The Last Angel

A word before we start: This is a piece in progress that I am trying my hardest to finish, it may be a bit ambitious of me, but we shall see. Therefore any reviews and ideas for future chapters are greatly appreciated! Ta!


A Brief History Lesson

In the beginning there was nothing. But of course there had to be something! I hear you say. Well, there wasn’t. Not a thing. Why something suddenly blinked into existence one day millions of years ago, nobody will ever know. Not even the academes scribbling on parchment with expensive ink all day locked up in their ivory towers will ever find an answer.
But where science fails, myths, legends and word of mouth will inevitably prevail. The gypsies and vagabonds hiding in the hills will tell you (shortly before they kill and plunder you) that that their ancestors crawled from holes in the great nothingness and using iron and silver (that presumably also crawling from holes in the great nothingness) welded and sculpted the earth using their unrivaled skills as ironmongers and silversmiths.
The students of Melpomene will tell you that is a load of old rubbish. Much more likely, they say, is that one fateful day the nothingness gave birth to the first of many gods. And this god lived a scholastic life-much like the students do, in fact-spending his days studying and writing sacred scriptures on art, magic and religion, and that when he died his mighty body crumbling into stardust, revealing a golden globe complete with a ready-made populace. The Foglins from the cave-pits will say nothing. They cannot talk.
However this Earth got here, it did. But one thing most people will say is that with it came majestic, winged sentient beings known as angels. In millennia past the angles had protected their chosen race and all and sundry who dwelt within it from all perils. They even sent a man down from the sky via a lovely young virgin to save their very souls. What else did mankind do but promptly destroy him before he could finish his work? At this, the angels vanished in a hurry from Earth. Forever. They promised to return only when they were direly needed.
A vicious plague ripped trough the globe and tore down millions terrible, painful deaths. People prayed. The angels did not come. Volcanoes erupted. Earthquakes rippled through the world leaving trails of destruction. Tidal waves bashed and battered helpless countries and sank small islands. People prayed. Still the angels did not help them. Then, an evil little man and his evil big army rampaged through Europe. Thousands died. People prayed. Their angels did nothing.
All this happened so long ago before any living memory. For almost a thousand years people had no need to pray for their angels. But soon, all this will change. What is left of mankind is soon to face its biggest challenge; and if the angels don’t help them then, they never will….


Broken Wings

The Natural History Museum at Londonium was once the best there ever was. But that was at a time when there had only been a few civilizations and relatively few artifacts from any of them, so building a big museum was easy. But in the thousands of years since then and now, as many civilizations had come to pass, and all you had to do was shovel at the bare earth for a few feet before you came across a priceless artifact from a bygone era. Hence, now every city had a museum and London’s was just another ancient hall full of creaky skeletons and moth-frenzied specimens.
Lillith Korian watched from the high-strung galleries as the mechanics restored the Celestia-Mae. She was a vintage vessel, years out of date and barley airworthy. From the way her bulky frame teetered on her spindly legs as the mechanics carefully slid apart her underbelly, she was hardly even land-worthy. Her own parents had come to this city aboard her. She had, too, although she was barely so much as a curl of flesh lying dormant inside her mother.
The old ship gave out an agonizing groaned as another rusty panel was prised out of place. It was such a human sound, Lillith shuddered. She could see, quite clearly now, the hold where her parents had lived for those years before she was born. The hammock they had shared had been torn by time into some straggly shreds that swung forlornly from the rusty poles like the hanging whalebones in the foyer. From the cavity in the side where the fuel hold was, a tiny section of the cramped cockpit, the mildew-soaked chair and the cracked windscreen were all visible.
“How much longer?” Lillith shouted.
One mechanic looked up, tilted forward her helmet, hand replied with a smile, “A few weeks, I’m afraid. She’s been neglected for so long, poor ship. It’s a wonder she’s not past saving…”
Lillith slumped up against the balustrades. The Museum’s dean had only allowed to Celestia-Mae to be restored because it was, after all, her parent’s ship. And her parents, being dead, were in no position to fix it themselves.
A scream rose up from the pit. With a roar of effort, the ship barrel-rolled of her podium scattering mechanics in all directions. A fizz, and a spark of fire ignited in her disused engines. The metal skeleton collapsed and the wooden gondola where the engines were housed splintered under the excess weight. The windscreen finally caved in, crushing the dials and control panels resulting in more fires. Her buoyancy aides caught alight and exploded with two bangs and Lillith groaned as the fire alarms bleeped, the safety systems splattered her with water. As the fires receded, the ship’s supports grudgingly gave in, and the whole structure imploded.
“No, no, no!” She moaned. “No, no, no! She’ll never fly again now!”
Three panic-stricken tourists fled through the alleyway behind her, and a calm electronic voice blared “Everyone please leave the building in an orderly manner. Please leave whatever you are doing and do not re-enter the building until it is safe to do so…”

Celestia-Mae was still smouldering that night, with the lights turned out and the shutters drawn, with her silvery wires glinting mysteriously in the strangled moonlight. The clack-clack of steel-capped boots rocked the darkness as the shadow-masked figure crept closer to the wreckage, and began to weep.



Steel Toe-capped boots…

Clack-clack. Clack-clack.
Lillith had been lying awake. Sleep would not take her, as she was too busy thinking about her poor Celestia-Mae.
Clack-clack. Clack-clack.
Steel toe-capped boots. Lillith’s eyes fluttered open.
Clack-clack. Clack-clack.
The dormitory was quite. Years ago, this had been the room where the skeletons of old Egyptian kings were kept, but that was an unpopular exhibit. The Receptionist, Kildaire Kilclink, had said it was a waste heating the otherwise abandoned upper gallery-all the other artifacts and skeletons up there had been sold to pay of the ailing building’s many debts-and the Museum’s Dean had ordered it all to be cleared away and made into a dormitory for the city’s orphans. Despite the fact of all the bodies that used to be there and the odd smell of decay, Lillith and the other children usually slept well in that room. But not tonight.
Clack-clack. Clack-clack.
(Was the noise getting closer?)
Clack-clack. Clack-clack.
It was!
(Clack-clack. Clack-clack.)
Nobody wore steel toe-capped boots in the museum. The Dean wore fluffy pink slippers. Miss Kilclink wore pretty stilettos. The caretakers and Mechanics wore Wellingtons as part of their uniform, and Miss Cadence the trendy dorm-maid wore scuffed trainers.
Creeeeaaak.
Was that…it was! The door slowly swung open. Clack-clack got closer but no one else stirred. Clack-clack stopped at Lillith’s bunk.
Lillith didn’t dare breath. One or two other orphans were awake now, and shuddering with fear beneath their blankets. Was it one of the old Kings, come back? Was it a jewel thief who would cut all their throats in a swish of their knife? Could it be…
One of the orphans screamed. Whoever the intruder was had pulled back his blanket and tipped him off the bunk. The girl in the bunk above screamed too, and she woke up the little girl in the bunk next to her, who promptly began crying. Soon, everyone was shouting or wailing and screaming for Miss Cadence.
A light flicked on in the corridor, but the intruder was gone. Miss Kilclink and Miss Cadence ran in and tried to restore order, assuring everyone it was alright; it was just a bad dream, and it was to the sound of wailing children and despairing nursemaids that Lillith finally fell asleep.

As the chill wind trailed in from outside, the torn blinds flailed helplessly. The window had been smashed. The offending brick still lay among the shattered glass on the peeling tiles. Several officers and an ashen-faced Miss. Kilclink sat in the next room, sipping hot coffee and discussing what had happened.
“Really, officer. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to rob us. All our most valuable pieces were sold off long ago to pay for restoration. We’re not even a proper museum anymore. Upstairs, we’ve had to demolish the exhibits and build an orphanage…” “Yes. Come to that, those kids said they saw an intruder.”
“Yes, in the children’s quarters, as well. Horrific, isn’t it?”
“What exhibit was there before the dorms?”
“Erm…a few skeletons. Mouldy, horrid little things. Again, nothing anyone would want to steal. But again, there’s been nothing in there but children for years.”
“Hmm, this is indeed odd. You say they were orphans. I think that perhaps it might be a slaver.”
“A slaver, oh, goodness!”
“Don’t worry, Kildaire. We will catch them. Just make sure you secure the children’s rooms at night.”



The Night After The Night Before

From Lillith’s bedside table, her parents smiled sickeningly at her. They had died in the mountains. Their bodies had never been found. That’s all Lillith knew. Unlike the other children, she had known her parents quite well; it was only three years ago that they died.
It was to her mother Beckie that she owed her delicate porcelain face, her intelligent brown eyes and her tinkling voice. To her father, she owed her untameable coppery hair and her headstrong stubbornness.
“Lights out, my darlings!” Miss Cadence cooed, gently slipping out the door. Considering the events of the night before, the next day had gone on as normal, except the rumours that ran rampant through the dorms.
“Night, Lillith.” Manuel, the boy on the bunk above her murmured sleepily. “Don’t have nightmares…”