Devil's Call by J Danielle Dorn

Author:J Danielle Dorn [Dorn, J Danielle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781942645603
Publisher: Inkshares
Published: 2017-07-18T04:00:00+00:00

After fiddling with the knobs for a time, a scalding hot torrent of water flowed into the tub. When I came out over an hour later, my digits gone to raisins and the water so cold that my skin pimpled as the air met it, Hawking was facedown on the bed, breathing heavy but not snoring. I took his hat from where it half covered his face, then pulled off his boots and unfolded the blanket at the end of the bed. He did not stir as I draped it over him.

I intended to pull the curtains closed when I walked over to the balcony doors, their glass inlays allowing the late-afternoon sunlight into the room, but I had never stayed in a hotel room before, let alone one with a balcony. So I let myself out, stepping around the iron table and its uninviting chairs to rest my hands atop the rail. The temperature high as it was, I had taken to rolling up the cuffs of the oversize shirt until they reached my elbows. Likewise, I rolled up a handkerchief and used it to hold my hair off my neck. A slight breeze blew down the street and offered some relief to those of us out of doors. I heard a low noise I could not identify in the street below.

A large cage, at least eight feet tall and three times that length, stood in the middle of Dauphine Street. While the horses were nowhere to be seen nor the wolves the crier spoke of, the cage was not empty. I heard the noise again.

It was the bear. She was whining, a low, pained noise.

Were Hawking awake I suppose he would have asked me what I was doing and tried to stop me. But he was not, and so I slipped out of the room unaccosted.

In the street, men stood outside public houses with their shirts unbuttoned to reveal their chests, smoking cigarettes and laughing loudly. This was a different country, and I did not intend to remain here long enough to learn the customs or the laws.

Without a breeze, the smell of the bear’s litter stung my eyes. I came to just outside arm’s reach of the cage, and the beast stirred and pricked its ears. I saw no signs of injury, and when she turned her head towards me, I sensed neither hunger nor anger. She would not try to attack me through the bars.

This is a foolish act I undertook, and yet I undertook it anyway. I reached between the bars to splay my fingers across her flank, to read the energy of her bones and muscles. I began to wonder what would happen if I were to undo the cage latch. If the bear would find its way home peacefully, or if it would leave mangled corpses and missing children in its wake.

It was not the threat of catastrophe that convinced me to leave the cage locked and step away. It was necessity. Without

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