Free The Glass God by Kate Griffin Page B

friends, so that’s why you guys are here, and pride is the failing of great men.”
    “Is it?” asked Rhys.
    “I dunno. Isn’t it?” Turning to Miles to avoid Rhys’s stare, she asked, “Is it safe?”
    “Safe? Oh yes, once the circle itself is washed away there’s really no residual energy left. Detergent, in fact, almost guarantees that the original purpose of the circle is neutralised. That’s why, I suspect, this place has such a pungent aroma.”
    “Oh. Good.” Cautiously, she stepped into the circle, looking for a shadow of its purpose.
    As her foot brushed the centre, her fingers spasmed into fists. Her head twisted up and back, mouth opening in pain, and for a moment she stood there, her heel not yet on the floor, a silent cry of pain at the back of her throat as her body rocked and twisted. Then her own momentum pushed her onward and she staggered out of the circle again. Her hands were shaking, and her eyes rippled with water. “Bloody hell,” she wheezed, leaning against the nearest wall for support. “I thought you said it was safe!”
    Miles was by her side in an instant. “I’m so sorry, Ms Li! What happened?”
    “What happened? That thing,” she stabbed a quavering finger across the floor, “is hotter than a chippy’s frying pan! So much for the fricking training!”
    Miles edged towards the centre of the circle. He knelt down just off-centre, and brushed his fingers over the floor. “Perhaps… something,” he mused at last. “A residual glow, maybe, but… it’s very unlikely. For there to be any lingering magical activity after this time, and after the clean that this place was given, would imply a spell of incredible power – dangerous power – being performed here.”
    “Great,” Sharon grumbled. “Because all I wanted to make my day complete were the words ‘dangerous power’. Rhys, do you have…⁠⁠?”
    But Rhys wasn’t looking at Sharon. His attention had been drawn to the base of the wall. There was something dark on one of the breeze blocks, a speck of brown against the white paint. He bent down until his eyes were almost level with it. “Um… I think it’s blood.”
    Sharon hurried to look. The mark on the wall was tiny, barely noticeable, a fleck of drying, rust-brown particles. “Dunno,” she said. “It’s either blood or a really unlucky fly.”
    “I can call a forensic team…⁠” offered Miles.
    “How long’ll that take?”
    “Well, what with our recent budgetary… upheavals… We’ve had to sub-contract some of this work, and it’ll take a while to process the lab results, but the work they do is highly professional and I really feel…⁠”
    “Only I’m thinking,” she cut in, “if we’re dealing with blood, then I know this real expert we could call.”
    “Do you?”
    “Totally,” she said, straightening up and reaching for her mobile phone. “Only thing is, he’s not much good in daylight.”

Chapter 11
    Some Skills Come Naturally
    The sun was down over London, slipping beneath a cold, grey sky.
    The onset of darkness – if not yet night – brought a shift in the speed and volume of the city’s traffic. Commuters huddled in tighter under the bus shelters, pressing shoulder to shoulder against the wind; hot air flowed out of the doors of packed, sweating bars where men rolled up their sleeves and women let down their hair for a night of warm wine to drive away the darkness. The smell of garlic and saffron tumbled out of the curry houses, stronger now that the light was gone and the mind grew more reliant on other senses. On the steamed-up windows of the buses, schoolchildren wrote messages in the condensation, which faded to grease smears on the glass. Streetlamps snapped on with a washed-out light which swelled to pink, orange or yellow intensity as the last rays of daylight retreated, and children were called in for dinner, muddy trousered as they kicked their shoes off inside the door.
    Darkness fell, and, as it did, two