"I hope not," she said. "A friend has disappeared and the police investigation will be too slow for my liking. But I'm really worried. There have been other disappearances that haven't ended well round here lately. I could really use your help, Blake."

"Where are you?" he asked.

"Southwark," Jamie said, giving him the address.

"I'll come over in the next hour," Blake said. "Extended lunch break."

Blake arrived as Jamie made Magda a fourth cup of tea. O's flat had nothing stronger and Magda didn't even drink anymore. Reformed in so many senses of the word, Magda's strength had seemed boundless, but it was clear from her hunched shoulders and staring eyes how much O meant to her.

The doorbell rang and Jamie went down to open it. Blake stood in the doorway, two coffees in his gloved hands, his blue eyes bright.

"I figured you could use some," he said. Jamie stretched up to kiss his cheek, her lips brushing his stubble. He smelled of sandalwood soap and she wanted to lean in to him, feel his arms around her.

"It's good to see you," she said, stepping away.

"You too," Blake replied, and his eyes said all she needed to know.

She took one of the coffees.

"Come on up."

They entered the flat and Magda got up to greet Blake. He indicated the coffee.

"Sorry, I didn't know there was someone else here. Would you like my coffee?"

Magda smiled weakly, worry breaking through her resolve. "If you can help with this," she said, shaking her head. "I'll get you all the coffee you need. What can I do to help?"

Jamie knew Blake would be reluctant to talk about his unusual gift with someone he didn't really know.

"To be honest, Magda," she said. "I think maybe you should go and have a rest. O might even show up at your studio for those photos. We'll be here a while."

Magda nodded. "You're right. I should go." She handed over the keys. "Let me know if you find anything, or if you have any questions." She left the flat, her footsteps heavy on the stair, leaving Jamie and Blake alone.

For a moment, the silence lay between them. There was so much to say and yet, none of it really mattered. Jamie knew the attraction between her and Blake was dangerous, and she needed his friendship more than anything. The balance was difficult to manage, but perhaps this time they could walk the tightrope.

"So, what happened?" Blake asked.

Jamie told him about O and the other disappearances in the area, as well as the murder from the night before.

"We're worried about her," Jamie said. "Her tattoo makes her fit the profile of the other victims."

Blake looked around the flat.

"So you want to know where she might be?"

"Anything you can help with really. Perhaps there's something in here that might give us some clues as to where she is."

Chapter 10

Blake looked around the small flat, traces of a woman he didn't know yet in the furnishings and pictures on the walls. He usually read objects where the memories of those entwined with them were dead and gone, the civilizations they came from crumbled and fallen. But this woman, Olivia, might come home any minute and it made him anxious.

The last time he had read a living person, it was the day of his father's death. He had seen demons consume the frail body and that had sent him over the edge into his own madness. But that's why he was here. He still owed Jamie for rescuing him from the delirium of the RAIN experiments. If she needed to know what was going on, then he had to help, even if it put his job in jeopardy.

He looked at his watch. He could still get back within the hour if they were quick.

While Jamie began to search the living room area, Blake walked through into O's bedroom and sat down on the futon, looking around the small bedroom for a sense of what O valued most, for what might give him insight into her life.

He looked down to the side of the bed at a low table with a lamp on it. There was a jade greenstone pendant lying there, shaped in a Maori manaia design. With the head of a bird, a human body and the tail of a fish, the manaia was the messenger of the gods, representing spiritual power and a guide beyond the physical realm. The frayed leather cord tied around the neck of the bird indicated that O wore this often. Something about it called to Blake and he could almost feel the smooth stone in his palm.

He took off his gloves and picked up the pendant with bare hands. The crisscross network of scars didn't prevent him from feeling the coolness of the jade and the contours fitted into his hand perfectly. His heart raced a little in a combination of fear at what might come but also exhilaration at glimpsing into another's world. He closed his eyes and let the visions come.

The mists of memory swirled about him and Blake sensed many emotional threads tied around this one pendant, but there was one that was particularly strong. He let himself sink into that layer of consciousness and opened himself up to the sensation.

He was weightless, floating in a blue-green ocean, experiencing a scuba dive as O had done one day when she had worn the pendant. Blake heard the rhythmic sound of her deep breathing through the regulator, watched the bubbles float away and, for a moment, he understood why people craved time underwater.

He could feel O's calm, her almost meditative state as she finned above a rocky bottom. It was cool and he could feel the thickness of the wetsuit she wore. These were temperate waters, not a warm coral paradise. Mats of thick kelp covered the walls and rocks around, swaying in the surge. Wrasse in shades of purple and green darted in and away, curious of the diver, while blue two-spot demoiselles clustered in the shelter of the kelp.

O leaned forward, tipping over to descend, exhaling to empty her lungs. Her buoyancy control was natural and her body relaxed, as if she were part of this aquatic realm, unhindered by the heaviness of the gear she wore. A hole in the rocks appeared as she descended and she finned towards it, heading into a sea cave.

It was dark inside but Blake sensed no fear in her. She added a little air and then floated, neutrally buoyant.

Blake felt another presence, something substantial, something powerful. His eyes adjusted to the dark and shapes appeared in the cave. There were boulders on the bottom, lumps of grey stone covered in soft coral, big-eye fish clustering at the edges of view. Something stirred in the shadows and then moved towards them in the water. O's excitement was palpable but she stayed motionless, waiting for it to come closer.

The octopus ascended, its tentacles hanging below, curling slowly in the water. It was large and covered in nodules, its bulbous head as big as a watermelon. Its eyes were pools of black in the semi-darkness but Blake sensed an intelligence and a curiosity for the creature who entered its territory. It glided past towards the cave entrance and O turned to watch it silhouetted against the light, following slowly after. Its movement was mesmerizing, each tentacle a separate dexterous limb twisting in the blue.

It swam out of the cave and O emerged after it, eyes fixed on its strange beauty. It was inescapably alien, a body with no backbone that could squeeze into the tiniest hole and yet, out here, it was glorious. Blake tried to fix the moment in his mind, the sun shining down through the water patterning on the octopus' skin as it turned in the water to examine the diver in the light. The second stretched on and Blake felt the connection, understood why O was so fascinated with the creature. It was wild and free in this wide ocean, something a human could never be.