Finding It-666: the Beast

Cecile is the Au-pair girl of the Workmasters. We only encounter her briefly in the first book of the Saga. The French girl had been living with Caroline Workmaster and her son Michael to help out. The single Caroline is a busy doctor with irregular shifts which rendered an Au-pair girl invaluable.

Cecile is reliable and her nice character is well liked by the entire family. She gets on well with everyone. Her responsibilities range from babysitting to picking up Micky from school, passing by helping him with his homework.

She is mentioned a few times and makes a single appearance. It is when she collects the young Michael after school accompanied by the CIA agent charged to protect them, ‘Tango Charlie’, that the abduction of the young Archangel happens. While the agent is killed before her eyes, she is beaten up severely for her to let go of the child.

It is a very distressed girl that Azryel questions to know what exactly happened during the abduction, when she arrives at Gab’s clinic in ambulance.

What happened next to that character? She made a full recovery apart for one of her eyes, which lost its sight, and Cecile carried on living with Caroline and Micky until they were asked to move to the tree-house of Gabriel for their own security. She went back to France to see her family before applying for a job in the UK. Cecile lives in Cambridge. We will meet her there, later on in the Saga, for a blessed reunion with the Workmasters and their expending family.

Cecile is not the most important character in the world. She is a background one yet it is nice to have her there, she add a bucolic concrete reality to the story: from the French nursery songs she teaches to Micky, to her night out once a week as her only demand.

It-666’s Saga is embedded in a time frame. The Beast is discovered, age 16, by Walter Workmaster in 2012. This is the start of the Saga. But the Beast’s story or history in itself begins even before her birth. Hence the trilogy prequel will allow all readers to know the full picture. As a storyteller, I have the full whack/works in my head. It goes before and beyond. I put my finger and just pointed to a particular heartbeat in the lifeline of It-666’s existence. I started her story at a moment which had most resonance to her life: one of her turning points. It is set in the Autumn of 2012.

It is a dark fantasy yet set in a real background, Earth. To give the feel of that, I use some background characters like Cecile, background noises of events or a geographical background. Although I love the later to be most imprecise for the fantasy to infiltrate it with its imaginary magic. My writing is impressionistic rather than realistic down to a T. If I had to compare it with a painting of my favourite painter, J. M. W. Turner, as an example, I would pick ‘Rain, Steam and Speed’.

For the trivia in that painting there is a tiny hare running from the steam engine, full of meanings. In the second book, there is a little white rabbit scene running in front of Gab’s car, full of meanings too. It’s a little winking homage to Turner.

Getting back to Cecile: I was an Au-pair when I arrived in the UK for a couple of years, then a nanny to pay for my university fees. I cherish that time more than I can say. I was made to feel part of my British family so much, that they are family to me. The Au-Pair is a ‘clin d’oeil’ to my own past.

The character’s first name of Cecile is another little wink to my ‘souvenirs’. A lot of people called me ‘Cecile’ not getting my real first name of ‘Celine’. I didn’t mind the mistake for one bit. I preferred ‘Cecile’ to ‘Celine’ for a very personal reason. My parents called me ‘Celine’ because of a sad song they both loved, the one of Hughes Aufray. When my own life took the shades of sadness similar to the one in the song for years, I yearned to change my name. I did not mind ‘Cecile’ because it brought a much happier song to memory, ‘Cecile, ma fille’ of Claude Nougaro. However I chose to become ‘Cordelia Malthere’, and legalise fully the pen name I was writing under for years. It has much more depth of meaning than a pretty or sad song to me, the one who has to carry it for life.

Let’s hear Cecile, a French Au-Pair, like I was learning English while learning life and looking after children: Blessed time.

The only quote:

In the emergency room, Gabriel told his staff to leave and closed the door behind Walter Workmaster. Azryel went to the suffering Au-Pair girl, Cecile. He applied a cold compress upon her tumefied cheekbone and asked in French,

-Cecile, ma fille, dis moi ce qu’il s’est passe? Gabriel is a good Doctor. He will tend to your injuries. You will make a full recovery under his hands. Speak, my girl, speak for his nephew is in danger right now.

The girl started crying and pointing to the hospital bed of the killed CIA Agent told,

-They got Tango Charlie. They killed him, the three of them. He had no chance. I was battered until I released Micky from my protection. Meagre, the space of my arms, they broke them. One, a tall bold man, put a chloroform tissue upon little Micky who past away immediately. He took him in a white van with ‘Electricity E & E’ written upon it. The cropped blond hair guy gave the final blow to Charlie and jumped into the driver seat of the van. While the Mexican one with a Santa Morte tattoo gave me a blow in the cheek that sent me miles away counting birds in Feather land.

Az asked further,

-As tu entendus leur noms? Their names my dear girl?

The French girl shook her head, replying,

-Code names. No real names. Tattoo guy is known as Scythe. The blond one was called the Aryan and the bold one was named ‘3’.

Azryel ordered,

-Gab, stop doing postmortem on Tango Charlie. Cecile is alive and need your full attention to get well: two broken arms, contusions, a cheek bone fractured, one eye is almost lost and in need of immediate attention.
(verse 29: Speedy Recovery Company...)