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

by JC Andrijeski

  Aiming his feet towards the octopus tank as he exited the elevator, he walked past it and down a corridor to our left. After passing two narrower hallways, he turned right at the end of the building, right where I would have turned, following the outside edge of the suite which was lined with some kind of colorful pipe-sculpture of copper and green.

  That side of the suite had no windows, presumably because it shared a wall with another suite on the east side of the building.

  At the end of that corridor, he turned right again.

  Seconds later, we walked out into a large, open, high-ceilinged space, lined with windows. It was designed more as a common area or break room than a regular workspace or conference room. Filled with lounge chairs and another wall of fish tanks, it housed a bar, refrigerator, a pool table, a pachinko machine, scattered couches, and even a few recliners set up in front of the fish tanks and television monitors.

  Looking around, I guessed it must be a tech company. Whatever kind of company it was, they must hire a lot of young people. I’d never heard of the name I’d seen emblazoned on the stone wall over the reception desk, but I knew there were likely thousands of such companies on the west and east coasts.

  Glancing to my left, I noted we were on the south side of the building again. I could barely make out the skyline through the smudged and blackened windows. Smoke billowed up from the lower floors of the building, blotting out the afternoon sun and sky. One of those windows was open, and smoke got pulled in through the opening when the wind tugged it that way, making the air hotter and filling the lime green room with the scent of whatever burned on the lower floors. I smelled paper, wood, chemicals, even a metallic taste that might have been heated steel.

  I didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about that, though.

  My eyes fell on a group of people waiting for us on the other side of the room.

  I briefly scanned faces, recognizing none of them at first.

  A blond man stood towards the front on the left, nearest the windows. His face reflected such a shocking, otherworldly beauty, I couldn’t help but stare, even after I noted––mostly from his glass-like, red-tinted irises––that he must be a vampire.

  He watched me with equal interest, his expression utterly still, yet somehow conveying an intense curiosity as he watched me look at him. He reminded me of feral dogs I’d encountered while traveling. His eyes were calm now, even friendly, but there was a flat disinterest in me as an individual that could turn either playful or vicious without warning. All it would take is a shift in his appetite, his mood, the whims of his pack… something I did that triggered him.

  I could feel that indifference, and the predator behind it.

  I had trouble tearing my eyes off him for that reason alone. It didn’t feel safe to look away; yet, seconds later, I did, feeling the urgency there, too.

  My eyes ran past a few more faces I didn’t know, then stopped on the red-haired woman I remembered from the television studio. Arms folded across her ample chest, she smirked at me, raising an eyebrow and tilting her head in an unspoken comment. I didn’t try to interpret the meaning of that comment. Even so, I gripped the gun tighter. My chest clenched in fury, making it difficult to look away from her face.

  Then, I saw her eyes drift down, to the dimmer part of the carpet to her right.

  Black knelt there.

  My breath stopped.

  For a long-feeling few minutes, I couldn’t look away from his face.

  He didn’t look at me, but stared forward and down, as if he hadn’t noticed Cowboy and I enter the room. His expression was strangely calm, not as blank as the bell-hop’s or the cops downstairs, but not Black’s face, either. After looking him over for a long-feeling few seconds, assuring myself that he was at least physically okay, that he wasn’t bleeding anywhere, or harmed in any way I could see, I let my eyes drift up to the man standing directly behind him.

  That man’s muscular hand rested comfortably on Black’s shoulder.

  I clenched my jaw as I raised my eyes, sure I knew whose face would be at the upper end of that torso. I was wrong, though.

  It wasn’t Brick who stood there, symbolically holding Black’s leash.

  It was Ravi.

  23

  THE MEMORY THAT WASN’T

  I STARED AT Ravi’s face for what must have been a few seconds. Some part of me couldn’t believe it. I wondered if he was here for Charles. I wondered if he was working some kind of double-game, pretending to have partnered with the vampires.

  Then, my mind began moving faster.

  A seer working for them. Black said they had a seer.

  After what Charles told me, I’d assumed that seer was Black himself. But maybe they had others working for them, too––maybe even seers who worked for them willingly.

  All of that went through my mind in a fraction of a second.

  Cowboy’s reflexes were faster than mine.

  That, or maybe his instincts were simpler, more to the point.

  His hand holding the cocked Colt Python slid up smoothly, unwaveringly. He aimed the ivory-handled weapon directly at Ravi’s head.

  BLAM-BLAM.

  The gun went off, two shots in quick succession, like a cannon by my ear.

  My eyes caught the kick-back of the Python in my periphery as it jerked Cowboy’s arm back into the shoulder socket. I didn’t look over; there was no time. My eyes never left Ravi’s face. I didn’t realize he’d been looking at me, too––not until his eyes flickered to the gun, focusing on the movement the instant Cowboy raised it and before he could squeeze the trigger.

  Even as the sound exploded in my ears, Ravi moved.

  His body blurred and shifted, twisting out of the way of the bullets with a liquid, inhuman grace. I watched the bullets cross the space, as if in slow-motion––

  ––and slam into the chest of the person who’d been standing directly behind Ravi.

  The force of the bullets threw that person into the wall. The impact came fast and hard, with a heavy, wet-sounding smack.

  I stood there, paralyzed, watching the whole thing. I don’t think I had time to take a single breath before it was over. When my eyes refocused, I was still staring at the man who’d been shot in the chest.

  Efraim stared back at me.

  The tall seer leaned against the wall for a long-feeling few seconds, his blue-green eyes wide, his mouth a round “o” of surprise. He hung suspended, as if stuck there by the force of the bullets. Then, without warning, his knees crumpled, unsticking him from the wall.

  He fell straight down, to the lime green carpet, leaving a streak of bright red blood in his wake. That bloody trail followed his body halfway to the floor.

  He landed, hard, on his knees. I saw the effort in his expression that time, the contortion of his features as he fought to remain vertical.

  Something about the grief that flashed across his features hit me right in the heart.

  Then he collapsed onto the carpet, landing on part of his chest and one arm, gasping. I watched him choke out blood, fighting for air, for life.

  He lay not far from Black’s booted feet, but Black didn’t turn. Black didn’t take his eyes off the carpet in front of where he knelt, his expression oddly calm.

  “No!”

  The pure anguish in that one word made me jump.

  Before I could turn, Ravi was kneeling by Efraim’s fallen body, his hands wrapped around and then stroking the long, angular face. Efraim continued to try and breathe, but his eyes were glassing, losing focus. He looked like he was trying to speak to Ravi, to get out words, but if he managed to say anything coherent, I never heard it.

  Cowboy shifted the direction of his gun, aiming it at Ravi’s head.

  Blam-blam-blam went off by my ear again.

  Ravi moved again, even as the third shot went wide, slamming into the wall, a foot or two over Black’s head. That time, there was more than one feeling of shifting and displaced air. It ruffled my hair, disorien
ting me even as I inhaled some part of it into my lungs.

  Then Cowboy was wrestling with someone, grunting as he tried to get his arms free.

  I leapt towards him without thought, grabbing one of the muscular arms of the male who now held him from behind. I wasn’t really conscious of who had him, apart from it being a vampire and not Ravi. I gripped the bicep of the arm nearest to me, but he jerked free of my hands with a violent lunge, hissing. When I caught ahold of him again, the hiss turned to a growl, right before the pale fingers and nails dug into the muscle of Cowboy’s arms, jerking him away from me. I followed, gripping those fingers, trying to force them open, when the air in the room shifted a third time.

  Someone appeared behind me.

  I barely had time to note his presence––large, taller than me, breathing hard. Before I could turn, he’d gripped me around the neck and shoulders, yanking me backwards, forcing me to release the hand I’d been trying to pry off Cowboy.

  I craned my neck, and found Ravi holding me, his grip like iron. Fighting his hold, I dropped my weight and he nearly lost hold of me when I lunged from a crouch, fighting to break free. I got halfway there when he snatched my hair and throat, yanking me backwards.

  He pulled me up against his chest, wrapping his fingers around my throat.

  “Stop.” Ravi spoke into my ear. “Don’t make me bite you, Miri.”

  I went briefly still at the threat.

  Part of it was shock as the implication of his words sank in.

  Once I’d stopped struggling, I could hear my heart beating loudly in my chest. I got a strange sensation or knowing as I did––I was sure I could feel Ravi reacting to my heartbeat, as well, enough though I couldn’t hear his thoughts. His fingers tightened on my throat, his breath coming in shorter pants by my ear.

  When I looked down at Black, he was still staring down at the carpet, his expression unmoving.

  “Black!” I shouted at him. “Black!”

  Ravi’s lips went to my ear again. His soft words turned cajoling. “Would you rather if I bit him? I’ll let you watch, Miri. I’ll let you see, first-hand, just how much he likes it…”

  Panting, I stared at Black, feeling a colder fury make its way through my belly. Still, something about his words switched my mind on, not the reverse.

  Black! I spoke in his mind that time. Black! Can you hear me?

  His expression didn’t move.

  “He can hear you, Miriam,” Ravi murmured. “As can I, since his blood is new in me still. He could even answer you… if I permitted it. Right now, however, I prefer to have him focused on me. Until you and I can speak reasonably about this.”

  I stared at Black. I fought to think, but my gut twisted in a kind of disbelieving rage.

  “You came here willingly, Dr. Fox,” Ravi reminded me, his voice still soft. “Remember that. You came here willingly… knowing exactly where Black would lead you.”

  I looked to Cowboy, maybe for help.

  He couldn’t help me, though.

  The blond vampire stood behind him. It was him I’d fought, his fingers and hands I’d tried to pry off off Cowboy’s chest. His hauntingly beautiful face and bright red eyes were shielded now, bowed on the other side of Cowboy’s head and neck. Chalk-white, perfectly sculpted arms wrapped around Cowboy’s arms and chest. He held Cowboy like a lover, his fingers splayed on his skin now that I was no longer trying to pry him off.

  It hit me, a few seconds later, that the blond vampire was feeding.

  A low humming, purring sound came from deep in his throat and chest.

  He lifted his lips briefly from Cowboy’s neck, as if to take a breath, and blood ran down his chin. Fangs extended, he sank them into a different area of Cowboy’s neck as I watched, at the thickest part of the muscle, right where it met his shoulder.

  I winced, feeling sick as I heard the creature suck and drink, humming again in that contented way.

  Cowboy let out a low gasp, shuddering when the creature clutched him tighter. Coming back to life for a few seconds, he bucked like a rabbit caught in a snare, throwing his weight against those bone-white arms, lurching violently.

  Then, as if a switch had been flicked, he went completely still.

  He stood there, breathing hard in the blond creature’s arms, his wiry muscles so taut he might have been ready to bolt the second the vampire let him go. Despite that tension, he leaned his weight against the blond’s chest, letting out a bewildered sound as the creature kept feeding on him.

  “Don’t kill him, Dorian,” the voice by my ear warned, his voice holding a warmer affection. “Control yourself, friend. Please. Do not kill that one.”

  I tried to pull away, to jerk back towards Cowboy, but Ravi only tightened his hold on me. When I tensed, he strengthened his grip, holding my back firmly against his chest.

  “Relax,” he said, his voice soothing. “I will bite you, if you force my hand, but I would rather speak to you as an equal.” He stroked my hair back from my neck, his fingers gentle but cold. “Relax, Miriam,” he murmured. “You have nothing to fear from me.”

  I let out a choked laugh.

  I watched the creature, “Dorian,” raise his mouth from Cowboy’s neck a second time. I was repulsed, horrified, nauseated, but I couldn’t look away.

  The blond vampire continued to hold Cowboy with one arm as he wiped his bloodied lips with the back of his hand. I could only stare, fighting another wave of revulsion as he kissed Cowboy’s neck, nuzzling his face before sucking briefly on the bite mark and ruffling his hair. Murmuring something in Cowboy’s ear, he kissed his face while I watched, pressing against him from behind and tightening his hold on his chest.

  My hand fell to my gun’s grip before I knew what I was doing.

  “No,” Ravi said, his voice warning.

  I tensed, but didn’t let go of the gun.

  I assumed he was talking to me.

  Dorian turned, however. Staring up and over my shoulder, presumably at Ravi’s face, he frowned slightly, his delicate lips shifting downward.

  “You said I could choose.” The blond vampire’s words carried a soft rebuke. His voice was disconcertingly pulling, almost melodic despite the deep tones. “I want this one.”

  “No,” Ravi said from behind me, his voice stern. “I told you––that one is to be family. Once he is, you may ask him. Not before. We do not molest family, Dorian.”

  With obvious reluctance, Dorian unwrapped his arm from around Cowboy’s chest.

  Sliding one long-fingered white hand down Cowboy’s back, he rubbed his rear end sensually, then squeezed it, his red eyes closing briefly.

  Sighing with obvious regret, he released him, turning away altogether. Walking back to the other side of the room, he winked at me as he passed, continuing his slow, lazy steps until he reached the far wall. He stopped a few feet from where Black knelt on the carpet, his arms loose by his sides.

  “Can I have this one?” he said, gesturing towards Black. “While I wait?”

  Ravi shook his head. I didn’t see it, but felt the motion behind me.

  “Don’t be rude, Dorian. His wife is here.”

  Dorian pursed his lips. “You’ve had him. I’ve seen it.”

  “Not in front of his wife, I haven’t. Be patient, my friend.”

  That sickness in my gut worsened.

  I looked down at Black, and briefly, it grew unbearable.

  Dorian frowned, shifting his scarlet eyes towards me with a visible flicker of resentment. He looked back at Cowboy. As he did, I saw a softer look touch his eyes.

  “That one is different,” he said, in that deep, musical voice. “That human. His mind is different. If he is to be ours, then let me have him for the birthing.”

  Ravi let out a patient-sounding sigh. “You know I cannot give what is not mine. I will recommend that father Brick seriously consider your request… as a personal favor to me. It is all that I can promise you, I’m afraid.”

  Again, I found myself stari
ng at the oddly expressive face of the one called Dorian. The beauty and youth of those features shone at me a second time, disorienting me enough that I had trouble reconciling what I’d just seen him do.

  Dorian bowed to the man holding me. “I would consider that a true favor, friend Lincoln.”

  I flinched, feeling Ravi’s arms tighten when I did.

  “Lincoln,” I muttered.

  I looked at Cowboy, but he still looked dazed. I watched him touch the cut on his neck tentatively with his fingers, frowning as he stared down at the smear of blood on his hand. From his expression, he didn’t know what had just happened to him.

  I was still staring at him, willing him to come back from whatever the blond vampire had done to him, when Ravi––Lincoln––released my arms.

  The instant he let go, I jerked forward and away.

  I faced him as I backed up, moving closer to Cowboy. When I ran into Cowboy’s arm and side, I didn’t turn, but kept my eyes on the predator in front of me.

  “Miri.”

  I didn’t realize I’d drawn my sidearm, aiming it at the vampire’s head, until Ravi spoke my name. Blinking, I stared at the gun, then back up at Ravi’s face.

  My eyes went to Black, seemingly on their own.

  Baby. Can you hear me?

  “Miri.” Ravi’s voice came out gentle that time, soothing. “You have nothing to fear from us. Nothing at all… I promise you. You are safe. We won’t even hurt your mate. We will never hurt him again. Not if you are reasonable.”

  I let out another disbelieving laugh.

  Even so, a heavier dread began to descend on me, as I stared around at the number of pale white faces watching us. Their scarlet-tinted crystal eyes watched me with a faint air of hunger, but also curiosity, even pity. Looking around at all of them, the futility of the gun began to sink in. Cowboy was a really good shot, at least from what I’d seen on the range, and he hadn’t been able to hit Ravi on a dead draw, when the vampire wasn’t even looking at him.

  Lowering the weapon, I hesitated only a breath before holstering it at my hip.

  My hands remained remarkably steady, but my heart felt like it was about to break my ribs as it slammed sideways in my chest.