The characters

Here’s a quick look at the key players in The Rephaim series, in their own words.

(I was also asked by The Starry-Eyed Revue back in 2014 how I visualise these characters in a guest post)

Rafa

Age: 139 years
Based: Pretty much anywhere with a bed.
Favourite food: Lamb shanks
Favourite weapon: Katana
Favourite place: Patmos
Best friend: Jude
Favourite way to relax: Use your imagination. I’m also partial to beer.
Earliest memory: Sneaking into the armory and trying to lift Nathaniel’s broadsword. It was taller than me and I knocked a bucket off the bench. Nathaniel caught me dragging the blade around the room. He made me stay in the armory until I could grip it and swing it properly. He thought it was punishment.

Gaby

Age: 19 (or 139, if we’re being pedantic)
Based: Pandanus Beach, Australia
Favourite food: I eat just about anything, but I especially love an authentic Thai green chicken curry.
Favourite weapon: It turns out I have some skill with a katana.
Favourite place: Pandanus Beach. At least my memories there are real.
Best friend: Maggie
Favourite way to relax: Jogging. Hanging out at Rick’s Bar.
Earliest memory: They’re all pretty vague…

Mick Butler

Age: 23
Based: Pan Beach
Favourite food: Steak, eggs and chips at the Imperial
Favourite weapon: Sawn-off shot gun
Favourite place: Campsite on the mountain
Best friend: Joffa
Favourite way to relax: Shootin’ shit.
Earliest memory: Stealing beer from the old man’s esky then copping a hiding for it.

Maggie

Age: 19
Based: Pan Beach
Favourite food: Too close to call:  cured kingfish or pan-fried scallops.
Favourite weapon: Clearly this question is not for me.
Favourite place: Melbourne. Paris (I haven’t been there yet, but I know I’d love it.)
Best friend: Gaby
Favourite way to relax: Knitting and sewing; yoga; jogging; happy hour at Rick’s.
Earliest memory: Being on the beach with my dad, trying to out run the wash of the waves. He was laughing and he put me on his shoulders. I remember thinking he was the strongest man in the world.

Ez

Age: 139
Based: No fixed address (but we’re often in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico)
Favourite food: Fried Jewish artichokes
Favourite weapon: Long knives, katana
Favourite place: The Pantheon in Rome when everyone has gone. Especially if it’s raining
Best friend: Zak
Favourite way to relax: Sharing a meal with friends.
Earliest memory: Finding a perfect white feather on my windowsill. I was four or five. I thought an archangel had come to see us in our sleep. Years later I realised it was probably Nathaniel’s. I kept it until we left the Sanctuary.

Zak

Age: 139
Based: No fixed address
Favourite food: Souvlaki
Favourite weapon: Katana, fists
Favourite place: Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.
Best friend: Ez
Favourite way to relax: Any beach where Ez is in a bikini.
Earliest memory: Watching Brother Alberto’s hound whelp pups in the kitchen. She delivered them in front of the pantry. Very messy, but I made myself watch. He let me name them.

Jason

Age: 139
Based:  An apartment in New York. It’s empty a lot.
Favourite food: Home-cooked ravioli
Favourite weapon: I hate violence.
Favourite place: Tibet.
Best friend: I haven’t been close to anyone long enough to have one.
Favourite way to relax: Listening to acoustic guitar.
Earliest memory: Finding my mother crying at the foot of an angel statue in our village. I thought it was piety. A few years later I fell out of a sycamore tree unscathed and found out the truth.

Simon

Age: 19
Based: Pan Beach, born and bred
Favourite food: Tapas
Favourite weapon: Ignorance
Favourite place: Anywhere there’s no Rephaim, or demons, or snarling hell-beasts.
Best friend: Tommo
Favourite way to relax: Putting the bike through its paces up the mountain.
Earliest memory: Pulling Maggie’s hair in kindergarten. She cried so I let her hit me. We’ve been mates ever since.

Daniel

Age: 139
Based: The Sanctuary
Favourite food: Risotto with shaved parmesan and truffle oil
Favourite weapon: Katana
Favourite place: Bordeaux, France
Best friend: That’s a somewhat juvenile term, but to answer, I have great respect for Uriel.
Favourite way to relax: Reading
Earliest memory: My strongest memory is watching the monks painstakingly copy a page from the Codex Vaticanus. They were working from papyrus that had survived from the fourth century. I wanted to touch it. I didn’t.

Mya

Age: 139
Based: All over
Favourite food: Grilled cheese sandwich from Grahamwich, Chicago
Favourite weapon: .45 automatic. I don’t know why we don’t use firearms. They might not kill a demon but they definitely slow them down.
Favourite place: Havasu Falls in the Grand Canyon
Best friend: Ez
Favourite way to relax: Clubbing.
Earliest memory: Nothing I want to reminisce about.

Jones

Age: 139
Based: Wherever the fight is.
Favourite food: Paella
Favourite weapon: Nun chucks are fun but not always practical, so I usually go with the katana.
Favourite place: Thailand
Best friend: In the old days it was Daisy. Rafa was always good value before Jude disappeared. These days I spend most time with Mya.
Favourite way to relax: Tai chi
Earliest memory: Swinging on a rope from one of the pines outside the Sanctuary. Made me wish I had wings. Shifting is fine, but I’d love to really fly.

Taya

Age: 139
Based: The Sanctuary
Favourite food: Beef vindaloo
Favourite weapon: Katana
Favourite place: Haven’t thought about it. I don’t mind Canada – love watching professional ice hockey
Best friend: Malachi
Favourite way to relax: Training
Earliest memory: Punching a boy in the village for trying to take the bread I was carrying for the brothers.

Malachi

Age: 139
Based: The Sanctuary
Favourite food: Veal parmigiana
Favourite weapon: Poleaxe – but the katana is more practical
Favourite place: Banff, Canada, in ski season
Best friend: Taya
Favourite way to relax: Skiing
Earliest memory: First snow fight. It was against Jude and Rafa in the main piazza. I lost.

Daisy

Age: 139
Based: The Sanctuary
Favourite food: Saltimbocca
Favourite weapon: Twin-bladed sais
Favourite place: The Dead Sea, floating with my face to the sky.
Best friend: Jones, before he followed Mya out the door with the rest of them. Then Gabe, before she disappeared.
Favourite way to relax: Painting. I suck, but it calms me.
Earliest memory: Wandering off in the forest on my own. I climbed a huge pine tree to try and find the Sanctuary and got stuck. It was freezing. Nathaniel found me about an hour later with ice in my hair. He completely freaked out.

Micah

Age: 139
Based: The Sanctuary
Favourite food: Jam donuts
Favourite weapon: Katana
Favourite place: San Francisco
Best friend: Gabe
Favourite way to relax: Playing guitar.
Earliest memory: I found a bowl of melted chocolate in the kitchen and ate about half of it before Brother Alberto caught me. He said my gluttony would be its own punishment. It was: I had shocking stomach pains and then threw up on myself in front of Rafa and Jude. They thought it was hilarious.

Jude

Age: 19
Based: Backpacker hostels
Favourite food: Fresh crab and a cold Corona
Favourite weapon: Channel Islands Flyer shortboard
Favourite place: Bell’s Beach, Australia
Best friend: Probably Gaby, given the amount of time we spend together travelling.
Favourite way to relax: Surfing.
Earliest memory: Racing down a hill in a homemade go-kart with Gaby behind me. She had the helmet. We stacked it at the bottom and both ended up bleeding and sore. We dusted ourselves off, hauled that thing back up the hill and did it all over again.

45 Comments

  1. Sophianne says:

    I only just realized i was reading the 4th book, and things didn’t really make sense, but i still loved it! While your at it, can you also make a book with more details? Shifting had gotten me confused at first.

  2. Beyza says:

    Hi Paula!! I’ve finished the Rephaim series three months ago and i still think about it a lot, cause the story was fascinating!! I know you’ve been working on something at the moment but i just wanna know if you could write a book about their life before that… I really want to see Rafa flirting with Gabe & her being irritated by him haha 😅 and maybe by Rafa’s perspective!

    Sending much love!! 💖

    1. Paula Weston says:

      A belated thank you for your message! 🙂 I really appreciate it.

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About Me

I’m the author of the Rephaim series and The Undercurrent.

For my day job, I’m a writer-journalist-professional communicator, where my writing involves a lot less profanity.

I grew up in regional South Australia and now live in the Scenic Rim with my husband and a retired greyhound.

If you’re interested in how I came to land a publishing deal, you can read the short version in this post from August 2011. There’s a longer version (in a guest post) here.

Paula Weston

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