TO BLACK WITH LOVE: Quentin Black Mystery #10

by Andrijeski, JC

  When screams erupted from outside.

  They rippled my light.

  The emotions hit at me along with the sounds, even standing inside Black’s building with its separate military construct––even being wrapped so deeply in Black’s light. I felt the panic and fear spreading down the street like a liquid wave, hitting one human after the other, like some kind of light tsunami filling the corridors between buildings.

  I almost wondered if it was an impulse sent through the construct itself.

  “Yes,” Black said.

  I glanced at him, and saw him and Jem staring through the open steel door.

  I watched through their lights and the reflections in their eyes as people ran down the street, screaming. I heard the sound of breaking glass and the whump of fire igniting, and I saw fires reflected in both of their eyes.

  Turning towards he door, I focused outside right as a group of people wearing red masks were hurling Molotov cocktails through the open door of a bar across the street. I saw another of the flaming bottles smash into the window of a boutique deli next door.

  Interspersed with the screams, I now heard shouts, commands…

  I also heard chants.

  The chants grew louder as I listened, like a rhythmic drum beat.

  I’d heard those chants before, if only on the television.

  “Evil within! Evil without!

  “We bring the Light when we cast the Dark out!

  “Evil within! Evil without!

  “We bring the Light when we cast the Dark out!”

  Those were Purity Movement chants.

  I stared out through the open door in disbelief as cars and buildings outside burned. The flames reached higher as more lit bottles crashed into windshields and through storefront windows, igniting clothes and display racks inside.

  Before I could turn to Black, before I could speak, the night sky was punctured by a series of concussive blasts.

  Those were strong enough to tremble the ground under my feet. I grabbed at Black, even as his fingers tightened on me.

  That hadn’t been from guns. Not even multiple shotgun blasts, fired at a relatively near distance, could have made the ground shake like that.

  Those were bombs.

  My uncle’s riots had come to San Francisco.

  23

  Riot

  “NOW WHAT?” I half-shouted.

  I pointed at the row of SUVs in front of us, half of which were now on fire.

  The cars were armored, but I watched the crowd surge around them, rocking them with their hands and chanting. A man wearing a red bandanna and lower face mask approached the lead car with a long crowbar and began bashing in the hood with violent swings.

  I felt a ripple of irritation off Black, even as the driver forced her way out of the front seat, pushing the car door through the surging crowd to aim a gun at the man wielding the crowbar.

  “Stop!” she commanded. “Right now.”

  Turning, the guy grinned at her through the face mask. I heard her shout something else at him, but her words were drowned out by the crowd that time.

  Then the guy hurled the crowbar at her.

  I saw the driver curse, ducking.

  I realized it was Michelle when I heard her voice. I’d barely recognized her with her hair pulled back in a severe bun, wearing the full combat armor versus the expensive pantsuits I normally saw her in.

  The crowbar slammed into the driver’s side window, and a series of lines and cracks exploded over the shatterproof glass.

  The road was wall to wall people now.

  The guy with the crowbar melted back into that crowd.

  I’d just waded out into that same crowd with Black, Jem, Mika, Cowboy, Angel, Easton and Frank. Holo and Jax followed, still in a flanking position around Black himself, with Manny and Yarli following close behind. Black and I were both surrounded by infiltrators carrying assault rifles, but I still felt exposed out here.

  Jem never left my side.

  He seemed totally focused again, back in military mode.

  I could hear voices shouting back and forth in my earpiece, most of them still tracking the vampires. Looking ahead, I saw another group of rioters with red and black face masks beating at our cars further down the row of SUVs, most of them using baseball bats and metal poles.

  I looked at Black, frowning.

  He returned my frown, then touched his earpiece.

  “Get the fuck out of there,” I heard him say to his drivers. “We can’t get through that way. There are too many people on the goddamned street… and the seers can’t do much in this construct. Pull out everything you need and join us here. We’ll walk out together.”

  His voice dropped to a growl. “…Feel free to bash a few of those fuckers in the face on your way out, through.”

  “You want us to leave the cars?” I heard Rueben say on the comm.

  “Leave the fucking cars,” Black growled. “That’s what insurance is for.”

  “Got it, boss,” I heard Michelle say.

  I knew Black was right. Other than opening fire on the crowd, our options were pretty limited without access to seer pushes to get the humans to back off. The construct over us had now clamped down over this whole part of the city.

  I could feel it pushing on me, even under Black’s shield.

  I felt it looking for a way into my light, into my mind. I felt it trying to draw me deeper into the chaos around us, tugging on threads in my memories, in my heart, trying to get me to panic, to lash out. The subtlety of it was unnerving. I felt frequencies of light trying to resonate with experiences I’d had in wartime, times I’d felt trapped or afraid or enraged.

  I felt it nudging me to join in with the rioters, to give myself over to the violence, the chaos, to join in with the chanting, the destruction.

  We just had to get the hell out of here.

  Hopefully the guns we carried would convince most people to give us enough space to walk out.

  It’s affecting you more right now, doc, Black murmured in my mind, holding up the rifle he carried and giving me a grim look. Don’t let it get to you. You’re fine.

  I nodded, swallowing.

  I knew what he meant.

  Still, being reminded of Solonik right then didn’t exactly calm me down.

  Being reminded of Nick right then wasn’t super helpful either.

  Do you still have eyes on him? I sent, looking up. Solonik? He’s leading the team going after Nick, right?

  Black gave me a hard look, glancing at Jem before he shook his head.

  No, he sent. I have the drones out looking for them, but they knocked two of them down. Apparently your uncle’s construct is calibrated to look for them.

  Feeling something off me, probably the sick feeling that rose in my gut and chest, making me light-headed, Black gripped my arm in his free hand.

  Miri. This isn’t Bangkok. He leaned closer, kissing my cheek, nuzzling my face. We have other seers with us now. We’re not alone. We’re okay. All right? I’m not letting Solonik get anywhere fucking near you.

  I nodded, conscious of other lights listening to this, conscious of Jem, Jax, Mika and Holo especially, since they squeezed up against us in the tight space.

  I couldn’t really make myself care about how I appeared to them, though. It didn’t even cross my mind to feel embarrassed. Their worry and concern smothered me, surrounding my body and light with electric pulses and shocks of their light, but I couldn’t really decide how I felt about that, either.

  I’ll tell you the second anything changes, okay? Black sent. The very fucking instant I know anything, you’ll know it too, doc. Right now, we should assume he’s still moving away. He’s leading the team tracking Brick, and the last we saw, they were ten blocks away from us right now, doc… heading towards SOMA.

  Thinking about Solonik tracking Nick made my heart beat harder all over again.

  Have they taken out any of the vampires? I sent.

  Not that
we know of. Glancing at me, feeling the charge in my light, he added, The last we got visuals on any of them, Nick was fine, Miri. So was Brick… and Dorian.

  I nodded, but couldn’t really make myself relax.

  Gripping the gun I’d unholstered, although I still aimed it at the ground, I watched the drivers of the nine SUVs shove their way through the crowd to reach us. All of them wore backpacks, and I realized it was because they’d pulled all of the extra weapons and clips out of the cars, and now wore them on their backs.

  “Where to now, boss?” Luce said, half-shouting over the sound of the crowd as she pushed her way through bodies to reach us.

  Michelle came up behind her, shouldering her rifle and a backpack of her own. Right as they reached us, a shout went up from the other side of the SUVs, along with scattered gunshots. All of us ducked reflexively, even as Black scowled, scanning the crowds around us as he raised his own weapon. I saw his eyes dart back towards the warehouse, could almost feel him trying to decide if we should hole up in there until the worst of this had died down or moved on.

  Looking over my shoulder, I followed his stare towards the building we’d just left.

  Dex, Miguel and a few others in Black’s crew already had it locked up and bolted across the front with a flat metal bar. I was still staring in that direction when another group of red and black-masked Purity agitators ran by.

  One of them threw a Molotov cocktail against the steel door as they passed, hooting loudly.

  The glass shattered, the lit fluid spraying over the metal in a spiderweb pattern, and Black gave me an annoyed look, right before he turned his frown back around at his employees. Again, I could almost feel him thinking.

  By then, I was thinking too, though.

  “Let’s get the fuck out of here,” he growled. “Jem, I want you to cover Miri, and––”

  I was already shaking my head.

  “No!” I caught hold of Black’s arm, meeting his gaze when he looked down. “No, Black. We can’t leave Nick to Solonik. We can’t.”

  Black’s jaw hardened, even as I heard Jem click in frustration next to me.

  My eyes never left Black’s.

  Frowning, Black leaned down, putting his lips to my ear.

  “Miri, Jem’s right. I can’t let you get anywhere near Solonik. Not if he’s ranked as highly as Jem says. Not when we don’t know if he’s still fixated on you… or if he could still connect to your light from the trauma and the previous connection he had, or some structure I missed that he left in your light. We can’t risk him doing something batshit crazy… to either one of us.”

  “Not to mention that he might be here to extract one or both of you,” Jem said, giving me a harder look as he spoke above the crowd. “Or that this riot might simply be cover for his team to do just that.”

  Frowning at Jem, then ignoring him, I focused solely on my husband.

  “He’ll kill him, Black,” I said. “He’ll kill Nick.”

  Black frowned.

  I went on before he could speak.

  “––You know he will. There’s no way in hell Charles will let Brick have that kind of leverage over us. There’s just no way. You know I’m right.”

  For a long moment, Black only looked at me.

  His gold eyes reflected the flames from the Molotov cocktail burning itself out on the steel door, but I saw him there, saw the conflict worsen as he turned over my words.

  Then he exhaled in frustration.

  “Goddamn it,” he said, that frustration reaching his voice. “All right. Let’s go.”

  * * *

  “CAN YOU REACH him on the number I gave you?” Black said, speaking louder as another wave of screams rose in a nearby alley. “Try the office one, too. The one he gave Lizbeth.”

  I knew who “him” was.

  He was trying to get through to Brick.

  I knew if he managed to get him on the phone, he’d try to pull Brick and the rest of his leadership team in with us.

  Where we’d put them after that wasn’t something I was ready to think about yet. The idea of housing twenty or so vampires at the California Street building––after what just happened to Kiko––was more than my mind could really process right then.

  Telling Kiko I’d talked Black into doing it to protect the exact same vampire who raped and nearly killed her probably wasn’t going to go over well, either.

  Just don’t expect me to be the one to explain it to her, doc, Black muttered at me. This was your idea. I’m not taking the bullet for this… figuratively or literally.

  I didn’t have a good response for that, either.

  Probably because I knew he was right.

  Black led us in a broken V-formation, taking us on a fast military jog down the middle of Valencia, all of us weaving between clusters of people.

  Most of the crowd still on this section of street seemed to either be running away from the sirens we could hear up ahead, or milling and wandering in groups.

  I don’t know why so many remained on the street.

  We’d given up on telling them to go home. Most of them ignored us anyway.

  I don’t know if they were hypnotized by the construct, in shock, trying to collect themselves, or just trying to comprehend what the hell was going on. I saw a lot of civilians just sitting on the sidewalk, some of them with bloody faces, bodies, and heads. We jogged past a woman in a short white dress who was crying, surrounded by friends, most of whom just stood there, talking and drinking from flasks.

  Blood covered the front of her sequined outfit and ran down her arms and legs.

  I winced as we passed, watching her sob. I was glad she had friends around her, comforting her, their arms around her where she sat on the curb, but I wondered why the hell they didn’t take her home––or better yet, to a hospital.

  I didn’t read her to find out the specifics of what happened to her. I might not have been able to read her anyway, given the construct, but I didn’t even try.

  We’d already seen some of that on the way here.

  I’d watched Black personally drag two men wearing black and red masks off a girl wearing a clubby outfit in front of one of the Valencia dance clubs.

  Cowboy and Angel broke up another cluster who were dragging two girls into an alley off the main road. I saw Dex, Luce, Jax and Holo break up a group of Purists who were kicking the crap out of a group of homeless men who’d been sitting on the curb outside a taqueria.

  They didn’t only target young women and homeless people.

  I also saw a number of well-dressed men who’d obviously been hit with bottles or rocks, likely wielded by the “Purity soldiers,” as I’d heard them called on the news.

  “They sure like to beat up on women,” Cowboy muttered, almost like he’d been hearing my thoughts.

  I gave him a grim look, but he wasn’t looking at me.

  He was staring at two more young women with bloody heads and bruised faces as we passed another group of twenty-somethings in club wear. Like many others we’d seen, they were all huddled together. They were moving though, slowly making their way out of the area.

  “Women in short dresses especially,” Angel muttered from next to me.

  “What do these Purity fuckers even want?” Dex said, looking over at us from where he jogged on the other side of Black. “Other than to beat up on people they don’t like?”

  Angel snorted, glancing at him.

  “Isn’t that enough?” she said. “Isn’t that what all fanatics want? For everyone to burn in hell who isn’t exactly like them?”

  “Yeah, but why other humans?” Jax said. “I thought it was a whole anti-vampire thing. Isn’t that why Charles is pushing this Purity thing? To get humans to kill vampires?”

  “Ayuh. That’s part of it.” Cowboy nodded towards Black. “From what your lao ban’s been saying, it’s more about control, though.” He pointed towards the sky, motioning vaguely without slowing his military-style jog. “Black says these construct-th
ingys work better if there’s a unifying ideology. Keeps everyone in line. The more rigid the ideology, the better.”

  Cowboy glanced at me.

  “That’s right, ain’t it, doc?”

  I shrugged, glancing at Jax, then back at Cowboy.

  “I probably know as much as any of you,” I admitted, hitching the rifle I now wore higher on my shoulder as I jogged alongside the rest of them. “And probably a lot less than Jax when it comes to constructs. From what I’ve read about the Purists, though, they’re an apocalyptic group. They think the world will burn if it’s not ‘purified.’”

  “Sounds like those dugra-te di aros Mythers,” Jax muttered.

  “Purified, how?” Luce said, jogging closer to us to listen.

  “The usual way,” Angel said, rolling her eyes. “No drugs. No drinking. All single mothers are supposed to be rounded up and ‘found husbands.’” She snorted louder. “Men are supposed to work at ‘virtuous employment’ and raise children who are ‘pure.’ Women who break the laws can be sold into slavery, apparently––”

  “Slavery?” Luce stared at her. “What the fuck? Is this some Bible thing?”

  I shook my head. “Not exactly. It’s pieced together from a number of religions, from what Black told me. He thinks Charles kept the religious aspects purposefully vague, so they’d be applicable to a number of different belief systems.”

  I exchanged grimaces with Angel.

  “…Convenient for Charles,” I added sourly. “It means he can adopt it to any culture on the planet, without fundamentally changing the construct. Every religion can claim the doctrine as their own. So here in the United States, sure, a lot of people think it’s based in the Bible. But Black told me Charles is already experimenting with a version in the Middle East that locals believe came directly from the Koran.”

  Shrugging, I added,

  “Black thinks those distinctions will gradually be erased, assuming Charles is successful. Everyone will follow the same core beliefs, and it won’t matter what they believed before. As it is, a lot of atheists follow the Purists, too. Now, I mean.”