Read Online Vigil: Verity Fassbinder Book 1 by Angela Slatter - Free Book Online Page A

clear she had no fearof me. I had so many questions and the idea that she might have answers tore at me, but I refused to be distracted, mindful
     of cats and curiosity.
    ‘Don’t be silly,’ the woman told me. ‘Where was I? Oh, yes, your father. A reliable business partner, a talented
Kinderfresser
, but he could be so rash, so foolish when under pressure to fill orders. He very nearly ruined everything.’ She shook her
     head sadly, a
you just can’t get the staff
look on her face.
    ‘Zvezdomir Tepes knows I’m here,’ I lied. It didn’t matter if I screamed; no one would hear me, not down here deep below the
     ground. But I wasn’t going to tell her about Ziggi. If she got me, I didn’t want her sneaking up on him. ‘If I go missing,
     he’ll come looking and the full weight of the Council will be brought to bear.’ That sounded pretty grand, I thought, though
     in reality it would really mean both Bela
and
Ziggi.
    ‘I can handle the Council, lovie,’ she confided, and her certainty made me shiver. On the table, Lizzie twitched and the woman
     tut-tutted. ‘You’ve broken my concentration. Enough of this.’
    She came at me so quickly I didn’t have time to think. In my mind, she was still the sort of woman who was only dangerous
     if the café ran out of macaroons, but she was old, very old, and infinitely stranger and stronger. Beneath her well-kept skin
     was something else, something mean and hurtful that writhed and wriggled as if anxious to be
seen
. While I was watching the shadowplay beneath her surface she punched me in the chest with both fists. I felt her rings rip
     the thin cotton of my T-shirt, pierce my skin and bury themselves into the flesh.
    She cackled as I fell straight backwards and hit my skull on the concrete. My eyes closed with shock and I saw starbursts
     behind my lids, then blacked out briefly.
    The agony of being dragged along the smooth cold floor was what woke me; that, and the pain in my lacerated chest and pounding
     skull. She had hold of my ankles and was pulling me along easily, not struggling with my weight at all. She was hideously
     strong. When we reached the furnace, she let my legs drop, which also hurt. I lay there trying to make my body and brain work,
     trying to get to my damned feet and fight. At last I started looking around, and I found Lizzie’s terrified stare; with the
     witch’s attention elsewhere she’d woken but, playing possum, not rolled off the steel table. I tried to send comfort, hoping
     she’d be brave, as I got my thoughts in order.
    The old woman yanked open the door of the furnace with a great clank and the heat whooshed out. She meticulously pulled on
     her gloves and started chattering again, tilting her head towards me. ‘Ah, awake. Good. You’re quite tall. How am I going
     to fit you in? Might be a bit of a squeeze. The little ones aren’t generally any problem . . .’
    She leaned down to grab my wrists so she could heave me forward: Baba Yaga, the witch in the forest, the stepmother offering
     a poisoned apple. She hauled my top half up and for a moment our faces almost touched. She laughed, her breath stinking like
     rotten meat, and let me go, then she wrapped her hands around my waist and gathered me upwards. That was when I got my fingers
     to her throat and she laughed again, and kept laughing until she felt my grip tighten.
    ‘I may look Normal,’ I hissed, ‘but I’m my father’s daughter.’
    Then she was gasping for breath and taking me seriously, and I felt her nails bursting through the heatproof gloves and tearing
     into my back. I couldn’t stop myself screaming, but I kept squeezing, watching her face turn purple, her lips cyanotic, as
     her claws ripped deeper holes in me, closer to organs that would not react well to puncturing.
    Then she was went limp. My hands fell away, the agonising pain inmy back making it hard to concentrate, then someone –
Lizzie!
– pushed the witch away from me. The woman,