Daemons 01-02 - Daemon Eyes by Camille Bacon-Smith

Author:Camille Bacon-Smith [Bacon-Smith, Camille]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: To be found, Urban Fantasy
ISBN: 0756404452
Google: 48VPKZW0p8cC
Amazon: 0756404452
Publisher: DAW
Published: 2007-07-03T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 1

TOO LATE. THE GUARD LAY FACEDOWN, eyes open, on the floor beside the broken display case in the corner of the Chinese gallery. Glass was scattered on top of the body, not under it, so the thief had taken out the guard first, then smashed the case. At least half a dozen artifacts were missing, the Moon Stone crystal ball among them. Not the best way to start a working relationship with a client. Harry Li would not be pleased; Kevin Bradley wondered if that meant chess was out this week.

Eyes like that didn't usually lie, but Brad knelt on one knee and located the pulse point at the guard's neck just to be sure. Surprise there--not dead after all. Barely a pulse though, just a feeling he wouldn't have recognized before his own body death not long enough ago. Whatever force animated human beings had gone walkabout, leaving the meat shell to cool its heels. Which took Brad back to the thief: cool customer there. Must have known that he'd blown the job, but he took the time to grab what he'd come for even knowing the police must be on their--

Footsteps. Ah. Yes.

"Stand up slowly and put your hands behind your head."

Brad stood, picking glass splinters out of his hands. The uniformed policeman who pointed the nasty looking semiautomatic at him looked too young to be out without a keeper, and he'd already developed a sheen of sweat over his upper lip. Brad considered his options. As Kevin Bradley, private investigator, he could either do as the nervous policeman said or take a nasty bullet in the gut. In his true nature as Badad, daemon lord of the host of Ariton, however, he had a great deal more leeway. He could leave, via the second celestial sphere--a clean vanish or maybe add some bells and whistles for entertainment value. A more intimidating shape--a dragon, given their location in the Chinese exhibit--might be interesting. Would fuel the rumor machine for years, he figured.

Unfortunately, that was Evan's voice he heard through the far doorway, "He wasn't at home, but I left him a message to join us here," followed too quickly by the source himself, trailing Harry, his wife Ellen, the curator he'd met that afternoon, and another security guard, this one with stripes on his sleeve.

"Can we get more light in here?" Ellen Li demanded.

"I intended to do just that, Lieutenant," the curator said, bringing his head up with something very like a sniff. "But some of us take a moment or two for shock when we encounter murders on our premises."

Ellen's glare could blister the lacquer off the imperial cabinets. The curator winced, but he went off to locate light switches as the rest of the group detoured around the royal bed in the center of the gallery and headed toward Brad. Ellen Li's badge gleamed gold against the royal blue of her dinner dress, glinting its own reminders of rank, and a warning in the brightening light.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.