Fury

Watching Uriel pick a carriage, pick a seat, had reminded me of me: he’s sitting with his back to the wall right beside the exit to the next compartment, in an aisle seat that gives him an unimpeded view of the entire carriage, which is empty save for us. I’m between Uri and the window, my back to the wall, too, because old habits die hard. Across from us, Ryan’s staring, awe-struck, at the rain slicing down the sheer faces of mountains that drop away into deep ravines, wave after wave of them.

Just before the train left, Ryan had tactfully suggested that maybe Uriel wouldn’t want to be seen climbing the Inca Trail in a cashmere sweater, chinos and leather loafers with tassels. A blistering silence had ensued, but Ryan and I had exchanged covert glances when we’d looked up from counting the stash of money in our pack to see Uriel dressed in an anonymous-looking, red and navy hip-length hooded parka with a drawstring waist — like one we’d seen on some other gringo at the station — a heavy rollneck sweater, kind of like mine except in navy, and black trousers with cargo pockets, heavy boots, sunglasses, and a black beanie.

Okay? Uriel asks inside my head, when he catches me staring at him, and I give him the thumbs-up.

‘Though you could lose the sunglasses,’ I say. ‘We’re inside.’

Ryan’s mobile phone rings, drawing Uriel’s gaze immediately. Ryan puts his hand inside his leather jacket and pulls it out, surprised.

‘Lauren?’ he says suddenly.

Across from him, Uri and I are instantly still.

‘What is it?’ Ryan asks anxiously into the screen. ‘What’s wrong? I just checked in yesterday, right? From Tokyo.’ He looks at me for confirmation.

I nod. It feels like a lifetime ago to me, too.

Lauren’s voice comes across loud and clear and frightened, ignoring his questions. ‘Ryan, is Mercy there? I need to ask her something. Can you put her on?’

I swing across to the window seat beside Ryan and we put our faces together in front of the screen. ‘I’m here, Lauren,’ I murmur. ‘Shoot.’

‘There’s a man standing outside our house, right now,’ she says, her voice high and panicky, ‘and I think I’m the only one who can see him. Whenever I look out the window, he’s just … there. He raises his head when I do it — like he’s looking into my eyes.’

I go cold at her words. ‘Describe him,’ I say.

‘I can’t, not really.’ Her words tumble out in fits and spurts. ‘It’s, like, when I look at him I can’t make out the details because he’s, like, glowing in this robe thing. Maybe he has dark eyes and dark hair, but I can’t be sure. When I look at him, I feel sick. It’s like I can’t focus. He’s there, but he’s not there. I can’t explain it.’

Uriel says suddenly inside my head: The colour of the light. Ask.

I lower my voice, trying to sound as calm and normal as possible. ‘It’s okay, Lauren, it will be okay. Just tell me what colour the, uh, aura, he’s giving out is, if you can.’

Lauren’s almost crying. ‘It’s bright, bright but kind of grey. It doesn’t make any sense … God, I know I’m not making any sense. I can hardly stand to look at him, but when I asked Dad whether he could see anything through my bedroom window he said there was nothing there. But he’s there all the time. Not Dad, the watcher. Even when I sleep. When I wake up, he’s there. When I look out, he’s there.’ Her voice has risen rapidly, like a scream.

‘How long?’ Uri asks sharply.

‘Lauren,’ Ryan says soothingly, as his sister holds one hand over her mouth and weeps. ‘Lauren. How long has this been going on? How long?’

‘Two days, three?’ she sobs. ‘I’m not sure when I first actually noticed. What do I do? What do I do?’

Ryan says fiercely, ‘You get our parents and get the hell out of there. Take Rich with you, too, if you have to, just get them out of town. Tell them anything.’

Uriel and I exchange worried glances, and he murmurs, ‘I’m not sure that’s the best idea, Ryan. Away from Paradise, they might be even more vulnerable to —’

‘Luc’s having the house watched,’ Ryan explodes. ‘We’re not like you.’ He jabs at the air. ‘You can’t expect me to tell my family to stay there like, like targets!’

I go cold as I remember what Luc said in Milan, inside the limousine, when he’d appeared like a vision to me: Come to me. Only then will you be safe. Flee the Eight and their legion at whatever cost. But if I should somehow fail, then locate that human boy and return with him to the place where he lives, to Paradise. He, too, will play a part in the final reckoning, when all debts due and owing to me shall be met in full and repaid in blood.

‘Send help!’ Ryan says violently, glaring at Uriel. ‘You could do that, right? If you wanted to.’

Uriel frowns. ‘All the elohim and malakhim that can be spared to fight Luc are massing somewhere only Michael knows of, awaiting his orders. He is our Viceroy, the one who commands us in the name of our Lord. But now he’s missing, and I am just one upon this earth; alone except for Mercy, with no word of where the others are. As soon as we locate Gabriel, we’ll send what help we can. But we need to free Gabriel first. It’s imperative.’

‘How is Gabriel more important than the people I love?’ Ryan thunders.

He says into the screen, ‘Get out of town, Lauren, get them out of there. If they don’t know already, don’t tell them why, just make it happen.’

Still weeping, Lauren doesn’t reply, she just hangs up.

Ryan throws his phone at the back of his seat, then strides down the length of the carriage to get away from us, his arms folded around his head in anguish.

He doesn’t come back, not until the train pulls into the station known as Kilometer 104, and he’s forced to get out with us.

Ryan doesn’t meet my eyes, and he won’t look at Uriel at all, as we pull up our hoods against the downpour and walk the four hundred or so feet to a small guardhouse by a narrow suspension footbridge over the tumbling, swollen Urubamba River. The ground is slick and heavy with mud, but I think I’m the only one who notices how Uriel seems to glide across it without stumbling, how the rain and dirt don’t seem to touch him at all.

We line up with all the other trekkers and their local guides and porters — about twenty people at most, some of them clearly having second thoughts about pressing on. Mateo makes his way over to us, his head bent. He’s wearing a hooded, heavy-duty khaki parka over dark pants, a pair of battered shoes in place of the rubber slides he’d been wearing the night before, and a large backpack as wide and almost half as tall as he is. We’d requested no porters the night before, and Uriel looks at the large pack enquiringly as Mateo reaches us.

‘Food, water, rain ponchos, blankets, first-aid kit,’ he explains.

Uriel gestures at him to hand the pack over, offended to see anyone carrying anything on his behalf. Mateo hesitates for a moment, before shrugging it off and passing it to him. Uriel slings the pack over his shoulders, ignoring the waist and chest straps because it weighs nothing to him.

I get the wad of euros Gia gave us out of my pocket and shove them into Mateo’s hand. He hasn’t yet mentioned any kind of payment.

‘This is for you,’ I say. ‘Thirteen hundred and seventy euros, to cover the three of us. It’s everything we’ve got.’

Mateo shakes his head, tries to push the money back into my hands. ‘I can’t take it, senorita,’ he says earnestly. ‘It is too much. It is only a few hours of walking — you tell me no porters, no bus, no overnight hotel. I would do it for nothing. It is my pleasure.’

‘Please,’ Ryan shouts, over the sound of the rain, ‘take it. If you can’t use it all, share it with Gabino and his family. To thank them for taking care of me, for giving me help exactly when I needed it.’

His voice is bitter and I know he’s thinking of his own family.

Mateo nods, finally, and zips the money away in his jacket. He retrieves some paperwork from another pocket, enclosed in a battered plastic sleeve, and blinks at me, at Ryan, through the rain. ‘Remember that today you are Estelle Jablonski of Mississauga, Canada, and you are her boyfriend, Clive Butler, also of Mississauga, Canada.’

Ryan looks away without replying.