‘Tell me where I can find it,’ Mick says for about the fifth time. ‘I’m gonna mount its fat head on my wall.’
‘You really want to talk about this here?’ Rafa asks.
Mick eyeballs him. ‘You think I’d hide this from them?’ He gestures to the four guys around us. All pierced and tattooed, in threadbare jeans and blue singlets. One has three studs in each eyebrow. Woosha. Another, a tattoo of the Southern Cross on his throat. Tank. I don’t know the other two. But I don’t doubt for a second they could snap the pool cues they’re holding in half with their bare hands. We’re unarmed. The Imperial might be rough, but someone would have noticed if we’d walked in with katanas.
A week ago, I didn’t know what a katana was. Now I’m starting to feel naked without one. Who knew I could get so attached to a sword?
‘Let it go,’ Rafa says.
‘Are you serious?’ Mick points an oil–stained finger at his neck. ‘That thing fucking
bit
me.’
‘And that thing is dead.’
I glance around the bar. It’s half ten on a Friday and the place is deserted except for us and a couple of old guys nursing schooners on faded beer mats. The place reeks of stale beer, cigarettes and regret.
The story going around town is that the Butlers smoked too much of the heavy-duty weed they grow up the mountain and were savaged by feral cats. But Mick and Rusty know we saw what attacked them.
‘So you reckon,’ Mick says. ‘How do I know you’re—’
‘I saw its severed head,’ I say. ‘Trust me, it’s dead.’
Mick eyes me. ‘Who got it? The one with the scar, or the bloodnut?’
He means Ez—Esther—and Uriel. Two of the Rephaim who’d been fighting each other until the demons and hellions turned up.
‘Ez killed it.’
‘What about the other one?’ Mick presses. ‘Someone get that?’
‘Not your problem,’ Rafa says.
‘Pig’s arse. Those pricks came into our territory. There’s no way someone’s not paying.’
Rafa has one boot resting on a barstool. His shoulders are relaxed, but I know how quickly he can explode into violence. And he’s been itching for a fight ever since Tuesday—quiet moments in my bed aside.
He meets my eyes briefly and then turns back to Mick. ‘Outside.’ He moves towards the beer garden before Mick can argue. I’m a step behind.
‘Ready?’ Rafa says.
‘Keep your temper and I won’t have to be.’ I don’t want to fight. I might have held my own when my life and Maggie’s depended on it, but I’m not as confident as Rafa that I can switch this stuff on and off.
And this time I don’t have a sword.
The beer ‘garden’ is empty. It’s a slab of concrete under a corrugated-iron roof with a few aluminium tables and benches bolted into the ground. Plastic chairs are scattered around. A pool table in the middle looks as though it was dragged out from the bar a few years ago, and has barely a scrap of felt left on it. It’s warm out here; the sea breeze blocked by a high wall.
In the nine months I’ve been in Pan Beach I’ve never once had the desire to step inside the Imperial. It’s the last bastion of the old seaside town Pan Beach once was, a place for the dwindling minority of locals who prefer tap beer, pies and worn carpet over fusion brews, tapas and polished timber. But it’s not the menu or the decor that puts me off. It’s the clientele. There’s almost as much blood spilled here on a Friday night as there is beer.
Mick shuffles into the garden, wincing, but trying to hide how much the bite on his neck hurts. Rusty puts a hand out to support him. Mick waves him away, lowers himself onto a bench.
‘I wanna know what bit me.’
Woosha and Tank station themselves at the door. The other two position themselves between us and the gate to the street. Rafa doesn’t seem bothered that the gate’s padlocked and we’re surrounded. I’m not quite so relaxed.
‘Those mutants, they’re part of a military experiment, right? Playing around with DNA and that shit?’
I stare at Mick. This is what he’s come up with over the past two days? But then a government conspiracy makes more sense than the truth: that he was attacked by a hell-beast. How else to explain the huge creatures with jaundiced eyes and deadly claws? I don’t want to lie, but I can’t tell them the truth either. Way too hard.
‘I can’t say.’
Rafa is half-sitting on the edge of a table scarred with graffiti and cigarette burns, enjoying watching me dig myself into a hole.
‘Can’t or won’t?’ Mick says.
‘Both.’
His eyes narrow. ‘I knew it. What did I tell you, Woosha?’
‘Who were the freaks with the white hair?’ Rusty asks.
The warmth of the day recedes at the mention of Bel and Leon. I remember the fear in Maggie’s eyes. The moment where everything around us turned quiet, when the splintered Rephaim stopped fighting each other and turned, shoulder to shoulder, to look at what was coming out of the dark. I can’t quite shake Bel’s boasting that he put his sword through my neck. Or what he said when I asked what happened to Jude.
Come with us, and we will show you
.
‘Had to be government spooks,’ Mick says.
‘They didn’t look government.’
‘They’re spooks, dickhead, they’re not supposed to.’
Rusty gestures at me. ‘Why were they so interested in you?’
I pull myself out of the clearing in the forest, rub the chill from my arms. ‘I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Like you.’ I shift my hair from my shoulder to show them the hellion bite near my collarbone.
Rusty’s breath comes out in a hiss. ‘When did that happen?’
‘A few months back.’ A lie, but it’s not as if I can tell him it happened a few nights ago when I gave myself up to Daniel and the Sanctuary to get Maggie back—not given how advanced the healing is. Rusty would notice: he’s a bit more of a thinker than his brother.
‘It was one of those mutants? Why?’
‘They think I’m someone I’m not.’ It’s close enough to the truth.
Mick spits a wad of phlegm on the concrete at my feet. ‘Bullshit.’
Charming.
‘Excuse me? You think I did this to myself?’
‘No, sweetheart, I think you’re full of crap about how it happened. You’ve done nothing but feed us fairytales since you walked in the door. We
saw
you.’
‘Saw us what?’ Rafa eases his weight off the table.
‘Playing ninjas up there.’
‘And?’
‘And start talking. Now.’ The men surrounding us step closer with their pool cues.
Rafa laughs. ‘Listen, moron, this is a courtesy visit. Your fight’s done. Let it go. If you get caught up in this, there won’t be enough left of any of you to leave a stain.’ I shoot Rafa a warning look, which he ignores.
Mick’s face flushes. He’d be throwing punches by now if he wasn’t in so much pain. ‘You must have a death wish, mate, coming in here like this.’
‘I’m trying to save your worthless arse.’ Rafa is clear of the table now, flexing his fingers. Our window for a nonviolent chat just closed.
Woosha, Tank and the other two close in around Rafa. ‘You should’ve brought your sword,’ Mick says as the four men rush Rafa.
They swing at his head and legs with surprising precision. The pool cues smack against his forearms and shins as he blocks each strike. Rafa grabs one and jerks it closer, pulling Woosha off his feet and into the path of another swinging cue, which cracks across Woosha’s shoulders. Rafa shoves him at Tank and they sprawl to the ground. Then he king-hits the third guy and throws a chair at the fourth.
A movement at the door catches my eye: the bartender with his white t-shirt stretched across his stomach. The door slams shut and a bolt slides across on the inside.
Rafa stretches his neck from shoulder to shoulder, waiting for Mick’s crew to get up. ‘You planning on helping out any time today?’ he says to me.
I’ve moved out of the way, my heart rate climbing. Rafa doesn’t need me—he can end this whenever he wants to. He’s keeping this going because he wants to see what I can do.
Before Rafa came to town I would have run from a bar fight at the Imperial without hesitation. Now I don’t know what to do. I’m not the same girl I was a week ago, trying to run through my grief on the rainforest track. But I’m not the other me either.
Gabe
. One of the Rephaim’s best fighters. The things Rafa says I’m capable of…I’ve only seen them in fits and starts. I might not be able to die here—unless you really can decapitate someone with a pool cue—but I can still get seriously hurt.
What if I can’t fight? It’s one thing to throw a punch in a split-second of rage. This is something else.
Woosha is up from the ground, pulling a knife from his jeans. Mick’s standing now, gripping the side of the pool table. Rusty is watching the fight closely but doesn’t step in. Definitely the smarter of the pair.
Woosha feints left and then right, waiting for the others to surround Rafa again. Tank snaps his cue over his thigh and spins the two halves like batons.
‘Mick.’ I try to sound reasonable. ‘You need to end this before they get hurt.’
He doesn’t even look at me. ‘Shut her up,’ he says absently to Rusty.
Rusty snaps his fingers to get my attention and puts his finger to his lips. Then he turns back to the main action, more interested in the promise of Rafa getting stabbed.
Woosha lunges. Rafa catches him by the wrist and spins him around. He uses his body to block another cue strike and then flings him aside. Woosha hits the concrete hard, grunts. Rafa makes short work of the other two, then gestures for Tank to come at him with his busted cue. Tank grazes Rafa’s arm before Rafa takes his legs out from under him.
Woosha is circling Rafa again, spinning the knife, waiting for his opening. My breath shortens as he glimpses me over his shoulder and turns, slashing the blade.
I react without thinking. I smash his wrist—the knife clatters to the ground—and then punch him in the face.
Shit
. His head is as hard as concrete. I stagger back, cradling my fist. Woosha takes a few slow steps towards me, moving his jaw from side to side, searching for the knife.
‘You want some action, sweetheart?’ he says.
I wait for him to telegraph his next move. What do I do if he lunges at me? What if he—
His eyes flick over my shoulder. Before I can look, something smacks into my head and shoulders. I sprawl forward. The ground is unforgiving, but I roll over and bring up my knees and hands defensively. Rusty is standing over me, holding a plastic chair. ‘Stay down.’
I try to sit but he puts his worn boot on my chest and pushes me down.
‘Don’t make me hit you again.’ Rusty’s voice isn’t menacing—this is his idea of chivalry.
‘You’re wasting your time,’ I say to Rusty, trying to catch my breath. ‘You’re not going to beat Rafa. Look at him.’
Rusty keeps his boot on my chest—not putting his full weight on it, just enough to keep me in place—and watches the scuffle. Tank lands flat on his back not far from us, blood splattering from a split in his cheek. I wince. I should have taken up Maggie’s offer to work at the Green Bean. I’m pretty sure nobody’s bleeding on the floor over at Pan Beach’s favourite cafe.
Mick’s guys are all limping. Rafa has barely broken a sweat. When Tank lunges again, Rafa snaps his wrist. Tank howls and drops to his knees.
‘Rafa, stop,’ I call out.
Rusty puts more weight on my chest.
Rafa lands a couple of good punches on the guy closest to him. ‘Get up,’ he says, not looking my way.
He’ll keep going until Mick calls it quits, someone calls the cops, or I give him what he’s waiting for. I know what he wants. He wants badass Gabe. But he knows badass Gabe isn’t here. Just me. And I just proved that I don’t know what I’m doing.
‘Stay down,’ Rusty says again, as if he can see my mind working.
I grit my teeth. What is wrong with me? In the past week I’ve killed a hell-beast and fought demons, and I’m letting Rusty Butler pin me to the filthy concrete at the Imperial. With one foot. I’ve got to do something. I need—
Don’t think.
I grab Rusty’s boot. He has a second to look down at me with vague amusement before I shove him, hard. He hops backwards, arms wheeling as he tries to keep his balance. I spring to my feet, blood pounding at my temples. I can’t feel anything now except my heart against my ribs.
Woosha’s knife is under the pool table. Too far away. A plastic chair is closer. I grab it with one hand and fling it at Rusty as he comes towards me. He bats it away, giving me time to snatch up a pool cue. I swing it fast; it cracks as it connects with the side of his head. His knees buckle. He slumps to the floor, dazed.
Fingers clamp around the back of my neck. I swing the cue again, try to turn, but Woosha wrenches the cue out of my hand. I keep my balance and use my momentum to slam an elbow into his stomach. He lets go and falls sideways. I bring my fist down on his nose. Blood instantly streams down over his lips. He stumbles towards Rafa.
My hand throbs, but there’s so much adrenaline in my system—and whatever else makes me Rephaite—it’s almost bearable.
‘Had enough yet,
mate
?’ Rafa asks Mick. He’s holding the knife against Woosha’s cheekbone.
Mick has a death grip on the pool table. His face is pinched.
‘Good,’ Rafa says. ‘So we’re clear: you keep out of our business and we’ll keep out of yours.’ Rafa shoves Woosha so hard he sprawls at Mick’s feet. Next to him, Rusty gets back up, groans.
‘If I hear you’ve been talking about what happened up the mountain or what just happened here, I’ll come back. And next time, there’ll be more of us. Got it?’
Mick doesn’t answer. His silence is more menacing than a spray of abuse. Wonderful. As well as the Rephaim and fiery-eyed demons, I’ve now got the Imperial boys to count as a threat.
I watch Mick in pain, Rusty limping out of the way, a fine spatter of blood on the ground. God, what am I doing? Is this who I am now? I’ve heard so many versions of who I’m meant to be, they’re all starting to seep together: the fearless Gabe that Rafa remembers; the Gabe who didn’t talk to Jude for a decade, who refused to go when he left the Sanctuary, who hooked up with Daniel of all people; the Gaby who came here on a bus nine months ago, made friends with Maggie, got a job at the library.