Dark Angel by Eden Maguire Read Free Book Online

that’s what I heard.’ Holly’s glance shot restlessly around the room. Like everyone else, she was holding her breath until the great man appeared. Meanwhile, her enthusiasm bubbled over.
    ‘Have you seen the dudes he has working for him?’
    ‘Besides the dreamy dreamcatcher? No.’
    ‘So look over by the inner door. Check out the guy with the Aztec necklace and the eagle wings.’
    I looked and saw another tall, semi-naked figure wearing a feathered cloak over one shoulder, a black loincloth and a collar of braided gold. ‘I see him.’
    ‘Lewis. He’s the god of youth. See those football-player thighs. And the one over there, with the beaked helmet and eagle wings – Daniel. He’s some kind of sun god.’
    ‘Yeah, I get the theme,’ I muttered, hardly bothering to look. Zoran and his team obviously had a thing for Aztecs and Native Americans. I wondered if the man himself would be in costume when he finally made his big entrance. Meantime, I spotted Grace and Ezra moving away from the bar towards Lewis, the god of youth.
    It was then, while I was looking in the opposite direction, that the inner door opened and Zoran appeared.
    It was as if someone had flicked off the sound switch. Silence fell, and all heads turned towards the costumed figure in the doorway.
    Here’s my second in-the-flesh impression of Zoran Brancusi, this time from close up: he’s even taller than you imagine, maybe six feet five inches, with hair cropped close to his skull and no spare flesh to soften the angles of his face and jaw. The skin is taut over the bones, the eyebrows flat and heavy over dark, glittering, heavily lashed eyes. So it isn’t height, the smoothness of his skin, or even the headdress of black feathers rising like a Mohican plume over the smooth dome of his skull that holds your attention, but the strength of his gaze.
    We stood transfixed, waiting for him to walk among us.
    He worked the moment, looking sharply from one guest to another, unsmiling, eyes darting here and there. Like everything else about him, his costume was extraordinary – the black feathered headdress, the lithe, bare torso, the angel-wing tattoo on his left arm, the fringed leather trousers and bare feet.
    Then low music broke the silence, Zoran took two steps forward and drew us towards him like iron filings to a magnet.
    ‘Hi,’ he said, still observant, only nodding his head as kids clustered round. ‘Hey, how are you doing? Great to meet you. Hi.’ He spoke but he was constantly on the lookout for members of his team who had organized the party within the party. When he spotted dreamcatcher Ezra, he gestured for him to bring Grace to his side and then he beckoned Daniel the sun god and apparently gave him the order to comb the room until he found someone in particular.
    I wasn’t prepared for that someone to be me and so acted pretty dumb when sun god eventually came to fetch me.
    ‘There must be some mistake,’ I mumbled, with Holly shoving me from behind.
    ‘You’re Tania Ionescu, right?’ Daniel said.
    ‘Yeah but Zoran doesn’t know me. Why is he asking to see me?’
    The go-between looked me straight in the eye and shrugged.
    ‘OK, I get it – you’re only the messenger,’ I muttered. My heart was racing, my palms sweating.
    ‘Just follow, OK?’ As he turned, Daniel’s eagle wings brushed my shoulder and for a split second I had the image of him actually soaring across a pure blue sky. I saw his cruel, curved beak, his huge wingspan, heard the beating of wings. I was his prey, cowering below. ‘Follow,’ he said again.
    And sun god took me to meet Zoran.

3
    I t was a lonely walk, pulse racing, knees weakening. I felt like a moth metres away from a scorching flame.
    ‘Tania Ionescu,’ sun god said as he delivered me to the master then quietly backed out of range.
    ‘Ionescu,’ Zoran repeated.
    ‘I-O-N-E—’ My gut reaction was to spell my name, like always.
    Zoran cut me off with a nod. ‘You’re from