Demon Day by Penelope Fletcher (best novels in english .TXT) 📕

I feinted to the left then dartedright, vowing to come back for Alec as soon as I had gottenhelp.

I’d taken no more than three runningsteps when something whizzed past my face, and something elseslammed into my lower back. Pain lanced through my body, my musclesseizing up. My limbs left my control and I dropped like a stone.The pressure and pain increased until it seemed my whole world wasmade of electric fire.

Everything went black.

Chapter Four

I was cold, I was groggy, and I wasmad. A sharp, metallic aftertaste stained my mouth, and the smellof urine, and dead things clogged my nose. Opening my eyes I wasrelieved, and infuriated, to meet two sets of pretty brown eyes setin sun browned heart shaped faces.

“She’s waking up,” one ofthe faces said. “Give her some room to breathe.”

The girl was pretty. A button nose,wide eyed, and a cute crop of dark brown hair. She crouched closeby me, almost protective. A purple bruise decorated the side of herface and her pouty mouth looked swollen.

I tried to move my arms to crawl back,but I winced. My body was not fit to do much but lie still. Nomatter, I did not want to lie there like a dead thing, so I shiftedup onto my elbows, but further movement was hindered by a chainconnected to a rusty manacle at my throat, my skin was swollen fromthe contact.

Uncomfortable on the hard ground, Iscooted a little more before settling. Then I took in mysurroundings.

The ceiling was low and dirty and theroom wide, crumbling red brick. Candles with sticky wax overflowedonto the wall casting glowing arcs of light. Rows of manacles andsnaking chains were nailed into wooden panels on the floor. Dark,shiny patches of red stained the gray concrete I sat on, andexplained the dead smell. The shadowy corners made the wallscurved, a room of death and shadows.

I shuddered, and my eyes settled onthe brown eyes girl again. Oh hell. I was seeing double.

“What– Where–” I made arude noise, squeezed my eyes shut to hold back thetears.

Panicking would get me nowhere. I hadto remain calm and not see double. Whatever had happened, thePriests would find me and save me from this…this…place.

I opened my eyes but little hadchanged, expect one of the brown eyed girls was grinningbroadly.

“You’re not going mad,fairy. There are two of us.” She nodded her head to the secondbrown-eyed girl, who stared at my wings with a mixture offascination and disgust. “That is Nimah, my younger and spoilttwin. I’m Amelia.”

I blinked and shook my head. I couldhave sworn she said fairy. “Hai,” I said relieved at least I wasnot seeing things even if I was hearing things.

“Why can we smell our Alphaon you?” Nimah asked and tilted her head back proudly, as if sheexpected nothing less than a full and immediate answer fromme.

I’d knocked something important loosein my brain, I was sure of it. “Where are we?” I asked. I directedthe question at Amelia.

She beamed at me; happy I had chosento finish our exchange before indulging her sister. “We’re in thehumans dungeon under the place they train the Hoods.”

Biting my lip, I cocked my head.“Hoods?”

“The humans who wear thered hoods,” she said and trembled. “The ones who protect theWall.”

Why did she speak as if human wassomething foreign to her? “We’re at Temple?” I said, beyondrelieved. I mean, I had never heard of, or seen this place before,but it meant I had made it back alive. That was the last time I ranin demon territory. For a while, I was afraid I had stumbled ontosome of them, the demons.

Thank gods I was safe.

Judging by the lack of light, and theshape of the walls we were deep underground. Perhaps a Cleric hadfound me and not wanted to alarm the other Disciples by taking meto Sanctuary. Intuition told me that was unlikely, since I wasmanacled. Maybe they were being on the safe side? After all I was ahuman, but maybe they were afraid a vampire had glamoured me, orsomething.

“What is going on exactly?”I asked, failing to keep panic from my voice.

The tight ball of fear in my gut waspainful. Movement close by in the shadows made me tense. I squintedthen there was a hitch in my breathing.

A small, gangly figure was curled upin the corner, huge eyes with black holes for pupils, swallowingthe whites of his eyes. His lips were small, and pouty, and hisbone structure delicate. He was clothed in a threadbare tunic.Stained and torn it hung loosely from his shoulders and was bunchedup in his fisted hands. He was bald and frighteningly skinny.Hunched over, I could see the vertebrae in his back jut frombeneath his sallow skin. His fingers were boney and his cheekssunken. He stared at me. But gods his eyes were huge, dominatingthe top half of his face. Cuffed to the wall, his manacle chain wascoiled by his legs.

“Fairy?”

I frowned, shifting my attention backto the girls. “Why do you keep saying that?” I lowered my voice.“And is that … is that a….”

“Goblin, yes. A half-breedI think. We call him Runt.” She beckoned to him. “Come here, cutie.C’mon.”

If such a thing was possible, thegoblin-child’s eyes widened to perfect circles, and he shuffledcloser to the wall, turning his head into his shoulder to hide hisface. He made a faint keening, snuffling noise.

Amelia shrugged. “He doesn’t talk.They have zapped him one too many times, I think. He is afraid ofhis own shadow. He won’t even let us try to treat his sores. Hejust eats and drinks once a day then sits in his corner. It is sadreally. It would be nice to have someone else to talk to. My sistercan be a total bitch.”

Nimah whacked her on the arm,scowling. “Bite me, I’m sitting right here.”

“I know you think the wholeworld revolves around you, but believe it or not even though yourname was mentioned, I wasn’t talking to you.”

“Why are you horrible tome? Even when we