Shimmer: The Rephaim Book 3 (18 page)

‘Show me,’ Malachi says, using his height advantage to stand over the middle-aged monk. He notices Jude and me; doesn’t care.

‘Is addressed to Nat’aniel,’ Brother Ferro says in his thick Italian accent.

‘From who?’

‘I don’t know. It was left at the front entrance.’

‘Give it to me.’ Malachi puts his hand on the box. Brother Ferro looks to us, realises we haven’t come to help him. His shoulders slump and Malachi takes the box. It’s made of carved timber, like an old-fashioned cigar box, held shut by a clasp at the front. Malachi flicks the catch and his hand goes still. Our eyes meet, my pulse hammers. And then he opens it.

Jude sucks in his breath.

It’s a finger.

FLESH AND BONE

A slender index finger with dried blood under the nail. Flesh still pink. Sitting on a pile of tissues.

‘Motherfucker,’ Malachi spits. ‘That’s Taya’s.’

‘How can you tell?’ The words are wet cement in my mouth.

‘The scar.’

I force myself to look closer. There’s a tiny white line running across the middle knuckle. My first reaction is overwhelming relief it’s not Rafa’s; the second, guilt. Even if Rafa can heal Taya, this finger’s never getting reattached to her body. And if he can’t heal her, she must be in unspeakable pain.

‘Why Taya?’ Jude asks, strained.

‘Because she’s loyal to Nathaniel.’ Malachi stares at the bloodied digit, his chest rising and falling. ‘Zarael thinks she’s worth more to Nathaniel. She’s bait for him. Rafa is bait for you two.’

I reach for the box. My fingers shake. Malachi lets me close the lid and hand it back to Brother Ferro. ‘Show Nathaniel. Maybe it’ll put a rocket up his arse.’

The monk flinches at my language and then slips through the chapterhouse door.

Malachi walks down the steps, kicks out at the gravel. Stones and dirt rain down on the path. ‘We’re running out of time.’

‘When was the last time Nathaniel heard from any of the archangels?’ Jude asks.

Malachi doesn’t answer.

‘So it’s an excuse to do nothing?’

‘Nathaniel won’t risk our lives unless he thinks he’s meant to.’ There’s no bitterness in Malachi’s words, only resignation. ‘Maybe this really is big enough for the archangels to get involved.’

‘Bullshit.’ I grind out the word. ‘He’s stalling. And while he’s making excuses, Zarael’s cutting off body parts.’

Mya and Ez slip out the door. We don’t have much time: Nathaniel will send someone out here soon to check on us. ‘What’s in the box Brother Ferro just delivered?’ Mya is washed out but she’s sharp. ‘Nathaniel handed it to Daniel and kept talking. He didn’t open it.’

‘It’s Taya’s finger,’ Malachi says.

Ez closes her eyes. ‘Oh my god.’

Jude walks a few steps, turns, comes back to us. ‘Dani can tell us what’s going on in the room but we still need to know how to get them out.’

‘This Dani…’ Mya is clicking her fingernails again, watching me. ‘What exactly can she see?’

‘Where we are, what we’re doing. Sometimes even what we’re thinking.’ I don’t tell Mya that Dani can’t see her, and nobody else volunteers that information. ‘She’s upstairs right now trying to see what’s happening to Rafa.’

And what
is
she seeing? Rafa lying in his own blood, in agony, forced to watch Taya lose a finger? They might have been enemies for the past decade but he would have tried to protect her. And he would have been outnumbered.

‘What are you thinking?’ Malachi asks Jude.

My brother points in the direction of Nathaniel’s private wing. ‘We need to get to Virginia. Now. We know where she is, but we need to shift in there.’

A pause. Malachi is torn between obedience to Nathaniel and his need to do something.

‘We have to go while everyone’s still inside,’ I say.

‘What if someone sees us?’

‘Isn’t it worth the risk? Or would you rather wait until Zarael delivers a head?’ I’m getting louder; I can’t help it. ‘You can shift us in there right now—straight to her room.’

Malachi draws a slow breath. Nods.

‘Wait,’ Mya says. ‘Debra’s a better option.’

Malachi frowns. ‘Who?’

‘Virginia’s daughter. She designed the room. I know where she is in LA.’

‘How the hell—?’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Mya snaps.

‘And you didn’t think to mention that before?’

I get between them. ‘For fuck’s sake, can you two stop antagonising each other for thirty seconds?’

They glare at me and then each other, but the sting has already gone.

‘I’ll go to LA,’ Mya says. ‘I guarantee there are eyes on the rest of you—especially Jude and Gabe—but Nathaniel won’t miss me.’ She turns to Malachi. ‘Unless you tell him I’m gone.’

‘Get back here quickly and I won’t have to.’

She shifts without bothering with a comeback.

‘You sure you want to wait?’ Malachi asks Jude.

He nods. ‘Let’s give her a chance. Debra’s likely to know more than her mother.’

We go back inside in time to hear Nathaniel say: ‘We shall convene here again in an hour.’

An hour? What will be left in that room in another hour?

He sees us come in. ‘Gabriella, Judah: a moment please.’

Jude and I hang back while everyone files out. Ez and Malachi wait with us. Jones raises his eyebrows as he passes and Ez nods for him to leave with the others. Daisy lingers inside the door.

‘The rest of you may leave,’ Nathaniel says from the dais.

‘They may as well stay,’ I say. ‘We’ll tell them whatever happens in here, just like we’ll tell them what’s in that box if you don’t.’

‘Gabe, think,’ Daniel says.

‘That’s all I’ve done since we got here. I’m over it. Go on, look in the box,’ I say to Nathaniel. ‘See what your patient approach has delivered.’

Nathaniel holds out his hand without looking away from me. Daniel hesitates and then places it in his palm. Nathaniel opens it, looks down, closes it. No reaction.

‘It belongs to Taya,’ I say.

Silence.

‘Don’t you have anything to say?’

Nathaniel hands the box back to Daniel. ‘This is a ploy to draw us into a fight,’ he says.

‘It’s not a ploy, it’s a fucking finger!’

‘Oh god.’ Daisy turns away.

Nathaniel is interested only in me. ‘Gabriella—’

‘Why didn’t you tell everyone you had a message from Zarael before you let them leave? You knew it was from him.’

‘I did not desire to have a hundred and fifty-six Rephaim reacting as you are at this moment. It serves no purpose—’

‘What
does
serve a purpose?’

‘You know the answer to that: waiting for a sign from the archangels.’

‘Since when?’

‘Since you brought a human child within my walls with the ability to see the offspring of the Fallen.’

‘A minute ago you said Dani was a prophet sent in your hour of need—isn’t that a sign?’

‘Gabriella, I have spent a hundred and thirty-nine years protecting each of you. Readying you for your destiny. Giving you the chance to win favour with the Angelic Garrison and earn a place in the battle that will decide the fate of the world. I will not risk your lives without knowing what the Garrison wants of me.’

‘What if they say nothing?’

‘Then we do nothing.’

Pressure builds in my head. Malachi steps forward before I can form a coherent sentence.

‘We need eyes on the ground outside the farmhouse. Let me go and check it out.’

‘Nobody is going near that house,’ Daniel says. ‘I was there yesterday, Malachi. I know what we’re dealing with.’

‘Then let us speak to Virginia,’ Jude says.

‘No.’ Nathaniel’s tone is razor sharp. ‘Your time would be better served demonstrating to me that you are capable of obedience.’ His irises flare. And then he’s gone.

Uri and Calista flinch at his disappearance. Daniel seems less surprised.

‘What a fucking joke,’ Jude says.

‘What is wrong with you two?’ Calista comes down the dais stairs two at a time. Uri catches her before she reaches us, but she shakes off his grip. ‘You think you’re the only people who care about Taya and Rafa?’ She stops in front of me and I shift my weight, ready for her to take a swing.

‘We seem to be the only people willing to do something about it,’ I say.

‘There’s more than one way to get them back. Why can’t you trust us?’

‘If you have to ask that after what you just heard, you’re beyond delusional.’

My stomach drops. Daniel is beside us. Did he just shift ten metres?

‘That’s enough. Calista, you and Uriel should go back to the library. I’ll be there shortly.’

Calista opens her mouth as if to argue but then thinks better of it. Daniel waits in silence until the chapterhouse door latches behind them. Then he turns to me.

‘We need to talk.’

POT. KETTLE. BLACK.

I start to turn away—I want to get back to Dani—but then I remember what Micah said about the hellion from Iceland. The one that disappeared around the same time I did. The shadow of it has been lurking in the back of my mind, finding form.

‘I’ll give you three minutes.’

If Daniel is surprised I’ve agreed so easily, he hides it.

‘Gaby?’

‘It’s fine,’ I say to Jude. ‘This won’t take long.’

Daniel disappears through the back door and leaves it open for me. Cold air surges in. I start to follow and then go back to Jude. ‘Make sure Dani’s well protected. I don’t trust Nathaniel.’

‘I’ve briefed Jones,’ Ez says. ‘He’s upstairs with Zak as we speak.’

Daniel is waiting in a breezeway between the back of the chapterhouse and the wall surrounding this end of the Sanctuary. I leave the door open so Jude can see I’m okay. Manicured bushes stand guard, neat, regimented. Daniel waits at the bottom of the steps. He pushes down the sleeves on his woollen jumper, watches me closely.

‘I need to know you’re not going to do anything foolish,’ he says. His breath comes out as a cloud of vapour.

‘Define foolish.’

‘Taking Zarael’s bait and going after Rafa and Taya.’

I wrap my jacket around me tighter, drum chilled fingers on my arms. Already my nose stings and my ears ache. It’s hard to stand still out here. ‘You think we should wait for a bigger body part?’

‘Gabe—’

‘Tell me about the hell-beast I brought back from Iceland.’

He falters. ‘What’s that got to do with—’

‘What happened to it?’

Daniel watches me, dark eyes framed by long lashes. Searching mine. Weighing the question.

‘You want me to trust you, but you still haven’t given me a reason to.’

He runs his fingers through his hair, smiles at me, grim. ‘The hellion isn’t the place to start.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because your view of the world is skewed.’

‘Try me.’ I tuck my fingers under my arms to warm them. ‘You’re the one who keeps banging on about truth, about me needing to understand who I was. Why did I bring you a hellion?’

A pause. ‘We had a theory we wanted to test.’

‘Who’s “we”?’

‘You and me. The Five. We’ve always known about the psychic bond hellions have with their Gatekeepers. We thought the same might be true for Nathaniel, that we could use that link to our advantage.’ He looks away and I see it again—a shadow of uncertainty. Guilt.

‘And the first experiment was after I went missing?’

Daniel picks at his sleeve. He drags his teeth over his lower lip. ‘When you and Jude reconciled, it took us all by surprise. I asked you what had changed, and you withdrew even further from me. I had no idea what Jude was planning, but I knew it had to be dangerous for him to have made contact with you after a decade.’

I’d love to tell him that Jude reached out because he missed me, but I know enough now to understand it was more complicated than that.

‘Right before you disappeared, you were badly injured.’

‘Fighting with Bel and Leon when we captured the hellion—Micah told me.’

Daniel glances at my leg. ‘The laceration was deep. Brother Ferro stitched it up when you got back.’

‘And?’

Daniel touches the sleeves on his jumper again, first one then the other. He’s uncharacteristically fidgety. ‘I had him keep the bandages he used to clean you up. I knew you were going to see Jude again and wanted to be prepared. So when you went to see him for a third time in under two weeks, when you’d started avoiding me…I thought you had joined the Outcasts.’

He doesn’t want to spell it out, but I know. I can see it in his eyes. ‘You gave the bandages to the hell-beast so it could track me.’

He’s completely still. That would be a yes.

‘You let it taste my blood and then you set it loose after me?’ I feel sick. ‘What the fuck were you thinking?’

‘I was thinking I could find you and stop you before it was too late.’

‘How?’ I snap. ‘Hellions are mindless killing machines.’

Daniel lifts his hands to his lips, blows on them and rubs his palms together to warm them. I take in his clipped nails, his perfect hair, his beautiful face. His hypocrisy. I want to hurt him so badly.

‘We sedated it so Nathaniel could search its mind the moment it caught your scent. And it worked—the hell-beast reacted to the blood. It was enough for Nathaniel to know it had found you, but not where. We gambled that its need to track would be so strong it would take me to you.’

‘And what went wrong? The fact I’m standing here with a demon blade scar on my neck and no memory of the life you keep talking about is pretty damning evidence it didn’t go as planned.’

‘I had the hellion shackled and muzzled. Nathaniel and I agreed I would go alone; if you had betrayed us we wanted to understand why, before others became involved—’

‘You didn’t tell the rest of the Five?’

‘I was trying to protect you.’

‘And what happened?’

‘The hellion took me to a room filled with Gatekeepers. They weren’t expecting me so I had time to shift before their blades connected with my neck.’

‘And the hellion?’

He shakes his head. ‘Bel got a grip on it before I could bring it back.’

‘You handed them a demon that had tasted my blood and knew where I was. They came straight for me. And Jude.’

‘We don’t know that for sure. For all we know you planned to meet them.’