Boundary Born (Boundary Magic Book 3) - Melissa F. Olson Page 0,97

My eyes were watering, but I stepped forward resolutely, keeping my weapon raised and my footfalls soft. When I reached the doorway, I put my back against it and peeked around the side.

Lysander was there in all his mammoth-sized glory, standing in front of the greenhouse window in his big coat. He had his back to me, but I could see that his arms were raised and waving like a conductor. I looked beyond him and recognized the famous corpse flower in full bloom. As Lysander moved his hands, the plant’s enormous single petal—it probably had a more scientific name, but I didn’t know it—peeled down from its center stalk, displaying bruise-purple coloring on the inside. The stench worsened. Then Lysander waved a hand, and the petal closed back up again.

He was playing with it.

The flower weighed nearly a hundred and fifty pounds, and watching him manipulate it was fascinating, like watching a time-lapse video in reverse. But I tore my eyes off it and aimed the Ithaca at the back of Lysander’s head. I let out a silent exhalation and began to squeeze the trigger—

“I don’t really think it smells much like death. Do you?”

I froze, though he hadn’t so much as craned his head to look at me. “A hint of it, certainly, but not enough to earn its name.” He paused, and when it was clear that I wasn’t going to answer, he finally lowered his arms and turned around, dry amusement on his face. “You don’t really think that in my thousands of years of life no one’s ever tried to shoot me in the head?”

Well, there went the element of surprise. I considered lowering the Ithaca—but then again, why take his word for it?

I pulled the trigger.

I had loaded the old 12-gauge with three-inch magnum shots, the heaviest ammunition I could handle, and just for the hell of it, I slam-fired all four shots in a row. It was literally the most damage I could do short of an actual grenade.

The shells should have blown at least part of his head off. Instead, his temple just looked a little dented.

While I was still gaping, Lysander turned back toward the corpse flower, raising one hand, and I felt something sort of brush past the part of me that was witch, like a breeze ruffling my hair. Then the corpse flower withered and collapsed, as did the pretty decorative plants surrounding it. Plants don’t have souls—they don’t even glow in my boundary mindset—but Lysander seemed to be drawing the very life out of them. As he did, the damage to his head repaired itself. He began turning around to face me. Was it my imagination, or had he shrunk a little?

“Neat trick,” I said, my heart ricocheting around my ribs. “How fast can you do it?”

Quick as I could, I dropped the Ithaca on its sling, drew the big Smith & Wesson revolver, and fired bullet after bullet into Lysander’s head. I’m an excellent shot, and I wasn’t standing very far away, so every single .357 round impacted his skull.

But Lysander didn’t fall. Instead, he stretched out both his arms, and there was a fleeting rush of power in the room. I instinctively closed my eyes, like you do for a gust of wind, and when I opened them, all of the plants in the greenhouse were dry husks on the floor, and Lysander was looking at me calmly, a terrible smile spreading over his face. I might be able to play with the essence of people, but Lysander could suck the life out of anything. And now his face was perfectly healed, although it was a few inches lower than it had been. At least that was something.

“Interesting,” he said condescendingly, as though I had tried to eat peas using a knife instead of a spoon. “My turn.”

He pointed toward me, his fingers flicking outward. I dove to the side and managed to avoid most of the raw force he sent careening toward me, like a souped-up version of the Pellars’ catapult spell. The edge of it caught my shoulder, though, and I spun sideways, jarring my back against the door frame.

“Let’s take this outside,” Lysander declared. He raised his hand to flick at me again, and this time I was too off-balance to dodge. The energy hit me in the stomach and I shot backward, straight through the greenhouse window, and was airborne for what felt like an hour. I passed through several remnants as