Boundary Born (Boundary Magic Book 3) - Melissa F. Olson Page 0,74

were naughty they would threaten to sell us to those people. I remember once, my sister ’n me—”

“Do you remember the name?” I interrupted, and it took all my willpower to maintain my patience. I had this terrible idea that the stone would stop working right before she gave me something I could sink my teeth into.

She sighed loudly. “It were some highfalutin’ Latin words. Lemme see. Milt . . . milli . . . milites mortis,” she said triumphantly. “If that’s not it, it’s something close.”

Finally. Real information. My shoulders sagged in relief. “Thank you, Nellie. I owe you one, and I won’t forget.”

She cackled. Apparently it was my day for old women to cackle at me. “Oh, I won’t let you forget,” she said smugly.

I got up and flipped the channel on the television, which would save me a trip in the near future. I was about to say goodbye, when another thought occurred to me. “The wraiths. Nellie, can you tell me how to dispel ghosts?”

Another pause, this one so long that I was staring to fear I’d lost the connection. “I don’t know how,” she said at last.

“Oh, come on.”

“It’s true! I never learned.”

“Nellie,” I said impatiently, looking around the brothel, “this is a two-hundred-year-old building. People must have died here, but I’ve never seen any remnants, even when I was here at night. Because you got rid of them when you were alive, and you’re the last to die here. You know how to banish ghosts.”

Her voice went cold. “I got nothin’ to say about that.”

I could have walked away then, but what if Emil attacked with wraiths again? What if they mobbed me before I could disturb the grid? “Nellie,” I called into the empty room. “If you tell me how to banish them, I’ll come back every week, myself.”

Nothing.

“I’ll even bring tea,” I tried. “And you can tell me stories about the brothel.”

I checked my watch. Ninety seconds dragged by before she spoke again.

“Even if I did know how to banish them back across the line,” Nellie said, “how do I know you wouldn’t try to banish me?”

“You’re not hurting anyone, as far as I can tell,” I said. “I have no interest in banishing you if you don’t want to go.”

“I gotta think about it,” she said at last. “You come yourself next time, and we can talk.”

And no amount of begging on my part would change her mind.

It was late afternoon when I got back to Boulder, and although sunset was still a few hours off, the skies were dark with the threat of rain. I had managed to get grime from the brothel all over my clothes, so I decided to stop at home to change and take care of the animals before I met up with Simon and Lily. I called to find out where they were, but Simon didn’t answer. Ordinarily I might worry, but he had said he and Lily were going to nap, and given how hard they’d been pushing, I couldn’t blame him for turning off his ringer. I left a voicemail briefly outlining what I’d learned from Nellie.

When I arrived at the cabin I parked in the driveway instead of the garage, since I’d only be there for a few minutes. As I hurried up the little pathway to the house, I heard an unfamiliar ringing coming from the car. The disposable cell phone. I jogged back to the passenger door, opened it, and snatched up the phone without looking at the number. “Cruz?”

“Yeah, hey. Listen, I talked to the head of the witches here. She had a follow-up question.”

I bumped the door shut with my hip and turned back toward the house, fumbling to get my keys out of my jacket pocket. “I’m listening.” I put the key in the lock and paused, missing the next thing Cruz said. Something was wrong. I put my ear against the door—not a single dog was barking. Had they not heard me? I took the phone away from my ear and made a little scratching noise on the door with one fingernail, which would usually drive the dogs into a barking frenzy.

Dead silence.

“Hello? Lex?”

“Yeah, sorry, Cruz. What did she ask?”

“I said, she wanted to know if animals in your town have been going insane. Foaming at the mouth kind of insane.”

I went completely still.

And that’s when the attack came.

Chapter 30

I caught the movement out of the corner of my eye and instinctively ducked. The phone slipped