Black Dust Mambo

by Adrian Phoenix

  “And then?”

  “I dunno. Maybe I’ll try to turn this—what I am, and others too—into something more than a death sentence.”

  Mc Kenna reached up with one hand and trailed the backs of her fingers against Layne’s cheek, her touch warm. Something sad and wistful flashed in her eyes. “Ah, such a fool you are.”

  Layne bent and pressed his lips to her forehead, tasted a hint of sweat and salt. “I know, buttercup,” he whispered. “And I’m lucky to have you bringing it to my attention.”

  “Very lucky. And don’t worry, luv, I’ll make sure the bloody wanker leaves when he’s supposed to.”

  “I don’t think that’s going to be a problem,” Layne said, straightening. He released his hold on her shoulders. “Once he sees Rosette get what’s coming to her, he’ll go. But, in the meantime, he’s got work to finish.”

  And so do I. Making sure no one else is trying to kill Kallie Rivière. “Keep yourself safe,” McKenna said, her dark eyes somber.

  “I will, buttercup,” Layne promised, then turned and walked up the path to the black-iron gate.

  EIGHTEEN

  SUMMONING

  She stands beside the bayou’s cypress-shadowed waters, a gleaming knife clenched in one hand, a red candle cupped in the other. The mingled scents of roses and cinnamon curl into the air as the anointed wax melts, trickling hot over her fingers. In the darkness behind her, the rhythmic and steady throb of palm-slapped drums echoes through the night.

  Ripples arrow along the bayou’s green surface as a gator glides toward the bank. But her gaze seeks the shadow flitting among the live oaks and cypress on the bayou’s other side, a man-shaped shadow that drops from upright to all fours. A shadow that lopes in easy, four-pawed grace across the sawgrass, moonlight pooled in its gleaming silver eyes.

  A long, rising howl slashes into the night, a howl answered by others, merging into a wild, multitoned song, raw and wild and fierce. The hair rises on her arms, the back of her neck. Hands thump faster against the drums.

  She lifts the candle, its flame flickering with the movement. Her heart pounds in time with the drums, and her courage flares and dims like the flame.

  “He comes,” a woman’s voice says—an unknown, but strangely familiar bayou-spiced voice. “And the others too. I hope you know what you be doing, p’tite doux.”

  She hopes so too. What she’s doing scares her spitless.

  She summons the loup-garou to offer him a traitor’s still-beating heart.

  Her own.

  Kallie jerked awake, the eerie howls of hunting wolves still echoing in her head. Like a line-drying sheet caught in a hurricane, her dream and its images vanished. And even though she tried to recapture it, her dream eluded her, beyond all recall. Instead, Layne Valin’s image filled her mind’s eye, tall, lean, and yummy, his pine-green eyes locked on hers.

  For a second, everything quiets inside of her as though he presses a soothing finger against her lips and whispers, Shhh . His eyes widen a little as though he feels the strange connection too; then Kallie notices the small black fox inked beneath his right eye, and her heart sinks. . . .

  Gage.

  A nightmarish flood of images rushed through her mind: Gage’s bloodied body in her bed, Layne’s stark and grief-stricken face, the black-dust hex on the mattress, Dallas sprawled on the floor, the maid and her gun, Augustine’s death.

  “Your fate comes compliments of Gabrielle LaRue, and you can thank her for it. You want answers? Ask her.”

  “Shit,” Kallie whispered. “Hey, Shug. You’re alive.”

  Still curled on her side, Kallie looked in the direction of Belladonna’s voice. Her friend sat beside the open French windows, a paperback in her hands. Beyond her, twilight smudged the sky purple and deepest blue.

  “Hey, Bell,” Kallie croaked. “What time is it?”

  “Seven-thirty, a quarter to eight. You’ve been out about ten hours, girl. How you feeling?”

  Kallie considered. The headache seemed to be gone, and she felt clear-headed. Physically she was okay. But emotionally? She had a little work to do—like figuring this whole mess out.

  The spicy smells of fried chicken and grilled shrimp filtered into the room from outside. Her stomach rumbled. “I’d kill for a beignet and a café au lait,” she said.

  “Mmm. Maybe even maim,” Belladonna agreed, tossing her book—a historical romance, judging by the buff, bare-chested, kilt-wearing man on the cover—onto the table. “Let’s grab Dallas—boy’s got a story to tell you—and get our butts over to Café Du Monde.”

  “Sounds good,” Kallie said. “But first, can I borrow your cell? I have a call to make.”

  “I don’t know where she is, Kal,” Jackson Bonaparte said, shoving his chair back from the kitchen table. “I got in from Grand Isle this mornin’, and she was beaucoup worked up about somethin’.” Finished with his supper of Trix (mixing bowl-sized serving), he placed the purple glass bowl on the floor in front of Cielo’s front paws. The Siberian husky eagerly shoved her muzzle into the bowl and lapped up the pink-tinted milk, her name tag clinking against the glass rim. “Gabrielle put a mojo bag around my neck and made me promise to stay home until she got back.”

  “Did she say why?” Kallie asked.

  Jackson rose to his feet, crossed the kitchen to the back door, and leaned against the frame. “Somethin’ about a storm comin’. But I’m pretty damned sure she didn’t mean an actual storm, y’know?” He watched the deepening night through the screen door’s mesh. Katydids buzzed in humid air thick with the smell of his aunt’s roses.

  “Did someone pick her up?”

  “Nope, she headed off on foot. But . . . is somethin’ goin’ on between you two? Cuz I saw a poppet on her table. One that freaked me out a little.”

  “You? Freaked? Why’s that, Jacks? You’ve seen tons of poppets.”

  “Yeah, but this one’s got brown yarn for hair and purple button eyes. It ain’t finished, but . . . shit, I think it’s you, Kallie. You okay, short stuff? What’s goin’ on?”

  Kallie drew in a long breath.

  Cielo nosed at the screen door, then glanced at Jackson, her eyes—one blue and one brown—full of expectation. Unlatching the hook, Jackson swung the door open. His dog bounded out into the night-blanketed yard, her tail curved over her back.

  “Kallie?” Jackson asked again, her silence filling him with apprehension. “You still there? Is somethin’ goin’ on?”

  “I don’t know,” Kallie replied, her voice edged with frustration. “But I need to find out. Did you know that Gabrielle sent Dallas to keep an eye on me here?”

  Jackson frowned. “What the hell for? She knows you ain’t an innocent virgin or nuthin’ needing to be protected from pervs.” He felt his muscles kink up in his shoulders as he considered another possibility. “Maybe Dallas is lying and just watching you for himself. Wouldn’t put it past the boozed-up bastard.”

  Kallie snorted. “I know how to handle Dallas Brûler.

  Don’t worry about that. But I think he’s telling the truth about Gabrielle.”

  “Makes no sense, chère.” Jackson trailed a hand through his hair, uneasy. He thought of the unfinished violet-eyed poppet. “Why would Ti-tante do that?”

  “Look, we’ll talk when I get home. You keep that bag on and keep safe, cher. No bayou. No smuggling. You keep your promise to Gabrielle about staying home, y’hear?”

  A chill touched the back of Jackson’s neck. It wasn’t like Kallie to mother-hen him. His uneasiness increased. “I will,” he said. “You keep safe too.”

  Cielo started barking out in the yard, but it wasn’t her Yay-I-have-a-possum! bark, but a sharp, full-throated alert.

  “Gotta go,” Jackson said. “See you Sunday. Love ya.” He ended the call, then slipped the cell into the back pocket of his jeans before grabbing the baseball bat beside the door. He walked outside.

  Augustine examined the plastic box his guards had left on his desk, a box fill
ed with items they’d confiscated during their search of Rosette St. Cyr’s apartment. He dug through piles of cloth, sticks, needles, and thread for making poppets; oils and powders and mojo bags smelling of cloves, frankincense, and juniper—among many other things; nails, candles of all colors; small jars of dirt; gnarled roots; and, at the box’s bottom, a couple of weathered manila file folders.

  Pulling the folders free, Augustine sank back down into his leather captain’s chair and flipped a folder open. On top was a printout of a newspaper photo of Kallie Rivière and a young man standing on a wharf in front of a blue-trimmed white boat named Bright Star, their arms around each other’s shoulders.

  Dressed in jeans and a red short-sleeved blouse, Kallie Rivière squinted in the sunshine, her long, espresso-brown locks trailing across her face in a camera-frozen breeze.

  The young man tucked up against her side wore a white T-shirt reading cajun hot rods stretched across his tight-muscled chest, faded blue jeans, and rubber fisher-man’s boots. His wavy, coffee-dark hair brushed his shoulders, framing a handsome face. A roguish smile curved his lips and glinted in his slightly tilted golden-brown eyes. He held his hand above and behind Ms. Rivière’s head, fingers shaping a V.

  Bunny ears, or a profound and admirable wish for peace?

  Augustine opted to assume bunny ears. Given the young man’s action and the physical similarities to Ms. Rivière—eyes, cheekbones, mouth—Augustine imagined him to be a relative. Most likely an obnoxious one.

  And guess who stood, hip cocked, beside them in jeans and a blue plaid button-down shirt and cowboy boots, blue eyes hidden behind sunglasses, a woven-straw cowboy hat tipped over his red hair? One Dallas Brûler, aka Doctor Snake.

  Flipping the photo over, Augustine saw that Rosette had scrawled in black Sharpie across the back: With Dallas Brûler and her cousin Jackson Bonaparte at the launch of his boat—

  Augustine wondered if this was the same cousin with whom Kallie Rivière had been raised. He scanned the copy of the article that had accompanied the photo. It seemed that Mr. Bonaparte had built his boat by hand over the course of several years, a process the small community of Bayou Cyprès Noir had watched with mingled excitement, anticipation, and doubt.

  “I always said that Jackson was one determined son of a gun.”

  “I done tol’ Velma, my ol’ lady over dere, dat de boy was loco as hell.”

  “We’re all proud of Jackson and what he’s accomplished.” Clearly not much to do in Bayou Cyprès Noir.

  But the article did reveal a couple of very interesting facts. Jackson Bonaparte’s parents and siblings had died in a hurricane the same year that Sophie Rivière had splattered her husband’s brains on the wall of their home and tried to do the same with her daughter’s. Bonaparte was also the same age as his cousin—twenty-three.

  The article also mentioned that a celebratory crawfish boil and fais do do would take place at the home of Jackson and Kallie’s aunt, Gabrielle LaRue.

  Crawfish boil. Creatures mucked up out of mud and tossed into a pot. Yes, just the thing with which to celebrate several years’ worth of hard and diligent work. And what on earth was a fais do-do? It sounded like something else one might toss into a pot to boil.

  “I’ve been informed that Ms. Blue has made arrangements for Mr. Buckland’s body to be transported to the DiSario Crematorium ahead of his family’s arrival,” Felicity said, lowering a rose-nailed finger from her Bluetooth. She’d changed from her skirt and blouse to a purple pant-suit and a tailored white shirt. An amethyst necklace was looped around her throat.

  Lovely, as always.

  Augustine believed that if he’d been born straight, he would’ve claimed her as a bride the moment he’d seen her strapped to the spinning wheel in that Cheapside circus all those years ago, her lips curved into a luscious smile as knives skimmed past her face and scantily clad body to thunk into the painted wood of the wheel.

  Of course, the now-deceased Mr. Fields might’ve had a word or two to say about that. Ah, but the fight would’ve been worth it.

  “Offer her any and all assistance,” Augustine said. He pushed the photo of Kallie and her cousin across the desk. “I need you to research Jackson Bonaparte. See how he fits—if at all—into this little mystery.”

  “Very good, my lord,” Felicity replied, scooping up the photo.

  Augustine glanced at the digital time readout in the lower right-hand corner of his laptop. 8:01 p.m. Time was slipping away, and he had much still to do.

  And on the “accomplished” side of the ledger?

  1. Arrangements for the care and burial of his body. Obituary written.

  2. Transfer of his assets to his living relatives, with a substantial portion going to Felicity and a more modest portion going to the Hecatean Alliance.

  3. Good-byes said in multiple awkward phone calls and webcasts.

  4. Research done on Kallie Rivière, Gabrielle LaRue, and the murderous Rosette St. Cyr—learning a few intriguing bits of information, but nothing that really explained that morning’s events.

  Augustine toggled Alt-Tab on the keyboard. The nine-year-old Shreveport, Louisiana, newspaper article popped back into view, its headline declaring: “Woman Shoots Husband and Daughter; 14-Year-Old Survives.”

  At least he’d solved the puzzle of the thin white scar at Kallie Rivière’s temple.

  Fell out of a swing indeed.

  Sophie Rivière had never offered any explanation as to why she’d murdered her husband, a Cajun with violet eyes named John Rivière, or why she’d tried to murder her daughter and only child, one Kalindra Rivière.

  Sophie Rivière, an attractive woman of mixed blood—light caramel skin, tilted amber-brown eyes, black hair—had refused to defend herself. She’d pleaded guilty and was later ruled to be insane and placed in Saint Dymphna’s Institution for the Criminally Insane—where she still resided.

  Augustine had found nothing more on Kallie Rivière after the media interest had (swiftly) died down and she’d been released from the hospital and into the care of an unnamed relative.

  “A bit of supper, my lord. You need to eat.” Felicity placed a plate of spicy curry-scrambled eggs, deliciously greasy-smelling fried sausages, and buttered biscuits on his desk. British comfort food. Augustine blinked. Felicity had ordered a meal and he’d been so deep in thought, he hadn’t even heard the waitstaff’s arrival.

  “More tea?” Felicity asked, white porcelain pot in hand. A smile dimpled her cheeks.

  “Yes, thank you,” he replied. She was right about his need to eat. He needed to keep Valin’s body fueled, an efficient and now-hungry body. One he’d dressed in charcoal-gray trousers and a French-blue tailored shirt Felicity had purchased for him, along with black loafers instead of Valin’s motorcycle boots—in defiance of Ms. Blue’s edict.

  And a body he needed to give back. Eventually. Felicity poured more steaming tea into Augustine’s empty cup. Murmuring his thanks, Augustine added milk before taking a sip of the strong brew, savoring the bitter taste of the black leaves gentled by the milk.

  Augustine struggled to remember what it was he’d seen in Ms. Rivière’s eyes as she’d leaned over him, using her pink bathrobe as a compress against his wound. Tried to remember the words he’d said to her as he’d died. But failed.

  Augustine plucked free one of the cigarettes in the opened stainless-steel case on his desk, then hesitated as he remembered the coughing fits his first few attempts had triggered. Apparently, the nomad wasn’t a smoker. A pity, really.

  He trailed the cigarette beneath his nose. The enticing dark-Turkish-tobacco-and-black-cherry scent, sharp and rich, curled into his nostrils like a favorite lover’s cologne. Augustine sighed. Maybe he’d have one just before vacating the nomad’s body: the proverbial last cigarette. He tucked the smoke back into its case, then flipped the lid closed.

  “It seems Ms. St. Cyr lied during our hallway conversation,” Augustine said, resting the maid’s file on Kallie Rivi�
�re in his lap. He picked up his fork and stirred it through his eggs. “She’s originally from Delacroix, Louisiana, not Haiti.”

  “She is a murderer, my lord. Hardly an occupation conducive to telling the truth.”

  “Indeed. I found very little on her aside from the usual—parents, school records, a few book reviews on Barnes and Noble—no criminal history. Unless you consider her positive and glowing review of Going Rogue criminal. However, I found one very intriguing fact.”

  Felicity strolled back to his desk, then relaxed into one of the plush chairs positioned in front of it. Crossing her legs in a graceful and elegant motion, she took a sip of her tea, an inquiring eyebrow raised.

  “Her father, Jean-Julien St. Cyr, was released from the Louisiana State Penitentiary just a month ago after completing a twenty-five-year sentence for murder. He used to be known as Doctor Heron, a root doctor of some repute, until he went to Angola for poisoning and killing several clients.”

  “And was Gabrielle LaRue responsible for Doctor Heron going to prison?”

  Augustine frowned and skewered a sausage with his fork. “No, as far as I can determine, and that’s the problem. Well, or a problem. Gabrielle LaRue herself is another issue.”

  The bee-dink of a new e-mail message sounded from his laptop. Glancing at the screen, Augustine saw a message from the board of directors. Irritation flickered through him. His sausage-filled fork clattered onto his plate.

  Normally in the event of a master’s unexpected death, the board would tie up all loose ends and seek out someone to fill the master’s shoes. But since Augustine resided within a Vessel’s body and was therefore still present despite being dead, the board had—in pure blasted laziness—elected to leave many of the transition details in his hands. Honestly, he had too much to do as it was.

  Augustine clicked open the message.

  Have you chosen an interim-master until we can properly choose a replacement?

  Sitting forward in his chair, Augustine’s fingers danced in a fury across the laptop’s keyboard, tapping out a lie.