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A Crack in Everything

E-BookEPUBePub WasserzeichenE-Book
400 Seiten
Englisch
The O'Brien Presserschienen am01.09.2014
Welcome to The Other Side ... Chasing a thief, Izzy Gregory takes a wrong turn down a Dublin alley and finds the ashes of a fallen angel splashed across the dirty bricks like graffiti. She stumbles into Dubh Linn, the shadowy world inhabited by the Sidhe, where angels and demons watch over the affairs of mortals, and Izzy becomes a pawn in their deadly game. Her only chance of survival lies in the hands of Jinx, the Sidhe warrior sent to capture her for his sadistic mistress, Holly. Izzy is something altogether new to him, turning his world upside down. A thrilling, thought-provoking journey to the magic that lies just beside reality.

RUTH FRANCES LONG is a lifelong fan of fantasy and romance. She studied English Literature, History of Religions, and Celtic Civilisation in college and now works in a specialised library of rare and unusual books. But they don't talk to her that often.mehr
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TaschenbuchKartoniert, Paperback
EUR12,00
E-BookEPUBePub WasserzeichenE-Book
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Produkt

KlappentextWelcome to The Other Side ... Chasing a thief, Izzy Gregory takes a wrong turn down a Dublin alley and finds the ashes of a fallen angel splashed across the dirty bricks like graffiti. She stumbles into Dubh Linn, the shadowy world inhabited by the Sidhe, where angels and demons watch over the affairs of mortals, and Izzy becomes a pawn in their deadly game. Her only chance of survival lies in the hands of Jinx, the Sidhe warrior sent to capture her for his sadistic mistress, Holly. Izzy is something altogether new to him, turning his world upside down. A thrilling, thought-provoking journey to the magic that lies just beside reality.

RUTH FRANCES LONG is a lifelong fan of fantasy and romance. She studied English Literature, History of Religions, and Celtic Civilisation in college and now works in a specialised library of rare and unusual books. But they don't talk to her that often.
Details
Weitere ISBN/GTIN9781847177148
ProduktartE-Book
EinbandartE-Book
FormatEPUB
Format HinweisePub Wasserzeichen
FormatE101
Erscheinungsjahr2014
Erscheinungsdatum01.09.2014
Seiten400 Seiten
SpracheEnglisch
Dateigrösse1048 Kbytes
Artikel-Nr.1953513
Rubriken
Genre9201

Inhalt/Kritik

Leseprobe





Chapter Two
Jinx


A blast of hot air struck Izzy s whole body, coming out of nowhere, as if she d just walked under a shop-door fan. But this air stank of burnt paper and ashes. It sucked the breath from her lungs. Her vision flared, inverting the colours around her and pounding distorted images into her brain like a migraine.

She slammed onto cobbles. The alley, which had looked like no more than a dead end, opened out ahead of her, lit only in patches by a flickering light, the walls and stones slick with a substance that gave them a rainbow sheen. It twisted in and out of sight and it was all wrong â¦

Her bag spilled from her shoulder, half her things skittering over the alley floor. The old man spoke in a lyric tongue she didn t understand, trying to yank his coat free of her hand. By his tone and the look on his face, he had to be cursing.

Rage returned Izzy s voice to her, forced her into action again.

Give it back! she yelled.

He aimed a kick at her face, but it never connected. He jerked back suddenly, as if something in the darkness grabbed him by the back of the neck and shook him hard. It was dark here, the place thick with shadows that shouldn t exist on a summer s afternoon. Izzy s vision swam and a high-pitched whine cut through her head. Through it she could hear words.

What in all the seven hells names do you think you re doing, Mistle? Did you bring her through?

I didn t mean any harm, Jinx. She came after me.

A low growl rippled through the air. It shivered against Izzy s skin, made her stomach dip inside her and then leap up. She let go of the coat, pulled herself up onto her knees. Her brain reeled around inside her skull, lurching sickeningly as she moved.

Concussion? It could be. She d hit the wall hard enough.

Not to mention seeing him vanish. Had to be a concussion. Her stomach twisted and sweetness filled her mouth. She was going to throw up.

Dear God, she couldn t. Bile burned the back of her throat, but she forced it down and pulled herself up to stand.

Get out of here, you fool, said the voice called Jinx.

Was he behind her? How had he got behind her? Was he calling her a fool? No, he was talking to the old man. Don t prey around here. You ve been warned enough times. You-

My phone, Izzy said, before it was too late. He took my phone.

There was a pause. She tried to focus on Jinx, but he stood in shadows - and here, in the narrow alley she d never known existed, the shadows were very dark indeed. They were wrapped around him, hiding him from view. Give it back.

But it s mine. I did what I had to. It s pretty. It s mine.

Give it back, Jinx s voice rippled with menace, like the growl of a tiger on the edge of a nightmare. Even Izzy took a step back.

With an inarticulate roar belying the fawning behaviour of a second earlier, Mistle flung the phone at her. It crashed onto the cobbles, shattering into too many pieces to count.

Mistle didn t give her a second glance. He just ran, darting through the shadows and down the twisting alleyway, out of sight. His footsteps fell away. In the distance a car horn blared.

Then everything else fell away to silence.

And the sound of the gentle rise and fall of someone else s breath.

You shouldn t be here either, said the voice called Jinx. Strangely melodic a voice. So deep it resonated through her. But not kind. In no way could anyone call it kind.

Izzy s temper bristled. No, are you okay? No, did he hurt you? She scowled, searching for him in the shadows. Her vision drifted back towards normality. She could see again, almost. Blinking hard, she tried to focus on him.

I m just fine, thanks, she snapped. No harm done.

Liar. She hurt all over. Not to mention the wound to her pride. What had she been thinking? Everyone knew not to chase thieves down alleys. Instinct was one thing, but what if he d had a knife? What if he d had friends?

A vague outline that had to be Jinx loomed over her. Big, broad. And scary, her instincts told her, a little too late to be of any use. This was so not the place to be.

Dropping to her knees she made an attempt to gather her belongings. There was some sort of sludge covering her notebook. She tried to wipe it off, but it clung on stubbornly. Scraping it didn t work, neither did the crumpled tissue that she found with it.

The sob that tore its way out of her came as a complete surprise. Fat drops of water fell from her eyes and splashed amid the rubbish. Her things tumbled from her shaking hands, even as she tried to scoop them into her bag.

Here, Jinx said quietly, surprisingly gentle. She looked up to see a pair of long-fingered hands cupped in front of her. Masculine hands, but elegant, like an artist s. They cradled the broken remains of her mobile phone. It s banjaxed.

The apologetic tone made her look up sharply and the first things she saw were his eyes. Sharp as nails, one might say, and the same colour. Bright, shining steel piercing through the darkness. And not quite ⦠normal â¦

His head tilted to one side, he was studying her as closely as she was studying him. She blinked and the world seemed to contract abruptly around her. The illusion shifted, like the shimmer of a heat haze in high summer and suddenly his eyes were grey instead of steel. His pale skin was framed by strands of long black hair, silken and glossy. Her fingers itched to brush against his face.

His eyes tilted slightly, cat-like, smudges of guyliner giving their grey that curious metallic illusion. No, not a liner. Shadows around his eyes, cast by thick black lashes. Tattoos covered the right side of his neck, kissed the underside of his jaw and vanished beneath the tight black t-shirt he wore. They emerged again, trailing down his arms and she wondered where else they went. The thought of what lay beneath his clothes made her blush furiously. A nose stud winked at her, a silver ring pinched around one high and elegant eyebrow and a line of earrings ran right up the side of one pointed ear.

Not human, not real, she thought once more, like one of those crazy alien things in the films Dylan watched, or something inspired by her manga collection, like a stylised sketch, and the image shifted, normalising again.

Shock was making her see things. That was all. Or that concussion she probably had.

Or maybe just the potentially fatal attack of stupid that seemed to be overwhelming her all of a sudden.

Still pierced, still tattooed, still unbearably handsome, but less ⦠alien? She shook her head, desperate to clear it. Taking a deep breath didn t help. She closed her eyes, tried again and found her heart pounding in her chest. She breathed past it, felt it calm and looked back at him. Normal. Everything was normal. Or as normal as it got when you were kneeling in a piss-stinking alley with a tattooed stranger.

All the same she didn t take the pieces of the phone. If shock was making her see things, that was bad enough, but she was still on her knees with a guy who would give her mother apoplexy.

Take it, he said. His voice carried a sort of lilt she knew she should recognise. It was an old accent, one she couldn t place. Not local. And yet ⦠not from far away either. She should know it. Maybe you can get it fixed?

Fixed. Yeah, right. Had he actually looked at it? She tried to shrug. It s just a phone. I ⦠I can get another. There didn t look to be enough of it left worth fixing, to be honest. Banjaxed was an understatement. Thanks to the effect she and her dad had on electronics, she d seen enough to recognise when something was totally borked. All the same, she held out her bag and he dropped the pieces inside.

Jinx got to his feet, towering over her. Broad-shouldered, slim-hipped, perfectly proportioned.

I m Izzy, she said, and immediately regretted it.

He gave her a baffled look, staring at her for a long moment as if he could see inside her. Jinx, he said at last. Are you okay?

That was when Izzy realised she was still crouching on the ground at his feet. Something jerked inside her and she leaped up so quickly part of her was surprised she didn t hear a string snap. Her head swam and that same peculiar glow she had felt touching the angel surged within her.

Yes, I m ⦠I m fine â¦

The world blurred. Her skin stretched too tight over her bones and her chest caught in a vice. She felt the ground tip and then a hand caught her arm. Strong, but gentle. Careful, but reluctant.

Steady. You got up too fast.

Izzy could only stare at him as if she was an idiot. Any words she might want to say died in her throat. Normally she could come up with a line in a second, something easy and nonchalant, sometimes even funny. Not now though. Jinx released her, his hand still hovering there to catch her again if needs be. But he moved like he didn t want to touch her for any longer than was absolutely necessary.

Oh my God, pull yourself together, her brain tried to tell the rest of her. You don t just stand here, some kind of moron ogling the hot guy! You do something, say something, anything!

Yeah, I ⦠thanks. I ⦠Smooth, Izzy. Really smooth. The sense of uneasiness didn t pass though. She looked around, half...


mehr

Autor

Ruth Frances Long is an Dublin-born writer of fantasy novels, novellas and short stories both for adults and in the young adult category. In university she completed an M.A. in English Literature having also studied the History of Religions and Celtic Civilisation. Long has always been interested in fantasy, romance and ancient mysteries and her previous book The Treachery of Beautiful Things (Dial Books. 2012) received excellent reviews.