Daimon by DANIELLE BOLGER (e reader .txt) 📖

she hit the end of the kitchen top with a pronounced thud before collapsing to the ground. She fell so that she lay right next to her father, eyes shut, with her own red halo starting to form around her scalp. I screamed and then fled, running from the murder-house without a semblance of discretion. I leapt straight into my car, which had only been parked a few houses down, and sped off. I was fortunate that I did not run into any police as I drove like a hoon, so typical to the Blue Coast. I was also lucky that I did not have an accident, as other cars were blissfully sparse while I headed back towards the central business district.

Yes, lucky; to be alive, to be free; to have gotten away with murder thus far. I was lucky that I remained an orphan for longer than Miss Fletcher.

Chapter Fifteen

There was no news, no broadcasting and no major scoop. Greg Fletcher and his daughter's murders remained completely invisible to the public eye. I wondered if their corpses would be made to be invisible, too, like a wand could be waved and everything would be cleaned up instantly. Some supernatural things were proving true, so why not magic? Of course, I knew that was not what happened. Someone, maybe a few people, walked in there after me and began to scrub the blood away by hand. I wondered as to the identity of these people; were they Foxes, or just hired hands? Were they even present this time? I had gone over the time limit, and because of that the Foxes may have decided not to clean up after me. It was that possibility that made the hours of the next day long and anxious.

I approached Zach's work desk. He was so busy taking apart his camera that he didn't even notice me.

“Is it broken?”

“Ah!” he yelped, as he dropped a piece of plastic that looked to fit into the device. “Shit, Jane, you almost made me drop my precious.” He clutched his camera firmly to his chest.

“So, it's not broken, then?”

“It's not calibrating correctly. The exposure is all wrong, and it won't reconfigure accessing the system settings. It’s gotta be a faulty connection from the digitizer. Yeah, that looks a little loose there. I bet if I plug you back in snugly...” He forgot about me and began addressing the camera.

“Well, I was thinking about those pictures you showed me the other day, and I was wondering if you may have had any more of that scary dude, or anyone else you think might be related to the Foxes, that I could have a look at.”

He placed his camera down and frowned. “I thought you said you were backing off them?”

“Um...Okay, I'm still looking into them, but I'm trying to be a little more discrete now.”

He nodded. “I knew you wouldn't give up so easily; even though they almost killed you last Tuesday.”

My mouth gaped open in surprise.

“Sandra told me you had a run in with them. Sloppy detective work apparently.”

“Hey, for one thing, I'm hardly a detective. For a second, I simply told Sandra that the Foxes gave me a shake-up at the Minx 'cause they kind of…worked out I was a reporter, and for a third—you're talking to Sandra now? You hate each other.”

Zach smirked. “Well, haven't you heard? Sandra and I go way back. We're best friends for life.”

I cocked an eyebrow.

He rolled his eyes in response. “Okay, so I'm bullshitting. She's as much a self-centered little bitch as ever, no offense. C'mon, girl, I can tell you've been acting differently lately, so I just chatted to her about what new crazy schemes were going on in your life. I've got to say, I'm actually a little offended that I had to pull it out of her, and that you didn't tell me yourself. I mean, you were going a little nutso with my offer of help on Saturday. You could have told me why.”

“That's what was going on here yesterday? The whole office was gossiping about me.”

“Quit acting so stroppy. I'm just trying to be your friend, unless I should start acting like someone a little more important—”

“Right, I get it!” I interjected. “Anyway, back to the beginning, do you have any more pictures I can work with?”

“That depends,” he responded slyly, “whether you let me into whatever spicy scheme you're cooking up.”

“It's a story, Zach, and you're a photographer. Why would you be so interested?”

He opened his mouth, but I quickly cut him off again. “Whatever—sure—get me some more photos and I'll spill the beans on everything else I've learned on the Foxes,” I lied.

He smiled triumphantly. “There. Wasn't so hard, now was it?”

I glared in response.

His smirk broadened as he plugged a USB into his computer, clicked his mouse a few times and retrieved the external device less than a minute later.

“Here, this is everything of interest I have of Devil's Eden over the past couple of years. There's a fair bit there, and tonight I'll be happy to condense down the points of interest. Just in case, you really are as impatient as you look, you can go through these in the meanwhile. You might just find a goldmine that I could have easily overlooked, who knows?” He handed the stick to me.

Returning back to my desk, I ignored the messages on my computer screen sent by Frank, where he raved about my unexplained absence for yesterday, and began searching through the photos. Though, due to my non-enhanced computer it took about ten minutes for the folder to load. Slight difference in operating systems, I noted.

When I finally accessed it, it did not take me long to lose interest in the shots; none of them were showing anything that could give me any leads. A long hour and twenty minutes later, I realized my mind was fried and I was not paying any attention to what was on my screen at all.

Groaning, I shook my head, stifled the growing hunger urges and forced myself to refocus upon my screen. As I called my senses to heighten, I could not help but overhear all the noises of the office: the tap-tap-tapping of buttons on keyboards, the slightly heavy breathing of Carol in the desk four over from mine, the grinding of Brian's teeth, the stifled burping of Karen; so many irritating, disgusting noises humans produce that makes you want to tear each one of those entities apart limb by limb. Additionally, other noises came through. These were more blissful, drool-inducing sounds, like the minor thumping of arteries sending its music throughout those bodies. I could smell the clammy flesh with its hint of salt and sugar and refreshing fluid keeping the meat moist. Then those hearts calling so sweetly; their tune out of sync, like children in a school choir; a sound that is all the more beautiful because of its sweet distortion that it makes you smile.

My stomach rumbled. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and rotated my shoulders. Shrug it off, Jane.

From my left, Susan let out a sad sigh before her tap-tap-tapping recommenced.

“What piece are you working on there?” I feigned curiosity.

“It's this one about a young girl, only in high school, who came home and discovered her father had suffered from a heart-attack just yesterday evening.”

“Those things happen,” I commented unsympathetically.

“Yes, but if it wasn't tragic enough, the poor thing fainted from the shock of it all, hit her head on the corner of the kitchen table and is now in hospital with a brain injury. Unconscious, the doctors don’t even know when she’ll wake up.”

“That does sound bad...” I added slowly.

“That man was all she had left in this world, and to discover him lying dead on the floor...It must have been terrible for her.”

An image of a man lying on the floor drenched in his own blood flashed into my mind. I wondered how literal that heart attack report was.

“He was all she had?”

The thirty-something-year-old woman nodded with eyes barely capable of holding the fluid they contained. “Her mother passed away not long before. No brothers or sisters, no grandparents either. So it was just the two of them, but now they might all be dead.”

It couldn't be, she was dead, with all that blood that flowed from her head...

“What's her name?” I enquired.

“Lisa. Lisa Fletcher.”

****

I watched her, breathing mechanically, with the help of a tube down her throat and a sack of air to her right. She had heavy bandaging around her skull. There was so much of it, that if it weren't for her plush cheeks and sad closed eyes just showing over the mouth tube, she would have appeared mummified. However, she was not dead, merely asleep, but perhaps that meant the same thing, I was not sure.

The nurse I had asked directions from said that her condition was not good. There were fears the brain trauma was too great and that she may not make a full recovery, even if she was lucky enough to awaken. Then she added hurriedly that it was just a worst-case scenario, and to get further details I should speak with her doctor. She gave me his card.

I eyed the machine that beeped steadily by her bed and followed its lead down to the power source plugged into the wall.

“Go on, pull out the plug, it'll save me the trouble.”

I spun back to a figure seated in the corner. It was a brunette, slender and lanky, though he did not appear scrawny. He had not been there a minute before, but as to exactly when he arrived, I could not discern. Damn it, Jane, get your shit together and pay attention to your surroundings. Infuriatingly late, his heat-beat resounded through the room with far greater force than any other audible feature. His grin was penetratingly coarse enough that I could feel it slice into my skin. It was so wide that it also cut right up to his black eyes; his daimon black eyes.

“Well, won't you do it? It is more fitting that way. You really should be cleaning up your own mess,” he spat venomously.

“I never asked you to clean up after me,” I replied.

The man cackled with laughter. “No? Well, your actions say otherwise. You're a blooming mess, pearl. The wreckages you leave behind, well, I can't say that it's not...enticing.” He licked his lips as his eyes flashed with wild glee but then shrugged as if to restrain the savage within. “Unfortunately, that is not what the master has need of us for. He wants things...” he chewed his words as he looked aside, “cleaner. He does not want his subordinates behaving as beasts, but that is not fair. Master is not being fair!” Suddenly, the man moved swiftly before me and had me by the throat, my feet dangling in the air.

Not again. I flailed my arms and legs violently, reaching for his throat. I won't let it happen again, my pride cannot take it. I will not be victim again. I will kill or be killed before that will happen! Yet, his limbs were too long, making his torso out of reach. Every claw, every strike fell upon air only. I thought I made a slice along his face, but then realized it was just his mouth widening even further in its unholy joy.

Then suddenly my tailbone met the hospital floor with a sharp pang and I realized dimly that this time I was not thrown, but released. Saved, as if I were no more than some weak heroine that had to rely on others to save her pitiful existence.

I slammed my fist on the ground before even looking up, screaming through the rasping of my throat. “I didn't ask for any help!” When my eyes fell upon my rescuer my hostility softened as my jaw hung down limply.

Smoke had his full back turned to me as if I posed no threat whatsoever. Another surprise was his speech as he addressed his snarling comrade. It was not only the fact that Smoke was speaking that had me gaping, but also the way he spoke; it was so dark, deep, and menacing. That combined with what sounded like a Russian accent completed the picture of what I would have imagined the devil to look like if he were to pose as human. Then I finally registered the content of his words, which was enough to render me with cold fear.

“Your orders were