Liath wouldn’t mind that terribly—as long as they went first.
“Well, if we can’t kill him,” said the one he knew, the one with the scarred cheek, “what do we do with him?”
One with long blond hair said, “I know!”
He hurried over to the far wall, plucked all the darts from the dartboard, and returned with them.
“First one hits him in the cock wins,” he said, handing two to each of his fellows.
Liath realized with a start then that he was as naked as the day he was born.
“Not much of a target,” cried the bearded one, and they all laughed.
Liath would have argued to the contrary but saw no point. He tried to wriggle out of the noose around his neck, but it had been pulled too tight. His wrists were behind him, locked into steel manacles. Here was the use for that rope and pulley: to hang him. His head was brushing the ceiling while the floor waited nine or ten feet below his soles.
“Wins what?” said one with a squinty eye.
“Yeah! We need a bet here!”
“Buck apiece then!” cried Blond.
They all cheered and dropped their coins onto the card table. Then they began tossing their darts. The pain was minimal, even when one of them scored a bull’s-eye on his manhood. But the humiliation was almost more than he could bear.
Liath didn’t know how long he hung there, first as the human dartboard, then as a target for billiard balls. The bouncers would fling them as hard as they could; Katrina would retrieve them from wherever they landed and hand them back. Sunlight had faded from the windows, replaced by the pale glow of the full moon.
Full moon!
He stared down at Katrina. He knew she hadn’t been anointed this cycle because he’d been watching the brothel and Rasheeda had not made an appearance.
“Louisa,” he called, and noticed that his voice sounded harsh and, well, strangled. “Let me be asking you: Has your maid been anointed this month?”
She looked up at him and frowned. “What do you know of that?”
“We are both revenants.” Figuring he might as well keep up the fiction Rasheeda had promulgated, he added, “If Miss Basemore doesn’t arrive soon with her magic oil, we’ll both be going limp as rag dolls.”
Though she said nothing, concern darkened Louisa’s features.
He added, “And then, what fun will I be?”
He prayed Rasheeda wouldn’t show. Tonight was the third night of the full moon. When it set, the unanointed Katrina would go mad, killing everyone in sight. And Liath would witness the deaths of those who successfully carried out his murder while he remained hanging here, safely above her berserker rage.
Wait . . . what about himself? Would he too go mad? Well, why not? He was a revenant just like Katrina. But he would not be able to join in the carnage. His rage would be spent on kicking the air.
Just then the doorman stepped into the room.
“I know you said no visitors, madam, but a Miss Basemore insists on seeing you.”
Louisa’s grin of triumph was like a knife through Liath’s still heart.
“Let her in. Immediately!”
A moment later Rasheeda swept into the room. She paused for a heartbeat when she glanced up at Liath, then continued toward Louisa.
“You’re late. The moon has almost set.”
“But still in time,” Rasheeda said. “I had unforeseen complications.”
“Rasheeda, no!” Liath cried. “You mustn’t!”
Louisa’s mouth twisted. “You know each other, of course.”
“Of course.” She stared up at Liath and shook her head in dismay. “My assistant brought him back from the dead.”
Louisa seemed surprised. “So you admit it.”
Rasheeda shrugged. “You’ve already guessed. Why continue the charade?”
“I wholeheartedly agree,” she said with a wicked smile. “But why did you raise him after I buried him.”
“Need I remind you: in my cemetery.”
Louisa’s turn to shrug. “The grave had been dug, and where better to hide a body?”
“Indeed.”
“Don’t you dare think of laying claim to him.”
“Quite the contrary. He was resurrected without my knowledge and has been nothing but trouble since.” She pulled a small glass carafe from her purse. “He even stole my sustaining oil. He’s the reason I’m late.”
“Let’s get this done.” Louisa clapped her hands. “Katrina! Here!”
The maid dutifully approached and stopped before her. Rasheeda stepped close, and Liath watched her mumble the chant as she traced the proper designs on the revenant’s face and throat with the green oil.
“There.” She stepped back. “Good for another month.”
Louisa looked from Katrina to Liath. “Why so different? She is a mindless slave, and he still has a will of his own.”
“He’s one of the willful ones I warned you about—resurrected too soon after death.”
“Ah! You did say that makes a difference. This is fascinating. You must share all your secrets with me someday.”
“It is not to be taken lightly. Someone must die so that another may live again.”
Louisa’s eyes glittered. “I have no problem with that.” She looked up at Liath. “What about him? Will he go all boneless if not anointed?”
“Of course.”
“I have interesting plans for him. Will there be an extra charge to work your magic in him?”
Rasheeda smiled. “You’re a loyal client. This one is on the house.”
“Rasheeda, no!” Liath cried.
Louisa made a flourish with her hand. “Then by all means.”
As the bouncers lowered him to the floor, he pleaded with her. “Please don’t be doing this!”
He prayed that this was all a ruse to get them to place him in reach so that she could produce a knife and cut the rope. He watched her hand slip into her shoulder bag, but instead of emerging with gleaming steel, it held that foul green oil.
Her gaze was unwavering as she held up the carafe. “You almost ruined my business for good by stealing this, then you blackmailed me with it, you rotter! And you expect forgiveness? Mercy? From me? You should know better.”
Yes . . . yes, he should have known better than to expect help from her. A woman without loyalty or conscience—what else should he expect? She cared for only one person in this world: Rasheeda Basemore.
The bouncers pinned his legs and steadied his head as she traced the designs and spoke the words. Then they hauled him back up to the ceiling.
“Now that that’s done,” Louisa said, handing her an envelope, “tell me: How does one kill one of your revenants?”
“With great difficulty.” She pointed up at Liath. “As you have learned, hanging doesn’t work.”
“How about beheading?”
“That immobilizes the body, but the head lives on.”
Liath watched in horror as a slow smile stretched Louisa’s lips. “Now that could be interesting.”
“The only way to cause final death is by destroying the brain—either by piercing or by boiling it within the skull. Burning the whole creature works, of course.”
Creature . . . was that all he was?
Louisa leaned closer. “You must have had to dispose of a few revenants in your time. What is your preferred method?”
“I slip them into my crematorium. I’ll put it at your disposal if you—”
“No, no.” Louisa waved a hand in the air. “I need something more creative, something with more . . . flair.”
Liath couldn’t believe this conversation. “Couldn’t you be discussing this somewhere else?”
Scar bounced a billiard ball off his skull. “Shut yer trap! This is interestin’.”
“Why don’t you take a page from Nero?” Rasheeda said.
Louisa frowned. “I’ve heard that name. Is he from Five Points?”
Rasheeda laughed. “No, he was a Roman emperor wh
o used to coat Christians with tar, impale them on pikes, and set them ablaze as torches to light his winter garden.”
Louisa stared up at Liath with an avid expression. “Oh, I like that. No, I love it!”
“Well, I must be off,” Rasheeda said. “More stops to make before the moon sets.”
“Of course. I’ll walk you out. We must get together for lunch sometime. It’s so rare that I meet a kindred soul such as you.”
Liath watched them go. Rasheeda . . . beyond all reason he’d somehow expected better of her. More the fool he.
Liath lost track. He suffered further indignities as a target while enduring gleefully demented discussions between Louisa and her minions on how best to immolate him. The “Nero method”—as they came to call it—was the runaway favorite, but debate raged as to whether to make a torch of his entire body, or just his head.
Then he heard Beard say, “Katrina! Pick up the balls.”
Liath looked down and saw the maid standing statue still, arms akimbo.
“Hey, you dumb bitch!” Beard said, stepping close and leaning into her face. “Did you hear what I said? Pick up the fucking balls!”
She cocked her head and swiveled toward him in a herky-jerky way, staring.
“I told you to—”
The rest of whatever he was going to say died in a gurgling crunch as her right hand shot up, gripped his voice box, and ripped it free. Beard fell away, spraying blood as he clutched at his ruined throat.
The room fell silent for an instant as Liath, Louisa, and the three remaining bouncers stared in horrified shock. Then pandemonium broke loose when Katrina shoved the bloody flesh into her mouth and charged. The bouncers recoiled for a heartbeat, then waded in with enthusiastic whoops. They were experts in dealing with unruly male brothel clients and this was just a maid.
Liath watched the melee in wonder. Katrina should have been bowled over by the men, but she fought like a wildcat. Her deadpan expression never changed, but within seconds Scar had a gouged eye hanging from its socket and Blond’s right ear had been torn off. Squint swung a billiard cue and broke it across her back. She barely noticed. Instead she snatched the remainder from his grasp and rammed the sharp, broken end deep into his chest.
The lady of the house must not have liked the way this was going for she was squeezing past on her way to the door. Katrina grabbed a huge handful of her hair and yanked back. Louisa screamed as half her scalp ripped from her skull. Then Katrina lifted her and slammed her against Blond. As both toppled to the floor, Katrina leaped atop them and literally tore them open.
The cries of pain that filled the room drew the doorman. When he saw what was happening, he pulled a knife and buried it in Katrina’s back. Katrina’s eyes widened—she’d felt that. She spun and grabbed him by his head, then lifted him and shook him like a doll. Even from up near the ceiling, Liath could hear vertebrae shattering. The doorman’s eyes rolled back and she dropped him.
The room had quieted now except for Scar’s moans. He staggered about, cradling his dangling eye against his cheek. Katrina grabbed the other end of the broken cue from the floor and stabbed him through the throat.
As Scar gurgled and choked on his own blood, Katrina looked up at Liath. Was he next? No, she couldn’t reach him. And even if she could, she didn’t seem interested in a fellow revenant.
Scar finally collapsed in death, and then . . . silence. Well, not exactly. Katrina was kneeling beside Louisa’s partially eviscerated body chewing noisily on a bloody handful of her liver. As tempting as that looked, Liath couldn’t think about food now. Any hunger was washed away in the flood of questions rushing through his brain.
What had just happened here? Rasheeda had anointed both Katrina and him, yet Katrina had gone berserk and he hadn’t. It made no sense. But then, nothing in his life had made sense since the night Katrina drove that blade through his heart.
After sating herself on Louisa’s liver and Blond’s pancreas and a variety of other offal, Katrina lowered herself onto a chair near the wall and closed her eyes. Moments later she toppled to the floor like a sack of rice.
Now what? Liath thought as dawn began to pink the windows. Do I hang here until the harlots show up for work?
He heard the front door open.
Here comes one now.
But no. A harlot of another sort appeared.
Rasheeda stepped into the room and surveyed the carnage.
“Well,” she said, smiling and nodding with satisfaction. “That worked out rather well, didn’t it.”
“ ‘Well’ ? ‘Well’ ?” He was shouting as best he could with a rope around his neck. “You call this ‘well’ ?”
She looked up at him. “Better than well, I should say. Rather perfect, actually.”
It struck him then.
“You planned this?”
“Of course. Louisa had guessed what I’ve been up to. Not that she was threatening to expose me. Quite the contrary. As you heard tonight, she wanted to learn how to do resurrections. Can you believe it? She wanted me to teach her so she could become a competitor. Not likely.”
“But you anointed the maid and still she—”
“I anointed her with this,” she said, pulling the carafe from her bag.
“Exactly—”
She unstoppered it and poured the contents onto the floor. “Colored olive oil.”
Liath closed his eyes and fought a smile. An utterly devious, utterly ruthless, and ultimately amoral woman. And yet . . . somehow wonderful.
She removed another identical carafe from her bag and anointed Katrina. “She’ll be able to walk in a few minutes. I—oh, my.” She reached around and removed the doorman’s knife from the maid’s back. “How inconvenient for sitting.”
“But what about me?” Liath said.
She looked up at him again. “Yes . . . what about you? You weren’t supposed to be here. I had planned on dealing with only Madame Louisa and her thugs, but you managed to complicate matters by getting yourself captured and strung up like a side of beef. I had to alter my plans.”
“I meant, why didn’t I go berserk?”
“Because I used the genuine sustaining oil on you.”
“Why?”
She frowned. “I’m not sure. You look terribly undignified up there, by the way.”
Still holding the knife, she walked over to where the rope was cleated to the wall and placed the blade against the cord.
“Ready?” she said, raising her eyebrows.
“More than ready.”
She began sawing through the heavy coils. Soon enough they frayed and then parted. With a thump, Liath dropped to the floor and flopped back onto his derriere.
“Now find some clothes,” she said as he struggled to stand. “And do remove those darts from your arse. They’re . . . unbecoming.”
“I’d be delighted to,” he said, rattling his manacled wrists behind him. “But there’s the small matter of these.”
Sighing with annoyance, she said, “Must I do everything?” She waved toward the bloody, ruined corpses. “You search their pockets. They’re quite messy and I don’t want to stain my dress.”
Liath did the best he could with his hands behind his back but fortunately Rasheeda found a key chain in Louisa’s purse. Once his hands were free, he appropriated the doorman’s clean coat and pants.
Rasheeda began leading a docile Katrina toward the discreet entrance. “We’d better leave before someone shows up.”
“Do you have a car?”
“Toby is waiting with the hearse by the alley.”
“Good old Toby. You go ahead. I’ll be along.”
“What are you up to?”
“Like last time, we’ll be needing to make it look like a robbery gone terribly wrong, plus I want to clean up any evidence that might be linking us to this carnage.”
A frown. “Evidence? What—?”
“Me dress, for one.”
Me dress . . . never in his strangest dreams had
he imagined that phrase passing his lips.
“And most important, I want to find me diamonds.”
“Very well, but be quick about it.”
“I’ll be but a minute.”
As soon as she and the revenant had disappeared around the corner, Liath hurried over to Louisa’s eviscerated corpse and grabbed a handful of what Katrina had left of the liver.
God forgive me, he thought as he shoved it into his mouth, but this is delicious.
Still chewing, he hurried up to the top floor to the front room where he’d seen Louisa. He rummaged through her drawers until he found a lockbox, then fumbled through the key ring till he found one that would open it.
It held some nice bracelets and two diamond necklaces, which he pocketed. Also a stack of shares in something called Standard Oil. He shrugged and pocketed those too. Who knew? Might be worth something someday. But nowhere could he find his diamonds.
. . .out of reach, where no man shall go . . .
A strange thing to say. For all he knew that meant they were somewhere off the premises. Yes, most likely.
Returning to the first-floor abattoir, he found his dress balled in a corner. Before leaving he used it to wrap another piece of Louisa’s liver—for later—then hurried out to the waiting hearse. Rasheeda sat on the far side, the bloodied Katrina in the middle. Liath slipped in beside the maid.
“That was a long minute,” Rasheeda said as Toby got them moving.
“I couldn’t find me diamonds. Louisa said they were hidden ‘out of reach, where no man shall go,’ but where in hell that might be I’ve no idea. Odd thing to be saying, don’t you think?”
Rasheeda frowned. “Very. ‘Where no man shall go . . .’ I can’t—” Her eyes lit. “Oh, my!”
She lifted Katrina’s short, blood-soaked skirt and spread her thighs.
“Aha!” she said. “Look!”
Liath turned to the window. “Really, Ra—”
“I’m quite serious. Look.”
So look he did. He saw the revenant’s smooth thighs and frilly knickers. What did she—? Wait . . . was that a leather string protruding from the knickers?
“What . . . ?”
A Soft Barren Aftershock Page 164