He didn’t wait.
WRENCHING HIS ARMS and body sideways, he slammed his elbow into the vampire to his right. Catching him off guard, he hit him square in the face, hard enough that Black felt something crunch. Sliding swiftly around and behind the second one, he used his hands to rip the hood off his face, then slammed his shoulder into that one’s back, knocking him off-balance right as he was unholstering his gun.
He used the same shoulder to knock him into the granite-topped reception desk, driving his head into it. The vampire let out a startled cry, then crumpled to the carpet.
Chaos had already erupted around them, screams.
Black knelt over the first vampire he’d hit, slamming both fists down on his head, using the cuffs on his temple. He raised his hands, about to do it again, when a familiar voice broke through the screaming and other sounds in the room.
“Stop! Right now!”
Black looked over. He’d assumed Brick was talking to him.
Then he saw the row of guns on him. He saw Brick raise his hands to the vampires holding them, a deadly warning in his eyes.
“Do not kill him,” he said, staring directly at Black with those red eyes. “We need him alive. Any vampire harms him, and I will torture and kill your entire bloodline...”
“I’m not going anywhere with you!” Black snarled, gripping the vampire by the throat between his cuffed hands. “You’d better fucking kill me now!”
He looked over when gunfire broke out near the front of the lobby area. He saw vampires using rifles to gun down humans where they stood. They weren’t being choosy. They killed every person they saw, methodically, like an extermination team. Black heard screams, running, people yelling in a blind panic, but the vampires never stopped methodically firing.
“Mr. Black.” Brick’s voice was calm. He held up a hand to him, like one might with a wild animal, or a child who was about to hurt himself. “I have no intention of keeping you prisoner. I have every intention of honoring our deal...”
“Bullshit! What the fuck did you do to my wife?”
“Miriam is fine, Mr. Black. She is fine! We are returning you to her this very day, just like I said. I have not harmed her or violated her in any way...”
Black stared up at him, panting, his hands still around the vampire’s throat. He saw that vampire watching him warily now, but also looking at Brick, as if waiting for the go ahead to defend himself.
“Why?” Black snarled at Brick. “Why would you let me go?”
“I just said why. We need you, Mr. Black.”
“Why?”
Brick smiled, shaking his head as if in amusement. “Get up, Mr. Black. Your services are no longer required here. I will call your wife personally, as soon as you are gone. My people will take you to a meeting place immediately after, so she can pick you up. There are clothes in the back of the van. I suggest you use them, and not wait on the side of the road in prison attire...”
Black stared at him, still breathing so hard he was panting.
“What about the collar?” he blurted, his voice still low, animal-like. “Are you going to take it off me? Or is that just a final fuck you before I go?”
“Only Miriam can take the collar off you, Mr. Black.” Brick smiled at him. “It seemed appropriate, don’t you think? Tell her that her left ring finger should do nicely.”
Brick checked his watch then, motioning towards Black with the gun in his other hand, almost like he was dismissing him.
“Now I really must say goodbye, Mr. Black. I’m afraid we have more pressing business to attend to here. Business that no longer concerns you.”
Black sat back on his heels, staring around at them, that fury still coursing through his veins. Then something cold and metal pressed against the base of his head, just above the collar he wore.
“Get up, Mr. Black,” a voice said courteously. “It’s time to do as Mr. Brick says.”
Recognizing the voice of the driver of the van, Black contemplated trying to disarm him. Then, seeing the rest of the guns pointed at him, he changed his mind.
He rose slowly to his feet, his hands held out in front of him.
“Very good. Now lower your hands.”
Black did that, too. Once he had, the human who had been sitting shotgun during the drive stepped forward from his other side. Black watched as he bent down, connecting a chain from his cuffed wrists down to his cuffed ankles.
“Goodbye, Mr. Black.” Brick smiled at him as the two humans began leading Black out of the clinic’s ground floor lobby. They walked him through the line of vampires casually, aiming his feet in a shuffle-walk towards the sliding glass doors.
Black’s eyes remained on Brick as he passed, and he saw Brick do the same, that faint smile still dancing on the vampire’s lips.
“Thank you so much for your assistance, Quentin,” Brick added, still turning to follow him as he gave a short bow. “May we meet again someday... hopefully under more mutually pleasant circumstances than these.”
“You shouldn’t wish that,” Black told him coldly. “You really shouldn’t.”
Brick smiled back, his red eyes holding not so much as a flicker of concern.
Behind him, the two vampires Black knocked down were being helped slowly back to their feet. The one whose throat Black had in his hands got up first; he helped pull up the second one, the vampire Black knocked unconscious against the reception desk counter.
Black was still watching them when Brick looked away.
Once he had, the moment ended.
Black felt the shift more than saw it; he’d simply ceased to exist. He watched as Brick’s face slid into a flatter, more alien expression, right before he spoke into a walkie talkie he brought to his lips. His voice came out cold, businesslike, stripped of feeling––even with the New Orleans accent that continued to color his words.
“All right, my friends, we are inside,” Brick drawled the words, his red eyes reflecting the fluorescent lights. “We are alone now in this, so kill anything that doesn’t eat from the one true source. I have just now sent the seer with Davis and Greg. Alister is coming through the gates as I speak with the second team. They will be accompanying my team downstairs. Finish clearing this floor, then keep watch on the front with engines running. Brick out.”
Somewhere in that speech, Black found himself hearing Brick’s true voice for the first time.
He would remember that, too.
More gunfire peppered walls in the back rooms as Brick released the walkie’s button. The screams and shouts sounded further away now, from deeper inside the maze of corridors making up the ground floor. Black found himself reminded of runs he’d done in other countries, where the order was to leave no one alive, no matter who they were.
There was a reason he’d gotten out of that work.
As he and the human drivers exited out the glass doors, he came to a stop, staring down at the bodies that already littered the floor of the loading area. He counted eleven in total, including two wearing work coveralls who were probably mechanics.
He was still standing there when a second black van pulled into the warehouse loading area next to the first. The vehicle hadn’t even come to a complete stop when the doors slammed open. More black-clad soldiers streamed out, holding automatic weapons and wearing kevlar.
Red eyes stared at him as they jogged past.
Blank. Emotionless. Hungry.
Then they were gone.
They disappeared inside the building, and once more, it was quiet.
Black glanced behind him when more automatic weapon fire erupted, closer that time. Piercing screams rose as it continued, that time, from a lot of people... at least twenty whose voices Black heard. The vamps must have found a pocket they missed on the first pass.
The screams started to die down even as the glass doors shut behind him a second time, cutting off the cloud of air conditioned air.
Black let them lead him into the back of the van.
He on
ly sat there while they locked the double doors, unmoving as he heard them climb into the driver’s cab and passenger seat and shut both of those doors too. There was barely a pause before they started the engines, then began making their way back to the front gates.
Black’s mind was blank now.
It was just... blank.
For now, at least, he was pretty much done.
Twenty-Four
END OF THE ROAD
THEY’D ONLY BEEN driving a short time when the metal dividing panel slid open, and the man sitting shotgun next to the driver dropped the handcuff keys through the mesh wire.
Black fumbled for them on the van’s metal floor, then used them to unlock every chain on his wrists and ankles.
“There’s clothes, under the bench,” the same man grunted, motioning towards the left side of the van. “Leather bag. They said they brought things that should fit you, Mr. Black. I was told to tell you that everything in that bag is yours, if you want it.”
Black frowned, seeking out the bag with his eyes. He held onto the wall as he made his way back there, then dragged the bag out from under the padded bench.
Inside, he found clothes, shoes, an envelope with a few thousand dollars in it, two large bottles of water, a road map of Louisiana, a bag of dried peaches, a bag of beef jerky, a smaller bottle filled with apple juice, and a compass.
He dealt with the clothes first, stripping off every piece of the prison gear he wore and putting on flannel boxers and a pair of jeans, both of which might have been his. They were definitely brands he had in his closet in San Francisco, and they fit, which wasn’t easy with his height. He didn’t let his mind dwell on that for long, however.
Pulling a dark red T-shirt over his head and down his chest, he crouched down to rummage around the bottom of the bag a second time and found his watch, the same military watch he’d worn since it had been gifted to him over ten years earlier.
Snapping it back on his wrist, he sat on the bench, frowning.
Strangely, the clothes made him feel the most normal he had since this whole thing started.
After he put on socks and the brand new running shoes, he turned his attention to the food. Deciding to go with the apple juice first, he cracked the seal and downed half of it without taking a breath. Lowering it briefly, he called out to the two men through the open panel.
“Where are we going?” he said. “Can you tell me that much?”
Neither of the two men answered him.
Black drank down the second half of the bottle in a matter of seconds, then reached for the beef jerky. After he ate through all the food and drank one of the bottles of water, he laid down on the bench, closing his eyes.
He must have dozed off.
“HEY! BLACK! WAKE the fuck up!”
The voice jarred him out of a dreamless sleep, bringing him violently up to a seated position. He stared through that open metal panel, feeling a coil of sickness in his gut when he recognized the twin faces staring at him through the metal mesh.
The truck had stopped.
It was completely dark out, that blackness visible through the windshield behind the men’s heads, and Black could hear cars going by, fast, a lot of them, so they had to be near a highway or a freeway.
“Door’s open,” the guy sitting shotgun said, his voice grim. “You’re free to go, Mr. Black. I recommend walking to the truck stop... about a mile north of here.”
“Where the fuck am I?” Black growled.
The man just gave him a flat-eyed stare.
Realizing he didn’t care, Black climbed to his feet. He grabbed the envelope with the money and the map, sticking both in the back of his pants under the shirt, and walked to the back door. When he hit down the bar to open it, it stuck for a few seconds, just long enough to get his heart hammering again. He leaned more of his weight on it, and jerked down on the bar again.
...and it opened.
Black nearly fell out onto the ground when it did. He managed to catch himself well enough to land on his feet, mostly by catching hold of the hanging door.
Once he was standing more or less upright, he shut the door behind him.
Immediately, the truck screeched away, the back wheels spinning on the gravel as it peeled out into the road. Black saw the back end of the van fishtail as it hit the asphalt.
He couldn’t feel the men inside the truck, but something told him they were afraid of him.
For the first time in awhile, it occurred to him that they should be.
Only then did he look around.
He was standing on the side of a freeway.
Lights flashed by him as he raised his arm, looking in both directions. From the stars he could barely see, high in the dome of sky above him, he determined north was straight ahead.
He began to walk.
Twenty-Five
THE LONG JOURNEY HOME
I SAW HIM first.
I kept staring in that direction as we sat in the lot, although I didn’t think about why, or even really notice I was doing it. When the lone form walked into the circle of light emitted by a tall, parking lot pole, I grabbed Dex’s shoulder through the open window between the back and the front of the limousine, gripping him hard.
“There,” I said, pointing.
He was so small from that distance, I couldn’t be sure, but I was sure.
I knew it was him.
My heart pounded painfully in my chest.
Dex was already starting the car. Putting it in gear, he didn’t wait, or even glance at Kiko, who sat in the passenger seat next to him. I hadn’t let anyone else come with us. I couldn’t handle the thought of anyone else being there if he never appeared.
Dex did probably forty across that parking lot towards the lone figure walking towards us. By the time we were close enough that I could see his face, I couldn’t breathe. I gripped the separator between the two sections of the car and I fought with the scream that wanted to come out of my chest. I was still staring at him, fighting the emotions crashing over me, when Kiko squeezed my arm.
“It’s okay, doc,” she said softly. “He looks like he’s okay.”
“He’s lost weight,” Dex muttered, adjusting the wheel to bring the car closer as they closed the distance. “...A lot of it.”
“He looks fine,” Kiko said to him, her voice warning.
“We need to take him to a doctor,” Dex said.
“We will, Dexter. Now hush.”
I barely heard either of them. I was looking over every inch of Black as he walked, from the way he held his body to the slowness of his gait. He looked exhausted to me. Pale, angry, and exhausted. And like Dex said, he’d lost weight. Too much weight.
Biting my lip, I stared at him through the glass as we pulled up next to him.
I saw him see me, too. As soon as he did, his eyes widened.
Then relief flooded over his expression, so visible it brought my heart to my throat all over again. Something about that relief didn’t seem aimed at himself, for being “rescued,” or even a relief that we’d found him. It seemed aimed at me, at the fact of seeing me alive.
When the car came to a stop, all three of us opened our doors.
But Black shocked me. He held up a hand, his voice rising to a near-shout.
“No!” he said. He pointed at the back door, the one I’d been coming out of, the one I now stood behind. “No, goddamn it! Get back in the fucking car, Miriam.”
I stared at him, feeling myself pale. I didn’t speak.
“Get back in the car. Now, Miriam! I mean it! Shut the fucking door!”
I did as he said, moving mechanically, my mind utterly blank. Sitting back on the leather seat in the back of the car, I shut the door.
I could still hear them through the glass. I couldn’t take my eyes off him, either.
Black’s face contorted into an angry scowl, unlike anything I’d ever seen on him before. As soon as the door closed behind me, he turned on Dex.
“What
the fuck has been going on?” he snarled. “I gave you one fucking job if anything ever happened to me... one job! That was to protect her. Protect her. What the fuck have you been doing? Because you sure as hell haven’t been doing that...”
Dex and Kiko stared at him, both of them pale.
Dex stepped slightly in front of Kiko, almost like he was shielding her.
“Boss, you told us Dr. Fox was in charge when you weren’t there...” When Black started to speak, Dex spoke over him calmly, holding up a hand. “You said Miriam was in charge. That she called the shots. Remember? You told all of us that, that you’d changed the company structure, that the two of you were business partners now...”
“She’s not my fucking business partner!” Black’s eyes flashed as he took a step towards the other man, causing Dex to step back. “She’s my wife. Do you get that? She’s my goddamned wife. You let my wife run an op against these motherfucking assholes? The same ones that got the drop on me? What is the matter with you?”
“She was looking for you––”
“Bullshit!” Black snapped. “He said they made some kind of deal. He said he made a deal with my goddamned wife... he told me how hot she looked in person, so I know they had at least one face-to-face. What the fuck did you do? Stand around and serve fucking tea while she sat in a room with that piece of shit?”
“Mr. Black, please.” Kiko stepped out from behind Dex, holding up her hands. “Please hear us on this. Miriam was only trying to––”
“Excuse me?” Black turned on her, his arms flexed, his fists clenched. “I’m not talking to my wife right now. I’m talking to you. I should fire both of your asses right now... do you hear me? I can’t believe I ever trusted either of you!”
At that, my jaw hardened. Feeling my resolve harden too, I slid over abruptly on the leather seat and popped open the door. Standing up, I gripped the car door without getting out from behind it.
“Black,” I said angrily. “You’re not firing them. Either of them.”
“Get back in the fucking car, Miriam! I’ll talk to you in a minute.”
Black And Blue (Quentin Black Mystery #5) Page 30