‘I mean it.’
There’s something in my voice that brings him back to me, overrides his buzz. ‘Gaby’—all traces of playfulness have gone—‘if anything ever happens to me, you’ll be fine. You’re strong enough to look after yourself. I hate to admit it, but you don’t need me. Never did.’ A smile. ‘But listen, nothing is going to happen today. It’s all good.’
‘Jude, we’re high enough up to get a nose bleed.’
‘So come with me.’
I blink. ‘Fuck off.’
‘I mean it. We can do this together.’ He raises his eyebrows at the girl who checked his harness. She nods.
I risk looking over the side. There’s a river far beneath us. So far down we can’t hear it. My entire body goes numb.
‘You’ve got about thirty seconds and then I’m going on my own.’
What a choice: watch my brother jump out of this car or put aside my own fear and go with him. Share the recklessness. Why didn’t we go to Paris? We’d be arguing over where to buy cheese right now.
Adrenaline begins to burn through me. ‘Screw it.’
Jude breaks into a wide smile. ‘Seriously?’
I glance at the yawning space beneath us. ‘Hurry up before I change my mind.’
I keep my eyes on Jude while the girl rigs me up, then harnesses me to him. My heart bangs against my ribs. Finally, we’re guided, shuffling, to the edge. It’s all happening too quickly. But the music, the fear, the pounding of my heart. It’s…exhilarating.
Jude must see it in my expression. He grins at me. ‘Told you.’
I look down again. The bungee cord loops into the thin clouds, swaying. My stomach lurches. The girl positions us: one arm around each other, gripping each other’s harness; my head tucked tight against Jude’s neck. We clamp our free hands together.
The countdown starts. ‘Five, four—’
Holy shit, I’m really doing this. My pulse is erratic.
‘Three, two—’
I’m with Jude. I’m okay. But, god, please don’t let that cord break.
‘One.’
Gravity pulls us. Undeniable. Irresistible.
‘Hang on,’ Jude says.
We don’t even have to lean forward. We just fall.
I jerk awake. Rafa is still in the bed with me, his breathing slow and deep. I quieten my breath till I can hear the low pounding of the surf from down the hill a block away. Check the clock: four-thirty. Close my eyes again.
These memories of Jude, I cling to them even though I know they’re not real.
Someone gave me that memory. Gave me all the memories I have of my fake life and my brother. And that someone wants me to believe Jude and I took a crazy leap together. Stood over an abyss and chose to fall towards a river.
Why?
If Jude is alive, if the impossible really is possible, then other impossible things are true too. Would he take the news as
well
as I did?
Jude, fallen angels exist.
Jude, we’re half-angel bastards. Our father is one of the Fallen. Our mother is long dead. There are more of us out there. The Rephaim. Some of them you’d like, others you’d want to punch. But they’re still better than the demons hunting our fathers.
Oh, and Jude? You’re meant to be dead.
Me too.
Yeah. It’s a little complicated.
It starts to fade—the memory, the rush, Jude’s voice. Every part of me aches. How am I supposed to accept the Rephaim’s version of my life when I don’t remember it? How can I let go of the only thing I have left of Jude? These memories are all I’ve had this past year. How do I understand who I am, who I
was
, when they all claim to know a different version of me?
I drag my spare pillow close, bury my face in it. Try to hang on to that image of Jude grinning at me, the sky and the unknown behind him and below him.
God, I miss him.
BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS
Jason is cooking breakfast: blueberry and ricotta pancakes. He must think he can win Maggie back through her tastebuds. In fairness, it won’t harm his chances.
‘That smells amazing,’ I say. It’s so bright in the kitchen I can feel the night receding. On mornings like this it’s easy to believe the Pan Beach sun can burn any darkness away. Jason turns briefly, looks at me as if he can see remnants of my night. Whatever he’s thinking he keeps to himself.
‘Nearly ready,’ he says, pouring batter into two pans on the stove, swirling each with practised efficiency. Pretending there’s nothing wrong with me and that there’s no tension in the room.
I glance at the couch. Pillow, sheet and blanket neatly stacked at one end. He and Maggie are talking again, awkwardly. Jason has spent his life avoiding the other Rephaim, so she understands why he took so long to tell us what he was, but she’s not letting him off the hook quickly, which is the clearest sign yet she’s fallen for him. Jason could go back to the resort—Rafa is here every night in case the demons come back to Pan Beach or Nathaniel sends more Rephaim for me or Maggie. But we all know Jason’s not going anywhere.
I’ve known Jason for a week too. Apart from the time I knew him a century or so ago, and our reunion last year before Jude and I did whatever we did. But I don’t remember either: more memories lost along with everything else from my old life. With his long blond curls and my dark bird-nest hair, it’s hard to believe his mother and mine were cousins. Two Italian peasant girls seduced by fallen angels. I’m still getting my head around that one: that our fathers were among the two hundred Fallen who broke out of hell, spent two days and two nights roaming the earth and then vanished. Selfish pricks.
I can’t bear to think about my mother—the woman who gave birth to Jude and me a hundred and thirty-nine years ago. She doesn’t feel real. The mother I know—that cold, distant woman always so quick to criticise—feels real, but it turns out she never existed. I can’t grieve for either of them, not yet.
Maggie is pretending to be busy revamping a handbag. The kitchen table is awash with vintage buttons: greys and blues, red and pinks, tipped out from the jar she keeps on top of the fridge.
‘What do you think?’ She turns the bag around so I can see what she’s done so far. ‘This one is from a dress Mum wore to the Melbourne Cup in the sixties.’ She points to a red button shaped like a flower. ‘And this came from my old tweed jacket.’ Her blonde hair is tied at the nape of her neck, loose strands framing her face.
‘It’s very you.’
‘Isn’t it just.’
She catches my eye and smiles. We’re still okay. If I was the hugging type, I’d be hugging her right now for not asking me to move out of the bungalow after what happened this week. For letting three half-angels stay.
The pipes in the wall bang. Rafa is in the bathroom. The fact he’s showering here must mean he’s hanging around for a while this morning.
I flick on the kettle and drop a tea bag into a coffee-stained mug. Sunlight streams through the window and glares off the sink and bench. Wait—the sink is clean enough to give off glare?
‘What time did you get up?’ I ask Jason.
He shrugs, not looking around. ‘Early.’
I try to catch Maggie’s eye, but she’s focused on her work again—or trying hard to look like she is. Her fingers form perfect loops as she sews.
‘What are your plans for today?’ She doesn’t look up but I know she’s talking to me.
‘Besides checking in on you?’ Maggie bites her lip; she hates the watch we’ve been keeping on her. ‘Mick Butler’s getting out of hospital this morning,’ I say.
‘Are you meeting him out front with flowers?’
‘Yep, and then I’m taking him out for brunch.’
She laughs, tests the button she’s just stitched on.
‘Rafa wants us to have a chat with him and Rusty at the Imperial.’
Maggie’s slender fingers stall, needle and thread hovering in the air. ‘Please tell me you’re joking.’
‘Sadly, no.’
Mick and Rusty Butler. Pan Beach’s finest dope-growers. I bet they’re wishing they’d listened to Rafa and not forced their way into the middle of the fight between the Rephaim and two of the demons hunting the Fallen. Especially given Bel and Leon brought along two pet hellions for fun. After being savaged by one, there’s a good chance Mick’s going to want a beer at the first opportunity.
The kettle boils. I bring my cup to the table.
‘There’s only one way that’s going to end, Gaby.’ A line creases Maggie’s forehead. ‘You don’t have to go.’
‘Rafa thinks I do.’
‘Since when do you worry about what Rafa thinks?’ She watches me sit down. ‘Please don’t go to the pub. We’re down a waitress this morning—Nicky’s not coming in until lunchtime. You could cover for her.’
‘I need her more than you do,’ Rafa says, coming up the hallway with the newspaper. He walks into the kitchen, pulling on a grey t-shirt. His dark blond hair is damp and sticking up after a rough towel-drying.
‘What?’ he says in response to Maggie’s expression. ‘I might need back-up.’
I give a short laugh at the ridiculousness of that statement. Rafa can take care of Mick and his mates without breaking a sweat; he just wants to throw me into a violent situation and see how I react—see how much more my body remembers.
I don’t know about before, but I know what it remembers
now
: it remembers Rafa. His bed. His hands. The way he kissed me the other night…My body flares in response to him, and then my mind shuts it down, blocks out all the images of his skin, the green of his eyes that night.
He’s still keeping things from me about the past. Our past. Violence comes to him as easy as breathing. He’s reckless. So why do I still feel safer with him around, even if it means following him into the public bar at the Imperial?
Rafa lifts his shirt to rub a palm across his flat stomach, a lazy gesture. He catches my eye. ‘Sleep well?’
‘Like a baby.’
We both know I’m lying.
‘And you, Margaret?’
‘Like a log, thank you, Rafael.’
Rafa comes further into the kitchen and looks over Jason’s shoulder. ‘If you’re trying to score points with me, Goldilocks, you’d do better with bacon and eggs.’
‘You don’t want any, then?’ Jason asks. He tosses a pancake and catches it in the pan. Maggie forgets herself for a second and smiles.
‘I didn’t say that.’ Rafa pulls up a stool at the bench and unfolds the paper. ‘So, where did you get to last night?’ he asks Jason.
Maggie and I share a quick look and go back to our respective tasks. I dunk my tea bag. Maggie keeps sewing.
‘I was on the couch.’
‘No, you weren’t. Not until midnight—I heard you get back. Where did you go?’
‘I had a few errands to run.’
‘Like what?’
‘Not everything is your business, Rafa.’
Rafa’s hands go still on the paper. ‘You’re joking, right?’ Jason doesn’t respond.
‘Like it was none of my business you’re one of us? Or that you’re the reason Jude and Gabe disappeared last year?’
Jason fusses with the pan, keeps his back to Rafa.
‘You came and went all day yesterday, and now you disappear for half the night. Given all the bombshells you’ve dropped this week—’
‘I’m trying to find Dani and Maria.’
Maggie and I look at each other. Is Jason going to tell him the truth?
Rafa already knows Jason’s mother survived Nathaniel’s round-up of Rephaite babies and that she later had another child, Arianna, a human girl, with
gifts.
Rafa knows Dani is a descendant of Arianna and is also gifted; that she can
see
the Rephaim. He knows it was Dani who told Jason I was still alive, who saw Rafa tracking me through the rainforest when he turned up a week ago. And he knows Dani had a vision that prompted Jason to reach out to Jude and me a year ago. That she then vanished with us and reappeared the following day with no memory of what had happened to us.
What Rafa doesn’t know is why Jason is looking for Dani and her mother now.
‘And?’ Rafa says.
‘And nothing. I haven’t found them. They still won’t take my calls.’
‘The kid knows more than she’s admitting.’
Jason turns around. ‘Dani doesn’t remember what happened last year. How many times do I have to tell you?’
Rafa flattens the newspaper. ‘They’re hiding something and you can’t or won’t see it. You’re blinded by misplaced loyalty.’
‘They’re not hiding anything.’ The pan bangs on the stove. ‘Dani’s twelve. She has a gift any Rephaite, angel or demon would exploit in a heartbeat. Maria is protecting her only child.’
I go to the sink on the pretext of putting my tea bag in the bin.
‘So, that’s what you’ve been doing when you’re not here, looking for them?’ Rafa says. ‘How do you know where to look if you don’t know where they are?’
‘Let it go,’ I say to Rafa, blocking his view.
‘In a minute.’ He leans sideways to see around me. ‘Are you going to tell me if they call?’
‘That depends.’
‘On what?’
‘When you trust me, I’ll trust you.’
Rafa runs his palm over his jaw. They watch each other.
Yeah, that’s not happening any time soon.
Jason turns back to the pancakes. ‘Not everyone is your enemy, Rafa,’ he says, quieter now.
‘No,’ Rafa mutters, ‘just people related to you.’
I catch his eye. ‘
I’m
related to him.’
Maggie puts her sewing away and I help her scoop the buttons back into the jar. The promise of pancakes, blueberries and maple syrup is enough to get Rafa sitting at the table with us. It’s not enough to take the tension from Jason’s shoulders.
And for good reason.
What Jason is keeping from Rafa has to come out. Today.
TALKING TO A BRICK WALL
Can you decapitate someone with a pool cue?
I hope not, or I’m in a shitload of trouble. Our chat with Mick and Rusty isn’t going well.
Mick’s on a stool, propped against the bar, his neck and shoulder heavily bandaged. Half his scruffy beard is missing where medics had to stitch up his throat two nights ago. Anyone else would have tidied up the rest of it, but he’s left it hanging down to his chest. He looks strangely frail under the insipid bar lights: the stubble on his head is stark against his pallid scalp. Even the ink on his neck and arms looks tired.
His brother sits beside him. Rusty’s beard is intact but his buzz-cropped hair is interrupted by a square, white bandage behind his left ear, held in place with surgical tape.