Boundary Born (Boundary Magic Book 3) - Melissa F. Olson Page 0,54

and there were more behind them, eager to help restrain me. I wasn’t going to get out of this by physical force. It took every bit of concentration I could muster, but I managed to drop into my boundary mindset, expecting to see these things as glowing blue images, like the fox. Instead, the human-shaped figures crouching over me were completely colorless—swirling, silver-black pieces of light that felt wrong in my mind. No, not just wrong—wronged. Something had been done to these things without their consent.

But that didn’t make them any less deadly. My concentration was beginning to waver, and I knew I was on the verge of losing consciousness. Think, Lex. I let go of the cowboy’s iron fingers and focused on his essence, trying to manipulate it the way I usually did—pulling it toward me with imaginary fingers. I couldn’t get a grip, though—the oil-slick surface was too slippery.

But the wraith felt my clumsy attempts and paused in confusion, his grip loosening long enough for me to get a few desperate gulps of air. I was so grateful for the oxygen, though, that I lost control of my mindset, and the wraith’s grip on my throat tightened again. The female was sitting on my legs now, trapping me, and I couldn’t even see past her—the other six wraiths had surrounded me, packing tightly around me like I was at the bottom of a football dogpile.

Panic rose in my chest again, but I pushed it down. I was not going to die like this, goddammit. I had been through too much to be killed by a bunch of costume-party rejects. I forced myself into the mindset again, examining the cowboy wraith’s swirling, polluted aura. Okay, I couldn’t pull it. But I extended my imaginary fingers again, and this time I stirred, sending the swirls of sickness dancing frantically through his form like bubbles in boiling water.

The ghost let go of me, and I could sense its confusion and bewilderment. I didn’t stop to see what happened, though. I rolled over as hard as I could, disrupting the female wraith on my legs and sending her off-balance. I crawled through the jumble of ghostly bodies, pushing aside legs and arms. Now their numbers worked to my advantage. There were too many of them to grab me properly; they kept tripping over each other. They were clumsy, like they’d forgotten how to move in the physical world. I crawled forward and stumbled to my feet, but the cowboy, who seemed like the strongest of them, grabbed hold of the back of my shirt and yanked, sending me stumbling. I whipped around and swung a roundhouse at him, but it was like hitting a pillow—the ghost absorbed the force without even moving.

Then he hit me. And it was not at all pillow-like.

His open-handed blow struck the left side of my head and clubbed me to the ground as effectively as a baseball bat. I sprawled on my face in the dirt path, and immediately felt the cowboy crouch on my back like a demon, his forearm sliding beneath my chin so he could strangle me again. My vision blurred, and there were wraiths on my arms and legs again. I felt myself fade and wondered if a boundary witch could die like this, at the hands of the dead. It looked like I was going to find out.

Then all of them abruptly vanished. Every single one, like someone had flicked off a switch.

I couldn’t hold up my head, and it plopped down into the dirt. Someone hunched down in my field of vision, a warm hand that pushed hair out of my face.

“Lex? Lex!” My eyes focused just long enough to see Simon, who was holding the long, translucent piece of glass. Then I was out.

Chapter 22

The first thing I felt was a cool hand squeezing mine. I knew that temperature. Quinn.

When I opened my eyes, he was leaning over me with worry etched in his face, which seemed odd to me. I wasn’t used to seeing Quinn with actual emotional expressions. I opened my mouth to say I was fine, but nothing came out but a dry rustle.

“Shh,” he murmured. “Lily said you shouldn’t try to talk yet. Whatever got you, it damn near crushed your trachea.” He gave me a thin smile. “Of course, she used a lot more words to explain it. Those Pellars and their big science words.”

I chuckled, which made me dizzy with pain for a second.