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There’s something else there, too. Awe.

I scramble away from him, diving for my bag and tugging the zipper open. I plunge my hands inside, throwing my clothes out of the way, a can of deodorant rolling until it knocks into the coffee table.

A tentative sense of calm washes over me when my hands close over a suede-bound book.

I pull it out of my bag, pivoting and stumbling a few steps before slamming to my knees and splaying the pages of my grimoire out on the couch. I flick through as quickly as I dare, the parchment brittle and fading in places.

“You brought that crusty old book with you?” Sunday jokes, trying to lighten the tension in the room. He’s scared and doesn’t know what’s going on, humor the only defense mechanism in his arsenal.

I shush him, my eyes skimming a section on astral projection, but that’s not what I’m looking for.

Toward the back are some pages that have barely been used. Rust-red fingerprints, ink blots, and notes are scribbled in the margins, put there long before the book came into my possession.

Possession.

I suck in a sharp breath, my chest tightening.

Oh, fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, shit, fucking, fuck.

Possession is a very real possibility.

I flip the page, landing on the section that I’ve been avoiding for my naive little life. My stomach drops as I skim the page, reading the loopy scrawl of somebody’s ancestor.

A single drop, that’s all it takes.

Blood. The sacred life force of man and beast. Rites deeply rooted in purification and sacrifice, in relationships with both the divine and the demonic.

The nosebleed. The offering. The invitation.

“When did you say your things started going missing?” I try to keep my voice even and my expression empty when I turn to Sunday.

My eyes must betray me, because he stiffens. “Right after the hospital…”

“And the reflections?” I push.

“Um. Couple weeks later, maybe?”

Infestation. The first stage of possession.

How exactly do you tell someone that you think they might be possessed? Do you just rip off the band-aid and tell them, or spoon-feed them?

I glance around for Delphine out of habit. But of course, she’s not here.

Band-aid, then.

“So, I think there may be a teeny-weeny possibility that you could maybe have been slightly…possessed?” I say with wilting confidence, my voice climbing an octave.

I’m met with silence. Sunday turns his head to me slowly, mouth hanging open. “You can fix it, right?”

Can I? Fear and anxiety rear their ugly heads. “Yeah, let me just get my exorcism kit,” I bite, slamming my grimoire closed, telling myself it’s not his fault he’s clueless.

It hits me: Sunday’s cluelessness and resistance to the supernatural is probably the reason he survived growing up in a mortuary.

“Okay, cool,” Sunday breathes, visibly relaxing into the couch, proving my point.

I pick up a small piece of citrine that’s fallen out of my overnight bag and toss it at him, hitting him square in the forehead.