Black Dust Mambo

by Adrian Phoenix

  “Get away! Don’t touch him!” Kallie yelled.

  The maid scooted away from the man, her dark eyes shifting from uncertain to fearful. Across the hall and a few doors down, another maid with toffee-colored skin and blond curls stood in an open doorway, her hand on the handle of a vacuum, her eyes wide with shock.

  Kallie burned rubber down the hall and dropped to her knees beside the man, then realized with a shock that she knew him. “Dallas?” she said.

  Good God, couldn’t the man go anywhere without someone trying to kill him?

  This was the man she’d idolized ever since he’d sat down beside her on Gabrielle’s porch steps her first night there and had spoken to her like she was an adult and not a wounded kid who needed to be surrounded with emotional packing peanuts before conversation.

  “I hear your mama killed your papa and tried to kill you. That’s fucked up, for true. But in no way was it your fault. I don’t care if you were the worst brat on earth or not. Don’t make a difference. I’ll teach ya how to fix some tricks to keep people from messing with you—if you wanna learn.”

  And she’d very much wanted to learn. Idolized Dallas, yeah. Crushed on, ditto. But often he deliberately made caring for him difficult. And for the last couple of years, he’d made it damned near impossible as he eased his wounded heart with booze and women. Now she thought of him as more of an older brother or young uncle. One who was always in goddamned trouble.

  At the sound of Kallie’s voice, Dallas looked at her; tendrils of wet red hair clung to his temples and forehead. Water spilled from his gasping mouth, and panic glimmered deep in his blue eyes.

  Belladonna whistled. “Holy . . . Is that who I think it is? Wonder who he pissed off this time?”

  “No telling. Hold on, Dallas,” Kallie said, wrapping her arms around his cold, wet shoulders and trying to lift him up into a sitting position. “Just hold on, cher.”

  “Get him on his side.” Belladonna’s voice was calm and practical. “He’s drowning.”

  Kallie struggled to roll Dallas onto his side, but he felt as heavy as a pile of steel crossbeams and, without a freaking crane, just as immovable. An alarm triggered inside of her. Sure, Dallas stood over six feet, lean-muscled and athletic, but she should be able to roll him over. This was all wrong.

  “Help me, Bell. He’s too heavy.” With Belladonna’s help, Kallie managed to roll Dallas onto his side. But that didn’t help. Water still streamed from his mouth and nose. His struggles for air grew weaker.

  The maid said, “I’ll get help.”

  “No! No outside help,” Kallie insisted.

  But, perhaps deciding that Kallie was confused, the maid jumped to her feet, and raced down the hall, so eager to be gone she left behind her cart, the linens she’d dropped, and even her bucket of water. The mingled odors of wormwood and pine drifted up from the bucket’s interior.

  Wormwood? Not your usual cleanser.

  Releasing her hold on Dallas, Kallie leaned over and peered into the water-filled bucket. Her heart hammered against her ribs when she saw the doll with red yarn hair anchored to the bucket’s bottom with chains.

  Kallie grabbed the bucket and dumped it out on the carpet. “Goddammit, Bell, more black work.”

  Belladonna glanced over her shoulder. “What do you wanna bet it’s a gift from an unhappy husband or boyfriend?”

  “Could also be connected with the hex in my room,” Kallie said.

  “Oh. Well. Could be, yeah.”

  Dallas choked, then coughed, before sucking in a ragged breath of air. Then he coughed some more, the sound sandpaper raw.

  “That’s it,” Belladonna said. “Just stay on your side. Water out, air in.”

  Kallie snatched up the doll and unwrapped what looked like a bike chain from around its cloth body. She dropped the chain. It landed on the carpet with a soft squelch. She examined the doll and the expert blanket stitch holding it together. A basic poppet, nothing fancy, but you didn’t need fancy to get the job or a nasty trick done.

  She picked up one of the towels the maid had dropped and spread it out. “You got scissors on you, Bell?” she asked.

  “That I do,” Belladonna said. “A mambo is always prepared.”

  “Do y’all get badges and sashes like the Scouts?” Kallie asked, holding out her hand.

  Belladonna snorted. “Scouts. Girl, please.” She dropped her cuticle scissors into Kallie’s waiting palm. “Scouts don’t know diddly about being prepared. They think being able to rub two sticks together when they need a fire and knowing how to deal with a rabid squirrel are survival skills, but what would happen if they ran up against a loa pissed off about the poor offerings left on a graveyard altar? They’d run and scream like little girls.”

  “Boy Scouts, sure.” Kallie used the cuticle scissors to snip open the doll’s seams. “What would Girl Scouts do?”

  “No doubt they’d stand frozen, mouths hanging open, eyes bugging out. Would not be attractive. But at least they’d be quiet.”

  “Nothing quite like silent terror,” Kallie agreed as she opened up the doll and dumped out its contents onto the towel. Spanish moss and ivy root; dirt—most likely from a graveyard; powder smelling of bitter wormwood, sulfur, and pine; a small piece of ribbed white fabric. She’d bet anything it’d been cut or torn from one of Dallas’s tees.

  And, curled up like a rain-drunk earthworm, a small twist of paper with Dallas Brûler written on it in smeared red ink over and over.

  Kallie nudged the paper with a bathrobe-protected fingertip. It flipped over, revealing smudged black letters reading: Compliments of Gabrielle LaRue.

  She stared at the words, pulse pounding in her temples, trying to make sense of them. Whoever was doing this was one sick jackass. No way would Gabrielle try to harm, let alone kill, Dallas. Or her. Someone was playing some very twisted games.

  Sure about that?

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

  Kallie felt sick, lightheaded. She swiveled around on her knees to face Dallas and Belladonna, the intensity of the root doctor’s coughing summoning up the image of Gabrielle’s pair of black aces. Death.

  The mojo bag hanging around Dallas’s throat hadn’t been powerful enough to protect him from the jinxed poppet.

  Soul-eating hexes. Poppets more powerful than a strong and beaucoup skilled root doctor. Fear sawed along her nerves. What the hell was going on?

  “Kallie, go,” Dallas rasped, rolling onto his hands and knees. “You gotta—” But whatever he intended to say was lost in another lung-scraping coughing fit.

  “Don’t talk,” she said. “Just breathe.”

  Dallas shook his head, still coughing, fist against his mouth. Sweat popped up on his forehead, mingling with the water dripping from his hair. Just a rim of cornflower blue encircled his dilated pupils.

  Wonder how much wormwood and sulfur and bon Dieu knows what else he sucked in along with all the water?

  “He’s right,” Belladonna said. “We gotta get you outta here before Augustine shows up. Go inside and grab some of Dallas’s clothes, and let’s get your ass gone.”

  Dallas waved a hand—go ahead.

  “You seem to have a deadly, if not fatal, effect on males, Ms. Rivière.”

  Kallie stiffened. Her gaze skipped past Belladonna’s oh-shit! expression, following the posh sound of Augustine’s voice to its source.

  The Brit, a bluish bruise shadowing his jaw, strode down the hallway, but he wasn’t alone, dammit. A man and a woman wearing tailored and expensive-looking black suits and sleek shades flanked him, their strides smooth, their black-gloved hands hanging easy at their sides. But their flowing movement, balanced and sure, whispered to Kallie of hidden and deadly skill.

  Not hotel security, no. Hecatean Alliance security. Warriors trained in martial arts and magic. But knowing that still made it hard to keep from laughing at the Hecatean Alliance symbol stitched in red above the right breast pockets of their suits—a pentagram co
ntaining the letters HA in gothic script. All that was missing was a red-stitched exclamation point.

  Kallie rose to her feet as Augustine sauntered to a stop in front of her, the black-suited guards halting behind him. He pointed at the floor with a discreet index finger. Stay. Good HA(!) warriors.

  Augustine tilted his head at Dallas, a lock of nutmeg hair sliding across his eyes. “So what has happened here, and how did you—of all people, Ms. Rivière—manage to stumble across it?”

  “Dallas is a family friend,” Kallie said. “And it looks to me like I’m not the only target. Seems like someone is killing hoodoos.”

  “Trying to, at least,” Augustine said. “Or perhaps someone is trying to make it look that way, yes? So far only a nomad conjurer has died. No hoodoos.”

  Kallie’s hands knotted into fists. “What are you saying?”

  “You’re either a very clever murderer, Ms. Rivière, or an intended victim in need of protection. In either case, I need to take you into custody.”

  “No!” Grabbing the doorjambs, Dallas hauled himself to his feet and fixed his dilated gaze on Augustine. “Who the . . . hell are . . .” His words trailed off as he swayed, his square-toed Durangos scuffing across the carpet like a drunk surfing a flat floor.

  “Uh-oh.” Still kneeling beside the doorway, Bella-donna reached up a steadying hand and grabbed hold of Dallas’s forearm.

  Dallas rallied enough to finish his question in a slurred whisper: “. . . you?” Then his eyes rolled up in his head and his hands slipped from the doorjambs. He fell, collapsing onto Belladonna and riding her down to the floor.

  Kallie dropped to her knees and grabbed two handfuls of Dallas’s shirt. “Bell? You okay?” Despite the unconscious root doctor’s deadweight, this time she heaved him off of her friend without any difficulty.

  No chained-up poppet anchoring him to the goddamned floor this go-round.

  Belladonna blinked at the ceiling. “Caught him,” she gasped.

  “Lucky you, Ms. Brown,” Augustine said, voice dry enough to spark a forest fire. “Congratulations. I shall leave you to tend to your magicked friend while I take Ms. Rivière into custody.”

  Belladonna sat up and darted a glance at Kallie, distress shadowing her face. “I need to go with her.”

  “I’m afraid that’s not possible,” Augustine said, not a single ounce of regret in his polished voice.

  “Am I under arrest?” Kallie rose to her feet and swiveled to face the Hecatean master.

  Augustine lifted his shoulder in an elegant and very European half-shrug. “If you wish to be technical.”

  “I wish to be.”

  “Then yes. You’re under arrest.”

  “She’s not guilty of anything,” Belladonna insisted, climbing to her feet. “And I promised her aunt I wouldn’t leave her alone.”

  “Ms. Rivière won’t be alone; myself or someone else will be with her at all times. And, if it’s any comfort, I’ll be sending someone to debrief you and . . .” Augustine glanced at Dallas and cocked an eyebrow.

  “Amazing. Someone’s name you don’t know.” Bella-donna said, hand on hip. “This is Dallas Brûler, a root doctor outta Chalmette.”

  “I’m fine with going, Bell. I’d like to get this all straightened out,” Kallie said. “I didn’t kill Gage, so I ain’t got nothing to hide.”

  “I promised Gabrielle, dammit.” Belladonna focused a narrow-eyed gaze on Augustine. “You’d better keep her safe.”

  Genuine amusement defrosted the winter-ice expression from Augustine’s face. “I admire your loyalty to your friend, Ms. Brown. She’ll be quite safe.”

  “Mmm-hmm. You’d better hope so.” Belladonna shifted her weight onto one hip, looking unconvinced.

  Kallie bent and bundled up the bike chain and the doll’s evil innards in the towel. When she straightened, she handed the poppet package to Belladonna. “Take care of that,” she said. “And talk to Dallas. Find out if he saw anyone.”

  “Sure thing, Shug.”

  “I apologize,” Augustine said, again without an ounce of regret, “but I’m going to need that. Evidence. Magic DNA. I can’t allow you to destroy it, Ms. Brown.”

  A muscle ticked in Belladonna’s jaw, but she handed the towel bundle to the Brit.

  “I think you just made up the ‘magic DNA’ bit. Just be sure you let me or Kallie finish unwinding that spell when you’re done.”

  Augustine nodded. “Of course.” He looked at Kallie. “Shall we, Ms. Rivière?”

  Kallie’s gaze flicked from Augustine to the waiting HA(!) warriors. Like I have a choice. “Let’s get this god-damned show on the road.” Spinning on the ball of one bare foot, Kallie marched down the hall, chin lifted. She wondered if her black-uniformed escorts would just glide up beside her as a reminder that she was under arrest and not leading a parade, or if they’d just tackle and cuff her.

  Prisoner or protected? At the moment, she didn’t give a rat’s ass.

  The words written on the curl of parchment paper burned molten in her mind: Compliments of Gabrielle LaRue.

  If they were true, she’d never be safe anywhere. Not unless she fought back with everything she had—magic, muscle, and cold heart.

  And lost the only family she had.

  SEVEN

  BONDALICIOUS

  Bracing his arm against his broken ribs, Layne eased up from his chair. “That was one helluva wicked right hook,” he said. “Woman knows how to throw a punch.”

  “Knows how to land one too,” Mc Kenna agreed sourly. “I hope ol’ Basil can catch up with her before she disappears.”

  “If he loses her, we’ll find her. She ain’t slipping away from us.”

  “She’d better not.”

  Walking to the door, Layne grabbed hold of each side of the threshold and leaned out into the now quiet hall. His breath caught in his throat as the movement skewered red-hot pain through his sternum. Holy shit, okay, not smart. I’m giving myself permission to kick my own ass if I do that again.

  “Where do you think yer going? Sit yer arse back down in tha’ chair.”

  Once the pain eased off the throttle and he could breathe again, Layne said, “There you go again. Acting like we’re still married.” The scent of cinnamon and fresh-baked pastry from the kitchens below squeezed a growl from his empty belly.

  “An’ there you go again, acting all knuckle-dragging man-stupid. I was yer teacher long before I married you and I am still yer teacher. It’s yer best interests I have in mind.”

  “I hear you, shuvani,” Layne murmured, watching as Basil Augustine, cell phone pressed to his ear, stalked into the elevator at the end of the hall. Calling for reinforcements, most likely, to chase down one pissed-off hoodoo beauty with riveting violet eyes and quick-swinging fists.

  And possibly Gage’s murderer.

  But something deep inside Layne whispered no, no, no. Intuition or enchantment? It bugged the ever-loving hell out of him that he couldn’t be sure of anything at the moment except that he was alive and sucking in painful breaths of air, thanks to Kallie Rivière.

  Basil Augustine swiveled around in the elevator’s white-and-gold interior, jabbed a long finger against a numbered button, then stepped back. He flipped his cell phone closed. A lock of dark hair swept across his eyes, shadowing his face. His glittering gaze caught Layne’s, and his lips thinned into a tight, arrogant smile.

  Doesn’t think much of nomads. Well, let’s just justify that opinion.

  Layne released the threshold and sauntered into the hall. He returned Augustine’s smile with an upward tilt of his chin, then rubbed his middle finger alongside his nose. Augustine arched one dark eyebrow. But as the elevator’s polished-steel doors slid shut, blocking the illusionist from view, Layne caught a glimpse of Augustine’s taut smile relaxing into one of genuine amusement.

  “Huh. Didn’t think he had it in him.”

  “Didn’t think he had what?” McKenna asked.

  “Humor.”


  “Maybe he was just giving you what he thought you needed to see,” Mc Kenna said in her calm and neutral teaching voice, switching in an instant from friend to shuvani. “Appearances are everything to illusionists.”

  “I wonder what he’ll show Kallie when he catches up to her? I got a feeling it ain’t gonna be what she wants to see.”

  “That’s fine by me,” McKenna said. “Whether she intended it or not—and I’m not convinced that she’s anywhere near innocent in this—our Gage is dead because of tha’ woman.”

  Layne looked down into Mc Kenna’s dark eyes. A storm of furious grief raged in their depths; a storm matching the maelstrom battering him from within. “I know,” he said quietly. “Believe me, Kenn, I know.”

  “Still . . . because of her, yer alive, yer soul intact,” Mc -Kenna said. She raked her fingers through her short dark hair, and Layne caught a faint whiff of musky amber, her natural perfume. “And that bugs the shite outta me because now—whether any of us like it or not—yer fate is tied to hers.”

  “The least of my worries, yeah? I’ll deal with it later.” Layne turned around and red-hot pain spiked through his chest. His vision grayed. “Christ,” he whispered.

  Mc Kenna’s hands locked around his biceps, her strong fingers steadying him until his sight cleared. “That’s what I’m talking about,” she said. “You need to rest, so sit yer arse back down.”

  “No.” Layne carefully peeled her fingers from his arms. Pink finger-shaped marks branded his skin. “Not until I’ve tended to Gage.”

  “Or better yet,” McKenna continued, dark brows slashing down, “you should go back to yer room and lie down. I’ll take care of things here.”

  Layne shook his head and strode back to the room, pain twinging against his sternum. Hurt all you damned want, you ain’t stopping me. Nothing’s stopping me.

  “Layne, please, there’s nae one to tend to anymore,” Mc Kenna said, her brogue thickening. “Ain’t nothing left o’ him. Go lie down.”