Boundary Lines (24 page)

Chapter 37

Lily had texted Hazel and learned that some of the clan members were hanging out at the farmhouse to play cards. She took off after hugging Simon and me and warning us both to be careful. She even told Quinn not to “get more dead.” I was still pissed at him, but I had to smile at that.

The campus was still crowded enough that we were exposed, so the rest of us retreated back down to the BioLounge. Quinn carried in three massive duffel bags that were straining at the seams—weapons, I figured.

When everyone was inside, I laid out the plan: Simon and I would take Dunn and two other werewolves with us to the hot springs, while the remaining four went to Chautauqua with the second team. Dunn could choose the wolves himself; he knew his people best. I put Quinn in charge of leading the Chautauqua team. I made a point of not looking at him when I explained that part.

Quinn had laid each of his bags out on a table like some sort of demented sample sale, and as soon as I’d delivered instructions, everyone started to drift over to the weapon stash to check out the gear. Quinn came over and pulled me aside.

“The second team?” he said in a low voice. “I should be with you guys at the hot springs.”

“I need a vampire at Chautauqua in case the creature shows up there instead,” I said coolly. “You’re the best at pressing people”—my voice
may
have gotten a little edgy there—“so it makes sense to put you in the highly populated area.”

“But you’ll need a vampire in Idaho Springs, too,” he argued. “If the hot springs are still open, there will be people there. You’ll need to be able to press any human witnesses.”

“That’s why Opal is picking us up in the Jeep.”

“So send
her
to Chautauqua and take me along,” Quinn argued.

I lifted my chin. “I’m taking Opal. That’s final.”

He searched my face. “You know, don’t you? About Bryant.”

“Damn right I do.”

He sighed, but his body language was unapologetic. “I was just trying to protect you. To
help
you.”

“Against my wishes?” I countered. “Despite what I specifically told you I wanted for myself? Pressing minds isn’t a game, Quinn, and it isn’t a get-out-of-jail-free card, either.”

“Don’t be a child.” His face was impassive again, and my fingers clenched into fists. I glanced over at the group of werewolves, who were very pointedly studying the weapons Quinn had brought, the exhibits around us, the ceiling tiles. Oh yeah, they could hear us. Only Simon truly seemed oblivious. He had regular human hearing.

I turned back to Quinn and crossed my arms. “Maven put me in charge of tonight. I’m putting
you
in charge of the second team, because I don’t trust you to do what I tell you, rather than what you
think is best for me.” Quinn’s eyes narrowed, but I continued before he
could say anything else. “If you have a problem with my plan, you can
take it up with Maven. But know that any delay might mean we don’t
make it there in time to stop this thing.” I lifted my eyebrows in a chal
lenge, and his face went blank. But he didn’t say anything, and after a
moment I turned away from him and walked carefully over to Simon.
I did not stomp or flounce away, because I am a grown-ass woman.

I watched as Simon worriedly perused a selection of handguns on one of the tables. The wolves didn’t really need to bring weapons—they
were
weapons—but the vampires and I would be bringing some of Quinn’s arsenal to the hot springs. There was a really good chance I’d have to fire them, and I didn’t want the police to be able to connect the ballistics to my personal weapons. But Simon was terrible with firearms, and he knew it. Luckily, I could help with that.

“So, Simon,” I said casually, pretending to study a Sig Sauer on the table. “I broke a little glass ball today at Magic Beans.”

He went still for a moment, then it clicked, and he looked at me with wide eyes. “Does that mean . . .”

I nodded, grinning. “Yes!” Simon crowed, and he threw his arms around me. I barely had time to set down the Glock I’d been examining before he hugged me so hard he knocked me backward into a table. I laughed, even though Dunn and the other wolves gave me baffled,
what kind of operation is she running here
looks.

“Sorry, sorry!” Simon exclaimed, but he was doing an honest-to-God happy dance. “This is awesome—oh! I gotta get ready, I—” he looked around for a moment and then dug keys out of his pocket. “One of my dad’s journals is up in my office, I can probably figure out a couple of hexes on the way.”

I left him to his planning and continued to gather my own weapons. I already had the sword, but I picked up an Israeli .50 caliber Desert Eagle. It was so big that I would be forced to use both hands to shoot it, but it was the only .50 caliber sidearm there that was magazine-fed, and I wanted the extra shots. The Desert Eagle was too big for my Wild West quick-draw holster, so I also grabbed a thigh holster and moved on down Quinn’s little bloodshed buffet. I didn’t see anything else I thought would help against the Unktehila—until I got to the very last table. “No way,” I said disbelievingly.

How in the hell would Quinn get access to fragmentation grenades?

Chapter 38

Quinn and I didn’t speak much as the teams split up. He was still angry with my decision, but I was stubborn, and we parted with just a brief nod and a “Good hunting.”

My team made a quick stop at a grocery store for steaks, and half an hour later we were crowded into Maven’s tricked-out Jeep, headed for Idaho Springs: one vampire, two witches, and three werewolves. It sounded like the beginning of a Halloween picture book.

Dunn had said he was bringing his best two fighters, who turned out to be a lean Australian guy with bleached hair named Jamie, and the brunette woman in the minidress, six-inch heels, and enough makeup to decorate a room full of showgirls. Her name was Mary, and although she looked like she’d just walked out of a Eurotrash nightclub, she was all sharp cheekbones and scary curved fingernails, like the talons of a bird. A predator. Quinn had included a sharpening kit in his weapons cache, and Mary had offered to sharpen the Danish sword for me during the car ride. I didn’t hear a word from her the whole way.

I let Opal drive, which freed Simon to study his spells and me to work on the plan for finding the Unktehila. She would also be able to press the minds of any cop who stopped us, although I told her to try to stay within ten miles of the speed limit.

I closed my eyes and reviewed what little I knew about where we were going. Like so many small cities in Colorado, Idaho Springs had sprung to life during the Gold Rush, and then managed to stay alive after the gold dried up by throwing itself headlong into tourism. That in itself wouldn’t have kept the town afloat, but luckily Idaho Springs had another big draw: the natural hot springs. The first public bathhouse in town was established during the Civil War, and had been available to the public in some form or another ever since, though it had been through any number of names, owners, and structures.

I’d actually been to the current incarnation, Grizzly Springs and Spa, back in high school, when my aunt Violet had decided to take Sam and me for an educational spa day at the springs. Violet was a high school science teacher, and had spent much of the drive down explaining how the springs worked: underground pockets of magma heated up the water, which then rose, just like any other type of heat, until it reached the surface and bubbled out of the ground. Because the water absorbs minerals from the surrounding rocks, people had long since decided the waters are good for our health.

I wasn’t a scientist, but I felt instinctively that Simon was right about us finding the Unktehila there—it was just too perfect a den for an underground snake monster—but the problem was going to be figuring out where the thing would surface. The springs consisted of a big public pool, private baths, a room for “mudding,” and geothermal caves, which seemed like perfect entry points for a creature that traveled underground. We needed to draw it out of its den, but our intel was so limited, there was bound to be a certain amount of improvisation. I didn’t like that.

It was a little after nine when we arrived in Idaho Springs. The highway dumped us out at the mouth of downtown, which was really just one long street filled with trinket shops and ice cream parlors. I directed Opal to go left toward the hot springs. There was an empty lot just before Grizzly, with a couple of picnic tables and a small abandoned building—probably an old trailhead or some kind of failed tourism business. We parked there, and the werewolves got out of the car and began to strip. Jamie and Dunn left their boxers on out of modesty, but Mary unzipped the minidress with one long arm and shimmied out of it, revealing nothing but smooth, pale skin underneath. She stepped out of the heels and swooped them up gracefully, stalking over to me in her bare feet. “Here,” she said, piling the shoes and dress in my arms. She was completely nude, but couldn’t be less bothered by it. “Take care of these. They’re Christian Louboutin.”

The three of them disappeared behind the empty building to shift into wolf form. Opal and Simon waited in the car—Simon still frantically scanning the old journal he’d brought, and Opal drinking a little blood bag she’d brought “as a pre-fight snack.” I was too nervous to sit still, so after securing Mary’s stuff in the vampire hidey-hole, I got back out and paced in front of the Jeep.

We weren’t in Boulder anymore, so who knew how long it would take the werewolves to shift. I berated myself for not having them shift before we’d left. Timewise, we were within the Unktehila’s killing window now, and it would be horrible if we found out it was eating someone fifty yards down the road while we were standing around doing nothing. The groaning and whimpering I heard from behind the building made me feel an unexpected jab of sympathy for the werewolves.

Needing something to do to distract myself, I got the sword out of the Jeep and swung it around a bit, getting used to the unusual weight. As long as it was, the whole sword weighed maybe four or five pounds. I knew a little bit about swords: I had taken foil fencing classes in high school, and my cousin Anna had once talked me into doing an eight-week course of tai chi with wooden practice swords. This Danish sword was a completely different animal, though. It was two-handed fighting, with a double-edged blade, and I spent some time attacking one of the picnic tables to get used to the feel of it. I’d seen a demonstration of Western martial arts a few years earlier, and I did my best to mimic those movements. Lucky for me, it didn’t have to be pretty or perfect. It just had to be effective.

After ten minutes of me warming up, the three wolves came loping silently around the corner. I was bowled over again by their size: the smallest of the three looked like it could eat Cody and Chip for breakfast. That one was black, with amber-green eyes—Mary. I was able to differentiate the two males by their eye color: the wolf with the white undercoat and black overcoat had sky-blue irises like Australian Jamie, and the biggest wolf, who looked entirely gray on top but white on his legs and tail, had Dunn’s dark eyes. They stood there staring expectantly at me, and I led them over to the hood of the Jeep, where I’d left out the steaks. Dunn had told me earlier that each change cost them energy, and it would be hard on everyone if they tried to cooperate with us on empty stomachs. I took out the raw meat and tossed one to each of them, being careful to keep my fingers well away from those teeth.

While they ate, Simon got out of the Jeep and came over to us. “I found it,” he said, pleased. “The concealment spell.”

“Well, thank God,” I said. “I didn’t think we could pass all of them off as guide dogs. Is it ready?”

He nodded, looking confident, but his hands clutched the old journal like he was afraid one of us might try to snatch it away. I gestured for him to go ahead.

When they had all finished eating, Simon asked the wolves to sit down, and one by one he approached each of them, carefully touched their heads, and murmured a few words. And that was it. I was watching closely, but I didn’t see any difference. I waited until he’d gone all the way down the line before saying, “Um, Simon? Are you sure this worked?”

He smiled, maybe a tiny bit smug. “Oh, it worked. You’re just seeing through it because of your witchblood. Magic doesn’t work against magic, remember?”

Oh. Duh. I’d gotten so used to things being twisted around in Boulder that I’d forgotten one of the cardinal rules of the Old World. “Besides,” he added, “you’re expecting to see werewolves. Humans expect to see a guide dog, or a rolling suitcase, or even a small child, so that’s what they’ll see.”

“Okay,” I said, deciding to trust him. When he was finished, he came over to me and put the same spell on my extremely conspicuous sword and the Desert Eagle attached to my thigh. “It’ll wear off by dawn,” he advised, “but that sword will be back in the exhibit way before that anyway, right?” He blinked pointedly.

I nodded and stepped up to address the werewolves, who looked at me with a keen intelligence and maybe a little menace. They looked ready for a fight. It should have felt silly to stand there talking to giant wolves who sat in a patient line, but surprisingly it didn’t. It was like talking to soldiers.

“Go into that building,” I said slowly, pointing to the spa, which was just across an empty lot, “and look for any sign of this thing.” I held out the scale, walking down the line so they could all sniff it. “When you find it, howl.” I was about to add that they should come running if they heard one of the others howling, but realized it was pointless. They’d do that no matter what I said. They were a pack.

In response to my nod, the wolves turned and slunk into the shadows, always keeping an eye on their leader. If you really watched them, it was obvious that they were staying a little behind and below him, allowing him to be the biggest. Dunn, for his part, had a relaxed loping swagger that was entirely absent from his human form.

“What about us?” Simon asked, indicating himself and Opal. “Where do you want us?”

I turned to face them. “Opal, you’re in charge of crowd control. Go around to any humans who look confused or suspicious, like they might be on to the wolves, and press them. If this all goes to hell, head to the main entrance and press people who are leaving.” She nodded and took a few quick steps backward, disappearing into the shadows.

I turned to Simon. “You and I are going to take a self-guided tour. If you’re going to be the bait, we gotta get your smell out there for the Unktehila to find. Come on.”

I led the way toward the spa entrance. Inside, there was an old-fashioned wooden reception desk staffed by a bored, overweight teenager. Her eyes were glued to a cell phone in front of her.

“We’re closing in forty-five minutes,” she said blandly as she heard us approach.

“That’s okay,” Simon said brightly. “We just wanted to get in a quick soak before bedtime.” The teenager looked up. I could see the interest spark in her face as she took in Simon’s lean frame and boyish glasses. I was betting the surfer-hippie look worked wonders on his students, too. Simon paid the spa admission fee, chatting amiably with the girl, and then we ducked down a flight of steps into his-and-her dressing rooms. I had no intention of trying to fight the Unktehila in a bathing suit, but we’d agreed to abandon our shoes and roll up our pants, as though we were just there to soak our feet. I figured bare feet would probably fare better on slippery pool tiles than sneakers would anyway.

I had no bars at all down here, so I left my cell phone in the locker too. Like it or not, I figured there was a pretty good chance I was about to get wet.

Simon and I met up outside, where we took a quick walk down to the geothermal caves. It was divided into specific areas by gender, so I checked the women’s room and Simon checked the men’s. From the title, you’d expected something natural and imposing, but the women’s “geothermal cave” was just a big concrete room with low lighting and what looked like a sunken Jacuzzi. It was empty, this late on a weeknight, and I found myself shying away from the murky-looking water. I’ve never been afraid of clear pools or bathtubs, but I can’t stand being in water that isn’t transparent. In my defense, though, I did drown in some when I was a teenager.

The adjacent women’s mud room was equally unimpressive: it was nearly identical to the geothermal caves, but with an enormous bowl of soupy mud in the middle instead of a hot tub. Two women in their sixties had rubbed some of the mud on their nude bodies and were stretched out on deck chairs chatting. They looked up in confusion when I stepped in wearing my T-shirt and rolled-up jeans—thank God they couldn’t see the sword or the massive sidearm—but I just made a show of looking around like I was there to meet someone and ducked back out. To my relief, Simon was just stepping out of the men’s area. “Any signs of it?” I asked him. He shook his head. “But remind me to really start working out when I hit fifty,” he said gravely.

“Well, let’s—”

But I was interrupted by a chorus of terrified voices. It wasn’t the wolves, though.

It was screaming.