Raphi, and is also utterly foreign. I was not expecting this force of emotion, which hit me on first setting foot in Sydney. The recall of my love’s loss was still too fresh, the agony too raw. As soon as Hugo clapped eyes on me the night before I was due to throw myself on the mercy of the Trinity, he understood there was something very wrong and the plan had gone awry. In a wrath, I was forced to restrain him.”
“Because he realised you’d decided to use me to convince the Crone to kill you. By whatever means of persuasion the situation demanded.”
“You have no reason to ever put faith in me, no reason to believe a word I say. Keeper know this, I will never turn on you again. I pledge my loyalty to you and will honour the memory of Raphaela until the end.”
This was not the sneering, superior enemy I was familiar with. The boy before me was vulnerable and remorseful and I had no clue if he was acting or genuine. Or if I was a gullible idiot.
“Forgive me, Keeper, please.” He entreated softly.
“The end … Whatever that brings,” I mumbled unhappily.
I slumped back and sipped my drink, lost in a tangled web of terrible thoughts, thankful the alcohol dulled the impact he had on me, at least. I was no nearer to saving my guardians from their horrid fate.
He peered keenly at me, sitting upright and breaching the gap spanning our chairs. “I wish to tell you something and I hope you understand its import.” He reached for my hand but dropped his on seeing me cringe. “No one has ever challenged me while under the influence of the seethers. Never before, over a countless record of foul misdeeds. You have more courage and ability than you think.”
“It’s not brave to fight to survive. It’s instinct. Just ask the rats. Tell me, Seth, that you and Raphaela contrived a way to help the Trinity. They don’t have much time left.”
“You will need to touch me.” Seth raised his hand, as though readying for an arm wrestle. “Enclose my hand in the Delta gate.”
Distaste was evident in my hesitation. “Contact with you hasn’t been such fun. I can still smell the stink of my own rotting flesh.”
“I promised not to hurt you again. I meant it. If you rely on any part of all I have said, I pray this be it.” He chuckled and shook his head. “And you have now denied me twice, a novel experience. Remember Keeper, a proverb from my youth eons ago. ‘There be many a slip, ’twixt the cup and the lip.’”
“Er, most illuminating,” I said, uncertainly.
He was poised with his hand suspended, eyes twinkling bluer than the water below us. “We must be hasty,” he explained patiently. “Enoch grows restless for an audience with you.”
Sometimes it’s tougher to look than to leap. Smithy had taught me this saying during parkour lessons, so that fear did not prevent me from jumping. Looking down from a height was never the best idea during a run across rooftops. Before I could dither, my hands shot out to grab Seth’s and I pressed my wrists together. I’d finally worked out that the Keeper’s gifts existed between these special tattoos.
My mind rushed into a strange emptiness that flowed and whispered, pinpoints of light swirling to occupy the entirety of my awareness, as if I’d stepped into star-filled space. A small object gained shape from nothing and hurtled towards me, hitting me in the chest with such energy that I rocked the chair backwards upon returning to myself on Seth’s veranda. The wind was knocked out of me.
He fanned me with the newspaper and held the reviving drink to my mouth, as I struggled to regain my bearings. I wondered if accessing my so-called power would ever be easier and less disconcerting. Seth dropped the apple-sized parcel into my hands. I could not help but notice he’d been reluctant to handle it, gingerly pincering the bow of string between fingertips.
“A gift from Raphaela. Take it as an offering of my allegiance.” I’d hardly recovered from my trip to the void, when I was abruptly reefed up under the arms. Seth herded me unceremoniously through his stylish apartment for the door. My stomach boiled and the beginnings of a titanic headache hammered my skull.
“What are you doing?” I all but screeched.
“Enoch’s patience wanes. I do not wish to cross him by keeping you here too late. I would like it very much for you to come back here to my island paradise, rather than the punishment of a yurt on the Siberian tundra.”
My grit-coated tongue was good for one last question. “Why did Finesse keep you?” I gave him a sidelong glance. He stumbled; it was odd from one so graceful.
“I resemble the one who forged her Stone, as he appears to her,” he said with great weariness.
“You … look like Satan?” Of course, saying this aloud was so completely ridiculous, I nearly succumbed to hysterical giggling.
“Few say no to an offer from Finesse. Her terms are undeniably appealing. She will grant one’s deepest desires. Fame, wealth, beauty, power – people are extremely predictable – in return for lifelong vigilance and servitude. Those who refuse her, do not outlive her wrath. But I was not granted the choice in my own downfall. I am the embodiment of the witch’s only love. I was forced to do her bidding due to a random resemblance to her husband.”
Pity for him overwhelmed me. What dreadful misfortune: a life obliterated because he was as dazzling as Lucifer, god’s most favoured angel. Well, until pride got the better of him and he took a tumble from heavenly heights. We slowed at the filmy curtain and Seth spun me around to face him. The floor teetered precariously.
“I have no right, Keeper, but would ask you for one favour on your return.”
Seth gazed fervently down at me. He was too intimate and I froze.
“Uh, uh, um,” I said, feeling ill and unsteady.
“I will be presumptuous and take that as a yes.” He smiled widely. “Not that you do not look very fetching, but on our next meeting, please leave your hair out.”
With that, he gently expelled me into the hallway. A couple of grumpy cats paced on his doorsill, their greeting for me not remotely welcoming. Although they were pleasant in comparison to one immensely irate Smithy storming down the corridor towards me.
“Bear!” he yelled. The volume split my aching head like a cracking egg. “You disobeyed Aunt Bea and jeopardised yourself with that knuckle-dragging mouth-breather! After all he did to you. Why?”
Aiming to stabilise myself against the hallway wall, I found thin air instead and flailed briefly. I swayed until re-establishing my balance. When I was eventually game enough to move, I tripped into Smith’s arms on the first step. He scrutinised me, glowering.
“Oops!” Hiccup. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“Are you … drunk?” His eyes narrowed incredulously.
He’d showered and donned drawstring pyjama pants, and his hastily towelled hair was damp and sticking out in all directions. He smelled mouth-watering, of the sea and spice. My free hand automatically wandered over the honeyed skin of his chest, warm and smoother than polished Tasmanian oak.
Hiccup. “Nope!” I tried to focus on his divine, if glaring, face. “Nice jammies.”
“Fortescue lent them to me. I didn’t bring any. I don’t usually wear them.”
My head swam and my legs were wobbly. I could pull it off if I didn’t speak too much, but I had to know. “What do you usually wear to bed?”
“How is that in any way relevant?”
Smithy had never been so boring. Walking presented an unavoidable challenge. I clutched the parcel Seth had given me and squinted towards the lift. The distance seemed marginally less testing than scaling Kilimanjaro. The jostling cats were bound to trip me up, and the floor was topsy-turvy.
“Stop that!” He grabbed my fingers, which had been idly circling his belly button. “Honestly, gone for less than an hour and look at the state you’re in. A bumbling disaster!”
“I prefer multry sphinx.”
“I should never have left you. Especially as you see fit to enjoy cocktails with a psychopath.”
“You couldn’t come with me. We had cocktails, you’re o
nly allowed mocktails.” I was really witty. I giggled. And swayed a bit more.
“Nothing about this is funny. You’re making no sense. Tell me why you did it, Bear.”
His tone of profound hurt finally penetrated through the boozy haze and I felt ashamed all over again. “Instinct.”
I held out my hand and showed him the parcel. The motion unsettled me and I began to tip sideways. The parcel slipped through my fingers and tumbled to the floor, bouncing ahead of us. Smith grappled me back into a vertical position, scooping the lost parcel up on the way past as we trundled for the stupid, padded-cell elevator.
“It’s midnight. You’re going to have the worst case of the bed-spins.”
“Oh, my lovely hypotwit, how many times have you had bed-spins?”
“Don’t you mean hypocrite?”
“Not necess … essss … ness … No. And you’re not one to judge about drinking too much. Go the judge. Get it?” I was just too humorous. Who put that wall there?
“Stop laughing! Here, let me get a better hold.” He slipped a firm arm about my waist and walked me gingerly to the elevator. “Let me know if you feel sick. You look a little green.”
Ooh. Now he mentioned it, I did feel squeamish. If I chundered inside, would the lift be out of order for an extended period? It was seriously worth consideration.
“Smithy, guess how I resist Seth?” There were far too many S’s in that sentence and my tongue was four sizes too big.
“You’re slurring!”
We