Elias

"Just these, thanks." Elias set a box of pre-packaged pasta salad and two cans of the cheapest energy drink available down on the counter.

Matisse, one of the usual Thursday afternoon baristas, flashed him a smile. "Sure thing."

Elias swiped his credit card and hurried out of the way of the person in line behind him. This was the week before exams started; the university and thus, every cafe on campus was bursting with people. Elias' gym partner, Muhammad, got lucky. He snapped up the only free table inside the cafe, although he was wedged between the university rugby team and a group of first years discussing the extraordinary biceps on their Intro to World Politics tutor.

Rolling his eyes, Elias sunk into the seat opposite Muhammad. He shoved the pasta salad to the side and opened one of the cans. He chugged it down in one go.

"They've got good coffee here, you know," Muhammad said.

Elias opened the second can. "This is more efficient."

Muhammad made a quizzical face, but didn't comment further. He was a third-year biochemist, so he had suffered through his share of lectures and sleepless nights. Instead, his gaze drifted past Elias to the television mounted behind him.

Curious as to why a muted television would draw Muhammad's attention, Elias twisted to see the screen and found himself looking at a familiar face.

"No way," he sputtered.

"You seen this?" Muhammad pulled out a slice of tomato from his sandwich and set it aside. "A monk turns up in a village ranting about demons coming and the end of the world or some such. Then they find the whole monastery is gone. It's so odd."

"What do you mean gone?"

"Seriously? You've got to read the news sometime or at least open your Facebook more than once a month. This is somewhere in Italy. All the monks are dead and it's not clear why. Part of the mountain near the monastery collapsed, so they're thinking a gas explosion of some kind, but apparently, that's unheard of for that region. Anyway, the Italians are sending all sorts of experts over there."

Elias pulled the lid off his pasta salad, trying his best to look casual. "Yeah, sounds like a weird story for sure. Do you know what happened to the priest?"

"I'd imagine there is a lifetime of counselling ahead for him. It sounds like he lost it after whatever happened to the rest of the monks in his monastery."

Elias nodded, feeling his hands tremble as, unbidden, his mind took him back to the monastery church. He had to sympathise. The monk had lost his entire community that night to demons and one could only guess at what such an experience meant to a person with the faith of a monk. After all Ramiel had told Elias and Abigail, Elias appreciated the bliss of ignorance.

Hoping Muhammad wouldn't notice his shaking hands, Elias finished his drink and dug into the pasta with the awkward plastic fork. Muhammad, thankfully, was preoccupied with the amount of tomato in his lunch. He had pulled his sandwich apart and was picking out the tomato slices. Elias had to wonder why Muhammad insisted on this routine every time. He had alternatives. The cafe had about a dozen sandwich, wrap and roll options on sale and all ingredients were labelled. And there were other cafes on campus.

The alarm on Elias' phone went off. Ten to two. He had fifteen minutes to get to a class held on the other side of campus.

"Same time next week?" said Muhammad.

Elias tucked what remained of the salad into his bag, then gathered up the rest of the rubbish on the table. "Definitely."

He pushed his chair back and stood up.

Kiara's fingers are slick with blood. She keeps as tight a grip as she can, but the blood flow won't stem. Misha lies still on the linoleum floor of the motel kitchen. She has half a dozen books open on the floor beside her, their pages now splattered with blood. What a mess. Father'll be so angry when he's back.

"Misha?" she whispers. "Misha, wake up now."

This is gonna be a bad night.

Sighing, Kiara releases her grip.

The dim interior of a foreign motel faded into shapeless shades of washed-out colour. First to come back was the chaos of overlapping conversation. A few moments later Elias found himself staring at chipped chair legs and off-white tiles. He felt several hands pull him up and position him into a chair.

"Are you all right?" Muhammad asked. "You kinda fainted."

Elias rubbed his temples, but that only made the headache worse. "I surmised as much after waking up on the floor. It's ok, just a blood sugar thing. I stood up too fast."

It took another ten minutes to persuade Muhammad, the rugby team and the cafe workers that he didn't need the first aid staff to be summoned and that he most definitely didn't need an ambulance. His choice of degree worked in his favour. Everyone calmed when he explained that he was due at a lecture where he would be under the supervision of the deputy head of the School of Medicine. Nevertheless, Muhammad insisted on walking with Elias as far as the lecture theatre.

As they pushed their way through the crowds, Muhammad attempted to keep up a conversation, but Elias could give him only curt replies. His brain was on fire and his thoughts were still on his vision. Sure, sometimes a headache followed one, but the pain had rarely been like this. He wanted to gouge out the offending sections of his grey matter. And he had certainly never fainted because of a vision.

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By mid-evening, when Elias returned home, his headache had abated. He found Abigail on the couch, her knees pressed against her chest and eyes focused on the television. Some freelancer narrated the story in heavy-accented monotone, but Elias didn't listen to a word of it. The first camera crew had reached the monastery and their footage told Elias all he needed to know.

The scene was no longer the peaceful idyll Elias and Ramiel had stumbled upon that day. Instead, police tape swayed in the breeze. Trucks bearing logos of Italian emergency services and various news organisations had trampled the wild flowers and grasses. The mountain behind the monastery had collapsed and huge boulders had rained down on the monastery. One of the buildings that had served as monks' quarters had been buried under tons of stone. A boulder at least two metres high had rolled through the wall of the church.

"I take it you've heard already," said Abigail. "I came home half an hour ago and this was all over the news."

Elias threw his gym bag on the floor by the couch. "Have they come up with anything better than it's a gas leak from the rock slide and the priest has lost his mind due to grief?"

"If you don't believe in angels and demons, that sounds plausible, doesn't it?"

If only I were so lucky.

"Have you told Ramiel?" Elias asked. Receiving a guilty shake of the head from Abigail, he made up his mind. "Come with me. It's time for a family council."

When Elias slid the door open to the bedroom he was coming to regard as Ramiel's, they found the angel prone on the bed and trembling. His blanket lay diagonally across his legs, while the pillow had slid off the bed entirely. Abigail found an uninjured patch of skin on Ramiel's arm and prodded him until he stirred.

"Are you all right?" Elias asked.

Ramiel rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. "What has happened?"

"First, the priest that Ashoga let live has reached the Italian police. They didn't believe his story, but it was enough to alert them that something wasn't right at the monastery. When they turned up, the Italians found the place full of corpses and half a mountain in pieces. It's the leading story on every channel."

"I see."

Elias snorted. "That's all you are going to say?"

"Demons have always been vicious and the millennia have not softened their savagery. Similar attacks are more likely now that Sariel's shield is weakening," replied Ramiel. "The suffering a human endures when the soul is consumed is a pleasure in itself. For demons, it would have been a night of revelry such as they had not had in two thousand years."

"So that's what the screaming was," Abigail said.

Elias didn't want to think about the agonised screaming they had heard that night. Frankly, the memory of it made him want to tear the house apart in search of his father's stashes of scotch. Rather than indulge that instinct, Elias reached for the book Ramiel had occupied himself with this afternoon — Heller's Catch 22. He had to wonder what conclusions Ramiel would draw from this novel.

"There's something else," said Elias. "I had another vision. Misha had experimented with something and made an error. Kiara was attempting to stop the blood flow. Najran wasn't there, but he was nearby. Kiara expected him to return soon. This means they are all alive and... Well, that can't be good."

"No. However, this is also not a surprise."

"I think it's time to call in reinforcements. You had a mission down here, right? It's been a week and you aren't getting better. You're hardly capable of walking to the next block."

Abigail picked up Ramiel's pillow off the floor. "He's right. No one other than us even knows Najran is alive and working to destroy the shield. It seems like the kind of information Heaven would want to know."

"I am well aware of everything you are saying. I have been trying to contact —"

"There's got to be another way to do that," Abigail said. "Elias and I can help you. Just tell us what to do."

There was a lengthy silence before Ramiel spoke, "I once witnessed a ritual that permitted nephilim to contact Heaven directly. Perhaps I may be able to direct you to replicate it. However, it requires three nephilim."

"Ok, that's a start. Where do we find other nephilim? The psycho twins can't be the only ones around," Elias replied.

"Harold von Bommel." Ramiel replied. "In terms of proximity, he is the closest by far. I had considered contacting him earlier, however, his age made me reconsider."

"All right. That's one. Who else?"

"I had assumed Abigail would assist you," Ramiel said.

She raised an eyebrow. "With the ritual? What can I do? I'm just a normal human, not like Elias."

"Your actions in the church would suggest otherwise." When he received only blank looks in reply, Ramiel added, "You moved all the benches in that church to protect your brother."

"That was your doing."

"No, it was not."

Abigail's eyes were wide as she turned to Elias. He tried to think back to those moments. By then everything had completely gone to hell; he had been operating on pure adrenaline. His memories were a blur. Ashoga had been advancing towards him, then there was a cacophony of breaking wood as benches piled up on top of each other. A moment later Ashoga had Abigail and after that, they were back in Sydney.

"I don't know, Abby. I was just glad to get out of there alive," Elias said.

Ramiel cocked his head. "Do you not believe this is possible? You have the same ancestors in your blood as Elias, thus the same potential to become a powerful nephilim."

"I've never done anything like that before."

"It is not unheard of for the powers of nephilim to remain dormant until they find themselves in danger. That night you were in great peril and afraid for your brother. There is logic to the timing."

"Even then." Abigail shook her head. "How can we be sure it's not a one-time thing? If I didn't even realise I did it, I'm clearly not in control. Or maybe next time I'll overdo it and we'll all burn to a crisp."

"If you are unable to carry out the ritual successfully, you will have failed, nothing more. No one's life will be endangered by the attempt."

"It's worth a try then," Elias said.

His sister sighed and nodded. "It was Harold van Bommel, right? I'm going to see what the internet can tell me about him."

She fled the room before she received a reply. Elias made no effort to pursue her. He had realised what his visions were shortly after he started primary school, so he'd had most of his life to accustom himself to that knowledge. For Abigail this was new; she needed time to process.

Christ, I'm not the only freak in the family anymore.

"Did you always know she had powers?" Elias asked.

"I could feel the latent energy. However, I have known nephilim with similar or greater latent energy, who never displayed any capability at all. One cannot predict such things."

"You should have told us earlier."

Ramiel sighed. "I would have, but I assumed both of you understood what had happened. I remain unaccustomed to how little you know about your heritage."

"What else aren't you telling us?" Elias wondered aloud as he wiped away the dust coating Abigail's swimming trophies. "I don't even know which side of the family this nephilim thing comes from."

"Records of seers among your mother's family go back to the sixteenth century. I snuck a look when I visited the archives to search for Yasara. No mention of your father there, only your mother."

"Yeah, ok, that makes sense. My great-grandfather was shipped out from the UK as a kid under the Home Children scheme and dumped in some orphanage in the Outback. Who knows now if Fitzpatrick was even his real surname." Elias tipped back the largest of the trophies until he could read the plaque and smiled wistfully. He remembered how giddy Abigail had been to earn that one. "How long do you think I should give her to process the news?"

"You should be able to judge that better than me. But what of you? It is a shock for you too."

Elias paused for a long moment, unsure what the angel implied. "Are you asking me what I think? I'm glad to have a companion in my weirdness. On the other hand, perhaps she'd be better off as she was. My visions have never offered me anything good. But this also means we can help you without scouring the country for more nephilim. That's a plus."

Ramiel chuckled. "Let us not celebrate ere the deed is done. Nevertheless, you have my gratitude for attempting to help me."