Endless Night by R. M. Gilmore Read Free Book Online Page A

waved, beckoning me to focus on her. It worked. My eyes shifted to focus on her face. “You’re with those not of your kind. Discomfort. Betrayal. Your path shifted,” her head turned to the side eerily similar to that of a bird hunting its pray. Listening to something I couldn’t hear. “‘Cause death done come through your house. The dead surround you now.” Her eyes lifted from the layout of cards to glare into mine, “Murder…and magic bring you here.”
    “Ha ha, what?” I laughed nervously. “What are you talking about?”
    “You…” her eyes penetrated my guard and pulled at my thoughts. I could feel her prodding inside my head. “You bring death in my house. Blood on your hands. Blood of the dead come wit’chu where you go. Why you seek me?” Her train of thought switched so suddenly I almost didn’t catch it.
    “I saw your sign. I was walking with my friends and I saw your sign. I don’t know,” I shrugged, “I just came in.” The tiny girl held a stare that would make a lesser man shit his pants. Luck ily for me, I was a woman.
    Her eyes narrowed and I felt her delve deeper into my head. I’d never been to a supposed psychic before, but I was pretty certain this was not the norm. “ Meurtrière,” she said in a near whisper.
    “What? No, what are you talking about?” I said, plotting my expedient exit should shit hit the proverbial fan.
    The girl inhaled dramatically and stood in one fell swoop. “Murderess!” Her miniature finger came up to point at me with such vengeance I felt the force in my soul.
    “You’re fucking nuts!” I stood too. For the first time in my twenty -six years, I felt two things at once, horrendous fear and pretty fucking tall.
    When I stood, my chair toppled over and hit the cement flooring with a wooden clank. In a heartbeat, I heard the beads at the front door and felt a rush of electricity as another being entered the room.
    Cyrus wrapped his thick arm around my waist and pulled me backwards from the tiny backroom. All the while, the tiny girl with the dreadlocks was cursing me rampantly in an unintelligible mix of English and some form of French. It wasn’t the first time someone chewed me out in a foreign language and it likely wouldn’t be the last.
    “Put me down , goddammit!” I wailed and kicked my feet at his shins.
    Admittedly, I didn’t kick as hard as I could have. I didn’t want to bruise the poor boy. But I sure as hell wanted him to let me free so I could take my vengeance on the little woman still cursing my future grandchildren in her odd language. I should have been afraid, hell, terrified, but all I wanted to do was rip her tiny little head off. In my defense, I tended to transform fear into sheer rage. It was sort of a habit.
    We were halfway down the block in a matter of seconds, Cyrus still holding me with little effort around my waist. I fought and screamed all the way.
    “Are you stupid?” Cyrus let me go with such force I stumbled backward and nearly fell on my ass.
    “Fuck you, asshole!” My hair was in a mess from being pressed so closely to him and my dress was bunched around my hips exposing my thick thighs and the bottom of my butt cheeks. I quickly adjusted the dress and made an attempt at the hair.
    “Do you know what she is? This isn’t a game, Dylan!” Cyrus was so intense he only exacerbated my fear. Er, I meant rage.
    “What the fuck are you talking about?”
    “That girl in that shop believes with everything in her soul she has power. You can taste it on the air the second you enter the beaded doorway. She’s a priestess, Dylan. A high priestess if I had to guess. And she has it out for you now.”
    “And how do you know that? Because she saw it in her little cards?”
    “No, because she cursed your house while I was dragging you out of the room.”
    “Oh and all of a sudden you speak French?”
    “No, I speak English, and so does she. Enough of it for me to understand you’ve made an enemy in your