"You don't recognize them for what they are. Not at first. They could just be any statue. Any statue, anywhere. A work of art in a museum gallery, a decoration in the Capitol. Then you look away, just for a moment. Then you blink. And you learn they're so much more."
The Cousins shivered at Innocet's tone. So even, so cold—but that just made it all the more terrifying.
"They are called the Weeping Angels, the Lonely Assassins, the Deadly Celestials, the Fatal Memorials. They evolved at the beginning of the universe, along with such horrors as the Great Vampires. They have survived wars and destruction, because they have the perfect defense mechanism. They are quantum locked. In the sight of any living thing, they turn to stone. Perfectly harmless. Perfectly safe. But the moment you turn your back, the moment you look away, the moment you blink—they can grab you.
"They don't kill you—that would be too simple, too easy. They send you back into the past and let you live there, feeding off the life you would have lived in the future. They do this with many races throughout the galaxy, but for Time Lords are an especially attractive prey to them." Innocet leaned in till her long hair brushed over the closest Cousins.
"But Time Lords are clever enough to outwit them. Other races, unaware of the danger, are not so clever. The human colony of Naelsha, in the fifth sector of the Vergia quadrant, had heard legends of the Weeping Angels, but took them lightly. Though their race had spread through the stars, it had not yet mastered temporal travel. One group of young boys in particular saw an opportunity in the legends. On a night when the three moons had not yet risen, they walked out of their homes and into the woods of Kaliea, where the Weeping Angels dwelt.
"The boys, three of them, walked into the woods carrying torches. They spread out so far that the light of the others' torches were no more than a faint star amidst the trees. Then they extinguished the torches and closed their eyes. 'Angels, angels, take us higher!' they called. And the Angels answered, laughing. The Angels' laugh is a terrifying thing of its own accord, a harsh sound that could make warriors shake.
"The Angels took the boys' offer. One of them was sent back before Naelsha was terraformed, to die in the boiling heat and poisonous gas. One was met by the last of the chimeria, named for the beast from Earth legends."
"What about the third?" Arkhew asked.
"He was never found. Some say he wanders the void still, lost in the space between the worlds, crying out to warn his friends of the Weeping Angels. They say he is the watcher of stone, the one who stares at statues. But he cannot stop himself from blinking."