Elias

Elias parked the car in front of the house just as the sun climbed over the rooftops and one by one, the streetlights blinked out.

"Get everything inside," he said to Abigail. "Ramiel will need help."

He had left Ramiel lying across the back row and barely heard the angel make a sound the entire trip, but the experience couldn't have been pleasant. Elias had hit every traffic light possible, which meant a lot of stops and starts. He was impressed though — Ramiel made it out of the car on his own. He even managed a few steps before he began to sway. Elias let Ramiel rest his weight on his shoulder and they slowly made their way inside the house.

Abigail had left the front door propped open and by the sound of it, was busy organising the kitchen. Elias had an inkling she was angry at him, but this wasn't the time to try to sort that out.

He guided Ramiel through the living room and into his old bedroom. He had once shared the room with Max. Back then the room had been furnished with a creaky bunk bed and a host of plastic, glow-in-the-dark stars blue-tacked to the ceiling. After Max, Elias got a proper bed, stashed all his toys in the garage and plastered the walls with retro Sci-Fi posters. For the three years since he had left home, Elias' parents had used the room as storage. Boxes were haphazardly stacked against the walls and Abigail's dusty collection of swimming trophies stood on Elias' old dresser, but his bed was still there.

He helped Ramiel stretch out as much as he could on the bare mattress, which was too short for the angel's height. "Try to relax, ok"

Elias scoured the house until he found the first aid kit hidden behind the cleaning supplies in the laundry, then pulled a pair of towels out of the linen closet.

"How are you doing, Ramiel?" Elias asked when he returned.

"I am in need of a healer."

"Then I should take you to a hospital."

"A human doctor is not a healer. I need to send a message with a reaper through to Heaven, but I cannot. Everything is... I do not know how to describe it. It is almost as if it all slips out of my fingers." Ramiel tried to lift himself up, then sunk back onto the mattress with a pained moan. "Perhaps by tomorrow I will be stronger."

Or by dinnertime he'll be even weaker than he is now.

He seemed to be in less pain than when they first got to Elias' apartment, but the last time Ramiel had attempted to sit up, he had been able to manage it.

"Until then, let me see what I can do. It'd be better than nothing, surely?" Elias pulled off his coat and threw it on top of one of the boxes. "I am studying medicine, you know."

"Ah, that is true. I had forgotten that. Do what you can, I suppose." Ramiel turned his head away from Elias and fixed his gaze on the wall.

Elias took a deep breath and then another. He needed to dismiss for the moment everything he had seen since Ramiel had walked through the threshold of his apartment and to think back on the flat tone of his university lecturers as they discussed professional composure.

He dug through the first-aid kit until he found a pair of scissors and with meticulous care, cut apart the clothes on the upper half of Ramiel's body. Elias had been worried about what he would do about the clothing stuck to Ramiel's burns, but thankfully whatever had caused the damage had cleanly burned away the material of Ramiel's coat and shirt. Once he was done with the scissors, Elias took a step back to take stock.

"Are there any injuries to your legs?" he asked.

Ramiel reached towards his left shoulder, but didn't actually touch the blistered and blackened skin. It was the largest of the burn patches, running from his solar plexus all the way to his shoulder blade. His face paled. "The damage should be healing already."

"Ramiel, you need to answer me. Do I need to see to your legs too?"

"No. My upper body suffered the brunt of the damage. There are a few bruises and cuts on my legs, nothing more," Ramiel answered shakily.

Stepping into the room, Abigail said, "Do you need help?"

She had washed the blood from her face and hands, but the bruising on her face now looked even worse than before. Elias needed to check whether her nose was broken or if there were any other injuries. Her voice was raspy too. It took Elias a moment to link the raspiness to what Ashoga had done to his sister. Christ, how could I forget that? He fought the urge to abandon Ramiel to take care of Abigail.

Elias took a deep breath and tried to focus. "Can you bring the lamp from the living room? I need more light."

Abigail was silent when she returned with the floor lamp and set it up next to the bed. Elias, in the meanwhile, pulled Abigail's jumper away from the wound on Ramiel's side. The blood-flow had slowed, but an ugly gaping wound now lay exposed. Abigail winced at the sight.

"I'm going to suture that," said Elias. He hoped he sounded like he knew what he was doing, because he seldom felt more like an impostor than he did at this moment. Explain. Reassure. Remain calm at all times. "The burns can come after. Abby, go find an icepack for your face, it hurts just to look at you. Oh, and Ramiel will need some bedding."

"An ice pack sounds good actually."

Elias turned back to Ramiel and began disinfecting the wound. Even when he began suturing, the angel didn't flinch. Ramiel lay on his back, peering up at the yellowing ceiling, his face a sunken misery.

"How's the pain, Ramiel?" Elias asked as he finished the last stitch.

Ramiel glanced down at Elias' masterwork. "I have survived more extensive injuries; that is not what concerns me."

"What does then?"

"Heaven must know what transpired today, yet I am incapable of reaching anyone. These burns are —"

"How did this happen exactly?"

Elias set down the needle and ripped open one of the packets of sterile wound-dressing. And Abby thought a fully decked-out first aid kit was a crappy Christmas present.

"Najran pushed me onto the dais. The burns come from the energy emanating from Sariel's anchor."

"And now you're not healing as you should and you can't contact Heaven." Elias covered the stitches with the dressing. "Keep one hand on that, Ramiel. Just until the bleeding slows."

Ramiel pursed his lips as he followed Elias' instructions. "I am exhausted, nothing more. The sigils to hide us from their tracking took what energy was left."

"But it had to be done, right?"

"Yes," Ramiel sighed. "How will you treat the burns?"

Elias could do little there. He covered the worst of them with bandages and cling wrap, then coaxed Ramiel into drinking some water in place of hospital-grade intravenous fluids. In the hospital, a patient would be given pain relief too, but Elias doubted the Nurofen tablets he had on hand would do Ramiel any good.

"I am not impressed by human attempts at healing," said Ramiel as he pulled himself up a little to survey the metres of bandages and cling wrap covering his body.

"This is my parents' house, not a hospital," Elias retorted.

Instantly, Elias regretted his tone. Ramiel would be used to healing rapidly and under the supervision of angelic healers, who no doubt were capable of miracles Elias couldn't dream of. Presently, Ramiel was tired, in pain and unnerved by the loss of his usual abilities. And Elias was tired too, he wasn't up for a fight.

"Try to get some rest, ok?" he said and shut the first aid kit.

The wall clock in the kitchen ticked. Lights on the router in the corner blinked in some pattern discernible only to the machine and sunlight seeped into the living room through gaps in the shutters. Worse, the couch he lay on might have been the most uncomfortable item of furniture Elias had ever slept on. He couldn't remember a time before this musty, turquoise Bridgewater in the Fitzpatricks' living room. The couch was lumpy; the cushions uneven. It belonged out by the side of the road, not inside any decent house.

Groaning, he rolled to his side and pulled the blanket up over his head. The couch was too small for him to stretch out his legs, so there was an excess of material. Elias clenched his eyes shut. He needed to get to sleep. Their adventure in Italy left him without any sleep at all the previous night; he wanted to shut his eyes for at least a couple of hours. He tried to recite in his head the bones of the hand, but his thoughts drifted back to Italy before he had made it past the finger bones.

Outside, the hills hoist moaned.

Elias shot up. Being rotary, the clothesline moved during storms, but at the moment, the weather was fine. He hesitated. A few days ago, he wouldn't have thought twice about the noise — possums were as common as cats in this area and some of them were brazen enough not to fear the daylight. Or it could be a magpie. There were plenty of them around the area too. On the other hand, he had no idea what had happened to Najran, the twins or the demons. Nor was there any protection on the house.

He waited for any further sign of someone's presence and had almost persuaded himself that he had imagined the entire thing when branches rustled in the backyard. Elias stumbled through the house towards the back door and swung it open.

He threw up his hand to shield his eyes from the garish sunlight. But when his eyes adjusted, he spotted a pair of cockatoos atop the hills hoist, gnawing at the clothesline wires. One seemed to spot him too. The bird lifted its head and popped up its yellow crest.

A gust of wind rolled through the yard, strong enough to make the hills hoist turn. It let out an ugly moan with every millimetre it moved. The cockatoos opened up their wings and lifted themselves into the air, their white feathers gleaming in the sun, but they moved only as far as the overgrown, bindi-infested lawn.

Elias shook his head and headed back into the house. Halfway down the corridor, he caught a shuffle in Abigail's room. He knocked, then let himself in.

"Can't sleep?" he asked.

"You can't either, can you?" Abigail replied as she propped herself up and pulled the blanket tighter around her. "Was there something in the yard?"

Elias shut the door behind him and collapsed into Abigail's desk chair. "Just the hills hoist rusting out and a pair of cockatoos being a nuisance. I'll need to grease the turning mechanism on it before the neighbours begin complaining."

"Thought so. But then I wondered if it was someone else. And then I thought — why look? The house won't keep them out. Out there, in here, how would I defend myself anyway?"

"I know what you mean," he said. Then, after a pause, added, "Are you angry with me?"

Abigail crossed her arms. "Maybe."

Considering the past few days, he wouldn't have been surprised if he were to find Abigail a catatonic mess. As much as he felt he had been put through the wringer, he thought it had been worse for her. First, their parents. Then the angel, who claimed to be on their side, had threatened her life. And only days after that she had been assaulted in the middle of the night and kidnapped. But perhaps anger was her chosen response. If so, he was almost glad. He would rather Abigail fuming at him than having a nervous breakdown. Over the past few months, he had become accustomed to people being angry with him.

"What did I do?" he asked.

"Are you suicidal?"

"Of course not." Elias frowned, clueless as to what prompted the question. "Have I ever given you any indication —"

"You got up and walked towards them. You were practically begging for them to kill you!"

"I — Are you talking about the church? They were planning on killing us anyway! I thought if I could have their attention for a bit, it could buy us some more time. It worked, didn't it? Ramiel got us out of there."

"And you just happened to think up that charming marketing campaign for heroin right there and then?"

Elias pushed his chair back until it smacked against Abigail's desk. "Haven't you ever considered how you'd prefer to die?"

"No," Abigail scoffed. She took a moment to compose herself, then shifted closer to him. "You and I are family, Elias. Please be honest."

Elias' stomach twisted itself into knots as memories stirred. Memories that he had forbidden himself to dwell on. Abigail in a borrowed, black dress and her school shoes, silent in front of a rosewood coffin. Max — brilliant and funny and dead. No one had seen any signs of what he had been about to do. And he had left no note to explain his reasons.

"I don't want to die," Elias said. "If there is one thing I am certain of after last night, it's that. I never really told anyone this, but there's a plan. Well, plan is an overstatement, maybe a vision of sorts. I want to graduate, find a good position and the right partner. I want to live in peace and to raise my kids. To see them grow up. I'd like to do better by them than our dad did."

"That's kind of sweet," Abigail replied in a softer tone. "I had no idea."

Elias shrugged, ignoring the burning across his cheeks. "And you?"

"Come on. Most mornings, I don't even know what I want for breakfast."

He chuckled, although he wasn't amused in the slightest. He had watched his sister from the sidelines for years and long suspected this was the case. Abigail fit in with the crowd. She had finished high school with respectable results, got into a respectable university, chose a degree that would look respectable on a résumé. She followed the well-trodden milestones of adult life without passion for anything she encountered or long-term consideration about the consequences of her decisions.

The problem was Elias didn't know what he ought to do with that knowledge.

"So how do you want to die?" he said. Everyone had their vices; avoiding the topic was one of Elias' favourites.

Abigail pursed her lips. "While sleeping. You don't even have to know you are dying."

"I'd rather know."

"And I'd rather not be talking about this. And definitely not now." She cocked her head, then groaned. "Shit. I forgot, I need to be at work in an hour."

Elias glanced at Abigail's alarm clock, which read 11:07. "Send them a photo of the mess that's your face, they'll understand."