I jumped a mile, every nerve ending in my body tingling with adrenaline. Reflexively, I held out my hands, shielding myself from his sudden appearance and I felt the rush of energy flow from every follicle of my body, down my arms and out through my fingertips in a scorching wave of power.

There was flash, no blinding light - flashes and bangs were all just tricks and illusions, the real power was never showy - but I felt it raging through my flesh. It jumped through the empty space between us and hit him square in the chest. The force of it lifted him from his feet, pushing him away and sent him sprawling on his back on the dusty stone floor.

"Jesse!" I gasped, breathing hard as I reigned in my nerves, along with my erratic new ability - I would have to take stock later of just how useful some form of telekinesis might prove to be, in that moment I was too absorbed in swallowing my anxiety and not sending anything else flying down the hallway.

"You scared the crap out of me! Where the hell did you just appear from?"

I advanced on him, the fear slowly melting away to be replaced with a fiery irritation. It wasn't quite anger as such, but it didn't feel like it would take much to send me tumbling over the edge into a full blown rage. The extreme emotional swings I was feeling were a little unsettling.

Sure, in my human body I had been pretty well in touch with the full range of emotions on offer, particularly in the light of recent events I'd been feeling them more and more than I should have allowed, but this was an altogether new extreme. I didn't doubt it came with my new body and new power, but as I felt the heat of anger rise in me, and the tingle of that energy in my fingertips itching to burst free again, I knew it was something I would need to get a handle on, and quickly.

"Nice to see you again too." Jesse coughed as he sat up and dusted down the sleeves of his button-down shirt.

There was something strange in his tone, something new, a sarcastic edge that hadn't been present before in all of our many conversations. Gracefully he rose to his feet continued to dust down the rest of his neat black outfit - even in my strange new shimmering vision I could see just how smart and dapper he appeared, never before had I seen Jesse so well put together. He even seemed to carry himself differently, back straight, shoulders back, none of the sloping casualness I was so used to seeing. It appeared I was not the only one who was changed by our ritual. The magic and my blood had mutated him, and beyond what was on the surface. He had ascended to be something beyond human, and I wasn't so sure that was a good thing.

"Sorry, I just...I wasn't expecting to find you down here," I said with a shrug.

"Why not? This is where you left me after all, where I was being held prisoner. Where else would I be?"

He didn't sound like Jesse any more. The voice was the same, but the tone, they way he framed his words, something was different, almost as if someone else had jumped inside of his skin.

My thoughts immediately jumped to Frank, but something with that assumption was off too, and besides he hadn't called me 'love' once yet. Could be another Whisperer I supposed, but in truth I knew there was no way Jesse could have come through that ritual and still remain the same. We'd had no choice but to invoke him as one aspect of the Triangle of Power, we'd needed a human, but it seemed that nice-guy, mild mannered Jesse was well and truly gone, and I wasn't sure how I felt about that.

"No, I know, I just..." I paused and sighed with a shake of my head. "How long exactly have I been gone? I thought, y'know, things would have changed?"

"Oh things have changed, most definitely things have changed." Jesse grinned broadly, though it was a harsh gesture that contained a humour only Jesse was privy to, and it never reached his eyes as they scanned up and down my new body. "And I see that's not the only changes going on here. I take it that was a little taste of your new power I got a face full of?"

I shrugged, feeling uneasy under the scrutiny of his gaze, my confidence so quickly melting away now that I'd found him waiting for me. I'd expected a struggle, some epic search and rescue mission where I had to play the hero. This was too easy, too convenient. Frank and his antics were no longer so keenly in the forefront of my mind, but another, and altogether more difficult and powerful demon was - Malick.

I remembered now, he'd been there. Came barreling into the room as the blood flowed from my throat. He'd watched me die, too late to halt us in our ritual, seething with anger that we had evaded him and kept him from the power he'd craved. But then I was gone and knew nothing more of what had passed. What sort of effect had the magic had on the other three, and what had Malick done...I could not even begin to guess, and a part of me was afraid of what Jesse might tell me should I dare to ask.

"Interesting. Is that all you can do?" Jesse asked, running a thoughtful hand over the rough stubble that peppered his chin. "I mean, new body and being able to toss things around with your mind is all well and good, but for all the trouble you went through to get to this? I'd be a little disappointed if that was all I got in the bargain."

"What happened to you?" I asked with a shake of my head. There was no way that this was the same Jesse that I had come to know, but exactly how drastically had he been changed? "Where are the others?"

"What happened to me? Really, Rayne, what the fuck do you think happened to me? You, all three of you infected me with your blood, and that magic. You had me hypnotised so that I would be compliant with what you had planned, knowing full well I would never have agreed to willingly do such a thing."

He saw the look that fell over my face as I took in his barrage of words and bared his teeth at me in a vicious smile. "Oh yes, I knew exactly what was happening, even if I had no control over what I was doing." He paused, just a moment to let the words sink in then continued on.

"Can you even imagine just how different my life would be if I had never met you, Rayne? Do you have any concept of just how much you have screwed things up for me? And now look, I've become just like you. Don't expect any things, this is far from the life I had envisioned for myself, but I intend to make it work for me, starting from now."

I backed away a step or two, trying to make the movement slow and subtle. I may have been stronger, more powerful than before, but that knowledge alone could not stop the fear and anxiety that rippled through me at Jesse's words. Deep down inside I was still very much just me.

"Where are Frank and Lucas?" I repeated the question, both of us seeming not to want to acknowledge or address what the other had said.

I was not willing to argue with him while he was in this frame of mind, I knew it would be a futile effort. He firmly believed in what he'd been told, and I had a pretty good idea of exactly who had laid all the blame on my shoulders.

"They're not here, not important any more. The ritual may not have worked out quite the way he wanted it to, but he's still got plans, a way to fix things."

"Seriously, Jesse, this is not you. You don't even have any idea what you're talking about. Malick has gotten inside your head, those are his words. Don't let him use you like this." I cut across him having heard enough.

While Jesse had been instrumental in making the ritual work, he'd known none of the details, been privy to none of the information we - Lucas, Frank and I - had worked so hard to discover, all the pictures we had pieced together from the evidence we managed to gather. He'd known nothing of all that, and he had no right to judge me like this.

But, if truth me told, I was far more angry with Malick for twisting Jesse around his crooked fingers somehow. I was not going to let him get away with it. Whatever he had planned was not going to work, I was going to make damn sure of that.

"Oh he's not speaking for me, but certainly did make one hell of a convincing case. Now come on, he's waiting for you."