Boundary Crossed (Boundary Magic #1)(64)

“Sold.” After my misadventures with the stab wounds, I was a fan of any plan that didn’t involve getting more frickin’ stitches.

Lily got out her first-aid kit, retrieving the biggest tube of glue I’d ever seen. I looked away, focusing on the ultra-clean ceiling tiles. Agreeing to having my cuts glued shut was one thing, but I wasn’t quite ready to watch it happen.

“So,” Lily said as she worked. “I got the strangest call from Simon on the way here.”

I flinched, struggling not to shift my feet, but didn’t answer. “It seems that he’s with some colleagues from CU,” she continued, “convincing them that a lake full of dead fish is the result of low oxygen levels in the water.”

I considered that for a moment. As excuses go, it wasn’t bad. I didn’t know anything about water oxygen levels, but I remembered something on the news a while back about a bunch of fish dying from the same thing in Southern California. “Are they buying it?” I asked.

“The deoxygenated water thing? So far. The trick is convincing them that they shouldn’t bother with autopsies or water samples. He may have to stall them until dark, then get Quinn to press them.” I snuck a glance at Lily, but she was totally focused on my injuries. Today her dreadlocks were tied back with an aquamarine scarf, and she had on a black off-the-shoulder shirt that reminded me of the top that Sandy changes into at the end of Grease.

“There,” she said after a few more minutes, leaning back and looking at my feet with satisfaction. She pulled a roll of white gauze out of her kit and started to carefully wrap it all the way around my foot. “Do you want to tell me what happened?” she asked casually, her tone in direct contrast to the care she was taking with my foot.

“I’m assuming Simon already told you.”

“About the lake, yes.” She cut the gauze with a small pair of scissors, taped it in place, and started to wrap it around the other foot. “But he didn’t have too many details about your bloody run through the country or why this room”—she glanced around”—suddenly looks like Mr. Clean’s personal workshop.”

She started to slowly pack up her supplies, giving me time to gather my thoughts. I sighed and sat up straight, swinging my wrapped feet to dangle them off the edge of the counter. “I pulled out their sparks,” I said quietly. “The fish, I mean. But their death-essence didn’t just go into the air or back into nature or whatever. It went into me.” I remembered once again the way that first mouse’s death-essence had looked as it drifted toward me. I shuddered. Now we knew I could pull it into me.

She looked at me thoughtfully. “And it felt good?”

I nodded. “It was incredible,” I admitted. “It was the best high. I ran and ran, which helped take the edge off it. But I still had more.” I gestured at the room.

Lily looked around. “So you decided to practice the cleaning spell?”

“Not exactly.” I leaned forward to bury my face in my hands. “I was just trying to clean my feet,” I said softly.

I felt Lily’s momentary stillness as she absorbed that, and then she boosted herself up on the counter next to me. “Well . . . we knew your powers were strong. And they’ve only been growing,” she said haltingly. “You couldn’t get regular magic to work, but it sounds like when you absorbed some of this essence, you could suddenly do a witch charm. Interesting.”

I lifted my face to look at her. “I’m like a goddamned vampire, Lily. I can suck the life out of things. That’s too much power. It’s too big.”

She shrugged. “We knew that magic and creation and life are all kind of the same thing. But maybe death is part of it, too. You stored up these animals’ essence and converted it into magic. Could you do the cleaning spell again right now?”

I considered that for a second. “I don’t think so. I feel . . . depleted. Like the high’s worn off.”

She nodded. “So there you go. You used up the magic, the essence, you took from the fish. Now you’re out again.”

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” I muttered. “I’m not going to kill living creatures just to clean off my feet. I’m a vegetarian, for crying out loud.”

Lily gave me a rueful smile. “So we’ll teach you a few defensive spells,” she suggested. “Serious, save-your-life stuff, so you can save yourself if you get backed in a corner. That’d be worth killing a few fish, right?”

“Maybe,” I said doubtfully. What if there weren’t any slimy lake fish available? What if I was forced to use someone’s pets? I thought of the herd and tried not to shudder.

“Plus, there’s the whole thing where you can’t die,” she pointed out. “That continues to kick ass. And you can sense the life in a given area, which could be vital someday.”

I shook my head, unconvinced. “It just doesn’t seem like enough.”

“For what?”

To make it worth being a freak? I thought. But I was smart enough not to say that in front of a representative of Clan Pellar. “To make me attractive as an employee,” I explained instead. It was still true. “So that Itachi will agree to leave Charlie alone.”

That was, after all, the whole reason why I was doing any of this. If I wasn’t still hoping to make a deal with Itachi for Charlie’s childhood, I would have promised never to say anything about the Old World and forgotten I’d ever known any of these people. Well, the vampires, anyway.