Free Haze by Paula Weston

I mean—that photo of you and Jude at the footy, how old is that?’
    ‘About eighteen months.’
    ‘Right. So it can’t be someone from the Sanctuary. You don’t see any of them any more.’ I find another shot with Jude in it, add it to my collection. As well as a couple featuring me.
    ‘That’s not totally true. Occasionally we follow the same lead on the Gatekeepers—paths cross. And Daniel or Uri try to guilt us into going back. What’s to say someone didn’t help themselves to my phone when I wasn’t paying attention.’
    ‘You wouldn’t drop your guard long enough.’
    ‘Obviously I did.’
    My shoulder is still throbbing. I lean against the wall for a moment, close my eyes.
    ‘Oh, that’s great,’ Rafa mutters.
    I find him jamming his phone back in his pocket. ‘What?’
    ‘No signal.’
    I try mine. Typical. I finally get a phone with international roaming and it’s still useless in a crisis. I rub the soreness out of my shoulder. Rafa must be aching all over after hitting that wall half a dozen times.
    It’s been at least ten minutes now. What’s Jason doing out there? I take a slow breath. No need to panic. Rafa’s here. Just keep busy.
    ‘Maybe there’s something useful in here.’ I go over to the filing cabinet and open the single drawer. It’s empty except for an old leather-bound book held together with fat rubber bands.
    ‘What is that?’ Rafa says over my shoulder. ‘An old family bible?’
    ‘I don’t think so.’ The red leather is soft under my fingers, rubbed bare at the corners, the spine flaky like dead skin. There’s no writing on the cover. I sit down and take off the rubber bands, careful not to tear the loose pages poking out. A photo drops to the floor.
    Rafa picks it up. He frowns and turns it towards me. ‘What the…?’
    A cornfield. Six men, grim-faced in black tailcoats, top hats, cravats and pocket watches. They’re standing around a hole that looks like a freshly dug grave. The photo is sepia, antique. It’s strange enough to keep Rafa’s attention from the door for the moment. He flips it over. A date is scrawled in ink: 1874.
    I gently open the book and find more images of the same scene. In the first, there’s something rolled up in a sheet at the men’s feet to the side of the hole—something the size of a person—placed on a low stack of logs. A coldness trails up my spine. In the next image, the bundle is in flames. And then the hole is nothing but a mound of dirt, no trace of the bundle or the ashes from the fire. It’s beyond creepy.
    ‘Well, that’s disturbing.’ Rafa does another lap of the room, thumps the door twice as he passes it, as if it might miraculously open.
    I can’t tear my eyes from the photos; the resolute expressions of the men in each image. I make myself keep flicking through, find handwritten pages of spidery writing. It’s a journal.
    Carefully, I leaf through notes and diagrams, find more photos tucked between the thick pages. Images of an old wooden church, first in its prime and then burned to its stumps. The cold reaches my neck and face. Every page is crowded with words and it takes me a second to realise why I don’t understand them.
    ‘Is that German?’ I hold it up for Rafa to see.
    He barely glances at the page. ‘Looks like it.’
    ‘Can you read it?’
    ‘My German’s a little rusty.’
    ‘Give it a go.’
    He sighs, creases his forehead in concentration. ‘I know a few words: blood, ritual, sacrifice…bastards.’ He presses a finger to the page. ‘Here’s a mention of the Fallen and Verdammt …I think that means damned.’
    ‘I guess Sophie was telling the truth about how long the family’s known about the Rephaim.’ I rub my eyelid. ‘It looks like the men of the family used to be in charge. I wonder what happened to change that?’
    ‘Burning a body in a cornfield?’ Rafa says, only half-joking. He hands me back the journal. ‘Ez will be more useful at translating this—if we ever