Poison Sleep Read Online Free PDF

and walked on purposefully.
    When Marla turned a corner, the assassin slipped out of the doorway silently and padded after her. As he passed, the sleeping woman stirred and sat up. She yawned and stretched, as if waking in her own warm bed, Marla’s coat sliding down her body to puddle in her lap. She looked at him, frowned, and said, “You remind me of someone. No. Wait. I remind
you
of someone.”
    And she did, though he wasn’t sure who, exactly. There was something about her hair, triggering some fond association…. He shook his head. No reason to call attention to himself. Would he be more memorable if he helped her, or if he walked away? He extended his gloved hand. She grasped it, and he pulled her to her feet. But then the world spun around him, the sky swapping places with the ground, and a strong, horrible smell—old meat, and halitosis, and mold, and rotten spinach—filled his head.
    Z recovered his senses and realized he was sprawled half on the sidewalk, half in the street, the curb cold and uncomfortable under the small of his back. He sat up, wondering if he’d been shot or hit on the back of the head with a blackjack, but he could find no evidence of injury. Had he simply…blacked out? Did he have some undiscovered neurological condition? The idea of such a loss of control terrified him utterly. He rose to his feet and looked around. Hadn’t there been a woman in the grass here, sleeping? There was something about her…but the memory melted from his mind, the way a memory of a dream sometimes did upon waking. The woman was gone now. How long had he been unconscious? He hurried down the street, hoping he hadn’t been down too long, that he hadn’t lost track of Marla, that he wasn’t going to fall again and die twitching in the street.
    Hamil greeted Marla at the door of his vast apartment, his bulk filling the entryway. Beads of perspiration glistened on the dark skin of his shaved head. He smiled broadly. Hamil was her consiglieri, her chief advisor and closest ally among Felport’s secret magical elite. Without his support, she would have been assassinated during her first year as chief sorcerer, though since then, she’d solidified her position by saving the city from destruction once or twice. He still helped smooth over the inevitable interpersonal conflicts, though. The powerful sorcerers in Felport were used to deference and respect, and Marla was lousy at faking such things. “You’re sweating,” Marla said as he stepped aside to let her in. She gasped as the heat of the apartment hit her. “It’s sweltering in here, Hamil! God, doesn’t all the fat on you keep you warm enough?”
    “It’s only eighty degrees here,” Hamil said, shutting the door. “You just feel hotter because you’ve been outside in the cold.”
    Marla shook her head. “Eighty degrees? Why so warm?”
    He shrugged. “I’m growing orchids. They like it hot during the day.” He led her across the gleaming tile floor toward a long, low table that took up most of a wall, with about twenty evenly spaced pots, each bearing a single flower, all different colors and shapes.
    “I guess they’re pretty enough,” Marla said. “But you won’t see me taking orders from a bunch of damn flowers. I’m the boss of my thermostat.” She squinted. “But…ah. Sympathetic magic, right?”
    Hamil nodded, gesturing for Marla to sit. She settled herself on his black leather couch and he lowered himself into a big club chair specially made to accommodate his weight. His apartment was sleek, modern, and spare, everything her own place was
not
, which was why Marla preferred to take her meetings here.
    “Growing orchids is very delicate, but the result is a beautiful flowering. I am involved in some, ah, other delicate negotiations, as you know, and by caring for the flowers, I’ve created a field of sympathetic resonance. As the flowers prosper, so will my other endeavors.”
    Marla laughed. Hamil looked like a giant