Kill Fish Jones by Caro King Page A

with its fresh brightness. And now there was real landscape below, sea, sand, woods, fields hurtling past at a fantastic speed and all seen through a corona of fire. And then a town. The view narrowedto a high street and a boy in an overlarge T-shirt, walking along the pavement, studying something in his hand.
    At this point, Grimshaw had intended to hit the send button on his chronometer and jump ship. But then something occurred to him. Something huge and terrifying.
    If he stayed where he was, he would be clinging to the debris at the moment it plunged out of the sky and smashed the boy into raspberry pulp. It would be the nearest he could ever come to the sort of personal visitation of death that Tun and his like were allowed, and though he might not want to do it to noble Susan Jones, the boy was nothing more than an ordinary victim, a secondary Sufferer with nothing special about him. The thought sent shivers of panic and excitement running up and down his spine. Even if hitting the ground would hurt a little – well, a lot actually – it might just be worth the pain. His mind made up, Grimshaw hung on.
    While Susan was heading over the road to investigate the cafe, Fish was working out that he had almost enough small change in his pocket to buy a couple of pastries from the bakery as a treat for them both later on. He was short by just one pence. He could ask Susan for it, but that would spoil the pleasure of producing them as a surprise, which would be a shame. And then, at just the moment he was wishing he had one penny more, he noticed a glint of shiny copper lying in the gutter. It was a bright, new one-pence piece! He frowned, puzzled,because he could have sworn that it had not been there a moment ago, that it had appeared all of a sudden. Then he shrugged, smiled and went to pick it up.
    Bending to tuck his fingers around the small coin, Fish felt a scorching blast as something incredibly hot went past him. There was a terrific cracking thud and dust flew everywhere. Someone screamed. Although Fish didn’t know it, the person who screamed was Susan.
    It had all happened very fast. Turning to call Fish, Susan had seen the lump of junk hurtling out of the blue, heading straight for her son’s head. When Fish unexpectedly bent down, the junk sailed through the empty spot where his head had been a second before and crashed, steaming, into the pavement. The impact sent fragments of hot stone flying everywhere.
    One of them hit a passing car and smashed the windscreen. Out of control, the car spun in the road, hitting Susan with a glancing blow that threw her into the air like a rag doll. Her body turned a graceful arc and then slammed back to Earth with a sickening thud. The car went on, sliding in a full circle before it came to a halt, jamming itself into the back of a parked delivery van.
    Fish didn’t see any of this. He straightened up to stare in shock at the mess of steaming, mangled metal that had so nearly got him in the back of the head. Sprawling a little way beyond the junk was an equally steaming demon. Its skin was seared black and was still sizzling.It shook itself dizzily, a pained look on its ugly face. It looked up.
    Their gazes locked.
    Fish saw the demon’s evil-looking, all-black eyes widen for a moment as it realised two things. First, its prey was still alive, and second,
the human could see it
! Terror surged through Fish as he stood there, gaze to gaze with the horrible thing. The demon snarled at him, and arched its back as if it was about to spring. But it didn’t attack. Instead, it reared up until its face was on a level with his.
    â€˜Run,’ it sneered in a voice softer than Fish would have imagined. ‘Run all you like, human. I will find you wherever you hide. And I will
GET YOU
.’
    And then it vanished. And in that second, it dawned on Fish that something terrible was happening behind him.
    His heart went cold as he realised that Susan