Elias

What the fuck?

Elias found himself on the edge of a steep ridge. Far too close to the edge for his liking. He shuffled onto sturdier ground, dry bark and eucalyptus leaves crunching beneath his leather shoes. At least any animals that had been nearby would have been scared off by the racket he produced.

"Abby!" Elias shouted.

He spun around and, realising his sister was right behind him, let out a sigh of relief. Ramiel and Abigail stood just out of arm's reach, the angel still holding Abigail tight. Aside from the three of them, there was no sign of human presence whatsoever. But they were still in Australia, he decided. The bush was quintessentially Australian — the kind of featureless vegetation that covered much of the land between the coast and the searing wasteland of the continent's interior.

Beyond that, he had no clue where they were. It was dark. And not like in the city, where streetlights hung every twenty metres and every placard was lit up. Between the treetops, Elias could make out a paler strip of sky studded with stars — the Milky Way itself, however many million kilometres away.

"What did you do? This can't be real. Where are we?" Abigail asked in a shaky tone. "We'd have to be hours away from anything."

"Let us agree on this: you will do as I say," Ramiel said, then released his grip on Abigail, who didn't waste a moment and scrambled out of the angel's reach. "We are as near to the location of Sariel's first anchor point as I could bring us. There is a cave nearby, we must locate a way inside."

Elias scowled. "What are you talking about? Take us back!"

"Do not attempt to command me, nephilim."

Elias winced. He didn't want to antagonise Ramiel. All the angel had to do was to leave them here. It could be days to the nearest town.

"Nephilim?" Abigail said. "As in children of angels and humans? Are you saying we are nephilim?"

"Do you know nothing at all? Yes, you two are nephilim."

This is madness.

"And Elias is a seer because we are part-angel?"

Her tone, caught between amazement and incredulity, was the exact reflection of Elias' own thoughts. Ramiel, in contrast, seemed oblivious to the weight of his words. He spoke with the same level of excitement Elias reserved for reading the local cricket results.

"Nephilim are frequently born with powers humans were not meant to possess. We ought not delay. If you have further questions, ask them while we walk."

Ramiel began making his way down the hillside and Elias set off after the angel. In the moonlight, Elias could see only a couple of metres in front of him. He scrambled down as best he could.

"Damn right, I have more questions!" he shouted. "How did we get here? Which of my ancestors was raped by an angel? You haven't even told us why we're here."

Couldn't the bloody angel have spared a few seconds and told us we'd be going bush-walking? They were in the last weeks of autumn and whatever was said about the wonders of Australia's climate, out in the country night-time temperatures could drop down to zero degrees at this time of the year. Yet here they were, Elias in that cheap business suit he had worn for the funeral and Abigail in a thin cardigan pulled over her knee-length dress.

"There was a time when angels walked freely among humans. Demons too." For the first time, Ramiel's voice softened. "The mortal world was a battleground between Heaven and Hell as much as the other planes are. That was until Sariel, an angel like myself, devised a way to hide your world behind a protective wall that kept out demons and most angels. This warding has kept you safe for two thousand years, but something has gone awry. Sariel's protections weaken and we do not understand why."

"That's... just wonderful," muttered Elias.

He had thought his week couldn't get any worse, yet here he was.

It was tempting to brush off Ramiel as a lunatic. Elias had practice denying the obvious. He had spent the better half of a decade refusing to believe in the supernatural of any kind, always scrambling for a rational explanation for his visions. But he couldn't explain away Ramiel's wings or the teleportation.

How is a reasonable person supposed to react to something like this?

Elias' foot caught a tangle of roots and he pitched forward. He did manage to grasp onto a tree trunk and steady himself, but ripped off broad strips of bark and skin as he did so. Behind him, Abigail stepped on a clump of dry leaves and fell onto her back.

"Are you all right?" Elias asked.

She nodded, but as he helped her up, he could feel her trembling. Her cardigan was worthless. He gave her his jacket, although, if Elias were honest, the trembling might have been fear as much as the cold. As a child, the thought of raising her hand in class left Abigail anxious; the insanity they were in the middle of at the moment had to be overwhelming.

Ramiel glanced back at the siblings. "I would advise you to keep up. We do not want to lose one another in this forest."

"Come on, Eli," Abigail said. "He is right. We need to stick together."

He found us once, I bet he'll find us again. Elias motioned for Abigail to walk ahead of him, then called out to Ramiel. "Why do you need me for this job?"

"Sariel has always been reticent. Heaven does not know how the Shield is constructed. We know only that the first anchor for Sariel's warding is located in the vicinity. When we locate the anchor point, you should be able to track Sariel."

"How do I do that?" Elias asked. "I've never been able to control my visions."

"Then I shall aid you."

Elias bit his lip. He had tried to provoke visions when he was younger and only ever succeeded in working up a headache for his trouble. Perhaps the angel had something to teach him. If Elias remembered his Scripture classes correctly, six-winged angels were seraphs — the highest class of angel in Heaven. Ramiel had to be more knowledgeable about visions and how to induce them than Elias was.

"Why Elias though? Aren't there other nephilim around?" Abigail asked.

"He is the only satisfactory option available to me at the present," Ramiel said. "Enough idle talk, I must concentrate."

From then on they moved in silence until they were almost at the bottom of the valley. The trees grew closer together and less light penetrated the canopy. Ramiel halted a few paces before them, then turned to face Elias and Abigail.

"I can go no further; this area has been warded against angels. You must enter first, Elias Fitzpatrick, find the warding sigils and destroy them. Scrape them off the walls line by line if you must."

"Is that the sum of your directions? How am I supposed to scrape them off? With my fingernails? What does a sigil even look like anyway?"

"Make use of your fingernails if you like. Alternatively, a stone will suffice. Your forefathers have used both methods since the days they discovered that fire is warm."

"And the sigils?"

"Isn't that just a kind of symbol?" Abby said.

Ramiel cocked his head. "I suppose that is so."

"All right," Elias said. I've a feeling I don't have much of a choice really. "If that's all you are going to say, I'm going to scratch off everything that looks like it required a thumb to produce. Let's hope I don't destroy some twenty-thousand-year-old Aboriginal art in the process." Elias ran his hand through his hair. "Do you have a flashlight? I'm not a cat, I can't see in the dark."

Ramiel flicked his fingers and a spark of golden light appeared. Suspended in the air just above Elias' head, it grew to the size of a pomegranate. Elias' breath caught. It was beautiful and, like a ray of sunlight in the middle of a thunderstorm, offered a comforting warmth.

"The light will follow your movement," said Ramiel. "Abigail Fitzpatrick, stay by me. This is a task for your brother alone."

"Can't you just call me Abigail?" she replied and moved to give Elias a hug, but the angel pulled her back. She offered Elias a nervous half-smile. "Good luck, Eli. We'll be waiting for you."

"Thanks," Elias said.

Heart pounding, Elias nodded to Ramiel. In sharply pulling Abigail away when she had reached for Elias, the angel had confirmed what Elias had suspected — Abigail was a hostage intended to assure his continued compliance. At least now Elias understood the crux of the situation.

He turned to leave. Except, he had no clue what direction he ought to be heading.

"Where are the wards precisely?" he asked.

"You are at the edge of the warded area. I surmise the anchor point lies somewhere within."