Dark Duets Part 37

"I don't know why the burrower didn't bring her back. That part's not my fault."

Rasheeda scowled. But the burrower had made an error that she could not explain. She'd set it herself. She glared at Toby, then at the drooling heap he'd created.

"Oh, just . . . take me to the Babilani grave."

EVEN IF TOBY hadn't utterly failed, the man who sat liquefying back in the bas.e.m.e.nt would have made a terrible revenant. Who would want that lurking around their pantry? Revenants sold best when uninteresting and unintimidating. And s.e.xless. Wealthy ladies resented pretty maids; gentlemen hated chisel-jawed butlers. No one wanted a servant who was too feral. Or too exciting. Unless they were perverts.

Once the gravedigger excavated the soil, Toby clambered out from behind the controls and hopped into the hole, then opened the coffin. Rasheeda hated to risk exposure like this, but she needed a look inside.

Mrs. Babilani lay as they'd left her. Rasheeda stepped back from the grave.

Now that the gravedigger had gone quiet, the frogs' calls filled the night. Ah-ah-ah. It sounded like they were jeering.

"Get the casket out," she said.

Toby nodded and closed the cap over the corpse. He pulled the chains from the gravedigger, affixing them to the casket. Under his guidance, the gravedigger farted, reared, and plucked Mrs. Babilani's casket from its not-so-final resting place. Dirt rained from its contours and sent dust billowing out in a ring.

Rasheeda lifted her lantern over the empty grave site.

Beneath the clean, chiseled, machine-cut grave: a crude hole. One just large enough for a man. A loose clod of dirt tumbled from its rim to the tunnel left by the burrower.

Despite herself, Rasheeda smiled. "Clever."

"What's that?" Toby asked as he jumped down to the gra.s.s, panting and slapping at a mosquito.

"That explains the light I saw in the graveyard last night. That is where your drooler got ditched."

"I don't get it."

"Which fails to surprise me." She drew a breath. "Someone or some people killed your man and dumped him beneath Mrs. Babilani's gravesite. They must have spread dirt over his body, knowing that the Babilani casket would cover him forever. That's why our burrower brought him back. He was under her."

Toby gaped.

"Oh come on, you have to admit it's clever!"

Toby said, "I still don't get it."

Rasheeda sagged. "Just . . . put Mrs. Babilani back, Toby."

Rubbing her jaw, she turned away and headed for the house. Clever or not, she wouldn't tolerate marauders in her graveyard.

This city knew all sorts of criminals. She couldn't care less about any of them or what they did. But any criminals who trespa.s.sed on her property and cost her time and money-well, they'd soon wish they'd been caught by the police.

She'd take a better look at Toby's drooler. Maybe she could find out who he was, where he came from. Maybe something on him could lead her to the trespa.s.sers who felt so ent.i.tled to her graveyard.

From somewhere behind her, the gravedigger resumed its coughing and groaning. The moon, close to the end of its full cycle, cast the lawn in tones of brown and gray. Rasheeda realized she was panting. She'd been striding faster than she'd intended, and her cheeks burned with blood. It occurred to her that she'd never felt so alive.

IN THE BAs.e.m.e.nT, the cage door still lay open. The sailor still lay dead. But Toby's revenant was no longer drooling on the floor next to him. He wasn't drooling anywhere. He was gone.

So were the keys-last she'd seen them, Toby had left them dangling in the cage lock.

Oh, no!

Rasheeda panned the room. The safe stood open. And empty.

Oh, no no no!

The implications were appalling, but not so appalling or urgent as a slavering revenant run amok.

There. A trail of dirt. Leading up the back staircase. The inside staircase.

She hitched her skirts and dashed halfway up before pausing and running back to the bas.e.m.e.nt to retrieve . . . her derringer was gone. All she could find was a long embalming needle. It would have to do.

Back up the stairs, and when the clumps of dirt continued, up another flight to her own quarters.

He was in the lavatory. Probably rooting around, clumsy and mindless. She raised the needle and kneed the door open.

Toby's revenant was seated in Rasheeda's own bathtub. A pistol in one hand, a bar of soap in the other, the bathwater milky gray.

"Ah. I guess you'll be the fine hostess, then."

A thick Irish accent. And no drool.

This revenant was perfectly coherent. Perhaps a little too coherent. He eyed her embalming needle and lifted a brow, his fingers going snug on the pistol.

"You wouldn't be having any men's clothing around here now, would you?"

SHE DID. IN fact she had quite a stock of spare clothing, male and female.

"What's your name?" she said as he dressed behind her screen.

She'd turned away just long enough to give him a pretense at modesty, but then watched him from the corner of her eye. He cleaned up well enough for a man who'd been killed and buried raw. The scars couldn't be helped.

"Liath."

"Lee?"

"Close enough. Liath O'Shea. Now I'll be having a few questions for you, Miss Basemore."

He knew her name! "How-?"

"I was listening to every word."

She ground her teeth in frustration. Toby had a lot to answer for.

"Playing possum, as it were?"

"So to speak. Apparently I was dead and buried and you brought me back to life." He stepped out from behind the screen, s.h.i.+rtless, dressed in ill-fitting gray trousers. "What sort of blasphemy is that?"

She sniffed. She didn't believe in blasphemy or sacrilege or any of that nonsense.

"The kind that allows you to ask that question."

He smiled. "Touche, as the French say."

Not a bad smile. He reminded her of Alastair back in England. They'd been lovers. Poor boy had thought he was her one and only. When he found out about Rupert, he challenged him to a duel. It hadn't ended well for Alastair-a bullet through the heart. She'd used the ritual-and Rupert-to bring him back but that hadn't ended well either. That and complications from other impetuous acts had precipitated her flight to the New World.

"Well?" she said. "Out with it. What happened?"

Liath's eyes clouded. "I don't remember. All I know is that some guttersnipe stabbed me in the back."

"Toby-the man who resurrected you-said you were stabbed through the heart from the front." She pointed to the sealed wound in his chest.

"Was I?" He touched the spot. "Well, this is a new one. See, I don't even remember that. I do remember walking past the docks on Pearl Street and then . . ." He shook his head. "I never saw him."

"Come now. You can tell me. What happened that night?"

"Well . . . I remember I was on me way to me sister's. She's quite a cook, that one. Always stuffs me with brown bread and coddle-"

As he pulled the tunic over his head she saw her chance. She grabbed the parlor pistol from her bedside drawer- "Hate to be disappointing you, dearie," he said as his head popped through the collar, "but that toy is just a Flobert, and I removed the flint."

She pulled the trigger anyway only to be rewarded by an impotent click. Silently cursing him, she tossed it on the settee.

He added, "And before you draw out that ghoulish-looking needle again, ask yourself a wee question: What's become of them lovely liniments you were keeping in your safe, mm? And might you be wanting them back?"

Rasheeda fixed her teeth. "You . . ." She moved toward him, extending her neck. " . . . impudent . . ." And drew in so close she had to tilt her face up to meet his gaze. " . . . reckless philistine. How dare you steal my oil? Without me it's no use to you or anyone else!"

"Seems of use to you, luv."

"Oh, is that what this is? Imagine, a simple revenant, looking to make a penny!"

He shrugged, fastening his trousers.

She said, "The only reason I indulged your drivel was to learn who stuffed you in my graveyard so I could find them and grind them into sausage. Not because I give a fig about you. It's my graveyard that's been violated. And if you think you can blackmail me-"

"Ah, now look how you've got yourself in such a lather. You'll get your liniments back. And not for money. Just give a helping hand in this."

"In what?"

"Finding me killer, of course. It's good for both of us. You said yourself you wanted to know who stuffed me in your garden."

"Not that badly. And not likely I'd trust you. You've already fooled me with your drooling act."

"Seemed the only way to get out of your bas.e.m.e.nt on me own two feet. You'd've either thrown me in your oven or sold me off to rich folk."

"How would you even know what I do?"

"Because I'll be living in a part of the city that watches how the rest live. I've heard rumors about the strange house staff you rent out." He eyed her. "And now I know where you recruit them: from graves."

She straightened. "I prefer to refer to them as domiciliary revenants."

"I don't care if you call them coddled eggs, do we have a deal?"

She shook her head. "I don't have time for this. I have a revenant who needs anointing before the moon changes. Tonight."

She still had enough of the properly fermented oil for Eunice, the Traugott revenant, but what about the next lunar cycle? The mixture took two cycles to properly ferment. If he didn't return that flask, she would lose everything by the end of the next cycle.

"I'll be tagging along, and we can start looking for me killer along the way."

"What? You've already been murdered once. I do not intend to be at your side should someone try again."

His expression grew fierce. "Well, I'll not be locking meself away, I can tell you that. I'll find me killer and make him pay."

LIATH STRODE ACROSS the dark New York City cobblestones in a long dress, a veiled hat, and pinchy heeled boots. The only visible emblem of his masculinity was the bra.s.s knuckles he wore on his right hand. What a fine state.

But the lady-whose name he'd learned was Rasheeda-was right: it wouldn't do at all to be recognized by the one who murdered him. Better to let him think he'd succeeded. He'd be off his guard then.

But Liath felt he had to go out tonight because he didn't want to let Rasheeda out of his sight.

She was striding next to him, all cat eyes and gilded scarlet in the streetlamps' glow, and not the least bit sympathetic to his boots. Quite a specimen, she was. Her skin was flawless. Obviously from India but not as dark as others he'd seen from that mysterious subcontinent.

Liath's attire had once belonged to a grand if horsey lady who'd outlived two husbands and then been trampled by a spooked gelding. No doubt the lady's family believed that Rasheeda had disposed of the dress. But no. It went into one of many bas.e.m.e.nt trunks. Fortunate for Liath that Rasheeda h.o.a.rded death clothes the way a spinster collected cats. She said she never sent a revenant out in clothes they died in, but they most certainly went out in clothes that someone else died in.

"How do you make your living, Mister O'Shea?"

"I guess you could be calling me an importer."

"Importer of what?"

He grinned. "Anything with a high tariff-the higher the better, I always say."

She laughed-a musical sound. "You're a smuggler!"

"You prefer 'domiciliary revenants,' I prefer 'tariff-free importer.' Me trade is made possible by the wonderful Republicans down in Was.h.i.+ngton, bless their souls. They love tariffs so much they place them on all imports-averaging thirty-six percent, would you believe? Without them I'd be out of business."

"Do you think one of your fellow smugglers did you in?"

He shrugged. "Could be, but I doubt it. There's plenty to go round." But he wasn't interested in his trade. He was thinking about all the revenants that had come before him. "So, considering me new circ.u.mstances, have you got any advice for a man like me?"

"Yes. Stop thinking of yourself as a man."

Considering the dress, her advice rang obvious. "You know what I mean. As a pet monster, or . . ."

"Domiciliary revenant."

"Fine. What's me upkeep? A dab of that oil now and again?"

She eyed him. "Not that simple. The anointing has very sensitive timing. If the revenant is salvageable. And there's a recitation involved."