Page 58 of Dead Serious Case 5 Madame Vivienne

“A witch.” His voice is deep, like seriously deep, almost a growl. Then his dark gaze lands on me. “And what are you?”

“A Sagittarius,” I squeak.

His lips curve and a loud rumble of laughter bursts from his mouth. “You must be Tristan Everett. I have to say, Hadley was spot on when he described you.”

I blink at him in utter confusion. “You know Mr Hadley?”

He watches me with amusement dancing in those nearly coal-black eyes. In fact, his eyes are so dark that I can’t quite make out his pupils, but instead of being cold and hard, they feel fathomless, like there’s a whole universe hidden in there.

“My name is Lucien.” He holds out a huge hand.

Despite the fact he towers over us and could potentially be a homicidal, magic-toting maniac, my deeply ingrained manners have me grasping his hand. I gasp as our palms meet; his skin is so hot, like he’s running a fever, except he seems healthy.

As he releases my hand, he smiles, revealing a row of perfect teeth. I inhale slowly. The scent of him reminds me of smoke and ash and something else I can’t name, something tantalising. This huge man looks beyond intimidating and from the way his huge hand swallowed my much smaller one, I can only conclude he could snap me like a twig without trying, but for some strange, inexplicable reason, I don’t sense danger from him.

“Harrison,” Harrison introduces himself warily as he too shakes Lucien’s hand.

“That’s Bruce.” I nod towards Bruce, who’s watching the giant man cautiously.

“Love the shorts.” Lucien winks at Bruce, which only seems to confuse him.

“I’m sorry, but why are you here?” Harrison says rather rudely.

“I heard about what happened.” Lucien’s gaze skims over Harrison’s shoulder and drops to the open file and its scattered contents. “Bet you’re having trouble figuring out what language that is.” He nods to the photos.

“What makes you say that?”

“Because that, my friend, is a dead language. There are very few who would recognise it and even fewer who can translate it.”

“What is it?” I ask curiously, unable to help myself. “Can you read it?”

“Me? No.” He shakes his head. “But I know what it is.”

Harrison’s eyes narrow. “And what’s that, then?”

“It’s a much older, less corrupted version of Daemoniic, one of the lost Hell languages.”

I blink. “Sorry, did you just say Hell?”

“Yeah,” he mutters as he turns to look at the shop floor. “Believe it or not, I’m here to help.”

“Help with what?” Harrison says suspiciously.

“This,” Lucien replies.

We watch as he takes a few steps toward the centre of the shop, then reaches down and touches the wooden floorboards. Light blazes across the ground, a fiery red and orange that runs through invisible grooves until it completes a large, intricate, circular pattern which covers nearly the entire room.

“Holy shit!” Bruce gasps loudly

“What the fuck is that?” My mouth falls open and when I glance in Harrison’s direction I see him turn ashen as Lucien speaks.

“That, my friend, is a one hundred percent bona fide demon trap, complete with one very old andverypissed-off demon.”

13

“I’m sorry, what?” I blink slowly. “It’s crazy, but I could’ve sworn you just said there’s a demon under the floorboards.”

Lucien straightens up and stares at us. “It’s a bit further down than just under the floorboards but, yeah, you got yourselves a demon, alright.” He glances back at the brightly glowing circle stretching across almost the whole floor and filled with complicated symbols and sigils. “I wonder who trapped it down there.”