Black Of Mood (Quentin Black: Shadow Wars #2): Quentin Black World

by JC Andrijeski

  Brick acted like Black hadn’t spoken.

  “Well, I suppose you did make a tidy profit from that whole deal, did you not? In addition to destroying my very useful and conveniently-located refinery.” He paused, his smile audible through the speakers. “So what is next for you, Mr. Quentin Black, private eye? You gonna use that ill-gotten money of yours to wage a war on little ole me? Is that what I should expect? You raising an army from the ashes of my dead brothers and sisters of the South?”

  “Brick––”

  “––I won’t pretend that little display hasn’t inconvenienced me, friend,” the vampire added. “Nor hurt my very soul. It has. Undoubtedly and assuredly, it has. Truth be told, you are becoming a, a...” The voice searched for the right word. “...well, a genuine nuisance, if you must know. And I cannot have that. By the gods of the true source, I cannot have that at all.”

  The vampire went on, his voice still pleasant.

  “I must say, I’m also a bit worried about your mind, Quentin. I fear amnesia may be a problem for you, as well, if you feel so bold after our last little encounter. Either way, I sincerely hope you are seeing a psychologist regularly... besides your wife, that is.”

  Steele’s eyes bulged again as he looked from the speakers to Black.

  The vampire’s words grew significantly harder.

  “Speaking of which, how are the nightmares, Quentin? Getting any better?”

  Black’s face hardened to a mask. He glanced to his right, looking directly at the opening in the curtains. Angel found herself thinking Miri must be standing there.

  She saw Black’s jaw firm, even as a softer emotion skated across his eyes.

  He turned back towards the cameras, as if about to speak––

  When there was a loud click as the vampire hung up.

  4

  OLD FRIENDS

  BLACK LOOKED UP sharply from the dressing room mirror and table, ignoring the make-up artist working over him. He glared at Nick, gold eyes flashing.

  “Well?”

  Nick held up his hands, backing off a half-step from Black’s chair.

  Maybe it was because he saw the same thing on Black’s face that I did. Maybe he even instinctively sensed some of what I felt coming off of Black’s light. Either way, Nick switched smoothly to his cop-talking-to-someone-overexcited-and-potentially-violent voice.

  “We have a basic location,” he said, lowering his hands. “Nothing specific.”

  Black’s gaze sharpened. “Which is what?”

  Nick glanced at me, as if looking for help. When I couldn’t give him any, he looked back at Black, sighing. “Look. Don’t freak out, all right? We can handle this.”

  “Where is he, Nick?” Black stared at him, his gold eyes a touch harder. “Or do you want me to break our little agreement?”

  Nick exhaled, glancing over his shoulder at Ravi, who’d walked in behind him.

  I knew what agreement Black meant. Nick had gotten Black to promise not to read him without asking, not unless it was some kind of emergency. Apparently Black was even holding to it, if he hadn’t read him for this.

  “We can’t say for absolute certain,” Nick began. Seeing the darker look coming to Black’s expression, he raised his hands again. “Look, it appeared to be New York. All right? Somewhere in Manhattan. It appeared that way. But your tech guys aren’t convinced. That one woman, Alisha, said it’s probably just a diversion to waste our time... or a scare tactic. The signal got bounced through several different locations. They’re trying to unravel it all now.”

  Black scowled, staring at the dressing room mirror without seeming to see it.

  “There’s something else.” Nick hesitated, glancing at me a second time. “Mozar’s here. He wants to talk to you.”

  Black turned, his jaw hard. “What?”

  “Andrew Mozar. LAPD. He’s here.”

  “When the fuck did he get here? Was it before? Or after?”

  “Black... relax.” Nick’s tone smoothed back to his calming cop voice. “Jesus. You need to calm the fuck down, all right? I don’t think he knows anything about that. He says he came here to talk to you about some case. A friend of his is involved, and––”

  Black’s voice shifted to a lower growl. “Are you kidding me? He wants me on a police case? After what happened the last time I played ‘consultant’ for that piece of shit?” His eyes remained hard as glass. “Why is he in town? It can’t possibly be to talk to me. What’s he doing in New York?”

  I found myself moving closer to Black without thinking, biting my lip once I stood next to him, partly because of the intensity of light coming off him, and partly to keep myself from touching him. In the end, I touched him anyway, placing my hands on his shoulders, maybe to keep him in his chair.

  He tensed under my fingers, but didn’t move away.

  I glanced down at the thought, noting his arm resting on his thigh. A white bandage was just visible on his wrist, poking out beneath the sleeve.

  Was that the same one I’d seen before? Or a different one?

  Black glanced up at me.

  I watched him tug down his shirt sleeve and jacket, covering the bandage, even as I shoved the thought from my mind. I tried to wrap my head around Mozar being here, around him wanting to see Black. My mind tried to fit that puzzle piece in with what just happened on stage. As much as I didn’t want to, I was leaning closer to Black’s interpretation than I was to Nick’s.

  It was an awfully big coincidence that Mozar would be here now.

  The show finished taping about an hour earlier, after the final credits sequence. It took us that long just to disentangle Black from all of the studio people who came up to talk to him after the wrap. I’d been a little worried about Black being around so many people, honestly, given what just happened onstage, but he seemed to take that end of things in stride. The call with Brick had been a huge hit with the studio execs, of course, and with Steele himself––mostly because they all thought it would generate a lot of buzz.

  Steele himself was like a dog with a bone, the instant Brick hung up the phone.

  Black had left the stage for the next few show segments––which involved a musical act and an up-and-coming director––but every spare second Steele got, he grilled Black about the things said in that call.

  He wanted to know everything. Who Brick really was. Who I was. Whether Brick had really accused him of conducting the terrorist attack the night before. Whether Brick really owned the oil refinery there. Whether Black was worried about Brick’s allegations. Whether Black was really married. Whether Black really suffered from nightmares.

  Black managed to sidestep most of those questions, including the ones about me, but Steele wasn’t easy to put off. He even followed Black back to his dressing room after the show ended, trying to talk to him after Black came out for the final curtain call.

  He’d probably still be in here, but between Nick’s cop persona and the seers’ own methods of persuasion, they’d managed to push him out of the room.

  Now Black scowled up at Nick, his light sparking and coiling around his long form.

  Below him, the studio makeup artist continued using sponges and some kind of solution to remove the layer of make-up from Black’s face and neck. She muttered to herself in Russian every time Black turned his head, interrupting her work.

  “Where is he?” Black said. “Mozar.”

  Nick sighed. “Black... don’t do this right now, okay? Send Ravi in there... or one of the others.” He checked his watch. “You and Miri should go back to the hotel, rest up a bit. You’ve got at least four meetings tomorrow that I know of, plus two more interviews and a photo shoot. Plus the press’ll be all over your ass once Steele’s show airs, and you know it... you’ll need to have statements prepared. Take the night off. Let us finish up in here.”

  “Where is he, Nick?”

  Nick glanced at me, lips pursed. I didn’t have to read him to know he was regretting having said anything to
Black. I wasn’t thrilled he’d said something either, but I only shrugged, since it was pretty much too late now.

  “The other dressing room,” Nick said, conceding defeat and hooking a thumb towards the door. “I left him in there with a snack tray and a cooler full of beer... said I’d come get him when we finished up in here.”

  Black got to his feet, pulling away from the makeup artist without giving her so much as a glance. The woman scrambled to get out of his way, then cursed at him in Russian, tossing the sponge on the counter in obvious annoyance.

  “Black,” I said.

  He gave me a bare glance, then reached back, catching hold of my wrist. He brought me with him to the dressing room door, then paused, looking back at Nick and Ravi.

  “Come with us.” His eyes stopped on three more seers, all of whom came from my uncle. “You three, too. I have one last job for you. Then you can go back to the hotel.”

  Efraim took the news without reaction, which seemed to be the norm for him.

  Jori and Arden grimaced at one another, but didn’t argue. I knew they’d been here for hours, long before me and Black arrived. They probably wanted snacks and a beer themselves, maybe followed by a nap. I didn’t have much time to feel sorry for them, though.

  Still holding my wrist, Black stalked down the hallway and towards the adjacent dressing room, moving fast.

  He didn’t knock. He barely hesitated long enough to turn the handle.

  I followed right on his heels, so I had an unobstructed view of Mozar’s face when he saw Black looming in the doorway. The blue eyes went wide as they looked up from a flatscreen monitor embedded in one wall and showing re-runs of previous shows by Grant Steele. Mozar’s fingers held a cracker topped by a chunk of brie and half a cherry tomato. He’d been about to shove it in his mouth. The frat-boy-handsome features looked exactly as I remembered, although it felt like years since I’d last seen him.

  “Black.” Surprise touched Mozar’s voice. He glanced at me, then at the people standing behind me. “Did Nick tell you why I came? I really need to talk to you privately––”

  Black reached him about then.

  Grabbing Mozar by his suit jacket lapels, he hauled him out of the low, mustard-colored couch and picked him up. Before I could take a breath, he’d slammed Mozar up against the wall right by the monitor, making it vibrate.

  “Jesus fucking christ!” Mozar stared down at him, wide-eyed. “What the hell are you doing?”

  Black slammed Mozar’s back against the wall a second time, harder.

  The sound was loud enough that I winced, looking back in reflex, half-expecting the hallway behind us to fill with curious staff. Instead I saw Ravi shut the door with a deliberate click. I turned towards Black, my voice alarmed.

  “Black! Take it easy, all right?”

  I started for him, but an arm intervened, straight across my chest. It held me back as Efraim, Arden and Jori walked in ahead of me, taking positions around the room.

  I looked down at the arm, then at its owner, and found myself meeting the gray eyes of Cowboy, who I hadn’t seen join us in the corridor. He gave me a faint warning shake of his head, his face expressionless. Dirty-blond hair hung from behind his ears. His lips pursed just above a scraggly goatee. Glancing down at the gun in his hand, that same custom grip Colt Python I’d seen him carry outside, I took in the beat up denim jacket he wore over a gray T-shirt with a faded Egyptian eye symbol on the front and scowled.

  I didn’t argue with him though.

  Mostly because Black was already talking to Mozar.

  “Did you set me up at the port that night?” he growled. “Are you the reason I got locked up in that shithole in Louisiana? Are you the mole you and Hawking told me about?”

  No beating around the bush, I guess.

  Mozar’s blue eyes went even wider. He’d dropped his cracker with the brie on it, somewhere in all that, and now stared at Black like he thought he’d lost his mind.

  “What?” he spluttered. He was clearly terrified of Black, but trying to hide it, to turn it into anger. “No! No, goddamn it! Look, I tried to find you. I tried to help! Ask Miri... ask Nick! I was with them the whole way. I used every contact I had, trying to find you!”

  “All of which would be great cover, if you were in on it.”

  “Except that’s insane,” Mozar snapped. “Look, Black, I know you’re upset––”

  “No.” Black gripped him tighter, leaning into him against the wall. He shook his head, once, his voice cold. “This isn’t me upset, Andrew. This is me asking you a very polite question about what happened that night.”

  I swallowed.

  I thought I’d known what angry looked like on Black before all this.

  I hadn’t.

  Black angry was a whole different animal, someone I barely knew. He’d never aimed that anger at me, not directly, but it still had a tendency to bring my heart to my throat, to make my pulse throb, and yes, to make me worry what in the hell he might do.

  I was still adjusting to the difference, truthfully.

  Now he had Mozar against the wall with one arm. His face hardened so much I barely recognized him.

  “Talk, Andrew.” Black’s eyes narrowed, turning even more animal-like. “Or my friendly fucking mood is going to evaporate. Fast.”

  “You think I’d kill my own partner? You think I’d kill Hawking?” Real anger reached Mozar’s voice, raising it an octave. “I knew Evan since the academy, Black. I was supposed to be best man at his wedding, for God’s sake––”

  “Where have you been these past four weeks?” Black cut in.

  “Whe-where have I been?” Mozar’s jaw slackened, then snapped shut. “I went to a family property near Mont Blanc. Not that it’s any of your goddamned business. I needed a break, so I took some time off.”

  Black growled, “Doing what?”

  Mozar stared at him. “I got drunk... stared at the damned mountains. My best friend was dead. I got demoted and formally reprimanded after that shit-storm at the port. I had Homeland Security looking into me––”

  “I checked with the Feds,” Black said. “Not one of them knew anything about the port that night, Andrew. Not one. And I was thorough. So now I’m asking you.”

  “The Feds?” Mozar stared at him.

  Something in Black’s words seemed to reach him that time. Whatever it was, the next time he spoke, Mozar sounded almost like himself.

  “Bullshit,” he snapped. “I don’t care how connected you are. You’d never pull this mafioso crap on them. Never.”

  Without hesitation, Black effortlessly lifted him higher, as if Mozar weighed little more than a small dog. Arms extended, he slammed Mozar’s back against the wall a third time, knocking his shoulder into the edge of a gaudy gold picture frame, something that looked like it had been dug out of the back of a garage sale.

  Mozar winced, looking down at it. “Fucking lunatic––”

  Black acted like he hadn’t spoken.

  “Wouldn’t I?” he growled, staring up at Mozar’s face. “You sure about that, Andrew?”

  Briefly, Mozar paled again. Then his mouth curled into another scowl.

  “No, you wouldn’t,” he retorted. “And I’d be talking to you through bullet-proof glass if you did.” He hit at Black’s arm with his fist, his face twisted in fury. “Put me down, goddamn it! I’ve tried to be fair with you, Black... and I did my damnedest to help Miri while you were gone. But this is way over the line. Let go of me. Now. Or I’m filing charges. You get ‘assault against a homicide detective’ on your record and you’ll lose that P.I. license of yours for good...”

  Black stared at him a few seconds longer.

  Long enough for Mozar to pale all over again.

  Then Black released him.

  Mozar landed unsteadily on the carpet, his jacket rumpled. Unable to catch his balance, he slammed a shoulder into the wall monitor, making it bang and vibrate all over again.

  Black paid no attent
ion.

  He turned, looking at me. Meeting my gaze, he shook his head perceptibly, his sculpted mouth curled in a frown.

  I frowned in return. So Mozar hadn’t been behind it, either.

  Black was running out of people to threaten.

  Unlike Mozar, I knew why Black stared at his face for too long. I also knew why he bullied him with questions past Mozar’s initial denials. Black had been reading Mozar’s mind, likely before he finished opening the dressing room door. The questions were part cover and part redirecting time-savers. Meaning, if he got Mozar’s mind focused on the right topics, he didn’t have to go poking around in all of Mozar’s memories to find what he wanted.

  After he gave me that swift look, Black’s eyes went to Ravi and Efraim, and the other two seers. I knew Black asked them here to do the more thorough scans, but I could already tell he thought it would be a waste of time. They’d done the same with the federal agents Black tracked down before coming here, as well as the S.W.A.T team members from Los Angeles, and most of those making up the LAPD hierarchy.

  He hadn’t been lying when he told Mozar he’d been thorough.

  Machine-gun methodical, was more like it.

  We still had no idea who the vampires had inside the police force.

  “Okay,” Black said to Ravi, turning his back on Mozar entirely. “See what you can find out. Then erase him. And give him back his beer and crackers.”

  “What?” Mozar’s voice came out uneven, more bewildered than angry, although the anger was there, too. He looked between the seers and Black.“What did you say? Black?”

  “Look hard on him,” Black added, a touch colder. “Make sure there aren’t any blocks in his mind from vampires or anyone else. That fucker has a place in Scotland. He might have places in France, as well.”

  He meant Brick.

  “He might not even know he’s working for them,” Black added, glancing at me before he turned his gaze back on Ravi. “So look for gaps, any memories of him doing things or being places he can’t explain.” He glanced at me, and that time his voice bordered on apologetic. “I know you looked at him while I was gone, Miri... but I still don’t trust this fucker.”