Molly believed Lucien when he said he wouldn’t harm her. But she’d be a fool to assume the one who sent him to spy on her would be as benevolent.
She had a bad feeling about that Baron Rake.
Her best plan of action was to hide Sted’s book from the demons. The best hiding place she had access to was the library’s lost property room. And while the rain was still hammering down outside, the best time to do it was right away.
Except that she was still all wobbly from her earlier outing to the library, and still melting after the long hot bath, so it took her a while to get dry, dressed, and hoodied-up ready to sneak down the fire escape where Lucien wouldn’t see her.
She moved the edge of her curtain a quarter inch and peeped down at the road.
He stood like a deeply hooded statue on the pavement across the road, shielded by a Plane tree from the nearest streetlamp’s broken circle of light. He plucked three broad leaves from the tree’s lowest branch, rolled them together into a cigar shape, and bit half of it off in a single bite.
Molly smiled.
Two tall men emerged from the shadow behind him. They were dressed in identical long hooded coats and moved the same way he moved, only with menace rather than honest enthusiasm like him.
He crammed the rest of the leaf cigar into his mouth, apparently unaware of the other demons.
Molly’s heart thumped. This felt bad.
He looked up at her.
One of the demons stood behind him while the other walked around the tree trunk, appeared suddenly in the road, swung a child’s plastic water jet rifle into view and squirted a blast of liquid into Lucien’s face.
Molly cried out, softly, afraid for Lucien but even more afraid that the demons would hear her.
Lucien clawed at his face and he staggered back.
The second demon dragged him into the shadow and the two of them disappeared from view.
The first demon dropped the water gun and turned to survey Julie’s house. His burning gaze moved quickly up towards Molly’s window.
She didn’t wait to make eye contact. Her pillbox and a fresh water bottle were already in her little haversack. She stuffed Sted’s book in with them as she hurried through the still steamy bathroom.
Adrenaline carried her down the fire escape ladder and along the alley behind the houses, and she got two roads away before exhaustion brought her to a trembling halt on a street corner.
Rain fell like bullets.
Her ankles screamed sharp pain, like broken glass trying to bear her weight.
She’d already done too much for a worked-yesterday Friday by the time she got home from her first trip to the library four hours earlier.
No spoons left now.
This urgent activity was just asking for a fainting collapse in the street, where no one would know her or how to look after her.
No sounds of pursuit reached her ears, but she knew nothing about demons. Would they make a sound if they were chasing her?
She remembered the thick rubber soles on Lucien’s iron boots.
Terror boosted her adrenaline again and dragged another fistful of tomorrow’s energy into today.
Five minutes later she forced her way through the dense stand of tall bushes at the back of the library, opened the window with a broken latch, and climbed into the dark lost property room.
Pain and exhaustion made her clumsy. She struggled for balance with one boot heel jammed in the window frame, before falling headfirst and landing heavily on her left shoulder and arm.
It was agony.
So bad she nearly fainted.
It was a battle to push back the sickening blackness that fought to flood in.
She huddled against the wall and cried bitter tears.
Her tightening-iron-band headache was as bad as it always got when she overdid things. She couldn’t flex her screaming ankles. Her arm and shoulder hurt like hell, with fierce surface muscle pain and a deep bone ache from the heavy impact. She’d jolted her neck too. It made a sickening tinfoil-crinkling sound inside her brain stem when she jutted her chin cautiously from side to side.
She necked four big painkillers with a swallow of water, and worked on slowing down her shaky breathing while she waited for the tablets to kick in.
A damp draught made her shiver. The window was still wide open and the rain was still hammering down outside. She closed the window, and stayed on her feet to build herself a nest of coats and woollens from the lost property hamper.
It was dark in the little room. The ceiling light switch was in the corridor outside the door. Even the light from a streetlamp across the road was blocked by heavy foliage jammed up against the building.
There was an electric table lamp on one of the shelves, and a wall socket to plug it into. She’d used it once when an exciting new history book had stretched one of her Secret Sundays into the evening.
Her nest felt cosier when bathed in its friendly light. She bolted the internal plywood window shutter closed to prevent the light betraying her.
To anyone, but especially to the demons hunting her.
She peeled off her wet jeans and hoodie, hung them from a vacant shelf with her t-shirt and socks and soft boots to dry overnight, and pulled on a clean-smelling fleece tracksuit from a pile of folded lost clothing. It was way too big for her, but that was sort of comforting too.
Her water bottle was nearly full, and the staff toilets were just along the corridor if she needed to refill it. She hadn’t eaten for hours, but always kept a bag of cereal bars, crisps, and biscuits stashed in the lost property room, which was good because she was still trembling and her energy level was sickeningly low.
She snuggled into her bed of woollen jumpers and her pillow made of someone’s quilted coat rolled up and wrapped in someone else’s faux fur jacket, hauled a big heavy parka coat over her as a duvet, and closed her eyes.
Sleep would be impossible, but somehow she must find a way to relax and give her battered body some rest.