I wake with Rafa’s arm draped along my hip, his fingertips resting on my bare thigh.
I’m lying in a patch of sunlight, eyes half-closed against the glare. Rafa’s chest rises and falls against my back in a slow, steady rhythm. His breath tickles my shoulder. I can hear the surf down the hill, muffled, and magpies fuss on the fence outside. The power’s back on: my alarm clock blinks at me. Dust motes float in the light, settle on the windowsill.
It took us three hours to clear the beach yesterday, even with two hundred extra pairs of hands. We shifted every dead Immundi—every dismembered limb—far out to sea and dumped the remains as shark bait. It was beyond revolting. I don’t intend doing that again. Ever.
By the time we’d finished, the sky had darkened from oranges and pinks to a thousand shades of blue, and then the rain came. No thunder, no lightning and no wind, just torrential rain that drove us under cover. I don’t know where the Fallen took shelter, but we—the Rephaim—gathered under the awnings along the esplanade to watch the downpour. It was deafening on the corrugated iron. The tide rushed in, faster than it should have, and when it was sucked back out, the beach was washed clean. Like that, all traces of our battle gone—from the sand, at least. We’ll wear our scars a little longer.
I breathe out, lace my fingers through Rafa’s and draw his arm around me. He mumbles something into my hair, doesn’t wake. I should get up but I’m not ready to face the mess yet in the kitchen. Last night, when the rain eased to a drizzle, Jude and I took two cartons of beer from Rick’s, left a scribbled note under the till, and came back to the bungalow. About a dozen of us crammed into our kitchen: around the table, on the bench, stretched out on the floor.
Jason went straight to the resort to get Maria—Gabriel had left her unconscious when he ripped Dani and the Rephaim from the room, and she was beyond frantic when she woke. Then Jason took Maggie to check on Bryce and Simon at the evac centre.
The power was out, so we lit candles, drank half-chilled beer and took turns under a cold shower. Maggie and Jason joined us just as the beer ran out. Maggie found pillows and sheets, and opened the cheap bottles of red we keep in the top of the pantry for emergencies. We were all exhausted, but we managed to keep talking, trying to fit together the pieces of the past twelve hours. Comparing stories about the moments when, amid the carnage and the clean-up, awkward introductions were made.
Nobody has a clue how to feel about the Fallen.
Not even Mya. Hadrial worked by her side during the clean-up, making an effort even though she ignored him. However she feels about him, she didn’t share it with us last night. By the time she was slumped at my table, bottle in hand, she was too worn out even to insult the state of my house.
Sometime around ten, Jones and Daisy shifted to pick up noodle boxes and laksas from their favourite hole-in-the-wall in Chiang Mai. By midnight, Dani was asleep in Zak’s lap. He and Ez took her and Maria back to the resort so Jason could stay a while longer with Maggie. Daisy claimed the couch and nobody had the energy to argue. When Rafa and I finally fell into bed, Jude was crashed on a mattress under the lounge-room window and Jones and Micah were sprawled on blankets on the floor either side of him. Everyone else found a room at the resort; it might have been deserted and without power, but there were plenty of empty beds.
I trace a crease in the sun-warmed sheet near my pillow, hear movement at the other end of the house. The coffee machine grumbles to life. Jude must be up. Way too early for Mags.
‘Morning.’ Rafa’s voice is thick with sleep. He brushes his lips across my shoulder and I nestle against him.
‘Get any rest?’ I ask.
‘Yeah, until the trucks rolled in.’
The first vehicles made it into town around dawn, gears crunching as they rounded the bend a few blocks over. It must have taken all night to clear the road from the highway. The Butlers weren’t exaggerating about their prowess with explosives. It’s going to take a bit longer to get the esplanade back in shape.
I yawn and Rafa makes room so I can roll over and face him. There are shadows under his eyes and his jaw is still discoloured, but he looks better than he did last night.
‘What’s the time?’ I ask.
‘No idea. My phone’s still fried.’
‘You think we’re late?’
Rafa squints at the sun through the window. ‘We’ve got at least an hour or so.’
Gabriel ordered the Fallen to the Sanctuary as soon as the beach was cleared. He gave the rest of us twelve hours. I don’t want to be half-dressed if he gets impatient and summons us. My pulse kickstarts at the thought of the Fallen being at the Sanctuary. I sit up and stretch out my arms. I’m stiff and sore, my skin marked with fresh cuts and fading bruises, but I’m in one piece. We all are. Rafa’s fingers slide under my singlet and climb my back.
‘You that keen to see Semyaza again?’ He runs his thumb down my spine.
I look over my shoulder at him. ‘Not particularly.’ But that’s not entirely the truth. I’m curious, fascinated. Nervous.
‘I don’t think he likes me,’ Rafa says, deadpan.
I laugh. ‘I’m not convinced he likes me.’
I pull on clean jeans and a faded red t-shirt and wander out to the kitchen barefoot, dragging my hair back into a ponytail. Jude is bent over the bench, shirtless, his weight on his elbows. Daisy is checking the wound on his back. Her head comes up when she hears me.
‘Come and look at this,’ she says.
‘Settle down,’ Jude says. He starts to straighten but Daisy puts a hand on his neck to keep him in place.
‘Stay there and let your sister see what a mess you’ve made of yourself.’
‘If memory serves me correctly I didn’t do this to myself, Daisy.’
‘But you could’ve had it stitched up before you threw yourself back in harm’s way.’
He sighs at me as I round the bench.
‘Give it up, Jude,’ I say. ‘You know you’re not going to win—’
I falter. His back is a mess. The gash across his shoulders healed while it was still open and the wound looks like an angry mountain range bursting out of his tanned skin. I feel queasy. ‘Bloody hell, Jude, have you seen this? Does it hurt?’
He shrugs. ‘A few more shifts and it’ll settle down.’
Rafa joins us, poking his head through a threadbare t-shirt. ‘Shit, buddy, you’ll need to go under the knife if you’re still keen on scoring at the beach.’ He winks at Daisy.
She glowers at him and her fingers drop from Jude’s neck. ‘I’m going home.’
‘What about breakfast?’ Jude asks, straightening.
She shakes her head, not looking at him. ‘I’ll find something at the Sanctuary.’
‘The commissary’s a smoking ruin.’
She ignores him, catching my eye as she reaches for her weapons on the bench. ‘See you when you get there.’ And then she’s gone. I give Rafa a dirty look. I forgot how much he enjoys winding her up.
The kitchen smells of Thai food and stale beer. I open the window over the sink, careful not to bump the empty bottles lined up behind the tap. I half expect to catch a hint of blood or sulfur or ozone on the breeze, but all I get is sea air and eucalypt. I breathe out.
‘Where’s everyone else?’
Jude’s mattress is stood up against the wall out of the way, a stack of pillows and folded blankets and sheets on the floorboards next to it.
‘The guys left for the Sanctuary about half an hour ago. Maggie and Jason have gone to get breakfast.’
‘Jason was here all night?’ I take the stool next to my brother. He shrugs into a lightweight hoodie and pushes up the sleeves.
‘Yeah. Ez and Zak stayed with the girls.’
Rafa stretches in front of the open kitchen window, his back to us. He locks his hands over his head and twists until his shoulder pops. I want to ask him how he feels about seeing his father today, but my stomach dips and Maggie and Jason appear in the doorway.
‘You’re up,’ Maggie says. Her steps wobble and she’s pale, but she’s more comfortable with shifting now. She’s had enough practice the past few days.
‘Morning, Margaret,’ Rafa says. ‘Goldilocks.’
Jason puts two paper bags on the bench and starts pulling out bacon and egg rolls and boxes of hash browns. Salty, greasy goodness. My stomach rumbles and Maggie smiles.
‘Now the world feels normal again.’
‘Your mum okay?’ I ask, reaching for a roll.
She nods. ‘She’s shaken up, like everyone else.’
‘What did you tell her?’
Maggie screws up one eye like she expects to get into trouble. ‘That I’d explain everything today when she gets home. Is that okay? She’s with Simon and I don’t think he’s said anything yet, but he might if I don’t tell her something. And I don’t want to keep lying to her.’
I look to Jude.
‘As long as you think she can handle it,’ he says.
Maggie fingers the corner of the bag on the bench. ‘Mum’s been struggling since Dad died—we both have. I think knowing there’s more to the world, that the Rephaim exist and are looking out for us…it’ll help her.’
‘It’s not like the whole town won’t be chasing answers,’ I say.
Last night everyone on the esplanade got a terrifying glimpse of a world they never knew existed. Demons stalking the beach. Monsters lumbering through town. But there’s no trace of any of them this morning, angel or demon. And if everyone else’s phones are as useless as ours, there won’t be any other evidence either. Our battle might be out in the open now, but maybe the truth will get lost in the hysteria. Maybe.
Jude nods but I see his attention drift.
‘What are you thinking?’
He taps his thumb on the edge of the kitchen bench, exhales. ‘Gabriel was in that forest last year.’
Rafa stops chewing his hash brown. ‘You recognised his voice?’
‘No, but who else has the power to change our memories?’
I try to swallow. The egg and bread and bacon feel like paper mache in my throat.
‘You swore fealty to the Second Lieutenant of the Garrison?’ Rafa says. ‘What’s he going to want in return?’
‘No idea.’
I finally get my food down. ‘Would Dani know?’ I ask Jason.
He shakes his head. ‘She can only see what Orias sees, and I doubt he has access to anything involving the Garrison.’ Jason wipes his fingers on the dishcloth and then rinses it.
‘Orias can see any of us whenever he wants to?’
‘All of the Fallen can. The difference with Orias is that he also sees things that haven’t happened—so Dani does too, whether she wants to or not. And it’s a lot less precise.’
‘But she goes looking for us whenever she wants to.’
He nods. ‘When she meditates, she sees what we’re doing in that moment. The things she sees in the future—those visions that take her completely by surprise—they’ve been intentionally given to her by Orias, but they haven’t always come through as clearly as he’s intended.’
Jason and his father must have had quite the chat last night. ‘What else did he tell you?’
He folds the dishcloth over the tap. ‘The Fallen communicate telepathically.’
‘Yeah, I wondered about that.’ Given how they shifted from the resort roof last night without Semyaza giving an audible command.
‘That’s how Dani reached out to Rafa when he was at the farmhouse. She somehow managed to tap into that too.’
I think about everything Dani’s seen and done since Jude and I came into her life a year ago. Knowing the risks and wanting to help anyway. She’s twelve years old and the bravest of us all.
Jason leans back against the sink, rubs his eye with his thumb. Sighs as if defeated.
‘Jase,’ Maggie says quietly. ‘She’s going to be okay.’
He brushes his fingers down her arm, almost apologetic. ‘I’ve been trying to protect my family for so long—lying about myself to protect the people I care about. I don’t know how to stop worrying. And now I’ve got you to worry about too.’
Maggie catches his fingers in hers. ‘Orias is as curious about Dani as she is about him, he’s not going to let anyone hurt her. Plus she’s got the entire Rephaite army looking out for her. And I’ve got all of you.’
Maggie’s tired and I can’t imagine the nightmares she must be having after the last twenty-four hours, but she trusts us to keep her safe. Trusts me.
‘Always, Mags,’ I say and she smiles at me, eyes shining.
Jude nods his agreement, but he’s not really listening. He’s already thinking about the Sanctuary, trying to second-guess what’s going to happen when we get there. I stand up, needing to move. My shoulders and neck are already tight again.
‘Let’s get this over with. You going to get Dani now?’
Jason blows out his breath. ‘Do I have a choice?’
‘Nah, Goldilocks, you don’t,’ Rafa says. He screws up the empty paper bag and lobs it from behind his back. It hits the wall and lands in an empty beer carton by the fridge. ‘None of us do.’