Elias

Lucifer let go of Elias and Abigail the moment they landed on a patch of disintegrating asphalt. They appeared to be in the middle of an abandoned tennis court. The net was long gone, but the peeling aluminium poles the net was meant to attach to remained. The chain-link fence around the court was more hole than fence. But Elias was happy that at least they wouldn't have to scale it to get out.

"Is that Russian?" Abigail said, pointing to the graffiti-covered wall behind them.

"I think so," Elias replied. "Is there a reason demons would take Ramiel here? Russia's about as far away from Bolivia as it gets."

"Nostalgia, I suspect. In the good old days, we had a fortress here and Ramiel commanded the demons garrisoned within," Lucifer replied.

Elias felt the blood drain away from his face. "We're about to walk into a fortress full of demons?"

"No." Lucifer's lips curled in distaste. "All that's gone. Michael ordered the fortress razed after his forces took it."

Good on Michael then.

I'm not up for taking a stroll through the dungeons of a demon fortress or anything of that kind.

Still pursing his lips, Lucifer hid his wings and created a set of new clothes for himself: dark jeans, brown leather boots and a thin shirt. Elias would have chosen a jumper. It was barely warmer here than in Bolivia.

"Stay close to me and keep quiet," Lucifer said.

He ducked through one of the many openings in the fence, then set off down the street. They didn't have to go far. Halfway down the block, he nudged his head towards a two-storey building on the other side of the street. It was a grand structure with a large dome and three pillars on either side of the main doorway, but the building probably hadn't seen renovations in a generation. The steps leading up to the doorway were cracked and one end of the neon sign over the door was smashed. Yet the building was important enough to warrant two burly men at the door.

"He's in there," said Lucifer.

Abigail's face lit up. "What's the plan? We have to take out the guards first, right?"

"No, first, we're going to have dinner."

"What? Why?"

"Only imbeciles charge in without looking around first. Come on."

Lucifer motioned towards a door just a couple of metres down the street. A sign by the door was lit up, but the only thing Elias could make out was the number 24.

It turned out to be a restaurant. Round tables covered with white, lace-trimmed tablecloths were scattered around the room. They were all empty, save for one rotund man, who sat staring up at the television mounted above the bar. Seeing them enter, he slowly climbed to his feet and began speaking in Russian.

Lucifer offered the man a charming smile, threw out a few phrases of Russian in reply, then motioned for Elias and Abigail to take a seat at the table by the window. The chairs were worn and creaky, but comfortable. The whole place felt less like a restaurant than a grandmother's living room.

"I told the owner you are children of a foreign magnate looking to invest in the region. While he's discussing business, you're out exploring. I'm your interpreter," Lucifer said.

Elias raised an eyebrow. "How long were you supposed to have been in exile? You seem very comfortable in the modern world."

"Sometimes I get bored and take a holiday. Heaven hasn't caught on yet; few of my fellow seraphs are as intelligent as they think they are."

The owner waddled over and handed Elias a leather-bound folder. "English menu."

"Thank you," Elias stuttered in surprise. He turned to Lucifer. "Are we really eating?"

Lucifer let out an exasperated sigh. "Considering we're in a restaurant, it would look somewhat suspicious if we were to just sit here and glare at each other for the rest of the evening."

Elias opened up the menu and pushed it towards Abigail so that both of them could see. English menu or not, Elias was at a loss. At the top of the page, the restaurant announced itself as the best Georgian restaurant in the city, which sounded promising. However, as far as Elias could tell, the name of each dish had simply been transliterated from Georgian or Russian.

Abigail handed the menu to Lucifer. "What should we be ordering here?"

"You expect an angel to give you dining tips?"

Shaking his head, Elias took the menu back and caught the owner's attention. He took a leap of faith, pointing to random items from the menu. The owner nodded with every choice, until the last one.

"He doesn't have that sauce today," Lucifer said.

Not knowing if he even needed sauce for what he had picked, Elias shrugged. "The one below then."

Lucifer and the restaurant owner discussed this for several minutes, then Lucifer turned back to Elias and Abigail. "Drinks?"

"Coke?" Abigail suggested. Receiving a blank stare from the owner, she tried again. "Do you have Coca-Cola?"

"Coca-Cola? Da," the man said, then trailed off into an incomprehensible string of Russian.

Once he was finished, he picked up the menu and disappeared into the kitchen. Abigail got up to see what was on the TV, but to her disappointment, it was only a soccer game. Lucifer, in the meantime, focused his gaze on the men standing guard across the road. The table he had chosen for them to sit at offered them an excellent view. Elias guessed they would be staying in this restaurant for a while.

"I can still hear the voice," he said softly.

Lucifer nodded. "I know."

"Who is it?"

"Sariel."

Elias' breath caught in his throat. He ran his hands through his hair and contemplated ripping out a few handfuls.

"Bloody hell. Shouldn't we be looking for him then?"

"If Heaven wants to preserve the shield; they ought to be the ones looking for him," Lucifer replied. "My concern is Ramiel and Ramiel alone."

Elias had several counter-arguments to this, but he didn't think anything he could say would change Lucifer's mind. They were lucky he had agreed to help them with Ramiel.

"Fine, ok. But what is he saying?" Elias said. "I can't understand him."

"He's asking for help in keeping up whatever he's done to preserve his shield after Shamkarish and his lot blew up his last anchor. Don't fret about it, this problem is way out of your league, kid."

"But Heaven can't reach him. Giorgio said the new barrier is impregnable."

Lucifer crossed his arms. "Who put up this barrier in the first place?"

"Sariel," Elias conceded.

The restaurant owner came out of the kitchen with three individually-sized bottles of coke and a hefty bowl of salad, which seemed to be composed entirely of cucumber and onions. Elias' stomach grumbled. Ordinarily, he barely tolerated cucumbers, but at this moment they looked glorious.

While Abigail and Elias dug into the salad, the owner brought out the rest of their order. He filled the table with dumplings, stewed beans, grilled fish and roasted meat served on deadly-looking metal skewers. Elias eagerly piled some of everything onto his plate. It was the best meal he had eaten in years.

Lucifer restrained himself to a few dumplings and one chicken skewer, so he set down his cutlery long before Elias and Abigail. He called over the owner again and gestured towards the television. The owner shook his head, then shuffled away. He returned with a rolled up newspaper in his hands.

Just as Lucifer began unfolding the newspaper, the front door swung open. The newcomer was one of the guards they had seen earlier outside the building where Ramiel was being held. He greeted the owner with a casual wave and took the table with the best view of the television.

"Do we follow him to a dark alley," Elias whispered as he leaned forward, "then beat information out of him?"

Lucifer set down the newspaper by his plate. "A fine idea, but let's not bloody your knuckles prematurely."

He called out in Russian to the owner — something, something, vodka. Elias raised an eyebrow and Lucifer threw him a reassuring smile in reply. Considering the source, it offered Elias no comfort.

Sure enough, a minute later the owner plonked down onto the table three shot glasses and a bottle of vodka with a stylised angel on the label. Elias groaned. He hadn't touched vodka since he was sixteen.

"One drink," Lucifer said as he lined up the shot glasses. "It won't kill you."

Abigail, who, to Elias' knowledge, rarely strayed far from cider and champagne, started coughing halfway through her shot. In a way, Elias was glad. He didn't want to see Abigail go down the same path as their father.

"Your turn, Elias."

He picked up the shot glass and poured its contents into his mouth. He had always hated the smell of vodka; it reminded him of nail polish remover. This vodka tasted like it too. From the tip of his tongue all the down into the lining of his stomach, the liquid left its foul, burning aftertaste. He stifled a cough and scoffed down one of the remaining dumplings as a palate cleanser. Either he had lost his touch or this stuff was stronger than what he had drunk at home.

Lucifer, on the other hand, was as composed as if he were drinking spring water. Sighing, he called over the restaurant owner and the guard. The owner shook his head in reply, but the guard rose from his seat and strode over to their table. He and Lucifer talked for a couple of minutes, then the man turned to Elias and offered him his hand.

"Konstantin," he said. "How do you do?"

Elias, not knowing what else to do, shook the man's hand and smiled politely. "Elias. I'm good, thank you. You?"

The guard greeted Abigail in the same manner, then pulled up a chair to their table. Lucifer poured him a shot of vodka, then another for himself.

"Za zdorovye!" the guard proclaimed.

Laughing, Lucifer echoed the words and they drank.

Abigail understood about the same time as Elias that their participation wasn't required for this part of Lucifer's plan. They both turned their attention back to the food on the table. With the exception of the fish, which smelled off, it was good food and it was getting cold. While Elias finished the last two skewers, Lucifer and the guard talked in Russian.

Two shots each later, the man turned to Elias.

"You like Arkhangelsk?" he said in heavily accented English.

Abigail frowned. "Arkhangelsk?"

"That's the name of the place," Lucifer said in a condescending tone.

"Oh, yes, of course." Abigail glanced away as if embarrassed. "We haven't seen the city yet. Where did you learn English?"

"At the university."

Elias glanced out the window — a different team of guards now stood across the road. "What did you study at university?"

"I am an engineer," Konstantin replied. He took off his aged leather jacket and hung it on the back of his chair. "But no one wants to hire now. My daughter finishes school next year, I stay here for her. After, I move."

"What's the building across the road? Looks fancy." Abigail asked and received a blank look from the guard in reply. She bit her lip, then pointed to the window. "That building. Is that a theatre?"

Seeing Lucifer uncap the vodka bottle, Konstantin tipped the shot-glass forward to help him pour. "It was a theatre. It closed in '97, maybe '98. Then it was a diskotek for one year or two. After, addicts lived there. But there are new owners now. Foreigners. They got rid of all addicts and want to open theatre again."

There was something ludicrous in the thought of demons were posing as foreign investors eager to resurrect Russian theatre. Elias longed to ask if they paid well, but that would mean admitting they had seen him at work and thus that they had been watching the building. Despite Lucifer's best efforts, Konstantin seemed no less sober or lucid than he had been when he joined them. The question might make Konstantin realise they were fishing for information.

"When do they plan to reopen?" Lucifer asked.

Konstantin shrugged. "They don't announce that yet," he said. "How long are you in Arkhangelsk? You have come at a good time. White nights are finished, but yet it is warm now. You must visit the Naberezhnaya and Malye Korely. If you have time, go to Solovetsky Islands too. It is beautiful there."

"We definitely will," Lucifer said, then slipped into Russian for a lengthy monologue.

Elias wished that were the truth. He was a kid from the Sydney suburbs. Of the names the guard had mentioned, none were familiar to Elias and in fact, he had never even heard of Arkhangelsk before arriving here. He wanted to see this place properly in a way he didn't get to with Italy and Bolivia. Even being able to place this city on the map would be a start.