Page 17

Asher

There was a sense of relief as I eased my Porsche into the garage and climbed out. Calisto had seemed surprised I’d be going into work as normal, but there had been no way around it unless I quit. As I headed toward the front door and let myself in, I gave momentary thought to doing exactly that. After all, it wasn’t like I needed a reference from Cade. His annoyance at being left in the lurch wouldn’t matter when I didn’t need to find another job.

The fantasy didn’t last long. I just wasn’t that sort of person. If and when I quit, I’d be honor bound to follow the usual protocol of working a notice period and training a replacement, which meant that even if I quit this very minute, I had another month of working there. By which time, I prayed this thing with O’Reilly would have reached a resolution.

Cade had been working every angle he could: legal and not so legal—it was news to me that John’s joke about an assassin hadn’t been that far-fetched. Apparently, Cade did know people, the steel in his voice when he’d admitted as much revealing that if he thought it possible to bypass all of O’Reilly’s goons and get close enough to take her out, he wouldn’t have ruled it out.

It had left me pondering the moral dilemma of whether I could ever condone such a thing. The conclusion I’d come to was sobering. If it nullified a threat to Calisto, I could. Nothing and no one was more important than keeping him safe. Every single thing I’d done for the past few years, every action I’d taken, had worked toward that aim. Therefore, while I might not be capable of murdering anyone myself, I knew I could turn a blind eye to it if required.

I was slowly growing accustomed to a house burgeoning with life, rather than the quiet emptiness I was used to coming home to. Today was no exception as I pushed the door open. Lights blazed and loud conversations drifted from several rooms. The TV was on in the lounge. From the sound of all the gunshots, an action film was playing, Calisto’s grandparents making the most of the extensive cable TV package I rarely used and had considered cancelling on more than one occasion. They’d virtually taken up residence in there, Esperanza knitting up a storm while her husband devoured everything from quiz shows to documentaries.

Lola came sauntering out of the kitchen, smiling when she saw me in front of the door. “Asher’s home, Mum,” she called back. “You can stop worrying about him.”

Mariana appeared in the doorway, her smile almost identical to her daughters, whereas Calisto had much more of his father in him. “There you are!” she said. “We were just about to send out a search party for you.”

“You were worried about me?” The concept seemed ludicrous when they’d only known me a few days. Although, as the days had passed, and I’d grown more used to having them around, I’d realized that Calisto’s family might be loud, have few boundaries, and be boisterous and argumentative, but that didn’t stop them from having a good heart. And you could add forgiving to the list of their positive attributes, given not one of them bore a grudge for my not so kind words at that first dinner. In fact, if anything, it had broken the ice, most of them seeming more comfortable around me, not less. Almost like I’d proved myself as one of them by not letting them ride roughshod over me.

Calisto’s mother, Mariana, was the friendliest by far. She’d gone out of her way to get to know me, more than Calisto himself had, our relationship somewhat awkward since the kiss we’d shared that neither of us had referred to since.

“I’ve made you muffins,” Mariana said, tugging me into the kitchen by the wrist.

“Oh, I don’t…”

“I know,” she said before I could say more. “But these are healthy muffins. Made especially for you.” She waved me over to the breakfast bar, three plates piled high on its surface. While I dutifully tasted the muffins, she set about making me a cup of herbal tea. “Calisto didn’t like the green bits,” she informed me as she set the mug of steaming liquid down in front of me. “He was the same as a child every time I tried to make him eat vegetables. I had to hide things. You know, chop them up tiny and put them in a sauce, so he didn’t realize they were there. Ninja vegetables, I used to call them. I never told him,” she said with a laugh. “I was just worried he’d get scurvy. Or what’s that other one where children get bendy legs?”

“Rickets,” I supplied, “caused by a lack of vitamin D. Scurvy is a lack of vitamin C. Sailors used to get it on a long voyage.”

Mariana nodded sagely. “Anyway, I became quite the expert in hiding things. Carrot in the meatballs. Broccoli in the pasta. He was none the wiser, bless him. It was a good job because he was such a sensitive child.”

“Yeah?” I’d intended on making a quick getaway, but the opportunity to find out more about Calisto’s childhood was too good to pass up.

Warming to her subject now she knew she had an interested audience, Mariana pulled up a stool and made herself comfortable. “Like you wouldn’t believe. Not in a bad way, but he’s very different from his brothers and sisters. I guess it all made sense when we discovered he was a necromancer.”

A companionable hour passed as Mariana shared stories from Calisto’s childhood―some funny, some sentimental―all of them fascinating. To me, anyway. Occasionally, another member of his family would wander in and share a story of their own, or join in with one of Mariana’s, before returning to whatever they were doing. It got to where I’d seen just about everyone except for the man himself. “Where is Calisto?” I finally asked.

Mariana frowned. “Not sure. I haven’t seen him since this afternoon.” She threw me a knowing look. “Go on. Off you go. Go and find him. I’m sure you’ve missed him.”

I had. I always missed him. I’d missed him before I’d ever met him. I’d grown used to the dull ache in my chest. It had become part of me. A little piece of him I carried around with me, and always would, no matter what the future might hold. I checked the downstairs first, all my enquiries of his whereabouts met with a shrug. What if he’d gone out? What if he’d decided a quick walk couldn’t be that dangerous? What if O’Reilly had snatched him right from under my nose? I hadn’t messaged him all day, vowing not to be a pest, and now I regretted it.

Panic simmered in my gut by the time my search reached the bedroom. The room was in darkness, my mind already cycling through where I could look next. Outside in the garden? Could he have broken into the summerhouse? It was doubtful; he wasn’t the type. He wasn’t Bellamy.

The panic dissipated as I flicked the light on and saw him. He sat cross-legged against the far wall, his eyes closed. “I never had you down as the meditative type,” I said.

Nothing. No response. His chest was barely moving. Was it moving at all? Rushing over there, I dropped to my knees in front of him, other anomalies making themselves known. He was far too pale beneath his natural tan. My fingers shook as I reached out to touch him. Too cold, his skin icy, despite the warmth of the room. “Calisto?” He was breathing, but it was shallow enough to be almost non-existent.

What on earth had happened? An accident? I didn’t think so. There were no signs of injuries as I ran my hands over him. No bruises. No cuts. No abrasions. And this wasn’t a position anyone put themselves in after an accident. “Calisto?” My voice was louder now, and I accompanied it with a small shake. Calisto’s body went with the movement, everything so lax there was no resistance. “Wake up!”

Options zipped through my brain at the speed of light. Call his family in here? Who? His mother? His father? One of his brothers? If I did that, they’d understandably panic. Call an ambulance? Maybe. Or maybe I should wait. I tried another shake, this one garnering no better result than the first one had. “Calisto, I need you to wake up. You’re scaring me.” And wasn’t that a jarring realization? That my unshakeable composure had been well and truly shaken.

While I was still struggling to reach a decision, Calisto twitched. Once. Twice. And then it was like someone breaching the surface of the sea after a long immersion, Calisto letting out a gasping breath as his eyes snapped open. Long seconds followed where he couldn’t seem to focus on my face. And then once he could, his face twisted in confusion. “You’re at work,” he said.

“I was at work,” I said, “hours ago.”

Calisto jerked his head toward the window. The undrawn curtains gave him an unobstructed view of tonight’s full moon and the stars in the night sky. “What time is it?”

“Seven.”

His head drooped. “Shit! Of course it is.”

What was that supposed to mean? “What happened? Are you epileptic? Narcoleptic? Did you have some kind of seizure?”

Calisto attempted to stand, grimacing when his legs refused to cooperate. He held out an arm. “Help me up.”

I did, grabbing hold of his elbow and taking most of his weight. Calisto swayed slightly once he was on his feet, his weakness concerning enough that I kept a tight grip on him, scared that if I let go, he might pitch to one side and end up back on the floor. His teeth were chattering now, like being conscious had only made him colder.

“Why are you so cold when it’s warm in here?” I was growing used to him not answering my questions, concentrating on steering him toward the bed instead. Only after I ensured he could sit upright on the bed’s edge without my help did I leave to retrieve a spare blanket from the wardrobe.

He said nothing as I wrapped it around his shoulders, but gathered it in tighter, huddling into its folds. For want of somewhere better to put myself, I sat next to him, the two of us staring at the far wall. “Do you want me to get your mother?”

“My mother!” Hysteria laced Calisto’s laugh. “Good God, no! How would that help anything?”

“I don’t know. I just thought you might prefer her here rather than me. A doctor, then?”

“I don’t need a doctor, and I certainly don’t need my mother.” I took the irritation peppering his words as a positive sign of him feeling better.

“Well, something happened. I came in here and you were virtually comatose. No matter what I said or did, I couldn’t rouse you.”

Calisto turned his head and scoured my face, whatever he saw making him grimace. The worst of the shivers had subsided now, enough for him to let go of the death grip he had on the blanket and let it hang more loosely. “Can I trust you, Asher? Like really trust you?”

I didn’t even have to think about my answer. “Yes.”

“Like if I told you stuff that I’ve never told anyone, could you wholeheartedly promise to keep it to yourself and not pass it on?”

“Of course I would.”

“Even Cade?”

“Yes.”

“I know you talk to him about me.”

“How do you—?” I worked it out before Calisto provided the answer. “Baxter?” Calisto gave a nod, his expression apologetic. “He listened in on your conversation the other day.”

“Did you tell him to?”

“No.” A long pause. “But I did nothing to stop him, either.”

“And what did he hear?” When Calisto went silent, I couldn’t stop myself from pointing out what should have been obvious. “Honesty needs to work both ways.”

“Right.” More silence, until Calisto let out a huff. “He heard you say that if you couldn’t have me, then you’d opt for a life of celibacy.”

“I said nothing about celibacy.”

“No?” Calisto frowned. He thought for a moment. “I’m probably paraphrasing. Either that, or he was.”

“What I said was, I wouldn’t have a relationship. Not that I’d never have sex again. I’m not a monk.” Calisto shifted on the bed, something about my answer bothering him. His reaction was interesting, and just like the kiss the other day, gave me hope things weren’t as black and white as they seemed. “You realize,” I said, “that it’s extremely disconcerting to discover I can’t have a private conversation in my own house.”

“Yeah… Sorry. If it helps, Baxter hasn’t been around for a few days.”

“No?”

Calisto shook his head. “That’s why…” He paused, as if rethinking what he was about to say, and then sat up straighter, squaring his shoulders. “I wasn’t very kind to him, so he’s been AWOL. Partly to prove a point. Partly because I hurt his feelings. I seem to make a habit of that lately. Him. You.” The word hung there while I neither confirmed nor denied it. “That’s where I was today, tracking him down.”

“Tracking him down?” My words were slow while I tried to make sense of it. “Where does he go?”

“There’s a place,” Calisto said quietly. “A place between worlds. When I bring someone back to life, it’s the place I ask for the temporary return of their soul. I call it the in-between. I don’t know if it has an actual name. Baxter has never corrected me when I call it that, so I’ve always assumed it doesn’t.”

I twisted round to face him. “And this place, necromancers can go there?”

“Not necromancers, no,” Calisto said, his expression tight. “But I can.”

“How?”

“By closing my eyes and willing myself there. That’s where I was this afternoon. Time passes more slowly there, but I lost track of just how long I’d spent searching for Baxter. More hours passed than I expected.”

“So your body was here, but you were there?” Calisto nodded. “And there are people there? Dead people, I mean?”

“If you’re going to ask me how Baxter can go backwards and forwards between worlds, or why I can, then you may as well save your breath. Neither of us knows.”

“You’ve been there before?”

“Only once.” The words carried such weight that it didn’t take a genius to work out there was another story waiting to be told. Tempting as it was to ask, I forced myself to curb the urge and just listen. He’d tell me when he was good and ready. “Baxter is always trying to get me there, but I refuse.”

“Why does he want you there?”

Calisto released a weary breath. “I don’t know… Company. Because I can. Because he gets irritated that I’m so set against it. There are loads of reasons. There’s a girl there that wants to talk to me, apparently.”

“A girl? O’Reilly’s daughter?”

“Maybe.”

“It would make sense, right?” I mused. “If O’Reilly somehow knows that’s where her daughter is, and that you can go there…” There were a lot of gaping holes in my theory, but it was better than not having one at all. “It doesn’t explain what she thinks you can do, though. Unless she’s just looking for communication, for you to be a messenger between the two of them.”

“I don’t think it’s that. I think she believes I can do more.”

“Like what?”

A knock came at the door and I bit back a curse. If I were to make a list of the ten most irritating things in the world, that knock would be up there. Maybe even above John, and lord knows there were days where he occupied positions one to five on that list.

Calisto’s brow furrowed as he lifted his gaze to the door. “Yeah?”

“It’s me,” Mariana called. “Can I come in?”

It was sweet that Calisto looked to me first, waiting for my nod before he gave permission.

The door swung open, Mariana’s concerned face appearing in the gap. “I don’t want to interrupt, but if I hold off on dinner any longer, we’re going to be eating charcoal.”

Calisto smiled, something lurching in my chest. Had he ever smiled at me? What did I need to do to make that happen? Fly to the moon and back? Count every grain of sand on Earth? I might fail, but I’d give it a go. “You’re not interrupting,” Calisto said. “We were just… chatting.”

I saw when Mariana spotted the blanket draped around her son’s shoulders, mild concern changing to alarm. She came charging toward the bed, the door clicking shut in her wake. “Are you ill? Why didn’t you say something?”

Calisto’s attempt to duck and avoid the hand coming his way proved useless, Mama Bear not that easily thwarted from her intention. She pressed a hand to his forehead. “What symptoms do you have? Headache? Sore throat? Chills? Do you ache? Do you have a temperature? I don’t have a thermometer here. I didn’t think to bring one.” She turned to me. “Do you have one?”

Calisto grabbed her wrist before I could respond, which was probably just as well. I doubted the ‘I don’t know’ I’d been about to give her would have satisfied her. I had a first aid kit, but I’d fail any test on what it contained when I hadn’t opened it in years.

“Mum, I’m fine,” Calisto insisted. “I was cold, that’s all. I’ve warmed up now.” He pressed her hand back to his forehead. “See. Normal temperature. No one needs to worry.” I had a feeling ‘no one’ included me, that he’d taken my initial response as something of an overreaction. It was easy for him to think that when he hadn’t seen how cold and still he’d been.

Calisto shrugged the blanket off his shoulders and rose to his feet, his mother scrutinizing him in a way that said she was searching for a lie. “Come on,” he said, putting an arm round her shoulders and steering her toward the door. “Let’s go eat before the masses start a rebellion.”

He paused in the doorway to look back at me, something that looked suspiciously like fondness in his eyes. Whatever it was, it was enough to have the breath catching in my chest. “You too. You don’t get to escape the Dominguez family dinner, even if you just sit and pretend to eat. If I have to endure it, so do you.”

“Endure it,” Mariana said as I got up and followed them. “The cheek of it. You’re not too old for me to put you over my knee, you know.”

“Now, that I’d like to see,” I said, only half joking.

Calisto’s sideways glance said he got the double meaning, but that he wouldn’t be bringing attention to it in front of his mother.