Haze (24 page)

‘The Fallen and their bastards are no better than the devils who have violated our home this day,’ she says. ‘Between all of you, you will end the world.’

Daniel folds his hands, a study in self-control. Beside me, Rafa is looking at the walls and the near-dark window. The cold pushes through my jacket. I take a deep breath. God, this place
stinks
. Ask her about the room so we can leave and Jason can take them somewhere safe.

‘That sounds like fear talking,’ Daniel says.

‘It is a revelation from God.’

Daniel dips his head. ‘Please, then, share your revelation so we can understand.’

Virginia’s pale eyes flare as something stronger than grief takes hold. ‘You seek the Fallen. If you find them, you will release the Two Hundred and they will make war on heaven.’

‘No, Virginia, we’ll hand them over to the Angelic Garrison. The archangels will decide their fate.’

‘You will fail.’

‘Why did you allow Jason to bring us here? Why agree to meet with us?’

‘You are the only creatures strong enough to drive the spawn of hell from here.’

‘You’re asking for our help?’

‘No…’

‘Come now, Virginia. Now’s not the time for lies.’

Her eyes roam his face and the hard lines around her mouth soften. It’s as if she’s only just noticed how beautiful he is. Her hand drops to the armrest and Daniel gently places his over it. Virginia flinches, but doesn’t pull away.

‘I swear to you, our purposes are the same.’ His voice is gentle.

Mya makes a noise that’s somewhere between scoffing and clearing her throat. I’m surprised she hasn’t had something to say by now.

Virginia breaks eye contact with Daniel to look over at the rest of us. ‘Not all of you have the same purpose, though, do you?’

Daniel sighs and slides his hand from hers. ‘That is true and a shame. But we can talk about that more later.’

Virginia glances down at her wrist and gasps. In the space of that sound, Taya is moving across the room. She grabs Virginia’s slender arm—Mya shouts—and then Taya and Virginia disappear.

‘You bastard!’ Mya yells at Daniel.

He holds up the bracelet he slipped from Virginia’s wrist. That’s why he didn’t ask about the room: he never intended to interrogate her here.

‘You think Taya didn’t notice your girlfriend showing off that necklace?’ he says to Jason.

Mya lunges at him but Daniel’s already gone.

‘Fuck!’ Rafa lashes out at a cracked vase on a weather-beaten stand. It hits the fireplace and shatters. I blink at the empty chair. How could I think Taya would miss something as important as that pendant on Maggie? Of course she saw it. It’s why she was in Pan Beach in the first place—to watch us. But how did she know what to look for? How did Daniel?

Mya strides towards Debra, who has sunk back against the wall.

‘No way.’ Jason blocks her but she steps around him. Debra’s pale lips are moving in what could be a silent prayer.

Jason grabs Mya’s wrist. ‘I can take her somewhere safe—’

‘There isn’t anywhere safe.’ She wrenches free, shoves him back. She takes Debra’s arm—

They’re gone.

‘What the…?’ The flywire door creaks as Ez comes in. ‘Debra must have been wearing one of their trinkets, right?’ I say. ‘How did Mya do that?’

Jason doesn’t look at me. He goes to Virginia’s chair and sits down, puts his head in his hands.

‘Either she wasn’t wearing one or she didn’t leave against her will,’ Ez says, and flicks feathers off a chair with the tip of her sword.

Rafa shrugs. ‘Maybe after Pretty Boy snatched up the old girl, she figured she’d be safer with us than trying to get past Zarael on her own.’

‘But Jason was still here…’ I frown. ‘Maybe she didn’t have hers on. Maybe it was in the other house.’ I look to Ez. ‘Did Mya come here planning to do that?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘I can’t believe I was naive enough to think you lot came here to help,’ Jason says.

‘Be fair,’ Ez says. ‘Daniel made the first move, not us.’ She looks to Rafa. ‘Mya might have gone to Jess. I’ll take Zak and Jones and call when we find her.’

Rafa nods and she goes back outside.

‘Come on, let’s go,’ Rafa says.

Jason doesn’t move.

‘Goldilocks, are you coming with us or staying in this shit-hole?’

‘You don’t get it, do you?’ Jason doesn’t look up. ‘Virginia’s right: it’s my fault. Sophie and her mother are dead; Virginia is a prisoner at the Sanctuary; Debra is at the mercy of the woman who tore the Rephaim apart. That’s all on me.’

‘We couldn’t have led the demons here. They can’t feel us or track us.’ I look to Rafa.

He goes to the window, checks outside. Shrivelled corn leaves are swirling between the rows, caught on the breeze. ‘They have to see us. Unless a hell-turd’s had a taste of one of us.’

‘See?’ I say to Jason.

He stares at the shit-encrusted carpet. ‘Do you know how many humans I’ve watched die?’ he asks, as if Rafa and I haven’t spoken. ‘How many men and women in my mother’s family? One after another. Generation after generation. Some of old age, some not. Old men. Young mothers. Babies. Think of a way to die, and I’ve watched it happen to someone I care about. I’ve stood beside more graves than I can bear to remember.’ He takes a deep, ragged breath. ‘Even if I stay away, they die. We’re cursed, you know, to live forever. And now this…Look at the horror I’ve brought here.’

My longing for the family Jude and I might have had with Jason evaporates in the room, in the stench of it. One hundred and thirty-nine years of death and loss. I can’t imagine the weight of that, or how he’s carried it all these decades.

I wish Maggie was here. She’d know how to comfort him. ‘I don’t know how the demons found out about the iron room, but it’s not your fault.’

He looks up at me, his blue eyes almost grey. ‘It’s my fault you and Jude went missing last year. I brought you back together, took you to Dani after she had the vision. I should have known it would lead to something bad.’ His hands ball into fists on his knees. ‘I froze when I should have helped Maggie, I let her see demons—’

‘She’s fine, Jason, she—’

‘She’s not fine. She has nightmares.’

I pause. I didn’t know that.

‘Beating yourself up doesn’t change that.’

His shoulders fold. ‘I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, Gaby. I don’t know who to believe. What are we, really? Why are we here? Does anything we do even matter?’

‘If we knew that, Goldilocks, we’d all be less prone to binge drinking,’ Rafa says.

I glance out the dirt-covered windows. The sun is almost gone now, straining through the dead corn.

‘Get up and stop feeling sorry for yourself.’ Rafa nudges shards of the broken vase with his boot. ‘We’ve all fucked up at one point or another. You can’t live as long as we have and not make mistakes.’ He glances at me and then away again.

Jason wipes his face. ‘So what do I do?’

‘Nothing, here,’ Rafa says. ‘But if you can get your shit together, we could use some help to look for Jude.’

I blink. Did Rafa just throw Jason a lifeline?

‘Unless you’d rather stay here and mope,’ he says.

I’m still studying Rafa when something flashes behind him outside. Something with flaming eyes.

CATCH YOUR BREATH

Rafa shifts across the room to me. And then we’re in the freezing void, stretching and compressing. By the time we find solid ground again, his arms are tight around me. We’re back at his shack. It’s clean, the bench still bare. But now there’s a rucksack on the table.

Jason appears. ‘I tried the bungalow first. Is it safe here?’

‘Safer than up the hill,’ Rafa says and lets go of me.

I look from one to the other. ‘You think the demons will come to Pan Beach—into town?’

‘They might risk it if they’ve fixed the door to that room,’ Rafa says. ‘They only need one of us as leverage.’

‘Leverage for what?’

‘For you.’ He looks at me, serious. ‘We can’t wait any longer to go to Melbourne. We need to get out of here right now, and that’s as good a place as any.’

‘What about the rest of the town?’

‘They’ll be fine. Zarael’s not after them.’

‘And what about the Butlers and their militia?’

Rafa shakes his head. ‘Not my problem.’

‘Let me get Maggie,’ Jason says. ‘She can’t go back to the bungalow, not now. And Daniel knows about the iron amulet, so the necklace isn’t going to help if the Rephaim want her again.’

‘He’s right,’ I say. It doesn’t matter what Daniel said to me—all assurances will go out the window as soon as Rafa and I disappear from Pan Beach.

‘Fine. Get her here in ten minutes or we’re going without—’ Jason’s gone before Rafa finishes.

I turn my phone back on. ‘Will Taya come back here?’

Rafa shrugs.

She cared enough about Simon to get involved in the bar fight last night, so maybe she cares enough to keep an eye on him—or at the very least make sure he doesn’t join the Butlers up the mountain.

‘Why didn’t Taya tell Daniel about us going with Mya last night?’

Rafa sits at the table. ‘She didn’t want to wear the blame if you didn’t come back. And then the shit hit the fan over the farm and she lost her chance.’

At the sink, daylight is forcing its way through the grime on the shack windows. It’s barely midday here. I stare at the grey wall of the shopping centre.

‘Virginia must have thought the Rephaim would charge in and purge the place.’

‘Then she doesn’t know as much about the Sanctuary as she thinks she does.’ Rafa stretches his legs out to one side of the table. ‘The Five will take at least a day to debate the merits of an attack.’

I sit opposite him. ‘But first they’ll interrogate Virginia.’

‘Yep, and I guarantee they’ll find out more about her family in twenty-four hours than Jason’s managed to in seventy years.’

I don’t want to think about what that might involve.

‘But Nathaniel will attack the farm at some point, won’t he? He’ll destroy that room?’

‘Maybe not. Too many Gatekeepers; Rephaim would die. No, he’ll find out how to make his own iron prison.’

‘For Rephaim or demons?’

‘Both, if it works that way.’

‘Could it hold the Fallen too?’

‘Maybe.’

We sit with that thought.

‘But if Nathaniel didn’t know about the iron room, how did Taya and Daniel know about the amulet and what it does?’

‘No idea.’

‘I think there’s something else going on at the Sanctuary. With Malachi.’

Rafa moves his legs again to rest against mine.

‘Like what?’

‘He was supposed to come with Taya, remember, to keep an eye on me—a direct order from Nathaniel. But he hasn’t shown and she was cagey about it, which makes me wonder—’

‘If they’ve got a lead on the Fallen. That’s the only thing that would take priority over shadowing you.’

I look up at the water-stained ceiling. ‘Maybe Daniel will be so preoccupied with Virginia and the farmhouse and whatever Malachi’s up to that he’ll forget about us for a few hours.’

Rafa laughs. ‘Yeah, right. He’s not losing his hard-on for you any time soon.’

I knock my knee against his. ‘That’s revolting.’

‘Speaking of which,’ he says, and I really hope he’s not still talking about Daniel, ‘I grabbed a few things this morning.’

He drags the rucksack closer, pulls out two books and lays them face-up. They’re from Jude’s collection on angels and demons. I see Jude’s laptop wedged in the bag.

‘You went to Patmos this morning?’

He nods, glances away.

Rafa was safe in Greece. He was never in danger. That lingering fear finally slides away.

‘I thought the books might be useful. You know if…’ He flips the pages of the book closest to him. ‘They worked for you.’

‘No, the photo worked for me.’

He pushes the second book towards me, and when I open it, I see the thirty-year-old shot of Jude and me tucked in the dust jacket, both of us looking no older than eighteen. It still makes me ache.

‘Any reason you turned your phone off while you were in Greece?’

Rafa doesn’t answer right away; he’s prying a splinter from the edge of the table. When he finally speaks he doesn’t meet my eyes. ‘You think you’re the only one who has a hard time seeing Jude’s things?’

His voice is quiet and raw.

‘Hey.’ I lay the photo on the table and tap it. ‘That was in my room, not on Patmos. How many drawers did you go through before you found it?’

‘A few.’ He looks at me, catches the mood shift and goes with it. ‘While I was at it, I packed some clothes for you too. You really need to go shopping.’

‘You packed—we only just decided to go to Melbourne.’

‘I was planning on an early departure.’

There’s movement near the front door. Maggie and Jason. Maggie is toting an overnight bag, which she drops on its wheels, and bolts for the sink. She breathes in and out, slowly. Then she stands up, pours a glass of water and drinks it.

‘Oh my god, I
hate
that.’ She’s changed out of her work clothes and into jeans and a light-knit jumper. Handmade.

I give her a sympathetic smile. ‘Brace yourself. We’re going again in a minute.’

She sits at the table, her cheeks still pale.

‘What did you tell your mum?’

She gestures to Jason, who gives a tired smile. Being near Maggie has taken some of the tension from his face.

‘I said I scored tickets to the ballet in the city,’ he says, ‘and we had to leave right now so we could check in to the hotel before the show.’

‘Nice.’ Nothing short of the ballet would get Maggie a free pass from the cafe on a Saturday.

I put the books back in the rucksack and recognise the clothes Rafa has jammed in there, including the only lacy underwear I own. I don’t know whether to be annoyed or flattered.

‘How come you didn’t ask Ez or Zak to come to Melbourne with us?’ I ask.

‘I didn’t want to get their hopes up.’

I study him, wonder if it’s more than that.

‘Would it have crossed Mya’s mind that Jude might be alive?’ I ask.

‘I doubt it. She’s spent the last year blaming you—and me—for the fact he’s not here any more. She’s not letting go of that too easily.’