Blood and Fire (McClouds & Friends #8)(99)

Zia Rosa was all fogged up, too. She gazed at the little girl and mopped beneath the lenses of her glasses, then seized a napkin from the holder and noisily blew her nose. “Dolcettina mia, che carina,” she burbled. “Goddamn Tony. He shoulda told me. He shoulda trusted me more. But he couldn’t. He didn’t trust nobody.”

“It’s not your fault, Zia,” Kev said.

“It just ain’t right. I know what I woulda done with them stinkin’ stronzi. I’d have done like my papà used to say. Your bisnonno .”

Bruno glanced in Rachel’s direction. “Whatever bisnonno used to say, you censor it big-time, Zia,” he warned. Bisnonno had been a pretty hardcore kind of dude, if family legend was to be believed.

But Zia was off and running. She switched languages, thank God, letting out a torrent of picturesque and uniquely nasty Calabrese dialect. Bruno and Kev, the only ones would could understand it, glanced at each other and tried not to smile.

First shadow of a smile that he’d seen Kev crack since he got here. Maybe the worst was over. Good old Zia, always providing the comic relief. Hell on wheels didn’t begin to describe her.

When Zia wound down, red in the face, Lily poked his arm. “Translation, please,” she said.

Bruno groaned. “No way.” He gestured at Rachel. “It’s foul.”

“So paraphrase,” she urged. “Give me the gist of it.”div> Val laughed and put his hand behind Rachel’s shoulders. “Come, Rachel,” he said gently. “Into the playroom with you.”

When Val had herded the little girl safely out of the kitchen, Bruno concentrated to remember the sequence. “OK, so it started out with graphic descriptions of the various sexual aberrations of all the guys who came after me in the diner, most specifically their unhealthy fondness for barnyard animals. Then we moved on to these guys’ kinky long-dead ancestors, and this bit about the unspeakably obscene things they did in the woods with Santa Anna and San Girolamo—don’t ask me to explain, because I don’t get it, either. And fountains of blood, teeth flying, dismembered corpses of vanquished enemies, yada, yada, and then the part about pissing on their disassembled bones until the day of the second ascension of Cristo Santo. And then—”

He stopped, his mouth hanging open. Everyone staring at him while that drumroll crescendoed again. His hairs prickled. He had to consciously remember to breathe.

“Zia,” he said, as soon as he could control his voice. “That bit about pissing on the bones. Is that really something Bisnonno used to say? Or did you add that part in yourself?”

“Ah, nah, Papà always said that when someone got in his face,” Zia assured him. “He was un uomo cazzoso. Everything bugged him.”

Bruno looked at Kev. Kev was starting to smile. And nod.

“Did Tony ever say it?” Bruno persisted.

“Of course. Tony was cazzoso, too. Don’t you remember?”

“Oh, yeah,” Bruno said. “I do remember. And how.”

Kev’s face split into a huge grin. Bruno’s, too. He shook with laughter. At least, he hoped it was laughter. Better not to check. But he covered his face, just in case. His shoulders were shaking.

“What?” Lily grabbed his shoulder. “Is something wrong?”

“No,” Kev said. “Nothing’s wrong. Everything’s fine.”

“Then what’s going on? Why is he falling apart?” Lily yelled.

Bruno lifted his face, wiped his eyes. “I’m not. I just figured out where to dig, that’s all.”





22


“What part of ‘no’ do you not understand, Hobart?” King said into the phone, staring down at Zoe





s inert form on the infirmary bed. The machines hooked up to her beeped and hummed in the quiet room.

“But . . . how do you expect . . .” Hobart’s voice trailed off. He was intelligent enough to hear death in his creator’s voice, but he continued to whine. “But you saw what these people can do! It’s just Melanie and me! We need reinforcements if we’re going to mount an attack on—”

“I don’t have reinforcements to send you,” King cut in, staring at the data generated by the machines attached to Zoe. Her body was healing, but she’d indulged in two more doses of Melimitrex to make it to the rendezvous point. Zoe’s tendency for self-indulgence should be no surprise to him at this point, but still. It was a wonder she wasn’t dead from an overdose. She might be brain damaged. Time would tell.

The trauma had taken its toll. She had lost a startling amount of weight, and her face was gaunt and sunken. Broken capillaries marred her eyelids, d veins on her temples stood out, snakelike and discolored. King shuddered with distaste. Hobart was still babbling. King forced himself to listen. He had to close this tedious conversation.

“. . . now, considering their resources! We’re going to need at least eight to ten operatives to mount an attack on—”

“Who said anything about mounting an attack?” King said.

Hobart was lost. Incredible, that this specimen had escaped the cull. He wondered what criteria he had been using when he chose not to discard Hobart. Certainly creative thinking had not been on the forefront of his mind. Some other gift must make up for the lack, but it was not in evidence today. King would look into his specs before he eliminated him, to make sure. Housecleaning was in order.