Chapter 2 #2
“I was emailing the security footage to the police,” Skye says, “and it suddenly felt like it does right before a big storm—you know, all tingly? And then…” He trails off, frowning.
“What?” Josh encourages.
Skye shakes his head and mumbles, “You’re going to think I’m nuts.”
I choke back a hysterical laugh. “Skye, we’re having this conversation because there’s a thing inside you right now. Believe me, nobody’s going to think you’re nuts.”
“Truth,” Daniel adds, ruffling Skye’s hair again. This time, Skye reaches up and pinches him. “Ouch! Stop with the maiming.”
Smoothing his hair back into place, Skye continues, “It was like my senses were on steroids. For a second, I could see the individual bits of woodgrain in the desk, and I could hear you talking in the office like you were right next to me. I could even smell the sanitizer Riss uses in the kitchen.” The kitchen’s at the other end of the house, with many closed doors between, and the sanitizer doesn’t have that strong a scent, so…
wow. “And then all of a sudden that thing was inside me. It shoved me aside right away, said… I’m not sure exactly what it said. Something. I was busy freaking out.”
“Understandable,” Ewan says, and we all murmur in agreement.
“And then it let me have control again and I came to find you.”
I sigh. “So that makes, what, four times that it’s taken over? In less than an hour?”
Skye nods.
“Okay.” I try to gather my thoughts, glancing at Josh. “Bland food and calm? No inciting questions?”
“To start with,” he agrees. “Hopefully it will decide to stay dormant, but a living person and a ghost stay with Skye at all times.” He meets our friend’s gaze. “You’re never going to be alone. If it takes over, we won’t let it do anything you wouldn’t be okay with.”
Skye swallows hard and nods. “Thanks.”
The tense moment is shattered by the sound of a ringing phone. Josh’s eyes go wide. “That’s mine!” He tries to dig it from his pocket, can’t quite manage it while sitting, scrambles to his feet, loses his balance, and ends up sprawling over the coffee table—but his phone is in his hand.
“I don’t know the number,” he pants, swiping the screen and putting the phone to his ear. “Hello? This is Josh.”
A second later, a grin breaks over his face and he closes his eyes in relief. “Thanks so much for calling. Do you mind if I put the phone on speaker? Thanks.”
He sits up, pulls the phone away, and taps the screen while we all crowd closer. “There are five of us here. Me, I’m Josh. Kieran, Ewan, Daniel, and Skye, who’s been possessed. And there’s Carter. He’s a ghost.”
There’s a short pause, then a voice says, “That’s quite a group. I’m Connor. Just putting it out there, I seem to remember you telling me you’d bought a house in Scotland, but the number I just called has an Illinois area code.”
Josh winces. “Yeah, um, there’s a reason for that, but it’s… complicated. Sorry? The ghosts are kind of paranoid.”
That doesn’t paint us in the best light. Josh seems to realize, because he races to add, “But we do trust you. You really saved our bacon.”
“It’s fine. Believe me, I of all people get why you might want to learn something about people before telling them everything.
” There’s a tinge of bitterness in his voice now.
“So… I read your email, but tell me again what happened. All of it. Every detail you can think of. Did you say Skye was the one sharing his body? I need to hear from Skye too.”
Fuck. How are we going to do this without mentioning the vortex?
Thankfully, Josh is on his game. “The ghosts and I sensed something new in the house. It didn’t feel dark or wrong like the soul-eater, but it was definitely new. We were searching for it when Skye came in…” He and Skye fill Connor in.
“Red eyes, androgynous voice, reacts to sensory input like taste?” Connor asks when they’re done.
“Yes. Do you know what it is?” The hope in Skye’s voice is almost painful to hear.
“Body-hopper. The good news is that they’re not dangerous or malicious. You’ll probably have some headaches because your body isn’t used to being shared, but otherwise there won’t be any ill-effects… aside from when it takes over.”
“Does that mean I have to live like this forever?” The hope is gone, replaced by panic, and Daniel lays a hand on Skye’s shoulder.
“No, sorry, definitely not. I should have led with that. It’s a little trickier to get rid of a body-hopper than to banish a demon, since it’s entwined itself with your body, but it’s doable.”
I don’t like the sound of that word… body-hopper. “Is it likely to take over someone else once it’s out of Skye? Can we banish it like the demon?” I want this thing gone for good.
“Not exactly. This is where the kinda bad news comes in.”
“Oh god,” Skye mutters.
“So the thing is, body-hoppers can’t just take over anyone. Your immortal soul has layers of protection built in, and once it inhabits your body, it’s pretty hard to evict. And it doesn’t like to share. There are only four ways I know of that a body-hopper can get a foothold.”
Josh takes Skye’s hand while I wonder if it would be unprofessional of me to raid the wet bar in the library.
“The first is a predisposition to evil.”
“That’s not it,” Daniel says firmly. “I might call him a minion of evil, but he’s really a ball of unicorn sunshine.”
“You call me a minion of evil?” Skye demands, and for the first time since this thing possessed him, he sounds like himself. He twists around to glare up at Daniel. “Why? Because I made you take your antibiotics and rest after your many surgeries? Oh no, how dare I care about your well-being!”
“You stole all my shoes and pants,” Daniel protests.
“Only because you kept insisting on leaving the house instead of resting!”
“I’m going to cut in here,” Connor says. “It sounds like evil isn’t the issue, and I don’t have time to listen to a domestic dispute. Yell at your boyfriend another time.”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” they say in unison, then glare at each other. Josh snickers, and Ewan smothers a smile. I’m too tense to be amused.
“Whatever,” Connor dismisses. “The second way is mental health disorders like schizophrenia or a dissociative disorder. Do you have a diagnosis of either?”
“No.” Skye shakes his head, eyes wide. “I’d know if I had something like that, wouldn’t I?”
“Probably. It would need to be pretty advanced for the body-hopper to be able to take advantage, so you and the people around you would have seen signs. Hallucinations, changes in manner or personality, memory loss, feelings of detachment from your life…?”
“No.” This time Skye’s shake of the head is relieved. “I haven’t had any of that.” He looks at me and Josh. “You guys spend the most time with me. Have I—”
“Nope,” Josh declares.
“Absolutely not,” I add. “I’ve worked with you for nearly three years, and there’s definitely nothing like that. What’s the third way?”
“Physical illness.”
“He had a stomach bug a couple weeks ago,” Ewan offers. “Remember? You came down to help me out in the smithy and hurled in the forge. It still smells a bit like burning vomit sometimes.”
“I think that was food poisoning, though,” Skye says doubtfully. “I ate that leftover sushi that I brought from home but left in my car.”
“You what?” I swallow down the urge to vomit just at the thought. “Why would you do something so stupid?”
He shrugs. “I forgot to bring it inside, and it seemed okay at the time. Didn’t smell funky or anything.”
“Not to break up this charming stroll down listeria lane, but food poisoning doesn’t count. Neither would a stomach bug. I’m talking about the kind of illness that would cause your soul to begin untethering from your body.”
We glance at each other. “What are those?” Daniel asks.
Connor’s sigh manages to convey that he thinks we’re all too dumb to exist. “Terminal ones.”
“I’m dying?” Skye’s shriek is piercing.
Carter, who’s been unusually silent, chooses that moment to join the conversation with “Don’t worry, Skye, being a ghost is fun. We’ll show you the ropes. I think you’ll really like the benefits, like listening to Ewan and Josh have sex all the time.”
Ewan coughs into the awkward silence that falls, while Josh’s cheeks go red.
I step in. “Carter, we talked about spying on—”
“We don’t watch!” he protests. “Not anymore. But they’re loud, and it’s like listening to porn. Since you won’t pay for porn channels on our TV, I have to improvise.”
“Oh my god,” Josh mutters. “Oh my god.”
“Want me to start looking for an exorcist?” Daniel asks Ewan, who seems to be genuinely speechless.
“I have so many questions,” Connor’s voice says from the speaker, and Josh closes his eyes as he remembers that this humiliation is being witnessed by an outsider, “but to get back to the point—again—terminal illness is only one possibility.”
“There’s a fourth way, right? You said four,” I recall. “What’s the fourth?” Please let it not be bad. So far, none of these options have been happy ones.
“The fourth is that Skye is a conduit.”
I look at Josh, who shrugs.
“What’s a conduit? A conduit for what?” Connor might be helping us, but right now I want to strangle him. This drip-feeding of information is anxiety-inducing.
“A spiritual conduit. That’s what a body-hopper is—a spirit. It’s not a demon like the soul-eater you had earlier this year. Conduits are humans whose souls are so well-developed and complete that they don’t fully tether to a body.”
“Wait, are you saying Skye’s soul is going to fall out of his body?” Daniel demands.
“Holy crap, why am I being punished?” Connor mutters. “No, I’m not saying that. Look, it’s complicated, and unless you know someone who can run tests for every single potentially terminal disease that exists, the only way I can tell you if Skye’s a conduit is to meet him.”
Shit. Shit.