Abigail

Abigail landed with a dull thud on the worn-out, once-cream carpet of Elias' living room. When she clambered up to her feet, she saw that Ramiel had deposited Elias on the couch and, with a stiff grimace plastered on his face, was peering down at Elias' quivering figure.

"What's wrong him?" Abigail reached for Elias, hoping to steady him, but he flinched away from her hand. "You need to do something!"

"Do you have potable water in this house?"

"No, we specialise in swamp water here," she scowled.

Ramiel's lips narrowed. "Bread too, if you have any. And a blanket may be of use to your brother also."

Abigail bit back another snide retort; sarcasm wouldn't help Elias. She crossed the short hallway between the living room and Elias' bedroom in three strides. For once, she was grateful for the apartment's compact layout. She tore the covers off the bed Elias had surrendered to her for the past two weeks, then added the blanket he had been using after he had exiled himself to the living room. The way Elias looked at the moment, Abigail was ready to give him every blanket in the apartment block.

Dropping the pile of bedding by the living room couch, Abigail hurried into the kitchen. She figured that if she were to hand Elias a glass, he would drop it within seconds and then they would have glass shards to deal with too. She rummaged around the kitchen until she found a water bottle and filled it up from the tap.

"Blanket, water," she mumbled under her breath. "Bread. Where does he keep the bread?"

The only bread she found was the last three slices of sandwich bread, which sported a lively colony of mould along the underside. Abigail flung it into the bin and rifled through the pantry.

A box of salted crackers is close enough, right?

While Abigail had rummaged through the kitchen, Ramiel had taken off his suit jacket. He knelt beside Elias, who didn't seem to realise that the angel was there. Eyes wide, he stared out past Ramiel's shoulder to the middle of the room, as if focusing on something only he could see. Bloody Hell, what if he doesn't snap out of this? Whatever this is. Abigail sighed as she watched Ramiel gingerly reach out towards Elias and rest his hand on the side of Elias' head.

"Can you help him?" she asked.

Ramiel gave no indication he had heard Abigail. He rolled his thumb across Elias' jugular and chanted a long string of words in a language so full of strange consonants no human could hope to replicate the sound.

Elias screamed and pitched his whole body forward as if he was desperately trying to cling to something visible only to him. Abigail dropped the water bottle and the crackers. Ramiel caught Elias' wrists, while Abigail grabbed her brother by the waist. Elias snarled, his face turning crimson and struggled against their grasp. If not for Ramiel, Abigail would have been flung onto her back.

It seemed like an hour before Elias' screaming subsided and his flailing lost its desperate strength, which even Ramiel had struggled to contain without inflicting lasting damage to Elias. Abigail and Ramiel manoeuvred Elias back onto the couch. Abigail wrapped a blanket around his shoulders, but was too afraid to touch him otherwise. His eyes were closed now and he panted, a layer of sweat glimmering across his forehead.

"Will he be ok?"

Ramiel sighed. "Have patience. He is not lost yet."

Yet? Abigail bit her lip, scrutinising her brother. It felt like hours until Elias' eyes finally drifted open.

"Mum... I-I don't understand. What?" He sniffled, pulling the blanket tight. "Never any chance for him. I don't understand —"

Mum? As in mum and dad?

"Drink, Eli," Abigail said, grabbing the water bottle.

As much as she wanted to press him on the details, it would do Elias no good to dwell on that at the present. Or ever for that matter. She had to wonder, though, what it said about her that she half-wished she had been the one who had seen the vision. The official explanation of the events still didn't make sense to her.

Elias spilt half of the water on the blanket, but he seemed aware of his surroundings, which was an improvement.

"The crackers are ok, right? There's no bread," Abigail said.

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"Any sustenance is better than none; visions tire those not used to them," the angel replied. He picked up the box of crackers and peered at them with a dubious expression. "Take the other blanket and rest, Abigail. I will watch over him until morning."

"I'm not leaving him alone."

"As you wish."

Abigail made herself comfortable on the floor and rested her back against the side of the couch. "Elias, are you up for food?"

"Just leave me be. My head hurts," he replied.

Silence, broken only by Elias' heavy breathing, fell over the room. Now that the adrenaline rush was running out, Abigail became aware of her own exhaustion. It had been a long and difficult day even before Ramiel had knocked on Elias' door. She did want to sleep, but not with Elias still so unwell.

"Ramiel? It's been a while since you were on Earth, hasn't it?" she asked. She had a better chance of staying awake if she kept a conversation going.

"More than two and a half thousand years. I spent a winter in Mesopotamia. Nebuchadnezzar II was the local king at the time. But I expect his entire empire slipped out of human memory a hundred generations ago."

"Didn't he destroy the temple in Jerusalem?"

Ramiel frowned. "Perhaps. I was only there for a few months. Do humans consider that an important event?"

"I think so? Or at least the Jews do." Abigail shrugged. Elias had been the star pupil in Sunday school; she had spent the time there sketching her favourite anime characters. "So you've been gone all these years... Is it really different?"

"The smell has improved."

Abigail laughed. It was amazing when you thought about it. Here was a real angel sitting in the stained armchair Elias and his house-mate had picked up from the side of the road during the last council clean up. A real angel, who seemed willing to answer questions. Here was the chance to find out everything: God, Jesus, Muhammad and Dark Matter.

"Yasara," Elias said. "Who was she to Sariel?"

Abigail sighed. For a moment she had forgotten what had led up to their present circumstances.

"Yasara was his daughter. We should discuss this in the morning, you are in a worse state than I anticipated," Ramiel replied.

"And whose fault is that?" Groaning, Elias pushed himself up. "And let's be clear here. I don't know how to kill an angel, but if you ever threaten my sister again, I'll find a way and I will do it."

Abigail felt herself blush. It was brave of Elias to try the over-protective older brother spiel, but she had no idea what he wanted to achieve from this. Ramiel had no reason to take him seriously.

To her surprise, the angel did look somewhat chastised. "Very well, I will keep that in mind." He ran a hand through his hair. "Please do forgive me for my behaviour earlier. Evidence of dismemberment unsettled me."

"You don't seem so upset now," Elias replied.

"Much of what I have seen since I returned to Earth has left me uneasy. However, you said yourself that Sariel was responsible. It would suggest that the removal of the wings was part of the ritual he performed to establish the protective shield over your world. This might well explain why he never returned to Heaven. But enough of this, you ought to rest."

"I'm too agitated to sleep. I can still taste your blood, you know."

"Have some crackers then," Abigail said. "Or do you want something else?"

Reluctantly, Elias tore open the packaging, then turned to Abigail. "You should go to bed."

"I don't think —"

"Abby! I'll be fine."

"All right."

The moment Abigail stood up, she felt the full weight of her exhaustion. She grabbed the first set of clothes she found and headed to the bathroom. Elias' apartment was a typical two-bedroom, one-bathroom rental with a soap scum-covered shower and a bathtub too small for anyone over the age of five. She was about to take a guess on the knobs in the shower, when she heard raised voices.

She nudged the bathroom door open and leaned out into the corridor.

"So you've done this before? Forced yourself on unsuspecting people, kidnapped them, forced them to drink your blood," came Elias' hoarse voice. "That's not a normal thing to do in this day and age. You do realise that, don't you? Probably never was."

"It has been necessary a small number of times in the past, but never with a nephilim as inexperienced as you are. When I last walked in the mortal world, nephilim seers were skilled. They were trained to wield the full extent of their talent since childhood. If they required an angel's blood, they were the ones to request it." Ramiel was silent for a long moment, then added. "How do you feel now, Elias?"

"Like I'm in need of a lobotomy."

Abigail sighed. "If he is so useless to you, why did you come here?" she asked as she strode back into the living room.

"He is not one I would have preferred," Ramiel replied. "I sought a seer who might have local knowledge of this region, but when I investigated, I was at a loss. The number of humans living in this world grows by thousand-folds, yet the nephilim shrink in number. Worse, four nephilim I wished to approach all died within the past three months."

"These weren't natural deaths, I take it," Elias said.

"Three suicides, one murder."

Abigail glanced over to Elias, who dropped his head and was playing with the corner of his blanket. He has got to be thinking the same thing right now. Yet he said nothing.

She frowned. Perhaps it was all too much for Elias tonight. "So were these deaths staged? And our parents' deaths too?"

"I cannot say. I did not linger to investigate. Singularly, these deaths are nothing unusual. There is a reason the nephilim are rare. Plenty of angels certainly enjoyed themselves with mortal women in those early days, but those children were born troubled and prone to many maladies of the mind. Perhaps one in three dozen had children of their own. On the other hand, four unnatural deaths in twelve weeks seem peculiar."

"Are you saying mentally ill people are actually nephilim?" Elias said.

"Hardly." Ramiel slid his hand over the cracked leather armrest of the armchair. "Madmen are far more numerous than nephilim."

"I guess grandma was right, there is something in the blood. Elias, was there anything in the vision? Something odd or..."

Elias' head snapped up and he glared at his sister. "Other than the murder-suicide? No, it was just a normal, quiet day out in the suburbs. I've told you before, I don't want to discuss it."

"But you saw who stabbed dad? Was it definitely just the two of them there?"

"Abigail," Ramiel cut in. "For your brother's sake, tonight is not the time."