World Without Angels

by Campbell, Jamie

  “There’s a lot of names here,” Jerome said unhappily, suddenly overwhelmed with the task. “Is there an easier way than to search through the list?”

  “You could cut and paste the list into a spreadsheet and use the find function.” Leila couldn’t believe she didn’t think of it earlier. It had been so long since she had to use her computer skills they were a little rusty.

  “I have no idea what you just said.”

  Leila grinned. “It sucks to not know what’s going on, huh?”

  “I get your point,” Jerome conceded, wishing she would forget about his truth bending from the night before. “Can you just do the pasting thing you said?”

  “Sure. Stir this so it won’t burn.” She handed him the stick she used to stir her potatoes while he gave her the laptop. The inbuilt mouse on the computer was a bit dodgy, but she managed to convert the list into a spreadsheet. It took the computer a few minutes to run the request. Leila knew it was a big list but it seemed even bigger when put into alphabetical order in the spreadsheet.

  When the potatoes were cooked, she took them off the stove. While she ate, she showed Jerome how to use the search function. All he had to do was type in the name and the computer would tell him if they were on the list. If they were, then they could be deleted. Hopefully they would take off more names than they would be left with. As morbid as that thought was, they had to hope for it anyway. The smaller their list, the greater their chance of finding the one mortal they were searching so hard for.

  Whittling down the list was brain numbing work. Even Leila was bored as she watched on. The most amusing part was seeing the little look of happiness pass over Jerome’s face when he had a match. The wait was worth it for those little bursts of joy.

  As she waited for either Jerome to finish or bedtime, Leila studied the prophecy. She was tired of reading through it and looked forward to the day when she could burn it. That was the plan, find the mortal it referred to, save the world, and then burn the damn thing. That was going to be a sweet day.

  “What do you think a beater of gold is?” Leila asked aloud. When Jerome grinned and went to speak, she pressed her finger to his lips before he could talk. “And don’t say someone that beats gold again.” She took her finger back.

  “Fine then. I don’t know. A person born to a beater of gold. I’m assuming their mother or father beats gold for a living,” Jerome answered, still typing. He was getting quite fast at it.

  “So what professions would involve beating gold? A miner?”

  “A miner would beat gold when they got it out of the earth. A person that works in a mint would too, to make the money you use.”

  Leila nodded, they were off to a good start. “A jeweler would beat gold too, to make bracelets and necklaces. Earrings too.”

  “And scepters.”

  “I guess they would make those too.”

  Jerome racked his brain, trying to think of all the occupations they had on Earth. He was at a definite disadvantage. “How about artists who make frescoes in churches? They beat real gold into their artworks.”

  “A bit obscure, but possible.”

  “Or someone that fixes things? Like old things?”

  Leila tried to work out what he meant. She took a shot. “Like an antiques restorer?”

  “Yeah. They would have to beat gold to match existing gold or replace missing gold.”

  She wrote down all the occupations on the back of the list Jerome was finished with. Running through the items, it wasn’t really much of a help. “So how do we work out what the parents do for everyone on our list?”

  “I was hoping you’d know.”

  “The parent’s occupations are usually listed on the birth certificate,” Leila suggested. “But that would mean buying the certificate for everyone on our list. Even if we had the money, it would take forever.”

  “Maybe once we get the list cut down smaller.” Jerome wasn’t going to give up on the idea. They would make it work, otherwise it wouldn’t be in the prophecy.

  Leila nodded and yawned, not having any more suggestions. She lay next to Jerome and closed her eyes, leaving him working on the list. He was determined to get it finished, or at least make a significant dent.

  It grew painfully quiet in the garage of the house. The only sounds were of Leila’s steady breathing and Jerome’s typing. There were no alarms in the distance that night, yet it didn’t mean something bad wasn’t going on somewhere out in the dark. Jerome tried not to think about it.

  Instead, he found his mind wandering to his home in the angel village. Not the one where his family were taken from him, but the hostel where he had lived for the past four months. It was a big building, easily holding a couple of dozen angels who had nowhere else to go.

  Most of the angels staying there were on their own. Some, like Alexander, Jerome had known since he was small. It was a comforting place to be surrounded by others, but nobody would call it a home. A home needed love and family, the hostel was just a place to sleep and seek refuge from the demons. Much like the garage he was sitting in, with one exception – Leila. She made it a home.

  At the thought of Alexander, Jerome wondered what he was doing. He hoped he was alive and safe. They had met when both of them were just boys in their level one. They went right through the levels together, graduating at each stage at the same time. They were good for one another, like brothers. Jerome only had a sister in his actual family, but he knew he had a brother in Alexander. He was family.

  He suddenly missed the angel world. As horrible as the war was at home, it was still his home. Everything in the village was familiar, he knew everyone and everything. After falling to Earth, he felt like a toddler wandering around in the woods. Most of the time he had no idea what he was doing or where he was going. If it wasn’t for his schooling, he would have been even more lost. He missed the familiar terribly.

  The only good thing to come from the fall was Leila. She was unlike anyone he had ever met before. Perhaps it was the fact she wasn’t an angel, but she seemed extraordinary. Everything he thought he knew about humans she had managed to prove wrong over the last ten days. She wasn’t afraid of him, she didn’t think he was an alien, and she treated him like a friend. He felt blessed just knowing her.

  Still, as special as Leila was, he couldn’t stop missing home. Jerome didn’t know how to return from Earth. He wasn’t sure how he had fallen in the first place. If the council weren’t preoccupied with demons, they might notice he was missing from the village and locate him. They would know how to get him home. However, with so many angels missing and presumed taken by the demons, the council would just chalk it up as another one lost. His name would be added to a growing list of the dead and that would be it. No ceremony, no mourning, just the squiggle of a pen on parchment.

  He wondered if there was even a council left in the village. When he had fallen, the demons were growing in number. The amount of daily attacks had almost doubled over the last few weeks. It wouldn’t take them long to go through the entire population of the village. And that was just one village, there were thousands of them and all were having the same problems. It was a systematic and co-ordinated attack of all the guardian angels in the world.

  It didn’t take a genius to work out what they wanted – a world without angels. None at all. That way, the demons could influence the humans completely. The fallout was already occurring on Earth with so many angels gone. The demons wouldn’t stop until they were successful.

  Jerome suddenly felt tired with everything. He saved and shut down the computer like Leila had shown him and put it away. He couldn’t look at the names anymore, especially not when so many of them had met such a horrible fate themselves. He lay down on the bed and put his arm around Leila. At least she was alive, he could feel her heart beating beside him. It reminded him that not all was lost.

  Neither of them moved until the morning. When the sun started filtering in through the sole window in the garage, it quickly fi
lled the room with light. Leila was the first to awaken. She crept out of the bed and had a cold shower, wishing it was hot just once. Before the war, she had never realized what a luxury it was having hot water on demand. She had never even given it a thought.

  By the time she finished breakfast, Jerome was up and walking about. He looked terrible, like he had a rough night.

  “Are you okay?” She asked with concern. He normally looked pristine when he awoke, like the angel he was.

  “I’m fine,” he smiled, trying to reassure her. He could have done with another few hours of sleep. “That’s what you get from spending half the night looking at a list of deceased people.”

  “You made it three quarters of the way through the list. That’s quite an effort.”

  “I’ll finish it today.”

  “I’ll help.”

  They stood there in the living room of the house, unsure where the sudden awkwardness came from. There was something Jerome wasn’t saying, Leila could tell. She wondered whether it was another detail that he wanted to protect her from. However, as suspicious as she was, she wasn’t going to interrogate him over it. He looked like it would push him over the edge.

  “Well, we should get-” Leila suddenly tripped over the rubble laying everywhere on the floor in the room. She went down, her arms flailing for something to hold on to. But there was nothing, she couldn’t stop herself falling to the ground.

  She put her hands out, ready to brace herself from the impact. The floor was going to be hard, made even worse by the bricks and concrete strewn around the place. In the few seconds she had before impact, she thought of her head colliding with a stray brick, it would surely knock her out. If it was serious, she wasn’t going to be able to go to a hospital. They had closed down a few months ago, only a few dedicated doctors and nurses remained. The panicked thoughts flashed through her mind in mere seconds.

  She closed her eyes, waiting for the impact. However, when she landed, it was soft. Jerome had seen her trip and acted immediately. He knew he wouldn’t be able to stop her fall, but he could do something to minimize the damage. He threw himself on the floor, catching her as she landed.

  Leila opened her eyes in surprise, she was laying directly on top of Jerome. They were so close, their noses were almost touching.

  “You protected me,” she whispered, her heart racing. She had expected pain and a hard landing, not this. Anything but this.

  Jerome couldn’t speak from the shock of it all himself. He just nodded, thankful he had got to her in time. He didn’t even think about what he was doing, he just knew he needed to protect her. It was that simple, there were no doubts.

  As he looked into Leila’s eyes, Jerome felt something that surprised him even more than their current position. He wanted to feel her lips on his. They were so close, so pink, and so perfect. He wanted to kiss her more than anything else in the world. The war, the demons, nothing else mattered for those few seconds. All he would have to do was raise his head ever so slightly and it would happen. He imagined the joy it would bring him, the pleasure of being in that moment.

  For a second, Jerome thought it was actually going to happen. Leila’s gaze was so intense, so loving, that she could have leant down and their lips would collide in a beautiful embrace. He could tell she wanted it too. He just knew she was thinking the same thoughts that he was. Those few seconds were torture, the yearning and the desire too much to bear.

  But it couldn’t happen. Jerome knew it and Leila probably did too. He blinked and looked away, forcing himself to break the mesmerizing stare they were sharing. Angels and humans were not allowed to even talk, let alone kiss. It was wrong and impossible.

  “Are you okay to stand?” He asked, wishing they didn’t have to move. He could have laid on the floor with her for an eternity and he wouldn’t have minded.

  Leila was pulled from her daydream by his words. She knew she would be able to stand, perhaps her legs would be a bit shaky but they would hold her up. “I think so.”

  She gave her knees a test, standing. They were holding her up. She reached out her hand for Jerome to take, helping him to stand too. Within seconds they were both on their feet.

  “I think I should work on the list,” Jerome declared, trying to force all the impossible thoughts out of his head. He needed to focus on something not Leila related. The sooner he could get home, the sooner he would stop having daydreams about her. And he needed to stop.

  Leila nodded, letting him go. She needed a moment to recover herself, get her mind back in working order again. She watched him go, noticing the way his wings moved in the breeze when he walked. It was beautiful, a flowing movement that was far more elegant than any ballet she had seen.

  She dusted herself off and found the brick that was responsible for her fall. She threw it outside through the hole in the wall. There were still plenty more for her to trip over, but it seemed like justice to get rid of the one that had actually done it.

  Satisfied, she returned to the garage. Her heart was beating at its normal pace again, her mind could function as usual for the time being. She sat next to Jerome on the bed, watching him work intently on the list. He was flying through the names, it wouldn’t be long before he finished.

  “Do you want me to type for a while?” She offered, noticing he was still using only two fingers to type with. Still, he was faster than she expected him to be.

  “No, I’m fine. I’m almost done,” he replied, not taking his eyes off the screen. He couldn’t look at her right now, he didn’t want her to know what he had been thinking when they were lying on the floor. She couldn’t know how wrong his thoughts were. Angels shouldn’t want to kiss humans, it was beyond wrong. Even just sitting so close together was distracting.

  Leila quickly grew bored, she would have killed for a television to watch. Or even a radio to listen to. All those times when she had her music blaring, surfing the internet, and talking to her friends on the phone seemed like a world away. Sometimes she wondered if they ever really happened, she questioned whether her life before the war was just a nice daydream. She almost wished it was, then she wouldn’t remember how much she had lost.

  She picked up the piece of paper that Jerome had already gone through. The names of the dead was long, terribly so. At least they were just names to her, she could pretend that’s what they only were. Just names on a piece of paper, nothing major, no big deal.

  She looked over his shoulder as his hands moved on the keyboard. The list of names was still impossibly long. Yet one of them was going to rise up and fight the war. One person from the list was going to save them all. At least, she hoped so. They might run out of time before they even found out.

  “Hey, I know that person,” she suddenly perked up. “He used to be a friend of my dad’s. Toby Sinclair.” She quickly scanned the rest of the list that Jerome hadn’t got to yet. She didn’t see his name amongst the dead. “He’s still alive.”

  “He could be the one. He has just as much chance as anyone else on this list. What did his parents do?”

  “I have no idea. He used to come over for ball games and poker nights, I didn’t exactly have much to do with his personal life.”

  Jerome pursed his lips in thought. “We need to find him. Do you know where he lives?”

  “I know where he used to live.”

  “Good enough for me,” Jerome closed the spreadsheet decidedly. “Let’s go.”

  Leila couldn’t move fast enough. It wasn’t just the fact that Toby Sinclair might be the one they needed, but he was familiar. He had been friends with her father for so long that he was practically family. Perhaps she wasn’t going to be alone in the world after all.

  Within minutes, they were out the door and walking down the road. Their search was quite possibly about to come to an end.

  CHAPTER 10

  The walk was painful. Not because of the distance or the danger just walking down the street put them in, but because of the excitement. The thousands of
people born under the star sign Sagittarius and living in Aron were just names before. Now, they had a real living, breathing person to associate with them. It was further than they had ever come before.

  “How will we know if he’s the right mortal?” Leila asked, trying to formulate a strategy for the meeting. She didn’t think it would be as easy as just finding someone with a big X over their head.

  Jerome wasn’t entirely sure either. He had been so focused on narrowing down the list that he hadn’t given it much thought. “I don’t know. Perhaps he will understand the prophecy?”

  Leila nodded, it made sense. The prophecy just seemed like a long riddle to her. Perhaps the one they were searching for would be able to inexplicably understand exactly what it meant and what they had to do? It was a long shot, but they didn’t really have any other option.

  “I hope he’s the one,” Leila commented when they started getting close. “He and my dad used to hang out a lot. He always bought us presents at Christmas and would come over at Easter with his wife. They were a really nice couple.”

  “Did they have any children?”

  “No. They couldn’t. I think that’s why they spent so much time with us. They would have made great parents though. They were very kind.”

  “In that case, I hope we find them,” Jerome smiled, hoping to be able to give her some good news for once. If he could find someone caring to look after her, then he would be able to return to the angel world knowing she would be okay. He had to be practical, he had to plan for his departure. It was going to happen eventually. He just had to keep reminding himself.

  “There’s the house.” Leila pointed to a brick house at the end of a cul-de-sac. Its windows were boarded up, but it looked to be in good condition. There was no way of telling if anyone was still living there. But at least it was still standing, that was the first hurdle overcome.

  “Maybe you should talk to them on your own, at least initially,” Jerome suggested. “I can wait outside.”