Mary brushed at her cheeks and squared her shoulders. “Sorry I stole your car,” she said in a subdued voice.
“Sorry I pushed you.” I hesitated for three heartbeats, trying to decide if I should take one last shot at persuading her to help—but I’d burned that bridge, at least for tonight. “You’ve got my number,” I said at last. “Feel free to use it.”
Quinn drove back to the parking lot and pulled up to my car. The temperature had dropped down into the teens, and knowing the slow response time of the Subaru’s heater, I wished I’d brought my gloves and hat.
I started to climb out of the Jeep, but he laid a hand gently on my forearm. “We might not be able to find them again,” he said, looking troubled.
“I know. And I know I put you in a bad spot. But I don’t have it in me to rub Mary’s face in her grief.”
He looked over his shoulder, in the direction of Mike’s Mountain Lodge, debating. Quinn had sworn an oath to Maven; it was practically fighting his nature to go against her wishes.
“Mary is not working for Morgan,” I said, certain now. “And they’re hurting. If Maven wants us to come back tomorrow night and throw them out of the state, I’m game. But . . . please.”
My voice cracked at the end, and he reached over to touch my face, drawing me closer for a kiss. Afterward, he rested his forehead against mine. It hurt a little—we’d both forgotten about the bump from my ill-advised head-butt—but I didn’t care.
“I think we can probably consider them off the board,” Quinn said softly.
I smiled, and in that moment I realized that in all the ways that really mattered, I trusted him.
We had to drive back separately but agreed to meet up at Magic Beans. Back in my Subaru, finally, I turned the radio off and drove home slowly, doing my best to keep my eyes on the road just in front of my headlights, ignoring the remnants that occasionally appeared in my line of vision. My cheek and forehead still ached, and I was exhausted, but there was no chance of my falling asleep at the wheel. I was too busy berating myself for how I’d handled things with Mary.
I’d tried to manipulate her, like the vampires and many of the witches did, and it had backfired. And now I’d defied Maven’s order. “What a spectacular fuckup,” I said out loud. Part of me sort of hoped Sam’s voice would chime in, even just to agree with me, but she stayed out of it. She probably didn’t want to kick me while I was down.
When I reached the outskirts of Boulder, I tried to rehearse what I was going to say to Maven. I really had nothing. We hadn’t learned anything about Morgan’s contingency plans, and I’d failed to recruit more help.
As I pulled into a parking spot on the street near Magic Beans, I tried Katia’s cell, just to check on her and Lily, but the call went straight to voice mail. That felt off to me—Katia was too security-conscious to let her battery die, and I knew she got reception at Simon’s place.
I got out of the Subaru and met Quinn at the back of the building. “I can’t reach—” I began, but then my phone buzzed in my hand. “Oh, hang on.” I checked the screen, expecting to see Katia’s name—but it was an incoming video call from Charlie. She probably thought I was home and wanted to see the new foster dog. It was past 11:30, but this wouldn’t be the first time she’d woken up in the night and decided she’d rather chat with me than be put back to bed by John. Served him right for teaching her how to use FaceTime. I smiled to myself, then glanced up at Quinn. “Let me just say goodnight to her, okay?”
“Of course. I’ll meet you inside.”
He turned and began walking to the coffee shop’s back entrance—he had a key—while I answered the phone. “Hi, Charlie-bug . . .” My voice faltered, and I squinted down at the screen. The call had connected, but the video feed was nearly black, much darker than Charlie’s room with its twin night-lights should be. There was just enough illumination for me to make out the outline of her face, but not her expression. “Charlie, where are you?”
In my peripheral vision I saw that Quinn had paused, turning back around, but my eyes were fixed on the screen. “Aunt Lex,” came her voice in a trembling whisper. “There’s someone bad here.”
All my muscles tensed, like I might somehow teleport myself to her if I tried hard enough. Quinn was suddenly by my side. “Charlie, baby, what happened? Where’s your daddy?”
“He’s downstairs with—with—with—” I couldn’t see her face, but the tears were obvious in her voice.
“It’s okay, baby. Take a real deep breath for me and try again.”
She sucked in a breath, pushed it out hard. “With Clara,” she finished. “There was fighting.”
I struggled to keep my face calm. “Daddy and Clara were fighting?”
“No! Bad guys hurt Clara!” Her voice had risen to a wail.
“Hang on, baby.” I looked at Quinn, who nodded grimly, pointing toward the Jeep. I ran around to the passenger side and climbed in. Juggling the phone while I buckled my seat belt, I said very softly, “Charlie, Quinn and I are coming right now. Are you hiding?”
The outline of her head moved in a nod. “In the basket,” she whispered. “In my room.”
I knew exactly what she was talking about—the wicker hamper was a favorite choice during hide-and-seek. “Okay, baby, that’s a great spot. And you’re doing exactly the right thing. That’s just what your daddy would want you to be doing.”
“Will you be here soon?”
The pleading in her voice wrenched at my heart. “Of course I will. I’m going to be there in—” I looked stupidly at Quinn, as though I hadn’t made the drive between Magic Beans and John’s house a hundred times. He mouthed less than five. “Five minutes. Just five short minutes, okay? And I’m going to stay right here on your screen until I get there . . . but let’s be real quiet so nobody knows where you’re hiding.”
A sniffle. “’Kay.”
And so I sat there staring at the nearly dark screen, trying to look reassuring instead of terrified and guilt stricken. I had told John they would be safe until the morning. I’d known Morgan would move on to another plan, but since she couldn’t come into Colorado it hadn’t occurred to me that John and Charlie were at risk. Stupid—I’d been so stupid.
I braced my arm for when Quinn made wild, sharp turns with the Jeep, but I didn’t put the phone down or look away from the screen until the tires screeched and we lurched to a stop. “I’m coming, baby,” I promised.
Chapter 30
I bolted out of the car, but Quinn was already out and around the hood before I made it to the sidewalk. “Don’t wait for me,” I told him, and he blurred away without another word. I’d never seen him move that fast.
I ran up the sidewalk to the house, revolver in one hand. I had no idea what to expect, but even after all this time, the sidearm felt more comfortable to me than the shredder, so I went with it.
The foyer was dark, but before I could pick a direction, I heard Quinn’s voice calling urgently from the living room. “Lex, in here.”
I ran into the room—and into a horror movie. Huge splotches of bright red blood had been sprayed on every surface, and three dead bodies lay discarded on the carpet: two men and a woman, none of whom I recognized.
But I barely glanced at any of that. Clara and John were both lying spread-eagled on the floor, and John’s eyes were closed. They were covered in blood, and bloody footsteps led out of the room.
Ripping off my winter coat, I dropped to my knees beside John, half-afraid to touch him. “Is he—”
“He’s alive,” Quinn reported. “But his pulse is fading quickly.”
There was so much blood that I couldn’t find the wound. My fingers danced over his blood-soaked T-shirt, looking for a tear, until I found the gouge on his right forearm, a long, deep gash made by something sharp. It was still pumping blood. I hissed and clamped my hands on it, sealing the wound as best I could. “Clara?” I said to Quinn.
“She’s not decaying,” he pointed out, which I should have thought of. Her face was pale and waxy, and she wasn’t even blinking as far as I could tell, but if she were truly dead, her body would be reverting. There was a heavy iron poker on the floor next to her, blood spreading out on the carpet around it.
“Charlie!” I shouted toward the ceiling. “Are you okay?”
Her voice came back after a moment, but I had to strain to hear her. “I’m fine. Can I get out now?” She was still in the hamper.
There was no way I could let her see this carnage. I looked at Quinn. “Anyone else in the house?”
He shook his head. To Charlie, I called, “Yes, but stay in your room ’til I’m sure it’s safe!”
I turned my attention back to my brother-in-law, feeling his blood seeping out through my fingers. Quinn was bent over him too, and I could see his nostrils flaring, his jaw clamped shut. Shit. Being around this much blood would be hard for him, and I couldn’t deal with that right now. “Call an ambulance, then follow the blood trail,” I barked at him. “I’ll handle this.”
“Fine.” Quinn disappeared, and it felt like most of my calm went with him. This wasn’t enough; I wasn’t doing enough.
“Sam, I could really use an idea right now,” I muttered, looking at John’s terrifying pallor.
For once, her reply was immediate. I can’t help you with this. Her voice was anguished and worried, and it made me want to cry, because now there was nobody left to help and I still didn’t know what to do.
Then, without really thinking about it, I fell into my magic.
Like all humans’, John’s living essence usually looked to me like a warm blue glow in thermal-imaging goggles—but tonight was different. The blue was giving way to a dull yellow-gold that I recognized as death-essence. Soon it would start to seep out between my fingers, just like the blood; then John would die.
Panic clawed at me, but I fought to stay calm, to think. What did I have? What could I do? In that moment I would have given anything for thaumaturge magic, or even a trades witch spell that could close the wound or get help here faster. All I had was my stupid useless boundary magic, made for death. I was made for death.
“Think, you idiot,” I mumbled. Magic. I’d used boundary magic to save Simon . . . but it had worked only because I’d pushed another man’s life essence into him. This was a totally different situation.
Still in my mindset, I tried to focus on the part of his life essence that corresponded with the wound—which meant I was watching when it ruptured and began to leak yellow death-essence in earnest.
“No no no no . . .” I pressed down even harder with my hands, hoping to close the fissure, but magic didn’t work that way. I couldn’t use my real hands to interact with what I could see only in my boundary mindset.