Those last words instantly had Jesse's attention, and they were far more than I could ever have hoped to hear. Jesse made to straighten up and I was tempted to follow him; cramp had started to set into my leg muscles and I'd been doing my best to ignore it up until then, but a harsh bark of laughter from Eric's lips stopped me in my tracks.

“Oh, now that's rich coming from you Maura.”

I grabbed hold of Jesse's arm to stop him moving any closer to them. Though what Eric had to say was probably irrelevant by that point, I still wanted to hear it.

“Can you just imagine how surprised I was that day when you rang me, telling me that Jen had been in some kind of accident. You were pretty vague with the details you know, but didn't seem to even wonder why I didn't press you for any more. You assured me she was still alive, which was surprising to say the least, but I didn't think too much of it. At least not until the guy that I'd hired to do the job rings to tell me that it almost wasn't worth him being there. Somehow she'd managed to fall off of a ladder or something, funny how she managed that when you were always there to help her with those damn window boxes. And you can't deny that you were there Maura, it was you who told me what had happened after all.”

“What?” Jesse muttered, echoing my own thoughts as confusion read all over both of our faces. Who in the hell was responsible here? And why was this stupid case never clear cut and simple?

“I never meant for her to die!” Maura shrieked, positively distraught. “I was just trying to take care of her other little problem, that was all. He wouldn't have wanted her any more once that baby was gone.”

Eric didn't seem to hear past Maura's first exclamation. “Oh please, I saw with my own eyes what had happened there when I found her. How long exactly did you stand there and watch her, bleeding and in pain, crawling towards you as she begged for help? And then you just left her there, called me instead of an ambulance. You threw her off of that ladder to kill more than just that bastard child she was carrying. What Anton did was a mercy compared to how you left her.”

I could hardly believe how Eric was trying to claw back some of the high ground in such a situation. As far as I could tell they were both as guilty as sin, but the time for action was upon us and I still wasn't sure which one of them needed to die for the corruption to take hold. Maura had claimed she never wanted Jen to die, but had left her as good as dead; bleeding and suffering. Eric had indeed intended to kill her, had hired some kind of hit-man – by the name of Anton as far as I could gather – to do the job for him, but it had been neither here nor there whether he'd actually done the job or not. She'd still have died, just a little more slowly. Both of their intents were malicious, Maura's to kill that unborn child, and Eric's to do away with them both. Neither was innocent, and I was beginning to get the feeling that they were both going to have to die.

Too complicated, this whole case was much too complicated for my liking. Something about it had never felt quite right from the beginning, and as I sat there listening to this whole twisted mess the more and more my thoughts were drawn back to Frank and his earlier words and warnings. Maybe he had known something after all.

While I found myself absorbed, once again, with my own inner turmoil, Jesse it seemed had heard enough and decided to make things much more simple. He rushed past me, in an act so reminiscent of earlier events, and slammed straight into Eric, grabbing him by the throat with one hand, the cutlery still clasped unnoticed in the other. It figured he would pick Eric over his own mother, I wasn't surprised.

“You had my sister killed! You evil, arrogant bastard.” Every word was punctuated by a violent shake as Jesse shoved Eric backwards towards the wall until his head cracked against the brickwork.

“Jesse, stop it!” Maura shouted as she tried to run at them and pull them apart, but I rushed out from beside the bin and grabbed her around the waist, lifting her slight frame bodily off of the floor. If she managed to stop his fit of rage he might not get another chance at this.

“I don't think so,” I hissed in her ear, “Your son has a job to do, and I think he deserves this taste of vengeance, don't you?”

Not content with simply bashing his brother-in-law's head against the brick wall – which would have been a fairly effective method on its own, if a little coarse and messy – Jesse soon realised that he still held a knife in his hand. He looked down at it, as if really seeing for the first time what a potential weapon he had brought outside with him. A gleam appeared in his eyes like he really couldn't believe his luck. Unfit for purpose though it was the point of the knife was sharp and the blade held a row of wicked serrated teeth. The fork clattered to the ground, unwanted, and Jesse held up the knife so that Eric could see it, and the intent in his eyes.

Eric struggled under Jesse's firm grip, fighting fruitlessly as the strength left him under those choking fingers, eyes wide and afraid. Maura was frantic and it took all of my strength to hold her back; both arms locked tight around her waist as she struggled against me.

Come on Jesse, if you're going to do it do it now, I thought to myself, hoping that my silent pleading might somehow reach him.

“If my sister deserved what she got, then you most definitely deserve this.”

Jesse raised the blade and, in one swift movement, released the hand that held Eric still and plunged the blade into the soft flesh of his throat with the other. A steak knife was a crude implement to use, the teeth tore at his flesh, ripping and mangling its way through the side of Eric's neck. His mouth hung open in a silent scream as blood gushed in a fountain of red, drenching through his designer suit and spilling into a dark puddle that congealed on the concrete; he must have torn right through the carotid artery.

Blood dripping from his fingers, the blade still handle deep in his brother-in-law's neck, Jesse backed away. His own eyes were wide and his skin was pale with shock, mouth moving over and over as he repeated a quiet mantra that was barely discernible.

“What did I do?....”

A ear piercing shriek escaped Maura's lips as Eric's corpse slumped to the floor and she sagged to her knees. Not needing to hold her still any longer, I took one hand and clamped it hard around her mouth, I really didn't need her drawing so much attention to us, not while we stood exposed in a car park with a dead body. I crouched low behind her shaking figure that had once looked so strong and determined, now shaking and pitiful. My free hand clawed at her throat, threatening.

“You need to shut up, now, or I'll rip your own throat out with my bare hands. Are we clear?” I whispered harshly into her ear.

She whimpered slightly but I felt the nod of her head and I cautiously released my hold on her, slowly so that I might recapture her should she suddenly start screaming again.

“Eric!” She breathed with a great shuddering gasp and Maura scrambled away from me, scuffing up her shiny shoes as she rushed to the side of her now deceased son-in-law. “Jesse, what did you do?”

Jesse didn't know, the words were no longer audible but his mouth still moved over and over forming those same four words. He was lost, trapped in the horror of his own actions and I felt a great pang of pain and guilt for him from somewhere deep inside of me. The human in me cried out, cursed at me for letting such a sweet and amiable man commit such a heinous act, it had destroyed him. But had it corrupted him?

“He did exactly what he was supposed to do,” I said, both in answer to Maura and to quiet my own inner questioning. I knew this was going to happen, this was how it always ended, in death and blood. I was supposed to enjoy this part, so why wasn't I feeling the elation of a job well done? Because I wasn't even sure that it was done.

There was one way to know for certain. I took a deep breath, trying to calm the sudden shaking of nerves that had overcome me, and concentrated on Jesse; watching him as he stared down at the body, at the blood now ink black in the gloom and the shadows. I reached down inside of myself for the spark of power and I willed his aura to come into sight. It should glow red with the corruption, tinged in places with spots of black, a signature if you like from the touch of the demon that had influenced him.

Jesse's aura gradually came into view, the same earthy and muddy colour I'd seen before. A faint haze of red rapidly dissipated before my eyes as I watched; just as Jesse's rage and anger faded so did the taint upon his soul and he was left to wallow in horror and shame at the action he had just committed. But I didn't understand, why hadn't it worked? It should have, at the very least, left its own small lasting mark upon him, his righteousness and humanity wasn't so great that it could have overcome such an action as murder so quickly.

A simpering laughter reached my ears and, with some trepidation bubbling the pit of my stomach, I forced my eyes away from Jesse – he was so lost in horror at his own actions he seemed completely oblivious to anything else happening around him – and faced the woman the laughter had erupted from. My sight was still stretched, focussed to see the auras of the people around me, and an exclamation of fear caught in my throat as I looked upon Maura.

She no longer crouched on the floor beside the cooling corpse, no she stood tall and proud, a picture of glee from the smile that spread her lips wide as dark power positively radiated from her through the swirling shadow that was her aura, black as pitch. She stared me down with eyes like tar, possessed.

“Didn't quite work out the way you planned, did it deary?” Her voice was sickly sweet and pitched higher than I was used to hearing from her.

Maura had her own Whisperer? How had I not seen that before? Somehow it made so much sense – how a mother could practically murder her own child, her unfeeling attitude – and yet I found myself ever more confused. Encountering one Whisperer on my job could have been a coincidence, but two? And one that so closely influenced the case that I was working? There was something much more sinister going on here, and I didn't like it.

“What...you...what the fuck is this?”

“You sound confused deary, I'd have thought it would have been obvious by now.” She grinned at me, baring her row of pearly white teeth.

It should have been obvious, something had been niggling at me for a long time about this case and now it practically screamed at me, and yet I still failed to believe it could be true. Someone, or something was setting me up to fail, I was never supposed to be able to complete this case, it had been impossible from the start, obstacles all the way but I'd pushed it through right to the end, so determined to make it work, to prove myself and all for what? To face down potential death in the eyes of a demon posing as an ageing lady?

I shook my head as fear clenched its tight hand around my chest. “I don't understand, why is this happening?” My own voice shocked me as it came out strained, almost unrecognisable.

“To be honest I didn't care to ask why. They gave me a job to do and promised I would be handsomely rewarded once it was completed. That's more than enough reason for me,” she said dismissively with a shrug of her shoulders. Whisperers, always so tricky, never letting onto the full extent of the story, and I wasn't even going to try and get it out of her. There was no point and I knew it, she was here for me the same way that Frank had been, just somewhat more determined to do her job – maybe her reward was better than what Frank had been offered.

“So what is it you want with me?” I had an inkling and I didn't like where my mind was taking me, but it was the only thing I could feasibly think of. If they didn't want me dead and out of the way why not just summon me back home?

“Now, that much I think you do know.” Maura sneered, the demon within her stretching her face into a vicious expression as she started towards me.

My feet took a few steps backwards of their own accord, I really didn't want her to place her hands on me. I needed to get away, but where on earth would I go if I managed it? I couldn't drive anywhere. Travelling through the Void was out of the question, if the demons really wanted me gone they weren't likely to welcome me home with open arms, and then there was Jesse still to think about. She could use him against me if I did manage to get away, as far as he was concerned she was still his mother, he didn't know about the demon that had taken up residence inside of her. I couldn't let her get to him, couldn't let her turn him against me, if either of us were to have any luck, any chance at getting away we would need to do it together; Maura had to be the one to go.

Resolved to what I must do, I straightened up and set a determined expression upon my face, ignoring the doubt and worry that gnawed at me from deep inside. I pulled some courage from somewhere and found words upon my lips that I soon wished I had never uttered. “Fine, why don't you try it.”