”Now the
last age by Cumae's Sibyl sung
Has come and
gone, and the majestic roll
Of circling
centuries begins anew:
Justice
returns, returns old Saturn's reign,
With a new
breed of men sent down from heaven.
Only do
thou, at the child's birth in whom
The iron
shall cease, the golden race arise. (Virgil, Eclogue IV circa 37 BC)”
Author’s Note
The Book of
Raziel the Angel is a real book originally called Sefer Raziel HaMalakh,
(Hebrew ספר רזיאל המלאך "Book of Raziel the Angel”), and is a medieval Kabbalistic grimoire, primarily written in Hebrew and Aramaic, but surviving also in Latin
translation, as Liber Razielis Archangeli, in a 13th century manuscript
produced under Alfonso X.
The Angel
Script or Alphabet of the Ark as it is sometimes known is an authentic script
discovered in the 16th century.
The
location of the Ark of the Covenant is based on research by leading
archaeologists.
All
hieroglyphics, the ancient Greek Book of the Sibyl, references to the location
of the entrances to the UnderWorld, sightings at Fatima, monuments and
references to ancient Egyptian rituals are real.
The
hierarchy of angels and demons used is based on the contemporary Roman Catholic
Church, which unequivocally teaches that angels and demons are real personal
beings, not just symbolic devices.
Book 1 - Archangels and Demons
Inspired by
John Milton’s Paradise Lost this is the tale of two lovers, one half angel, the
other half demon, drawn together by fate to test the boundaries of love and the
soul. Set in the near future, where music is the new energy, Maia and her
boyfriend Altair are thrown into an adventure of unspeakable danger in the
Underworld when they discover an ancient parchment containing the language of
the angels. It was left to the orphaned Maia as her only inheritance from her
grandfather, Arthur who disappeared mysteriously when Maia was only a baby. The
parchment foretells an unimaginable destiny for the human race if they can
decipher its code. Technology and the Earth are ruled by a group known as The
Faith. Altair, Maia, Ben and Alice are a group of misfits in a rock band who
have no future and even less talent. The fate of the Earth all comes down to a
simple choice, love or sacrifice, and the amazing courage of a young girl who
is guided by the ghost of her murdered grandfather.
Book 2 - The Sigil
Maia
Fielding, avenging the death of her boyfriend Altair, her father and
grandfather, has decided to expose the secret group responsible for the
murders. On the eve of her triumph, a young boy, Kepler, and his family are
found dead in the safe house where she hid them for protection. The evidence at
the Radio City Music Hall crime scene points to a mysterious young girl,
Alcyone, who like Kepler is not of this world. Maia, convinced of Alcyone’s
guilt, plunges her friends into a desperate adventure in a world like Earth,
where things are not quite what they seem. Alcyone herself is drawn into a
murderous game of cat and mouse with her demons, which forces both Maia and
herself to face their dark pasts together.
Prologue
Maia stood tied by straps to a rough, splintered stake in the middle of a
burning pyre. Her back was arched. The straps pulled her arms back until she
thought her shoulders would break. Her hands were numb, all the blood draining
out of them, the circulation cut off by her bonds.
She had stopped struggling. She had given up crying.
No more tears would come. Her eyes were puffy and difficult to open. She
could try but if she opened them she knew all she would see was pain. Her only
hope, her friends, lay dying all around her. Her only light was the flames that
any second now would burn at her bare flesh, causing the skin to peel away.
That would signal the beginning of unending agony. She longed to take a breath,
a real breath, but the acrid smoke stung her nostrils and made her swollen eyes
weep. Her mouth was blistered and bulging. The taste in her mouth was bitter,
the taste of defeat.
She listened for her mother’s voice, which would mean the end was very
near, but all she heard was the raucous, chilling laughter of the demons. They
were baying for blood. Her blood. “Maia, Maia!” they chanted as they danced on
the bodies of her friends. Alice, Ben and her dear beloved Altair lay broken
and twisted, crushed by the cruel talons which tore their limbs to pieces like
meat hooks.
A sudden movement in the crowd made her raise her head. It was as if an
angel appeared in the throng of madness. Did she imagine it? But no, there it
was again. The flash of hazel green eyes, a lock of golden curl, hidden beneath
a cowl, that soft olive skin. The beautiful curve of her neck, the full
luscious mouth, a cute button nose. Maia turned her head so that she could see
more clearly. The flames were almost upon her. She was sweating. Beads of
perspiration dropped from her forehead onto her lips. It tasted salty, like the
ocean. Her jeans were patchy and soiled, her thin blouse no protection against
the lecherous eyes surrounding her, greedily feeding on her young body.
Her blouse had been ripped by the violence of the demons so that one breast
was almost laid bare. If she moved her hips she could just swivel enough to
make the blouse fall to hide her nakedness and then she was facing her mother.
Gabrielle took a step out from the crowd. The demons parted as if they
recognized one of their own but this could not be true. Maia must be delirious,
overcome by the smoke and fumes.
A splinter in the rough wood of the stake jabbed into the small of her
back, forcing her to arch involuntarily for a moment.
She realized her mistake. The blouse fell away, baring her breast as her
mother stepped forward onto the smouldering wood.
The straps tightened. Her hands went numb again.
Her body was contorted, her left breast exposed, her heart vulnerable and
beating fresh blood in front of the demons.
Her mother whispered to her in angel tongue.
Maia was not afraid. She met her mother’s eyes with a wall of rage but said
nothing.
From underneath her robe, her mother drew the dagger.
Not since Altair’s body gave up its last breath had Maia ever felt so
helpless.
Then she felt the fear as the rage subsided and her body trembled.
She tried to remember the words of protection in the ancient tongue but all
she could think about was Altair.
Her one true love.
Maia couldn’t breathe.
The dagger sliced through her skin, then through layers of muscle and
tissue, passing through her rib cage before piercing her beating heart.
A paralyzing pain shot through her body.
She could no longer hold herself up. Her knees buckled.
Her last sensation was a shock of red as if her heart had bled directly
into her brain and burst both her eyeballs.
Then a glowing flash of white light.
Then darkness.
Chapter 1
Maia pulled her Yankees baseball cap down tight over her close cropped punk
blonde hair and glared at Alice.
“I want to eat with chopsticks!”
Out of the corner of her eye she saw the boy from the hotel opposite Café
Aprecio walk to one of the black and white elevated crossings and hesitate. His
gaze was lowered and his footsteps seemed unsteady.
“There are no chopsticks, here, no chopsticks anywhere!” said Alice through
gritted teeth. Maia knew her best friend was frustrated. Alice had warned her.
No chopsticks in Tokyo.
Maia had only seen the boy once before. He frightened her. He looked about
the same age as her, 17, but his eyes were unforgettable, deep set with pupils
that reflected no light. He had jet black hair, pale skin, a long face, and a
tall, slim body like a Kenyan long distance runner. He wore standard citizens
garb so he wouldn’t stand out, khaki pants, light grey shirt, thick black belt,
and a plain hooded thigh length black jacket with soft leather boots. She
hadn't heard him speak. She only knew his name.
Kepler.
The boy looked left then right before ascending, his body lifted with the
crowds over the flow of traffic, then briefly over his shoulder when he reached
the opposite side as if he were scared of being followed. He had good reason to
be.
Maia put her fork down on the bed of rice, sipped her coffee and slid the
knife into her pants pocket.
“Now?” she raised her eyebrows at Alice.
Without turning her head to look Alice nodded.
Maia could see Tokyo Bay just past the APA Resort Hotel. The aqualiners
ferrying people to Hawaii were heading towards the entrance to the Bay and had
almost reached the marker buoys. She could see a dark cloud brewing just beyond
the buoys, a bubbling festering mass on the sparkling morning ocean. She
shuddered to think that Alice had been held prisoner there.
Maia strode to the door and let spring breeze creep into the café as she
turned the handle, brushing the fringes of the two women sitting nearest the
door.
She froze, a stab of fear paralyzing her heart.
A man moved out of the shadows guarding the entrance to the hotel, his eyes
fixed on the boy, his long dark cloak making him appear to glide across the
sidewalk.
Kepler had already turned right down the Makuhari Kaihin Park Boulevard.
Maia followed as quickly as she dared, hoping to stay inconspicuous in the
mandatory khaki shorts and black top of the Makuhari sector.
Music flowed down the street from huge speakers mounted above the park
power poles. Like Earth, this world was powered by ‘Resonance’ music-generated
electrical hubs housed in the core of each major city. Tokyo had more than its
fair share of bands, like Maia’s own ‘The Archangels.’
Bryan Ferry and ‘How To Destroy Angels’ pumped out a hypnotic trance like
vibration. It seemed barely real that this was the new culture, that this
entire world had bought into the likes of The Faith, the world’s leading
corporation and government in everything but name. Still, Bryan Ferry’s old
song filled her with hope. “Is Your Love Strong Enough?” Anger filled Maia
again as she shadowed the Agent. He could hardly be anything else. The man was
fifty meters behind Kepler, his right hand submerged deep in his cloak pocket.
Maia’s own hand gripped the knife harder. She had encountered one other of
his kind near the swimming pool at the top of Kepler’s hotel when she had
arrived with Alice from the UnderWorld at dawn this morning. He had been
swimming so it was a simple matter to use an Angel Sigil to eliminate him. To
any onlooker the surface of the pool would have shimmered brightly as the Sigil
took shape and drowned the agent, sucking him slowly under. Simple but
effective. No need for a knife.
Each hour that had gone past meant the clock was ticking. The Prince of
Darkness had given her just 24 hours before The End. Each hour began with
another setback. Kepler just complicated matters. Maia would have preferred to
sit and study the mysteries of the Angel Script her grandfather had given her.
Instead this game of cat and mouse consumed her. As far as Maia could tell,
Kepler was the key to stopping the demons full on assault of Earth. Alice had
led her here, to the parallel world and now Maia could not rein in her
curiosity, even at the expense of finding her mother.
Kepler had reached the end of the park and stopped briefly before crossing
and heading straight into an apartment building on the opposite side of the
street, one with an ornate balcony adorning each floor. He punched several
numbers into a panel to the right of the lobby door which swung open and Kepler
disappeared. The cloaked man waited, checked the street and then followed
Kepler in just before the door closed. Maia walked past casually glancing in to
the foyer. The man paced back and forth inside like a panther, ready for the
kill. Maia had to act and act fast. She couldn’t risk losing Kepler. Again, she
thought back to her knowledge of Agents. Half man, half machine, they could
never be taken lightly. She argued with herself; Alice had said how much of a
risk she took exposing herself to the enemy, even in this Earth-like world. It
was no use, her hand was shaking, she was half mumbling Altair’s name as if
memory of his death would give her courage.
You’re right, you are afraid.
Maia opened her mouth and screamed. Her body tensed and she focused the
sound. The Halo took form and shattered the door. The man had stopped pacing,
he pulled his hand out of the cloak pocket, he had a weapon. She had a split
second. He swore at her as she ducked the shards of flying glass and slid
through the doorway, hand on the knife drawing the Sigil of Death in mid air
with the point. The space in front of her tore in two. For an instant she saw
the shock in the man’s eyes as his body was ripped in half, then the limbs
flailed wildly and vanished.
Maia watched in astonishment as real flesh and blood muscles, sinews and
tissue, separated and burst in a mass of bloody pulp before it was swallowed by
the slit. There was a sudden clap like thunder and she was alone in the lobby.
No mechanics, no inorganic metal. Just real human skin and bones. She was about
to go into the apartment corridor leading to the stairs when an eerie silence
descended over the lobby.
Now, as she surveyed the scene, emptied of the man in the cloak, she could
see that the man hadn’t been holding a weapon at all. It was a long cylinder,
throughout which there was constant movement, like looking into a child’s
kaleidoscope. The object was a 3D map, of the Pleiadean star system.
Maia cursed.
You’ve blown it. He was Kepler’s bodyguard.
Just before arriving in the ‘LightWorld’ as Alice had nicknamed it, Alice
had briefed her. Maia had been reading up on an obscure article Alice had given
her by Dr Masaru Emoto on the principles of kotodama, the soul in words and the
power of music. He claimed to have tested the power of consciousness and its
effect on molecular structure, particularly water molecules. Together with
Tareth, a well known healer in Glastonbury, England, who could bring poisoned
plants back to life, Dr Emoto was using prayer and healing to convert some of
the demon spawn back into their original human selves. It was a slim hope. Maia
had immersed herself in the mysteries of music, ever since her guardian at the
orphanage in Paris, Mrs Gripe, had given her access to the sealed closet, with
her mother’s sigil hidden in the last page of her grandfather’s diary. In her
travels through the UnderWorld with her friends she had earned her own wings,
the final hope.
Maia hadn’t known what she was looking for, had no guidance, and travelled
blind with her friends until she had met Raziel and the four Archangels, who
told her the race of angels was leaving Earth, forever.
In a battle against hopeless odds, Maia and her friends were left at the
mercy of the Prince of Demons, who killed Altair, her one true love and his own
son.
That was when she began world hopping with Alice, desperate to find a
solution to save Earth from the demons and restore the origins of the three
great races, Angels, Humans and Magicks.
She had been been aided and abetted by Chenial and her legion of fledgling
fallen angels and elemental dragons and it was they who had retreated first to
the LightWorld, to heal their wounds and fortify their amoury. What that
consisted of now Maia had no real idea.
She had come to Tokyo first, in seach of the mysterious Kepler, and it all
now seemed a hideous, disastrous, waste of two precious hours.
Maia rang the doorbell of the first floor apartment. She did not expect
Kepler to open the door and after the commotion in the lobby it would be a
wonder if he wasn’t several blocks away by now. Looking up, she peered into the
camera that she knew would be focused on her, but it was too late. There wasn’t
the slightest sound from inside. Alice had given her the right number. 102. She
stood outside for one more moment before turning in frustration. That was when
she heard the door click quietly behind her.
“Hello, Maia,” said Kepler. He was carrying a hollow tube, just slightly
larger than the cylinder Maia held in her left hand. Her right had gripped the
knife tightly in her pants pocket when she heard her name. She turned.
Kepler looked at her without expression, welcome or warmth. Just the mere
hint of challenge in his gaze. He did not seem perturbed to see her.
Maia walked past him into the apartment lounge, which was bare except for a
low wooden kotatsu covered by a futon. She threw the cylinder down hard with a
clunk.
“Aren’t you even going to offer me a cup of green tea?”
“After what you did to my man, you’re lucky I’m not offering you a quick
death,” said Kepler evenly, in calm measured tones.
Maia turned and stared at him. “If you want me to leave just say so. I’ll
get out of here and you’ll never see me again.”
Kepler’s eyes softened. Maia could sense the difference. He had immediately
accepted her as his equal.
“We need to talk.” He reached for her hand in an offer of friendship.
“Don’t touch me,” said Maia, anger still blazing in the back of her eyes. “People
I love die.”
“Just how dangerous are you?” said Kepler.
Maia frowned. “I thought you’d know that already.” She shook her shoulders
and shrugged her black top in the way Alice had told her. The vibrant angel
wings with their edges like steel knives enfolded Maia and Kepler in a way that
allowed him to barely move a muscle.
Smart girl that Alice.
“Very dangerous,” said Maia. “Now what’s all this about. Alice was
insistent I speak to you.”
“Magicks have more to them than meets the eye,” said Kepler.
“Runs in her family,” said Maia. “Gypsy blood.”
“Well she was right, but you’ve got nothing to fear from me,” said Kepler. “I’m
an astronomer of the First Order on Pleiades, not an assassin.”
He reached to push Maia’s wing tips away but only succeeded in drawing
blood. He sucked the blue drops before they could spread and stain the white
carpeted floor of the apartment.
Maia flexed the wings as if they were an extension of her biceps so that
they brushed Kepler’s black hair slicing a single lock, which spiralled slowly
to the floor.
Then she drew them back so that they hovered behind her.
“Two problems,” said Kepler. “Samuel, your Dark Lord, already has his demon
hordes poised to invade Earth through the Cave at Cumae, as you already know.
He is mutating humans into demon spawn at twice the critical rate. Many will
die.”
“And…” said Maia, tapping her foot impatiently.
“Monkey 42 is about to visit us.”
“Monkey…?”
“A typhoon, and no ordinary one. Samuel knows you have gone into hiding, so
formed this one at the entrance to the parallel worlds to prevent you returning
to Earth. This world, the LightWorld, is smack in its path. It might get a bit
rough.”
“So we should get you to the safehouse soon.”
“Maia, you can’t play around. There are too many balls to juggle.”
“Meaning?”
“Mother, you can come out now. It’s safe.”
“Mother, you can come out now. It’s safe.”
A striking woman, slim and tall, with sapphire eyes, long straight fair
hair and a lapis lazuli dress opened the door to the bedroom and glided out
carrying a tiny baby wrapped in a white silk cloth.
“Hmm,” said Maia.
“You don’t need to worry. My mother and baby sister will stay close to you
and have come prepared.”
Maia noticed Kepler’s mother shouldered a rather large black bag with an
emerald clasp.
“We’ll stay out of the way.”
“Right,” said Maia.
“Would you like that green tea?”
“No thanks,” said Maia. “We need to leave, now.”
As if in answer the windows of the apartment began to rattle. The dark
winds were rising.
“Alice’s boyfriend Ben has found us all passage on the 0900 aqualiner to
New York. It’s a six hour trip. We thought you’d be safer there.”
Kepler smiled and sighed, resigned. He’d get used to this girl’s peculiar
ways. She shared the same bloodline, after all.
Alice put down her coffee on the table. She had long since given up trying
to protect Maia. She could look after herself. Whisper, Maia’s long sword was
concealed in a circular sheath that made it look rather like a cheap, clunky
umbrella. Even without this Maia still had formidable defences. Alice ordered
another café latee and gazed across at the hotel. Like Maia, she had cut her
hair short, the ends tapering in towards her long neck. As always no haircut
could ever hide her fine Italian Asian cheekbones or exquisite eyebrows so she
too wore a hat, not a baseball cap like Maia but a Turin Borsalino hat which
made her look more masculine and was more her style. She opened Maia’s
grandfather’s diary to the back, with the photo of Maia as a baby, her
beautiful mother Gabrielle and her adventurous father John, whose body Alice
had seen lying on the Ark of the Covenant, slumped between the two angel
figurines. Alice had promised to guard the diary and sword with her life while
Maia went after Kepler. She pushed the photo aside and studied the Angel Sigil
with Gabrielle’s idiosyncratic flowing script. Alice had used this same Sigil
to bring them here, albeit rather awkwardly. She had watched Altair die slowly
in Maia’s arms. Alice would have given anything to take his place. She was
ready to give up her life at any moment for her best friend. Secretly, she
absolutely adored Maia to the point where she wondered if she might have hidden
a lover’s desire. She shook her head. She had Ben. Cool, calm, collected Ben.
Expert in Cryptozooology and loyal to a fault. The total opposite of
unpredictable, twitching nosed Alice. She hadn’t had the least interest in long
term relationships until she’d met Ben. He had helped them get out of the
UnderWorld when Maia had lost her head after Altair’s death.
“Everything OK?”
The girl standing in front of Alice took her breath away. She was the spitting
image of Maia. Alice hadn’t seen her come in so she could be a waitress. She
had a simple black top and black skirt, slightly unusual for this sector, so
she stuck out immediately. Where Maia’s hair was curling and honey blonde, this
girl’s was long straight and blue black. The girl’s skin was as pale white as
virgin snow whereas Maia’s own skin was olive and tanned. But her eyes were the
same deep startling hazel green and her face that perfect oval, slightly long
face. She can’t have been more than fifteen, two years younger than Maia.
Alice nodded and tapped her coffee cup.
“Monkey’s coming our way,” said the girl. “Could be real bad.”
It was like she was speaking in some kind of code.
“Monkey?” said Alice.
“Better get out,” said the girl.
“Actually, I’m waiting for a friend…” said Alice.
“Alcyone,” said Alcyone without being asked for her name.
“I said…,” her voice slowed deliberately as if she was speaking to a
preschooler… “Better…get…out…NOW!”
Alcyone reached
into her skirt and as if by sleight of hand produced a small glowing blue orb.
Alice had seen one such as this only once before. The demon orb belonging to
Samuel L. Tanner, the Prince of Demons. She shuddered at the thought. Surely
this could not be.
Then they heard a
laugh that was not of this world, an eerie spine chilling cackle that was a
little too close for comfort. In the split second before Alcyone vanished with
the orb Alice saw two fiendish horned creatures with devilish eyes turn to her
from the Underworld, their red pupils focused on her soul.
She didn't have
time to ask the girl why she had come.
"Alissss..."
The air hissed with venom.
She reached for
Maia's sword, Whisper, the sword of Moses, the one gifted to her by the angel
Raziel. Alice knew it was only her unpredictability that could save her life
now. She had always had a skill with blades, ever since she had persuaded Maia
to take Kendo lessons with her at the Bridgeford Music Institute in Oxford.
Being born a Magick made her very different than her classmates who looked down
on her talents as being rather underdeveloped. She couldn't control her power
and her elemental tendencies led to a lot of random fires in the girls toilets
anytime her nose twitched. So when she drew the sword from its scabbard to
defend herself she knew anything might happen.
The demons smashed
straight through Cafe Aprecio's twin plate glass windows. Alice held in her
mind's eye Maia swirling with Whisper as she severed the demon's heads.
She could not have
explained what happened next.
The sword of Moses
burst into flame, an incendiary light saber, which shot out twin jets of flame
like a flamethrower. The demon brothers screamed and became a duo on death row,
seconds away from the lethal injection that would snuff out their life. Alice
stood astride them as they writhed in agony and thrust the needle that was
Whisper into the demon hearts. Dark blood spurted out like a geyser and then
all was still. The cafe was empty. Alice stayed still for nearly a whole
minute, recovering. She had seen one other figure in the vision in the orb, in
the split second before Alcyone vanished, behind the demons, a fgure she
recognized from the photo in Maia's beloved diary. Gabrielle, Maia's mother.
Maia closed her
grandfather’s diary and went back to her room on the aqualiner. Alice had
argued with her all the way to the port, insistent that she’d seen Maia’s
mother with the demons. Kepler was staring out at the stars as they crossed the
International Date Line heading for JFK Airport in New York. Chenial and her team
had prepared both the safehouse at Radio City Music Hall and the Keep under
Times Square where they were training new recruits and their dragons. Kepler’s
mother and baby sister were fast asleep, curled up on the bottom bunk in the
corner. Alice and Ben were bright eyed, discussing the battle unicorn stud farm
they planned to visit north of New York at Belmont Park. She sat down next to
Kepler and opened the diary to the two sets of blank pages at the end. She
lazily scrawled the sigil for the angelic gateway Kepler had been showing her,
to see if it would work.
Kepler glanced over
periodically as the stardust that customarily trailed Maia’s fingertip wafted
dancelike in midair before disappearing. Then to Maia’s astonishment, a rough
scroll, written in halting penmanship, materialized on the blank page in front
of her.
‘Whoever is
erasing my work, stop doing it!
The Lightworld
is my creation.
Shaft.’
Maia closed the
diary with a slam, fastened the clasp and looked at Kepler. He was engrossed in
the Pleiades. Only sixteen, one year younger than she was and already a famous
astronomer in his world. His body was skinny, similar to Altair’s, Kepler’s
silent broody moods and his aloofness reminded her of him.
Altair. He would
know what to do. Maia had met him in Paris on one of the orphanage outings with
her guardian Mrs Gripe, outside Altair’s grandmother’s house. She had been
fifteen, he was sixteen years old. She had been sitting in the shade on the
banks of the River Seine watching some old painters doing watercolors of the
Notre Dame. She was hypnotized by the rhythm of their brushes when she felt a
touch as light as air catch her blonde curls and move them as if they were
wings in flight. She watched the thin dark haired boy walk on by in silence. He
wore black boots, black jeans and a torn T-shirt with an odd looking symbol on
it. He too was looking at the painters and appeared not to notice her. Then he
began to mimic something she was doing quite unconsciously. Drawing circular
shapes in the air, like scribbling on an invisible jotter pad. Her heart beat a
little faster. Then he slowly turned, casually, as if to give the river a once
over. When their eyes met she jumped. It was like a jolt of electricity had
leapt through her body. Maia averted her eyes, trying vainly to find something
on the ground that would be of more importance. But it was no use. Then she
gasped and couldn’t breathe. She’d forgotten how to take a breath. He was
walking over to her. He was asking her something, it was all so vague and
dreamy, whether she liked art and that he was a local musician.
Music. Maia found
her voice. At first it croaked like a disused dried up foghorn. She turned
bright red. He was asking her about her favorite music. He hummed a tune she
knew well, ‘Aux Champs Elysee’ by a French singer Joe Dassin. To her extreme
embarrassment she found herself singing along. Altair was looking at her with
curiosity. He asked whether she was interested in bands. Resonance, the global
energy supplier, ran a worldwide competition for teenagers, to measure the band
with the greatest output and would she be interested in entering with him, as a
duo. Maia just nodded, awestruck. Why would a boy like him be interested in
her? After an hour or more of chatting, he told her that his father worked in
Resonance and so he had a few connections. He also mentioned that he would
probably be going to the prestigious music institute in Oxford, Bridgeford next
year. That they offered scholarships. Why didn’t she apply? Maia’s ears pricked
up. A music institute? She’d never even thought about such a thing. She’d
presumed she would be stuck at Mrs Gripe’s orphanage until a benefactor took
pity on her. Maia was surprised at herself. She hardly ever went out of her way
to talk to strangers and she avoided any opportunity to bring up her odd family
background. A grandfather and father who had disappeared in ‘mysterious
circumstances’. A mother who had abandoned her.
Altair was polite
and intelligent. He had moved closer without making her feel uncomfortable. He
hadn’t poked his nose into any taboo areas of her life. Like Maia he seemed to
crave company but didn’t know how to go about getting it. He asked her to sing
again. She remembered an old song of her mother’s, a lullaby that she was sure
her mother must have sung to her when she was just a baby. A song about peace.
The painters around them stopped when Maia sang. Altair’s eyes glowed. It was
like an angel of music had descended out of the clouds onto the banks of the
Seine. Would she go with him to visit his grandmother’s? He asked her quietly,
shyly, without looking her straight in the eyes. She liked the feeling growing
in her body, a warmth and security she hadn’t felt for a long time. Mrs Gripe
and the orphanage tour group had long gone and Maia knew she wouldn’t be missed
for an hour or two more. She was prone to wandering off alone. Luckily,
Altair’s grandmother’s house was just a few blocks away from the orphanage.
The old French
house was beautifully decorated with eighteenth century Parisian tables and
chairs and Maia’s favorite Monet paintings, the Nympheas Serie. It was lit with
crystal chandeliers and Altair served her tea in Louis XVI porcelain tea cups.
His grandmother was obviously a woman of considerable means. Altair even showed
her the latest Resonance technology, a headset which when lightly placed on her
temples made Maia feel like she was floating on a cloud.
Maia could see
Altair was attracted to her. She in turn wanted him to touch her body, embrace
her, take her in his arms and kiss her. She had no idea how to stop herself.
They soon found their way to his bedroom where they lay side by side stroking
each other.
He was tender and
gentle with her that first time. She had never been with another boy. Part of
her was in a panic while the other part just gave in to his suggestions. He
spoke to her softly, telling her fantasies that relaxed every cell in her body.
Altair was the
perfect lover, switching off the lights so she wouldn’t feel embarrassed,
respecting her shyness by undressing her in the dark. Every touch urged her to
go further, every kiss took her beyond this world to a far away place where
true love was not just a fairytale.
She hadn’t planned
to fall in love so deeply or so fast but there was something so different about
Altair, like destiny calling, French lovers who meet in Paris under ideal
circumstances.
They met every day
after that, until, along with Alice, Altair became her very best friend. She
would spend every waking hour with him after that, attend Bridgeford together
on a vocal scholarship and form a band ‘The Archangels’.
She still wished
now she’d never shown him her grandfather’s diary, never revealed her
grandfather’s secret, the Angel Script, never taken him to the UnderWorld and
certain death.
Now that same diary
was writing back to her. Someone called Shaft had taken control of it and
created ‘LightWorld’.
She looked out the
window with Kepler at the Pleiades and her own star, Maia, that she was named
after. This world was not all it seemed. All her senses were on high alert.
