Shafted (12 page)

“On it Dude.”

He pulled up another chair and sat beside
her. “Callie, honey come on now, you’re starting to scare me here
and you know I don’t do scare well. It causes wrinkles.”

His attempt at humor fell flat and Callie
separated the ring from the rest of the pocket jetsam and held it
out. “With everything so busy over the last two days, I’d totally
forgotten taking off Grandee’s ring.”

Christian’s brow wrinkled. “Okay, that’s good
isn’t it? I mean, you didn’t loose it or anything. There it is all
safe and sound right?”

The blood vacated her limbs leaving her cold
and the ambient sounds in the room vanished. “Until this moment I
thought I’d dreamt taking it off,” she gulped, “but if that were
true, it wouldn’t have been off my finger in the first place, so it
couldn’t be in this pocket.”

Christian looked more confused than ever.
“And...I know there’s an ‘and’ in here somewhere.”

“And if I didn’t dream that, I didn’t dream
the rest either.”

The wonderful night she spent making love
with Teran was real.

Chapter 18

“Umm Mother?” At the sound of his voice
Psyche lifted her head. Eros stood rocking back and forth on the
balls of his feet in front of the big screen with his hands clasped
behind his back. “I’m just guessing here, but I’m thinking
‘Houston, we have a problem’ fits the current sitch.”

Aphrodite glanced up from pulling on the new
lavender suede boots Psyche had cajoled her into trying on as a
peace offering. “What do you mean? What’s wrong?”

Eros waved his hand at the screen and turned
toward his mother. “Teros’s little mortal. She just broke through
Morph’s mojo. She knows their ‘encounter’ wasn’t a dream.”

“Hera’s beard!” Aphrodite was on her feet and
spun toward Psyche who winced at the fury in her mother-in-law’s
eyes. “Do you see now why you should never have put those ideas in
Anteros’s head?”

“Umm, don’t you mean Zeus’s beard, Hera
doesn’t have one.” Psyche wanted to snatch the words back the
second they left her lips.

Thunder descended over Aphrodite’s face and
Psyche’s wince turned to a cringe. “As far as I’m concerned she
does. And you should know by now, Daughter, I always say exactly
what I mean.” She flung her arm out and pointed one perfect finger
like the barrel of a gun. “Just like when I said, if Eros didn’t
need and love you like he does, I’d have tied your butt to the back
of Apollo’s chariot and let him drag you through the sun a few
times for giving Anteros that vial.”

Eros stepped between them cupping his
mother’s shoulders in his hands. “Mom, what’s done is done. Psyche
knows she messed up. So let’s leave it at that, please.” Leaning
down he planted a quick peck on her forehead. “Besides shouldn’t we
be coming up with plan Delta to fix that?” his head tilted toward
the screen, now showing Callie throwing something across the
room.

Her eyes narrowed as she looked around his
arm at the scene. “Oh I have a plan all right, but in order to put
it in play, I need to bedazzle a certain pig headed boat herder.”
Reaching up she patted Eros cheek. “In the mean time you stay here
and sit on her if you have to.” Aphrodite turned a pointed glare on
Psyche, who had been very much hoping she’d been forgotten. “Any
more interference and I may not be able to control my temper.” She
dissolved into mist from under Eros hands and was gone, leaving
Psyche thanking the Fates for the reprieve.

She ventured out of her corner and stepped
into the open circle of her husband’s arms. Tilting her face up to
his, Psyche gulped. “What do you suppose she’ll do when she finds
out I gave Tero his bow too?”

“Okay, enough hide and seek. I know you’re
out there.” Aphrodite booted a groping hand into the river and
stepped back out of the way of another one, in disgust. “Charon!
I’m not in the mood, now haul it in here boat boy!” Glancing down
at the toe of her pretty purple boot her lip curled, a blob of goop
dangled from the toe. “Crap, that’ll leave a mark.”

A shape, slightly darker than the surrounding
grey and around the size of the Titanic, materialized out of the
roiling mist, bringing a booming voice with it. “Aphro! Good to see
ya Darlin! What’s shaking?”

“You
should be. In
your boots! Now get down from that tug so I can kick your butt
properly. How dare you play games with my son!”

The bow slid silently onto shore and laughter
bounced across the endless cavern echoing loud enough to drown out
the constant wailing of the damned frantically trying to latch onto
the massive barge.

“What? Don’t tell me he’s been whining about
that last poker game? Loosing his ass to Hades was his own fault. I
had nothing to do with it.”

A figure floated down toward Aphrodite
getting larger and larger the closer it came. His massive metal
clad boots hit the shore creating a seismic rumble from the
epicenter of his landing. She didn’t even flinch. Not that Charon
wasn’t a sight to behold. Pain-in-the-butt demon always did have a
way about him, probably because he was an enigma.

Underneath his deep hooded black rag of a
cloak, the dread Ferryman of Styxx, River of the Dead; Guardian of
its evil twin waterway, Acheron River of Woe and Keeper of the
Damned, was also six foot nine of stunningly attractive, devil take
it, trickster extraordinaire.

Floating up the foot and a half needed to
reach him Aphrodite knocked the hood back and bopped him on the top
of his dark head.

“Oww!”

The stunned look on his face nearly made her
laugh and she pinched herself to retain her angry façade. Looking
closer she had to pinch twice. “Since when do you wear beads in
your hair and a red bandana?”

Rubbing his head, he popped a cocky grin and
wiggled his black eyebrows up and down. “Hey I figure if Johnny
Depp can pull it off...” He let the thought trail off and
winked.

“Hmph, he’s a hunky mortal, you on the other
hand are a demon.”

“Yah, but I’m a damn handsome one.” He leaned
back against the bow of his barge and cradled his hands behind his
head. “Ha! Gottcha there, Aphs.”

She narrowed her eyes and glared at him. “No
Demon, I’ve got you.” His ruddy features paled slightly but he
maintained his cocky stance.

“You mucked about in something not yours to
muck with Ferryman. Now you’re going to fix it.”

He stood straighter, a coldness blanketing
his face. “That’ll all depend on what you’re on about.”

“Anteros.”

The cold turned to granite. “I won’t help
stuff him in that cell to rot, Aphrodite, so you can—”

“Ah ah, careful, don’t want to say something
stupid. And I don’t want you to.” Aphrodite refrained from holding
her breath. She needed him and would loose her bid if she showed
any weakness.

Looking at her sideways with his one eyebrow
lifted, Charon crossed his arms over his massive chest. “Well then
just what
do
you want?”

“You to get to him, before he gets to Hades,
and drag him back to the surface before midnight tonight.”

His jaw dropped and she smiled. It wasn’t
often anyone got the best of a demon, particularly this one. A
little bubble of triumph and satisfaction for a hand well played
warmed her insides.

He snorted and planted his hands on his hips.
“Oh, is that all. And while I’m at it, why don’t I bring Hades
along in a pink tutu just for giggles?”

Chapter 19

Anteros’s fingers cramped and his arm shook
from the strain of holding the bow taut too long. Sighting down the
shaft of the arrow past the ominous gleam of its obsidian tip,
Callie lay peacefully in the centre of the bed they’d created the
most precious moments of his life in.

All he had to do was release the arrow and
she’d be free of him. If only it wasn’t killing him to do it. She
would feel nothing; it would tear his heart out.

Anteros closed his eyes and filled his lungs.
Opening them he slowly exhaled and at the moment his lungs were
empty he flexed the muscles in his hand and straightened his
fingers releasing the arrow.

It flew in slow motion straight and true.
Halfway along its flight path Callie’s eyes opened and she sat up.
Her sweet face smiled at him, her eyes brimming with love; she
couldn’t see the arrow.

Anteros was frozen, unable to move and could
do nothing but watch till it sank deep in its target. He knew it
would assimilate itself into her body without resistance and it
would be all over.

Only it didn’t.

It struck sending her flying back into the
headboard. The pain and shock on her face ripped him apart. He
broke free of the invisible chains holding him and leapt onto the
bed. Her lips were moving but a howling wind blasted through the
room drowning out everything but its roar so he couldn’t hear
her.

“Callie!”

Close enough to reach out to her Anteros
could finally read the words on her lips. “I love you.”

His hands never made contact. She turned to
dust before his eyes and was carried away on the wind as it tore
out the window.

Silence descended and through his tears
Anteros saw her journal lying in the center of the bed where she
been a moment before. Reaching his shaking hand out for it, he
watched it melt into the mattress on a disembodied wail of
laugher.

“Nooooo!”

He bolted up and banged his head. “Shit!”
Opening his gravel filled eyes Anteros looked around and breathed a
sigh of relief. A dream; it was only a dream.

After he’d removed all evidence of their time
together and left the journal in his room with a full translation
inside. He’d waited until right before dawn, as long as he could,
then he’d shot her with his arrow. Only in reality, it had done
what it was supposed to, not what he kept dreaming it had.

Having been with her, he no longer had to be
near her, the muscle cramps and pain were gone - all but the one
chewing on the inside of his chest.

Struggling to stand Anteros braced his hand
on the rough stone of the dark tunnel and tripped over a bottle. He
tossed a dirty look at it. Apparently self-inflicted pain wasn’t
doing the trick either. It continued to roll out into the dim light
of a torch flickering several feet above, rattling and clinking
like a jackhammer to his skull, until it came to a stop against a
boot he’d know anywhere.

“Whoa Buddy, did you kill that one all by
yourself. I’m impressed. Looks like it put up quite a fight
though.”

“Charon, don’t be a prick, I’m not in the
mood.”

“Huh, seems to be a lot of that going
around.”

Anteros looked up and groaned, damn demon had
that look in his eye; the one that always resulted in
his
ass in a sling. “What?”

Moving in to loom menacingly, Charon shot a
toothy grin at him. “Seems there’s this dance going on tonight, and
you can consider me the official invite.”

Anteros glared right back at him. “A dance?
Are you nuts? You know where I’m headed and it ain’t no dance, so
move your carcass outta my way before I let my pissed off guts have
a go at your shiny boots.” Angling his shoulder into his friend’s,
Anteros gave a shove and made to go around him.

Charon’s beefy arm shot out like a whip. His
talon tipped hand grabbed Anteros by the back of the neck and
dangled him a few inches off the ground. With no visible effort
Charon swung him close enough Anteros could see the tiny flames
banked in the back of his eyes. “Way I see it. This can go one of
two ways. My way...” He looked up to the left then back at Anteros
with an even wider grin. “Or, my way with my boot up your butt.
Which is it?”

“Well, since you put it that way—” Anteros
flung his legs straight back and pushed with all his might sending
his head straight into Charon’s nose. He stumbled under the impact
and dropped Anteros like a rock.

Anteros saw stars and already unsteady on his
feet his rebellion didn’t last long. He’d taken all of two steps
down the tunnel, before he found himself flat on his face with his
arms stretched up behind him and Charon’s foot planted between his
shoulder blades. “Okay, the boot it is then.”

Anteros knew that tone, and realized it would
only go worse on him if he kept fighting, but it didn’t mean the
whole thing didn’t tick him off royally. “One question: since when
have you been the type of S.O.B. to blind side a buddy? Wait,
scratch that. Since when have you been the type to do it without
giggling like a nymph?”

The demon removed his foot, swung Anteros to
his feet with one hand and got up in his face. “Since I decided I’m
more scared of yo momma than you.”

Anteros’s lip curled and Charon leaned even
closer.
Sniff.
“Whoa! You can’t go to a
dance smelling like that. Damn, son, we gotta get you purdied up.
No worries though, so happens it’s your lucky day Tero ‘old Buddy.
Just call me your ‘Ferry God Demon! Ha! Get it!”

Anteros groaned and rolled his eyes. “Who’s
that make me then, ‘Cinderfella’?”

Charon’s laughter sounded like a canon blast
echoing off the tunnel walls only this time Anteros didn’t join in.
He had a terrible feeling what ever his mother had up her sleeve
involved Callie.

Chapter 20

Callie didn’t think she’d looked in the
mirror as much over her entire life time as she had in the last
week, and each time someone different seemed to look back at her.
This time the face had a distant look, passable pretty; made up
with a light hand, framed in a few tendrils of hair not caught in
the ‘up-do’ but pale and missing the sparkle in the eyes the other
faces had.

“Callista, I mean Callie, you ready in there?
We’re going to be late if you don’t get moving.”

The smooth tone of Christian’s voice would be
her anchor tonight. The shift in their relationship had taken the
pressure off and he’d become a fast and true friend; exactly who
she needed at her side to weather the evening.