The smell of musk rested upon the stale air, nothing stirred except for the occasional creaking of the wooden beams scaling across the ceiling. Dust drifted down to the floor, sending up a small smoke screen that misted the floor. Shelves were scattered and overturned across the length of what was once a library. Books were tossed carelessly onto the selves for lack of other space. A desk sat under a single photograph mounted on the wall, the paint peeling away with age and rot. Drawers were left open and books were strewn across the top, their edges dog-eared and pages yellowed. The ink was cracked and ran in spots, making it difficult to read, while the leather cover was worn brown with age but the script remained as brilliant a gold as it had been printed with.

The word flowed in long loops and high arcs, shinning silver even without light to reflect it. The bindings were smooth, showing no signs of age, and the black leather smelled newly made. Slender fingers traced along the bottom edge, the nails digging small grooves into the soft material. Thin wrists were adorned with bracelets and jewels, glinting with every movement. A thin nearly transparent, gauze flowed down equally thin arms and over the rest of a woman’s body. The mysterious material shaped around ample breasts, slim waist, and pleasing hips. The weightless fabric floated around her body. Her legs were stretched out along a cushion lying over the dusty floor boards. Her skin was silken and ivory, perfectly unblemished. Golden hair washed over her body and floor, each piece placed in the perfect spot. Green eyes scanned the pages leisurely. Eyelashes brushed her skin, thick and black, setting off her coloring. Her lips were painted a dark red, small and dainty, while her cheeks were pinched with a slight pinkish coloring.

Perfection. She demanded it of herself, anything less wouldn’t be proper. She was an angel after all, or so she told herself, in actuality she was only half angel. Her wings were strong and of the purest white. They were a vision of the perfection she demanded herself to maintain. She uses them to show off her beauty, she sometimes would tuck them away so no one would see them, but now they were stretched out, the feathers ruffling and blowing in an invisible wind that seemed to affect nothing else. The feathers were still as soft as they had been when she had first grown them. She had never been to heaven but she could still be perfection here on earth. Beautiful bodies were valued highly on earth and she wouldn’t be lost in the crowd.

Lilith was her name, although why her father had given her such a name was odd. She knew that he had loved her mother, an angle flown down from heaven and captured by him. Lilith knew she had another name, one that her mother had given her long ago, but now she just wore the title Lilith. Her father had given her the name, queen of satan, because his own angel had left him and he probably blamed Lilith. She never really thought on it much, too caught up in her own desires to give anyone else much thought at all.

She tucked a piece of her blonde hair behind her arm and turned the page of the book.