Lies Ripped Open Read Online Free

things about you, although probably not everything.”
    “Not everything?”
    “It hasn’t quite spread to the humans that you’re Hellequin. In fact it’s only just started filtering through to Avalon.”
    I smiled. Over the last few years, I’d started using the Hellequin moniker again after burying it for three centuries. I wasn’t hiding that we were one and the same, but from a small trickle of people who’d been made aware it was beginning to turn into an avalanche. I imagined it pissed Merlin off . . . so I guessed it wasn’t all bad.
    “I’ll try not to bring it up,” I said.
    Kelly placed a hand on my chest; there was a surprising amount of strength in her slim arms. That summed up fae quite well . . . surprising. “Olivia tells me you have a natural disposition to piss people off. I’d rather you didn’t do that today. Everyone is on edge and everyone is stressed. Don’t start a dick measuring contest.”
    I took a step back, forcing Kelly to drop her hand or look pretty stupid, but even so, she only did it begrudgingly. “I’ll try my best not to just whip it out and start flailing it around.”
    Kelly smiled and shook her head slightly.
    “Can you tell me anything more about why I’m here?” I asked. “Other than because some asshole who wants us to call himself God asked for me.”
    “Nope. Maybe they can give you more info.” She pulled back some gray tarpaulin, exposing the “they” in question, who turned out to be four men huddled around a computer monitor, while a fifth man spoke on the phone. Four of the men wore balaclavas and were of completely different heights and sizes. They each held Heckler and Koch MP5s. And all five of them had a confidence that showed that they were not to be screwed around with unless you liked a much shorter life expectancy.
    The fifth man placed the phone on a table and turned toward me. He was over six feet tall, with a short, tidy haircut that was bordering on white, despite the fact that he’d probably not even hit his mid-forties. A dark moustache curled over his top lip, forming a horseshoe around his mouth. He looked hard and tough; a man who didn’t find much funny and was even less inclined to let others joke around in his company.
    “You’re that Special Forces guy,” he said to me, but didn’t offer me his hand or even suggest he was impressed.
    “Sure,” I agreed, “Let’s go with that.”
    “I spoke to Director Green . . . Olivia. She says you’re a good guy. I heard you saved her kid, Kasey, that true?”
    I nodded, and he offered me his hand, which I took. His grip was of a man perfectly confident of his abilities. “I like Kasey, Olivia too, you did good. The hostage taker wants to talk to you. Any idea why?”
    I shook my head. “Been wondering that myself.”
    “This is very unusual. We don’t normally let civilians talk to the person committing the crime; it can make things much worse. You know why, yes?”
    I nodded. “They could hear something they don’t like, or consider talking to the civilian their last act and just start shooting. I understand why you’re cautious. I have no intention of making things worse; hell, I don’t even know what ‘worse’ is.”
    “You can call me Mike,” he said. “This guy in there wants to be called God.”
    “So I heard. You know anything else about him?”
    “English accent, although we can’t pinpoint where it’s from, and from what our injured hostage told us, he’s clearly not human. That’s pretty much it. He’s spoken to our hostage negotiator a few times, but he’s not giving anything away and refused to talk more until you got here. The hostage taker fried the CCTV cameras inside, and the shop is at an awkward angle. Even with the footage we had before he broke it, we still can’t get a look at him or the hostages.”
    “Anything else?”
    “He hurt one hostage, but let him go in exchange for getting you here. I assume you’ve been told the hostage