Black Is Back (Quentin Black Mystery #4)

by JC Andrijeski

  Something that felt a lot like frustration.

  When I looked at him that time, he wasn’t looking at me at all, but focusing on Nick with narrow eyes.

  “The symbols aren’t seer. They’re alchemical.” His voice was blunt, his military voice. If it was a little deeper than usual, I’m relatively sure Nick didn’t notice. Unfortunately, I did. Black gave me another bare glance. “...I’ve seen them before though. That combination, I mean. Specifically like that...”

  “Where?” Nick said. He was chewing energetically on his own sandwich, so I guess I wasn’t the only one who was hungry.

  That time, when Black glanced at me, his lip curled perceptibly.

  He hadn’t touched his own food yet, I couldn’t help noticing.

  “If I’m right about the configuration, then you might be right about this guy having been a pro,” Black said, looking at Nick again. “Last time I saw that exact set of symbols was in Vietnam. Elite unit... not American. We thought maybe they were Spetnaz when we first ran into them, borrowed from Russia. But when we finally caught up with one of their units, it turned out they were paid pros. Mercs. Pure private sector.”

  Nick blinked at him, chewing on his sandwich as if digesting the stream of information from Black slower than he was managing with his food. He narrowed his eyes as he thought. I could feel him stopping on a few of the different things Black said, as if trying to decide which one to ask about first. Then, something seemed to click.

  He looked at me, his dark eyes openly incredulous, then back at Black.

  “Vietnam?” he said finally.

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “During the war.”

  Nick’s eyes narrowed more. “Which war was that?”

  “Was there more than one?” Black said, his voice holding a thread of contempt. “Are you asking if I fought with the French, Tanaka? Or maybe the Chinese? Because I’m not quite that old. And I think I would have phrased it differently.”

  “The Vietnam war.” Nick didn’t voice it like a question that time, more a clarification, but his voice hadn’t lost any of that incredulity. Still frowning when Black didn’t flinch, he pressed the point. “The American Vietnam war?”

  “Conflict, technically.” The gold eyes didn’t waver. “And yes. Obviously.”

  Nick looked at me again, as if he wanted me to back up what Black had said or refute him or maybe just laugh it off with him.

  I only shrugged, taking another bite of my sandwich.

  I saw Nick try to decide if he wanted to pursue that, too.

  “You’re saying this guy was in the Vietnam war?” Nick said.

  Black clicked at him impatiently, a very seer sound that made Nick stare at him all over again. I was a little baffled at how much Black was “sharing” right now too, frankly, but maybe once you were in on the big secret, you became privy to all of the little ones, too.

  “No,” Black said, impatient. “I’m saying I ran into this merc group over there. I’m saying he might belong to the same group. Assuming they’re still in operation. Or he might have been trained by someone who was.”

  “And you’re sure it was a private group? Back then?”

  “Yes,” Black said, still speaking in that more clipped way of his. He inclined his head. “Truthfully, it was the first modern, fully-equipped private security outfit I ever ran into.” He glanced at me, a faint thread of embarrassment in his eyes, before looking more sharply at Nick. “...It wouldn’t be a stretch to say it inspired me to start something similar. With a slightly less...” He made one of those graceful gestures of his. “...mercenary approach.”

  Nick grunted, making it clear what he thought of that.

  “Where were they based out of?” he said.

  “I don’t know for sure.”

  “But you know something about their ops? You looked into it, right?”

  Nick had adopted Black’s military-report manner of speech, I noticed. I could practically see them circling one another, as if trying to figure out how to work with one another. Or maybe how to beat each other up, I couldn’t honestly tell.

  Black answered in the same flat tone.

  “Intel showed the main offices in Mexico City. Back then, anyway.”

  “How good was the intel?”

  “Unknown,” Black said, gesturing in another graceful turn of his wrist. “I looked them up again, for a different job. Eighty-four. March, I think.”

  Nick blinked, but seemed to decide to let that go. “So you’re saying this guy isn’t American? The Templar? He’s an immigrant?”

  Black gestured fluidly, that time in a no. “I’m not saying that. He could absolutely be American. The group recruited from all over. International. I only ran into them directly the one time... although there have been times since where I suspected their involvement in jobs I was on.”

  “When was that?”

  “Last one was eighty-four. Like I said.”

  “What made you suspect their involvement that time?” Nick said. “More alchemical symbols carved in corpses?”

  Black shrugged with one hand, his eyes unmoving.

  “And how directly were you involved with them in Vietnam?” Nick pressed.

  “Direct,” Black said, his level stare unmoving. “We made contact.”

  “As in, you talked to them? Or shot at them?”

  “As in, I shot at them, they shot at me, we talked... then they tried to recruit me,” Black said, folding his hands on the table.

  Nick made another of his dark humor grunts, but I could tell he was annoyed.

  He hated everything about what Black did for a living. I knew that had less to do with Black personally and more to do with similar outfits we’d run into in the Middle East, most of which were under contract with the Pentagon, like Black’s company often was.

  They usually brought those guys in for “enhanced interrogations” (torture) and “wet-work” (murder), so it wasn’t that surprising that Nick didn’t think much of people in that line of work. Nick was a soldier, but one who probably should have been born a few decades earlier. He didn’t care for people that colored outside the lines, not even when they worked for our side.

  Maybe especially then.

  “They were good?” Nick said, blunt.

  Black nodded, the coldness back in his eyes. “Yes.”

  “What is this mythical unit of mercs called?” Nick said, his voice holding more sarcasm that time. “Or didn’t you get a name in your little tête-à-tête in the jungle?”

  “Archangel.”

  “What do the symbols mean?” I asked. “The ones on Norberg?”

  Black looked at me, but his eyes didn’t linger.

  “I don’t know, exactly,” he said, his voice considerably more subdued. “But they definitely aren’t seer. I’m not positive they’re from Archangel––if they have some esoteric, human meaning, the killer might be pulling from the same source. Meaning, this Templar operative might have some emotional attachment to the same mythology Archangel did. That would explain the coincidence of the names, too, and the connection with Christian myth. I would definitely start with biblical texts, and probably not the standard versions... look for references to angels or archangels. I would think probably more gnostic or alchemical texts...”

  He gave me another bare glance, that one brief enough that I started to wonder what was going on with him for real.

  “I only recognized two of the symbols,” he added.

  “Which were?” Nick that time, obviously annoyed with Black’s focus on me.

  Black looked at him. “One was a protective rune. The other has a meaning like ‘camouflage’ or ‘deception.’”

  “You saw those with Archangel, too?”

  “That and another one... one I don’t know the meaning for.”

  “Which one is that?”

  Black was already pulling a pen from his leather jacket pocket. Pulling over the pad of paper in front of me, he made a se
ries of dark, precise lines, using his left hand.

  As he thickened the line on one side, I realized I recognized it from Norberg’s back. It was one of the biggest symbols, right in the center of his back. It was also one of those that the killer had taken some time on. It sat right in the middle of the rest of the carvings.

  On either side of the––

  “Were those wings?” I blurted. “On his shoulders?”

  Black nodded, giving me another glance. “Yes.”

  Nick frowned, staring down at the symbol Black had drawn.

  When I glanced up from piece of paper, Black was looking at me, not Nick.

  His gold eyes made me pause. He was watching me carefully again, almost like he might be reading me, although I couldn’t feel his mind. I felt my neck and ears warm under the intensity of his gaze as he continued to study my face.

  I only half-heard him when he resumed speaking.

  “...Really, the connection to Archangel at all is more than a little tenuous without a suspect to read in depth.” His voice was businesslike, but his eyes never left mine. “Archangel didn’t do it all the time––carve up their victims like this. And I never heard anything about them using swords. One or two decapitations maybe. But during the war, leaving markings like this could be used as a signature of sorts. Often a warning.”

  “Warning?” Nick said, glancing up from the symbol Black had drawn. “What kind of warning?”

  Black shrugged. Breaking eye-contact with me, he glanced at Nick.

  “Territorial. They expected us to stay away from groups they targeted.”

  “And did you?” Nick grunted. “Stay away?”

  Black gave him a harder look. “Yes.”

  “Why?” I said.

  Black glanced at me again. I watched him exhale as he did, right before he combed long fingers through his black hair. I was starting to wonder if flipping between me and Nick was giving him whiplash. It was starting to disorient me a little, truthfully.

  “Orders,” Black said simply, making another of those graceful gestures.

  Nick’s voice grew colder still. “Orders? Not professional courtesy?”

  Black’s stare grew hard on Nick’s face. “I wasn’t in charge back then. I didn’t have the luxury to question what I was told. Or decide when ‘professional courtesy’ might be appropriate.”

  “Bullshit.” Nick tossed his half-eaten sandwich down on the paper bag, his voice openly contemptuous. “You’re going to sit there and tell me you didn’t read the son of a bitch to find out why you were told to back off?”

  I felt a coil of anger leave Black’s light, even as his jaw hardened. “I did.”

  “And?”

  “And... you don’t have the fucking security clearance to know what I found, ‘Nick.’”

  That time, Black’s voice held enough violence that I froze. I had to suppress the urge to lay a hand on his arm, even as I found myself watching his face.

  Jesus, calm down, Black. What’s going on with you?

  He flinched for real that time, staring at me.

  Then he climbed abruptly to his feet.

  I watched incredulously as he walked away from the table, traveling as far away from the two of us as he could inside the box-filled room. He stopped where the room stopped, or at least where the stacks of cardboard storage boxes began. Then he turned to face us, his arms folded over his chest. I watched him lean against a tall column of numbered file boxes next to an old fashioned metal cabinet. His gold eyes seemed to glow from the dimmer light on that side of the windowless room.

  “What is your fucking problem?” Nick said.

  “I’m working for you... for free apparently,” Black growled at once. “And I don’t seem to remember you asking. I’m also a little fucking confused as to why you feel this ‘favor’ gives you the right to talk about me... and think about me... loudly, I might add... as if I was some kind of mindless thug who gets off on gutting innocent people with hunting knives.” His voice grew colder. “...That is, when I’m not raping women you happen to have a thing for... or using my sight to manipulate them into letting me screw them...”

  Nick’s jaw hardened to granite.

  He turned bright red, right before he glanced fleetingly at me.

  That time I did reach out, grabbing Nick’s arm before he could open his mouth. I felt the heat coming off Black increase tenfold as his gold eyes dropped to my hand on Nick.

  “He’s right,” I said hastily, looking sharply at Nick. Realizing I still held my sandwich in my other hand, I tossed it down on the white paper bag with the deli’s name stamped on the front. “...Nick. You can’t just drag him in here and start grilling him in areas of his expertise and not pay him. You’d never do that to someone else. If you’re going to use him as a consultant than you have to hire him. At least ask him, like he said.”

  Nick looked at me, his jaw still hard.

  Like with Black, I saw some of that colder expression fade as he stared into my eyes––and I wasn’t particularly comforted by the look that replaced it. I also wondered if Black was right, if what was going on with me and him was somehow affecting Nick, too. I didn’t understand how, but there was a lot I didn’t understand about seers.

  Even before the thought fully formed, I found myself removing my hand and fingers from Nick’s bare skin, flushing a little.

  When I gave Black a bare glance that time, he looked furious.

  I couldn’t feel that anger though, which meant he was shielding from me––something he hadn’t done at all with me since Paris. I knew it probably meant he was a lot angrier than I’d realized. I also knew it wasn’t all about money––or about Nick––but I didn’t know what it was about, exactly.

  I was about to try and diffuse things again, when someone rapped their knuckles on the outside of the door. Without waiting for us to summon him, Glen poked his head in. He glanced at Black in the dark corner of the room, then at me, then Nick. Seeming to sense something weird there, he shook it off, keeping a poker face as he nodded towards Nick.

  “Guy’s here. Mozar. We’re in the main conference room.”

  “Now?” Nick said.

  “Ten minutes.”

  Nick nodded. Taking another bite of his sandwich, he threw the rest in the paper bag and crumpled it, not looking at Black at all that time, but at me.

  “You coming?” he said.

  I frowned at him. “Nick.”

  He looked at Black, giving an annoyed sigh. “I was going to do the paperwork later. I wasn’t going to not-pay you, Black.”

  “Just not ask me, apparently.”

  Nick’s jaw tightened. “I was going to do that, too. But if you don’t think we’ll be able to negotiate a rate the department can afford, you’re welcome to go. You can go anyway, if you want... obviously.” Nick made a dismissive wave. “Miri’s in the system already. If she’s willing, she can sit in. We’ll fill you in later, if you decide you want to help out.”

  I could tell Nick didn’t like that idea, as much as he was trying to play it off like he didn’t care. He wanted Black on this. He thought he needed him, especially after what Black just told us. He also probably wanted Black in the interrogation room to read this detective, Mozar, although he’d probably been telling the truth there, too. He probably thought I could fill in for Black today, and get him up to speed, if necessary.

  But clearly, Nick wanted Black.

  Which made sense. This was definitely more Black’s bailiwick than mine.

  Nick was practical when it came to the job––he always had been. I knew he’d try to talk Black into helping. Or, more likely, try to talk me into persuading Black for him.

  I’d already decided I would stay, since I was pretty sure Black would take the contract, regardless of how annoyed he was at Nick right now. Maybe Nick couldn’t see it, but I could––something about this Archangel connection already piqued Black’s interest. Moreover, he couldn’t just walk away from a murder case, whatever Ni
ck thought.

  Especially not one in which I was connected, indirectly or not.

  I rose to my feet while I thought all of this. I hadn’t felt Black move from where he’d stood by the far wall, so when he touched my arm, I jumped violently. It occurred to me only then just how shielded he must be for him to be so close without my having felt him.

  I looked up, meeting an intensity in his gold eyes.

  It wasn’t anger. I wasn’t sure what it was, truthfully.

  I want to talk to you, he sent. Now, Miriam.

  I felt my skin flush, not so much from the anger in his words but the intensity I felt there.

  When I glanced towards the door I saw Nick and Glen standing in the opening, obviously waiting for me. I tried to ignore the scowl I saw forming on Nick’s face as he looked between me and Black.

  “I’ll catch up,” I told him.

  Nick tapped the face of his watch.

  “I’ll catch up,” I repeated, my voice warning. “Glen said ten minutes, right?”

  Glen nodded easily, giving Nick a puzzled look. “You’re fine, doc. Our big shot L.A. detectives were getting some coffee and something to eat. We’ll be in the blue room. Fourth floor. Take your time.”

  Nick scowled at Glen, like he’d betrayed him.

  I nodded to Glen, ignoring Nick’s glare.

  The door closed behind them, and I found myself looking at Black, who hadn’t moved away from me, or let go of my arm.

  “What’s going on?” he said, the instant the door closed.

  I straightened to my full height, blinking up at him in open surprise. “Me? What’s going on with me?”

  “You’re shielding from me,” he said, ignoring my bewildered look. “You’ve been blocking me since you left the apartment, Miri. I can’t fucking feel you at all...”

  I stared up at him, stumped. “I’m sorry. I thought it was better––”

  “Better?” he cut in, clenching his jaw. “Better for who?”

  I continued to watch his face, feeling caution steal over me as I looked at him. He was controlling himself, but the longer I looked at him, the more I wondered how much more lived behind what I could see in his eyes right then. I didn’t see violence there, but that intensity of feeling burned at me, pulling on me in ways that made my heart pound.