In Black We Trust

by J. C. Andrijeski

  “You’re married?” He looked at Black, then at me in pure amazement, but also with a hint of apology. “Sorry, ma’am. That’s just… quite a detail to leave out, Black.”

  “We haven’t exactly been catching up, have we?” Black grunted.

  He glanced at me, his eyes briefly harder.

  Which seer? he sent. Which one is now your “patient,” doc?

  I fought not to roll my eyes at him.

  Turning to the younger Holmes instead, I explained, “We haven’t gone fully public with the marriage, Mr. Holmes. We eloped to avoid press, and we haven’t announced it yet, not officially.”

  “She won’t let me,” Black muttered, quirking an eyebrow at Holmes.

  Holmes grinned wider, obviously still blown away by this development.

  “Wow,” he said, winking at me. “I have so many questions.”

  Manny clapped him on the back, grinning. “She’s good for him, Lex. Doesn’t put up with his shit.”

  Alexander grinned at me. “More power to her, then. And to him, really.” Laughing in Manny’s general direction, he added, “I’m not sure I would have given him this much credit, truthfully, if I’d pictured him married… which I didn’t.”

  Black scowled when Lawless and Manny chuckled, his light exuding a faint pulse of real annoyance even as he tried to play it off as humor.

  “Yeah, well. Just don’t get any ideas. She’s ready to leave me any second as it is.” He glanced at me with a frown. You’re really not going to tell me, Miri? he asked in my mind. Which seer it is you’re going to be treating?

  I did roll my eyes that time, gripping his hand tighter.

  It’s the young-looking one. Jax. With the violet eyes. Dalejem asked me if I would try to help him. He’s pretty traumatized from what happened to him in that other world, and the others are worried about him.

  I felt something in Black’s light relax. Oh. Okay.

  Grunting a humorless laugh, I gave him a sideways look.

  “You are ridiculous,” I said aloud. “Utterly ridiculous.”

  From behind me, Lawless laughed, squeezing my arm with one strong hand.

  “See?” he said, speaking past me to Holmes. “She’s got his number, all right. She’s got this one pretty much dead to rights.”

  Black grunted, giving him a look, then giving a longer one to me.

  He didn’t argue, though.

  THE FUNERAL WAS depressing and sad.

  I mean, all funerals are depressing and sad, so I suppose that shouldn’t have surprised me, but the level of grief still knocked me off balance somewhat, especially given that he was eighty-plus years old, and obviously lived a full life.

  I suppose some of that might have been that my light was more open now, and I felt more than I used to. Psychically, I mean.

  I suspected that wasn’t all of it, though.

  By the time we got to the reception––after all the speeches by children, other family members, a few work colleagues and friends, after watching them fold up the flag and hand it to his widow over his grave, complete with the three-volley salute and a soldier playing taps––all of us were emotionally wrung out.

  The funeral was long, so that may have been part of it.

  His widow asked for the full funeral and procession for his rank, which included honor guard pallbearers, the casket being transported via horse and carriage to the military graveyard, the riderless horse.

  Black, Manny, Lawless and I stayed mostly in the background.

  Alexander Holmes got up to say a few words at the funeral itself, but apart from that, he stayed mostly in the background. He also stayed somewhat distant from his siblings, I noticed, apart from nods here and there, and a round of hugs and pats on the back once the casket was in the ground.

  He was quite a bit younger than the rest of the Colonel’s kids, so that may have been part of it. The rest of them appeared to be in their late fifties up into their sixties, so Camille must have had most of her children young.

  Alexander may have been a “menopause surprise” kind of baby.

  The reception was almost as large as the funeral.

  They had it in the backyard of the Colonel’s own house in Virginia.

  Even there, Manny, Lawless, Alexander, Black and I sat at the same round table on the lawn, looking out over the rest of the reception and not talking much.

  Lawless, Alexander, or “Lex” as they all called him, and Black all drank bourbon.

  Manny and I stuck to beer.

  I was watching what must have been the Colonel’s great-grandkids run around the lawn, mostly playing by the pond that started just past the round tables on the north side of the yard. I couldn’t help smiling when their mothers and fathers scolded them for coming back muddy and wet from trying to catch frogs.

  I was still staring in that direction when Lex spoke up, glancing at me briefly before addressing the rest of our small group.

  “So are we going to talk about it?” he said, taking a drink of the bourbon and making the ice cubes clink on the glass. “Or are we waiting until Black has to fly back to his big-shot billionaire life on the West Coast?”

  I frowned faintly, glancing at Black.

  “I vote for talking about it,” Lawless said, leaning back on the folding chair and taking a sip of his own drink. “What about you, Mañuelito?”

  “I’m game,” the tall Native American said, tilting his mouth back to take a few swallows of beer. “Black? You?”

  Black exhaled, swirling his own drink in his glass.

  “I should have brought the bottle over,” he muttered. “Then again, maybe it’s better I didn’t. I’ll probably have to wheel all you old fucks to the infirmary on my way out of here as it is.” Downing the last of the bourbon in his glass, he glanced at me. “Want another beer? While I’m there?”

  I shook my head, smiling. “I’m good.”

  “I could use a beer,” Manny said cheerfully, winking at me. “Better make it two, if we’re about to have a real conversation. Or three, in case Miri here changes her mind. Put ‘em on ice, though, if you’re going to be a lazy fuck and bring them all over at once, Big Q.”

  I snorted a little, unable to help it.

  When Black glanced at me, I mouthed, Big Q?

  Grunting, Black turned and stalked away, walking with his usual, martial arts-style tread. He managed to look like a large bipedal cat even just crossing the lawn.

  “So spill,” Holmes said, turning to me with a faint and slightly glassy-eyed smile when Black walked away. “Who are you, really? Did Black pay you to pretend to be his wife?”

  Lawless snorted a laugh, taking another sip of the bourbon.

  “He’s been paying her for a while, if so,” he said. “What’s it been now, Miriam? Three years, since I last saw you in Bangkok?”

  “He brought her to Bangkok?” Grunting, Lex lifted an eyebrow. “The man likes to live dangerously, doesn’t he?”

  A shadow touched Lawless’s eyes, even as he met my gaze.

  “I don’t know,” he said, smiling at me, that shadow still in his eyes. “I don’t remember Black looking at a single other person while she was there with him. Or talking about anyone else, either. She had him pretty well wrapped around her pinky finger even then, as I recall.”

  Lex glanced at me, quirking an eyebrow.

  For an instant, I saw past the humor he was affecting to the genuine interest in me behind it. He was trying to decide if he could trust me. He was also trying to decide what he thought of me––not only in relation to Black, but as a person. I could tell that was part of why he made the jab about Bangkok, too.

  He wanted to see how I’d react.

  “We weren’t married then,” I told him, taking a swallow of beer. “He was still a free agent. I came to Bangkok in a work capacity.” Smiling wryly, I tilted my head in a shrug. “Maybe that’s why he risked it.”

  Lawless fake-coughed into his hand. “…Bullshit.”

  Manny lau
ghed, and I did too, in surprise as much as anything.

  “You should have seen him, Lex,” Lawless said, nudging his friend. “He was a love-sick puppy. She was mostly telling him to go to hell, as I recall––”

  “With good reason,” I interjected, rolling my eyes.

  Manny laughed, but Lawless went on without missing a beat.

  “––He clearly wore you down in the end,” Lawless finished, laughing. “That, or you’re a masochist. Or possibly a sadist. Or both.”

  “Something like that,” I conceded, watching Black walk back towards us, even as I took another sip of beer. “Although I’m not sure I’m willing to take the fall for all of it.”

  Manny and Lawless both chuckled, and Lex smiled, something in his eyes relaxing. I noticed his scrutiny on me never really wavered, though.

  Black had reached us by then. He gripped a bottle of bourbon under one arm, holding two ice buckets in his hands.

  Reaching us, he plunked both down on the table, then pulled the bottle out from under his arm and plunked that down, too.

  Grabbing his rocks glass out of the ice bucket that also held four beer bottles, he filled it with a handful of ice, then a few fingers of the bourbon. Touching the back of my neck briefly with his fingers, he sprawled back into his folding chair with a sigh.

  The whole operation seemed to take bare seconds.

  “You don’t fuck around, man,” Lex said, whistling as he picked up the bottle and looked at the label. “This is the good stuff. Did you run inside to raid the old man’s secret stash, or what?”

  “I passed him a few hundred for it,” Black said. At Lex’s disbelieving look, Black grunted. “What? Camille doesn’t drink this stuff.”

  “Roger and Jordan might have a few things to say about it,” Lex said, lifting an eyebrow.

  “So? They can buy a new bottle. Not like either of those assholes are hard up for cash. They’re just cheap.”

  Lex laughed. “Says the billionaire. The billionaire who steals alcohol off a dead man at his own funeral.”

  At his words, they all fell briefly quiet.

  Black’s jaw hardened. He lifted the glass to his lips, taking a long drink before he lowered it.

  “I’ll replace it,” he said, gruff. “Hell, I’ll buy them a case.” He gave Lex a look. “Where do you think the Colonel got a five hundred dollar bottle of bourbon anyway? Or how I knew he had it?”

  Gazing out over the lawn, Black shrugged, his jaw hardening more.

  “…He was cheaper than shit. Cheaper than your brothers, at least when it came to himself. You only didn’t notice because he’d buy anything Camille asked. Including for one of her kids.”

  Lex winced, leaning back in his chair.

  “Hey, Black. I didn’t mean anything, brother––” he began.

  “I know.” Black waved him off. A delicate frown touched his perfectly-drawn lips. “Don’t worry about it. Honestly, I’m a little pissed he didn’t drink it himself. I figure at the very least, we should do it for him.”

  Lawless knocked his glass against Black’s, nodding.

  “Hear, hear,” he said.

  Manny leaned forward, grabbing the neck of the bottle. “In that case, I want some,” he pronounced.

  “I’ll get you a glass,” I murmured, rising to my feet.

  “It’s okay, Miri––” Manny began, looking up, but I shook my head, smiling.

  “––I’m already up.”

  “Get yourself one too, doc,” Black grunted. “You need to at least try this.”

  I returned with glasses, and Black poured for all of us.

  “To the old man,” he said, raising his glass in a toast once everyone had one.

  We all clinked solemnly.

  For a few minutes after we drank, none of them spoke.

  I couldn’t help wondering if I should be there, or if I should make some excuse and sneak out so they could reminisce. The instant I thought it, Black’s hand tightened on my thigh, pulling me over on my chair so I was closer to him.

  Feeling the request there, I let the thought of leaving go.

  “So?” Lex said, ending the silence and again giving me a brief glance. He seemed to have come to his peace with my being there, because his previous scrutiny was mostly gone. “Are we going to talk about it?”

  That time, Manny and Black exchanged looks.

  I didn’t have to read either of them to know what they were thinking.

  Then Black sighed, nodding, as if in answer to something he’d heard Manny thinking.

  He turned to Lex.

  “How much do you know about the work your dad was doing the last few years?” he said, taking a sip of the bourbon and leaning back, making the wooden folding chair squeak.

  Lex frowned. “He was mostly retired. I know he did speaking gigs. Consulting. He was on one or two committees at the Pentagon, but he wasn’t running ops or anything. Not anymore.”

  Looking between Manny and Black with a frown, he pressed,

  “He wasn’t. Was he?”

  Black exhaled, setting his glass on the white tablecloth covering the round table.

  “Officially?” he said. “Probably not.”

  “And unofficially?”

  Again, Manny and Black exchanged looks. Lawless was frowning now too, looking between them both and exchanging glances with Lex.

  Black sighed, taking another drink and tilting his head back. When he lowered his glass that time, he swallowed more than a sip.

  “I can tell you how I found out about it,” he said. “Then maybe those photos you saw of your dad might make more sense.”

  Glancing at me, he gripped my thigh tighter.

  Then he turned towards Lex and Lawless, and began telling them about what happened to him in Los Angeles, and how he ended up in that prison. He told them, more or less bluntly, about finding out the hard way that vampires were real, that they lived alongside humans.

  “Wait. What?” Lex stared at him, exchanging looks with Lawless before he frowned openly at Black. “You might need to repeat that part, Quentin.”

  So he did.

  He repeated it a few more times, when they continued to ask questions.

  He described his experiences in that lab, and in the prison, in pretty minute detail. He told them about his first run in with the vampire, Brick, and the lab they sent him to––a lab that was experimenting on human prisoners, trying to turn them into vampires. He told them how he’d determined pretty much from the beginning that the operation was being funded by someone in the government, maybe several someones.

  He went on to describe vampires in detail, too.

  He described what they looked like, how he knew there was something seriously wrong when he first laid eyes on them at those shipping docks in Los Angeles. He told them how he couldn’t read or see them at all with his psychic abilities.

  Manny spoke up a few times too, telling them an abbreviated version of his recent run-ins with vampires in New Mexico.

  When Lex and Lawless went silent, Black continued his narrative.

  He told them the Colonel knew nothing about those labs, even though he’d seen briefings on vampires themselves, and knew of their existence. The Colonel apparently tried to find out more after Black got out, and was informed the project had been shut down, and that from now on, everything connected to the vampire race was officially “classified,” even from someone at the Colonel’s level.

  The Colonel was also told that the operation in Louisiana was privately run, via a defense contractor hired by someone high up in the government.

  According to Black, the Colonel never determined who that was.

  Black speculated that the Colonel had only been allowed into the committee overseeing the “vampire problem” in the first place because he knew about the existence of discrete pockets of “human genetic aberrations” already. The Colonel confessed to Black that he became involved with national security issues related to vampires not long after 9/11, wh
ich apparently had some vampire involvement, something they managed to conceal from the public.

  The Colonel was a natural fit, anyway.

  From the time of Vietnam, he was known internally as someone who was open to and specialized in “strange things.”

  “But he never told you?” Lex broke in, frowning at him. “That vampires existed?”

  Black shrugged, swirling the remaining bourbon at the bottom of his glass.

  “No. He didn’t tell me. Not until he more or less had to.”

  He motioned towards me with the hand holding his glass.

  “…The doc here called him on it, while I was still in that prison. She was trying to obtain his help to get me out, and to put pressure on the vampire leadership. In the process, she got him to admit the Pentagon knew they existed, that they’d been researching them as national security threats. He didn’t know anything about the vampires taking me, of course.”

  Black gave Lex a dark look. “Even so, your dad and I had a nice, long chat about that after I got back to San Francisco.”

  “And you believed him?” Lex said, frowning “About the private contractors? About the labs? About him not being involved in any of that?”

  The meaning behind his words was obvious.

  He wanted to know if Black read the Colonel for the truth.

  He wanted to know for certain that his dad hadn’t been running some kind of twisted, Joseph Mengele-style prison lab that experimented on human convicts, pumping them full of vampire blood even though it killed most of them.

  Black nodded, meeting his gaze.

  “I checked, yeah. I wasn’t feeling overly trusting after all that… as you can probably imagine. I wasn’t feeling particularly trusting of anyone, including your father, or anyone else in the government. So I checked.”

  Exhaling, he dusted off the last of the bourbon in his glass, setting it on the table with another shrug.

  “Your father had some concerns himself, needless to say. He hadn’t realized how big the program was, or how many moving parts were involved. After I got out of that prison, he worked to create stricter oversight behind the scenes, but from what he told me, there were some pretty powerful people controlling decision-making around anything vampire-related. Some for really fucking stupid reasons.”