Daimon by DANIELLE BOLGER (e reader .txt) 📖

made, and the city would finally be saved from the rule of gangsters. My parents, if they had been still alive, would have been so proud.

Just as I readied my phone to begin photographing these documents, I glanced up to the crystal glasses in the cabinet. The reflected images on the glasses were moving as I watched motionless. Then my eyes widened in horror as I realized that those shadowed forms were the outline of a man, moving so impossibly fast I did not even have time to turn before he ensnared me.

The phone fell from my grasp as powerful hands clasped over my face and obstructed both my nose and mouth. With a fierce and winding yank, I pulled against a chest that was so hard I thought at first that I was pressed against a wall. Suddenly, I was deprived of all access to air and gasped against the vacuum frantically. I fought against those strong arms holding me, but my feeble attempts did nothing. I was sure that I was thrusting my hips and kicking my legs back vehemently in protest but nothing had any effect. I tried a couple of self-defense moves: strikes to the groin, stomping on toes; but all were a wasted effort and an even greater waste of oxygen.

I knew that no more than a couple of minutes passed before my vision sparkled and turned black.

There I was thinking it took longer to suffocate a person.

Chapter Two

I struggled to force my eyes open as if awakening from a deep slumber.

“A fucking reporter? How the hell did this happen? Which idiot was it that profiled the bitch?” I recognized the voice, it was Mack's, and he was furious.

“Relax,” an unfamiliar voice cooed, “I've already got it covered.”

“Damn right you do! Fucking disgrace that this filth got through these walls!”

“You better watch yourself, old man, or I'll take care of you too.”

“I—I—” Mack stammered, clearly fearful of the other man. “I apologize, Freddie. I did not mean to cause offence. I just can't believe that this shit happened!”

Freddie laughed softly. “That's more like it. Now you run on back to your books, or whatever boring crap you do, while I sort out this...delicious girl here.”

“Yes. Please do it fast, and keep this little embarrassing incident just between us?” A tremble entered his voice.

“What, are you afraid that the master will force you into retirement for yet another blunder?” The words slithered from Freddie's mouth.

“Please,” Mack begged. “I only left her alone for a second to change. It was up to Jase to keep an eye on the door—”

“Shut up and leave already. You're boring me,” he groaned. “Like I said, just go back to your little calculator, and I will take care of everything. You can trust me, Mack.”

“Yes...thank you.” I heard a scurry before the sound of a door closing.

At first, I struggled to understand any of the words being said over me and with even greater difficulty their meaning, but then consciousness began to return along with a heavy sense of foreboding. Why? Because I was in the clutches of the Foxes, I remembered. I was discovered, captured and about to be killed.

Get up, Jane, get up! I desperately tried to activate my sluggish body, but to no avail. I was rigid, immobilized, and I may as well have been a corpse already, but I couldn't give up. Not yet, there was still so much I had to do. I had to escape!

Just barely, I managed to flicker my eyes open and whined as I struggled to pan my head. My fingers also started to move and detected cold and chalky concrete. I tried to push myself up, but my muscles were frozen and I failed miserably in repositioning even an inch.

A blurry head hovered over my vision. “Ah, so you're waking up, Jane.” From the prior dialogue, I learned that this slippery voice had belonged to someone named Freddie. “Hmm, that's a boring name, your parents didn't have much of an imagination, did they? Stacey is much cuter.” I felt a tug at my hair and managed a groan in protest. “Not bad looking, though. Damn, I could have some fun with you if you were not planned for something else. Alright, we better get moving. Back to sleep you go!”

Encumbered by a strong acetone scent, I lost consciousness once more.

****

I awoke with a blurred, intoxicated sensation and tried again to open my eyes, but some force was pushing against them. I tried to move my arms to hold my dazed head, but these too were restrained. It was then that I realized that my back lay on a hard surface, with both my hands and feet tied at opposite ends, bound by the irregular roughness that only rope provided. Fabric hugged my face securely so that no matter how I shifted the position of my head no scene could be viewed. I could guess at a general area, though. From the gentle breeze brushing past me, and the squeaks of bats in the distance, I surmised that I was in an area with foliage, likely outside the city. There was also a strong scent of roses, and I wondered whether I was near some sort of flower garden.

Bats and the drop in summer heat meant that it was nighttime already. That suggested at least seven hours had passed since the start of my interview. The fact that so much time had elapsed allowed me a small hope that maybe they weren't going to kill me, but maybe just leave me out in the middle of nowhere to scare me off. Then I remembered a certain series of stories Sandra was following, these all had roses scattering the stage beautifully. No, surely not. The Foxes couldn't be involved with him!

Freddie's words repeated themselves in my mind: I could have some fun with you if you were not planned for something else. Planned? I had only just crossed their paths, how could I have been planned for anything already?

“Are...” my voice hushed, barely audible, “you going to kill me?”

I did not expect a reply as I thought I was alone, but a soft male voice responded, “Yes.”

“No,” I whispered, shivering. “Please, no, I don’t wanna die.”

“I know, Jane,” his gentle voice soothed, carrying with it a British accent. “I know.”

“You don’t have to do this,” I pleaded. “Just let me go. I swear I didn't see anything. I don't know anything! I promise, just let me go and you'll never hear from me again. Please!” The blindfold dampened as it absorbed my tears.

“I am not going to let you go. I am going to kill you.” It was a calm statement.

“Stop this, please! I swear I won’t say anything.” At first, I was soft, pleading as if to someone in a dream, but now realism had hit me. I was a captive and about to undergo something very horrible. I was a fool, too brazen to realize my mortality. I knew that I was about to learn the full extent of my folly.

“Don’t kill me. Please don’t. I’ll give you anything!” I cried as my dry voice broke so many times that even I barely understood the words. All the while, the scent of roses engulfed my nostrils with vigor.

“Stop!” I screamed. “Please stop! I’ll do anything, give you anything! Just stop this now! Just let me go! Let me live, I beg you!”

“You would give me anything?” he queried.

“Yes, I swear, anything. I have money! My parents left me with an inheritance. You can have all of it, just let me live!” I whimpered.

He gave a sad sigh. “I do want something from you, but it is not your money, Jane Kirra, that I want. It is your heart.”

In any other context that small statement could have brought a smile to my face, but out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by the stifling scent of roses, it filled me with consummate horror. My terror became so great that it escaped from me in frantic ear-splitting screams.

I fought furiously against my bonds, but my body was still too weak to make even a decent tug. I writhed and twisted, trying desperately to find just a position, some possible way I could escape. I couldn't go like this; it was all too cruel. This simply couldn't happen, it couldn't!

“Shh.” A warm hand patted my forehead. “Don't be fearful, this is a good thing. With your death, you will have the chance of a new life, a better life.”

“I don't want to die!” I wailed.

“I know, Jane, but you don't have power over that anymore. Now quiet your sobs and ready yourself. It is time for your human life to end.”

He pawed his hand over my face as I continued to mutter, “please.”

The next moment, I experienced a strong breeze and then dampness spread across my chest. He poured water on me? Confused by the event, but endlessly grateful to be spared, I opened my mouth to say “thank you” to my attacker but instead found myself choking on liquid. I tried to cough it out but it had accumulated in my mouth and throat too fast to expel. My tongue registered what was obstructing my breath– a thick substance, warm and metallic, like iron. It was blood. My blood. Then I realized that the dampness over my chest spread so that it covered my whole torso.

At that moment, I remembered the dagger with the inscriptions. It seemed so bizarre to be hidden away in a drawer, but then I wondered, was that weapon connected to all this? My mind was no longer sluggish; it was alert and echoed cruelly to me that fatal wounds often were not felt due to a huge adrenaline release. That dagger. Could it be the focal point of the flowing liquid on my chest?

I couldn't breathe. My mouth and throat were full of blood and my body started screaming for air. I tried to inhale, but that just made the coughing worse. I tried to spit it out. I flung my head to either side, desperately attempting to fling the vile metallic fluid out, but the more I writhed, the worse the pain became.

Yes, pain.

With the adrenaline, I hadn’t realized it come on, but it gripped me then—my whole body was on fire. Hot but also cold at once, I was sure then my cruel attacker had taken a match and thrown it on me. It was the only way I could explain the sensation of my flesh melting away. I was choking, suffocating, drowning and burning all at once. Every moment became more agonizing, and every moment stretched out longer. Every nerve ending screamed pain and pain called for hate against life. I started wishing for death.

The pain climaxed and loosened its grip on me. Gleefully, I stopped fighting and opened myself up to a new fuzzy sensation. I felt myself spill away as if breaking up into millions of tiny pieces, emptying into nothing. I am dying now, I acknowledged. In the end, T.S. Eliot was right; “this is the way the world ends, not with a bang, but with a whimper.”

****

I awoke amidst a myriad of images: the neon Minx sign; a dagger encrypted with ancient designs; a glass filled of scotch and ice; a shape reflected back from a curved surface, hands reaching toward me; black rose petals floating down like rain.

I was falling through these replayed scenes with no clue to where I was heading. I had that rushing sensation, the familiar dropping of my stomach, and I could even feel a breeze. Then things slowed as I sensed myself orbit around a central body and fall inwards.

The next thing I knew, I was erect in my bed. I just started thinking it was all a bad dream when my eyes were drawn down to my crimson painted hands. This same substance also stained what were once crisp, white bed sheets. As I clasped my hands into fists, the dark color cracked away from my skin.

I licked my lips nervously and tasted a crumbly metallic flavor. I turned to my bedside table with haste, snatched the hand mirror and stared at my face. It was there, too, all around my mouth. I tensed as I realized I was coated in stiff, dry blood.