Angel Maker: An Unputdownable Scandinavian Crime Thriller With A Chilling Twist (DI Jamie Johansson Book 1)

When the distant chug of rotors first broke the air, Jamie wasn’t sure if it had been minutes or hours.

She was shivering with the cold, her skin prickling, fingers completely numb. The snow and blood had soaked through her jeans and travelled to her hips. She couldn’t feel anything below the waist.

Her hands had turned completely red with Nyström’s blood, which had now begun to crystallise around her fingers.

Her coat was sodden.

The man had slipped into unconsciousness at some point, and Jamie wasn’t far off, either. Hallberg had arrived at some indeterminable time, and had knelt next to Jamie, putting an arm around her. It had done nothing.

She’d then gone to the cabin and come back with a blanket of some kind. She’d put it around Jamie’s shoulders, but she couldn’t feel any cold or warmth now. Her brain wasn’t working like it should have been.

Then there was whipping snow. It hit her skin like needles. Bright lights. A deafening roar. Men in red jumpsuits.

They came up quickly, pried Jamie from the man on the ground and sat her back in the snow.

A man was in her face then – he had a huge, white domed head and alien eyes the size of saucers.

A helmet, Jamie realised after a few seconds.

His mouth was moving, but Jamie couldn’t hear his words.

She nodded absently and he was replaced by Hallberg, who had her by the shoulders. She was yelling, but it was as though someone had turned the sound off to Jamie’s world.

The two dome-headed creatures in red loaded Nyström onto a stretcher and then lifted him, walking quickly down towards the source of the light and noise.

Jamie looked at it, knowing she’d seen one before. But she couldn’t remember what they were called.

The rotors beat the frigid air like drums. She felt it in her bones.

Her eyes drifted then, away from the strange machine to the little cabin.

A blonde girl appeared in the doorway for a moment, her hair long and plaited, luminescent in the glare of the floodlights.

Her eyes shone out like little opals. Glowing.

A shape loomed behind her, large and imposing.

Jamie held her breath, afraid for a moment, and then it stepped into the light.

His eyes. The same as the girl’s. His face, kind.

He put big hands on her shoulders and then nodded to Jamie.

She swallowed hard and tried to get up.

Hallberg tried to hold her down, but Jamie pushed her away.

She got to her feet and loped down towards the pair.

They seemed to fade as she neared, her vision closing down to a tunnel.

The doorway lurched towards her and her hands raised automatically.

She bounced off the frame, feeling something sharp dig into her palm.

And then she was inside.

The interior was dark, the smell of smoke thick in the air. She coughed, feeling the last dregs of warmth coming from the coals in the hearth against her cheek as she passed.

The flames had long since died.

Jamie turned on feet not her own, looking for the man and the girl.

She couldn’t see anything.

Then, a glimmer – in the darkness. Like cats’ eyes.

And gone again.

She moved in that direction, shoving a chair from her path.

It banged against a table and toppled over.

Jamie stumbled forward, towards the corner of the cabin, and sank to her knees, using her hands like shovels.

She pushed an old stool out of the way. A metal bucket fell from on top of it and bounced behind her.

She could barely see, the only light that which was streaming through the door from the machine outside.

Jamie traced the rough floorboards with her fingers, feeling for the join, and then dug her nails into one of the seams.

She was breathing hard – painfully, now.

Her eyes were burning, her throat tight.

Jamie thought her nails were going to snap off.

She cried out, she thought, but she wasn’t sure.

Dust choked her.

And then the board began to move.

It levered upwards, frozen in place by the years, and then came free.

Jamie tossed it aside and plunged her hands into the dark void beneath. She couldn’t feel anything, her fingers still numb, soaked with the blood of a man she’d known her whole life.

A voice behind her then, calling a name. Jamie. Her name. That was her name.

She looked around, saw the woman from outside again. Hallberg. Yes, that was it. She had her hands on Jamie’s shoulder. She was grabbing her arm. Pulling at her.

Jamie tried to fight her off.

No. Not yet.

But she wouldn’t let go. She was dragging her, yelling something.

Jamie could just hear a distant throbbing. A high-pitched whistle. She wasn’t sure what was outside and what was in her head.

She was moving then, being pulled to her feet.

Her hands clamped down on whatever was in the hole. She couldn’t make out the finer details under her fingertips.

Something soft.

She pulled it tight to her chest and held on as she was guided towards the door.

Outside, the swirl of snow blasted them both.

Jamie shuddered violently, still clutching the package in her hands.

The man in the red jumpsuit with the domed helmet was beckoning to them frantically, yelling something.

Jamie slipped and slid through the snow, and then the beckoning man took her by the arm.

One on each side, they dragged her towards the machine with the bright lights and pushed her up into the doorway.

Someone put a hand on the back of her head, making her duck, and then sat her on a seat.

A belt fastened around her waist and her stomach lurched.

The ground fell away beneath her, the cabin becoming very small, very fast.

The lake, shining a dim silver, twisted around and then moved into the distance.

It shrank and shrank through the window of the machine, and then Jamie finally looked down.

Between her feet was the head of the man with the bushy eyebrows.

His eyes were closed and there was an oxygen mask on his face.

His stomach was wrapped in white bandages and the two men with the helmets were kneeling either side of him, affixing a tube to his arm, putting little sticky pads on his exposed, hairy chest.

Jamie sat there, staring down, wondering what had happened to him, watching absently as the two men did their strange work.

All the while clutching the parcel in her arms, only knowing that whatever happened, she couldn’t let it go.