Abigail

Ramiel spent a good half an hour attending to Misha. In a gentle tone, he coaxed her back to reality. A dash of colour appeared on her face and she seemed to start to become cognisant of her surroundings. Of course, all trace of tenderness vanished the moment Ramiel tied a coarse rope around Misha's wrists.

"There's no need for that," Kiara protested.

In lieu of a reply, Ramiel secured the other end of the rope to the wide, exposed pipe that ran along the wall.

"Harold, Elias, do not take your eyes off her," he said. "Kiara, Abigail, let us go."

Kiara was too slow for Ramiel's liking, so he grabbed her by the shoulder and pulled her out the door. Reluctant to play "spot the angel" in the streets of a foreign country again, Abigail hurried after them, knots beginning to twist in her stomach.

Now the fun really begins. She was nervous, yes, but that was a fair price to pay for her exhilarated desire to see what was to come. When it came to the first two anchors, she had been thrust into the scene at the last minute. This time, she had taken the first steps and she wanted to see this affair through.

Out on the street, Ramiel kept his close grip on Kiara and Abigail walked beside them. They earned plenty of second glances. Ramiel's height was an inevitable draw, but Kiara's sullen face stirred curiosity too. She moved stiffly, as if there was a gun pressed into her back. Not that this was far from the truth; Ramiel just didn't need a firearm.

However, no one stopped or questioned them. Abigail imagined it was easy for people to assume Kiara had done something foolish and her father, or whichever authority figure Ramiel embodied, now felt it appropriate to keep her close as a lesson. Abigail could even play the role of the embarrassed older sibling in this arrangement. Teenagers need a better PR campaign.

"To the left here," Kiara said, "and into the drain."

"Pardon?" Abigail said.

"The entrance is below street level."

Kiara had led them to a different part of the city. Here, the small shops selling football shirts and video games were few. The street was lined with stately buildings, many of which were adorned with brass plaques and flags of various nations. Abigail couldn't make out whether these were hotels or consulates. The large building beyond a tall iron fence on the next block, however, was obviously a school intended for the privileged inhabitants of this neighbourhood.

"This one here," said Kiara, pointing at the manhole at their feet.

The cover to the manhole was old, the letters printed in its centre hard to make out amid the years of accumulated muck. The edges were cleaner — someone had moved it recently. Abigail found the lip of the cover and with a fair bit of effort, pried it open.

"Are we going to fit?" She peered into the dark shaft now exposed and furrowed her brow. "It looks too narrow for my shoulders, let alone yours, Ramiel."

"We will have to manage," Ramiel replied.

He then whispered something into Kiara's ear. The girl shuddered, which seemed to satisfy Ramiel and he peeled his hand off her shoulder. Kiara sighed and climbed down into the manhole. Ramiel followed.

A man in a navy business suit shouted something in Spanish. Abigail tried to make out what he was saying, but at this moment the common vocabulary found across the various European languages was no help. Not a word made sense. The man spotted Abigail's incomprehension. He began to move towards her, pointing to the exposed manhole.

This isn't good.

Abigail rushed after Ramiel and Kiara, taking the ladder down two rungs at a time. As the street disappeared from view, the man's voice became more strained.

"Why is he interested in us?" Ramiel asked.

"I don't know," Kiara answered. "Father said people were getting suspicious about what we're doing down here. Maybe that's why."

"Then we need to hurry up," Abigail added.

Ramiel nodded and conjured a small light similar to the one he had produced for Elias on that first night. It wasn't as bad as Abigail had expected. The walls were dank and the ground was mostly mud and puddle, but at least they weren't knee-deep in sewage.

"Lead on," said Ramiel.

He no longer held onto Kiara, but positioned himself close enough behind the girl for her to always remain within reach. Abigail was once again at the rear. They didn't have far to walk, however. After a hundred metres, beneath the school by Abigail's estimation, Kiara pointed to a crude hole in the tunnel wall. Pieces of shattered bricks and boulders of raw granite were strewn about the floor.

"I'm guessing it's not Sariel's planned entrance; the original one's probably gone by now," Kiara said.

Ramiel examined the wall and the ground around the opening. "Or your father has yet to discover it."

"It's a decent workaround, no?"

"It will do," Abigail said. "I'm getting tired of lagging behind. See you on the other side."

The hole was about a two feet wide and no more than five feet in height. What she had expected to be a mere hole in the wall, turned out to be a tunnel in its own right. Abigail had never suffered from claustrophobia, but the darkness of this tunnel left her uneasy. It was at least three metres until the opening began to widen.

Abigail flicked her fingers open and a bulbous mass of light poured forth. It struggled to hold a spherical shape and didn't have half the intensity of Ramiel's conjured light, but it was enough to bring Abigail a sense of calm.

Kiara panted as she emerged from the tunnel behind Abigail. She cradled her arms around her as she rested against the rough rock, saying nothing. For a long moment, silence reigned.

Stone splintered. Abigail and Kiara shuffled back just as the entire wall crumbled into pieces, each no bigger than a five cent coin and sent clouds of dust in every direction.

"A reaper can't do that, can he?" Ramiel said to Kiara, as he strode through the seven-foot-high opening he had created.

Abigail shook her head. "Next time you're going first."

Ramiel chuckled and set off down the tunnel. Abigail wondered if it had been created by the same method as Ramiel had just employed. The walls were rough to the touch, but uniformly straight and perpendicular to the smooth granite beneath their feet.

"Why didn't Sariel use existing cave systems?" she asked. "It would have been cool to see trilobites and glow-in-the-dark worms and mutated cavefish."

"The first anchor employed an existing cave with some modifications," Ramiel said. "Sariel may have been concerned about the longevity of the sigils. Water, wind, salt — granted enough time, all will wear out stone. Even worms leave their marks. Or a cave can collapse. A specifically constructed cave would have given him more control over the conditions within."

"Makes sense, I guess." Abigail shrugged. "Another question then. How do we know this is the right direction? We've walked the best part of a kilometre by now."

"Yes, it might have —"

Ramiel paused in mid-step and motioned towards a dark shape further down the tunnel. When they got closer, Abigail saw that the shape was a stack of cardboard cartons. Ramiel opened one and pulled out a cylinder about twenty centimetres long and three centimetres in diameter.

"Is that dynamite?" Abigail asked and made a face when she heard her voice shake. "It seriously comes in sticks like that? I thought that's just how they drew it in old cartoons."

Kiara snorted, "Sure. It's dynamite. But we've got plenty of other stuff down here besides."

Ramiel was careful as he placed the dynamite back into the carton and gingerly examined the wires stretching out from the explosives in the cartons down into the dark tunnel ahead of them.

Abigail chewed on her bottom lip. "We need to get out of here."

"There is a city above us," Ramiel replied.

Abigail's heart sunk. Kiara's self-satisfied smirk left no doubt in Abigail's mind that the girl was telling the truth. Dynamite was as old-school as Queen Victoria, but the science of all things that go boom had taken great strides since the Nineteenth Century. If Najran and Jala had managed to steal modern, military-grade explosives, the three of them down in this tunnel wouldn't be the only ones to end up dead.

"Ramiel, do you know how to dismantle explosives?" she said.

"Why would I know such a thing?"

A lump was solidifying in Abigail's throat. They could try, but they were just as likely to blow themselves to pieces as to succeed.

"We should go back, alert the authorities," she said. "They can come in with proper experts and equipment."

"Time may not be on our side."

"You are right, time is not on your side," came the reply from the darkness of the tunnel. The newcomer's footsteps resonated down the hollow space as he walked towards them. He looked no taller than Kiara, though powerfully built. "You are too slow already. We were going to wait for you down in the main chamber, but you were just dawdling and dawdling."

"Shamkarish," Ramiel muttered in a strangled tone.

"Hello, Ramiel. Good to see you again. We'll have a great time yet, won't we?"

Kiara leapt forward. Neither Ramiel nor Abigail reacted in time, so she slipped their grasp. She sprinted past the newcomer and disappeared into the darkness of the tunnel.

"Abigail, run," Ramiel said softly as he squared his shoulders.

She spun towards him. "No way."

"This is an old quarrel, you are not part of this story."

Shamkarish grinned, showing off a mouthful of yellow teeth. "We can make you part of the story if you so like, nephilim."

Ramiel thrust himself in front of Abigail. "Leave!"

Abigail broke into a sprint. For the first two hundred metres or so, Ramiel's little light kept up with her. Then there was an ear-splitting roar behind her and the light blinked out of existence.

She swore, then palpated around until she found the wall. Blind as a mole, she couldn't dash through the tunnel as she had, however, she tried to move quickly nevertheless. Or perhaps it was for the best, the enemy wouldn't be able to see her now.

Or maybe demons could see in the dark or they could hear footsteps from a kilometre away. Shamkarish had known of their coming. Had he heard them? Or had Kiara managed to slip a message to her father? They hadn't taken their eyes off her the entire time.

Perhaps Misha...

Don't waste time on that now. Get out of here first.

Ramiel howled with rage, his voice echoing. Abigail shivered and urged herself to move quicker.

Eventually, she made it to the passage Ramiel had created. She stumbled over the shattered stone strewn across the ground. After ending up on her face three times and with both her knees bloody, Abigail gave up and summoned another lopsided mass of light.

She had just made it to the storm drainage tunnel when she heard the now familiar sound of wings.

"Ramiel?" She grinned.

"Hardly," Jala replied.

In the photo Abigail had found of Jala and her mother, Jala had looked like any other person. Even back in Italy, compared to Ashoga and Najran, Jala hadn't been the most threatening of figures. Now that she was alone with Jala in this dank tunnel, however, Abigail's stomach flipped. Reapers were low ranking angels, but they were angels nevertheless.

"Did you kill him?" Abigail spat out.

Jala leant against the tunnel wall. "It won't be so easy for him. Shamkarish and Ramiel will have much to discuss."

Abigail shuffled back several steps. She tried not to think about what awaited Ramiel, but her imagination wasn't her friend here. At the same time, she was certain, if Najran's scarring was any indication, nothing her mind could conjure could measure up to the brutality of the demons.

Seeing Abigail attempt to retreat, Jala straightened and made a swishing motion with her hand. Light flooded the tunnel.

"My, you do look just like your mother."

Abigail grit her teeth. "I suppose you'd know. You were pretending to be her friend, weren't you?"

"I needed time to decide how best to use her. And your father, of course."

"And then you killed them."

"Oh no, I borrowed her life-force, nothing more. How was I to know she would lose her mind over it?" Jala chuckled. "Well, rightly, I ought to have guessed. Nephilim and madness have gone hand in hand since the first days. But what of it? The anchor had to be broken and it was so delightful to see your mother coming into her own."

Mum really did do it.

Jala snickered, then added, "It was just as well. She had good entertainment value, she was worthless otherwise."

She is mocking you. Don't rise to the bait.

But emotion was no match for logic. Abigail clenched her fists as white rage pulsed through her.

"Come, don't look at me like that," Jala said. "Do you want to hit me? Go on then, let's see what Maria's little nephilim brat is —"

Abigail flung her hand out. Bricks tore free of the tunnel wall and flew towards Jala's head. But to her dismay, the reaper nudged two fingers down and the bricks dropped to the ground at her feet. She looked over at Abigail with a cocked eyebrow.

What now? You are an idiot.

Light flickered at the periphery of Abigail's vision. Flashlights. A moment later she could make out water sloshing about as men waded through. A raspy tenor called out something in Spanish.

"All be damned," Jala snapped.

A moment later, she was gone