Black To Dust: A Quentin Black Paranormal Mystery (Quentin Black Mystery Book 7)

by JC Andrijeski

  When they did, I got up.

  Walking to the door with my purse, I grabbed my boots and opened the door, walking outside the suite in my socks and shutting the door behind me before I put them on.

  I told myself I wouldn’t be able to sleep, anyway.

  I told myself I might as well save everyone time, drive up there now.

  I told myself I could start interviewing those kids first thing in the morning if I left now, versus some time after noon if I waited and had breakfast with Angel and Cowboy.

  I told myself the traffic would be lighter now.

  I picked up the SUV from the valet, who’d filled the tank with gas just like I asked. They’d also cleaned the inside from the last time I’d been in it, and stocked it with water bottles. Sitting in the driveway in front of the resort, I pulled up the directions Manny gave me via text to get to his house. Rather than cutting over the open ground like Black had on horseback, I’d be going the more roundabout route, using the highway and then the reservation roads, some of which were unpaved and had minimal signage.

  I punched the route Manny recommended into the car’s GPS, which told me it would take me around four and a half hours, assuming I went the speed limits. Checking my watch, I realized that it wasn’t eleven yet, but that still had me arriving late as hell.

  The valet knocked on my window then, and I rolled it down, using the electric button.

  “Are you going to be driving long, Mrs. Black?”

  I blinked at him, then nodded. “Around four hours. Maybe five.”

  “Would you like some coffee for your trip? A few caffeinated sodas, perhaps?” He paused. “Or a driver maybe? So you can sleep in the back?”

  I frowned, thinking.

  “No on the driver,” I said. “But coffee and a soda would be fantastic.”

  “Espresso or drip?”

  I smiled. “If I get the choice, an Americano. Large. Four shots, with some cream and no sugar.”

  “One moment, please.”

  He returned what felt like a bare minute later, holding a bag and a large cup of coffee. He’d put it in one of the resort’s thermos-style travel containers, like they sold in the coffee shop, rather than an ordinary paper cup.

  I couldn’t keep the gratitude from my voice. “Thank you.”

  “Anything you need, Mrs. Black,” he said cheerfully. “I threw some food in there too, since that’ll help you stay awake too. I hope that’s okay.”

  “It’s great. Thank you, again.”

  He gave me another smile and a short wave. As he retreated to the stand by the curb, I peeked in the bag he’d handed me. He’d given me a piece of carrot cake, a Danish, a chocolate chip cookie, and a fresh-looking sandwich that looked like ham and cheese with tomato, lettuce and some kind of dijon mustard.

  Setting the bag down on the shotgun seat and fitting the coffee into a drink holder, I let out another grateful sigh.

  Sometimes, the money thing really was amazing.

  Putting the SUV into gear, I pulled out of the parking lot, entering Old Town and following the voice of the GPS as it led me towards the freeway.

  Strangely, the drive went fast.

  I also didn’t get tired.

  Four hours isn’t an obscenely long drive for me, but at that time of night, I expected to need the caffeine a lot more than I did.

  I still drank the coffee, which he’d prepared absolutely perfectly. I also ate the sandwich, which ended up being prosciutto and brie and tasted amazing. I ate the whole thing, even though I’d had a big dinner with Angel and Cowboy and a late lunch at the spa where they fed us tapas and about twenty of the most delicious finger-foods I’d ever had.

  I didn’t listen to music.

  Instead, I found myself looking at the stars.

  I drove fast, at least where I could.

  For most of Highway 40, heading west, I was probably going about twenty or thirty miles over the speed limit the majority of the way.

  I didn’t let myself think about where I was going, or why I’d felt the need to leave when I did, or what I planned to do when I got there.

  In the end, I got to Manny’s town in just a little over four hours.

  The reservation roads slowed me down some. They were bumpier than I expected, and a hell of a lot darker and harder to see with few signs and not enough reflectors. Still, Manny’s directions were easy to follow, as there was really only one road once I got off the freeway.

  I reached the edges of the settlement before I fully realized the houses and driveways on either side of the road had gotten a lot closer together. Before I’d wrapped my head around where I was, I saw the courthouse, the police station Black told me about, a few stores and restaurants, a row of buildings with satellite dishes, then the sky-blue mailbox on a white post that Manny described as signaling the end of his driveway.

  I pulled onto the dirt and gravel road just past the mailbox, leaving the pavement again, and in a handful of seconds, I saw the outside of Manny’s sky-blue house with the small satellite dish on top, just like how he’d described that to me, too.

  Seeing the stable and paddock to the right of the house, I noted the tree he’d told me to park beside, between the house and the paddock fence.

  I pulled the SUV up beside an old Toyota truck and a motorcycle and cut the engine and the lights.

  It was incredibly quiet.

  Using my seer’s sight, I scanned the area around the house and stable, looking for dark spots as much as light ones––meaning spaces that contained no living lights, that erased anything living that should be there. I waited until I’d checked the whole area twice, looking for anything that might indicate vampires might be out here, watching the house.

  Every place I touched felt uniformly full of presence.

  The light storm was definitely brighter out here.

  That influx of gold, orange, white and blue light washed over the surrounding desert, along with the house and the stables. That light encapsulated the two people I felt sleeping inside the house, and even the horses in the stable, and what felt like a number of goats and sheep.

  It amplified every living thing I could see, but the two people inside the house most of all. One of those lights was significantly brighter than the other, I couldn’t help noticing. I noted his crystalline outline in all that light, shining like a small sun inside the roiling waves of the Barrier that swam through, around and over the one-story ranch house.

  Reassured I wasn’t about to get jumped by Wolf or any of his vampire pack, I took a breath and opened the door. Walking to the front of the house, I found the fossil rock Manny told me about, and the key he kept in a magnetized case under it, half covered in red dust and dirt.

  Luckily, there was a moon.

  The pale blue moonlight shone on the fossil rock, on the square black case, and on the key as I pulled it out and brought it to the door. After I’d brushed off some of the dust, I slid the silver ridges into the lock under the handle.

  It felt really weird walking into a home I’d never been inside before.

  It felt even weirder when I shut the door behind me, locked it, and realized I had no idea where I should go, or whether it would be safe to turn on a light.

  I made out the shapes of an adobe fireplace that had burned down to the coals. Next to that sat a long cowhide couch and a matching recliner. I knew either of those pieces of furniture were probably the most likely places for me to curl up and try to catch a few hours of sleep.

  Setting the key and the black magnetic case on a small table by the door, I slid my purse off my shoulder and placed that under the same table.

  Then I removed my boots, one by one, still trying to make no noise.

  Once I had them off, I didn’t head to the couch, though.

  Instead, I stretched out my light.

  Even faster than I had outside, I found him, almost before I directed my light to look.

  He was in the same bedroom I’d seen him in that morning, on
ly now I could see exactly where that bedroom was inside this house. It must have been one of Manny’s children’s rooms once. Manny or his wife must have converted it to a guest bedroom after their children got older and moved out.

  I felt Manny sleeping in a different room, down the hall and behind the living room, in a bed that wasn’t much bigger than the one where Black slept.

  Both of them felt passed out cold.

  They were the only two people in the house, apart from me.

  I stood there for a few seconds more.

  Then, almost before I knew I’d made up my mind, I began to walk.

  I walked past a kitchen table lit up by the moonlight shining through a long window. An opening stood to the right of it, giving me a view of a small kitchen with a gas stove and an old-fashioned looking refrigerator. Past the kitchen area, I entered a narrow hall with light-colored, threadbare carpet, and found myself facing three doors.

  Two of those doors stood to my left. One lay straight ahead, at the end of the corridor.

  Manny was behind that one, the door at the end of the hall.

  The room behind the middle door was empty.

  Taking a breath, I took the remaining steps to the door nearest to me.

  Gripping the handle, I only hesitated a beat before I opened it, as soundlessly as I could. Taking another breath, I walked inside on my socked feet.

  He had the curtains closed.

  Not even the light of the moon got in through the heavy fabric.

  Glancing behind me, I closed the door just as soundlessly as I’d opened it.

  My heart was beating harder in my chest.

  Even so, I still didn’t really examine my motives. I didn’t really want to, or to think about how he might react to finding me here, so I didn’t.

  It did cross my mind that he might not realize at first who I was.

  A flash of memory of him waking up in the middle of the night, in the midst of one of his trauma flashbacks hit me––times he’d attacked me in his sleep after he got out of that prison in Louisiana and was still dealing with the aftereffects. It struck me that I was risking getting hurt for real this time, given he had no idea I was in the house.

  Frowning at the thought, I wondered if I should try to wake him first.

  From here, that is––outside the immediate range of his limbs.

  I cleared my throat. Quietly.

  “Black?” I said.

  My voice was barely above a whisper.

  “Black,” I said, slightly louder.

  He didn’t move.

  I might have doubted I was in the right room, given how quiet it was, but I could feel his light all around me. I could hear him breathing. Hell, I could smell him, another weird thing about being a seer that had gotten keener since I’d started sight-training for real.

  When I let go of my own light, I could also see him.

  His form grew out of the dark, hyper-sharp and crystalline in detail, yet shimmering and blurring in waves from all of that gold and white light. Looking at him where he lay on the bed, it struck me that he might be sleeping deeper than usual, because of all that light. It might be pulling him further out of his body, making him less prone to wake from feeling a new presence in the room.

  Sighing at the thought, I combed a hand through my long hair, and approached the bed.

  The closer I got, the more sure I was that I was right.

  He was out for the count.

  I wondered if he would wake even if I curled up next to him and tried to sleep, sharing the mattress with him. There was plenty of room to the left of where he lay, despite the fact that the mattress was too short for his height.

  Looking down at him, I was struck by how big he was.

  I’d almost forgotten what a big man he was––physically that is. From the Barrier at least, he looked bigger than the last time I’d seen him, probably from weights and whatever else he’d been doing to his body since New York. I doubted he had an ounce of fat on him anywhere, though. From his Barrier outline, his biceps looked thicker than my thighs, and his waist looked trim despite the curve of his chest up to his broad shoulders.

  “Black,” I said again, softer.

  He didn’t move.

  Exhaling, maybe in relief or maybe in frustration––or maybe both––I made up my mind. If he woke up and attacked me, so be it. Usually his reflexes were pretty fast. He’d feel my light; hopefully he’d know who I was before he flipped into full-blown defense mode.

  Walking around the bed, I pulled the jacket off my shoulders, then the sweater I wore over a tank top once it got cold on that patio at the resort restaurant. Dropping both things to the floor, I opted to keep my pants on, and the tank top itself, but removed my bra.

  I climbed over the top of the mattress then, trying not to move it much, still trying not to make any noise. Rolling over to my back next to him, I exhaled, staring up at the ceiling.

  Only then did it occur to me to question what I was doing.

  What the fuck was I doing here?

  Biting my lip, I stared, unblinking at the ceiling. I didn’t really try to answer the question, but I felt over my own light, examining what I felt.

  I remembered Black telling me seers instinctively wanted to be in the light of other seers after they’d felt themselves in physical danger, especially if they’d had a direct, near-miss with death. Had Black called me here, after what happened to him today?

  Had I called myself here, feeling my own life in danger when I sensed his might be?

  I could feel the pulls there, in both of our lights, but I still didn’t understand those pulls well enough to be able to dissect them accurately.

  I’d noticed before, more than once, that there was an element to those light compulsions that reminded me of the behavior and rationalizations I’d seen in drug addicts I’d treated, back when I was a full-time counselor and practitioner.

  Even now, I could feel his light reacting to mine being next to his.

  I could feel my light reacting to his.

  I could also feel it would be reacting a hell of a lot more if my light wasn’t so closed, if I hadn’t wrapped myself in shields in an attempt to keep him at a distance, even now.

  Thinking about that, still staring up at the ceiling, I realized I was breathing harder.

  I wanted to deny that, too, to deny what it meant, what I felt, all the damned things I felt––things that contradicted and clashed and wanted to make me irrational. I wanted to deny the part of me that wanted to scream at him, that wanted to touch him, that wanted to hit him.

  I wanted to blame the light out here, that damned gold and white and orange light that was fucking with me, that was making it hard to think, filling the spaces behind my eyes with washes and waves of light.

  I wanted to blame him.

  I wanted to blame him for everything that wanted to come up in me, every image and thought, every fragment of time we’d shared.

  I wanted to blame him for reminding me.

  I wanted to blame him for reminding me what a fucking bastard he was.

  I didn’t realize I was crying until my breath caught.

  Pain flooded my chest, making it hard to breathe, hard to fill my chest with air. That gold light crashed into that pain, into my heart, my throat, my belly. It choked me, heated my light, confused me, ripped me out of my center, out of my mind.

  I hated him. I fucking hated him.

  His pain arced out at me.

  It hit at me like a knife, like he’d stabbed me in the middle of my chest.

  Gods, it hurt. It hurt so fucking bad.

  I closed my eyes against that gold light, against that shock of pain, against his outline in the dark. I fought to stay silent, to not gasp out when the pain worsened. Even so, I let out a low sound as I turned to my side, curling into a half-fetal position.

  Even then, I faced him.

  Even in the dark, I faced him.

  I didn’t turn my back to him. I didn’t turn
away.

  I don’t know why.

  “I hate you,” I whispered at him. “I hate you.”

  I think I knew he was awake.

  Even so, his voice shocked me, if only because it was so deep.

  “I know,” he said, equally quiet.

  I bit my lip, not answering. I’d known he was awake.

  Worse, I wanted him to be awake. I wanted him to hear me. I wanted him to feel me, to know how bad he’d hurt me. I wanted him to give a shit. More than that, I wanted him to feel as fucking horrible as I did. I wanted it to be real to him, not some abstract, incomprehensible, theoretical thing, but real––as real as his feelings were to him.

  I wanted him to fucking see me.

  I wanted him to see me.

  His pain flushed out again, a hot, out-of-control cloud that clenched my jaw.

  I felt him struggling. I heard his throat move in a swallow in the dark, saw his mouth open as he fought to speak. I felt how lost he was, how out of his depth. I felt him not know what to say to me. I felt him not know if there was anything he could say. I felt that pain in him worsen to unbearable as he replayed what I’d said, what he’d heard in my mind.

  I felt him fighting to control it, to keep it from me.

  I felt him losing that fight.

  His light felt so incredibly young.

  He felt so damned young.

  “I hate you,” I said.

  That time, my voice broke. My words were thick in my mouth, so low I don’t know if the words were intelligible.

  He turned his body.

  He turned, so he faced me in the dark.

  He didn’t try to touch me, and that infuriated me, too.

  He didn’t speak, and that made me want to hit him.

  He didn’t move, didn’t look away from me in the dark.

  “I hate you,” I whispered.

  “I know.”

  I bit my lip, staring at the faint outline of his face in that gold and white light.

  I didn’t decide to touch him. I didn’t decide to reach out to him at all.

  Even so, my fingers coiled into his hair, clenching into a fist.

  He didn’t move. He didn’t try to evade me, even though I felt him wince, as if he expected me to hit him next. I felt his light open. I felt something in him go utterly soft. I felt his light open around that softness, his mind, his heart.