Archive of Our Own

The ocean and the paranormal dimension were very similar in so far as being cold and dark and incredibly dangerous. If you ever believed you were in control of either, you would almost certainly get yourself killed. The ocean demanded respect; the paranormal dimension demanded compliance. And if you refused? Well, you’d be dragged into the depths until up became down and left turned into right and your sense of self vanished within the darkness.

In short, you didn’t screw around with the ocean, but equally you didn’t mess with the spirit realm either. Gordon had broken that second rule fairly early on life. This could be blamed upon varying bad influences during his early teens, a general sense of reckless mischief-making which usually resulted in his messes splayed across the front pages of tabloids, and of course sheer curiosity.

As a kid, brought up with folk tales and the dark magic of Scott’s horror movie collection, the paranormal dimension had promised adventure. As an adult, Gordon knew better. He’d spent the past decade steering clear of any spirit-related endeavours because he still had those memories stamped into his subconscious; screams; windows shattering; terrors that he’d never fully shake.

It had been a successful strategy until a certain house in the middle of the Australian outback tore their lives apart using a demon with a serious grudge, John’s not-so-secret overprotective streak, and Alan’s classic Tracy stubbornness. And so, despite all those years of avoidance, Gordon found himself deliberately stepping into the heart of a demonic lair.

Yay.

It was worth all the trauma points though because it was a success. They got John back – without any demonic strings attached this time – and everyone finally believed Gordon when he got uneasy around spiritual hotspots. Virgil didn’t even comment when he walked in on him wafting sage throughout Two’s cockpit after their return from the outback.

Oh, right, and apparently Alan had some sort of super spooky abilities which enabled him to have freaking wings in the spiritual realm. Go figure.

On one hand, Gordon was kinda jealous because, you know, wings, how badass was that? But a larger, selfish part of him was very glad that he hadn’t been the one to go up against a goddamn demon, even if it meant he’d never experience literal human flight and had been forced to live that one scene from the end of Marvel’s Infinity War in real life.

But it was over.

They were back home.

Alan had banished the demon to Hell.

Kayo was on a mission to learn as much about the spirit realm as humanly possible because she refused to have an enemy that she was powerless against.

Virgil was focussed on the medical repercussions which John was still battling – because hey, apparently there were side effects to being legally dead even if you had been resurrected by a demon deal approximately five minutes later.

For the most part, Scott seemed unaffected, which meant he was totally freaking out on the downlow, but no one was prepared to call him out on it.

And Gordon? He was going to repress all memories of the experience and continue living his life free of any supernatural threats. Life was back to normal. He was thriving.

Checkmate, demon.

It was possible that after screwing with the supernatural world at the ripe old age of fourteen, Gordon had opened himself up to alternate dimensions and had never worked out how to fully close that door again. He’d had several eerie, unexplainable experiences since that fateful day back in Kansas: glimpses of figures in empty rooms, menacing shadows that seemed to slither and scuttle, disembodied whispers in the night… Hell, even his squid sense didn’t obey the laws of nature.

He'd never claimed to be psychic. That being said, there were times when he’d hesitated, made a different call even when all the evidence pointed to the contrary and then been proven right. He could vividly recall an incident when he’d tackled Virgil to the ground and a broken rebar had promptly crashed into the space where his brother had been standing with no warning. Virgil had stared at him and Gordon had stared back - because WTF, he had no clue how he’d known that would happen either - then neither of them ever talked about it again.

So, catching glimpses of a world that didn’t align with his own reality wasn’t exactly new. But he’d developed a distinct knack for ignoring these signs. If something whispered in his ear when he walked into a collapsed mine which had clearly seen more death in its long history than was likely to occur that day, then he’d simply ignore it – there was only one voice to which he needed to listen and that was John’s. Or Scott’s. Or Virgil’s. Just not any ghostly mumbles, okay?

Except after The Incident – which totally deserved capital letters thank-you-very-much – the experiences not only increased in frequency but also in intensity. It was getting impossible to ignore them; not when he’d spy a shadow figure standing by the kitchen sink or when gleaming eyes watched him from the ajar door of his en-suite at 3am. He could sense it all around him – that distinctive unnatural energy like the static before a lightning strike, making his skin crawl and setting his instincts on red alert.

The bitter truth that he was unwilling to admit to himself was that it was getting worse. He tricked himself into believing that he had a handle on the situation, only then it started affecting his sleep patterns which consequently impacted his performance in the field.

They were on an oil rig rescue in the North Sea. Virgil had descended to the platform below to cut the crew free from the collapsed control cabin whilst Scott hovered in TB1 directly overheard. Gordon prepared to fire a grapple to steady the platform when something moved in his peripheral vision – formless tendrils of wispy darkness slinking closer, icily cold even through his suit – and he jolted, heart pounding so violently that he half-expected EOS to call him out on it.

The grapple swung wildly off-centre, smashing through a crane that mercifully avoided the cabin and went flying into the sea. The platform lunged to one side. A second grapple shot past the window and connected with a familiar thud, followed by a raised pitch in One’s engines as Scott adjusted to compensate for the additional weight.

“Thunderbird Two, want to try that again? I could do with a hand here.”

Gordon twisted in his seat. The cockpit remained empty. Holograms glowed as usual. There were no intruder alerts. And yet he was still shivering from its touch – whatever it had been – and the space was notably colder. The temperature gauge showed a sudden drop of five degrees with no clear cause. He swallowed. His pulse elevated to thunder in his ears, palms sweaty under his gloves.

“Gordon,” Scott repeated, a touch snappier now. “Any time today would be nice.”

“What just happened?” Virgil queried, joining the comm link.

Gordon cleared his throat.

“I, uh…” He took a steadying breath. “I missed the shot. Sorry. Gimme a second and I’ll have that platform secured. Scott, you good to hold it steady while I get locked in?”

“FAB.”

There was a brief beat of empty silence while the comm line remained open without any voices.

Then, quietly, Virgil observed: “Gordon, you never miss.”

“Aw, Virg, I know I’m the best shot in the family but don’t say so in front of Scotty, he gets grumpy.”

“Gordon,” Virgil repeated with a hint of exasperated concern, “You never miss. Are you alright?”

Gordon tightened his grip on the controls with another shudder.

“Just peachy,” he muttered. “Now let’s get this show on the road.”

Gordon wasn’t dumb enough to believe that Virgil had fallen for the collection of lies that he’d reeled off upon his brother’s return to the cockpit. The only reason that he hadn’t been grounded was because a) he’d hit his legal flight limit and so was stuck on mandatory downtime for the next forty-eight hours anyway and b) John had descended from TB5 for his weekly medical check-up, so Smother Hens One and Two were distracted just long enough for Gordon to flee their clutches.

His heartrate hadn’t settled since that final snatch of shadow had vanished from view. He could still see it stained onto the backs of his eyelids; a long, gnarly object like a fingerbone, phalanges threaded together by a strip of sinew. His ears kept ringing but he was certain that it was all in his head. When he pressed his knuckles against his temples, his own pulse sounded like a scream.

The house still seemed too quiet. Grandma was on the mainland and Kayo was off who-knew-where while Brains was attending a conference in London. In their absence, the place took on an eerily still quality, harbouring a sense of presence that implied the very walls were watching. It wasn’t so bad in the daylight but Gordon dreaded sunset; nights seemed so much longer when you weren’t sure if you were alone in the darkness. He ventured upstairs to the warmth of the kitchen.

His imagination taunted him. Even the mundane sound of the fridge whirring into life set him on edge. He twisted his hands together, rotating his rope bracelet over-and-over but the nervous energy fizzed under his skin, unsated and hissing like a viper. He gripped the edge of the counter and rocked forwards on his heels to rest his forehead against the upper cupboards. A heavy sense of otherness pressed at the back of his mind: an unbearable certainty that he was being watched.

He knew this place. He knew which stairs squeaked; why there was a stain on the carpet in the upper lounge; which kitchen drawer had been stuck shut for a month because none of them had gotten around to fixing it; could describe the exact angle of sunlight through his bedroom curtains at five-in-the-morning; knew that the lights in the roundhouse kept flickering ever since The Incident.

So, why the hell did it suddenly feel so wrong?

The room seemed off. He couldn’t pinpoint the cause but it nagged at him; jarring; coarse fabric that didn’t fit with the rest of his smooth reality; the loose thread that threatened to undo everything. It was as if the world had been picked up and moved by half-an-inch – not noticeably different but still changed. Even the familiar shadows thrown over the floorboards by palm trees were ominous; scruffy creatures that looked only a heartbeat away from growing legs and scuttling towards him.

He couldn’t bring himself to step away from the counter. The coolness of the cupboard bled into his skin, tightening the band of tension that threatened to develop into a fully blown headache. His knuckles ached. The edge of his thumbnail dug into the skin above his wrist bone where he had a fierce grip on his bracelet. He risked a glance down. The back of his hand was slick with fresh blood.

“Fuck.”

He jolted away from the counter. His knee smashed against the lower cupboards. Pain radiated upwards from the joint and his legs buckled. He made a wild flail for a handhold and hauled himself into the patch of sunlight pooling in the sink. There was no trace of blood. No taste of copper in the air. No sign of any injury that could explain the sight. He scrubbed a thumb across his knuckles and examined clean skin. Dread coiled in the cold pit in his stomach. Nausea rose in his throat.

“Gordon?”

The world righted itself. Whatever otherworldly presence had tried to tear it apart at the seams to let in the darkness fled at the sound of Alan’s voice. Gordon had never been so glad to see his brother in his life. It was a physical, overwhelming wave of relief that left him light-headed.

Whatever evil was trying to claw through the gaps in time and space, it didn’t seem to like Alan. The shadows retreated whenever he was around as if they were afraid of him. Whether it was because Alan held power on the spiritual plane – or at least enough strength to have earnt wings and to have, you know, banished a frickin’ demon – or simply because they had no interest in him was unclear.

“Dude.”

Alan’s voice pitched into something softer, laced with concern and underlain with a roughness that indicated he’d only just woken up. He’d been out until the early hours on some rescue at one of the lunar mines, so could be excused for rolling out of bed at 2pm. He was in some ratty old Batman tee and sweatpants and his hair stuck out at all angles as if he’d stuffed his fingers in an electrical socket but his eyes were bright and he seemed sort of light as if the sun had taken a liking to him.

Gordon was struck by the urge to hug him. It was partly a selfish desire – Alan kept the darkness at a safe distance and Gordon desperately needed to borrow that ability – but it was also forged out of a deeply instinctual protectiveness. How long would it take for the shadows to turn on Alan? What if they learnt to no longer fear his light but to feed on it instead?

“Gordon.”

Alan’s grip was bruising on his bicep, fingers coiled in the fabric of his shirt. Gordon registered the pain as background noise; irrelevant unless focussed upon.

“Seriously, what’s wrong? You’re kind of freaking me out, man.”

“I…” He took a steadying breath and forced a smile. “Nothing. I’m just tired and super zoned out. I haven’t slept in like forty-eight hours. I’m running purely on Kayo’s energy drinks. I’m pretty sure I can actually taste colours.”

Alan’s frown faded slightly but concern still haunted his eyes. He relinquished his tight grip, pushing past Gordon to reach the snack cupboard. Chip packets rustled as he rifled through the colourful bags to find the microwaveable popcorn, snatching a celery crunch bar at the same time.

“You should sleep.” He held out the bar for Gordon to take. “You’re never this quiet. It’s weird.”

“Thanks,” Gordon deadpanned.

It took conscious effort not to lean closer to his brother. A fearful voice at the back of his mind roused itself from its slumber to whisper, what if I’m not in control? What if I’m just a puppet for this thing? What if it’s using me to get close to him?

“Insomnia?”

“Huh?”

Alan jabbed a button on the microwave then hopped up to sit on the counter to wait for the timer to bleep at him. He tilted his head, curiosity warring with confusion as he repeated,

“Insomnia? Is that why you’re not sleeping?”

Gordon ghosted a hand across the back of his neck. “No. I mean… kinda? I dunno. I just- I keep seeing stuff. Not nightmares, not really. Just… stuff.”

Shit, what if he wasn’t seeing anything at all? What if it was all in his head? He’d suffered enough concussions over the years to make hallucinations a distinct possibility. And surely out of all of them, if anyone were going to notice a paranormal leak into their reality, it would be Alan. The kid was more sensitive to the supernatural than the rest of them put together. Thank God it had been Gordon to pick up a Ouija board all those years ago; if he’d been traumatised then Alan would have been downright possessed. And hey, bad thought, because now he was thinking about that and-

The microwave chimed.

Gordon nearly jumped out of his own skin.

“Jeez.” Alan slid down from the counter with a light thud. “You’re really on edge.”

He pushed his hair out of his eyes, stifling a yawn in the crook of his elbow as he retrieved the popcorn.

“But I, uh, I get what you mean about, like, seeing stuff. Not that I’ve seen anything. Not since… well. Not since then. But I get dreams and those can leave me freaked out for days, so, you know. I get it.”

Gordon hooked the edge of the crunch bar packet under his nail. The foil crinkled, oddly sharp against the pad of his thumb. He tore it open with his teeth and tried to focus on the taste to distract himself from the rising fear that clogged his throat and strangled his vocal chords.

“C’mon.” Alan tucked the popcorn bowl under one arm and reached back to snag Gordon’s sleeve. He twisted to throw his brother an expectant look. “Let’s go.”

“Where?” Gordon demanded, too tired to really care. He trailed after Alan: around the conversation pit, upstairs, bypassing the Den until they ended up in his little brother’s room. “What are you…?”

The bed was a mess of blankets because apparently the kid still heaped clothes and duvets into a nest on the rare occasion that he didn’t sleep on the floor. The guitar was off the wall, roosting on a chair with a pick tucked under the strings. Sunlight streamed through the window to fill the space with warmth. Alan kicked a gaming controller off the mattress, shoved the nest into a heap at the headboard and physically hauled Gordon onto the bed.

“I’m gonna play some Cavern Quest but I’ll wear my headphones. Stay here, chill, see if you fall asleep any easier. I dunno, I find it helps to not be alone? Anyway. Don’t touch my popcorn.”

Alan was a little shit who had been known to put fake lizards in Gordon’s bed and Gordon often wanted to drown him but sometimes he was struck by how much he loved the kid too and this was one such moment. He sank onto the mattress, warmed by a wave of fondness so strong that he had to claw back the words before he could say anything sappy. Instead, he hooked an arm around Alan’s neck and dragged him close enough to rub his knuckles against his brother’s scalp.

Alan struggled free with a squawk, still spluttering protests. “Hey! I’m trying to be nice!”

Gordon elbowed him. “Shut up and play your game, nerd.”

Alan rolled his eyes and yanked his VR headset over his face. The familiar sound of the Cavern Quest opening theme was swiftly muted as his headphones connected, leaving the room in semi-silence. Gordon flopped backwards, stuffing a pillow beneath his head and burying his feet under Alan’s knees to warm up. It was telling of how concerned his brother had been when there was no slap to his ankles or a melodramatic sigh.

Gordon hated it when people worried about him – because God knew they’d already worried about him enough in his life so far – but he didn’t see how he could stop them. There was no solution to his current problem other than going to a psychic or a shrink and neither were likely to have a cure. His fourteen-year-old-self had picked up that planchette and now whatever he had awakened was refusing to go back to sleep; Alan might have closed one portal but there were many more still open.

Whatever. He was too dang tired to think anymore. He yanked a blanket closer and rolled onto his side, trying his best to focus on sunny memories of surf and sand. The darkness crowded closer. A shiver ran down his spine. There was a painful lump in his throat which burnt behind his eyes too and ached in his lungs, pressing against his ribs as if the emotions were too strong to be contained.

Alan flopped down beside him to lie flat on his stomach. He didn’t say anything, still invested in his game and muttering insults under his breath every now and then, but he pressed a little closer against Gordon’s side to anchor him. Several months earlier they had clung to each other as Alan’s fear of the void had tried to pull them apart and Gordon secretly hadn’t stopped being afraid of losing him to the darkness ever since. He closed his eyes and slung an arm across Alan’s back.

“Go to sleep, Gords,” Alan murmured.

Gordon buried his face in the pillow and for the first time in weeks drifted easily into dreamless rest.

He woke up alone.

It was testament to just how exhausted he had been that he’d somehow slept through the rescue alert, although perhaps EOS had notified Alan via his private console rather than blaring the klaxon. It seemed oddly considerate of her but then again she had an awful lot of John at her heart.

The room seemed colder now that he was alone. Darker. More oppressive. The closet door looked less innocuous and more like a portal to another dimension. Shadows lurked within. They seeped out from the thin gap beneath and lapped at the carpet. He shuffled up the bed until he could press his back against the headboard and took several deep breaths to calm his adrenaline spike.

It was all in his head.

It had to be.

He reached for the switch, flooding the room with the warm glow of the lamp on the bedside table, accidentally knocking a stack of comics onto the floor. The shadows retreated as if burnt by the light and the knot in his chest loosened slightly. He ground the knuckles of his left hand into his watering eyes and reached for the comics with the other.

The bedside table was cluttered with all sorts of miscellaneous treasures – a tiny model of Apollo 11, a half-eaten packet of Oreos, stray Uno cards, a spare game controller, three marbles, an unopened soda can, the framed family photo from that trip they’d taken to the Galapagos last February, a stress ball and a sharpie without a cap – so he shoved the comics onto the edge in a haphazard heap.

The uncapped sharpie made a lot more sense when he glimpsed ink on the back of his hand. He examined Alan’s scrawled writing, flexing his fingers to stretch the skin across his knuckles so that he could read the note better.

Gone on rescue with V + S. Don’t steal my Oreos.

He rolled his eyes, licking his thumb and rubbing at the ink to no avail. Whatever. At least his brother hadn’t drawn a moustache on him this time. Besides, it was hard to be mad at the kid when he had clearly taken the time to smooth out the blanket and tuck it up to Gordon’s chin before leaving.

The lamp flickered. Gordon shot it a harsh look, glaring as if he could intimidate it into staying alight. His heart jolted, a physical reaction that sent sparks into his fingertips. He curled his hands into fists, struck by another shiver as the blanket fell from his shoulders into his lap. A childlike desperation to not be alone gripped him and he scrambled to his feet, fleeing the shadowy confines of the room.

The door slammed shut behind him. He whirled around, heart hammering so fiercely that he could feel it throbbing in his ears. The doors had a soft-close function – the perks of a new-build – which should have prevented that from happening. He took a cautious step into the centre of the corridor. Nothing moved. The lights flickered and he lost his nerve, bolting to the kitchen in search of John.

Gordon would freely admit that it had not been so long ago when he had last found safety in the presence of a big brother. It had, however, been far longer since he had sought that comfort from John. But today he couldn’t deny the surge of relief that came with finding the nerd.

He skidded into the kitchen as if the shadows were still reaching for him and careered around the edge of the island to slide into the space at John’s side. His brother was in the process of cooking something; there were two pots on the stove and something wrapped in foil being baked in the oven. Gordon could feel the heat spreading over his socks. The air smelt of garlic and oregano.

John didn’t react to his presence immediately. He appeared to be lost in his own thoughts. Maybe his check up with Virgil hadn’t gone so well. Given he was wearing black sweatpants and a navy hoodie emblazoned with YALE, this was a distinct possibility; he only ever stole Scott’s clothes when he needed a dose of comfort that he was too self-conscious to ask for in person. He was staring at the diced onion on the chopping board without truly seeing it, head tilted as if listening to someone.

Gordon pressed his back against the counter to feel the reassuring hard edge through his shirt. He liked having a barrier between himself and the rest of the room; it made him feel less like prey.

“Uh,” he ventured, prodding John’s shin with one socked foot. “Johnny? You good?”

John’s gaze tracked back to the knife. It gleamed under the overhead spotlights. He took a deep breath, held it, then exhaled in a rush. When he looked up, his eyes were bloodshot and lined with the dark smears of many sleepless nights. He palmed the back of his neck, digging his fingers into the vertebrae to chase away the residual tension.

“I’m fine.”

“Right,” Gordon drawled. “Because that was convincing.”

There was a haunted – hunted – look on John’s face that Gordon found disconcerting. The moment drifted into painful silence. On the stove, the saucepan of simmering tomatoes and herbs gurgled as a bubble popped. Gordon flinched. John downright startled, smacking his elbow into the counter.

“Shit, ow, fucking-”

“-Funny bone?”

John spat another curse, scraped the onions into the pan, and tossed the knife into the sink. It landed with an overly loud clatter. Gordon flinched again, unable to help himself. John glanced at him, unease melting into curiosity as his own big brother instincts kicked into gear.

“What’s wrong with you?”

“Nice, Jay. Real subtle.”

“Why would I bother with subtlety? Clearly something’s upset you.”

“Your face is upsetting me.”

John didn’t dignify that with an answer, which honestly? Fair enough. Gordon didn’t even know himself why he was acting like a little shit.

He watched as John washed his hands, dried them on the damp kitchen towel, then put on his glasses as he summoned the holo recipe to check cooking times. He showed no signs of annoyance yet there was new root of tension in his shoulders. There was something off about him; an open sore; some freshly bruised vulnerability that Gordon had only seen on him once or twice before.

“Hey, John?”

“Hmm.”

“Are you okay? Like, really okay?”

Because it wasn’t so long ago in the grand scheme of things that he had witnessed his brother in the infirmary with those demonic lines of infection creeping towards his heart, cold and in pain and secretly oh-so-scared even if he’d done a fantastic job of hiding it from everyone.

John prodded the pasta with a wooden spoon. “I’ve got a headache.”

“No. You haven’t.”

“How would you know?”

“I’m good at reading people, remember? You have some pretty distinct tells when you’ve got a headache. Right now, you’re not showing any of them. So. What’s the deal, man?”

A sharp, slippery movement stole his attention. The pen on the edge of the desk rolled onto the floor and skidded over the ‘boards into the darkness beneath. Gordon held his breath. A thin line of shadow slithered out of view like a retreating tide. Something thudded upstairs. He clenched his hands around the edge of the countertop. At his side, John stared as if he could see it too.

“Can you-?” Gordon began.

John cleared his throat, rolling up his sleeves in a swift decisive movement that had Gordon trailing off before he could finish his question. It was ridiculous anyway; if John could see any spooky shit, he would have said so. Right? That seemed like something you would mention if you had been killed, resurrected and then sort of held hostage by a demon only a few months earlier.

“Are you hungry?”

Gordon blinked, unable to comprehend the question at first. He stole another glance over his shoulder at the lounge and shivered. John retrieved the tray of garlic bread from the oven, upended the sauce over the pasta and dished it into two bowls. He carried them out to the patio without waiting for an answer and Gordon broke into a jog to catch up with him, unwilling to be left behind.

Oddly enough, it seemed safer outside. The patio was soaked in the glow of the villa and the marble reflections of pool lights. The shadows weaving between palm fronds and plant pots looked exactly as they were supposed to – mere tricks of the light. There was nothing ominous about them.

Fragmented moonlight slipped through the gathering clouds to turn the sea silver. In the distance, thunder rumbled. The air was thick with static and tasted metallic. When Gordon dropped onto the edge of the tiles, the heat of the day was still captured within the stone.

They sat in silence, feasting on pasta and tearing into the garlic bread. John left the majority of it for Gordon, listlessly stabbing at his own bowl with a fork without eating much. His hair stuck up at odd ends at the back like a duck’s tail where he’d been running his hands through it and Gordon had to question what the hell had happened in that medical check up earlier to leave him looking so lost.

The warble of a frog bubbled up from the bushes. A net of mosquitoes buzzed around the treeline. Another rumble of thunder unravelled across the horizon as clouds cloaked the moon. Gordon dunked his feet in the pool and focussed on the water lapping at his ankles rather than the sensation of eyes boring into his back. The heavy presence of something inhuman hung all around.

He shuffled a little closer to John, relieved when his brother didn’t shove him away. Their reflections in the pool were disturbed by ripples and for a brief instance it looked for all the world as if there were a third figure stood behind them, looming over their heads, easily eight foot if not taller.

John drew a sharp, shallow breath and pushed himself to his feet before Gordon could say anything. He stuffed his hands into his hoodie pocket, shoulders hunched defensively, that same uncharacteristic vulnerability rawer than ever. Upstairs, one of the bedroom lights flickered, which was odd because Gordon swore that it hadn’t been turned on in the first place.

“John.”

He scrambled upright and made to grab his brother’s arm. Some primal, inexplicable force urged him to stay outside, to keep John from stepping through the patio doors, that it was dangerous, deadly.

“John!”

John’s steps faltered. Gordon’s fingertips brushed the edge of navy-blue fabric, then his hand fell back to his side, instinctively balling into a fist as he glimpsed movement in the doorway.

John stepped back. His elbow knocked clumsily against Gordon’s ribs but all pain had been erased by dread. There was a physical presence in the lounge, framed against the lights to One’s launch. It wasn’t a clear-cut creature, faded at the edges as if made of dust, but it was there. As it turned, unmistakeable eyes fixed on them; deep red; blazing; the colour of spilled wine or venous blood.

Pure terror had a paralysing quality. For a moment, Gordon found himself rooted to the spot, unable to even twitch a finger. The creature – not of this world but formed of some deeper, darker evil – engulfed the doorway as if lunging for them and he jolted. His heel slipped on the wet rim of the pool and he careered backwards with a startled yelp that was swiftly swallowed.

It was by no means the first time that he’d fallen into the pool. He’d been unceremoniously dunked on more occasions than he could recall off the top of his head. But this time, terror bled through his thoughts and tore his training to shreds.

The water rushed in before he could remember to hold his breath. All around him, the lights flickered. Darkness crowded closer. He fumbled for something – anything – but water slipped through his fingers. A pair of crimson eyes gleamed less than an inch away from his face. Darkness closed in. Ice struck a deep chill into his bones. He lashed out.

Fingers curled in his shirt. John hauled him from the pool, shouting something which went unheard. He slumped over his knees, coughing and gagging as he spat out chlorinated water. He was shaking so badly that it ached.

“What the fuck was that?” John demanded.

Gordon wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. He was no stranger to the knowledge that water could be an enemy, but it was only the second time in his life that he had felt the oppressive certainty that it had been actively trying to kill him. And wasn’t that embarrassing? Ex-Olympian drowns in his own swimming pool. He could see the headlines now. Thank God that John had the second most swimming experience; maybe a more accurate saying would be thank you NASA.

“Gordon,” John hissed, voice low with unbridled fear and Gordon realised in a rush that his brother was still crouched at his side, one hand on his back and the other on his chest to keep him from faceplanting onto the floor. “What happened?”

“I…”

The patio doors were empty. The pool lights glowed steadily. Its surface had already returned to a smooth expanse; the only evidence of his near-death experience was the water splashed over the tiles and the fierce trembling that ran through him from head-to-toe.

“I don’t know.”

His eyes stung; he pushed the heels of his hands against them and blamed the chlorine. He tipped back onto his heels, slumping heavily into John’s arms. His throat was stripped raw by chemicals and he longed for something to take the taste away but the idea of going inside made him shake again.

“Okay,” John murmured, rubbing a hand across Gordon’s shoulders. “Let’s find you a towel and some dry clothes. Accidents happen. It was nothing.”

“I slipped.”

“Exactly.”

“I thought…”

“It was an accident.”

“It was an accident.” Gordon cuffed his eyes, blinking away the burn. “I’m just… tired, I guess.” He gave a shaky chuckle. “Thanks for the save.”

John didn’t say anything for a long minute which seemed to drag on. In the silence, the darkness crept closer. Gordon recognised absently that the background hum had been extinguished - thunder and sea and insect-song – replaced by the steady drip of his clothes onto the tiles and the roar of blood in his ears. He reached for John’s – technically Scott’s – hoodie and coiled his fingers in the bunched fabric where his brother had rolled up his sleeve. They huddled together in the gloom.

Gordon shivered again.

“Towel,” John whispered. He cleared his throat and repeated, louder, “Towel. Let’s go before you catch pneumonia.”

“We live on a tropical island,” Gordon pointed out, trying to muster some cheer as he let John drag him upright. “In what world am I gonna catch frickin’ pneumonia? I’m not you.”

“Do I need to remind you of your terrible medical history?”

His steps faltered as they approached the patio doors. It all looked perfectly innocuous yet the sense of safety that was supposed to exist within a home had vanished. Everything familiar had been warped into threats. It was as if he had fallen into a mirror dimension when he’d collided with the surface of the swimming pool. He was struck by a sudden desperation to see Scott and Virgil, but they wouldn’t be back for hours and so he pressed close to John as if he were a little kid again.

His pulse tripped over itself as he stepped into the lounge. Nothing stirred. It looked just as they had left it; disordered cushions on the couches; a smear of tomato sauce on the counter; Virgil’s sketchbook abandoned on an armrest where he’d left it in his dash to Two’s launch. But there was a sense of threat that couldn’t be avoided. It lurked in corners and dressed up in familiarity.

“Come on.” John’s arm wrapped around his shoulders and guided him towards the corridor into the depths of the villa, a rare display of tactile affection that Gordon melted into. “Let’s find that towel.”

Gordon resisted the urge to just leave. Every instinct was screaming at him. He was even tempted to suggest heading up to Thunderbird Five for the night, but he still couldn’t be certain that it wasn’t all in his head and he didn’t want to freak out John for no reason.

Not that John was the kind of guy who could be easily rattled, but still. He had literally died at the hands of a spook. That tended to change perspectives. And then of course there was the unspoken matter of their childhood experience which was a skeleton in the closet still waiting to be addressed.

He jolted out of his thoughts as John came to a sudden halt and held out an arm, barring him from going any deeper into the hallway. Shadows clawed up the walls. The temperature plummeted. Their breath fogged. Ice crackled over Gordon’s damp footprints. He gripped John’s arm.

“What the-?”

John shook his head sharply and Gordon cut himself off. His words faded in a ghostly huff of cold air. The darkness at the end of the corridor piled together, growing, evolving. Skeletal limbs extended from its abdomen in a series of jerky motions like breaking bones. Tacky black liquid dripped from its curved back. It resembled a preying mantis blended with a cockroach and something else far darker.

Gordon swallowed. “You see it too?”

John gave a short nod. His jaw was clenched, gaze almost as icy as the air around them, breathing forcibly even as he tried to stamp out his panic before it could take control of him.

Gordon’s voice twisted into a strangled whisper. “We should…”

“Yeah.”

“Do we run?”

“Probably.”

Neither of them moved. The same deep-rooted fear that had held Gordon captive out on the patio had returned with a vengeance and brought with it a memory that he had kept locked away for years. Cold terror curled around his throat and pressed against his pulse, trickling down his spine like the water that was still dripping from his clothes. He couldn’t get a proper breath as if something were constricting his lungs. The tightness in his chest spread outwards, clogging his windpipe. Every instinct screamed at him to run but he couldn’t tear himself out of the trance.

The monster’s head rotated 360 degrees, a spherical orbit like an owl. Three colossal, ant-like eyes flared and focussed. Mandibles gaped, oozing black treacle. Its belly trailed along the floor with a godawful squelch. It lifted one of its many legs and scuttled towards them at top speed.

“Gordon.”

John’s voice seemed to split through space and time; Gordon was momentarily thrown into a memory of a teenage dare that had ended in brutality and horror beyond all imagination, to his brother’s terrified shout and hand clamped across Gordon’s mouth to keep him from screaming as they cowered out of sight beneath the bed and prayed that it wouldn’t find them.

The corridor was usually lit by spotlights. As the monster bolted closer, each bulb exploded. Glass shards crunched. Darkness rushed in. John grabbed Gordon’s wrist and physically dragged him backwards, tripping and stumbling over their own feet, trying to stay in the light.

“What the hell is that thing?”

“Demon? Poltergeist? I don’t fucking know!”

Gordon skidded to a halt as he glimpsed a new creature rearing out of the shadows at the opposite end of the hallway. His wet feet slipped, slamming him into the wall with such force that it knocked spots into his feet. He tasted blood. John dragged him into a new sprint; this corner, that corner; upstairs; along another corridor; down a flight of steps; through the connecting passageway that led up to the roundhouse. They weren’t running to a location, just fleeing from what chased them.

The roundhouse lay in complete darkness. It was still and silent and even breathing seemed too loud, practically an emergency beacon that might draw the demon to their hiding spot. John burst through the door to the guest suite and Gordon pushed it shut behind them, twisting the physical lock as well as the electronic one as if that could possibly save them from a metaphysical threat.

John staggered into the centre of the room, clawing fistfuls of hair as he gulped down air. He fumbled for the light switch and slumped against the wall when the lamps blinked into life. His hoodie was soaked on one sleeve where he’d pulled Gordon from the pool and now he yanked it over his head, dropping it onto an armchair. Without it, he looked smaller and Gordon could see just how badly he was trembling. Somehow, that seemed scarier than the demon.

Darkness swallowed everything around them. The ocean, the sky, the villa below; it was all cloaked in impenetrable shadows.

Gordon planted a hand on the windowsill to steady himself as a wave of dizziness rocked him. His clothes were still drenched. He registered them dripping onto the floor, splashing on the ‘boards like blood. He lifted a hand; he was shaking so badly that his teeth were chattering.

“Shit,” John whispered, snappy, hissed between gritted teeth. His face was pale – ghostlike, Gordon’s imagination supplied – and when he lifted his arms, the fabric of his t-shirt pulled taut across his upper back, revealing the lines of scar tissue leftover from his brush with death.

“Is this… This is real. This is happening. Right?” Gordon sank onto the windowsill, unable to trust the sudden weakness in his legs. He curled his arms across his chest, gripping his own biceps to ground himself. “This thing is in our home.”

John paced back-and-forth across the space between the window and the door. His gaze kept flickering up at the lamps as if he anticipated their deaths too. Gordon kept replaying how those lights had shattered as the demon had crawled closer and oh god, he wanted to hide, he wanted to run, he wanted Scott and Virgil and Kayo back and maybe a selfish part of him wanted Alan too.

“It’s in our home,” he repeated, licking frothy blood from his lip. He’d bitten his cheek when he’d collided with the wall and now that stinging pain briefly distracted him from rising panic.

John flexed his hands at his sides. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”

Gordon was rendered speechless; he had nothing and everything to say. The chilled windowpane bled through his wet shirt which felt overly clingy and cloying all of a sudden. He peeled it away from his skin with a shiver. A strange mix of anger and hurt and dread curdled in his stomach and he was suddenly struck by the fear that he might be sick.

Because no, it wasn’t the first time that an inhuman entity had entered their home. Admittedly, not this specific home but rather an old house back in Kansas, but the sentiment was the same; the sense of violation was the same; the knowledge that something had invaded what was supposed to be a safe place made his skin crawl just as it had done all those years ago. But the difference was that this time John was admitting it and Gordon didn’t know whether to hug him or hit him.

“You remember.”

His breathless words hung in the air for a moment, forming their own ghost. Forbidden knowledge pressed heavily upon them both; Gordon could feel those memories pushing down on his shoulders and watched as John crumpled into the armchair under the weight of them.

“Yes,” John confessed wearily, unable to make eye contact. “I remember.”

Gordon stared at him.

“You- You- I knew it. You asshole. I knew you remembered. God, you let me think… This whole time? You let me think I was crazy. You let Dad think I was crazy. Grandma and Scott thought I was this dumb kid with an overactive imagination, that I’d watched too many horror movies, was traumatised because my friend had vanished off the face of the fucking planet and you never said a word in my defence as if you didn’t also see him get torn apart by a goddamn demon.”

“I didn’t want to remember.”

“Didn’t want to believe it more like.”

John shook his head with a brittle chuckle. “Yeah, that too.”

“And then the- the frickin’ demon deal happened and you still refused to admit what happened when we were kids. This shit nearly got you killed for a second time but you still couldn’t…”

“I know.”

“And now it’s here.”

John pushed his thumbs into his temples, cradling his head in his hands. His shirt was stretched across his upper back again and the scars were a crude reminder that he had actually crossed the border between life and death more than once. Maybe the demon had set its sight on him from the moment he’d set foot in that house. Perhaps Gordon had been the one to paint that target on his back from the moment he’d picked up a planchette while John had watched from the doorway, both too naïve to understand what they had awakened. Fate was a strange creature like that.

“And now it’s here,” John echoed, voice soft with unease akin to a lament. “It’s found us again.”

Gordon sucked in a sharp breath. “You think it’s the same thing? The same entity that we- that I conjured back then? The one which- which possessed Ethan?”

A memory stirred at the back of his mind; ankle-deep in his own fears within the walls of a cursed house; gripping Virgil’s wrist so tightly that his fingers threatened to leave bruises; vision blurred with tears that he refused to let fall; voice tied up in ribbons of hysteria; Alan’s fearful, desperate tone as he’d spoken to something that no one else could hear; an echoed plural: us?

“There were two,” he realised aloud. “Alan banished one, but there was another. It must have come through the portal and latched onto me without any of us realising. It would have recognised me from the ritual, something like that. And now I’ve brought it back here. Jesus, what if it’s going after all of us? Everyone who was there that night? We might only be the first victims.”

“Don’t phrase it like that. Victims implies that we’re not going to survive.”

“Newsflash buddy: we barely survived last time.”

A distinct thud pounded in the corridor. Gordon could feel the vibrations through the floorboards under his bare feet. He scrambled from the windowsill and fled to John’s side. John rose out of his chair and took a fearful, uncertain step forward to place himself in front of Gordon.

It was an entirely subconscious attempt at protection and Gordon was struck with a rush of fondness for him. Sure, he was still annoyed that John had let him look like an idiot over the years instead of standing up and saying yeah, I was there that night too and it’s all real, Gordy isn’t making shit up again and by the way, that kid Ethan didn’t get abducted, he got possessed and dragged to Hell, but hey. Water under the bridge and all that fun stuff. He was mostly just grateful to have John with him.

“Hey,” he whispered in tiny, thready voice. “We’re… We’re okay, right? It’s not… It’s… We’re okay. We can figure this out. I mean, we’ve survived a demon attack in the past.”

“I wasn’t even with you last time.”

He swallowed. “I, uh, I wasn’t talking about the house. I was talking about when we were kids. Because what happened to Ethan? It can’t happen to us. We can’t put everyone through that.”

The lamp closest to the door flickered, sporadic, uneven like a fading heartbeat. A fat droplet of chlorinated water rolled down his spine and splashed onto the floorboards. He pushed wet hair out of his face and glimpsed his reflection in the window, wide-eyed and pale, young with terror.

“What happened to Ethan isn’t going to happen to you.” John sounded so certain, gaze earnest as he gripped Gordon’s shoulders and anchored him before the fear could snatch his mind away. “It isn’t an option. I would never let it become an option. You are not going to die tonight, Gordon. I swear.”

Gordon wasn’t naïve enough to believe that John could protect him. But he could still find comfort in the words. He longed to just fall forwards and let John catch him in one of those rare but precious hugs, but danger was creeping closer by the minute. The darkness stalked the halls of their home and all they could do was pray it wouldn’t find them. He shivered again from head to toe.

John’s gaze softened. “We need to get out of here. You need some dry clothes.”

“Demon waiting to kill us, remember?”

“It’s hardly waiting. We’re the prey. It’s hunting us. Staying here isn’t an option. We may as well find you something warm to wear in the process. So, what do we know so far? It’s demonic, clearly, and darkness makes it stronger. How can we fight back?”

“Um…” Gordon tugged the wet collar of his shirt away from his neck. Ideas flitted out of reach. “I guess… we could try a salt circle? And if… if darkness makes it stronger, would light hurt it?”

“Interesting theory. Let’s test it. Where’s the salt?”

“In the kitchen.”

“Ah. That could be a challenge.”

Nothing jumped out at them as they navigated the corridors back down to the heart of the villa, but there was a new sense of menace, thick and dark and oppressive. It was as if the house had gained sentience, becoming a beast with fangs and claws and an insatiable hunger. Disconsolate shadows lurked at the edges of the flashlight that John had found in a drawer in the guest suite, lunging as close to the beam as they dared. The distant slams of doors and thudding footsteps tried to disorientate them but Gordon knew better than to be led astray by mind games after The Incident.

The air conditioning was malfunctioning. Gusts of freezing air huffed from the vents, so cold that ice had formed over the windows. The views were obscured by the thick frost and it wouldn’t take much to get lost in the thought that they were being cut off from the world; all radios and phones weren’t working and John couldn’t even get a signal out to EOS.

They made it to the bedrooms without running into the creature. Gordon could hear it scuttling along the hallway above them. The ceiling was coated in a thick layer of ectoplasm that splattered onto the floor between himself and John. He clamped his jaw against a new wave of terror.

His bedroom door was shut. He couldn’t remember closing it. There was a tiny smear of ectoplasm on the bronze handle. He reached out. His chest ached, lungs begging him to take a breath. His eyes were stinging again. The substance was tacky like fresh paint under his thumb. He steeled himself, twisted the handle, and threw the door open.

His room was empty. The usual clutter of clothes and various items littered the carpet but there was nothing out of place from earlier and the temperature seemed warmer as if the evil in the house hadn’t ventured this far yet. He darted inside and closed the door as quietly as he could.

John grabbed the desk chair and wedged it under the handle; neither of them were sure of the boundaries between the physical and spiritual plains and whether the demon could cross them without giving up its shell. They took a synchronised step back and stood in silence, staring at the door as if expecting the monster to smash through it at any second.

“Did it hear us?” Gordon whispered, unable to look away. He couldn’t shake the unfounded fear that taking his eyes off the door would summon the creature. “I think we got away with it.”

John exhaled through gritted teeth. He neither confirmed nor denied the theory. His steps carried him back until his knees hit the edge of the bed and he sank onto the mattress. He rubbed one hand above his heart subconsciously, glancing up at the sound of scratches from the room above. A low, eerie groan reverberated through the walls, rattling the half-empty glass of water on the desk.

Shapeless, snarling shadows gathered outside the door but didn’t venture inside. It was temporarily a safe space and Gordon found himself dizzy with relief.

He drank in the familiarity of the room; the various posters; the ukulele hung on its wall bracket; the gentle bubble of the filter in the aquarium; clothes heaped over furniture and shoes discarded in the middle of the floor; the welcome glow from the string of rainbow lights looped around the ceiling that he’d procrastinated taking down and so had become a permanent feature.

Now that he had a chance to catch his breath, he could finally recognise just how scared he was. Deep, hollow terror that consumed everything light and hopeful and good. It was the kind of fear that could take the mind hostage; strung out for the imagination to feast on; paralysing; icy; such visceral dread that he wanted to claw his way out of his own skin. He couldn’t think, couldn’t focus.

“Here.”

John stood up – not commenting on the grit of sleepless night snacks scattered over the mattress which was a miracle given he shared Alan’s weird hatred for crumbs on beds because the textures are wrong and you’re insane, Gords, oh my god – and rifled through a drawer for a clean pair of jeans and a dry shirt, some soft green thing emblazoned with Smokey Bear, faded by cumulative washes and carrying the distinct scent of acrylic paint that suggested it had once been Virgil’s.

Gordon took the bundle of clothes in trembling hands. The shakes ran all the way into his fingertips and he curled them around the fabric like a lifeline at sea. He swallowed, vocal chords still strangled by primal terror so that all which escaped was a wheezed, raspy sound.

Another thud unrolled over the ceiling. The rainbow lights flickered, one-by-one. John eyed them silently for a moment before they returned to full brightness.

“Don’t make a Stranger Things joke,” he ordered, only half-teasing. His voice was remarkably steady given the depths of pure horror in his eyes. He kept pushing his hand against his shirt, directly above the scar tissue which marked the injury that had temporarily killed him. “Get dressed.”

Gordon stared at him blankly. He heard the words but couldn’t bring himself to comprehend them. Mostly because the towels were in the en-suite and that involved closing the door to reach the heated rail behind it and he really, really didn’t want to let John out of his sight.

His knuckles ached; his grip on the clothes was so tight that his fingers were drained of blood. He felt like a little kid again with the duvet pulled over his head except the darkness was so much scarier when you knew that the monsters under the bed were not only real but were actively hunting you.

“Gordy,” John whispered, strained by urgency and fear and something fiercely protective that rarely made itself known. “We can’t stay here. Grab a towel, get changed and let’s go.”

When was the last time John had called him Gordy? Years ago, shattered in a hospital bed.

“I- Right. Yeah. Yes. That’s… Yeah.”

Gordon cradled the bundle of clothes as if it were an injured animal and inched into the en-suite. The lights flickered but stayed on. There were no creepy messages scrawled on the mirror. He prodded the tiles with one foot before stepping over the threshold. He stripped off his shirt and tossed it aside before turning to face the door. It would only take a second to grab a towel yet he couldn’t shake the certainty that something was about to happen.

Sharp fear twisted in his chest. His vision fizzed. He couldn’t seem to get enough oxygen into his lungs. Dread skittered down his spine. His scalp prickled. He sucked in a breath and made a mad flail for the towel, knocking the door open again immediately with his heel. Nothing happened.

“Okay?” John asked quietly.

Gordon ducked his head in some mimic of a nod. His mind was too foggy to comprehend the question. He scrubbed the towel through his hair and hastily dried off, clambering into the dry clothes. His back was still damp and the shirt clung to his spine but hey, bigger issues at hand.

The door slammed shut.

It took several seconds to believe his own eyes. He hadn’t touched it and he knew that John hadn’t been standing anywhere near it either, yet still cursed his brother out of instinct.

“John, that’s not funny.”

He reached for the handle. It wouldn’t budge.

“John?”

John sounded muffled as if he were underwater, certainly a lot further away than on the other side of a closed door. The entire thing rattled as he slammed his hands against it.

“Gordon? This isn’t the time for messing around. Open the door.”

“I’m not messing around!”

“Open the damn door!”

“I’m trying.”

Gordon smashed his fists against the door so violently that tiny splinters drove into his skin. He yanked his hands back with a yelp, voice cracking, humiliatingly close to tears. Desperation crawled into his throat to choke him. The panic languishing in his chest coiled around his lungs and squeezed.

Christ, he couldn’t breathe. As in he literally couldn’t breathe. He scrabbled for a handhold and gripped the edge of the basin. His fingers smeared blood over the ceramic; the splinters stung. He swore the room was closing in. The shadows in the corners rose up, cackling, taunting him.

His ears were ringing. He tipped forwards, glanced down. An eyeball stared up at him from the plughole, glowing red like a hot coal. The pupil erupted, bleeding into the whites. He jolted back with a choked scream. The door rattled and he could hear John shouting, somehow knew that it wasn’t his brother twisting the handle back-and-forth, but the ringing in his ears had become a roar and the walls were oozing blood. It dripped from the ceiling, trickled down the tiles, spread over the floor.

He dropped to the floor. Scrambled into a corner until his back hit the wall. Drew his knees up to his chest and hugged them. Buried his face on top. Knotted his hands in his hair until it hurt. Tasted blood, smelt it, felt cold droplets splash onto the back of his neck. Stop, stop, stopstopstop-

“Gordon.”

Hands patted at his arms, cupped his face to raise his chin, coaxed his hands down from his hair before he could yank it out in chunks. The room was clean. The door stood partly ajar. There was no trace of any blood except the tiny smears from the splinters in his palms.

“You’re okay,” John was murmuring, over and over as if he couldn’t believe it himself. His own hands were trembling as he gathered his brother into his arms but Gordon didn’t mention it. “I’ve got you.”

“It’s coming for me.” Gordon let out a wheezing sob as he buried his face in the crook of John’s neck. “It’s gonna- It’s- It’s not gonna s-stop. I woke it up, Johnny, I summoned it back then and now it’s going to kill a-all of us and we can’t hide. We can’t hide.”

He knitted his fingers in the back of John’s shirt and clung on as though his life depended on it. A distant, hazy thought wondered if maybe it did. He couldn’t catch his breath, only that made him panic even more which in turn made it harder to get any air into his lungs. He was shaking so badly that it felt as if the world were trembling too. Shadows crept up the walls, leering, laughing at him.

“Hey.” John’s voice held a distinctive edge, sharp with concern but also intent; the same tone used to snap them out of spirals in the danger zone. He gripped Gordon’s face, fingers pressing faint bruises as he encouraged his brother to lift his chin. “There you go. Just breathe.”

“We don’t have time-”

“Gordy, your fear is like a goddamn beacon for this thing, okay? There is no point in us moving from here until you’ve calmed down.”

John’s gaze was warm, patient, oh-so-familiar as he searched for something within Gordon’s eyes. It was debatable whether he found whatever he was looking for, but it was enough to knock through the fog of panic that was trying its best to encompass them both.

Gordon managed to choke down a breath which scraped at his raw throat, jarring his chin against John’s collarbone as he lowered his head to his brother’s shoulder again. They were both on the floor, he recognised as his senses trickled back to him, and John was crouched awkwardly in front of him, bracketing him against the corner between the wall and the shower in a protective shield. The floor glittered with the reflection of the lights from the bedroom. The air smelt of mint soap.

“Shit,” he exhaled. “That- fuck. That happened.”

John’s hands fell from Gordon’s face to his biceps but didn’t let go entirely.

“What exactly happened? The door slammed shut. I couldn’t get it open. The handle started rattling but somehow I suspect that wasn’t you.”

Gordon risked a fearful glance up at the ceiling. There was no trace of blood but when he closed his eyes he could still see the sight replaying on repeat like television static. He sucked in a thready breath through gritted teeth and let his gaze track back to the door unbidden.

“I… No. That wasn’t me.” He forced himself to take another breath. A cold, unsettled rush of dread shivered down his spine. “There was – Christ, this sounds stupid – an eye. Or something- I don’t… Something was watching me. From down the drain. And then it was everywhere.”

John’s grip tightened. He twisted to throw a glance over his shoulder at the bedroom. There was resigned horror written into the lines of his frown. He hesitated, selecting his words carefully.

“It saw you. Something was here. So… it knows where we are.”

Gordon scrabbled at the wet tiles, jolting to his feet. “We need to go.”

A low whistle bounced around the room. Its origins were unclear. The temperature dropped.

“Yeah,” John agreed breathlessly. “We really do.”

Perhaps time was doomed to repeat itself. Not in a weird, sci-fi looped sense but in the concept of actions having unforeseen consequences and the butterfly effect and every other human attempt at explaining why tragedies recurred despite historical lessons.

Gordon considered this as he crept along the hallway to the kitchen with his back pressed to the wall. He was wearing socks to keep his steps muted and kept knocking his knee against the back of John’s leg, brushing shoulders or impulsively grabbing his brother’s wrist. He crowded into John’s space, not so much seeking comfort as reaching for an anchor.

Everything that he knew to be safe and real had fallen through the cracks that had torn apart his reality and so the only aspect left that could be trusted was John. John, who’d been hauling his ass outta trouble for far longer than either of them had consciously realised and had never received as much credit for it as Scott and Virgil.

But now Gordon stumbled upon a faded memory tucked into a forgotten crevice of his mind: the two of them crouched under a cloaked table at some event or another; still very young although John had already hit a growth spurt that left him bumping his head every few moments; hiding from sour stares and judgmental whispers because the room was too stuffy and Dad was nowhere to be found and Gordon had wanted to crawl out of his own skin or maybe just run so John had hidden with him until the urge to scream had faded and then they had snacked on stolen canapes and cups of overly warm juice and had traded jokes, years before Ouija board mistakes.

His thoughts kept flitting from one subject to the next like changing channels on a radio, never resting on any long enough to contemplate its relevance. Adrenaline kept yanking him back into the present to take stock of his senses and assess the primal survival instincts that were keeping him alive; doors slowly opening by themselves, beckoning him into the dark; eyes glowing in the shadows; dull laughs and indistinct whispers; another haunting whistle.

The point was that he couldn’t do this without John. If he’d been alone, the demon would have torn him apart within the hour although perhaps he’d have lost his mind before that stage.

There was something intoxicating about the fear; he knew it was dangerous, possibly even deadly, yet was drawn to it anyway. It reminded him of that weird urge for self-destruction that materialised out of the blue. There was a name for it: call of the void, something like that? Well, the void was sure as hell calling to him tonight. It had a hypnotic effect. The fear drugged him. Why else would he be tempted to step into the darkness revealed when a door opened with a desolate creak?

“Is this thing messing with our minds?” he wondered aloud in a strained whisper as they rounded the doorway into the open plan living space.

The conversation pit looked disconcerting in the gloom; a pool of pure darkness; cushions poking out like headstones; the plastic curve of the holoprojector reflecting the glare of John’s flashlight.

“Definitely,” John murmured distractedly.

The patio doors were still ajar and he closed them, shutting out the thunder. It occurred to Gordon that he hadn’t heard the usual rumble of waves against the cliffs ever since he had fallen into the swimming pool. Part of him wondered whether he was dreaming. If so, he longed to wake up, to find himself back in Alan’s room, safe and sound where his biggest concern was his brother’s bony knees digging into his ribs where Alan had squashed himself onto the edge of the mattress.

John took a cautious step towards the kitchen. “I don’t think anything’s here.”

“Yet,” Gordon muttered.

John tucked the flashlight under his arm and set about retrieving candles from the unofficially coined Cupboard of Miscellaneous Crap. He poked his head above the countertop when Gordon didn’t move, a hint of exasperation bleeding into the tightly woven fear on his face.

“Get the salt.”

A thud came from the hallway, heavy like deliberate footfall. The same uncanny whistle that had been taunting them for an hour floated on the air. Gordon fled from the conversation pit into the kitchen, ducking down behind the counter. His heart pounded. He could feel his pulse in his fingertips again. He ran his tongue across his teeth and tasted salt; was he crying or sweating or both? He couldn’t tell. Terror overrode every other sense.

The hiss of a lighter accompanied a gold glow. The warmth flooded over the tiles as John lit five candles. Gordon pried his fingers around the edge of the cupboard and eased it open, careful to avoid making any sound. He retrieved the salt and began pouring it, shuffling forwards to create a large enough circle for both of them to sit inside. John placed the candles around the periphery and delicately stepped into the space. Gordon snatched up the matchbox just in case and joined him.

Shadows leaked across the floor. On the far side of the room, a dark mass squeezed through the doorway. Insect-like legs scraped against the doorframe. There came a dull squelch.

Gordon swallowed, hard. He pressed closer to John. They were back-to-back and his brother’s shoulder blade was digging into his spine but he didn’t dare ask him to move.

John ducked his head to whisper in Gordon’s ear, “What time is it?”

Gordon glanced down at his watch. “Approaching three-AM.”

“So, that’s… roughly two hours left.”

“Huh?”

“If your theory that light weakens this thing is correct, then we only need to last out until dawn. The sun rises at five-thirty at the moment.”

“We just have to survive until sunrise.”

John’s voice was full of gentle determination. “Exactly.”

Tendrils of shadow snaked over the floorboards; slunk around the legs of Dad’s desk; ventured into the open expanse of space between the end of the kitchen counter and the patio doors. They were seeking – no, hunting – warm heartbeats. There was an alien quality about them that had Gordon desperately searching for anything familiar: the clutter of dishes in the sink, Alan’s latest homework notes pinned under an abandoned holoprojector on the table, the faintly chemical scent similar to gunpowder that always hung around John when he’d been down from Space less than a full day.

The tendrils scouted the length of the sliding doors then slithered into the kitchen. They looked more like veins at close proximity but thicker and darker and hungrier. They slithered around the edge of the circle, reeling whenever they came within the glow thrown by the candles.

Gordon stared at them. He didn’t even dare to blink, wasn’t sure if he could. Air was caught up in the tight knot that had formed in his lungs and the dropping temperature made him want to cough. He pressed one hand to his mouth and bit down on his knuckles. John’s fingers brushed his other hand, then closed around his wrist, squeezing lightly.

It was as if the shadows couldn’t see them. The salt ring had made them invisible. How long that would last was debatable but two hours was nothing, right? And there was always the hope that Scott and the others would make it home before then, although Gordon wasn’t sure if he wanted them back before sunrise. It would only place them in danger too and no one knew the full extent of the horrors that Alan had suffered during his last demonic encounter.

“I don’t think it can see us,” he murmured, so softly that John barely heard. “Can it hear us?”

“Apparently not.”

John exhaled in a rush but none of the tension left his shoulders. He lowered himself into a cautious crouch and then, when the movement didn’t attract attention, sat down. There was a dreadful sense of being utterly exposed when he was the only one standing, so Gordon hastily sat down too. He huddled close to his brother, leaning against John so that they were propping each other up, back-to-back to keep an eye on the room around them. The tendrils continued in their search.

They sat in silence for an unknowable length of time. Gordon had forgotten to check his watch when they’d first sat down and so had no way of telling how much time had passed since. He tipped his head back against John’s and was met by a new wave of gratitude for his presence.

Every so often his mind threatened to delve into that deep, terrifying certainty that the demon was here for him, collecting past dues and continuing on the path that he had unintentionally set in motion when his dumb teenage self had agreed to partake in rituals just to prove himself to so-called cool kids.

He distracted himself by thinking back over the months that had passed since The Incident. How long had John been acting weirdly? Could it all be chalked up to a near-death experience? What exactly did he remember of the other side? How long had he been seeing things?

“So… how long have you been seeing shit?”

John gave a weary sigh. “Since a month after Alan banished the demon.”

Gordon blinked. Shock sparked under his skin like popping candy. He twisted to try to glimpse John’s expression but his brother remained staring obstinately at the patio doors and it was too dark to glimpse his reflection in the glass.

“Shit, Johnny. That’s a long time. I mean, demonic stuff is-”

“I wasn’t talking about demons.” John hesitated, rubbing a hand across his chin self-consciously. His voice was muffled as he chewed on the edge of his sleeve. “I, uh, I’ve been seeing… others. Ghosts.”

“You what?”

“I don’t know how else to describe it. There’s no other- They’re… spirits. Human spirits. And an awful lot of them hang around you.”

“Okay, that’s really fucking creepy.”

“Not just you. Scott has the most. Virgil has a few. So has Alan. Kayo has a lot too. It’s… not vengeful. They’re not angry. Many of them are lost or sad. They’re the ones we couldn’t save.”

“That’s… Christ. That’s a lot to process. I… Why didn’t you say anything?”

John shifted uncomfortably.

“I didn’t want it to be real. Think about it, Gordon. I initially thought I was developing schizophrenia, something like that. Then I opened myself to the possibility of a paranormal cause. Either way, it could ruin my life. I can’t do my job if I can’t always tell the difference between the people we’re trying to rescue and the ones we’ve already lost. So far, it’s been quiet on Five. I’ve been spending more time up there because it’s so damn loud down here. But what if they learn to follow me?”

“They won’t…”

Gordon trailed off, hyperaware that he couldn’t make that promise. No one could. Not even Alan, with all his weird supernatural abilities. Seriously, the kid was tapped into the spirit realm like it was the frickin’ internet. But damnit, something had to be done. John couldn’t live with the dead forever.

“Are they here now?”

“No.” John paused. Unease crept back up his spine, revived tension that Gordon could feel through the fabric of their shirts. “They all fled. This thing, this creature – it scares them. So much negative energy could overpower them in a second. I think they’re afraid of being twisted, becoming evil.”

“Have you seen…?”

“If Mom’s looking over us, I haven’t seen her. Although I haven’t seen Dad either, so make of that what you will.”

Gordon opened his mouth, realised that he had no idea how the hell to reply to any of that, and shut it again. He drummed his fingers silently against his knees. There was a dull ache where his anklebone was pressed against the floor and he shifted to sit more comfortably. He didn’t know what to make of what John had just confessed. Honestly, his only observation was that it seemed more and more like the spirit realm was leaking into the world of the living.

“Just how powerful is this thing,” he murmured, “if even the ghosts are afraid of it?”

John shivered. “We still don’t know who it is. There are different types of demon, right?”

“You’re asking me?”

“You know more about it than I do.”

Gordon scrubbed his hands down his face with a dull chuckle. “God, that’s weird to hear. Talk about a role reversal.”

“Make the most of it, I’m never saying it again.”

He picked at one of the splinters that had needled its way beneath his nail. The tiny droplet of blood that rolled down his finger was strangely hypnotic, collecting in the divot of his knuckle.

“It’s a trickster. It likes messing with us, so… Back when we did the first ritual, before Ethan- It claimed to be Zozo, which made sense at the time because hey, demon of the Ouija board, right? But I don’t think it is. I think it’s something else, something more powerful. I think it lied to us. It might even be stronger than whatever you and Alan ran into in Australia.”

John went very still and very silent. He crushed a grain of salt beneath his thumb and drew a deliberately deep breath as if they weren’t crowded so close together that Gordon could feel his heartbeat, thudding like a hunted rabbit’s.

“We let something out that day,” Gordon continued in a raspy whisper, hating every word and the bitter taste they left in his mouth. “And we can try to walk away and close the door as many times as we like, but until we figure out how to actually lock it that thing is gonna keep coming back.”

“Alan-”

“Banished one demon. A different entity. This is our history catching up with us and you know it. We messed with something we shouldn’t have and it’s been chasing us ever since.”

John let the words settle in the resounding silence before replying softly, “Every problem has a solution. We just need to figure it out.”

“Including your ghosts.”

“Including my ghosts.” He tugged his sleeves over his hands and curled his fingers around the fabric, digging his nails into the creases. His voice was thick with emotion as he continued, “You can’t tell the others. Especially not Scott.”

“But they-”

“No, Gordon. They don’t need to know. Maybe they could help, but the price would be… Level with me for a second – do you really think telling Scott that he’s followed by the ghosts of his past would be a good idea? Because I sure as hell don’t. It’s bad enough knowing we’re haunted by the people we couldn’t save but some of his spirits predate IR. So, I want your promise that you won’t tell him.”

“Y’know, historically? Keeping secrets has never ended well for us.”

“Gordon.”

“Yeah, I know. I won’t tell him. But you might want to reconsider confiding in Virg.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Good.”

The shadow tendrils had gathered in a thick ring around the edge of the salt circle. They might not have been able to see inside but that blind spot in itself threw up a glaring red flag. An eerie crimson glow emanated from each strand. The temperature dropped a few more degrees.

“You okay?” Gordon whispered, nudging John’s elbow.

“Yeah,” John muttered. “You?”

“Oh, I’m just peachy. I love hanging out with my bro in a salt circle, hiding from the demon that we accidentally released years ago.”

“It’s not long now. Ninety minutes until dawn.”

“A lot could happen. Seriously. I mean, anything could happen in the next half hour.”

They both fell silent as a new noise echoed from deep within the villa; scraping, squelching, snarling; thick and visceral; growing louder as it swept across the house. The scuttle of hundreds of tiny legs accompanied a rush of insects that flooded across the floor. Then, slowly, the thud of heavy steps.

“Oh, fuck,” Gordon breathed.

John pressed their backs together. “It can’t reach us inside the circle.”

The stench of sulphur wafted across the room. Gordon tugged the collar of his shirt over his mouth and nose and tried not to be sick. The thuds were becoming thunderous. The entire room shook. Ice spread across the patio doors. The glass let out an eerie groan as if it were about shatter.

Every scrap of warmth was sucked from the room. It all grew very still as if the world were holding its breath. His eyes were stinging. Something was about to happen; he knew it. His next inhale tripped over itself and the taste of sulphur made him gag. He snatched up the carton of salt. He couldn’t see anything but he could sense its presence; gigantic, filling the space, looming over them.

“It’s here.”

His voice was a taut, raspy whisper.

“Where is it?” John hissed.

“I don’t know.”

“I can hear it but I can’t see it.”

Everything was so silent that the tiniest of noises seemed thunderous. A scraping, metallic groan screeched from the other side of the room. One thud; two thuds; footsteps tiptoeing into a run; invisible menaces lurking in the line between darkness and light. A judder of chair legs across the floorboards sounded like a low chuckle. Something was dripping, tacky, viscous, thicker than water.

“Oh god, oh fuck, what was that?”

“I didn’t- Something’s…”

It was so dark that Gordon couldn’t see anything beyond the tiny spheres of candlelight. They seemed to waver on the verge of fading. The temperature was still dropping. Was the demon drawing energy from them?

The air was so cold that every breath stung.

A single high-pitched note screamed from the piano. He grabbed John’s wrist instinctively. Another note pierced the silence. Wet legs scuttled across the floor like some gigantic spider. Clumsy chords rang out. They grew louder and louder; a crescendo; a warning; reached deafening levels and then-

Silence.

Gordon probed his ear, expecting blood. The only sound was his own harsh breathing. He relinquished his bruising grip on John’s arm. John caught his hand and kept him from moving. The steady dripping on the other side of the kitchen island had grown louder.

Something’s coming.

The rush of certainty was so strong that it nearly overwhelmed him. He seized a fistful of John’s shirt and yanked him down just as-

-the world-

-tore apart.

An ear-splitting screech exploded from everywhere all at once, drilling through his skull, whiting out his vision. The piano wailed as it was thrown several feet across the room. Every cabinet flew open. Patio doors shattered. Wind lunged through the gaps. Candles blew out. Salt scattered uselessly.

Gordon couldn’t see a damn thing but he could feel it; the pressure that slammed into his chest and sent him crashing into the cupboards behind. He smacked his head against the tiles with a godawful crack. His vision filled with spots. Danger, danger, danger. Ice snared his biceps; a touch so cold that it burnt. The edge of the counter dug into his lower spine as the thing yanked him upright.

The darkness rippled, forming a grotesque bony face that defied description. It crowded closer. A gulf opened below its eyes, tearing papery skin to reveal rows upon rows of needle-like teeth. Flesh peeled back to allow more canines to pierce through its face.

Three eyes gleamed; a pulsing red light smouldered in their depths, hypnotising, drawing him in. He couldn’t look away despite desperately wanting to with every fibre of his being. His face was wet. He tasted salt. The weight on his chest crammed closer; he couldn’t breathe. Those eyes knew him.

Heat trickled down his arms; pooled in his palms; splashed from his fingertips. Claws dug deeper, burrowed into his skin. Pain registered as a dull throb. He couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, existed purely of a deep, primal terror that swallowed his soul. Nothing mattered except the fear.

“You.” The voice rumbled, rough, slippery, layered with a fiery echo. It seemed to slip into the wounds left by its claws and writhed beneath his skin. “I know you.”

He tried to lash out, to scrabble at the counter, struggle to free himself, but the terror had left him entirely paralysed – and didn’t that only make him more petrified? He choked down a feeble breath, wheezing for air as claws constricted his windpipe.

“You awoke me. And now you will be mine.”

Icy nails curled over his jaw, carved into the vulnerable skin beneath his eyes, raised his chin to examine his face with a low laugh.

“It is useless to try to fight me, child. You will only make it hurt more.”

His grip on reality slipped; flashes of darkness at the corners of his vision; pressure in his chest and the back of his head; screaming silently; ice invading his veins; let me in.

No.

No, no, no, nononono-

His fingers closed around the plastic shell of the salt container. He slashed it across the creature’s face. It reared back with a screech. Salt fizzed on its flesh, searing blisters that bubbled and split, oozing black treacle. His feet slammed back onto the floor and he threw himself out of reach.

A roar of fury chased him out of the kitchen. His heels slipped on blood. Heat was gushing from the puncture wounds in his biceps. He hurtled across the room and skidded into the side of Dad’s desk, struck into a trance by horror because what in the Hollywood bullshit was he witnessing?

He had observed levitation once before. It had ended with a cold case abandoned by baffled cops and heavy memories of Ethan’s eyes bleeding black blood as he rose into the air and gave into terror while the demon consumed his soul and took his body as a shell.

“John!”

The purest form of panic left no room for senses nor thoughts. There were no plans, not even feelings, just instinctual actions. He flung himself from the desk and tackled John from the air.

They slammed into the conversation pit. Gordon slid a hand underneath John’s head to save him from a concussion – because a head injury on top of fighting off a possession attempt was just too far – and attempted to gulp down a breath because the impact and knocked the air from his lungs. His hands were sticky with blood and left red smears over John’s neck as he fumbled to find his brother’s pulse. A tiny, desperate sob escaped his gritted teeth when he found it steady and strong.

The demon hadn’t finished reforming but a tendril of shadow swiped over their heads. Gordon ducked, fumbling for the salt he’d stuffed into his pocket. Grit dug under his nails and stung in the grazes across his palms. Another tendril slithered closer, curling around the armrest.

“Get away from him,” he snarled, hunched over John protectively.

Part of him was freaking the fuck out because why hadn’t Johnny woken up yet? But that was a problem for later. He smashed his salt-covered hand into the tendril, pinning it against the armrest while it writhed and squealed, sizzling as the salt burnt through its slimy flesh.

“Yeah, that’s right. Get away from us, bitch. Crawl back to whatever hell I summoned you from.”

He nearly backhanded John, not expecting his brother to grab a fistful of his shirt and pull him down to save him from the talon that cut through the space where his head had been. Hey, at least Johnny was awake again and hopefully no longer at risk of being possessed. He looped an arm around John’s waist and rolled them both onto the floor of the conversation pit.

“Oh, shit,” John was gasping, spitting crimson where he’d bitten through his lip. There was a tiny bead of black under his nose; he’d been dangerously close to the point of no return. He couldn’t catch his breath, struggling to gulp down precious air which rattled in his chest. He braced himself on his elbows, flinching back against Gordon’s chest as the shadows amassed at the top of the pit.

“Go,” Gordon choked out, pawing at John’s arm. “Johnny, please, we’ve gotta run.”

The crack of terror in his voice cut through John’s trance. The demon had almost fully formed again, rising up to fill the doorway, talons slicing canyons into the floorboards. John shoved Gordon into a run, scrambling under Dad’s desk in a clatter of clumsy elbows and knees, huddling together so that their heartbeats seemed to merge into one fearful flutter, holding their breath, not moving.

Gordon curled his hands into fists. His knuckles ached. Heat loitered in his bloody palms. His eyes were burning, a sob tucked away in his throat. He took a tiny, shallow breath. John’s arm wrapped around his shoulders, pulling him close, shielding him from the ice that coated the underside of the desk. He knocked his head against John’s chin and froze but his brother’s grip just tightened.

Years ago, they had clung to each other beneath a bed, listening to the squelch of human flesh and gargling shrieks and the thud of something climbing up the stairs. John had practically crushed him against the carpet, keeping him tucked under his chin, one hand clamped across Gordon’s mouth to stifle his cries. Now, hidden under Dad’s desk, it felt as if no time at all had passed.

There were only fifteen minutes until dawn. Somehow, they’d lost time.

I’m sorry, Gordon thought hysterically, wishing he could speak to John but the demon lurked only a handful of inches away, so close that he could feel the cold air and taste the sulphur from its breath. I’m so sorry, I didn’t know what I was doing, I was just a kid, John was just trying to protect me, let him go, let him be saved. He curled his hand around John’s wrist. Please let him be saved.

A bar stool skittered across the floor. Plates flew from cupboards and shattered midair. Another ferocious roar rattled the remaining glass shards in doorframes.

John flinched, holding him closer. It dawned on Gordon that he couldn’t recall ever seeing John this scared before. It was pure, visceral terror that seemed wrong; John was the calm, logical voice in his ear pulling him out of spirals on rescues. But now he was trembling, curled around Gordon like a human shield, heart hammering and breathing in shallow, stifled gasps, trying to be as silent as possible while the demon tore apart the room to hunt them down, getting closer by the second.

Ten minutes until dawn.

We’re going to die, Gordon realised in a rush. His arms were shaking under his own weight and John gently wiped the blood away with his sleeve. We’re going to die here and it’s my fault.

Darkness cloaked the kitchen. It swept across the floorboards, shattering every bulb in the ceiling. The various notes stuck to the fridge were torn away and ripped to shreds. A talon plunged over the desk and impaled the chair, spinning it out of sight. A metal crunch resounded from the shadows.

Gordon closed his eyes and counted to ten, twenty, thirty, over and over, letting seconds bleed into minutes until merciful sunlight would flood over the volcanic peaks. There was a pinch of salt left in his pocket but he doubted it would do any good. There simply wasn’t enough of it. They were down to the last few inches between life and death and no one was coming to rescue them; everyone would assume there’d been a simple radio malfunction and missions had to remain top priorities.

One minute. Two minutes. How long had it been? He couldn’t keep track.

“When I give the word, we’re going to run,” John whispered, squeezing Gordon’s arm to check that he was listening. “It’s almost dawn. We’ll have a better chance outside.”

“What?”

“Trust me.”

John rocked back on his heels, pushing himself into a crouch as he surveyed the space between the desk and the broken patio doors. The demon lurked just out of sight. Every so often a talon would puncture another crater in the floor.

Man, Grandma’s gonna be mad about those floorboards, Gordon thought to himself, fighting an incredulous snigger. Hysteria was beginning to set in alongside exhaustion. Adrenaline fizzed beneath his skin. He took a shaky breath, then eased onto his feet, balanced against one hand, ready to push off into a sprint as soon as John gave the signal.

A crash came from the opposite side of the room.

“Go.”

Gordon bolted from the desk, hurtled over the rim of the doorframe, and plunged into the pale grey of pre-dawn glow. The patio tiles were damp from past rain but the clouds had since cleared and a hint of peach promised that sunrise was a matter of minutes away.

He skidded to a halt, backing up, eyeing the doorway. John remained half a pace in front of him, ready to protect him again which was insane because Gordon was fully prepared to bodily tackle him down the steps to the beach if necessary. There was no way in hell that he was letting the demon get its hands on John again. He’d sooner die than let that happen.

The demon emerged from the villa. Rivulets of ectoplasm dribbled down the doorframe as glass shards gouged wounds in its flesh. Spidery legs juddered back into place with sharp cracks. Eyes glowed the deep red of hot coals. It opened its mouth, teeth glinting, talons extending and-

Sunlight flooded over the peaks. Warm gold soothed the ruffled palm fronds, smoothed the surface of the swimming pool, swept around John and blanketed Gordon in protective light.

The first rays struck the demon and it howled. The stench of sulphur was unbearable. It seemed to burn up from the inside out, collapsing into a heap of ashes that formed a cloud of smoke. The dark plume floated into the air, hovered above them for a moment, then sped away into the developing sunrise.

Gordon didn’t dare move. The familiar drone of Thunderbird Two’s engines had broached the horizon and he had to wonder whether the demon had been chased away by the light or if it had chosen to leave because Alan was nearly home.

He cleared his throat but his voice was still hoarse. “Is it… is it gone?”

“For now,” John replied after a moment but there was a strange, dark inflection to his voice. “But it’s still out there.”

Gordon moved to stand beside him, staggering a little as the adrenaline ebbed from his system. His eyes were stinging and there was blood smeared over his face and arms. John looked nearly as bad, still shaking and pale with dread. They stood in silence, watching Two descend from the clouds.

“It’s not over, is it?” Gordon murmured.

“No,” John admitted. He wrapped his arms across his chest with a shudder. “This is just the beginning.”