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

by JC Andrijeski

  “Keep your hands off the lady,” Cowboy warned. Opening his jacket to show Marcus the gun he wore, he kept his voice polite. “Have a cup of coffee, friend,” he advised. “Or ask someone else to dance. Someone who’s interested.”

  I stared at Cowboy’s back, fighting disbelief.

  Even Black had never been so heavy-handed with me before.

  Black’s mind rose in mine, faintly annoyed. He’s doing his job, Miri.

  I turned to stare at him, but he’d already returned his weight to the barstool. I watched as he went back to talking to Frasier and the others.

  Is he? I sent. Because I can refuse my own dances, Black. I’ve been doing it for years now, believe it or not. I don’t need you to do it for me, via Cowboy or anyone else.

  Black’s thoughts grew warning.

  We have absolutely no idea who Brick might have in this group. He gave me a brief, hard stare. Cowboy would have done the same if it was me, doc.

  Really? I retorted. Then where the hell was he earlier tonight?

  Black didn’t answer, but I saw his expression harden just before he glanced away. Feeling glimpses of his emotions there, including a lingering anger at that woman, guilt reached me.

  Sorry, I sent.

  Forget it. He looked over again, an eyebrow quirked. And by the way, I did yell at him. For not grabbing her before she got too close.

  Oh. I felt my cheeks warm. Sorry, honey.

  I felt him react to the endearment. Pain slid off him, tangible.

  After a pause, I felt him pull away from me with an effort.

  Forcing myself to do the same, I looked back towards Cowboy, who was watching me cautiously. Maybe he was perceptive enough to know I’d been annoyed, or maybe he just figured out I was talking to Black and was waiting for me to finish.

  Either way, when I looked back at him, he nodded towards me. He looked about to say something, when a scream tore through the open space of the patio, making both of us tense. Our knees bent in the same instant as we both fell instinctively to a crouch.

  Before I knew it, Cowboy had pulled me behind him.

  “Are you armed?” he said, without looking back.

  Looking down at the dress I wore, I refrained from making a sarcastic remark.

  “No,” I said only.

  Just then, I saw a figure approach the pool.

  He staggered, his skin so white I didn’t recognize him at first.

  Blood ran down the side of his neck, turning his tuxedo shirt red from the base of his throat down the front of his chest. He walked with stilted steps, eyes unfocused. It looked almost like something outside his own will and body powered each jerking step.

  As he walked, everyone got out of his way, scattering like birds before a predator. I saw hands clutching drinks, high-heels tripping on deck furniture and other feet as party-goers moved and shoved one another to get around him. Their eyes never left him; they gaped at him openly, wide-eyed. I stared along with everyone else at first, stunned.

  Then my brain clicked back on.

  I moved, sliding around Cowboy and past him without thought.

  “Ma’am!” He reached for me, but not fast enough. “Miri! Stop!”

  I felt him right on my heels, but I only sped up my pace.

  I reached the staggering man before anyone else had broken out of their daze. Once I had, I looked him over, feeling sick––then I stepped directly in front of him. I only thought to stop him at that point, to keep him from walking by force if I had to. I still felt sick, but increasingly, that feeling was eclipsed by darker emotions of fear and dread mixed with concern.

  That fear was no longer for myself; it was for the man in front of me.

  Halting his progress with my body, I reached up, clamping my hand over his neck. I covered his ghostly white skin with my palm, right where the blood was still spurting and flowing from two holes in his jugular. My limited training in anatomy came to the fore, feeding me information in simple, concise terms.

  His carotid artery had been punctured. The flow was jerking now, uneven, weak. He’d lost most of his blood pressure. Which meant he’d likely lost most of his blood.

  He shouldn’t be on his feet.

  He shouldn’t be able to stand.

  Cowboy reached me before Black. He tried to take my hand off the man’s neck, to pull me away from him, but I elbowed him off me angrily.

  “Call 911!” I snapped, turning just long enough to glare at him. “Can’t you see what’s happened to him? He’s going to die!”

  “He’s already dead, Miri.”

  He said it low, leaning towards my ear, but I winced as if he’d shouted it.

  Knocking into him again with my shoulder, I glared up at him. “Call an ambulance, or you’re fired.”

  Cowboy blinked, but his expression didn’t change. I saw him dig a hand into his jacket pocket after another pause, extracting his phone.

  “Miriam!” Black that time, coming up from behind me. “Get your hands off him, Miri!”

  “You can fuck off, too!” I snapped, turning to glare at him like I had with Cowboy. “I’m not letting go of him... get the damned paramedics here, if you want to help me!”

  I was still gripping the wound tightly with my hand.

  Blood seeped between my fingers and coursed down my arms. I tried to hold him still, but something compelled him to try and keep walking. He moved like an automaton, like the instructions to move his legs and feet were coming from very far away.

  “Andrew.” I spoke gently, but firmly. “Andrew, can you hear me?”

  The man froze.

  He turned his head, looking down at me.

  His eyes were milky, as if he was already dead, like Cowboy said. His skin was starting to take on a grayish hue. Shoving both things from my mind, I tightened my hold on his throat, trying to keep the last of his blood inside him.

  “Help is coming, Andrew,” I assured him. “Help is coming. Hold on, okay?”

  In the background, I heard Cowboy talking to the 911 operator.

  Mozar continued to stare down at me with those milky, dead-looking eyes. He blinked. It seemed to take all of his energy to do it.

  His voice was liquid, barely understandable.

  “Miri?” he said.

  I swallowed, feeling my throat constrict. “Yes. It’s me, Andrew. I’m here. I won’t leave you. I promise.”

  His knees crumpled.

  I let out a cry, trying to follow him down. I was forced to let go of his neck when he collapsed forward onto the patio deck. Then I was kneeling by his side, gripping his throat in both of my hands, turning him over without letting him go. His pulse was so weak and threaded, I almost couldn’t feel it at all.

  Someone handed me something, a towel, I think, but I didn’t want to let go of him long enough to use it. I wrapped my hands tighter around his throat instead, putting as much pressure as I could without crushing his windpipe.

  He was trying to talk to me again.

  “Tell Black...” he said, looking up at me. “Tell Black...”

  Black leaned over my shoulder, his voice soothing. “Tell me what, buddy?” he said. “What do you need to tell me?”

  I jumped, not realizing he’d been so close.

  Mozar looked from me to him, blinking, gasping through liquid. His pupils were contracted to pin-pricks as he stared up at the ceiling.

  “Hawking,” he managed finally. “Hawking...”

  “What about Hawking, Andrew?” Black said.

  Black’s voice remained warm, soothing. I felt him doing something with his light. I couldn’t help reacting to it when it went through me to reach the man dying on the floor.

  “Hawking...” Mozar repeated. “Hawking… he was the mole. He found out... Lincoln. He found Lincoln... feeding. Feeding on... Hawking… not his fault…”

  He choked, fighting for air. That dread in me worsened as I watched him try to breathe through the liquid in his throat. I barely made out his last words.
/>   “He has you now... Black. He has you...”

  Tears came to my eyes as I gripped his throat, watching his chest heave. Cowboy was right. He wasn’t going to make it. Pain ripped through me at the realization, a near desperation. I’d never really liked Mozar. I’d never really known him, truthfully, but looking at him now, I couldn’t bear the thought of watching him die right in front of me.

  I couldn’t look away either, as his breathing began to slow.

  His pupils began to expand, as if a muscle inside them had finally unclenched.

  “Andrew!” I said, sharp. “Andrew! Stay with us!”

  Black put his hand on my shoulder, exuding warmth.

  “Miri,” he said, soft.

  I shoved him off, just like I had with Cowboy.

  Black didn’t move away. I felt the heat coming off him intensify, but he aimed it at me now, along with a softer emotion, one he wrapped around me like a blanket.

  “Ilya.” He tugged on me gently with his light when I continued to hold Mozar’s throat. “Ilya. He’s gone.”

  I shook my head, biting my lip until I tasted blood. I shook my head again. “Where’s the fucking ambulance?” I snapped, looking around at all of them. “No one could call a fucking ambulance? You’ll just let a man die in front of you?”

  Miri... honey. Focus on me. When I tensed angrily, shaking my head, he wrapped an arm around me again. When I didn’t shove him off that time, he sent more warmth at me. You’ve done all you can do, doc. He was dead before he came in here.

  Another surge of rage hit me. I wanted to aim it at someone, anyone. Black. Cowboy. All these fucking people just standing there, staring down at me like they had no feeling inside them at all. Black tugged my focus gently back to him.

  Baby. Let go... For the second time that night, Black wrapped his hands around mine, gently pulling my fingers from around someone else’s throat. You can’t do anymore. He’s gone. He’s gone, ilya... let go... let him go now...

  When I finally let him loosen my fingers, I couldn’t help myself.

  I let out a low sob.

  I barely felt it when Black pulled me up against him.

  14

  IT DOESN’T MATTER NOW

  “WAS HE REALLY the mole?” I folded my arms, fighting to keep my hands from trembling as I watched EMTs load Mozar’s body onto a gurney. “Hawking? Was he working for them?”

  There was a silence.

  Black, Nick and Angel exchanged looks. Then Black shook his head, meeting my gaze.

  “No.” His voice came out low, disturbed. “No, I don’t think so, doc. Not willingly.”

  “Why did they kill Andrew?” Somehow I couldn’t bring myself to call him by his last name, not now that he was dead. I bit my lip.“Why? Because he found out about Hawking? That doesn’t make any sense.” I stared around at all three of them, but no one would really meet my gaze. “Hawking is dead,” I said, louder. “Why does it matter if Andrew found out he was the mole? Who cares now?”

  Black sent warmth to me, not answering.

  Under that heat, I felt his anger, though.

  When the silence deepened, I bit my tongue. “Did they make him say those things?” I said, harsher. “Did they send him in here to tell us that? About Hawking? About whoever ‘Lincoln’ is? Did they kill him just to fuck with us?”

  There was another silence.

  Then Black shook his head again. “No, doc. I don’t think so.” He gave me another look, his eyes tired. “I was reading him, right up to the end. It cost him a lot to say those things to us. It was like he was repeating the words in his head, over and over, so he could remember them past whatever the vampires did to him.”

  Nick scowled, shaking his head in anger. “Fuck.” Anger hardened his voice, along with a flicker of self-disgust. “He used his last words for that. After the way we treated him. Guy was a better cop than I gave him credit for.”

  “Yeah.” Black’s jaw tightened. “Me, too.”

  I bit my lip, turning to watch as they raised and straightened the gurney’s metal folding legs. In seconds, they’d locked those legs in place and began rolling the gurney towards the elevator, with Mozar’s body zipped into a plastic bag on top.

  According to the EMT, Black was right. So was Cowboy. Mozar couldn’t have survived more than seconds, given the amount of blood he’d lost.

  He’d come out of the elevator like that. Someone drained him to the point of death and put him on the elevator, punching the button for the penthouse floor.

  I jumped when Black wrapped an arm around me, tugging me up against him.

  “Let’s go home, doc,” he murmured.

  I didn’t have the energy to do much other than nod.

  Fleetingly, though, I wished he meant San Francisco.

  I DON’T REMEMBER anything about the ride back to our hotel.

  At some point we were back in our penthouse suite, and Black was leading me to the marble-tiled bathroom with the two sinks and glass-enclosed shower and the sunken jacuzzi. He undressed me while I stood there.

  I watched numbly as he laid my dress carefully in one of the sinks after he took it off me. I realized only then that it was covered in Mozar’s blood. Blood stained the front of Black’s tuxedo as well, and probably the leather seats in the car from the drive home.

  I watched him take off his tuxedo jacket, along with the tie and his shirt, removing each piece one by one and putting them in the sink with the dress.

  Then he brought both of us into the shower.

  I couldn’t help flashing back to being in Bangkok with him as he washed me off carefully, shampooing and then conditioning my hair after he’d gotten every drop of blood off my arms and neck and face. He stopped to kiss me a few times during that.

  He only really spoke to me once.

  After he’d finished rinsing the last of the conditioner out of my hair and the soap off my body, he wrapped his arms around me from behind, leaning his mouth down by my ear.

  “Miri?” His voice was a murmur. “What did you mean by that? At Frasier’s?” He kissed the side of my face. “You were thinking my light felt strange... that there was something wrong with my light. What did you mean?”

  Confused, I looked up and back at him. Water dripped from his hair to his shoulders and face; his eyelashes and cheeks were beaded from the shower’s spray. Gauging my expression, he hesitated, then held me tighter in his arms.

  “Is it Puzzle, Miri?” he said, low. “Do you still feel him on me? When I kiss you?”

  I continued to stare up at him, lost in the look on his face.

  I was even more lost from his words.

  After another beat, I realized he was waiting for an answer. I shook my head.

  “No.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Frowning, I nodded slowly. “I’m sure. I never felt Puzzle on you, Black. Not really. I felt the humans, at the prison...” He flinched, gripping me tighter. “I never felt Puzzle. I thought it was because he was a vampire––”

  Before I could finish, Black leaned down, kissing my mouth.

  He put light into his lips and tongue that time, opening his heart. My thoughts shifted to static, my body growing soft when he pressed against me. I turned in his arms, sliding my fingers into his wet hair as he kissed me again.

  When he finally came up for air, I felt his light all over me, invasive in mine. I was holding onto him when he leaned past me and turned off the water.

  Wrapping us both in giant fluffy robes, he brought me into the bedroom and called housekeeping, asking them to come up and clean the bathroom right away. I heard him explain about the bloody clothes, asking them to come dispose of them, explaining we’d been witnesses to a crime, that the hotel could call NYPD to verify if they needed to.

  He spoke in a quiet, calm voice through all of it.

  Then he hung up and just sat there in the dark.

  I tried to talk to him about Mozar a few times, but he wouldn’t answer me.

&
nbsp; I tried to tell him what I’d learned about Garrison and the others too, but he just shook his head, telling me we’d discuss it in the morning. Looking at him, I realized he wasn’t doing much better than I was, and I stopped trying to talk to him.

  Housekeeping showed up minutes later. I gave Black a back rub while I listened to them moving around in the adjacent room, talking in low voices in Spanish and English.

  I thought Black fell asleep before they left.

  He didn’t.

  As soon as the door shut behind them, he shifted to his back. Pulling me over him when I started to move away, he began untying the knot in the belt of my robe. Untying his own once he’d finished, he opened the front and pulled me against him, wrapping his arms around my back and waist, burying a hand in my hair. He still hadn’t made a sound, hadn’t said anything to me, so I thought that was all he wanted, that he’d leave things at that.

  He didn’t do that, either.

  After a few minutes of him running his hands over my bare back, massaging my neck and shoulders and lower spine, I was breathing harder. When he started caressing the front of my body, following his hands with his mouth, I let out a low gasp, unable to help that, either. When I did, his hands on me tightened. He pushed me over so that I was on my back, and slid on top of me. Once he had most of his weight on me, he kissed me for real, his hands getting rougher as he tugged my leg around him.

  I felt myself starting to lose touch with the room, with what we were even doing. I briefly forgot everything we’d talked about earlier that night. When he pressed the heel of his hand deliberately between my legs, I let out a heavy moan.

  Feeling him tense, his breath coming harder, I snapped out just enough to remember the bare bones of our last conversation.

  Once I had, I pushed gently at his chest, forcing him to raise his head.

  “Black.” Struggling to get my eyes back into focus, I met his gaze. His pupils blackened the gold of his eyes. Pain came off him in a cloud, forcing my eyes closed, even as I gritted my teeth. “...Black. You said you didn’t want this. You said you didn’t want it before.”

  He shook his head. “I never said that.”

  “You said we couldn’t, then.”