Read Online Black Dust Mambo by Adrian Phoenix - Free Book Online Page A

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