Black Dust Mambo (12 page)

“You forgot to mention the knife in her belt,” Dallas grumbled.

“Knife?” Kallie zipped her gaze back over to the tall, curvy—okay, all right, Bondalicious—strawberry blonde.

“Long but amusing story,” Belladonna whispered. “I’ll tell you later.”

“Yeah,” Dallas muttered. “Another one I come off well in.”

“I’ll make arrangements for a healer to meet with you, my lord,” Bondalicious Felicity said in efficient and cheery tones. She touched a finger to the Bluetooth curving from her ear.

My lord?
A dark suspicion sparked in Kallie’s pain-pricked mind.

“Thank you, Mrs. Fields. Also, please see to it that Beckham receives a promotion to sergeant,” Layne said, continuing in a very definite British accent.

A pleased smile touched the lips of the female member of the guard pair standing beside him. “Thank you, my lord.”

When Layne spotted Kallie, a smirk played across his lips. An oddly
familiar
smirk. “Well, well, well, you proved me right, Ms. Rivière, but not in a manner I’d anticipated.”

“Right?” Kallie repeated, pulse racing. “About what?”

Rubbing his wrists one after the other, the nomad sauntered over to where she stood in front of the bench. She smelled sandalwood, sweet orange, and soap as he stopped in front of her.

Layne’s gaze seemed wrong somehow, different, like a stranger looked out of his pine-green eyes—an aloof and coolly amused stranger lacking Layne’s deeply felt and open emotions, his passion.

Or maybe not a stranger at all.

“You seem to have a deadly, if not fatal, effect on males,” he said. “Myself obviously included.”

Kallie’s skin prickled underneath her blanket. “Augustine,” she breathed.

F
IFTEEN
O
N THE
W
INGS OF THE
P
AST

“Shit and hellfire,” Belladonna said. “The nomad told the truth. He
is
a Vessel.”

“Indeed,” Layne-Augustine agreed. “A fact I’m quite grateful for.” His gaze slipped past Kallie, and she wondered if he was looking at the room he had died in, the room containing his cooling body. “I want you to know, Ms. Rivière, I appreciate all the effort you made on my behalf in there.”

Kallie frowned, not sure she’d heard right since her ears were still ringing. “Appreciate? You got shot because of me. You
died
because of me.”

Layne-Augustine waved a dismissive hand. “Hardly, Ms. Rivière. I got shot because I wound up in front of a gun barrel, and the bullet in my chest is the reason I died. Not you.”

“What a bloody lovely reunion this is.” Mc Kenna stalked over, her dark brows slashing down, cold fury icing her eyes. “Do whatever it is you need to do, Basil, then get the hell outta Layne’s body. Ye’ve no idea how much this costs him.”

“That is what I intend to do, Ms. Blue,” Layne- Augustine replied, trailing a finger along one thick dread. Glancing down at the nearly waist-length, honey-brown tendrils, he murmured, “Do you think he’d mind a haircut? And perhaps clothing that didn’t come out of the Salvation Army or wherever it is you nomads gather your rags?”

A deadly smile tilted the pixie’s lips. “Try it, ye bloody blighter, and see what happens if you change a single thing about him.”

Layne-Augustine arched an eyebrow, an expression that gave Layne’s handsome face a naughty-wicked edge. “That’s an empty threat, Ms. Blue, since we both know you won’t do anything that might harm Valin or his body.”

“Trust me,” Mc Kenna said. “I know ways to make you suffer without causing Layne one wee lick of pain. You forced him into this; you’d goddamned better treat him with respect.”

Kallie started. “You
forced
Layne? Why would you do that?”

A faint scent of sweet and minty wintergreen drifted up from Belladonna’s black leather bag as she leaned into Kallie and whispered into her ear, “Ghost ships are
always
shanghaied, Shug. It’s one of the reasons Vessels lose their minds.”

“Ol’ Basil here refused to cross over,” Mc Kenna said, her voice bitter and barbed. “Maybe he’s claiming unfinished business or the shock of a violent and unexpected death, but I’d bet my life that he never even attempted to cross.”

“Is that true?” Kallie asked.

“My reasons and my business are my own, Ms. Rivière.” Layne-Augustine’s gaze shifted inward, distant and icy. “Valin was here when he was needed most, and I made use of him. But I assure you both, Valin will be well treated. I—” His gaze lanced past Kallie, and his words broke off.

She turned around in time to see two guards escorting the cuffed and shackled Rosette into the hall. Rosette looked at Kallie, a fierce and unrepentant light burning in her dark eyes. A smile curved her lips.

“My, my, my,” a woman’s British-accented voice said. “Her nose appears to be a tad out of joint.”

“Well said, Mrs. Fields,” Layne-Augustine said. “It turns out that Ms. Rivière is quick with her fists.”

Guilt squeezed Kallie’s heart. Not quick enough to keep Augustine from getting killed and being in need of someone else’s body. Or to keep Layne in charge of his own.

“A pugilist, then. How fascinating. Do you accept challenges?”

“No, I ain’t a prizefighter,” Kallie replied. “I just work off steam.”

“Ah.” An oddly disappointed sound.

Kallie lost sight of Rosette’s bruised and luminous face—Joan of Arc marching toward the stake—when the woman’s guards seized her by the biceps and propelled her down the hall toward another pair of polished-steel doors.

A niggling doubt cavorted at the back of Kallie’s aching mind. The maid hadn’t looked like someone who had just failed and been caught. Of course, she wouldn’t if she was insane. . . .

The squeak of wheels drew Kallie’s gaze back to the assassination room. A gurney rolled out and into the hall, the thick carpet muffling the squeaks. The bloodstains on the sheet draped over Augustine’s body had grown and spread, twisting into a dark and unfathomable Rorschach design.

“An intriguing and extremely rare moment,” Layne-Augustine murmured.

Kallie couldn’t imagine what it must feel like to watch your own dead body headed for the morgue.

She swiveled back around in time to catch the look on the freckled face of Augustine’s assistant as she watched the gurney that held Augustine’s remains glide away. Something in her expression crumpled. Grief, stark and barren, stripped all the vibrancy from her hazel eyes. She lowered her gaze and stood still and silent, her hands clasped in front of her.

“Are you all right, Mrs. Fields?” Layne-Augustine asked gently.

The muscles in her slim neck corded. “Quite, my lord,” she replied. She looked up, her eyes once again clear and composed. “The healer shall meet you in your rooms to tend to the nomad’s ribs.”

“Excellent, thank you.” Shifting his attention to Mc -Kenna, Layne-Augustine said, “You needn’t worry about Valin. I promise to take good care of him and return him to you in even better condition than when I entered him.”

Both Dallas and Belladonna snorted, and Kallie bit her lower lip to keep from snickering with them like a nine-year-old.

A faint smile tugged at Layne-Augustine’s lips and one knowing eyebrow lifted.

“Gage’s family and our clan will be arriving before dawn,” Mc Kenna said. “Layne needs to be here for Gage’s wake and cremation tomorrow.”

Layne-Augustine frowned. “That doesn’t give me much time.”

“Ye’d better hurry, then,” the fierce little pixie growled. “Because yer ghostly arse had better be out of him before then.”

Sighing, Layne-Augustine nodded. “Fair enough.” Turning to Felicity, he said, “Shall we, Mrs. Fields? I have much to do and little time remaining.”

“Of course, my lord.”

“Wait, there’s one more thing,” Mc Kenna said. “The bitch who killed Gage—she’s ours. I know you ain’t gonna hand her over to local law, given the circumstances, so I’m invoking
Daoine shena liri
.”

Kallie knew that nomads referred to themselves as the
Daoine
—the People—but she had no idea what the words that’d followed McKenna’s proclamation meant.

Layne-Augustine rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I hope you won’t also be invoking the Blood Hunt as a method of dispensing justice, Ms. Blue.”

“How we dispense justice to the soul-murdering bitch is none of yer concern.”

“Given that I am another of her victims, I believe it is.”

“Holy Mother,” McKenna muttered, and she jabbed a hand through her black hair, her bracelets clinking. “You saying you wanna participate?”

“Perhaps, perhaps not. We’ll discuss the details later, yes?”

“Later, aye,” McKenna replied, voice low and hard. “I’ll drop in on ye tomorrow morning.”

“Then we’re finished here. Ladies, gentleman . . .” Layne-Augustine paused, eyeing Dallas, then leaned his head toward Felicity’s. Shielding his face with the edge of one hand, he stage-whispered, “And have we determined Brûler’s status?”

“We have. His status is flirtatious and in need of a shower. But not a threat.”

“So
that’s
what I smell,” Kallie teased, pulling an edge of her blanket up over her nose.

“Well and good, then. Ladies, gentleman, good day. Enjoy the carnival.” Shoving his dreads behind his shoulders, Layne-Augustine strode toward the steel doors and the foyer and cubicles beyond them, Felicity marching briskly at his side.

Once Layne-Augustine and his Bondalicious assistant had pushed through the doors and out of sight, Mc Kenna twisted around and scooped up a leather jacket lying on the carpet beside the wall—one too large to be her own.

Must be Layne’s, then.

The pixie nomad straightened and tossed the jingling jacket over her shoulder. Kallie caught a glimpse of a fox’s red tail painted on the jacket’s back.

“Will Layne be all right?” Kallie asked.

Mc Kenna swiveled around to face her, and the mingled fury and contempt blazing in her dark eyes hammered into Kallie with all the force of a lead-loaded boxing glove to the sternum. She sucked in a sharp breath.

“
You
dinnae get to ask about Layne,” the leprechaun snapped. “All of this is yer fault. Gage is dead because of you, and so is bloody Basil Augustine, and because he’s dead—many thanks to you—he made use of Layne when Layne could least afford it.”

“When he’s grieving over Gage,” Kallie said. Guilt looped another cold coil around her heart. “I know, and I wish I could change everything that’s hap—”

“Spare me,” Mc Kenna spat. “I don’t give a flying fook what ye know or what ye wish. It changes nothing.” She stabbed a finger at Kallie. “Don’t come near me or Layne ever again. Ye do, and yer a dead woman—I promise you.” The nomad spun and stormed away down the hall, slamming through the double steel doors at its end.

“Y’all have
got
to tell me what the hell is going on,” Dallas muttered.

“Hellfire. What a bitch!” Belladonna said. “Me or her?” Dallas asked.

Belladonna snorted. “Her. I’ve called you a lot of things over the years, Dallas Brûler, but never a bitch.”

“That’s a relief, darlin’.”

“Maybe she’s a bitch,” Kallie said, “but she’s right. Two people are dead because of me. I can’t blame her for wanting to protect Layne or herself.”

“Sure you can.
I
do. Give it a try, Shug,” Belladonna said. “Feels good.”

“You’re pure down-home evil, Bell,” Kallie said, a smile brushing her lips—a smile she felt fade almost immediately. A dark tide of exhaustion poured through her, sweeping away the last of her strength and merging with the pulsating pain in her head. She locked her knees to keep from tumbling to the floor.

She would give anything to curl up somewhere dark and quiet. To transform this heartbreaking morning into a nightmare from which she would actually awaken.

Just like on that other morning nine years ago.

“Let’s get out of here,” she said, and started walking.

Her mind had been stuffed inside an iron maiden bristling with white-hot spikes. Correction: a
spinning
iron maiden bristling with white-hot spikes. Acid burned its way up her throat as her stomach lurched. She swallowed hard. She almost reached for the trash can Belladonna had placed beside the bed, but decided the movement would tip her stomach over the edge.

C’mon, coma, let’s go.
Of course, that would mean that Belladonna’s WebMD prophecies would be proven right, but, ah, hell, who cared?
C’mon, coma!

Kallie heard the door click open, then ease shut again. Heard the tread of cowboy boots. Smelled the stink of valerian underneath the sweet aroma of allspice, cinnamon, and poppies, and something sharp and prickly that she couldn’t name. Caught a whiff of Dallas, wormwood and stale whiskey, as he knelt beside the bed where she lay curled on her side. Her stomach lurched.

“Get your ass into the shower, Brûler,” she muttered.

“Why, thank you ever so much for the potion, Doctor Snake,” he said in a falsetto. “What in heaven’s name would I do without you, Doctor Snake? Why, no thanks are necessary, darlin’, and you’re ever so welcome.”

Kallie lifted the cold cloth off her eyes. Dallas was hunkered down in front of her, a coffee mug in his hand, shadows clinging to him like a second skin. Belladonna had closed all the blinds, and a deep gray gloom fell thick throughout the room.

Even though a smile curved his lips, Dallas’s expression was somber. “Drink up,” he said, nodding at the mug.

Easing up on one elbow, temples throbbing, Kallie wrapped her fingers around the handle he’d turned to face her and lifted the mug to her lips. She sniffed at the steam curling up from the white tea-based potion. “You got booze in here?”

“Yup, just a splash of Wild Turkey to help everything go down smooth.”

“Where’d you get Wild Turkey?”

“From the hotel bar; the herbs and roots I got from the carnival dealer’s room, since mine are at home. Now quit stalling and drink.”

Holding her breath against the nose-pinching odor of the valerian, Kallie chugged the potion. It poured as smooth and warm as heated honey down her throat.

“Medicine in, let the healing begin,” Dallas chanted, his voice a cool hand against her fevered forehead. “Down in the dreaming deep, pain-free you sleep. Medicine in . . .”

Kallie breathlessly handed back the empty mug. The taste of cinnamon lingered on her tongue while the whiskey burned like a coal in her belly. “Thanks,” she said, lying back down and flipping the cloth back over her eyes.

“Did you just say . . . ? Bell, did she just say . . .
thanks
?”

“Mmm-hmmm.”

“Okay.
Now
I’m worried.”

Kallie couldn’t find the energy to think of a retort, or even to lift her hand so she could flip both smartasses off. Maybe later. Dallas’s potion tingled through her veins, warm and soothing. Her muscles relaxed one by one. The iron maiden’s wild spinning slowed and the white-hot spikes cooled, retracted from her mind—courtesy of the poppies in the potion.

Whispers threaded through Kallie’s mind in streamers of purple and blue light.

I
knew
it wasn’t just the charm . . .

“Sorry, baby, but I ain’t got a choice.”

Bullshit, Mama. There’s always a choice.

Warm lips pressed against her cheek. “Sleep, Kallie,” Dallas murmured. “And thanks for saving my life.”

Following the rhythmic pulse of drums from deep within, Kallie kited into darkness on the wings of the past and a dying man’s words.