I pushed open the door gently, peering out into the corridor.
Both of the metal folding chairs sitting there were empty.
I stiffened at once, using my psychic sight to scan the immediate area.
I was starting to get alarmed, to wonder if I should call Nick...
When I felt a familiar presence approaching and abruptly relaxed.
I’d been right. They must have gone for a walk to stretch their legs, or maybe in search of vending machines, like me. Even as I thought it, the face and uniform belonging to that familiar presence rounded the corner down the hall.
He sped up as soon as he saw me, frowning a little at the empty chairs outside the door and then holding up a hand with a smile.
As he approached, I walked the rest of the way out of the room, closing the door with a soft click behind me. It didn’t occur to me until after I’d done it that I was trying not to disturb Black.
“Sorry,” the cop mouthed at me, once he was near enough to talk to me in a near-whisper. “Didn’t mean to leave you alone, ma’am. I just went to use the john. My partner must have gone to get food.” When I didn’t say anything, he shrugged, coloring a little. “I thought he was going to wait for me. We really shouldn’t have left your door unattended like that, I apologize...”
I smiled a little, I couldn’t help it. Hardly anyone I knew called the bathroom “the john” anymore. The expression sounded weirdly dated, and the blond-haired cop with the military haircut looked young to me, at least a few years younger than me.
“Your name’s Michael, right?” I said.
He nodded, beaming that corn-fed grin down at me. I felt a pulse of pleasure off him that I’d remembered meeting him before.
“Yes, Ma’am,” he said. “That’s me. Michael Lawson.”
I found myself looking more closely at his face. It hit me that he might not be as young as I’d originally thought. Now that I was standing right next to him, probably the closest I’d ever been to him where I was actually looking at him directly, I could see tiny lines around each of his eyes and slightly deeper ones on his forehead when he smiled.
He just had one of those faces, I guess.
Perpetually youthful.
Looking at him this close, I found myself thinking he might be older than me, actually. Maybe as much as four or five years older. Maybe even more than that.
“Can I ask you a favor, Officer Lawson?” I said.
“Michael,” he corrected.
“Michael,” I said, smiling wider. “I didn’t bring any cash with me, Michael, and I’m thinking the cafeteria is probably closed. I’m starving, so I wondered...”
But Michael immediately shook his head. “No, ma’am. It’s open. The cafeteria here’s open all night.” He rolled his eyes a little, still smiling at me. “That’s probably where Lou is, to be honest. Knowing him, he’ll be a while.”
“Ah.” I nodded. “Big city hospital. Got it. They must take credit cards then, too?”
Michael nodded again. “I believe so, yes.”
I sighed in relief. “Then never mind,” I said, shoving a hand in my pocket to make sure my ID and my credit card were still there. “I don’t think I’ll need that favor after all. I was going to ask if I could borrow a few dollars, but I think I’m good.”
I started to turn to walk down the corridor towards the elevators, when he startled me, reaching out quickly to touch my arm. The fingers on my arm were light, cautious, almost like he was worried about offending me, but when I turned, quirking an eyebrow, he didn’t remove his hand.
“You can’t go down there alone, ma’am,” Michael said, his voice somber. “Detective Tanaka would have my badge if I let you go anywhere alone at this time of night. It might seem ridiculous to you, but I can’t have it. I’m sorry.”
“I’d rather if you stayed with Black,” I said, my voice a touch warning.
He glanced towards the door, then shrugged. “The detective was pretty clear he worried more about the risk to you.”
I stared at him, incredulous. When the officer didn’t back down, I exhaled, muttering a little under my breath. Damned Nick.
Black catches a bullet in the chest and he’s worried about me. Typical.
“I really don’t want you leaving him alone,” I repeated, my voice a touch colder.
“Then we’ll have to wait for Lou to come back,” Michael said at once, not missing a beat. “But I’m afraid I can’t let you go downstairs alone, Ms. Fox...” He hesitated, coloring a little. He glanced at Black’s hospital room door. “...Or is it Mrs. Black?”
Maybe seeing something in my face, he shifted his weight to his other foot. Taking his hand off my arm, he shuffled a half-step away from me.
“I don’t mean to be impolite... and if it’s none of my business, just tell me. It’s just...” He met my gaze again, and that time, I couldn’t help noticing his eyes were a shocking blue in color, if a different, lighter shade than Mozar’s. “It’s just... I’ve heard you called both today, ma’am. I wanted to make sure I was calling you by the correct name.”
“Ms. Fox is fine,” I said, feeling my face warm. “Or you can just call me Miriam.”
That boyish smile returned. “Miriam. That’s fine. That’s probably easiest.”
Smiling back politely, I glanced down the hall, listening to the silence. Suddenly, that quiet felt a lot more awkward. Remembering that a lot of men had been reacting to me strangely lately, I wondered if I’d given Officer Michael Lawson the wrong idea. Maybe he’d taken my invitation to call me by my first name the wrong way. Or maybe he thought I was dodging my marriage to Black, or deliberately downplaying it, by telling him to call me Ms. Fox.
Or maybe I was just reading way too much into everything right now.
“Well,” I said, after a few seconds more. “I think I’ll just wait inside the room. Do you mind knocking when your partner shows up?”
Michael looked relieved as well, probably because he’d also felt the awkwardness there. He smiled, nodding at me warmly, his expression earnest. “Not at all, ma’am. I’ll let you know right away, then we can head down to the cafeteria pronto.”
“Thank you. That would be great.”
Hesitating a last time, I turned away from him then, walking the few steps back to Black’s hospital room door. I’d just reached it, and reached my fingers for the L-shaped metal handle, when the presence behind me shifted.
The corn-fed cop with the blond crew-cut and the sky blue eyes and easy smile abruptly got erased. That soft, innocent-feeling light vanished behind me in a puff of smoke.
The silence behind me grew deafening.
I froze, realizing my mistake...
But it was already too late.
I THREW AN elbow back without thought. I jerked my waist, threw my whole body behind it, but I was a split-second too slow in a game where timing was everything. His weight slammed into me even as I started to turn, his hands grasping the back of my head as he used his forward momentum to plow my face into the heavy door.
I let out an involuntary cry.
It hurt. A lot.
Even so, I didn’t let myself react to that pain.
I gasped, writhing, fighting to turn before he could pin me for real, but he slammed my head into the door a second time, and that time it stunned me. I jerked the handle down in desperation, and the two of us fell forward onto the floor of the hospital room.
I fought to crawl away, but he slammed me down again, twisting my arm in a ju-jitsu hold that made me cry out for real, thinking he’d break my arm.
He used his weight that time, too––hitting me on his way down, and then slamming my face into the tile. It probably would have broken my nose, and maybe knocked me out for real, but I turned my face instinctively and it hit my cheek hard instead, blanking out my vision.
Even so, it was enough for me to let out a groan, right before I scissored my legs between his, trying to force him to flip over. He gripped my waist when I did,
shifting his weight over me, and for a bare second, I thought I might get free.
When I started to turn over, he used my own muscles against me, though.
Twisting my wrist to force my whole arm and body to turn, he flipped me to my back. It was that, or let him break my arm for real, or possibly dislocate my shoulder. I swung at him with my other fist, trying to hit him in the face, to push him sideways with the grappling motion, but he captured that wrist too, slamming it to the floor hard enough to make me gasp.
I fought to writhe free, but he still had my other arm.
For a long moment, we just faced one another, panting.
Looking up at him, I realized this was what he wanted.
He wanted to look into my face, to be able to see me.
Once I realized that, I started to scream, but he elbowed me in the face before I could take a full breath, throwing his body down with a practiced precision without releasing my wrists. He hit me in the sternum hard enough to crack a rib and knock the wind out of me, forcing me to take pained gasps. Yanking one of my arms down and trapping it under his knee, he wrapped his free hand around my throat, bringing his face down to mine.
“Don’t scream. Miriam. Don’t scream...”
His words were intimate, soft.
The threat was unambiguous though, on the surface.
“...It will go really really badly for him, if you do. I can cause a lot of pain for him, even in his current state, Miriam...”
He stared down at me with those shockingly blue eyes, his face completely devoid of emotion. Nothing about him looked human to me at all now.
Looking up at him, I found myself thinking about his words. I nodded when his mouth firmed. “Okay. Okay...”
I was still gasping from where he’d knocked the wind out of me.
He staring down at me, studying my face with those shocking blue eyes, when I reached out with my mind, reading him. I saw pictures there at once, things he wanted to do to Black. Those pictures got more detailed and I whimpered, feeling terror pool in the middle of my gut. Some part of his mind shoved at mine, telling me he would do it––that he didn’t want to, but he would, that he would take no pleasure from it, but he would do his duty.
I didn’t believe him. He wanted to hurt Black.
He relished those images, cherished them. They made him feel right with the world.
Even as I thought it, he spoke again, his voice as empty as his eyes.
“I don’t want to kill you, Miriam,” he said, soft.
I looked up at him, fighting to breathe, to think.
I tried to concentrate too, thinking maybe I could push him...
Then something else hit me.
I felt like a fucking idiot when it did.
UNCLE CHARLES! I screamed out into the space. It wasn’t like Black, where I knew instantly what to feel for, what to connect to. It felt like a call into nowhere, into nothing. Into a kind of void. I tried to concentrate on my uncle, on being a kid, on what it felt like when I was a child, when I held his hand... when I followed him everywhere.
That time, I almost felt something.
UNCLE CHARLES! HELP ME! HE’S IN BLACK’S ROOM... HELP ME PLEASE! HE’S GOING TO KILL ME! HE’S GOING TO KILL BLACK...
Something darkened my vision, right before pain exploded in my jaw.
I let out a low cry, more in shock at first. When the actual pain hit, I couldn’t make any sound at all. I could only arch my back, panting.
“You need to focus, Miriam... focus on me. This is important.”
I looked up at him, still breathing hard, fighting to think past the pain in my jaw where he’d hit me with what I now realized was the butt of a gun. Looking up, I saw that same gun in his hand. My mind wrapped round that, fighting to think past it even as he jammed that barrel under my jaw, unlocking the safety with a click of the trigger.
“I need you to pay attention. To listen, Miriam. Are you listening?”
I nodded. “Yes,” I gasped. “Yes. I’m listening, Michael...”
“This isn’t your fault.”
“Okay.” I nodded. “All right.”
“It’s not. Do you believe me?”
I fought to think, looking up at him, struggling to focus past the gun pressed up into my throat. “I want to. I want to, Michael...”
“Tell me it’s not your fault.”
“It’s not my fault,” I said. “It’s not my fault, Michael...”
The man sat back somewhat on his heels, but didn’t take the gun out from under my jaw. His other hand still wrapped partway around my throat, and the combination made it hard to breathe, and to swallow. I didn’t dare move any other part of my body.
Turning his head, he glared up at the bed, where Black was.
“The serpent is clever, Miriam... it is very very clever...”
He looked down at me, his eyes holding pain now.
“You were good. It is why I came... to save you from this...”
I didn’t dare look up at the bed. Focusing on those blue eyes when they shifted back to mine, I shook my head, fighting to steady my voice.
“No. He’s not what you think. You’re wrong about him...” I began.
Those eyes flashed. “I’m not wrong, Miriam. I know you don’t want to believe this... but I am here to open your eyes. You’ve been deceived.”
I started to shake my head, to argue with him again, but his blue eyes flashed, altering into mirrored disks. They shone with a kind of crazed fury that forced me silent, even as the expression there grew inhumanly empty again.
I had no idea what he was seeing, looking at me.
I knew it wasn’t me.
“Miriam,” he said, his voice dangerously soft. “He has poisoned you. You’re sick right now. Do you understand? Are you listening to me carefully right now? He’s poisoned your mind. He has made you believe his lies...” His fingers tightened around my throat. Still pressing the gun up under my jawbone, he knocked my head against the floor, sharp, making me cry out. I could feel his mind again, pushing me for an answer, and I nodded, gasping.
“Yes,” I said. “I’m listening, Michael... I’m listening...”
“The serpent is clever, Miriam... it speaks lies. Lies that we want to believe. Lies mixed with truth. It comes at us through our weaknesses.”
He caressed my face, using the hand that didn’t hold the gun. I gripped his arm, but didn’t dare try to pull him off me, especially when he pressed the gun into me harder.
Nodding towards the bed, he spoke softer.
“I’m here to help you, Miriam. I’m here to help you be strong. I’m here to help you return to the Light. To be what you’re meant to be...”
“Okay.” I nodded again, still gripping his arm. “Okay. So we’ll leave here,” I said. “We’ll go together...”
“Not until I behead the snake.”
I felt my throat close down to a pinprick, pain exploding in my heart, even as I vehemently shook my head. “No... no. That’s not necessary. You don’t need to do that, Michael...”
“I do. It’s why I came here, Miriam. It’s why God sent me...” He looked down at me, his eyes filled with a harder resolution. “You must witness this, Miriam. It’s why I waited. I thought we would do this in the morgue... I thought I would make his heart stop, and you could see the ritual of his spiritual death. I thought that would be easier for you, Miriam... I saw how he played you, how he got you to reveal your true heart. But the serpent is strong, Miriam. I see that now. I must kill him... really kill him... and you must witness it.”
“NO!” I screamed the word, and he hit me again, with his fist that time, right in the face. I kept screaming, screaming my head off, trying to alert anyone who might be near enough to hear. “HE’S HERE! HELP ME! HELP ME! HERE’S HERE! TEMPLAR IS HERE!”
Clicking the safety back on the gun, he holstered it swiftly, catching hold of my throat. Both of his hands wrapped around me that time, squeezing until he’d forced me silent. I gasped in
smaller and smaller breaths, wrapping my fingers around his, even as I struggled with the rest of my body, trying to buck him off. Fighting to tear back those fingers, one by one, I tried to give myself enough air so I could keep screaming.
I screamed in my mind instead.
UNCLE CHARLES HELP ME! GODS! PLEASE HELP ME PLEASE!
Everything was starting to gray, to go dim.
I fought that gray fog with every ounce of my being, remembering what I’d seen in his mind, what he intended to do to Black, when...
There was a thick, sickening wet sound.
It wasn’t loud, but something about the sound filled my ears, briefly silencing everything else.
The fingers around my throat abruptly loosened.
I heard gasping, choking sounds, liquid and wet.
Saw white hands clawing, scrabbling, animal-like in their frantic grasping.
Then the weight on my wrist and chest, what had been pressing down on my stomach and lower back––abruptly lifted.
I rolled to my side at once, choking and clutching at the floor. Looking back, I saw the Templar’s body lying there, still wearing the dark blue police uniform. He was clawing at his throat, eyes bulging, and my gaze darted down, seeing his gun still in his side holster, clipped to his belt. I lunged for it without thought, almost not caring if I got shot.
But he didn’t try to stop me.
Snatching it out of the holster while his fingers still wrapped around his own throat, I saw his eyes roll towards me, fear in them, asking me for help. His hands were covered with blood. That blood now poured out of a ragged hole in his neck.
Disengaging the safety on his gun, I stepped back, way back, putting at least three or four yards between me and the man on the floor. Gripping the gun in both hands, I pointed it shakily at his head. I knew it was over. Some part of me had to know that, but for a long time, I couldn’t take my eyes off his face.
Blood pooled around him silently, inexorably.
Even when it slowed, I didn’t lower the gun.
Eventually I turned my head though, looking at who’d hit him.
Black Is Back (Quentin Black Mystery #4) Page 25