Spirit and Dust - By Rosemary Clement-Moore Page 0,55

remember? That was your idea.”

He glanced, almost imperceptibly, over my shoulder, then smiled. “One of my better ones.” He bent his head close to mine, murmuring into the space behind my ear, “Security camera in the corner.”

When he straightened, it took me two swallows before I could get my voice to work. “You better not be making that up,” I said, covering flusterment with a whitewash of grumpy. “Or I’ll kick your ass when this is over.”

He didn’t grin, but there was a devilish gleam in his eye and he kept hold of my hand as we passed a row of Roman statuary. “You already kicked my ass when this started.”

I gave the cracked marble figures the once-over for any psychic hot spots or auras, playing it cool, like the scratch of his chin on my neck didn’t dress me up in goose bumps. “That wasn’t your ass.”

He laughed, a surprised guffaw that drew stares and a “Shhh” from the docent in the corner. Which made me laugh, which earned a basilisk glare, which made it harder to smother the hysteria and, jeez, maybe I was punch-drunk from lack of sleep and too much soda.

“Nice job if you get us kicked out,” said Carson, no longer laughing as he hustled me into the next room.

I was still giggling, which made it that much further to crash when I sputtered out, like a jet reaching max altitude.

The dusty weight of death pressed down on me like a ton of ash. Old and communal, preserved and petrified, it filled up my lungs, coated my throat, and choked off my breath.

Carson caught me around the waist when my knees buckled. He didn’t ask what was wrong, just, “What do you need?”

I needed to get my defenses in place. I needed all my concentration to push the force field of my psyche out, holding back the echoes of the crushing weight of rebel earth, the staggering impact of thousands of simultaneous deaths preserved by the very cataclysm that had killed them.

This was what flirting got me. I’d known the exhibit was there, but I’d blundered in unprepared anyway. I couldn’t blame anyone but myself.

“Daisy.” Carson gave me a shake, sounding honest-to-God worried. “Are you in there?”

“Yeah,” I wheezed. I’d gotten my feet literally and figuratively back under me.

The room had been set up like a Roman villa, to showcase the art in the mosaics and statuary. The pieces were all in excellent shape, but the scale of death they’d witnessed had soaked into the stone, so the fractures and patches showed on the psychic surface. On small platforms around the room were plaster casts made from the hardened ash molds of the dead, preserved where they fell when the volcano erupted. They were part of the whole display, like Mother Nature’s grisly art.

“Come on,” Carson said, steering me toward a rear exit. There was a sign that pointed to the restrooms, and in the empty hallway he propped me up against the wall and asked, “What just happened?”

“Stupid Pompeii.” I pushed off from the wall and staggered to the water fountain. My throat felt like I’d lived through the pyroclastic cloud.

He followed me, standing by until I finished my slurping gulps. “Daisy … I mean, what did you do? I felt that.”

That got my attention, and I straightened, wiping a drop of water from my lip with a shaking hand. “What do you mean? You felt the remnants?”

“No. Maybe. I don’t know.” He grabbed my hand and held it up between us. “When you choked and doubled over, holding on to you was like holding on to a live wire. I thought my heart was going to stop. And then I felt like I could breathe fire.”

I stared at him, wide-eyed, over our clasped hands. “What does that mean?”

“I have no idea.”

Maybe not, but he was thinking something. I could see the wheels turning down deep, where he kept the whole of himself from public view.

“Do you feel anything now?” I asked, and by Saint Gertrude’s many cats, I swear I only meant anything magical. I mean, literally magical. I did not mean, Do you feel how close we’re standing, or the way my arm is pressed against your chest and yours against mine? I most especially didn’t mean, Do you feel how my heart is going to stop if you pull me any closer?

“No,” he said, with a slow smile that addressed all the things I hadn’t meant but sort of did. “You’re