Lila. A Game of Three Worlds

By Anna Campbell/JJ Shaw

Life ain't what it used to be for the Three Worlds.

They used to carry on quite happily minding their own business.

But now, something strange is afoot.

In paradise, resentment is growing. Disaffected cupids, downsized muses, humans arriving for eternal rest: all are feeling the strain since the authoritarian Theresa took over management of the Sky, banished St. Valentine from the Uniting Hearts Department, and threatened everyone with recycling.

The Nether World, the depository for the Universe's garbage, is now more bizarre than ever due to an increase in unlikely marriages and wandering souls seeking refuge.

And on Earth, Masha, a senior accountant and auditor in Moscow, has yet more heartache to endure as an inexplicable attraction to a kilt-wearing Australian rugby captain threatens to undo her years of therapy.

Worse still, the Higher Powers' hands-off approach has developed into a worrying and unholy silence.

Enter Lila, a mischievous, misfit angel with a strange penchant for all things human.

Only she, it seems, can save the Three Worlds from destruction.  

But has she been set up by the cynical Theresa? What are the intentions of the microscopic army that is multiplying? Will Lila's need to discover her true nature put the mission in danger? Will the Ferryman, who has reinvented himself as a rapper, take her where she wants to go in his lift? More importantly, does her guide, the foul-mouthed mutt with a very unusual tail even have a clue where they are going?

Add to this an incomprehensible snail from Cork who wouldn't mind gatecrashing the weirdest rave in the Universe, and you have all the ingredients for a entertaining and compelling adventure brought to life by brilliant illustrations.

• Language: English
• Publisher: JJ Shaw
• Release date: Mar 19, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224520770

Book preview

Prologue

An unremarkable looking man of middle age casually dropped by an antique shop on the outskirts of the small provincial city of Versailles.

His purple nose puckered a little at the smell of old things as he made his way towards the shopkeeper, squeezing between the dusty display cases piled high with clutter.

— Bonjour, monsieur Fischbacher! — sang out the Chinese shop attendant in her best French. — I’ve got a special little something for you!

She was genuinely glad to see this early bird. Not only would he brighten up her day, but he was bound to buy something: he didn’t make the trip from Germany every month for the sake of it.

Herr Fischbacher had long been beating a path to this tiny, grubby-looking shop. The veteran antiquarian bookseller would always find something here to make some money on at the next auction. He liked the woman, too. He looked forward to talking to her, not to mention the decent return he’d make from selling on some incunabula or other antique tomes.

— And what have you put aside for me this time, madame? — replied Herr Fischbacher in his fine French, his warm smile revealing a set of tobacco-yellowed teeth.

— Here, look! — and the Chinese woman held out a huge folio with a cracked but still sturdy-looking leather binding. — It’s a Bible. It came in this week. I didn’t know whether to take it or not, but I noticed some ink in the margins. Someone has made notes, in German, is it? I thought of you straight away and decided not to show it to anyone else until you got here.

— Oh, madame, sincere thanks!

Herr Fischbacher put on his spectacles, took the book carefully in his hands, and opened it.

— Judging by the printing house stamp, it dates from 1644! — Unable to disguise his astonishment, he turned to the page marked with ink. — Now, let’s have a look at what this is here in the margin...

Part One. Humans vs Angels

Chapter One: A Bolt from the Blue

The jazz club Caveau de la Huchette situated in Paris’ Latin Quarter was packed to the rafters. Champagne flowed like a river, and there was the perpetual sound of corks popping and glasses chinking. In a medley of languages and accents, visitors to the city and locals were all wishing each other a Happy New Year.

That night, a young angel, Lila, with the distinguished title of middle-ranking muse, invisible to human eyes, broke loose momentarily from her dimension. She ensconced herself beneath a stone arch in the low ceiling of the aforementioned establishment, disguised as a marble cupid, bowstring drawn. Taking up her position, Lila rested her elbow on a lamp and prepared to fire.

But no such luck!

Streamers were flying past her, left, right and centre, like little paper comets. To amuse themselves, the revellers had taken to aiming champagne corks at the cupid, seeing if they could hit it. Lila’s nose wrinkled, and she shook an invisible fist at them. It wasn’t that they took her to be a boy made of stone that offended her, no. She was annoyed for another reason. Time was short, she only had one shot and there was no room for error. Should she miss, she could only make another visit to the human realm in seven years’ time.

Lila pulled herself together. The crossbow only she could see was at the ready, the bolt trained on a woman with blonde hair.

Boom! — yet another champagne cork from the hands of a happy Frenchman was heading for her, right between the eyes, but the muse managed to duck, and it flew past, missing her temple by a whisker.

— Right, dearie, you asked for it! — Lila swung her weapon round and aimed it at his forehead. — Now my magic cupid’s arrow is going to skewer you along with that fat bloke there, and then you’ll regret messing with Lila!

Luckily for the handsome Frenchman, his sleeve was grabbed unceremoniously by a red-bearded giant in Scottish dress. The kilt of blue and yellow checks hung comically over his narrow hips making his shoulders appear wider still.

— Mary! Come over here! Let’s have a drink! — the red-beard yelled in the direction of a blonde-haired woman with her back to him. She was dancing by the stage on which a jazz quartet was playing, doing her best to ignore these tireless lotharios.

— Don’t pretend you don’t know us! — the Frenchman pitched in, eyes fixed on Mary, unaware that he had just been pulled out of the rogue muse’s direct line of fire. He promptly turned towards his companion, expounding his drunken musings in good English in the attempt to wind the giant up a little.

— If we were living in medieval times, I would have fought to win the heart of a beautiful maiden! I would have challenged you to a joust, and in the times of the musketeers, I would have fetched my sword...

— My dear fellow! Such lowly squabbles are unworthy of a true gentleman, — the red-beard seized the Frenchman with his great paws and smiled again, this time in complete sincerity. — Let the Russian beauty decide for herself. Is she the only fish in the sea? Look at the tidy behinds of those girls at the bar. Let’s go and say hello. Maybe they’ll feel more like talking to us.

And so, they staggered towards the skirts stretched tightly over toned buttocks, insulting one another like old friends.

The pair had no idea that the angel Lila was hovering above them. She had been watching their altercation, arrow at the ready, and in her sharp mind hung the thought:

Ah, yes! Time may pass, things may move on, but the age-old pathetic attempts of men to dominate women never change...

And with her pondering upon on the frailties of human beings, Lila had forgotten that her own intentions were far from angelic.

A few minutes before taking up her vantage point beneath the arches of the jazz club, Lila had been wandering around in the Sky: that world stretching between the Heavens and the Earth. A world where idle angels and their shepherds, dyed-in-the-wool devotees, not particularly enamoured of the Nether Worlds due to their extreme unsavouriness, had sought refuge amid its heavenly pastures along with other celestial beings. All of them the unhappy residents of the Sky, a city of flawless order ruled by bureaucracy.

It was there that Lila had popped in to see the cupid, just for a moment. Craftily bundling the archer out of his rooms, she had grabbed his regulation weapon, and made a dash to Earth, to Paris. Her plan was to use the charms of the cupid’s arrow to unite a man and woman for all eternity and have a regular, earthly child born to them.

The opportunity had come about by chance. On this New Year’s Eve there began the seventh year of the countdown whereby the dates on Earth and in the Sky coincided. Whoever was aware of this could go through an open portal and move between the worlds as often as they liked.

Lila sighed and decided to switch positions, flying down to be closer to the stage. The revellers were clapping and whistling below. The target was in her sights. The blonde woman with slim legs given an extra six inches by her high heels was truly going for it on the dancefloor, her arms and legs a whirr, any inhibition having long since departed.

It was as if the jazz quartet was struggling to keep up with the dancing mademoiselle. How could such a skinny girl exude so much spirit and energy? In the end, even the musicians had to admit defeat, and allegro gave way to andante, which gave way in turn to lento.

Lila shook her head in disapproval. Lightweights! If anyone knew their jazz, she did. A hundred years ago, when she’d accidentally turned up in New Orleans, Lila had suddenly felt the uncontrollable urge to play a prank. Catching sight of the Opera House, she flew down into the orchestra pit and added some completely indecipherable scribblings to all the scores (incidentally, this is the origin of the habit of never leaving sheet music unattended).

The perplexed musicians carried on regardless, playing the concerto right through to the end, albeit to a hall that was emptying rapidly as the audience scattered in all directions. The horrified ladies and their Prince Charmings stopped up their ears and made for the exits. This first airing of jazz music was a bridge too far for them!

Now, however, such mischief couldn’t be further from Lila’s mind. The cupid would be back any moment now, and the first thing he would do would be to look at the wall where his crossbow was hanging. Or, rather, where it should have been hanging. It was with Lila now.

— Oh, at last! — she heaved a huge sigh of relief.

The girl had stopped dancing now. With an appreciative nod to the musicians, she turned around and approached the dark-haired and red-haired men. One readily offered her a glass, and the other instinctively filled it for her.

To her left, Lila heard a squeaking noise. It was the floorboards creaking under the cupid’s feet. Lila immediately manoeuvred the tip of the crossbow bolt around, pointing it in the direction of the girl and the two men, and pulled the trigger. Then she sped off, soaring upwards, realising with satisfaction that, despite everything, she had hit her mark.

***

In a split second, the outline of the former angel was passing through the already dimming portal between the worlds and, from the smoky jazz club she arrived slap-bang in the cupid’s rooms. She slung the crossbow behind the settee, no longer having any need of it. Let its owner think it had fallen off the wall by itself.

She then slumped into an armchair, quickly adopted an expression of innocence, and said in a relaxed tone, — Ah, there you are, cupid dear!

Speak of the devil: the matchmaker and main man in affairs of the heart had only just reappeared in the room. The centre of attention of two muses, who were chirping away and showering him with compliments, the cupid walked straight past Lila as if she wasn’t there.

— Baaah! — Lila stuck her tongue out and made a face behind his back.

The cupid, however, took no notice of this scornful attitude. He was fully occupied with the two muses, who truly were lovely, cooing to them languorously.

Lila rose from the armchair and sat back down again at a small table on which there stood a hookah pipe. Descending momentarily from the imaginary pedestal upon which his charming companions had placed him, the cupid nodded brusquely at Lila, saying: Bye-bye! Get lost! before turning his attention back to the muses:

— Ladies, make yourself at home! I apologise for the humble nature of my bachelor’s abode and suggest that to make amends we drink champagne!

— Oh, how you plead poverty, cupid! — purred one of the muses, inclining her pretty little head coquettishly. — Your room is quite charming!

— My reward for Best Archer of the Year! Sadly, it elapses after New Year’s Eve — said the cupid irritably, and he moved towards the wall where there hung a map of Paris.

As he did so, all in the blink of an eye, the lady-killer managed to shoot a glance at himself in the mirror, comb his immaculate parting, and smooth down his pomaded whiskers with his little finger. Once he had wound the clock featuring a porcelain figure of his namesake, crowned with a flowering vine, the cupid opened out the dusty canvas of a Flemish painting and then buried his predatory beak in the technological masterpiece of all three worlds: an electronic map of Paris.

Before him, the entire city opened up in three dimensions. Every nook and cranny, from Montmartre to the Eiffel Tower, twinkled with blue and red lights. Red indicated the ladies, blue their suitors. Orange lights: new couples, and if a green one appeared, this was the cupid’s signal: Battle stations!

And, with no need for any portals, the cupid would then appear instantly in the appropriate place and take his customary shot. The spot on the map would turn orange, and the cupid would then return to his room. The whole process took a mere fraction of a second and the archer had so perfected it that there was hardly any reason for him to excuse himself for his absence.

There had been times when this Uniter of Hearts would spend longer in the human realm. He’d be flying above the city, conscientiously carrying out his official duties... Then he might spy a young man gazing up to the heavens, pining, and he would suddenly materialise within shooting distance of the object of the man’s affections. Or it could be that, by a pond in the Bois de Boulogne, a couple were chatting about something trivial and insignificant, studiously avoiding the burning issue. And, with a half-smile, the cupid would aim his bolt in their direction. Or again, a widow, still in the first flush of beauty, would walk past a dashing demobbed soldier. He was selling flowers in place of his elderly father. The cupid would be right there! And those eyes that had seen so much would light up, and the woman would feel the sorrow leave her grief-stricken soul as if of its own accord.

But that was an age ago! These days, the cupid merely did what he was told. He was a top-ranking sniper working at the Uniting Hearts Department — a major pet project of the Upper World. A bureaucratic machine where the shots were called literally by Theresa, the official Head of Department and, unofficially speaking, boss of the entire Sky.

Her attitude towards those from Earth was one of condescension, and her soulless being still retained her memories from her earthly existence in which she had been an unexceptional woman.

As for the angels, what a hellish time she gave them. Theresa was not particularly fond of them due to their frivolous lifestyle. If the inhabitants of the Sky had forgotten, then the angels remembered, how Theresa had pushed out Saint Valentine, the then Head of Department, chewing him up and spitting him out without so much as a change in expression. Since that moment, everyone in the Sky bit their tongues and did whatever she ordered. Whoever found Theresa’s policies weren’t to their taste was welcome to head off for recycling. Or, to the Stream, as we say here.

The cupid, like the other angels in the Sky, couldn’t bear Theresa, but he kept quiet and was happy just to be left alone. For days on end, he would sit over his magnificent map and wait to be given the go-ahead. Whiling away the hours with a glass of wine, he dreamt that one day his abilities would be properly appreciated. His dreams were always one and the same: a summerhouse clad with vines, a huge estate, muses plucking the strings of a harp with their delicate fingers, and he, the cupid, ordering his servants to saddle up his horse.

Sadly, this was nothing more than a fantasy. In reality, the foremost sniper of the Sky with a five-thousand-year impeccable work record, lived cooped up in a shabby little shack on the outskirts of town. Where was the justice in that?

Suddenly, a new point lit up on the map like a little orange sun. In a place where it wasn’t supposed to be.

Lila became alarmed. This was her doing. And so, with attack being the best form of defence:

— Cupid, the girls are getting restless! Where’s that champers?!

— Please forgive me. — Shaking his head as if chasing away the memories, the marksman turned to the muses, straightened his collar and, giving his best winning smile, said — Coming right up!

In the meantime, Lila had already set about drawing on the hookah pipe, making the water in the jar burble loudly, and praising the tobacco in an attempt to divert the cupid’s attention.

— Lila, you cannot imagine what we had to endure in this hotel! — one of the muses who had arrived with the archer suddenly began to jabber.

— They just kicked us out like we were common tarts! — In her agitation the curls on her head began to quiver feverishly, her fluttering eyelashes shedding mascara in all directions. — Us, muses, yah?! Outrageous! I should write and complain about those gorillas, have them sent to the Stream! That’s where they belong! Manisha and I had to take off our heels and climb in...

Lila transferred her gaze to Manisha, a phlegmatic muse with a red rose in her hair who was wearing a dress that was perilously short from the point of view of modesty. She was slowly fitting a cigarette into a holder, tapping it on a silver case.

— Better still, this pair, a Moscow cupid and another from Yerevan, took a sheet from the bed and made a cradle which they pulled us up with. What is the world coming to?! They used to fly to us on winged horses, and now we are shinning up to them!

— The invisibility was malfunctioning, too, — Manisha drawled.

Lila felt for the girls. She herself had managed to get into the Grand Hotel in a simpler but more effective way. First, she engaged the security guard in conversation, and then suggested a game of wish dominos. Who would have thought that a muse, who didn’t look anything like a muse, who appeared to be only just past twenty, with a short, boyish haircut, albeit with a long pink fringe, carrying a trendy fluffy bag, could get the better of security guards who’d spent half their lives playing dice?

The gorillas never realised her appearance could be so deceptive. They could only look on blankly as, head held high, Lila walked past them and off into the gloomy corridors of the hotel. And a few seconds later she was knocking on the door of the Paris cupid. He suspected nothing as he opened