A Demon's Work Is Never Done: Latter Day Demons, Book 2 Read Online Free PDF Page B

they'll let those people go, if we prove they're not the right prisoners?"
    "It may take some string pulling," Davis said. "And not by us. The boss will have to go through channels to get them out."
    "That's not right or fair," I grumped.
    "Young one, very little is fair," Kell turned to speak with me. "No matter where you are. Is it wrong that innocents are suffering? Yes. Innocents suffer every day. We must do what we can to move around these officials; they hold the safety of these innocents in their hands until someone with more authority tells them that they may be released."
    "You think they'll make these people suffer, if we cause a fuss?"
    "Prisons can be strange places," Kell said. "Prisoners can become victims, just as anyone else can."
    "You'd think if they were innocent, they'd let them go." I huddled into my seat, feeling cold.
    "Yet innocents have been held in prisons for life, or even put to death, as you have seen already," Kell observed.
    "Yeah." He made sense, I just didn't like that he spoke of the reality of things. I could almost hear my mother saying that ignoring reality was the wrong thing to do. You can't make something right, no matter how hard it is or how long it takes, if you ignore it in the first place.
    The flight from San Francisco to Denver didn't take very long; my thoughts warred with one another the entire trip.
    Three frowning prison officials waited for us when we got off the plane. There is trouble already, Kell surprised me with mindspeech. He knew, somehow, before any of the three opened their mouths.
    He was right; one of the prisoners we'd come to check on had died that morning.

Chapter 3
    Lexsi
    "He was beaten by another prisoner; we don't know which one," Warden Jackson informed us.
    Lie , I sent to all in our party. We walked behind the warden and two guards through a narrow, claustrophobia-inducing hall toward a room where the other nine prisoners waited for us.
    "Are you investigating this death?" Kell asked smoothly as we rounded a corner.
    "We're in the preliminary stages. Asking questions of the other prisoners," the warden claimed.
    Lie , I sent.
    Nine men, shackled to benches, waited for us in a white-painted, concrete-floored, sterile-scented room. Their eyes held no hope—they were resigned to their fate.
    The dead one, I imagined, hadn't lost hope. He'd died for it.
    "Stand here," Kell's voice dripped with compulsion as he ordered Warden Jackson and his guards to stay near the door. "You will watch," he added. "Young one, Kordevik, please step toward the prisoners."
    Kory and I were at least twenty feet away from them. Kory took my arm and led me forward. We'd barely walked five feet toward the nine shackled men when their appearances began to change. One by one, their faces transformed.
    Behind us, I heard one of the guards gasp.
    "What the hell are you doing?" Warden Jackson began.
    "You will remain silent unless we ask a question," Kell said.
    Kell. I was beginning to have a mountain-sized respect for him. "You," he ordered one of the guards, "send a communication to someone, to fingerprint these men while we are here. Then, we wish to see the body of the dead one. Mr. Stone," he turned to Davis, "Are you recording this?"
    "From the beginning," Davis nodded. Davis apparently had a tiny camera, or perhaps more than one—hidden on his clothing. "I'm transmitting everything directly to the boss. She has an outside team coming in to do the fingerprint scans."
    "You will direct all your employees to cooperate," Kell informed the warden. Anita, who'd stood behind the guards, grinned—I could see it from where I stood halfway across the room.
    Kell had to be an ancient vampire—the way he moved and the deliberateness with which he spoke told me that. He was also very, very experienced in dealing with humans who wished to hide something.
    Kell could practically smell a desire to conceal things from him. I found him amazing—and just a tiny bit scary—as a