Page 65 of Girl, Unseen

Crowley froze with one leg over the rail. This close she could see each circuit-board line etched into his skull. Those hands rose slow and steady.

‘Other leg back over. Now.’

He complied. No mystical gibberish. No cryptic pronouncements. Just a man who knew when the game was up.

‘On your knees.’

Luca materialized from the left while Ross closed in from the right. Their trap had worked perfectly. Maybe too perfectly.

‘Hawkins, cuff him.’ Ella kept her aim steady.

Something flickered across Ezra's face – not fear or anger, but something closer to appreciation. Like a chess player acknowledging a clever move.

‘Well played,’ Ezra said. ‘You got me.’

Ella watched Ross radio for transport. Around them, phones recorded everything like digital vultures. Their killer caught; their case closed. Mission accomplished.

But looking at this tall, lean creature of the night, that nagging feeling returned.

Something about this felt too easy.

And in Ella's experience, easy usually meant she was missing something big.

CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE

Fire lived in Victor Ashford's bones. Fifty years of glassblowing had turned him into something half-human half-forge; a creature more at home with flame than fresh air.

The studio occupied an old brick workshop fifteen miles from anywhere worth mentioning. Crumbling mortar between ancient bricks, metal roof that leaked when it rained. But rent was cheap, and neighbors were scarce. Just Victor and his furnace and whatever shape the glass decided to take. November wind snuck through gaps in old building but the furnace kept winter at bay - same as it had for three decades of transforming sand into art.

The glory hole blazed at two thousand degrees. Victor gathered molten glass on his pipe and rolled it like he'd rolled a million times before. The glass moved like taffy at this temperature, alive in ways only other glassblowers understood. He'd tried explaining it to his ex-wife once. Tried to make her see how something could be solid and liquid at the same moment; how it danced between states of being. She'd just called him crazy and added it to her list of reasons to leave.

‘Come on, baby. Show me what you want to be.’

Heat baked his face as he worked the glass. Sweat ran rivers despite the November chill that crept under the workshop door. The piece was almost ready - just needed to nail the transition from clear to cobalt before the client came by in a few hours to collect it. Some guy in Manhattan wanted a ‘conversation piece’ for their penthouse. Victor didn't care what they called it. Money was money, and nobody paid him to have opinions.

He twirled the pipe, and the glass responded like a trained animal. Not many folks did this kind of work anymore - too many machines, too many shortcuts. These days you could print damn near anything in 3D, but you couldn't print soul. Couldn't manufacture the tiny imperfections that made hand-blown glass special.

The piece needed another hit from the glory hole. Victor's shoulders protested as he worked the pipe back into the furnace. Age was a bastard that way - snuck up while you weren't looking, then made you pay rent on a body you thought you owned.

His workspace looked like something from the industrial revolution. Brick walls stained with decades of smoke. Tools that belonged in a museum. A bench worn smooth by generations of craftsmen. The furnace dominated everything - a beast made of steel and ceramic that ate propane and shat out art.

The recent cold snap had played hell with his joints, but he kept moving. Motion was life in this business. Stop moving and the glass got ahead of you; start thinking too hard and you lost the rhythm. His dad had taught him that back when the shop still had his name over the door.

Victor's shirt stuck to his back as he worked. The piece was fighting him today. Sometimes they did that - developed personalities of their own. This one wanted to be something else. Something wild. But fire was the slave, not the master, and it took a firm hand to bend it to your will.

He needed water. The six-pack of Pure Life sat on his work table where that sales rep had left it. Nice kid - or at least seemed nice. Hard to tell these days. Had some story about market research, new mineral formula, free samples for local businesses. Victor hadn't asked too many questions. Free was free.

‘No other shops around here?’ The rep had asked. ‘Anyone else who might want to try our new blend?’

Victor had laughed at that. The nearest neighbor was five miles up the road, and old Johnston hadn't opened his farm stand since summer.

He grabbed the half-empty bottle and drained it. The water tasted funny, but everything tasted funny after hours at the furnace. Heat played tricks with your senses. Made the world soft around the edges.

Victor checked his bubble line, found it true. The vase's shape emerged with each turn of the pipe. He'd been doing this long enough to read the glass like a story. This piece was starting to behave now, unlike the last one which had cracked right at the finish.

The glass glowed brighter. Almost ready.

But now his hands had started shaking.

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