Read Online The End of Never by Tammy Turner - Free Book Online Page B

dem a lesson.
    Below in the backyard, the steel blade of Callahan’s shovel plunged into the hard clay soil, when he abruptly heard an odd, unexpected crunch. “Bloody hell!” he shouted (his favorite words of the morning). He threw aside the shovel. Hurling his body to the ground, his hands dug frantically at the dirt around the cracked treasure that was taunting him from the bottom of the hole.
    â€œA skull!” he exclaimed, his body hovering over the fractured bone while his fingers clawed at the soil. With torn and bleeding hands, he ripped the bone free from the earth, and he collapsed backward into the pit.
    The skull landed gently in his lap on the tops of his thighs, its hollow eyes staring impenetrably at Callahan’s confused face. The shovel had left an ugly, ragged gouge in the middle of the skull’s forehead. As Callahan gently raised the skeletal head from his lap, he heard a rattle behind the empty eye sockets.
    Bone fragments , he surmised, pushing his long fingers into the gaping hole in the forehead. Rooting inside the brain cavity, his fingers searched the smooth, hollow shell.
    â€œWhat?” he shouted, his fingers recoiling from inside the skull.
    A gold chain fell loose from his grasp and dripped through the hole in the forehead. The skull grinned mockingly at Callahan’s shock. Scratching the dark whiskers on his chin, Callahan slipped the necklace delicately from the skull. Thick as a rope , he thought, and heavy enough to be genuine . The shape of a cross dangled from the chain and his brow furrowed as he held the pendant in his upturned palm. This is Spanish gold, quite old , he decided. He glanced down at the skull, which was resting quietly on a pile of dirt by the hole.
    â€œHow did you end up with this treasure, my friend?” he asked the skull, as he reached for the lifeless head. With the skull wedged between his arm and his hip, Callahan rushed into the house. As the back door snapped shut, it cracked loudly against its frame, echoing through the shabby mansion.
    One dem here , the shapeshifter realized happily. Cyrus stirred his aching bones restlessly against the bare floor, his nose twitching as Callahan’s scent, ripe with sweat and frenzy, wafted up the stairs and under the attic door. Cyrus’s bruised muscles constricted. Muscular pain rippled through his arms and across his chest to his legs. A tingle journeyed down his thigh to the gnarled, yellow tips of his toenails. This spasm of pain and delight prickled in his feet.
    Three stories below the shapeshifter, a trail of red dirt and grass blades betrayed Callahan’s hurried path with the skull to the white-tiled kitchen counter. Gently resting the skull down on the tile, he laid out the long, gold chain.
    Blasted necklace is thick enough to choke a man , he thought, his mouth agape. Poor bloke—maybe it choked you? His eyes studied the skull while the tips of his fingers brushed specks of loose soil from the cracked teeth clinging to the jaw. What madness ate the rest of you?
    Leaning over the tiled counter, his body trembling, Callahan stared into the skull’s deep eye sockets. Snatching the skull from the countertop, he wrapped the head in his bare arms, cradling the bone against his chest tightly, as if swaddling a cranky infant.
    Slumping to the peeling, gray-speckled linoleum floor, Callahan tensed while a fire raged from the tips of his fingers. The heat spread down his arms until it pooled in the center of his chest. Beads of sticky sweat broke out across his skin. He tucked the skull in his lap and braced for his propulsion into the eyes—into the spirit—of the dead soul resting on his legs.
    â€œShow me,” Callahan asked in a whisper, his head lolling limply atop his neck. “What do you want me to know?” His fingertips rubbed the jagged eye sockets.
    Callahan envisioned a full moon, shining bright and fat in the middle of a cloudless night sky. In