by Paula Weston
Onboard, a shock of dark hair appears out of a cabin.
The pink jackets are off the yacht, walking down the pier, blocking our view. We step around them, picking up snatches of conversation.
‘—best hen’s party ever.’
‘How freaking cold was it last night?’
‘How hot was the skipper?’
The guy onboard moves across the deck, his back still to us. Rafa and I stop dead.
That hair. That build. The way he rolls his shoulders. I can’t take my eyes off him, not even to check Rafa’s reaction.
He bends over to pick something up and when he straightens I get a good look at his profile.
It’s him.
Everything else fades: the sky, the water, the boats. Rafa. Even Rafa. There is nothing but the figure on that boat. He’s winding ropes, talking to the deckhand. His hair is longer than I remember.
And then Jude looks around.
He sees me.
His arms fall to his sides. Rope hits the deck. His lips form my name but he’s too far away for me to hear it. I’m moving again, in the cold wind. He steps off the boat, walks towards me, dazed. Then he stops, uncertain.
‘Are you real?’
My throat closes over; my heart is too big for my chest. I reach him in three steps, throw myself at him. We nearly stumble off the side of the dock. His arms clamp around me, his face presses into my hair. We collapse to our knees and I don’t let go, even when splinters stab through my jeans. He crushes me to him.
He smells of the sea.
Time stops. I have no idea how long we stay like that. My bad knee complains. I ignore it. I can’t breathe properly. I don’t care.
Eventually, his grip loosens a little. He strokes my hair. Mumbles something I don’t catch. He draws back enough to look at me, his chest rising and falling, eyes searching. ‘Are you real?’ he says again.
I touch his face. ‘Are you?’
He drags me back into a hug.
Please let this be real. I’ll do anything, just let this be real.
Rafa is sitting on the pier, his back against a pylon, arms folded. Eyes shining, face streaked.
The cold and the wind and the smell of the pier rush back in. Underneath us, the river slaps at the timber. My knee’s had enough. I have to stand up. Jude steadies me as we get to our feet. His dark brown eyes—my dark brown eyes—search my face again.
‘Princess, what the fuck?’ Jude wipes his face, not taking his eyes from me. ‘I saw you die.’
LONG STORY SHORT
‘I saw you die,’ I say. ‘We were arguing over music—’
‘—I lost control of the car and we rolled—’
‘And you…’ I swallow. He’s standing right here, so I can say the words. ‘You were decapitated by a guidepost.’
He stares at me, hands still on my shoulders. ‘No. You were.’
My knees almost give out again. It’s impossible: this is my Jude. I point to both of our heads, still attached to our necks. ‘Obviously not.’
‘But—’
‘It’s a long story.’ Rafa climbs to his feet, wipes his cheek against his shoulder.
Jude studies him, momentarily distracted. ‘I know you.’
‘You remember me?’ There’s no hiding the hope in those three words.
‘Not really.’ A pause. ‘You’ve kind of been in my dreams.’ Jude holds up his palms. ‘Not in a gay way.’
Rafa half-smiles. ‘Glad to hear it.’
‘In that dream, are you fighting hell-beasts in a nightclub?’ I ask.
Jude frowns. ‘How could you know that?’
‘I’ve been having the same dream for a year.’
Jude narrows one eye like I’m messing with him. How do I explain this?
‘That’s Rafa,’ I say as a place to start.
Jude steps forward and offers his hand. ‘Jude.’
Rafa falters, and then he slaps Jude’s palm and drags him into a man-hug. When he lets go, Rafa makes a point of taking two steps back. Jude steps back as well, looks awkward. I laugh. Or cry. I can’t tell the difference right now.
The deckhand is hovering by the yacht. ‘Everything okay, skip?’
‘Cody, man…I have no idea.’
Cody scratches the tip of his nose. A gust of wind blows his long fringe into his eyes. He waits for an explanation. Doesn’t get one.
Jude gestures to the boat. ‘We can finish up later. Take off if you want.’
Cody doesn’t have to be told twice.
‘Come aboard, sit down,’ Jude says.
I look around for Maggie and Jason. They’re hurrying up the pier towards us, almost running. They get a curious glance from Cody as he passes them.
‘Hang on,’ I say to Jude. ‘These two are with us.’
Maggie is looking from me to Jude and back again.
‘Wow, you two are so alike,’ she says when she’s close.
‘Jude, this is my friend Maggie, and that’s—’ I pause. Too hard. ‘That’s Jason.’
Maggie is straight in for a hug. Jude looks at me over her shoulder, careful where he puts his hands. She steps back, sees he’s a little startled. ‘Sorry,’ she says and smiles. ‘You’re so much like Gaby I feel I already know you.’
Jude nods. Frowns. Offers a hand to Jason more out of habit than presence of mind.
Jason shakes it—old school style—but doesn’t speak. He keeps blinking and swallowing, occasionally nodding even though nobody’s talking.
We follow Jude onboard. The yacht is huge—the kind that races from Sydney to Hobart. The mast towers above us. We go down into the galley, lush with wall-to-wall gleaming timber and dark green leather. Empty champagne bottles sit in a neat row on the sink and the place smells of pancakes and maple syrup. I wonder if Jude cooked breakfast for the girls. We squeeze around an oval table and Rafa drops our rucksacks at his feet. He’s acting like he’s okay with the fact Jude doesn’t remember being Rephaite. Maybe for the moment he is: maybe Rafa’s happy to have any version of his best friend, as long as he’s alive.
I can’t stop staring at Jude. He studies each of us, his attention settling back on me. I look to Rafa. He nods for me to start.
Great.
‘Right…well.’ I roll up the linen placemat in front of me. Even on the calm water of the dock the yacht still rocks gently. More than ever, I understand why Daisy and Rafa were in no hurry to attempt to explain the Rephaim to me. I miss Daisy. I wonder how she’d react if she was here now, sitting across from Jude? How she would tell him that life as he knows it is a lie?
Maggie gives me an encouraging smile. ‘Start with what you remember.’
It’s good advice. So I tell him about waking up in hospital, learning he was dead. And then how our ‘parents’ came to Melbourne and took his ashes without visiting me.
Jude listens, nods. ‘I got the same message about you. Some woman and her kid came to the ward—’ He glances at Jason. ‘What?’
‘We’ll get to that,’ I say. ‘Long story.’
I tell him about the violent nightclub dream and posting the short story about it online. How Rafa turned up at Pan Beach, followed by Taya and Malachi. And then Rafa’s bombshell about the Fallen and the Rephaim. I explain it the way he told me. Jude takes it all in. He doesn’t ask questions or interrupt. He’s always been quick to get his head around new concepts, but this is a tad more complicated than understanding the government structure of a European country we’re about to land in.
‘Are you doing okay?’ I ask.
He nods. ‘Keep going.’
I tell him about Patmos, the photo of us in Istanbul. I rush through Maggie’s kidnapping and my experience at the Sanctuary—minus my time in the cage. By the time I’ve told him about the fight up the mountain and meeting Nathaniel, his eyes are distant.
He’s overloaded. He sits back and stares up at the wood-panelled ceiling. ‘Bloody hell.’ His fingers go to his neck. ‘I thought this was a birth mark.’
‘What the fuck—’ He pushes the neckline of my hoodie aside, more interested in the hellion bite. ‘What is that?’
I pause. ‘You know that monster you kill in your dream? I ended up in a cage with one when I was in Italy.’
‘She cut off its head,’ Rafa says, as if that’s the most important part of the story, ‘but not before the pricks let it drink from her.’
Jude stares at him. He’s trying hard to absorb this, but he’s struggling. ‘The people who did this—they’re the ones you’re saying I walked away from?’
‘Yep.’
‘And you’re telling me I left Gaby with those arseholes?’
‘In fairness, they only turned on her after you two disappeared last year. Actually, they only turned on her when they thought she’d changed sides. They found her with me last week, put two and two together and got seven.’
Jude’s breathing is controlled, his face like stone.
Rafa pulls two books out of the rucksack, slides them across the table. I’m not sure now’s the time for show and tell, but it’s too late, Jude’s already reaching for them. He can’t help himself.
The first is leather-bound and embossed. Jude runs his palm over the cover. He flicks through a few pages and then stops when he sees his handwriting scrawled in the margins. He traces a fingertip over the blue ink. I open the second book and hold out the tattered photo of us in front of the Blue Mosque in Istanbul. Jude peers at it, looks from it to me, and back again.
‘Bloody hell,’ he says again, forcing a smile. ‘What’s with your hair?’
I touch the edge of the old photo, fight the emotion tugging at me.
‘You’re taking this better than she did,’ Rafa says.
‘I’m faking it.’ Jude rubs his eyes.
‘That’s your laptop too,’ I say. ‘There’s not much on there but you should take a look when you’re ready.’
Jude studies Rafa. ‘We trained and fought together? You used to have my back?’
‘Through the good, the bad and the ugly—and I’m not just talking about the women.’
Jude’s smile is wry. It takes some of the tension from his jaw. Then, to Jason: ‘Am I supposed to know you too?’
‘We’re related.’ Jason explains how. Slowly, patiently. He tells Jude about Dani. When he’s done, Jude sits back from the table and runs both hands through his hair. We’ve been at this for nearly two hours.
‘So, just to check I’m understanding all this: there are two groups of half-angel bastards at war with each other, a horde of demons after both sides, and a missing kid who has visions? And Gaby and I might know where two hundred fallen angels are hiding out?’
Yeah, he’s the smart one of the family all right.
‘The Rephaim aren’t really at war with each other,’ I say, trying to flatten out the placemat I’ve been strangling. ‘But the demons—that’s a whole other matter.’
We haven’t mentioned Iowa yet.
‘You can accept all that?’ Jason asks.
Jude gives him a measured look. ‘My sister is sitting next to me. The only way that’s possible is if the rest of it’s true. If that’s the price for getting her back, I’ll pay it.’
My eyes burn with fresh tears. I wipe them away.
A seagull cries out on the pier, then another yacht glides past and we rock back and forth in its wake. Jude splays his fingers on the polished tabletop. I don’t remember his knuckles being so scarred.
‘I’ve been told I’m a soulless prick by a few women in the past year,’ he says. ‘Turns out they were right.’
‘Hey, we’re not—’
‘And we didn’t talk for a decade? No fucking way. Who told you that?’ He doesn’t wait for an answer. He climbs out from the table and pushes past Rafa. ‘I need air.’
Jude disappears up the stairs to the deck. Rafa and I are right behind him, bringing our gear with us.
‘Give me a minute,’ Jude says. ‘Let me absorb this.’ He steps off the boat.
‘Where are you going?’ I sound panicked. I am.
His face softens. ‘Just there.’ He points to the end of the pier, out in the river. There are no boats moored, just open water. ‘I’m not leaving your sight.’
Maggie and Jason come up on deck and the four of us wait in silence, huddled against the wind. Fifty metres away, Jude paces back and forth, stops and stares out over the wide river. Glances back at me every few seconds. The wind whips his hair around his face.
Rafa stands close to me to block the breeze. ‘He’ll be fine,’ he says. I’m not sure who he’s trying to convince. A gust stirs the river and the yacht rocks under our feet.
My heart is trying to climb out of my throat. I’m a whirlwind of joy and fear, anticipation and anxiety. What’s Jude thinking? How does he feel about me now he’s had time to himself? What happens now?
They are the longest fifteen minutes of my life.
Finally, my brother comes back to us.
‘Jude, listen,’ Rafa says. ‘I know it’s all fucked up right now, but we’ll figure it out.’
Jude pauses on the pier, takes in Rafa’s proximity to me and then steps on board. ‘Figure what out? That some other version of me was a big enough prick that I took off without my sister and didn’t speak to her for a decade? And then I nearly get her killed doing god-knows-what, and now demons are after us? Dude, I don’t want to figure it out.’
‘Then you’ll both die. For real this time.’
Rafa is angry with Jude. I wasn’t expecting that.
‘Some serious shit happened today—’
‘I’m not who you want me to be,’ Jude says.
Rafa throws his head back. ‘Is that the only chorus this family knows? For fuck’s sake—’
‘Give him a break.’ I get between them. ‘I got all this in doses—he’s just had the whole lot dumped on him in one go. He needs more time.’
‘We don’t have time.’
‘You got that right,’ a new voice says over the wind.
Malachi.
He’s watching us from the pier. How the hell did he find—
Daniel. That bastard. In a rush I get it. The job that kept Malachi away from Pan Beach wasn’t some new lead on the Fallen. It was finding Jude. I didn’t tell Daniel much about my time in Melbourne, but it was enough to give him the same idea we had.
‘You’re looking well, Jude,’ Malachi says. ‘Hello, Maggie, have you missed me?’
Jude eyeballs him. ‘And who the fuck are you?’
‘Malachi’s part of the crew from the Sanctuary,’ I say.
Jude’s eyes harden. ‘Is he one of the bastards who hurt you?’
Malachi’s hands come up. ‘Hey now, we’ve moved past that and Gabe’s scored a few rounds herself.’ His black hair blows across his face. ‘You don’t know who I am either, do you? What the hell did you two do?’
Rafa catches my eye. There’s no mistaking what he wants. We have to get Jude out of here before Malachi’s reinforcements arrive. He would have called the Sanctuary before he revealed himself. The last thing Jude needs is to get caught up in a Rephaite brawl. The problem is, we haven’t actually touched on shifting yet. All the talk of travel has been pretty vague.
‘You’ve been busy,’ Rafa says to Malachi. ‘How many nurses did you sweet-talk before you found the right hospital?’
‘Six.’ Malachi watches me get closer to Jude, knowing full well I would have shifted by now if I could.
‘Do you trust me?’ I say to Jude, quiet enough so the wind catches the words before they carry to Malachi.
‘Of course.’
‘Whatever happens in the next few seconds, go with it.’ I don’t look at Jason: he’s standing right next to Maggie and he’ll kn
ow what to do.
Rafa crosses the deck as if he’s trying to intimidate Malachi. ‘How long have you been sniffing around here?’
Malachi steps back from the boat. ‘A couple of days. I should have known Jude would be out on the—’
Rafa disappears. I grab Jude and don’t see Rafa materialise before the boat drops away beneath us.
Jude doesn’t even have time to swear.
THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM
Jude is Rephaite, so if he’d had the slightest hesitation about Rafa he’d still be on the yacht rather than standing in the tiny house in Patmos leaning against the fireplace, recovering.
‘We can’t be here,’ I whisper to Rafa. ‘If the Gate-keepers find us—’
‘Just let him see his room.’
‘Bel’s been here, remember? He said he tracked us after the Sanctuary when I was covered in—’
‘I know.’
Jude straightens and looks up at us, pale. ‘What. The. Fuck.’
I step between him and the window, block the view of the harbour. The sun is breaking the eastern horizon; I have no idea what day it is here.
‘The offspring of the Fallen can travel pretty much instantly. Anywhere in the world.’
He looks at me. Blinks. ‘You did that?’
‘No, but we used to be able to—both of us. Look, we don’t have much time here but Rafa’s right: you should take a look around. You used to stay here. Some of your things are still in your room.’ I try to nudge him along but he stops and stares out the window.
‘Where are we?’
‘Greece.’ I say it like it’s no big deal. ‘Patmos. Come on.’ Jude stands at the window for a few more seconds and then follows me down the hallway and into the bedroom. He makes his way around the room, just as I did a week ago. He starts at the bookcase, picks out random books and then caresses the first editions of the Lord of the Rings. Just like I did. Next, he moves over to the drawers and pulls them out, one at a time.
‘We should take the weapons,’ Rafa says from the door.
I stop watching Jude long enough to find a bag under the bed. When I look up he’s at the wardrobe, both doors open, staring intently at his weapons cache. Rafa steps around him and grabs a handful of knives. He lobs them to me, hilt first, one at a time. I catch them without thinking. Then he uses a leather belt to bundle half a dozen swords together.
