by Paula Weston
‘I can guarantee I’m more charming,’ Jude says.
She studies him for a long moment, his eyes, his hair, but when her gaze drops to his mouth she shakes her head as if annoyed with herself. ‘You’ve been back here five minutes and you want to pull a stunt like that?’
‘Daisy,’ Jude says quietly. ‘Do you know where she is?’
‘Wow. It’s a been a while since you used that look on me.’
‘What look?’
‘The one that says, “Daisy, don’t let me down.” That stopped working the day you followed Mya out the door.’ She doesn’t look away and neither does Jude. I shift my weight, force myself to stay out of it.
‘This is about getting to Rafa and Taya, not who I used to be or how I used to look at you,’ Jude says.
A faint flush creeps above the neckline of her jumper.
‘Hey.’ I touch her arm. She jerks away and then looks embarrassed. I guess the old Gabe wasn’t much of a toucher. ‘You don’t have to be involved,’ I say. ‘Just tell us where to find her.’
‘You can’t shift. What are you going to do if someone finds you?’ Her eyes narrow. ‘Or is someone else coming along?’ She doesn’t mention Mya but that’s obviously who she means.
‘No, just us. And if you want to keep it that way we should move now.’ I give the commissary doors a meaningful look. The hum of conversation continues on the other side. I pick at the hem of my t-shirt, impatient.
Daisy runs her tongue across her teeth, stares past me for a second, and then turns and walks down the hallway. Jude and I exchange a quick look and follow. She doesn’t speak as she leads us through more buildings and then outside. Water splashes in a fountain under the muted sky; the breeze carries hints of lavender and rosemary. We’re back in the main piazza. I step out beyond the cloister and look up, try to get my bearings. We’re surrounded by three-storey buildings on all sides—our rooms are somewhere above us to the left. I think.
‘As far as I know, Virginia’s in guest quarters in Nathaniel’s compound.’ She scans the cloisters as she speaks, her voice quiet. Jaw tense.
‘And that’s in which direction?’ Jude asks.
She nods at the building on the other side of the lawn. ‘Past the infirmary, near the chapterhouse.’
‘Is she alone?’
‘Doubtful. But at least Nathaniel’s with the Five in the library’—she stabs her thumb in the opposite direction—‘so you shouldn’t run into him.’
My pulse picks up. ‘Can you shift us in there?’ I ask.
Daisy shakes her head. ‘Bad idea. Someone would feel it.’ It would be quicker to cross the grass but Daisy stays under the cover of the cloisters, walking the length of two sides of the piazza. When we reach the other corner, she stops in front of tall doors. They’re bronze and tinged green with age, and both have ornate carvings. On one, a giant lion stands on its hind legs, teeth bared and mane flowing. A flock of sheep cowers on the other. Either the lion is protecting the sheep from an unseen enemy or it’s about to eat them, it’s hard to tell.
‘Nathaniel’s garden is on the other side, in the middle of the compound. The guest quarters are all on ground level so you can use the bushes for cover while you find her room. It should be on the western wall. Then you need to get inside without being seen.’
I give a short laugh. ‘Just like that.’
‘Hey, this is your plan, not mine.’ Daisy walks over to a bench by the wall, sits down and crosses her ankles. ‘Don’t be seen.’
Jude raises his eyebrows at me. ‘Ready?’
My pulse is more insistent now. I see Rafa in agony, collapsing to his knees in the forest. I nod. Jude lifts the ring under the sheep and turns it. A bolt slides on the other side, too loud in the hushed piazza. My mouth is dry. Bad idea or not, I wish we could shift.
The door swings open slowly, ancient bronze scraping on ancient stones. I step into the short, dank passage and Jude closes the latch behind us. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust: the garden is at the other end. We press ourselves against the damp wall, creep to the opening. Jude is breathing quicker now too.
I take a nervous look outside and duck back into the shadows. The garden is about the same size as my front yard in Pan Beach. Wrought-iron tables and chairs are clustered together in the middle, surrounded by a sea of white, pink and purple roses. Patches of wild mint and basil; tomatoes climbing a trellis; thick blueberry bushes along all four walls. There’s nobody in sight.
‘Which is the western wall?’ I whisper.
Jude points to his left. I have no idea how he can tell when the sun is hidden behind an endless bank of rain clouds. He drops into a crouch and I do the same. We wait a heartbeat and then make a run for a clump of blueberry bushes screening the first window, press ourselves against the wall. I take a second to steel myself and then peer inside. It’s a guest room. Empty. I shake my head at Jude and we move on to the next one in a half-crouch. Empty. So are the next two. I feel ill. And exposed. We’re a long way from the bronze doors.
I check the fifth room and my pulse jackhammers.
It’s her.
Virginia is sitting in a high-backed chair facing the window, head bowed, lips moving. Slender fingers clutch the armrest. Her tailored suit is immaculate, her grey bob neat. Face unmarked. However Nathaniel’s been trying to coerce her, it hasn’t involved violence. Yet. The room is full of antiques: a four-poster bed, a dresser with a washbowl and water pitcher, a tall bookcase packed with books bound in matching dark leather.
She’s right there.
Jude and I reach for the window at the same time. It’s shut, but maybe it’s not locked. We try to find a place to grip. The pane rattles.
Virginia lifts her head. We freeze.
She gasps—soundless through the thick glass—and twists in her chair to see if she’s still alone in the room. Her head whips back around, chest rising and falling. Now I realise her pale blue eyes are underscored with shadows and the lines around her mouth seem deeper than a day ago.
Adrenalin builds. We’re so close. I point to the window. ‘Open it.’ I mouth.
She stares at me and it’s like the farmhouse all over again: fear and loathing and grief.
‘Go to hell.’ She says it slowly so I can lip-read.
Jude drops to the ground. I don’t break eye contact with Virginia. I hear a snap, and he’s back a second later, stripping leaves from a torn branch. He jams a jagged end between the window and the frame, tries to pry it open. Virginia jumps up, checks over her shoulder again.
The branch breaks. ‘Fuck,’ Jude mutters, goes for another one.
Virginia is behind her chair now, eyes wide. But her spine is straight and her shoulders square: still defiant. Does she know Rafa and Taya are trapped in the iron room with demons? Does she care?
Jude’s back with a new branch, stronger. This time, the window starts to give. Come on, come on. Jude puts all his weight into it.
Footsteps crunch on the gravel path. Shit. I pull Jude down behind the bushes and we press our backs to the wall. The grout between the stones is rough under my fingers. Maybe it’s just someone passing. Or maybe it’s Uri or Calista or any one of the Rephaim itching to take a swing at us.
Whoever it is is closer now, their steps slow, uncertain. Jude and I lock eyes. I know what he wants to do, and it doesn’t involve getting caught hiding behind blueberry bushes and going down quietly. I nod.
We spring to our feet together, launch ourselves around the shrub—
—and come face to face with Brother Stephen.
We jolt to a stop. The monk staggers back. He drops the bunch of mint he’s carrying and clutches the neck of his robe with a gnarled hand.
‘Hello, Brother,’ Jude says, breathing hard. ‘You scared the hell out of us.’ He scans the garden, settles his weight.
‘You should not be in here.’ Brother Stephen’s faded eyes flit to the window behind us.
My heart gives another hard thump. ‘We just w
ant to talk. We’re not going to hurt her.’
‘That is not the point, Gabriella. Nathaniel has forbidden anyone to speak to this woman.’
‘She knows how to help Rafa and Taya.’
‘I understand your anxiety. I fear for them too, but now is not the time for disobedience.’
My fingers have tightened to fists. If we can’t get to Virginia, then all that’s left for us to do is to wait for Nathaniel to make a decision. Pressure builds behind my eyes.
‘Please, Gabriella. This woman has not said a word to Nathaniel or the Council. She will not talk to you and it is not worth the strife you will stir up by forcing the issue.’ His shoulders are hunched, his gaze stern. ‘Go, now, and I will not speak of this.’
I check the window. Virginia is still behind the chair, watching. So, so close.
‘Brother—’
‘Please.’ The monk steadies himself against a trellis thick with tomatoes. It shakes at his touch.
Jude brushes my wrist and I meet his eyes. All the air goes out of me.
We’re running out of time and we both know we’re not beating up an old monk to buy more.
THE AUSTRALIAN PATIENT
We creep back out the way we came in and I expect to get caught with every step. I check over my shoulder only once, find Brother Stephen watching us, troubled. I have no idea if we can trust him—but I doubt he’ll be so forgiving if we’re caught in here again.
We slip back out into the cloisters. Daisy is right where we left her.
‘Well?’
I shake my head and tell her what happened. She scans the piazza but it’s still empty. The rain clouds are lower, the breeze sharper. ‘Are you sure it was Brother Stephen?’ she asks. ‘He’s usually in the chapel this time of day.’
Jude gives her a flat look. ‘My short-term memory is fine. It was the same monk who took us to our rooms.’
‘You’re lucky. You two need to quit while you’re ahead.’
Panic flickers. ‘And do what?’ I ask. ‘Sit around and wait?’
Daisy stands up, wipes her palms on her jeans—just how nervous was she out here?—and gestures to the building closest to us. ‘You could check on your mates from Pandanus Beach.’
Jude knocks dirt from the soles of his boots onto the pavers. ‘May as well while we’re here.’
I rub the corner of my eye, try to focus. I can’t find an excuse to put off seeing Mick and his boys. Simon. A strand of hair catches on my lip and I drag it free, gesture for Daisy to lead the way. We’re almost to the double doors when Ez walks around the corner at the far end of the cloister. Daisy keeps going inside, but Jude and I wait in the doorway. Ez raises her eyebrows in a silent question. I shake my head and catch a hint of disappointment in the set of her mouth.
Daisy is waiting in the hallway, restless.
‘I thought I’d say hi to the brothers,’ Ez says. Daisy looks from her to me and back again and then walks off without a word.
The cloying smell of antiseptic hits me a few steps from the infirmary door. It all comes back in a rush: stark white walls, gut-churning fear, torn flesh—a reminder of hellion teeth and claws. I stop, take a breath. Disinfectant coats my tongue. Daisy glances at me, her hand on the door. ‘All right?’
I swallow. Nod.
‘If you come any closer with that fucking needle I will ram it so far up your arse it’ll make you cough.’ Mick’s voice carries from inside. His snarl is so familiar it’s almost comforting.
Daisy rolls her eyes and opens the door. I brace for another assault of memories but all I see is Mick in the middle of the room wearing a crisp white hospital gown. One arm is strapped to his chest. With his good hand, he’s waving a scalpel at one of the monks who helped him from the chapterhouse. The monk has his palms out, like he’s trying to settle a spooked horse.
I stop halfway across the room, try to ignore the gurney by the wall. I was laid out on it not that many days ago. Ez is watching Mick, but her attention keeps drifting to the monk.
Mick turns on us, his half-beard still matted with grass and mud. The room is heady with something that smells like wet lawn clippings and marjoram.
‘Where the fuck are we?’
‘Italy,’ I say.
Mick’s eyes flick from me to the monk and back again. ‘Bullshit.’
‘Yeah, you’re right. We’re obviously still in Pan Beach. Where’s everyone else?’
Mick thrusts his chin towards swinging doors behind him. The infirmary is how I remember it—sterile, cold, white—but I don’t remember the doors. Of course, I was in excruciating agony at the time.
‘They okay?’
Mick lowers the scalpel. ‘Joffa’s leg’s a mess, Woosha’s missing a thumb and Rusty’s got twenty stitches in his chest. What do you think?’
‘What about Simon?’
‘Still shittin’ himself.’
‘But is he all right?’
‘He’s better than the boys who didn’t make it.’
I bite my lip. ‘Who?’
‘Maxie. Hawk. Gus. Tank.’ He fires their names like bullets.
Tank, with the Southern Cross tattoo on his throat. Rafa snapped his wrist at the Imperial two days ago. I don’t know the other three and now they’re all dead.
‘Sorry.’ The word is so inadequate. Mick’s boys are rough and fond of violence but they didn’t deserve to die.
‘Tough pricks. Went down fighting.’ Mick turns his face away, but not before I see the pain there. He rubs a palm over his shaved head, meets my gaze again. ‘You going to tell me what’s going on?’
‘Lose the blade first,’ I say.
‘Only if that mediaeval wanker gets the needle away from me.’
The monk holding the syringe looks at Daisy, pink spots on his cheeks. ‘It’s a mild painkiller.’
‘I don’t give a shit. You’re not sticking that thing in me.’
‘Let him suffer,’ Daisy says. ‘And you’—she stabs a finger at Mick—‘show some gratitude.’
Jude walks over to the stainless steel bench. It’s covered in bandages, swabs and surgical instruments. ‘Where’s the doctor?’
‘Brother Ferro is medically trained,’ Ez says. ‘Brother, is it still only you or did Benigno finish his studies?’
Brother Ferro—a middle-aged man with intelligent eyes—nods. ‘Brother Benigno received his qualifications five years ago.’ He speaks with a strong Italian accent. He takes a moment to check Ez over, lingering on the scars on her cheek and neck. ‘I was saddened to hear of your injuries, Esther. How are you?’
‘I’m fine, Brother, thank you.’ She doesn’t turn away or make any attempt to cover the hellion marks.
‘I have missed you, Gabriella. Judah.’ Brother Ferro nods. ‘You need a haircut.’
Jude’s fingers stray to his hair. He realises what he’s doing and lets his hand drop.
‘Oi.’ Mick flips and catches the scalpel with his free hand. ‘Someone needs to tell me what the fuck is going on.’
I point to the swinging doors. ‘In there, with everyone else.’
Mick shoots a sour look at Brother Ferro and limps off. His gown flaps open to give us a startling view of his bare backside. I glimpse an ageing black and grey Grim Reaper across his shoulders, and try very hard not to notice the weird tufts of hair further south.
‘Good god, I just ate,’ Daisy says and screws her eyes shut.
Mick bangs open the doors and shuffles into a larger room with eight hospital beds, four against each wall. Woosha and Joffa are on the left with two more of Mick’s guys—one with a blond mullet, the other with tribal tattoos. Rusty and Simon are on the right. The smell of grass and marjoram is stronger in here.
Mick wasn’t exaggerating: Joffa is a mess. His burnt leg—the same one I stabbed—is heavily bandaged. His nose is taped where I hit it, and he’s hooked up to a drip. He glares at me through bleary eyes, his bald head shiny with sweat. On the next bed, Woosha’s shoulder is strapped, his left fist com
pletely lost in bandages. His lip is torn where a silver ring used to be.
‘Brace yourself for more bullshit boys,’ Mick says, lowering himself on to his brother’s bed. Rusty is wearing white boxers, and a wide strip of dressing covers the stitches across his chest. Simon lies shirtless, his back to us. A bandage bisects the sleek tiger prowling the length of his spine. He rolls over gingerly and sits up, pressing a wad of fabric against his ribs.
‘Are you okay?’ I ask, not moving any closer. Right now he must be wishing he’d said no when Jude asked him to take us up the mountain.
Simon’s eyes graze over me, settle on Mick. He doesn’t answer.
‘Simon reckons you’re all half-angels or some shit like that,’ Mick says.
Nobody corrects him.
‘I knew it. No human fights like that prick Rafa.’
My breath catches. I hear Rafa’s softly spoken words to me outside the hospital in Melbourne: Harden the fuck up. It’s almost my undoing. I take a breath.
‘Those half-angels are called the Rephaim—’
‘You one of them?’
I hesitate. ‘Yeah.’
Mick measures me, nods. ‘That’s the only way you could’ve got the better of my boys.’
I let the comment slide.
‘They—we—can travel in the blink of an eye.’ I gesture to the walls around us. ‘Right now, we’re somewhere the demons can’t come. In northern Italy.’
Mick chews on his thumbnail. Spits out what he harvests onto the floor. ‘Are we prisoners?’
‘Technically, no. But you’re stuck here for a while with the rest of us.’
‘How long?’
‘I don’t know.’
Rusty rubs his chin through his scruffy dark beard. ‘Who runs the show here?’
‘Nathaniel. He’s a fallen angel.’
‘Fuck off,’ Mick says, but Rusty nods slowly, as if that makes some kind of sense to him. As usual, he’s quicker on the uptake than his brother.
Fluorescent lights hum overhead. Simon lifts the bundle he’s been holding against his ribs and wrinkles his nose. A poultice. That explains the smell.
‘Is Taya…?’ Simon’s eyes don’t meet mine. He saw Taya take a blade: invincible, snarky Taya. Arse-kicking Rephaite. He’s had a soft spot for her since she broke up the all-in brawl at the bar and beat the crap out of the drunk who glassed him.