Boundary Born (Boundary Magic Book 3) (22 page)

“You said Maven was an old enemy,” I tried. “Did she actually do something to you, or were you just kind of
ordered
to hate her?”

I didn’t actually see steam coming out of his blue ears, but the look on his face pretty much implied it. “She is the last of them,” he hissed, and thankfully he stopped advancing. He wanted to be heard, just like every Bond villain ever. “The last of those who opposed our people, who stood by and allowed evocators to be slaughtered like lambs.”

My brow furrowed, and I didn’t have to fake my confusion. “The last member of what?”

His head tilted, as if to say
she didn’t tell you?
But he answered me.

“The last of the Concilium.”

C
hapter 39

I stared, shocked. Maven had once been part of the ruling body for the entire Old World.

My tired, battered brain began to scrape together all the snippets of information that had been right in front of me. I flashed back to a moment six months ago, when Maven was rambling after she defeated Clara.
I did not want to lead, you know. The last time . . . ended badly.
At the time, I hadn’t really analyzed the statement, but now I realized she had been referring to the Concilium.

This certainly explained why Lysander wanted to kill Maven, but the way he’d said “the last of them” rang a bell in my mind. “The Concilium didn’t fall because of the colonization into North America, did it?” I asked him.

His blue lips twisted in a sardonic smile. “Of course not. It fell because I killed them. All but the youngest member.”

“How?” I asked. I was so intent on the story that for a moment I forgot to be afraid of him. “How could you kill the strongest vampires in the world? Surely you didn’t press all of them. Eventually they must have caught on.”

He nodded, obviously pleased with himself. “I pressed the first two and poisoned the rest.”

“Belladonna,” I whispered. Maven’s aversion to belladonna. No wonder.

“Yes. After it took effect, I tore their heads off.” His lips pressed together in a thin line. “But one of them escaped me. For five hundred years, I hoped to finish what I started. Imagine my surprise when I found her hiding with one of my own deathlings.”

His face brightened into a sudden crooked smile. It didn’t look right on him. “But you’re mistaken about one thing. I have no intention of killing you, not tonight. With your—what did you call it? Your grade-A uterus?” He stepped closer, his voice dropping to a whisper. “You need to learn manners, little girl. I can put your body through unimaginable horrors. I will kill you, break you, and teach you to obey me. I have broken so many before. Your mother, for instance.”

“My mother escaped you,” I said through gritted teeth. “She gave up her life for me, in every way possible. And I bet you don’t even remember her name.”

He snarled and started forward again. I stepped backward. “Which is fine,” I went on, “because you don’t deserve to say it out loud.”

That was when I stumbled.

It was my own fault—I’d forgotten to pay attention to where I was going as I retreated. In the back of my mind, I’d figured I had acres and acres to run from him, and as long as I led him deeper into the Gardens rather than toward the exit, I would be able to keep him away from people. Sure, there were foot-deep ponds here and there across the property, but I could survive wet feet.

But the topography of the park included more than just ponds and buildings. My foot slipped over the edge of the walkway and onto soft grass. I regained my balance and glanced over my shoulder, but there were no lights behind me, not even the little solar torches. I stared into the darkness, and after only a few seconds my eyes adjusted. I realized we were at the brink of the Garden’s grass amphitheater: four slopes leading down to a big tiled base in the center, where they held outdoor concerts in the summer.

In the seconds it took me to recognize where I was, however, Lysander saw his opportunity. He blasted me with another wave of energy, sending me flying. And even as I was in the air, I knew how much the landing was going to hurt.

I was right. I hit the grass a quarter of the way down, but my body kept tumbling, rolling with a momentum I was helpless to stop. My right wrist snapped as I instinctively tried to catch myself, but at that point it was just one more pain added to many.

I fell forever, losing both firearms in the process, and when I finally caught my body on the hard tiles at the bottom, it wasn’t fast enough for me to keep my head from thunking on the ground.

I don’t think I blacked out, but I was too stunned to do anything but collapse on my stomach, the tiles cool on my cheek.

My mind lazily drifted to the scene in
Raiders of the Lost Ark
when Indiana Jones is trying to find a spot that doesn’t hurt. Everything hurt. Even my elbows and lips. My wrist and the bump on my head screamed the loudest, but I was too dazed to really register it. So much pain. I was in awe of it.

But he’s coming for you
, Sam’s voice insisted. Groaning and keeping my bad wrist in the air, I managed to roll onto my back, giving me a view of the top of the embankment. It was too dark to see anything but the stars, drifting down toward me. Wait, no, that wasn’t right. Stars don’t all fall at once. I squeezed my eyes shut and opened them again, trying to jump-start my sluggish thoughts.

“You want to resist? To be a hero?” Lysander called down to me. He was in the same position at the top of the amphitheater. “Fine. Resist them.”

The glowing figures descending on me were not, in fact, stars. They were remnants. Hundreds of them. Thousands.

On a whim—and because it was the only thing I could do that didn’t involve movement—I dropped into my boundary mindset, where I saw life as sparks inside of people. To my surprise, the remnants looked more or less the same in the boundary mindset: smoky wisps of people. But when I was viewing them through a lens of magic, I saw them in greater detail. Each of them was swirling with black, just like the gray fox, and they were being driven toward me like cattle.

The leaders of the crowds descending on me had reached the tiles now, and were creeping closer. Before they completely surrounded me, blotting out the stars, I caught one brief glimpse of Lysander. If Maven glowed in my mindset like the sun, Lysander was a supernova of swirling, oily black. The figure threw back his head and laughed as the remnants fell upon me like I was the last spark of warmth in an eternal winter.

C
hapter 40

A tattered woman with a black eye thrust a revolver in my face and squeezed the trigger. I fell out of a boat and my limbs wouldn’t move right, didn’t know how to swim. I lay wasting away in a bed with white sheets, coughing blood into the pillowcase because I was too weak to lift my head. An enormous steer knocked me down, and I could feel its hooves begin to slice into my back.

Death after death pounded into me as the remnants attacked. Although none of my physical wounds were fatal, I felt like I was finally drifting toward my own death. I curled into myself, shivering as each ghost took a bite from my aura, at everything that made me me. I was so cold. I was so lost. The barrage of ghosts continued, and I drifted further from myself.
I’m sorry, Sam,
I thought.
I don’t know how to fight.

Yes you do
, cried a voice in my head, but it wasn’t Sam’s voice, not unless Sam had developed a Russian accent after death. This confused me enough to bring me back to myself for a moment. The voice spoke again,
You have everything you need, baby girl. Do not let this perversion take you, too
.

Valerya.

I couldn’t begin to process the fact that my dead birth mother had just communicated with me telepathically. I just couldn’t.

The deaths were still coming, but I tried to focus my thoughts, just for a second. She said I had what I needed, but what did I have? The shotgun and the revolver were around here somewhere, but they were useless against remnants. I still had the knife in its sheath. And—

I lifted my uninjured hand and clutched the cord around my neck. The necklace had fallen out of my shirt and was lying on the ground inches from my skin. I groped along the cord until I could wrap my hand around the obsidian.

Nothing happened.

It was an effort not to panic, not to allow my thoughts to fizzle out and images of death to claim me. I tried to remember how to even think about magic. What was the first thing Simon had taught me?

Extend your senses.

I blocked out everything that was coming at me and focused on the skin of my hand, the way the smooth stone felt as it warmed to my touch. I concentrated on the idea of vibrations, the beautiful chunk of mahogany obsidian tuning to my body. And then I listened for the stone, the same way I’d listen to my own body.

The images of death vanished.

I still hurt, and I still felt cold, but now that the psychic attack had ended I could at least think again. The relief was immediate, like jumping into a cool pond on a steamy day. But the remnants continued to mill around me, passing straight through me, making it impossible for me to see beyond them.

On the other hand, I realized, the remnants would also make it impossible for Lysander to see
me
from his perch at the top of the amphitheater. He was letting the ghosts take all the fight out of me so he could swoop in, pick me up, and ferry me off to concubine camp. But now I had bought myself a few seconds before he’d realize I was no longer suffering.

Think, Lex, think.
I listened for Valerya or Sam, but I heard nothing, and I realized that just as the obsidian was protecting me from psychic attack, it was probably keeping me from psychic help.

You have everything you need.
That implied more than one thing, didn’t it?

Valerya’s stone. I lifted my hand with the broken wrist and gingerly touched the large chunk of bloodstone, wrapping my skin around it. I concentrated on it just as I had with the obsidian.

I suddenly felt . . . better. Grounded. Clear. Strong.

And I knew what to do.

I needed my hands free, so I used my good hand to unceremoniously stuff both of the stones into my sports bra, just over my heart. It was weird and awkward, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t going to risk losing contact with them again. I stood up, ignoring the remnants that continued to swarm around and through me, drew the knife from the sheath on my back, and swiftly made a shallow cut on my right forearm, well above the broken part.

As the blood beaded on my arm, I felt the frenzied remnants go still, attracted to the death magic in my blood. Ignoring them as best I could, I knelt down on the tiles, dipped my fingers in the blood, and drew a dark red circle. It was clumsy and a little lopsided, but it closed tight, and that was all that mattered.

It seemed like there should be words—an incantation, a spell, something—but Simon had told me that the stronger the witch, the less necessary rituals became. So I just stepped outside the circle, looked down on it, and concentrated on a single word, a single idea. And when I was ready, I said it out loud.

“Door
.”

There was no puff of light, no smoke, no glitter of any kind. But the brown tile at the bottom of the amphitheater faded away, replaced by a dark, swirling smoke. It was neither ominous nor celestial; it was just an exit. A bridge.

I felt the attention of the remnants and raised both my arms. “Go,” I commanded them, in the same tone I used when I pressed vampires. “Be at rest. Be at peace. It’s time.”

One by one, the remnants drifted toward the circle I’d drawn—the bridge to the other side. They crossed over the line of blood, some hesitant, some greedy, and each one sank into the tile and vanished, not unlike the way the draugr moved through the earth.

My body, which had been in such pain only a few minutes earlier, thrilled with the magic. The pain was still there in the background, but it had been replaced, however temporarily, by something else. A radiance I had never expected.

I assumed Lysander was still at the top of the amphitheater, but as long as he didn’t come down here, I didn’t bother looking for him. My attention was on the remnants making their way across the line. Many of them passed through me on the way, but I felt nothing except a brief gust of cold. After a few minutes I closed my eyes and dropped into my boundary mindset, where I could see more detail.

They were smiling at me. Every single one of them. Smiles of gratitude, of relief, of incredible peace. I smiled back, tears running down my cheeks.

One of the remnants seemed just a little brighter and more alert than the others. He held back a little, and after all the others had gone through, he turned to me and extended a hand, palm up. Hesitantly, I moved my good hand to hover over his. He bent down and pressed his lips to my hand, the briefest kiss of cold.
Thank you
, he mouthed as he looked up at me. I nodded, and he took a step backward, his grateful eyes still on me. He vanished through the circle.

I released the mindset and crouched down, my broken wrist cradled to my chest. I licked a finger on my good hand and carefully wiped away a line of blood, breaking the circle.

Lysander floated up through the ground a few feet to the side, making me topple over in surprise. He had shrunk down to my own height—apparently directing the remnants was magically taxing. But his smile was cruel as he raised his hands to applaud. How had a thousands-year-old conduit learned about sarcastic applause?

“Very impressive,” he said, not sounding particularly impressed. “Someone has been teaching you.” He closed his eyes and seemed to take a deep breath, but I recognized the expression. He was feeling around with his magic too. Extending his senses, as Simon would say.

His eyes opened. “Perhaps the dead boundary witch here in Denver has taught you a few tricks? I must remember to pay her a visit later. Thank her for helping my daughter.” His smile said that he would be doing anything but thanking Nellie.

“Fuck you,” I managed to say, still clutching my broken wrist. “Get out of my state. Go crawl back into your hole.”

He laughed. “You still don’t understand, do you?” He gestured to the tiles, which still held the broken circle of blood. “None of this matters. You killed Emil, you laid the remnants to rest, but you still cannot beat
me
. You will
never
beat me. I said I won’t kill you, but I can come after your friends, your little niece. That vampire you’re fucking.” He extended his hand. “Or you can take my hand and walk out of here with me, right now.”

I didn’t move, didn’t answer. His expression softened. “You’ve shown me you are a worthy prize, deathling. Come with me willingly, and I will treat you well. And all the people who love you will be safe.”

We were frozen for a moment, his hand extended in peace, a respectful smile on his face. I would be well treated. My family and friends wouldn’t be harmed.

You’re more than just a bulletproof vest, Lex.

Be a witch.

You have everything you need, baby girl.

I pushed the voices out of my head and reached up to Lysander, offering him my injured forearm. I knew my expression was defeated, conflicted, remorseful. That was fine. He took my forearm gently, helping me to my feet with a broad smile on his face. Maybe it was because he’d shrunk down to nearly my height, but this close, and in the dim lighting, he seemed utterly human. That made what I had to do even harder.

Where did Lysander’s magic come from, what was the
one thing
that we both had?

Blood.

As fast as I have ever moved in my life, I lifted the combat knife I’d pulled from its back holster and slashed it across Lysander’s throat, digging in as deeply as I could. While his eyes were still widening in pain, I bent and jabbed the knife into the meat of his thigh, digging for the femoral artery.

He was thrown off-balance by the two sources of pain, and it took him a full second to stretch out his arms toward the grass, trying to suck in more life that he could sacrifice to heal his wounds.

But my idea was working. Lysander couldn’t make new blood any faster than anyone else, not without boosting his body with magic. And there were no more lives for him to suck up and turn into witch magic—he couldn’t take mine, as a fellow witch.

He tried to fend me off, but I only attacked harder. I reversed the knife grip and stabbed for the carotid artery, the brachial artery in his arm, all of the major organs I could remember. I did it quickly,
fwip-fwip-fwip
, going for speed over accuracy. He bellowed with pain and rage, but the blood was pouring out of him now, and though he squeezed enough magic out of the Gardens to heal a couple of wounds, he couldn’t heal them all. I kept going, darting around him in a circle as he began to slow down. The amphitheater grass all around us had turned as brown and dry as old pine needles. Now there was nothing left for him to kill.

Except for me. He couldn’t use my spirit, but I could see him deciding that revenge would be a nice consolation prize. He took one step toward me, but the blood was flowing now, the tiles getting slippery, and I thought,
more
. I plunged the knife again and again, reopening the few wounds he’d healed, carving new ones. I stopped aiming at arteries and just stabbed and sliced anywhere that wasn’t already bleeding. He fought me, getting in a few blows to my face and arm, but the more strikes I made, the more feeble he became. At last, with a widening pool of blood spreading over the tiles around us, Lysander dropped to his knees. I made one final cut, to the draugr’s jugular, and he collapsed with a splash of blood.