Chandra swallowed. He was insane. Aster was insane. She was shut in an apartment with a crazy man. Demigods? Death? What in the hell? She’d expected it to all go south, but this was an extreme version of that. He couldn’t be serious. Nobody could say this out loud and be serious about it. He’d read too many fantasy books or something. Maybe she should be flattered that he thought she was part-goddess, but death? Not so flattering.
Aster shrugged. “Surprise.”
She stared. Then, her nose wrinkled. “Is this some bizarre joke?” At least her hand dropped from the doorknob.
This had all gone south really fast. Damn his loud conscience. “No. Come sit down and I’ll explain.” He walked toward his couch, but wasn’t surprised when she didn’t follow. It was a significant bomb to drop on anyone. “Okay, I’m sitting and you can just listen. Though I think you’ll want to sit down.”
His beautiful Lady Death strode over and dropped into the chair farthest from him. Fair enough.
“You probably know from a literature class at some point in your life that there are various myths about ancient gods.”
“Are we talking Zeus?”
Aster shrugged. “He’s one of the more famous examples, but all cultures have some concept of deity with overlap between them. They’ve been assigned names throughout the years but that’s humans trying to create stories with explanations. The reality is this: there are anomalies in bloodlines that grant certain powers to individuals. It ebbs and flows somewhat through generations. Whether it’s tied to certain genes or whether it actually originated with actual gods, I don’t know. There may have been nothing beyond the abilities circulating; but, because they were superhuman, all-powerful gods came into being in mythology to explain their origin. Either way, there are qualities tied to a certain degree of immortality and have associated powers. We’re referred to as demigods.” He frowned. “Well, that implies a lot more control than we actually have, but it’s the title that those who inherit these powers or influences go by.”
“And you know this how?”
“My family is rich with them and the knowledge has been passed down. We have two strains that run in my bloodline. I’m either blessed with or cursed with, depending on the day, some influence over fertility.”
She went back to staring. “You believe you’re the god of fertility?”
“Demigod.”
“Well, that’s clearly more reasonable. Go on.”
If only someone in his family had been able to give him legitimate advice on how to broach this. His cousin was still searching for his match, though. “My cousin has the ability to… well, cause pain. He lives in Las Vegas.” Corbin had been searching for a healing demigoddess for a long time. His pain was so intense that he couldn’t always talk. “My grandmother had my ability. One of my uncles had my cousin’s power. Both of them died in their thirties because they… burned up.”
“Burned out?”
“No, burned up. Our abilities cause a quickening in our bodies. We produce heat—too much heat if we don’t counter it. Eventually, unchecked, we become one of those spontaneous human combustion urban legends.”
“You’re saying that I’m going to burst into flames?”
This was where it might not go so well, and it already wasn’t going great. “No. Your power doesn’t cause a quickening. It slows things down. It’s why you were so tired—why every plant and animal around you dies. It’s why your building was considered sick while you were working there. It’s how I found you.”
“How you found me?”
“I’ve been searching for someone to balance out my power for a while. My skin stings from the strength of this quickening. I’ve been watching for reports of clusters and sick buildings. I was hoping I’d find someone who matches me before I burned to death. When your building came up on my search results, I researched everybody on your floor because you were affecting everyone above and beneath you. After the last time they cleaned the building, all but a few of the employees returned and suddenly the building was no longer sick. Eventually, I narrowed my search down to you.”
She stood up and backed away with her hands out. “That’s crazy.” Dragging a hand through her hair, she started pacing. “These things don’t exist. You’re talking about… did you say death? I’m over death?”
“Yes. Death. Decay. You subdue life. Have relatives died mysteriously in their twenties or thirties of unknown causes? They went to sleep and never woke up?”
“Yes, but everyone has relatives like those.”
“Just like everyone has relatives who catch on fire.”
Chandra folded her arms. “Nobody has that. That’s ridiculous. You’re making it up.”
“How have you felt since I moved in?”
“Fine. See! I’ve felt fine! I’m not going to sleep and not waking up.”
Aster wiped a hand down his face. There was no easy way to shift someone’s worldview. “You’ve felt better because I’m living next door to you. If I moved out, you’d go back to feeling terrible, and you’d take the poor idiot who replaced me in this apartment with you.”
Her mouth hung open. “Are you saying I’d kill them?”
“Not on purpose, but yes, if they were around you long enough, you’d kill them. Luckily, your previous neighbor moved to Arizona before that happened.”
“This is insane. You’re insane.”
“Possibly, but I’m not wrong.” Closing his eyes, Aster tipped his head onto the back of the couch. It wasn’t a complete surprise when the door opened and slammed shut a moment later. Chandra needed some time to process this. Once she had some time to… The door opened and she stormed back in.
“Why is it getting worse?” she asked, quietly. “Why am I getting worse? I’m not saying I am what you say I am, but why are people around me getting worse? I can’t even go into an ER waiting room without nearly killing people. Why is it getting worse?”
“You know how Icarus flew too close to the sun? You’re hitting the zenith of your powers because they’ve built unmatched for so many years. You and me, we’re getting too close to the sun. The wax that’s our mortal body melts and we fall.”
She stalked over and dropped down beside him. “What does this matched business mean? Not that I believe any of this, but…”
Reaching out, he grabbed her hand. Almost immediately the pelting cacophony beneath his skin eased and he was blanketed in the soothing satin of her powers. “It feels like silk falling across me. I can breathe again.”
“My heart feels stronger,” she whispered. “And I’m alive.” She twined their fingers together. “I still don’t believe you.”
“That’s fine. It sounds ridiculous. I wouldn’t believe me either.”
She smiled. “Supposing all you’ve said is true, what happens to people like us?”
“Well, if we stay together most of the time, then we balance out—you’d do nothing worse than relax those around you by slowing down their hearts. I’d increase the fertility of those around me, without leading to so many cases of triplets that the medical review board becomes concerned.”
“And die in our seventies?”
He cleared his throat. “Actually, among my relatives, the ones who’ve found their matches, they’ve stuck around for a while. It’s been quite a long time since anyone found their match, though. The internet expedited the process of hunting for you considerably. Most don’t find their matches. It would have been much more difficult to find you without the internet.”
“What do you mean they’ve stuck around?”
“I met my great-great-great-great grandparents. They’d had to move around a lot more since they both looked to be in their late forties and had for over a century. They didn’t want to start another vampire scare. That killed a few demigods in Europe a few centuries back. They died in a plane crash a decade ago. They’re part of the reason why we know about the balance thing. They’ve met other demigods and demigoddesses and just passed on knowledge
.”
Chandra’s solemn eyes took all this in and then she snuggled up to Aster’s side and rested her head on his shoulder. “I’m a demigod,” she said in a faux deep voice. She snorted. “I bet that line doesn’t work very often.”
“I don’t know. I’ve never tried it.”
“You just tried it on me.”
“And you didn’t fall for it.” Aster curled his arm around her shoulders, hoping it wouldn’t be too much and chase her off.
“Damn straight, I didn’t.”
Chapter Three
“Do you think that someday I can have a pet?” Chandra asked when the door finally opened.
Aster blinked, rubbed his eyes, and yawned. “Good morning. It is morning, isn’t it?”
She walked by him into his apartment. “Because if I could have a dog, I’d like that. What do you think?”
He stood there, staring blankly at her. Aster’s eyes drifted to the clock behind her, and he squinted at it. “Are you normally up at five in the morning?”
“No. But I’ve been awake for an hour now, and I couldn’t stop thinking.” It was all she could do to hold off this long before coming to see him. It was imperative that she be around him. Chandra had even cleaned out her entire fridge while waiting for the earliest acceptable minute to come see Aster.
A smile stretched across Aster’s mouth. “You’re juiced on my energy.”
She pursed her lips. “Is that what it is? Is this what caffeine does to people? It’s never done anything for me, so I’ve always wondered.” She’d left Aster’s place with a chaste kiss on his cheek at around ten o’clock last night and gone right to sleep, but here she was, at one minute after five a.m. with more energy than she’d ever had in her life. From the moment her eyes had opened, she’d wanted to see him, needed to see him. He was an addiction—and she hadn’t quite decided if he was a healthy or harmful craving.
Aster yawned again. “You’re lucky you’re so cute that I’ll let you get away with this. This was like the first good night’s sleep I’ve gotten in forever. Normally I wake up every half an hour, at least. Eventually, this’ll balance out,” he gestured back and forth between them, “and I’ll sleep better and you’ll be more awake during the day… when it’s actually day.” He ran a hand through his hair, leaving it sticking up straight. “I actually wore pajamas too. Normally I’m too hot to wear anything.”
“Oh.” Was it wrong that she was sort of sad he was wearing a t-shirt and plaid flannel pants? They were green. Of course they were green. “Normally, I pile on like eight blankets. Last night, it was just one.”
“Good.” He nodded in deep drops of his head while yawning again.
She yawned too—just from seeing him yawn. Chandra felt like she could scale the side of the building if asked.
“You want breakfast?” His voice was a slow, deep rumble. The buzzing in her bloodstream trebled. Mmm. Good or not, she wanted him. “Or we could go out.”
He clearly wasn’t feeling the same compulsions she was, which was somewhat disappointing, but the least he could do was answer her question. “Do you think I could have a pet? Like a dog?”
“With us living side by side or in the same place?” he asked, leaning back against his countertop.
“Uhh.” Her mind, which had been going a mile a minute, slid to a screeching halt. “Why would we be living in the same place?” Was he saying they were serious? Or was he saying they should be roommates? He hadn’t tried anything after they’d had that “talk” last night. In fact, it was almost as if he’d achieved his goal as long as they were near each other, balancing these “powers” he claimed they had.
“Theoretically.”
“Would your answer be different?”
“Yes. I’m not sure if us living side by side and seeing each other occasionally would be enough to dampen your abilities around something you’re in frequent contact with.”
“It’s done pretty well the last couple weeks, not that I’m one hundred percent on board with the whole demigod idea.”
“Yes, but, eventually, I’ll go back to work. Things were getting difficult for me there—both physically and, as I said, too many triplets. Also, I wanted to confirm you were my match so I took time off. When I go back to work, if we’re only interacting as much as friendly neighbors do, and you’re just absorbing my energy through the walls, I wouldn’t trust it. But, it’s your dog.”
“So, it’ll be good enough for you to go back to work, but I’ll still be killing things?” That didn’t seem fair, and what would be his incentive for being around her if he could just absorb enough energy through the walls to go back to work?
Aster shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m guessing. There aren’t really enough of us running around to form adequate theories of x plus y equals no dead pets.” Stretching one arm and then the next, he shuddered and shook off more of his lethargy. “I’m thinking of having oatmeal if you don’t want to go out to someplace.”
Slumping down on one of his stools, Chandra sighed. “I kind of got shafted as far as powers go.” She’d driven her previous neighbor to move to Arizona. She made people sick. All her pets that had died—very literally her fault.
“Only because you’re a good person. You’d be a great secret weapon if you were a ninja. Honestly, fertility powers aren’t only about growing plants and so on. The last few years I’ve been asked to skip my family reunions. They’re tired of triplets too.” It didn’t seem equal, but Aster hadn’t cursed her with this genetic hand-me-down so she couldn’t exactly blame him.
“If what you say is true, why is it just you and your cousin that have it?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s like a recessive gene. Though there aren’t a ton of direct descendants in my family line. My grandfather remarried after my grandmother, uhh, flamed out and many of my relatives come from that marriage. The two abilities came through the line because, at one time, somebody with each ability married each other, thinking they’d cancel each other out. My cousin and I can dampen each other’s abilities, but it’s not entirely effective and it seemed to be losing its strength. Plus, his abilities are getting… well, he needs to find his match soon. He can’t be around other people for any significant amount of time.”
“That’s awful. What does he do for a job?”
Aster fought a smile. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“You set the bar pretty high last night for outrageous revelations.”
“He’s a vigilante—some legitimate as a bounty hunter and some more… spontaneous.” Then, as if it was the most natural follow-up in the entire world, Aster asked, “Oatmeal?”
“Sure.” She propped her elbows up on the counter. “Why would we be living together? Beyond a theoretical standpoint?” It was hard to peg down what he felt for her. He kept referring to Chandra as “his match,” but when villains and heroes faced-off, they’d “met their match” too. Match didn’t inspire too many warm fuzzies.
“Because we’d be great together.” Once again, not the stuff of her young girl dreams.
She was spreading death and her only hope was a seemingly platonic match with a fertility demigod who’d burst into flames if she reneged. Tracing figure eights on his countertops, Chandra pondered when she’d started to believe him because that less than giddy feeling in her heart said that she did. She was a demigoddess having oatmeal with a demigod of fertility. Her life was surreal.
“So, she’s not falling all over herself to be with you?” Corbin asked, amused.
“I’m giving her space. I dumped something huge on her, and she’s trying to reconcile it,” Aster said.
“I still haven’t seen a picture,” his cousin said. In the background, there was the opening and closing of a car door. “I know you won’t let me near her in person, but you could at least snap a picture on the sly. Clothing optional.”
“Clothing hasn’t been optional thus far.” If only. “I’ll send you a picture once things are more… settle
d.”
“Huh. Not to alarm you, but I wouldn’t wait that long.”
Aster swallowed. “That bad?”
“I’m expecting to be beyond a ‘stop, drop, and roll’ any day now.”
“Maybe we could try again. See if it was enough.” Losing his cousin would be devastating. “I could fly down there. Stay with you for a few months. Help you search.”
“You’d be in pain while we postponed for maybe a month, tops. Besides, you’re really gonna bring your girl down here; let her be in pain while we piss around? Nah, it is what it is, and I’m ready to be done with this. Finding my match was always less likely. You had something concrete to look for. She’d have had a hell of a time finding you. It’s easier to find the more negative traits from what I’ve seen. Vegas seemed like a good guess and it didn’t pan out. I gambled and lost, you could say. I did run across a war demigod last week, though. I told him I’d email you contact info.”
“He was looking for a love demigod in Vegas?”
“You know what they say: looking for love in all the wrong places. Actually, I think he was just here to pick fights, like me. He was doing the prizefight circuit—only the underground MMA. Huge dude—he freaking looks like a war demigod. He’s missing an eye—lost it in special ops. It left him with a chip on his shoulder. I wouldn’t get cute with him.”
“Ah, Corbin, some of us can’t help that.”
“I’d try. Get me a picture of your girl. I’d like to see her before I go roman candle.”
“Don’t get around anything flammable in the meantime.”
“Sure thing. Well, I gotta go see a guy about this outstanding warrant for his arrest. He’s a bit of a sexual deviant so hopefully he doesn’t get off on the pain he’s about to experience while I take him in. That’s always awkward. Maybe I’ll throw him in the trunk instead.”
“Aw, you have all the fun.”
Magic Spark Page 3
