Elias

The twins parted and another two figures emerged from the passage. Elias' heart skipped a beat. Abby. Blood trickled from her nose and a dark bruise had begun to swell around her left eye. An unfamiliar man held onto her with one hand and with the other kept a handgun pointed at her head. Elias and Abigail's eyes met in mutual appreciation of the trouble they were in.

"Najran?" Ramiel said uncertainly. "I thought —"

"Not all the lost are dead," replied the newcomer. A labyrinth of scars was the sum of his face and scalp. He looked as if he had been thrust head-first into a bonfire.

"Ok, don't do anything to my sister," said Elias. He tried to make himself sound calm, but his voice trembled hopelessly. "Just explain what's going on here. I don't want to make any trouble."

Never shifting the muzzle away from Abigail, Najran handed the weapon to Misha. It would have looked ridiculous — a pre-pubescent girl in blue sandals and a sundress clutching a weapon too large for her hands — if not for the gleeful expression on her face. Elias was certain she wouldn't only pull the trigger should the situation require it, she would enjoy doing so.

Elias' attention was on his sister, so he didn't register Najran's approach until Najran was right in front of him. He reached towards Elias' face, but Ramiel caught him by the wrist.

"This is Najran," Ramiel spoke in a terse tone. "He is a reaper. They are a lower class of angel, who are designated to shepherd human souls from Earth to Heaven and the only angels able to pass through Sariel's Shield for two-thousand years. He disappeared some ninety years ago. A demon attack. Heaven searched for a long time, however, nothing was found and he was presumed dead. So fill us in, reaper, what happened to you? And what are you doing here?"

Najran ripped his hand out of Ramiel's grasp. "My scars can attest to what happened to me. Decades at the hands of the demons. I have no doubt a token search party was sent out. But how long did they look? One week? Two? A reaper isn't worth much, not to Heaven at least."

"And now you're working with the demons," said Elias.

"Oh, good, you've caught on." Najran flashed him a grin, revealing a mouthful of broken teeth. "You are not a complete dolt after all. Perhaps I should bring you home with us. I could teach you properly; I can feel your latent potential even now. What do you say, girls, are you open to adopting an older brother?"

Kiara laughed, while Misha wrinkled her nose in disgust. Elias ignored the bait, his eyes locked on Abigail. He had to get them both out of this place. But between the two angels and the psycho-twins, Elias was hopelessly outmatched and Abigail was even more so. Judging by the state of her, she had already tried to put up a fight and got nowhere.

"I am sorry. The search should have been more thorough," said Ramiel. He frowned as his eyes followed the lines of scars across Najran's body. "No one should have to suffer such treatment."

"It's too late for apologies," said Najran and with a smirk added. "You are here, so we'll make good use out of you. It took ten months to disable the first anchor point. I suspect you'll do it in an hour."

Ramiel flexed his shoulder as if he were itching to stretch his wings, then sighed.

"I see. A ward to prevent me leaving — a good bit of forethought," he said. "It means nothing. Let me guess, you will say that unless I aid you, your children will kill the two nephilim. That is unfortunate, but against the sum of humanity, I would declare their deaths a necessity. Come now, Najran. You are a reaper, what do you have to threaten a seraph with?"

Najran flicked his fingers and motioned towards Elias, who screamed as he felt something wrap around his feet and pull him towards the door. He fell to the ground, then, inch by inch, he was dragged across the floor over to the wall by the entrance to the chamber.

This is how it ends. I'm going to die here.

"Don't you move, big bro." Kiara grinned down at him as Elias sucked in a panicked breath. "Or I'll slice off your balls and my sister will blow your sister's brains out."

"What kind of messed-up upbringing did you two have?" Abigail said. Her words were somewhat slurred, but she sounded calm. Far calmer than Elias felt. It was some measure of comfort that Abigail, at least, wasn't yet on the verge of a panic attack, like he was.

Ramiel is right. This is all for the sake of humanity. There are seven billion people on this planet; I'm not special. Elias swallowed down the bile in his throat. But why does it have to be me?

"Come on, Ramiel, I know you. You always were a sentimental fool. You wouldn't give up the nephilim so easily," said Najran. "And have you forgotten? I am no longer on the side of the angels. I have new friends, who haven't seen you in such a long time. Sariel's shield crumbles and they are eager to make a comeback. Eager to see you again too. Which one should I call upon first?"

Ramiel paled. "Don't."

"I wager there will be a queue of demons eager for an hour with you. Tell me, which one should it be first? Shamkarish? Manuf? Perhaps Iblis herself?"

Ramiel shook his head. "You would not dare. You cannot control them."

"Why would I try to control them? It doesn't matter to me if they eat every soul within five-hundred miles."

Ramiel clenched his teeth as he glanced at Elias and Abigail, then his whole body seemed to shrink in resignation. "Let the two of them go when I am done."

"Sure, old boy. I am a reasonable fellow."

"Ramiel. What are you doing!" Abigail shouted.

Elias hissed a long string of curses under his breath, even as he was torn between the elation that there may yet be a chance he and Abigail wouldn't end the night as corpses and the horror of what Ramiel had surrendered for their sake. Abigail wasn't so reserved. She hurled abuse at Ramiel and at Najran until Misha pressed the muzzle right against Abigail's forehead and ordered her to be silent.

Ramiel drew his dagger and kneeled. He pressed his hands over the blood-stained sigils Sariel had left behind and followed the pattern of the carving with the tips of his fingers. When he found whatever he had been looking for, Ramiel scrapped his blade across the sigil until a shallow pit in the floor was all that remained of Sariel's work. He then began to carve his own sigils into the spaces left between the old inscriptions.

Elias crept over to Abigail. "It'll be ok," he whispered.

Abigail raised an eyebrow. With the muzzle of the handgun pressed against her head, she couldn't turn her head to look at Elias directly. "A really shitty couple of weeks, don't you think?"

Elias couldn't help but laugh. That was such a poor way to summarise the whole weight of all that had happened of late. Misha and Kiara, however, didn't seem to share Elias' amusement. The twins stiffened, as if expecting Elias to put up a fight.

"How has your week been, Kiara?" Elias asked. He vaguely remembered once reading an article on how to deal with a hostage situation. It said something about trying to make your guards see you as a person. Hell, he might have just made that up, but at this point, it wouldn't hurt to try. "You two seem to have taken out a great deal of frustration on Abby's face. Or was it your father that did this?"

Kiara scoffed. "She wouldn't follow instructions. What were we supposed to do?"

"I was waiting for the kettle to boil when you lot broke down the front door. Should I've invited you to sit down for a cup of tea?" Abigail replied. "How'd you react?"

"I wouldn't be stupid enough to let myself be tracked in the first place," said Misha. She lowered the gun and shook out her hand. It was a heavy weapon for a child her size. "That would cut down on the number of unexpected visitors."

"What do you mean?" asked Elias.

"We left behind a ward at the first anchor point. Neither you nor your angel noticed when you tripped it last night. After that, we knew exactly where each one of you was," Misha explained with a self-satisfied smirk. "When you and the angel suddenly showed up in the Alps, miles from anywhere; we thought we'd check it out. And since you left your little sister all alone back in Sydney, we thought we'd bring her along for the ride."

Bloody hell, Ramiel, how did you miss that?

"In my defence," Elias said. "I was told I was nephilim less than a week ago."

Kiara's mouth dropped in surprise. "You are a liar."

"When did you find out your dad was an angel?" asked Abigail. "That must've been some conversation."

"Always known." Misha shrugged and chewed on her bottom lip.

Ramiel's dagger snapped in half, the tip bouncing off with a loud crack. The angel let out a long string of blasphemy in some peculiar and probably long-dead language, then climbed to his feet and said something to Najran.

"No, absolutely not!" the reaper replied.

"Shall I just go then?" Ramiel straightened his coat. "I have no other."

Najran hesitated for a long moment before he sighed and withdrew a long, sleek knife out of the inside pocket of his blazer. The blade was easily a foot long. Elias had to wonder how Najran managed to move about with such a monstrosity in his jacket. Or maybe angels had bottomless pockets; Elias wouldn't have been surprised.

Ramiel accepted the knife and turned it in his hand. "Hardly a tool for carving."

"You are free to use your fingernails."

The seraph smiled and plunged the knife into Najran's stomach. Misha screamed as blood poured from her father's wound. Ramiel withdrew the blade and struck again, this time between Najran's ribs.

Abigail took this as her cue and lunged at Misha. The momentum was enough to topple over the younger girl. Abigail landed on top of Misha and with a furious cry, punched the girl in the face. Dumbstruck, Elias stared at the scene before him.

It was only when Kiara grabbed Abigail by her hair and tried to pull her off her twin sister that Elias snapped out of his stupor. He grabbed Kiara and pried her off. She might have been half a metre shorter than him, but she wasn't ready to go down without a fight. Kiara kicked back and pushed her fingernails deep into his skin.

"Flee!" Ramiel shouted.

Kiara's heel caught Elias square in the kneecap. His leg gave way and when he instinctively tried to keep himself from falling, his grip on Kiara loosened enough for her to slip out. She turned to face him, her lips curled in rage. Elias readied himself for an assault of nails and teeth, but Kiara's next strike was aimed at his groin.

The sharp pain, tinged with nausea, radiated to Elias' stomach. He just managed to keep himself upright.

Kiara giggled and kicked him in the shin. Although Elias' eyes watered from the pain, he gritted his teeth and grabbed Kiara by the shoulders. He just needed to keep her away from him. Since he had longer arms, she wouldn't reach him.

Kiara sunk her nails into the sleeves of his coat, but the material was too thick for Elias to feel anything.

"Quit it," he said. "You lost."

A dangerous glint appeared in Kiara's remaining eye. She brought her hands back and dug her nails into the exposed skin on the back of his palm. Elias hissed. He backhanded her, then grabbed Kiara by her hair and pushed her head-first into the wall.

Kiara's body slacked at the force of the impact and when Elias released his hold on her, she slumped on the ground. Elias' stomach flipped. Did I just kill a kid?

"Elias!" Abigail's voice cut through the fog of Elias' fear and adrenaline.

He had no idea how she had done it, but Abigail now held the gun pointed at Misha. The girl was sprawled out on the ground with her eyes wide and face crimson.

"We need to go," said Abigail.

Elias hesitated. "What about Ramiel?"

The wounds that Ramiel had inflicted on Najran hadn't slowed the reaper down. They were on the other side of the chamber, Najran now wielding something akin to a short sword. Ramiel blocked the reaper's attacks, but each one drove him a step backwards.

Abigail caught Elias' coat sleeve and pulled him towards the doorway. "Hurry up!"