‘That’s Mya,’ Rafa says and walks away. His voice sounds deliberately empty.
I look for other images of her. I don’t want to, but I can’t help it. There’s something about her. Wild. Defiant. Alive. In every photo, her long hair is messy, as if she’s just woken up. I have a flash of her and Rafa in bed and immediately shut it down.
Whatever happened to tear apart the Rephaim a decade ago, she was in the middle of it. Daisy says she was the reason Rafa and Jude challenged Nathaniel’s rule and left the Sanctuary. But Ez says it was Jude who caused the split, though Mya liked to take credit for it.
Shit, this mess never gets any clearer. Even with pictures.
I take down the group photo, look around for others of Jude. But it’s not Jude my gaze falls on. It’s Nathaniel. The fallen angel is alone with his arms folded, his attention fixed on something in the distance. He’s standing among blackened ruins in a forest, his fair hair damp from rain. In real life, his irises flicker icy blue; in the image they simply look odd, glassy. He’s in old jeans and a jumper that hints at muscle underneath. Again, the contradiction surprises me: by all accounts the angel who raised the Rephaim is a tough disciplinarian, but he looks more like a footballer. I lean in closer. The image is crisp. It doesn’t look like it was taken with a telephoto lens. How did someone get close enough to take this shot?
‘You really think someone at the Sanctuary has been handing over these photos—for years?’ I ask Rafa.
He pulls the stool out from under the desk and sits on it, surveys the room. Taps his foot: a quick, impatient beat. ‘Why is that so hard to believe? Because everyone there is so obedient?’
‘No, I mean—that photo of you and Jude at the footy, how old is that?’
‘About eighteen months.’
‘Right. So it can’t be someone from the Sanctuary. You don’t see any of them any more.’ I find another shot with Jude in it, add it to my collection. As well as a couple featuring me.
‘That’s not totally true. Occasionally we follow the same lead on the Gatekeepers—paths cross. And Daniel or Uri try to guilt us into going back. What’s to say someone didn’t help themselves to my phone when I wasn’t paying attention.’
‘You wouldn’t drop your guard long enough.’
‘Obviously I did.’
My shoulder is still throbbing. I lean against the wall for a moment, close my eyes.
‘Oh, that’s great,’ Rafa mutters.
I find him jamming his phone back in his pocket. ‘What?’
‘No signal.’
I try mine. Typical. I finally get a phone with international roaming and it’s still useless in a crisis. I rub the soreness out of my shoulder. Rafa must be aching all over after hitting that wall half a dozen times.
It’s been at least ten minutes now. What’s Jason doing out there? I take a slow breath. No need to panic. Rafa’s here. Just keep busy.
‘Maybe there’s something useful in here.’ I go over to the filing cabinet and open the single drawer. It’s empty except for an old leather-bound book held together with fat rubber bands.
‘What is that?’ Rafa says over my shoulder. ‘An old family bible?’
‘I don’t think so.’ The red leather is soft under my fingers, rubbed bare at the corners, the spine flaky like dead skin. There’s no writing on the cover. I sit down and take off the rubber bands, careful not to tear the loose pages poking out. A photo drops to the floor.
Rafa picks it up. He frowns and turns it towards me. ‘What the…?’
A cornfield. Six men, grim-faced in black tailcoats, top hats, cravats and pocket watches. They’re standing around a hole that looks like a freshly dug grave. The photo is sepia, antique. It’s strange enough to keep Rafa’s attention from the door for the moment. He flips it over. A date is scrawled in ink:
1874.
I gently open the book and find more images of the same scene. In the first, there’s something rolled up in a sheet at the men’s feet to the side of the hole—something the size of a person—placed on a low stack of logs. A coldness trails up my spine. In the next image, the bundle is in flames. And then the hole is nothing but a mound of dirt, no trace of the bundle or the ashes from the fire. It’s beyond creepy.
‘Well, that’s disturbing.’ Rafa does another lap of the room, thumps the door twice as he passes it, as if it might miraculously open.
I can’t tear my eyes from the photos; the resolute expressions of the men in each image. I make myself keep flicking through, find handwritten pages of spidery writing. It’s a journal.
Carefully, I leaf through notes and diagrams, find more photos tucked between the thick pages. Images of an old wooden church, first in its prime and then burned to its stumps. The cold reaches my neck and face. Every page is crowded with words and it takes me a second to realise why I don’t understand them.
‘Is that German?’ I hold it up for Rafa to see.
He barely glances at the page. ‘Looks like it.’
‘Can you read it?’
‘My German’s a little rusty.’
‘Give it a go.’
He sighs, creases his forehead in concentration. ‘I know a few words: blood, ritual, sacrifice…bastards.’ He presses a finger to the page. ‘Here’s a mention of the Fallen and
Verdammt
…I think that means damned.’
‘I guess Sophie was telling the truth about how long the family’s known about the Rephaim.’ I rub my eyelid. ‘It looks like the men of the family used to be in charge. I wonder what happened to change that?’
‘Burning a body in a cornfield?’ Rafa says, only half-joking. He hands me back the journal. ‘Ez will be more useful at translating this—if we ever get out of this rat trap.’
‘Do you think…?’ The chill is all through my body now.
‘What?’
‘Do you seriously believe the family is tied up with demons? With Zarael?’ I haven’t seen the leader of the Gatekeepers. I never want to.
Rafa opens his mouth to reply but sees something in my face that makes him pause. He rethinks what he was about to say. ‘Look, I don’t know what the fuck is going on here, but it’s not likely the Gatekeepers are involved.’
‘Why?’
‘For a start, if they had a place that could trap us, they wouldn’t be leaving it unguarded. And trust me, if Zarael or Bel had been here, little miss let’s-do-a-deal wouldn’t be in one piece. Demons aren’t renowned for self-control when it comes to humans and confined spaces.’
This place is getting claustrophobic. I’m drawn to the door. ‘What do you think this is made of?’ I run my palm over the rough surface. ‘It doesn’t feel like steel. Maybe it’s the same thing Sophie’s trinket-thingy is made from—something powerful enough to block a Rephaite from shifting.’
‘Nothing can do that.’
I give him an even look. He begins to examine the photos again.
‘What about iron?’
‘No,’ he says absently. ‘I’ve shifted into planes and they’re full of iron.’
‘You shifted into a plane? While it was in the air?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Did I ever do stuff like that?’
‘Frequently.’
I let my hand drop from the door. ‘Jason wasn’t lying about Sophie having a trinket that protects her. She grabbed something through her dress when you headed for this room.’
Rafa stares at the wall, not seeing and not listening. Then he grabs a pencil and a scrap of paper.
‘What are you doing?’
He peers at an image and writes something down. ‘Listing everyone in these photos to see who’s missing.’
‘Why?’
He meets my eyes, taps the pencil against a photo, then trails it across several others.
‘Because, Gaby, I’d like to
talk
to whoever is selling us out to these bitches.’
IRON WILL
‘I’m thirsty.’
‘Don’t think about it.’
‘How can I not think about it? I’m thirsty.’
Nearly thirty minutes have passed. It’s getting colder, a bone cold that even Rafa is feeling. I can’t stop thinking about what’s going on outside this room. Where the hell is Jason? Why hasn’t he got us out of here already? Did Sophie do something to him? Has he left us here?
I look through my photographs of Jude. Some I’d seen on Rafa’s phone, but there are new ones. Of the two of us jogging side by side on a dirt road next to a field of wheat, of him saying something to a small group of Rephaim in a training room, all of them listening intently. Of him with people I don’t recognise.
My throat feels cracked. I swallow.
He could be out there somewhere. And we’re here. I see Rafa’s eyes flicker to the photos of Jude and I wait for him to say it: that if we were looking for my brother like we were meant to be, we wouldn’t be here. But he doesn’t. And then I think about the place on Patmos in Greece, the island cottage where Rafa and Jude hung out. It was there Rafa pulled me to him when I was crying over another photo of Jude.
I nearly open my mouth. I nearly tell him what scares me the most, but I can’t deal with those thoughts. Not in this tiny space. Not holding these photos from that other life. I put them aside.
‘Did you tell Ez and Zak where we were going?’ I ask.
‘Only vaguely.’
‘They’ll keep an eye on Mags till we get back, right? They wouldn’t leave her?’
‘Not unless something came up.’
Not much of a reassurance. My body is shivering. God, I need to get moving. We really have to get out of here.
‘You sure you didn’t sense demons when we arrived?’
‘I told you—’
‘I know, I’m just asking.’
He turns away from the wall to face me. ‘If they’d shifted here in the last few hours, I’d feel it. So would you.’
I think back to that moment up the mountain when we rescued Maggie, when we crept through the forest and my stomach dropped so fast I thought I was falling.
That’s what it feels like when Rephaim shift.
‘It’s the same with demons?’
‘About a thousand time worse.’
I nod. Wet my lips.
‘Gaby.’ He doesn’t come closer, but the quietness in his voice settles my racing pulse. ‘I don’t like this any more than you do. I hate closed spaces. I always take the stairs over a lift.’
I scoff. ‘You’ve never walked a flight of stairs in your life.’
A wry smile. He’s trying to make me feel better. ‘True. But I meant what I said: there are no pit scum here. Whatever
is
going on, we’ll deal with it.’
I pull myself together. ‘So, who’s missing from the photos?’
‘Nobody.’
‘You sure?’
‘I’ve counted twice. There are a hundred and eighty-two of us, all up. We’re all here.’ He tosses the pencil and paper back onto the desk. ‘Actually there’s a hundred and eighty-three if you count Goldilocks. He’s not there.’
‘They didn’t need his photo. They know what he looks like—and he’s never been part of the Sanctuary.’
‘Goldilocks could have taken the surveillance shots, but someone still had to tell him where to be and that person had to be at the Sanctuary.’ Rafa picks up the stool by the desk and smashes it into the nearest wall.
‘Hey!’ My pulse begins to hammer. I thought he was okay. If he’s not, how can I be? ‘Calm down.’
He gives me a level look. ‘I am calm. I thought we should take a closer look at these walls.’
‘Oh.’ The adrenaline subsides. ‘Good idea.’
I stand back while he swings the stool again and then I pry back the busted plasterboard. There’s a beaten metal wall underneath. I tap it with my knuckle. It’s solid. Rafa throws the stool aside and we tear a bigger hole.
‘That has to be iron,’ he says. ‘I don’t get it.’
The surface is covered in intricate marks. Rafa drags the lamp over from the corner, rips off the shade and holds the bare bulb close to the exposed wall. The marks are actually symbols: a recurring icon that looks like a rudimentary set of wings.
‘Have you seen anything like this before?’
Rafa traces the symbols with his fingertips. ‘Never.’ He runs a palm along his jaw. ‘This room…it changes everything.’
‘How could they know how to do this?’
He’s still studying the etchings. ‘Whoever gave them floorplans and photos could have found something in Nathaniel’s library.’
‘But that would mean Nathaniel knows it’s possible to trap Rephaim.’
Rafa rips another piece of plasterboard from the wall. Photos come loose and flutter to the floor. ‘It wouldn’t be the first time he’s kept something from us, would it?’ We keep pulling the wall apart until one whole side of the room is exposed. The air is thick with plaster dust. We stand back and wait for it to settle.
‘Holy shit.’
Up close, the marks were haphazard and random, some deeper and darker than others. But now I see the darker etchings aren’t random at all. They create another larger set of wings. Not rudimentary ones like the individual markings, but detailed feathered wings, outstretched so the tip of each extends to the corners of the wall.
I pull out my phone and photograph it. It takes two attempts; my hand isn’t steady enough the first time.
There’s a heavy thud on the door. We both turn around and take a step back. The impact comes again, shaking more plaster and dust loose.
Rafa nods at me, moves into a fighter’s stance. I snatch up the journal and do the same, but it doesn’t feel natural. I feel numb, outside myself, unfocused. We’re unarmed. Alone. Rafa moves so he’s slightly in front of me.
More thumps. Ten of them. Twenty. Then something gives inside the iron door. A few seconds later, it’s forced back until there’s a gap large enough for someone to fit through.
I feel my pulse in my fingertips, my throat.
And then my heart stutters.
FLY IN THE OINTMENT
‘I should leave you in here to rot.’
Mya stands inside the room, katana in hand, pushing long blonde hair from her face. There’s no mistaking her. In the photos I couldn’t see the colour of her eyes, but it turns out they’re blue, iridescent even, smeared with kohl.
‘It’s been a year, Rafa. And the first I hear from you is when you need help.’
‘Nobody here asked for your help.’ His voice is tight. She looks me up and down. ‘When were you going to tell me she was alive?’
‘Are you here to help or interrogate?’ Rafa eyes the opening behind her.
‘Both. You pick the order.’ And then to me, ‘No smartarse comments, Gabe? No critique on our rescue methods?’