Haze by Paula Weston Page A

says. ‘I’ll be better when I hear your boy explain what the hell happened today.’
    Jason holds up a hand. ‘I swear I had no idea that room existed or that it was possible to trap Rephaim. All the times I’ve been there, I—’
    ‘Yeah, yeah. All I care about is what happened today.’
    ‘Sophie worked out you were Rephaim—I don’t know how, although all those questions didn’t help. Anyway,’ he continues before Rafa can jump in again, ‘when you went in that room she was straight over to a keypad and the cavity door closed.’
    ‘And then what?’
    He takes a breath. ‘She accused me of bringing “one of the damned” to the farm. I told her I didn’t know who you were. She didn’t believe me. She gave me the necklace, but she was so scared.’ He drops his gaze, studies the floor.
    ‘Shit, Goldilocks,’ Rafa says. ‘You didn’t hurt a girl, did you?’
    ‘Of course I didn’t.’ He nods to Maggie. ‘Show them.’
    She draws the chain out, revealing a flat, round pendant the size of a twenty-cent piece, then takes it off and hands it to me. Both sides are etched with the wing design of the iron room. Rafa leans in so close our heads touch. He smells like he always does after a shower: fresh, earthy.
    ‘Fuck,’ he mutters, fixated on the pendant.
    Jason frowns. ‘I wish I knew how Sophie figured out you were Rephaite.’
    ‘They have photos of all of us.’ Rafa lifts his head. ‘Except you.’
    I show Jason the images on my phone of the photos plastering the room and the iron wall with the giant wings.
    He studies them and then leans back against the sink, stares past me. ‘I don’t understand…’
    ‘You still want to cling to the delusion they’re not getting information from someone?’ Rafa asks.
    ‘They always said—’
    ‘You say “revelation of God” again and I will headbutt you.’
    Jason sighs.
    ‘Have you heard from any of them?’ I ask.
    ‘I tried to call Sophie, but she wouldn’t answer. But I do have something.’ He grabs a folded piece of paper from his pocket. ‘I researched the family this afternoon. Made an after-hours visit to the Des Moines Public Library and trawled through the local history collection.’
    Rafa raises his eyebrows, mocking. ‘Seventy years after you met them, and now you go to the library?’
    ‘I know you don’t get it, Rafa. You’ve always been surrounded by Rephaim. I haven’t. I’ve known these women half my life. Other than my mother’s family, they’ve been the only constant. So I respected their wishes—’
    ‘Their threats, you mean.’
    Jason sighs. ‘It doesn’t matter any more. Everything’s changed with that room.’
    Maggie puts a hand on his arm. ‘Tell them what you found.’
    Jason flattens the page on the bench. It’s covered in neat handwritten notes.
    ‘The library records of the property date back to 1866. It was settled by a German family around 1870. The father was a Lutheran Minister and he built a church there along with the original house. But the church was only sanctified for a few years.’ Jason turns the page over. ‘I found a reference to it in official records in 1876, by which time the church and the family had been cut off from the Iowa Lutheran Synod due to “unorthodox practices and heresy”.’
    I think about the photo of a human-sized bundle in flames and tell him and Maggie about the journal I gave to Ez: the burial, and the photo of the gutted church.
    Jason runs a finger over his notes. ‘The church burned down in 1939. A newspaper report called it arson, most likely related to the fact the family was German and the war had started in Europe.’
    ‘Or not,’ Rafa says. ‘Something’s missing here. They start out as Lutheran immigrants and then run off the rails not long after the Fallen do the rounds. They perform weird rituals out in the cornfield and spook someone enough that their church is burned down. And then what? The men just disappear? These iron bitches work out