Synnergy, Chaos Time Book 3 (5 page)

“I thought you said he was only stealing? He kills
too?” she asked, looking at Adam who seemed now to be the most
vocal about it.

He nodded. “Killed McClury when he struck a vein not
three nights past.”

“I hear tell he’s also the one responsible for Vi’s
drowning,” Frank said, coming up for air after being thoroughly
kissed by Alice. But Alice was having none of that, she grabbed him
around the neck and brought him back to her, effectively shushing
him.

“Who’s Vi?” Sable asked.

Benjamin tossed another nugget into the center of the
table. “Whore that used to work here, right Alice?” he asked.

Alice nodded and mumbled something, but then went
back to canoodling Frank.

“And how did he drown her exactly?” She looked at
Adam when neither of the other two answered.

“Folks say he was waitin’ down there by the river for
her. Drowned her.” He shrugged. “Probably wanted to scalp her.”

“I tell you again, Adam,” Caleb growled, “it’s not a
Native.”

And that’s when it dawned on her, she was going to
have to put on her detective hat to try and suss out fact from
fiction.

“Heard from Joe that he made his pack of mules ill.
Feed ‘em moldy grain,” Benjamin interjected, tossing a card on the
table and then reached for another from the deck.

Sable shook her head, but not because she believed
any of it. Superstitions were going to make this so much harder.
“Where is One Eye now?” she asked, noticing again he’d yet to make
an appearance.

Benjamin tilted his head and nodded. “Exactly,” he
mumbled.

Caleb and Adam groaned.

With one last giggle, Alice grabbed Frank’s hand.
“Sorry, boys, been fun...”

“But it’s time for me to have my lady for the
evening,” Frank said as he stood up. He snatched his hat from the
table and plopped it on his head, tipped it to Sable and with a
polite, “Ma’am,” took off up the stairs after a giggling Alice.

Adam shifted. “Now, how ‘bout that poke,
darlin’?”

Blessedly, Sable was spared from having to answer
when a commotion sprang up from the direction of the bar. Raucous
laughter erupted when the man sitting next to Arianna dropped to
the ground.

“Old Bob, can’t hold his liquor,” someone shouted and
the men nearest started hollering with laughter.

In the short time that Sable had been investigating
the bandit the parlor was now bursting to capacity with men.

“Too deep in his cups. What a, boyo,” a strong Irish
brogue blasted out. “Snorin’ like an old coon hound he is.”

A couple of men gathered up the limp body of the
loudly snoring Bob and dragged him outside the swinging doors,
leaving him sprawled out on the sidewalk to come to on his own good
time.

But what really caught Sable’s attention hadn’t been
Bob at all. It’d been Arianna smirking with an evil glint in her
deep brown eyes.

A hand clamped onto Sable’s elbow. She’d thought at
first it was Adam and was ready to shrug him off with whatever lame
excuse her brain could conjure up, when a soft lilting voice said,
“sorry, Adam, but Bunny’s needed.”

For a second she had no idea who Milly was talking
about, but then her cheeks flamed as she recalled her ridiculous
alias.

Milly was dressed in a pretty cream-colored gown
dripping in pearls. She leaned in close and whispered in Sable’s
ear. “You’ve been requested, your date awaits your service
upstairs.”

If wishes were reality, she’d be swooped up by the
boys and taken far, far away from here. But they weren’t here and
they probably wouldn’t take her anyway. She had no idea how to get
out of this one.

Milly patted her chest. “He paid in full.” Her eyes
were flashing and Sable sensed the unspoken dare, Milly was trying
to psyche her out. Prove that Sable was not who she claimed to
be.

She glanced over at Adam. He was crestfallen and
looking at her with a small frown. “Maybe another time, Adam.” Then
she nodded sharply at Milly and hiked her skirt up so she could
walk unhindered up the stairs. She kept her back straight and her
chin up.

She walked like that until she reached the landing
and turned toward her room. How hard it would be to jump out a
second story window without breaking a leg?

Minutes earlier

He was back. The pock faced man. No longer content to
simply haunt her as a ghost. He’d learned a new trick. He was
hunting her.

Arianna threw her head back chugging the whiskey,
embracing the burn as it slid down her throat. Her eyes
watered.

She’d hoped he’d disappear. She snorted. She should
be so lucky. Papa warned her not to abuse her powers. She glanced
over her shoulder; her world swam in and out of focus—how much had
she had to drink? She shook her head, no longer sure. She stared at
strange faces looking for
him
.

The Madam glared at her. She didn’t care. Sable
watched her with a predatory gleam. The bird knew too much. Saw too
much.

She banged her cup on the bar, throwing more gold on
it. “Mas,” she growled. She didn’t know if the bartender understood
Spanish, but he understood her meaning. He refilled her cup. His
skin was brown. Just like hers.

She jerked her gaze up to his face. The pock-faced
man would return. He’d found her on the sidewalk this morning. He
was a poltergeist now. His soul able to slip into another’s body
and control it.

The bartender’s eyes were dark. His cheeks smooth. He
frowned, but didn’t look away.

She broke eye contact first. He wasn’t the pock-faced
man. But he was coming. Coming. She knew it.

Men were grabbing her. She hissed and they left. She
drank her cup dry. The bartender hadn’t left. She grabbed his wrist
holding onto the half full bottle.

“I paid a large nugget. You owe me more.” Her words
were garbled, slurred. But he didn’t stop pouring and she didn’t
want him to. She wanted to forget. Needed to.

An electric presence made her flesh tingle as someone
sat down on the stool beside her.

Don’t look. Don’t look
. She knew. It was him.
He’d found her.

“Hola, Angel.”

She looked.

Glaring. Leering at her. A face within a face. A
shadowy image buried beneath the visage of another. Her muscles
trembled, her fingers curled around the cup.

“Missed me?” His eyes were dark black slits. Skin
pale white, but wavering beneath the surface like steam rolling on
water was her enemy. His voice, she shuddered as memories flooded
her—the machete he’d slit her mother’s throat with, the line he’d
drawn in the dirt with the toe of his boot—a sound rolled through
her chest. Wild. Animalistic. Raw.

He licked his fat lips. She could not see the other
man. Pock-faced had taken over.

“I’ll haunt you until the day you die, healer,” he
sneered and her heart threatened to rupture into a million tiny
fragments.

He leaned into her, so close his heat invaded hers
and he whispered Spanish words that none could hear, save her. His
fingers toyed idle with loose strands of her hair and her blood
sang with crystal.

Instinct kicked in and she touched him. To an
onlooker it was so gentle. Fingers trailing a satin, sensuous curl
up the length of his exposed arm. But her fingers were weapons,
pumping him full of her killing resonance. The man shuddered and
for a moment his skin turned purple. His veins bulged.

Pock-faced wavered, like someone had thrown static
over his face. And then his eyes blinked. And they were green now.
The true soul of the man fought for dominance against the black
demon who’d taken possession of him.

This was wrong, this was
wrong...
wrongwrongwrong
. She closed her eyes and mumbled,
“can’t kill. Don’t kill, Ari.”

A wicked laugh that boomed from the bowels of hell.
Fine hairs on her arms stood up.

“Is that it?” Pock-faced was back, leering at her.
His lips curled, exposing long sharp canines.

The alcohol was burning her belly. Her skin tingled
with a rush of adrenaline.

“Weak.” He hurled the insult like a dagger.

She winced. “Cannot kill. It is not him, Ari. This
man is innocent.”

His nose sniffed the hair on her head. “Want to know
a secret?”

She shook her head. “Lord save me. Save me,” her plea
a fervent whisper coming up from the cracked depths of her
being.

A hot tongue touched the shell of her ear. “It felt
good running my blade through her throat.”

She looked at him. His hands roved the length of her
thighs. She smiled into his black eyes and reached for his face,
then poured crystal shards into his body until he slumped to the
floor beside her.

Strong arms banded around her waist, and a hand
clamped over her mouth. “I knew you’d try to bolt.”

The voice, it did weird things to her body. Hot
things. Made her tingle. Want to melt into a puddle at his
feet.

The panic that had fluttered like a rabbit caught in
the sights of an eagle quickly turned to something else, something
electric and very exciting. Sable grinned and shoved a chuckling
Slayde back.

The candle sconces in the wall cast flickering
shadows along the hall. A couple three doors down were kissing and
pawing. Sable knew it was one of the twins because of the black
frizzy hair that haloed her.

She turned to look at Slayde. Clothes, that this
morning had looked clean were now stained and smudged in spots,
there was a dirt spot on his cheek and she didn’t think before she
reached up to brush it off with her thumb.

His gaze was searing and she was sure he could hear
her heart beating. He grabbed her hand after a second, threading
her fingers through his and yanked her into her room. He shut the
door behind them. A single flame flickered from the candle standing
in the metal holder bedside the nightstand both she and Arianna
shared.

Once inside they grew quiet and she dropped his hand,
taking a step back and then another. Sable glanced down her skirt
and their lack of conversation made the sounds around them all the
more loud and intrusive. Groans and grunts and floorboards
creaking, heat raced a fiery trail up her neck and settled in her
cheeks. Then Slayde started laughing and the tension flowed out of
her bones.

He wiggled his brows, hitching his thumbs into his
vest pockets. “So how ‘bout that poke?” he drawled, and she stomped
her foot, glancing around for something to fling at him.

“You were listening downstairs?” she accused him.

“What did you think I was going to do? Leave you out
there alone?” His grin was pure mischief.

She found a feather stuffed pillow and whacked his
rib cage with it. Small downy feathers flew out, dancing a lazy
curl to the floor. She narrowed her eyes, advancing on him with her
weapon. “If you think for a second, Mr—”

He laughed and the roll of his Adam’s apple made her
toes curl. Why did he have to be so damn hot? She really hated that
about him.

Sometimes.

“I didn’t come here for a poke with you.”

She frowned, her spine went rigid in a heartbeat.
“Who did you come upstairs to
poke
?” she snapped, the word
reverberated with loud accusation. “They’re all busy.” She hugged
the pillow to her body.

He unfurled the long length of his frame from the
door behind him. A searing fluttering of fingers tickled her
belly.

“I didn’t come here for anyone but you, Nix,” he said
in a voice rich with grit that made her want to purr.

She swallowed hard, digging her fingers into the
pillow.

Then he was in front of her, moving in that way of
his that blurred her reality and dulled her senses to everything
but scent.

He smelled of man and pine, a wild forest of
temptation and desire sprang reckless through her. She wanted to
shed her skin, become her bird. Fly wild and free through a
lightning streaked sky with him. Blood rushed in her ears.

She licked her lips. She’d be lying if she didn’t
admit to being a little scared, of him, of this.

“I remember something you told me before I got
hurt.”

She frowned. “Huh?”

He gave a wicked smirk, like he knew what he was
doing to her and relished it. It was enough to break her from the
delirious fog. She rolled her eyes.

He led her to Arianna’s empty bed. On it sat a paper
wrapped bundle. He pointed to it and wouldn’t look at her as he
shifted back onto his heels. “I saw this today and thought it was
kind of perfect.”

She looked at the shoddy wrapping which completely
prevented her from making out the shape beneath the bulging
package. “What is it?”

“Open it.” He picked it up and thrust it at her.

Her fingers shook a little as she peeled the paper
back. Inside laid the most gaudy, ugly creation she’d ever seen. A
crudely fashioned gold ring with two bluish hued birds, beaks
touching and claws gripping a small chunk of green-blue opal. Heat
prickled her eyes as she looked up at him.

He wrinkled his nose and shrugged. “It’s awful,
right?”

She found it hard to talk around the lump in her
throat. “Why did you buy me this, Slayde?”

No longer was there a teasing glint in his eyes, he
looked nervous and even slightly crestfallen. “Hunter and I were
scouting through the cribs today and I came across a woman trying
to sell it to me.”

He was looking through baby cribs? She was having the
hardest time picturing that. “This belonged to a baby?”

“No,” his chuckle was weak, “they call the section of
whore houses belonging to the Chinese cribs. Anyway,” he shrugged,
“she seemed to need money and when I saw the bird and remembered
that you said it was your birthday, I bought it. But it’s lame. You
can throw it...”