‘Can we move this along?’ Rafa says. ‘Today would be good.’
Simon produces a folded piece of paper from his back pocket. ‘The boys are in a valley not far from where we ran into them the other night.’
It’s a hand-drawn map, and not a good one.
‘What the fuck is that supposed to be?’ Rafa points to a bunch of circles near the top of the page.
Simon glowers at him. ‘Boulders. Here—’ He takes the map and lays it on the jeep bonnet; Jude looks over my shoulder. ‘This is the main road.’ Simon runs his finger along the thickest pencil line, and then traces a series of finer squiggly lines, pointing out landmarks and finally the camp.
‘Sounds like it’s on a goat track off a goat track,’ Rafa mutters. ‘We don’t have all night to search the mountain.’
‘Could you take us there?’ Jude asks Simon.
‘No.’ Rafa and I say it simultaneously.
‘He’ll get in the way,’ Rafa says. ‘Again.’
‘I don’t want Simon there if demons turn up,’ I add.
Simon blanches. ‘Mags didn’t mention demons.’
Jude picks up the map, folds it over. ‘They’re your friends up there, aren’t they?’
Simon doesn’t answer. His eyes are distant. What’s he seeing? Bel and Leon coming out of the darkness? The moment when the yellow-eyed hellion savaged Mick?
‘Simon,’ Jude says.
Simon’s eyes clear. ‘No, not really. I went to school with Rusty, that’s all. But if those things are coming back…The boys need to know.’
‘Rafa can’t tell them if we can’t find them.’
Simon leans back against the car bonnet. He stares across the car park for a moment and then rubs his arms as if he’s cold. ‘Okay.’ He holds up a set of keys. ‘We can take the jeep.’
I look to Rafa. He and Jude have gone to the passenger side of the car. ‘Maybe we should have Zak and Ez along.’
Rafa catches Simon’s eye. ‘How much firepower do those meat-heads have stockpiled up there?’
Simon fiddles with the keys, directs his answer to me. ‘From the sound of it, a few dozen assault rifles. Possibly grenades. Knowing Mick, there’ll be more than Rusty’s told me.’ He gestures to Rafa. ‘I thought he was invincible?’
Rafa smirks. ‘How many trigger-happy morons in the camp?’
‘About a dozen.’
‘I can sort them out on my own if you don’t care how badly they’re hurt. But if you want to minimise the damage, then it’ll take a more finessed approach. And on my own, that means there’s a chance someone will wear a bullet. Maybe even you. I’m okay with that if you are.’
Simon doesn’t bother answering. He gets in the car.
‘Right, so you’ll call Ez and Zak?’ I ask.
Rafa pauses, a hand on the jeep. ‘If you want them we’ll have to tell Mya about Jude. It’s one thing for them to keep the truth about you from her. But if they don’t tell her Jude’s alive—’
‘Can’t they tell her in a few hours?’
‘Not if they ever want her to speak to them again. Which,’ he says, when he sees my expression, ‘they do. They’ll help us either way, but she’ll make their life a misery if she finds out he’s alive and they’ve seen him.’
Shit. Mick’s got an army up there, and Jude and I can’t dodge bullets. I climb in the back next to Jude. His eyes track from Rafa to me.
‘Fine,’ I say. ‘But this time she stays away from town.’
Simon backs out of the car park, then glances at me in the rear-view mirror. He’s just worked out who Mya is.
‘You’re missing the point, Gaby,’ Rafa says. ‘She’s not going to sit around when she finds out Jude’s with us. If you want back-up, she’ll have to be part of it.’
‘You want her along?’
‘No, but I don’t want the drama it’ll create for Zak and Ez if we leave her out of this.’
‘Fine. They can tell her.’
‘It should come from me.’ I catch something in his eyes and remember there was a time when the Outcasts were a tight-knit group. That history still carries weight with him.
I push aside empty protein bar wrappers on the floor of the car. ‘Make the call.’ Maybe she’ll be too busy with Debra from Iowa to answer her phone.
No such luck.
‘It’s me—’ Rafa drums the dashboard. ‘Don’t start. You should have told us what you were going to do at the farm… That’s not the point—’ He stares through the windscreen. ‘Mya, I don’t care what you do with that iron-loving bitch. I’m ringing to tell you Jude’s alive.’ He has to tell her twice more before the news sinks in. ‘It’s not bullshit. He doesn’t remember who he is, but he’s here with me. And Gaby.’ A drawn out pause. ‘It’s a long story and I don’t have time to explain. We’ve got a situation here we need to sort out… No, bring Zak and Ez. I’m about to call them. I’ll tell them where to meet us…Yes, I rang you first.’ He turns in his seat to face Jude, listens to the voice on the other end. ‘Yeah, Mya, he’s really alive.’
He ends the call.
‘Don’t look so put out,’ Rafa says to me. And then, to Jude: ‘You might want to brace yourself, buddy; this could get a little intense.’
BACK TO NATURE
Ez, Zak and Mya are waiting on the side of the dirt road that leads up the mountain, straining to see inside the jeep as soon as we pull over.
We’re doing the right thing coming up here, no question. But I’d still rather be at Rafa’s shack having a beer with Jude. I wish we’d had more time alone. I’m nowhere near ready to share him.
‘Bloody hell…’ Jude says. The three of them would be a startling enough sight at the best of times. But he’s seen them in his dreams and now here they are in the flesh, in the falling light. Carrying swords.
Rafa twists around in his seat. ‘You should probably get out before Zak wrenches the door off.’
Simon pulls on the handbrake. Rafa jumps out and opens Jude’s door. Jude looks to me.
‘I’ve got your back,’ I say.
Jude takes a slow breath, climbs out. He stops before he reaches them. ‘Hey,’ he says.
Mya is tense, but she walks to him without hesitation, drops her sword and throws her arms around his neck. Jude looks around at me, alarmed. And then Zak and Ez crowd in, their arms enveloping Jude and Mya.
I can’t help but remember their wary reaction to me in my kitchen and the animosity from the rest of the Outcasts in Dubai. This is the complete opposite: they love Jude. They don’t care what he’s done; they’re overjoyed to have him back from the dead. They’re his people.
I had people too. And what did they do when they found out I was alive? Hug me? Weep? Hardly. I guess I don’t inspire the same sort of loyalty as Jude. I feel my chest tightening and the contentment I felt walking on the beach with Jude and Rafa fades. What if Jude ends up preferring the Outcasts to me? Again.
‘Don’t take it personally,’ Rafa says, his arm resting on the top of the open car door.
I glance up, startled. Can he read me that well?
‘I must have really pissed some people off.’
He shrugs. ‘Our crew just wanted you on our side.’
‘It was obviously more than that.’
His eyes stray to the group hug. There’s no sign of Zak, Ez or Mya letting go.
‘You were pretty unforgiving whenever our paths crossed, but that was probably unavoidable. Under the circumstances.’
He pushes off from the car before I can clarify what those circumstances were.
‘Enough, or you’ll crush the poor bastard.’ Rafa prises the three of them from Jude. Ez wipes her eyes and Zak turns away to brush his face against his shoulder.
Mya steps back from Jude, her cheeks streaked with mascara. ‘You really don’t remember me?’
‘Only from dreams.’
‘Dreams about me?’
‘About all of you.’
‘What do you remember?’
Jude gives her an apologetic half-smile. ‘Nothing that relates to being the offspring of a fallen angel.’
She wipes her face, looks to Rafa and her expression hardens. ‘You knew he was alive?’
‘It was a theory.’
‘Based on what?’
‘On a few things that happened this past week.’
‘And you didn’t think to mention it?’
‘I wanted to be sure first.’
I study Rafa. There was something in his tone—
Mya snaps, ‘Sure of what? That Jude was alive or that he hadn’t intentionally dropped off the radar.’
Rafa doesn’t answer.
Mya fumes at him. ‘I can’t believe you went to Gabe with this and not us. She’s the reason he doesn’t remember who he is. And how convenient he’s forgotten all the stuff about her that pisses him off.’
My stomach lurches. Did Jude talk to her about me—tell her all the things he didn’t like about me? Simon catches my eye in the rear-view mirror, doesn’t speak.
‘She doesn’t remember any of that, Mya.’
‘I don’t care! This is what she’s wanted from the day we walked out of the Sanctuary. To have him back all to herself, to turn him against the rest of—’
‘That’s enough.’ Jude’s voice is hard. ‘Nobody knows what Gaby and I did a year ago. But whatever it was, I was obviously up to my neck in it, so you can stop blaming her right now or this reunion is over.’
Mya stares at him as if he’s slapped her.
Shadows fall across Ez’s face and across the road. As we stand there, a cockatoo screeches in the tree above us, harsh, piercing. A truck rumbles along the main road a kilometre away.
Jude’s chest falls as he exhales. ‘Look, it’s been a big day. A few hours ago I was winding ropes on a yacht in Hobart, thinking my sister was dead. I’m still getting a grip on all this.’
Mya watches him for a few more seconds and then she turns to Ez. ‘Did you know he was alive?’
‘No.’
‘Then how can you be so calm about this? You and Zak jump whenever Rafa snaps his fingers—you do whatever he asks without question—and he still didn’t see fit to tell you about this.’
‘Whatever Rafa’s done has been to protect Jude,’ Ez says. ‘How can any of us take that personally?’
‘Mya,’ Rafa says, stepping between them to get their attention. ‘We need to keep moving.’
Zak picks up the katanas and heads for the car. He puts a hand on Jude’s shoulder as he passes. ‘Good to have you back, brother.’
I slide into the middle again. Simon’s fingers are clenched around the steering wheel, watching Mya. She finally notices who’s driving but says nothing. She slides in on the other side of Jude and completely ignores me. Ez and Zak take the extra seat in the back.
Simon puts the car in gear and we head up the mountain. The track narrows and the forest crowds in: eucalypt branches scrape against the jeep and vines slap the windscreen. The engine revs harder as we climb. The dusk fills the car with flickering shadows. For a long while, nobody talks. The weight of Jude’s presence is too heavy. My hip and shoulder touch his, a constant reassurance he’s still there.
‘Ez told me about these guys we’re going to see,’ Mya says after we bounce over yet another rise. ‘So we’re not going up here to fight, we’re coming out to them?’
‘Something like that,’ Rafa says.
‘Explain to me why they need to know about demons and hellions.’
Rafa turns to answer. ‘The Gatekeepers lost a hell-turd because of them. Bel’s not going to let that go and they’re still on the mountain, so we need these boys to be less conspicuous or we’ll have another bloodbath on our hands.’
I catch Rafa’s eye, silently thank him for not mentioning Dani or her vision. He nods at me and for a split-second we’re back in the bedroom, and the door is closed and Jude doesn’t come in. Warmth flares again and I break eye contact.
Another kilometre and Simon pulls up in a clearing and kills the engine. The light up here is hazy purple—still enough to see by. We climb out and stretch our legs. The rainforest hums with cicadas and is punctuated by the sharp crack of a whipbird. I breathe in deeply, smell damp soil and leaves.
‘We’re going to have to do this on foot,’ Rafa says. ‘In case Daniel comes sniffing around.’
Good point. If any other Rephaim scour the mountain looking for us tonight, they’ll sense where we’ve shifted.
‘Here.’ Rafa unzips one of the two weapons bags Zak brought along and hands Jude a katana. ‘It’s one of yours.’
It’s the sword I’ve been using. Jude takes it carefully, almost reverently. He steps away, grips it with both hands and swings it back and forth, testing its weight, as if he’s done it a thousand times before.
‘Now, there’s a sight that makes me happy,’ Zak says. Jude smiles despite himself.
Rafa nudges my shoulder. He’s holding another sword. ‘This is for you.’
The hilt is strapped more heavily than Jude’s, but the curved blade gleams, even in the mottled light of the rainforest. I don’t know much about katanas, but it looks as though someone’s taken a lot of care of it.
‘Consider it yours.’
I feel my cheeks warm. Anyone would think he’d given me flowers.
We gather around and Rafa lays out his plan. By the time he finishes, Simon looks ill.
‘If you throw up and give away our position before we’re ready I’ll choke you unconscious,’ Rafa says.
Simon glowers and sets off without speaking. We follow him under the rainforest canopy through ferns and bushes covered in tiny purple flowers. Ten minutes in we reach a fast-flowing creek. Simon signals for us to move slower across it, and leads us to a cluster of large boulders. We crouch behind them.
My fingers brush dry, rough moss. I find a gap between the boulders and scan the forest twice before I see them: two men leaning against trees a few metres apart, smoking. Rifles over their shoulders. Not sawn-offs: assault rifles. Both have full-sleeve tatts and buzz-cropped hair. Neither was at the Imperial yesterday.
‘Sentries?’ Ez whispers. Her knives are strapped to her arms, katana poised over the grass.
‘You’re generous,’ Rafa says.
‘They’re covering the gully. It must be the only way in.’
‘The camp should be at the other end,’ Simon says.
Rafa nods to Ez. She moves off quietly, using the shrubs for cover. We wait. The creek flows behind us, a bird cries higher in the trees. Rafa and Zak watch the sentries. Mya watches Jude. Jude watches me. I try to work out how the Rephaim can disarm a small army without shifting.
Ez is back less than a minute later, a leaf sticking out from her plait. ‘There are at least ten of them in the camp. All armed. No other sentries.’