The Lizard's Bite

The Lizard's Bite Read Free Page B

Book: The Lizard's Bite Read Free
Author: David Hewson
Tags: Fiction, General, Suspense, Mystery & Detective
Ads: Link
under his breath and with one last, somewhat fearful look at the furnace, started to walk to the door.
    He was halfway there when he felt something move on his apron, an odd, hot finger tickling at his chest. Uriel Arcangelo looked down and refused to believe his eyes. A fire was sprouting out of the fabric over his midriff. A healthy, palpable tongue of flame, like that of an oversize candle, was emerging from beneath the vest as if his own body possessed some kind of internal burner beneath the skin. And it was growing.
    The flame flickered upwards, outwards. He stamped at it with his sleeve, only to see the fire catch the fabric there, dance along his arm, mocking him, like the furnace itself, which was now wheezing at his back, louder and louder… .
    Uriel. Uriel.
    The air shook. Instinctively, he knew what had happened. One of the burners had crumbled into dust. The searing heat had worked its way back through the pipe, towards the dead stopcock, feeding on the flammable carbon gas, devouring it every inch of the way.
    The explosion hit him full in the back, so hard he fell screeching to the timber floor. He felt his teeth bite on the fossilised wood, felt something shatter in his mouth, sending a pain running into his head where it met so many other messages: of fear and agony and a dimming determination that he could survive all this, if only he could reach the door and the key, the magic key he’d had the foresight to leave there only a few long minutes before.
     
4
     
    P IERO SCACCHI CLAMBERED UP THE RUSTY LADDER, STAGGERED onto land, then found his own momentum sent him tumbling onto the hard, dusty stone of the island’s tiny quay. He crawled on all fours, holding his breath against the force of the hot wind. His mobile phone was still in the boat. He’d no idea how to alert anyone nearby quickly, though someone, somewhere, would surely notice, even in this backwater of Murano, on an island that kept its little footbridge to the outside world permanently locked now there was no public showroom for visitors to see. And if the fire were to spread to the palazzo, it would threaten to move on to the house itself, where the rest of the Arcangeli tribe were sleeping, in their separate bedrooms spread throughout the capacious mansion.
    The burst of flame that had raged over the
Sophia
had died quickly. That, at least, seemed a mercy. But the cobbled stones of the broad jetty outside the foundry were now strewn with shattered glass and glowing embers of smouldering timber. Already he’d cut his hands stumbling into the shards and felt the burning stab of scorching splinters bite into his skin.
    Cursing, he climbed to his feet and lumbered towards the half-shattered foundry windows, trying to locate the human sound he’d heard earlier. The frames ran to the ground to allow spectators outside to watch the process within. Now a miasmic storm of dust and smoke poured out of the chasm the blast had made in the centre. He shielded his eyes against the black, churning cloud and tried to imagine what force could have wrought such terrible damage.
    Scacchi had no experience of fire. It rarely happened on Sant’ Erasmo, was scarcely worth considering on the boat. With its scorching breath in his face, he felt ignorant and powerless against the inferno’s might.
    The old hosepipe was where he remembered, against the brick wall next to the double doors, curled like a dead serpent slumped against a hydrant that looked as if it hadn’t been used in decades.
    Then he heard the hiss of escaping gas, and behind it the sound he’d heard before, magnified, a pitch higher: a human being, screeching in agony.
    Piero Scacchi swore angrily, ripped the hose from its fastenings, lugged it under one arm and tore at the huge industrial tap with his powerful right hand. It gave, after much effort. A stream of water, not a powerful one, began to make an unenthusiastic exit from the nozzle.
    He edged towards the shattered windows, directing

Similar Books

A Place of My Own

Michael Pollan

Pain of Death

Adam Creed

Thicker than Blood

Madeline Sheehan

Vampires 3

J. R. Rain

Snowing in Bali

Kathryn Bonella