Boundary Lines (25 page)

Chapter 39

Simon and I raced back the way we’d come, following the sounds of shouting people and snarling wolves. It was obviously coming from the main pool of mineral water, about half the size of an Olympic pool. We had to dodge eight or ten fleeing bathers: adults in various stages of undress who pounded past us, hollering about monsters. I hoped Opal was in place at the main entrance, or we were going to have a lot of cops to deal with in the very near future.

Just before a sign marked “Pool Entrance,” I spotted a familiar red box on the wall and reached over to pull the fire alarm. It only heightened the pandemonium, but hopefully it would keep any would-be Samaritans from running in to offer their help. With Simon on my heels I burst through the door, grabbing at my weapons as I took in the scene. We were in one long room fringed by rainforest-type plants, with a pool in the middle and a glass skylight taking up half the ceiling. They were going for a tropical theme, which was augmented by the enormous snake monster thrashing around in the water, its attention focused on the far left corner of the pool so its back was to me. The mineral water was tinged with red, and I realized it had already eaten or crushed at least one victim. There was an Unktehila-sized hole in the cheap plaster wall. I didn’t know if it had smelled Simon or the werewolves, but something had caused it to burst in looking for a fight.

I had the sword in hand by then, raised to the ceiling like a medieval lance, but I hesitated for a moment, gaping. The lighting was dim in here—probably the spa owners depended mostly on the skylight—but for the first time I was able to take in the sight of the Unktehila’s entire body at once. The full size of it was jolting: It was the length of at least one and a half school buses, and it had expanded to its full diameter of about six feet. My brain kept telling me that this was wrong, this was fake, that animals didn’t come that big. But the evidence was right there in front of me, paralyzingly scary and
fast.

I crept forward to see what was making the Unktehila so angry, and realized that all the hissing and thrashing was directed at the werewolves, who were pacing the edges of the pool, in front of the potted trees. No, wait, it wasn’t just looking at the wolves—the pool was cordoned off into a little hot tub, and the creature had cornered someone in there. I couldn’t see the person behind the leviathan, but he or she must have still been alive, judging by the Unktehila’s desperation to get to them.

The wolves were trying to draw away the monster, and it was sort of working—every time it got close to its prey, one of them darted forward, snapping with jaws or swiping with claws, and the Unktehila would get distracted. It kept spitting venom at the wolves, but they were fast enough to jerk away in time to avoid its attacks. I saw Mary, the black wolf, dancing back a little, and I realized she’d stepped in some of the venom. The wolves only had seconds before the floor would be too covered in it for them to move.

The creature’s back was still to me, so this was my only shot at a surprise attack. I wanted to aim at its head—the throat, the eyes, something vital—but it would take me too long to run all the way around the pool.

Fuck. I was going to have to get into that water, wasn’t I?

Simon was already moving around the pool’s edge, so I shouted
after him, “Get the people out!” He waved a hand in acknowledgment. Without letting myself think to
o much about it, I leaped into the four-foot-deep water, aiming my body straight for the Unktehila’s clubbed tail, which was only about as thick as my waist. The tail was thrashing around, but only a little, since most of the upper body was focused on attack right now, not movement. With a bellow, I swung the sword back over my left shoulder like a golfer and sent it straight into the tail, chopping at an angle to go under the scales. I was just trying to get its attention, but to my surprise, I actually severed a chunk off the tail.

Damn, that Mary sure could sharpen a sword.

The Unktehila raised its upper body straight up and screamed, a terrifyingly high-pitched sound that actually sent spiderweb cracks spurting across the glass skylight. The wolves cringed with pain—the sound had to be excruciating to their sensitive ears—and I began backing away from the red blood that was blossoming in the pink water all around me. I tried sloshing toward the side of the pool, but by then the Unktehila had finished its scream and turned on me, its cobra hood unfurling. Behind it, I saw Simon helping someone out of the hot tub—a twenty-something woman holding a toddler. I set my jaw.

You,
the Unktehila roared into my head. It hadn’t bothered to adjust the frequency for our comfort, and I almost doubled over from the sensation of knives cutting at the inside of my skull. In my peripheral vision I saw that Simon, the woman, and the wailing toddler all did the same, but the wolves didn’t seem affected.
You dare interfere with me again? I will—

With effort, I straightened up, bending against the wave of pain. “Yeah, yeah,” I shouted, waving the sword in front of the thing’s ugly snout. “You should have stayed asleep, asshole.”

Hissing with rage, the Unktehila reared back, the telltale sign that it was about to spit venom my way. I threw up my free arm in useless defense, ducking, but to my surprise, nothing happened. I looked back at the Unktehila, and we realized at the same time that it was all out of venom. Without giving it time to react, I dove forward, just managing to throw myself out of the pool before a heavy coil of muscle snapped toward me hard enough to break bones. It cracked tiles on the side of the pool instead, sending a splash of bloody mineral water over me. Gross.

On the other side of the pool, Simon had gotten the woman and her child through the emergency exit door. He turned back and threw out his arms, shouting something at the Unktehila. A short lance of fire, like a firework just before it explodes, arced through the air at the sandworm. It struck the creature in the back of the head, not really doing any damage, but it gave me an idea. As the Unktehila turned to deal with the new threat, I skidded along the side of the pool until I was just above the nearest coil, and plunged my sword into the thing’s flesh at a sideways angle, wrenching it to dig under the scales. The werewolves must have had the same idea as me, because they split up and began racing toward the coils nearest to them, so that the five of us were spread more or less evenly around the pool.

Seeing this, the Unktehila roared in anger and then screamed something into our minds, not even trying to communicate now, just to destroy. Simon and I both dropped to our knees in agony—I managed to keep my grip on the sword, but it was a near thing—and the Unktehila turned to attack Simon, the most vulnerable of all of us. Before it could get there, though, I saw the nearest werewolf—Jamie—dash forward and actually climb
onto
a wide chunk of the Unktehila’s tail. He gouged his two front paws into and beside the scales like he was digging a hole for a bone, and the sandworm shrieked in pain and rage, turning to snap its tremendous jaws at Jamie. I wanted to applaud as the werewolf leaped nimbly off the coil and raced away, skidding a little on the wet surface.

It can’t get into the werewolves’ minds,
I realized, as my ability to think was slowly returned to me. They were on a different frequency.

W
e resumed the strategy, keeping more or less evenly spaced around the creature and attacking one at a time. When the Unktehila turned on one of us, another would attack all the harder, dividing i
ts attention. This continued for what seemed like twenty minutes but was probably only two, until the Unktehila was worked up into a froth of wild animal rage and pain. At one point, it tried the psychic scream again to break Simon and me, but all three werewolves attacked with such viciousness that the piercing agony only lasted a few seconds this time.

We were winning—but suddenly the Unktehila seemed to realize our goal: to wear it out, or even bleed it out. Simon and one of the wolves were standing between it and the plaster hole it’d created, but its head abruptly ducked underwater with tremendous force. The ground seemed to shift suddenly as the creature rammed into the floor of the pool.

“It’s going for the tunnels!” Simon hollered. “It’s running!”

“Like hell!” I yelled back. We were never going to have a better chance than this, and we sure as hell couldn’t release it into the wild when it was worked into a frenzy.

The Unktehila reared back and shot forward a second time, butting the sharp point of its beak against the same spot on the bottom of the pool, and this time something gave way. I
couldn’t
let it escape. So I did the only thing I could do.

I jumped back into the water. Like an idiot.

I pulled the Desert Eagle out of the thigh holster and looked frantically for something to shoot. I did not want a .50-caliber bullet ricocheting off those scales. The water was already beginning to drain from the pool, and the Unktehila was starting to worm his way out through the small hole, contracting to fit it. Inspired, I looked around the bloody water until I located the thrashing stump of its tail—the open wound still oozing blood. Torn red muscle and a little bit of bone could
just
be seen as the stump flicked in and out of the water. I sloshed over as close as I could, watching the movement, and took my shot, putting two of the enormous bullets right into that muscle.

I’d braced with both arms, but the recoil still knocked me backward. If I hadn’t been in the water, I would have fallen on my ass. As it was, I staggered back hard enough for my head to go under, and I came up spitting bloody mineral water, trying not to panic because it had gone up my nose. When I wiped at my eyes, I saw that the Unktehila had instinctively wrenched itself backward again, and it was
livid
. The shots must have traveled quite a way into its muscle, maybe hitting some spine, because as it thrashed around, the last twelve feet of its tail no longer seemed to be functioning. Unable to move forward smoothly, it wheeled on me.

I thought we’d worked it into a frenzy before, but the look it gave me, on its not-very-expressive face, was terrifying. It had flipped the tail out of my reach, so I looked around for the sword, only to realize I’d left it on the side of the pool.

Simon and the werewolves chose that exact moment to leap into the water, or what was left of it—the pool was draining through the
Unktehila’s escape hole—and each of them went for the nearest section
of giant snake, attacking however they could. But instead of getting distracted again, the Unktehila continued its beeline straight for me.

I raised the Desert Eagle and took aim for its eye, but the thing was moving too fast, and my next bullet bounced off the scales and buried itself harmlessly in the bottom of the pool. Shit. The head flowed toward me, looking gleeful, but as it pulled back its fangs and prepared to strike there was a shout and a motion to my left, and the Unktehila suddenly staggered back as if it had been cuffed in the side of the head by an invisible force. We both turned to see Simon holding up one hand and shouting at it.

I was looking at the back of the Unktehila’s head, but I could see its cobra hood spread again as it rounded on Simon.
I made you a promise, interloper
. I intend to keep it.

I turned my back for long enough to slog over to my sword, but by the time I’d scooped it up and turned around, the Unktehila was already in motion, seeming to propel itself straight up into the air. It hit the already-cracked skylight, which shattered into a million tiny knives of falling glass. Simon and I both covered our faces as the shards sprinkled down on us, and by the time I lowered my arms and saw the Unktehila’s head coming back down, it was about three seconds too late to get a warning out of my mouth.

The Unktehila crashed back down, jaws wide open, mouth unhinged, and its head landed right on top of the exact spot where Simon had been standing.

Chapter 40

“No!” I screamed. The Unktehila’s voice was back in my head again, and it was laughing.

Nonononono not again
. This could not happen again. I would not allow it.

I lurched sideways toward the nearest coil, which was more or less the halfway point of the thing’s body. I drove the sword in at an angle and then down. The Unktehila began to struggle, trying to move away from me with Simon still gripped in its mouth, but I held fast to the handle of the sword and used it to lever my weight up, allowing me to swing up onto the thing’s back. I reached into my right pants pocket and pulled out the single grenade I’d grabbed, using my left hand, still holding the sword, to fumble off the safety clip. I pulled the pin and, with the grenade clutched in my other hand, wrenched the sword sideways. Then I jerked it out, letting it crash to the ground, and thrust the grenade into the hole I’d made, pushing it in as deep as my arm could reach. It was so far beyond disgusting that I didn’t let my brain think about what my arm was touching.

Bracing myself against the creature’s back, I pulled my arm out as far as I could and I threw myself to one side, tumbling into a clumsy roll on the pool tiles. I managed to drag myself to my knees and crawl away, my hands bloody and spiky with splinters of broken glass from the skylight.

Then the grenade exploded.

I was clubbed down by a chunk of meat the size of a basketball. I landed on my face, my cheek pressed against the cool tile, as more chunks of steaming flesh rained down around me. Between the Desert Eagle and the grenade, my hearing was shot, and it seemed like a really good idea to just lie there in the broken glass for a little while. Yes, that was a great idea.

But Simon.

Could Simon still be alive?

I somehow managed to get my bleeding palms underneath me, and then laboriously pushed my body up until my feet were under me, remembering what they were supposed to do. I managed to force my hand around the sword and tottered toward the head of the Unktehila, which had been cut in half by the explosion. Even an immortal snake monster can’t survive a full-on bisection. When I reached the head, I saw that the Unktehila’s mouth had fallen open slightly. I dragged my body forward and put the tip of the sword in, levering it open farther. Then I repeated the process. Farther. Farther. When I had the two jaws about three feet apart, I saw a bare foot. I clutched at it, trying to pull, but my hands were slippery with blood and pool water and there was no give at all. And Simon hadn’t had any air in there. I tried to stand, hoping it would give me more leverage, but my feet slipped on glass and blood. My limbs gave out and when I went down this time, I knew I couldn’t drag myself back up. I lay there as my vision began to cloud, knowing that I had failed. I had gotten Simon killed, and I couldn’t save him.

Then I saw a slender hand pick up my sword. I watched its point move down the Unktehila, about six feet from where the foot was, and then the sword was thrust in. The last thing I saw before my eyes closed was Mary, gloriously nude, reaching in to dig at the Unktehila’s insides.

When I opened my eyes again, I found myself staring directly into the warm brown gaze of Sashi Brighton, who was maybe eighteen inches away from my face. She grinned widely when she realized I was looking at her. “Welcome back,” she said in her crisp accent.

I blinked. I was lying on my stomach on a white cot, so why wasn’t Sashi’s face sideways? Then I got it: she was lying on a cot too. “You hurt?” I managed to say.

She smiled, and I recognized the weariness in her expression. She was too tired to get up. “Just wiped out. Healing isn’t as easy as I make it look, you know. You had a hairline fracture in your ankle, about a dozen life-threatening cuts, shrapnel in your back and legs, and just a little bit of internal bleeding. And don’t get me started on Simon.”

I sat up too fast, and had to clutch the sides of my cot. It hurt, and I realized that under the light bandages I was wearing, my palms still had dozens of tiny abrasions from where I’d touched the broken glass. I was naked and the sheet that had covered me pooled at my waist, but I was too shaky to even try to cover myself. “Is he alive?” I asked Sashi.

She didn’t sit up, which told me how drained she really was. “Behind you.”

I turned, which hurt—there were a lot of small cuts on my arms and knees, too, but they were too shallow to even warrant a bandage—and saw him lying on the cot behind mine. His expression was peaceful, and he was breathing, but everything else was covered under a sheet.

Then I spotted a huddled figure against the wall behind him and realized where we were: the big back room at Magic Beans. Complete with ghosts. Of course. “Will he recover?” I asked without turning around.

“Yes. Although if you’ve ever considered getting swallowed by an enormous snake, I wouldn’t recommend it. Most of his major bones were broken, and the thing did its damnedest to liquefy his insides.” I turned back to the thaumaturge witch, who let out a jaw-cracking yawn. “I did as much as I could tonight and gave him a sedative to let us both rest,” she continued. “I’ll work on him again tomorrow.”

“Grace?”

She smiled briefly. “With your cousin’s family again. I hope you don’t mind that I called them.”

“Of course not.”

Her eyes drifted closed. “They’re really nice, your family. Sometimes I wish I . . .”

Her voice drifted off as exhaustion overtook her. I let her sleep.

Swinging my legs slowly over the side of the cot, I sat up and took stock of my leftover injuries. I was stiff and achy again, but aside from the dozens of small cuts on my hands, arms, and knees, I seemed to be in okay shape. My feet were still bare, but they were fine. Sashi must have healed the superficial cuts there so I could walk without pain. Smart.

Then I realized that someone must have cut off my shredded clothes, bathed me, and even washed my hair. Ordinarily I’d feel violated by this, but considering what I’d been—quite literally—soaked in at the springs, I was planning to find whoever had done it and kiss their feet in gratitude. Of course, I was also very naked now, which was less than ideal.

“Sashi brought you some clothes. They’re in Maven’s office.”

I jumped, clutching the sheet to my chest, and twisted around to see the back exit, the one that led outdoors. Quinn stood there, leaning against the wall with his hands in his pockets.

“How—how long have you been there?” I stammered.

“Since we brought you back.”

“Who’s we?”

He pushed off the wall and walked over to sit down at the edge of my cot. I hugged my knees to my chest, both to make more room for him and to cover my nakedness. “Opal called me and Maven as soon as she got the last civilians out of Grizzly Springs. Maven pulled some strings to get the transport helicopter at Memorial to fly down there and bring you and Simon back.”

It took me a long moment to absorb all of that. “What time is it?” I’d left my watch at a brothel in Denver.

“Three a.m. Same night,” he added, after seeing my confusion.

“The werewolves?” I asked.

“They’d recovered by the time the chopper got there,” he assured me. “They brought the Jeep back just a little bit ago. Dunn said it handles like a dream.” He looked at Simon for a long moment. His usual impassive expression was clouded by concern. “I was worried about you guys.”

“I should have let you come,” I said quietly. “I was hurt, and I was being petulant.
And once again I almost got Simon killed because I didn’t trust you.”

“I didn’t give you much reason to trust me,” he said matter-of-factly. “I shouldn’t have pressed the police chief for you without asking.” He looked away, hesitating, and I realized that he wasn’t finished. “I also realize you could have pressed me to listen to you at any point, and you didn’t,” he said softly. “I’m sorry, Lex.”

“I’m sorry too.”

One side of his mouth quirked up. “Did we just have our first fight?”

I rolled my eyes. “Please visualize me hitting you with a pillow,” I said tartly, “as I currently lack the strength.”

He smiled, but it faded quickly. “How hurt are you?” he asked, and there was an edge to his voice that made me very nervous.

“What happened?” I said.

Quinn froze for a moment, deciding, and then said, “The trip to Chautauqua wasn’t a waste. The werewolves have really good noses, and between us, and some detective work . . .”

Why was he drawing this out? “
What
, Quinn?”

“I know who activated the ley line.”