In Black We Trust

by J. C. Andrijeski

  Inclining his head to one side, he shrugged.

  “I don’t want to be on the run the rest of my life. I don’t want you to be on the run for the rest of your life. Before we look into new faces and IDs for the two of us, I want to take a stab at finding out who’s behind this so we can deal with it.”

  Rubbing my shoulder with a hand, he smiled humorlessly.

  “Look on the bright side,” he said, tilting his head sideways. “Who’d believe we’d be stupid enough to go back there?”

  Looking up at him, I snorted.

  I couldn’t help it.

  I couldn’t muster much of a smile, though.

  9

  REINFORCEMENTS

  ABOUT TWENTY MINUTES later, I discovered exactly who Black meant when he referred to people being “dumb enough” to help him go back to the States.

  In front of the group heading our way I saw Black’s employee, Ace, along with another man who must be the pilot Dalejem mentioned––a tall latino-looking man with hazel eyes, dark brown hair, and an easy smile.

  They were followed by the violet-eyed seer I now recognized as Jax, and his Chinese-looking friend, Holo, both of whom looked only slightly less awkward now than when I’d seen them outside the Colonel’s funeral.

  They must have run into the other group in town, since, Mika, Manny and Lex walked behind them, accompanied by Jem, who carried three more coffees in the same brick-red, ceramic mugs.

  Most of those in front carried backpacks, presumably with whatever phones and other equipment they’d picked up in downtown La Ceiba.

  Behind them followed a much larger group of people.

  Many of them, I recognized.

  I found myself staring in disbelief as they walked towards us and then past us, moving down the wooden pier towards the gangplank up to the ship. A number of those on our side of the dock nodded and waved at me and Black as they passed. They didn’t stop though, and most barely paused in their conversations.

  More than a handful didn’t even notice us.

  They laughed and joked amongst themselves, black duffle bags balanced on their shoulders or hanging from their backs. All of those bags looked packed to the brim, and not only with clothes. I also saw metal storage cases, some on rollers and some hand-held, all of which looked heavy.

  I didn’t know for sure those carried weapons.

  Knowing Black, however, I guessed they did.

  From the looks of some of those cases, a few might carry RPG launchers.

  Kiko walked in front, talking seriously to Manny and Lawless.

  Her muscular legs flexed through the fabric of her combat pants, even as she nodded to something Manny was saying, frowning faintly.

  Dex, a tall, thirty-something black man with a bald head, walked behind her, towering over her by a foot at least. He clapped someone else on the back as I watched, throwing his head back in a laugh. I didn’t see who it was at first, since the other person walked to Dex’s right and Dex mostly blocked him from our view, but then the man walking with him leaned forward, laying a hand on Kiko’s shoulder to get her attention.

  I gaped at the man’s profile when he did.

  It was Nick.

  “What the hell?” I muttered.

  I started to walk forward, towards the pier, but Black caught my arm, his light exuding a faint pulse of reassurance, mixed maybe with an even fainter warning.

  “It’s okay, doc,” he said, his voice soft. “Really.”

  I looked back at him, about to lay into him for dragging one of my oldest friends into this nightmare, risking his job––not to mention his life––but Black shook his head, waving at Manny as he passed before he looked back towards the pier.

  “It was a precaution, doc,” he said. “I didn’t want to leave him in San Francisco alone. Especially with Brick probably running loose. Especially with your uncle M.I.A.––”

  “M.I.A.?” I frowned, cutting him off. “Charles? Since when?”

  Black didn’t really answer me, though. Shrugging, he said, “Even your uncle might not be above using Nick, Miri. Or someone else you love to get at both of us. You know he wouldn’t. That’s actually something he’s likely to do.”

  Unable to argue with that, I scowled, folding my arms.

  Black shifted his gaze back towards me, studying my face.

  “He and Brick are both racist assholes, in case you hadn’t noticed,” he added, sharper. “Using a human for this wouldn’t make either of them bat an eye… whatever crocodile tears your uncle might shed on your behalf.”

  I knew Black was right.

  I knew it, but it still pissed me off to hear him say it.

  Grunting, he inclined his head, hands on his hips.

  “Hell, your uncle would probably see it as a bonus,” he muttered. “One less human in the world, and all that.” He glanced at me, his voice grim. “Honestly? I’d believe that particular tactic of Charles before I’d believe it of Brick, even. Brick doesn’t hate humans. He just views them like pets. Or, really… food. Food he likes to fuck.”

  I winced.

  Still, I knew that was true, too.

  I scowled at him. “So you’re going to bring everyone we know here?”

  Black was back to watching the humans and seers make their way down the pier.

  I could almost see him looking over the boxes, cases and duffles, as if taking inventory with his eyes and light. Biting my lip, I followed his gaze to where his people were already rolling the heavy cases up the gangplank of the battered-looking boat.

  “I’ve got people with a few others I thought might be at risk,” he said, voice low. “A few will meet us on the other side.”

  Taking a coffee from Jem when he brought it over to us, he nodded to the other seer, although he didn’t quite smile at him. Murmuring a thanks to Jem, I took my new mug of coffee as well, and watched him rejoin the others getting ready to board the ship.

  When I glanced at Black, he was frowning.

  Realizing he was still reacting to Jem, I sent a warning pulse of light, making him jump.

  “Get over it, Black,” I warned. “That’s going to get old, quick.”

  He gave me a sharp look and a faint scowl, but didn’t answer. Clicking under his breath, he went on in a lower voice, acting like I hadn’t spoken.

  “If you’re grumpy about Nick, take it up with him, doc,” he said. “When Kiko filled him in, he wanted to come. I didn’t really want to tell him no. Most of my San Francisco office was already coming, since your uncle’s seers would be able to ID all of them. He had people with us for months, so they were all at risk.”

  Biting my lip, I fought back a harder flush of anger.

  That time, it wasn’t at Black, though.

  Using Black-speak, my uncle had been infiltrating us. For months.

  And I let him in.

  “Yes,” Black said, giving me another look. “But it’s not your fault, doc. I let him in, not you. But yes, he’s been infiltrating us. I imagine he got a lot more off me than I know yet.”

  I bit my lip harder.

  I couldn’t even decide who I was angrier at––me or my uncle.

  I also couldn’t decide if I thought either Black or Nick had done the right thing, letting Nick come here, where we were likely to be hunted by our own damned government.

  Also, I knew Black.

  He would’ve jumped at the chance of having Nick along.

  Nick was cursed with a fair bit of military experience of his own. He also had his own contacts in the government, particularly in military intelligence. Those connections were less likely to be known, or targeted, by anyone going after Black. For the same reason, Nick’s people might learn things Black’s people couldn’t, at least not as quickly.

  “You can’t expect me to not factor in tactical considerations, doc,” Black said, giving me a harder stare. “You can’t. Not now. I’m willing to try and bend how I am to a degree, but that’s probably not going to change. It’s certainly n
ot going to change when both of our lives are in this much danger.”

  I looked up at him, snorting.

  “When are our lives not in danger, Black?” I said.

  When he didn’t answer, I added,

  “Trust me, I would never in a million years expect you to change in that regard. Not now, nor any time under the sun. I know you factor in tactical considerations. I more just hope those aren’t the only considerations that cross your mind.”

  When he frowned at me, a plume of… something… coming off his light, I exhaled in frustration.

  Before I’d let myself think about it overly, I walked up to him, wrapping an arm roughly around his waist. I gripped him tighter than usual, although I’m not sure if it was because I worried I’d hurt his feelings, or if I was just frustrated with the whole situation and wanted to give him a good shake.

  I did know one thing: I really didn’t want him to be different from how he was.

  I didn’t want that––despite how fucking impossible he could be.

  He must have heard at least some of my thoughts. He gave me a faint smile. He looked about to speak, when Dex called out, jerking both of our gazes back towards the pier.

  “We’ve got everyone, boss,” he called. “We’re ready to head out, if you are.”

  “What about Easton’s team?” Black called back.

  “Meeting us at the landing spot. Easier that way.”

  Black gave him a sharp nod, that more military veneer falling over his light.

  “Easton?” I murmured.

  Black gave me a glance, and a shrug. “I gave them a job. Easton, Frank, Dog, Devin, a number of their cousins. Alice is with them.” Pausing, he studied my eyes, frowning faintly. “I won’t get them killed, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  I grunted, but didn’t comment.

  Anyway, it made sense that he would call his friends from New Mexico.

  Black strongly preferred hiring and working with people he knew and trusted personally, even under normal circumstances. That would be even more true now. Going to his ex-con friends who more or less lived off the grid just made sense.

  Black didn’t much care about the specific backgrounds of his employees anyway, as long as they had the skills he needed, or experience he thought he could use. And I liked Black’s friends from the Navajo Rez.

  I more worried he’d get them killed, like he said.

  I’d released him, and was about to move away, when he grabbed my wrist, pulling me back, so that we were nearly flush once more.

  “We need alone-time, doc,” he said, his voice gruff.

  Looking up at his face, I considered making a crack.

  Then, studying his gaze, I only nodded, once.

  “I know,” I said. “But what are we supposed to do about it?”

  Pain slid through his chest as he glanced at the boat, then back at me.

  “I’m just telling you.” His voice dropped to that deep, maddening tone of his. “At this point, I might try to take it where I can get it.”

  I smiled, rolling my eyes. “Again with the threats.”

  “It’s not a threat,” he said, shaking me gently.

  When I glanced up, he answered my humor with zero humor in his own eyes, or in his voice.

  “It’s more of a head’s up, doc. I’m having trouble concentrating at this point. Tell me to fuck off if it’s annoying you, and I’ll deal with it some other way.”

  Frowning at the seriousness in his eyes, I nodded slowly. “Okay. We’re good though, Black. You’re not bothering me. At all.”

  “I haven’t done anything yet,” he grunted.

  Releasing my wrist, he wrapped his arm around me in a quick hug, pulling me up against the length of him. He held me there tightly, for long enough that I felt at least some of what he was talking about. He pressed against me more deliberately, maybe to emphasize the point, and I let out a little gasp.

  Pain darted through his light when I did, igniting something in mine, but he didn’t let himself hold on to me for very long.

  It felt more like a message than an attempt to start anything right then.

  Maybe it was simply a head’s up, like he’d said.

  Either way, by the time he let go of me, I was having concentration problems of my own.

  10

  PRIDE AND NOT-PRIDE

  WE TRAVELED ALL day and most of the night to reach the Louisiana shores.

  Most of the seers spent that time on the upper deck, making sure we had a clear path. Black’s people unpacked a few mini-drones to help the seers map the territory.

  Dex coordinated that end of things, forming the physical eyes for Jem’s team.

  We were a few hours from shore when Black announced that everyone not currently working at a time-critical task should try to get some rack time––sleeping in whatever space they could find.

  Within minutes, I saw seers and humans sprawl out on the ship’s deck, both upstairs and in the hold. Backpacks, jackets, sweaters and tarps formed pillows and blankets. Many of them slept curled around one another for warmth.

  Only Jem, Yarli and Dex’s team stayed awake on the upper deck.

  Well… and me and Black.

  Black had other ideas about how to spend that time.

  As soon as he saw everyone else going down, he caught hold of my hand.

  Pulling me with him down a narrow corridor of the hold, he brought me with him into a ship’s cabin at the end of the passage. I had no idea how he’d gotten it, but figured he must have said something to the captain, maybe even before we’d come on board.

  However he’d managed it, he had his hands and arms wrapped around me before I’d finished closing the hatch behind us. Pushing me up against the oval door, he kissed me, using light in his tongue and lips.

  When I kissed him back, he gripped me tighter, pulling at my light as he started taking off my jacket. Once he had that off, he tossed it to the floor of the grey metal room, then began unfastening the front of the dark, semi-waterproof pants he’d thrown at me on the plane that morning.

  Despite the intensity there, I felt restraint behind his hands, even behind his light.

  His pain, on the other hand, slammed into me.

  As if it was happening in some other part of his light, his pain hit into me with no filters at all, like it was divorced from the rest of him.

  It got worse the longer we kissed.

  The combination of him moving slowly with me, pulling on my light deliberately, holding himself back… and that mind-altering pain… in the end it was too much. I found myself getting aggressive with him physically, tugging at his belt, fighting to get his shirt off, but he slowed me down there, too, stopping my hands, holding my wrists and pinning me against the door until I let out an angry, frustrated sound, struggling to get free of him.

  Leaning his face against mine, he pressed into me, trapping me against the door with his chest. His pain hit into me so hard I writhed against him.

  “God, Black. Why?” I said finally. “Why?”

  “Why what, doc?”

  Closing my eyes, I fought with another surge of frustration.

  “Are you mad at me?” I said.

  He shook his head. “No.”

  Feeling his pain worsen, I bit my lip, fighting a wave of anger.

  He felt that, too. He flinched, wincing from my light, but he didn’t move his body.

  When he finally raised his head, meeting my gaze, I saw something in his eyes that gave me pause. Even though I couldn’t fully identify it, or even wrap my mind around it, I found my anger deflating. All the fight went out of my limbs.

  I considered asking him, then decided against that, too.

  Instead I writhed free of his hold, gently that time, disentangling his fingers and arms even as I blew warmth at his light, telling him to let go. When my hands slid inside his clothes, he didn’t fight me. He didn’t fight me when I undressed him, or when I pushed him backwards onto the bed.


  Standing over him and the narrow bed, I finished undressing, watching his eyes follow my hands, taking in my body as I removed my clothes, one by one. When I was completely naked, I climbed up onto him, still gauging his face. He only watched me, his pupils so dilated, the black completely swallowed the gold of his irises.

  He was strangely quiet the first time.

  Balancing on his chest and hips, I had him inside me as soon as the two of us managed to get him to retract. I brought him inexorably to an orgasm, controlling it like he had been with me, pulsing heat and pain into his light, pulling his light into mine, stopping him when he got too close too fast.

  After the first few minutes, I felt him let go, letting me do all of it.

  Some time later, I felt him lose control.

  He was still unusually quiet.

  He was unusually quiet some time later, when I finally let him build to an orgasm. He was quiet even as he came.

  His whole body turned to liquid under me, though. He thrust up into me, letting out a low gasp as he peaked, gripping my hips in his hands.

  His pain didn’t get better after that.

  It got significantly worse.

  He rolled over with me, not long after I’d caught my breath. Wrapping his light deeper into mine, pulling on me urgently that time, asking me to open… then asking me to open more, and more… he fucked me hard, slow and deep. I have no idea how long we were doing that. I lost time, lost myself even more than usual, to the point where I couldn’t speak.

  He was still quiet, strangely quiet for him, but I felt more off him that time… and more the longer it went on.

  The more I felt, the harder it was to pull it apart, to make sense of what I felt.

  His emotions hit me in conflicted pulses, along with pieces of his life.

  I felt a confused rush of emotion around losing the Colonel.

  I felt his conflict around their relationship, around what he believed about the old man, around how he’d felt about him back when he was still more or less a kid, when the Colonel became the first person he confided in on this version of Earth.

  I felt him blaming himself for the Colonel’s death, for Charles, for Brick’s escape, for letting things go to hell with the vampires.