Boundary Lines (17 page)

“You are free to go, of course, with my apologies,” Bryant was saying, reaching out an arm to gesture toward the door. “I would walk you out, but I need to have a word with my
detectives
.” There was real fury in her voice, but I had stopped listening. As she raised her arm toward the door, I saw it: a heavy-duty Band-Aid stuck to her right wrist. Suddenly I understood everything.

Quinn.

Chapter 28

I seethed the whole way to Denver.

I couldn’t
believe
Quinn. He’d made me a promise not to press Keller, and what did he do but go out and feed on the goddamned police chief instead, knowing damn well that he was ignoring the spirit of my argument in favor of obeying the letter of it.

And then, I realized, and
then
he’d come back to his place and had sex with me? I pounded a fist into the driver’s-side window, hearing it creak a little under the pressure. How could he just go behind my back and fuck around with my life, and then come to bed with me? I was so angry . . . and so hurt, too. Although he’d kept his promise not to press Keller, he’d carelessly used someone just to arrange things for me. And he’d done it after I specifically requested he stand down, as though I were some simpering princess who needed a rescue and was too foolish to ask for it.

He also saved your ass
, said Sam’s voice in my head. She sounded amused.
Keller was gonna put you in a cell
.

“I am not talking to my dead sister right now,” I said out loud. “And if I were, I know she would be on my side.”

Silence from the voice in my head. Oh good.

It took some effort, but by the time I hit airport traffic I had more or less pushed away that line of thought. I didn’t have time to meditate on the ethics of mind-control powers, and there was nothing I could do about it until Quinn woke up anyway. I tried to focus on the drive, and what I was going to say to the thaumaturge witch when I picked her up. I was eager for her to help—given the events of the last few days, it seemed more important than ever for me to talk to Nellie, Maven’s old contact. The fact that the ghost in question was also a boundary witch had me practically salivating with the desire to speak to her.

I scrounged up a clean piece of notebook paper and a permanent marker from the backseat of my car, and made a tacky sign to hold up at the entrance to baggage claim. Probably not up to the thaumaturge witch’s usual standards, considering her fee, but it worked: a few minutes after I arrived, an East Indian woman with a sleek rolling suitcase separated herself from the crowd and moved toward me with a relieved nod. She glanced over her shoulder every few seconds, which showed off a silky black fishtail braid. As she got closer, I realized she was probably a few years older than me, but had that youthful look of someone who took care of herself. And she was
gorgeous
. I’d sort of imagined she’d be glamorous in a cheap, Las-Vegas-on-TV
kind of way, with fake boobs, sky-high heels, and a tight sheath dress, possibly red. Instead, Sashi Brighton looked like she should be on the cover of a catalog for an upscale women’s boutique. She wore slim-cut jeans, a silk top the color of lemonade, and one of those thick draping cardigans, mahogany-colored and probably soft enough to cuddle at night.

“Hello,” I said, holding out my hand. “I’m Allison Luther, but everyone calls me Lex.”

For a moment her big brown eyes sparkled with surprised good humor. “Lex . . . Luther? Like the comic book character?” she asked, with a slight English accent. Of
course
she’d have an elegant accent to match the outfit. “Superman’s archnemesis?”

“It started as an army nickname,” I said with a shrug. “After a couple of years, it started to feel weird to be called anything else. I really appreciate you coming on such short notice, Ms. Brighton.”

“Call me Sashi, please,” she said, glancing behind her again. “My daughter was just in the restroom—oh, here she is.” A gawky teenager came moseying over to us, wearing plastic-framed glasses and a pink Caesar’s Palace sweatshirt over yoga pants. Her skin was a bit lighter than Sashi’s, but her features were just like her mother’s. She had a bright purple backpack that looked a little young for her. I could instantly imagine the conversation she and Sashi had probably had over getting a new one when the old one worked just fine. “This is Grace. Gracie, say hello to Lex.”

“Hi,” she said to the floor. I held out my hand, and the girl shook it, a little surprised that I’d bothered. Then she shrugged and stepped back in line with her mom.

“It’s nice to meet you, Grace. I’ll take you guys to your hotel first so you can get settled,” I nodded toward Sashi’s suitcase. “Can I get that for you?”

“No, quite all right. Shall we?”

On the way out to the car we made small talk about the weather in Las Vegas versus Colorado. I opened the back of the Subaru so Sashi could put in her suitcase, and we got Grace settled in the backseat. I made the mistake of asking her what she’d dressed up as for Halloween. “I’m four
teen
,” Grace said with a scowl. “Halloween is for little kids.”

“Grace,” her mother warned.

“It’s okay,” I assured her. To Grace, I added, “I guess I’m used to younger kids. My cousins have kids who all still trick-or-treat. The oldest is Dani, and she’s twelve.”

Begrudgingly, Grace muttered, “Twelve was the last year I went.”

“Gracie, why don’t you listen to your headphones for a bit so Lex and I can talk business?” Sashi suggested gently.

Grace shrugged, which seemed to be kind of her default reaction to everything, and fished a pair of over-the-ear headphones out of her backpack. A moment later “Death or Glory” began blasting out loudly enough for us to hear it in the front seat. Sashi sighed. “Sorry about that. I’m pretty sure she’s trying to fry out her eardrums so she doesn’t have to listen to her mother.”

“Doesn’t bother me.” I glanced sideways. “The Clash?”

Sashi smiled. “She and her friends think they’re
such
originals for listening to them instead of Taylor Swift, or whoever’s hot these days. I haven’t the heart to tell her that teens have been thinking more or less the same thing for more than forty years.” She rolled her eyes fondly.

“Is she, um . . . like you?”

“A witch?” Sashi shook her head. “Near as I can tell, she’s in the middle of her window, where she has to activate her powers or lose them. But Grace doesn’t know anything about magic.”

And it didn’t sound as though Sashi was planning to tell her, which seemed awfully complicated to me. Then again, what the hell did I know? I’d realized I was a witch all of six weeks ago. “Her father, is he a witch as well?” I asked lightly. I wasn’t sure about the social protocol for asking a stranger a question like that, but . . . well, I was really curious.

If Sashi was offended, it didn’t show. “No, I don’t think so. At any rate, he’s not in the picture,” she said.

I considered saying “I’m sorry,” but that seemed sort of presumptuous, like it implied Sashi wasn’t a great parent by herself.

Luckily, she changed the subject for me. “Those mountains are just beautiful,” Sashi commented, twisting in her seat to see how far around us they went. I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw Grace was now focused on a tablet screen. “It’s like you live inside a picture frame.”

I smiled. “I hadn’t thought of it quite that way, but I suppose we do.”

Sashi settled back into her seat. “So. Are you my patient? The witch with the mental scar tissue?”

“Boundary witch, yeah.”

I glanced over to see her reaction. Sashi’s eyes widened, and her knuckles went white on the door handle.
“Really
,”
she breathed. I saw her shoot an instinctual protective look toward the backseat.

I suddenly felt like Dorothy herself might pop up and throw a bucket of water at me. “I don’t live in a house made of gingerbread,” I said pointedly. “Haven’t eaten any children all year.”

Sashi had the grace to blush. “Sorry,” she said, still looking uncom
fortable. “I’ve just never met a boundary witch in person before.”

“I’ve never met a thaumaturge in person before either.”

Sashi took in a deep breath and blew it out hard. “Right . . . right,” she stammered. Her voice was still a little shaky. “Tell me about this scar tissue, then.”

I explained about how I had most of the boundary witch powers—I could sense life, communicate with someone on the other side, and pull the spirits out of small animals. I didn’t say anything about sucking the life out of humans, pressing vampires, or bringing Simon back from the dead. Even I thought those abilities were scary, and Sashi was already looking at me like I was the inconvenient byproduct of a mad scientist’s experiment. “But I can’t see remnants, except on Samhain, when they were really strong. And my friends think it’s because I blocked off that part of my magic when I came into my powers.”

Sashi cocked an eyebrow. “From what I know of boundary powers,” she said slowly, “seeing remnants isn’t something you can turn on and off, like the way you sense life. You’ll see them every night, when they are visible. Why would you want that ability back? I mean,” she added, “you must have blocked it off for a reason, yes?”

“Maybe, but I need it back now,” I said. “It’s important.”

“Would you say it’s a matter of life and death?” she asked, and now there was a little mischievous sparkle in her eyes.

“And I would know,” I said wisely.

“Well, I volunteer at a children’s hospital in Vegas, where I’ve done a bit of work with psychological trauma—kids are really good at building up the kind of scar tissue you’re describing. I can’t heal natural-born psychological problems like manic depression, but I can usually knead at the damage caused by trauma.” She frowned. “I’m not sure it’ll work on you, though, given that you’re a witch as well.”

“Have you worked on Old World individuals before?”

She hesitated for a moment, then shrugged. “Not much. I mostly work on humans who are injured in compromising situations at the casinos. A long time ago, I helped a few werewolves by working around their magic and talking directly to their bodies—their original cells. I’m not sure about a witch, though, given that you were born with your magic. I was upfront about that on the phone,” she added in a hurry, in case I was about to demand my money back. Well, Maven’s money.

“I know,” I assured her. “I’m aware that it may not work at all. I just honestly don’t have any other ideas about how to break through.”

She nodded. “Well, let’s cross that bridge when we come to it. Meanwhile we’ll need a quiet place to work.” She glanced over her shoulder. “And someplace where Grace can go.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem,” I informed her. “Ryan, the man
who spoke to you on the phone, booked two rooms for you and Grace.”

“Excellent. She can veg out in front of the television. Where are we staying?”

I couldn’t help but smile. “My employer, Maven, made the call on that one. I think you’re gonna like it.”

Despite the cheesy name, the Hotel Boulderado is one of my hometown’s many historic treasures. In 1909, the residents of then-tiny Boulder decided that the only way to boost their town’s prominence and importance was to add a grand hotel. They solicited stocks from local businesspeople, held a contest for architectural designs, and let the leader of the
Let’s Build A Hotel!
movement come up with the name. He promised no one would ever forget it. And that part’s still true—you can’t exactly draw a blank when you see “Boulderado” on your credit card bill.

I led the Brightons through the heavy front door and over to the small concierge desk across from the original 1909 elevator, which still works but you couldn’t pay me to ride. The moment we walked
in, Sashi Brighton’s face stretched into a gleeful smile.

“Oh, my
God,
it’s the hotel from
Misery
!” she exclaimed, practically
bouncing up and down with excitement. “Gracie, you seeing this?”

Even the teenager looked impressed. “So cool,” she breathed.

When I raised my eyebrows, Sashi remembered herself and straightened up a little. “Big Stephen King fan here,” she explained. “Grace just started reading some of them too. This is the hotel where Paul Sheldon stayed whenever he finished a book. I can’t
believe
we get to stay here.”

I smiled. “Boulder has plenty of nice modern places, of course, but we figured, being from Las Vegas . . .”

“No, this is perfect.” She caught my eye and gave me a little nod, and I knew she’d picked up on the other, unspoken reason for this location. If there was anywhere in Boulder that was almost guaranteed to be haunted, it was a hotel that had seen its centennial nearly a decade ago.

“And hey, the hotel from
The Shining
is just an hour north of here, if you have time before your flight,” I added. Sashi’s eyes went
so big
, I couldn’t help but smile again.

We got the keys and went through the center of the hotel, a beautiful, rectangular atrium topped by a stained-glass ceiling. Though small, the whole interior is done in gleaming oak, accented with marble pillars, which gives the place what Sam used to call “old-timey fanciness.” We got Grace set up in her own room with the remote control and some snacks, and then Sashi and I headed into the other unit, where Sashi directed me to sit down at the small round table in the corner.

I was starting to feel a little weird about this—even though it’d taken over a day to set up, it suddenly seemed like this meeting was happening really fast. Consulting a magical healing witch was, at the very least, socially awkward, sort of like walking into a strip club, a therapist’s office, or a Chinese grocery store for the first time—you just don’t know what to
do
. Weirdly, it reminded me of being in Iraq, suddenly surrounded by customs for which you have no frame of reference. And yet, this was
my
world now too.

“All right?” Sashi asked, seeing my expression.

I nodded. “Um, what do you want me to do?”

In answer, she held out her hands across the table. Given the surroundings, I had the sudden impression that we were in some old movie, holding a séance. Which was actually kind of funny, because if anyone were going to lead a séance, it would probably be me. I copied her, holding out my arms. To my relief, she didn’t take my hands, which would have felt intimate, but instead grasped my forearms and closed her eyes. “Just try to be quiet,” she said. “It’ll take a few minutes to assess, and then to see if I can actually—
oh
.”