Promise: Caulborn #2 Read Free Page A

chewed-up coat and tossed it into the trash. I hadn’t liked the color anyway. My good old leather bomber would have to do for the time being.
    Petra turned the page in her book. “Did you talk to Megan?”
    The abrupt change in subject caught me flat-footed. “Ah. No,” I said as I rubbed my face.
    She looked up for the first time then. Her brown eyes locked with mine. “Vincent, you have to deal with that.”
    “I know, I know,” I said, putting up my hands. “Look, this isn’t exactly the easiest topic to broach. What am I supposed to say? ‘Hey Meg, remember back when you got attacked by that flower laced with industrial-strength botanical magic and I promised you’d be fine? Well, Orcus, he’s the god of oaths, see, and he’s got a very strict interpretation of that particular promise. He’s saying I have to keep you fine forever or else I’ll suffer eternal damnation in a forgotten corner of Tartarus.’”
    Petra looked at me flatly. “This is serious, Vincent. I waited too long for you to lose you to a silly slip of the tongue. You need to get her to release you from that promise.”
    I looked down at my Reeboks. “It feels like I’m failing if I do that. Like I’m not living up to something.”
    Petra rose and gave me a hug. Despite the fact that she’s living stone, she feels like flesh and blood. “I know,” she said. “But the only alternative is to find a way to keep her fine forever, and that’s not possible, not even for you.”
    “I’ll take care of it, Petra. Trust me.” I stifled a yawn. “I’m turning in. You coming to bed soon?”
    She shook her head and turned her attention back to the cookbooks. “I need to work on this for a bit.” I kissed her on the head and went to the bedroom. The last time I saw the clock, it was two in the morning and Petra still hadn’t come into bed yet. The day’s events drifted through my mind. Skeletons, necromancers, and now an impending visit from Aphrodite. I suppose I should’ve seen the nightmares coming.

Chapter 2
    There is an inherent danger in those paranormals who can conjure gateways through other dimensions. This stems beyond the obvious risks in opening a gateway to a hostile location. The true danger lies in the predators that exist in that space between dimensions, where the gateways are created. Should one of them sense an Opener, and then attach itself to that individual, then any opening created by that individual would risk allowing the predator through. Such predators would be unlike anything we have encountered before, and it is highly likely that many paranormal and human lives would be lost in the time it took us to craft a suitable defense.
     
    —From an internal Caulborn memo dated 1938, authored by Jack Santo
     
    I was on a boat. There were shirtless and barefoot men running all around the deck, tying down sails and battening down hatches and anything else that a sailor would do when his ship was about to enter a storm. I put my hands in my pockets and withdrew one, now holding a gold coin. The crew suddenly went silent. As one, they said, “Let no man steal from the captain.” They drew pistols and knives and descended on me. I flailed about as they knocked me down and began kicking and beating me. One sat on my stomach and drove a knife straight through my chest.
    I woke up with a jolt. The clock said it was just after six. I reached for Petra. Her side of the bed had been neatly made, and a note left on the pillow. Early morning shoot. See you tonight. Love you.
    Petra’s job as a lingerie model has hours that are worse than mine. If she were human, I’d worry that she’d burn herself out, but technically, she doesn’t need to eat or sleep. My gut told me she had pulled an all-nighter, and even though I knew I shouldn’t be worried about her, I was. The time leading up to and immediately following a visit from Aphrodite was always tense and hectic. I sighed, swung my legs over the side of the bed,