Key of Solomon: Relic Defender, Book 1 (36 page)

“See what you done to him? I ought to hex the lot of you!”

I groaned and tried to remember things. That was Mama’s voice, but how had she gotten mixed up in this?

My right eye cleared enough to let me see.

I was seated in an office. Mama stood beside me, shaking a tiny stuffed owl at a burly, red-faced man seated behind a massive, oak desk. The man looked worried. The two men flanking him, who stood at perfect Army attention, looked worried as well.

Mama snarled and gave them all one last good shake of her owl before turning back to me.

“You hear me, boy? You back at your senses yet?”

I tried to nod an affirmative, but that just made the room spin.

“All they done was rough him up some, Missus Hog,” said the big man behind the desk. He wrung his hands while he spoke, and his knuckles were white. “They didn’t break no bones.”

Big man he might be, but his tone and demeanor toward Mama was anything but tough.

“Yeah, they were gentle as lambs,” I managed. I looked the big man straight in the eye and spat old blood on his fancy Kempish rug. “I just hope nobody got bruised when they ganged up on me.”

I swear the big man blanched.

“Mister Markhat,” he said. He rose and came around the desk and put his hands behind his back. “They thought you was nosing around, maybe looking for a place to rob. They didn’t know who you were.”

“Hell they didn’t.” I spit again, out of pure spite. “I told them who I was. Told them that I was a finder. Right before they dived in swinging.”

Mama puffed up, and I thought the man—who was a good head taller than even I am—was going to break out in tears.

“Mama,” I said as I worked my jaw and probed the top of my head for fractures, “tell me what’s going on.”

Mama snarled. I swear she snarled, and her general lack of teeth did nothing to reduce the ferocity of it.

“This here big pile of stupid set his bully-boys on ye.” Mama’s Hog eyes were cold and merciless. “Once they’d done beat you half to death, one of ’em found that finder’s card you carries. They brung it to Mister Smart Britches here, and he knowed of a finder named Markhat what was a friend o’ mine, so he fetched me here to see if’n you was you.”

My hand went to my back right hip pocket. It was empty.

“Now, we got all your possessions right here, Mr. Markhat,” said Big Pile of Stupid. “Nothing missing. Money, city-issued finder’s card, pad and pen. All safe and sound.”

I grunted. My head was spinning again. But I was glad they hadn’t thrown that finder’s license in the gutter—damned thing costs me half a crown a year, and like everything else issued by the City they don’t hand out free replacements.

“So why the special greeting?” I asked. There was a knot on my head the size of an egg. “What did I do to rate all this?”

Mama gruffed and started to say something, but the big man dove in instead.

“My name is Owenstall,” he said. He almost extended a hand for me to shake, thought better of it and stomped back behind his desk and sat. “Regency is my neighborhood. My men and I keep it safe and orderly.”

“Depends on who you ask.”

Key of Solomon

Cassiel Knight

Trust no one…except the one who walks in the dark.

Relic Defender, Book 1

Anthropology PhD candidate Lexi Harrison never bares it all when she belly dances for a strip club crowd. She doesn’t have to—she’s that good. Every performance earns money toward her degree, and restores the sense of power that her painful childhood ripped away.

Something is different about tonight. A man whose silver gaze seems to touch her skin beneath her veils. When a rowdy customer crosses the line, he comes to her rescue with the speed of a falcon—complete with wings.

Mikos Tyomni has never seen anyone dance the
raqs sharqi
like Lexi. Trust his tormentor, Archangel Michael, to put him in close contact with the cause of his downfall: a mortal woman. Particularly
this
mortal woman. The Defender. He has only thirty days to win her trust before Hell’s deadliest demons attempt the mother of all prison breaks.

No matter how sexy the messenger is, Lexi’s career plans don’t include some crazy idea that she’s the last line of defense against the forces of evil. Until her university mentor’s murder leaves her holding the key to Hell. And fighting a losing battle against a passion with the unholy power to bring down Heaven…

Warning: This title contains a dark and sexy fallen angel, bad-ass demons, a heroine with kick-assitude tossed together with mythology, archeology and a shape-shifting rock with a fondness for the gangsters of the 1920s.

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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

Samhain Publishing, Ltd.

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Key of Solomon

Copyright © 2011 by Cassiel Knight

ISBN: 978-1-60928-372-8

Edited by Bethany Morgan

Cover by Kanaxa

All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

First
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
electronic publication: March 2011

www.samhainpublishing.com