The gods are all dead

"I'm sane, right?" Finley found himself asking Aidan early hours of the morning, after very little sleep due to spending most of the night worrying about this very subject. "That all happened last night, and you saw it too. Right?"

"Of course," Aidan assured him over a draught of coffee. "I, uh, was going to ask you the same thing," he admitted, "but it's nice we're on the same page . . . Doubting our mutual sanity. I did take notes, if you still had doubts." He picked up the paper he'd tore off of his notepad last night, scrawled with his cursive scribbles. "His name was Ramiel, and he did indeed drop some serious sounding portents."

"Just checking," Fin mumbled into his mug and took a drink. 

"I'm more concerned about your sister," Aidan said.

As if summoned by the mention, Fin's sister stumbled into the room, looking half-awake with smeared eyeliner and blond hair stuck in a violent poof. "Hrmgh," she grunted in greeting, and lit up at the sight of the full coffee pot.

"Help yourself, zombie Jer," Aidan offered generously.

She was halfway through guzzling a cup of coffee when she abruptly stopped and turned to look at both of them. "Hey, you'd tell me if I actually went crazy, right?" She wondered nervously.

"You're definitely crazy," Aidan confirmed as Finley reassured her simultaneously, "we all saw the Logan's Run guy."

"Oh. What?" She gave Aidan a consternated expression. "Hey!"

"Don't get me wrong, I saw him too," Aidan defended, "but you're definitely some kind of mentally fucked up. Even you can admit that, and in fact you have admitted to it."

"Oh. Yeah, okay," she agreed easily enough. "I'm hungry. What's there to eat?"

The lack of grub prompted RJ to insist that they go out for tacos, since they'd all stayed up late enough worrying that lunch was more viable than breakfast. Down the road a few blocks and plagued by the sounds of traffic, they managed to find a small stand serving Mexican food on the fly and parked themselves on a nearby bench under the blissfully clouded noon sky. What a lovely day to lose my mind in, Fin thought as he got comfortable next to Aidan.

"You guys," RJ came up behind the two friends. Her face was unexpectedly serious, and it sent a chill down Fin's spine. "We have a problem."

Finley tensed. Here it comes, he thought, as he dreaded whatever emerged from her mouth next.

"This fucking taco stand is out of chili sauce," she reported, and sat down next to Aidan. She took a bite out of the one in her hand and lifted a box of four others next to her. "So, these tacos taste like complete garbage."

Finley felt like beating his head on the table, but he refrained and took a deep breath instead. "And you went and bought five of 'em anyway?" Aidan asked, clearly stuck on the logic. He reached out to grab one and sniffed at it with a distasteful expression.

"I'm hungry," was her only defense. Annoyed, Finley grabbed one from the box and stuffed it into his face, figuring if he was going to be anxious, he might as well not be hungry too.

Aidan sniffed his taco experimentally and put it down delicately, his nostrils flaring in disappointment. RJ locked eyes with him and took his offering and stuffed it down her throat greedily. "Please do," he said graciously with a generous, formal wave.

There were entire minutes of undisturbed silence during which the siblings ate, and Aidan stared into the distance ponderously. Finley wasn't sure what to think, or if he even wanted to be thinking at all. His base reaction to the events of the previous few nights seemed to be 'denial' and Jeri seemed to be on the same level as him. After getting fed up with the silence, Aidan burst out, "so what's the plan?"

Jeri was mid-chew and so was Finley. They shared a telling look with one another that Finley didn't even have to use telepathy to understand. "Uh, no plan yet," Finley mumbled out. "Just . . . Trying to eat tacos."

"Right, but something serious has just happened and we need a plan," Aidan insisted.

RJ said around a mouthful, "why do we need a plan?"

"Because someone tried to kidnap you?" Aidan's tone was sarcastic, but his demeanor was quite serious. "Because a man popped up and told you something that sounded like a prophecy?"

She swallowed this time, thankfully, before adding, "yeah, but it sounded like bullshit to me. Finley? Back me up here."

"It did sound suspiciously like a bunch of bullshit," he agreed uneasily.

"Bullshit or not, we need to talk to someone about this," Aidan insisted.

"Why?" Jeri honestly wondered. "And, like who? I'm not talking to the police."

"No, you've made that abundantly clear, but we need to talk to someone who can help us figure this out, because I'm drawing a blank." Aidan sighed, and for the first time Finley noticed how truly exhausted his best friend seemed. A part of him felt guilty for dragging Aidan into this strange mess. "I think I know someone who might be able to help," Aidan added, "or at least might know something about the stuff that Ramiel mentioned. Prodigal Sons, Ba'el Moloch, this all sounds like some—"

"Some mystical bullshit," RJ interrupted. "I got a funeral to worry about, I don't need this too."

Fin glared at her for interrupting. "Hey, I agree that it all sounded like crazy bullshit, but there's no reason to be rude."

Aidan went on as if she hadn't interrupted him at all. "Mystical is probably the right word for it, and there's an expert on the occult here at the university. I just have to check her office hours before we drop by, but it really won't take that long."

"Wait, really?" Fin was surprised and felt a slight ray of hope shine through his standard depression. 

Aidan nodded. "I mentioned her last night, but I figured you were too exhausted to remember. I think her office opens up at around noon. Professor Underwood. Occult Studies, I took it as a freshman."

"Why did you take Occult Studies?" Finley wondered.

Aidan shrugged. "Same reason you took Anthro."

"Oh. Fuck, if I'd known that class counted toward humanities, I would've just taken it. Occult Studies sounds way more interesting than Anthropology."

"Focus, nerds," RJ interjected, "who the fuck is this chick and how is she supposed to help?"

"She might've heard of the names the teleporting guy mentioned, at least," Aidan offered. 

"Can't we just . . . Google that?" She asked.

"And how are we supposed to Google your teleporting guy?" Aidan said this more as a statement, than a question. RJ had no answer. "This lady is a registered practitioner, former military, very cool. Knows a lot about freaky stuff. I mean, I've never heard of it, but you never know. I think you'll like her. Let me just see if I can find her office hours . . ." He pulled out his phone and started searching.

Finley wiped his mouth with a napkin and turned to his sister. "You think that guy was a witch?" He floated the possibility over to her.

"No fucking way," she objected. "He wasn't human."

"How can you tell?"

"Who dresses like that? Gotta be an alien."

Fin shrugged. "Makes about as much sense as him being a witch."

"Yeah, alien or something worse," she nodded.

"Alien is my worst case scenario," he reasoned. "If we get abducted, I'm blaming you."

RJ's eyes rolled up to the sky in derision. "Alien abductions don't happen to people like us Finley. They happen to weird Gilbert Grape, Deliverance-type people."

"And Tom Delonge," he added, which made her laugh.

Finley distantly did recall a mention of the name Eden Underwood but felt a stab of guilt that he hadn't been paying attention. "Alright, we can drop by and at least talk to her. I don't want to interrupt your classes, though."

"This is way more important than algebra," Aidan insisted. "Don't worry about it. Trust me," he added when he sensed Finley's objection, because Fin was someone who took his math very seriously. "I seriously doubt Jeri has anything better going on, besides."

"Alright, fine," Jeri relented around another mouthful of taco. "I'll fucking go. Happy?"

"Inordinately," Aidan smiled.

Once they were finished with lunch, they walked back to the condo and piled into the Jeep, given that it was faster than walking to the university. Aidan knew the way like the back of his hand and skillfully drove them to one of the liberal studies buildings and parked in the back, making sure his student tag was on display to avoid getting fined. Underwood's office was on the third floor, and due to excessive bitching from Jeri's platform-leather-booted corner about 'dick stairs' they took the world's slowest elevator up.

The office was small, but cozy. The walls were lined with shelves full of books both old and new about mysticism, occasionally dotted with a carved statue or piece of art. Finely couldn't tell at a glance what was real and what wasn't; there were statues of Egyptian gods alongside a Hello Kitty Darth Vader plush which made him wonder what Isis really thought about her placement. In the center behind a walnut desk with a mounted yellow Mac laptop was Professor Underwood. Eden Underwood was a pale, petite woman of five-two with cat's eye glasses and a razor-sharp haircut of short black hair with one shaven side. She wore a generous, quiet smile and a pentacle and altogether looked the part of a woman whose job was to teach Occult Studies. A low thrum of energy that raised the hair on Fin's arms alerted him to the status of this woman as a government-trained practitioner, derogatorily referred to as 'witch' by most. He kept the reins on his own power tight, leashing all of his feelings and thoughts inside an imaginary vault where no one could find them - the last thing he wanted was to end up on the government's radar, after all, and there was no way to know just what this woman's power was or where her loyalties truly lied.

Jeri was under no such qualms. "I hear you're the witch professor," she threw out as soon as they stepped into Underwood's office.

"Jesus, Jeri," Finley smacked himself on the forehead.

"What?" She feigned innocence.

"You can't just—can't just call people witches when you meet them, that's fucking rude. Sorry, Professor."

"Don't apologize for me, I'm not sorry," Jeri snapped.

"It's alright," Eden Underwood unexpectedly laughed. "I am a witch, after all. Though not a very powerful one. You have nothing to be afraid of."

"Yeah, they're really quaking in their boots," Aidan chuckled. "Good to see you, Prof. You probably don't remember me - Aidan Dearborn, I was a freshman when I took your class."

Eden's eyes sparkled. "Good to see you again, Aidan. Are you all students?"

"I am, she's not," Finley brusquely explained. Jeri plopped down in one of the two chairs in the room across from Eden's desk, and looked more impressed with the book shelves than she did the professor. "Finley Ravara. This is my sister, RJ. We're here because of, uh." That was precisely when his explanation failed him. He opened and closed his mouth to attempt to make the words come out, but they simply refused to do so. It was almost as if the explanation was too stupid for words, or perhaps too incredible to summarize. Fin looked over to Aidan desperately for help.

"We don't want to take up too much of your time," Aidan explained quickly and took the seat next to RJ, "so suffice it to say we have a bit of an occult side project. We were hoping to learn anything you knew about something called Ba'el Moloch, and its relation to the story of the Prodigal Son."

Eden's eyes widened. "The Biblical story?" She asked. "A theologian might be able to tell you more about that. Or one of the anthropologists on staff, if you're looking into the former. I know Ba'el means 'God' in ancient Canaanite, but Moloch is only ringing a faint bell. Could be the name of an ancient god . . . You might be able to find more in the mythology section in the library. Tell you what, give me your email, and I'll send you anything I can remember as soon as I can. In the meantime, I suggest going to the university library and furthering your search there."

She pushed a small sticky note pad across the desk, onto which Aidan quickly scrawled his email address. "Thank you so much," he gushed. "You've already been of massive help."

"Is there anything else you need?" Underwood looked pointedly between all three of them, but her gaze lingered on Jeri the longest. RJ said nothing.

"Not at the moment," Finley cut in. "Thank you for your time. We'll head over to the library and see what we can find."

"Thanks! Peace!" Was the only thing RJ said on her way directly out the door, with a wave.

"Seriously, thank you professor - and, uh, sorry," Aidan awkwardly offered as he stood up to leave.

"It's no trouble at all," Professor Underwood said with a bright smile and a wave.

It almost made Finley regret not taking her class, but after learning that she was indeed a practitioner, he was sure it would've been too risky. Part of the reason Sal joined the military at all was to protect us, he recalled. If anyone found out Jeri and I were unregistered . . . He didn't want to complete that thought.

"Oh, I almost forgot," Aidan mumbled, turning around to face the Professor again after consulting the folded-up note in his pocket. "Does the name Asmodeus mean anything to you?"

The expression Eden's face was curiously blank. She blinked several times, and Fin was unable to resist unleashing a little bit of coiled energy toward her that tapped into her surface thoughts. Like skimming the top of a pool of water, he felt a whisper of intent that echoed with this name. "That's . . . An interesting name from the book of Tobah, as I recall," the Professor explained. She tapped a ringed finger onto her chin in thought. In her mind, Fin saw her flip through a rolodex of memories that focused on one peculiar highlight - a news article she had read yesterday online about none other than his sister being released from prison. He knew just as she did that this meeting was no coincidence, and there was something at work - something greater than either of them. She had something dangerous that Finley entirely lacked - faith. She believed in something greater than herself that had guided them to her office. The name Asmodeus rang across her thoughts like a bell.

"It's also a name from Aleister Crowley's writings," she went on, "a name given to a demon. It's Zoroastrian in origin. Crowley took the name from the book of Tobah, where it was originally the name of a sort of lieutenant to a god they called Angra Mainyu, or Ahriman. I can't recall anything more specific than that, unfortunately, but there might be a copy of his writings in the library. If not, I'm sure a bookstore would have it. Does that help?"

Aidan scrawled down a little more on the note before stuffing it back into his pocket. "It does," he said with an effusive smile. "Thanks again, Professor. We'll check out the library."

"Good luck," she wished them, with a hint of worry creasing her brow. She didn't know what to think of them. Finley resisted the urge to read her mind further and ducked out of the office after his sister, who was already at the elevator repeatedly hitting the down button.

"Where to next, Captain?" Jeri turned to Aidan as the elevator opened and they shuffled inside.

"The library, bo'sun," he commanded as he hit the button for the first floor.

"Owwwwww but libraries are booooring!" She whined profusely.

"Suck it up, for once," he chided.

Fin internally marveled at Aidan's scolding, which managed to actually shut his sister up - something Fin had never personally been able to accomplish, except by accident.

The library was within spitting distance, so they decided to walk. What initially seemed like would be a short matter of light perusal turned into a several-hour endeavor that quickly resulted in RJ taking a nap on the Bible after reading the story of the Prodigal Son, which didn't help them in any way or form. 'Prodigal' in the context of Jesus' ancient parable meant wasteful, or extravagant - a term used to describe a father's ungrateful son who was exiled from his home, and eventually returned to seek forgiveness when he was penniless and destitute and was welcomed back. She read the parable aloud for them in a goofy voice before promptly deciding to take a nap on it. 

Fin was able to discover that the name 'Ramiel' translated to 'thunder from God,' which didn't exactly help them either, but it was the name of a fallen angel that appeared in the Book of Enoch. Why someone would go around teleporting and naming themselves this was still open for debate, as was the existence of angels and demons.

Aidan had a bit more luck with a book about ancient Canaanite deities in the mythology section, but also discovered that the name Ba'el did indeed generically just mean 'God' or 'Lord.' It also was the prefix to a number of other deities, and the name of a Celtic deity. Many entities were confused with this name and given their limited information beforehand it was very frustrating. They found nothing with the name Asmodeus.

When woken up and told about this information, RJ scoffed. "The gods are all dead, or sleeping," she spat. "This is a waste of time."

"Well, what would you prefer to do, princess?" Aidan scoffed right back.

She didn't answer and wandered off to another section of the library. It took Finley an embarrassing three minutes to recall the kidnapping incident, so he chased after her and found her doodling in the margin of a book about sexology and giggling, talking to herself. Mostly because he wanted her to stop, he dragged her outside to bum another smoke off of her. 

"I really picked a hell of a time to quit," he lamented again.

She snorted at him. "Quit your bitching. You know what, you and Aidan both all day, just been bitching at me the whole time. What gives?"

"You think we're the bitchy ones?" He laughed but stopped himself when he had to endure her coldest of glares. "Look, I just don't think it's smart after what happened last night that we separate. You're being targeted by some people, our aunt just got murdered, and a guy teleported into our room with the name of an angel and told us a god is coming or something, and some shit with the name of a demon is apparently after us, and since this isn't the first time I've caught you having a conversation with empty air - you know what, ask me again if I think it's a good idea to let you out of my sight."

"So, you admit you're chaperoning me," she accused.

"I admit I'm trying to take care of you, and you're making it fucking difficult. You and Sal are the only family I really have," he stressed. "We'll figure this out together, but we can't just . . . Run off and do whatever we want. This is starting to sound like some seriously fucked up shit that I don't even have words for."

She seemed pacified by this and took a long drag from her smoke. "So, what do you think the funeral will be like?"

He took a thoughtful puff. "Besides depressing and fucked up?"

"Yeah."

"Hopefully boring. I don't see there being any drama. Do you think it'll be an open casket?"

She took another drag. "Nah. Something fucked happened to the body. Félix wouldn't explain what."

Fin felt sick at that notion. "Wait, her murderers did stuff to the body? Or . . ."

"I'd rather not think about it," RJ announced. "Thanks, but no thanks."

Aidan had some news for them by the time they came back inside. "Moloch is either a reference to the eighth Hawai'ian island, or a Carthaginian deity referenced in the Bible that possibly was a cult of child sacrifice."

They blinked. "What?" Fin blurted.

"Yeah, that was pretty much my reaction," Aidan rushed, "but the name shows up all over the place, from Ginsberg to Milton. Not sure how much any of it is based in reality, but that's what we've got."

"Child sacrifice?" RJ repeated, disbelievingly.

Aidan sighed. "It's possible, if debated by scholars. No one really knows what the cult was about, but there was probably a deity called Moloch or similarly named around ancient times, either in Canaan or Carthage, represented by an owl or a bull of some kind. And scholars found a lot of bones that were child-sized at the site of a stela with an inscription that matched this ancient god's name, so they think."

"And this is the thing that this Ramiel guy thinks is coming for me? Or some shit?" Her voice rose several octaves.

Aidan shushed her. "Hey! We're in a library. Hush."

"Sorry, I'm just worried about the child-sacrificing cult after me," she hissed.

Aidan tried to calm her by pushing over the text he had open, a copy of a Britannica encyclopedia. "Look, the name 'melech' could just mean 'king' so it might not be an actual god. There's a lot of hearsay and confusion about this particular name. Especially because the only real reference to the name 'Moloch' is in the Bible, which isn't the most reliable source of history."

"Doesn't mean an ancient god of child sacrifice is after you," Finley was quick to reassure her.

RJ took one look at the book - one long, contemplative look - before announcing, "Fuck it! I need another smoke!"

"Yeah, I need one too," Finley grumbled and followed after her. Aidan trailed after them not long after, not even bothering to put away the books, but made sure to stand downwind of their smoke.

"You know," Aidan spoke after a few moments of silence, during which both siblings had managed to get halfway down with their cigarettes, "if all the gods are dead or sleeping, maybe we have nothing to worry about."

It took Jeri a few moments to come up with a response. "Those were people that tried to take me," she reminded him. "Not some . . . Fucking ancient Canaanite god."

"Fair point," he conceded. "Still wish you'd talk to the police."

"I got bigger shit to worry about," she insisted. "Like the funeral. And getting my band back together."

"Speaking of," Finley threw in, "when are we leaving?"

She let out a long puff of smoke in the shape of a ring. "Tomorrow, 'round noon. Then in two days, from Virginia I'm going to LA."

"I'm going with you," Aidan suddenly asserted. Before Finley could open his mouth to object, Aidan added, "nope, no if, no ands, and definitely no buts about it. I already talked to my professors, explained it's a family emergency."

Finley wanted to say 'but you're not family' but thought better of it when he realized Aidan was, in some ways, closer to him than any of his family. RJ started laughing. "What?" Finley asked.

"I know," she chuckled. "I already bought him a ticket to LA too, remember?"

Finley took a final drag before flicking off the end of his cigarette and putting it in the nearest trash bin. "She told me last night," he informed Aidan. "I was going to ask if you wanted to come but it looks like you beat me to it."

Aidan had to ask, "how did you know? I mean, I didn't—"

"Just trust me," she told him, "I know. Don't worry about it."

Aidan's expression suggested that he was going to worry about it for a long time.

RJ was on her second mini-bottle before they'd even taken off. They were trapped on a seven and a half hour flight with no stops. Finley had never flown in first class before and was a little repulsed at the indulgences offered there. The staff didn't seem to care that his sister was getting steadily drunker by the second, and cheerily offered them warm towels for some odd reason that he couldn't fathom. He received a bathroom kit with a razor, comb, and toothbrush without asking for it, and was offered any drink he wanted complimentary of RJ's apparently open tab. Though it was tempting, he had homework to peruse and make-up for, and wanted to stay clear-headed in case any of the waitstaff or passengers turned out to be members of a child-sacrificing cult and tried to abduct his sister.

He did a mental scan of them just to be sure, but they all seemed fairly preoccupied with their work rather than things he'd expect a cult member to think of. Although one of them did turn out to be an evangelical, whose every second thought was panicked about what Jesus might hypothetically do in her shoes. It amused him to listen to, up until the point that it revolted him.

The seats in first class were only two apart, so he was sitting next to his sister and Aidan was on the other side of the aisle. It struck him again how ridiculous his life was as he settled into his seat and leaned back after take-off. For a while it was easy to focus on class work, but he soon found his mind frustrated by the events of the past few days and he quickly discovered it was impossible to focus on anything that he wanted to. The thoughts of everyone around him didn't help matters.

He'd never used his ability to such an extent, and a part of him worried at what might happen if he used it too much. Thoughts and memories of Anton's swam up to the surface, which he did his best to repress.

The flight seemed safe enough. He could feel the clatter and downpour of thoughts from the passengers on the plane that he was trapped with, a good portion of them anxious and full of dread while the rest were a buzz of distraction. There was a man three aisles back in the throes of a panic attack, breathing through a paper bag, and was only succeeding in making the people around him more nervous. Anxiety, like most oppressive emotions such as fear or rage, infected the people that witnessed it. It spread like a virus and Finley, being more perceptive than most, could feel it through his very skin as it tinged the air with despair.

He decided to take a page out of his sister's book and try the Jericho-Rose-Method, as she called it, and ordered himself a mini-bottle of rum. It dulled the anxiety to a vague throb at the back of his mind, but had the unintended consequence of reminding him of one of the last times he'd drank rum . . . With Teegan. She tended to climb into his thoughts during peaceful moments, as she had always done with ease. Though she'd been harder to read than most - a fact that had initially endeared him to her - her mind had always been refreshingly honest, much like Aidan's, and acted as a balm in moments of need. He'd grown so used to having her at his side, at her nearness, that to not have her near felt alien. Wrong.

With nothing better to do or occupy his thoughts, Finley slipped into memories. Compared to the heady mix of panic, anguish, and distraction from the passengers of the plane, slipping into a reverie was the equivalent of wading into warm water. The rum helped in its deceptively relaxing way, pulling him out into that calm sea, and soon enough he was remembering Hawai'i. 

He was floating freely in the crystal-clear ocean surrounded by jungle green and white sand, while Teegan jumped from the rocks above next to him, splashing him. She'd paddled over to him and tried to coax him into a splash-fight, just as Aidan had jumped in from above and drenched them all and declared himself the winner. It was the only vacation they'd gone on together, all three of them for three weeks of adventure and play. He'd not thought of it in over a year; the memory had never before been difficult. It wasn't that it was hard to recall, but that reality always seeped into the recollection. He couldn't remember the adventure happily anymore, knowing that she was gone. He couldn't think of her without noticing her gaping absence, like an open wound that wouldn't heal.

So, he swam back out to the sea, and stayed there. Memories came and went like fireflies in the dark, flashing by before the dark set in again, blinding in their happiness for just a moment before being crushed by the truth. Together they prepped again for Félix's wedding, and she zipped up his dress with a giggle. The giggle became a full throated laugh as he pulled her into a dance, letting her lead for a change. She was always laughing and smiling whenever he remembered her, a fact that had once made his heart soar and now caused it to sink like a stone.

He was startled, almost absently, out of his pool of memories by the turbulence of the plane. A grinding, screeching feeling came over him as the passengers behind erupted into a silent bout of collective panic, causing him to let out an audible moan of pain. He felt his sister next to him brush his arm, but he couldn't hear what she was saying over the cacophony in his head. Finley crunched over into a ball and clutched his head, breathing through it and tried to find the common thread of himself amidst the chaos. 

There was nothing to hold onto. Who and where he was disappeared as dozens of voices crashed over him, threatening to drown him in a white wave of noise. Against his will, one of his hands began to wrench away from his head and was forcibly stretched out to hold another's - with bleary eyes he looked up and saw his sister's cautious and surprisingly sober eyes boring into him. "Look at me," her mouth commanded, the words silent over the noise in his head.

As he did, the wave in his mind became a dull ebb. The plane kept shaking and his mind kept racing, but he felt grounded by his sister's ringed, tattooed hand in his own. It was a clammy and not entirely pleasant lifeline that he clung to with desperation.

She started humming.

It was quiet at first and atonal but became a familiar song after a while that he knew he must've heard at some point in his childhood. The sound echoed in her head and his, and for a moment it rose above the swell of competing voices with aching clarity.

The plane stopped shaking, and a light above them flickered off, indicating seat-belts were no longer needed. The deluge of panic dimmed to a light trickle before fading almost entirely, as Finley was finally able to concentrate on his own thoughts again. 

"Thanks," was the first thing he said to her. He twisted around to see Aidan, only to find that his friend had slept through the turbulence entirely. It made him smile.

She let his hand go and twisted in her seat to grab something. She emerged with a tissue that he took and dabbed at his nose, coming away with a significant amount of blood that had thankfully ceased.

"I fucking hate this," he mumbled into the tissue, stuffing it up his nose with force.

"It does seem to suck pretty hard for you," she agreed. "Want some rum?"

"Fuck no."

"Bourbon? Vodka? I'm paying."

"That's the last thing I need - more alcohol."

"Fine, pansy."

They were bound for Rocky Mount, Virginia, situated between the Blackwater and Pigg rivers south of Roanoke. It would be a half hour or so from the airport before they were in the town he grew up in, at least from the ages of thirteen to eighteen. The flight was entirely above cloud cover and he caught almost no glimpses at all of land as they passed by, and what little he did see was sprawling farm plots. 

Four hours in, RJ finished with her fifth bottle (and this was a surprising example of moderation on her part), and she passed out next to him snoring. Finley envied her ability to sleep anywhere she wanted, whenever she wanted. He did his best to meditate on the quiet around him, on the hum of the engines, on the sound of her gentle snoring, and it nearly succeeded in blocking out the mountain of inaudible brain-noise from the passengers of the flight. The subtle panic was still there, however, and every bit of turbulence on the rocky flight sent more spikes of despair and anxiety stabbing through him. It would be manageable if the emotions belonged only to him.

Troubled and with no other recourse, he looked down and grasped RJ's sleeping open hand. He knew she would hate him for prying but focusing on one mind had a way of blocking out all the others, and Aidan was across the aisle and not an option. He doubted there was anything in her dreams that could be worse than what he was already dealing with, and without a worry, he took her hand and plunged into his sister's dream.

Finley had been in her mind only a handful of times, each time accidental. The most recent venture had resulted in her hitting him and pushing him violently out. Every time she caught him prying, she'd gotten angry with him, except one time when she hadn't noticed. The first time had been when they were children, shortly after he'd come into his ability, and she hadn't noticed at all. He discovered while letting her push him on the tire swing in the back yard that Jeri had a repeating fantasy of violently killing their father, Patrick. He'd asked her, 'why do you want Dad dead?' She'd been so startled by the question that when the tire swing swung back, it knocked her flat.

It wasn't as if he hadn't fantasized about it himself a couple of times. He'd even caught Sal fantasizing about it too. Each of them had hated their father deeply, even as they'd been terrified of him growing up. It was hard to find anything in common with the frightened child he used to be; they'd been moved away from that home with Patrick and Dana, and had lived with their aunt Mara ever since. By that age Sal had been old enough to join the military, and RJ had been old enough to be emancipated. She'd run away from Rocky Mount at nearly seventeen to LA, and he'd been left alone with Félix and Mara. He was old enough then to recognize that his ability frightened people and kept it to himself. Mara on some level knew about it, but rarely spoke of it - to Finley's memory she'd only really mentioned it outright once when taking him to church, and she had said that it was 'rude' what he did, prying into people's secrets.

It had frightened his father to the point of near insanity; he'd discovered one day that Patrick Ravara had been mentally comparing his sister to their mother in a decidedly un-father-like manner. Confused and overwhelmed by the barrage of unusually disturbing mental images, he'd asked his father about it on the spot, and had ended up locked in the basement room for days, possibly weeks. Finley lost track of time down there with nothing to do except eat the food that was offered ever so rarely by his step-mother, who would open the door to shove a plate at him and then immediately slam it behind her with nary a word. Salvador had been away at a sports competition, and all Finley had been privy to was that once Sal got back, Patrick had been hospitalized with a broken arm and Fin had been let out. He'd never heard a peep out of his father's brain about the subject again, though he knew both of his siblings maintained their murder fantasies. Not long after that, they'd been taken in by their aunt.

The second time he'd pried into RJ's brain had been accidental, and she'd gotten angry. It was a few days before she'd run away to LA, not that he'd known that at the time. He'd been unable to sleep and heard whimpers from his sister's room. He'd sneaked inside, curious, to find her in the throes of a nightmare. Instinctively he had moved to wake her up, only to descend into her nightmare when he'd placed a hand on her shoulder. Finley only remembered a few things from that moment - and it had lasted only a moment before she'd woken up and pushed him away, frightened. There had been a darkness pervading everything in her dream, a shadow that consumed light and drowned her in its cold embrace. He saw her falling into it as invisible ropes snaked around her, pulling her further, dragging her down into some cruel inevitability. Finley shook her awake and she pushed him away, scared of him or of the dream, he wasn't sure. 'What the fuck, Finley!' she had hissed. 'Stay out of my head!'

He didn't understand it. No one else felt him inside their minds like she did. She had a way of knowing where he was mentally that others didn't - some preternatural sense that was tied into her own ability, which made her more aware of his consciousness than even he himself was. 

The next time he'd pried into her mind, it'd been at a party at her house in Oregon two years ago, shortly after he had started dating Teegan. She'd accompanied him. Of everyone he'd ever met, he'd only really felt comfortable sharing the nuances of his gift with Aidan and Teegan. Of all the people he'd known, only they stood out as individuals he felt completely unthreatened by. As soon as he was old enough to understand it, Sal had given him the 'talk' - the discussion that had weighed the risks of exposure against the weight of his control. It'd become clear to him early into his manifestation that if he wanted to remain free of a government shackle, no one could know about what he could do. He'd trusted Aidan with his secret, though, and Teegan by proxy - and although he knew that Sal would likely not approve, Jeri had been ecstatic to hear that he'd finally embraced his ability. At a particular party, she'd insisted he use it as a party-trick to entertain. He'd guessed thoughts, colors, numbers, getting a few wrong on purpose after a while to foment doubt. He'd done a few 'cold readings' of guests, including RJ's roommate Amanda who'd been thoroughly convinced after that point that he was psychic. There'd been plenty of alcohol and drugs floating around the party that he'd taken part in, which he blamed for his lack of control when he'd accidentally invaded his sister's brain again. 

It was nothing more than a flash - an image of a slatted window or door closing, shuttering him into the darkness - but she'd noticed. She'd felt it somehow and pushed him away once more. 'Stay the fuck out of my head!' He'd taken to wearing gloves for a while after that, tired of feeling everyone's emotions and thoughts at the shake of a hand. For a while it all became too much, until Teegan had taught him how to center himself through meditation, to the point where he could take the gloves off again.

He'd tried obeying the ghost of her reason on the flight to Virginia, but it just made him sad. So, he took the easy way out, and grabbed his sister's hand, knowing she would probably feel it and hate him for it.

He drifted into her drunken dream down a pitch-dark path feeling light as a feather, until he touched a ground of hard concrete and patched asphalt. The highway between Oregon and Salem suddenly stretched out before him, and he saw his Lincoln clunker next to him, the door propped with his sister's head sticking out of it expectantly from the passenger's side as she held it open for him. "You gonna stand there all day or get the fuck in?" She asked, a cigarette already lit and dripping from her mouth. 

He paused only a moment before getting in the car and found the keys already in the ignition. He revved it and pulled onto the road and started driving, wondering where her dream would take them or if and when she would notice that he was the only thing in the dream that was real.

She passed him over a smoke out of habit, and out of habit he took it and rolled down the window with the other hand. "Where are we headed?" he asked.

"Home, dummy," she answered. 

Though they were in a different vehicle, the dream passed much like the event had in real life. Only he wasn't exactly sure where 'home' was supposed to be, he figured that the dream would lead them there eventually. RJ rolled down her window and stuck her head out like a dog for a while, whooping into the emptiness, turning on the radio and singing along to her own songs. Generally, it didn't seem like a nightmare, for which he was grateful. 

After an undetermined amount of time passed, she slapped a hand on the wheel and hit the horn. "Stop, stop the car," she demanded, and he carefully pulled over to the side of the road. When she got out, she didn't seem to be making any moves to return, so he got out and followed her, leaving the keys in the ignition because it was a dream, and thought fuck it.

"Yeah, fuck that car," she agreed and waited for him to catch up. Once he did, she stamped out her cigarette underneath her black boot and kept walking. "Come on, Finny, it's just a bit farther. You'll love what Mom did with the place."

"Mom?" he asked, confused. He pictured Dana, but somehow knew this wasn't the mother she was talking about. RJ didn't answer, just kept on walking, leaving him to stitch together her meaning. 

Neither of them were old enough to significantly remember their birth mother. RJ had only been in kindergarten when she had died, and he was only a toddler. He'd seen pictures of the woman but had no memories of her. He'd seen a few memories in Sal's mind of the woman, but Sal had been a child of shared custody and he'd been told that Sal had been staying with their father when she had died. It was a car wreck on the way home from work that had sent him, his brother, and his sister to live permanently with Patrick and Dana. That was all he knew about it and had never given it much thought. Mara had spoken of his mother rarely, and he got the impression that she and Maria had never been very close to one another. Still, Mara had taken care of him as if he were one of her own and never treated him as if he were odd, and she had been more of a mother to him than Dana ever had.

When his sister finally stopped walking, it was at the foot of a long gravel driveway that stretched into the distance. Finley came to a crunchy stop beside her and finally looked up, surprised at what he saw - or rather what he didn't. No stars, no moon, just an oppressive blank blackness overhead that his sister didn't seem to notice. The only lights seemed to be from the street lamps overhead, and the headlights of his car. In the distance, he thought he saw a house at the end of the driveway faintly lit.

"Is that home?" He asked her.

She didn't answer and started to walk toward the house.

The closer they got, the taller it loomed, until he realized he wasn't looking at a place he'd ever called home. He was looking at RJ's concept of home, which was an amalgamation of everywhere she'd ever lived. On the outside it appeared to be her home in Oregon, but the driveway and the trees ensconcing it were straight out of Mara's back yard. In the front was the tire swing he used to play on in their home in Georgia . . . It was a confusing combination of paradoxical traits. The house stretched up and up the closer they got to it until it seemed to be a skyscraper that disappeared into the oppressive night. The front door was her same red door back home, but she paused before opening it, and knocked instead.

When she saw the look he was giving her, lit by the faint porch light, she grinned. "It'd be rude to go in without warning them."

"Who's them?" 

Again, she didn't answer. The door swung open soundlessly, impossibly, and with the kind of logic that only makes sense in dreams there was no one there to open it. Not without trepidation, RJ stepped inside and took a deep breath. He followed, and the door shut behind him.

"Anyone home?" He called out, only to face a hissing reply from his sister.

"Sssssh!" She urged. "They might hear us!"

"Who the fuck are you talking about?" He demanded. "Come on, this is silly."

"You're silly! Shut the fuck up!" She chided.

It was the exact childish response he'd expect out of her if they were awake. She stormed off further into the house and he followed curiously, keeping his mouth shut. So far, she hadn't seemed to have become aware of his presence - or she was comfortable enough with it not to comment upon it. 

The house at first seemed to be an exact replica of her own home, up until he saw her open up what he knew to be a hall closet and it turn into a staircase that spiraled up further into the skyscraper outside. The hallway was small and reminded him uncomfortably of the basement stairs back in their home in Georgia, and just as he completed that thought the house stretched and the staircase ended. It was as if the walls breathed around him, and when they exhaled, they changed into the house he'd known only in his childhood. 

It was as if nothing at all had changed since he last remembered it, minus his parents. The fridge was covered in messy magnets and bill notices, the dining table much the same. Sal was even sitting at it, pouring over homework silently - a teenage version of him that RJ barely paid any attention to, just giving him a high five as they walked past toward the stairs that led to their bedrooms. He stared at the young figure of Sal for a moment, absently noting that it wasn't actually homework he was working on - he was simply scrawling over a piece of official looking paper with his own doodles of strange circles and imperceptible shapes. He didn't want to lose Jeri in the dream, so he followed her quickly up the stairs up until she stopped in front of her childhood bedroom. 

Pausing only for a moment, she opened the door - this one creaking as he always remembered it did with the effort - and stepped into their shared room.

He felt like he was stepping into his own nightmare for a moment when RJ paused before the massive armoire that he so vividly remembered crawling into. She glanced over at him, looking wary. "Are you ready?" She asked of him.

He nodded, unsure of what she meant, but longing to get out of this portion of the dream.

She opened the doors of the armoire and crawled in like it was the gateway to Narnia and disappeared. Frantically he followed, pushing past the coats and hangers of clothes until he reached a tunnel that opened up into Mara's kitchen. He looked back and saw the crawlspace they'd entered seal up over itself and felt disturbed by the direction the dream was taking for the first time.

The kitchen was brightly lit and covered in stains of what looked like blood. The apple-wallpaper was utterly unsalvageable. It appeared not unlike what he'd imagined himself when he heard the news of her murder, and his stomach clenched in unease. "We don't belong here," he murmured.

"It's just a place," his sister nonsensically answered and marched right through the kitchen toward the stairs. He paused only briefly before the hallway mirror and saw strange shadows moving in his reflection - but when he turned to look behind him, nothing was there. Confused and now a little frightened, he hurried after his sister. Once more he followed her and once more she led them to her bedroom door, pausing only a moment before opening it and stepping into an unfamiliar bedroom with a clean white comforter and cheerful wall paintings of idyllic flowers.

Soundlessly his sister stopped, took in their surroundings, and made her way to a white slatted closet. She stopped before opening it, her hand hovering over the knob, shaking. "I don't want this," she muttered, and repeated to herself. "I don't want this, I don't want this . . ."

"Hey," he called behind her, drawing her attention momentarily. He wanted to tell her that it was just a dream, that it was just a closet, that there was nothing to be afraid of, but he didn't know her mind. He'd never been down this way before, in this room. He'd never gone so deep, and he didn't want it to end. So instead, he said, "Let me," and opened it for her.

It was blackness. Utter darkness. It was as if they'd traveled so far up in the towering, strange house that they'd reached the empty night sky and this closet door opened up into it. Without a word, his sister moved beside him as if possessed and stepped inside, sitting in the dark and drawing him in after her. "Ssssssh," she urged quietly, and closed the door. "We're going to play the quiet game," she informed him. "You're the best at it, so I know you'll win. Be good." Then, she sat him down beside her, covered his ears, and together they woke.

The first thing Finley was aware of was the flight captain's announcement that they were touching down in Roanoke. The second thing that he became aware of was that Jeri and Aidan had both snorted themselves awake simultaneously and seemed unperturbed by any happenings. He tapped her on the shoulder to get her attention. "You okay?" He wondered.

She shrugged and seemed unbothered. He was unsure of whether or not he wanted to tell her what he'd seen, but decided against it, knowing she wouldn't take the invasion of privacy well and honestly afraid that she would slap him again. "Weird dream," she reported, sending his heart racing for a moment before she concluded, "but I can't remember it now. Man, did I sleep through the whole flight? That's awesome."

"Finley? What happened to your nose?" Aidan asked from the other side of the aisle, pointing to his face. Fin touched his nose with his still-bandaged-but-healing hand and came away with blood, and cursed it, reaching for a spare napkin that one of the flight attendants had foisted on RJ that she'd tucked into the pocket in front of her

"I'm fine," he insisted to their contrary worried looks. His nose did eventually stop bleeding, after going through a small pack of tissues, and he had to wonder how much of it had to do with the mental exertion or just being in that kind of dry air. He'd never known himself to be so prone to nose bleeds.

They touched down in Virginia in the evening, and it felt peculiarly like coming home. The funeral would be the following day just outside of their hometown. Their first mission upon touchdown was to get a rental car, which Aidan acquired but RJ paid for, and the second mission was to find a hotel nearby in Roanoke to check into and then check out of reality. They got a double suite, since neither Aidan or Finley minded sharing and Jeri didn't particularly care where she slept, and as soon as his head hit the pillow on the bed - he fell face-first onto the closest one he saw - he was gone.