Daimon by DANIELLE BOLGER (e reader .txt) 📖

glance back at the girl and deftly crossed the threshold of the window, clinging onto its outside edge.

I wanted to jump down, but it was twenty stories. Twenty stories. I may have been able to heal, but with knowledge gained from Smoke tonight, my vulnerability was confirmed. For all my new monstrous capabilities, my body could agonize just as any mortal's, and I could die. This seemed worse though, as I began to realize how much longer it would take for me to finally expire.

Dangling over the other side of the hospital window, my fingers clung to the seal.

“Quick, code red; the girl's about to cark it!”

“That wasn't a code red, it was a malfunctioned monitor. They happen all the time, no big deal.”

The footsteps of the first man came to the room. “Dude, she's not breathing!”

The second man took a moment to reply. “Yeah, her ventilation's been screwed with. By these settings, it seems that someone was stupid enough to unplug and re-plug her, as if that would fix everything.”

“What?” the first man replied. “You can't be serious. That's, like… Nah, no way.”

“Sadly, this happens. Not often, but enough,” the second man replied. “Bradley, I know that it can be easy to forget nowadays, but we're in the Blue Coast. I'm sure you know what it has been nicknamed.” He paused for a moment. “Go on, get the defibrillator. This girl's not dead yet.”

Gulping, I dropped and landed, accruing a slightly twisted ankle. After a couple of strides I no longer needed to wince as I placed weight on it; it was well on its way to healing.

My car was not parked far off, and I was back home within the half hour. I may not have killed the girl, but at least I learned a thing or two tonight. One, was that we were not invincible. The other, was that I could fight.

Another daimon, the one that captured me, had just surfaced. Two daimons had shown themselves now, or three, if Ruby was one, too; I did not think I was wrong about that instinct. I wondered how many more powerful beings I would have to contend with. Though I had yet to meet him, I knew of a fourth playing guardian to Rose. Sage was his name, the descendant, and protector of the daimon master. What exactly was the daimon master? What kind of power did Rose possess that he could create such beings? I did not discount the idea that the sweet sounding Brit could have really been the devil in disguise. Well, whatever the case, I would just have to wait for the perilous future to unravel.

Chapter Sixteen

How mundane. There I was at the Coastal Horizon actually performing my job and writing some dribble about a hero dog. As I finally hit the send button to submit my piece to Frank for editing, I almost could not resist the overwhelming desire to tear some limbs off a body. I was not going to be fussy—anybody would do—even that irritating little canine's legs. That was how desperate my repulsion was making me. For the moment, I tried to satisfy those urges with the movie that played out in my mind instead: where Snuggles yelped pathetically as I broke his four legs like twigs. The amount of blood that emerged was pitiful, and the sound I imagined the yap-yap dog making started to irritate me even further, so in my thoughts, I ripped its jaw from its head and pulled out its throat. It started kicking wildly and became blissfully silent, like a cockroach with bug spray. I smiled at my vision.

“What's so amusing?” It was Zach; of course it was Zach. He was beginning to hang around like a bad smell. In closed spaces, he was becoming stifling.

“Just thinking about Snuggles, the hero dog.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Snuggles the hero dog. Really? Shit, I'm glad I'm not a writer.”

“I'm glad I'm not you.”

“Ouch. Well, anyhow, I came over to tell you I found something you might be interested in.”

“Is that right?” I flicked, absentmindedly, through my emails.

He leaned forward. “You were after more photos of the Foxes, right? Well, I'm a man of my word, and as one, I pulled up some awesome little shots.”

I released my mouse and turned to face him full on. I searched his empty hands. “Where are they? What's in them?”

“Hold on a second. There's a bit to go through, and it's a bit...un-private here.” He motioned around the room, where many of our colleagues were stealing quick, curious glances.

“I see, and these photos were not part of the original files you gave me?”

“No, they weren't. My computer and camera's storage were completely wiped a few months back. Of course, I kept back-ups, but these photos were not transferred in time since the crash happened no more than an hour after transferring them. I didn't think too much at the time, I guessed that maybe my not-so-legal music downloads may have been carrying a nasty surprise that killed both my computer and camera when I linked them together. I'm pretty good with backing up my files since they're my bread and butter, but these photos were gone.”

“So—now, suddenly, you've managed to recover them?”

“No, I recovered them that night. See, when computers crash there's a physical dump that they store the user's critical information into before carking it.”

“Okay, you transferred the photos in time and managed to recover them from a trash can?”

He laughed. “Wrong again. The computer and the camera both shat themselves as soon as I connected the two. Now that I think of it, it would seem like a perfect way of destroying data on multiple devices without the user ever being aware.”

“Zach, how did you recover them?” I no longer hid my impatience.

He smiled proudly. “Because this baby,” he held up his camera, “is pretty much a computer itself. Not your android type, but one with your Intel dual-core processor and all. When my mate here died, it behaved like a computer and did its trash-can-dump thing.”

“Okay, but why not give them to me before, when I asked?”

“Well...” He put a hand up to massage his own shoulder. “Even though the images were saved, they became...distorted. Since they were rendered useless, I stored the reject pictures on my external memory in a different location, and never looked at them again.”

“Until I reminded you of them,” I surmised. “Where are they and why didn't you bring them here? I mean, you've chatted enough about them to get the whole office salivating, and yet you can't show me silent photos?”

He licked his lips and stared away as he thought of a response.

“Oh, I see, you're still trying to protect me, aren't you?”

“Jane...” he sighed. “I'd rather show you at mine, or at yours, I guess, since that's where we always end up.” He leaned in and lowered his voice even further. “It's weird. After I realized the convenience of those deleted photos, I kind of got thinking that maybe our office isn't Fox safe.”

I narrowed my eyes. “You think we have a spy working here?” We surveyed the office.

“No, of course not! Ah...but, I don't know. There's other ways of watching people.” His eyes flicked up to black domes that were situated in a couple of locations on the ceiling.

“They hacked into the Coastal Horizon's security?” I asked skeptically. “Why would they even be interested in a place like this?” Then an answer shot into my mind instantly—they could have been interested in me long before my life was toyed with.

“I don't know, Jane, all I know is that my man's intuition is picking up something.”

I rolled my eyes. “Man's intuition?”

“Hey, just 'cause I'm a bloke doesn't mean I don't have a heeby-geeby connection to the other world that so many chicks reckon they have. I am bloody serious, though, there's bad voodoo going on. I can feel it in this office. There's a presence here that's unnatural.”

Great, the only friend that's talking to me already knows that I'm unnatural.

“Jane, what's wrong? Did I worry you just now?”

I smiled, but I didn’t think I faked it very well. “It's fine, Zach. I just want to get to the bottom of this Fox business.”

He smiled in response; a kind, sympathetic one, as if to say, “don't cry, I'm here.” God, he can be so presumptuous.

“Alright,” I relented, yet again. “Come over tonight, then. Bring those photos and I'll bring you up to speed with the Foxes.”

“It's a date. We'll make an awesome team, you'll see.” He winked as he made off.

A team? An ally? I toyed with the idea in my mind. With the insurmountable force I was about to be up against it could be that backup was just what I needed. He had a keen mind, far brighter than my own; perhaps an alliance was just what I needed. I had learned that I had at least three powerful enemies to contend with, and even if I had only one mortal ally, perhaps that would be just enough to give me a fighting chance in this mess.

I looked at the time on the computer screen, almost 4 pm. I decided that would do for the day. Just as I raised myself from my chair, I smelled tuna breathing up at me from shoulder level.

“What the hell was that garbage?” Frank snarled, spitting a few white flecks onto my shirt.

Could I kill him with everybody watching? It may lead to a massacre of the entire office, but that only adds to the appeal.

“What, were you eavesdropping on our chat?”

“Now you're chatting away in the office, too!” He raised his voice as if that gave his tiny form more authority. “What I was referring to was that dribble you wrote on Snuggles, the Hero Dog.”

“Really?” I was baffled by his temperament. “I thought I did pretty good, considering the bullshit you gave me.”

“You think I gave you bullshit?” He quivered. Suddenly, he pulled up papers in front of him and began to read aloud. “Snuggles, the yuppie Shih-Tzu terrier, was declared a hero yesterday by firefighters who miraculously smelled a fire that was taking place in the home kitchen of two young parents and their twin toddlers. While mother and father were neglecting their parental responsibilities to care for their young, they were said to be in another room with loud music and a locked door. The toddlers, meanwhile, were being like all destructive children and were pulling apart the kitchen. Though they were both three years of age, it appears that intelligence is not increased with two minds, but rather subtracted, as the children thought it would be a good idea to light a fire. The twins soon burnt themselves but did nothing to quell the flames forming around them. Therefore, it did not take long for the kitchen to become ablaze. The toddlers reported that at this point they finally decided to do something, and that was to cry. This went unheard since their parents possessed a unique ability to sleep with loud music playing and so remained deaf to the pleas of help from their offspring. Whatever parental instinct these young parents harbored was limited to the bedroom. Then it was left up to Snuggles, the tiny, noisy dog whose screeches were loud enough to alert a neighbor who happened to be walking by. Snuggles had run up to the front door screen yelping wildly, giving the neighbor concern enough to investigate the house's happenings. As this lady approached the door and smelled the fire that the parents could not, she instantly pulled the kids from the home, rapped on the parents' bedroom door loud enough to rouse them from their sleeping, and called the fire brigade. The kitchen fire was put out with no more destruction to the rest of the house, and with only minor smoke inhalation damage to the children. Of course, Snuggles was given a clean bill of health, because he was a hero and impervious to fire.”

“I struggled not to heave while writing it,” I prided myself.

“I'm struggling not to heave this at you! This was not the approach you were meant to take. You don't go making judgments about the parents when the whole family could have been killed. Also, the only times you mention the dog you completely deglamorized the hero component!”

I shrugged. “Just edit the bits you don't like, I'm done today.”

“That would be the whole damn article,” he fumed.

Picking up my handbag and tucking in my chair, I retorted, “What's the difference to usual