Kiss Me Deadly: Tales of a Paranormal Romance

concept.”

“Of course.” I think this is true. “Of course, Sullivan, I got your back.”

“Good.”

I am aware that the hairs on my arms are standing up. I have a sudden, creeping sensation that I should shut my bedroom window, because although I have not heard anyone approach, the insects outside have gone quiet, and I feel watched.

I say, “We’re going to Mullen’s next week, right?”

“Yes,” Sullivan replies. He pauses. “Don’t hang up.”

I don’t, and the morning is a long time coming.

* * *

Cú Chulainn has a lot of stories told about him—when you’re a guy who changes shape and flies into rages that make you kill both friend and foe, people tend to remember you. One of the stories is that there was a prophecy about him (really, in the old stories, you’re nobody unless you have a prophecy attached to you) that said he’d be a great warrior but that his life would be short. There’s always a trade-off in the old stories. You’re wicked hot, but you have to turn into a swan overnight. You can have all the land in the country, but you have seven toes on your left foot. Or you are an awesome warrior, but you’re going to die young.

Everyone remembers Cú Chulainn for the guy he was when he was whacking off people’s heads or pulling dragon’s hearts out through their nostrils or strangling random terrible hounds.

No one remembers the Cú Chulainn between the warp spasms. He could’ve been the nicest guy in the world.

* * *

If you are into that mother – son bond thing, the one between Sullivan and Dolores would make your black heart bleed happy. I mean, I’m not saying that I don’t get along with my mother—I love her, I do—but Sullivan and his mom are the sort of thing that Hallmark commercials love. He tells her that her new sweater looks really good on her and she dabs tears away from her eyes as she tells him that she’s really proud of him. It’s all very sappy and supportive and I’ll admit it, it’s a fine thing to behold.

Anyway, because Sullivan loves his mother so much, I love her too, and because I spend so much time over at her house, I like to think it’s mutual. So when I come over one afternoon and Sullivan’s not there, Dolores makes me a cup of tea and sits me at the kitchen table. I have to push aside piles of bills and magazines and Dolores’ laptop to find a space for the saucer. Because it is after four p.m., Dolores makes herself a gin and tonic and sits across from me. It is several weeks after our conquest of Mullen’s and though we’ve returned every week, we’ve discovered that it is more fun to conquer a kingdom than to hold it. I’m ready for the next battle.

“Bryant,” she says, “Have you ever thought about, you know, doing something with your hair?”

In the Middle Ages, when foot soldiers needed to defend themselves against mounted soldiers, they would draw down into a ball and point their spears outward. It was called the hedgehog. My hair looks like that. I consider it my finest feature.

“Not really.”

Dolores expertly tips back her gin and tonic. It’s rewarding to watch a someone who’s really good at it drinking. She says, “Sullivan got into Julliard.”

I don’t say anything. I mean, I knew he would, because he’s Sullivan. But I hadn’t really prepared for the actual event. The thing is, I know I am invisible when I play with Sullivan, because I am a minor star to his brilliant sun. But the thing I am not sure about is whether or not I will stay invisible without him. I don’t think I can handle that.

“I guess I’m hoping my New York college aps go well,” I say.

Dolores gets herself another drink. “Do you know about this girl Sullivan is seeing?”

It is like this: I have no lungs.

“That’s what I thought,” she says. “She’s different from the others, then.”

He has always told me about his girlfriends. This feels like betrayal. I wonder if he is out with her right now. I wonder how many times when I’ve called over the last four weeks he has been with her. Mostly, I wonder if it is that girl from Mullen’s.

Dolores opens her laptop, which powers up instantly, and turns it around to face me. It’s an eBay page, and she’s buying a horseshoe. There’s another window open to a search engine, and she clicks over so I can see what she’s been looking at.

Protection against faeries says the text in the search engine. She can type it, even if she can’t say it. I’d like to say I’m incredibly shocked, but I have an Ouroborous around my arm and a guitar named Cú Chulainn. I could be convinced of a lot of things. And to see that girl at Mullen’s was to be a believer.

She asks, “Do you think Sullivan is too good?”

I don’t reply. We both know the answer to that.

* * *

That night, I dream I see them together. They are in a midnight garden covered with long, delicate purple flowers that look like candy. She sings a song into his ear and he listens, half a smile on his face. I hear strains of the song and it is wild and beautiful and other, and even from far away, on the other side of the dream, it makes me crazy with wanting. I can only imagine what it is doing to him. He says to her, “I want to know more.” She says, “ More is not a safe place for you.” He replies, “Safe has never been important.”

I know this is true, but the fact that he’s saying it to her instead of to me hurts. Not hurts like in a dream, but hurts like it’s real life and I’m awake. I dream that he kisses her and it’s the way he kisses her that makes me wake up.

Lying in dark, I reach for the phone and I call him, but he doesn’t pick up. I know it’s because the dream was real. He’s not in his room but in some dangerous garden far away from a world that includes my guitar, Mullen’s, and gin and tonics at his mother’s kitchen table.

I get out of bed and go into the bathroom and in the ordinary silence of night. I shave my head. I feel invisible.

* * *

It is eight thirty p.m. and the street in front of Mullen’s is greasy with rain. It is our sixth week coming to Mullen’s, and Sullivan told me he would meet me here instead of riding with me. He had things to do.

I feel like I am nine again and I want to smash his hand with a baseball bat, but this time, it’s not his fiddle that he’s leaving me for.

I consider getting back into the car and driving home. But then I would just be sitting at home waiting for him, and that has been the story of the last two weeks. And let me tell you, it’s a boring story.

The pub door shuts behind me and I hear someone thumb a lighter to a cigarette. “Bryant? Is that you?”

I turn and it’s the bodhrán player from the session, the one who had his big-ass band back in Chicago. He sucks in on the cigarette and eyes me. “I almost didn’t recognize you without your hair. Well, if anyone can pull off the shaved head, you can.”

“Thanks,” I say. I am thinking about Sullivan kissing the girl.

“It’s good job you’re here,” the bodhrán player says. “Session’s half-dead tonight, and we could use a pulse.”

“Sullivan might not be coming,” I say.

“Psh,” the bodhrán player says. “We need another fiddler like we need a hole in the head. You’re the one who rocks this place.” He stubs out his cigarette on the dirty wall beside the door.

I’m not one for fishing for compliments, but I say, “Come again?”

The bodhrán player flicks the cigarette off into the night. “You make him look good. Crying shame we didn’t have you in Chicago.” He holds the door open for me. I feel like my brain is exploding. I feel like I need to readjust the lens through which I look back on my entire life.

I follow the bodhrán player—I still don’t know anybody’s names, least of all his—and they make a place for me at the table in the back. Thank God someone says. We thought you weren’t coming.