PART II

TWO MONTHS LATER

Elias

Elias massaged his temple while Doctor Patel trawled through her database for his file. The garish, artificial light of the office wasn't kind to Elias' budding migraine. But then, little was these days. Pounding headaches and blurry figures floating in the periphery of his vision had become his constant companions of late. Since Ramiel turned up at his doorstep, to be precise.

He had tried to go on with his life. But one month passed and then the second, and Elias felt worse rather than better. So he resigned himself to the truth. Ramiel's blood had been a catalyst or the angel's arrival had simply coincided with the illness. Either way, there was something wrong with him.

The doctor impatiently tapped several keys on her keyboard, then leant back in her chair. This is it. Knotting his hands in his lap, Elias tried to make sense of the expression on her face, but came up with nothing. This is it. She is about to tell me what I'm going to die of.

"Looking at your scan, nothing seems amiss," she said.

"What do you mean?" Elias frowned and stifled a wince as a bolt of pain shot up from his temple, across the top of his head all the way to the back of his skull. "There's nothing? No tumours, no blood clots or... I suppose this could be —"

"Elias," the doctor cut in, her tone gentle. "What I am seeing here is an MRI of a healthy young man. The radiologist's assessment reached the same conclusion."

She's not going to lie to me. There's really nothing on the scan.

He gulped a breath, trying to calm himself. He should have been elated. He wasn't dying of a brain tumour or a brain aneurysm or prion disease or half a dozen other conditions he had considered a probable explanation. Yet all Elias wanted to do was to grab the monitor off Doctor Patel's desk and shove it out the window. If there was no medical cause for his recent ill-health, there was only one other explanation — Ramiel's blood had left permanent damage. Angels are lying bastards.

"It must be a bad case of medical student's disease then," Elias said and mimicked a smile.

He was halfway out of his seat, when Doctor Patel threw up her hand and gestured for him to stop.

"Hold on, Elias. Please do sit down." She waited until Elias slunk back into the patient's chair. "Not every symptom has to have a physical cause. There may well be other things going on. Have you made any lifestyle changes in the last few months? A new job? Any unusual stress? Any dietary changes?"

"My girlfriend did persuade me to go vegan," Elias replied after a momentary pause.

He had only had one girlfriend in his life, back when he was fourteen. But the doctor clearly wanted to turn the discussion to his feelings and such magical concepts as work-life balance. Elias, on the other hand, had no desire to discuss his personal affairs with a stranger. There was nothing to be done anyway. He had to take care of himself and Abigail. And no one at uni would take it easy on him; Patel would know that from her own student days.

The doctor made a note of his answer in her records. "How long ago was this?"

The lie came easier this time. "Three or four months ago."

That was enough for Patel to latch on to the theory that his fictive new diet caused iron and vitamin deficiencies. Even if he were a recent convert to veganism, the theory seemed dubious. Nevertheless, Elias nodded along as she discussed the need for blood tests and further appointments. It seemed the quickest route out of her office.

When he did make it out, he told the receptionist he would call in to schedule his blood-test once he knew his work-roster. It seemed rude to announce he was ignoring the doctor's advice and wouldn't be coming back.

The medical centre was down the road from the university; Elias had chosen it for its proximity. Unfortunately, he hadn't accounted for the afternoon backlog. Doctor Patel had been running half an hour late and now he had only ten minutes before his next lecture. Elias found a gap in the traffic, sprinted across, then cut through the park that separated the university from the main road.

He was making good time until a familiar figure caught his eye. Etienne sat on the green bank of the artificial lake at the heart of the park. And Jordan Hammond was sprawled out on the grass next to him. Elias was about to call out to them — he was fairly sure both Etienne and Jordan were in the same lecture he was about to be late for, when Etienne pulled Jordan towards him and leaned in for a kiss.

Elias staggered several steps back. He knew Jordan had a boyfriend. There had been snickers about it a couple of weeks back — Jordan had updated his Facebook relationship status to "in a relationship" as if he were seventeen, not approaching his mid-twenties. But he hadn't given the name of his boyfriend. It had to be Etienne though. He and Jordan had always been on good terms. And Etienne would never be hypocritical enough to make out with someone else's boyfriend.

I can't do this today. Elias glanced up at the sandstone facade of the university quadrangle. Any of this. He turned back to the direction he had come from. Once back on the main road, he followed it south until he reached Newtown. The footpath here was overcrowded with commuters and straggling school kids coming off buses or waiting to get on. Elias quickly lost his patience trying to navigate through this chaos. He looked for a cafe or a restaurant to duck into, but most seemed to be closed while the staff rotated from their lunchtime to their dinner set up.

The first open place he found was a cocktail bar. Elias suspected he was the first customer of the day. The two other people there were staff working behind the kitsch, New Orleans-themed bar. One seemed to be doing an audit of the liquor, the other had the unenviable job of slicing at least five kilograms worth of limes.

Elias cleared his throat to get their attention, then said, "Lemon Lime and Bitters please."

The next day, pain roused Elias out of his half-dream. With a groan, he opened his eyes and stared up at the ceiling of his childhood bedroom. He had overslept. Sunlight always flooded his room in the morning, but presently the rays fell at a sharp angle that could only mean it was well into the afternoon.

There was no clock in the room, so Elias needed his phone to see how badly he had messed up this time. Looking around for it, he sat up and groaned again. His perpetually throbbing head had a companion today — his right hip protested every move he made. He threw off the blanket and was surprised to discover he still wore the clothes from the day before. Ignoring the dark stain on his jeans and the misbuttoned state of his favourite shirt, he pulled down the hem of his pants until his hip was exposed. A bruise stretched from his right iliac region and over the top of his hip bone.

Elias stared at his discoloured skin; his memory was hardly forthcoming with an explanation. He remembered the kitsch bar filling up as university students and workers filed in for Happy Hour. Having no idea where else to go, Elias remained by the bar and to the dismay of the bartenders, kept ordering soft drinks. Had there been a bowl of chips somewhere along the line? There had definitely been a television — a muted flat-screen dedicated to Friday Night Football. The Manly Sea Eagles had lost. Badly. But Elias had no idea who they had been playing against.

Wait, Friday Night Football. It must be Saturday today.

"Small mercies," Elias muttered under his breath and clambered out of bed.

His foot missed his phone by half an inch. It lay on the floor next to his jacket and house keys. Whatever hour he had finally made it home, he must have stumbled to bed like a zombie. Elias picked up his phone and realised there was half of a damp, cardboard coaster stuck to the screen. He peeled it off and twisted it in his fingers. The beer it advertised told Elias nothing. Even back when he did drink, he never cared for beer. But there was a phone number scribbled across the back.

No name, however. A cross-check against the address book on Elias' phone offered no further clues.

There was a knock, then Abigail called out, "Hey, are you awake?"

"Yeah."

The door swung open, revealing Abigail with a wetsuit in her hands. "Just in case you haven't realised, it's nearly one thirty."

"Wonderful," Elias groaned.

"Don't you have work?"

Elias swore. His shift was supposed to have started at one and the office was forty minutes away.

"You should've woken me up at a decent hour," he said curtly. "Can I borrow the car?"

"Sure. I'm heading out with Kalvin anyway." She turned away, then hesitated and added, "You should have a shower before you go. There's glitter in your hair."

Elias didn't remember the glitter either, but Abigail's remark did trigger something in his mind. He suddenly tasted the putrid, sweat-filled air of a nightclub and felt the sticky floor throb in sync with the beat of a remix. Up on the podium, above the dance floor, danced two drag-queens in rainbow-coloured wigs. Strobe lights swept over the room as someone led him away from the crowd. Moments later, that same someone slammed Elias against the wall.

Oh, God. He remembered that wall very well — glossy black paint and quotations scrawled all over it in blue chalk. It had been a unisex cubicle, the kind increasingly popular in nightclubs of late: a heavy, floor-to-ceiling door to ensure total privacy, a toilet, a sink and an ever-empty toilet roll holder. The small space had been a struggle; with every thrust, Elias' hip had rammed against the edge of the sink.

Elias closed his eyes, sighing as, unbidden, his mind offered up the image of unfamiliar hands trailing across his abdomen and sliding down under the hem of his jeans. Is this my thing now? The last time, at least, he had the presence of mind to take it out to the alleyway, not the nightclub toilets. He didn't dare consider what else might have gone on in that cubicle earlier in the night.

"Elias?" Abigail was at his door again.

He scowled. "What do you want now?"

"Do you intend to move your arse sometime today? Or do you want to be fired?"

"If only," he replied.

Elias stripped off his shirt and dug into his wardrobe for his work uniform, but his mind remained focused on the night before. Everything Etienne accused me of, I've just proven true.

He had to have taken something, a lot of something. Too many gaps in his memory remained. If Elias worked at it, he could almost piece together the guy's features — tall, red-head, a well-kept beard. His name — Mark or Martin perhaps. Or maybe something else altogether. Where had Elias met him? He had no idea. How did Elias end up at that club? Who had the drugs come from? He doubted he would ever be able to piece together the full story.