Shadows (16 page)

Jason has found the ingredients for a date and walnut cake, and it’s cooling on the rack in the kitchen. It smells amazing. I don’t know if he overheard our conversation, and I don’t ask. I make coffee and cut the cake.

‘What do you think is going to happen this afternoon?’ I ask Rafa.

He’s seated at the bench, too busy buttering his slice to answer.

‘You know how much cholesterol is in that?’ Jason stares at the soaked cake.

Rafa slaps another layer on, just to annoy him. ‘So? Unless it makes my head fall off, it’s not going to kill me.’

‘But—’ Jason glances at me and lets it drop.

‘Malachi will turn up at some point,’ Rafa says through
a mouthful of cake, ‘and tell you the place and time for the big
exchange.
It’ll all be very dramatic.’

‘And then what?’

He wipes his bottom lip with his thumb. It distracts me for a second. ‘Depends on the where and when.’

‘That’s not very helpful.’

‘Best I can do at this point.’ He absently wipes his buttery fingers on the side of his hoodie. ‘Look, Jude was the planner. I’m the doer. And when the time comes, I’ll do what needs doing.’

I nod, but I hate not having a plan.

Rafa gestures to my neck. ‘Give me a look at that.’

My hand comes up to cover the scar. My skin is still warm, and the scar is lumpy. I go over to him and offer my neck. He runs his fingertips over the wound.

‘Still hurt?’

‘A bit.’

‘You want to shift again?’

I shake my head.

His fingers linger on my skin. ‘You should put something on it so it doesn’t get too dry. I bet Goldilocks has a nice range of moisturisers in a man bag somewhere.’

‘Give it a rest,’ I say, leaning in to him.

Jason’s knife clatters to the table. His face is flushed. ‘Is all this because I managed to avoid your little cult?’

‘It’s because you’ve avoided responsibility.’

‘To do what? The bidding of a religious zealot?’

‘To sort through the endless shit of our existence, like the rest of us.’

Jason glares at him. ‘Tell me you wouldn’t have done exactly what I did if you’d had the chance?’

Rafa’s eyes narrow. ‘And what exactly did you do?’

‘I chose to stay on my own.’

‘How did you know there was any other way—and don’t give me your bullshit about having no contact with the Rephaim.’

‘I—’

There are three loud thuds on the front door.

Jason stands up. ‘Malachi.’

‘Just fucking spit it out,’ Rafa says.

‘It’s not a simple answer and we don’t have time.’

‘I’ll go,’ I say.

The hallway is full of shadows. Rafa materialises a few steps ahead of me, and doesn’t look back until he reaches the front door. He signals for me to open it. I pause for a heartbeat, and turn the handle. As usual, the rain has made the timber swell. The door sticks, then jerks open.

There’s no one there.

Rafa makes a noise—something between a grunt and a laugh. He points to a blank envelope nailed to the door.

‘I told you,’ he says. ‘Dramatic.’

I take it to the kitchen, opening it as I go. Three words
written neatly on a piece of notebook paper.

Il ritiro. All’alba.

I turn it over, but there’s nothing on the back. I shove it at Rafa. ‘It’s obviously meant for you.’

He skims the page. ‘Retreat, at dawn.’

‘What does that mean? We have to leave in the morning?’

‘No,’ Jason says, reading over Rafa’s shoulder. ‘It’s a noun, not a verb. It’s
the
retreat.’

‘Does that mean something to either of you?’ I ask.

‘It means Daniel wants me to know you’ve made the deal,’ Rafa says. ‘Why else write it in Italian? He knew you’d have to show it to me.’

‘But what’s the point if we don’t know what he’s talking about?’ I push my hair off my face. ‘What if we can’t work it out?’

I need fresh air. I go to the window on the other side of the bench. Like the front door, it’s stiff from the recent rain. I push against the pane. It gives without warning, and I lose my balance. I’m half in, half out. Far enough out to see someone standing in the place where Rafa and I arrived not two days ago.

‘What the—’

Simon’s palms come up. ‘I know I shouldn’t be here, but listen for a second before you go off your brain. I think I know where Mags is.’

We wait in silence while Simon comes inside. Did we say anything we shouldn’t have in the last few minutes? Rafa listened in on our conversations from that spot before. Hopefully Simon’s hearing isn’t as good as his.

The front door opens, and steps echo in the hallway. I tie the scarf back around my neck.

‘I thought you had to work,’ I say as soon as Simon appears.

‘And I thought I told you to stay out of this,’ Rafa says.

Simon stops near the fridge, wary. ‘I’ve known Mags longer than the three of you put together, so don’t tell me this is none of my business.’

‘Have you told anyone?’ Rafa’s eyes are dark, dangerous.

‘Not yet.’

Rafa smiles. It’s not friendly. There’s every chance he’s about to launch across the kitchen and take Simon somewhere far, far away. ‘Are you involved in this? Did you put this on the door?’ He holds up the note.

Simon baulks. ‘Of course I didn’t! God, dude, you’re paranoid.’

‘You just happened to be stalking Gabe at the same time someone leaves us a note?’

‘I was trying to find out what you’re doing to get Mags back.
Excuse
me for not trusting you. I was about to come around the front—’

‘Do you know what the Retreat means?’ Jason interrupts.

Simon nods. ‘There’s a place way up in the hinterland, a really exclusive, high-end resort. It’s a bunch of fancy cabins scattered through the rainforest. Each one’s completely isolated from the others. All your food is brought in before you get there and no one comes near you unless you call for something.’

‘Why would they stay so close?’ I ask.

Jason answers. ‘Why not? I mean, was there really any reason to take Maggie to’—he catches himself—’further away?’

No, there wasn’t. Not when I took the bait so easily. They only needed me to believe she was at the Sanctuary. She didn’t have to actually be there.

Rafa stares out the window at the orange sky. A muscle in his jaw twitches. ‘Pricks.’

Jason hands Simon a piece of cake. ‘How many cabins are up there?’

‘Six maybe—eight tops.’

‘How far away?’

‘A good hour by car. It’s a pretty windy road up the range.’

‘Why do you know it?’

‘Rick supplied the wine for a bunch of surgeons and their wives last year. We had to stock each of the cabins before they got there.’

Jason opens drawers until he finds a piece of paper and a pencil. He slaps them on the table. ‘Can you draw a map to show where they are? And the general layout of the cabins?’

‘It’ll be rough, but, yeah, I think so.’

I move away from the table, my back to Simon, and catch Rafa’s eye. ‘Can we just go there?’ I flick my palm in front of my chest in a lame attempt to demonstrate shifting.

‘Too risky.’ Rafa checks Simon is still busy drawing. ‘With maps and a good description of the terrain we could get close, but I can’t risk arriving on Daniel’s lap by mistake. We need to take them by surprise.’

Something flutters in my chest. It could be hope. ‘You have a plan?’

‘Kind of.’ Rafa beckons me into the hallway, where we can still keep an eye on the table. ‘They’re not just going to hand Maggie over—not until they’ve got you back at the Sanctuary. So we’ll have to create a distraction. They don’t know about Goldilocks. He might be able to get her out before they work out what’s going on.’

Jason looks up from the table at his name.

‘But Mags doesn’t know about him either.’

‘So? He can still grab her and get the hell out of there.’

He means shift. ‘That’s going to be a nasty shock.’

‘She’ll get over it.’

I glance at Jason and he nods. Then the rest of Rafa’s plan registers. I draw him further down the hallway. ‘So, you and me, we’re going to take on whoever’s there?’

‘Wouldn’t that be something.’ Rafa half-smiles. ‘Back in the day, we could have taken down half the Sanctuary on our own. But given you’re not quite yourself, we’re going to need some back-up.’

I swallow. Please don’t let it be Mya. I’ve never met her, but I already know I don’t want her help. ‘Who?’

‘A couple of people who are very handy in a scrap.’

‘Are they Outcasts too?’

Too late, I wonder if the term is offensive, but it rolls right over Rafa.

‘Two of the best.’

He takes out his phone, and I close the kitchen door.

Rafa watches me as he dials and waits for an answer. He turns away to speak. ‘It’s me…Hang on, I’ll tell you in a sec. Look…’ He sighs. The voice on the other end is loud, but I can’t make out the words. ‘For fuck’s sake, Zak, I’m fine. And I’m not apologising…’ His shoulders tighten. ‘I don’t give a shit what she thinks.’

My pulse picks up.

He glances at me. ‘Yeah. I’m looking at her right now… Trust me, it’s weirder here.’ He looks away again. ‘I’ll explain when I see you…No. It’s complicated.’

Whoever he’s talking to knows me. I’m never going to get used to that.

‘I’ll come to you and Ez…No, just me. She won’t leave.’ He raises his eyebrows at me.

I shake my head. I’m curious, but not enough to risk getting stuck somewhere on the other side of the Equator.

‘Hey, Zak. Don’t tell anyone you’ve heard from me.’

Rafa ends the call and walks down the hallway. I follow. He stops before the front door and puts his hands on my shoulders. ‘Stay. Here.’

‘I’m not a dog.’

‘I mean it. I don’t care who else turns up and what they tell you. You wait for me to get back. Jason’s got my number, so call me if you get twitchy.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘Mexico.’

Mexico in the blink of an eye. He’ll be so far away. ‘But you’ll be back in a few minutes, right?’

A hint of a smile. ‘You can always come if you can’t live without me.’

‘Oh, please.’ I don’t like the idea of him not being here. But he doesn’t need to know that. And I’m not sure how I feel about meeting more Rephaim—especially Outcasts. ‘You really trust them?’

‘With my life. So did Jude.’ He looks at me. His eyes are a paler shade of green now. ‘So did you at one point.’

‘Not fair. I can’t argue with you about stuff I don’t remember.’

He grins. ‘I know.’ And then he disappears.

I stand there alone, feeling the void he’s left behind. Then I go back to the kitchen.

‘Where’s he gone?’ Jason asks.

‘To get help.’

He closes his eyes. ‘Wonderful.’

Simon tosses the pencil onto the table. ‘So I’ve got time to duck home and grab Rick’s jeep?’

‘You’re not coming with us,’ I say.

‘Do you know someone else familiar with the hinterland?’

‘We’ll make do.’

‘No, you won’t. Not if they have eyes on the road coming in. But if we go the back way—’

‘You didn’t mention a back way.’

‘I just told Jason about it.’

Jason nods. ‘It sounds like a bit of goat track. We’d need a four-wheel drive, and then we’d have to hike the rest of the way, but it could be our best option.’

‘How are we going to see what we’re doing once we’re on foot? It’ll be dark by the time we get up there.’

‘I’ve got a good torch and it’s almost a full moon,’ Simon says. ‘If it’s a clear night, it won’t be too bad.’ He digs his bike keys out of his pocket. ‘Let me help.’

I push a stray hair out of my face. ‘This isn’t a game, Simon. You could get killed—’

‘So could you.’

‘Rafa and the people he’s bringing know how to handle this kind of thing. You don’t.’

‘I’m just offering to get you up there. Your mates can knock themselves out being heroes.’ He stands up. ‘And if it goes bad, I’ll call the cops.’

I know Rafa’s not going to like the plan, but I’m tired of arguing. I step out of the way and he narrows his eyes. ‘I’m going up the mountain whether you wait for me or not.’

‘We’ll wait. Go.’

Simon looks to Jason for confirmation—apparently his word means more than mine—and leaves. As the screen door slams I slide into a chair and take off the scarf again.

‘He’ll be all right if he stays out of the way,’ Jason says.
‘And maybe the Rephaim won’t be quite so quick to shift with him there.’

‘Speaking of which…how did you learn how to do that?’

It’s a simple question, but he watches me for a long moment. ‘Why?’

‘Because I need to learn and I want to know how you worked it out on your own.’

He picks at the corner of the table. ‘Can’t this wait? Rafa will back soon.’

‘No…it can’t.’

‘You have to promise to stay calm and hear me out.’

‘Jason, we haven’t got all night! How did you work it out?’

He finally looks me in the eye. ‘I didn’t. Someone taught me.’

‘Who?’

He swallows. ‘You and Jude.’

Wait. ‘What?’

‘You and Jude taught me how to shift.’

I open my mouth. Close it. Try again. ‘When?’

‘Just before the turn of last century.’

I stare at him. ‘Are you fucking kidding?’

‘Let me explain—’

‘You’d met me before?’

Jason nods, slowly. Wary. ‘Our mothers were cousins.’

‘Just hear me out,’ Jason says.

I sit back and gesture for him to go on.

‘I had no idea there was anyone else like me until I met you and Jude.’ He talks quickly. ‘It wasn’t long after I’d turned eighteen. I was mending nets on our jetty and you appeared in the shallows. I nearly fell in the water. You didn’t even look around; you just started laughing and roughhousing each other. And then you saw me. I asked who you were and you said you were descended from angels and I shouldn’t look upon you.’

‘We told you what we were?’

‘You were trying to scare me. It was your first shift outside the Sanctuary and you didn’t mean to end up in the same place together. You wanted to enjoy the moment
on your own. But then I blabbed my story—or at least the story my mother told me. Jude thought I was making it up to impress you. It was your idea to check the mark on my neck.’ He pauses. ‘I took you to meet Mamma. She lost her mind when she saw you. She threw herself at your feet, begging for forgiveness. She called you Ariela.’

I’m holding my breath. I let it out.

‘I’d never heard of her—or you—before then. Ariela was her cousin. Your mother.’

I draw my knees up under my chin. Breathe.

‘My mother wasn’t alone when the Fallen came. Ariela was with her when
two
angels found them on the beach. Ariela came from another village, and when her father found out she was pregnant, he threw her out. Our village had already shunned Mamma for being pregnant without a husband, so Nonno, my grandfather, took in Ariela. Nobody knew he had two pregnant girls under his roof. He was a good man, but he never believed their story about angels. Until Nathaniel turned up.’

He breaks the moment and goes to the sink, pours a glass of water.

‘We were about a month old then. Nonno said Nathaniel was dressed as a monk, asking at churches about unwed mothers needing absolution—’

I hold up a hand and he looks at me. ‘Ariela didn’t die giving birth?’

‘No.’ He drops his gaze. ‘Nathaniel came looking for a mother and child. He found Ariela and her twins. By the time Nonno got to the room, Nathaniel had the babies and Ariela was dead. As soon as Nonno walked in, he vanished. Nathaniel never knew there was another woman and child.’

‘Where were you?’

‘My mother had taken me with her to pick lemons. She didn’t know who Nathaniel was or why he came. Not until the two of you turned up eighteen years later and told us about the Sanctuary.’

Water drips from the tap into the sink. I watch the water gathering into droplets, then falling. Falling.

Nathaniel killed our mother. He
stole
us.

‘The first time you shifted, you went back to where your life started. It was probably the same for everyone, it’s just the others wouldn’t have known it.’

His words finally register. ‘Where were we born?’

‘Monterosso al Mare.’

Italy.

I close my eyes. The memory of the day we ran up the hill in the vineyard, the day Jude told me he’d always look out for me. Whoever altered my memory wanted me to feel connected to the place where I was born.

‘When we shift, I think we’re drawn to locations where there are others like us. That’s why you arrived near the
jetty where I was, rather than in our house.’

I hug my shins. ‘And we went back to Nathaniel? Even knowing he’d…’ I can’t say it.

‘The Sanctuary was your home,’ Jason says softly. ‘And I’m not sure you really believed Mamma the first time. But you never told him about us.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Because he never came for me.’ Jason gives me a small smile. ‘You both kept coming back over the next few months. You were always supposed to be doing something else—you never told me what, and I never asked. I was just happy you came. It took a while, but you taught me to shift.’

I rest my chin on my knee. Jude and I were defying the Sanctuary a century ago. Why did we stay so long if we knew what Nathaniel had done? And why didn’t I leave with Jude when he finally walked away all those years later?

Jason moves his glass on the table, smudging the ring of condensation. He sighs. ‘It didn’t last long. Mamma panicked. She trusted you and Jude, but she was terrified of Nathaniel. There was every chance he would find us one day if you kept coming, and she was afraid of what would happen to us when he did. So we got on a ship and went to New York.’

‘Did we know where you went?’

‘We were still a century or so away from mobile phones.’

‘So, what? You haven’t seen me since then?’

He straightens. ‘Not exactly.’

‘Don’t fuck around, Jason—’ I’m reaching to grab the front of his shirt when there’s a gentle gust of air behind me and my stomach twists.

We’re not alone anymore.