Haze

by Paula Weston

  He frowns, confused.

  ‘Don’t blame him. I put a tracker in his phone.’

  ‘What?’ Simon says at the same time I say, ‘Are you kidding me?’

  ‘What did you expect?’ Taya says. ‘It’s not as if we could get one in yours. And anyway, it was for his own protection. You know Bel and Leon would recognise him if they found him. He’d be the first one they’d grab.’

  Simon swallows. ‘Is that true?’

  Taya points to my side of the fire. ‘Look at the company you keep.’

  Mya, Ez and Zak flank me and Jude. Our six against Daniel and Taya: not good odds for them. So either they didn’t come to fight or they’re not the only Rephaim who hiked here in the dark.

  ‘Where’s Virginia?’ Mya asks, her elbow on the rifle butt.

  ‘Where’s Debra?’ Daniel counters.

  ‘Somewhere she’s not being tortured.’

  ‘You don’t honestly believe we’d hurt humans, Mya?’

  ‘Everything’s gone to hell, Daniel. I don’t know what the Five are willing to do.’

  ‘We’re more interested in what Gabe and Jude were doing a year ago.’ He hasn’t come closer but it doesn’t make me feel any better about him being here—things never end well when Daniel’s around. ‘I don’t suppose you remember?’ he asks Jude.

  ‘No, mate, I don’t,’ Jude says. ‘And when I do, you’ll be the last person I tell.’

  Daniel’s lips twitch almost imperceptibly. Two minutes in Jude’s company and he’s already pissed off.

  Rafa brushes ash from the campfire off his arm. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I wanted to see Jude with my own eyes,’ Daniel says. ‘I have to say I’m surprised you brought him back here. A little obvious, don’t you think?’

  Rafa’s glance at me is pointed, but he can’t hold it. He’s enjoying Jude’s antagonism towards Daniel too much.

  ‘We don’t have time for this,’ I say to Rafa. ‘We need to get these guys off the mountain, remember?’

  Daniel is watching Jude again. ‘Is it true that you don’t remember who you are?’

  ‘Don’t worry about who I am, mate.’ Jude spins his sword hilt. ‘Worry about what’s going to happen the next time you come near my sister.’

  ‘Jude…’ I think about that cage, about how far Daniel was prepared to go to access my memories. Having him near Jude has set me back behind that wire, white pain bursting across my vision. I try to swallow. My mouth is dry.

  ‘Have you got anything to drink here other than beer?’ I ask Rusty.

  ‘Try the esky.’ He points to the tarped area under the banyan tree.

  Jude comes with me. The esky is behind the table outside the ring of spotlights. I pull out two bottles of water, hand one to him. We keep our backs to the wall of the banyan tree, our eyes on the others. Rafa and Daniel are bickering across the fire about me and Jude and how irresponsible Rafa is. Mick and his boys have settled back for the show. Ez, Zak and Mya are watching them, and the argument. On edge.

  ‘This is too weird, all these people knowing us,’ Jude says. We stay under the tree in darkness. It’s the closest we’ve been to alone since Rafa’s shack. ‘Does any of this get any easier?’

  ‘No, you just get used to things not making sense.’

  ‘Shit, Gaby, how have you coped?’

  ‘It’s only been a week. And I’ve had help.’

  He looks over at Rafa, now on Daniel’s side of the fire. Any second and they’re going to start throwing punches. Honestly, he and Daniel can argue anywhere. We need to get these guys out of here. We need to get out of here.

  ‘So, you and Rafa. It doesn’t look that complicated to me.’

  I’m watching Rafa. His hair is messy and his eyes are dark and alive. My mind wanders for a second. I want to be alone with him too. Rafa’s right: whatever this is between us, it starts now. I want answers about the past. But I want this too. ‘There’s…stuff.’

  Across the fire, Daniel is staring at Rafa. He looks stunned. What did I miss?

  ‘You heard me,’ Rafa says. ‘We cleaned out the Rhythm Palace. Paying job. Gaby came along.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Mya says, ‘she was a real natural.’

  Oh shit.

  ‘Taya knew all about it.’ Rafa smiles at her.

  She can’t meet Daniel’s eyes. ‘There were circumstances—’

  ‘Not here.’ Daniel cuts her off. He glances in my direction, but I can’t tell if he can see me in the shadows. ‘That’s a low move, Rafa, even for you.’ His words come out slow, furious. He puts distance between himself and Rafa, as if he can’t stand to be near him. ‘Gabe will rip you apart when she remembers who she is.’

  ‘You’re an arsehole,’ Taya says to Rafa.

  He laughs. ‘What are you so upset about—that you finally thought for yourself or that you got caught out?’

  They’ve both got their backs to the inky forest. They’re so preoccupied with each other they’ve forgotten the rest of us are here. Rafa really shouldn’t drop his guard—

  My stomach plummets as though the ground has been torn out from underneath me.

  Then Rafa’s whole body jerks and a sword emerges from his stomach.

  NO—

  Everything happens at once.

  Rafa looks around, disoriented, to where Jude and I were standing before we left the firelight. His face changes when he doesn’t find us there. Taya collapses to her knees, a blade buried in her shoulder.

  Gatekeeper demons stand behind them. Eyes blazing. There are more than I can count. I vaguely register a hellion with a stump for an arm.

  I want to scream. I can’t.

  Jude drags me down behind the keg, but I push him away; I need to see.

  The swords are ripped out of Rafa and Taya with lightning speed; the hilts slammed against their heads before they can react.

  ‘No—’ Ez shifts mid-shout. She and Zak arrive on the other side of the fire at the same time.

  They find nothing but empty air.

  The dark canopy presses down on me. The walls of the gully crowd in. Nothing is in focus. Not the fire. Not the figures scrambling around the campsite. People are shouting. I can’t make out the words.

  Rafa and Taya are gone.

  Rafa. Gone.

  Someone is shaking me. Jude. I can’t understand what he’s saying. He drags me deeper into the darkness. Pushes me to the ground. My fingers latch around thick bars. No, wait. What I’m holding is rough, alive. The hanging roots of the banyan tree.

  Jude says, ‘They’re everywhere.’ His words come and go.

  Gunfire. Screaming. Clashing swords.

  Rafa is gone.

  ‘Gaby. Gab.’ Jude shakes me again. His face swims into focus, pale in the spotlights of the camp. ‘Are they demons?’

  I nod. I can’t feel my legs. Am I sitting down? Yes. I bury my fingers in the damp soil.

  A movement behind us.

  Jude scrambles to put himself between me and whatever it is.

  ‘We have to go.’ It’s Daniel. He’s bleeding from his ear.

  ‘Did you do this?’ My voice is flat. ‘Did you bring them here?’

  I see his eyes. He didn’t do this.

  Ez, Zak and Mya materialise, almost on top of him.

  ‘Thank god,’ Ez says when she sees us. She’s out of breath, possibly crying.

  More gunfire.

  ‘Where is she?’ The voice is loud, smoky and angry. It can only belong to a demon. The Gatekeepers are still here. Everything snaps back into sharp focus: the trees, the harsh lights, the seeping rock walls, the wetness under Ez’s eyes. The screams.

  ‘We have to go.’ Daniel’s voice is urgent. ‘Now.’ He leans towards Jude.

  ‘Don’t touch him,’ I hiss.

  ‘Gabe, listen to me.’ Daniel grabs my arm, his fingers gouge my skin. ‘Nathaniel is the only one who can protect us now.’

  ‘I don’t trust you.’ I push him away, reach for Ez. ‘Will you take us
?’

  She clasps my hand. ‘To the Sanctuary?’

  ‘Where is she?’ the demon shouts.

  ‘Please,’ I say to Ez. ‘Don’t separate us.’

  Mya crawls closer. ‘Yes, yes, come on. The chapterhouse will do.’

  I lace my fingers through Jude’s. His grip is crushing.

  My stomach lurches again.

  A demon I haven’t seen before appears in the middle of the camp. Taller than Bel, his face deeply scarred. His eyes blaze like the others’ but his long hair is jet black. His nails are dark too, overgrown talons, holding a mediaeval sword that is shiny with blood.

  Ez’s hand tightens around mine as the fiery eyes lock on me. He can see me, even in the darkness. His lips curl into a smile. He disappears.

  I see a flare of orange, feel hot breath on my face, but the scream is ripped out of me as I’m pulled into nothing and nowhere.

  HOME SWEET HOME

  Jude’s hand is still in mine when we stop moving. For a few seconds, it’s enough.

  ‘Get Nathaniel.’ Whoever Daniel gives the order to leaves before I open my eyes.

  When I do, I’m vaguely aware of towering arches, white marble columns, a pale stone floor. The smell of ancient dust and damp mortar. And cold, cold air.

  ‘Gaby…you’re shaking.’ Ez’s arm is around me. She leads me to one of the pews along an alabaster wall. Arched windows with heavy panes let in muted light. The white is so different from where we were. I have no idea what time it is here. It doesn’t matter.

  ‘Rafa.’ His name comes out like I’ve dragged it over sandpaper.

  ‘He’s alive, Gaby.’ Ez and Jude sit either side of me. ‘If Zarael wanted them dead he would have taken their heads in front of us.’

  I close my eyes, see the blade of the sword coming out of Rafa’s body, see him searching the shadows for me.

  ‘They came for you,’ Daniel says. ‘Or to take prisoners to trade for you. That only works if they’re alive.’ His tone is calm, focused, but he can’t hide the distress in his eyes.

  Jude moves closer so our shoulders are touching. Neither of us speaks.

  Rafa is alive. But he’ll be trapped in the iron room now. Zarael wouldn’t have attacked unless he could hold Rephaim in there. God knows what they’ll do to him and Taya. I can’t shake the image of Rafa hurling himself against the wall, unable to get out—

  Mya materialises in the middle of the chapterhouse, drops two men on the stone floor and disappears. One of them is Simon, who moans, rolls over and throws up. Beside him, Rusty scrambles backwards on his hands and feet, eyes wild. His shirt is soaked with blood and he’s gulping in air.

  Zak appears with Mick and Joffa, bringing pain and noise into the quiet room. Joffa’s screaming; his jeans are on fire.

  Ez moves to his side, smacks his legs with cupped hands, tells him to calm down. Mick gags—either from the shift or the stench of Joffa’s smoking flesh.

  ‘Get the medics,’ Daniel orders. There’s a flicker in the shadows at the back of the room. Doors open and close.

  ‘I need to get this under running water,’ Ez says. A second later they’re both gone.

  Mya and Zak return within half a second of each other bringing more men, Woosha among them, and the smell of blood and cordite.

  ‘That’s it,’ Mya says to nobody in particular.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Simon sits back on his heels, his face mottled.

  ‘No one else survived.’

  Simon drops his head. Above him, on the opposite wall, an enormous oil painting hangs: a chaotic battle scene in muted reds and browns, shining warrior angels slaughtering sinewy demons with black wings. My stomach roils. I lean back against Jude.

  ‘How did they find us?’

  Daniel walks in front of us, back and forth. His eyes are distant. ‘They shouldn’t have been able to track us.’

  It takes a few seconds for his words to sink through the fog. And then I understand: Taya was bitten by a hellion up the mountain the night we got Maggie back—a hellion that then lost half an arm when I got in a lucky blow.

  ‘The hell-beast…’

  ‘What?’ Jude says. ‘Gab?’

  It must have still had Taya’s taste.

  ‘How could you not think of that?’ I’m aware that I’m speaking loudly, that my voice is thin, shrill. All the Gatekeepers had to do was wait for her to turn up in Pan Beach and then put the beast on the scent when she left town tonight. Rafa telling me that Pan Beach wasn’t safe slides into my mind, drags through my body.

  ‘It was four days ago.’ Daniel’s voice is bleak now. ‘They’ve never tracked us past three.’

  That’s how they knew we were at the farmhouse earlier today too. The hellion must have caught Taya’s scent across the cornfield.

  Heavy doors beyond the marble columns open and men in brown robes hurry in, carrying stretchers and black leather bags with white crosses stitched into them. Their heads are shaved, their faces calm. They surround the men on the floor, wordlessly check their wounds.

  ‘What the fuck…?’ Mick rasps when a monk kneels beside him.

  ‘Don’t speak to the brothers,’ Zak says.

  ‘Where are they taking them?’ I can’t stop shaking. It could be the cold or shock. Or both.

  ‘The infirmary,’ Daniel says.

  I have a flash of sterile white walls, blinding pain.

  ‘We have trained medical staff. They’re in good hands.’

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘That’s for the Council of Five to discuss.’

  Another monk comes in, carrying a stack of blankets. Jude meets him halfway across the room. The monk stares at him—shocked—and allows him to take two.

  Jude wraps one around my shoulders, takes the other for himself. The wool smells of incense and jasmine. It should be comforting. It’s not.

  And then my skin begins to tingle. Jude looks at his hands, confused.

  The doors fall closed again and Nathaniel steps into the chapterhouse. His cold gaze sweeps over me. Then he sees Jude. His chest rises and falls, once, twice. Jude stands up, lets his blanket slide to the floor.

  Jude stares at the fallen angel. Was this what he was expecting? Someone who doesn’t look much older than us? Who could have been another backpacker—albeit better dressed and with eyes that don’t belong to this world?

  Nathaniel crosses the expansive room but stops before he reaches us. He looks from Jude to me, back to Jude.

  ‘Gatekeepers ambushed us,’ Daniel says. ‘Rafa and Taya were taken.’

  ‘Dead or alive?’

  Nathaniel’s calm. How can he be so fucking calm? I want to scream at him, slap him until he’s as horrified as the rest of us.

  ‘Badly injured but still alive. Zarael was there.’

  Nathaniel nods. ‘Call the Council together.’ He turns to the Outcasts. ‘Mya, Zachariah. Gather your people and come home. Gabriella, call the lost Rephaite here.’

  Oh god, Jason and Maggie.

  Woosha moans as the monks lift him onto a stretcher. His shoulder is dislocated and the bandage around his hand is already soaked dark. I’m not sure he has all his fingers. Simon is up from the floor, being led out. He looks at me over his shoulder on his way out, needing reassurance. I’ve got none to give him.

  Mick finds me as Rusty helps him to his feet. ‘You fucking people…’ A monk tries to steer him towards the door but Mick knocks the pale hand away. ‘I can walk.’ He takes a step and his legs buckle. Rusty grabs him before his knees hit the stones.

  ‘Come on,’ Rusty says. ‘We need to stay with the boys.’ He catches my eye as he turns. ‘Your man’s the toughest prick I’ve ever seen. If anyone can survive those mongrels, it’s him.’

  Ez reappears, tired and drained. She nods at Nathaniel but doesn’t speak.

  Mya moves into the space between them.

  ‘We don’t need your protection, Nathaniel,’ she says. ‘Zarael has never come close to finding our safe hous
es and we’ve managed to hide from you for a decade.’

  Nathaniel remains impassive. ‘Zarael will torture Rafael and Taya for information. We need to prepare for the possibility one or both might break.’

  ‘That won’t happen.’ I say it without thinking.

  Everyone turns to me.

  ‘Rafa’s too strong and Taya’s too loyal. But you know that.’ It’s an effort to keep my voice steady. ‘You need to do something, Nathaniel. We know where they are—we can take you there right now.’

  ‘I am not invincible, Gabriella.’

  ‘With enough of us storming the farmhouse, we’d get to Rafa and Taya before—’

  ‘Gabriella.’

  I stop, wipe my eyes. I hadn’t even realised I was crying.

  ‘This is the first time in a hundred and forty years we have known exactly where Zarael is. It may be the first time his entire horde has been in a single location. We may never get another opportunity—’

  ‘You just said they’d be tortured!’ My voice echoes off the ancient walls. ‘I know you’re angry at Rafa, but’—my voice breaks—‘what about Taya?’

  ‘I care about both of them more than you could ever comprehend. But if we rush in and fail, Zarael will kill them. Any attack must be meticulously planned. We will only get one chance.’

  ‘This is so typical.’ The arches loom over Mya. She looks so much smaller in here. ‘We can’t sit on our hands here while you and the Five work up a battle plan. I know how long that takes. We’ll go in on our own if we have to.’

  I stand up, shaky. ‘Count me in.’

  ‘Me too,’ Jude says.

  Nathaniel’s eyes flash. He’s angry. About time.

  ‘Before you do anything reckless, bring the others here.’

  ‘Why?’ Mya asks.

  ‘Because this is the only place safe for any of you right now.’

  ‘This place is no safer than anywhere else and you know it.’

  ‘Mya—’

  ‘Stop manipulating us! You haven’t learned a thing—’

  ‘The Sanctuary is protected.’

  She falters. ‘What?’

  ‘There is a reason it has that name,’ Nathaniel says. ‘Demons cannot come here.’

  For a few seconds, the chapterhouse is silent.