Shimmer: The Rephaim Book 3 (29 page)

‘Something to look forward to.’ Rafa gestures to the back of the room. ‘Is the bar open yet?’

Jude and Ez pull tables together and a few minutes later we’re gathered around them, beers in hand. Rafa sits next to me, lets his knee rest against mine. It anchors me.

‘What happened in there?’ Jones asks the question carefully, respectfully. Rafa meets Taya’s eyes. It takes him a few seconds to answer.

‘As soon as we arrived in that room, Bel stabbed me again. And then Taya somehow managed to shift. Took them by surprise. I don’t think they expected us to be able to get around in there.’

‘Yeah,’ she says, deadpan, ‘it bought us all of a few seconds.’

‘Long enough for you to rip the steel out of my gut mid-shift and start healing me.’ He shakes his head. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it.’

Taya shrugs off the compliment. ‘We managed to shift half a dozen times—mended the worst of the initial damage—before they got syringes into us.’

‘And then what?’ Malachi asks.

‘Zarael waited until we were conscious enough to feel pain, and then the real fun began.’ She glances at Rafa. ‘Neither of us could shift after that.’

Nobody speaks for a long moment.

‘It’s a shame you missed the best part.’ Rafa squeezes my thigh under the table and recounts how Bel lost his head. Or at least the parts he remembers.

‘How did you get out?’ The question comes from a wiry girl with short strawberry blonde hair whose name I can’t remember. ‘We came into the house to help, but Leon got that iron door shut again. We thought you were screwed.’

I go blank. I hadn’t realised other Outcasts were inside the house. It means they know we got out of that room while it was sealed.

‘Mya broke the wards with blood,’ Ez says.

A collective pause. ‘How?’

‘Long story.’ Ez drags her plait over her shoulder and fiddles with the leather tie. Meets my eyes, then Micah’s. She’s going to tell the Outcasts the truth. Even with Taya and Malachi in the room.

‘Well, well, look who it is.’ Jones is grinning at someone behind me. Daisy. ‘You crossing over to the dark side finally?’

Ez lets her breath out, pushes her hair back over her shoulder.

‘In your dreams,’ Daisy says. She searches for Taya, relaxes a fraction when she finds her. ‘Welcome home.’ She nods at Rafa. ‘You too.’

‘We could’ve used you and those twin-sided sais in Iowa,’ Jude says.

Something crosses Daisy’s face—regret? ‘I’m not like you: I like having a home. Not all of us can get away with defying Daniel.’ She glances at Malachi.

‘Come on Desdemona.’ Jones pulls out a chair for her. ‘Have a drink with us.’

Conversation fragments around us. Next to me, Rafa is talking to Seth. Occasionally he taps the side of his boot on mine. I bump my knee against his.

‘You’re as bad as the Five, not telling them the truth,’ Micah says quietly.

Jude peels a strip off the label of his Italian beer and glances down the table at Daisy. ‘You think now’s the time?

‘Don’t judge her. She’s just trying to play this straight.’

‘Which would mean telling Daniel anything she hears in here.’

‘And Taya and Malachi won’t?’

‘You tell me.’

Right now they’re deep in conversation with Ez, Zak and an Outcast with a shaved head and multiple piercings. Jude rolls the wet beer label into a tight ball. ‘What are the chances of us getting more time with Brother Stephen?’

‘Really? Not enough crap going on for you right now?’ Micah lifts his bottle, drains it and then sighs. ‘He’ll be back in his cell by now.’

I nearly choke on my mouthful. ‘They locked him up? I thought he didn’t tell them anything?’

‘He didn’t. He’s in the tiny wardrobe he calls his room. In a monastery they’re called cells.’

Oh. I think I knew that.

‘And if you’re serious, we should go now before the rest of the Sanctuary starts filing in here for
aperitivo
.’

Rafa leans back as if he’s stretching and rests his arm along the top of my chair. ‘I’m in,’ he says. ‘I definitely want a chat with that sly old man before anyone else gets to him.’

FAMILY SECRETS

‘We’ll be back in a minute,’ Rafa says to the gathering. ‘Keep the beer coming.’

Outside, it’s me, Jude, Rafa and Micah. The wind whispers through the lavender, cold and persistent. Ez joins us about ten seconds later. ‘Zak’s keeping an eye on things in there.’

She and Micah lead us towards the front of the monastery, closer to the car park and the public chapel. The wind has picked up again and icy air bites my cheeks. Rafa and I walk shoulder-to-shoulder; his fingers find mine. We’re passing along a cloister—yet another one—under lamps hung from rusty chains. The pavers are uneven here and the stone columns streaked black. This end of the Sanctuary is nowhere near as well kept as the rest of the place.

We’re a little conspicuous moving along in our small pack, but we don’t come across anyone else—Rephaite or otherwise. We slip inside a building covered in a creeper vine and climb a steep, narrow staircase. The paint on the walls is peeling, cobwebs hang from the cornices. It’s draughty, much colder than our building.

Jude picks at the flaking paint. ‘Nice. The monks live in squalor while the Rephaim are in luxury a stone’s throw away.’

‘Steady on,’ Micah says over his shoulder. ‘The brothers have taken a vow of poverty. They don’t want luxury.’

‘Did anyone ask them?’

We reach the upper floor and Micah pauses in the gloomy hallway.

‘You don’t have to be here,’ I say.

He lifts one shoulder, lets it drop. ‘I’m up to my neck in this now so I may as well stay in the loop. And I’m not done with the good brother either.’

Brother Stephen’s room is down the far end of the hallway. Micah knocks twice, waits. There’s a cough and shuffling on the other side, and then the door opens. It catches on the carpet. The monk takes in the sight of the five of us and the colour leaves his face.

‘We’re not here to hurt you,’ Ez says.

He cradles his broken arm, draws a shallow breath and steps aside.

The room is so narrow we have to line up with our backs against the wall, wedged beside Brother Stephen’s bed. It has a wardrobe, a small side table, shelves stacked with tatty books and a tiny window. A single bulb hangs on exposed wiring. I smell camphor and liniment, and the oranges he has in a bowl by his bedside. I rub my arms through my jumper. How does he not freeze in here?

‘You told Mya we knew the truth about her,’ I say.

His shoulders are more stooped now, his movements slower. The dressing on his neck wound is puckered, matching his folded skin.

‘She would have come for Virginia eventually. I made sure there was no violence involved.’

‘What did you tell Daniel?’

‘I told him the truth: that there was nothing I could do to stop her. He has no reason not to believe me.’ He clasps his bony hands together—awkward with his sling—and lifts them towards Micah in a gesture of gratitude.

‘How does lying fit with the oaths you’ve taken here?’ Jude asks.

‘I do not lie.’

‘There are still lies of omission.’

‘That is between me and God.’

Rafa knocks his boot against the monk’s bed frame. ‘You should’ve gone with Mya.’

Brother Stephen lowers himself onto the mattress, grimacing as he takes his weight on his good wrist. The springs squeak. ‘Where would I go? Iowa? Los Angeles? I have known no other home but this since I was fifteen.’

‘It’s only a matter of time before it all comes out.’

The monk closes his eyes. ‘I have served God to the best of my ability and will accept whatever consequences come.’

Micah glances around the room, the sparseness. ‘How do you get information to your family?’

A deep sigh escapes Brother Stephen, like all the air is leaving him. Ez watches him in silence, her expression guarded.

‘When I was first here, my mother or my sister would come to Italy once a year from America. I would arrange to meet them when it was my turn to collect supplies from the village.’

‘How do you do it now?’

‘Mobile phone.’

Of course.

‘I would tell them about Nathaniel and what was happening here: training, missions, how the Rephaim were divided into different specialities.’ He speaks slowly, as if every word costs him energy. ‘In recent decades it has been about building the photo library. Understanding who is who and what each of your strengths are.’

‘Why?’

His mouth twists a little. ‘To better understand the enemy.’

‘You think we’re your enemy?’ Micah sounds genuinely hurt.

‘No, Micah,’ Brother Stephen says, ‘I have not thought so for some time.’

‘But that didn’t stop you betraying us.’

‘I always believed I could honour the oaths made to this family, and to my own. In sixty years I have done nothing to endanger the Rephaim.’

‘What about that room?’

The monk brushes his gnarled fingers over the blanket on his bed. ‘I was not aware it existed. Virginia and Mya did not tell me, for my own safety.’

‘Your family sent Mya here to tear us apart,’ Micah says. ‘Why a decade ago? Why not send her last century?’

‘Because my cousin was already here in the brotherhood.’

‘Who?’

He hesitates. ‘Roberto.’

‘Brother Roberto was a traitor too?’ Micah’s jaw tightens.

‘Brother Roberto was a loyal member of this order. He was also a member of our family.’

‘But your family was in Iowa. How did he end up in Italy?’

The monk points a trembling finger to a glass of water, half-full, on his bedside table. Ez hands it to him. The water sloshes up the sides as he raises it to his lips. He takes a sip and hands it back to her.

‘Nathaniel came looking for the bastard child conceived in our part of the world. He posed as an itinerant priest offering absolution. My great-grandmother had foreseen that Nathaniel would visit, so my great-grandfather, Heinrich, was prepared. He—’

‘Was Heinrich the Lutheran minister?’ I ask.

Brother Stephen falters. ‘Yes.’ He swallows. ‘He told Nathaniel his daughter Martha had lain with a fallen angel, but that both she and the bastard offspring had died in childbirth. Heinrich offered up Roberto to serve, in whatever capacity Nathaniel saw fit, as an act of atonement for Martha’s sin. Nathaniel brought him here. And when Roberto could no longer serve, I was sent to replace him.’

‘So,’ Micah says, ‘first Roberto, then you, fed information back to your family and they plotted against us?’

‘No, Micah, we gathered information. And we waited for signs.’ He raises his watery eyes. ‘And now I am old. My days here will come to an end soon. That is why Mya finally put herself in Nathaniel’s path, in preparation for my passing. Her commission was to bide her time, become a trusted part of this society; work her way onto the Council of Five and slowly sow seeds of dissent.’ He sighs. ‘Not incite a rebellion in less than a year.’

‘What happened to Mya’s mother?’ I ask. ‘Martha?’

The lines around Brother Stephen’s lips tighten.

‘
Did
she die in childbirth?’

A long pause. ‘She did not.’ He closes his eyes, the paper-thin folds of skin momentarily shielding him from us.

‘Brother,’ Jude says. ‘If your family receives messages from an archangel we need to understand how—and why.’

The monk meets his eyes. ‘Dear Judah. Even without the knowledge of your past you still seek the truth. I have always admired that about you, even if your way of going about it was not always the most…efficient.’

I lower myself beside Brother Stephen. The mattress is hard, unforgiving. ‘What happened to her?’

‘I only know the stories as they were told to me.’ He tries to straighten, but pain, or the weight of the moment, keeps him hunched. ‘You need to understand, Martha was my great-grandfather’s favourite daughter. Every day at dusk she walked the dogs between the crops and he would wait on the porch for her. On the Day of Great Transgression, the dogs returned in the darkness without her. Heinrich saw a strange light in the fields. The light was gone by the time he found her alone, lacing up her dress.’

‘The angel just left her there to deal with him?’

‘That is their nature, Judah. The Fallen do not take responsibility for their actions.’

‘Did your great-grandfather believe it was an angel?’

‘It would have been better for her if he had not. A tryst with a secret lover might have broken his heart, but it would not have burned his soul. Heinrich knew that an angel who lay with a human could only be among the Fallen, which meant both she and any resulting child would be despised in heaven.’

I run my fingertips across the rough wool of his bed cover. ‘That’s a big leap—that she would fall pregnant.’

‘Heinrich was familiar with the Book of Enoch; he knew the last time Semyaza and the Fallen lay with women there were many offspring.’

‘But why did he assume the child would be despised in heaven?’ Jude presses. ‘Everyone is so convinced we’re abominations, but where is it written? Where’s the evidence? Beyond the paranoia of a shamed minister and the guilt of the fallen angel who created this place?’

‘Judah,’ Brother Stephen says. ‘The last time human-angel hybrids walked the earth, the archangels wiped them from existence.’

‘Oh.’ Jude breaks eye contact with him. He looks at me and then away.

‘Hang on,’ I say, ‘I thought we could only die if we’—I make a slicing action across my throat—‘and didn’t the Nephilim die in a flood?’

‘No.’ It’s Micah who answers. ‘They were all executed by the Garrison before the waters rose.’

Executed
. My insides quiver.

‘Back to Martha?’ Ez prompts and Brother Stephen nods, slowly.

‘She
was
pregnant. Heinrich was willing to sacrifice his beloved eldest daughter to prevent her bastard coming into the world, but my great-grandmother threatened to starve herself if he did. So he bided his time. He knew both had to die: Martha for her sin, and the offspring for existing. He waited until the child was born and then he took his daughter’s life.’ His chin trembles. ‘He and his brothers took the body to the field and performed a sanctifying ritual before cremating her body. They were afraid if they buried Martha any other way, her defilement would scorch the earth and kill the crops.’