Die and Stay Dead Read Online Free PDF Page A

Magritte seemed absurdly out of place.
    I looked closer, noticing something in the brushstrokes of the cloudy sky over the sea. It was faint, but it was definitely the letter Y. Strange.
    “Do you like it?” Calliope asked from the doorway. “It’s new. I just bought it a couple of weeks ago. Cost me an arm and a leg, but it’s worth it. It’s my favorite painting. There’s something about the way you can’t see the man’s face. The artist said everything we see hides something else, and we always want to see what’s hidden. In the painting, he’s not letting us. It’s like he’s saying sometimes it’s better not to know.”
    Without warning, the cat ran into the room and darted under the couch.
    “Don’t mind Kali. She’ll probably hide the whole time you’re here.” She gestured to the couch. “Please, take a seat. I hope you’ll stay for a little while. I just need someone to be here while I decompress, you know? And maybe check all the closets, just to be sure.” She laughed, but I had a feeling she wasn’t kidding.
    I sat down on the couch. The upholstery of the sofa’s arms had been shredded to ribbons. So had much of the rug. Apparently, Kali was having no trouble living up to her namesake, the Hindu goddess of destruction.
    “Sorry about all the stuff in here,” Calliope said. “You know what they say, you own a dog, but you only rent space from a cat.”
    She sat all the way on the other end of the couch from me, still wary. If there’d been a chair on the other side of the room I was certain she would have sat there instead.
    A spiral-bound, six-by-nine notebook sat open on the coffee table in front of us. The page it was open to showed an image sketched in pencil. An image I recognized immediately.
    An eye inside a circle.
    An electric charge went through me. In Ehrlendarr, the language of the Ancients, an eye inside a circle was the rune for magic. It also happened to be a big part of my earliest memory, coming to consciousness in front of a plain brick wall with that same rune etched into one of the bricks. I still didn’t know where that wall was or why the rune had been there. Seeing it again now made me nearly jump out of my seat. Instead, I leaned forward for a better view.
    “What is this?” I asked.
    Calliope frowned at the notebook, as if she’d forgotten it was there. She closed it and pulled it away from me. “Sorry. This place is kind of messy. Like I said, I don’t usually have people over without an appointment. Gives me a chance to tidy up.”
    “It’s Ehrlendarr, isn’t it?” I pressed. “The rune for magic.”
    Calliope studied me with her different-colored eyes, surprised I knew that. “It’s not just magic. It also means change. Transcendence.”
    “Why do you have a drawing of it?”
    “It’s for a personal project,” she said, growing defensive. “It’s nothing that concerns you.”
    There was definitely more to Calliope than met the eye. I needed to know what it was.
    “Does this personal project have something to do with why you were in the park the night Biddy kidnapped you?” I asked.
    She hid behind her hair, not answering me.
    “All the women Biddy kidnapped were joggers,” I continued. “You’re not dressed like a jogger. And you had a knife with you. So what were you doing there?”
    “We all have our secrets, remember? Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s been three days since I’ve seen a real bathroom.”
    She stood up and left the living room, taking the notebook with her. I waited a few seconds, then got up and followed her into the hallway. I watched her place the notebook on the kitchen counter and then go through a door into the bathroom. I started down the hallway toward the kitchen. I had to see what was in that notebook. What “project” was Calliope working on? What did it have to do with that damn rune?
    I made it halfway to the kitchen before Kali appeared on the counter. The little goddess of destruction sat right on