13

PURGATORY. MILO CAN'T THINK OF A BETTER WORD TO DESCRIBE the acute experience of recovering from a nauseating migraine in a diner bathroom at night.

He isn't a sinner though. Or at least he doesn't think he is. That's what purgatory is, right? That in-between place where fractured and tormented souls get caught, neither in heaven nor hell, but in some terrible place between?

It hadn't been quite that bad, Milo thinks, but it's possible that whatever the other boy had experienced had been.

Milo hadn't fallen asleep in the Riviera, though he had come close, the heaviness of his fate tugging away at what little energy he'd had left in him. Once he felt he had wallowed in self-pity for an indeterminable time, he had made the decision to drag himself up to his room to wallow somewhere warmer. This is when he encountered the blond boy in his kitchen and his stomach had lurched in a complicated way. The Iverson boy, a wolf amongst them.

And now there's just this: two boys, winter and fall; two different reflections looking in the same mirror.

The radio continues to crackle and Lenore eyes it wearily for a moment before returning her focus to Milo. "You two have met before?" she asks him. Her gaze is analytical, gauging his reaction.

It suddenly occurs to Milo that his omission of the Iverson boy from his diner retelling has unceremoniously come back to bite him in the ass. There are few things more stupid than lying to a psychic—or even just a mother that knows you particularly well—so Milo says truthfully, "We met that night at the diner."

Lenore frowns. "The night you had that migraine?"

"Yes."

"What was the nature of this meeting?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Not to generalise, but it just seems unlikely that you boys would... associate."

It's a fair assumption to make. In fact, it's a highly accurate assumption, but it makes Milo feel strangely uncomfortable. He tries not to be intimidated by Iverson boys—they are nothing without their money after all—but he can't deny that the wolfish boy's presence makes him feel more than a little on edge.

Milo crosses his arms, feeling suddenly defensive. "My previous question still stands."

Lenore mirrors him, though when she folds her arms it's decidedly more of a subtle power move than a defence mechanism. "I just want to gauge whether it was a coincidence or whether there was possibly divine–"

"I don't see how any of this matters."

"We met in the bathroom," the boy says, his words cutting cleanly through the conversation though he hadn't spoken any louder than anyone else in the room. "And I told him he looked like shit."

Lenore and Milo both turn their attention to him.

You didn't look much better, Milo wants to say, but doesn't. Whatever strange confidence he'd had in 'purgatory' had evidently stayed there. Milo bites his lower lip self-consciously. Lenore clicks her tongue disapprovingly, though she doesn't defend Milo's honour. Milo can't decide whether he's thankful for this or not.

If Lenore had been there it's likely she would have said the same thing, he thinks, though it would have been slightly more lovingly.

"Well as nice as this missed connection was," she says suddenly, clapping her hands together, "I have to give Cas his reading. Milo, can you go get Valerie?"

Cas, Milo thinks, finally able to put a name to the boy's finely sculpted face. It sounds like an Iverson name, a shortening no doubt of a longer, and even more pretentious name. And something about Cas is unsettlingly familiar. Of course, Milo recognises him from the diner, but he swears that he's seen him somewhere else, like the front of a school brochure, or a dream.

He's not sure whether it's this realisation or the breeze that's managed to sneak through the kitchen window that causes him to shiver.

It takes Milo a minute to register he's being dismissed from the conversation, and the room. His fatigue, which had been somewhat suspended for the duration of the "missed connection", comes back to Milo with a vengeance, so he finds himself relieved to have an excuse to leave the room.

After knocking on Valerie's door with a perfunctory "Mom needs your voodoo magic," Milo drags his leaden body up the stairs to his room, thinking of the boy in his kitchen and promises of death.

- ✧ -

Why am I here?

The question has been swirling around Cas's mind since he pulled up outside the psychic's house with no other thoughts than fix me.

"So Valerie tells me you've been displaying some worrying symptoms," Lenore says evenly, stirring her tea in slow, rhythmic circles. "Have you had any migraines, hallucinations, or highly specific dreams recently?"

Churlishly studying his own mug of untouched chamomile, Cas nods without looking up.

"Care to go into any more detail?"

"I don't see why I have to; your job is to read my thoughts."

"That's not how this works, Blondie."

Cas hears the girl's boots thumping against the floorboards before he sees her. As she clomps into the kitchen, Cas instantly recognises her as the employee from Seth's-the one who had given him the number to this place just days before.

She's impossibly tall, her heeled boots causing her tightly curled hair to loom perilously close to the top of the arched doorway that separates the kitchen from the living room. Everything about her is sharp and striking from the pointed collar of her denim jacket to the dangerous hook of her mouth. Though she seems calm from the outside, something about her seems restless and uncertain.

With a theatrical sigh, Valerie breezes past Cas to stand beside Lenore on the other side of the counter, arms folded and eyes scrutinising. Both of the women look at him with an expression that's either pitiful or curious or possibly both. Cas can hear Valerie's foot tapping ceaselessly against the tiled floor like a quickening pulse.

"She's right" Lenore says mildly. "I can't read your brain, but I am pretty good with tea leaves. Drink up."

Suspecting he has little choice in the matter, Cas takes a weary sip of the beverage before him. It's lukewarm and tastes like garden weeds. Both the women wait for him to down the rest of the drink. He does, placing the mug back down with far more force than necessary but not enough to break it.

Cas tips the mug towards himself to examine the dark clumps of soggy plant residue and his doubt thickens. The nagging feeling that he's being scammed tugs at him more insistently. He pushes the mug towards the psychics.

Lenore takes the mug and holds it between herself and Valerie. Their heads bow together as they peer at the contents. While they analyse the leaves, Cas feels his phone buzz in his pocket. He ignores it, knowing it's probably Harrison telling him to hurry up.

Both the women's eyebrows are the first to betray any emotion—Lenore's furrowed and Valerie's raised—before they glance at each other. The look they exchange is almost other-worldly; a code between psychics, or perhaps just between mother and daughter. Though the moment barely lasts for a second, Cas finds himself shifting uncomfortably on his bar stool.

Valerie whispers something to Lenore that Cas doesn't catch. Lenore shakes her head. They look at Cas. Lenore clears her throat.

"Cas," she says, her voice uncertain for the first time this evening, "I..."

Lenore's voice trails off, her gaze slowly unfocusing. Cas feels a chill as though his blood has iced over. The wind howls as if in mourning and he wishes someone would shut the kitchen window.

"As I suspected," Lenore says finally, her words hanging in the air like a secret, "You are in a fair bit of peril, Cas."

Cas's fatigue had been eating away at him all night, but now it feels heavier than ever. His tiredness is bone-deep, a tangible thing that's dulling his senses. The word 'peril' takes a moment to register, and when it does, Cas finds himself dangerously unaffected.

"Is it something that can be prevented?" he asks calmly.

Lenore shakes her head somberly. Valerie looks somewhat troubled, drumming her fingers restlessly on the counter.

"What kind of peril are we talking about?"

"The mortal kind."

The room falls quiet—quiter. Cas doesn't believe in pre-determined fate though it's clear that at least two-thirds of the room does.

"Don't we all face mortal peril by simply existing?" he muses melodramatically, matching the psychic's prophetic tone.

For a brief moment, Cas swears he catches a smile from the psychic but it slips away like water through fingers, elusive but rewarding to those who manage to lure it.

"That," she says, "is very true."

"And what about the hallucinations?" Cas pivots, undeterred by his ominous fate. "Can you stop them?"

Fix me.

Almost relieved Lenore says, "We can lessen them, certainly. I can also teach you how to banish them when they do occur."

Relief washes over Cas, warm and comforting, thawing the ice-cold dread in his veins.

"It's getting late, though. We should keep in contact and arrange another meeting."

Cas checks his watch. It's minutes until midnight. He looks at Lenore and nods.

"Well I look forward to it," Lenore says warmly, but rather briskly. "Have a good night, Cassiel."

Cas slips down from the barstool and takes in the room one final time. The whole house seems to be charged with a kind of energy that he can't quite grasp. He glances towards the stairs that the boy—Milo—had taken when he was told to leave the room.

There's something familiar about him that Cas can't quite place—a strange feeling that they've known each other before. Somehow, somewhere, beyond the diner. Cas shakes his head, dismissing his fatigued, nonsensical thoughts, and walks to the door. He pulls out his phone to text Harrison only to find two messages from him already across the screen.

nee d help

come. quick