Wolf vs Orb (HARDBACK)

$39.99

HARDBACK. BOOK TWO OF THE GEORGIA GARSIDE MYSTERIES. Georgia Garside is back! Rebuilding her life. And her agency. Looking for a lost girl. Nothing but a long and tangled paper trail to say she ever existed. Just when Georgia thinks her life is sorted, is someone else’s on the line?

Description

The Robin Hood of Private Investigators is back!
Georgia Garside. Foul-mouthed. Ex-contortionist. Bomb surivor.
Rebuilding her life. And her agency.
Looking for a lost girl. Nothing but a long and tangled paper trail to say she ever existed. And maybe the spy cameras in her new apartment.
Just when Georgia thinks her life is sorted, is someone else’s on the line?

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Chapter One

I ran down Abbot Street as if my life depended on it.

Which it kind of did.

Not because I was running for my life, though I kind of was.

And not because there was another bomb, or I was trying to avoid a car crash, or a tram was going to leave without me if I didn’t get on it in a nanosecond.

Nor a crazed, escaped prisoner, demon, or slavering dog attempting to bite me.

Quite simply, I ran because I was afraid.

Afraid of being stabbed.

Again.

I mean, I knew the majority of people go about their lives without being confronted by knife-wielding maniacs.

And only a very small proportion of people actually grow up to become knife-wielding maniacs.

And I, Georgia Garside, licensed private investigator and bodyguard, had somehow got through thirty-odd years of not meeting, let alone being threatened, or having a knife inserted into my body by a knife-wielding maniac.

But still, when it happened, I wasn’t prepared.

And while I’d been surprised, the woman hadn’t leapt out of nowhere with a knife, but had knifed me in the ribs immediately after I’d got a fucking gun off her.

Like one of those goddamned movie villains that just won’t bloody die.

Even after you’ve shot them, blown them up, and driven over them with a sky-blue B-double truck and trailer.

Reversing just to make sure.

Twice!

She’d gone to prison for twenty-five years, with a non-parole period of eighteen.

But even after months spent convalescing, I wasn’t convinced I’d recovered my full fitness or capacity post-incident.

I was convinced I was carrying a potentially lethal instant of hesitation between seeing and reacting.

The kind of hesitation that knife, machete or sword-wielding maniacs can, and do, take advantage of.

The kind that gets you killed.

A bit of a deficiency when it comes to protecting clients.

And, of course, myself.

So, I’d woken in my small rooftop apartment, thrown on some black leggings and a red tank top.

Because if red cars go faster, so too must red tank top-wearing runners.

Ran down the fire escape stairs, and towards the park to take a lap or two around its forested section.

To rebuild my fitness, and practise my observational skills.

Leaving my music player in my apartment, because I was frightened and needed to hear what was going on around me.

Rather than the latest episode of the cold case podcast I used to love.

So, after hearing an elderly lady squawk as a knife-wielding bag snatcher relieved her of her handbag.

Viciously wrenching it off her shoulder.

I changed course and ran after said knife-wielding bag snatcher.

Mainly because I was running anyway.

And it’d been too much of an effort to slow down to see if the elderly, recently handbag-deprived lady needed a different kind of assistance.

Perhaps the kind you get from ambulance officers.

Anyhow, there is always a dearth of people to do the actual running.

Most people witnessing traumatic acts generally freeze and don’t do anything to help.

They’re too afraid of getting hurt themselves or worse, looking like an idiot.

They need someone to take charge.

So, I’d changed course, slowing down a little as I did.

Grabbing some guy wearing a pin-stripe suit by the shoulder, shouting in his face, “call an ambulance,” shaking his arm, “I’m going for the bag.”

I sped up as I ran past him.

Given it was a warm, cloudless, yet not too hot day, it was almost the perfect conditions for running.

Enough to cover my back with a slight layer of sweat, clammy against my allegedly water-wicking tank top.

Though it’s also possible I was a bit nervous.

Ruthlessly forcing myself out of my comfort zone.

As I chased down the bag snatcher, settling into a comfortable lope, dodging around dawdling pedestrians, rubberneckers, and shop displays mounted on the sidewalk.

The wide, recently poured, and still mostly white concrete sidewalk radiated its sun-warmed heat up at me from the ground.

The reflections from the sheet glass windowed store frontages were so bright I couldn’t see what was inside them.

Though I did notice the extra layer of waist-height warm air pockets I was running through.

The smell of hot concrete joined the airborne odours of tram stop rubbish bins.

As I ran, I pondered whether the aromas of gently rotting food might have worse health implications than had previously been identified.

Nearing the street’s single remaining street tree, a poor, stunted specimen, drooping in the heat, I heard a piteous meow.

Glancing up into the branches I saw the solution to an as yet unsolved mystery on my books; a missing white and orange tabby cat named Binky.

One of a spate of missing cats. All of them female.

God knew how Binky had gotten so far away from home.

Probably via another thief looking for a different kind of score.

Given the missing cats were all female, perhaps hoping to breed her.

Abandoning her when the de-sexing tattoo in her ear was discovered.

That they had dumped Binky so far away from her home was telling.

Most likely operating somewhere near where Binky lived.

Running by the tree, I wondered whether the blood-purifying benefits of building up a sweat were dissipated by lung-clogging inhalations of car exhaust.

Regardless of whether unleaded petrol was generally “healthier” than leaded.

Happily, being a lot fitter than the average knife-wielding bag snatcher, I was by then, close enough to reach out and grab its hoodie.

Bringing the apparently male teenaged thief to an abrupt, choking stop.

Can’t quite believe he didn’t dump the bag, but I suppose he was desperate to get away and forgot he was running away with a black patent Kelly-style bag hanging off his shoulder.

Looked good on him too.

Recovering, he wrenched himself out of my grasp and pulled out his knife again.

Dancing around, knife in his right hand, slashing it to the left and then the right.

Holding it as if he was trying to carve a joint of meat.

Managed not to roll my eyes.

Waited until he stopped dancing from side to side and committed to stepping forward to stab me.

I grinned.

He checked for a fraction of a second, and that was enough.

Brought my hands together, simultaneously slapping his wrist with my right, and the back of his hand with my left.

The knife went flying.

Wrenched his arm to my left forcing his shoulder down.

As his hand rolled, I clasped it in both of mine.

Applied my thumb to the joint of his middle finger and forced him to his knees.

Didn’t even have to think about it.

A small round of applause from a crowd that had gathered while I was focused on him.

See?

People don’t want to commit to taking action.

They tell themselves they’ll help as soon as the situation gets out of control, and yet they’re frozen in place.

Takes a nut job like me to do something.

But I was delighted with the outcome, disarming him on autopilot was immensely gratifying.

This feat made it crystal clear that I could rely on my body to take over the physical work while my brain took care of strategy.

Such as it was.

Not my crystal, obviously, because:

  1. a) my crystal is not actually crystal, and
  2. b) if it was actually crystal, it would be as smeared as fuck; covered in soap scum and fingerprints.

But definitely as clear as Mother’s crystal, which is actually crystal, and utterly spotless.

It was a huge relief.

I just can’t tell you.

Though I expect by now you’re wishing I’d move on.

After disarming the boy, I accepted the knife from a witness who’d used her handkerchief to pick it up off the street.

Pushed the boy, by the arm I held behind his back, back to his elderly victim, and forced him to apologise.

Properly.

The elderly victim tried to reward me with a gold coin, which was no doubt a substantial sum of money to her, the state of the pension system being what it is, but as the self-proclaimed Robin Hood of private investigators, I gracefully declined.

Honour satisfied, fit and functional self three-quarters redeemed, I left him to the police officer who’d belatedly arrived on scene

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Weight 0.213 kg

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