Black Dust Mambo (11 page)

Flatline. Was it Kallie? Would he fail Gage all over again?

Heart kicking against his ribs and spiking pain through his chest, Layne jumped to his feet, his gaze on the open doorway across the hall.

A hand clamped onto his shoulder and practically shoved him back down onto the bench. “You get up again—”

“You’ll Tase me, I know,” Layne growled, looking up at Beckham. He noted beads of sweat at her hairline.
She’s worried.
And he relaxed a little, thinking a Hecatean Alliance guard wouldn’t get worked up over a stranger like Kallie. So maybe it had been another member of the security force who’d taken two bullets.

And maybe, just maybe, Kallie hadn’t even been involved.

A guard pushing what looked like a medical crash cart raced down the hall. The cart nearly popped a wheelie as he took the turn into the room.

“Can you see anything?” McKenna asked in a near whisper, her voice still bristling with ice.

Layne shook his head. “Nope.”

Basil Augustine backed out of the room, a bemused expression on his face. He smoothed a hand down the front of his pristine suit jacket.

A shout of “Clear!” echoed from the Q1 room, followed by a sharp
ker-thap.

Augustine murmured.
this
coming.>
He turned around and relief flashed across his face when he spotted Layne.

“Shit,” Layne breathed, staring at the Brit. An electric prickle stood the hair up along the back of his neck and goosebumped his skin—a familiar and blood-chilling sensation, one he’d experienced more times than he cared to remember.

“Again! Clear!”
Ker-thap.

Not only was Basil Augustine dead, but he hadn’t crossed over. And given the intensity of his gaze, it looked like he had no intention of doing so any time soon.

“Shit,” Layne repeated. The last thing he needed at the moment was a passenger—not when he had Gage and his family to tend to, a killer to hunt, and a blood price to collect.

“Hey, that’s what everyone thinks,” Layne said, “and that’s understandable, but you’re done. I’m sorry about that, I truly am, but you don’t get to finish stuff. You need to move on.”

“Who you talking to?” McKenna whispered. “Who died?”

“Augustine, and he’s looking for a body.”

“Holy Mother. Where is he?”

“Right in front of us.”

Augustine sauntered across the hall, moving just as he had in life. Newly dead and possibly in shock after a violent death, he was unaware that the laws of the physical world and of his own cooling body no longer applied.

But he’d learn soon enough. They always did.

“Clear!”
Ker-thap.

Augustine stopped at the bench, his attention fixed on Layne. Layne smelled ozone crackling through the air—the thunderstorm scent of ghosts.

here.
And certainly not in such a mundane manner.>

Layne’s heart skipped a beat. “Is she all right? Was the killer caught?”

Augustine nodded.

“Who was the sonuvabitch who killed Gage?”

Mc Kenna stiffened beside Layne. “They caught Gage’s killer?”

a
killer, but I have my doubts about it being Mr. Buck-land’s killer.>

“Why do you think that?”

“Uh-huh. And this is in addition to all the things you have to finish and all the instructions you need to pass along?” Layne asked. “Ain’t buying it.”

“Desperation. Lack of time. Who knows?”

Curiosity gleaming in his eyes, Augustine bent and touched a hand to McKenna’s gelled and anime-angled dark hair.

Goosebumps prickled along her bare arms, and she hugged herself, shivering convulsively. “Did that bloody bastard just touch me?” she asked, eyeing the empty air in front of the bench.

“Yup.”

“Wanker.”

“Who’s a wanker? Me or him?” Layne asked.

“He is. You’re just man-stupid.”

Chuckling, Augustine lifted his hand.

He returned his gaze to Layne.

he said, grasping Layne’s shoulder.

Electricity thrummed into Layne as the Brit’s hand disappeared into his flesh. Twisting away from Augustine’s grip, Layne bolted to his feet. Pain jabbed into his ribs with each panicked thump of his heart. “Get the fuck away from me!”

Augustine straightened and looked at his hand, wriggling his fingers.

He raised his shining gaze to Layne.

“
My
home, and you ain’t getting in.”

Frowning, Augustine flipped his hair out of his eyes with a flick of his fingers.

“Most can’t. But I’ve learned how, and you ain’t getting in.”

coincidences, your arrival here when you were needed most shouldn’t be wasted.>

Layne backed up a few paces as Augustine stepped toward him.

“Freeze, asshole! Or her brains will decorate the wall-paper.”

Layne heard the click of a trigger being pulled back. He turned around. Beckham pressed the muzzle of her gun against the back of Mc Kenna’s head. Fear trailed cold fingers down his spine. The other guard, Jennings, stood against the wall, fingers touching the mouth of his gun holster, looking both startled and uncertain. But Layne had no doubt he’d back his partner’s play—whether he agreed with it or not.

“You, me, and my gun are gonna sit your nomad ass back down,” Beckham said. “You said that Lord Augustine was dead and looking for a body. You must be a Vessel.”

“No, I’m just bored and spouting bullshit,” Layne replied.

“He
does
spout bullshit fer the sake of it,” McKenna affirmed. “I wouldn’t pay him any mind. Men, y’know?”

“You both need to shut the hell up,” Beckham said. “If Lord Augustine needs a Vessel, then I guess you’re his man. If you’re not a Vessel, then you have nothing to worry about, do you?”

“Screw yourself, Basil.”

“Do you know what yer askin’ of him?” Mc Kenna pleaded. “Do you know what it’s like to carry the dead inside of you? To take a backseat in yer own body?”

“Don’t know,” Beckham replied, her voice taut, “and really don’t care. Now shut up before I have you Tased.”

“In addition to being shot? Sounds like someone needs tha’ Taser shoved up her tight little arse,” McKenna muttered. “Along with her gun.”

“Bring it, baby.” Amusement curled through Beck-ham’s voice.

A dark smile curved Mc Kenna’s lips. A smile Layne knew well. She’d never leave New Orleans without answering the guard’s challenge. Beckham might as well save herself extra pain, bruises, and humiliation by bending over, inserting said item into said arse, and being done with it.

“Put the damned gun away. Christ!” Layne sat back down on the bench. “It ain’t necessary. I won’t resist the bastard.”

Beckham snorted. “Like I’m going to take your word for it. The gun stays put.”

“It’s all right, lad,” McKenna said, offering him a smile. “Don’t worry about me. Just keep yourself safe and intact, yeah? I’ll be waiting for you.”

Layne nodded. “You watch your ass too, buttercup.”

Augustine eased onto the bench beside Layne.

“Whatever. Shut the fuck up and just get in already.” Layne closed his eyes and exhaled. He tried to force his tensed and knotted muscles to relax, but only managed to twist them up even tighter.

Augustine sieved into Layne, cell by cell, pouring into him in a cold, numbing flood of charged and ozone-drenched energy, short-circuiting Layne’s control over his own body. Alien memories, sensations, and thoughts swept him up like a canyon hiker caught in a raging flash flood.

As crackling static filled Layne’s mind with white noise and he felt his sense of self slipping, the first flutterings of panic winged through him. A violent storm of electricity thrummed into him. Isolating and caging him in a pit of noisy white light—voiceless, blind, and deaf.

A vessel filled once more.

F
OURTEEN
D
EADLY TO THE
M
ALE OF THE
S
PECIES

“You all right, Shug?”

Kallie lifted her chin from her knees and looked up, following the voice to its source. Belladonna stood in the doorway, black leather bag slung across one shoulder of her tunic, sympathy and worry battling for dominance in her hazel eyes.

“Hey, Bell.” Unwrapping her arms from around her legs, Kallie pushed her hair back from her face. Her head ached and throbbed. “Actually, it’s been a really sucky day.” The smell of rubbing alcohol and coppery blood stung her nostrils.

Belladonna’s gaze flicked over to Augustine’s body. Torn packaging from medical supplies haloed him in shredded plastic and paper. Useless leads trailed away to silent monitors. “No shit,” she murmured, walking into the room. “I think that’s a monster understatement, Shug.”

Belladonna’s movement caught the eye of the guard/ medic who’d struggled so hard to resuscitate Augustine. He looked up from where he knelt beside the Brit’s body packing up equipment. He opened his mouth as though he was about to order Belladonna out, then he glanced at Kallie. Shaking his head, he resumed what he was doing without a single word spoken.

“You did everything possible,” Kallie said to him. “It ain’t your fault.” But guilt burned the back of her throat. Not his fault, no. But if not for her, Augustine—just like Gage—wouldn’t be dead.

A muscle jumped in the guard’s jaw. He kept packing.

Belladonna crouched down beside Kallie. A heated whiff of patchouli curled out from the neck of her tunic. Frowning, she pushed Kallie’s hair aside and pressed gentle fingers to the back of her skull. Pain flared at Belladonna’s touch, merging with the red-hot knot of hurt pounding against Kallie’s mind. She pulled away from her friend’s probing hand.

“
Ow
.”

“You’re hurt,” Belladonna said, her voice indignant. “Has anyone taken the time to look at you?”

“They’re pretty busy, and it’s nothing serious. I hit my head, that’s all. Looks worse than it is, yada yada.”

“Girl, how would you know? You could have a concussion or a brain injury that’s swelling this very minute. You could be in a coma soon.”

“You promise?” Kallie rested her forehead on her knees again. “You’ve
got
to stop looking at those god-damned medical sites. Besides, a coma sounds damned good right now. I just want a bottle of aspirin and years of sleep.”

“If you’ve got a concussion, then sleep’s the
last
thing you should have.”

“Don’t even
think
about trying to keep me from sleeping, Belladonna Brown. I don’t give a rat’s ass what WebMD says.”

“Mmm-hmmm. You’re gonna regret those words one day.”

“Not likely.”

“Well, then, let’s get you to my room so you can lapse into a death-coma in comfort at least,” Belladonna said. “Since your bathrobe’s ruined, I’m gonna see if I can rustle up a blanket or a sheet to cover you with. You can’t go prancing down the halls in your undies—pretty as they are.”

“Prancing ain’t on my to-do list,” Kallie muttered.

Belladonna slipped an arm around Kallie’s shoulders and gave her a quick squeeze, murmuring, “I know, Shug.” The comforting warmth of Belladonna’s arm vanished when she rose to her feet and padded away.

Kallie raised her head and the room twirled around her in a slow pirouette. Her belly clenched. She swallowed hard, waiting the nausea out. Once it had eased, she peeked under the table. At the far end of the room, beneath the sunlight-filled windows, she caught a glimpse of Rosette’s rubber-soled shoes and the black-clad knees of two more guards.

“Sorry, but an eye for an eye is never enough.”

What had the murdering maid meant by that—aside from implying that she was one-upping the standard biblical thou-shalt-reap-bloody-revenge permission slip? Kallie had never seen the woman before, didn’t know her, so how could she have wronged her?

And why had the bitch gone after Dallas too?

Augustine’s words, spoken maybe only thirty or forty minutes ago, circled through Kallie’s thoughts.

“I think it’s more personal than that. You, your aunt’s former protégé, an attempt to frame your aunt for murder. In truth, your aunt Gabrielle seems to be the connecting factor.”

Maybe he’d been right about that. Only one way to find out.

Kallie eased to her feet. Pain pulsed behind her eyes. A cold sweat beaded her forehead. She waited a moment to make sure she wasn’t going to puke or drop to the floor in a dead faint, then padded around the sigil-etched table—careful not to brush against it, just in case. She stopped behind the HA guards as they hauled the now-conscious maid into a sitting position against the wall.

Hands cuffed behind her back, Rosette looked a little the worse for wear with her nose swollen and slanted, her face blood-smeared. Black bruises were just beginning to wing out from the bridge of her nose and underneath her dazed eyes.

One of the guards glanced over his shoulder at Kallie. “Keep your distance.”

“Ain’t gotta tell me twice.” Kallie said. “I just have a few questions for her.”

Rosette looked up at the sound of Kallie’s voice, and her gaze latched onto Kallie, no longer dazed or unfocused. An expression Kallie couldn’t name—resignation, despair, hatred, maybe all three—rippled across her bruised face.

“And I have one for you, Kallie Rivière,” she said. “How many people are you going to allow to die in your place before you accept your fate?”

Allow
to die?

Mama turns and faces her, aims the gun carefully between her shaking hands.

Uneasiness iced Kallie’s guts. “What fate? And who the hell
are
you?”

“An eye for an eye is never enough. Never, never, never.”

Kallie added madness to that list of emotions she couldn’t name. She took a step closer, but the guard swiveled to face her, one hand out at chest height. His gaze swept over her, pausing at her breasts, lingering at her thighs, before returning to her face, a happy little smile on his lips.

Kallie lifted her chin, cheeks burning. Well, what had she expected? She
was
in her goddamned undies, after all, and the guard
was
a breathing male with eyes.

Looking past him to Rosette, Kallie said, “You murdered two men who never did you any harm, and for what? Why? You even killed Gage’s soul, you goddamned
chienne
!”

Guilt pooled deep in the maid’s dark and dilated eyes, guilt she tried, but failed, to blink away. Kallie saw it as the maid looked away and down, a translucent ghost of shame and regret haunting her eyes.

So
that
had bothered her, at least. Small comfort. Gage had been more than murdered; he’d been destroyed. And maybe that was why she’d come with a gun this time instead of waiting for Kallie in a magic-allowed zone with another soul-shredding hex.

“That wasn’t supposed to happen,” the maid said. “How did you know?”

“That doesn’t matter. What
does
matter is why.”

Rosette lifted her gaze, sunlight shimmering in her cropped platinum-blonde curls. The vulnerability Kallie had seen before was gone. Now a cold, hard light glinted in her eyes. “Your fate comes compliments of Gabrielle LaRue, and you can thank her for it,” she said. “You want answers? Ask her.”

Kallie had half expected those words or others like them, given the wet curl of paper she’d dumped from the eviscerated poppet, but to hear the lie spoken aloud hit as hard as a low-hanging tree branch snapped back by a grinning and obnoxious cousin.

“Who
are
you?” Kallie repeated. Her pulse pounded in her temples.

“Check my employee file,” the maid said, her voice flat.

“That’s it for the Q-and-A session,” the guard said, swinging his other hand up. “You need to vacate the room so we can move her to a secure location.”

“A secure location? Y’all got such a thing?” Kallie asked, glancing across the room at Augustine. A sheet now draped his bloodied form. A pang pierced her. “I thought
this
was a secure location. So did he.” She gave her gaze back to the guard.

His jaw tightened and he shifted, his boot soles scuffing the slate. “A
more
secure location,” he replied. “You need to leave, miss.”

“Not a problem, sir,” Belladonna said, handing Kallie a beige blanket. “We’ll get our butts in gear.”

Kallie twirled the blanket up over her shoulders and clasped it closed in front of her. No longer feeling quite as exposed, vulnerable, some of the tension leaked from her muscles. “Thanks, Bell.”

“Hellfire. There’s that word again,” Belladonna said. “Twice in one day. Either you’ve got a concussion or you’ve been replaced by a pod person.”

“Maybe a thump to the skull will convince you otherwise.”

“I think I’d prefer the polite pod-Kallie to the skull-thumping non-pod version.”

“And I bet the pod-Belladonna would be quiet. As quiet as a mouse in a library.”

Belladonna snorted. “Now you’re just delirious.”

The guard sighed. “Time to go, ladies.”

As Kallie started for the door, Rosette called, “All of this and anything else that’s coming can be laid upon the doorstep of Gabrielle LaRue. Remember that.”

Kallie paused. “The only doorstep Gage and Augustine’s deaths can be laid upon is yours. And yours alone.” She resumed walking as guilt shifted inside of her, restless and cold, a snake seeking the sun.

Dunno, Kallie-girl. Maybe the blame ain’t hers alone.

“Do you know what the crazy bitch is talking about?” Belladonna asked.

Kallie shook her head. “Not really. She claims to have some kinda grudge against Gabrielle.” Stopping in the doorway, she turned and looked at Augustine’s body one last time.

Blood had soaked through the sheet in a couple of quarter-sized spots. She tried to think of something to say, something meaningful, a good-bye and thank-you to the man who had taken a bullet for her, had died in her place, but—once again—her aching mind only tossed out clichéd and trite crumbs.

Wish I could turn back time. . . .

I can never repay you. . . .

I’m so sorry. . . .

Thank you. . . .

“Eternal rest grant unto him, O
bon Dieu,
” she whispered, but the rest of the prayer wisped away like smoke beneath a ceiling fan, the words beyond her recall. “Good journey,” she wished him. Turning away, she walked out of the room, Belladonna a patchouli-scented pace behind her.

Kallie was surprised to see Dallas sitting on a black metal bench against the opposite wall, his jeans-clad legs stretched out in front of him. His red hair stuck up in various odd places on his skull and was flattened down in others; his good-looking face bristled with reddish whiskers. But at least he looked a damned sight better than when she’d last seen him. He was conscious, for one thing.

Relief flashed across Dallas’s face when he saw her. Jumping to his feet, he said, “Hey, darlin’. You okay? You’re looking a little rough.”

“There’s the pot calling the kettle black,” she drawled. “Take a look in the mirror lately?”

A rueful grin tugged at Dallas’s lips. “Afraid it’d crack if I did, and I don’t wanna add to my sudden run of bad luck.” He raked the fingers of both hands through his hair—for all the good it did. His hair remained spiked and flattened. “But you ain’t answered me. You okay, hon?”

“Yeah, I’m okay. Compared to the condition Basil Augustine and Gage Buckland are in, a little rough ain’t nothing to complain about.”

Dallas nodded, sympathy in his summer-evening-blue eyes. “True enough. Let’s head on outta here then. Maybe you should forget the rest of the carnival and head on home.”

“Maybe. But that’s for me to decide, Mr. Bossy. By the way, why are you spending money on a hotel room when you live so close?”

“Yes, Dallas, why, oh, why, pray tell?” Belladonna said, tone gleeful.

Dallas glowered at Belladonna from underneath his ginger brows and Kallie saw the accusation in his eyes:
Did you blab?

“Nope,” Belladonna said, apparently seeing the same question in his eyes. “But if you don’t fess up, Dallas Brûler, I
will
tell her.”

Kallie groaned. “No confessions until after I’ve had some sleep.”

“Fair enough,” Dallas agreed, relief in his voice.

“I’ll make sure you don’t forget,” Belladonna said, patting his shoulder.

The root doctor aimed a sour look at her. “Thanks.”

Kallie saw Layne a couple of yards to her left, standing in a little knot of people composed of a pair of HA(!) guards, a tight-jawed Mc Kenna-pixie, and a strawberry blonde in a rose skirt.

So I
did
hear the nomads. Wonder what brought them here? And why the hell is Layne cuffed?

One of the guards slipped a pair of needle-nosed pliers from inside his suit jacket and snipped off the flex-cuffs binding Layne’s wrists. The nomad swung his arms around, then winced. Touching a hand to his sternum, he said, “I had no idea he was injured. This is most inconvenient.”

Kallie stared at Layne, cold beneath her blanket. Between the gunshots, Augustine’s death, the guilt coiled in the pit of her belly, and her weariness, she
had
to be hearing things, because she could’ve sworn the nomad had just spoken in a posh British accent.

“What the hell?” Belladonna asked. “Is Layne mocking Felicity?”

“Dunno. Who’s Felicity?”

“Lord Augustine’s assistant. The Bondalicious chick with the Bluetooth and the gorgeous rose-colored pumps.”

Leave it to Belladonna with her budding
America’s Next Top Model
fashion sense to notice the color of someone’s shoes. But . . .

“
Bondalicious
? Seriously?” Kallie slid Belladonna a side-long glance.

“Seriously. Look at the woman.”