Agent of Hel 03 - Poison Fruit by Carey Jacqueline

Author:Carey, Jacqueline [Carey, Jacqueline]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy, Science Fiction, Romance
Goodreads: 17340103
Publisher: Roc Hardcover
Published: 2014-10-07T04:00:00+00:00

Twenty-eight

I might have avoided thinking about Janek Król during daylight hours, but my dreams that night were haunted and fragmented.

No surprise, I guess.

It wasn’t a reprise of my nightmare, not quite, but there were elements of it. I dreamed of vessels of blazing light bursting into shards; and I dreamed of the dome of heaven cracking asunder with a thunderclap.

I dreamed of the faces of my loved ones turning away from me in disappointment.

It’s tikkun olam, I protested in my dream, dauda-dagr’s hilt clenched in one fist. I’m repairing the world!

My mother shook her head at me, and I realized blood was dripping from the dagger’s blade, falling silently in the dune hollow in which I stood, drops of blood making dark pits in the sand.

I dropped the dagger in horror. In his wheelchair, Janek Król stared at me with his hollow, haggard gaze and pointed a stern finger at me, then turned his hand palm outward, transforming it to a symbol from my mother’s reading: El Mano, power, the thing I yearned for and feared. In my dream, his hand was hale and unravaged.

Heavyhearted, I knelt to retrieve dauda-dagr.

With great power comes great responsibility, Bethany Cassopolis whispered in my ear from behind. Right, devil-girl?

Still on my knees, I whirled on her, but no one was there. I fell, catching myself on my free hand.

Dauda-dagr’s tip scored the sand.

Daughter, my father’s voice rumbled from beyond, you have but to ask.

Absently, as though I stood outside my own body, I watched myself inscribe a sigil in the loose sand, stand, and call my father’s name.

Overhead, the sky cracked open all over again and the trumpets of Armageddon sounded with a clarion blast.

“No!”

My cry of denial jolted me awake, a whimpering sound stuck in my throat. I was tangled in my sheets, my heart was racing, and my skin was damp with sweat. On the bed beside me, Mogwai let out a low, purposeful yowl. Reaching out with one forepaw, he extended and retracted his claws to prick and knead my sheet-shrouded arm.

It was strangely reassuring. My racing heart slowed. Mogwai withdrew his paw and began purring deep in his chest, regarding me with slitted green eyes.

“Thanks, Mog.” I disentangled my arm and stroked him. “As kind-of, sort-of familiars go, you’re not half bad.” Mogwai flicked one notched ear in acknowledgment and continued purring contentedly.

Once I’d gotten out of bed, washed, and dressed to face the day, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I wasn’t scheduled to work until tomorrow, but between Janek Król’s death and my disquieting dreams, I was filled with restless energy and a sense of foreboding. I wanted to do something, but I didn’t know what. I wanted to talk to someone, but I didn’t know who.

My mother always said that when you didn’t know what else to do, you might as well clean house, so I put my restless energy to good use and gave the apartment the kind of top-to-bottom thorough scouring it only got .

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