I wanted him close again, to feel him almost against me. My mind whirled into dizzy thoughts involving him and kissing on a white sandy beach with clear waves crashing behind us…
I squinted to rid myself of the silly fantasies going on. I wanted to impress him. I wanted to do well. I concentrated on the target, zeroing in on the center, where his arrow remained, and then released.
To my luck, it actually hit the target in the red ring, which wasn’t too bad. It wasn’t far from the dead center of the target for a first attempt. It could have been much worse.
“Not bad.” He smiled at me. I couldn’t get enough of that smile, and he wanted to keep flashing it at me. I tried to give him the bow, but he simply retorted, “I’ve shot enough arrows for a lifetime.” Something in his voice again betrayed a dozen emotions, and I wondered if he meant something more than his boredom at being the best archer in the state.
Unfortunately, gym class was over much too quickly. After a reluctant goodbye to Archer, I went back inside. I tried to appease Emily’s blatant jealousy, and she acted nicer, but I wondered if it was because I was her ticket to the cool clique. Still, Linda was genuine, so I’d deal with Emily since they were a package deal. Dad would be excited to hear I’d made a couple friends on the first day.
Overall, it ended up being the perfect first day. Well, as perfect as a first day could be. Most of it had to do with a beautiful blond boy who seemed to be as interested in me as I was in him. Best of all, he lived in the same building on the same floor… New York would be much better than I had anticipated. To think I had been dreading the move for over two months, and all it took was one day to set it right. It was like Archer was a gift from God (or the gods as my harebrained father would say).
Chapter 5Archer
I was a goner. I was sucked in by this mortal, powerless against the very feelings I instilled in others. When she showed up to school, I was intrigued, but by the time gym class was over, I was addicted. I needed to keep her close. I didn’t want to part ways. On impulse, I stopped her by the gymnasium doors. Even in her gym clothes, she was perfection itself: neither short nor tall, but up to my shoulder and slender in build yet with an athletic definition. She made me have trouble channeling my thoughts into sentences.
“Callie, could I ask you…that is…what are you doing after school? You see, a few of us are headed to the pool hall. We go every Monday. Do you want to come with us?” I tried to sound noncommittal, test the waters by asking her out in a group. Mother Gaia and all that is godly, I was having trouble forming my words for many reasons, the most prominent one being her rendering me speechless.
“I…uh…I want to, but I can’t.” She stressed the words, giving them a different meaning. There was so much to her, so complex for a human. Damn it. I needed to learn more.
She folded her arms, chilled by the wind. The act accented her chest, and the human part of me rekindled. It had been ages since I’d felt mortal urges. Callie was definitely supple in the right areas, but by far her best attributes were her eyes. They were large, almond shaped, and dark mahogany, with a glimmering, internal shine that had tricked me into believing she was more than human.
“I understand,” I told her, although I really didn’t. I had the impression she was rejecting me, which was a new and different feeling for me.
“No, I have to take care of my dad. Cook him dinner, unpack the house,” she explained. Her tone sounded genuine. She nervously twisted a ringlet in her finger. She had her dark curly hair, not those tight ringlets but loose cascading curls, pulled up off her shoulders, exposing a strong jawline and an elegant, slender neck, which I hadn’t seen until gym class. I felt the urge to kiss that part of her, where her jaw met her neck right under her ear.
“You’re seventeen. You need to have fun,” I insisted.
“On the outside. Inside, I’m extremely old.”
“I know exactly how you feel,” I told her. Somehow, she truly understood me. “Maybe another time. This weekend or something like that.”
“Yeah, that’d be great.” She smiled, parting her full lips to reveal a perfectly aligned white smile. Then, like that, she turned away and slipped inside. A cloud went over the sun, blocking out the light, giving what poets like Lucien claimed was a metaphor for my mood once she was gone.
Even after school, I couldn’t get Callie out of my mind, which wasn’t at all like me. Hoping for a distraction, I met up with Aroha, Lucien, and a few of the mortals who followed Aroha around like a pack of hungry wolves. She kept them all to feed her pride. It was kind of weird, but centuries of seeing my mother date mortals and immortals—pretty much consistently—desensitized me to it. She wasn’t promiscuous or anything, but I’d wager a lot of guys called her a tease.
Mondays, we shot pool. The rest of the week always consisted of different activities. Homework didn’t need to be done since I’d gone through school scores of times. I had accumulated enough knowledge over the years to get through high school, college, and beyond. I’d probably done every job or career possible, so when I repeated them, the information and skills came back easily. Because of how young I looked and how mortals did less at eighteen than prior centuries had done, I was stuck in the crappy high school and college routes.
Lucien appeared relieved to see me. He was beginning to be frustrated with Aroha. It would be only a couple years before he left us again. He was my best friend, but even best friends get on each other’s nerves every hundred years or so. And parents were completely unbearable after a decade or two. I might leave with Lucien when the time came. I longed for an island in the Caribbean: somewhere warm, paradisiacal, and different than the States.
Lucien nodded me toward a pool table, breaking me from my reveries. “What’s the score? 1,142 to 1,140?”
“This century so far,” I countered. “I had you last century. Beat you by over 50 matches.”
“I keep getting better, though,” he answered with a smile.
“Rack ‘em then.” I gave him a wry grin. Our competitions were fun now, but they hadn’t always been.
“You fancy that new girl, don’t you?” Lucien asked.
I hesitated in answering, trying to gauge if I was walking into a conversation with an uncle who would lecture me or if I was simply chatting about a hot girl to my best friend. Lucien was my dad’s half-brother and was probably one of the most gifted of us: he could control the sun, heal mortals, and tell prophecies, and he’d invented music, poetry, and medicine, among other things. And he was rarely modest about his talents.
“As far as I remember, so do you.” I decided to try to push him toward the friend role by teasing him.
“Can’t say I don’t, but it’s not like you to…try so hard.” With all his talents, he had a weakness. He was also the god of truth, so he knew when mortals were lying, but in turn, he couldn’t lie to immortals. He literally had to tell me he fancied her. Normally, I’d laugh at him for admitting something like this, but this strange feeling of resentment starting rising up in me, making me want to punch him and tell him he couldn’t touch Callie.
I subdued the anger and said, “Didn’t realize I was trying.”
“Come on, Archer. You were pathetic. I could practically see the drool dripping from your mouth while you ogled her,” he teased.
“You’re just jealous.”
“I am,” he muttered, his gaze darting away, most likely annoyed at his inability to hide his feelings from me.
“I asked her to come here, but her dad and all.”
“You didn’t!” Lucien stopped playing pool and stared me down in shock. Great, what else would Lucien say to put a damper on my day?
“I did. So what?”
“Be careful. Those binding words could get you in trouble,” he warned.
“I didn’t ask her out out. I asked her to meet up with all of us. Besides, what’s the harm in a little innocuous flirting? I’ve done it a million times before.”
“It’s different—”
he resumed the game “—when you actually mean it. The Fates can tell when you mean it.” Lucien purposely brought up the Moirae to unnerve me. We all feared them—in a way, they were more powerful than any god, more omniscient, and able to create life, mold destiny, and end life. They were the oldest immortals, and their powers were never fully understood. We gods willed things, and they ensured it happened. “Tell me exactly what you said.”
I told him every detail of how I “asked” her out.
Lucien listened patiently. “That’s it?”
I nodded.
“You’re okay for now.” His laugh told me I was doomed later.
I mulled it over for a moment, trying to remember the details of the rules dealing with mortals, the laws for our kind once we went underground when monotheism relieved us of the limelight. I hadn’t really paid attention since I was never in danger of breaking them, at least, not in the last two millennia.
“Refresh my memory. The whole binding thing, how does that happen?” I asked.
“By the beard of Zeus,” he said, huffing in exasperation. He added a dramatic eye roll for effect, making me want to punch him. “Archer, you’re hopeless. You’re already a goner.”
I studied the pool table to avoid his gaze, which would confirm I already was. He was winning this game, distracting me with his mockery.
“Whatever happened to your last slip up?” I shot back to wound him. He’d broken the rules many times over his long life, so he couldn’t chastise me. Hypocrite.
“Mila? She thinks I died. Still pining, though. You think you could make her love someone else for me? I’m beginning to feel bad about it,” Lucien blurted out, annoyed at his loose tongue. It pained him to be so blatantly honest sometimes, but I had to point out his hypocrisy for mocking my ignorance about binding when he was the king of binding and breaking human hearts.
“What will you do for me in return?” I bartered.
“I’ll think of something. Even you get in a scrape every now and then.”
“Liar.” I laughed.
“You will be if you pursue that girl.” Here came the lecture. His gaze darted toward Aroha. Yes, my mother was always a problem when it came to my business. Somehow, I wished he or I had that rare godly gift of foresight. Sure, he had his prophecies, but they were always vague and far into the future, useless.
“Fair enough. I’ll help you if you help me. Binding?”
Lucien sighed and stared me down. “You can’t ask her out, to be yours, to get married, etcetera, etcetera… Stay away from words like ‘I love you.’ The Man always keeps an eye out for that slipup. You can’t make the first move; remember, she must ask you out first, kiss you first, and never, ever tell her who you really are. The Man will strike her down with lightning if you do. Exposure is Zeus’s biggest fear.”
“And once I let her make all the first moves, I’m okay to ask or do what she has initiated right? She kisses me, then I can kiss her whenever I want?”
“Yeah, but if you slip up and make a move first—”
“She’ll love me for the rest of her life, right?” I interrupted to verify the rules of mortal relations that were hazily coming back to me. This is what Lucien had done. When caught up in the moment with his Mila, he’d bound her to loving only him for the rest of her life. However, Aroha or I could remedy it by breaking the bond and poisoning her heart for someone else. Unfortunately, we were ordered to do this often. Gods and goddesses were damn awful when it came to settling down, to put it nicely. Aside from Zeus, Lucien needed our help the most frequently.
“It’s not as nice as it sounds.”
“I dunno. Eighty years with someone like Callie seems extremely bearable,” I thought aloud. Lucien was falling behind in the pool game. His scolding responses to my questions began to distract him.
“Ten years max, Archer. She might just notice you don’t age. It’s better to stay away, and you know it.”
“But I don’t want to. I don’t think I can.”
“Let her make the moves, then. Just watch what you say,” he said, shaking his head. “Bad idea if you ask me.”
“Good thing I didn’t ask,” I mumbled sourly as I potted the eight ball. “1,141. I’m only one down.”
“Rematch?” He raised his eyebrows, smiling.
Aroha and I didn’t get home till well after nine, and Lucien and I were tied yet again. I grabbed my bookbag and headed toward my room. I wasn’t going to do any homework, but I wanted to be alone to think about things away from my mother’s prying gaze, one that could read men like a book.
“You off to bed so early?” Aroha asked as she began to load the dishwasher without bothering to rinse caked-on food off the plates.
“Do it right, Aroha, or get a maid again. Rinse them first.”
“I think I will, and have her cook for us as well. You didn’t answer me. Off to bed?” She was studying me, trying to see what I was up to.
“Off to work, really. The world won’t fall in love by itself.”
“Oh, why bother with those mortals?” she scoffed, rinsing the dishes now.
“We’d be bored without them, no?” I pointed out, not waiting for her answer. She’d be lost without her male worshipers. I, however, cared about them. I had been given a job, and I would do right by them through it.
I went to my room and lay down on the bed in the dark. I closed my eyes, clearing my mind, listening, and surveying the city first. There was a mortal in distress in Queens, Margot Hampton; I hadn’t a clue who she was, but she was crying out in prayers.
“Please, God, I’ll do anything. I love him. Please don’t let him leave us, please,” she cried. I zoomed in over her, figuratively in her room. She was a fairly pretty woman, on her knees, her hands clutched together so tightly that her knuckles were white. Her head was cast down, streaming with tears, her hands resting on the bed. Her stomach was swollen with a child destined to be born very soon. “Please, don’t let him leave us. Make him love us again.”
Poor Margot was going to be forsaken and with a baby on the way. But who was the man? I couldn’t help unless I found out who he was. I edged myself closer to Margot until I broke into her mind, found the information I needed, and left as quickly as I could. As I left, she shivered, and her frightened eyes wildly inspected the room.
There was no way not to have mortals feel my presence when I entered their minds, but usually, they just caught a chill, felt for a moment they weren’t alone, and shook the feeling off. I knew how it felt for them, for it felt the same for me, but it was part of the job. I had retrieved what I needed: the man’s name was Brad Riley.
I found Brad Riley shooting up heroin under an overpass. Now, this wouldn’t do for poor Margot. Even I couldn’t make him love her. Breaking a mortal off his drug was harder than tearing Ares himself from a battlefront. I’d tried once—to cure a mortal of addiction through love—and it killed her. Love can kill, after all.
But who would do for Margot? I scanned the city, trying to remember past cases that I had left unresolved. Then it dawned on me: the young widower doctor who’d lost his wife, how long ago, three or four years? It was a perfect match, not just in circumstances, but also in character, feeling, and temperament. You see, I don’t usually just throw people together, because those loves, like Todd and Mary Beth’s, don’t last. Normally, I make sure everything matches up perfectly. One of my talents is the ability to see how a person’s mind works the moment I enter it.
The widower, Gary Curtis, was finally contemplating moving on but needed that nudge. I’d help him and Margot in the only way I could, by making them love each other.
After I left Gary’s house, I was sure he’d fall in love with poor Margot. I saw then, too, that Margot would love him. All that awaited was their meeting, but that was up to the Fates. They usually work well with me, foreseeing what I’m up to, ensuring my work follows through. Or perhaps I alter what destinies the Moirae make. I’m not quite sure how it works, but somehow it pans out.<
br />
I zoomed out of the city, helping those most desperate cases all over the world. Each case usually takes me only a moment or two to accomplish. I prevented a dozen break-ups, let several dozen people move on, made thousands of adolescents grow crushes. It was enough for a night’s work, and the unseen cases would be visited tomorrow. Then I remembered Lucien’s ex, Mila, who still pined over him, despite believing him to be dead. He had bound her to him, so it would take a little more concentration and two arrows: one arrow to break the bond and one to make her love another.
When I left Mila’s home in Nuremberg, she was sleeping peacefully, thinking of Henrik, a shy but kind young man who had been devotedly attached to her for some time now. I mentally transported back to Manhattan, thinking perhaps I could make one more mortal happy tonight, when I heard a word that unconsciously attracted my attention.
“Callie,” a male voice murmured endearingly. I centered in on the voice coming from the Upper East Side and beelined there. Daniel Eagen, the guy from my school who had been so eager to be introduced to Callie during gym class, was sleeping in his bed, groaning and mumbling her name in his sleep. Dan was dreaming about her. In most cases, I would shoot the object of his affections to make her love him back. Technically, he was a friend—as much as a mortal could be to me—and I should’ve helped him out.
No. Something in me wouldn’t budge. I wouldn’t let him have Callie. He could try without my help, but I would never pierce Callie with an arrow for him. In fact, I wanted to make him love someone else, but who? Angie Berman? Jenny Phife? Aroha? It was wrong, obviously, but Aroha asked me to meddle all the time.
I was torn. Rarely had I ever felt so against allowing people to fall in love. I needed to find out how Callie felt. If she liked him at all, I’d do it. After all, my life had been full of sacrifice. I could give her up now before it would be harder later on. In eighty years or less, she’d be gone from this earth, and she’d fade from my memory as so many other mortals had. At least, I tried to convince myself that. It wasn’t working.
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