The Shining Part 1, Chapter 1

So... I take it you enjoyed the little teasers I put up as an intro to the blog. Yes, No? Maybe?.. Hmmm... Well, all good all the same. I had some really great feedback from some of you that read the tidbits I put up. My favourite was when one of you ended your feedback to me with ".. its like porn, for girls." Yes, you know who you are. Thank you for that one. Really got me smiling.

Before I put these five pages up I'd like to get some housekeeping out the way: I want to thank two people that have had a great influence on the writing and indeed the blog itself. First Miss Jess. She's been great at helping hone and fine tune my writing (work in progress). And second, certainly not least, Sam. My dear Sam. You know what you did little Mrs.. Check her out at: http://easy-editing.webs.com/apps/blog/ Oh dear. Am I allowed to do that here? Well it's done, so there. There are others I could and probably should thank, but all in due time. These are the two that are intimately involved with my projects. Thank you ladies.

Right, no more blah blah blah from me.  Here are the first five pages of The Shining. Read and enjoy.

The Shining
Part 1, Chapter 1

The scene from the hill was one of the more inspiring creations of God. The orange glowing orb of sun painted the sky and sea various shades of crimson. Light clouds hung on the horizon; marching toward a destiny on the other side. The wind was the only thing that could have used a bit of improvement. It was too strong. A figure stood at the top of the hill, amongst the wind swept leaves next to the naked oak. Shrouded in his very own darkness. "Why do you come here Raeve? It's so depressing,” a voice said. He knew who it was without even having to turn around. She would be watching him closely.

"Look down there,” he said. “We have the Lower City Lanqua and above New. They sit one on top of the other. Sharing the same harbour, but worlds apart. This must be as low as humans get; half those people down there are damned. The ruling class has sold their souls to our brother. They now know there’s no way to get to heaven. Hell is creeping on to this world more and more." Deep blue eyes scrolled over the city, "The balance is shifting. We are losing . . .”

“Do you ever miss your job?” No answer. This was usually where the conversation ended. She knew she shouldn't have asked that. The throne had sat empty for so long that many either lost their way or simply got too tired from having to cart souls into Heaven. Raeve looked tired. Concerned. How was he supposed to negotiate if one party was missing? "How is Christine?" What she wanted to ask was: “Can she be brought back?” That was the big question. Christine was their hope. The only one that could take up the throne.

Raeve turned and faced Almerael his lean face expressionless, "You are a part of the all-seeing. You tell me." His rasping voice drifting in the wind. Raeve turned and started on his way down the hill. "I'm sorry Almerael." Bright blue eyes glanced at the evening sky, "Why do you keep sending her? You are the one who the severed the connection." The darkness around him grew. As always he wouldn't look back. He heard her wings flap once. She had always loved flying. Raeve preferred walking. He felt it connected him to the humans; helped him understand them better. Another flap. She was still watching him. He could feel her bright blue eyes on him. It was the same dance they had done for the last century. The shadow of a plane passed over him. Her eyes were gone. He missed being able to feel His eyes on him through hers. He turned once. Only the naked oak stood. Clawing at heaven.

He walked for half an hour and was soon entering the outskirts of the Lower-City. His face showed a wariness of many ages. The stench of the struggling lower class played on his nostrils like the whining strings of a violin. Somewhere a dog barked its protest to having to hunt garbage bags for food. A car sputtered by. The sound of its engine told a story of poor maintenance. The look of the driver showed she could barely maintain herself, let alone the car. The houses that lined the street which Raeve was walking through, were ill-kept. Some showed signs of an attempt to perk them up, but the limited level of the means of their owners was clearly stamped on them. Closer to the centre of the Lower-City, buildings reached in supplication to riches of the Upper-City. Apartment block upon apartment block creaked and crawled jam full of people. The streets were teaming with them. Most rushed this was and that too, as the evening settled in. Buses going to and from the middle and upper city were at their fullest at this time of the evening. Many people were preparing to go out to jobs to put food on their plates as others were coming home from a day's toil.

An hour and thirty-four minutes after leaving the hill just outside of town he entered the Intercity Tube. One of the giant pillars that held the Upper and Mid-City at a twenty-degree rotation from the Lower-Lanqua City. The tube was one of four dotted around the lower city at convenient points. They were about the only thing convenient down there. Each Tube had at least one turbo-lift-cabin. These were in essence, giant triple story buses that moved vertically to deliver passengers to the middle and upper cities. The main Tube that had eight turbo-lift-cabins was nestled against the mountain that was the backbone of intercity travel, but it stood fourteen kilometres from where he was on the outer Lower-City. There was very little room to move in the Tube station. He would be commuting with many others that were heading up to Middle-City. They didn’t have to wait long. The Intercity Tube ran on an automated system so reliable that many in the city set their time by it. The turbo-lift arrived exactly on time to spill out its load of passengers that mostly consisted of weary workers of the mid and upper cities. People jostled and push against one another to get in, or out, of the turbo-lift before the doors closed and it took off back up to the other cities. Raeve made his way in a few seconds before the doors closed.  The giant exposed gears of the turbo-lift-cabin whistled slightly as it shot up higher than the buildings of the lower city. It was full and the air hung quiet. Not many of the people interacted with each other. There was a subdued, sombre atmosphere. Before long the Mid-City Lanqua was visible through the large windows of the yellow turbo-lift. Mid-City was more of a little town lying between the lower city and upper. It spanned a fourteen kilometre radius at its widest point. A third of the lower city and bigger than the Upper by a quarter. Those of Lower-City tried by all means to make enough money to be able to afford to live in the cleaner semi-suburbia safety of Mid-City. Those that lived in this part of Lanqua were settling in for the evening with their families. The streets were quieter. Cars were pulling into driveways and parkades. Here and there were pockets of people. They didn’t seem as rushed as in the city below.

Four minutes after boarding the turbo-lift he emerged onto the arrival platform of Upper-Lanqua He cleared the security checkpoints with no hassle. Unlike Lower-City where buses awaited at the turbo-lift terminal or Mid-City where the cars of loved ones and a few commuter taxis dotted here and there, Upper-City had private taxis, chauffeur’s and drivers ready to take people to their destinations. One or two buses waited to take the Lower and Mid-City residents to the mansions and office towers where they worked. There were no industrial sites on the Upper city. The industrial area of Lanqua was restrained to the Lower-City. A number of the workers getting off the Tube were picked up in the private vehicles of the houses they worked in. Their employers were kind enough to expedite their journey to work. The Upper-City terminal had a direct link to the city’s airport. Everything needed for the Upper-City residence to get in and out of Lanqua with ease, was provided for. The streets of the two levels of the Upper-City were clean and well-maintained. Their gardens and houses kept to the highest standards. Here, children could safely walk to the local libraries or schools, but of course, they were too privileged to have to walk anywhere. Their parents either got them chauffeurs or cars of their own when they were of age. And even these were more to show off how much they were able to afford or to out do their neighbours. Very few that lived in Upper-City didn’t try keep up with the latest trends. The current trend was being driven in exquisite classic cars. A very small number of cars that currently filled the streets of the Upper-City were classic by any means. Most were barely a year old. They were made to look classic. Amongst some of the rich in this city, looks were everything.

A beautiful automobile styled after a car that inspired a whole generation in the nineteen-sixties awaited Raeve as he made his way out of the terminal. Next to it stood a suitably dressed driver that acknowledged Raeve with a curt nod. No doubt Christine had sent the car knowing he was about to arrive. Once, many millennia ago she had looked up to him as one would an uncle. He had seen to it that she learnt what she need and pulled her from the very brink of losing her mind. Now she took almost childlike pleasure in pushing his discomfort. She knew how he hated being in a car. Worse that the car she sent to come get him was such a lavish show of opulent wealth. A light irritation crossed his ageless face. No doubt the driver had been given instruction not to allow Raeve to argue his way out of being driven to the house.

He took a closer look at the driver, weighing his options. Though the driver looked to be slightly overweight, the fact that he was a daemon meant he was a far cry from easy to overpower. The suit he wore was well-tailored to his chubby body shape. Nothing in his outward appearance suggest any kind of malice, but Raeve could tell the daemon was looking for any reason to start a fight with him. Any reason to put Raeve in his place. He knew that one wrong movement here meant scores of them would descend upon him. Out of respect to their pact with Christine, the daemons would not kill him, but they’d make sure he suffered as they had suffered for millennia at the hands of his kind.

The balance of power was shifting. The daemons ran Upper-City and had a great deal of influence in the other parts of Lanqua. Many of the residence here had one deal or another with them. There were very few that had made it to living in Upper-City without some form of help. Raeve could feel the countless eyes of daemons watching him. The smug look on the pudgy face of his driver told him this daemon was also aware of the calculations going on in his mind. With a composed face, Raeve got in to the back seat of the oil-slick-black car.

Dusk had settled on Lanqua as the daemon-chauffer driven car pulled up to stop at a mansion on the main street of Upper-City Lanqua. The house was imposing yet warmly inviting all at once. Its walls were a crisp white that seemed to gleam in the settling darkness. In front of the house’s large garage stood six cars. Some exotic, others rare and one, a true classic. The only car to ever truly capture Raeve’s heart. It was a jet black coupe from the sixties that had been very discretely modified and enhanced. He was sure that his love for that car was more than just his own. The car’s original owner had doted on it as a child would a favourite toy. The car’s slick black color seemed to outshine the magnificent white of the house it was parked next to. Not letting his thoughts wander too much over the memories that rose from seeing the car, Raeve got out of the repulsive vehicle he had been picked up in and headed straight for the large front door of the house.

Once inside he found Cecraelle waiting for him with a whiskey in hand. The fallen angel received Raeve with cold eyes. Had it not been for those cold eyes Raeve was sure she would be a very inviting woman. It was almost impossible how beautiful she was. Her caramel skin seemed to call out to his fingers for a caress. Her large hazel eyes told him he’d loose whatever limb he brought near her without her consent. She could not be bothered to hide her disdain for him. “Christine is waiting for you in the shop.” She spat at him and that the gorgeous girl turned walked away, leaving the glass of whiskey on a side table near the door. Raeve picked up the whiskey and spilled it into the flower pot half way down the hall as he walked the workshop. The flower that occupied that flower pot had long since died from whiskey destroying the once fertile soil it had been planted in.

He found Christine sanding an exquisite oak-wood table. The table was large and took up most of the space in the workshop. It had some ornate carvings on its legs and skirts. Christine had taken her time in perfecting every detail on it. Raeve was sure the table was nearly complete, but was as yet unsure why she had built it to be so magnificent when compared to the other pieces she had built over the last few years. She looked up at him standing just inside the door to the workshop. Her green eyes full of compassion and patience, as usual. “You went to the tree again, didn’t you?” she said in her quiet soothing voice. He didn’t answer. Her full lips curled into a warm mocking smile. “Are we in a mood today, Raeve?” she’d paused from her sanding the table and looked him full in the eyes to give him the full effect of her child-like mirth. Even in the old days Raeve was defenceless to the affectionate teasing she shot his way. Still, he did not respond, accept for the twitch that pulled at the corners of his mouth. Begging him to smile warmly back at her. The mirth in her eyes disappeared far too quickly and was replaced with sadness as she looked down at the table she had been working on. “I miss home today . . .” she confessed as she ran her fingers lightly on the wood. Gaining a feel for the smoothness the sandpaper had forced on the wood. Before he could say anything, she raised her hand to silence him. Thereafter, pointed at the old guitar sitting at the far corner of the cluttered workshop. “Play me something,” she pleaded. The sadness in that plea tore at him and without a word he crossed the room, picked up the guitar as he sat on one of the chairs she had made and started singing as he played. The song he chose to sing was one of her favourites he use to play for here when she was a child. She closed her eyes, lost in the melody of the song. Soon she was humming along quietly. Her focus back on sanding the table.

End of Part 1, Chapter 1.

Lovely. Check in with the blog from time to time. I might put up little bits to keep you interested till next month's five pages are ready. 

Till then,

Nic. Out