Page 21 of 'Til All the Seas Run Dry

“I dinnae feel much like company, Robbie,” Callum said, feeling the tightness in his throat that hadn’t eased, the tears still hovering at the corners of his eyes.

“Come on, boss,” Robbie said, holding the door open wider. “Magda will fix us both up.”

Callum sighed.

“I’m gonna start walking. We both know that you’ll catch up to me before I get out of the driveway.”

He wasn’t wrong. Callum raced in a blur to put on his shoes and shrug into his coat, not because he needed it but because it made him feel put together, like he belonged in this world.

As Callum fell into step beside Robbie not thirty seconds later, Robbie barked a laugh.

“I will never get used to that shit, man.”

“Bollocks,” Callum replied, the tightness in his chest easing slightly.

“But we’re walking my pace, ’kay? I’m down a pint and don’t have a gift like yours.”

Callum snorted a mirthless laugh. “’Tis hardly a gift, Robbie.”

“So you say,” Robbie replied.

Twenty minutes later, Callum found himself sitting on a lumpy couch in Magda’s living room while Robbie sat cross-legged on the floor rubbing the belly of an ancient basset hound named Mr. Dick Van Dyke. The dog had bayed loudly when they’d knocked but, as soon as Magda had invited them in, had practically melted into the carpet, as if the effort had sapped him of all energy.

The dog was fine, even if he did smell, but while Robbie was petting his long, velvet ears, Callum was fending off a tiny, flying creature that Magda told him was called Walter. He was small, about the size of a dandelion head and covered with long, wispy, canary-yellow fluff. He had little white wings that looked like flower petals and two glossy little black eyes that were occasionally visible when he created enough of a draft to lift the fluff away from them.

Walter was apparently something called a Brightling Beetle, and since arriving, Callum had learned a few key things about Walter. He was highly poisonous but, like a daddy longlegs spider, didn’t have a big enough mouth to puncture human skin. He loved Magda and Dick Van Dyke. And heloathedCallum.

This was evidenced by the fact that Walter kept attempting to fly directly at Callum’s nose at top speed. Eventually, Magda took pity on Callum and called him off.

“Walter! Dick! Come on, my babies. Dinner!”

Walter stopped mid dive at Callum’s face and veered off to Magda.

“Dinner!” Robbie said, straightening quickly.

“Come on,” she said, though it was unclear whether she was talking to Robbie or the hound, who was jogging toward the kitchen with a speed that Callum would have believed impossible for him after watching his earlier collapse.

When Callum reached the table, Magda was petting Walter’s little body with a single, crooked finger. He was roosted atop a large Gerbera daisy and eating something that looked vaguely like brown sugar.

“Sweet little murder boy,” she crooned before stepping into the kitchen and ladling stew into a deep bowl, which she handed to Robbie.

“Blood’s in the fridge,” she said over her shoulder.

Callum opened the refrigerator, where he saw an unmarked six pack of dark amber bottles filled with thick liquid. He pulled one out, and Magda pressed a bottle opener into his hand with a wink before he had a chance to ask for it. He popped the top and immediately smelled the tang of blood.

He took a careful sip and then pulled the bottle away to look at it. It had once been a beer bottle, but the label had been soaked off. It its place was a piece of masking tape that said, “ELK NOVEMBER” in messy permanent marker. He looked at Magda, who was ladling another bowl of stew.

“I got them from Nat. It’s good?”

“It’s different.”

She snorted before moving past him and sitting at the table, where Robbie was already parked and leaning over his bowl, shoveling stew into his mouth like he hadn’t been fed in months. He stopped eating as she sat, wiping his mouth quickly with a napkin and sitting up ramrod straight. She waved him off.

“Tuck in, honey. There’s plenty more on the stove. But maybe chew, eh?”

Robbie smiled brightly before diving back into his bowl.

“You ever feed him?”