The Lost Girls: A dark and twisty supernatural thriller by Sarah Painter

Author:Sarah Painter [Painter, Sarah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Siskin Press Limited
Published: 2019-01-19T22:00:00+00:00

Back across town, Mal caught up with his target and her diminutive blonde friend. He stayed a cautious distance behind, and followed them along the busy pavement of Princes Street. They cut up to Charlotte Square and, as the streets grew quieter, Mal allowed the distance between himself and the girls to increase. It was harder to follow unobtrusively with fewer bodies to act as shields, but he was well practised in the art.

Luck was on his side, too, as the girls appeared deep in conversation and oblivious to their surroundings. He got close enough to catch Rose’s expression as she looked at her friend. She looked frightened and Mal was surprised to find himself responding to her fear. Sympathy. It had always been Euan’s weakness, not his, but it seemed his brother had passed on the gift when he’d sunk into his permanent sleep.

There was no time for that now though. They had turned down a side street, a cobbled cut-through with a closed French restaurant, a couple of boxy metal bins and no people. Mal slid his hunting knife from inside his jacket and sped the last few steps. He would grab Rose, hold the knife to her throat, and tell the other girl to run. In the unlikely event that she tried anything heroic, he would disable her with a blow to the head. Knock her out as carefully as he could.

Time expanded, as it always did in the moments of action. Mal had no trouble in closing the gap, taking Rose and pulling her against the front of his body, his arm up in one smooth movement to hold the knife at the optimum angle a hair’s breadth from the vulnerable skin on her exposed throat. He had time to note how light she was, lighter even than he expected from her small size. He had time to feel her human warmth, the biological scent of her sweat and hair that was like a wrong note in a symphony. Demons didn’t smell like humans. When he grappled with a demon, no matter how they looked at first glance, he was under no illusion that he might be hurting a human being. This was different. Every signal Rose gave was of a human woman – a young, frightened human woman – and it took every ounce of will in his considerable reserve not to let her go and apologise.

He was going to tell the other girl, Astrid, to get away, but in the next second he felt a warmth spreading through his body. It was like sunshine and he had the ridiculous urge to glance up, check the sky.

‘Rose,’ the other girl said, her voice gentle. ‘You can stop him any time you want.’

And then the warmth was abruptly heat, far too hot, running under and over his skin like fire. He dropped his knife and let go of Rose, stumbling back. The last thing he saw, as the pain increased with the heat, licking every nerve

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