Read Online Angel: Private Eye Book One by Odette C. Bell - Free Book Online Page A

case no one
else can break. I hired you because I saw something in you, kid.
You’re lucky and you’ve got drive. Speaking of which, can you
drive?” he suddenly changed track so quickly I shook my head.
    “Sorry? What?”
    “Can you drive?” he said slowly and clearly
as if I was hard of hearing.
    “Ah, yes.”
    “Fantastic. I lost my license speeding,” he
said through a grin. “So you get to drive the beast.” He turned
smoothly on his foot and strode out of the room making several
specific gestures to the gloves. The gloves suddenly dropped an
archive box on the ground, a whole cloud of dust shifting up from
the cobweb-laced floorboards and shooting up my nose.
    I spluttered and waved at the dust
madly.
    The gloves repeated every action Mr
Marvelous made, then went back to cleaning up the room.
    With nothing else to do, I reluctantly
turned on my heel and followed Mr Marvelous. He walked quickly, a
lot quicker than his tubby form accounted for. Those arms and legs
were scrawny, but he was clearly powerful, and right now,
determined.
    Before I had a chance to catch my breath, we
darted out the back of the shop into an alleyway.
    I frowned at the alleyway, immediately
realizing it shouldn’t be here. Mr Marvelous’ shop was pressed
right up against a magical supply store on one side and a
Vietnamese restaurant on the other.
    He saw me frowning as I looked confusedly
from one brick wall to the other. “How is this alleyway here?”
    “It’s a magical car park,” Mr Marvelous
muttered offhand as he brought a set of keys from his pocket and
clicked an immobilizer lock.
    Immediately something appeared in front of
me. It was so quick and unexpected that I jerked back, shrieking in
surprise.
    It was a car. After flickering lines of
magic settled, it revealed a sleek black vehicle that looked
exactly like something a 14-year-old kid would dream up. It wasn’t
exactly the Batmobile, but it was close. Slung low, with bright
shiny rims that had actual blue streaks of lightning painted across
them, it was exactly not the kind of car I had ever driven
before.
    I tended to stick with hatchbacks and small
sedans easy to park in cramped streets.
    “Ah, what the hell is this?” I asked in a
shaking voice.
    “Hell? You think this comes from hell?
You’ve seen the kind of sports car trash those vampires and demons
drive. This,” Mr Marvelous leaned over and fondly patted a hand
down the front of the car, his fingers gliding off the
well-polished metal. “This is a work of art. It took me 15 years to
scrounge enough spells to create this masterpiece.” He swung his
arms wide and gestured like an excited politician promising the
brightest future the city had ever seen.
    “You mean you’re a mechanic?”
    Mr Marvelous rolled his eyes and chuckled.
“You really know nothing about this world, do you? This isn’t a
standard vehicle.” He patted the door lovingly as he opened it.
“It’s magically enhanced. At the beginning of my career, I faced a
little… ah, competition.” Mr Marvelous was usually as direct as a
shot between the eyes, but here he was being coy.
    “What do you mean?”
    He ignored me as he kept fondly patting the
door. He opened it and practically sighed as if he was slipping
inside a warm bath. “Doesn’t matter. Point is, I found myself
needing a car that could get me out of any situation. And that type
of thing costs. I scrounged every cent I could, spending it on the
most ludicrous magical enchantments you could imagine, until I’d
built this.” He brought his hands up wide again and gestured like
an extremely keen host on one of those game shows that can’t even
make it to the prime-time slot.
    “But you don’t have a license,” I said as I
brought a hand up and scratched my suddenly itchy neck. “Why didn’t
you sell it?”
    Mr Marvelous slowly turned to face me. His
expression had grown just as dark and shadowy and unwelcome as a
crypt in the middle of the night. “Because it’s