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  Mum nodded, her throat working as she tried not to cry. “Be careful. I can’t lose two daughters. It would destroy me.”

  “Don’t worry, Mum. I don’t plan on dying just right now. And I have Elliot.”

  “I will protect your daughter with my life,” Elliot told Mum.

  “Just come back to me,” Mum whispered.

  I nodded, took Elliot’s had and waited as the mists closed around us. The hospital room disappeared, the sight and sounds became muted, then there was just silence and clouds of grey drifting around us.

  “Concentrate on your sister. Imagine her face in your head, see if you can hear her voice, feel her touch. When you do, go with it. It is the connection that will allow you to find her energy here.”

  I nodded, remembering the beach I’d created to save Elliot from the Soul-Eater. My safe place we’d simply fallen into. I hadn’t realised I’d even thought it all up at first. It had been instantaneous, and as solid and as real as any tropical beach on earth.

  I faced Elliot, bringing my arms around his neck and standing on my toes, “First, I want to do this,” I whispered before I touched my lips to his.

  At the first glorious feel of his mouth on mine, my entire body simply sighed. My fingers wrapped around his nape, the tips touching the line of his hair. I manipulated my lips, just a little.

  He pulled me tight against him, almost crushing me with the strength of his arms behind my shoulders. His large hands pressed me close to him. He took control of the kiss, my movements seemed like a simple fumbling as his lips stroked and massaged.

  His tongue swept into my mouth and I returned the action, stroking his tongue against mine, drinking in his heat, tasting his growing desire, fuelling my own. He took my lower lip into his mouth, then scattered tiny kisses at the ends of my mouth.

  He traced my jaw with his lips, sparking a heated trail over my skin. I could do nothing but tip my head back, unravelling like boneless putty. He held the back of my head with an open palm, put the tip of his tongue onto the soft skin of my neck and slowly, tenderly, excruciatingly, made his way to my collarbone. His heated breath curled over the trail of wetness from his tongue and made my nerves stand up and do a little dance as a smattering of goose-bumps raced over my skin.

  He tilted me further. My shoulders fell back, opening my chest to him. He licked the small indent at the base of my throat, then kissed me there. His chin nudged my shirt collar. The gentle movement feeling a hundred times more potent in my aroused state.

  His breath shuddered over the sensitive skin of my chest, his mouth trailing down beneath the shirt. He kissed the upper swell of my breasts. I bit my lower lip, helpless to suppress the deep groan that escaped my mouth.

  My nipples were tight, almost hurting with the need for him to touch me. I’d only kissed him and my whole body was shattering with need with these first few moments. His touch, his smell, his hands, his mouth. I wanted them on my body. Every part of him. I would give myself to him wholly and totally. I was racing into a place of pure, sexually overwhelming desire.

  He raised my head, placing trembling lips over mine, kissing me deeply before withdrawing, “If you keep thinking like that, we’ll never find your sister.”

  “Wha…?” My eyes fluttered open when I realised he’d stopped kissing me. Hell, I was putty in his hands with just one kiss. What would I be like when we were naked and lying skin to skin, my legs wrapped around his waist, him deep inside me.

  “Don’t tempt me, Cassie. It’s hard enough keeping myself in control without your thoughts sinking into me.”

  “Huh?” Swirls of red and gold morphed about us with what looked like sparkling silver glitter making little blinks of sunshine. I blinked into his eyes, my mind refusing to understand his words.

  “You have to let me stand you up. I need to…take a breather.”

  He righted me and I swayed on my feet as his hands left my body. I brushed my forehead with shaking fingertips, slowing sinking back to reality. The burst of sexual energy had fried my brain.

  Elliot looked as shaky as I did, “It’s the Grey-Mists. Your thoughts…make what you desire, remember?”

  Hell, I was creating my own world of sexual lust and had Elliot caught up in it, too. I squeaked, hiding my head in my palms. My face heated, and I was sure it was bright red. Oh. My. God. What he must think of me.

  I felt his fingers wrap around my wrist. I let him remove my hand from my face with a little struggle, “Don’t look at me.” I ducked my chin. I didn’t want to look at him, knowing full well what I’d wanted to do with him. It wasn’t as though I’d played hard to get, and with his old-fashioned sensibilities, he’d be shocked at the very least.

  He hooked a knuckle beneath my chin and tipped my head back. He had a lop-sided grin on his flushed face, “I didn’t say I didn’t like it, but if I didn’t stop you, there’s no telling how long we might have…indulged together.”

  “Oh.” My mouth made a circle. He wasn’t shocked. He’d liked it as much as I had. I didn’t think my face could get any redder, but my skin was so hot it was frying. Not to mention I’d forgotten about Laura. Good sister I was. One little, tiny, harmless…earth-shattering, unforgettable, lustful, monumental kiss and I’d forgotten about everything. “And I didn’t say we wouldn’t come back to this, either. This mouth is the most delectable mouth I’ve ever kissed before.” Elliot dropped a lingering kiss on my mouth.

  “You can’t remember who you’ve kissed before,” I reminded him when all too soon he finished.

  “If she kissed like you, there’s no way I’d forget, so I doubt any kiss I’ve had has ever been that good.” His gaze roamed my face with intense longing and I knew, without a doubt, that he wouldn’t forget about his raincheck.

  Neither would I.

  I cleared my throat, “Okay. Maybe it’s about time we tried to find Laura.”

  “That is a very good idea.”

  I took a moment to compose myself. I’d need to be careful about my thoughts. When I was in my body, no-one could enter my mind, but here it was a different ball game. I could conjure up anything and it would spark to life.

  I slowed my breathing, remembering speaking to Laura earlier today at the casino. I pictured what drapey piece of clothing she’d worn. The colour. Purples. She’d had her hair in a ponytail and brought her little black leather backpack instead of her handbag. It had a matching purple trim. There was a little dangly angel that hung from a strap. She often wore things like that.

  “Good girl. It’s starting to work,” Elliot whispered.

  The Grey-Mists were beginning to shift, filtering in colours, solidifying into indecipherable forms.

  “Keep going. Keep concentrating!” “I can’t think of anything more,” I said.

  “Think of how she makes you feel,” Elliot said. “You make a powerful world when you feel as strongly as you do.”

  I silently agreed. I closed my eyes, concentrating harder. When Laura had walked up today with Mum and Dad, I’d had a rush of affection and I’d smiled eagerly at her. I loved her so much it actually hurt to realise it.

  She could also make me unbelievably frustrated and angry. Sometimes I just didn’t understand her, but that was okay with me. I didn’t need to. I just needed to know that she would be in my life. Tears brushed the inside of my eyelids as I realised just how precarious that last thought was.

  I held onto the memory of hugging her just this morning. I imaged her perfume, something floral mixed with undertones of the incense she loved so much. It always made me sneeze, and even now I felt my nose itch.

  The Grey-Mists started to shimmer, like heat rising off a dessert, corrugating between bursts of light and shapes building into quickly solidifying forms. The grey disappeared altogether and the flickering dissipated.

  I whirled around, at the same time knowing exactly where was, “We can’t possibly be here!”

  Elliot frowned. We both turned at the sound of a tram rattling down Swanston Str
eet. It was familiar, but at the same time, something I'd never seen. The only tram that looked like that was the old renovated tram that was a tourist attraction. A large number of non-tourists also hitched a ride on it as it circled, too. The paint on this one was crisp though, and it made a hell of a noise as it clambered along the tracks.

  Then I noticed the cars lining the street. There was a row of vintage cars, with wide triangular bonnets, foot runners, and small windows nestled against the curb of the street on both sides. All were black. Some ambled behind the tram, the drivers giving us the once over like we were the ones out of place, “You’re not allowed to drive on Swanston Street! That law came in years ago.”

  I glanced around at the buildings and knew exactly where we were. The Manchester Unity building. It rose elegantly into the sky above us, the art déco design still as graceful today as it was when it was first built. Across the road was the Town Hall. Adjacent to that was the City Square. We were right in the heart of my hometown of Melbourne.

  A man lounged on the corner of the town hall, heels crossed one over the other. He wore a light brown suit with a matching fedora so I couldn’t see his eyes. He had a newspaper folded beneath an arm and took a drag of his cigarette with a lazy drawl. A smattering of people walked on the foot-paths. As they passed, they glanced in our direction, as though we were the oddity.

  “This world isn’t real. Incredibly detailed, but not real,” Elliot said.

  “Elliot. Your clothes!” His clothes had changed. For as long as I’d known him, he’d worn the same grey three-piece suit, white shirt, hat, and trench coat every day. He could take off clothing, but when he reappeared, he’d always be dressed the same.

  Now he wore a mid-brown suit. The pants were tapered to the foot, outlining his long, lean legs. The jacket was single breasted and done up with a single matching bronze button mid-abdomen. The shoulders of the suit were wide, possibly extended with a clever use of shoulder pads. He wore a white shirt and matching tie in a lighter brown. He wore a dark brown fedora that was pulled low over one eye.

  His eyes roamed me, coming up to meet my gaze, “Yours too.”

  “What?” I looked down at myself. My jeans and T-shirt were replaced with a mid-calf length cherry-red dress with tiny pretty white flowers in the print. It was pulled in at the waist and finished with clever pleats to accentuate my breasts and hips. My hands were covered with cream gloves. I held a small black handbag with a red trim. I felt a hat on my head and taking it off saw that it matched the handbag.

  I studied my reflection in the window. Instead of my hair in my usual ponytail, it was styled in precise curls, around my forehead and cheeks. The back was pulled straight, probably so that I could wear the hat without lumpy hair beneath it. “How on Earth…?”

  Elliot shook his head, “Not Earth. We’re still in the Grey-Mists.”

  “But we’re in the middle of Melbourne.”

  “Not the real, modern Melbourne. We’re in nineteen-thirties Melbourne. My Melbourne.”

  A group of women walked around us, dressed in a similar style as I was. They glanced over their shoulders at us and whispered to each other. A shiver of not-quite-right stole through me.

  Elliot reached out and held my hand in mine. It was warm and solid and I was glad to feel him, “I think the question we have to ask is, if this is Melbourne, whose version of Melbourne is it?”

  Chapter Four

  “I’ll show you since you’re so inquisitive.” A hand clamped around my elbow and shoved me inside the building. I tried to free my elbow, but the hand tightened painfully, this time wrenching my arm.

  “Elliot!”

  I wheeled around to find the man who’d been across the street at Elliot’s side and he held a long-bladed, shiny knife to his side. Elliot whirled about, striking the man on his cheek. Knuckles against skin made a sickening crunch.

  I stepped to help Elliot, but the man hurled me against his chest and wrapped his beefy forearm around my neck. I gripped his arm, but I may as well have been pulling at steel bars. I struggled to breathe, my face prickling with heat.

  His fingers caged my face so that I had no option but to look at Elliot. Hot breath near my ear, “It’s more fun watching.”

  Elliot readied himself for Grey-Suits attack. The knife flashed as the man threw it from one hand to the next, making Elliot try to guess which hand was going to strike. He lunged towards Elliot. Elliot responded with a crisp uppercut to the man’s jaw. Elliot’s fist continued into empty space as the man managed to jerk away. The blade flashed, there was a rip of cloth and Elliot jumped back, clutching his forearm, the material quickly staining with red.

  The man holding me chuckled quietly in my ear. “See? Fun.”

  Grey-Suit responded with a small smile, as though they shared a private little joke. I stiffened, tugging at the arm wrapped around me. Elliot was bleeding.

  Elliot looked at his arm, disbelief crossing his face. Grey-Suit chuckled and Elliot readied himself again. My mind spun. Surely Elliot couldn’t be bleeding. I remembered the Soul-Eater had been able to tear into him, but then I’d imagined my safe beach. When we’d been there, he’d been whole again, fully healed. But the Soul-Eater wasn’t a normal man like Grey-Suit appeared to be.

  If this was the Grey-Mists, then I could help Elliot by providing him a weapon. I closed my eyes and concentrated on handing Elliot a matching silver knife. There was a thud and the sound of a body hitting the ground. I jerked open my eyes to see Elliot on the ground. No weapon of his own to help him. I frowned, tried again to imagine a knife in Elliot’s hand, but nothing appeared.

  “Not in Kansas anymore are you, sweetheart?”

  “Tell me where we are," I gasped.

  “You’ll know when the boss decides to tell you. If you learn to play by the rules, we’ll get along just fine.”

  Elliot glanced in my direction, confusion also in his eyes. There was a bruise on his cheek and the blood-stain on his forearm was spreading. He lunged quickly for Grey-Suit, but the man responded with a speed unlike I’d seen. There was a flash of silver. Grey-Suit leant into Elliot, as though he was going to embrace him. He held his shoulder just watching Elliot’s face all the time, a smile tugging his mouth.

  Elliot’s knees buckled, and he grabbed Grey-Suits shoulder. If I didn’t know better, I’d think Elliot was dead drunk and Grey-Suit was holding him upright.

  “I think he’s just learned lesson number one,” the man holding me said with a sneer in his voice.

  Elliot peeled himself from Grey-Suit. He struggled to balance, wavering from side to side. His breathing was harsh. He had his hand pressed against his side. He pulled his hand away, covered in blood.

  “Elliot!” I screamed. The man released me and I flew to Elliot’s side, catching him before he sunk to the ground.

  I ripped off his jacket, opening his shirt to the area he’d covered with his hand. Blood seeped from a wound, the edges open and jagged. I gasped, realising Grey-Suit had stabbed Elliot. I turned to Grey-Suit, “You son of a bitch!”

  “Now. Now. That’s no language for a lady to use.” Grey-Suit picked up Elliot’s jacket, wiped the knife on it and replaced it into a sheath that had been hidden at his side under his jacket. “Might want to dry clean that,” he indicated the crumpled jacket on the ground at our feet.

  Language I had never used came to mind. “You total fu…”

  “Get ‘em up. The boss wants to meet ‘em now.” Choking man cut me off.

  “Are you okay, Elliot?” I leant against him whispering, taking some of his weight to ease his wound.

  There was pain in his eyes. He nodded, but his mouth was pressed into a white-edged white line, “I don’t know how he cut me. He shouldn’t be able to. This just…doesn’t make any sense.”

  “I don’t know either. And I can’t imagine anything. I tried to put a knife in your hand, but it didn’t work.”

  “I tried to imagine us out of here, and that didn’t happen either,” El
liot said.

  I should have tried to think us out of here too. I imagined us on my romantic safe beach. I remembered how it felt, the sun on my back and Elliot sprawled over me as we kissed for the first time, but we stayed fixed where we were.

  I called to Ariel, my angel with all the power of my thoughts. I whispered her name, thought it over and over in my mind. Help us, Ariel. Help us Ariel, get us out of here. Nothing. I swallowed my desperation. “I can’t get us out either. Is there another way out?”

  Elliot shook his head, “Not that I know of.”

  “Enough talk. Move,” Grey-Suit said.

  He hauled me to my feet with a not-too-gentle grip on my upper arm. They left Elliot to struggle on his own. They flanked us, moving us towards the three matching elevators in the foyer. Each elevator was encrusted with intricately designed, copper doors that were still in use in Melbourne today. They shone, as though they had been recently burnished. The deco styled inlay was patterned with the name of the building, a circle inside a square, four squares on each door. Each of the four circles depicted a scene about the building, each door was a copy of the last. Every time I saw them I was astounded by the master crafters that would have made them.

  These doors, though, were only a copy. This wasn’t the real Manchester Unity building that was built shiny and new in the nineteen thirties. We were in a much scarier place we couldn’t get out of. There was nothing we could do but allow the thugs to man-handle us into the elevator, take the ride up and wonder the hell why they were doing it.

  We crowded into the elevator. It was also handcrafted with shining panels of wood-veneer typical of the art déco style. Even the ceiling wasn’t forgotten. A dome glowed as though lit from within, but I knew it was a trick of light and positioning of glass. Even as a copy, the details were astounding.

  “Who are you people?” I asked. Neither answered, not that I expected them to.

  Elliot held his hand over the wound, but blood still seeped through his fingers. He leaned heavily against me, perspiration broke out on his forehead. He glanced at me and tried to wink, but even that caused him a lot of effort. I sent him as big a smile as I could manage, glad he even tried to make me feel better.