Shimmer: The Rephaim Book 3 (12 page)

He touches the handlebars through the fabric. ‘Do you think I could—’

‘Not on my watch.’ She crosses the garage and disappears through another door. I hesitate, torn between wanting to know what that other version of me left behind and worried what it might say about who I was.

Daisy waits in a narrow storeroom. She pulls half a dozen boxes down from shelves and sets them out on the floor. One is already open, scarves, beanies and jumpers hanging over the side as if someone has been rifling through looking for clothes. Which they have—twice now in the past week. Daisy was obviously here last; Daniel would never leave clothes this untidy.

I sit down on the cold concrete and open the other boxes one at a time, spread things around me on the floor. It’s like breaking into someone else’s time capsule. Three boxes are full of books. The first is packed with biographies—Aung San Suu Kyi, Nelson Mandela, Che Guevara, Gandhi. The second, manuals on weapons and martial arts; hand-to-hand combat through the ages; traditional katana sharpening. The third, paperback novels in languages I can’t read, plus a guide in English to the top twenty-five places to drink espresso in Europe. In another box, there’s a paperweight made from what appears to be real amber; a small Grecian urn, possibly authentic; worry beads; a wheat pack; maps and photos of Monterosso. Yet another jammed with shoes—combat and hiking boots, runners, sensible walking shoes.

Nothing remotely feminine. I need Maggie to see this; it explains a lot about my fashion sense.

Jude is picking through another box. ‘What the hell?’ He holds up a tatty hand-stitched dog, stuffing poking out between its ears.

Daisy smiles, her frustration gone for the moment. ‘We all had one when we were kids. You kept yours.’ She reaches out, gives the long-eared mutt a scratch behind the ear. ‘Your weapons are in the armory.’

I take the dog from Jude, ignore his teasing smirk.

‘What sort of weapons?’ I ask.

‘Three katanas, a dozen or so knives, a crossbow, quarterstaff, mace—’

‘A mace?’

‘You went through a mediaeval phase. It led to the demise of at least three training dummies.’

‘Did I have a computer?’

Daisy nods. ‘Laptop. You must have taken it with you when you did whatever you did. It wasn’t with this stuff when I packed it up. But this was.’

She digs around in a box I haven’t yet looked in and pulls out a photo album. Its padded cover is faded, the spiral binding tarnished and peeling. I take it carefully, as if it might bite, open it slowly.

The first image is a blown-up shot of Jude and me, sitting side by side in a café, suntanned and grinning. His arm is slung around me and he’s holding a glass of wine in his free hand. There’s a donkey poking its head over my shoulder and I can just make out the brim of a straw hat belonging to someone off camera. I’m wearing a red, blue and green knitted beanie, tassels hanging down to my shoulderblades. The photo is stuck down under a plastic protector.

‘Look at that,’ I say to Jude softly. ‘We did make it to Peru.’

He nudges me. ‘And
you
wore the chullo.’

We smile at each other. There’s something deeply comforting about this image—not everything we remember is a total lie.

‘Turn the page.’

I do and my heart stutters.

It’s Rafa. And me. We’re both wearing black singlets and track pants, doubled over with our hands on our knees like we’re catching our breath. His head is lifted so he can see me, and he’s grinning, triumphant. I know the expression: he’s just beaten me in a foot race or some test of strength or skill.

It takes me back to Pan Beach, our race on the sand. Rafa pulling ahead, pushing himself to beat me. Me catching my breath and then losing it again, wrapped around him, peeling his shirt up his back. The pang that hits my chest is so much sharper than desire.

I turn the page, then another. There are so many shots of Jude—in front of pyramids and ancient ruins and massive trees—but most are in cafés or bars, grinning at the camera over a table loaded with food. And almost all of them have Rafa sticking his head in the frame or pulling a face behind Jude’s back.

Here it is, evidence of what I keep hearing: that Rafa, Jude and I were inseparable. A team. What the hell happened to change that? To make that other version of me choose the Sanctuary over them?

However angry I was at Rafa when he left the Sanctuary—however much I wanted to hurt him—it wasn’t enough to destroy these photos. All of them are faded and printed on old-school photo paper. By the state of the album, they predate the digital age by a decade or two.

‘This is…’ Jude doesn’t finish. There are no words.

We keep going.

More photos: Ez and Zak, Daisy, Micah, Jones. Even Malachi and Taya, a reminder they were once a part of my life too. The photos were probably taken in between tracking and fighting Gatekeepers. Here’s one of Ez—without scars—arms stretched across a tree trunk so wide it doesn’t fit into the frame. There’s Malachi holding Micah in a headlock in front of a crumbling stone wall, both of them laughing.

And here’s Daniel in workout gear: standard Rephaim black singlet and track pants. It’s the first time I’ve seen him wearing something other than a collared shirt, and it’s a little startling to see so much toned flesh. He’s smiling at the camera, katana hanging loose by his side, hair slicked back with sweat.

‘Is he any good with a sword?’ Jude asks.

‘Fairly handy.’ I think of how he and Rafa tag-teamed against Bel that first night on the mountain. How easily they fell into a rhythm fighting side by side instead of against each other.

Daisy keeps digging around in the box. ‘There’s also this.’ She holds up a leather-bound notebook.

‘I kept a journal?’ Please tell me I wasn’t naive enough to record deeply personal thoughts and then leave them behind for everyone in the Sanctuary to read.

She snorts a laugh. ‘You weren’t a journal-keeping kind of girl. It’s more a collection of quotes, random facts, a couple of short stories. You liked writing longhand, don’t ask me why.’

A soft leather cover wraps around the notebook, held in place with a long piece of cord. I carefully unwrap it, press open worn pages made from recycled paper. They’re covered in doodles and random lists and sentences in my scratchy handwriting. A catalogue of favourite novels that takes up more pages than I have time to read. A flyer for a production of
Much Ado About Nothing
in Turin. Postcards for a surrealist exhibition in Prague and a taiko drumming school in Japan. It’s nice to know I was interested in something other than swords and maces.

I keep flicking through, find the first short story. It’s titled ‘Twelve Angry Llamas’ and starts with: ‘I never pack my backpack the same way twice.’

I look up at Daisy. ‘Have you read these?’

She ducks her head and straight red hair falls across her face. ‘Only after you were gone. I thought you were dead—’

‘Did I ever go backpacking?’

‘Of course not. You used to threaten to run away and see the world like a normal person. As if that was ever going to happen.’

Jude and I exchange a long look.

‘Did I know about those stories?’ Jude asks.

Daisy shrugs with one shoulder. ‘You were the only one allowed to read them.’

Footsteps echo in the garage. I freeze and then jam the photo album into the nearest box. I feel exposed, having my old life spread out on the floor. My skin tingles a second before Nathaniel steps into the storeroom. All three of us spring to our feet.

‘Desdemona.’

Daisy winces.

‘I wish to speak to Gabriella and Judah.’

‘Of course.’ She dusts off her jeans.

I raise my eyebrows at her. ‘Desdemona?’

She shrugs. ‘Desdemona, Desi, Daisy…’ She taps a stack of books with her foot. ‘You okay to pack this up?’

I nod and, like that, she’s gone. I slide the notebook behind me. It reminds me of something…The journal from the iron room. Mya has it and we still don’t know what it means.

‘May I?’ Nathaniel gestures to the boxes and the concrete. Without waiting for a response he sits on his heels, spine straight, perfectly balanced. He’s wearing jeans and a pale blue polo-neck jumper.

‘Don’t you have something more important to do?’ I ask.

‘The Five can spare me for a moment. I wanted to see you both.’ He picks up a book and flicks through a few pages. I can’t see the cover. ‘Has seeing these possessions helped either of you with your memory?’

I pause. Did Daisy bring me in here to jog my memory? Was it an order? It might explain why Nathaniel’s not reaming us out about the car-park incident right now: jogging our memories is more important.

‘No, Nathaniel, this hasn’t worked any better than holding my head underwater or putting me in a death match with a hell-beast.’

He ignores the jibe. ‘Have you heard from the lost Rephaite?’

‘He’ll be here.’ At least I hope he will.

Nathaniel’s attention snags on the stuffed dog hanging out the side of the box closest to him. He puts down the book and touches its head almost affectionately.

‘Have you made a decision about the farmhouse?’

His eyes lift to mine. Those icy, flickering eyes. They’re not as unsettling as the Gatekeepers’, but they’re just as hard to read. ‘Virginia has not yet been forthcoming with useful information.’

‘Can’t you read her mind?’

‘No, she is human.’

I think about her reaction to seeing Jude and me outside her window. ‘You must terrify her, given how she feels about the—’ I stop before I refer to him as one of the Fallen. From Daniel’s reaction last week, I’m guessing it’s not a term the Rephaim use around him.

‘Virginia is a strong woman. Stronger than I would expect, given her current circumstances. She continues to withhold information from me.’

Jude leans back against the shelves, rests his forearm across his knee. ‘Like you’ve withheld information from us?’

I catch Jude’s eye, try to gauge where he’s going with this. Nathaniel seems to be weighing up the same thing. ‘In the past, you made demands of me that were unreasonable,’ Nathaniel says.

‘It was unreasonable to ask to speak to an archangel?’

‘You do not summon the Host of Heaven, Judah. Any more than you summon God.’

‘Then how
do
you contact them?’

He lets out a small sigh and I understand: this is not the first time he’s had this conversation with Jude. ‘That is not your concern. But if you have other questions I will attempt to answer them.’

They watch each other closely. Jude drums his fingers on the concrete. ‘How many archangels are there in the Garrison?’

‘Beyond counting.’

‘Where does Semyaza fit in?’

‘Semyaza was a captain of the Garrison.’

‘And you?’

‘One of the two hundred warriors who served beneath him.’ There’s an ache in those words, echoes of longing and regret.

‘Why did you follow when he and the others fell the first time?’

I flinch at the bluntness of the question.

Nathaniel’s eyes darken. ‘I mistook free will for freedom.’

‘Is that why you didn’t go around again when you all broke out of hell?’

‘Semyaza had not—’ He stops, reconsiders his answer. ‘I severed the bond with Semyaza and my brothers to prove to the Garrison my time imprisoned had not been in vain. That I knew my place, and I was again worthy of their trust.’

‘Do you regret it?’

‘No.’

‘But you’re still an outcast of heaven.’ Jude seems to use the description deliberately.

‘Because I have not yet fulfilled my responsibility to bring my brothers to justice: to deliver them to the Garrison for judgment.’

It’s the first time we’ve heard it direct from Nathaniel.

‘You talked about wards to keep out demons,’ I ask. ‘How do they work?’

Nathaniel hesitates. ‘They are bound by a sacred bond written in my blood.’

I picture ancient sandstone smeared with angelic blood.

‘When the monks agreed to give me shelter here, I pledged my bond in the language of angels on each cornerstone of this sanctuary. That bond was sealed with the brothers’ blessing. The stones absorbed my blood: a sign the sacrifice was accepted. This monastery, the ground below it and the air above it, are sanctified now until the end of time. No demon can enter this place against my will until the final battle between heaven and hell.’

‘Why didn’t you tell the Rephaim about it?’ I ask.

‘I wanted them to be here by choice, of their own free will, not because it was the only place they were safe. Inviolate protection was their reward for faithfulness and loyalty.’

‘Did the Five know?’

‘The Council exists to guide and lead the others, not keep secrets from them. It was never my intention to create two classes of Rephaim—that is why the membership of the Council is fluid.’

‘And yet the Rephaim ended up divided anyway.’

Jude watches the fallen angel with an expression I can’t read. ‘Does that mean blood was used to create the room in Iowa?’ he asks.

‘That room perplexes me. Gabriella and Rafael could enter it, and were only trapped once it was sealed. Such a thing hints of a blood ward, but one that I am not familiar with.’

‘Bullshit,’ I say.

His eyebrows shoot up—an extreme gesture for him. ‘You question me, Gabriella?’

‘You knew there was a charm protecting Virginia and her daughter from being forced to shift. You told Daniel to look for it.’

‘It was an educated guess.’

‘How could you guess that? You said the wards here involved blood and cornerstones. Why would you automatically think their protection came from iron?’

He places the book he’s been holding in the box with the others. ‘You told me the room was made from iron.’

‘Nathaniel.’

His flickering eyes come back to me. ‘In my library I have an ancient text that lists the gifts of iron. One of those gifts is the ability to absorb and hold wards and blessings.’

‘How does that work?’

A pause. ‘May I look upon the etchings from the room?’

I hand him my phone and he spends a good thirty seconds staring at the shot of the wall, the carved giant wings outstretched corner to corner. Something heavy settles in the pit of my stomach. ‘You know what that is, don’t you?’