Five hours. I’d slept right around five hours.
Again, not bad, given how late I’d been up staring at the white-painted ceiling.
Even so, Cowboy and Angel were already out on the patio, a breakfast spread covering the blue and white flowered tile table, their chairs pointed out towards the desert and the pool. Gazing out over the blue sky, red mountains, and a line of high, white clouds, I sighed, feeling that harder ball of tension in my belly try to relax.
“Gorgeous,” I said, causing both of them to turn.
Cowboy grinned up at me, squinting against the sun. His lean, muscular arms poked out of a sleeveless T-shirt covered in a giant Ohm symbol in Sanskrit. His gray eyes caught the sunlight, making them stand out in his tanned face.
“Have a seat, doc,” he said, waving out over the table. “We got the full deal. Angel figured you’d be hungry still.”
“Did you sleep?” Angel said, frowning with her full lips, her dark brown hand shielding her eyes. “You look tired, Miri.”
I shrugged. “I am. But I feel a lot better than yesterday.”
She was right, though.
I did look tired. I’d noticed that in the bathroom mirror when I got out of the shower. I’d also noticed I looked like I’d lost weight.
The pain surged faintly at the thought, making me grit my teeth––reminding me it was worse today, worse than I could remember it ever being.
I knew why, too.
It was worse from my being nearer to Black. It was worse because I knew he was in driving distance of here, probably sitting over a different kitchen table, eating breakfast with Manny and his daughter and son-in-law and grandkids.
I wondered if they were having pancakes and fruit and whipped cream, too, or if they were eating something more home-cooked and Rez-style.
Breakfast burritos, maybe.
Maybe huevos rancheros, if someone in Manny’s family was feeling industrious.
Still gritting my teeth, I made my way over to a free deck chair and sat, pulling the chair up to the table with my feet and hands and looking over the ceramic platters covered in fruit, pastries, pancakes, eggs, sausage, bacon.
I told myself I’d feel better once I ate, but the truth was, just looking at all that food was making me feel nauseous all over again.
That part of the pain was definitely worse––worse than it had been in weeks, maybe in over a month. Maybe since I’d left New York.
It was bad enough that I found myself giving up on waiting it out at all.
It would just be where I was at today, which meant I needed to force myself to eat through it.
Pulling over the bowl filled with cut fruit, I used a spoon to fill my plate with blueberries, apple slices and strawberries. I pulled over the bowl of yogurt next, then the granola, then the honey. I also took a few spoonfuls of eggs, and put those on my plate, too, still more or less gritting my teeth through all of it, until my plate was full.
Watching me, Cowboy burst out in a kind of incredulous laugh.
“You don’t look like you actually want any of that, doc,” he observed. “If you’re not hungry, why’re you eating it?”
Sighing, I used my spoon to mix the yogurt, granola, honey and fruit together. I tried not to notice his chest pushing out the thin fabric of his T-shirt, or how being around him at all was like a non-stop reminder of Black, too.
“Miri,” Angel said, her voice worried. “Are you okay? You really don’t look good.”
I nodded, giving her a bare glance, embarrassed when I realized I’d been staring at Cowboy, unconsciously or not––whether because of Black or not.
“I just need to eat,” I told her. “I feel a little sick, but I think I need to eat.”
“You hung over?” Cowboy said, still watching me with a puzzled frown on his face. “You want some coffee?”
The idea of coffee briefly made my nausea worse, but I fought to keep it off my expression, nodding to Cowboy.
“Sure,” I said. “Yes. That would be great.”
Again, Angel and Cowboy exchanged looks, Angel arching one of her perfect black brows at Cowboy to display her skepticism. I could tell I must look weird to them, that my words were unconvincing at best, but I fought to focus on the food, scooping up a spoonful of the yogurt and fruit and forcing it into my mouth.
I made myself chew… then swallow.
I felt a surge of pain as it traveled down my throat.
It hit me hard, out of nowhere––disorienting me.
That time, it hadn’t come from me.
Focusing on my own light, I fought to tease out the other presence I felt there.
As soon as I looked, I realized I could feel Black everywhere, all around me. His light surrounded mine, suffocated it almost, pulling on it like a drug.
It felt like he was asleep still, or maybe half-awake, half-asleep.
Even in those bare few seconds, I felt more off him than I wanted, more than I could control, or even make sense of at first. Information flooded my light, of him being out all night on some kind of patrol, all of them carrying torches and guns, long wooden poles tied to their saddles, guns strapped to their hips and chests.
Black wore three guns. Handguns sat in nylon holsters at his hips, a rifle hung crosswise across his back. I saw him on a gray appaloosa horse with a dark gray mane and tail, a nearly black head and chest. He held a torch in one hand, a wooden spear in the other, staring down at a human-like creature with glowing red eyes, black hair, a black hat, black gloves and boots.
It even wore what looked like a black trench coat.
Something about the clothes was… strange.
It was definitely a vampire.
Blinking, I snapped out, my hand pressed against my chest.
My face felt hot, my thighs hurt, my hands––and of course, my stomach, throat and chest burned, making it hard to breathe. I felt a surge of pain off Black again, that time, filled with so much longing, it blanked out my vision.
I felt him feeling me, feeling my light.
The sunlight and blue sky faded around me a second time and I saw him lying on a small bed with a plaid blanket over most of him. He was shirtless, sprawled so that his legs hung over the end of the mattress, which was too short for him.
He was dreaming about sex.
I didn’t get close that time. I didn’t want to get close.
I hung back, still feeling like a stalker, but still not wanting to get close enough for specifics. I didn’t want to know who––or what––he was dreaming about.
I didn’t want to know who or what was turning him on.
Despite my reluctance, and the swell of grief that came with it, I was still too close. Sex-pain bled off his light, hitting at me hard enough it paralyzed me, wrapping into my light like a physical entity.
I couldn’t move though, couldn’t pull away.
He let out a low sound in his sleep, reaching with his hands, shifting under the blankets. I felt the longing on him worsen as his hands opened, looking for skin. He was turned on enough it was waking him up. I could feel him fighting it, trying to stay with the dream––
“MIRI!”
My eyes snapped into focus.
I turned, staring at Angel, breathing harder.
“Miri, for crying out loud… what the hell is wrong with you?”
She met my gaze, her eyes wider, her full lips pulled taut. I was still staring at her, fighting to focus my eyes, when she leaned closer, clasping my arm in her hand.
“Miri.” She sounded at a loss. “What’s going on?” Hesitating, she said, “Is this seer stuff? Vampire stuff? Something to do with what we talked about last night?”
I didn’t know how to answer that, either.
Feeling my face warm, that time in embarrassment, I leaned back, pulling away from her slightly. I realized only then that I’d leaned over the table, my arm wrapped around my gut. Forcing it back with an effort, I looked down at the yogurt and fruit and grimaced.
“I might have to wait on breakfast,” I said, fighting my voice normal again. “Do you two want to come to the F.B.I. offices with me? You don’t have to,” I added hastily. “You don’t need to be involved in any of this, honestly.”
Cowboy frowned, glancing at Angel, who frowned also.
“You’re really not going to tell us anything?” Angel said, her voice almost hurt.
“I can leave,” Cowboy said. “If it’s girl talk that’s needed, I have things I could do for a few hours.”
I looked at him, then at her.
I thought about Black on that too-short mattress at Manny’s house, the tautness on his features when he felt my light. The pain in my gut worsened, bringing a line of fire to my heart and catching in my throat.
“You can’t help me with this,” I said finally. I looked at Angel, touching her arm briefly with my fingers and smiling. “I wish you could, Ang, but you can’t.”
Glancing at Cowboy, I found I couldn’t hold his gaze, either.
I looked out over the pool.
Two families obviously traveling together were just entering through the gate. They threw their white, fluffy hotel towels down on a cluster of sun loungers with umbrellas, chatting amongst themselves. The three younger kids, two boys and a girl, kicked off their sandals and tore off T-shirts to jump in the pool. They splashed the two teenaged girls, who’d already claimed sun loungers, holding their phones and talking amongst themselves.
Two of the adults yelled at them to stop splashing the girls.
I found myself watching the other couple, though.
Watching the woman burst into a laugh at something the man said, I felt that pain in my gut deepen. I recognized the look on her face, and on his when he wrapped an arm around her waist, tugging her closer in her dark red bikini.
Looking away from them, I fought the emotion that wanted to rise, the same emotion I’d been suppressing for what felt like weeks now, for months––for as long as I’d known something was wrong about what Black was doing in New York.
For as long as I’d known he was lying to me.
I rose to my feet, feeling my jaw harden as I did.
“Miri,” Angel said, exasperated. “You can’t keep doing this. You can’t just keep pretending nothing’s going on with you, that you can handle this all on your own. You have to talk to someone…”
I didn’t answer.
Going back into the suite, I grabbed my purse and my phone off the counter without looking back.
“Take the SUV,” Angel called out, her voice louder, and incredulous again. “Jesus, Miri. Were you going to hire a car, too?”
Hesitating, I stopped by the pony counter around the kitchen.
I was going to hire a car. I’d figured I’d ask the concierge when I got to the lobby of the resort about my options for rental places in the area. Realizing now that maybe that was stupid, given that Black owned the actual resort, I sighed. Glancing back at her, I grabbed the black key fob for the SUV off the counter and raised it in her direction.
“You sure you won’t need it?”
“Take it,” Cowboy said, his voice firm. “We’ll be fine. Black’s left a few cars here for us.”
Grimacing a little at the mention of Black, I only nodded.
“Sorry,” I said then. “We can talk later. I just don’t think I can do it right now. I think it’s just better if I get back to work––”
Angel exhaled in open frustration, clearly about to speak, but I cut her off.
“––I shouldn’t be too long. Maybe we can go downtown when I get back. Do the tourist thing for a few hours before dinner.” Giving Angel a direct look, I added, “Or maybe we can go to the spa. Try the girl talk thing again, while Cowboy goes out and does boy things.”
Angel, seeing the meaning in my eyes, nodded, firm.
“No maybe about it,” she called after me. “I’m making appointments, Miriam. As in plural. Be back here by three o’clock. Three o’-fucking-clock. That should give you more than enough time. Two minutes late, or I’m having Cowboy send Black’s goons after you.”
I rolled my eyes, about to answer, but that time she cut me off.
“You should know, doc, I give zero shits about lying to get them to drag you back here. After hitting you with a tranquilizer dart, if need be.”
Snorting a laugh in spite of myself, I nodded.
“Okay,” I said. “Message received. Three o’clock. I’ll be here.”
“You’d damned well better be,” she muttered, turning back around in her chair.
She said it lower, maybe low enough that most humans wouldn’t have heard it at all.
But I wasn’t human anymore, as much as I was in denial about that fact most of the time.
I wasn’t human, so I heard every word.
10
SANTA FE
I FELT MARGINALLY better once I got out of the resort.
Maybe it was the driving part of things.
It felt good to drive; I hadn’t done much driving in Hawaii, or in New York before that. Driving had always been a way of clearing my head, especially in a place like this, with a huge blue sky and miles and miles of dark red land. Even in the Old Town area of the city, the near-monochrome landscape of the adobe buildings instilled a kind of earthy calm I hadn’t felt since I’d first gotten on that plane.
Even so, something felt strange.
I couldn’t put my finger on it at first, in terms of what exactly was strange.
Really, I just assumed it was me.
I hadn’t been myself for weeks, even before Angel mirrored that fact back at me in a way I could no longer ignore, a way in which Charles never did in Hawaii. I knew I was still jet-lagged, in addition to being totally fucked up from my few, brief brushes with Black since we’d been back in roughly the same geographical area.
As I began to leave Old Town, edging into the more modern part of the city, it started to sink in that it wasn’t just me.
Something was off. Maybe it had been off for a while.
Maybe I hadn’t noticed because of everything else going on with me.
For one thing, there was just way too much light.
That light, meaning the seer kind of light, the nonphysical, invisible-to-most-humans kind of light, flooded every particle of space, pretty much everywhere around me.
I wondered at first if it had something to do with my training in Hawaii. I wondered if maybe I was just seeing more, after spending all that time working with Uncle Charles on sharpening my awareness, and seeing auras and land and Barrier energies in general.
As part of that training, Charles even took me to a live volcano once, on the big island of Hawaii, so he could show me the differences in land energies, so I could feel light changes in the actual environment, versus those that occurred due to a particular person or situation.
This felt more like that.
Not like a volcano, exactly, but like something was off in the actual land, something that filled the Barrier space around me with waves and currents thick with light.
It was intense enough to disorient me.
Really, it made me feel almost drunk.
Driving slower, I gazed down side streets with their rows of dark red adobe buildings and realized it was way too quiet for a Saturday at eleven in the morning.
At the same time, the air felt weirdly pregnant.
I saw a young woman, maybe in her mid-twenties, dancing down the street in a flowing, ankle-length skirt and a peasant blouse. She had a wide, euphoric grin on her face, and flowers in her curly hair. She would prance-skip, then twirl, then prance-skip again.
A man walking down the street behind her held a camera in his hands, an expensive, SLR-digital camera, but he didn’t appear to be using it. Instead, he stared up at the sky, his jaw slack, a look of bewilderment on his face.
I frowned, but didn’t stop the SUV.
I saw more clusters of people, but the streets were surprisingly light of traffic, for such a tourist-
heavy area. We’d gotten back here around sunset yesterday from that detour up to White Rock, and at the time, the streets had been full, not only of people but of cars. Sunburnt tourists on foot crawled over the cobblestone alleys of the plaza and surrounding streets, heading out for dinner and taking photos of the distinctive buildings.
Thinking about it now, though, there’d been a higher level of… something… in the air, even last night. It was like a faint charge infused everything and everyone with more voltage, pushing it all just the slightest bit off-center.
I felt it then, a kind of tilt in the axis around me.
That time, the wave was strong enough it felt like being picked up out of my body and put back down again. My vision slanted briefly out––my sense of balance slipping sideways.
Gripping the steering wheel, I fought to get my equilibrium back.
The sensation left my heart thudding in my chest.
It also made me wonder if I should pull over.
I saw a group of kids running down the street, screaming in laughter.
Their laughter jarred me, sounding manic to my ears, sounding caught up in that same warp in the nonphysical light.
A woman and a man stood outside of a shop with a glowing hand in the window. She was wrapped in a scarf over a black tank top and jeans. He wore a Mexican-style men’s shirt with colorful embroidery on the neckline and black pants.
Both of them were frowning, looking around at the streets, and I wondered if they sensed and saw what I sensed and saw. I saw them talking to one another in low voices as she toyed with a crystal pendant she wore around her neck, biting her lip in obvious worry.
I wished my uncle was here, so I could ask him about it.
I knew that was only half of it though.
It was less than half, really. I didn’t really want to talk to my uncle. It wasn’t really my uncle who I wished was here for me to ask.
I wanted to call Black.
I wanted to ask Black what the hell this was, what was going on.
Glancing down at the map on the GPS screen, I thought about calling him, then bit my lip, shaking off the impulse.
Black To Dust: A Quentin Black Paranormal Mystery (Quentin Black Mystery Book 7) Page 14