Poison Sleep by T.A. Pratt

Author:T.A. Pratt
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi

11

"Want to earn your keep, Zealand?” Nicolette leaned in the doorway, the bib of her white overalls smeared with either blood or food. Zealand turned down the corner of the page he was reading.

“Not particularly.” He reclined in the armchair beside the bed. The room they’d provided him was nicer than the one at the hotel where he’d been staying.

“Come help, or you don’t eat,” she said. “I hate seeing a killer with time on his hands.”

Zealand sighed and rose. “I don’t kill without recompense.”

“Apparently you don’t kill even when we pay you half up front, judging by your performance with Marla. Besides, I just want you to throw a scare into this guy. He thinks he’s got me outsmarted, but I’m gonna show him otherwise.” She led him down the hallway.

“Is this a boyfriend who cheated on you, Nicolette?”

“Nah. Just a well-connected little fuck who owes me money and thinks he doesn’t have to pay. I picked him up on the street this morning.”

“I find this all so very interesting,” Zealand said. “Please just point me to the person I’m supposed to menace, so I can get back to my book.”

Nicolette pulled open the door to a windowless conference room, and Zealand looked inside to see a Hispanic man, perhaps in his late twenties, tied to a chair. He was wearing a summer-weight seersucker suit and he looked more bored and annoyed than frightened, which perhaps explained why Nicolette wanted Zealand’s help—the unknown was often more frightening than the known, and Zealand was very good at being scary.

Nicolette winked at him and swaggered in. “Hi, Rondeau. I brought a friend to meet you.”

Rondeau. Zealand had never seen him up close, and so hadn’t recognized him, but this was Marla’s closest confidant and right-hand man. Zealand cleared his throat—unless they planned to kill this man, it probably wasn’t a good idea to let him discover Zealand’s identity. Word would surely get back to Marla, and any consequences couldn’t be good.

“He’s a little old to be a goon,” Rondeau said, eyeing Zealand without apparent recognition; good. “Unless he’s a very smart goon. What, is he your sugar-daddy, Nicolette?”

Nicolette put her hands on the arms of the chair and leaned in, putting her face close to Rondeau’s. “Maybe you haven’t noticed—I know you don’t keep up with current events—but I have you tied up, in a fortress, and you owe me a figure that’s fast approaching one hundred thousand dollars. So maybe you’d better try to be more polite.”

Rondeau belched in her face, and Nicolette stood up quickly. “If anything happens to me,” he said, “Marla will come down on you harder than a zombie apocalypse. She’ll be picking pieces of you out of her teeth two hours after I’m dead. Now, untie me before—”

“I wouldn’t kill you,” Nicolette said, not quite purring. “I know all about the real you.” She turned to Zealand. “That’s not his body, not really. He’s a what, not a who, a psychic parasite, a floating intelligence—if

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