Thief: X by E.I. Jennings Read Free Book Online

yourself before I summon you!” Although Adram was my own personal demon, he also had his hellish duties. This meant on occasion a Satanist or some other idiot would summon him for a gift of power. Unfortunately, the only gift he ever gave was the gift of bitchiness and sarcastic advice on how to dress.
    “Adram! Habent determinationes oppositas, ostende te.” Nothing like a bit of Latin to illustrate my point,
    “Enough already!” Adram appeared in a puff of smoke and hell fire looking incredibly sheepish. For once, his tail feathers were tucked away and he was being excessively quiet,
    “Are you going to explain where the hell you’ve been?”
    “I could but…” My eyebrows shot up and he sighed, “…I got summoned and then when I tried to get to you, I couldn’t. I knew where you were but I couldn’t get through the layers of protection.”
    “It’s never stopped you before.” I wished I were feeling angry because I wouldn’t feel so hurt at his abandonment,
    “I couldn’t get through Xan, I tried. Not only was it warded against magical attack, I could feel lead, silver, iron and to top it off holy water. I tried. I really, really tried.”
    “Not hard enough.” Yep, I was really hurt and it was a weird feeling,
    “Oh come on Xan, you know I didn’t have a chance to get through all of that. I’m here now so you can tell me who grabbed you. Whoever it was had some serious protection against the big bads of the world. I’m surprised you didn’t feel it.” He came and sat next to me and wrapped his arms around my shoulders. Unfortunately he was right; I should have been able to feel the repellents he’d just described.
    I sighed and started to explain everything. I watched his eyebrows rise higher and higher until I thought they might jump off and crawl back to hell themselves.
    “Whoa that’s some wacked out shit.” I let my head rest on his shoulder and felt strangely comforted by the smell of sulphur, “You’re only uptight because you’re exhausted. You need to sleep before you pass out and the booze isn’t helping.” He took the glass out of my hand and placed it on the table.
    “You’d be surprised.” I sighed,
    “So where’s the Texas Ranger? I can’t believe you agreed to work with someone.”
    “I didn’t have much choice did I? He’s upstairs and I’m still trying to come to terms with my mom flirting with him.” Adram laughed so I hit him on the shoulder- hard. “Stop laughing, it isn’t funny!”
    “Oh it is. It really is.” I admit his laugh was infectious and although I felt ready to pass out, I was laughing just as hard.
    “What. The. Hell. Is. That?” We both turned to see Marshall standing in the doorway. His eyes were like saucers and he was aiming a gun straight at Adram.
    “You can see him?” I shot up and moved in front of Adram,
    “Of course I can see that freaky looking Grinch!”
    “Well, I’ve been called some things over the years but that has to be the most hilarious.” Now Adram was up and prancing behind me. If he let his tail feathers out, Marshall would probably shoot him.
    “What the hell is it?”
    “He’s not an ‘it’, he’s a demon.” I rolled my eyes because I heard the whoosh of Adram opening his feathers. Why did I have to have a green, furry, peacock demon?
    “Demon’s don’t exist.” I turned around to catch Adram pulling faces over my shoulder.
    “And yet here we are. Just put the gun down and sit. You know there’s strange things out there, remember what the Major said? You must have believed some of it or you wouldn’t be seeing Adram now.”
    “You said ‘we’.” Now he was aiming his gun at me. I snatched it from his hand before he could even blink and emptied the chamber,
    “Long story short, I’m half demon and way too tired to have this conversation now. I’ve been up for nearly forty eight hours and my last nerve just snapped when you held me at gun point.” I looked at the gun and realised it was