by Paula Weston
‘What if they say nothing?’
‘Then we do nothing.’
Pressure builds in my head. Malachi steps forward before I can form a coherent sentence.
‘We need eyes on the ground outside the farmhouse. Let me go and check it out.’
‘Nobody is going near that house,’ Daniel says. ‘I was there yesterday, Malachi. I know what we’re dealing with.’
‘Then let us speak to Virginia,’ Jude says.
‘No.’ Nathaniel’s tone is razor sharp. ‘Your time would be better served demonstrating to me that you are capable of obedience.’ His irises flare. And then he’s gone.
Uri and Calista flinch at his disappearance. Daniel seems less surprised.
‘What a fucking joke,’ Jude says.
‘What is wrong with you two?’ Calista comes down the dais stairs two at a time. Uri catches her before she reaches us, but she shakes off his grip. ‘You think you’re the only people who care about Taya and Rafa?’ She stops in front of me and I shift my weight, ready for her to take a swing.
‘We seem to be the only people willing to do something about it,’ I say.
‘There’s more than one way to get them back. Why can’t you trust us?’
‘If you have to ask that after what you just heard, you’re beyond delusional.’
My stomach drops. Daniel is beside us. Did he just shift ten metres?
‘That’s enough. Calista, you and Uriel should go back to the library. I’ll be there shortly.’
Calista opens her mouth as if to argue but then thinks better of it. Daniel waits in silence until the chapterhouse door latches behind them. Then he turns to me.
‘We need to talk.’
POT. KETTLE. BLACK.
I start to turn away—I want to get back to Dani—but then I remember what Micah said about the hellion from Iceland. The one that disappeared around the same time I did. The shadow of it has been lurking in the back of my mind, finding form.
‘I’ll give you three minutes.’
If Daniel is surprised I’ve agreed so easily, he hides it.
‘Gaby?’
‘It’s fine,’ I say to Jude. ‘This won’t take long.’
Daniel disappears through the back door and leaves it open for me. Cold air surges in. I start to follow and then go back to Jude. ‘Make sure Dani’s well protected. I don’t trust Nathaniel.’
‘I’ve briefed Jones,’ Ez says. ‘He’s upstairs with Zak as we speak.’
Daniel is waiting in a breezeway between the back of the chapterhouse and the wall surrounding this end of the Sanctuary. I leave the door open so Jude can see I’m okay. Manicured bushes stand guard, neat, regimented. Daniel waits at the bottom of the steps. He pushes down the sleeves on his woollen jumper, watches me closely.
‘I need to know you’re not going to do anything foolish,’ he says. His breath comes out as a cloud of vapour.
‘Define foolish.’
‘Taking Zarael’s bait and going after Rafa and Taya.’
I wrap my jacket around me tighter, drum chilled fingers on my arms. Already my nose stings and my ears ache. It’s hard to stand still out here. ‘You think we should wait for a bigger body part?’
‘Gabe—’
‘Tell me about the hell-beast I brought back from Iceland.’
He falters. ‘What’s that got to do with—’
‘What happened to it?’
Daniel watches me, dark eyes framed by long lashes. Searching mine. Weighing the question.
‘You want me to trust you, but you still haven’t given me a reason to.’
He runs his fingers through his hair, smiles at me, grim. ‘The hellion isn’t the place to start.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because your view of the world is skewed.’
‘Try me.’ I tuck my fingers under my arms to warm them. ‘You’re the one who keeps banging on about truth, about me needing to understand who I was. Why did I bring you a hellion?’
A pause. ‘We had a theory we wanted to test.’
‘Who’s “we”?’
‘You and me. The Five. We’ve always known about the psychic bond hellions have with their Gatekeepers. We thought the same might be true for Nathaniel, that we could use that link to our advantage.’ He looks away and I see it again—a shadow of uncertainty. Guilt.
‘And the first experiment was after I went missing?’
Daniel picks at his sleeve. He drags his teeth over his lower lip. ‘When you and Jude reconciled, it took us all by surprise. I asked you what had changed, and you withdrew even further from me. I had no idea what Jude was planning, but I knew it had to be dangerous for him to have made contact with you after a decade.’
I’d love to tell him that Jude reached out because he missed me, but I know enough now to understand it was more complicated than that.
‘Right before you disappeared, you were badly injured.’
‘Fighting with Bel and Leon when we captured the hellion—Micah told me.’
Daniel glances at my leg. ‘The laceration was deep. Brother Ferro stitched it up when you got back.’
‘And?’
Daniel touches the sleeves on his jumper again, first one then the other. He’s uncharacteristically fidgety. ‘I had him keep the bandages he used to clean you up. I knew you were going to see Jude again and wanted to be prepared. So when you went to see him for a third time in under two weeks, when you’d started avoiding me…I thought you had joined the Outcasts.’
He doesn’t want to spell it out, but I know. I can see it in his eyes. ‘You gave the bandages to the hell-beast so it could track me.’
He’s completely still. That would be a yes.
‘You let it taste my blood and then you set it loose after me?’ I feel sick. ‘What the fuck were you thinking?’
‘I was thinking I could find you and stop you before it was too late.’
‘How?’ I snap. ‘Hellions are mindless killing machines.’
Daniel lifts his hands to his lips, blows on them and rubs his palms together to warm them. I take in his clipped nails, his perfect hair, his beautiful face. His hypocrisy. I want to hurt him so badly.
‘We sedated it so Nathaniel could search its mind the moment it caught your scent. And it worked—the hell-beast reacted to the blood. It was enough for Nathaniel to know it had found you, but not where. We gambled that its need to track would be so strong it would take me to you.’
‘And what went wrong? The fact I’m standing here with a demon blade scar on my neck and no memory of the life you keep talking about is pretty damning evidence it didn’t go as planned.’
‘I had the hellion shackled and muzzled. Nathaniel and I agreed I would go alone; if you had betrayed us we wanted to understand why, before others became involved—’
‘You didn’t tell the rest of the Five?’
‘I was trying to protect you.’
‘And what happened?’
‘The hellion took me to a room filled with Gatekeepers. They weren’t expecting me so I had time to shift before their blades connected with my neck.’
‘And the hellion?’
He shakes his head. ‘Bel got a grip on it before I could bring it back.’
‘You handed them a demon that had tasted my blood and knew where I was. They came straight for me. And Jude.’
‘We don’t know that for sure. For all we know you planned to meet them.’
‘Are you kidding me?’ My voice ricochets between the wall and the chapterhouse. Inside, Jude looks our way. I hold up a hand, let him know I’m okay. ‘Bel said he and Leon attacked us. He put a blade through my neck, Daniel. I think it’s fair to say we were ambushed.’
Daniel can’t meet my eyes. No wonder he had so little to say when Bel and Leon turned up on the mountain on Tuesday night, bragging about killing me.
‘For what it’s worth, we recaptured the hellion a few months later when Leon attacked Micah’s unit in Pakistan. At the time, I thou
ght it was a sign, but Nathaniel found no trace in its memories of you or Jude.’
‘Did you try again?’
‘No. It had lost your scent, and your bandages were long gone.’
The realisation hits. ‘The hellion you had here last week, that was the same one wasn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
‘The one you let savage me and drink my blood. Get a taste of me again.’ I shake my head. ‘All that bullshit about putting me in danger in the hope it would jolt my memories. Rafa was right—you wanted it to get a taste of me because you thought I was lying about the Fallen. That if you could track me, I’d lead you straight to them. Of course this time, you would’ve taken an army with you. Am I on the right track?’
‘I’m not going to apologise for going to extremes. I thought it could work. But yes, the plan B was to have a way to track you. If you remembered who you were, you’d understand why—’
‘I get it,’ I snap. ‘I’ve heard it enough times. The fate of the Fallen and the destiny of the Rephaim is more important than me being torn apart by a hell-beast.’ I wish I had something hard and heavy to slam into his head.
‘I would never have let it kill you.’
‘Well it’s heartening to know you were okay with the tearing apart bit.’
The cold finally gets the best of me and I have to rub my arms. We stand in strained silence.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says. It comes out soft. ‘I never wanted to hurt you.’
I tuck my hands back under my arms. ‘But you wouldn’t do things differently, would you? You honestly think you’re on the higher ground in all this.’
He shakes his head, but it’s not a denial. More a way of avoiding answering. ‘I want to help you now.’
The clouds are lower, darker. I lift my face as the drizzle starts again. How would the rest of the Sanctuary feel about what he’s just told me? I have every excuse to use it against him: another bombshell to rock the Rephaim. But what good would it do? This place is in a big enough mess as it is. And I need to get back to Dani.
‘The only help I want is to get Rafa and Taya.’
‘What do you think I’ve been doing?’
‘It’s not enough, Daniel. You want to help me? Then be on my side.’
‘I am on your side, Gabe. That’s why we’re having this conversation.’
‘No, I mean if I end up “doing something foolish” I want to know you’re not going to hang me out to dry to Nathaniel and the rest of the Five. That you’ll back my decisions.’
‘I can’t do that if I don’t know what those decisions are.’
‘And if there happen to be others involved, don’t use it as another wedge to drive between the Sanctuary and the Outcasts. Promise me.’ I hold his gaze, challenge him to show me proof of all this respect he says he and I once shared.
‘I won’t make promises I may not be able to keep.’
‘Then this conversation is over.’
I head for the warmth of the chapterhouse.
‘Will you tell me what you’re planning, even if you know I won’t approve?’
I stop on the third step. ‘I won’t make promises I may not be able to keep.’
Daniel gives me a steady look. ‘You need to meet me halfway. I want your word you’ll tell me what’s going on before you and the Outcasts take matters into your own hands.’
After what he’s just told me, I can’t believe he has the gall to make demands. But I know now that we have to disobey Nathaniel. Having Daniel in the loop might be the only way to stop the Rephaim tearing themselves apart. Again.
‘I’m not giving you my word, Daniel.’ I put my hand on the door. ‘But I’ll do what I can.’
THE STUFF OF NIGHTMARES
‘Could an angel change our memories?’ Jude asks Ez as I walk back inside. They’re in a huddle with Daisy and Malachi.
‘I’ve never heard of it,’ Ez says.
I close the door behind me. ‘Nathaniel said Semyaza didn’t have the power to change memories.’
‘I’m not talking about fallen angels.’ Jude looks over at me. ‘I’m talking about an archangel. A member of the Angelic Garrison. Could they do it?’
‘No way,’ Daisy says. ‘They’d never get involved in our lives.’
‘I didn’t say would, I asked could they do it.’
Nobody answers. Ez’s fingers brush her scars and settle over her throat, protective. I cross the chapterhouse, suddenly aware of the ancient space around me; of the stones and marble stained with blood and lies.
‘Let’s get back to Dani.’ I keep moving towards the front door.
‘What did Daniel say?’ Malachi asks when he reaches me.
‘He asked me to tell him before I do anything stupid.’
‘And you agreed?’
‘For the sake of keeping the peace.’
‘But that’s good,’ Daisy says. ‘Running around behind everyone’s back is only going to aggravate the situation. So you told him about Mya going to LA?’
I guess I missed more than one topic of conversation while I was outside.
‘No, and you need to keep that information to yourself.’
Daisy’s lips flatten. As always, her taste for rebellion only goes so far—especially where Mya’s involved.
We cross the compound in silence. This place doesn’t feel right: the birds, the smell of the trees, even the light—it’s too muted. All of it is wrong. I need bright sunshine and thundering waves. Magpies. Eucalyptus. My house, with the front door that sticks, the faulty stove and the dodgy water pressure. My home.
Jones is waiting in the hallway outside Jude’s room. ‘They won’t let me in. I thought I’d hang here anyway.’
Jude taps lightly. ‘It’s us.’
The door cracks open a fraction and Jason appears, face bleak. He takes in all of us. ‘Let’s talk out here.’
I look over his shoulder and my heart lurches. Dani is curled up on the bed, Maria stroking her hair. Zak stands sentry by the window. Maggie comes to the door, guides Jason through and closes it behind her.
‘She’s okay, just exhausted,’ Maggie says.
‘What did she see?’
‘She hasn’t told us.’
I think about Taya, give Maggie an impulsive hug. She hangs on tight. Neither of us speaks. Everyone shuffles around until they find their own space in the hallway.
‘When can I talk to her?’ I ask and step back from Maggie.
‘When she’s ready,’ Jason says.
Malachi bends down and stretches his calves. Rolls his wrists until one of them cracks. ‘What else do we know about that iron room?’
I tell him about the journal with photos of burning corpses and instructions for sacrificial rites written in German; about Jason discovering the family was excommunicated from the Lutheran Church around the time the Fallen broke out of hell. That the family knew about the Rephaim and warned Jason away from the rest of us. I describe the floor plans and the photos of the Rephaim; Rafa’s theory about a mole at the Sanctuary.
‘No way. None of us would betray Nathaniel.’ Malachi raises his eyebrows at Ez.
‘Come on,’ she says. ‘We’ve had our differences, but we’d never put anyone here in danger.’
I give a short laugh. ‘An hour ago you were all pounding the crap out of each other with your bare hands.’
Ez and Malachi share an ironic smile. ‘Yeah,’ Malachi concedes, ‘but we’d never let anyone else do it.’
‘So how did the women get the photos and floor plans?’
‘What about the monks?’ Jude asks.
Daisy shakes her head. ‘They’ve been with us for years, some from the same family. They give up everything to be here: friends, family, money. Sex. They totally believe in Nathaniel’s mission to find the Fallen. There’s no way any of the brothers would put him or us at risk.’
‘What if they found out Nathaniel had lied about something?’ I ask the question carefully.
‘Like what?’ Mala
chi asks.
‘Doesn’t matter what.’
Malachi holds my gaze. ‘Nathaniel has no reason to lie.’ But he knows that’s not true. He just watched the fallen angel lie to a roomful of Rephaim.
‘Were you aware this place is protected from demons by wards made from Nathaniel’s blood?’ I ask.
‘Rubbish.’ Malachi looks at Ez. ‘Right?’
‘I didn’t know about the blood,’ Ez says. ‘But Nathaniel told us about the wards this morning. Why do you think we’re still here?’
‘Who told you there was blood involved?’
‘Nathaniel.’ I don’t mention the significance of the wings in the room. That seems like too big a piece of news right now.
‘So the wards in the iron room…’
‘Could only trap Rephaim if Rephaite blood created the ward.’
All eyes turn to Jason. Colour creeps into his cheeks. ‘I did not give them blood.’
‘You’re the only one who’s had contact with them all these years,’ Ez says. She’s not accusing, just stating a fact. ‘You could have cut yourself around them. Maybe they only needed a drop or two—’
‘I’m telling you, there is no way they could’ve taken blood from me, accident or otherwise.’
Maggie puts herself between Jason and the rest of us. ‘Don’t take this out on him.’ She looks around at each of us. ‘If he says he didn’t give them blood, he didn’t. Back off.’
There’s silence for a few seconds, and then: ‘Way to let your woman fight your battles, blondie.’
I turn my head so fast it hurts my neck.
‘What?’ Jones says. ‘What did I say?’
I let my breath out, feel the emptiness in its wake. ‘You sounded like Rafa.’
Jason leans back against the wall, takes Maggie’s hand in his. Some of the tightness leaves his jaw. ‘If it was Rafa, I’d be slammed against furniture by now with a hand around my throat. He tends to throttle first, ask questions later.’
Maggie bumps Jason’s shoulder. ‘And he’d call you Goldilocks.’ She smiles at me, sad, hopeful. The door to Jude’s room clicks open and the tension snaps back. Zak fills the doorway.