Boundary Lines (27 page)

Epilogue

On a cold Monday morning, a few days before Thanksgiving, I wrestled a new eighteen-inch television into the boarded-up brothel in Denver. Lily trailed behind me, holding a plastic bag with the new bunny ears.

“Hello?” I yelled after I’d jimmied the door. “Nellie?”

“Is she here?” Lily asked, peering over my shoulder. It was the first time I’d ever seen her wearing plain old everyday blue jeans, but of course she’d paired them with a faux snakeskin jacket. She’d been wearing that particular jacket a lot lately, and I was pretty sure it was meant to poke fun at her brother.

“I guess she’s not visible during the day anymore,” I said, shrugging. Morgan had confessed that the only way to keep the ley lines active in our low-magic times was to perform a ritual every single night. Once she stopped doing that, the haywire magic in Boulder began to settle back down. Hazel estimated it’d take a couple more weeks to get back to normal.

“That sucks,” Lily said, disappointed. “I mean, I know I can’t see her, but I had like, a thousand questions for you to translate.”

“Too bad,” I said. I was a bit relieved, actually: Nellie was undoubtedly a gold mine of knowledge about boundary magic, but we had only just finished cleaning up all the fallout from the last big magic crisis; I wasn’t interested in dicking around with my powers right now.

We set up the television in the main entryway. Electricity had been a problem, until I took it to Maven, who somehow arranged for power to be turned back on in the lower floors of the brothel, no questions asked. While I squatted in front of the TV, messing with the bunny ears, Lily stood up and looked around. “It’s weird to think that Maven was once a—what did you say they called themselves?”

“Soiled doves,” I supplied. “Although there were like a dozen other terms too.”

“Right. Soiled dove.” I looked up in time to see her plop down on the steps, surveying the boarded-up windows, the miles of spider
webs. I thought the whole place was creepy as hell, but Lily was looking around like she had special time-travel goggles. “There was a whole world here once,” she marveled. “A whole society and system of rules.”

“With lots of disease, abuse, and corruption,” I put in. “Not to mention corsets.” I went back to fidgeting with the bunny ears, balancing on my heels.

“Speaking of corruption,” Lily said slyly, “how’s vampire sex treating you?”

I lost my balance and toppled over, sending the antennae smacking on the floor behind the TV. Lily whooped. “That good, huh?” Her face went serious. “Or, wait, that
bad
?”

“That’s none of your business,
Lilith
,” I said severely, but I smiled as I picked myself up and went after the bunny ears. To my surprise, being on the floor actually seemed to help.

“Come on, one detail,” she coaxed. “Does he use superspeed during sex? Do vampire superpowers extend to, you know, stamina? Does he drink your blood after?
During
?”

I made a face. “You have put way too much thought into us having sex. How about I’ll tell you one thing if you promise never to use the phrase ‘vampire sex’ again?”

She clapped her hands. “Deal.”

I thought it over. Quinn and I had been spending almost every night together over the last couple of weeks. We were just . . . hungry for each other. But I’d taken to leaving his place before dawn. I said it was to take care of the herd, but we both knew I didn’t want to be around when he went cold. “He doesn’t drink my blood. He says he doesn’t want to, but I know he’s afraid he wouldn’t be able to stop himself,” I said quietly.

Lily wrinkled her nose. “I meant, like, a sexy detail, but I’ll accept that answer for now.”

“Oh, good. What a relief.” I finally got the TV channel to come in clearly, and I stood, wiping my hands on my pants. Then I went over to the closet and retrieved my watch, fastening it around my wrist. It felt good to have it on again, like that piece of Sam was back with me. “How’s your family doing?” I asked Lily. She’d been awfully quiet on the ride to Denver.

“About like you’d expect. Mom’s taking it hard. She’s talking about just canceling Thanksgiving this year.”

After we’d subdued Morgan, Lily had restrained her while Maven and Hazel had a big sit-down meeting in Maven’s office that lasted until dawn, and picked up again the following night. Hazel had eventually persuaded Maven to let her eldest daughter live, but Morgan would be banished from the state of Colorado for the rest of her natural life. One toe over the state line, and Maven would eviscerate her. It was actually pretty generous of Maven to let Morgan go, especially now that she would be able to use apex magic to stir up shit in someone else’s territory. But that was some other henchwoman’s problem now. I was done with Morgan.

For her part, Hazel had promised not to tell any other members of Clan Pellar about apex magic, or do any in front of them. The other witch clans in Colorado would not be told about it either, and both parties would carry out the terms of their original covenant as closely as possible.

Hazel had done the best she could, but Morgan’s crimes and her banishment were creating a lot of drama in the family, considering that her soon-to-be-ex husband lived in town with their children. He was going to have to decide whether to move the kids to wherever Morgan ended up, start driving them to meet her, or withhold custody altogether. Morgan would have to go along with whatever he decided.

“What about your brother-in-law?” Lily asked me. “Have you told him yet?”

I wrinkled my nose unhappily. Clara had helped me rush John to Magic Beans, where Sashi had just enough juice left to heal his head wound. Then Quinn had pressed him into forgetting the whole night and thinking “Sarah” had left town . . . it had been a whole big tap dance, but he’d eventually bought it.

I hated keeping John in the dark, so as a kind of reward for saving her life again, Maven had given me permission to tell John about the Old World and Charlie’s place in it. I sighed. “No, and I have no idea when or how. It needs to be soon—he has too many questions I can’t answer, but it’s just . . .”

“Hard,” she finished. “I get it. You love him, you want him to know, but you want to protect him too.”

“Exactly.”

She shook her head. “These ties among family, they’re so strange, aren’t they? Like, I hate Morgan. Hate her. But she’s my sister and I love her too, and part of me wants good things to happen for her.”

“Yup.” I rested my chin on my knees, copying Lily’s posture. “Family’s complicated. Did I tell you that John asked me if Sashi has a boyfriend?”

“What? No!” She considered that for a second, and huffed, “I’m actually a little offended he got over my sister that quickly.”

Oh, jeez. I shook my head and leaned back against the steps. “Visualize me hitting you with a pillow . . .” I began.

Acknowledgments

The book you’re now holding is arguably the most-researched project I’ve ever worked on, and it was only possible with a lot of help from a number of pleasant and gracious people. First and foremost, thank you to my Boulder guide, Brieta Bejin, who gave up the better part of a weekend to patiently show me around her city, and answered follow-up questions pretty much until I turned in the final draft. My deepest thanks to Pat Kociolek of the Museum of Natural History at the University of Colorado Boulder, who was willing to humor my bizarre questions about snake monsters, and to all the nice folks at the Boulder Police Department, who were so generous and gracious that now I feel a little bad about Keller. Thank you to the Colorado Wolf and Wildlife Center for giving me the chance to observe real wolves (I really don’t think any of them were shapeshifters, but I was very respectful just in case), and to my beta-reading rock star, Elizabeth Kraft. My gratitude also goes out to Sybil Ward (no relation to the fictional Sybil) and Brandon Beaty, who both read through the story for errors in the military references or lingo. Thanks to Brandon, I may never use the word “gun” again.

I found additional insight into the mindset of the female soldier in Helen Thorpe’s
Soldier Girls: The Battles of Three Women at Home and at War
, which I highly recommend. For more information on the surprisingly fascinating history of prostitution in Colorado, I urge you to consult
Brothels, Bordellos, and Bad Girls: Prostitution in Colorado, 1860–1930
by Jan Mackell. You can also read all about the Boulderado in
Legend of a Landmark: A History of the Hotel Boulderado
by Silvia Pettem. Hugh Mark was a real person and by all accounts a lovely man.

A few more random thanks go out to Tracy Tong and Jody Yuan, who somehow knew what a label-obsessed vampire would probably be into, and Matt Ventimiglia, who responded nimbly to my demand of “Quick, gimme a name for a vampire.” Thank you to my development editor Angela Polidoro, for being as excited about Sashi’s return as I was—and for being patient with me even when we didn’t have a lot of time for patience.

And of course, huge, huge thank-yous to my team at 47North: Britt Rogers, Adrienne Lombardo, Ben Smith, and Alex Carr. You guys fought for this series right when I needed it the most, and I’ll always appreciate your being my champions.

About the Author

Photo © 2013 Elizabeth Kraft

Melissa F. Olson was raised in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, and studied film and literature at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. After a brief stint in the Hollywood studio system, Melissa moved to Madison, Wisconsin, where she eventually acquired a master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, a husband, a mortgage, a teaching gig, two kids, and two comically oversized dogs, not at all in that order. Learn more about Melissa, her work, and her dog at
www.MelissaFOlson.com
.