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

by JC Andrijeski

  Truthfully, I almost felt pity for him.

  I was still staring at the mixture of horror, terror and disbelief painted on Brick’s features when doors slammed open all around us. Voices called out warnings, telling us to halt, to not move. Cowboy and I both raised our hands in the air instinctively as a sea of black kevlar poured into the room, automatic rifles aimed towards the few of us left standing.

  They filled just about every square foot of space on our half of the room, stepping around bodies on the floor, most of which were a bloody mess from having been beheaded either by one of Black’s swords, or by Cowboy’s hunting knife.

  The space where the white-blond vampire had lain contained only a pool of blood.

  I found myself staring down at Ravi’s blank eyes, already muddied by death.

  My gaze jerked up when I heard Black’s voice.

  He was talking to a few of the soldiers, still leaning on the two swords that pinned Brick to the wall. Watching the men talk to him, I realized they weren’t police; they were definitely military. Private security, at the very least.

  I was guessing special forces, though.

  I noted the gear they wore, watching as they knelt by vampire bodies, rolling out plastic body bags and unzipping them next to the remains. A few went to the window, aiming their rifles out the broken glass without standing in the opening. I watched them scan the streets, and wondered if Cowboy and I existed in this world at all.

  They certainly didn’t seem to notice us.

  Even as I thought it, one of the soldiers walked up to me, her mouth set in a taut-looking smile when I met her gaze.

  “Dr. Fox?” Her voice was unerringly polite. “We need medics to check you out. Would you come with me, please?” She indicated with her head and shoulder that she wanted me to follow her out of the room.

  I glanced at Black, just in time to see another of the soldiers salute him.

  “We can take it from here, sir,” he said, his voice filled with respect.

  “Dr. Fox?” the woman said next to me. “Could you please follow me?”

  “No,” I told her, without taking my eyes off Black.

  Pushing past her, I walked to him.

  I saw six other kevlar-wearing soldiers holding Brick now, mainly by his arms and his legs, but also by the swords and his torso. Two others walked up while I stared, sinking syringe needles into Brick’s neck, arms and thighs. The vampire squirmed and fought, hissing garbled, wet sounds out of his spittle-flecked lips.

  “Kill you.” Brick stared up at Black, murder in his eyes. “Kill you.”

  Black smirked. “I warned you, didn’t I? Back at that lab? Pride is a sin, ‘friend.’”

  “Death… dead… Kill you. Kill you…”

  The humor left Black’s expression. His words grew as cold as his eyes. “You shouldn’t have gone after my wife.”

  He turned, then stopped, doing a double-take when he saw me staring at him.

  Seeing the guilt in his face, I looked back at Brick. As the vampire’s eyes rolled up in his head, understanding reaching me like a punch to the gut.

  As that understanding sank in, I found myself returning my gaze to Black, watching him nod grimly to something one of the black-suited soldiers was saying.

  For those few seconds, it wasn’t only Brick who wanted to kill him.

  I kind of wanted to kill him, too.

  25

  GUARD DUTY

  A LOUD CRASH reverberated the door directly in front of her.

  Flinching, Angel glanced at it, halfway waiting to see if it would open.

  Cursing a little under her breath when it didn’t, she shook her head grimly, then completed the motion she’d started before the noise interrupted her, handing a paper cup of coffee to Cowboy, who sat on one of the two chairs stationed outside.

  Acknowledging his nod of thanks with a nod of her own, she turned around, sinking her weight to the other chair. Setting her rifle on the floor, she leaned it carefully against the wall, adjusting her butt in the chair once she was situated.

  She gave Cowboy another grim look as the shouting grew louder once more from behind the door. It was loud enough now that she could pick out actual words.

  “How long has this been going on?” she said, taking a sip of the coffee.

  She flinched again when another crash came from behind the door.

  Unfazed, Cowboy shrugged, glancing at her. “The yelling, you mean? Or the part where she started trying to kill him?”

  Angel let out an involuntary snort, unable to help it.

  “Can you blame her?” she said, her voice holding a faint challenge.

  Cowboy only shrugged, noncommittal. “She knew what she married.”

  At that, Angel could only roll her eyes. “A royal bastard, you mean?” she grunted. “A manipulative, sociopathic asshole? A pathological liar?”

  “He didn’t lie to her.” Cowboy turned, giving her a warning stare of his own.

  She stared back at him in disbelief. “Seriously? You’re going to pull the guy code thing on this one? Explain to me how he didn’t lie to her. Because that, I’d really like to hear.”

  “I was there when they talked about it,” Cowboy said, his tone still warning. “He told her what he meant to do. Well in advance. She agreed to it, Ang.”

  “Don’t call me that, Elvis,” she snapped back. “And him telling her everything, then erasing her memory of everything he told her, isn’t exactly what I’d call ‘honest.’”

  “He had no choice in that part.” He exhaled again. “Jesus, Ang. They were watching her. As closely as they were watching him. Closer, maybe. The military was pumping him full of drugs to keep the vampire venom from wiping out too much of his mind… and on top of that, he was working with Charles, using him to keep his head on straight.”

  “So why not do all that with Miri?” Angel said, frowning. “If he was taking drugs to counteract the venom, why didn’t he just give the same drugs to her? Or the blocking implant or whatever the hell he gave to you and me?”

  Cowboy shook his head. “They were watching her too closely. They would have noticed.”

  She sighed, exasperated. “Closer than they were watching him?”

  “Yes,” Cowboy said, just as exasperated. “That guy, Lincoln, took Black, remember? Not Miri. He was feeding on him regularly. So Black having memory gaps and being confused about how and when things happened made sense. If Miri was like that too, it would have raised too many questions.” Cowboy shrugged, scowling as he folded his arms. “As it was, he had to make up some kind of nervous breakdown story to explain why he erased her the one time.”

  “But what about the implant?” Angel said, frowning.

  Cowboy shook his head. “The implant didn’t work on her. They tried it. It only works on humans, and Miri’s too seer, I guess.”

  Exhaling, Cowboy ran a hand through his hair, wincing when his fingers grazed the bump on his head.

  “You should have put ice on that,” Angel snapped.

  Cowboy ignored her, exhaling again with a shrug.

  “From what Black says, if Miri’d been trained up a bit more, he could have told her. As it was, they couldn’t wait. Efraim was a pretty top-notch seer, according to Black… and he was on her like glue. He was reading her all the time, from what Black told me. It’s one of the ways Black figured out Efraim was the seer the vamps had enthralled.”

  Cowboy grunted then, anger touching his voice.

  “That guy, Ravi… Lincoln… whoever the fuck he was… he was as obsessed with Miri as Brick was. More, maybe. He wanted Efraim to read every thought in her head. He wanted to know every word she spoke to Black. From what Black told me…”

  As if thinking better of what he’d started to say, Cowboy fell silent, shaking his head.

  “Look, it doesn’t matter. It was a tough call, there’s no denying it. But she agreed to it, Angel. She wanted to nail that son of a bitch as badly as he did.”

  Angel turned
over his words. Sinking deeper in the chair, she exhaled in frustration.

  “Yeah,” she said, frowning as memories rose in her mind. She leaned back in her chair, making it squeak. “Yeah,” she said again, sighing. “I could see that. I remember how she was while Black was still missing.”

  Cowboy nodded, taking another sip of his coffee. “Anyway, it’s logical,” he said, matter-of-fact. “And the doc’s big on logic, ain’t she? She knew, just like Black did, the vamps’d never leave ‘em alone. Not now. Not after Brick’d gotten a taste of what it was like having his very own seer. After he kidnapped Miri, I think that was kind of the last straw for both of them. It definitely was for Black. That’s when he asked her if he could do this.”

  Angel’s frown deepened. “Yeah,” she said, turning. “About that. When the hell did that happen, exactly? And why didn’t I hear about it?”

  “Right after he got back from Louisiana. A few weeks after, maybe.”

  “And that’s when they decided to do this?”

  Cowboy shrugged. “Yeah. We were on the way back from all that when Black first brought it up. He came to me with specifics about a week later, telling me I had to wear an implant if I wanted to stay on his team in New York.”

  Thinking about that, Angel leaned back in her chair, making it squeak.

  “How is it I never heard the story?” she said, still frowning. “I’ve been wearing an implant since San Francisco, too. So has Nick, come to think of it.”

  “It was purely a need to know thing, Ang,” Cowboy said, his voice apologetic. “The main secret they were hiding was that the U.S. military figured out how to turn vamps human. We all had to pretend that technology was lost when they burned down that lab… so Black didn’t want anyone to be thinking about it who didn’t need to know.”

  He frowned, his voice thoughtful.

  “Truthfully, I doubt they would’ve told me, only I was there. If Black hadn’t let me remember that, he would’ve had to push the same b.s. story on me as he did with Miri. I imagine it was just easier to put the implant in my neck and tell me to keep my mouth shut.” He shrugged. “Anyway, he knew the vamps wouldn’t have any particular interest in me.”

  He glanced at Angel again, as if gauging her reaction to his words. His expression turned grimmer after he studied her eyes.

  “You know the gist of it now,” he said. “Brick kidnapped Miri right out of her damned shrink office in San Francisco. I don’t think Black’ll ever forgive himself for that.” His voice turned a few shades colder. “That fucking vamp took her halfway across the world to help him with his wife, who was suicidal after being locked in that lab for six months or so.”

  Cowboy met her gaze again. “They turned her human. Brick’s wife. That’s how Black found out it was possible. All that crap about the data being gone, about Black not having security clearance, that was all b.s., too.”

  Angel shook her head, grimacing when the voices got louder on the other side of the wall.

  “I still don’t understand how that’s possible,” she muttered. “Aren’t they dead? Vampires? How can they be made human again?”

  “Dunno.” Cowboy shrugged. “But Black says it’s real.”

  Angel frowned. “And where is she now? Brick’s wife?”

  “Dead.” At Angel’s flinch, he shrugged. “Brick killed her himself. She knew what happened to her. She told Miri she’d rather be dead than be what she was. So that piece of shit murdered his own wife, right in front of the doc.”

  “Jesus,” Angel breathed.

  “Ayuh,” Cowboy agreed.

  Another silence fell between them.

  Remembering the look on Miri’s face when she saw her outside that building on 33rd Street, Angel felt something in her gut twist. It hadn’t only been rage she’d seen on Miri’s face when they left that building. The fury she’d aimed at Black wasn’t even the worst thing Angel saw.

  The hurt in her eyes hit Angel a lot harder.

  She’d seen Miri jerk away from Black’s touch, and that hurt had twisted something in her gut, making her both feel a little sorry for Black and want to punch him in the face.

  “I guess Charles is getting the word out,” Cowboy added, pulling Angel out of her own head. “He’s letting it be known that being turned human and toothless again is what’ll happen to any vamp as comes near one of ours again. From what Nick told me, they’re going underground so fast they’ve lost the ability to track most of them. I think he was a little annoyed with Charles about that, honestly.”

  Cowboy took another drink of the coffee, wincing when the hot liquid touched a cut on his lip. Licking the cut and swallowing, he gestured with the hand holding the cup.

  “In any case, the vamps clearly found the threat convincing,” he said, glancing at Angel. “Being human seems to be something they’d rather die than experience again first-hand.”

  Angel took a sip of her own coffee, thinking.

  “Is that what’ll happen to Brick?” she said. “Is that why Black let them take him alive?”

  Cowboy nodded, his voice noncommittal. “I imagine so.”

  The voices got louder behind them again and Angel winced, looking at Cowboy.

  She tried not to hear the actual words coming through the door, but caught a few of them anyway, especially coming from Black, whose voice was louder.

  “So Miri really knew about all of this beforehand?” she said, grimacing as something that sounded like glass smashed into a wall. “Why is she so angry, then?”

  Cowboy sighed, leaning deeper into his chair.

  “Well, there’s knowing a thing,” he said philosophically. “And then there’s knowing a thing.” He paused, his voice growing more thoughtful. “And, well, it took longer to flush out Brick than Black was hoping it would, I think. The fact that he let those vampires feed on him and do whatever else to him all that time likely isn’t sitting well with her, either.”

  Angel grimaced, not wanting to imagine that in any way, shape or form.

  “Yeah.” She sighed, wincing again when another something glass shattered behind them. “Yeah, I get that.” Pausing, she turned to him again. “So that’s what he was waiting for? For Brick to show his face?”

  Cowboy combed his fingers through his hair again, nodding. “Yeah. That was a big part of it, anyway. He was collecting intel, of course, and passing on what he could about the terrorist attacks and the human players involved and whatever else… but yeah, he wasn’t stopping until he got Brick.”

  There was another silence.

  Then Cowboy exhaled, sinking deeper into his chair, the tiredness showing on his face. Glancing at him, Angel couldn’t help focusing on the red crescent bite mark on the muscle just above his shoulder.

  Seeing the blood stain on his shirt, she frowned.

  “Couldn’t you have at least taken a damned shower?” she grumbled. “I get that you’re into letting that lump on your head swell to the size of a basketball, but do you have to walk around looking like a refugee from a vampire death camp, too?”

  “They’ll relieve us in a bit,” Cowboy said, giving another noncommittal shrug as he lowered the coffee cup to his thigh. “I’ll take care of it then.”

  “That was really stupid, you know. What you did.” She glared at him, her voice turning harsh. “Chasing after Miri like that. Shooting at Ravi. Really stupid.”

  He shrugged. “Probably.”

  “Not just stupid,” she added angrily. “Batshit crazy. Who do you think you are? Some kind of superhero? You might be a better-than-decent fighter, but you’re not Black. You’re not a damned vampire, either. They might have killed you, just for being annoying.”

  He nodded agreeably, leaning his head against the wall.

  “It’s good they didn’t, then,” he commented.

  She bit her lip. “Whatever. Suicidal idiot. Moron.”

  He shifted his eyes sideways. Grunting, he smiled at her. “It’s nice you care, Ang.”

  Firming her mouth
, she restrained herself from snapping at him again. Turning over his words then, she scowled, folding her arms tighter over her chest.

  There was another silence between them.

  Then Cowboy looked at her, his gray eyes shrewd, stripped of pretense.

  “You wanna come with me, when I head back down?” he said.

  She pursed her lips. Turning, she met his gaze, not hiding her puzzlement. “Come with you? Come with you where?”

  “To my room,” he said, blunt.

  She stared at him for a long moment, her jaw hanging. Shutting her mouth with a snap, she frowned then, trying to decide if he was serious.

  Seeing the faint smile ghosting his lips, she burst into an involuntary laugh.

  “Careful, Cowboy.” She snorted, leaning back in the chair. Re-folding her arms, she shook her head, still smiling in spite of herself. “One of these days, a girl might mistake that kind of thing for a real question.”

  The humor abruptly left his face.

  “It is real,” he said. He watched her eyes, his own sharpening, growing hawk-like as they studied her face. “Dead-fucking-serious real, Ms. Devereaux. Without any caveats whatsoever.” He paused. “I hear you and Anthony called off the wedding. Is that true?”

  She frowned, not looking up at first.

  When he didn’t break the silence, she exhaled. “Yes.”

  Cowboy nodded. “Okay. And I’m assuming, given how pissed off you are at me for being in the line o’ fire, that you aren’t entirely indifferent to my existence. Am I wrong?”

  There was a silence.

  Angel shook her head, slowly. “No.”

  The silence between them deepened.

  Realizing her face was warm, that she was probably red from her cheeks to her ears, Angel bit her lip, looking away. Staring at the wall in front of her without seeing it, she tried to decide how to break the awkward silence that fell after she spoke. She was still sitting there, staring at nothing, when Cowboy spoke again, his voice lower.

  “I make a mean breakfast,” he said. “Tex-Mex. Huevos Rancheros. I bet I could get real green chili delivered here… maybe even a live chicken to lay us the eggs.”