“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.
SIXTEEN
IN THE DREAMING DEEP
The healer left Augustine’s private suite, the door clicking shut behind him. With a soft sigh, Augustine, shirtless and feeling more than a little relaxed after the healer’s ministrations, stretched out on the sofa, its leather upholstery squeaking beneath his shoulder blades.
He closed his eyes, grateful for the healer who had so skillfully knitted Valin’s broken ribs whole again. Still tender, yes, and aching, but connected once more to his—well, the nomad’s—sternum.
Hard to believe he had roughly twenty-four hours to wrap up an existence centuries old. Even harder to believe he was dead. He certainly didn’t feel dead.
Augustine traced a finger along one slim, sharp sideburn on Valin’s face. Slid a finger along the curved lower lip. Sexy. Easy to imagine kissing those lips. Or being kissed by them. Easy to imagine those lips doing all manner of pleasant things. Augustine felt himself stir.
Mmm. So responsive.
Augustine opened his eyes and eased up into a sitting position, the weight of Valin’s dreads at his back since Felicity had tied the annoying things back to keep them from swinging into his face. He glanced down at his—Valin’s—bared, but tattooed, torso. Defined chest and pecs, six-pack abs, a wonderful body, strong and lean- muscled and young.
Mmm. So lovely.
He trailed his fingers over a few intriguing scars, some puckered like old bullet wounds, some straight and ridged like knife cuts. His breath caught in his throat at the dizzying double sensation of being both touched by unfamiliar fingers and stroking a stranger’s heated flesh. He stiffened.
Mmm. So hot-blooded.
Augustine’s pulse picked up speed as he slid a hand down across that flat, muscled belly to the trail of dark blond down beneath the nomad’s belly button and followed it down into his jeans. His fingers wrapped around Valin’s hot, hard, satin-smooth length. Pleasure pulsed through Augustine and he uttered a small, ecstatic gasp.
Dear God.
Augustine fumbled at Valin’s belt with his other hand and unfastened the jeans. He lifted his hips as he worked both jeans and boxers down to free the magnificent package he’d discovered.
It bears repeating: Dear God. Thank you.
Augustine’s eyes fluttered shut again and, as he explored the nomad’s hard body, a fantasy smoldered into shape in the darkness behind his eyes.
Valin buckles the last sheepskin-padded leather restraint around Augustine’s ankle. “All strapped down,” he says, looking at Augustine from beneath his lashes, a mischievous, yet deliciously dangerous glint in his green eyes. “As requested.”
Augustine manages a nod, his mouth too dry for speech as the nomad climbs fully clothed onto the bed and, on his knees, straddles Augustine’s
nude body. He peels off his T-shirt and tosses it on the floor. His dreads coil nearly to his lean waist. He looks Augustine over from head to groin, his simmering gaze trailing heat across Augustine’s skin. His hand drops to his belt buckle. He unfastens it, then unsnaps his jeans.
“You sure you don’t wanna do this for me?” the nomad asks, his hand pausing at the zipper.
“I do,” Augustine replies. “But not this time. Keep undressing, road-rider.”
“
And after that?”
“Show me how you’d like to be touched.”
A wicked smile curves Valin’s lips. “And after that?”
Augustine offers a lustful grin. “Then you’ll release me.”
“You hope.” The nomad laughs and the sound of it, low and warm, wraps around Augustine like sun-soaked silk.
Valin eases the zipper on his jeans down; then his hand slips underneath the waistband of his navy-blue boxers. His eyes close, and he sucks in a breath as he touches himself.
Every cell in Augustine’s body feels erect. Quivering. All the blood in his body rushes to points elsewhere.
The nomad shoves his jeans and boxers down to give Augustine a better view as he demonstrates just how he likes to be touched. He reaches up with his free hand to pinch first one stiffened nipple, then the other, a soft moan escaping his lips. Then he scrapes his fingernails down across his flat belly, slides his hand lower, lower, down to cup his tight balls.
Shuddering with strapped-down lust, Augustine memorizes every move of Valin’s hands so he can do the same and more once he’s freed. He plans to make sure he leaves the untamed nomad moaning for more.
Valin’s scent of musk and sweat and sandalwood, sexy and masculine, triple-times Augustine’s pulse. His breath rasps in his throat. And pleasure loops and coils through him in heated twists as he watches the nomad, muscles rippling, bring himself off.
Augustine came in a molten rush that stole his breath and filled his vision with black specks. He fell back onto the sofa in a half-swoon, panting for air.
Once again: Oh. Dear. God.
As he lay there waiting for his breathing to drop back into a normal rhythm, he wondered if Valin was aware of his explorations —more like a one-nighter, really— or if he’d even felt the orgasm.
I suppose at the very least, I owe him an expensive dinner and a movie.
Augustine felt no trace of Valin. Hadn’t from the first moment he’d flooded into the nomad’s body. And that worried him—a little. He supposed he’d be more worried if he had fewer pressing matters on his mind.
Like the one in your hand?
Just a much-deserved break. These are my final hours on this earth, after all.
Much deserved, yes, but now it was time to get back to work. Augustine also needed to do a little inner reconnaissance. He had a proposal for Layne Valin, one he hoped would buy himself a little more time. But first he had to find the nomad.
Augustine closed his eyes and dove into darkness.
Silence greeted Augustine. A chilling silence, save for the crackle of energy flaring along nerves. No phantom snippets of the nomad’s memories roamed loose, no ethereal or profane whispers haunted the airwaves, no sudden yearning to straddle a Harley and gun it down a long and lonely stretch of highway.
A distinct disappointment.
Layne Valin seemed to be missing in action. But given that Augustine’s situation—dead and commandeering a living man’s body—was new, he wasn’t sure what to expect. Perhaps Valin was supposed to be missing in action.
More crackling and empty silence. Augustine’s internal balance shifted and for a moment he felt like he stood on the deck of an old-fashioned timber-and-tar ship rolling upon storm-heaved waves, the tang of brine and ozone heavy in his nostrils.
Ghost ship—one passenger, one crew, no lifeboat.
Technically speaking, Valin was a lifeboat.
Augustine imagined rigging for his hand to grab hold of as he reached out . . . and curled his fingers around rough, braided hemp. Orange, gold, and white balls of light flashed through the darkness, the lightning strobe of neuron pulses. And all zipped in the same direction.
A path to the nomad?
Let’s see, shall we?
Visualizing a large ship’s wheel, Augustine grasped its smooth wooden steering knobs and spun the wheel until the ship faced the neuron brick path. In the distance a large luminescent sphere hovered in the darkness.
This time Augustine detected a faint buzz of static. And experienced a sudden craving for a French dip sandwich piled high on fresh sourdough bread—the layered beef tender and garlicky and hinting of black pepper and enhanced by the salty jus dripping from it.
Excitement pulsed through Augustine. He despised French dip sandwiches. But he would bet anything that Layne Valin felt quite the opposite way about the loathsome things.
Guided by the leaping dolphin dance of flashing neurons, Augustine steered the ship through the restless and swelling dark toward the gleaming sphere of white light.
Since it’s a time-worn classic passed down through generations, the con should go like clockwork. It always has before. All that’s required is an eavesdropper and greed. Well, that and bait.
It starts out fine. . . .
Layne, cheap-ass guitar slung over his shoulder, saunters to the restaurant’s cash register to pay for the overpriced French dip sandwich, tossed green salad, and spicy Cajun fries he’s just eaten. As he flirts with the cute but way-too-skinny cashier, confiding that he’s a street musician who’s had a helluva good morning, he discovers that his wallet is missing.
After searching his booth to make sure the wallet hasn’t slipped from his jeans pocket, Layne slaps his forehead and groans. It’s probably in his jacket—which is in his sleazy motel room down the street.
Layne offers to leave his guitar—the source of his livelihood—as collateral while he runs back to get his wallet.
The cashier hesitates, chewing on her lower lip. Behind her the cook bellows for order pickups. Layne promises it’ll just take a minute. She nods, and he slips off the guitar and hands it to her. Thanking her, he hurries out the door and down the street.
A moment later, Poesy, in a professional-looking black skirt suit, her long, wheat-blond hair pinned up into an artfully loose twist, pale tendrils curling alongside her face, finishes her lunch and strides, briefcase in hand, to the cashier. She spots Layne’s guitar behind the counter and launches into her oh-my-God-is-that-a-rare-Craig-Smallman-guitar spiel.
Long story short, cashier allows businesswoman a look at said guitar. Businesswoman raves about the guitar loud enough for everyone nearby to hear. She declares the guitar a rare and valuable 1984 Craig
Smallman worth $25K that she would love to buy for her collector husband, but since she has a meeting to hurry off to, she leaves her business card with the cashier to give to the musician.
But before the musician returns, a small group of squatters drinking beer and devouring burgers at the booth closest to the cashier send a delegate to chat the cashier up in order to convince her not to give the musician the businesswoman’s card.
The delegate explains how they all stand to make some money if the musician remains in the dark and they buy the guitar from him on the cheap, then sell it to the businesswoman for her husband’s collection for $25K—which they generously promise to share with the cashier.
Musician returns with missing wallet and pays his tab. The cashier tosses a defiant glance at the beer drinkers, then hands the musician the businesswoman’s card along with his guitar and shyly informs him of the good news.
“Did you know your guitar’s worth twenty-five thousand?”
And, just like that, the con fizzles out—due to the cute, but skinny, cashier’s honesty.
Layne shakes his head, feigning surprise, but offers her a genuine smile. Thanking her, he splits the restaurant. He meets up with Poesy and, laughing, tells her how things have gone south.
Poesy laughs too. “Well, hell, that’s gotta be a first.”
“Yup.”
And another first? The marks have followed Layne.
A bell’s sharp clang, clang, clang, insistent and clear, summoned Layne from the past and his chain-saw-toothed memories, memories triggered by the loss of Gage. The bell continued to toll—three pealing clangs, a pause, then three more.
Alarm prickled through him. He shouldn’t be able to hear anythi
ng past the white-noise safety zone he’d constructed to keep his identity from bleeding into Augustine’s while the Brit wore him like a soul suit.
To keep his mind, his thoughts, and his history his own.
The bell tolled three more times, the sound both ominous and forlorn, resonating against and through the static. Clang-clang-clanging against his consciousness. Cracking his concentration.
The briny smell of salt water filtered into his awareness, and Layne’s alarm escalated, hovering between orange and red alert. A breach? Or the first stirrings of the madness he’d managed so far to skate past, possession after possession?
Clang. Clang. Clang.
Or maybe Mc Kenna was trying to reach him.
Layne stilled his thoughts and dialed down the static’s comforting noise.
Shock rippled through Layne, widening the cracks in his concentration. The wet tang of ocean air intensified. What the hell? Even Augustine’s thoughts carried a British accent.
Layne’s shock vanished beneath an icy blast of fury. Fucking bastard had a lot of nerve. Glacial slabs of ice sealed off the gaps in Layne’s concentration. The ocean scent vanished.
Clang. Cla—
Layne tightened the bubble of energy surrounding him—his personal Fortress of Fucking Solitude—and spun the static noise up to full blast, drowning Augustine out.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Asshole. What the hell was there to talk about, anyway? Was Augustine planning to scrapbook his experience? Hoping for a possession performance review? Bastard needed to finish up his business, then split—as promised.