by Nicole Thorn
“How far can you sense like that?” Micha asked, skeptical already. “A few miles? I could have told you that there weren’t any spirits within a few miles.”
Verin’s smirk started to irritate me. “A wee bit more than a few miles, actually.”
Micha rolled his eyes. “How long is that?”
“The entire state of Washington is clear,” Verin responded. “And I would say most of Oregon is clear as well.”
I quirked an eyebrow. “There aren’t any ghosts in the entire state?”
“I didn’t say that,” Verin responded. “Just no ghosts that have the taint of the underworld on them. It’s hard to explain, but there’s specific feel to a ghost from the underworld versus one that’s stuck around for a lot longer than they should have. I would know the difference.”
“How?” I asked.
“I’m the son of Hades. I would know the difference.”
I grunted in response, but didn’t say anything else, closing my hands and extinguishing the light that I had been producing. Everything immediately became chillier and Callie shivered.
I took her hand and dragged her into the house behind me. The other two followed, but I didn’t pay them much mind until we all stood in her kitchen, dripping rain water on the floor. Verin made a face, shaking his head. “Juniper would be so upset about this.”
Callie smiled at him. “It’s okay, though, because she’s not here. Just dry yourself off before you get home.”
“What does this mean?” Micha asked.
“That my girlfriend tends to panic over messes, both small and large. I, being the perfect boyfriend, would never create such a mess of course.”
“Of course,” Callie said.
“I will have to dry myself off before going home so that she has no reason to be upset with me. Then, I can toss her on the bed and the two of us can—”
“I mean the ghosts!” Micha shouted, throwing his hands up.
“Oh,” Verin said. “Well, I’d assume that either your ghosts have taken off and you’ll never find them again, or they never left the underworld in the first place. I’d hope for the latter, because my dad could find them then. The underworld is a huge place, but my father is a thorough man.”
“It’s been weeks, and he hasn’t found them yet,” Callie said.
Verin tweaked her nose. I resisted the urge to return the favor enough that bones broke. “Don’t you worry about that. My father is more than capable of taking care of this. He wouldn’t be a king and a god otherwise. He’s not like other gods, who shall remain nameless, that solve everything by screwing something and then getting his wife to kill them.”
“Hera doesn’t do that anymore,” Callie said. “She’s calmed down a great deal in the last few hundred years, or so.”
“Still.”
Callie sighed, her shoulders slumping. “Hera is nice enough, now.”
“Eh,” Verin said.
“If you want me to, I can punch him,” I offered Callie, turning to look at her.
She patted my shoulder. “That’s okay. I don’t want two demigods duking it out in my kitchen. Mom and Dad just replaced this tile a year ago, and it would be a shame if it went to waste.”
Verin clapped his hands together hard enough that we all jumped. “Well, I’ll be off then. Be sure to give me a ring if you need anything else.” As he vanished, I looked at Callie again with a raised eyebrow.
The front door closed, and she said, “He’s really nice.”
“He seems arrogant,” Micha said.
“Okay, Pot, maybe don’t talk about Kettle like that,” Callie said, glowering.
“I am not arrogant,” Micha said. “I’m cocky. There’s a difference.”
“What difference?”
“Shut up,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest.
“We know that the souls are probably in the underworld still,” I said, shrugging. “Which is something that we suspected before, but Verin basically confirmed it. Where does that leave us? We can’t go back to the underworld, but the people who are behind this still want us dead.”
“They won’t be able to touch you,” Micha said, his confidence coloring every word. I wondered what that felt like.
Callie shrugged. “I’m not sure there is anything that we can do except wait for them to attack us again. We can capture the next person, and maybe they’ll be able to tell the gods what’s happening and why.”
“Or, we’ll all die horribly and meet up again in the underworld as ghosts,” I suggested. “Not that I’d end up in the same part as you guys. I’m a boring guy who had a boring life.” I’d probably get put in the meadows with all those other pathetic souls, to waste away for eternity without ever getting a reprieve.
“That’s the spirit,” Micha said, slamming his hand into my shoulder. “Now, I think that I’ve earned a nap.” He went toward the stairs without another word, leaving Callie and me standing in puddles of rain water in her kitchen.
She looked down at the floor with a grimace. We put a towel down and then headed upstairs together. I grabbed some fresh clothes from my room, but had to change in the bathroom since Micha had already flopped down on the bed, snoring so loudly that it sounded like a bull had gotten into the house.
After changing, I went to find Callie. I knocked on her bedroom door first. “Come in,” she called.
I opened the door, then stood there, gawking like an idiot. She hadn’t gotten fully dressed before calling me in, which meant that she stood in the middle of her room, wearing nothing but a bra and shorts. It shouldn’t have short circuited my brain the way that it had, but I couldn’t only stare at her for a solid ten seconds. Then it occurred to me that her door was open, and anyone could walk by and see us standing there.
I closed the door behind me, then turned to find Callie grinning from ear to ear. She put her hands on her hips, cocking one out in the most attractive way imaginable. “See something you like?”
“Did the drool running down my chin not give that away?” I asked, then stared more. “I mean, yes. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said it the other way. You caught me off guard, and the words just kind of came out.”
Callie shut me up by kissing me. It was the most effective way, since it did stop all words from coming out of my mouth while also stopping them from entering my brain. My hands went to her sides immediately, feeling that soft skin. She put her hands on my shoulders, pulling me down even harder.
She opened her mouth, and I slid my tongue in. She groaned, swaying against me. I felt her tugging on my hands, and for a second I thought she wanted me to let her go. I released her immediately, but then Callie grabbed my hand and started to pull me toward the bed. “We should make out while lying down. That’s the best way to do it.”
“Okay,” I said.
“Do you not agree?”
“To be honest, I’m fine with making out in whatever way that you want,” I said. “That sounded really pathetic didn’t it?”
She grinned at me. “I think it sounded sweet.”
She’d be the only one who thought that, I knew. Then I ended up on the bed, with Callie crawling on top of me, and I stopped thinking altogether. Her small hands moved up my shoulders, while she wiggled around on my lap, and those velvety lips landed on mine. It felt like someone had filled my veins with a drug made of Callie.
My shirt ended up on the floor. I had a brief thought that it seemed weird, since I had just gotten that shirt on. Callie laid herself down so that we could have as much skin on skin contact as possible. It felt like drowning, and I had never been more willing to swallow water in my life.
“Callie!”
The two of us sprang apart like someone had electrocuted us. Callie ended up falling over the end of the bed and hitting the floor with a solid thump. I jumped off the bed to check on her, but her father’s apoplectic fit stopped me in my tracks. “What—How—After everything—This boy—You promised—What?”
“What’s going on?�
� Callie’s mother asked while her daughter scrambled into a shirt. I grabbed mine off the floor and yanked it on as fast as I could, but not before she walked into the room.
“I blame you for this, Lucy!” Callie’s dad shouted.
Mrs. Harold came into the room, looking between me and Callie. “What do you blame me for?”
“Your daughter was making out with this!” her father shouted, pointing an accusing finger at me. I tried to look innocent, but that became difficult when Callie got between me and her father.
“First of all, he’s a person,” Callie said. “His name is Aster. Second of all, I’m only making out with him because I love him.”
Mr. Harold made a sound that I’d previously only heard cats in pain make. He closed his eyes, lifting his hands to cover his face.
“You were kissing Aster?” Mrs. Harold asked, sounding so disappointed and sad that I felt like crawling into a dark hole and dying. I understood how people wouldn’t want their children to be with someone like me, but having to hear it out loud felt like a stab to the chest. I hadn’t thought I was good enough for Callie before and she would one day realize that. It seemed like that day would be today.
Callie put her hands on her hips, lifting her chin. “Yes, I was. Do you have a problem with that?”
Her mother narrowed her eyes. “Downstairs, now,” she said. “You too, Larry. Aster . . . ” She faltered there, as if she didn’t know if she could dare giving me an order. “I think you should probably pack your bags. I’ll come up in a little while to talk with you.”
Another stab wound.
“Mom!” Callie said, but her mother had started walking out the door. Mr. Harold glared at his daughter, then at me, then at his wife. He followed her mother out the door, but he clearly thought she hadn’t taken this situation seriously enough.
Callie took two steps after them, paused, and then turned back to me. She kissed me soundly on the mouth. “I’ll get this taken care of shortly. You just wait here. Don’t you dare pack a single thing.”
I ended up slouching onto her bed when she left. I wouldn’t pack until I had no choice, but mostly because I didn’t want to deal with Micha. He would wake up if I started packing, and then he would tell me everything that I had done wrong and how to fix it. His advice would be so Micha that I wouldn’t be able to take it.
So, I sat on her bed and wished myself into another deep, dark hole.
An unknown amount of time passed before anyone came to get me, and it wasn’t one of the people I expected.
“So, what did you do?” my father asked, after pushing the door open. He leaned against the doorframe with an amused smile on his face. I wanted to punch it right off, but didn’t think that would get me anything but pain. When I didn’t immediately answer, Apollo sauntered into the room, looking cocky as all hell.
“What are you doing here?”
“What, a father can’t check up on his son?”
“Historically?”
Apollo waved his hand, dismissing my words. He sat down on the bed, lying back as if he owned it. I wanted him off of Callie’s bed immediately, and with a fierceness that surprised me. “What are you doing?”
“You going to answer my question?”
I sighed. “I got caught kissing Callie.”
“Did you?” he asked, sitting up, frowning some more.
“Yeah.”
“Artemis will be so pleased,” he mumbled.
“What? Why would Artemis care if I made out with someone?” I asked, looking down at my father.
“Oh, she has this rivalry going with Aphrodite. You see, Aphrodite killed a bird, and things kind of escalated from there. Basically, my dear sister wanted to prove that getting two people to fall in love isn’t all that hard. She pressured me into moving you guys to Seattle, and then she took my Oracle and my son, and decided to play matchmaker.” He glared at the wall as he said this last bit. “I’m still not happy with her for that. Using my things for her own games.”
“Well, nice to know I’m a thing to you,” I said, then regretted it instantly when he turned that glare my way. “Sorry.”
“Damn straight you’re sorry.”
I sighed, looking away from him. “They’re going to make me go home now,” I said. “I don’t know what they’re talking about downstairs, but it has to be about sending me away forever.”
“I’ve tried to get you to leave that woman a thousand times, and you never sounded even remotely interested, but the second these people want to send you home, you act like a wounded puppy?” Apollo asked, partially offended and partially baffled. “I’ve always had your best interests at heart.”
“It’s different,” I said.
“How?”
“You always wanted to send me away, to some place where I’d feel even less loved and like I belonged even less than I do now.”
“So? What’s the difference?”
“I don’t feel that way with Callie,” I said slowly, staring at my father so that he understood. “It feels right with her.”
Apollo’s face smoothed out. I worried that I’d offended him and would get punished for doing so. He could probably smear me all over the sticky note covered wall without trying. Callie would be horrified when she found me, but really, no one else would care all that much.
Then Apollo sighed, looking up at the ceiling. “Great. She was right, and now I’ve got to fix her own fuck up.”
“What?” I asked.
“Don’t worry about it,” my dad said, getting to his feet. He stretched, though I felt certain gods didn’t need to do that kind of thing. “Well, tell Callie that I said hi, and I’ll talk to you two later. If you’ll excuse me, I have to go scream at my sister for a few minutes.”
“But why?”
I didn’t get an answer before Apollo vanished in thin air. I blinked, still sitting on the bed. I didn’t know what I’d done, yet I felt certain that it hadn’t been good. Bad things happened when gods got involved in your lives. I could only imagine worse things would happen if Aphrodite and Artemis had a bet going based around Callie and myself.
I pushed all of that aside and tried to listen in on what Callie’s parents had been saying. They’d taken her downstairs, to the back of the house, as far from me as they could get. My hearing was good, but not that good.
I could pick up their muffled voices, but nothing else.
Just accept your fate. Go pack a bag, and hope that Mom doesn’t try to kill me when I get home.
It had been a nice couple of weeks, though. Callie’s parents never really got used to having me around and they’d only said a handful of words to me the entire time, but it had still been a nice few weeks. They’d treated me like I mattered in some way. I would miss that when I went home. I’d miss mattering.
But that didn’t mean I would give up Callie. I didn’t care what her parents said, I’d still do everything I could to see her.
CHAPTER TWENTY:
Breaking Open
Callie
I STOOD THERE like a champ, listening to both of my parents freak out at each other as we huddled in the office. They went back and forth with I told you sos and some general outrage. I hadn’t been expecting this sort of attitude, but it didn’t worry me too greatly.
“What the hell were you thinking?” Dad asked Mom. “You let those boys stay here, and then this happens.”
Mom rolled her eyes. “Yes, completely blame me for teenage hormones and a door that closes.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have been so okay with it in the first place. We didn’t need anyone here to watch over Callie, but look what happened because of it.”
I felt like it was time for me to step in with accurate information, so I cleared my throat. “Okay, first off, it wasn’t hormones, and it demeans me as a person for you to suggest that the only thing that made me want Aster were chemicals I have no control over. I like him. And why do you believe that if I just wanted to get off, I would do that in the house when
I knew you were worried about it? I find it insulting that you would think I had so little respect for you.”
Dad blanched. “Oh, well I sound like an asshole when you say it like that.”
“Little bit,” I said.
He sighed, rubbing his eyes. “Fine then, so you like the demigod. That’s not all that much better. He’s always going to be tangled up in god stuff, putting you in danger and never letting you get out of it.”
Mom cleared her throat. “Honey, she’s the Oracle. She could date a mailperson and still be stuck dealing with god stuff. That’s not the problem.”
“Right,” Dad said. “The problem is that you aren’t allowed to date, Callie.”
“That isn’t the problem either,” Mom huffed. “She’s seventeen, and she’s allowed to date. She isn’t allowed to date boys that live in our house.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“It’s not good for you to get so attached,” Dad said.
My eyes narrowed. “Too late, because I love both Aster and Micha.”
He clutched his chest, hunching over. “God, no. Not like this. I was a good man.”
I groaned. “Jesus. Not like that, Dad. They’re my friends and I love and care about them.”
“You barely know them,” Mom said gently.
Since when did that sort of thing matter? A person could love someone else after as little as one conversation. Love was a connection of the heart, and I felt like I’d had that with both of my new friends. I had it with my demigods and seers as well, even with how little time we actually spent together.
“I know enough,” I said confidently. “Getting attached isn’t a bad thing, and I’m not going to go about my life trying not to love people. I haven’t had any good friends in a long time, so I thought you would be happy for me.”
“They could die,” Mom said. “What happens if you and Aster get serious and then he dies? What would that do to you? You’re very sensitive, sweetheart.”
I resented the words, but I knew they had merit. “Anyone would be upset if their person died. Is that a reason to never be with anyone? People die. I could die. Dad could die. Apollo could die. Sort of. I don’t want to waste my life worrying about that kind of thing.”
