I’m still absorbing the idea that Jude made a deal with an archangel—a faceless member of the Garrison with more power than I can comprehend—when I see Ez come in from the street. She moves with cat-like grace, tall and lithe. The claw marks that run from her cheek to her collarbone are stark against her caramel skin. More than a few people stare as she passes but she’s too focused on us to notice. Her eyes skip from Jude to me and back again. We both sit up straight.
‘What’s up?’ Jude asks.
‘The Butlers have gone off the reservation.’ Ez is still in combat clothes: black pants and black t-shirt, her dark hair in a long plait. ‘Simon gave me their address but the place was empty when Zak and I went to check on them.’
I glance at my watch. It’s too early for the pub but that doesn’t mean they’re not there. ‘Did you try the Imperial?’
‘Yes, delightful hovel that it is. They weren’t there either, which probably means they’re on their way up the mountain to get their weapons.’ She gestures at our empty plates and drained cups. ‘You done here?’ She doesn’t mention we shouldn’t be here in the first place. We should be with everyone else, forming a plan to defend the town against Zarael.
Jude and I exchange a quick glance. I nod.
‘Let’s get everyone together,’ Jude says. ‘The Butlers’ camp is as good a place as any. Two birds, one stone.’
‘Is that smart?’ Ez says. ‘It’s the first place Zarael will check when he starts reconnaissance.’
‘He’s already started,’ I say, and tell her about the Immundi on the esplanade.
‘We’ll be fine on the mountain.’ Jude brushes stray sugar crystals from the table. ‘We’ll keep our eyes open this time.’
‘Your call.’ Ez’s gaze shifts from Jude to me again. She has questions we don’t have time to answer. And part of me doesn’t want her to know the truth: it will change how she sees me.
‘Can you get the word out?’ Jude asks Ez. ‘We’ll grab our weapons and meet you up there.’
A tiny crease appears on Ez’s brow. ‘Do you need a hand with the shift?’
Jude blinks, hesitates for just a fraction of a second.
‘We’re good.’
When Ez leaves—still unconvinced of Jude’s plan, but not arguing—we go into the alley beside the Green Bean. There’s more bite in the sun now, the bricks around us radiating warmth. Jude touches my elbow, tentative.
‘We’re not done with this conversation.’
‘I know.’
‘Are we okay for now?’
I’m so far off balance I’m surprised I’m not walking on a lean. But we have twenty-seven Rephaim and an unsuspecting town relying on us to get our shit together.
‘We have to be,’ I say. ‘We haven’t got time for anything else.’
The camp is deserted.
Mud-splattered utes and four-wheel drives still stand sentry around the site. Cold and silent. The tarp hangs limp from a palm tree like a deflated balloon. The trestle table is on its side, guns and ammunition scattered over the ground, swags kicked to one side. There’s a blackened smudge around the fire pit where Joffa collapsed, his jeans in flames. Even the makeshift targets hammered into the banyan tree are askew. The place smells of coal and ash and diesel.
Something’s missing…
The bodies.
Where are the guys from Mick’s crew who didn’t make it?
Jude prowls over to the table, scanning the forest. I follow, pretending not to see the grass and leaves stained dark at the edge of the camp. The smeared trail disappearing into the trees.
My skin chills. Some of that blood must be Rafa’s. I see Bel’s blade, shining wet. Rafa, caught totally unprepared. Afraid. For a second I feel the forest pressing in: palm trees blocking the sun; thick roots sprouting down from the banyan tree like bars of a living cage; the high walls of the rock gully hemming us in. There are no signs of life: no parrots, no cicadas. The demons are long gone, but some trace of them must still remain. Or maybe it’s what they left behind that’s keeping everything else away. I tighten the grip on my katana.
The faint sound of a diesel engine carries up from the valley, revving hard.
‘Here they come.’ Jude is by the keg. It’s sitting in a tub of water now instead of ice. He taps the side with his knuckle. ‘Maybe we should encourage them to have a drink first.’
‘Yeah, because alcohol always makes those boys more rational.’
He gives me a wry smile. I sling my sword across my back—I remember how to do that now—and help him retie the tarp between the palm trees. Then we lift the table back on its legs, stack the rifles, handguns and ammunition into piles. All the while we watch the forest, waiting.
The engine revs louder, gears grind. We wait near the fire pit in clear sight, eyes on the wheel ruts that mark the only way in and out of the camp by vehicle. A faded yellow four-wheel drive bounces into view, fishtailing in the dirt and spraying leaves and black soil. Mick’s mate with the blond mullet is driving, wrestling with the steering wheel as the mud-streaked car bucks and swerves. Mick’s in the passenger seat, already eyeballing us, one hand on the dashboard, the other awkwardly gripping the seatbelt from his shoulder sling.
The car careens into the camp and for a heartbeat I think the mullet’s aiming for us. But then he slams on the brakes and skids to a shuddering stop about three metres away. I turn my face to avoid a lungful of diesel.
Mick is first out of the car. His shoulder is still strapped, but the bandage is gone from his throat so I can see the ugly red hellion bite interrupting the ink on his neck. Maybe he’s not planning on growing his beard back on that side at all. Maybe he thinks it’s a badge of honour: he’s survived two demon attacks and has the scars to show for it. I’m not so sure he should push his luck for a third.
‘What happened to waiting for a plan?’
Mick kicks his door shut behind him. ‘We got shit to do too, you know.’
Rusty climbs from the backseat, nods at me, and leans back in for a crushed packet of smokes. He lights two, hands one to Mick. He’s lost the dressings from his buzz-cropped head and trimmed his beard back to his chin. It makes him look younger. Or maybe it’s that he’s spooked at being back at the camp.
‘How long have we got?’ Mick asks me. He takes a long drag, blows the smoke away from his brother.
‘To do what?’
‘Bury our dead.’
My gaze strays to the stained grass. ‘I don’t know if they’re still here, Mick.’ I say it quietly, hope he understands what I’m saying. I don’t want to have to spell out that Zarael’s hellions may have taken Mick’s dead mates with them. For later.
A car door slams on the other side of the four-wheel drive and two more of Mick’s crew shuffle around to us. Woosha, his hand bandaged (the one missing a thumb), his shoulder strapped. Lip stitched. And—unbelievably—Joffa. Before all hell broke loose up here on Sunday night, I smashed his nose and stabbed him in the leg. And then Gatekeepers showed up and the poor bastard ended up with his legs on fire. How he’s even walking is beyond me. Either Brother Ferro sent these boys home from the Sanctuary with heavy-duty painkillers or they’ve been self-medicating.
‘Where’s the big one?’ I mean the other surviving member of Mick’s crew, the guy almost as big as Zak and fully inked with tribal tatts.
‘Koro? We couldn’t fit him in.’ Mick pats the bonnet. The engine ticks as it cools. ‘That’s why we’re here: pick up more wheels.’
Jude gestures to the table of semi-automatic weapons and ammunition. ‘You didn’t come for that?’
Mick flicks ash away from the car. ‘It’s no good to anyone up here.’
‘We haven’t agreed on a plan yet. You guys need to—’
My stomach dips the same instant Mick and Rusty flinch. Jude and I spin around and draw our weapons, and my stomach lurches again—nothing to do with shifting this time.
Rafa.
He’s arrived with Zak. He watches Jude and me lower our blades, his katana still by his side. I meet his gaze without thinking. It hits me then, a flare of humiliation, hot and sickening. Followed by a wash of memories from the past week: of laughter, of heat and longing, of Rafa pushing me to fight, trying to protect me. Me watching him take a demon blade through the gut. The crushing fear of losing him; the desperate need to get him back. All of it a swirling mess of sensations that leave me unbalanced and totally ill-equipped for this moment.
Rafa’s eyes are dark, wary. I can’t pick his mood but he’s on edge. Maybe it’s seeing me. Or maybe it’s just being back here. He’s already scoured the trees around the campsite twice.
Now he takes in my track gear. ‘Good run?’ His tone is guarded, barely smart-arse.
‘Cleared out a few cobwebs.’
Rafa and Jude share a nod. Neither speaks.
‘Where’s everyone else?’ I direct the question to Zak but feel Rafa’s eyes on me.
‘Ez and Malachi are rounding them up,’ Zak says. ‘Taya’s with the barman.’
‘Daisy okay?’
‘Touch and go. Jones is sticking close.’
‘Oi, Zak,’ Mick says, and I realise it’s the first time he’s called any of us by name. ‘Did you touch anything else up here other than the launcher?’
Zak turns to him. He knows what Mick means. ‘Yes.’
My first reaction is relief: the hellions didn’t take Mick’s buddies as snacks. My second is dismay, because their bodies are probably close by and we’re going to have to deal with them. I do a quick calculation. They’ve been dead a little over twelve hours: rigor mortis will have set in but they’re still a day or two away from being…worse.
I don’t remember much of what happened during the attack after Rafa and Taya were taken—mostly shouting, gunfire, agonised screams—but I remember the names of the guys Mick lost from his crew: Tank. Gus. Maxie. Hawk.
‘Where are they?’ Rusty’s voice breaks a little on the question.
‘In there,’ Zak tips his head towards a ute with a heavy-duty roo bar and a forest of aerials. The tarp over the back is strapped down. ‘I came back a few hours ago.’
Mick limps over to it. He starts working his way around the tray, snapping the elastic straps from their hooks. Rusty takes the other side and the brothers meet at the tailgate. Mick grabs the tarp, hesitates. I can smell the blood already, dry and metallic.
‘They’re covered,’ Zak says quietly.
Woosha steps in and he and Rusty fold back the tarp. Four man-sized shapes lie under swags. Arranged neatly, respectfully.
‘Thanks, mate,’ Mick says, not looking at Zak. He grinds his jaw, blinks rapidly.
My eyes stray to something not quite covered by the canvas. A hand. The skin is already greying, the fingertips slightly bluish. Rusty reaches for the swag.
‘You might not want to do that,’ Zak says.
Rusty’s fingers stall. ‘I need to see their faces.’
‘Not that one, then.’
Mick’s brother swallows hard and then reaches past the first body to the second, draws back the far corner of the swag. He does it slowly, as if something might leap out at him.
It’s Tank. I recognise his shorn head and rough stubble, the Southern Cross tattoo on his throat. It looks tired against his waxy skin. His mouth is slightly open, frozen until rigor passes. Milky brown eyes stare out at nothing. Of the four who didn’t make it, Tank is the only one I knew. He took on Rafa at the Imperial last week with a busted pool cue. He was wearing a sling from that encounter last night and the tattered fabric is still looped around his neck, frayed and bloodied.
‘One of those pricks gutted him,’ Mick says. His cigarette is still between his lips. It bounces up and down as he talks. ‘Nothing I could do.’ He leans down to uncover the next face. I feel a touch on my wrist.
‘Come away.’
I turn at the sound of Rafa’s voice. He’s watching me, concerned, and then something shifts in his eyes—recognition, confusion—and his fingers drop away. It takes another beat before I understand: for a second there he forgot. He thought I was still just Gaby, not the battle-hardened Rephaite. That’s who he sees when he looks at me now. Gaby. I don’t miss the irony.
He lifts a palm, apologetic. ‘You can handle it, I know.’
‘That doesn’t mean I want to.’
His eyes search mine. I keep my back to the ute, hear a strangled sound from someone behind me when they check the next body.
‘Are you all right?’ Rafa asks the question carefully.
‘Honestly, Rafa, I have no idea.’
Something changes when I say his name, a slight softening around his mouth. It loosens something in me too.
The Butlers finish their inspection.
‘What are you going to do with them?’ Jude asks.
‘Pay our respects and put the boys to rest.’
Rusty stares at his brother. ‘Up here? What about their families? They need to know they’re gone. They need closure, mate.’
‘You want to explain how they died? Or drop ’em at the morgue and get the cops involved?’
‘Mick, the cops are getting involved either way. Another day or so and someone’s going to miss them.’
The brothers eyeball each other. Jude clears his throat. ‘I assume you boys know how to burn a vehicle—properly?’
Mick gives him a flat look, but Rusty nods, catching on. ‘Make it look like an accident? Yeah, mate, we could do that.’ He looks around at Mick and his mates. ‘At least the boys’ll be found.’
‘You’d have to burn everything,’ Jude says. ‘It can’t be obvious these guys were already dead.’
‘I get it.’ Rusty glances at his mates—covered again—and rubs a hand over his scalp. ‘We can take the back roads to the other side of the mountain. Do it there. Maybe roll it into a gully first.’
Mick takes a last drag of his smoke, drops the butt and grinds it into the dirt. ‘We’ll need a coupla fuel drums in the back. Petrol. Diesel’s not gonna explode just ’cause we push a ute off a cliff.’
‘You’ll have to position the bodies in the cab first.’ Jude says. ‘We can help if you—’
‘Nah, we got it,’ Mick says. He slaps the side of the tray and nods at Rusty. ‘You drive this one. We’ll follow.’
The blond mullet disappears behind the banyan tree. He comes back struggling with two ten-gallon petrol drums. Mick, Woosha and Joffa climb into the four-wheel drive. Rusty helps the mullet load the fuel and retie the tarp, then slides into the drivers side, starts the car. The mullet takes the passenger seat.
‘You lot need a plan by the time we get back.’ Rusty leans out so we can hear him clearly over the idling motor. ‘Because Mick’s got one, and it makes blowing up a ute look like kiddies’ play.’