Supernatural Devices Read Online Free PDF

misunderstanding of the kind that occurs when you sketch beautiful young women and tell them how attractive they are. You say that you did not try to push yourself at Cecilia?”
    “I did not,” Cruces insisted.
    “Quite the opposite, if anything?” Scarlett guessed.
    Cruces hesitated, and then nodded. “It was meant to be nothing. She is beautiful, and I see no reason to be reserved when beauty is concerned. It was easy enough to convince her to sit for me for a few sketches, even a painting, and I will admit that I toyed with the idea of making a play for her affections.”
    “Toyed with it,” Scarlett echoed. Once more, she found herself disliking Cruces intensely. What kind of man saw love as something to be treated as a game? “You toyed with the idea of using her and then casting her aside, the way your kind of wealthy man so often does. Presumably, you will now tell me that she is just a servant, and so it does not matter.”
    Cruces started to walk again. When he spoke again, the anger in his voice was clear. “Why should I tell you anything of the kind, when you have already made up your mind how I think? And why should I pretend to be other than I am, Miss Seely?”
    Scarlett hurried to keep up. “So what happened?”
    Cruces was silent until Scarlett moved up to place a hand on his arm.
    “Perhaps I decided that it did matter.” He did not slow down. Nor did he look at her. “And perhaps when I told Cecilia that, and told her that I would not be painting her anymore, she took it badly.”
    “She thought she was your muse,” Scarlett guessed.
    “She thought that she had some kind of claim on my affections.”
    “And didn’t she?”
    Cruces shook his head. “She was just a girl. A pretty serving girl I happened to take a fancy to enough to want to paint her. And when I told her that much, she stole from me.”
    Scarlett nodded. “I think I stand by my earlier comments there.”
    “Your earlier comments?”
    “That I do not blame her.” Scarlet paused. “But I will find this ring of yours. Clearly, it is not something that can be permitted to stay out of the right hands.”
    “And are my hands the right hands?” Cruces asked, holding his out.
    Scarlett stole a look down at them. They were like the rest of him. Slender, but powerful. And perfect. “I will assume so for now,” Scarlett said.
    She returned her attention to the streets around them, spotting a couple of brightly shining will o’ the wisps in street lamps. The creatures normally preferred marshes, but the gas used in the lighting system attracted them. They were harmless, unless you were foolish enough to follow one into the dangerous places they liked to lure people.
    Scarlett tried to think about the case, pushing aside thoughts of Cruces and his hands as best she could. Finding the girl would not be hard. Not with the help of Holmes’ network of informants, at least. Scarlett did not know all of them, but she knew enough, and she could speak to creatures that watched everything, never leaving. Finding Cecilia would be the easy part.
    She looked up then, and found that it was even easier than she had guessed. There, moving through the crowds of theater goers, her eyes fixed firmly on Scarlett and Cruces, was a girl who looked uncannily like the one in the sketch. She wore a simple but bright dress of red and yellow fabric, with a pale shawl over it, along with plenty of jewelry in the form of silver and gold hoops.
    Scarlett nudged Cruces. “Isn’t that-”
    “Cecilia. Yes. I think we have just been very lucky.”
    Scarlett wasn’t so sure. She was sure that it wasn’t the time to frighten the girl, but she wasn’t quick enough to grab Cruces’ arm. He took a step forward, and it was obvious that Cecilia realized that she had been spotted, because she did something that only someone who had been spotted would do. She ran.

 
Chapter 5
     
     
    C ecilia was away into the crowd in an instant, turning and pushing her way