Boundary Born (Boundary Magic Book 3) (5 page)

C
hapter 7

“You’re . . . what do . . .” I sputtered. I was having a hard time rearranging my entire worldview in a few seconds.

Sam and I had never celebrated an adoption day the way some families did, and most of the time I barely remembered that we weren’t biologically Luthers. But I knew the story. My birth mother had walked into a Denver hospital in the middle of a terrible rainstorm, dripping wet and well into labor. She wouldn’t give her name or any background information, but she spoke with an accent, and the hospital’s assumption was that she was likely an undocumented immigrant.

The doctors would have questioned her further after we were born, but then I went into distress—something about fluid in my lungs choking me. While they were busy saving me, our mother was suddenly bleeding out. And then it was over. I’d wondered who my birth father was, of course, but I’d never actually expected to find out.

Unable to form any actual sentences, I snapped my mouth shut and looked him over more carefully, tuning out the barking. Jasper was just over six feet tall, with dark blond hair silvering to gray and a neat goatee. He carried a little extra weight around his middle, but it was mostly disguised by his simple, forgettable clothing: khaki pants and a plain charcoal button-down, with new-looking casual oxfords. The only remarkable thing about his clothes was the awkward way they fit. His shirt bunched a little just below the collar, and his pants hung low, as though the pockets were filled with change. I’d had a lot of practice looking for weapons under clothing, but this didn’t seem like guns or knives, just . . . weighed down.

At first glance he had appeared to be about forty, but now I saw the signs of age: sag under his chin, lines around his mouth, and the small potbelly despite his wiry forearms. I put him just north of fifty. His eyes were cornflower blue, exactly like mine. And Sam’s, and Charlie’s.

That itself wasn’t proof of paternity or anything, but the more I looked, the more similarities I spotted. Our noses. Our thick eyelashes. I glanced at his hands. Even his fingernails were shaped like mine.

“Why are you here?” I blurted, and immediately felt like a jerk.

But he didn’t seem offended, just nervous. His fingers kneaded together at his waist, as though he were holding an imaginary hat. “I was hoping to meet you. Speak to you. Explain why . . .”

He trailed off, looking so mortified that I took pity on him. “Are you okay with animals, Mr. Jasper?” I asked. “Dogs and cats?”

“Yes, of course. And please call me Emil.” For the first time, I noticed his unusual accent. His vowels were long—like someone from Canada or the Midwest—but there was also an odd lilt I couldn’t place.

“Okay, well. Come in.”

I ushered him ahead, catching a familiar scent. Cigar smoke. I’d known a few guys who smoked them on deployment. As soon as Jasper—Emil—was through the door, Chip and Cody were falling all over each other to lick his face. Emil dodged gamely, hunching down a little so he could scratch their backs while they were on the floor. We went into the living room, where I motioned him toward an easy chair, heading for the opposite couch. I couldn’t keep myself from perching on the very edge, as though my body still expected him to go for a weapon. Emil turned to greet my gray cat Gus-Gus, who literally stepped onto his back by way of greeting. “Hello,” he murmured, scratching Gus-Gus under the chin. You can tell a lot about a person by how they are with animals, I had learned, and Emil certainly seemed to be passing that particular test.

Then I remembered how everyone said Hitler was a dog person. “Um, would you like something to drink?” I said, because the internal voice of my mother would have been scandalized if I didn’t. “Coffee, water? Or I think I have soda . . .”

I trailed off, but Emil shook his head. “I’m fine,” he assured me. “I had coffee on the flight.” Once Emil’s eyes were off the animals and on me, they roved over my face like he couldn’t stop himself. Like he’d finally found the pot of gold at the end of his rainbow.

I had a sudden, juvenile urge to throw off that blissful expression. “Tell me about my . . . my mother,” I said, wincing at the word. It felt too much like a betrayal of my real mom, who had raised me and loved me and worried about me every day. But at the same time, what else could I call the woman whose uterus Sam and I had once shared?

Emil’s face shut down a little. “Her name was Valerya,” he said, as though he had practiced the words in front of a mirror. “We met in Russia, when I was there on a student visa.”

His hands moved up suddenly—I had to make an effort not to flinch—but he was just fumbling at his pockets. He pulled out a photograph and reached across the coffee table to hand it to me. “That was us.”

I took it with an automatic reverence. I’d seen all the paperwork on our adoption, and a newspaper article from shortly after we were born, but there were never any photos. The picture that Emil handed over showed a trim, youthful Emil with his arm around a young woman. She looked maybe twenty or twenty-one, and for a second I honestly thought Emil had Photoshopped in my sister. Valerya looked that much like Sam, or rather, Sam looked that much like Valerya. Only two things were different from my sister: the eyes—Valerya had brown eyes, unlike the blue that Sam had shared with me and, apparently, Emil. Valerya’s hair was different, too. Despite the faded picture, I could see that instead of Sam’s dark chestnut, our mother’s hair had been reddish-brown. Just like mine.

I felt my eyes prick with sudden, unwelcome tears, and I had to blink hard to keep them back. In the shot, the two of them were wearing simple, relatively timeless clothes that looked homemade. They stood in front of a barn—the faded photo had turned it more rust than red—that could have been anywhere. Anywhere with bright sunshine. “Where was this taken?” I asked.

“Australia. We were visiting my brother at his farm.”

Valerya was smiling for the camera, but her expression was pained and uncomfortable, like she wanted the photographer to put the camera down and let her escape. Maybe she just didn’t like having her picture taken. I felt a sudden rush of protectiveness for this woman, ten years younger than I was now.

“Why weren’t you with her?” I demanded, finally looking at Emil. My voice had come out harder than intended. “When we were born,” I added, trying to soften my tone.

His face clouded over. “We had a fight when she was eight months pregnant. It was my fault,” he added immediately. “I wanted her to give up boundary magic until the baby was born. I had no real reason, other than it unnerved me for her to be playing with life and death when she was growing new life inside her.” He motioned to his own stomach.

So Valerya had been a boundary witch, like me. And this man knew at least a little about the Old World. I didn’t think he was a boundary witch himself—we age slowly, our cells reluctant to die. Unless he was
really
old . . .

“The argument got heated,” he continued. “We were both yelling, but then I . . . I grabbed her by the shoulders, shook her. She ran from me.” Regret had drawn new lines around his mouth, and he dropped his eyes, looking ashamed. “I thought she would stay with friends for a night, maybe two, and we would make up. But I never saw her again.”

I handed the photo back, but he waved me away. “You keep it,” he said. “You should have a photo of her.”

I set it on the coffee table carefully, placing a hardcover book over the photo to protect it from turning into a dog toy. Chip and Cody had wandered off as soon as Emil stopped petting them, but Gus-Gus made himself comfortable in the man’s lap. I watched him pet the cat for a moment, trying to formulate my next question.

“You’re talking about her in the past tense,” I said finally. “So you know she’s dead?”

He nodded, his face grave. “When more than a week went by, I took some hairs from Valerya’s pillow and brought them to a trades witch I know. He did a locating spell, but she wasn’t anywhere. That only happens when the person has . . . passed on.

“I went to two more witches, but each had the same result. I had nothing with which to locate you—no hair, no fingernails—but I did try finding you my own way.”

“What does that mean?”

He leaned sideways so he could reach into his hip pocket, pulling out a small piece of glossy stone, perfectly round and perfectly black.

“This is a scrying mirror,” he explained. “I have boundary witchblood, like your mother, but like most males I can’t activate it. But I can use natural magics. That’s how I eventually found you, by scrying.”

Natural magic. Simon had mentioned this once or twice, but he usually called it gravitational magic, because it pools in certain places. It’s the same magic that keeps vampires from entering someone’s home without permission, although that was about all I knew about it.

I suddenly felt like an idiot. I’d been so caught up in meeting Emil that I hadn’t stopped to wonder how he’d found me. Careless. “What do you mean? Why would it work now and not then?”

He put the black stone back in his pocket. “I’m not sure. For years, whenever I tried to scry for the baby, the results were . . . confused. It was like the baby’s location was bouncing back and forth, which made it impossible for me to pinpoint.” He lifted his empty hands in a helpless gesture. “Eventually, I restricted myself to checking once a year, then every two years. I moved to Nova Scotia, opened a shop there, but I kept my ear to the ground. Last month I was at a small business conference in Chicago. An old friend had heard about a powerful boundary witch who had appeared in Colorado, seemingly out of nowhere. Honestly, my heart just lit up.” He beamed. “I tried scrying again, and this time it led me straight to you.”

I barely heard this last part. My thoughts were stuck on the words
bouncing back and forth
. “Twins,” I blurted. “There were two of us. That’s why you couldn’t find us when we were little.”

He started. “Two of you? The ultrasound never . . . there must have been a mistake.”

He stood up, displacing Gus-Gus, who stalked away indignantly. Emil walked a few feet away, staring out the window. “Of course, of course,” he muttered. “I’m such an idiot; I should have realized . . . two babies.” He paused to look at me. “Was it a second girl? Is she an active witch, too? Do you—”

“She’s dead,” I said. It came out harsher than I expected. “She died last year.”

His excitement faded, and he sank back down into the chair. “I’m so sorry, Allison.”

People call me that by mistake all the time, but this time it sort of stung. “Nobody calls me that,” I told him. “It’s Lex.”

He nodded absently, taking that in stride. “May I ask how she died?”

“She was murdered by a werewolf in Los Angeles.” It was on the tip of my tongue to add “she left behind a daughter,” but some instinct kept my mouth shut. The guy didn’t need to know about Charlie, not until I was sure I could trust him.

Then a stray thought caught up with me. “Wait. If Valerya—if my mother was a boundary witch, why did she die in childbirth? Why didn’t the magic bring her back?” I had personally died three times, and Valerya sounded stronger than me. More practiced, at least.

He nodded as though he’d expected the question. “I gave that a lot of thought,” he said, “after the location spells revealed that she was dead. I realized there was only one thing that could have happened. You—or perhaps your sister—must have been at risk. Dying. Val was powerful; she would have been able to access the magic to trade one life for another.” He spread his hands again.

Tears began to run down my cheeks as I put it together. Me. I had been in distress, and Valerya had given her life to save mine. Because that’s what mothers do.

I stood up abruptly. “I’m sorry, I—I—”

“It’s all right,” Emil rose, too. “I’ve given you a lot to absorb in a very short time, Al—sorry, Lex. I’d like to speak to you more, if that’s all right?” I did something with my head that was sort of like a nod. “Yes, well, I’m staying at the St. Julien for a few days. You can give me a call there when you’re ready.”

My birth father was alive. I had a biological family. I think I walked him out, but I don’t remember anything else either of us might have said. This was just . . . too much.

I longed for someone to talk to about it, but who? John would have been good, but he was at Disney World, and he was still upset with me anyway. I hesitated to call anyone from the Luther family, because any interest I expressed in my birth parents might hurt them. Quinn was dead until night fell, and Simon and Lily . . . well, I was indirectly the cause of much of the turmoil that was currently affecting their whole clan. It didn’t seem right to call and complain about my own family.

I dropped back onto the couch, ignoring the cat and two dogs that vied for my attention. I was kidding myself. There was only one person I wanted to talk to just then, but she happened to be dead. Last year I’d learned that I could talk to her spirit in my dreams, but I hadn’t been able to contact her in months, not since my Iraq nightmares began.

I desperately wanted to talk to her, but I didn’t think I could handle any more nightmares quite yet. But in the past, hadn’t I been able to call her whenever I really needed her? Maybe if I went to sleep, I would see her?

In the end, my body sort of made the decision for me. I’d only had a few hours of sleep, and when exhaustion began to sink in, I laid down on the couch, prayed for my sister, and let sleep come.

C
hapter 8

When I opened my eyes again, I was
not
in the desert.

I sighed with relief, looking around the walls of the bedroom that Sam and I had shared as teenagers. I didn’t know if I chose this place or if Sam did, or if it was some combined effort of our subconsciouses, but this was where we always spoke, and it looked just like it always had. The old familiar posters, the bedspread, the stacks of books on the small desk we shared—everything was as it should be.

And there was my sister. She was sitting cross-legged on her bed, leaning against the wall to face me. This was how I’d last seen her in life—brunette pixie cut, black leggings, draped top that hid her little postpartum paunch. She was grinning so hard she was practically bouncing in place.

A rush of relief, love, and grief poured into me at once. “Hey, Sammy,” I said.

“Hey, babe! Long time no see.”

My smile fell. “Yeah. Sorry about that. Wait—am I sorry? Is it my fault?”

She grinned. “That you’re having those dreams, and they’ve completely preempted my channel? No, of course not. I know you let those memories back in to help Charlie.” Her smile faded. “But you should really see someone about it. What about that shrink at the VA?”

I scowled. “Don’t Mom me, Samantha. I already have Mom for that.”

She held up her hands. “Sorry, you’re right. That’s not what we do. I’m just worried about you.”

I was never sure how much Sam knew about my day-to-day life. She wasn’t omniscient, but she seemed aware of things beyond my own experiences. She wouldn’t—or more likely, couldn’t—tell me how it worked. So I asked, “Do you know why I wanted to talk to you?”

Her face turned serious. “Yeah. Emil, right?”

I nodded. “Do you know anything about him? Should I trust him?”

She gave me a wry look, opened her mouth, closed it for a moment, and then said carefully, “Valerya talks about him sometimes.”

My mouth dropped open. Apparently my dead sister was communicating with my dead birth mother. That was huge. That was more than she’d
ever
told me about where she was and how she was doing.

“He hasn’t always done the right thing, historically,” Sam went on, “but she thinks he’s basically okay.”

Before I could ask any of my thousand follow-up questions, she shot me a warning look that I could understand as easily as if she’d spoken aloud.
I can’t give you details. Watch what you ask or I’ll disappear again
. Out loud, she said softly, “I can still listen, you know.”

Whatever I was about to say next got stuck in my throat, and I had to swallow several times to choke it down. Instead, I said the one thing that I could
only
say to my sister. “I’m scared, Sammy. I don’t even really know why. He seems nice, I guess, but it just feels really . . . big. And I’ve already got an awful lot of big on my plate right now.”

“I know, babe.” Something flickered across her face. “I am limited in what I can say here, you know that,” she said slowly. “But maybe being cautious isn’t such a bad thing. There are many things I can’t see from where I am, for one reason or another.”

I studied her, not understanding. Was she telling me not to trust Emil? Or was this about something else? “There’s some weird new animal disease going around,” I offered, but she just nodded. “And John is pissed at me.”

Sam rolled her eyes. “You know he’s not. He’s angry, period, because his kid’s been threatened. But he can’t be mad at Charlie because she’s a toddler, and he can’t be mad at me because I’m dead.” She gave me a rueful smile. “That’s one benefit to dying, I guess. He mostly only remembers the good stuff.”

That made me sad, somehow. I remembered childhood fights with Sam, her pulling my hair and me making her cry. I remembered the times we did what she wanted to do, because Mom and Dad treated her like the baby and she milked it. But that was all part of her: not a saint, not a martyr. A full person, with faults and mistakes and baggage.

“Should I tell him that I can talk to you?” I asked her. “I could pass along messages, I guess . . .”

She shook her head. “Thank you, but it would be too hard on him. He wouldn’t be able to move on, assuming he even can after Morgan.” She brightened. “But I liked what you told him before, about being able to sense that I was proud of him. That was perfect.”

I swallowed hard. She knew it, of course, but I had to say it anyway. “I miss you so much, Sammy.”

“I miss you, too.” She cocked her head for a moment, like she was listening to something, and then screwed up her face.

“You’re out of time,” I guessed.

“Almost.”

“Any advice? In the movies, spirit guides give advice.”

“How would you know? You haven’t been in a movie theater since the millennium,” she countered. More seriously, she added, “Remember the griffin, Lex. Remember why it’s yours. And don’t be afraid when you finally figure out your mission. I’ve got your back, and so will John.”

“Sammy, that’s so cryptic—”

“I know, but that’s how it has to be,” she interrupted, talking fast now. “You think I
like
speaking in riddles?”

“Hell, yes, I do.”

She didn’t even acknowledge that. “One more thing,” she rushed to say. “Emil, you
have
to ask him what he—”

Abruptly, she blinked away.