Hungry.
So hungry.
How long had it been? One hundred, perhaps two hundred, years since his last good meal? He couldn't even remember when he had last tasted something satisfying.

"Edmund! Edmund, have you seen this? Come here, quickly!"
"Wait a minute, Cass! Wait! For Christ's sake, this forest is not the easiest of places to carry a fucking tripod through!"
She rolled her eyes. Fifteen minutes ago, she had told him that the tripod was in fact, collapsible and would easily fit in his rucksack.
Typical Edmund.
He'd rather stumble across lattices of twisted ivy, strangled foliage and the corpses of fallen trees, cradling three poles of jutting metal-substitute than actually listen to a piece of her advice.

Now he was cold, breaking…unable to feel anything but that same hunger pain.
His skin was numb. Bound with gripping chains of wrought iron- half rusted and welded into the crevices of his crumbling body. Those damn clerics who had found him.
Those who had imprisoned him here. Unable to destroy him but obliged by their cause to prevent him from running free.
What he would he not give to have them as his next meal?

Cassidy Albright could not take her eyes from her find, her fingers frantically and tirelessly working to peel threads of ivy from its stunningly carved form- delicate enough not to disturb the already-crumbling stone.
It was perfect.
"Ok, Cass," Edmund Potter panted, finally having caught up with her and capable of relieving his aching arms by dumping the tripod on the forest floor. "What's so bloody amazing that I had to run-…shit…what's that?"
"What does it look like, Ed? Quickly! Help me!"
He immediately ran to her side, following suit and tearing away the creeping vines from the intricate folds of grey.
"What's it doing here? This place doesn't seem like the right place to find-…"
"Who knows?" Cassidy laughed aloud, her eyes practically brimming with barely contained excitement. "Who cares? What matters is that it's here and we've found it!"

Since his exile, he had been condemned to leave their group.
He had been left alone, out in the open, his body locked and decaying.
Then the clerics had found him.
He was slowly starving to death and he could feel it. There was only so long he could go, reduced to the humility of feeding off of birds and animals, foolish enough to take rest on his arms and to seek shelter at his feet.

"It must be over a thousand years old," marvelled Edmund aloud, putting away his carbon-dating kit. "If not more."
"It's beautiful," his companion breathed, pulling the last of the tendrils from one of its stalwart limbs. Her brow furrowed when she noticed the chains embedded into its flint-skin surface. She wrapped her fingers around the metal links and ran them slowly downward, finding their source: plunged deep into the ground below.
Cassidy grunted, giving it several pulls and having nothing to show for her efforts other than raw red palms, she turned to her associate- finally managing to tear her eyes from the statue. "You'd better call Dr Hewitt. Let him know that we're here. We'll need to call a team too…to move the statue…"

His chains prevented him from moving any further into the forest. He had torn at the chains from the moment his captors had turned their backs. Though at first he had made progress, he soon became too weak to struggle without painfully cracking his own arms.

"I'll get on to that now, Cass," Edmund murmured, pulling out his walkie-talkie cocking an eyebrow at the manner in which the stone figure was fettered. "Huh, that's weird. Who'd want to chain a statue up like that? It's not like it's going to go anywhere."
Cassidy waved a hand, transfixed by their latest find once more. "To keep it upright? Stop it from being stolen? As part of a ritual? There are endless possibilities. Dr Hewitt will probably know something or other."
Hewitt's assistant shrugged, turning away to make the call and walking over to the other side of the clearing.

Hewitt's apprentice remained thoroughly beguiled by what they had just come upon. She stooped to scrape excess earth from the flawlessly carved folds of the figure's garment, revealing more of the smooth, pearl-grey stone. "Amazing," she breathed. "Simply amazing."

He had tried screeching for help before- but to little avail.
The only of his kind who would hear him were the ones that had condemned him to exile in the first place.
Isolated and famished, he had waited. Freezing. Cold. Emaciated with hunger.
His kind were known for and almost unrivalled in their levels of patience.
His desperation had grown over the years, just as the creeping ivy that bound his form or the rust that lined his shackles had.

Finally his waiting was over.

Cassidy stood up slowly, wiping the loose dirt from the forearm of the statue, raised to cover its eyes in some kind of mourning gesture.

The human had wandered willingly into his clearing. No human had been in this part of the woods for years. He would never forget the look in her eyes when she saw him first.

Its eyes were hidden from her view, completely masked by its broad but lithe forearm. She tilted her head, wondering if the sculptor had actually given his or her creation any kind of eyes at all. If it had them, she decided that she wanted to see them.

As all creatures did when they looked upon his kind, he watched her eyes widen, her body shudder and heard her breath catch in her throat in those first few delicious moments of fear.

It must have been six feet tall- sculpted exactly to the scale of a grown man. Cassidy placed a hand on one of its sculpted shoulders, (telling herself that she was just looking for cracks in the arm joints caused by the chains), running it slowly downward.
She eventually came to trace the marbled plumage of the figure's wings.

But then she had stopped, suddenly smiling, her eyes alight with glee as she approached him.
Wonder and curiosity laced each touch she set upon his body.
He snarled internally, willing her to look away for even a second so that he could take her.
But her eyes never left him, completely unblinking.
It was when she called for another human and announced the arrival of more, that greed awoke within him and began to plant the seeds of patience.

Not looking away from the statue's face, Cassidy brought her second hand to cup its stone visage- its strong-looking jaw, smooth slate cheek and pronounced chin, cool against her palm.
"You're flawless," she dared herself to whisper again. "Stunning."
The apprentice archaeologist smiled again, delighted as her thumb stroked the statue's cheek.
"You and I," she proclaimed. "Are going to do wonderful things together."

The angel smirked internally.
It would not be long now.

There it was.
Standing at great height, chains ripped from its arms and the rises of its gracefully curved, stone-feathered wings almost grazing the ceiling of the London Museum of History's smallest preparation room- stood a statue of an angel.
Dr Ernst Hewitt inspected it with awe.

"Cassidy, Edmund…this truly is an exceptional find for a first dig," he praised, circling the statue. "It truly is a stunning piece." He looked to his assistant and apprentice again, over the rim of his spectacles. "Where exactly did you find it again?"

Cassidy opened her mouth to tell him specifically where she had found it but Edmund cut across her. "In the third quarter, in a clearing just North of the dig site," he orated, grinning from ear to ear. "Mapped and marked the location myself. It was hard enough to get the thing out of the ground, let alone down the mountain side." He shrugged, false-modesty radiating from either side of his perfectly pressed suit-jacket. "The men couldn't tear the statue from where it was chained in the ground; they thought it might have somehow been bound into the bedrock. So I co-ordinated a careful operation in which we had the chains pulled from its arms. As you can see, the arms are still intact so I'd say our little operation was quite the success. I did the managing for that but it was a great team effort overall, huh Cass?"

Cassidy nodded slowly but suddenly felt the strong urge to give the tagged urn at her feet a good, hard kick. It was so like Edmund to do this to her. His status as Hewitt's apprentice gave his words seniority over hers. As always, if he did something, it was a solo deal whereas if she did something, it was only part of a "team-effort.""

Hewitt was nodding again, absorbing his assistant's words but his voice remained satisfyingly toneless, much to Cassidy's joy. "Good work, Potter. Standard dig-out then, yes?"
He turned to his apprentice. "You did the report and paperwork, Albright?"

She nodded. "Yes, Dr Hewitt."
"You've inspected the statue thoroughly then?"
"Yes, Dr Hewitt."

He clapped his hands, taking a step back and beckoning for her to step forward.
"Well then. I wouldn't be a decent teacher of archaeology at all if I did not give you an adequate chance to put all that theory you've been studying to the test. What are you readings of the statue, Albright? Its background, for instance."

Edmund's lip twitched, his mouth soured by Hewitt's focus on his subordinate but he remained as silent as the angel that she now gingerly approached.

"Well, its background is ambiguous at best. The carbon-dating tests performed on the biological matter in the crevices in the angel's back indicate that the statue itself could be well over one thousand years old." Cassidy's brow furrowed slightly. "That places it before the Renaissance period- of which the statue's form is most reminiscent- and also the Romanesque and Gothic periods. Tests we performed on the metal residue from the chains indicate that the chain-link is formed from Medieval iron. Despite the obvious shortcomings in hypothesis, this indicates that the chains were attached to the statue long after it was first sculpted. Once again, however, the statue's style is that of the Renaissance period and is a far cry from the Gothic style that pervaded the Middle Ages…"

Hewitt absent-mindedly chewed on the end of his pencil, scanning his clipboard to confirm the findings as he murmured "The style is almost Da Vincian. The carving and modelling is near flawless." He looked up. "What of the material the statue is made from?"
Cassidy slowly ran a hand along the arm of the statue. "The site geologists weren't sure. They said that it had a marble-like surface but that the stone beneath was far too strong and hard-wearing to be marble of any kind. The results have been sent back to be reviewed."
"Potter, make sure that the results of the carbon dating are reviewed and checked too. There's obviously a small flaw in the dating. Probably an easy one to correct. Albright, what else of the statue? What do you make of its physical design?"

Cassidy lifted her hand from the statue's stone tricep and bit her lip before continuing. "Once again, Dr Hewitt, it's…ambiguous. The statue is obviously intended to resemble a seraph or angel of Christian conception…the wings are enough of an indication of that. However, the toga that it wears is distinctly B.C.E Grecian. The ethnicity of the statue is difficult to place and we've determined that it is not a Greek god as the only candidates, Eros and Apollo, have never been depicted in this manner before." She traced the collar of the toga before going on. "As for its usage, due to its evident neglect, bindings and…posture, we've speculated that he make have been a grave marker." She looked back over her shoulder at Hewitt. "Because he looks like he's mourning, covering his eyes to weep…"

Hewitt cocked an eyebrow. "He?"
Cassidy felt her face heat up a little. "Well, y-yes. The statue is very obviously male. I mean, it lacks any kind of indication of female persuasion…broad shoulders, defined jaw, thin-line hips, a lack of, uh, mammary glands…"

From the other side of the room, Edmund coughed and Cassidy was certain that it was to disguise a snort of laughter.
Hewitt only smiled with mirth. "Very well, Albright." He looked to the report. "I'll be making him your project. Edmund will have too much work with the new Triassic exhibit and I'll be in Scotland for the next month as of Friday. Are you alright to take this one on?"
"Oh, yes, Dr Hewitt," Cassidy replied quickly, trying her hardest not to start smiling like a fool.

"Woah!" came a little cry from the doorway. "That's the biggest statue I ever sawed. Ever!"
Cassidy turned around, only to see her favourite five-year old redhead ogling the angel, her older brother in her wake.

"Hi there, Abbie," she chuckled, walking over to give her their ritual high-five. "Yep. He's very big, isn't he? We found him on the dig this morning. He's going to be on display in the museum soon. Then you and all the others in the Lil'Diggers club can come and look at him whenever you want!" She ruffled Abbie's hair, causing her to squeal with glee. "But it looks like you've got a special preview, haven't you?"

"The perks of having a brother who works as a tour guide here," Leon Drake chortled from behind, his handsome face half-masked by his own silky mop of auburn hair. He let out a low whistle as he gave himself a miniature eye-tour of the angel. "Wow…so that's the new artefact. Can't wait to hear all about this one." He grinned to Cassidy, eyes glowing with admiration. "Awesome find, Cass."

"Thanks Leon," she smiled back, taking her place beside Edmund once more and desperately trying to prevent her face from reddening any further.
"Thanks Leon!" Edmund mocked, elbowing her in the side.
Cassidy carefully waited until Abbie, Hewitt and Leon all had their backs turned before sharply elbowing him back and sticking her tongue out at him.

"Are you coming home now, Cass?" Leon asked. "Oakside is on the route back to mine so Abbie and I could give you a lift back. It's a bit too dark to walk."
Cassidy shook her head. "Thanks a bunch for the offer but by the looks of it, I'll be here until sunrise, dating the statue."

Abbie interjected with a giggle. "Dating the statue?! You can't go on a date with a statue, silly Cassy!"
The four adults laughed and Cassidy stooped to give the little girl a hug. "I mean I'll be figuring out how old the statue is. He's also still broken in places so I'll have to restore him. Remember how you learned about restoring in Lil'Diggers club?"

Abbie nodded, looking at the statue over Cassidy's shoulder.
"Why don't you just ask him?"
"Hm?"
"The angel. Just ask him how old he is."
Cassidy laughed again. "Abbie! You know statues can't talk."
"Well, this one can move," Abbie proclaimed. "He moves when you're not looking."

Quickly and automatically, Hewitt, Leon, Edmund and Cassidy all looked over at the angel.
No. It was in the same position as before. Still standing, one arm draped over its eyes.
"No, I don't think it does, Abbie," Leon told her, chuckling as he took his little sister's hand. "Come on then, kiddo, let's head home then. Wave bye bye."
Abbie shook hands with Hewitt and waved to Edmund and Cassidy and paused before waving at the statue too.

"He's kind of creepy. He's watching all the time."
"Who is, Abbie?"
"The angel."
"Abbie, the angel is just a statue. Now come on, let's head home."

Moments after they left, Edmund was the first to break the silence between the three archaeologists as they trawled through paperwork. "So, Cass. Got a name for it yet?"

"Name for what?"
"The statue, obviously. If it's your project, you'll have to give the exhibit some kind of name."
Cassidy paused thoughtfully. "Well…it takes the form of an angel…and it appears as though it's weeping…so then maybe…"

"Yes?"

"The crying angel?"

Edmund shook his head. "That sounds clunky and stupid. Come up with a better name than that."
Before Cassidy could retort, Hewitt spoke. "Potter, I need you to come with me to check this carbon dating again. There's something wrong with the sample that you took. The dates I'm getting go back much further than any era that could have produced that kind of artwork…"

His assistant nodded, heading out of the preparation room.
"I'll be back later to help you with the final dating, Albright," Hewitt informed her. "But I'll have to leave you for an hour or so, first."
"That's fine, Dr Hewitt."

"Oh, before I forget. Albright?"
"Yes?"
"There was a mistake on the report. In the description section."

"A mistake, Dr Hewitt?"

"Yes. You described the angel as having its left arm draped over its eyes." Hewitt pointed to the angel with the butt of his pencil. "As you can see, that is clearly its right arm it has over its eyes."

Cassidy blinked, certain she hadn't gotten that wrong before but shook her head, shrugging. "Oh. Sorry, Dr Hewitt…I'll correct that straightaway. My mind must have been somewhere else earlier."

"Though I could've sworn," she thought with a frown, examining the statue again. "That it was the left."

Night had long stolen over the museum.
The security guards had begun their rounds and most of its locked hallways had already been plunged into blackness, the exhibits nothing more than strange silhouettes and outlines.

Dr Hewitt looked over Cassidy's shoulder, yawning slightly. "You're doing very well, Albright." The older man scratched his head, chuckling slightly. "I have no idea how on earth you manage to stay so alert, so late in the evening. Aren't you getting tired?"

The young woman shook her head, adding another coat of hardening resin to the angel's half-covered brow. "No, Doctor Hewitt," she replied with a smile, not taking her eyes from the glossy grey sheen that followed each stroke of her brush. "When you're in love with your work as I am, it's hard to tire of it."

Hewitt shook his head, still chortling slightly. "You remind me of a younger, prettier, more optimistic version of myself." He turned to file the paperwork away. "Such a pity about this darned dating. I shall have to take the results with me to Glasgow to see if Professor McIntosh can make head or tails of this. In the meantime, just tell the outfitters to leave the dating plaque blank and get the guides to contrive some spiel about how our enigmatic statue is currently being in the process of being dated."

Cassidy nodded, puckering her lips and lightly blowing on the angel's forehead to aid the drying of the resin.
Hewitt lifted his head once more. "Just five more weeks and your apprenticeship here is over, isn't it, Albright? Have you considered accepting the offer from Dr Rosenstock? Being trained to become her assistant is quite the opportunity. It would also ultimately allow you to continue working here in London, even if the first year of training is in Ireland."

"I've thought about it, yes," she said slowly, dipping her brush once again and delicately lining the angel's hairline before starting on the intricate curves, depressions and lifts of each knuckle on his hand. "I…uh…I don't know yet. I'm rather busy at home at the moment. Leaving for Dublin for an entire year mightn't be a good move for me."

Hewitt's forehead creased, coughing slightly and putting down his pencil. The two had endured this conversation before.
"I see," he said slowly after a few moments. "How is your mother doing nowadays, if you do not mind me asking?"
Cassidy's stomach tightened and the paintbrush hovered over the line that it had just painted, her hand turning rigid and her teeth clenching. "Mum?" she echoed, trying her hardest to sound flippant. "She…she's far better than she was before. Still a little weak but she's sparky as ever."

A brief image of her mother, lying in bed and watching television flashed before her eyes like a broken frame from a silent film. An actor came out with a funny line on Coronation Street and her mother laughed melodically, her jocular, wrinkled face lighting up with each note. Suddenly her laughter dissolved into coughing. Horrible, hacking coughs, half-strangled by nets of the phlegm that coated Maria Albright's severely weekend windpipe.
She looked up to her daughter, noticing her standing in the doorway for the first time. Trying desperately to draw her breath, she grinned at the child she had taken to the museum every Saturday and told her the story behind every painting, sculpture and dinosaur's bone.
"That's what I get for laughing at such awful jokes, huh, Cassy?"

"Ah, that is good to hear," Hewitt murmured, starting to file the documents away. "And your father, Albright?"

"Fine," Cassidy said sharply. Maybe a little too sharply. "He's fine."
The lie burned in her mouth but she swallowed back quickly, ignoring the feeling of repulsion that was bubbling in her throat.
She felt Dr Hewitt's hand upon her shoulder, squeezing slightly before stroking the light wool of her sweater. "That's good to hear, Albright." The older man paused for a moment before saying. "If you ever feel you need to take some time off for any personal reason at all-…"
Cassidy turned, forcing herself to smile. "Thank you, Dr Hewitt. I understand but I…I really feel like I need to keep working at the moment. Just to keep myself busy."

Hewitt returned the strained smile and nodded. "I see. Not a problem. I have always admired your professionalism, I must say. I'm just going to head down to the cataloguing room for a moment. Could you finish off that main report and fix the descriptive error?"

"Sure thing," Cassidy responded, sighing as her teacher left and leaning over the table to start writing up the new descriptive section. "Alright, alright…come on, no stressing about this. Right…right arm draped over the angel's eyes…"
Just as she had hoped it would, her mind soon wandered away from her parents and back to her work. Specifically her beguiling angel statue.
Did the statue have eyes at all? Had the artist carved them at all? It appeared so lifelike.
Cassidy desperately wanted to know the name of the sculptor as she delicately pencilled "anonymous" into the section on the artist's information. She also very much wanted to know the name of the model.
Despite the eeriness that seemed to radiate from the statue, it also radiated power, commanded reverence…and was truly gorgeous in appearance.

The preparation room was completely silent.
She couldn't even hear the echoes of Dr Hewitt tapping around in the cataloguing room anymore.
Cassidy felt an involuntary shiver run through her and what felt like a cold breeze drifted over her. She blinked, feeling the hairs on the back of her neck slowly standing erect and her shoulder muscles tensing and twitching.
She suddenly felt something burning on the back of her neck.
Eyes.
A sudden, inexplicable paranoia washed over her.
Someone was staring at her.
Cassidy stood up straight, her entire body seizing.
Someone standing in this very room was staring at her.

She whipped around suddenly, only to see that the room was empty save for herself and the angel statue- which was still standing exactly where it had always been.
Cassidy's eyes locked on to the statue immediately, her heart still racing and her breath only just returning to her lungs. It was only when she heard the rattling of her bracelet against the wood of the table she leaned against, that she realised she was shaking all over.

"A little creepy, is it not?"
Cassidy jumped, letting out an involuntary cry and turning puce when she realised that Doctor Hewitt had just re-entered the room.
"Oh…uh…D-Doctor?"
He went on, following her gaze back to the statue and chortling. "I know how mesmerising but utterly creepy these anthromorphic statues can be. My very first statue - the one of Poseidon on the first floor, you know, Albright? – used to royally terrify me. I rather hated to be left alone with it."

Cassidy laughed a little, shrugging and desperately trying to cool the blush in her cheeks. "Y-Yes well…I…I don't mind so much. Th-this statue…well, he's…uh…he's beautiful."
Dr Hewitt nodded in agreement. "Well, yes. The artistry behind the statue is nothing short of superb but just as a note as your teacher, Albright," he said, looking to her. "It is generally considered unprofessional to refer to a statue as being male or female."

Cassidy's de-blushing mission promptly ended in failure. "Uh…yes. Yes, Dr Hewitt. Of course."

The doctor of archaeology took up her report and gave it a quick scan, adjusting his glasses. "Ah, I see you've made all the necessary corrections here. Very good." He let out a long exhale. "Well, it would appear that we're done here for the night, Albright. Time to head home. First we'll lock everything up and-…" He paused, patting his jacket down. "Oh dear, I appear to have left my keys in the cataloguing room. I shall fetch them before I file these reports."
"Oh, I'll get your keys for you Dr Hewitt," Cassidy said quickly, desperately wanting to get out of the room to let the colour drain from her cheeks before she made a further farce of herself in front of her superior again.
Not even staying in the room to accept his gratitude, the young apprentice archaeologist hurried down to the cataloguing room, only to find his keys on the main table, glinting in the low light.
"I am an idiot," she thought, snatching up the keys and knuckling her forehead. "I just called a statue beautiful. I just referred to a statue as a "he" in front of my boss. I am a complete and utter fool. I'll be lucky if he ever looks at me as a rational human being again."

Cassidy returned to the preparation room, calling out. "Dr Hewitt! I found your keys. Do you want me to start locking up while you-…?"
But the preparation room was empty.
She looked around for a bit, shouting for Hewitt but to little avail. He was completely gone.
"Where is he?" Cassidy thought frantically as she shoved her work materials back into her bag.
She took a breath, trying to steady herself and to inject some rationality into the situation.
"He probably left in a hurry after a call from Ed or from McIntosh or Stanford or something. He's an aloof man like that," she told herself aloud, shrugging her bag on to her shoulder. "He'd call or text if there was any major issue." She groaned. "And of course, he'd leave all of the locking up to me."

She did one last lap of the preparation room, checking for Hewitt but there was no one else in there but her.

But her and the angel.

Cassidy found herself staring intently at it and walking over to it, picking up a dry towel and dabbing the excess varnish from its neck. "Do you know where the Doctor ran off to?" she asked softly, smiling a little. "Maybe he got a little creeped out by you and ran away?" She laughed, putting the towel down. "Can't see why he would though. I still think you're beautiful. Hm, I'll see you again tomorrow then, I guess. Then we'll see about getting those huge cracks filled and soon you'll be nice and strong again."

She left the room, still smiling away to herself as she locked the door.

Unseen to her, the angel smiled too.