“Again. You don’t get to ask me that, Black.”
“You know I can find out. I don’t want to do it that way.”
“What’s the difference?” I said, my voice sharper. “Threatening to do it is the same as doing it. Only doing it is harder for you. So go ahead. Call your people, Black. Find out where I’m going. Put a tail on me... tap the airport and the bus and train station security feeds... or just track me through the RFID chip you put in my arm. You will anyway.”
I considered hanging up on him, then hesitated, in spite of myself, gripping the plastic receiver harder in my hand.
“I’d be happy to do an information exchange, Black,” I said, quieter. “Tell me where you are right now. Tell me who you’re with... what you’re doing. Tell me the truth... and I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”
“I can’t do that, Miri.”
“Then we’re done talking,” I told him.
I started to hang up for real that time, but he called out.
“Wait! Miriam!”
I put the receiver slowly back to my ear and lips. “What?”
He exhaled, his voice holding a harder anger. “It’s Ian.”
“What’s Ian?”
“Ian is what I’m doing here. It’s the job they gave me... to hunt Ian.” Hesitating when I didn’t speak, he cleared his throat. “All right? It’ll be over soon.”
“You’re in Paris then?” I said.
I knew all of this. Black knew I knew all of this. He was stalling.
That, or he was trying to tell me something else.
The problem is, I had no idea what. Was he trying to warn me off going to Russia? Telling me to come to Paris instead? If so, why not just tell me that?
Either way, I’d been following the story in the news. There’d been four more murders, all of the victims couples. All of them newlyweds. All of them left in cathedrals around Paris.
“So let me come,” I said, when the silence continued. “If you’re hunting Ian, then––”
“No.” His voice turned cold. “No, goddamn it. Stay where you are, Miri. Stop asking for my fucking permission to come here... I can’t give it to you.”
I bit my tongue. The phone was bugged. I could feel that on him too.
“Yes,” he said, his voice even colder.
Shaking my head at no one, I stared back at the open window on his desktop computer.
For a few seconds, I hesitated. I realized it was fear I felt. Not just his fear, but my own. Fear of a lot of things. Fear I was making a huge mistake. Fear that I would get us both killed. Fear that I was wrong and Black was right... that there was some simpler, less confrontational way out of this mess. Fear for both of us, for my friends I’d now gotten involved.
Fear that it was too late. Fear that I’d already blown it.
But there was no magical easier way. If there was, I couldn’t see it. For all of Black’s hints and nudges and silences, I couldn’t read through it to what he wanted me to do. All I knew was, if I didn’t do something soon, I’d lose Black forever.
I fought back and forth through another silence.
Then, when I could feel him getting ready to end the call, I spoke.
“It’s you they want. You know that, Black. Not me. Definitely not Ian.”
“Miri––”
“If they just wanted you to hunt Ian, then what’s all this crap they sent you?” My voice sharpened. “I found the envelope, Black. The one they sent you the day you left. The one with filled with medical tests and photographs and all those other files. I saw the test results––the ones marked ‘hybrid.’ Is that how they sent you my pendant, too? The one they took from my dead sister’s neck after they murdered her? If this is about Ian, then why did they send you an envelope filled with information about me?”
“How the fuck did you...” He trailed, then answered his own question. “Lizbeth. You got into the security storage? You’re reading my fucking staff now, Miriam––?”
I’d done more than read Lizbeth that time.
Black would know that.
I had to push Lizbeth’s mind to get her to grant me access to that locked room. Given where the storage area was located and the fact that it required a retinal scan for her to open the door, a push was the only thing that made sense. Black might even extrapolate that I’d done it from reading the information he pointed me towards on his computer. He’d said that thing about reading minds for whoever listened on the other end of the phone.
But I was done with those games, too.
“I’m what they’re threatening you with,” I said. “This has nothing to do with what happened in Bangkok. This has nothing to do with Ian.” When he remained silent, I pursed my lips. “What, if you don’t play ball, they’re going to get rid of me, is that it? Why would they do that Black, when they can just use me to put pressure on you whenever they feel like it?” I paused. “What makes you think this will ever stop?”
Black didn’t answer.
He didn’t need to. I’d known. I’d known for weeks now.
Hell, I’d known in Bangkok they were using me against him. That envelope filled with stalker-like photos and information about me only confirmed it.
But I would be damned if I let them keep doing it.
I wasn’t about to become some naked lapdog for a psychopath like Grigiore either, just so they could get Black to dance when they said dance.
“They’ll never let you go,” I told him, my voice colder. “This is all bullshit, Black. Ian is probably working for them. They’re probably using him, right now, to recruit you––”
“Miri.” Black’s voice grew openly warning. “Let me handle this.”
“You’re not handling it, Black.” My voice remained harsh. “You’re not handling it. They’re handling you.”
“Miriam––”
“I’m going to tell them,” I said, not speaking to him that time, but to whoever was listening on the other end. “I’ve already made arrangements. I’m going to tell the whole fucking world what you are... give them a real threat to worry about. Maybe then they’ll be a little too busy to waste time screwing with you and me.”
I felt my words hit Black like a punch.
His voice grew into a whisper.
“Miriam,” he said. “Miriam, honey. Don’t even fucking joke about that... please.”
I felt the begging there, the pulling.
It was terror. What I’d said terrified him.
It was hard to feel that, I admit.
I shoved his reactions aside with an effort.
“I’m not joking, Black,” I said. “Why the hell wouldn’t I warn my race about an alien species with dangerous abilities? An alien species that’s already living among us? Manipulating our minds? Running crime families and psychotic churches filled with anti-human master race fanatics? Plotting to take over our world?” I paused, letting my words sink in. “You’ve documented how humans used to control your kind, in that other dimension. I can pass that information along too. It’ll give my people a fighting chance at least...”
His mind rose in mine... suffocating, like a wall of cloying, cloud-like darkness, blanking out the room.
What the fuck are you doing? he hissed through that dark. Miriam, what the fuck are you doing right now? Do you have any idea who you’re messing with?
His fear completely blanked out my vision.
I’ve been telling them for fucking weeks that you were harmless! I’ve been telling them over and over you aren’t a threat to them! That you’d be loyal to me... that I could trust you... that I could fucking control you. Please gods shut your fucking mouth Miriam... please...
“Well, I am a fucking threat,” I said aloud. My voice sounded hard, like it came from some deeper part of my body. I almost didn’t recognize it. “Tell them, I want my goddamned boyfriend back. Tell them to find someone else’s head to fuck with. Or I’m going to burn them and their whole goddamned ‘pure race’ bullshit to the fucking
ground...”
Biting my tongue so hard I tasted blood, I found I was shaking, my voice nearly vibrating, but it wasn’t from fear.
“Tell them that, Black. Tell them they’ve fucked with the wrong ‘hybrid.’ If they don’t let you go... today... I’ll make damned sure they regret it.”
Without waiting that time, I slammed down the receiver.
Then I just sat there, in his darkened office, breathing hard.
My hands still shook, but I realized fury coursed through me, not fear.
I was almost panting, my head and blood pounding, my heart expanding and contracting like a living animal in my chest.
I felt Black still. His terror vibrated my skin.
I didn’t regret saying it though.
Maybe I’m a fucking idiot.
But I didn’t regret saying it at all.
Ten
AIRPORT
WE GOT ON the plane at two in the morning that night.
I argued with Nick... with both of them really, but mostly with Nick. I didn’t want them to come with me. I told them I should go alone, that they should stay away from this in terms of being on the ground.
Nick wouldn’t even discuss it.
And truthfully, he was right. He was the one with the connections in Paris. He was the one who had people waiting for us over there.
He also pulled some strings and got fake passports for all three of us, using one of his old Special Ops pals who now worked in the State Department.
I knew the IDs probably wouldn’t help us hide from Lucky’s people, of course.
Not only did Lucky’s people know what I looked like, they’d probably be able to track me via Black, much less the RFID chip in my arm.
When it came to this seer thing, there was no way to be safe.
We also couldn’t trust anyone, including Nick’s pal at the State Department.
Even someone who might honestly be trying to help us could be read or manipulated by a trained seer. Black said that seer skills were significantly diminished in this dimension compared to where he grew up, but he also seemed to think Lucky found some way around that, at least in part––maybe by collecting all the known seers and pooling their abilities in some way.
Either way, it was unnerving in the extreme, not having any idea who we could trust.
Nick argued he’d already involved himself too much to not be at risk.
Angel didn’t even bother to argue. She just showed up at my apartment in the Richmond in a cab and knocked on my door around eleven-thirty that night. We picked up Nick about twenty minutes later, since he lived south of the city and closer to the airport.
We didn’t talk much during the flight itself.
I sat between Nick and Angel and tried my damnedest to sleep, knowing we wouldn’t have any time to waste once we landed. I couldn’t sleep, though. I ended up sitting there with my eyes closed, looking for Black in that dream-like space.
I never found him. He’d gone quiet not long after our fight on the phone, and I had no idea what the silence meant.
As the flight progressed, I got hit by images––really, more like paranoid movie-reels––that wanted to play incessantly in my head. I tried to tell myself they weren’t real, that they were just my mind working overtime, but some part of me doubted that. In those flashes, shadowy forms broke down Black’s door, dragging him out of the room with the high ceilings and the fireplace. I saw Black bundled into the back of a van, Black cuffed and shoved into that creepy renaissance dining room with Grigiore and a long table filled with more people like him––people with strange-colored irises and oddly perfect faces.
I saw Ian. Not with them, but somewhere else, watching maybe, like I was.
A Thai mask hung on the wall behind him, and he sat smiling, perched in a high-backed chair on one end of an empty, warehouse-like room.
In the dining room where Black sat chained, humans served them food. I glimpsed naked women––not just the seer I’d seen before, different women that time, most of them with normal-looking eyes. I saw naked men too, but I winced away from most of that, not wanting to know what they were doing, or if it had anything to do with Black.
I tried to get the voice I’d heard before to come back, to tell me what was going on... but my unnamed source remained silent.
Later, as our plane was on final approach to Charles de Gaulle Airport, I got more flashes, glimpses of arguments, of someone standing over Black, the room darker, more empty, seemingly lit with something other than electric light. The main person talking to Black that time looked older, well into middle age.
He had eerie, dark red irises.
He didn’t wear a robe covered in elaborate symbols that time, but I recognized him.
I knew I’d risked Black’s life, saying those things to him on the phone. It had been a gamble that they wouldn’t kill him, that they wanted him badly enough that they wouldn’t hurt him too badly either––at least no more than they were already.
I had to hope I had enough safeguards set up to reason with them.
I knew it was a gamble... a potentially big one. On the other hand, I also knew any or all of those things could have happened regardless.
We were standing in line for customs when I saw the first one.
As I focused on the odd-colored eyes staring at me, another one joined him.
I gave Nick a bare glance. “Eleven o’clock. Trench coat. And his friend.”
Nick turned, the tiredness wiped from his expression. Before I could aim my eyes back in that direction, he was already speaking into his sleeve. He’d donned the earpiece and microphone while we were waiting to disembark from the plane.
I cautioned, “They need to knock them out before they’re seen. They can’t leave them conscious, Nick... or it’s all over.”
Before I could finish speaking, the first one went down. The tall male with him turned sharply, looking behind him, then slapped a hand to his neck.
Then his legs crumpled, too.
I glanced at Nick, who gave me a grim smile, right before he spoke into his sleeve a second time. I heard him say, “Nice shootin’, Tex.”
I smiled wanly, in spite of myself.
Even so, my nerves were jacked up enough that I couldn’t stop scanning faces in the cavernous room. I didn’t see any more of them. I kept looking, unable to slow the adrenaline pumping through my veins.
We got an escort to the short line for customs, not long after.
After the three of us went through an abbreviated passport check, Angel and a uniformed French officer left to talk to the head of airport security.
Nick and I followed three different men and a woman, all of them wearing suits. They met us on the other side of customs. So did Nick’s two friends, who wore militarized police uniforms and body armor. After giving Angel the okay to go, the six of them led us to a small interrogation room just on the other side of the long line of customs booths. Inside that windowless room, both of the men I’d seen wearing trench coats had already been laid out on collapsible cots, like what EMTs used for ambulatory transport.
“Can you ID either of these guys?” Nick muttered as we stood over the unconscious forms. “They’ll want to know how you recognized them.”
I looked down at the bodies. I didn’t know either of them, not even via Black. Glancing up at the three men and one woman in suits who stood next to Nick’s friends, speaking in low voices, I shook my head, glancing at Nick.
“So how do we answer that?” Nick murmured.
“You’ll think of something,” I said, equally quiet.
He let out a grunt, but didn’t answer.
I focused on the two bodies laid out on gurneys. Looking over their faces, I made sure to memorize their features so I would recognize them later.
I knew Nick would think of something in terms of how we’d ID’d them, despite his annoyance. Glancing around, it occurred to me that I had absolutely no idea what organization any of the people in the room rep
resented, not even Nick’s friends. I’d assumed at first they were members of France’s Gendarmerie, the investigative branch of the national police force, but now, scanning clothes and faces, I wasn’t so sure.
“Is it all right if I touch them?” I asked in French.
The person who appeared to me to be in charge, a forty-something man in a blue suit with grey-streaked dark hair and dark blue eyes, frowned a little bit, looking me over, then nodded.
I bent down and lifted the eyelids of the first man lying there, then the second. One had violet irises, like Solonik, only darker and with a light blue ring around the edge. The other male’s eyes were nearly black in color, darker than the darkest brown eyes I’d ever seen. Inside that dark color, pale blue flecks stood out, almost like stars.
“What the fuck?” Nick muttered.
He bent down like I had, lifting their eyelids one by one. He stared at the violet irises the longest, then glanced over his shoulder at me, frowning.
“They’re not contact lenses,” he murmured. “Did they do this surgically? Is this part of the cult thing, Miri? To have fucked-up eyes?”
I saw him frown before I’d answered him, as if thinking.
Straightening, he looked at the features of the two men, then seemed to be measuring their heights, their overall builds, before going back to their faces.
I knew what he was thinking, because I was thinking the same thing.
They looked different.
Different from normal people, I mean.
They also looked like Black.
Not really like him, exactly, but the similarity there was impossible to refute, or to un-see once it had been seen.
It was hard to pinpoint what it was exactly that was so starkly different about the two men compared to the other people in the room, but lying side by side, even with their eyes closed, that difference was obvious. They both had high cheekbones, strangely perfect mouths, young faces, unblemished and even-toned skin. Both were unusually tall, six-four or six-five from what I could tell with them lying down, with slim hips and broad shoulders.
Both had black hair. There was something faintly Asian about their features, although either could have passed for white, particularly if they weren’t standing next to one another. Both were unusually handsome, as in model or actor handsome, but there was something strange about that handsomeness, an unreal and oddly androgynous quality, despite how muscular they both were, and how prominent their jaws and Adam’s apples.
Black On Black (Quentin Black Mystery #3) Page 14