pavement outside.

It hurt. In a lot of places.

I groaned against the blazing pain and flexed my limbs to check for broken bones. That hurt even more, and a whimper escaped my lips before I heard Lysander’s steady footsteps in the corridor. I couldn’t take another hit like that, so I crawled forward to a short ledge and tipped my body over the edge. It was only about three feet to the ground, but landing hurt almost as much the second time. At least he couldn’t see me from the greenhouse door.

I huddled back against the wall, digging ammunition out of my pocket and reloading the revolver as quickly as I could. The footsteps paused, and then I heard a low, hollow chuckle. “Hiding? Truly? All right, little deathling, I’ll play.” There was a long scrape as he sent giant potted plants flying off the ledge over my head. They crashed to the ground with enough force to shatter the enormous clay pots. I covered my face against the impact, but a few bits of broken pottery scraped against my hands. I gritted my teeth. Tossing stuff around, that was garden-variety witch magic. Where was he getting it?

Then I remembered the security guard. Right. He’d taken a life, which for a boundary witch was like the fuel to do regular spells. How long would the magical energy from a human death last? It wasn’t something I’d ever cared to find out.

“I admit, I didn’t expect you to fire,” Lysander continued. “You have more courage than most of those who have challenged me. Unfortunately, no more intelligence.” He’d moved in the opposite direction from my hiding spot, and I heard another crash as he threw something else. “You think you’re safe because your magic doesn’t want you to die,” he called out, “but that only means I can cause you that much more pain before your body yields.”

Think, Lex
. Okay, first thing, I needed to disarm him. I couldn’t take away his magic, but maybe I could force him to use up whatever he had left. There were no other people here he could rob of life, so he’d have no other way to get energy for trades magic. There were still the plants, but corpse flower aside, how much magic could you wring out of plant life?

I stood up and turned around. “If it’s any consolation, you’re a huge disappointment to me too,
Father
.”

He whirled around, irritation crossing his face. I could barely see him through the darkness and the always-moving wisps of ghost, but in this lighting his blue skin almost cast an eerie glow. Then he smiled, and his body seemed to suddenly sink into the cobblestones.

My mouth dropped open as he disappeared. The draugr could swim through earth. Kirsten had mentioned something about this ability, which explained how he could constantly rise and fall from the grave, but I’d forgotten. No wonder Lysander was hiding in the Botanic Gardens. It was nothing but natural earth and graves.

Before I could begin to contemplate a move, his body rose back up from the ground and resurfaced about three inches in front of my face. I took a few quick steps back, and registered that he’d changed again. Gone was the eight-foot-tall behemoth I’d first met, now replaced by a smallish man of about five-seven. So the more magic he used, the smaller he got. Good to know.

“Disappointment?” he sneered, as if all I’d wanted my whole life was a birth father who could melt into the ground. “You spend your life as a vampire’s lackey, wishing you could be part of the family that pretends to accept you. Whereas
I
. . .” To finish his point, he thrust out an arm, like a dancer reaching for his partner, and I could feel the brush of magic again. It was as if some sort of force was being sucked into his arm. I was so focused on him that it took me a moment to realize that every single plant on that side of his body, for as far as I could see, had just shriveled up and died.

And the draugr grew in front of me. Theatrically, he thrust out his other arm and did the same thing on the other side. The power seemed to visibly rush up his skin and toward his face, which suddenly grew as his mass increased. I stumbled backward, needing to tilt my head up to look at him. He stepped forward, advancing on me. In no rush to kill me.

Okay, yeah. I was out of my league. I was not going to beat him with magic.

“All these tricks,” I said, trying to keep my voice from shaking as I retreated, “and yet you’re still basically a stud horse that the boundary witches trot out whenever they need to put some life back in the gene pool. No pun intended.”

He paused, and I got the impression that for the first time since we’d met, I’d actually thrown him a little. Or just really, really pissed him off. I kept talking, as quickly as I could get the words out. “I mean, they wake you from the dead, update you on our world, and send you out on
errands
? ‘Hey, Sandy, here’s a cell phone and a combustion engine, now go get a new broodmare and kill all my enemies.’ And you think
I’m
the lackey?”

His eyes narrowed into slits, and he raised a hand and flicked another powerful wave of energy at me. I was ready for it, though, and I darted sideways, doing a neat little roll that
really
hurt the bruises on my back. “You know nothing of me,” he spat.

“So explain it,” I challenged. I was backing up slowly again, but he followed. “You’re the Knights of Death’s secret weapon, sure, but do you ever make any decisions? Come to think of it, can you even make the call on killing me? I mean, here I am with my grade-A uterus and plenty of boundary magic.” I gave him a derisive look. “Don’t you need to run this by someone in charge?”

He shot energy at me again, and again I managed to duck it, but not quite as easily this time. My body was slowing down from all the abuse, and it didn’t help that I’d walked through at least three remnants since I’d come out from hiding. But at least he’d shrunk down a little. He stepped toward me again. I didn’t want to keep backing up—he’d killed all the plants in this area, so moving to a new section with more plant life was not optimal—but I needed to buy a little more time to recover before I could fight him. I took another step back.