Black Wings Read Online Free PDF Page A

do with his father making brilliant investments and passing on that talent to his only son. He’d offered to invest some money for me, but as I pointed out to him, you had to have something to invest in the first place.
    “I think I have milk and chocolate syrup,” I replied.
    “I can’t imagine anything better,” he said, and slung his arm around my shoulders.
    Pizza, chocolate milk and my best friend. I couldn’t imagine anything better either.
     
     
    A couple of hours later Patrick left to walk the six or so blocks to his home, both of us somewhat sedated by the large quantities of food we had consumed. I waved at him from my front window, which gave me a view of the residential street on which I lived, although the enormous oak tree in the parkway blocked the view. The rain had blown through and left a clear, almost perfect autumn night. The window was cracked open about an inch and I could smell cool air and the faint scent of smoke from someone’s fireplace. It was past eleven and the streets were quiet save for the hum of traffic from nearby Addison Street.
    The time spent with Patrick had taken my mind off J.B. and Gabriel Angeloscuro, but I found my worries nagging at me again almost as soon as he disappeared out of sight on the street.
    Beezle had barely spoken to Patrick, which was unusual since Patrick was about the only person in the world Beezle would deign to speak to other than myself. He wouldn’t tell me what was bothering him specifically about Gabriel, and I wasn’t about to let his vague pronouncements of doom stop me from taking on a badly needed tenant.
    I made a note on the pad next to the phone to call Charlie McGivney the next day. He was a P.I. I knew who ran background checks on potential tenants for me at a nominal fee.
    The phone rang, making me jump about twenty feet in the air. Beezle shifted restlessly on the mantel, his ears cocked forward.
    “Hello?”
    Nothing. Only the crackle and hiss that sounded like someone on a cell phone out of range.
    “Hello?” I asked again.
    “. . . ddy?” A fragment of voice came and went so quickly I wasn’t sure I’d actually heard it.
    “Is someone there?”
    Another hiss, and a pop, and then, “Maddy! I need you!”
    I frowned at the receiver. “Patrick? What’s wrong? The connection is terrible.”
    “. . . ner of Ravenswood and Grace.”
    “What?”
    “I’m at the corner of Ravenswood and Grace, and I’m headed back your way!” He sounded out of breath and completely terrified.
    The phone clicked and went dead.
    I stared in astonishment at the phone for a moment. Patrick wasn’t prone to melodramatic fits. I dialed his cell number back and listened to several rings before his voice mail clicked on. I hung up the phone in frustration, hurriedly pulled a black sweater over my jeans and T-shirt and yanked on a pair of black Converse sneakers.
    “Where are you going?” Beezle asked.
    “There’s something wrong with Patrick,” I said as I grabbed my keys and cell phone from the basket by the door.
    “I’m coming with you,” he announced.
    “Why?” I asked, pausing at the open threshold.
    Beezle never wanted to go anywhere. Gargoyles are homebodies, preferring to stay near the portal they guarded. Over time, their soft flesh hardened until they were near-permanent fixtures of the building. A gargoyle could get up and fly away if it liked, even after it turned to stone, but most didn’t want to, or maybe they just lost the knowledge. Beezle was still pretty active for an old gargoyle, but as a general rule he didn’t leave the house unless I was going to Dunkin’ Donuts, and only then to make sure that I got enough Boston Creams.
    “Can’t I just want to get some fresh air?” Beezle asked mysteriously.
    “No,” I said. “But I don’t have time to argue with you. Come on.”
    I walked back to the mantelpiece and picked Beezle up, resting him on my right shoulder. His claws dug into my sweater and his wings fluttered