Abigail

Abigail elbowed herself in the stomach as they landed. She rolled to the side and fell again. Nauseous and disoriented, she struggled to get upright.

As she came to grips with the scene before her, she realised they were back in Elias' apartment. Ramiel had crashed onto the coffee table and Abigail must have landed on top of him, only to slide off onto the floor when she tried to get up. Elias had been lucky to land on the couch. He slowly climbed to his feet. Ramiel, on the other hand, still lay where he had landed. Much of the clothing on his torso had been burnt off. His skin was a hideous patchwork of red and black as if he had been assaulted with a blowtorch.

Abigail swallowed nervously and ignored the resulting throb of pain. "Eli, he needs to go to hospital."

"No," Ramiel forced out the words through his clenched teeth. "Too many questions. I will be fine, give me time."

Elias leant in to get a better look at the burns. You didn't have to be a doctor to realise that this was serious — the kind of injury humans died of every day. But Najran had barely slowed down after Ramiel had stabbed him twice. Perhaps that was what Ramiel meant by too many questions. Elias seemed dubious, however. He shifted Ramiel's arm aside and revealed a gash at least four inches long along the side of Ramiel's stomach. Abigail concealed her gasp of horror by stripping off her jumper. She bundled it up and pressed it against the wound.

"We should use a towel for that," Elias said. "There was a lot of dust in those catacombs."

"Like there's clean towel anywhere in this place."

Elias glanced to the remnants of his front door, which now lay in pieces in the hallway. "We need to get out of here. ASAP."

"You can't be serious." Abigail coughed to try to clear her throat, but that only made it worse. "We probably shouldn't even move him."

"Yeah, well, should isn't going to get us far today. Ramiel. Hey, Ramiel! I know the world sucks right now, but I need your attention for a minute. The twins said they left a ward behind at the first cave."

"Anchor," Ramiel rasped.

"Yeah, that. They said we tripped it and that's how they were able to find us. Can they still track us now?"

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Ramiel carefully lifted himself off the table and manoeuvred himself into a seated position. "I fear so. There is a sigil to prevent this. Have you a knife?"

Elias fished out his battered Swiss army knife and offered it to the angel. Ramiel took it, then with the other hand, he caught Elias' sleeve. He pulled it up to Elias' elbow. Elias bit his lip, but didn't protest as Ramiel chose a spot just below the crook of Elias' elbow and carved four curved lines into his flesh. When he finished blood seeped both from Elias' arm and lip.

Looking at that, Abigail decided she should have asked to go first.

While Ramiel cleaned her brother's blood off the knife, she kneeled by Ramiel and let her arm rest across his thighs. Ramiel made his first cut, she hissed and clenched her fists.

"Relax your hand if you can," said Ramiel. "It will hurt more otherwise."

Abigail tried to do as she was told, but couldn't quite do it. The second line hurt more than the first, but thankfully, Ramiel worked quickly on the last two. She cupped her hand over the wound, feeling more warm blood on her skin with every pump of her heart.

"Let's go home," said Elias from the kitchen doorway. He offered her a few sheets of paper towels from the roll in his hand.

Abigail folded the paper towel twice, then pressed it against her bleeding arm. "That's the first place they'll look. Shouldn't we go somewhere less obvious? How about Japan? Or Madagascar?"

"I am in no condition to fly. To carry the two of you with me, even less so." Ramiel was carving the same sigil into his own skin. This was routine for him, Abigail could tell that much. He was as calm about it as if he were drawing the sigil on with a ballpoint pen. "I do not believe they will look for us in the coming hours and as soon as my strength returns somewhat, I will put up wards about the house. I should have erected wards here the moment I arrived."

"All right, fine," Elias palpated his injured lip. "But you begin to feel worse, you must tell me at once."

Abigail snorted. Oh, now he acts like a sane person.

"What's your problem?"

Abigail had a tirade on the tip of her tongue, but Ramiel's soft moan as he attempted to stand up and failed, cut her short. "Later," she said. "We need to clean out the kitchen. I did the shopping yesterday, let's not waste it."

Upon entering the kitchen, Abigail was taken aback. Everything had happened so quickly, she hadn't comprehended what damage her attackers had left. The kettle, flattened in half, lay on the floor and the water Abigail had intended for her tea coated the floor. Most of the kitchen cabinets were busted. The fridge sported a dent roughly the shape of Abigail's head.

Abigail had to tiptoe around the damage as she emptied the fridge and cupboards.

"Good to go," she called out when she had the last of the bags packed.

"Hurry up then," Elias replied, already heading down to the parking area. "Christ, what did they do to the door? It's just sitting here in pieces, torn off the hinges."

"I would've thought it's pretty clear then, no?" Abigail said.

Elias, who had the bulk of Ramiel's weight resting on his shoulders, sighed. "Let's just let this be the landlord's problem."