Elias

Ramiel insisted on waiting far longer than Elias would have. By the time Ramiel decided to return to the monastery, sunlight was a distant memory and the moon rode high in the sky. With the nearest city hundreds of kilometres away, every star was at its brightest.

The Big Dipper, Cassiopeia, Polaris — they shouldn't have felt as alien as they did. After all, Elias' family all came from Europe. His ancestors had lived under the light of these stars for thousands of years. But at that moment, Elias wanted to look up and see the familiar shape of the Southern Cross rising above him. Its absence, more than anything, was a measure of how far he was from home.

"Do the stars look different now compared to the last time you were on Earth?" he asked.

"Keep up, Elias," the angel responded.

Not a single light could be seen in the windows of any building at the monastery. As Elias' teeth chattered in the cold air, he had to respect the monks' piety. He couldn't imagine spending his life in prayer out here in the long, bitter months of winter. If the solitude didn't drive him mad, frostbite and pneumonia would. It couldn't be warm inside — all the buildings looked centuries old and the monastery seemed to lack electricity.

Nor were the monks concerned with matters as earthly as security. There were no fences, or alarms, or guards; not even a dog to bark at strangers. Elias and Ramiel took the well-trodden path between the church and a two-storey half-timbered building that looked like it might serve as the monks' sleeping quarters. A faint smell of stewed meat and vegetables hung in the air.

The entrance to the catacombs was discreet — a weathered, wooden door right over the bare rock of the mountain that loomed over the monastery. A massive, medieval lock that had to weigh at least two kilograms kept the door secure. Ramiel grasped it with two hands and ripped it open.

Elias flinched at the sound and glanced around. "Do you think someone heard?"

"Wolves three valleys over heard that." Ramiel pulled open the doors, the hinges creaking as if they hadn't been oiled since the Reformation. "Get inside. Quickly!"

Elias did as he was told, but not before he threw one last look at the twin peaks of Castor and Pollux, their white caps reflecting the moonlight. They looked just as Sariel had seen them.

Ramiel created a trio of hovering, blue-tinted lights and shut the door behind them. The space inside was about three metres wide and ten deep. Remnants of medieval paintings depicting saints and serpents adorned the side walls. At the chamber's far end was another door, thankfully unlocked. As decoration, it bore a carved cross atop an orb and seven stars with a single line of Latin beneath.

"The carving on the door," Elias said. "Stat crux dum volvitur orbis. What does that mean?"

Ramiel traced the shallow letters with his fingers, then pushed the door open. "The cross remains firm as the Earth turns. I do not believe this message is for us."

Elias had once seen a documentary about early Christian catacombs in Rome, which had led him to expect rows of rough niches stacked four or five high. Here, the monks had allotted themselves more space. Great, carved sarcophagi stood on either side of the long room with a body of an elderly man carved into the lid of each one. A name and two dates were carved into the sides.

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"These must be the priors of the monastery. If they have priors," said Elias, as they made their way past the dead. "The heads of the monastery, whatever they're called. This goes back centuries."

Side rooms, filled with less elaborate resting places, led off the main chambers, but whenever Elias and Ramiel investigated them, they found a dead-end. One room they couldn't enter at all. It was barricaded by a steel door, but through the door's small windows they could see that the room was stacked to the ceiling with bones and skulls.

This is the creepiest place I've ever been.

"Are you certain this is the right location?" Ramiel asked.

"Unfortunately, yes."

After a hundred metres of dead-straight passageway, there was a sharp swing to the right and a few metres later the passage ended.

"They must have sealed the path to prevent people going further or maybe there was a collapse," said Elias. He palpated the rough stone. "This seems solid, but I am certain this is the way Sariel came."

"Stand back."

Elias shuffled backwards, ready to duck flying boulders. However, Ramiel chose a more surgical approach. Piece by piece, he shifted the stones that made up the wall, depositing them at the side of the passageway until he had made an opening large enough to fit through.

The moment Elias stepped through to the other side, he felt the change. The very air hummed with power and warmth. Sigils carved into the walls, the floor and the ceiling shimmered. Elias hadn't realised until that moment how lifeless everything had seemed inside the cave back in Australia.

"Hold on." Ramiel caught Elias by the shoulder and held him back to prevent him from moving towards the source of the energy. "The wards must be disabled first. They seem inviting, but they will trap the unwary."

Ramiel drew a familiar, black-handled dagger from the pocket of his coat and began carving sigils into the floor. He was careful never to touch Sariel's work, but to place his sigils in the space between the existing ones. Gradually, Elias felt the hum and the inviting warmth recede until only the frigid, stale air of the cave remained.

The trio of lights hovering overhead threw strange, ever-shifting shadows across the passage, but as Elias and Ramiel crept deeper into the mountain, their lights were drowned out by the force of the light emanating from the chamber at the far end of the passageway. This anchor point was still functional, there was no doubt of that.

"Sariel..." Ramiel's voice cracked and he trailed off with a despairing expression etched into his features.

The light was so strong, it took Elias' eyes a minute to adjust enough for him to make out the source of Ramiel's anguish — a pair of wings suspended about the dais and radiating light. These were larger than the ones he had seen in the first cave, Elias realised. Big enough to be a seraph's middle pair.

"Faithful above all else." Ramiel sighed. He slumped against the wall and closed his eyes.

"Faithful to what?" came the reply.

Elias spun around at the sound of a new, distinctly feminine voice. Two girls, no more than twelve years old, stood in the doorway. They weren't dressed for the weather, but didn't seem to be bothered by the chill.

"Name yourselves," Ramiel demanded.

"Kiara Marshall," said the one on the left. "This is my sister, Misha. I'm told you are the angel Ramiel."

The two were twins; it wasn't just the identical clothes that gave them that appearance. Yet Elias had no trouble telling them apart. Kiara was missing her right eye — the eye-socket was sunken and had long been stitched shut.

"Are these demons?" Elias asked.

"Yikes. Where did you find him?" replied Misha, her American drawl evoking the banal images of Boston Legal and the Red Sox. "He can't tell the difference between a demon and his own kind."

Ramiel flung his trio of lights at the twins. Misha swept her hand up, bringing up a dark shield over her and her sister. Ramiel's lights crackled as they hit the shield, then burst into pure light so strong Elias instinctively stumbled back. As Ramiel summoned another light ball, Kiara laughed.

"Hold on, seraph," Kiara said from the safety of her sister's shield. She produced a kind of unhinged giggle Elias associated with sugar-high school girls ten hours deep into a sleepover. "We have something your pet nephilim will want to see."