Vampires took everything from me. Yet here I was, allying with those same creatures against the only blood family I had left, a man who’d done nothing but fight the very things that murdered Zoe and my parents.
But I knew the truth of Charles.
I didn’t know all of it, mostly because Black had gone out of his way to not tell me a lot of it, for reasons I mostly understood.
I knew enough.
I knew he was a liar.
I knew he was a murderer, and a killer of children.
I knew he’d sacrificed the lives of hundreds, maybe thousands of humans to pay tribute to the vampires so he could buy his race time, and build his seer forces against them.
I knew he’d tried to kill Black––more than once.
My uncle released me, looking at my face, into my eyes.
I was shocked all over again when I saw his pale green eyes bright with tears.
He smiled at me through them, a smile so real I couldn’t help but feel it somewhere in my chest. Staring at that expression, fighting my reactions to the warmth coming off his light, off his very skin, I grimaced in the end, stepping back.
I’d never been very good at pretending, not when it was someone I loved.
And I did love Charles.
Even after everything, I still loved him.
“Are you okay?” I said, biting my lip. “After New Mexico. Are you all right?”
His smile widened. “I’m fine, darling Miriam. And I’m so incredibly relieved beyond words to find you looking so well. I can’t tell you how worried I’ve been.”
He continued to study my eyes, my face, that smile widening on his lips.
From his expression and light, I could tell he felt my frustration, my anger at him, my conflict, my grief––but he was so happy to see me, he almost didn’t care. He didn’t seem to be able to suppress that happiness, even knowing my feelings were far from being as clear and as straightforward as his.
“What are you doing, Uncle Charles?” I said finally.
I motioned around us, at the park, at Washington D.C.––maybe at the United States, or even the world.
“What are you doing?” I said again.
Somehow, it was the only question that made sense to me.
“Miri.” He stepped towards me, reaching for me, but that time I stepped back, shaking my head. He came to a stop, lowering his hands and arms to his sides. “Miri,” he said. “It’s over. It’s finally over. Everything is going to be different now.”
Frowning, I shook my head.
Staring up at him, I frowned harder. “What does that mean?”
He broke out in a broader grin. It made him look so young, so completely, guilelessly happy, I could only blink, staring at him.
“It means we won, Miri,” he said. “It means we fucking WON.”
I stared at him.
All around him, I felt that same feeling I’d had for the past few days.
I felt that seething, dark feeling, like the coup had already happened, like it had taken place as much or more in the Barrier as it had on the ground. Something in the world had changed. It had changed so fundamentally, yet so silently, so completely invisibly, I couldn’t wrap my head around whether the change was even real.
It felt like on some level the fight was already over––the real fight, the one that truly mattered.
I couldn’t make sense of that feeling, but it made me feel sick, as in physically sick, almost light-headed. It wasn’t separation sickness, like what I got with Black. This was different. This sickness wound and twisted inside my gut, filling me with a deep-seated dread I couldn’t extricate myself from in any way.
That same feeling seemed to make Uncle Charles deliriously happy.
“We won?” I looked up at him, shaking my head. “What does that mean?”
Uncle Charles looked around, still smiling that boyish smile.
“Is Black here?” he said. “I want to tell him this, too. I know he wouldn’t go far, not with you here. Tell him to stand down. He has nothing to fear from me. He has nothing to fear at all now. None of us do.”
I continued to stare at him, still fighting to make sense of his words, of what I felt on him.
All I knew for certain was, Charles was the source of that dread I felt. He was the source of that heaviness, that change. He was the source of all of it. I didn’t know how, or what it meant exactly, but it radiated off him like the rays of a light-less sun.
“What the hell are you talking about?” I burst out. “You tried to kill him!”
Charles lost his smile for the first time.
He blinked, staring at me.
“What?” He sounded genuinely shocked. “No I didn’t.” Still staring at me, he took another step towards me, but I stepped back. “Miri… gaos. I didn’t try to kill Black! Why would you think that? Why would I do that? He’s your husband! Do you really think I’d try to kill the husband of my only niece?”
I shook my head, clenching my jaw.
“You sent those agents,” I said, still shaking my head. “You sent those Homeland Security agents to the Colonel’s funeral. You tried to have him brought in––”
“Yes!” Charles burst out, still sounding shocked. “I did! I did try to have him brought in! But what in the gods would make you think I wanted him dead, Miri?”
I stared at him, still shaking my head.
At that point, I felt more like I was fending him off, maybe fending off his light, the way I could feel him trying to pull me into his way of seeing this––whatever this was. I could feel his absolute and utter belief that once I understood everything, I would see things exactly the way he did. Moreover, he thought I would thank him once I understood.
The thought terrified me.
I think I was more terrified because I was afraid he was right.
“Miri.”
Charles’ voice broke into that harder loop in my mind. It sounded warmer again, pleading, cajoling––loving.
“Miri, darling, I was trying to protect him. I was trying to protect both of you!”
I stared at him uncomprehendingly, still fighting to see him past that heavy cloud of light. I felt my confusion worsen, enough that I was fighting tears.
If my uncle noticed, it didn’t stop him from talking, or from wrapping his light into mine, confusing me more, pulling me deeper into his way of seeing everything.
“Miri, please. Think about this! Black and I may have had our issues in the past, but he’s family now. I knew once we started moving on the vampires for real, there was a good chance they’d go after him. They know he has government connections, right? Well, the attacks I had planned were all designed to appear like they came from the human government. For that reason alone, I just assumed Brick would blame your husband for this.”
He studied my eyes, his own as earnest as his voice.
“When it was decided to let Brick go, to use him to find the rest of his vampire subjects, I knew I was putting your husband at risk. I knew there was a good chance Brick might go straight for Black… and for anyone who got in his way. Including you, Miriam. Including your friends. Including Black’s employees. Including those humans at the Navajo reservation who helped us at Ship Rock. I couldn’t let that happen, Miri.”
I bit my lip, shaking my head.
Turning over his words, I let out a low snort.
“You really want me to believe you did this to save him?” I said. “To save me? To save his human friends?”
“Of course! Why else would I do it?”
“Since when have you cared what happened to humans?” I said bitterly.
Charles frowned.
“Miriam, come on. That’s not fair. I’ve never been anti-human. I’m aware of their weaknesses, it’s true… but I’ve always known there were as many good humans in the world as bad ones.”
His mouth curled into a more delicate frown when he added, “Unfortunately, the good ones rarely control things, Miriam. That’s as muc
h true here as it was on Old Earth. It seems to be a tragic truth underlying the very nature of their race.”
His sculpted, seer’s mouth tilted back in that open smile.
“But we don’t have to worry about that anymore, Miriam! We don’t have to worry about any of that––”
“Why do you keep saying that?” I burst out. “What does that even mean, Uncle Charles? What don’t we have to worry about? Vampires? Because last I knew, they still outnumbered us about a thousand to one. Last I knew, we were still in danger of having our race exterminated by them, particularly if we were stupid enough to really piss them off. How is that not even more true now, with the door closing at Ship Rock?”
Understanding bled into his eyes the longer I spoke.
Once it had, his smile flashed out wider.
Then he startled me, clicking under his breath, something I realized I’d never heard him do before, not in public. Not where humans might hear it.
He was still clicking at me as he shook his head.
“Miri.” He walked up to me, and that time, I let him. Reaching me, he caught hold of my arms, smiling at me. “Miri, darling, no. We don’t have to worry about that anymore. We don’t have to worry about any of it, not now.”
I frowned up at him, looking from one of his eyes to the other.
“What does that mean?” I said, frustrated. “Are you going to tell me?”
His smile grew back into that boyish grin.
“It means, my darling, beautiful girl, that Ship Rock wasn’t the only door. I thought you knew that. I thought you understood it wasn’t the only place a door like that opened.”
I stared. “What?”
“Oh, it was the strongest one,” he acknowledged, releasing my arms and taking a half-step back. “It may have even been the original door, the one that opened all the rest. But it wasn’t the only door that opened, Miriam.”
I could only stare at him, watching him beam at me.
“What are you saying?” I said. “Are you saying––”
“There were dozens of doors, my beloved child!” His grin widened. “Dozens and dozens! Seers poured into this version of Earth from all of them!” His eyes grew briefly colder. “And unlike in New Mexico, no one shot them as they walked through at the other locations. In the few places where vampires came through, we were able to neutralize them right away…”
I continued to stare up at him, unable to take a breath.
My heart hurt in my chest as his words sank in.
“Tell Black to come down from there,” Charles said, before I could recover. “He’s being ridiculous. And I already know he’s listening to all of this. We might as well have a real conversation, the three of us.”
Turning, he grinned, waving in the direction of the War Memorial dome, that smile turning mischievous on his lips.
His voice turned faintly scolding as he added to me,
“He’s not going to shoot me. If he so much as touched that trigger––if he or any of his humans or seers did––my seers would knock them out before they’d so much as lined my head up in their sights.”
BLACK! I called out, panicked. BLACK, DON’T SHOOT––
Charles gave me a wry smile, almost like he heard me.
He didn’t stop talking.
“…his six or seven seers are hardly going to neutralize the several thousand I now have watching over me and this place. Anyway, now at least I know why he was trying.”
Exhaling, he faced me.
“Gaos, Miri. Here I was thinking Black lost his mind over the Colonel’s death, and it didn’t even occur to me he would think I was trying to kill him. I just assumed he would have felt it, that he would have noticed the shift in the Barrier with all of our brothers and sisters arriving here––”
BLACK! I called out frantically to him in the space. BLACK! DON’T SHOOT! Are you hearing this? Don’t attack! If you try, they’ll drop you before––
I know, doc, he sent softly.
Black sent me a snapshot with his mind as he said it.
Inside that snapshot, I saw him crouched on the roof of the War Memorial.
He’d been up there the whole time, with Cowboy on my other side, high up in a tree. Javier crouched in another tree, not far from Cowboy, and I felt Jem and Alice not far from them. I got glimmers of others in our team as well, spread out at different distances from where I stood in the center. Our people were all around me, covering me from every angle imaginable, but suddenly they felt like such a small number.
Even as I thought it, Black sent me a second snapshot.
That one was of his view inside the Barrier.
As soon as he had, I understood.
In the darkness around Black’s light, I saw a wash of pale eyes, staring at him through the rose and gold psychic space. Seeing the woven, net-like structure they had around Black, along with Jem and the rest of the immigrant seers, I realized Black hadn’t answered me because those same seers hadn’t been letting him answer.
My uncle hadn’t been exaggerating.
The number of seers I felt was more than I’d ever encountered in my life. Beyond the number of eyes I could see, the presences there were overwhelming. I felt them changing the very nature of the world. I felt them changing the Barrier, even my own light.
“Your husband is fine,” Charles said, drawing my eyes back to him.
His sculpted lips turned in a faint frown.
“…I admit, I am relieved to know how ignorant both you and he have been about what’s really been happening since we all left New Mexico. I truly had no idea what he was playing at, killing those government agents, dragging you with him out of the country, nearly getting you killed in Lafitte. Then, when he teamed up with those disgusting bloodsuckers…”
He paused, shaking his head.
His sculpted lip curled, anger leaving his light in a cloud.
“…Against me. Your own family. Against your very race, Miri.”
That look on his face hardened as he focused back on me.
“Now that I know he thought I was trying to kill him, I suppose it’s marginally more understandable. Even so, I may have to have words with your mate, Miriam, for putting you in so much danger, and so needlessly.”
Just then, I heard gunfire erupt in the park.
I ducked, instinctively, and Charles reached out, catching hold of my arm as he pulled me closer to him. I fought to get free of his fingers, half-dragging him with me towards the War Memorial, but Charles only gripped me tighter.
He fought to calm me down with hot pulses of his light.
“Miriam, relax! They’re only killing vampires!”
When I turned, staring at him in disbelief, Charles inclined his head, a seer’s shrug––something else I’d never seen him do, certainly not in public.
“I told you,” he said, his voice grim. “I won’t hurt your mate, Miriam. Why must I keep saying it over and over? I will not hurt your mate. I will never hurt your mate. Certainly not now, when the reason for our past disagreements is completely dissolved.”
The gunshots multiplied.
They seemed to come from all around us now.
Biting my lip, ignoring the pain from where I’d cut the skin with my teeth earlier, I stared around at volleys I heard in different parts of Ash Woods. Although I could feel the truth of my uncle’s words, my eyes kept darting back towards the War Memorial anyway, at least until I saw a group of what had to be seers walking out from behind it.
Then I saw him––Black.
He walked directly in their midst.
One of the seers with him, a female with long, dark-red hair, gripped the rifle he’d been carrying in her hand, leaning it against her shoulder as she walked in front of him. None of them appeared to be treating him like a captive. His hands were free. They walked loosely around him, more like they were escorting him than leading him.
He didn’t look like a prisoner.
Rather, I saw a few of them smiling, clapping
him on the shoulders affectionately, trying to talk to him like they’d all just met at a party.
I saw Black frown at the male seer closest to him, the one who seemed the most overtly friendly. That same male seer continued chatting to him the whole time I watched them approach, speaking in that other language, the one Black only seemed to use when he was upset, or sometimes, when he wasn’t sure he wanted me to know exactly what he was saying.
I didn’t see Black speaking it now, though.
From his expression, he was as conflicted, unnerved, angry, confused, and emotionally off-balance as I was.
I turned in the other direction, and saw more of our people being escorted towards the intersection of footpaths where Charles and I stood.
Cowboy walked in front, a male seer at his side holding the rifle he’d been carrying, along with his holster with the two pearl-handled Colt Pythons. Angel walked behind him. I saw her staring up and around at all of the tall, high-cheekboned, shockingly good-looking people with them like she’d just been transported to another world.
Nick followed Angel, with Kiko, Dex, Easton, Manny and Lawless following him.
They all looked as bewildered as Angel.
They all looked as bewildered as me and Black.
I saw Manny staring at one of the tall female seers, who had an almost-Asian face and large, violet eyes that contrasted with her dark skin and nearly white hair.
She was so beautiful, she didn’t looked real.
I couldn’t help staring at the seers, too.
I didn’t try to count them.
It struck me suddenly, that the whole area had been cleared of uninvolved humans, both tourists and strolling locals. The gunfire continued in the background as I stood there, wincing at the louder shots, wincing at the occasional screams and more intense volleys––but all of it was growing more distant now.
None of it was aimed at us, as my uncle had said.
Turning, I met Black’s gaze as he walked closer.
Even behind the dark brown contact lenses, his eyes looked tired.
Brick? I asked him, soft.
Black gave me a flat look.
He didn’t answer me in words, but I caught a cluster of images he sent at me.
In Black We Trust Page 34