Theresa O'Malley was smaller than Eutopia remembered, petite and pixie-like with shining copper hair streaked through with silver at the front that showed where she'd swept it all up into a neat bun at the nape of her neck. Her warm grey eyes, so like Mike's and crinkled at the edges from a life of bestowing easy smiles, widened in surprise when she opened the front door of their two bed terraced townhouse later that morning.

'Jaysus, Mary 'un Joseph save me soul if it isn't Topi!' Her hand rested on her chest for a moment as she caught a breath, before she stepped back, widening the gap in the doorway to allow them through. 'Come inside and have a drink, so you will. Michael, Michael!' Theresa closed the door swiftly, squeezing past the almost impossibly large form of Jinn, who took up most of the hallway, to shout up the staircase. 'Michael Thomas O'Malley would you get down these stairs this instant!?' She whirled, a sudden blur of pale blue wool and bright copper hair and the musical lilt of her faded Irish accent, as she caught Eutopia up in a hug. 'Oh my goodness me, it's so good to see you, little one! Michael said he'd spoken to you. We've watched all those reports on the television, so we have, but we don't believe one bit of it. Where've you been these past few years?' Her small, cool hands caught up Eutopia's face, gently cupping it as she smiled deep into the girls eyes. 'I often wondered what happened to you. Come, come, and don't let me keep you from a cuppa.'

Theresa whirled again, a constant blur of delicate motion like a hummingbird's wing as she led the way down the narrow hallway to the kitchen at the back of the house leaving Eutopia and Jinn, almost knocked sideways in the onslaught of her unexpected enthusiastic greeting, helpless but to follow her.

'How are you, Theresa?' Eutopia asked, pulling out one of spindly metal-framed chairs at the table that the small woman gestured to as she flitted about the bright but faded kitchen, filling up the kettle with water at the sink. Jinn squeezed himself into a chair beside Eutopia, which strained loudly beneath his heavy frame, as he looked around with quiet interest.

'I'm very well, thank you dear. Thomas passed away from us almost three years this November, God rest his soul,' she lifted a fragile gold chain from around her neck and lightly kissed the tiny crucifix that hung from it in a swift and unconscious gesture before letting it fall back into the folds of her woollen jumper. 'But I have my Michael back; he's been my rock these past few years.' She beamed at Eutopia, dropping teabags into four mugs she'd set on the counter top before her grey eyes found Jinn's. 'D'yer take sugar in yer tea, dear?' she asked him, without batting an eyelid.

Eutopia had always warmed to Mike's mum, Theresa. It was impossible to spend more than a minute with her without being totally overcome by her tenderness and she had never been one to ask too many questions either, she accepted everything in her stride as it fell at her feet. Eutopia had visited the three storey townhouse on occasion whilst she'd been hanging around with Mike and Kayla and had successfully navigated Jinn to the right street almost straight away, though it had taken at least twenty minutes of deliberation outside in the car before she would let Jinn knock on the door. She hadn't been one hundred per cent sure of the number and didn't think it was a good idea to go knocking here there and everywhere in the hope of finding the right house. It wasn't until she saw Nala, the pretty tortoiseshell cat that belonged to the O'Malleys, perched on the wall of the small front garden cleaning her whiskers in the grey morning light that she dared climb out of the car. Jinn, silent up until then, shook his head with a smile.

'No thank you, Mrs O'Malley.' His ethereal beauty seemed somehow at home in the outdated but clean and homely surroundings of the kitchen, emphasising the comforting normality of the room rather than detracting from it, despite the fact he almost occupied the entire kitchen alone. Eutopia noted that nothing seemed to have changed since her last visit, from the chipped and hard brown tiles of the floor to the mock-granite worktops of Formica that stretched the length of one wall of the narrow kitchen.

Theresa had turned back to the kettle, filling the mugs with the water that had just boiled as Mike entered the room, rubbing a hand over the rusty stubble that bristled from his head where a mass of shoulder-length dreads used to hang. Black framed glasses, bold and square, perched on his nose, slipping down as he yawned widely. He'd trimmed his straggly facial hair into a short, neat beard which added overall to an entirely studious appearance. Eutopia blinked in surprise. Gone were the torn and dirty camouflage combats, the hand-knitted and multi-coloured jumpers he used to dig out from the forgotten depths of the most obscure charity shops, replaced instead with a casual pair of grey joggers and a t-shirt emblazoned with some bands insignia. He looked healthier than Eutopia had ever seen him before and it made her smile. He paused in the doorway, catching sight of the two figures at the table.

'Topi?' he asked in surprise, as his mother had merely moments before. Mike didn't share the musical lilt of Theresa's accent, but he had her gentle grey eyes and copper hair, when he didn't shave it off. Eutopia grinned, the knot of anxiety she'd felt at waiting to see her old friend disappeared immediately as his eyes crinkled and he rushed in to scoop her up in a huge hug. Jinn's indigo eyes, emitting a wary and watchful glow, never left the shorter man as Mike wrapped his arms around Eutopia and pulled her close.

'Wow, lady, you've grown! You were the last person I expected to see at eight AM this morning.' He let go of her, setting her back on her feet so that she could resume her place at the table as Theresa set the four steaming mugs of tea down before them. He stretched out with another yawn. 'Cheers, Mam,' he said, wrapping both hands around his polka dot mug. Eutopia accepted her tea and took a grateful sip. She smiled at Mike, who still looked half asleep.

'Late night last night was it?' she asked, half teasing as she remembered all the late nights they had experienced together, sitting in parks with a bottle of vodka between them talking dreamily of the future they wanted, or dancing away until the early hours at unexpected house parties or raves they came across as they had wondered aimlessly through whatever town they happened to be in at the time. Such unsocial hours had never bothered him then; he must be getting old she thought with a sentimental inward smile, if they are starting to take their toll now.

'Yes actually, it was quite late. I'm in my final year of a politics degree and trying to get as much of my dissertation done as possible.' Eutopia was taken aback by that, completely thrown by how much Mike seemed to have his life on track already.

'Wow, that's amazing. You have been busy!'

'Seems like we both have, eh?' Mike said lifting one red eyebrow as his gentle grey eyes settled on Jinn across the table. Jinn gave a slight, stiff nod and extended his huge hand to him.

'Jinn,' he said, shaking Mike's hand by way of introduction.

'Ahh, the elusive and extremely dangerous suspect.' Mike was just as unflappable as his mother, taking the bumps and dips of life with passive acceptance and a hint of humour. He nodded his shorn head sagely, arms crossed over his chest as he studied Jinn with open and un-hostile curiosity. Jinn sat relaxed and at ease, hands resting around his warm mug of tea but Eutopia looked uncomfortable as she noted the wariness that still flickered in his gaze. She remembered the incident at the service station, calling to mind the irrational outburst of paranoid anger that had seen the monster of a man throw a stranger over his own car bonnet. She shifted in her seat and cleared her throat.

'Mike,' she began, haltingly, nibbling her lower lip and raising her eyes to follow a crack in the patchy ceiling as she desperately tried to find the words to explain why, after two whole years without any contact with the guy that had once taken on the role of mother, father and brother to a friendless fifteen year old, she had turned up on his doorstep and expected a favour. 'I'm sorry I never contacted you, especially after your Dad…' Mike raised a hand and waved her words aside unconcerned as Theresa stood up.

'This washin' won't sort itself, so it won't. I'll leave you two to catch up. But Topi,' she said sternly, turning her shining grey eyes onto the girl. 'Don't you go a'disappearin' on me again, little one. At least not until yeh've said goodbye this time.' She smiled warmly and stooped to hoist a large basket of clothes that had already been washed, ironed and folded neatly.

'Jinn?' Eutopia ventured quietly. 'Mike's mum might want a hand…' she prompted. Theresa flapped the hesitant suggestion away with a free hand in a gesture reminiscent of her son's, the other hand supporting the plastic washing basket against her bony hip.

'Of course not, dear. The devil makes work for idle hands, Topi. I must keep myself busy, so I must.' And with that she swept out of the kitchen leaving the comforting scent of clean laundry in her wake. Jinn shrugged his shoulders a little, his eyes stony as he turned to look at Eutopia. His arms were folded across the barrel of his chest and it was obvious to Eutopia from the set of his jaw that he didn't plan on leaving the kitchen any time soon.

'Please, could I just have some time alone with Mike?' Her tone was more subdued and Eutopia was silently incredulous at the beseeching note her words took. Since when did she ever have to ask, or practically beg, his permission for anything? A long and noiseless pause followed as Jinn seemed to contemplate her request. 'I'm sat in the kitchen of an old terraced house, surrounded by suburbia out on the hunt for my blood, I'm hardly going to make a bolt for it,' Eutopia added almost scathingly. Finally, after some further thought, Jinn gave a reluctant nod and slowly unfurled his bulk from the chair.

'I'll be upstairs,' he said, with a lingering look at Mike that the other man took as almost some kind of unspoken warning. Mike had watched and listened to the exchange between Eutopia and Jinn with interest, slouched easily back in his own chair.

'Please, Mrs O'Malley, let me help you with that,' Jinn called after Theresa, just loud enough for her to hear. He left the kitchen and ducked out of the doorway.

'There's so much I want to tell you, Mike, everything that's happened over the past few days but I just can't. Not yet.'

'Just tell me truthfully that it wasn't Jinn that caused those bruises and I'll be happy,' he said in his calm, almost unconcerned way.

'Oh!' Eutopia's fingers hesitantly touched the small wound on her lip that had almost healed already, tracing over the yellowed bloom on her cheek. They really hadn't been as severe as they'd first looked, having almost disappeared now. Eutopia had pretty much forgotten about them. 'No, of course it wasn't Jinn! Something… happened and he was there luckily enough to make sure it didn't get any worse.' Her cheeks blazed and her dark eyes clouded for a moment at the memory as she met Mike's level, searching gaze. There had been a time when he could read every twitch and flicker of her face, despite the hazy stupor of weed that he had existed in most of the time, and that moment was no different. He blinked.

'I would have killed them too,' he said without venom. 'I tried calling you back but you must have had no signal. I thought you weren't able to come back to London until you found Will?'

'I've lost my phone; I had no other way of contacting you and I need to find Will as soon as possible so I can straighten this whole mess out. I've never been more confused in my life, Mike; I just want this whole mess to go away.' She thought of her relatively uncomplicated life before London. Her cosy but boring little café job, her cramped but clean flat with the mis-matched furniture and her simple daydream of a straightforward and joyful reunion with her brother. Then she thought of the achingly beautiful Jinn, her hot-headed and violent avenging angel that had turned her life and her beliefs almost completely on their head in a matter of days. Could things ever get back to normal? Did she even want them to? Mike nodded.

'I understand that. I wouldn't much like to be splashed all over T.V like that either. But I did some digging like I said but I don't shift in the circles I used to. My Dad dying gave me the shake-up I needed. I had to be strong for my Mam so kicked the habit almost straight away. I've been clean pretty much ever since so have little cause to lurk with the backstreeters like I used to.' Eutopia smiled at the familiar word they'd used to describe the drop-outs and drifters that flitted in and out of their lives all those years ago.

Mike had come from a happy home, with a firm and loving foundation but he had rebelled all the same with no rhyme or reason other than the simple fact that he could. Eutopia remembered one particular evening, almost five years ago to the day, when she and Mike had been slumped under a ramp at a skate park in some obscure little town in Hampshire that they'd caught the train to earlier that day. They'd both been turfed off, much to their amusement, at the town's station when the sharp nosed guard realised the tickets they'd found discarded on the floor and tried to pass off as their own actually had the previous days date on. Now they sat huddled in the folds of the enormous and multi-pocketed trench coat that Mike had taken to wearing recently that had been made for a man of twice his width but had been a bargain at just £4 in Oxfam.

His shoulder length dreadlocks tickled Eutopia's cheek as she rested her head on his shoulder, looking up at the small patch of crystal-like stars they could see through the opening of the skate-ramp they had crawled beneath. Mike took a long drink from the half-litre bottle of vodka they'd pooled their money for. He'd had to buy it since his straggly and overgrown beard made him appear older than he really was, though at twenty-two he had the ID to show should he need it. At just sixteen and with her wide, childlike eyes Eutopia never had any chance of buying the alcohol without arousing suspicion, though she never had any qualms in drinking it.

She did, however, draw the line at smoking, especially when it came down to the fragrant-scented weed that Mike favoured. She could see the cherry-red ember of his rollup as he took a drag with one hand, passing her the vodka with the other. She took a swig and pulled a face immediately. She hated the taste, it was as harsh as the scent of the paint-stripping liquid her foster father Andrew had used in her room once when he'd been redecorating and she could feel it hacking at the back of her throat now. But she loved the initial burn as it slipped to her stomach, consuming the dark shadows that clouded her mind with each sip. Eutopia drank to forget. Mike drank to rebel against a society he felt was unfair and that was the topic of that evenings rant.

'Like why the hell should I go out there and get a job, slave away for minimum wage just so the fuckin' government can take their Christmas bonus out of the money I've earned. I'm not workin' for no-fuckin'-body, not when I can just sit back at let the government pay for me. Ya know, my Dad, he's worked ever since he was eleven years old?' he rambled in his unhurried, stilted way. His tone was mellow and quiet, despite the ferocity of his feeling.

'Eleven?!' Eutopia spluttered, the vodka half raised to her lips. 'Isn't that illegal?'

'Not at the time he was growing up in Ireland it wasn't.' Mike blew a stream of hazy blue smoke from between his lips and they both watched it curling lazily up into the clear night air, twisting delicate tendrils into fantastical shapes before fading into nothingness. 'I never want to be like that, lady, there ain't no pride in workin' for no one or for nothin'. You should see him, old before his time. Bet he's dead before he hits fifty-five.'

'Mike!' Eutopia admonished, passing back the bottle. 'That's a horrible thing to say.'

'Well it's true,' he defended himself; 'you should see him. He's all grey now. Last time I spoke to my Mam she said his blood pressure's up again. Honestly, you won't ever see me slavin' away for nobody, lady.'

'Why don't you go home, Mike?' Eutopia asked, upping her concentration level now as the vodka began to numb her lips and loosen her muscles. 'If I had a home like yours I know I'd never leave it.'

'I don't want to end up like my Dad, Topi. I want more than that.' He took one last drag on his joint, flicking the fading cherry of his dog-end into the blackness as he followed it up with a swig from the vodka bottle. 'I'm gonna change the world, lady.' Mike sighed with contentment, laying back to cradle his head with his hands. Eutopia followed him in an attempt to stay in the warmth of his trench coat. 'I'm gonna change theee WORLD!' They had both fallen into fits of giggles at that point and back in the kitchen at number 23 The Gardens, at the table with a matured Mike, a ghost of a smile tugged at Eutopia's lips at the memory.

'I did hear something though that I thought might be useful,' Mike offered. Eutopia sat up a little straighter, leaning across the table top.

'You did? Oh Mike! Anything you can give me will be a starting point. I literally have nothing to go on myself anyway other than his name.'

'What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet…' he drained the dregs of his tea.

'What?'

'Will, he could have changed his name.' Eutopia bit her lip as she contemplated that, her brow creasing in worry.

'You're right,' she said. 'I never thought of that. What will I do then? Oh, Mike this is all such a mess!'

'Hey, lady, you got me on the case now. I won't give up. D'you remember Maria?' Eutopia nodded, recalling the hard faced, painfully thin woman with straggly brown hair that used to supply Mike with his weed. She had lived on the far outskirts of London in a grubby tower block that was well past its date with a bulldozer, even then.

'Yes,' she said carefully, wondering where this was going.

'She has a cousin, Kev, who sort of used to hang around with us back then. Not regularly, like, but anyway, he enrolled in one of my modules last term. He mentioned something a few weeks ago when we met for a catch up session. We don't start back until October, but we're trying to get ahead. Anyway,' he leant back languidly in his chair, as was his infuriating calm manner. An unaffected yawn stretched his mouth as he laced his hands behind his head. 'He mentioned someone in passing who's started hanging about with Maria and the name just stuck with me… dogged me all week 'til I thought of checking him out on his profile. The likeness to you is just, well...' He slipped a sleek and shiny widescreen phone from his pocket and let his fingertips caress the screen expertly, alternately making tapping and pinching motions that Eutopia found amusing. 'Here, see for yourself.' Mike laid the phone on the table directly in front of her with the screen facing upwards. He had zoomed in on an image of a dark haired man with ice blue eyes that glittered from the flash of the camera. His nose was a stronger more defined version of Eutopia's but the similarity of features was uncanny.

'It's Will!' Eutopia squeaked, flinging her chair back in her haste as she stood, toppling it to the floor as she plucked the phone from the table top. 'It's him, I know it! Look, see, he looks just like me!' But in her excitement she had overlooked the hollow, sunken cheeks, the haunted bleary eyes that were captured by the photo. Mike lay a gentle hand on Eutopia's, covering the screen of his phone and guiding her back to the table. Eutopia looked up at him, her smile hesitating as she reached down to set right her chair and regain her seat opposite him. 'What?' she asked. With a flick of his fingertips Mike zoomed out of the image and took them back to what was evidently a home screen. The photo Eutopia had recognised had shrunk to a thumbnail in the top left corner and words in a bold font marched across the top of a blue banner, taking pride of place instead.

'This is his networking profile. The name here is 'Jason Bracken'.' He looked carefully at Eutopia as she frowned for a moment.

'Jason? But it's Will, this is definitely Will. It's my brother, Mike, I know it.' Mike nodded, having seen the resemblance to Eutopia himself.

'That's what I thought and also why I suggested that he may be using another name.'

'Why would he do that?' Eutopia asked, clearly confused.

'Oh, I could think of a million reasons, Miss Lucy Penfold,' Mike grinned and Eutopia gave a brittle laugh.

'Point taken. Can't say I've had much use for aliases these days. I thought my police-dodging days were over.'

'Until now,' Mike helpfully pointed out.

'Yes, until now,' she agreed. 'You think he goes by a different name now because he's in trouble?' Eutopia could feel a creeping sadness nudging its way into her heart, especially as she recalled the sharp-featured, greasy-haired Maria who had been well known for her ability to get her bony hands on any illegal substance requested. What was he doing with her? Will had never exactly been an angel when he was younger, but neither had she. She understood a child caught pick-pocketing or shop-lifting would lie to the police about a name in an effort to avoid a spell in a cell and a visit from a social worker, but what could he have done that was so dramatic that he felt the need to give himself a new identity? Was he involved with drugs? Mike drew a breath and let it out slowly through his pursed lips as he watched the situation unfold in the girl's mind.

'Well,' he pointed to a link on the screen and looked up at Eutopia. 'You ready for this part?' Eutopia nodded, her brow drawn in puzzlement. She watched as Mike tapped and manipulated the screen again and then almost choked on her own stilted breath as two images stood out in stark relief from the thumbnail photographs that followed one after another from top to bottom. She'd been haunted for the past two nights by those pale, fishy eyes and those boyish features that she'd last seen twisted in rage and then beamed back at her from what seemed to be every T.V she'd come into contact with.

'He's friends with the two men they've been showing in the appeal, the two that were murdered,' Mike pointed out needlessly. Eutopia's blood ran cold in her veins, causing her to shiver.

'The men that attacked me,' Eutopia clarified. 'Nephilim,' she whispered as Jinn's terminology sprang unbidden to her mind and another involuntary tremble wracked her body.

'Someone walk over your grave?' Mike quipped, half-amused.

'Not for lack of trying, it would seem.'

'What?'

'I don't know.' She sighed. 'I don't know Mike! I just don't know what the hell is going on anymore.'

'I think I do.' The deep, unexpected voice caused them both to turn to find Jinn lounging, or rather, blocking the narrow doorway of the kitchen with his bulky frame and a heavy look. He unfolded his arms and stalked across the room to look over Eutopia's shoulder. He cast a brief glance at the images on Mike's phone and gave a barely perceptible nod before sitting down, stony and silent again beside her.

'Well, do you fancy sharing your insight on my life?' she demanded.

'Not at the moment.'

'Oh, well thanks for that. I'll just sit here mentally torturing myself until you decide the time is right to shed some light on the reasons why I might be the target for some mentally unstable rejects and a cast off for my identity confused older brother.' Mike blinked slowly; hardly surprised at her sudden outburst and Jinn stared openly at her.

'Have you finished?' he asked, calmly. Eutopia's cheeks flushed with her anger as she stood up, dark eyes narrowed.

'No, actually, I haven't!' Her fists were clenched hard at her sides and her delicate jaw tensed in an effort to either hold back screaming a tirade of abuse or to prevent sob after shaking sob from escaping her. It was an expression Mike knew from old, that fiery temper that bubbled beneath her wide, childlike eyes. And it was an expression that Jinn was beginning to get acquainted with quite quickly. Yet again her head was sent reeling, stumbling against the weight of information that had just besieged it and Eutopia believed it was more likely the crying that would win out. Mike and Jinn waited silently for her frustration to boil over, they could see her trembling.

'Argggggh,' Eutopia finally managed between clenched teeth, her arms stiff at her sides as she swiftly fled the room. The two men could hear the thump of her footsteps as she headed upstairs. Mike let out a slow breath and Jinn motioned to the phone the red-haired man had slipped back in his pocket.

'So, Jason Bracken?' he asked.

'It was Will's father's name. Jason. Eutopia, Topi, she never talks about him, apart from the one time years ago I managed to get out of her. Will and Eutopia are only half brother and sister; they share the same mother but not the same father. Topi's father was a violent drunk, not that she'll ever admit that, she's always pretended he was never in her life and thinks that in pretending it will simply erase his presence completely. Her mother escaped to a refuge when Topi was three. Will had a different father but it doesn't seem their mother ever really knew the man. She never spoke about him anyway, or so Topi says.' Mike stood up and stretched with another yawn. 'More tea?'

Jinn, pensive, deep in thought, shook his head. 'You care about her, don't you?' he asked, his deep blue eyes searching and a little more open than they had been.

'I love the lady, she's like a sister to me. Always has been. She's the daughter my Mam never had. At least she would've been, if I'd ever given her the chance to be.' Mike turned to flip the switch on the kettle and then leant back against the sideboard, one arm tucked beneath the opposite armpit as his other hand rubbed wistfully at his head, as though lamenting the disappearance of his dreadlocks. 'I do regret that you know, not being there for her in the way she needed me. If I'd been less self-centred back then maybe I could have opened the door for her. Mam fawned all over her the handful of times I bought her back here and Topi was always happy here but I never thought much of anyone other than myself back then and I didn't want to be here. She would have followed me to the end of the world and back, then.' Mike turned back to the white plastic kettle that was producing a fierce amount of steam as it bubbled to the boil and dropped a teabag into his mug from the lidded ceramic pot on the side.

'What happened then? How come you went your separate ways?' The gentle chink of a teaspoon against china was the only sound in the kitchen for a long moment as Mike stirred his tea, helping himself to a slosh of milk from the carton that had been left out.

'Drugs,' he said finally, slouching unhurriedly back into his chair at the table as he met Jinn's curious gaze. 'I got caught up in that black hole and just sank deeper and deeper. She needed more from me than I could give, like I said I was selfish back then. I couldn't see anything but that black balloon, the need for crack, you know? I started off with the odd joint, weed, became an everyday habit and she could cope with that. But then I wanted something more, some other high and I got swept up in the harder stuff and she needed someone that could help her. I could barely help myself so we just drifted apart. I lost a lot through that habit.' He gave a resigned shrug.

'But you've got yourself sorted now.' Jinn smiled genially.

'Yeah, had to do it for Mam, if not for me. And I owed it to me Dad, really, after he passed. I know he would want me here to look after her.' Mike returned the easy smile and a comfortable silence settled between them for a while, broken only by the slurp as Mike drank his tea.

'If you ever hurt her, I'll hunt you down and kill you,' he said eventually, with no malice at all.

'Oh, I have no doubt, Mike. I'd expect nothing else.' Jinn grinned and they both nodded as if that settled the matter.