16.5

 Steve stepped between them. “Enough. Panic will make you weaker to it. There’s a reason it’s called panic, after all.”

Roisin shook her head. “I don’t get it.”

“Panic.” Steve assumed the air of teacher, patiently explaining something simple to a dense student. “It stems from the sense of irrational flight one feels in the presence of the god Pan.”

Roisin wrinkled her nose. “The guy with the flute? You’re not telling me all those gods are real as well, are you?”

“Everything’s real if you believe in it. If enough people believe in the same thing, it gathers life force from them and becomes real.” He frowned. “And they’re called Pan Pipes, after him.”

The assistant pressed a hand to her mouth, trying to steady her breathing. “I shouldn’t have come back. I shouldn’t have—”

“You did the right thing,” Steve paced a hand on her shoulder. A rather familiar gesture, if he didn’t know her, Roisin thought. “You didn’t know what was following you.”

The assistant looked at him. “Do you?”

Steve hesitated. “Not exactly.”

Roisin felt the pressure begin to build again — a soft, warm vibration that spread through her ribs. She pressed a hand to her chest. “It’s changing.”

Steve turned sharply. “How?”

“It feels… closer,” Roisin whispered. “Like it’s not outside anymore.”

The assistant backed away. “What does that mean?”

Steve didn’t answer.

He crouched in front of Roisin, his expression tight. “Tell me exactly what you feel.”

Roisin closed her eyes. “It’s like… like something is moving inside me. Not physically. More like… like a collection of thoughts that aren’t mine.” She grimaced as an image of a man appereared in her thoughts; not a face she recognised, though it was debateable if his best friend would recognise him after the number of blows he had received. “Intrusive thoughts. People dying. People dead. People about to die.”

The assistant made a small, horrified sound.

Steve ignored her. “Is it pulling you?”

Roisin nodded. “No. More like a pushing, now. Like a canary in a wicker cage when it sees a cat on the other side of the room. It’s not pulling me toward the door anymore. It’s trying to push me forward.”

Steve’s voice was low. “Then toward what?”

Roisin opened her eyes.

And froze.

Her gaze drifted — not by choice — toward the stairs. Toward the upper floor. Not just their communal living space, but further up, toward the attic space.

Toward Steve’s room.

Steve followed her gaze. His face went pale. “No,” he whispered. “Not that.”

The assistant looked from him to Roisin and back again. “What? What’s wrong?”

Steve stood slowly, his posture rigid. “It’s trying to align with something upstairs.”

Roisin felt the pressure pulse again — harder now, almost urgent, the way the urge to defecate becomes eventually urgent enough that it causes physical pain.

The assistant whispered, “What’s upstairs?”

Steve didn’t answer.

Roisin paled. “Your artifacts.”

Steve closed his eyes.

The assistant stared at him. “You said they were safe.”

“They are,” Steve said. “But they’re hidden from anything outside the house. Not from something I’ve already allowed across the barrier. Not when something is trying to use them.”

Roisin felt the pressure surge — a sharp, electric pulse that made her gasp.

Steve grabbed her shoulders. “Roisin. Stay with me.”

She nodded, breath trembling. “It wants to go upstairs.”

“I know,” Steve said. “That’s why you’re not going.”

The assistant whispered, “What happens if she does?”

Steve didn’t look at her.

He kept his eyes on Roisin his face so ashen his stubble looked like fire against the electric light. “It completes the threshold.”

The assistant whispered, “What does that mean?”

Roisin felt the world tilt at the pressure began to pulse like the bass like in a rhythm and blues track played at full volume in a heaving night club. She could feel a headache begin, pulsing in time with the pressure, as if the chestburster inside her was about to be spattered out into the world. She clutched at Steve’s arm. “I don’t think I can hold it back much longer.”

Steve held his hands on either side of her face and forced her to look at him instead of the ceiling. “You have to.” He finally answered the assistant. “It means,” he said softly, “that she’ll destroy the barrier around the house. Then whatever’s been trying to cross… will be able to.”

The assistant stared at Steve as though he’d spoken in another language. “Destroy the barrier? That would destroy us all.”

Steve didn’t answer her. His eyes were fixed on Roisin, watching the way she held herself, the way her breath hitched, the way her fingers trembled against her chest. Roisin knew he wasn’t looking for fear. He was looking for alignment. And he saw it.