Note: Trigger warning on abuse.

….

"Mystery, is he all right? He's shaking."

"No. Don't interrupt my concentration, Kay."

I allow the interaction as the weeks pass. I am in no rush. There is all the time in the world to cultivate what I need. Once Lewis has healed enough to move again, I assign him to the paddock. He is to keep the herd groomed, clean, and fed. He will treat their wounds and report new pregnancies to me.

He reports that one mare's stomach swells. I break his arm, and he asks why. I scorch the side of his face, laughing, "Now it is for asking why."

I visit the mare the next week and her womb is empty. The air smells of residual blood, though the straw has been changed. I dash Lewis against the rocks in the riverbed, holding him under until the water fills his lungs and I must lift him out to press half the river from him.

"You didn't report the miscarriage to me," I hiss in his ear.

"You punished me for reporting!" he cries, and I drown him a second time.

"Report all to me," I remind him, dragging his sodden, half-conscious form to the paddock.

Later, after he is healed, I watch him find Harvey, who shares a ragged blanket and rotting food. Cold and miserable, Lewis asks what he can do to avoid beatings.

"You can't." Harvey's voice is heavy with resignation. "But if you don't do what he says, you'll always get a beating. If you do what he says, sometimes you won't. So always do what he says."

Smart, that Harvey. From then on, Lewis obeys my every command, and I withhold beatings at random, never allowing it to fall into a pattern so that there is always a moment of dread and hope comingled in his heart.

It is never a problem for me, of course. They are healed and ready to commence their work the next day after a visit to the paddock. I can thrash them within inches of death and it never matters.

"Mystery, he's choking! You have to stop!"

"I can't find him! It's too dark, I lost hold on him. Kay, call him!"

One day I make the rations smaller for Harvey, depriving Lewis entirely. Lewis comes begging for a mouthful, but Harvey says he has none. As Lewis sleeps, Harvey eats his ration. The next day I leave Harvey alone. He is smart, he will pick up the connection shortly.

"What about the other rooms? They'll hear!"

"I'll take care of the sound issue, just start calling him. Something's wrong."

The more Harvey strengthens himself and lets Lewis weaken, the more I reward him. Harvey's rations grow. His beatings stop completely. I pull him aside and praise his cunning. His hope swells unbearably bright, but it is well. I bide my time. He is ripe for harvest.

"Arthur, stop! What are you doing?"

"Hello puppet. Did you think this connection only went one way? I've found you."

"Let go of Mystery!"

"My, and you've found yourself a siren. Truly marvelous how the curse weaves itself, do you see it? It's wound all 'round you too. I could break her hold on you. Just don't fight me."

….

"You expect me to believe I'm dead because someone placed a curse on my family?" Lewis growled. "Someone's pulling it over on you hard, Vee, and my bet's on Arthur."

"Are you calling me a spit-witted turnstile?"

Lewis paused. "I'm not saying anything of the sort!"

"If you really think Squire could pull the wool over my eyes, you might as well be! And if you think he's trying to then you're a spit-witted turnstile!"

Lewis palm thunked against his face, his fingers dragging down over his skull. "I'm saying Arthur isn't what he seems. He can't be. What he did fits the Shiker's agenda too well, and he was right there at my weakest moment!"

"That's because Arthur was possessed. How many times am I going to have to say it wasn't his fault?"

"Say it 'til you're blue. Bluer, anyway. It won't make a difference. The Shiker put him in my life to set me up because I didn't break the first time! I won't go out like them, Vee. I won't disappear, I refuse to be a deadbeat!"

Vivi blinked. "Deadbeat?"

Lewis' skull pulled back. "Uh, that's, that's what I call the pink ghosts. Deadbeats."

"Whatever. Lewis, if you really think Squire was planted here just to trip you up, I think I know what's keeping that skull lit, 'cause your head's full of fumes. The world does not revolve around you! Squire had a life outside of being your friend!"

"Part of which involved dating someone who had no business dating anyone to begin which, if I'm to be perfectly blunt. But if she had to doom someone, she shouldn't have picked someone I thought to be my friend."

Vivi stared at him, thunderstruck. "Kay… Kay thinks the world of you. Thought the world of you. How could you even…?"

"It's true, and she knows it! I'm dead, Vivi, and it's somebody's fault! If it's not Arthur's, it's Kay's! If it's not Kay's it's Arthur's! You tell me, who killed me?"

"The Shiker, you pie pilfering peasant stock porterhouse!" Vivi threw up her hands in disgust. "Does it occur to you on any level that, gee, maybe it's actually the source that's responsible and not the people he manipulates into place? Or are you too thick-skulled to even consider-"

Lewis darted forward, seizing Vivi's arms. His skull loomed in her face, flames billowing out and back from the top of his head. "I can't touch the Shiker! I'm more powerful in death than I ever hoped to be in life, and there's still nothing I can do to stop him if he finds me! Who can I hurt for this, Vivi?"

Heat seared Vivi's arms. She lashed out with a foot, landing it hard on Lewis' ribs. Eyes wide, he released her, scrambling back. "Oh gods, Vivi, did I… are you…"

For the second time, Vivi smelled burned flesh and her stomach churned in response. She didn't dare look down. Woodenly, she reached out and scooped up the little gray box, her fingers fixed on it like claws as her skin smoldered. "I guess I'll be going now. I'll just take this. Looks like I need it after all, to protect me from demons. Not to mention ghosts who act like demons."

The pink flames snuffed out, the glow in Lewis' eyesockets fading away.

She needed him gone. She didn't want his pity. She wanted him to only see her anger, and she was about to cry from the pain. "Now, if you'll get your sorry bones out of my van, I have to go knock heads with Squire to see if he's got any leads on Chloe and Duet."

A flash of pink slipped in through the front window, circling Lewis' skull with distressed chirps. Lewis' eyes flickered back to life as he tilted his skull, listening.

"Did you hear me, bonehead? I said get out of my-"

Lewis seized the pink flash. "I wouldn't go back right now if I was you, Vivi. You want proof Arthur was planted? I've had the Deadbeats watching him. Take a look at what he's doing behind your back."

He held the Deadbeat like a screen stretched between his hands. An image flickered on it. It was the hotel room she'd just left. Kay gripped Arthur's hair and right arm, hauling backward. Arthur's skin had a faint green tinge, and a nauseating grin lit his face. His prosthetic was buried up to the wrist down Mystery's throat.

"Now do you believe me?"