Page 32

Calisto

It didn’t take long for any optimism to drain away to leave me facing an unmistakable truth. Baxter could always find people. He’d never once failed, so there was only one explanation for the fact that we’d searched high and low, stumbling across more people than could be counted on our collective fingers, but drawn a complete blank with O’Reilly’s daughter. Janessa might be dead, but she wasn’t here, which took her way beyond the scope of anything I could do.

My heart raced as that inexorable fact took root, the sweat trickling from several places making me itch. At my side, Baxter was unusually silent, the lack of his teasing broadcasting the severity of the situation like nothing else could.

“This is hopeless,” I finally said, coming to an abrupt halt.

Baxter slowed, but kept walking. “We can keep looking.”

“What’s the point?” I couldn’t suppress my bitterness, and it tainted my words. “She’s not here. She’s never been here. O’Reilly assumed her daughter wanted to come back, that she hung around. Probably because that’s what she wanted, and she’s used to everyone being at her beck and call. Even her son murdered for her. But Janessa did what most people do, she just died.”

Baxter turned slowly to face me, and I silently pleaded with him to tell me I was wrong, that I was giving up too easily. My hopes died as the seconds ticked by without him doing that, a hand wrapping icy fingers around my gut and squeezing until it felt like I might be sick. “So what happens now?” he asked.

I laughed. “Great question. That is the question.” I paced, hoping it might help me think more clearly, that it might corral the swirling mass of half-baked thoughts in my head that traveled down cul-de-sac after cul-de-sac. “Let’s run some scenarios, shall we?” I took a deep breath in. “I go back. I tell O’Reilly her daughter is dead… deader than dead… that there’s no bringing her back. How is she going to react?”

“She’ll go apeshit.”

“Right. She’ll kill me because I haven’t been able to do what she wanted, which means I’m of no use to her. And then she’ll kill Ben and Asher. Therefore, that’s not a viable option.” I ran a hand through my hair, ignoring the slight tremble in my fingers. “I could stall for time, claim that it’s going to take me longer to do, that it’s not as straightforward as she believed it would be.”

“You could,” Baxter said tentatively. “How do you see that going?”

“I see it ending exactly the same way, only with a long period of incarceration thrown in. As soon as she works out, I’m feeding her bullshit, she’ll kill me, and the only difference is that she’ll be that much more pissed and will take her time over it.”

“So not viable,” Baxter agreed. “What’s the third option?”

I shook my head, sweat dripping from my hair now to make my eyes sting. “I don’t think there is one. Death now, or death later. What a choice!”

Baxter nodded, his expression grim. “At least death later means there’s always a chance. Maybe you can escape. Maybe the police will storm the building and get you out.”

“And maybe none of that will happen, and we’ll be left to rot.”

“Cade wouldn’t do that, would he?”

“Cade might have contacts in high places, but he chooses to operate from a place of legality, so his options are limited.” I thought hard. “I wish I could see what was going on in that room. It might help. But if I go back…”

Baxter came to stand in front of me. “Maybe you can.”

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Do you remember that conversation with Griffin? The one where he told you Professor something or other’s take on necromancers with specific skills.”

I frowned. “I didn’t think you were there for that?”

“I was. I’m often there when you don’t think I am. What was the professor’s name?”

“Rafferty Hart,” I provided, proving that if nothing else, I had an excellent memory for names.

“Yeah… Him. He said you straddle both worlds. I remember because I thought it was a strange choice of words, that being able to go forwards and backwards wasn’t the same thing. Not really. If you straddle something, you have a foot on both sides. If he’s right, then…”

I finished the sentence for him, my mind racing. “I can exist in both places simultaneously. Here and there.”

Baxter nodded. “It might be absolute bullshit.”

“Maybe. But I don’t see I have anything to lose. How, though?”

“Go back, but not fully.”

I laughed at Baxter’s suggestion. “You make it sound so easy. Can you do that?”

“No. But I’m not you. I’m just a stubborn man who’s been dead for decades and who refuses to accept that fact. One who has a vested interest in you staying alive. Because if you don’t…”

He’d be alone . I didn’t make him say it. There was nothing to be gained from having him spell it out. I dropped to the ground, the grass that wasn’t grass feeling soft beneath my backside. “If I mess this up…”

“So, don’t.”

“If I mess this up,” I repeated as I closed my eyes, “I want you to know that no matter how much we might bicker, and how much you drive me crazy sometimes, that you’ve been an important part of my life and a true friend.”

“If you’re trying to tell me you love me, just say it.” I opened my eyes a crack to find Baxter grinning at me. “Go on.”

“Shut up.” Closing my eyes again, I breathed deeply and pushed part of me back into the real world. Baxter’s laughter chased me there, growing fainter, but not disappearing altogether.

When I opened my eyes, I was back in the room in the tower block with Asher still in front of me, his stance military with his hands clasped behind his back. Ben was on the floor, his breathing ragged. O’Reilly was over by the window, the wisps of hair that had escaped from her ponytail speaking of a growing agitation. I cursed myself for having gotten it wrong as I stood, expecting all eyes to turn my way and O’Reilly to start barking questions at me.

When it didn’t happen, I turned back to find my physical body still cross-legged on the floor. If I concentrated hard enough, I could make out Baxter, the experience of being in two—or was it three?—places at once a disconcerting one. I really was straddling both worlds, whichever one I concentrated on coming through stronger while the other blurred.

“Did it work?” Baxter asked, his voice sounding like it came from the end of a long tunnel.

“Yeah, it did.”

And then he was next to me, staring at my body on the floor before lifting his gaze to mine. “You can see me?” I asked.

“Yeah, but you’re…”

“I’m what?”

“Transparent. Like a ghost.”

I took an experimental step. It did almost feel like floating.

“I’m going back,” Baxter said. “You have Asher to look after you here. I’ll do the same for you there.”

Did he need to? I didn’t know, the whole thing becoming so complex that thinking too hard about the logistics of it threatened to give me a headache. It was best just to accept this was the way things were and get on with it.

Someone was talking. O’Reilly. I tuned in as I took another step.

“The longer this takes, the worse things are looking for you, Mr. Baines. Do you think there’s any way we can get Mr. Dominguez to hurry?”

“Did you have something in mind?”

I’d passed Asher now, my instinct to approach O’Reilly. When he spoke, I turned back, a certainty erupting in my chest at the sight of him, the knowledge like taking a sledgehammer to the chest.

He was my fated mate.

It was there as clear as day, a streak of blue stretching from me to him. Like lightning, but not lightning. Just as vivid, though. I reached out to touch it, smiling when it made my fingertips tingle. In this physical state, whatever this state was, there was no disputing it.

I could see it. Feel it. Taste it.

Asher shifted slightly as my fingers grazed the impossible thread of energy that connected us. Could he feel it? I gave it a gentle stroke, the slight confusion that leached into his expression saying he could. Why had I been so damn oblivious? It made no sense. The only explanation I could come up with was denial about what I was, and what I could do, somehow leaching into other areas of my life to render me blind to what should have been obvious.

Excitement bubbled in my chest and I wanted to rush back into my body to tell Asher, to shout from the rooftops that he’d been right all along and that I was sorry for rejecting him.

The future was suddenly alive with possibilities. Marriage. Children, if Asher wanted them. Holidays. Given his fair skin, he probably burned easily, so we’d have to compromise on the usual sunny destinations I preferred, my all-year-round Mediterranean complexion rendering me all but immune to the sun’s rays.

I’d be happy to rub sun cream all over him. What else would there be? No more dating. No more inquisitions from my family about finding the one. A new living situation. He’d already invited me to move in with him, so I didn’t have to wonder about that. I just had to say yes. There’d need to be a lot of compromises given how different we were, but we’d work it out.

I forced myself to calm. Now wasn’t the time to wallow in thoughts of the future. If I didn’t find a way to deal with this situation, there wouldn’t be an apology from me, an admittance to being wrong, or a future.

O’Reilly’s next words only backed that up. “Perhaps if I started carving pieces off you, it would provide some incentive for Mr. Dominguez to get on with it. One finger for every extra minute I’m forced to wait.”

“Perhaps,” Asher said so coolly, a listener-in would have assumed a far more benign topic under discussion. “But I doubt it.” He gestured to where I sat without turning. “Does he look like he’s aware of what‘s going on here?”

O’Reilly and I both turned to look at my body, my chest barely moving and my skin pale. No wonder Asher had feared the worst when he’d found me like this and been unable to rouse me. If I didn’t know better, I’d be worried myself.

“Is it a family thing,” Asher asked smoothly, and I suspected to wrest the attention away from me, “this desire to cut people’s fingers off? That was Flynn’s signature move, wasn’t it? How is Flynn? Is he keeping well in prison?”

O’Reilly’s reaction was instantaneous, the librarian persona giving way to cold fury. So much for Asher advising me not to antagonize her. She jerked her head to one of her men, and he crossed the room to shove a gun under Asher’s chin. Despite his head being forcibly lifted, there were no signs of stress on Asher’s face, that infamous iron control of his that John hated so much coming into its own. “I apologize,” he said. “I didn’t realize it was such a touchy subject. We should pass the time by talking about something else.”

In contrast to his cool, my insides seethed, my skin burned, and my heart beat a cacophony in my chest. I wanted to stalk over there and rip O’Reilly’s head off her shoulders with my bare hands. And if I had any physical presence, I might have attempted it.

“Or maybe I should just shoot you,” O’Reilly continued. “This whole guardian act is becoming tiresome. Give me one good reason I shouldn’t. If nothing else, it will provide some entertainment.”

“If you shoot him,” Ben said, his voice dry and cracked. “Calisto will never do what you want. Don’t think he can’t reverse it. You should try to keep him happy, not piss him off.”

I’d seen enough, letting go of the hold I had on this world and hurtling back to where Baxter waited patiently.

He took one look at my face and grimaced. “What happened?”

“She dies,” I said, my voice tight with rage. “That’s the third option.”