Angel: Private Eye Book One (22 page)

I jolted. “I don’t– I don’t I—” began.
Then I stopped swiftly.

Something was crawling up my wrists. Christ,
it felt like they were on fire.

I jolted to the side, twisting my head down
to look at my hands. The magical rope had returned my hands to my
lap. Now I stared at them in open horror as something appeared to
crack over my skin.

Theodore’s eyes narrowed to a point. “What
are you doing?”

Me? I wasn’t doing a goddamn thing.
Something, however, was reacting to the ropes. It was almost as if
my skin was having an allergic reaction to them.

He got up, pressing one white-knuckled hand
into the tablecloth.

He started to move around the table.

The menace embodied in his every movement
snaked into me, igniting my fear like gasoline thrown on a
fire.

And the reaction – the white light cracking
up my skin and sinking into the ropes – only grew all the
stronger.

Before I knew what was happening, the ropes
broke, falling off me with a magical bang.

I shrieked, doubling to the side and falling
off my chair.

Theodore was right behind me. He lurched
forward, but I shifted, kicked the chair, and sent it slamming into
his knees.

He may be a vampire, but I caught him off
guard, and he tumbled back into the table.

I charged to my feet, my adrenaline pulsing
so hard through my veins I was sure it would tear my circulatory
system to shreds.

I heard Theodore snap something from behind
me, but I’d already shoved through the crowd and made it to the
door.

I ran. Didn’t stop running. Couldn’t stop
running. Even if the world suddenly crumbled to dust around me, I’d
find some way of pushing on.

I could still feel the effects of those
wriggling ropes around my wrists. Even though I’d thrown them off,
a shadow of their magical effects remained.

I knew instinctively that if I paid too much
attention to it, the ropes would bind me once more. So I
concentrated on fleeing, instead.

I shot out of the front doors like a ball
fired from a canon. I was so fast that I practically rammed into
the mayor’s wife. I locked a hand on the stout woman’s shoulder,
and used her for momentum as I swung around and pitched towards the
road.

I could hear the golems right behind me, and
they sounded like being chased by an avalanche. So much rock
shifted in their bodies and ground through their feet and joints,
that clouds of dust actually erupted from their sleeves and the
collars of their suits.

“Oh my God, help me, help me,” I
shrieked.

But again nobody could hear me. Though the
mayor’s wife was suitably disturbed at the fact she’d just lost
balance, nobody else noticed a thing.

“Oh god, please help me,” I stuttered as I
shoved a hand into my pocket and suddenly remembered my phone. It
was the first chance I’d had to use it since those golem assholes
had piled me into that car.

I didn’t have the chance to bring it up to
my face and see who I was calling. Instead I just thumbed my way to
contacts and hit redial.

The golems were right behind me, right
behind me. One of them leapt to the side, missing me by centimeters
as he ran up the brick wall to our left. The other shoved forward,
clutching at my sleeve. He caught a few strands of my hair, jerking
my head back, but I managed to wriggle free.

I lost my balance, and before I knew what
was happening I found myself falling down a set of stairs.

The stairs came out of nowhere, and I had no
chance to avoid them. My back slammed into the stone steps, my legs
and arms jostling as I rolled down them with all the finesse and
gentle touch of a cloth being cleaned on a wash board.

In a haze of limbs and pain, I finally
reached the bottom, my head flicking back and cracking on the last
stone step.

Stars invaded my vision, a heavy, deadly
ringing building in my ears as a nasty iron taste filtered through
my mouth.

My lips parted open and I gasped.

As stars started to explode through my
vision and a nasty wet, metallic taste filtered through my mouth, I
heard the two golems jump down from the step and land beside
me.

Just when I felt sure I would black out, I
lasted long enough to feel their hard clay fingers shove hard into
my shoulders.

With no ceremony whatsoever, they dragged me
forward.

The stone below me was cold, and sank its
frigid claws into every centimeter of my back.

We reached the center of the room, and I was
hauled up, two strong hands pinning me against another goddamn
chair.

The golems tied me up and left.

Though I tried fiercely to blink against the
pain invading my vision, it was a thankless task.

I saw enough to realize I was in some kind
of basement. It was dark and dank, and as a nasty rush of air
scooted past me, I realized it was as cold as the deepest cave.

From somewhere I found the strength to open
my lips. “What– what are you going to do with me?” I managed.

No answer. Just the continuous creak and
groan of the golem’s stone limbs moving against clay joints as they
walked up the stairs and out of sight.

My vision began to swim, and I flopped back
against the chair, thinking it really was lights out for me this
time.

But something – some scrap of awareness so
strong it could hardly belong to me – kept me alive. Kept me awake
long enough to hear the strange grate of what sounded like metal
claws clicking down the stone steps.

There was something so eerie and
out-of-place about that sound that it sent a powerful shiver racing
down my back. It was so strong, it had the effect of a
defibrillator.

I was jolted awake just in time.

Barely any light made it down from the stone
steps that led into the basement. It was just enough, however, that
I could appreciate when it was cut out by some kind of massive
form.

As fear punched hard through my gut and
scoured every centimeter of my flesh, my eyes began to adjust to
the gloom more and more until I saw some kind of massive creature
loom before me.

It was large enough that it looked as if
somebody had driven an SUV down those steep little steps.

“What?!” I began, voice shaking in my
throat. “What?”

Something opened its mouth, and a blast of
fetid breath slammed over my cheeks, pushing back my hair and
sending it tumbling over my neck.

From somewhere up near the top of the steps
on the street beyond, I heard a familiar chuckle. “You should have
stayed at brunch, Miss Luck. Trust me when I say it was the nicer
option.”

“Theodore? Theodore?!” I screamed. “What
are you doing? What are you doing? If you– if you kill me, people
will come looking for me. Benson will come looking for me,” I
suddenly shrieked.

I heard the footsteps on top of the stairs
pause. But just when I thought that particular comment would be
enough to get Theodore's attention and to call off whatever hellish
creature was currently looming above me, he chuckled once more.
“Don't worry, Miss Luck. I know full well how to get William
Benson's attention. I think you'll find this will send a
particularly strong message indeed. Now, my only suggestion to you,
is to answer every question it has for you. I warn you, it doesn't
have my patience, and it won't be as nice when you fail it.”

“Theodore? Theodore?!” I screamed, voice
pitching out of my throat and shaking through the room.

He walked away. I heard that asshole walk
away.

Which meant I was left alone with the
creature.

I couldn't even describe how fast my heart
was beating. It was like a military tattoo pounding through my
chest wall.

Despite the gloom, my senses were somehow
becoming sharper, and I swore I could see the full outline of the
foul beast before me.

It had massive wings and a towering, hunched
up body.

It could have just been my imagination, but
I swore it was bright somehow. Shiny. As if a part of its body was
made out of metal or diamond or glass.

I suddenly hissed out loud as my lips parted
a crack.

“Shit.”

It was a glass demon.

The Lizzie Luck of several weeks ago had
never heard of a glass demon, but now I'd been hanging around the
dark sections of town, I'd heard enough whispered terrifying tales
of them to know they were a far nastier prospect than little
Theodore Van Edgerton.

Sure enough, as the demon crouched down and
suddenly opened its mouth, a burst of illumination shone from it
like a lightning storm.

I shrieked and tried to jerk my head back,
but there was nowhere to run. Nowhere I could go to escape that
violent burning light.

The demon was completely made out of glass.
While its body was black like smoky quartz, its claws and teeth and
eyes and mouth were clear like diamonds. You would have thought
from such a description that it was a fragile thing. That you could
just throw a stone at it, or hit the right pitch with your operatic
voice, and the goddamn thing would shatter.

Except, unfortunately, there was nothing on
God's green earth that could shatter the beast.

It wasn't actually made out of glass, just
this shiny, super reflective substance that was magically meant to
show up the truth. Lie to a glass demon, and that lie would be
reflected in their body.

They had potent mental capabilities and
could read your mind just by staring into your terrified gaze.

As the demon twitched forward, it brought
its massive, curled, long claws up.

I shrieked, trying to shift back on the
chair, trying desperately to get away.

But there was nowhere I could go.

The golems had already tied me to the metal
chair with magical ropes.

“No, no, please, no,” I began. “I promise to
tell the truth. I just—”

It didn't give me the option. A second
later, the demon settled its claws alongside my face. They dug into
my skin, but were just light enough that they didn't cut it.

I began to squirm, but soon lost all fight
as a heavy, dead feeling pushed through my limbs. My mouth opened
and my eyes became unfocused as I stared limply at the demon.

“You will tell me the truth,” it spoke in
the kind of voice that shouldn't be possible. It was like the eerie
noise you might expect from a 1000-year-old crypt being opened for
the first time. There was something so dead and so wrong about it
that it sent explosive nerves shooting hard up my back.

My eyes were now so riveted open, insects
could probably crawl between the gaps in my eyelids.

I had no more fight, no more fight to stop
the demon as it brought its reflective glass mouth down and locked
it around my head.

It didn't snap its jaws closed and rip my
face in half. Instead it settled its jaws around my head as it
shone the light from its mouth into my eyes.

The light tore through me like hands that
suddenly clutched their way into my deepest darkest thoughts.

“Why does William Benson want you?” the
demon now spoke in none other than Theodore's voice. There was even
a light nasty chuckle that unmistakably reminded me of that cruel
man.

“I– I killed a vampire,” I
said.

There was a long pause.

“How?” Theodore asked.

“I don't know. It feasted on my blood, and
my blood—” I paused.

God, don't ask me where I found the strength
of will to pause.

I hadn’t been lying when I'd said it felt as
if the demon's claws had somehow pushed their way into my very
thoughts. And yet something – some strength I'd barely been aware
existed in my heart – suddenly exploded and rammed up my back,
shunting hard into my jaw and locking it closed.

“How did you kill the vampire?” Theodore
snapped.

I didn't answer. Again I managed to keep my
mouth firmly shut.

I heard Theodore scream. Then I felt the
glass demon shove forward. It closed its mouth around my head. Its
teeth pressed into my face, finally cutting my skin.

I screamed. Screamed so loud I could have
woken half the city.

The terrified shriek started deep in my
heart and gouged its way out of my throat. But that wasn't the only
thing that sprung from my heart – the only powerful force that
suddenly split through my body with all the unstoppable strength of
a volcanic explosion.

I felt something – that same goddamn
sensation that had been chasing me in my dreams. It burst from my
heart and shot through every single cell of my body.

Something… something powered out of me, and
that something was light. The brightest, most powerful magical
light I'd ever seen.

It slammed into the glass demon, eating into
its exposed mouth. From the little I knew of glass demons, the only
part of their bodies that was susceptible to damage were their
mouths. And right now that impossible, terrifying white light
gouged into its mouth.

It doubled back, shrieking, the noise so
loud it managed to shake the walls and floor.

I was thrown to the side, whatever magical
spell locking the chair to the floor breaking.

With an earsplitting cry, the demon
continued to pitch, thrashing around the room, clutching its glass
claws at its glass body.

I'd never heard anything like it, it sounded
like a 1000-strong pack of hyenas shrieking at death.

It was so thunderously loud that, as I fell
back and slammed against the floor with a bone-shattering thunk, I
curled my body forward and locked my ear against the cracked stone
floor.

A full minute passed until the cracks
appearing over the demon's glass body became too much. With a
single shriek, it shattered. Shards of glass exploded everywhere,
several slashing over my exposed arms and cheeks. Charges of dark
magic discharged, jumping over the cracked stone floor and sinking
high into the walls, several shooting out and up the stairs, until
finally, silence.