Sneaking into the yard of Ewan’s neighbour proved easier than I’d expected: their gate was unlocked and we weren’t greeted by a snarling, slavering hellbeast on the other side. In fact, the only sign of animal life was a sleepy hen clucking itself to sleep in a chook pen over the fence. Surely not in Ewan’s yard? A breeze rustled the top of a tree in the back corner of the garden. I gestured towards it and we crept into its shadow, my eyes straining, and failing, to pierce the blackness. As if to underline the point, a leafy twig scraped my forehead. I hissed between my teeth at the sharp sting, batting the offending bough away.
“You right?” Brad breathed, standing so close beside me that I could feel his body heat.
“Yeah,” I said quietly, touching my face gingerly. It was sore but not damp with blood. “Just a graze.” Who knew they’d have a guard tree? I felt around in the gloom, finding a sturdy lower branch. The bark was smooth under my fingers. “I’m going over. Watch my back.”
“Always.”
The twigs above me rustled more vigorously as I tested my weight on the branch. It held. “My back, not my butt,” I muttered, glancing at Brad.
“I can’t do both?”
I flashed him a nervous grin that he probably couldn’t see, but didn’t answer. Instead, I placed my hand on the top of the cool metal fence and my sneaker on the branch, using the former to steady myself as I climbed onto the latter and peered through the dangling foliage into Ewan’s yard.
At first it was hard to see much of anything; the streetlights didn’t penetrate this far. But the moon was a gibbous almost-disc overhead, and soon my eyes adjusted, able to pick out details in the dim, bluish-silver light.
Ewan’s lawn was in dire need of a mow, its spring growth an unrestrained tangle of grass and spiky weeds. A native bush that might be a bottlebrush sprawled like a drunk on a bender against one fence, and the obligatory clothesline filled the centre of the yard, at one end of a cracked footpath. The other end of the footpath connected to a laundry door; to the right of it stood a long window, dark, its curtain drawn. Probably a bedroom.
The toe of my sneaker squeaked against the metal as I climbed from the branch, heaving myself over the fence and dropping into a weedy garden bed on the other side. Brad soon landed beside me with grunt of pain, going to a knee in the dirt. I offered him a hand and he took it to stand, wincing as he shifted his weight. I tilted my head at him in a silent question. “I’m fine,” he whispered. “I just haven’t climbed a fence in ten years. I’m out of practice.” He peered around the yard. “No dog, at least.”
“Yeah.” I realised I was hunching over, as if expecting a blow, and forced my shoulders back. “Let’s go.”
Careful to lift my feet so my sneakers didn’t whisk through the tangled, knee-high plants, I eased my way over to the footpath, breathing a little easier when the soles of my shoes touched concrete. As uneven as it was, the path seemed safer than the long grass. At least I could see where I was putting my feet.
With Brad in my shadow, I hurried to the bedroom window, trying in vain to peek through the gap in the undulating curtains. No joy; they had been closed tightly. Gesturing for Brad to stay where he was, I crept around the side of the house, closer to the gate and carport. More windows: another bedroom and what was probably a kitchen window beside a glass sliding door. All of them were covered. Ewan couldn’t have left one curtain open? Exasperated, I returned to Brad, shaking my head in response to his raised eyebrows. He stood by the back door, leaning against the brick wall with all his weight on one leg, the other knee bent in a pose that I suspected was meant to look casual—though I was sure he was favouring it. He’s sprained it. Shit. Going back over the rear fence would be a nightmare. Hopefully we could sneak out the front gate after all.
“Maybe we will have to go around the front and knock,” I whispered, my gaze slipping past my boyfriend to the laundry door. What were the chances…? I stepped past Brad. My nerves thrummed with energy as I reached for the doorknob. It was cool in my palm as I held my breath and turned…
The knob rotated easily, and I gasped as the door swung inwards, bumping almost immediately against some obstruction. Crouching so I could feel around inside, I found a mound of clothes inside the door, covering the laundry floor in front of the washing machine. Gross. I wiped my hand on my jeans and then leaned my shoulder against the door. Slowly, slowly, I pushed, hearing fabric slide across the floor as the pile shifted. From the other end of the house the television chattered, canned laughter covering the small sounds as I made a space wide enough that we could slip through.
At least, I hoped it covered the sounds. It was hard to tell over the thundering of my pulse in my ears.
Brad’s eyes were wide as I glanced back at him. He indicated the door with a tip of his head. “What about your ankle?” I breathed.
“I’m not leaving you.”
I wanted to kiss him, but settled for a grateful smile as I turned back to the door and the black room beyond.
I’d thought crossing the moonlit, tangled grass had been tricky, but it had nothing on scrambling over an uneven pile of washing that stank of sweat and stale deodorant. At least I was able to steady myself by resting my hand on the top of the washing machine.
The hallway was mercifully clear of obstructions, its carpet cushioning my footfalls as I moved out of Brad’s way.
An open door stood to our left, to the bedroom whose window I’d seen down the side of the house. Holding my breath, I poked my head in the door, glancing around. It was the master bedroom; an unmade bed dominated the space. A single bedside table was wedged into a corner, so cluttered that I feared there’d be a landslide of tissues, socks and electronics if I went near it.
I shook my head at Brad, too nervous to risk speaking, and he turned to the door on the opposite side of the hall. This one was closed. The other bedroom? It had to be. He reached for the handle and eased the door open. It scraped across the carpet, the sound so faint I could barely hear it.
Brad’s sharply drawn breath as he looked into the room was louder. For a moment, he froze in the doorway, and I had to stand on my toes to see over his broad shoulder.
This bedroom was smaller, lit by a softly glowing lamp on a green-topped folding table in one corner. The table was much neater than the one in Ewan’s bedroom, bottles of pills arranged in an orderly fashion, a roll of tubing coiled in the corner. Next to the bed a metal stand loomed. A drip stand, currently empty.
In that bed lay Olivia.
Before I knew I was moving, I’d shoved past Brad, hurrying to my cousin’s side. She lay on her back, her chest rising and falling in the slow, even motion of sleep. Her chestnut hair spread around her head and shoulders, pretty as a picture—and a clear indication that she hadn’t been tossing and turning. Her skin was pale, the yellow lamplight unable to lend it more than a cursory warmth. Her hands were folded across her stomach, on top of a white hospital blanket. Her left hand bore a ring: the butterfly ring we’d given her sparkled on her ring finger as if it were a wedding band, a placement I was sure wasn’t accidental. When I brushed her bare arm with my fingertips, her skin was cool but not cold.
“Holy hell,” Brad whispered. “He actually did it.”
“Yeah, he did.” I whipped my phone out of my pocket, pressing a button to activate the keypad. The message to Nelson was still open on my screen.
“Melaina.” My cousin’s voice was raspy. I turned back to her, jabbing the send button with my thumb as I did so. “You came,” she said, blinking sleepily.
“Of course I came,” I murmured, shoving my phone in my back pocket and stepping close, grabbing the corner of the blanket to pull it back. From the fabric visible at her shoulders, I could see she was clothed. Small mercies. “Let’s get you out of here.”
Olivia cleared her throat and then smiled at me, lovely as a china doll. The lamplight reflected in her pupils, giving them an orange glow that sent an uneasy chill prickling down my arms. “But I don’t want to go,” she said, her voice clearer, louder. I shushed her but she shook her head. “Don’t you see? I’m going to have a baby, and it’s going to be special. Chosen by my new lover for great things.” Her hands slid across the blanket where it covered her belly—a belly as flat as it had ever been. If I hadn’t known she was pregnant I’d never have guessed.
“Ikelos isn’t your lover, Olivia. He’s … he’s a parasite. He wants to steal your baby, make it his vehicle in this world. Like it’s a car, not a person. Your child deserves better than that.”
Olivia stiffened. At first, I thought I’d offended her and she was pulling away, but the reaction was a whole-of-body one, like she was in the grip of a seizure. Her fingers curled in the folds of the blanket and her limbs tensed. Her gaze slid away from my face and the muscles of her face tightened.
“Oh,” said a disembodied voice. A familiar voice. “I’m not that bad, surely.”
I whipped my head around to search for the source of the sound. And, in the reflective surface of the drip stand pole, I saw him—or, rather, a slice of him, a line that ran down the centre of his body, like I was peeking through a door left ajar. Ikelos. His only garment was a loose, knee-length skirt fashioned from strips of leather, like something I’d expect to see on a Roman centurion in a movie. Black tribal tattoos covered what I could see of his bare chest.
Despite all that bare skin, there was no sign of the injury Mum and I had inflicted on him. No sign of burns.
My heart leapt into my throat, thundering there like a panicked bird. When my gaze locked with his burning orange one, his eyes narrowed. “You can see me? Curious.”
Brad took a step forward, following the line of my gaze to the drip stand. “Is it him?” he whispered. “Ikelos?”
“Who else would it be?” Ikelos replied.
I swallowed my panic. Ikelos was in Erebus. I was awake. We’re safe. “He can’t hear you,” I told the Oneiroi, my voice little more than a squeak. It had clearly missed the memo about us being safe. “Seeing an Oneiroi in a reflection is a half-breed trick. It doesn’t work for humans.”
“Interesting.”
Did the fact I could see Ikelos in a reflection mean he’d abandoned Olivia’s dreams? Or was this a projection? There was so much I still didn’t know about how Oneiroi powers worked.
Ikelos rubbed his chin with the ball of a thumb. “Fortunately, I have other ways to communicate with my pet human.” Satisfaction was heavy in his tone, and I spun, a warning on my lips.
A dark-haired figure loomed behind my boyfriend, grinning cheerily as he lifted a glittering object. I stepped forward, hand outstretched. Brad started to turn as the glittering object descended, piercing his clothing, driving into the meat of his shoulder. A syringe, quickly depressed.
Brad staggered, and Ewan laughed. “Nighty night,” he crooned as Brad reeled, slamming into the wall. A picture fell to the floor with a crash.
With a wordless cry I stepped forward, my hands curling into fists.
Or I tried to. But Olivia’s cool hand snatched one of my wrists, pulled me back towards the bed. Her face was still a stiff mask, her gaze fixed on the room’s far wall. She was even more like a doll than before.
“Let go!” I tugged, but she clung to me, her hand a shackle. “Brad!”
“Melaina,” Ikelos said, the tone conveying his disapproval. His voice seemed louder, richer, some of that resonance I remembered from our previous meeting creeping back into it.
Ewan watched with an appraising eye as Brad slid down the wall, his limbs gone boneless, his eyelids fluttering as he fought to keep them open. Panic warred with fatigue on his face. Fatigue won, and his eyelids slid shut.
“What did you do to him?” I cried, gripping Olivia’s fingers with my free hand, trying to prise them backwards, digging my nails into the flesh of her thumb and the back of her hand. She didn’t flinch.
“He’s just taking a nap.” Ewan plucked the now-empty syringe from Brad’s shoulder. The tip was a dark red in the poor light. “I’m not a murderer.”
“No,” Ikelos said with a laugh as warm as a blanket straight from the dryer. I cringed away from the sound. “He leaves that to me.”
Olivia’s other hand snaked out, grabbing my other wrist and holding it tight. “Let me go!” I braced my feet and tugged backwards. “Olivia, are you even in there? Can’t you see how stupid this is? You’re being used!”
In reply, my cousin yanked me back towards her with a fierceness I hadn’t known she was capable of. I stumbled, sprawling across the bed. Her knees dug into my ribs, knocking the breath from my lungs.
“Olivia isn’t home,” Ewan said. Gasping, I twisted my head to the side, trying to keep him in view. “She isn’t feeling a thing right now, but she’ll be sore later. You might want to ease up on her.” He paused, his head tipped to the side. Listening to silent instructions from Ikelos? “Right.” His hand slid into my back pocket to draw my phone out, lingering for a moment on my arse. I kicked backwards, growling, my sneaker scraping against his shin. I wished I was wearing my hard-soled boots so I could really do some damage. “Bitch,” he spat, dancing out of reach and examining the screen of my phone. “She texted the cop.”
“Well, that’s inconvenient,” Ikelos said. His voice tickled my ears, the way a too-loud bass track does: like your insides are vibrating apart.
Shuddering, I tried to yank my hands free. My fingers were growing numb with the strength of Olivia’s grip. How was Ikelos doing it? He had to be possessing her. But he couldn’t speak through her lips? That suggested his control wasn’t perfect. The thought gave me new strength, and I redoubled my efforts to free myself. “Olivia!” I yelled, almost in my cousin’s ear. She didn’t even blink.
“Can you bring them both?” Ewan asked. From the corner of my eye, I saw him turn my phone over and remove the battery. He dropped both halves into a rubbish bin underneath the table. I kicked backwards, but he stayed out of range.
“No,” Ikelos said from the drip stand, for the first time letting me overhear his instructions to the nurse. “We’ll have to leave the girl. But this will be better.”
That tickling feeling doubled in strength. Now it felt like a small insect had crawled inside my skull. I wanted to claw at the insides of my ears, but my hands were immobilised. Panic flared, hot as a supernova, and I screamed, thrashing like a wild thing. I grabbed the end of Olivia’s hair and yanked, tried to claw at her eyes, not caring that I was hurting my cousin. That she was an unwitting vessel for something else. But the feeling I struggled against wasn’t on the outside. It was inside me. He’s inside my head.
“A lucid dreaming Oneiroi half-breed, already prepared,” Ikelos said with a smile, his reflection leaning forward, his gaze catching mine, tangling it up so I couldn’t look away. The force of his will shook me until I felt like I would fly apart.
As if I were nothing more than a brittle leaf caught in a whirlpool, I was drawn down into unconsciousness.