Apex Book Company

To kakosu, to kero.

The day she had asked her father what the words meant, he had slapped her. She had overheard the Aunts, she admitted. He went very still after that, and simply told her to never say them again. The words were a curse: May each day you live after this be worse than the one before.

She had known better than to say the words. She had known better…but it hadn’t stopped her. It was in her blood, the Aunts said. The blood of the Old World. It was the only part of her she couldn’t run away from. Blood cannot become water, they said.

Knock, knock, knock. “Come on, Allie. I know you’re in there.”

She had tried for thirty years to be the perfect child. She had always been gentle and kind and generous. She had done her best to put goodness out into the world, so that goodness always came back to her. The Aunts said her soul shone like a rainbow. Animals ate from her hand. Children flocked to her wherever she went.

And men had used her like a doormat. This last one had been the worst. She had to draw a line somewhere. She had to stand her ground. She had to believe in herself, or no one else would.

“You have to help me, Allie,” he called from the porch. “I can’t live like this.”

As if that was justification. She had spent four years of her life taking care of him, providing for him, encouraging him, waiting for him to live up to his potential. Only he was quite content in his life of mediocrity…quite content to let Allie take care of him forever. A year and a half after breaking it off, she was still cleaning up his messes. How was that fair?

“Allllllll-ieeeeee.” It was a desperate moan.

He deserved everything he got. After all he had put her through, he deserved some hell of his own. A year and a half ago. It had taken him that long to figure it out, to regret his mistakes and come crawling back to her. She should have never dated anyone that stupid.

The story of Aunt Kalliope’s vengeance upon her estranged lover was a famous family tale. A curse from the eye is a bad day; a curse from the head is a bad event. A curse from the heart is death, slow and painful, the physical manifestation of the death of love itself.

He was crying now, gut wrenching sobs. The sound was familiar. She had cried those sobs before, many times over.

A year and a half.

Even after so long, she could still feel the words in her mouth. She had whispered them aloud, three times. A whisper—all she was brave enough to manage. His heart would bleed for her as hers had bled for him.

To kakosu, to kero.
To kakosu, to kero.
To kakosu, to kero.

She picked up the phone. Pressed three numbers.

“9-1-1 emergency.”

“There’s a dead man on my front porch.”

There was one last bang on the door. His hand slid down the glass, leaving a trail of bright red blood.

Allie sighed, and then gave the woman her address.

She was still cleaning up his messes.

END

---

Visit Alethea Kontis’s website at http://www.aletheakontis.com/ or
her blog at http://www.aletheakontis.com/blog.htm

---

Check out Beauty & Dynamite by Alethea Kontis from Apex Publications.
Order today!

-