Boundary Crossed (Boundary Magic #1)(34)

But I was the one who’d begged to work for vampires, and the one who’d insisted on helping Quinn tonight. I had asked for this. And if I tried to pick and choose which parts of Quinn’s job to do with him, it wouldn’t speak well of my willingness to be a team player.

Besides, it wasn’t like we were burying an innocent, or even a human. I’m not a fan of killing by any means, but Darcy had come after Charlie, which was one offense I could never forgive. And she would have killed Quinn and me both if things had gone a little differently. I wasn’t going to shed any tears for her.

“Okay,” I said finally.

We drove in silence for a while after that. I knew this was my chance to ask some questions about the supernatural crap I had suddenly become a part of, but I just didn’t have the stomach for any more information right then. Instead, I fought to think about something that didn’t involve bodies or bloodshed. Each time I tried, though, my thoughts returned to Charlie. It was aggravating.

Quinn drove us through the outskirts of the city and into the mountains, the darkness deepening until there was nothing to see that wasn’t in the car’s headlights. The night was overcast and quiet, and after a while a chill crept into the car. I reached over and turned on the heater.

“Sorry,” Quinn said. “I don’t really get cold. I mean, I do, but it takes a lot.” His voice had taken on a shade of awkwardness.

“Yeah?” I said, stretching my legs out in front of me to get my toes closer to the heater. “That must be nice.”

“Listen, Lex,” he said, clearly uncomfortable. “I wanted to thank you.”

I turned my head to look at him, but his eyes were fixed on the road. “For what?”

“For sticking around when I was unconscious. Not letting Darcy . . . you know.”

He still didn’t look at me, and I realized that Quinn was embarrassed. He was supposed to be the vampires’ enforcer, and he’d let himself get benched by a psycho wielding only a front door. In front of me, the newbie human. “It never occurred to me to leave,” I said honestly, turning my head to look out the window so he could have a little privacy. Vampires could get embarrassed. What a weird concept.

After a couple more miles’ worth of silence, Quinn asked, “Did Darcy say anything while I was out?”

I considered that. “She said they were taking Charlie to some kind of middleman or dealer, who would hang onto her until someone else was ready to act. A ‘senior.’ I assumed that meant whoever she was working for.” I didn’t mention the weird link I’d created between us. Until I knew exactly what I’d done, and whether I could do it again, it didn’t seem like a good thing to share.

“She used that word, ‘senior’?” Quinn’s voice had taken on interest.

“Yeah, why? What does it mean?”

He shrugged. “Pretty much what you said—someone she considers a boss, a superior. It might even just be a vampire who’s a lot older than her—‘senior’ is a term of respect.”

“Could she have meant the vampire she’s pledged to . . . Kirby, right?”

I couldn’t see Quinn’s face very well at the moment, but I could practically hear the wheels turning in his head as he considered this. “Not necessarily, but it’s possible,” he said finally.

“Or maybe it’s the vampire Kirby’s pledged to,” I pointed out. “Itachi.”

To his credit, Quinn didn’t immediately leap to his master’s defense. He took a moment to consider it. “I honestly don’t think Itachi is responsible,” he said at last, and I realized that for the first time since I’d met him, he sounded completely human. For just a moment I caught a glimpse of what Quinn must have been like as a cop in Chicago . . . and as a regular man. He had a calmness, a centeredness, as if he considered everything thoroughly before acting. Then the glimpse was gone, and the unreadable Quinn had returned. “By Old World rules, he already owns your niece,” he said, still talking about Itachi. “There’s no reason for him to try and steal the kid away from himself.”

I couldn’t really argue with that. “Okay, but we do know that Maven was right; Victor and Darcy were working for someone,” I said aloud. “Only Darcy was our best lead to finding out who that was, and we just killed her.” I felt my fingers clench into fists.

“Don’t worry,” Quinn reassured me. “Tomorrow night we’ll go talk to Kirby.”

I glanced at the clock. “It’s only midnight. Why wait?”

The side of Quinn’s mouth turned up. “Have you heard the expression ‘Don’t shit where you eat?’”



Apparently, disposing of bodies happened often enough for Quinn to have a regular body dump site. Unfortunately, it was two hours outside of Boulder.

We drove into Rocky Mountain National Park for nearly ninety minutes. When we finally pulled off the highway, Quinn followed a few dimly lit streets before turning onto a completely dark, unmarked dirt road that led deeper into the park. Wherever we were going, it was a very specific destination. “How did you guys pick this place?” I asked, shaking my head a little. When it came to the middle of nowhere, there were an awful lot of places to choose from in Colorado.

“It has a certain . . . cachet,” Quinn said dryly. The dirt road dead-ended, and he pulled the Toyota to a stop. He got out and popped the trunk, pulling a heavy-duty flashlight out of the tightly packed space. He handed it to me. “I can see pretty well in the dark,” he explained, “so you can hold the light.”