A RINGING PHONE jerked Calliope Jenkins out of a sound sleep. She fumbled for the source of the noise, startled and trying to blink her eyes into focus. The blocky red alarm clock LED hovered in the darkness like a bad memory, reading 1:43•.
On the third ring, she managed to find the handset and roll it off the cradle into her palm. “H’lo?”
“Calli,” said the voice on the other end of the line. “It’s me.”
She smiled and pushed herself farther underneath the comforter. “Hey. I thought you’d be home and asleep by now.”
The strange, hiccuped silence of an interrupted cellular connection broke through the call for a moment. “A few things came up; I’m still out on the road, actually.”
“Cripes, really? When—” A murmur drifted from the opposite side of the bed. Calliope half glanced in that direction and lowered her voice. “Hang on a sec.” She got up and padded toward the door to the bedroom, snagging her robe as she stepped into the hallway. “When do you think you’re going to get back?”
“I don’t . . . Everything’s pretty complicated.”
“Complicated how?” Yawning, Calliope shuffled into the kitchen and pulled open the refrigerator door.
“Can’t. Too late to get into any of it, anyway. You going to be all right?”
She shrugged, still staring blankly into the refrigerator. “I’m fine, except it’s two in the morning.”
She could hear him smile on the other end of the line. “Cranky. You should take a shower and wake up.”
She pushed hair out of her face. “See, this’s your main confusion. I don’t want to wake up. I wasn’t actually lying in bed thinking, ‘Oh, I wish someone would call and give me a reason to get up.’ I wasn’t thinking anything. I was asleep. I was enjoying it. I’d like to get back to it sometime tonight.”
“So . . .” She could hear the smile broaden in his voice. “No shower?”
She smiled. “Freak.”
“Hardly.”
“We could use that for the new ads: ‘Joshua White: where mind and gutter meet.’ You’d be very popular.”
“Wrong kind of clientele.”
“Because our current client base is so normal.” She frowned at the open refrigerator. “What are you working on right now?”
“It’s a new one, kind of. I shouldn’t have taken it.”
“Obviously.”
Another pause on the other end of the line. “Yeah. Say, I was hoping you could . . . I know it would be a huge hassle for you, but I was wondering if you could talk to Lauren for me and explain what’s going on.”
Calliope’s eyebrows drew together; she pushed the refrigerator door shut. “You can’t call her?”
“It’s really all I could manage to call you.”
“Whatever. They only allow you one call before they put you back in with—”
“Seriously.”
She nudged at the raised edge between the dining room carpet and kitchen tile with her toe. “Can we go back to talking about me in the shower?”
“It’s all right if you don’t want to. I’ll understand.”
“You’re going to owe me.”
She felt the relief on the other end of the line. “I’m going to owe you huge, Calli. Huge.”
“Yeah . . .” She wrapped an arm across her midsection, pulling the robe close. “That all you needed to wake me up at two in the morning for?”
“That and the shower thing. You’re the best, Cal, I swear. Go back to sleep. Tell your guy I’m sorry about the call.”
“ ’Kay.” She glanced out the kitchen window at the pale streetlights. “Just be safe.”
“Don’t worry about me. I’m fine.”
“Sure.”
“Safe as houses. Go to bed. Watch out for the hidden things.”
Her attention came back to the phone. “The hidden things what?”
The line was already dead. Calliope turned her gaze back to the window, the phone forgotten in her hand. Seconds passed before she shivered inside the folds of the robe, set the phone down on the counter, and headed back to the bedroom. The red LED of the clock read 1:48•.
The clawed thing took the phone from Joshua. “She sounds . . . nice.”
Joshua snorted; his eyelids, glossy and dark, sagged. “Sure.”
The thing fidgeted, picking at the scraps of clothing clinging to its body. “I’m glad you decided to stay.”
“For now.” Joshua was looking at him, but his eyes were unfocused, watching something far in the past; something better. The wind outside pushed at the walls, tested the windows and roof while the creature watched the man. Shadows and memories and hidden things scrabbled through the darkness, taunting both and filling the space between them. “Long enough to get this straightened out.”
“You mean fix it.” The thing’s face twisted; the damaged side a sneer, the other—the one Josh knew—a sad smile.
“I suppose.” Josh settled his shoulders, ignoring his exhaustion. “I made a promise, didn’t I?”
“And you always keep your promises.”
He turned back to the window of the empty room. “I try.”
“You try.” The thing’s voice was bitter. “Not when you won’t—”
“Shut . . .” Joshua’s voice was soft. His chin dropped toward his chest. “Just . . . shut up. I’m going to try. We will.” He half turned, really looking at the creature for the first time, then looking away. “Maybe we can’t. If we can’t, I’ll head home and try to figure something else out.”
“Head home?” The thing’s face twisted, caught between anger and a kind of grief that was older and much, much worse. “You are home, Josh.” It took a step toward him. “I thought you knew that.” Around it, the snickering, skittering, scraping things grew louder and louder, like locusts in the summer. The sound shook Joshua from his reverie; he looked from shadow to shadow, trying to track the source of the growing noise, his eyes going wide.
“Mikey?”
Thirteen seconds later, Joshua White was dead.