Rebecca Lim - Fury

It’s strange seeing them again. From life to life, I’ve never been able to carry anything concrete with me. My existence to date has had a terrifying aura of impermanence, of hallucination, as has the entire objective world. Until Ryan. When he and I collided, everything began to change. And now the room is filled with people I’ve met before under vastly different circumstances, and the rooms themselves, the dresses, are known and familiar things. It’s a seismic shift for me, the effects of which I think I’m only beginning to feel.

Juliana barely glances at the two dresses before telling Gia in a low voice to take them away. As the gowns are wheeled back out of the suite, Gia catches the look on my face and murmurs, ‘Don’t worry, they’ll be there in the car. What’s so important in Moltrasio anyway? Nothing could make me go there. You saw the footage. There’s nothing there now except death.’

‘Death has been and gone and taken what he wanted,’ I reply absently, thinking about how those two frivolous gowns give Ryan and me a reason to be in the heavily compromised lakes region. Once they’re delivered into Bianca St Alban’s hands, I can start looking around Moltrasio for traces of Nuriel: in the sky, in the water, the soil, the trees. You can’t just make one of the elohim vanish into thin air, especially one that doesn’t want to go. Knowing Nuriel, she would have left some clue.

Juliana signs the letter of introduction on Atelier Re letterhead before she and Dottore Pellini take their leave together. All the while, Tommy administers Ryan’s buzz cut in the background, with Carlo and Jürgen looking on in sardonic amusement, pointing out places he’s missed.

The doorbell sounds again, and Gia and I supervise the laying out of a mountain of dishes and beverages that emerge from the trolleys wheeled in by two female hotel staff in maroon and gold uniforms. Irina suddenly lets out a bloodcurdling shriek, followed by the loud clang of something metallic hitting her closed bedroom door. The young women exchange covert glances before excusing themselves from the room.

Gia grins at me. ‘Bet Magdalena the nurse wishes Irina was still under.’

‘I’m done here,’ Tommy calls out.

Gia and I turn away from the dining table and I’m shocked by how changed Ryan appears. He looks thinner and older, the dark shadows under his eyes, the pallor of his skin, the remarkable lines of his facial bones, his skull, all accentuated.

‘Oh, Ryan,’ I say softly, appalled at what I’ve allowed to happen.

‘I like it,’ Gia says in a no-nonsense voice. ‘I think he looks edgy, hot. Kudos, Tommy, you didn’t even draw blood this time. You ,’ she indicates Ryan curtly, and again I get that faint wash of unhappiness from her, ‘get over here and get stuck into this feast.’

Tommy sets down the clippers and rolls up the newspapers he laid out around Ryan’s chair, bundling up lengths of shornoff hair in the process.

‘Is it that bad?’ Ryan replies, getting up and walking over to me.

I don’t reply, still troubled by the transformation in him.

He doesn’t ask for a mirror, or even look for one, and that’s him all over. He just doesn’t give a shit about the way he looks or the impact he has.

He holds my gaze challengingly and says, ‘It’s still me.’

And you’re still heart-stopping , I think. Even to those not in possession of an actual heart . All I say aloud, gruffly, is, ‘Eat.’

As Ryan wolfs down what looks like his body weight in food and drink, Gia hands me a black and grey backpack with splashes of fluoro green across it. We go through the contents together: that all-important letter of introduction, the beanie, the cap, the spectacles, the sunglasses, a lighter, a cylindrical silver flashlight, a handful of chocolate bars, a bottle of water, a pocketknife, a disposable razor, a small canister of deodorant, a travel-sized bottle of whisky, a small chamois cloth, a bar of soap, an Atelier Re-branded five-pack of black boxer shorts in size M, two pairs of hiking socks, and thirteen hundred and seventy euros in notes.

‘Because that’s all I have on me,’ Gia says crisply when I try to return it.

‘It’s too much,’ I say, looking at the pile of bills in my hand — tens, twenties, fifties, hundreds — in candy colours.

‘Take it,’ she insists in a fierce whisper. ‘ You might be able to walk through walls, but Ryan needs to survive like the rest of us do, the regular way, and that takes dough. Buy me a meal if you ever swing by North London and we’ll call it quits, though, by the look of things, food’s optional for you lot, isn’t it?’

She runs a purple fingernail idly through the contents of the bag. ‘The rest of this stuff is a jaded old fashionista’s take on what a Boy Scout bag ought to look like. It may come in handy, it may be completely useless. I wouldn’t know. I don’t do le camping .’

After Ryan pushes away from the table, looking slightly sick, Tommy leads him back into Gia’s bedroom and bullies him into changing out of his grimy tee and jeans while Gia and I look on, amused.

‘These are fair-trade organic cotton,’ Tommy mutters as he yanks a couple of long-sleeved tee-shirts over Ryan’s head and leanly muscled bare chest, one cream, one black, before thrusting a black zip-up hoodie with a subtle cable running up either side of the zipper into Ryan’s hands. ‘Cashmere angora blend,’ he says. ‘Feel it. Lightweight, unbelievably warm. From this season’s collection.’

I can tell from Ryan’s face that he just doesn’t get it. He gazes at the hoodie bemusedly and zips himself into it. ‘Uh, thanks,’ he says, shooting me an imploring look. ‘Fits great.’

Tommy hands him a slim-fitting pair of dark indigo jeans. ‘Also organic, hand-whiskered. No two pairs are ever the same.’

‘They’re, um, nice,’ Ryan replies, shrugging into them hastily and half-turning away from us to do up the fly and top button. I see that they’re a perfect fit.

‘The way this isn’t ,’ Tommy says with a sniff, holding up Ryan’s beaten-up dark brown leather jacket. ‘It’s torn. You can have mine. It was too big for me anyway. I’m already over it. They give me a new one every year.’

‘If it’s okay with you,’ Ryan says firmly, ‘I’d like to keep wearing mine.’

‘It’s revolting,’ Tommy insists. ‘And it’s only got two pockets,’ he adds, like it’s a crime.

The two men — one so tall, one so slight — stare each other down for a moment.

‘It’s important to me,’ Ryan says finally. ‘And, actually, it’s got three.’

He takes the jacket out of Tommy’s hands and turns back the right side to reveal an interior pocket. He unzips it, reaches inside and takes out a flat, black mobile phone like Gia’s, a small booklet with a blue cover so dark it’s almost black, a small black leather wallet and a folded-up piece of paper that’s starting to tear along the creases. He throws everything onto Gia’s bed except the paper. Wordlessly, he unfolds it, and I look up at him, startled, realising what it is a second before Tommy and Gia crowd around to look at the image in his hand.

It’s a colour pencil drawing of an unsmiling young woman with an oval face, a long straight nose, lips that are neither too thin nor too wide, large, wide-set brown eyes, brown hair that hangs down to just past the shoulders. A strong face that is all angles and planes. My face. The one I must try to keep hidden while Ryan and I search out a vanquished archangel.

‘It’s a reasonable likeness,’ I mutter. And it is. Quite remarkably like the face that used to stare out at me from inside the reflections of strangers. It’s weird seeing myself captured this way.