Boundary Born (Boundary Magic Book 3) (18 page)

C
hapter 33

“Technically,” she corrected herself, “I suppose you’d say he was—is—a conduit.”

I frowned. “I’ve heard that word before.”

“I’m sure you have. Conduits are the common ancestors of vampires, werewolves, and witches. You could think of them as . . .” she paused, searching for a word, then gave a little smile. “Super-witches. They were so powerful that it scared even them. In fact, they were
too
powerful to survive, as a species, because they kept killing each other, or killing humans.” Her smile turned wry. “Historically, humans do not care for being vastly overmatched. Anyway, eventually there was a speciation, and conduits became the three groups you know today.”

“When did this happen?” I asked. “When did humans get magic?”

She gave a little shrug. “Best guess? Early Bronze Age. But that’s more of a vampire question. Most of the witch records about ancient history have been lost over the years, in part thanks to the Inquisition. At any rate, just prior to the speciation, some conduits were born with certain strengths. Like how some modern witches specialize in a certain kind of magic.”

I thought of Sashi. “I’ve met witches like that.”

She nodded. “In this case, the conduit had a talent for interacting with the dead. He was born with it, just as he was born with blue-tinged skin. And a few other abilities that are particular to him.”

Until that moment, I hadn’t really believed we could be talking about the same person. Early Bronze Age? That would make him . . . what, like five thousand years old? If he’d been walking the earth for five thousand years, why wouldn’t more modern witches know about him?

Kirsten must have read the doubts on my face, because she chuckled. “No, he’s not immortal. He died after a few hundred years of life, just like the rest of the conduits. But his connection to death allowed him certain privileges. He can be . . . raised.”

“From the dead. Raised from the
dead
,” I repeated. I couldn’t help it. It sounded so stupid out loud.

“Yes. But at great cost. One human sacrificed for each day he walks, that’s the deal.”

“The bodies in Boulder,” I said, thinking aloud. “They were murders.”

She nodded. “I understood when I read that there were no wounds. Lysander has no need for the bodies themselves. He takes his victims’ spirits, leaving them with no visible injuries or marks.”

So he’d been in Boulder for two days, just like Emil. “Lysander? That’s his name?”

She put her hand out, flat, and then tilted it back and forth. “Last I heard, that was his preferred name, but he’s had a lot of them. There have been stories and legends about him for thousands of years, with varying degrees of accuracy. Nergal in Mesopotamia, Horus in Egypt, Hades in Greece, and so on. Later, there were rumors about him that were nonspecific, and he was given names like ghoul, barrow-wight, and revenant,” Kirsten said. Now she was reminding me of Simon, who was always interested in having
all the background
. “But where I’m from,” she went on, her face darkening, “we call him the draugr.”

I frowned. “Draugr?”

“You may have heard the word before. In Norse mythology a draugr is an undead creature, similar to a vampire in some ways. They live in barrows or graves, and animals or humans who come into regular contact with those locations lose their minds.”

So the mysterious illness plaguing animals was connected to Elise’s psych cases after all. If Lysander had been lurking around my regular haunts, no pun intended, it would make sense that some of the wildlife would be affected. I wanted to kick myself, but how could I have known it was a magical illness? “Why? Why do normal humans go crazy around this guy?”

“Because Lysander’s power is like a toxin that seeps into the groundwater, or radiation that hangs around long after the bomb blast.” She shook her head. “That’s what happens when you put an ancient conduit in the modern world.”

“How do you know so much about him?” I asked her. “My friends haven’t been able to find any history or testimonies about boundary witches’ actions during the Inquisition. Not even rumors on the internet.”

Sadness crept into her eyes. “I know,” she said, “because the Inquisition wasn’t the first time the draugr was brought back from the dead. Thousands of years before that, he was raised briefly in Scandinavia. That’s where our legends come from. Like all legends, they’ve changed and warped over time, but Lysander hasn’t. That’s also why we do not play with boundary magic.”

My tea was gone, so I got up to put more hot water in my mug. I didn’t really need more tea, but I did need time to absorb everything Kirsten had just said.

I was oddly relieved to hear that the man I’d encountered
was
a sort of man. Conduits were derived from humans, after all, or whatever the Bronze Age equivalent had been. I could accept that the thing I’d run into was a super-witch.

But I was still struggling to wrap my head around the idea of him being my father. Why would my mother . . . I winced, not wanting to let my thoughts go there. Maybe the draugr had spelled her somehow. Maybe he’d pressed her mind. I could have asked Kirsten what she thought, but I wasn’t sure what she’d do if she knew that I was the draugr’s daughter.

By the time I added milk and sugar to my tea and got back to the table, I had at least figured out what to ask. “Who raised him?”

Kirsten, who had just drained the last of her hot chocolate, set down the mug and pointed at me. “That’s the right question. Raising the draugr is boundary magic of the highest order, and it can only be done by a coven of boundary witches performing a complex ritual. I don’t know anyone who could do it.”

An entire coven of boundary witches? I was the only boundary witch I knew of in the state, if you didn’t count Nellie. Emil’s mother was supposedly in Nova Scotia, but he hadn’t made it sound like he had a lot of family there. Then again, Lysander had said something about my sisters and brothers.

No, I realized abruptly. It hadn’t been them—Lysander had implied that they were all weaker than me. It had been the others, this “militis mortis.”

I asked Kirsten if she had heard the term before, but she shook her head, frowning. “I haven’t, but my people haven’t practiced boundary magic in many centuries. I don’t even know any boundary witches, other than yourself.”

I almost choked on my tea. “You know?”

One side of her mouth turned up. “Of course I do.”

“You haven’t, like, spit in my face or tried to kill me or anything.”

She laughed out loud. “Well, what good would that do? No, I understand what you are, but I trust Jesse Cruz. And he trusts you.” Her eyes went distant for a moment. “Besides, even if you were an insane force for evil, right now the draugr wants to claim you, and you may be the only one who can stop him. That makes you worth defending.”

I took another slow sip of tea, accepting that. And making a mental note to thank Jesse later. “Okay, well, what else can you tell me? You said Lysander has particular abilities. What can he do?”

“So many things,” she said, with history now weighing on her face. “The draugr can command the wraiths. He can make his own size change. He can move through the ground as smoke. And on top of all that, he’s still the most powerful witch alive. During the Inquisition, he would raise his arms and call the lives right out of people’s bodies.”

My gut tightened with fear. “By choice? Or did the people who raised him make him do it?”

“Both,” she said matter-of-factly. “He killed the Inquisitors, just as the evocators wanted. But he also killed their families, and their neighbors, and
their
neighbors. Entire villages were slaughtered, and the Concilium had to blame it on a plague outbreak.”

That word had been in my history lessons from Simon and Lily. The Concilium was a group of vampires who used to serve as a sort of head government for all the Old World in Europe. Apparently, it fell apart when the New World was discovered, and the US never had any kind of formal governing system for the supernatural. It was still the Wild West over here.

“How did the Concilium stop the draugr?” I said, leaning forward. Context was good, but what I really needed to know was how to destroy the thing. Biological father or not, he was killing people in my town. I couldn’t allow that. And I couldn’t let him kill Maven.

But Kirsten spread her hands. “I’m afraid I don’t know. The Concilium fell shortly afterward, and I don’t know of any records.”

“Do you have a guess?” I rushed to say. “Or can you tell me anything else I can use to fight him? Weaken him?”

She frowned, thoughtful. “Possibly . . . I have books on Scandinavian history in my personal collection, so during the flight here I read up on the draugr legends. He can move around during the day, but he’s weaker when the sun is up. He gains power at night, but he also needs to take a life every night to stay alive.” She lifted a shoulder. “In theory, if you can keep him from killing anyone for a whole twenty-four hours, he may run out of magic and collapse. He wouldn’t be permanently destroyed, mind you,” she added, “but he would go back to an . . . inert state.”

I chewed my lower lip for a few seconds. “What about a null?” I asked. “What would happen if one of them got near the draugr?”

Kirsten’s eyes widened. “That . . . is interesting. I never even considered it. I don’t know that nulls were around during the European Inquisition. If they were, there are no records of one of them going up against the draugr.” She smoothed her hair, thinking it over. “I think a null might undo him,” she said at last. “Or at least collapse him into remains once again. I can’t be certain, of course, but the draugr is sustained by active boundary magic. That could work . . . if you had a null.”

And that was the problem, wasn’t it? If I tried to use a null against the draugr, it would involve putting one in close proximity to him. I couldn’t exactly call John and ask him to bring Charlie back so I could put her in danger. She wasn’t even two years old, for crying out loud.

But then again . . . she wasn’t the only null I knew anymore. I
hated
the idea of asking Scarlett Bernard for help, but what choice did I have? “There’s a null in LA, right?” I said to Kirsten. She didn’t know I had come to the city the previous fall to investigate Sam’s death. It was supposed to be a secret, since I wasn’t supposed to invade other Old World territories without going through channels. “Scarlett something. Do you think she would help? I could, um, pay her.” I didn’t know
how
I would pay her, but I’d find a way.

But Kirsten shook her head. “Ordinarily, yes. But tomorrow night is a full moon. Scarlett has to stay in Los Angeles and care for her”—a slight hesitation—“dog.”

“Shadow?” I asked, before I could stop myself. Shadow could be considered a dog like Captain America could be considered a kid from Brooklyn. She was a bargest, an indestructible creature spelled to fight werewolves.

Kirsten’s eyes sparked with interest. “Jesse told you about her?”

Shit. Jesse wasn’t supposed to share Old World secrets. I couldn’t let him get in trouble. “No. Scarlett and I met once, briefly.”

“Ah.” She nodded. This was the moment where she could ask follow-up questions that would get me in trouble, but she just smiled. She’d decided to let it go. “At any rate, Shadow can’t leave LA County, and if Scarlett isn’t nearby, she’ll go after the local werewolves. But if you haven’t found a way to defeat the draugr by the following night, perhaps she could help.”

Which sounded like a great plan . . . except waiting two more nights would mean the draugr would murder two more people.

Quinn texted me a few minutes later, wanting to make sure I was all right. Lily would have returned to John’s house by now and explained the situation. I sent him a quick message that all was well, then got up to walk Kirsten out.

When we were close to the house, I could see my broken car and her rental on the street, but as soon as we moved a few feet away, they disappeared. Kirsten paused and turned to me. “Here,” she said, holding something out. I cupped my hand and she dropped car keys into it. “Take my rental. You’re going to need to get back to your friends.”

I protested—I couldn’t leave a pregnant woman stranded in a strange city—but she assured me that she’d just call a cab.

“Kirsten, I can’t let you do that. You’re, um,” I glanced at her pregnant belly. “Not from around here,” I finished.

She shot me an impish smile. “Oh, I can still call a cab just fine, believe me. Besides, I’m rooting for you.” She paused, and the smile faded away, replaced by some kind of regret. The whole time we’d been talking, Kirsten had seemed serene—worried, even troubled, but always very composed. For the first time, I saw that poise falter just a little. “A long time ago, my ancestors had an opportunity to stop the draugr, and they failed,” she said quietly. “Even now, the witches of Sweden feel some responsibility toward this particular creature. Any other time I would stay and help you fight him”—she rested her free hand on her belly—“but I can’t take the risk just now.”

I nodded. “I wouldn’t want you to.”

Duffel bag in hand, I climbed into the rental, a Kia Sorento, and tried to pay attention to the unfamiliar knobs and dials while my head was spinning. I was too distracted to even worry about ghosts on the road. My birth father was a conduit. He was, in a way, the magical incarnation of death.

Then Quinn’s voice echoed in my head. “
You
haven’t changed. You just know something that you didn’t before, that’s all.”

I set my teeth, and my insides settled for the first time in what felt like days. Damn right. Maven might have been out of commission, but that didn’t mean I was helpless. Boulder was my town, and I wasn’t going to let this asshole kill anyone else in it. Lysander could beat me in magic, but I had resources he didn’t know about: friends, weapons, and knowledge. I wasn’t going to lie down and die.

Not that it would do any good if I did,
I thought ruefully.

My phone rang, and I checked the screen. Elise. I swallowed hard to clear my sore throat, hoping she wasn’t going to tell me about another body. I hit “Talk” and said, “What’s buzzin’, cousin?”