“Oh, my... where are my manners?” He smiled down at the old man, and that time, I definitely got the impression the old man’s hatred was aimed at him. “You certainly taught me to play host better than this, did you not, Konstantin?”
With no warning, he sliced open the old man’s throat.
He cut deep, all the way to the bone.
Before my mind could wrap around what he’d done, he brought the scythe down again, hard that time, in a hacking chop. His arm moved so fast the motion of him raising it and lowering it was a blur. Blood spurted out over the front of the old man’s clothes, which I now realized consisted of a dark blue dressing gown, like something from the Victorian era.
I aimed my rifle at the man’s face, but again, Ravi pinged me in warning.
Can you read him? I asked in frustration. Is he telling the truth? About Black?
Again, my uncle answered me before Ravi could.
We have to assume he is, he sent quietly. We can’t read vampires, Miri. And it’s pretty clear Konstantin’s people knew nothing of this.
So I just stood there, watching, as the younger vampire dragged the old man off the chair. He held his gray hair now in his fist, holding him down against the carpet, and hacked at the last of the skin and bone and muscle connecting his head to his neck.
Eventually, he made it all the way through.
Once he had, he dropped the scythe, holding out his hand to one of the four shadowy forms standing behind him. The man produced a handkerchief and the young one proceeded to wipe his bloody hands on it, still grinning at me.
“Gorgeous,” he said. “Simply gorgeous. I am so wishing I had an excuse to take you with me right now, Mrs. Black. But I’m afraid you are far more useful to me where you are, at the moment...”
My uncle’s physical voice rose that time, from directly behind me. I didn’t turn, but I felt others with him as well, now filling the open bedroom doorway behind us.
“Do that, and every single one of you will be found with your hearts nailed to doors of this building,” Charles said coldly. “I will hunt down the rest of your kind and exterminate every last one of you, if it’s the last thing I do.”
“Ah... of course, what reunion is complete without the dashing if psychopathic Uncle Charles?” The vampire with the bloody hands dropped the handkerchief, letting it fall on the unmoving chest of the decapitated old man. “The whole family came to play, how exciting! I must say, it’s far more satisfying being able to include you in this little get-together, Charles, rather than pinning all the blame on poor Mrs. Black here...”
“We will tell what you did,” Uncle Charles said. “There will be those loyal to Konstantin who will believe us... who know he would not have provoked us like this.”
The man laughed again. “You have a lot of faith in yourself, indeed, to believe any one of my kind would ever believe one of yours over one of ours.”
“Who are you?” I said again, my voice cold.
He looked at me, his eyes giving me another of those once-overs before he grinned. “They call me Brick, Mrs. Black. Or you may call me Betial.”
He pulled a phone out of his inner suit jacket pocket then, and snapped a photo of all of us standing there. He also took a photo of the old man lying on the carpet, and his head, and the scythe. Then he took another one of all of us.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Ravi burst out.
The one calling himself Brick smiled at all of us, turning to each of us in turn, then stopping on me. “Miriam, darling, I know you have the most at stake here, so I’m going to trust you to make sure the rest of them don’t follow us when we leave. I’m afraid Quentin will suffer for it terribly if they do... and I so prefer a happy ending.”
I lowered my gun, holding up a hand as two of the shadowy forms began opening the glass balcony doors. A cold wind came into the stuffy room when they did, fluttering the gauzy drapes hanging to either side and guttering the candles on the mantle.
“Wait!” I let the gun drop altogether, holding up both of my hands. I was having trouble breathing, trouble thinking even. My heart pounded like a jackhammer in my chest.
“Let him go,” I blurted. “...Please. Please let Black go. Whatever it is you’re having him do... I’ll do it instead. I’ll do anything you ask.”
“Miriam!” My uncle’s voice thundered from the doorway. “Be silent!”
I didn’t look away from Brick.
“Anything,” I repeated, fighting the tightness in my chest. “I’ll do anything you want... I’ll take his place. I’ll pay you whatever you want. Just let him go.”
Brick smiled at me. Something in his expression confused me, even disoriented me. It took me a second to realize it was because I saw what looked like genuine kindness and compassion there, along with what bordered on a warm affection.
“That is so very, very touching, my dear. Truly.” He turned to the four vampires standing behind him, placing his hands on his chest, roughly where the human heart lived. “You see? Some of them are quite sweet. Clearly, the more intelligent among them are capable of deep feeling, particularly towards their mates. These two are obviously quite touchingly devoted to one another. Did I not tell you she would be reasonable because of this?”
None of the four vampires changed expression, or answered Brick’s words.
None of them looked particularly moved, either.
Finished with his brief lecture, he looked back at me, that affection still in his eyes and voice. I couldn’t help seeing it differently now though, more akin to the affection a human feels towards a particularly sweet-natured dog.
“I really am so sorry, my dear, but I do require your husband’s services for just a bit longer. I’ll do my very, very best to see that he comes out of it okay. But no promises, all right? The task I’ve set for him really is quite difficult, so I can’t be expected to account for all possible complications and contingencies that may arise.” Smiling at me, he held one hand, palm towards me, like one might make a Boy Scout sign to a small child. “I promise to do my very best. And so far, he’s been amazingly resilient, so try not to worry, dearest. Do try. All right? Promise me?”
I felt like I’d just been patted on the head.
Still smiling, he backed towards the open balcony door.
“I will remember that you said that though, my dear,” he said next, winking at me. “...Most assuredly, I will. There may even be an occasion where I am forced to call upon you again... so I will remember all that was said here tonight.”
I watched, numb, as the first two of those shadowy forms disappeared over the balcony railing. The third and fourth followed closely behind, as silent as ghosts.
“...Until we meet again, Mrs. Black,” Brick said, tipping an imaginary hat.
I could only stand there, fighting that clenched fist in my chest, as the vampire calling himself Brick disappeared over the railing last of all.
18
MACHINE SHOP
FRANK AND EASTON showed up at Black’s cell as soon as the doors opened for breakfast, which happened every day at exactly six a.m.
Black was awake, doing pushups on the floor.
He still had no roommate; the cell was his alone.
“Jesus, man,” Easton grunted. “Do you ever stop?”
Black climbed to his feet, wincing a little as he stretched out his shoulder. It was still giving him trouble, even after the long stint in the infirmary. His “doctors,” or whatever the fuck they were, told him it had been badly dislocated when he’d been attacked. He couldn’t remember how that happened either, or even when it happened for certain, since his shoulder hurt after the initial kidnapping, too. Either way, he found himself favoring it still––even in the fight with Cowboy, he’d favored it, choosing to use his other arm for crosses and other long-arm hits instead.
“Come on,” Easton said, knocking on the wall outside his cell door. “Robot boy. It’s time to go.”
Black looked the two of them over war
ily. “You need something?”
Frank smiled, shaking his head. His muscular chest stretched the white tank top he wore. As much as he gave Black crap for obsessively exercising, Black had seen Frank weightlifting Easton the day earlier, bench-pressing the other man like he was a dumb bell. He’d seen Frank doing pushups for most of an entire yard period, as well.
“You got an appointment,” Frank informed him.
Black felt a flare of reaction in his light. He suppressed it with an effort. “Cowboy?”
Frank nodded meaningfully. “Dog’s playing lookout,” the other man added, his New Mexico accent more prominent than Easton’s. He could have been Mexican-born almost, but Black recognized a more ‘rez’ element to that accent. “You ready? Don’t have much time.”
Black was already walking to the door, pulling the blue jersey off the cell’s one chair and yanking it around his shoulders over the tank top without buttoning it up.
He followed them down the hallway towards the common areas. Cowboy said he’d provide an escort, but Black hadn’t been expecting chiefs for that. Truthfully, he hadn’t known who or what to expect for that. He also had no idea how they intended to pull it off, since Black didn’t have any valid reason for being in the machine shop in the first place.
“You’re sending a message for Dixon, okay?” Frank said, even as Black thought it. He passed back a note on yellow prison paper, motioning for Black to take it. “Cowboy arranged it... Dixon’s got a daughter on the outside, and apparently they’re friendly.”
Black nodded, thoughtful. He knew who Dixon was. He was a guard who mostly worked in De-Seg. Guy was a prick, but he’d been known to do favors here and there.
“So I’m passing a message from Dixon to Cowboy?” he clarified.
“Dixon says he’ll back it. If you get stopped, tell ‘em Dixon caught you outside the showers and asked you to do it, since you’re still in limbo with the work order.”
Black nodded. “Got it.”
Easton looked at him curiously, staring at the collar. “Cowboy really think he can get that thing off you?”
Black shrugged. “No idea.”
Easton laughed, and Black gave him a sharp look. “What?”
“You’re quite the talker today,” Frank snorted.
Black didn’t answer.
Truthfully, he was still fighting like hell to control his light.
The idea that this might work, that he might get this fucking thing off his neck today, shot reactions through his light that were difficult to control. He’d thought long and hard about this. Even with Brick’s threats, he decided he was better off not going to that lab. It still felt safer for him and Miri both for him to try and get out of here on his own.
It all depended on getting the collar off, though.
The second the collar was off, he could call Miri... and Charles. He could get Charles to put Miri somewhere safe, get his people and Charles working together to protect her, then he could go after Brick on his own.
He knew there were a lot of risks, of course.
They’d blinded him somehow in Los Angeles; they might be able to do it again. Black was betting they couldn’t, though, not easily... not in here. They wouldn’t need the collar at all if they could do that, so he was banking on being able to get a message through before Brick and his people realized there was a problem and tried to stop him.
He’d spent the whole night pacing, thinking about this.
Hell, he’d spent most of his time in the infirmary thinking about it. Trying to decide what would risk Miri the least, without forcing him to play puppet or get himself experimented on in that lab. In the end, the answer was always the same: the collar.
If he was going to keep his wife safe, he had to get the fucking collar off his neck.
If he did that, he’d walk out the doors of this place within the hour. He’d have his people on their way here, as well as the Colonel’s people, and probably a good chunk of Lucky’s people, too. He knew Charles in some ways, how he thought. This would be war to him. The collaring, the exposure threat, the family connection––all of it would infuriate Charles, no matter what he thought of Black himself.
And Black had to get the fuck out of here. Fears about Miri made it worse, the separation pain made it worse, but he knew that wasn’t all of it. He remembered this flavor in his light, that same feeling of heaviness, of being lost... buried, somehow... so fucking angry he couldn’t think straight most of the time. He could feel the part of him wanting to slide back into that darker place––if only because it felt like he needed to, in order to survive.
He’d enjoyed that fight with Cowboy a little too much. He’d wanted to kill those Aryan fucks a little too much. He’d wanted to take his time doing it a little too much.
And the night before had been the worst yet.
The separation pain had been excruciating.
He’d tried meditating, masturbating, exercising, reading... masturbating again. Everything fucking hurt. His light wanted hers when he got off, and when he didn’t, the pain made him want to try again. When he meditated, that darker feeling filled his light, making him want to hurt something... anything... even himself. He remembered things he hadn’t thought about for years. Picking fights in the yard as a kid, just to kill that same feeling.
Coreq. Johan.
Everything made it worse, even doing nothing at all.
It was bad enough that he’d wondered if something might be going on with Miri. But he couldn’t let himself think about that, either. Not now. Not here––where there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it.
Whatever the cause, he couldn’t sleep. It was the main reason he’d been doing push-ups on the floor of his cell at six in the morning. He’d been up most of the night pacing like a caged animal, running over the same thoughts in his mind, over and over.
As he followed Frank now, he still struggled to force his mind into straight lines.
He got some looks as they passed through the common room. He knew it would have spread around that the guards looked the other way in the yard, so no doubt they’d know something had shifted in Black’s status. Even without his sight, he felt them keeping their distance.
Just like when he was a kid.
Back then it hadn’t been his size, or even his fighting ability. Even as a kid, he’d had to rely on his mind above anything else.
So he made it clear, as early as possible, that he would cross lines none of them would. If they beat him bloody, he’d find them while they were asleep and they’d lose something. If they retaliated, he escalated.
He’d killed his first seer before he was thirteen years old.
He’d cried, but he made sure none of them saw him do that, either. The thought still filled him with shame. But he’d felt he had no choice. It was that or let them torture him for years, rape him, possibly even kill him, accidentally or not. He couldn’t beat them in a straight fight, so he decided he had to make them fear him.
And they had feared him after that. Not many seers would kill another seer, especially not in cold blood. It was taboo enough that they gave him a lot of space.
It also got him attention he didn’t particularly want––eventually from the rebels, but before that from Johan and some of the pricks who worked for Seer Containment. Even the human mercs found him more interesting once they traced that dead seer back to him. He knew some of that was how young he looked to the eyes of humans at that age.
They’d punished him, of course, but most of that had been for show.
Even now, he didn’t know how he felt about it.
He understood it.
His logical mind knew he’d had few choices, and that maybe it was the only way he’d survived. He and Coreq had been the youngest in there for that first year. Coreq was even smaller than him, and Black felt responsible for him, maybe because he had no one else. Seers remained the size of human children into their early twenties, so the two of them didn’t have a prayer of d
efending themselves in a straight-up fight, not even against the older adolescents.
Black forced the memory from his mind, clenching his jaw as they entered a corridor he’d never been down before. Cement on both sides, it had high, wire-covered windows that let in morning light. He could hear the sound of machinery ahead, knew they must be close.
Frank glanced back as he walked. “Hey,” he said. “Take this.”
He passed Black a few folded twenty dollar bills, also wrapped in a yellow piece of paper. Black opened it, and saw racing scores written on the paper in shorthand. That and the money were contraband, but fairly low-level stuff. Guards placed bets with prisoners here and there, especially the ones who had money.
“In case you get stopped,” Frank added.
Black nodded, shoving that and the note in the elastic of his pants.
They reached the end of the corridor and entered a long, high-ceilinged room that smelled primarily of oil, sawdust and sweat. It was a bigger space than he’d been expecting, filled with at least four work areas he could see, each focused on a different set of tasks and with a different crew of inmates working them.
His eyes slid up the corrugated metal walls, pausing on water pipes, air ducts and electrical cables that ran in lines across the top of the exposed ceiling. Sunlight filtered through grimy windows on each side. He wondered what it would be like to work in here, day in, day out, for the rest of his life, making twenty-three cents an hour.
He looked down only when a guard approached them.
Frank talked to the guard, motioning to Black while he murmured in a low voice, passing him a few more bills. Black pretended not to notice.
Eventually the guard motioned for Black to put his hands against the wall. Black complied, got patted down, then the guard gave him a hard look.
“Five minutes,” he said. “And no fights. Got it?”
Black nodded.
Frank pointed him to an area off to the left.
A cluster of machines stood on the floor. They looked almost like large vacuum cleaners... or maybe rideable lawnmowers. Black spotted Cowboy working towards the back and started to walk that way, then realized Frank and Easton were staying behind. He paused to look at them, lifting an eyebrow in an unspoken question.
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