looked up at him again. ‘Mother was heartbroken when you left. So was I. But Father … he made it … terrible … especially after probation.’
‘They watched you?’
She shuddered in his arms. ‘Yes. They sent a warden to live with us.’
Joel gripped her tighter. ‘Ret, I’m so sorry. But I couldn’t stay …’
‘I understand. Really I do.’ Now she’d found him, the past began to evaporate.
Then an urgent voice intruded on their reunion. ‘Joel! She’ll be here soon …’
A tall, broad girl with a blunt face wrenched her brother’s arm from her shoulder. The girl wore a leather vest and pants. Silver daggers hung from chains attached to her belt. Her expression was impatient. Dark Eve.
‘We have to go,’ she said.
‘No!’ Retra hung on.
Joel stared down into her face. Tears glinted in his eyes. ‘You mustn’t be seen with me, Ret. I can’t explain but you must keep away. I wish you hadn’t come but there’s no going back now you’re here. Stay at Vank when you can – with Charlonge. Tell her I said she should take care of you. She is … was … a friend. Don’t try to find me again. Understand? DON’T TRY AND FIND ME!’
He kissed her head then suddenly pushed her into a group of dancers. Thinking Retra had thrown herself to them, the dancers spun her from person to person. By the time she broke free and ran to the edge of the dance floor, Joel had vanished.
The aching loneliness that had been with her since the day her brother had left Grave rose up in an intolerable wave. She crouched on the floor, unable to move or speak. Her chest hurt as if she’d been stabbed.
Around her the crowd began to move, knees brushing against her shoulders, knocking her balance. She felt someone tugging her arm.
‘Retra, come with us, something’s happening outside!’ Suki and Rollo were next to her for an instant but then they got swallowed up by the movement of bodies.
Eventually, Retra stood and drifted with the flow, not even sure what she was doing. She found herself in a short corridor that opened into a doorway as wide as a station platform. Not the front of the club, but the back.
‘Retra!’ shouted Suki. She stood, wedged between Rollo and a tall, thin boy with blackened teeth and a mass of gold rings in his ears. ‘Here.’ She lifted her elbows and shoved until the boy stepped back out of the way, leaving a gap.
The surge of people behind Retra buffeted her forward and Suki grabbed her hand, pulling her to her side.
‘Lucky you came then or I wouldn’t have seen you. Look!’
In front of them a glowing path curved out into the night. A short distance along the path a group of young people huddled together, encircled by another group brandishing crude weapons in their hands. The scene jolted Retra from her trance. For a moment she feared the outer group would turn and attack the unarmed ones. ‘What are they doing? Are they going to hurt them?’
‘It’s the Cursed League. They’re protecting them. Wait. Watch!’ Suki quivered with excitement and tension.
The tallest of the weapon carriers wielded a blunt, heavy instrument in the shape of a cross. She was thickset, brawny even, wearing chest armour. Glinting knives hung from the waist of her pants.
‘Dark Eve has the cross!’ shouted someone behind them.
‘The cross from the Illi altar,’ said someone else. ‘She stole it.’
Another surge of spectators forced them to spill forward from the safety of the club doorway onto the beginning of the path.
Retra and Suki clung to each other and Rollo, watching as something glistening and terrible reached from the darkness to slash at Dark Eve. She swung the cross in a wide, powerful blow, bludgeoning the claws. Retra couldn’t tell what it was, only that it moved with unnatural speed. Then something else attacked Dark Eve’s other side, wrapping around her wrist and pulling her towards the edge of the path, towards darkness. She bent her knees and leaned back, wrestling to pull the creature into the halo of the light.
As the tussle went on, Dark Eve’s strength began to prevail. The creature squealed and writhed: exposed to the light, it appeared as a mass of claws and limbs that had no real body or face.
A figure with a heavy chain sprang to Dark Eve’s aid. With fierce slashes the figure beat at the creature until it let go.
‘It’s Clash!’ shouted a voice. The crowd cheered.
Retra