Dead of Night (Ghosts & Magic #1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

before, and I'd only gotten a week out of the treatment. Even worse, the whole thing was buyer's risk. Too bad it didn't take, I had to pay full price all the same.
    "One..."
    I closed my eyes, mentally preparing myself for the pain that would follow.
    "Two..."  
    I sucked in one more deep breath, and held it tight.
    "Three..."
    There was a puff of air, and then I could feel the capsule moving down deep towards the base of my gut. I felt the burn of it, the hot agony of it pushing through my innards. It was a thousand stabs at once, dense and tight and unbelievable. In an instant, the needle retreated, and I felt the coldness of the air against my flesh again.
    I opened my eyes, reaching up to wipe the tears away from them. Dalton put the injector down and grabbed some thread, stitching me up in less than a minute. Then he took a damp towel and wiped away the excess blood.
    "Not so bad, was it?"
    "Go to hell."
    He laughed. "Would you let me stay there?"
    "Would you want to?"
    "Go put your clothes back on."
    I hopped off the bed and left the operating room, grabbing my stuff and getting myself back into it. Every movement hurt again, the stitches in my side bringing back the old, familiar pain. The payment card fell out of a pocket as I swung the trench back on.
    "What's this?" Dalton asked. It had landed at his feet. He picked it up and twirled it in his fingers. "Haven't see one of these beauties in a while."
    "Payment for my next job." I held out my hand to take it back.
    He looked up at me, his brows arching in concern. "You know this is Black's, right?"
    "Yeah."
    "Does Dannie know about this?"
    "Not yet. I'm going to tell her as soon as I get home."
    "She's not going to be happy."
    "I know, but I think I can ease her mind. There's two million on that card."
    Well, I hoped I could. There was no love lost between Danelle and her father, and that normally meant an embargo on jobs sourced through House Black. Then again, our jobs didn't normally pay two million.
    He whistled and handed it over. "I don't think any purse is high enough for Dannie when it comes to Black."  
    I shrugged. "I guess I'll find out."
    Now that I was dressed, Dalton wasn't afraid to reach out and grab my arm. It didn't matter how many times I told him it didn't work that way, he still treated me like a leper.
    "I would think long and hard about taking this job, pardner. There's a reason the value is so high, and no offense, but you're small shit compared to the types that usually take this kind of work."
    I reached for his hand, and he whipped it away before I could make contact.  
    "Tell that to the corpses Mr. Black was going to hire."
    I left the pawn shop without another word.

CHAPTER FOUR
    Never had a friend like me.

    Danelle and I lived in a tiny two bedroom house on the outskirts of the city, close enough to make getting in for jobs easy, far enough to make being under scrutiny hard. The house itself was nothing special - beige paint badly in need of a touch-up, a patched grey roof, and boards over half the windows. It was the kind of house you'd think somebody had killed someone in, and if you ventured into the basement you would have realized that wasn't too far from the truth.
    Maybe I'd never killed anyone in the house, but I had a few murdered corpses stashed beneath the stairs.
    Dalton's words were still resonating with me as I pulled the van between the posts of a rusted fence and up a driveway that in a past life had been a solid block of concrete. He had stolen most of the wind from my sails about the job, and the throbbing in my side was mangling the rest. I wasn't excited about stepping over the threshold and having Danelle confront me about botching the work for Mrs. Grey and needing to touch someone. I was even less excited about telling her I was going to be working for her father.
    Dalton was right. I should have reconsidered. Danelle was the only reason I had survived so far outside the two months the doctors had given me.