Read Online Dark Sacrifice by Angie Sandro - Free Book Online Page A

“Help!”
    A nurse collides with me in the doorway, and I drag her by the arm into the room. “Help him, please. He’s in pain.”
    The lights overhead flicker like strobe lights, blinding flashes that force my eyes half shut. Between the slits of my vision, I see flashes of grimy, peeling plastered walls. A rotting fish smell makes my nose wrinkle.
    Landry’s screams echo within the room.
    â€œWhat’s happening?” I yell.
    Slime covers my palm. I glance at the hand still on the nurse’s arm. Her skin rots, sloughing off to reveal shiny white bone. I try to pull my hand free, but sticky ooze stretches from my hand to hers, and it won’t shake off. Maggots wriggle in the slime… on my fingers. A scream bubbles in my throat, threatening to break free, but I clench my teeth. I won’t let it out. I won’t let her win.
    Evil Poca’s found another way to come at me. She’s playing dress-up. Well, I won’t join her game even though it’s ever so much fun to be scared witless. I drag my gaze from the ghost as I back toward the bed.
    â€œI warned you,” the nurse yells. “Stop ignoring me.”
    â€œMala!” Landry wraps his free arm around my waist and drags me onto the bed. His moan rips from deep within his chest. He’s not reacting to pain anymore. He’s staring at Evil Poca. “Oh, God…she’s rotting.”
    Shit! He sees ghosts. How much of this is illusion, not delusion?
    I cup Landry’s cheeks with both hands and turn his head until he faces me. “Stop screaming, Landry. She’s not real. None of this is real. It’s all in our heads.” His gray eye glitters, wild with a primal fear so deep I’m afraid he’s seconds from a complete mental breakdown. I press my forehead against his. “Close your eye.”
    He tries to turn back to the ghost, but I won’t let him. “Don’t look, Landry. She’ll go away if you ignore her.”
    I clamp my eyelids shut so hard my ears hum. An orange glow rises in the dark. My eyeballs ache, but it’s good. The pain helps me to concentrate. I begin to count out loud. On ten, I open my eyes and pull back. The room has returned to normal. No more freaky alternate dimension. Unfortunately, Landry and I aren’t the only ones in the room. Bessie stands in the doorway, staring at us as if we’ve lost our ever-lovin’ minds. To her we probably have, since we’re both screaming and carrying on as if someone has died.
    â€œMala Jean, what’s going on?”
    I swallow hard. Not much to say. “We had an emotional reunion.”
    â€œI can see that.” She walks toward us.
    I glance at Landry. He’s still breathing heavily. His eye looks a little wild, and his hair stands on end. Seeing ghosts really fucks with your mind, especially when you don’t realize it’s all in your head. They look so real…so corporeal.
    My only source for supernatural answers is Auntie Magnolia. I’ve been apprenticed to a hoodoo queen—a black arts practitioner, according to Mama, which is even worse to my way of thinking. But maybe she’s the person I need to speak with since whatever happened to Landry when he died seems to be of the evil persuasion. Magnolia would be real good friends with it.
    I lean over to whisper in Landry’s ear. “We’ll talk later.”
    â€œWhy do most of our conversations end this way?”

CHAPTER 7
LANDRY
    Crawling Out of the Darkness
    T he vision in my right eye turns glassy at the edges, like I’m peering through the narrow lens of a prism. My chest feels tight. Each breath wheezes with an unnerving gurgle as air struggles to pass through my constricted lungs. A tremor hits my handcuffed arm, and pain flares when the metal cuts into my bleeding wrist again. Why can’t I control myself? It’s like my body’s in revolt, determined to give me a painful