Midnight's Master. Cynthia Eden

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СКАЧАТЬ ago and the damn voice had kept him awake since then, shuddering with disgust.

      The things the voice wanted—Sam choked, tasting bile. No, he couldn’t think of them. He’d tried to pretend the voice didn’t exist, that someone wasn’t out there, hunting—

      Then that kid had turned up dead.

      He rapped the back of his head into the brick wall of the alley. No, no, he couldn’t do this anymore, couldn’t—

      “I can make it stop.”

      His breath caught. Because, this time, the voice hadn’t come from inside him. He looked up, body shaking, and met the stare of a stranger.

      The man smiled. “Chased any dragons lately, friend?”

      Chasing the white dragon. Sam’s breath caught. Meth. Sweet white beauty. He shook his head even as his heart seemed to jump into his throat. He swallowed, trying to ease a mouth gone bone dry. He’d been so good. Stayed clean.

      For what? So that a fucking psycho could crawl into his head and he couldn’t get the bastard out?

      He kept hearing the words, over and over.

      Cut them. Slice them. Blood on the ground. The impure will die.

      Cut them. Slice them. Blood on the ground.

      “I’ve got something you might like. Something that will make you feel real good.”

      He never felt good. Not even when the meth pumped in his blood.

      But the voices quieted with the drug’s help. Such beautiful silence. “Wh-where is it?”

      The man shook his head. “Ah, now that’s not the way it works. First, you’ve got to pay.”

      Cut them.

      Sam’s whole body trembled.

      The man bent, reached into a black bag at his feet, and pulled out a glass pipe. A whimper slipped past Sam’s lips. He liked to use the pipe. Liked to grip the cold glass in his hands and inhale his bitch of a lady.

      His gaze locked helplessly on the pipe. He licked his lips. Just once. He could take a hit this one time, stop the voice—

      Slice them.

      And he’d be fine. He wouldn’t get trapped by the meth again. It would just be one time.

      One time.

      He took a step forward, hands already up to reach for the pipe. “I-I don’t have much cash…”

      Another smile, one that seemed too cold. The man’s eyes glinted like chips of ice. “I don’t want your money.”

      He needed that pipe. “What?”

      The pipe was shoved back into the bag. “Information. All I want from you, Sam, is information.”

      Sam blinked. How did the guy know his name?

      “Tell me what I want to know, and I’ll take you on a ride you’ll never forget.”

      Blood on the ground.

      He slammed his hands over his ears, but he could still hear the voice.

      The man walked toward him, the black bag now thrown over one shoulder. He caught Sam’s hands and tugged them down. “Hurting, are you?”

      A fast nod.

      “I’ll make the pain stop. Just tell me what I need to know.”

      Another fast nod. He would have traded anything right then.

      The fucking voice had to stop.

      “The reporter…Holly Storm…what did you tell her today?”

      Holly. She’d helped him—

      The stranger’s eyes caught his, held him in that grip of ice. “What did you tell her?”

      “N-nothing.” True. “Not working…w-with her anymore.” He didn’t want her to know about the voices. Something was wrong with him, had to be, or he wouldn’t hear the killers.

      Like to like. That was the way of the supernatural world.

      No, no, he wasn’t a killer. He wasn’t—

      “But she came to you because she wanted something, right?”

      He tried to think. His mind was a blur of death, hunger, and fear.

      He had to get his dragon.

      Holly’s voice trickled through his mind. He’d been desperate to get away from her, wanting only to run and hide.

      “What did Holly Storm say to you?”

      His lips shook. “Niol!” The word burst from him. “She thought he—he knew about the kid’s death—” Hadn’t she thought that? Yeah, yeah, she’d mentioned Niol, he knew she had.

      Those frozen eyes narrowed. “Did she?”

      Sam’s control snapped. He grabbed the man’s shirt, balled it beneath his fingers. “Give me the drug!” He meant for his voice to be a roar. It came out like a whimper.

      Cut them.

      “Of course…” The man’s gaze flickered behind Sam for a moment, toward the darkened street. “Come with me.”

      He would have followed him to hell.

      Sam stumbled behind the man as they tracked behind the buildings. Twisting and turning, snaking into the secret parts of the city.

      Then they were at a door. A black door, heavy, behind yet another building, with the scent of garbage and smoke heavy in the air.

      The stranger pushed open the door. “Go inside. I’ll give you what you need…”

      He ran inside. A lab—maybe there was a whole damn lab waiting for him.

      A small, bare bulb hung from the ceiling, glinting, casting light over the shadows. Something crackled beneath his feet.

      He glanced down. What the hell?

      Looked like plastic. Spread all over the floor, all the way to that table—

      Slice them.

      The hair on his nape rose.

      Sam swallowed. No, this wasn’t right. He turned toward the stranger and felt the hot cut of a knife against his flesh.

      He fell back, a scream on his lips.

      Too late, he realized he wasn’t staring at a man.

      “Don’t worry, Sam, I’ll make the voices stop.” The knife, СКАЧАТЬ