Quiver

by Lisa Borne Graves

  Out on the street, Archer was seated on a bench that lay against the restaurant’s front window. Chase and Aroha were arguing with one another over him.

  “He needs to stop this,” Aroha insisted.

  “But he’s happy. I can’t ask him to give up what makes him so happy,” Chase pleaded Archer’s case.

  Archer noticed me. “Lucien, what do you think?” He was as pale as Callie, and his hands shook, all his feelings ready to burst from him at any moment. His eyes shone with suppressed fury.

  “Well,” I shuffled my feet awkwardly. “You have to think what is best for her, Archer. And that is a mortal life with a mortal guy. If you really loved her, you would let her go.”

  “Not you too.” He glowered at me, let down. He hadn’t been asking advice at all, but testing our friendship, and I had failed him. “I thought you were my friend!” He stabbed the knife deeper into me and twisted it.

  It was true, and it hurt, but something in me snapped. “How can you be so selfish?” Someone had to say it. His parents spoiled and coddled him, so it was up to me to point out the truth. “You know letting her go is the right thing to do!”

  “I can’t!” He stood up, shouting in my face. I had never seen him so angry, so enraged; his eyes lit up with an eerie energy, and his muscles tightened. I could see Chase in him, war-hungry and love-crazed.

  “You are unbelievable,” I groaned. “You’re willing to give up your friends, your family, thousands of years of strong relationships for this girl? Do you realize how ridiculous you are being?”

  He grabbed my jaw in his hand, gripping tight, and growled in my face. “I’d do anything for her.” Then he shoved me away with more force than I’d known he could muster. I’d bet he was stronger than me at the moment, and I was his elder. “I’d trade my existence to keep her alive,” he murmured, sitting back down. Trying to calm himself, he put his head in his hands, and I took a step closer.

  Chase put up his hand on my shoulder to stop me and shook his head. Archer was losing it. I couldn’t fathom his behavior, yet I could see how much he felt for Callie, how deeply in love he was. If I had met her first that day, could this have been me? But the answer was no: Archer was placing over three thousand years of love on this mortal—too much—and it was utter madness to give oneself completely away to something as unstable and fluctuating as love.

  “Archer,” I tried again in a soothing voice.

  He looked up at me, his eyes defensive.

  “She won’t live forever.”

  Archer swallowed hard, the fact being too hard to digest, and nodded that he understood. Then he peered up at me, his eyes eager. “She could if—”

  “Archer!” Aroha cut in, cautiously watching the mortals who walked by.

  “No Archer, it would kill her,” I told him. He couldn’t know the truth. It should be impossible for me to lie among all three of them, but I was doing it.

  “Not if…” He looked to me, suspicion in his features. “Why did you go to France?”

  “To see if…” I began with the truth but stopped myself, switching to a lie. “Archer, she’s human through and through. The beauty is just a mistake made by nature.” The lies came out so easily.

  I wasn’t being vindictive in my actions, although Archer would see it that way. I was trying to save Archer from himself, from Zeus coming down hard on him, from Zeus killing Callie and destroying Archer’s life. I was trying to save Callie from the overbearing love he had for her, a love too strong for a mortal to bear for long. Archer did not need to learn that he loved Callie only because she was one of the last fragments of Psyche in the world.

  “You’re lying?” Archer seemed confused and hurt.

  “How is he lying?” Aroha shot back as if Archer were being ridiculous.

  Chase just stared at me, scrutinizing my every move. “Enough of all this for now. Let’s go back inside and not ruin Lucien’s girl’s birthday.”

  We went back inside, Archer as quiet as a mouse. We all sat down, except Archer, who didn’t return to his chair but went straight to Callie. She met his gaze, nodded, and then got up and entwined her fingers with his.

  “We’re going now,” Callie announced. “Happy birthday, Linda.”

  I wasn’t the only one to notice the seemingly telepathic exchange between Archer and Callie. It took only a simple glance, and Callie figured out what he needed, that he wanted to leave. She was very perceptive as Archer claimed, but their connection was uncanny. Chase, Aroha, and I all exchanged looks of bewilderment.

  I had a small hope in my chest that he would do the right thing and break up with her tonight, but it was most likely futile. The connection, the way he gripped her hand as they left, made me realize his words outside weren’t for dramatic effect. He would end his existence for her if it came down to it. What Archer didn’t think of was how Callie might do the same. That little detail might sway him to break it off—he had to want her to live.

  The rest of the evening was a bit morose after the pair left. Dan and Chase battled over spending time with Aroha. Emily broke down crying—hopefully, from guilt—and stayed in the bathroom. Linda went in after her, taking a half hour to get her back out. In all, Linda’s birthday was a disaster.

  Back at my place, I apologized to her for it. She was more interested in what occurred outside than the apology.

  “Just an argument.” I tried to be evasive, but that brought on more interest.

  “It was about Callie, wasn’t it?” she prompted.

  I kissed her to try to get her to drop the subject.

  “Why does everyone give them so much trouble?” she asked.

  “We weren’t,” I lied, holding her in my arms. “It’s just Aroha. She doesn’t like her.”

  “I like Callie,” Linda told me. “I didn’t at first. We were all jealous, but I’m over it.”

  “That’s because you are kind—” I kissed her lips, “—generous—” her cheek, “—and forgiving—” her neck. She was finally distracted enough to let the subject go. She was so warm, soft, and fragile… Ignoring my immortal problems in the arms of a beautiful girl was always the answer, right? Nothing could possibly happen that couldn’t be solved by the morning.

  Chapter 19Callie

  It was late and dark. Archer gripped my hand as we walked, looking every now and then for a cab. He walked quickly, and I had to almost run, stumbling in my heels to keep up. He was silent, his jaw still set in anger at his sister and our friends (ha, if that’s who they really were). I had been noticing things, observing too much, logging each out-of-place detail in my mind. But I couldn’t confront Archer about any of it. He wished me to remain eternally in the dark about his rich grandfather, his elusive mother, his controlling sister, and his strange cousins and half-brothers.

  There were other factors: no family photos around the house, no personal items from childhood like drawings or a tattered teddy bear, no school photos or souvenirs from vacations—no personal details of his past and nothing of his parents. I doubted the third bedroom in their apartment was used for anyone but guests. It was eerie (wrong).

  But the eyes were the thing that bothered me the most, how they glowed inhumanly, just like Chase’s. They moved the same, spoke the same—although Chase’s voice was deeper and rougher—and had the same mannerisms and posture, from picking at their food when nervous to walking with their heads down and hands in pockets. They came from the same mold, like brothers who looked nothing alike except for the intense glow of their eyes when feeling a strong emotion and the way they moved (impossible, I know, but there it was all the same).

  The dreams I had, especially the one where the Grim Reaper was coming for me and my most recent nightmare, where we were attacked by a man with a scar, were uncanny. And the old yearbook photograph—it was all adding up to something that made no sense to me. I couldn’t figure it out, but something was completely off. Emily was right, and I desperately didn’t want her to be. The secrets Archer was keeping
from me had grown into an uncrossable chasm between us.

  Archer didn’t speak or slow down.

  “Say something,” I commanded.

  “Something,” he muttered, avoiding my gaze.

  “Archer, you just fought with all our friends and your sister, over me,” I complained. “It’s not right.”

  “They are not right. None of them. We belong together,” he said with conviction. His eyes were bright.

  “Don’t fight with your sister because of me,” I pleaded. When he didn’t respond, I asked, “Can we slow down?”

  Then, I felt a terrible pull on my other arm, and I was falling. This time, it wasn’t my heels; it was a man, his hands on my purse, the strap pulling me off balance as he tried to steal it. He tugged again, and I saw the ground coming up to meet my face. At the last second, two strong hands caught me and pulled me upright. The purse was gone, and the man was running down an alley with it.

  “My purse!” I cried out.

  Archer was down the alley before I could blink, going after the man. He was out of sight quickly, impossibly quick. I ran after them, my heels slowing me down. When I entered the alley, Archer had pinned the man on the ground and pried the purse from him. The mugger struggled to get away but couldn’t break free from Archer’s hands. The man was bigger than Archer, thicker and stronger, but he couldn’t move under Archer’s pressure. Archer turned to me and tossed me my purse. I caught it and put the strap over my head and across my chest to make it harder to steal.

  “Sad excuse for a human being!” Archer snarled at the man.

  The man scrambled around, frightened. I saw shining silver in the dim light, and then the man lunged. Archer fell to the ground, a maroon stain spreading across the abdomen of his white shirt. Archer stared down in shock, touched his stomach, and then looked at his hand. It was crimson. Blood. My knees went weak. Archer might die over my stupid purse! We needed help, but I was frozen, unable to move due to shock.

  The man dropped the pocketknife and ran farther down the alley. Archer was up and chasing him, alarmingly fast for even an unwounded track star, and tackled the guy. Archer grabbed him, letting out streams of curse words mixed with ones that did not sound like English, and then pinned him up against the wall.

  “I should kill you right now!” Archer shouted.

  “Wha…what are you?” the mugger whimpered.

  “The Devil,” Archer growled, putting his hand on the guy’s face.

  The guy screamed as if Archer was inflicting some kind of horrific pain upon him (what the…).

  “Archer,” I cried out, scared for him, for the thief, for the things I was witnessing that didn’t make any sense.

  Archer looked to me, his eyes perceptibly glowing with fury, making their own light in the darkened alley. His angelic face was distorted in a frightening grimace of rage that sent chills down my spine. He took his hand away. There was something odd on the man’s face, like a handprint had been burned into his flesh.

  “Lucky for you, we’re not alone,” Archer snarled, his features more inhuman and more terrifying than I had ever seen them. All my fears, my worries were well grounded. He could not be human. He was not human. He had said he was the Devil (I could not believe that).

  Archer let him go, and the man ran off.

  “Archer, we have to get you to the hospital,” I cried, running to meet him.

  “No, it’s just a small scratch,” he insisted, wiping his bloodstained hand on his shirt (liar). I tried to touch him, but he pushed me away with one hand and covered the wound with the other. He was trying to hide the wound by pulling his jacket closed to block my view.

  “It’s not. There’s too much blood,” I insisted, trying to grab his jacket to lift it away and see how bad the wound was.

  “No, Callie. Stop!” he shouted, pushing me away with great strength.

  My face must have sunk or taken on an angry grimace, because he then amended, “Please, I’m fine. Just please, give me a sec.” He turned away, took off his jacket, stripped off his shirt, tossed it on the ground, slipped his jacket back on, and then zipped it up.

  “Just give me a second. I don’t want to hurt you,” he said quickly and nervously.

  Hurt me? What did he mean? My mind whirled with the impossibility of everything I had seen. Was his temper so out of control that he could hurt me?

  Archer breathed a deep sigh, his eyes wide, scared (of me?). I crossed my arms to show him he should be.

  “Okay,” he said, coming closer, taking my arm out of my angry stance and leading me toward the street. “Are you okay?”

  “Physically, yes,” I said, scrutinizing the shirt he left to see if there was as much blood as I thought. I saw no blood, but there were charred holes in his shirt, with smoke rising from them. The man’s face was burned; the shirt was burned. He didn’t want me hurt. Archer’s blood burned; it ate away at things like an acid. Inhuman eyes, poisonous blood, running too fast, too strong, perhaps healing too quickly, and never aging…

  Dad’s research and harebrained ideas came to me like a slap in the face: all the mythology he believed was factual history, the ancestor who believed he was a goddess’s son. “Ichor,” I thought aloud, remembering in mythology how the mineral in the gods’ blood poisoned mortals and burned their flesh. But dad’s ideas were crazy, ridiculous, weren’t they? Archer, a Greek god?

  “What did you just say?” Archer stopped, staring at me as his face drained of color (crap).

  I would not back down though. It was time for answers. “Show me your stomach.”

  “No.” His jaw set firmly. “What did you just say?”

  “Nothing.” I set my jaw in anger. “Take me home.”

  “Callie.” His voice broke, his anger turning to desperation. “Please?” he begged.

  “It matters now. I want the truth.”

  “Callie,” he said softly, his eyes pleading. They were welling up with tears. “I don’t want to give you up.” He wrapped his arms around me.

  I felt my willpower begin to go mushy. How and why did he destroy any strength I had?

  Before my determination crumbled, I pulled up his jacket to see his perfectly sculpted stomach uninterrupted by any wound or cut. He had completely healed, and the dried blood on his skin was the only evidence of the wound.

  Archer grabbed my hand roughly, looking at me with stern eyes, and he silently shook his head back and forth once. I let go of his jacket. His expression terrified me. His eyes weren’t just angry, sad, desperate, and in pain, but they said goodbye (I wouldn’t let him).

  I grabbed him by the collar of his jacket and pulled him closer to me. “Then don’t give me up,” I whispered.

  “Don’t worry. I can’t.”

  “Your eyes don’t lie.” My own eyes moistened with tears.

  “They’ll have to tear me away,” he whispered before he kissed me.

  I gulped. “Will they try?”

  Archer nodded solemnly. I wasn’t sure if he was speaking of our friends or of something beyond them that I was unaware of. I was too afraid to ask. Without another word, he took my hand in his and hailed a cab. The cab ride was silent, and my mind churned trying to make sense of everything. Archer gripped my hand tightly but did not look at me for the entire ride. When we got out of the cab and entered the building, a foreboding feeling crept over me. I wouldn’t see him again.

  “This isn’t goodbye, is it?” I pleaded. “Forget it. I don’t need to know.” (I was pathetic, desperate.) I was afraid he’d slip out of my life overnight. I couldn’t imagine life without him. We had arrived at my apartment door.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow.” He kissed me and touched my cheek, still in his morose mood. Then he tore himself away and began to walk down the hall. He stopped, not turning, and said, “I would tell you anything and everything if I could.” Then he walked on.

  I walked into the apartment, trying to suppress the tears. However, if I were considered uncannily perceptive, my dad was psy
chic; there was no lying to him.

  “Callie. Is everything okay?”

  “It annoys me when people ask that question, Dad. I mean, when you ask it, you know something is utterly wrong, and it just makes the person break down in hysterics.” And that was exactly what I did.

  Dad got up with great effort and gently seated me on the sofa next to him. The medicine wasn’t improving him any longer; he was becoming tolerant to it. The doctors gave him two or three months if he were lucky. I shouldn’t have been crying about my oddly superhuman boyfriend. I should’ve worried about my dad more. That guilt made me cry even more.

  “What is it, Callie? Did you fight with Archer? Your friends?” The questions brought more tears.

  “I was mugged,” I cried, trying to catch my breath. “And Archer went after him…” The entire story came out then. The burning blood, disappearing wound, his strange eyes, the ridiculous rules—everything came out in a torrent of tears.

  He wiped my tears with a tissue and said soothing words about how fear and shock might have heightened my imagination, because such things were impossible, but his thoughts were very different, and somehow, I knew that. His thoughts were speaking to me aloud. He was recalling all his harebrained theories about supernatural people, mythology being real, and of Mount Olympus.

  I pulled away from him, staring. “Dad, not you too. Don’t lie to me. You know something. You’ve been trying to hint to me all along. Translating, helping you with your book.”

  Dad sighed, stood up, and crossed to the wall, studying the blown-up picture of him and me with the Oros Olimbos mountain range behind us. He put his hands on his hips and sighed.

  “Don’t measure what you should and shouldn’t tell me. I’m too involved now. I love him, Dad, and he isn’t…human,” I said the last word so quietly.

  “I had my suspicions Callie, but I was not one hundred percent sure. From Litochoro, the glowing eyes, knowledge of Greek. Callie, I believe he is a Greek god.” My dad turned to see my reaction. “That was my harebrained theory.”