Gods and Mortals: Fourteen Free Urban Fantasy & Paranormal Novels Featuring Thor, Loki, Greek Gods, Native American Spirits, Vampires, Werewolves, & More (77 page)

I gave her a weak smile and turned to Aidan. “Any news?” I asked, tugging my cardigan close, hoping for
good
news.

“No, I thought I’d ring Ms. Custer but...she doesn’t need us annoying her with phone calls.”

I stared at Aidan. His eyes were ringed with worry and weariness, but a quiet strength enveloped him, projecting a confidence he didn’t possess. I kept my grief at bay, aware too that he might be thinking too much, being too sensible.

And Ms. Custer would never be annoyed if we rang to check on little Brody.

“I will call her.” His head shot up. “She would expect us to call her. She’s there all alone. She’d need the company a little, I guess.”

I dialed and waited for her to pick up. On the final ring, seconds before it went into message, she answered, her voice raspy.

“Hey, it’s me.”

“Hello, honey.” I pictured the teary smile.

“How is he?” It’d been less than an hour, but felt like an eternity.

“Bryn, you have to listen to me, child.” She paused, to blow her nose and sniff, the sounds coming through loud and clear.

Right, Bryn, don’t go all hysterical on her.

“Okay, tell me what’s wrong with him.” Pressure built in my chest. Aching, frightening pressure.

“He didn’t make it, Bryn.” Her voice shook, filled with tears and grief. The first fingers of hysteria slipped around my lungs. I sank onto the floor, leaning against the coffee table, my legs refusing to take me the two steps to the couch.

Aidan rushed to me, crouching beside me, one hand on my shoulder. Izzy rose to her feet, still clutching her pillow.

“What?” I asked, but my voice failed me and the word ended up a disbelieving whisper.

“He’s gone, baby.” Ms. Custer’s tender voice came down the phone to soothe my pain. I loved her more for her generosity of spirit. And I ached to comfort her too. But anger still enclosed my grief in chains of black iron. I didn’t ask how she was, if she needed anything. “I’m just signing some papers,” she said. “I’ll be home soon.”

The urge to give in to tears was overwhelming. But I didn’t give in, had to be sensible, responsible. I said, “I’ll send Aidan for you.”

“Good. Thank you, child.”

“How did it happen?” There had to be an explanation of how a little boy could die without warning.

“They think it was a heart attack. The doctor said it happens sometimes with undiagnosed heart conditions.” She took a deep breath, which rattled down the line. “They’ll know for sure after they complete their tests.”

L
ong QT Syndrome
, the doctors had said. A fancy name for Brody’s death. A reason why his bright light was extinguished. Their words told me nothing, so I checked the internet. It explained about irregular heartbeats in kids that sometimes go undetected. Until one day the patient just dies.

I shed all my tears alone. Izzy huddled in my arms on the porch swing until Aidan and Ms. Custer returned from the hospital. Aidan gently led the distraught old woman up the steps to the front door. She fumbled with the latch. Her hollow eyes made me tremble, made me feel again the emptiness of the house without Brody.

Izzy followed Ms. Custer through the door, grabbing on to her hand. Aidan and I stayed outside on the porch swing, which would never hold the two squabbling boys again. Ms. Custer retreated to the dining room, making calls, preparing for the funeral on Saturday, trying to figure out what would happen next.

“He didn’t just die, you know,” I said to Aidan, now that Simon couldn’t overhear. “I knew he was going to die. I could have told someone.”

The swing creaked, laughing at my cowardice.

“And just what were you planning on saying to them? He had no known health issues, Bryn.” He faced me, his features masked by gathering grey darkness. He tucked a lock of hair behind my ear, touched my cheek before pulling me closer. “How were you going to convince the doctors?
By the way, Doctor. Brody’s going to die. I just don’t know how or when or why, but please check him out?
”

Aidan rubbed my arm and turned to stare out into the darkness beyond the porch. Silence owned the next few moments and I mulled over the stark truth of his words. Then he shook his head, speaking so softly it was almost as if he were talking to himself. “No, they would have thought you were insane. Probably committed you. You’re a ward of the state, you know. One wrong move and you are dust.”

I bristled, despite knowing he was right. My history with psychiatrists would have colored the doctors’ judgment. I could never have warned them about Brody or Aimee or anyone, not without risking the best home I’d ever had.

T
he days
all blended into one indistinguishable week. The day of the funeral arrived and the house was swathed in silence. Poor Izzy couldn’t even crack a smile. And yet the sun shone on the fall afternoon, as if blessing us with a burst of golden light to say farewell to our little brother.

I was sick of golden light.

Brody had an open casket, revealing his cute little smiling lips and corkscrew curls. Many well-wishers managed a sad smile when they bid the little boy farewell.

And Brody still shone.

The little boy still radiated lustrous gold so bright it speared my eyes, drawing hot tears. I steeled myself, lowered my head until I regained control. Nobody would know the depth of my anger, the intensity of my guilt. My grief had grown into a solid, black lump in my chest. Fed by anger, and hate. Hatred for myself, anger at myself. Even Aidan’s words didn’t assuage my guilt.

That night, the dreams made it all worse. For the few hours of sleep I managed to get, every unconscious second was violated by dreams. Dreams of wings flapping, thrusting against my face, lifting my hair. Of muzzles twitching, dark eyes shining, reflecting the white moon. Those eyes bored into me. Knowing eyes. Intelligent, human eyes.

T
he week
after the funeral crawled by. A week in which every minute was weighed down with my tears and my anger. The dreams worsened and I rarely slept. The house still lay silent most of the time, as if no one dared to have any fun—as if TV, games and laughter would lessen our loss.

I dried the dishes while Aidan stacked them away. Ms. Custer chatted with Simon and Izzy in the living room.

“It’s my fault,” I said softly.

“It’s not.”

“I should have done something!” I flung the cloth at the counter and sank into the nearest chair.

Aidan sighed. “Look, Bryn, maybe it doesn’t work that way. Maybe sometimes premonitions happen for reasons other than the obvious.” He shook his head, eyes narrowed, impaling me with the fiercest stare. “You have to snap out of it.”

I got to my feet again and grabbed another dish. He’d never be able to understand what I was going through. Not until he could see the glow and live with the knowledge himself. And that would never happen.

“Stop beating yourself up,” he continued. “You see the glow, then the person dies. Each time it’s different. You never know when they’ll die. So you can’t do anything to save them, Bryn.” Aidan sighed, his eyes filled with regret and grief. He took a step toward me, hesitated for a moment, then turned abruptly on his heel and left the kitchen.

His parting words chilled me like a plunge into arctic waters:
You see the glow, then they die
. I turned and stared, horrified, after Aidan.

He knew it was me.

T
he hours ticked
by slower than a sleepwalking snail and I’d wasted enough time moping around, wondering what Aidan was thinking. Time to find out. I padded down to his room, straining to keep the floorboards from creaking beneath my feet. The clunk of a cabinet drawer downstairs echoed up the stairs. Ms. Custer was still awake. Guess she had her own bad dreams to evade.

We hadn’t received our scolding from our foster mom after all. She wasn’t faring too well. She’d never lost a child before. And though Social Services understood and hadn’t questioned the quality of her care, she still blamed herself. As if she’d personally caused Brody’s death. As if she thought she could have prevented it. Guess we were in pretty much the same boat.

My knuckles tapped the door. Not too loud, as we could still get in trouble. The door whispered open against the pressure of my knock. “Aidan?” I whispered. My voice echoed in the empty darkness. I flicked the switch, my heart racing, dread weighing on my bones. Before the bare bulb exposed the room, intuition had already filled me in.

All traces of Aidan were wiped clean. No rumpled bedding spilled across his bed. No computers, electronics or books overflowed the table. His dresser lay bare and his closet hung open to reveal abandoned racks and shelves.

When did he pack? When did he get all his stuff out? And why in the hell would he leave like a stranger, without saying goodbye? As if we’d shared nothing between us. Not the tumultuous heat of those kisses or the shared grief or even my strange and horrible secret. How could he leave me now?

The amber stone seared my throat as if sharing the simmering pain in my gut.

Staggering toward the open window I slumped against the sill, struggling to breathe. Voices filtered to me from the porch below: Aidan and Ms. Custer. “Thank you, and good luck,” my foster mom was saying, a sad and oddly hollow timbre to her voice.

I didn’t waste a second, just tore out of the room and down the stairs, landing on the last step as the door closed with a soft click.

I didn’t think.

Didn’t stop.

I just hurtled past Ms. Custer to the door and flung it open. “Bryn, honey. What—” Her voice rose. I ignored her and hurried after Aidan, praying I wasn’t too late. On a different level of consciousness, I recognized I was going all crazy, over-obsessed girlfriend on him as he drove out of my life. At this point, I didn’t care.

“Aidan!” I called out as I hopped down the porch stairs and skidded to a stop in front of him. “What’s going on? Where are you going?”

He reached for his helmet, a weary sadness shadowing his eyes. “I have to leave. My boss wants me back ASAP. Emergency.”

“What about school?”

Lame reason Bryn. There are other schools outside of Craven.

He shrugged, as if school was the least important thing in the world. But the sadness lingered in his eyes. He couldn’t hide it.

I ached with too many facets of grief. I felt so profoundly tired. Of losing the people I cared for. Of being alone. Of caring.

Don’t you care about me?

The question teetered at the tip of my tongue. Either pride or self-preservation stole my question away. I gritted my teeth, refused to appear a love-stricken teenager begging Aidan to stay.

He swung his leg over the Ducati seat and tugged me close. I didn’t want the hug. False comfort when he prepared to desert me. His embrace was a twisted fusion of lies and dreams. But I shared the hug, took every little bit of him I could.

“I’m sorry, Bryn.” Above me, warm breath ruffled my hair but the night mocked me. “I have to go.”

Then he mounted the bike, tugged the helmet on and tightened the strap. He revved the engine, the sound dragging forth memories of that cool evening when he first rode into my life.

In seconds, he turned onto the street and disappeared into the darkness.

Straight out of my life.

I
stood in the dark
, not bothering to hug myself against the cold, not registering the twitch of drapes across the road. Not caring that Ms. Custer might come out and scold. The cold night transformed my breath into a ghostly apparition, spreading fading fingers to grasp the softest breeze. My amber talisman burned the skin at my neck as I watched him go.

So many questions he’d left unanswered. What was wrong with me? Why did I see the golden haze? Questions only he knew how to answer. He knew. And he’d left. It wasn’t like Aidan at all.

Then it hit me like a bolt out of the deep black sky. How well did I really know Aidan? He’d barely been with us long enough to call him part of the family, but he’d found little nooks and crannies to immerse himself in. Ms. Custer, her kids and just about the entire population of Craven adored him.

But my knowledge of his past was nonexistent. We’d spent a lot of time together and yet I had no idea where he came from, or what his family had been like. He’d never spoken of his last foster family, never discussed himself at all.

The frigid fingers groping at my heart had nothing to do with the winter cold.

Who was Aidan Lee?

I
tiptoed
into the house and held my breath as I shut the door. Then winced when Ms. Custer called out. Entering the living room, I pulled a rug from a small pile near the door and sank onto the couch. Another of her favorite old black-and-white movies flickered on the small screen.

“What did he say?” I asked, staring at Marilyn as her dress floated on a cheeky gust of air.

Her voice crackled and she cleared her throat before she spoke. “That he had to leave. That he was being transferred to another foster home and the circumstances were unusual. It wasn’t my place to ask, honey.” She nodded in silence, taking Aidan’s words as gospel.

“He didn’t say why?” I asked.

Marilyn pouted.

Ms. Custer shook her head.

“Or where?”

“Bryn, honey, I think he meant to leave and not be found. So whatever plan you’re hatching in that pretty little head of yours...forget it.” Her eyes were sad as she took my chin in her hands and drew me into her soft embrace. “Your heart will heal, child. First love is always the hardest.”

But her smile failed to soothe me. She knew mere words would not help me. I was desperate for her to call Social Services, the police, anyone who could help us to find him. But in that dark place where I knew I couldn’t help the poor people who glowed, in that same dark corner of my soul lived the truth.

Aidan did not mean to be found.

We watched Miss Monroe entrance her beau, in a sad and comfortable silence, until the credits rolled and my discreet tears dried.

T
he last of
the credits and the onset of Ms. Custer’s soft snores gave me a reason to slip upstairs. The stairs creaked in the eerie, middle-of-the-night way they always do when the house settles and warmth creeps out of the wood. I passed my room and stood in Aidan’s doorway. He’d left, despite knowing how much I needed him, and that nobody else could help me. I dared not risk my secret with anyone.

I was completely alone.

I blinked as my eyes stung. I just wanted to go back to my room and close the door on Aidan and his chapter in my life. But as I turned to leave, the light from the bare window caught and reflected on an object beneath the bed. I froze, ears straining for Ms. Custer’s footsteps.

Releasing my breath, I tiptoed into the room. I crouched, reaching splayed fingers between the wall and the bed, and retrieved a thick, leather-bound book. It shifted in my hand, fragile and ready to fall apart if I so much as breathed on it.

Holding it with infinite care I traced the edge of the cover, lifting it slowly, unable to curb my curiosity. The floorboard on the second stair creaked and I snuck back into my room in a flash. Ms. Custer had enough to worry about. I’d only be adding to her worries if she thought I wasn’t handling Aidan’s departure well, if she found me moping in his empty room.

I eased the door closed with seconds to spare. Ms. Custer paused outside, her shadow slipping in across the floorboards. Then she sighed softly and plodded to her room. Tears singed my eyes and I rested my forehead on the door, among the multitude of hanging scarves. How long I’d waited to have a mother care for me that way. Little things like these, when people cared enough to share your pain—these were moments to treasure. In our grief for Brody, in our communal, familial pain, we helped each other heal. But my ache for Aidan was my own pain, borne alone, and it would remain alone.

I sank onto the bed and flicked the lamp on. The book and its intricately carved leather binding weaved its spell around me. I opened it, allowing the book to fall open naturally to a well-used page. To the painting of the Valkyrie called Brunhilde. This time more notes filled the margins, and one particular newly printed phrase jumped out, boldly written and circled again in red ink.

Brunhilde — Bright Warrior = Bryn.