Rebecca Lim - Fury

‘Then how did he find me in Milan when I was Irina?’ I wail. ‘I still don’t understand how, after all this time, he was able to work out who I was, where I was, when he’d never been able to do that before.’

Ryan shakes his head, unconvinced, and I grasp his arm, the leather of his sleeve cool beneath my burning hand.

‘We’ve always had this strange connection, Luc and I. Maybe because he was the one that marked me, I don’t know, I’ve never been able to work it out. It used to be that when I slept he had access to my thoughts, he could reach out to me across any distance and we could speak with each other as if we were face to face, like you and I are now. But even with that weird connection, he’s never been able to find me, not until now. If he can still get into my head, if my thoughts aren’t safe from him, then we need to move. We need to reach Selaphiel before Luc can figure out what we’re doing. And we’re putting Bianca at risk every second we stay here. Luckily for us, he didn’t see me at Villa Nicolin, he saw me at the lake. Let him think me still there when we’ve already fled for … Paris.’ I shudder as I say the word. ‘We’ve got to go. Now .’

Ryan picks up our backpack, finally catching the flame of my urgency. I can see from his face that he knows very well what the Devil is capable of. Ryan lives in his world. This is the earth that the Devil has made, as much as any other, and it would serve no purpose to remind a Son of Man what Lucifer is capable of. Every thought, every deed, every breath, the Devil would claim his stake in, if he could.

Ryan looks out the windows, but to his mortal eyes it’s still dark as night out there. ‘What time is it, anyway?’

‘Five fourteen,’ I say unerringly.

‘Close enough,’ he says. ‘Let’s wait for the car out front.’

Bianca opens the door to her bedroom before we reach it. She’s wearing an elegant pair of man-style pyjamas in oyster-coloured silk, piped in navy, but her eyes are heavy with sleeplessness.

‘You’re too early,’ she says without preamble, looking up into my eyes, into Ryan’s. ‘I’ll come fetch you when I hear the car being brought round. Try and get a little more rest.’

‘The way you have?’ I query softly. ‘I don’t sleep very well these days,’ she murmurs, shrugging. ‘Bad dreams.’

‘I get those, too,’ I say, making my voice as even and calm as possible. ‘And the last one I had convinced me that you have to throw together a bag of personal possessions and move up to the main house. Now. Better still, you, Clara, Tomaso and whoever else you’ve got working here, you all need to leave with us. It’s just a feeling I get.’

Bianca turns her bemused gaze on Ryan and he says quietly, ‘You should do it. I’d trust those “feelings” of hers with my life.’

‘My God,’ she murmurs, appalled. ‘What have you seen ?’

‘The Devil,’ I reply, watching her face tighten in horror. ‘When he discovers Nuriel gone, there’s no telling what you’ll see out there on the water. Call your neighbours and organise an evacuation, get to higher ground. Or leave the country.’

Bianca hurries across the hall into the room with the telephone. I hear her speaking in fluent, harried Italian. ‘Send the car around now,’ she insists, ‘to the dépendance . They need to leave now. Yes, I know it’s too early, but they can wait at the hangar. Get all the men and their families into the great house. The lake looks like it may … rise. And call Villa Cavallino and Villa Pironi. Then make an anonymous call to the emergency services. Untraceable. Same information. The lake may rise, something looks like it’s happening, get away from the water’s edge … I don’t know … Yes, I understand it sounds crazy. Just do it . Okay?’

She reappears in the hallway, saying distractedly, ‘Excuse me, while I change, pack a few things.’

She doesn’t bother to shut her bedroom door, and I hear wardrobe doors being opened and closed hurriedly, the sound of a zipper being pulled. She emerges about five minutes later with a small holdall, dressed in the same grey sweater and black jeans we first saw her wearing, her hair bound back in a low ponytail, feet in heavy black boots, a bunch of keys dangling from the fingers of one hand.

‘Why don’t you come with us?’ Ryan says with concern, as Bianca switches lights off all around us, then presses numbers into a glowing keypad by the front door before ushering us outside. As she closes the heavy, wooden door behind us, I hear the security system emitting a rhythmic beep , beep .

Bianca shakes her head at Ryan’s question. ‘There’s nowhere safe from the Devil, is there? Some of my men are the great-grandsons of the people who originally worked here; this is all they know. They’ll want to stay and defend their homes — if it comes to that — as do I. Leave that part to me, as I leave the liberation of … of … archangels to the two of you.’ She gazes at my blurring, shifting outline with that expression of fearful wonder on her face.

I detect the faint purr of a car engine, the crunch and squeal of tyres sliding slowly across stone. I put a hand on Ryan’s arm as headlights swing into view high above us, and he nods to indicate he’s seen them. We watch the car slowly descend before the driveway switches back again and the vehicle is momentarily lost to sight.

‘Ryan,’ I say hurriedly, ‘while you’re in the car, you’re not going to see me or hear me. But I’ll be with you, I’ll be near. You won’t see me board the plane either, but I’ll join you when I can. Okay?’

I see uncertainty leap in his eyes, and place the back of one hand against his face. ‘ I’ll be with you . It’s no trick. You and me, me and you. That’s the deal.’

Bianca places a hand tentatively on my arm at last, the way I know she’s been dying to. ‘You feel so …’

‘Real?’ I reply with a crooked smile, which is echoed by Ryan’s. ‘That’s what people keep telling me.’

‘And warm,’ she adds, a small frown pleating her forehead. ‘I hadn’t expected that. You look so, so … flawless that I’d imagined you’d feel cold, like marble.’ She drops her hand. ‘I’m sounding crazy.’

I say quietly, ‘Not to me.’

‘I don’t know how to wish you luck,’ Bianca mutters, ‘but I know that you’ll need it.’

‘As will you,’ I tell her. She seems too slight, too frail, to withstand what is headed her way, but courage comes in many forms. It’s something I’ve witnessed firsthand. ‘ Bona fortuna ,’ I say formally. ‘Godspeed.’

‘And to you,’ she whispers.

I bow my head in thanks, in admiration of her strength. Then I let it all go; hear Ryan gasp, see Bianca’s face go pale. I let my outline shred into a pale mist before dispersing silently; just lean into the atmosphere and somehow become of it until I’m weightless again, I’m air.

By the time Tomaso steps out of the wide, black, low-slung luxury sedan with its heavily tinted windows, its high beams on to ward off the pre-dawn darkness, I’m nowhere to be seen. Only Ryan is standing there, the pack slung across one broad shoulder, wearing his faux glasses, his peaked cap jammed down low over his face, Bianca at his side.

‘Where is the girl?’ I hear Tomaso ask his employer sharply.

‘She could not wait,’ Bianca responds, meeting his gaze steadily. ‘She went on ahead.’

Tomaso’s reply is faintly derisive. ‘Then she is either very mad or very brave.’ He holds the door open for Ryan, indicating he should get in.

Ryan and Bianca exchange glances, then he extends a hand politely, awkwardly, and she takes it, gripping it briefly with both hands before letting go.