Black Dust Mambo

  “No, I ain’t calling murder a mess, Layne Valin,” Kallie said, uncurling her fingers from her palms. “That wasn’t what I meant, and I apologize.”

  She felt Belladonna staring at her. “You . . . what was the word you just used? Apologize? First ‘please’ and now ‘apologize’? I think I need to sit down.”

  Cheeks heating, Kallie growled, “We’re wasting time here, Bell.” She walked around to the other side of the bed and drew back the stiffening sheets. Underneath Gage’s body and the bloodstained sheets, she thought she saw something dark smeared on the mattress. Soul-eating juju. Her skin crawled.

  Belladonna joined her. “How you wanna do this? We can’t touch him without risking the sudden and urgent need for a defibrillator.”

  “We can use the pillows to push Gage’s body away. I don’t think we need to move him far.”

  Layne rose to his knees. “Let me do it. Hand me the pillows.”

  “No!” Kallie, Belladonna, and McKenna said in unison, a sensurround denial.

  A hard rap at the door was accompanied by a metal-muffled request of “Paramedics. Open the door.”

  “Hurry,” Kallie said, grabbing a blood-spattered pillow and tossing the other to Belladonna. Blue-ink tattoos curled along Gage’s hips and up his back in curving Celtic designs, and her throat tightened as she remembered how she’d traced her fingers along some of them just a few hours ago.

  Together, she and Belladonna pushed Gage’s body a couple of feet away from the drying maroon stain beneath him.

  “Open the door! Paramedics!” The knocking intensified.

  Tracing a symbol for protection in the air, Kallie grabbed one corner of the fitted sheet and pulled it free of the mattress.

  “Be careful, girl,” Belladonna whispered.

  “Totally my intention.”

  Kallie rolled the sheet down until a line of black dust appeared. Her mouth dried. A rotten-egg-and-burned-bone stench wafted into the air, mingling with the fresher odor of Gage’s blood. She pushed the bloodstained material aside, revealing the hex in its blackest-of-black glory: a smudged two-foot-wide X traced across the mattress in deadly black dust.

  Snake scales glittered in the powder, a powder in all likelihood composed of graveyard dirt, black salt, ground sulfur and bones, and rattlesnake skin with magnetic sand, blood, and, most likely, pigeon shit added into the mix.

  Gage’s enemy had been a hoodoo or maybe a voodoo bokor, and had laid down the nastiest of tricks using goofer dust—a trick designed to kill an enemy. But not a soul-eating spell, unless something new had been added.

  Something that I funneled through my body.

  “Layne, did Gage piss off a hoodoo or anyone with ties to voodoo?” Kallie asked, unable to tear her gaze away from the murderous trick dusting the bed.

  “Not that I know of,” Layne replied.

  “Y’know, Shug, I hate to say this,” Belladonna said quietly, “but I got a feeling that hex wasn’t designed for Gage. It was designed for you.”

  FIVE

  DEAD IN ALL WAYS POSSIBLE

  “What? Me?” Kallie jerked her gaze up from the body-smudged lines of black dust on the mattress and stared at Belladonna. “Designed for me?”

  “And a good man died because it fooking well missed,” Mc Kenna muttered, her brogue thickening, as she walked to the door and opened it.

  Two grim-faced male paramedics in blue slacks and white shirts hurried into the room, carrying a defibrillator and other equipment. They beelined for the bed and the motionless man half-buried in pillows.

  “No!” Kallie cried. “He’s dead. Don’t touch him!” She pointed at Layne still kneeling on the floor and looking pale and drawn. “He’s the one you need to check over. He suffered a cardiac arrest.”

  Layne’s dreads slipped free of their knot and swung against his back when he shook his head in denial. He opened his mouth to protest, but the paramedics knelt on either side of him and one started firing questions—“What’s your name, podna? How old are you? Any history of heart problems?”—while the other wrapped a blood pressure cuff around Layne’s well-defined biceps.

  “Dammit,” Layne grumbled. “This ain’t necessary. I’m okay.”

  “It is necessary,” Kallie said. “His heart stopped, and he quit breathing. We had to perform CPR.”

  The medic asking questions switched his attention to Kallie. “How long before he started breathing again?”

  Kallie shook her head. “I’m not sure, to be honest. It seemed like forever, but it was probably only a couple of minutes. Oh, and I think I broke a few of his ribs in the process too.”

  Layne arrowed a dark look her way. “I said I’m okay. I’ve broken ribs before.”

  “Yer being man-stupid again,” McKenna said, joining the small huddle on the floor. “Let them look you over.”

  “You checked me. I’m fine.” Layne peeled the blood pressure cuff from his arm, the ripping sound of Velcro silencing his ex-wife. “I’m refusing treatment.”

  “Man-stupid.”

  “That’s right. And proud of it.”

  “Kallie?”

  “Hmmm?” Kallie pulled her gaze away from the nomad-to-nomad glaring match and looked at Belladonna.

  “Nobody sneaked into your room and did this while you were passed out on the floor,” Belladonna whispered. “This was done much earlier, maybe when housekeeping was tidying your room. Before you hooked up with Gage. Whoever did this was trying to kill you.”

  “And Gage climbed into bed while I stumbled off to the bathroom,” Kallie whispered. “Shit, shit, goddamn.” She dropped the sheet back over the hex, then sank to her knees on the carpet, her pulse pounding at her temples. Her headache reawakened. She closed her eyes.

  A dark voice, one that sounded like Mama’s, whispered: “See? I’m not the only one who knows you need to die, baby, and it looks like I’m not the only one willing to do what’s necessary.”

  Kallie caught a whiff of patchouli as Belladonna crouched down beside her. She felt the strength in her friend’s slender-muscled arm as it laced around her shoulders.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Belladonna said, voice low, “but security’s pretty tight at Saint Dymphna’s. Your mama couldn’t—” She stopped speaking, and Kallie opened her eyes.

  Mc Kenna stood on the other side of the bed, her weight on one hip, her arms crossed over her chest. “So who wants you dead in all ways possible, Kallie Hoodoo?”

  Good question, and one Kallie didn’t have an answer for. At least, not an answer she cared to voice aloud. Slipping free of Belladonna’s embrace, she rose to her feet, then offered her friend a hand up.

  “What about that ex-boyfriend stalker you laid the shriveling trick on?” Belladonna grasped Kallie’s hand and uncurled her slender and elegant body up from the floor. “Whenever he got within a hundred yards of you, his goodies withered up like old prunes.”

  “That trick was better than any restraining order,” Kallie said, smiling grimly at the memory. “Tommy was no conjurer, though. He couldn’t’ve done this.”

  “He could’ve hired one,” Belladonna said, squeezing Kallie’s hand before letting go of it. “You don’t mess with a man’s junk like that.”

  “You do if he deserves it,” Kallie retorted. “But even so, you hire someone to put a hurting on me, you don’t hire someone to kill my soul along with my body.”

  “Most men, aye,” McKenna said. “But I’ve known a few in my time who wouldn’t’ve hesitated to rip a lass’s soul from her body just fer refusing their touch.”

  In my time? McKenna spoke like she truly was an ancient leprechaun and not a woman in her mid-thirties or forties. Kallie shook her head. “Tommy was obsessive, not homicidal, and I doubt he would’ve even known such a thing was possible.”

  “Hate to say it, Pix—um . . . Mc Kenna, but it sounds to me like you’ve been looking for love in all the wrong places,” Belladonna commented, her gaze sweeping the nomad from head to foot—a
very short trip.

  “Thanks,” Layne growled, rising to his feet. He pushed his dreads back from his face—a handsome face, really, with those sharp cheekbones and that mouth made for kissing—with both hands, then turned to face the bed and all that remained of his best friend. Sorrow reawakened in his eyes.

  “Excuse me, but what is the situation here?” A plump woman in a charcoal-gray business suit, her auburn hair tucked into an unraveling bun, whisked into the room. A name tag on her jacket read: Maria Conti, Prestige Manager.

  Rising to his feet, one of the paramedics nodded at Layne. “He refuses treatment. And the other one is dead.”

  “Dead?” The manager’s gaze landed on the bed. Her eyes widened. “Holy Mother of God,” she whispered.

  “I have a feeling, Mrs. Conti, that the Sainted Mum’s voicemail box is full,” a male voice said, smooth and dry and very British. “And at the very least she and her holy Son are screening their messages.”

  A tall man in his late thirties or early forties wearing a pale gray suit and a slim cobalt-blue tie eased past the manager’s motionless form and sauntered into the room, one hand tucked into his front trouser pocket as though he were taking the air during a morning stroll.

  For reply, the grim-faced and now pale Prestige manager crossed herself.

  The Brit brushed a wavy lock of nutmeg-brown hair away from his deep-set gray eyes with a practiced sweep of a long-fingered hand. His gaze landed on Layne and lingered for several moments before shifting to scrutinize Gage’s body on the bed.

  “Wouldn’t you agree, Ms. Rivière?” the Brit asked, lifting his eyes to Kallie.

  “Depends on the god,” Kallie said. “Most are pretty damned fickle and more than likely to hit the Delete button instead of returning calls.”

  “Indeed.” Something between a smile and smirk twisted up one corner of the Brit’s mouth.

  The fact that this official-looking stranger not only recognized Kallie but also knew her name didn’t leave her feeling all warm and fuzzy with joy. She lifted her chin. “Excuse me, you are . . . ?”

  “Lord Basil Augustine,” Layne answered in a low drawl. “Master of the Hecatean Alliance.”

  One of the Brit’s dark eyebrows quirked up at Layne’s words. His gaze swept the nomad from head to toe. Again. “And here I thought nomads refused to acknowledge any kind of authority. Or even bother to learn what it might be.”

  “Ain’t acknowledging,” Layne replied, rolling his shoulders back despite the pain it must’ve cost him. “Just naming.”

  “Hellfire,” Belladonna breathed. “Lord Basil Augustine.”

  Goddamned hellfire, indeed. Kallie was pretty damned sure Belladonna had the right of it. Gabrielle’s words about the Hecatean Alliance’s so-called master whispered through Kallie’s memory: “Man’s got horns under all dat dark hair, I just know it. He be too smug and fulla pride. T’inks he knows what be best for all of us—practitioners and switched-off alike. He gonna reawaken the witch-burning days, see if he don’t.”

  Shoving her hands into the pockets of her robe, Kallie studied the man who had organized magicians, conjurers, and rootworkers into a connected fraternity guided by laws established to keep magic practitioners safe and secret and the switched-off safe, secure, and unaware.

  In theory.

  He’d also organized an annual carnival for magical society to unwind, share notes, and hook up, a wild and wicked week to celebrate May and each other. And for the last forty years—huh, man must be older than he looks—since it had begun, the May Madness Carnival had been the only opportunity for magic users from all parts of the world to meet in peace, no matter their beliefs or the type of magic they practiced.

  “Carnival of Fools—dat’s what it be. Hoodoos would be wise to keep away. Of all the many t’ings you are, girl, a fool ain’t one of dem. Stay home. Carnival ain’t de place for you.”

  Kallie’s gut knotted. She was beginning to wish she’d listened to Gabrielle. If Belladonna had it right and the hex had been intended for her and not Gage, then the nomad would still be alive if she’d only stayed home.

  “Excuse me, Lord Augustine,” the hotel manager said, shaking free of her shock and stepping up beside him. “But we need to call the police and report this . . . death.”

  “Of course,” Augustine said, voice low, “and we would if the young man was actually dead, Mrs. Conti.” Withdrawing his hand from his trouser pocket, he reached inside his suit and slipped free a silver cigarette case.

  Mrs. Conti and the perplexed paramedics stared at the Brit as he opened the case, selected a brown cigarette, and placed it between his lips.

  “He appears to be quite dead, my lord,” Mrs. Conti said finally. “His eyes . . . the blood alone . . .”

  Augustine sparked up the cigarette with a slim silver lighter. He nodded, then exhaled a plume of pale smoke into the air. The sharp smell of anise-and-vanilla-scented tobacco curled into the room.

  “The key word, Mrs. Conti, would be appears.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand,” the hotel manager said, a frown creasing the skin between her eyes.

  Kallie had to agree with Maria Conti. She wondered if Augustine believed himself a Jedi master using the Force on hapless bystanders.

  These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.

  “But this is carnival, and these young people are playing pranks on us, yes?” A pleasant smile crinkled the skin at the corners of the Brit’s eyes as he emphasized his words with graceful movements of his hand, the cigarette trailing sweet-scented smoke through the air.

  Tracing enchantment sigils. Crafting illusion.

  Kallie caught a hint of an earthy undertone in the smoke—frankincense, or myrrh—along with a whisper of gardenia. Power thickened in the air with each twirl of Augustine’s hand, streaming into Kallie’s lungs with every breath.

  “That’s why we didn’t want you to touch him,” Layne said, nodding at the paramedics and wading into the lie with all the ease of a longtime pro. “We knew you’d blow the whole prank otherwise.”

  Augustine glanced at the nomad, brow arched. “Indeed. The young man is only pretending to be dead. Wine stains the sheets, not blood,” he said, his tone a low and soothing singsong. A soft command. “Please look again.”

  A gray veil created by the perfumed smoke descended over Gage’s body, and it seemed even to Kallie that the nomad lifted his head and smiled a gotcha grin. Her blood chilled.

  Maria Conti studied Gage’s body, the pupils of her eyes nearly swallowing the irises. Relief restored rosy color to her cheeks. “Ah,” she breathed. “I was completely fooled.”

  The paramedics, eyes equally dilated, shook their heads, looking unhappy. “Shee-it. Our time’s been wasted,” one muttered. “Y’all can expect a bill for that time too.”

  “Of course, and please accept my apologies,” Augustine said, his voice and expression sincere. “Trust me, I’m not pleased with this little stunt either. The perpetrators will be disciplined.”

  The hotel manager nodded, and another tendril of auburn hair escaped her fraying bun. “As they should be. And we shall leave you to it, Lord Augustine.” Touching one of the paramedics on the forearm and speaking to him in low, sympathetic tones, she followed him and his partner out of the room, closing the door behind her.

  “Which one of you bloody idiots called the paramedics?” Augustine asked, stubbing his cigarette out in an empty champagne flute. The illusion of life wisped away from Gage’s body along with the snuffed smoke.

  “I’m the bloody idiot,” Kallie said, not sure who had actually called and not really caring. The Brit’s snippy tone stiffened her spine. “And as far as I know, when someone goes into cardiac arrest, doing CPR and calling the paramedics are the right things to do.”

  Augustine looked at her, his face cold as marble. “Not when you have the body of a man murdered by magic in the room, Ms. Rivière. Just how had you planned on explaining his death to the police?”
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  Kallie glanced at the bed, at Gage’s body. “I don’t know,” she admitted. She caught a whiff of tobacco and musky incense as Augustine walked around the bed to stand beside her, his gaze on the black-dust hex on the mattress.

  “Looks like a hoodoo trick,” he murmured. “And you are a hoodoo, are you not, Ms. Rivière?”

  “So? I ain’t the only one here. And I had nothing to do with this.”

  “So she claims,” Mc Kenna interjected.

  “She’s the intended victim, not the hexer,” Belladonna said, hands on her hips, leveling a Class One Belladonna Brown Death Glare at the leprechaun. “And she saved your ex’s life, by the way.”

  “Not just my life. She saved my soul too.” Layne eased down into one of the blue cushioned armchairs near the flat-screen TV at the foot of the bed, one arm angled tight against his sternum. He nodded at the bed. “That’s a soul-killing spell. And it almost had me.” His gaze came to rest on Kallie, direct and intense.

  Butterflies winged through Kallie’s belly when she met Layne’s pine-green eyes. “It could’ve had us both,” she said softly. She glanced down at Gage’s body, and her butterflies disappeared beneath a surge of guilt.

  “Your soul? And how do you know this?” Augustine questioned, slanting a sharp glance from beneath his brows at the nomad.

  “I’m a Vessel,” Layne said. “And that hex destroyed Gage’s soul when it killed him.”

  Augustine arched an eyebrow. “Ah, so you’re Layne Valin, the nomad Vessel my assistant told me about. I hope the dead haven’t troubled you during your stay?”

  “No, not yet.”

  “Good. Well, I must admit this situation is very intriguing, if true. The kind of power needed for soul-killing is rare.” Augustine glanced at Kallie. “Perhaps, Ms. Rivière, if you would start at the beginning?”

  Just as Kallie opened her mouth, the phone on the bedside table trilled. Everyone stared at the phone like it was a cotton-candy-sticky child screeching for attention while the adults tried to have a conversation; then everyone looked at her, frowns of various shapes, sizes, and intensities on their faces.