Read Online Blood Red City by Justin Richards - Free Book Online

side – hinged like a door. Before Rutherford could retreat, Crowley himself stepped out from behind the bookcase. He saw Rutherford immediately, and Crowley’s deep-set eyes seemed to recede even further into his head as they narrowed.
    Without comment, Crowley swung the bookcase closed again, concealing whatever lay behind it.
    â€˜I’m sorry,’ Rutherford said. ‘I shouldn’t have come in.’
    â€˜No,’ Crowley agreed in a monotone. ‘But what’s done is done.’ He raised his hand so that Rutherford could see he was holding a heavy bracelet made of dull metal. ‘Is everyone ready?’
    Rutherford nodded. ‘I was coming to tell you.’ He smiled apologetically, trying to make light of his mistake. ‘So what else do you keep in there?’
    Crowley didn’t answer for a moment, and Rutherford felt suddenly cold and empty inside. Another mistake. Then the older man’s long face cracked into a grim smile.
    â€˜Pray that you never find out,’ he said.
    *   *   *
    â€˜I promise you, it won’t hurt,’ Crowley had told her. Either he was wrong or he was lying.
    The chanting reached its peak, echoing round the candlelit cellar. One of the robed women held a silver tray out in front of her. Her head was bowed so that her long, fair hair spilled over the tray, obscuring what was on it. She raised her head as the chanting stopped, revealing the bracelet.
    Crowley lifted the bracelet from the tray, murmuring the words of power. He opened the bracelet and turned to Jane Roylston standing beside him. She raised her right arm and Crowley slid back the sleeve of her loose gown with one hand. With the other, he placed the bracelet over her forearm and snapped it shut.
    The pain was immediate and intense, like fire burning, stabbing, and burrowing right through her. It started in the arm, shooting up to her neck then out through the whole of her body. Her vision swam as she struggled to contain the fire. When it slowly subsided, and her eyes refocused, she was somewhere else.
    Crowley’s words were faint and muffled, as if he was speaking to her from another room.
    â€˜What do you see?’
    She was close to the ground, padding along a deserted street. Rubbish blew across the pavement in front of her. Jane knew she was the cat again. But now she didn’t just see through its eyes like she had back in February. She could feel what it felt, she knew what it knew. She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. Smelling the rancid decaying food and the traffic fumes.
    When she opened them again, she was back in the cellar. The scent in her nostrils was the smoke from the candles. The bracelet burned on her arm, but she could cope. She was used to pain – she had Rutherford to thank for that. She could detach herself from it, use it to give her the strength to be herself.
    â€˜Los Angeles.’ She was surprised how strong and assured her voice sounded. ‘I was in Los Angeles. Whatever the Vril are searching for is there.’
    â€˜Very good, Jane,’ Crowley breathed. ‘Thank you. Do you know what it is?’
    She shook her head. ‘Only what it looks like.’
    At a gesture from their master, the robed figures bowed their heads and backed away. All except one.
    â€˜Will you tell Brinkman?’ Rutherford asked, throwing back his hood.
    â€˜Perhaps. I haven’t decided.’
    â€˜I don’t think we should.’
    Crowley pushed back the hood of his own robe and stared back at Rutherford impassively. ‘I repeat, I have not decided.’
    The discussion over, Crowley turned back to Jane, reaching for the bracelet on her arm. It was warm to the touch, the inlaid silver tracery glowing faintly in the dimly-lit cellar. And when he tried to unclasp it, the bracelet didn’t give. It was like it was a single ring of solid metal welded to her arm above the wrist.

 
    CHAPTER 5
    The death of