The Beast Inside

by Monique Singleton

  I’m at war again.

  Only this time it’s a secret war.

  Panat and me, against the Watchers. For him it’s us against his family, his clan. Against everything and everyone he’s held dear for his entire life. The nature of the Watchers has made them very family oriented and now he’s the outsider—the black sheep. The traitor.

  The world is blissfully unaware. But then they have their own struggle.

  Three years have passed since I killed Azazel, three long and eventful years. The first two were devoid of the bloodlust that haunted me before. It was such a relief that I dared to believe that it might be permanent. But of course, it wasn’t. Life has a habit of making you comfortable, and then crashing you back down to the ground. It’s called reality.

  But they were great years as far as the unrest was concerned. It also made it easier to hide. Mangled bodies are a dead giveaway to anyone who’s really looking for me. And the Watchers were. They tried to hunt us down. Though what they planned to do if and when they found us, I have no idea.

  They couldn’t kill me. That was certain. Not unless Joseph had recruited one of the remaining three forces to do his dirty work again. Mortals can’t kill me—only another force. We concluded that they would try to get at me through Panat. He, of course, is mortal. My close proximity—and that was very close—has a great effect on him. He has all but stopped ageing. His health has improved exponentially. If he gets sick, then it’s over very quickly—even wounds seem to heal better. I guess, I finally have a good effect on someone.

  Panat and I move around a lot. We’re in the shadows all the time. But we are not alone. There are more like-minded in the ranks of the Watchers. It’s just so difficult to differentiate between who is, and who isn’t.

  Joseph has been busy, the past few years. Building an empire. Bringing the Watchers out of the shadows. In some ways that’s a good thing, but the reasons why, the driving force behind it all isn’t. We have to stop him. Though how, is anyone’s guess.

  After our visit to Jack and my very amusing reunion with Barkley, we had to disappear. We needed to lay low for a while and determine what our next steps would be. And we had to make some money. With all ties to the Watchers suspended, we were without finances. Panat was used to tapping into the seemingly endless Watcher’s cash flow. But now that we didn’t know whom we could trust, that avenue had been closed.

  Not that I minded. I was used to getting my own money and didn’t have any scruples when it came to the kind of job I took on, as long as it paid well. I had given up the assassin trade after Easy, but there were more jobs that paid well, especially in Australia. Most of them were dirty or dangerous ones. But that wasn’t a problem.

  Panat and I moved from Perth down to the outback. It was a fantastic place to disappear. I didn’t expect Barkley to try anything, he was too scared for that, but there were still people looking for us that we didn’t want to see. At least not yet.

  The opal mines gave us the best of both worlds—anonymity and good earnings, if you found any stones that is. The mines were out in the middle of nowhere and most of the inhabitants of the towns here had a reason not to be found. It was motley crew. Lots of old timers, a few families and many younger people—all looking for a miracle. For that one stone that would set them up for life.

  We had to find a middle road between quiet and the actual chance of finding anything. The obvious place to start was Coober Pedy. The self-proclaimed centre of Opal mining in Australia. It was a subterranean town. Nothing could live up on the surface for long, so the miners had dug out a town under the heat ridden desert. It had all the amenities that any outback town would have, maybe even more. Under the surface was quite a nice place to live. Under the circumstances.

  But the perceived luxury and fame of Coober Pedy brought another source of income—tourism. And that was something we were not looking for. So we continued further into the outback, into New South Wales. We ended up about eighty-five kilometres outside of White Cliffs in a minuscule community, appropriately called Rockface. We found an abandoned house cut out of the hillsides and soon understood why it wasn’t occupied, when the sun burned down on the entrance twelve hours of every single day—the place was stifling. But if you went deeper into the hillside, it became bearable. Though only just. It was especially hard on Panat. He was used to colder temperatures in his homeland of Tibet. I had experienced more variances in climates and temperatures in my many years, and got used to the heat quickly.

  We arrived in March, the end of the summer for this part of the world. The daily temperature still hovered around forty-four degrees centigrade by day, and only went down to an average of seventeen by night. But at least it would get better. Panat didn’t find that helpful. He hated the heat. Thankfully the mines were underground as well. The mine was as deserted as the house, and we were free to mine it. The land was owned by the Aboriginal Elders, who leased it to anyone stupid enough to want to try their hand at mining. There were no officially record leases here. It was all done on the basis of who-knows-who and whether the elders felt good about you. These people have centuries of experience in reading people. They recognised something in me. The Primal. One of the Elders: Daku, even gave me the honorary aboriginal name Burnu, for great warrior. I tried to ask him what he knew about the forces, but he just smiled at me, not divulging anything more.

  We actually enjoyed living in the mountain. There was a strange kind of peace, along with the physical challenges of mining Opal. We didn’t have major technical equipment, so it was basically brute strength, and that is something I excel at. Physical work allows me to have the peace to think. I just do it on autopilot, and it frees my mind to wander.

  Panat and I spoke a lot about what had happened in the Amazon. It was so pivotal, not just to our relationship, but also definitely to who I am and where I came from. It gave me some answers, but also more questions. The major one being—do I believe any of this shit?

  It seemed both reasonable and far-fetched at the same time. It felt like an answer, but still, it had hints of manipulation, and that is something I am completely allergic to. I wanted to believe. If only to have an answer—something that I could hold on to. It could give me meaning in life, a reason to carry on. So it was quite enticing. But my practical nature, or maybe just my paranoia, questioned everything. The main question remained—Why me?

  The small community at Rockface quickly accepted us. We worked hard, partied even harder and that made us fit in. The next cave neighbours were a young family, Lucas, his wife Mia, and their baby daughter Lilly of seven months. We hit it off quickly when they welcomed us to our new home with a freshly baked apple-pie and a six-pack of beer. Our quart of JD and some steaks for the BBQ completed the ingredients for a great introduction. Soon we were visiting at least two or three nights a week. Most of the other people in our small community were a lot older. They usually didn’t do much after a long gruelling day in the mines. Though the whole gang did come together on Sunday—our only day off. The day was characterised by lazy brunches and long afternoon and evening BBQ’s. Lots of booze, good stories, and great company. I hadn’t expected to be accepted so easily there, well anywhere for that matter. But they just accepted us without question. There was no prying into our past, or our reasons for being there. That was private and it stayed exactly that. No one told, and no one asked.

  There was a core group in Rockface—old timers who had settled here more than twenty years ago—and a group of younger people who generally didn’t stay more than five or six years. It was a step up for them—a place to start a career as an Opal miner. It as easy to find a place to live and a place to mine, as the turnover was quite steep with the younger people. There wasn’t much more to do here than work and the weekly BBQ get-together. I guess the more charismatic, if you could call it that, places like Coober Pedy called to them. We were interested in the anonymity of the place. Here we didn’t have to worry about running into any of the Watchers.

>   Or so we thought... …