In Black We Trust

by J. C. Andrijeski

  It doesn’t have to be me, he sent, blunt. It doesn’t have to be me, Miri. I can be any one of us who can read it. Any seer in our group. Even one of the immigrants could do it––

  I let out a disbelieving sound.

  Bullshit. It would have to be you. Or me. And you know it. Jem and the others don’t know enough about what’s going on here for it to be one of them.

  Thinking about my own words, I scowled harder.

  …and I don’t know enough of the players, Black. It would have to be you. You’re the only logical choice, and both of us know it.

  Shaking his head slowly, he stared out over the water.

  Honestly, Miri, I’m less worried about that end of things.

  Looking at him, I realized dawn was nearly upon us.

  His face’s outline had gradually grown more and more distinct over the past twenty or so minutes, without me really noticing it. Now I could see his face and facial expression with a shocking amount of clarity under the lightening sky. When I glanced up, I realized the stars overhead were also starting to fade, too. I heard more birds now, too, winging through the trees on either side of the channel of water we were traveling up at a good clip in the rubber boat.

  Shifting my eyes back to his face, I stared at him in disbelief.

  Then what exactly are you worried about, Black?

  He gave me a grim look, his sculpted lips pursed.

  I’m worried about how the hell we find and catch a vampire who’s high-level enough in Brick’s organization to know any of what we need to know.

  He studied my eyes, his own holding a faintly warlike glint.

  I’m worried about how we get anywhere near that inner circle without all of us being shot. Or drained dry. Or worse, he added grimly. All of us ending up sex slaves for Brick and his buddies while they fuck our minds with vampire venom and whatever else. Starting with all of our seers. Likely starting with you and me, after what I did to him in New York.

  Pausing, he sent,

  Any ideas, doc?

  Staring up at his high cheekbones, his faintly glowing eyes, his black hair, and near-perfect mouth, I couldn’t think of a damned thing to say.

  Frankly, I had no idea what he expected me to say.

  13

  THE BAYOU

  WE REACHED THE outskirts of Lafitte around mid-morning.

  I didn’t recognize a single person waiting for us at the rickety wooden dock where we pulled the motorboat raft up to get to shore.

  Cowboy knew them, though.

  As we drew up even with the dock, a big-boned black man with a shaved head walked to the very edge of the dock. He wore dirty jeans, work boots, and a gray T-shirt with the sleeves cut off that said “Got Milk?” in giant block letters.

  He stared down at us, hands on his hips.

  Behind him stood three other men, dressed also in dirty blue jeans and T-shirts that looked at least a few decades old. One of them was white, another black, and the third looked like he might be native, or maybe Latino.

  The big man who appeared to be their leader continued to stare down at the boat.

  His expression remained more or less blank, borderline unfriendly, until Cowboy climbed up and across the rubber raft. Giving a half-leap towards the dock, he caught hold of the outstretched arm of the same man, letting him pull him up and out of the raft.

  As soon as his feet were firmly on the wooden dock, Cowboy wrapped his arms around the much taller and bigger man, giving him a bear-hug.

  The recipient of that hug managed to keep his poker face until Cowboy said something to him, too low for me to hear––then he burst out in a deep-throated laugh.

  Still chuckling, he let go of Cowboy and motioned for the rest of us to come on shore.

  “Well? What’re you waiting for?” he said. “Food’s getting cold.”

  Black waited until everyone else disembarked, then he stood up, helping me up with him. He took Cowboy’s offered arm and leapt lightly up on the dock, with that usual, animal-like grace of his.

  Once there, he turned at once and offered his arm to me.

  He pulled me up so easily, I barely realized my feet had left the raft until they landed on the dock. Once I had my balance, he let me go, though.

  “You the boss-man, then?” the big man grunted to Black. “The one Cowboy here tells me about, who’s got the government after ‘im?”

  “Ayuh,” Cowboy affirmed, before Black finished sizing up the other man. “This is Jackson,” he offered to Black, motioning towards his friend with a hand. “You can trust him with pretty much whatever. Guy’s saved my skin more times ’n I can count.”

  Jackson grunted at Cowboy’s words, but his eyes remained on Black.

  “You be Black then, right?” Jackson pressed, clearly waiting to hear from Black himself. “Or you be goin’ by another name here?”

  “Black’ll do for now,” Black grunted. “Thank you. Appreciate the help. More than I can say. We don’t have a lot of friends right now.”

  That tension in Jackson’s eyes relaxed marginally.

  “Seems like you got a lot of friends to me,” he observed, glancing up and down the dock, and back to the shore. “A lot of ‘em are bugging my sister for food back at my house right ‘bout now. A lot of ‘em sleeping on anything with stuffin’ in my house right now, too. Including the dog, an’ likely ‘least one of mah kids.”

  Cowboy laughed.

  Jackson gave him a look, then trained a more serious gaze on Black.

  He held out his hand then, offering to shake, and Black took it.

  “We got no love of police down here,” Jackson said. “And they pretty much leave us alone, all ’n all. Outside the city, at least. Cowboy vouch for you, tha’s good enough for me.”

  Black nodded, glancing at Cowboy as he released the other man’s hand.

  “We set for transport?” he said.

  “Ayuh.” Cowboy motioned at Jackson. “He ’n Easton’s friends pulled some airboats together for the trip. They got some from Lafitte up the river, too. Should be enough to take us into New Orleans… close to it, at any rate.”

  Cowboy said New Orleans like a local I noticed, pronouncing it “Naw’lins,” even though his accent wasn’t full-blown Louisiana, especially not compared to his friend Jackson’s. I found myself looking at Cowboy with interest though, wondering again about his past.

  “He’ll come with us,” Cowboy added to Black, nodding towards Jackson. “‘Least through the swamp. He’s got people up there he thinks might be able to help us.”

  “Your other friends are here, too,” Jackson repeated, turning back towards Black. “That Alice and a bunch with her.” He motioned over his shoulder with a thumb. “Got ‘em at my house. Seemed best.” He grunted. “They ‘bout eat me out of house and home in just a matter o’ hours. Even the ones just got here want food, second they walk in.”

  Cowboy laughed. “I’ll believe that when I see it.”

  Jackson quirked an eyebrow at him. “‘Cuse me, brother?”

  “Your house ever being out of food,” Cowboy said, smiling. “Or even close to it.”

  Jackson grunted. “I just bet you will. You’ve got a hollow leg too, as I recall. My sister might just beat you over the head wi’ it, one of these days.”

  He noticed Angel then, lifting an eyebrow when he saw Cowboy’s hand holding hers. Giving her a once-over, he whistled.

  “This lady with you?”

  “Ayuh.” Cowboy gripped Angel’s hand tighter, his knuckles whitening. “Well-with. And hopefully for some good long time into the future. Don’t get any ideas, brother.”

  “What’s this ridiculously fine woman doing with you? She touched in the head?”

  Cowboy laughed, glancing at Angel who graced him with a quirked eyebrow of her own.

  “Meybe,” Cowboy said, grinning at her. “Meybe at that.”

  She rolled her eyes at him, then thrust out a hand towards Jackson.

  “Angel,” she said, her Lo
uisiana accent coming through faintly. “And I expect to hear stories about this one,” she said, motioning her head towards Cowboy. “Detailed stories. I’m buying the drinks. All of them.”

  “The man wouldn’t dare,” Cowboy said, giving Jackson a meaningful look. “And you’ll be regretting offering to buy him drinks, too. Talk about a hollow leg.”

  Jackson laughed, holding up his hands in surrender after he let Angel’s go.

  “You heard her. The woman’s buyin’. It’d be downright wrong of me to refuse.”

  All this seemed to pass through Black like background noise.

  His voice came out blunt, distracted, almost his military voice.

  “Easton made it here, then?” he said. “Frank? The others?” He looked at Jackson. “They staying at your house, too? I thought they might meet us down here.”

  Jackson gave his bald head a shake.

  “They staying with Tomás here.” He nodded towards the man I’d pegged as maybe being Native, or possibly Latino. “Tomás here be cousin to the tribals your friends is friends with. He came down to give you all the eye, make sure nothing was amiss.”

  Jackson pointed out over the water. “Your friends be out scouting all night, looking for bloodsuckers, or they be here, too.”

  I tensed, glancing at Black, then at Angel, who frowned.

  Returning my gaze to Jackson, I said, “They went out looking for vampires? Why? What were they looking for, exactly?”

  Jackson gave me a once-over, then a faint smile.

  “Maybe they lookin’ for their own personal angels out there, Miss,” he said. “Maybe they lookin’ for God. Either way, they found a whole mess of those bloodsuckers, and tried to make parlay with them.” He grunted a half-laugh, glancing at Cowboy. “As usual, you’n friends be even more crazier than you are, brother.”

  Cowboy grunted, but I saw worry in his eyes.

  He glanced at me, than at Black.

  “They say what they parlayin’ for?” he said finally, speaking to Jackson.

  “Not to me, no,” Jackson said. “I figure it was same as your boss-man want. Looking for the vampire bosses. Looking for that head-honcho one, Brick, they talkin’ about.”

  I stared up at Jackson, unable to hide my incredulity. “They went out there alone? In the middle of the night? Looking for Brick? Seriously?”

  “Serious. For real,” Jackson affirmed with a nod. “We had ‘em on the walkies not too long from now, and they back in town. All heads, fingers and toes intact, so far’s I know. They suppose’ to come up for breakfast, so we see them at the house. I let them tell the rest o’ that story to you themselves, Miss.”

  Exchanging looks with Black, then with Angel, I nodded.

  Then, realizing I’d never even introduced myself, I let out a sigh.

  “Thanks. And sorry.” I held out a hand, like Angel had done. “I’m Miri.” Giving Black a pointed look, I returned my gaze to Jackson. “…Black’s wife. Miriam Black.”

  I felt as much as saw Black flinch.

  Surprise flickered through his light, but when I gave him another glance, he squelched it, throwing up some kind of wall between me and his reaction.

  Jackson shook my hand, quirking an eyebrow as he looked between me and Black.

  “All kinds of fine women shacking up with shady characters down here,” he said in a rumbling deep voice. “Wha’s the world coming to?”

  Cowboy laughed as he clapped his friend on his broad back.

  Jackson gave me a last smile and a wink, then released my hand.

  He turned on the run-down wooden pier and began leading us back towards the grassy bank beyond the end of it, and the rest of us followed.

  For the first time, I noticed Nick and the newcomer seers were already waiting for us on shore, standing with the other two men who’d come out to greet us with Jackson.

  Nick was talking to the younger black man with short-cropped hair. His white friend in the Metallica T-shirt listened, arms folded across his thin chest as he nodded to whatever the other man was saying.

  Something about the whole thing just struck me as surreal––that cluster of seers with their odd-colored eyes, and Nick, with his clean-cut West Coast city clothes, standing and talking to two men who looked about as human and American and, well––normal––as you could get.

  Glancing at the seers, I couldn’t help frowning a bit.

  I wondered what Jackson and his friends thought of them.

  I wondered what they made of the strange eye colors, the way they moved, the odd mannerisms, even the way they wore their clothes. I wondered what they thought of how they stared, or if they noticed how still all of them stood when they had no specific reason to move, or how oddly good-looking all of them were.

  I wondered what they thought of Black, when he stood next to them.

  Pushing the conspicuousness of our new seer friends out of my mind, I glanced at Black, only to find him staring at me again. A kind of muted scrutiny stood out in his gaze, and I realized it had nothing to do with the other seers, or anything I’d been thinking just then.

  Despite his attempts to soften in it some way, I felt the intensity there.

  I found myself flushing under that stare, then looking away.

  After a pause, I spoke to him anyway.

  You can feel as unmarried to me as you want, I told him quietly in his mind. I’m entitled to feel as married to you as I want. Glancing up at him, I noted his frown, then added, If you don’t want me to identify myself that way, tell me, Black. Otherwise, I’m going to.

  I expected him to answer.

  I’d more or less asked him a question, indirectly, at least.

  He didn’t, though––answer, that is.

  He didn’t say a word.

  WE ATE OUTSIDE.

  We really didn’t have much choice, given the size of our group.

  Over half of us managed to fit on the long tables and benches set up in Jackson’s back yard for the meal, but they didn’t have enough room for all of us.

  The newcomer seers sat directly on the weed-choked lawn. With them sat a handful of people I didn’t know, some of whom probably worked for Black, and some of whom appeared to be local. Most of the locals looked Native, but a few might have been related to Jackson.

  Nick, Dex and Kiko sat on the back porch steps, along with Dog, Devin, and three other Natives I recognized from New Mexico, including the teenaged girl I remembered being frighteningly proficient with a longbow. Seeing that same longbow propped against the wooden steps next to a quiver full of arrows while she balanced a plate of food on her lap, chatting with Dog, I couldn’t help smiling. A second later, that smile faded, however, as it hit me that she probably had the bow with her because she’d been out on the Louisiana swamp the night before, looking for Brick or one of his vampire lieutenants.

  Behind that group sitting on the stairs, a handful of kids who were clearly local and ranged in age from maybe six years old to mid-teens sat together, laughing and talking as they ate. I noticed a lot of those kids watching the immigrant seers and Black surreptitiously, and with more than a little curiosity.

  Black, Cowboy, me, and Angel sat with Jackson at the biggest table, along with his Native-looking friend, Tomás, from the dock. Easton, Frank, Manny, Lex and Lawless sat with us at the same table.

  Glancing around the crowded yard and back porch, it hit me again what a large group of people Black was beginning to gather around him.

  “So what did you find out?” Black said, looking at Easton, then at Frank. Breaking a piece of cornbread in two with his hands, he motioned with his head towards Jackson. “Apparently you’ve convinced our new friends here… and my wife…” He gave me a pointed look. “…That you’ve lost your marbles going out there by yourselves.”

  Easton shrugged, unfazed by Black’s implied rebuke.

  “Couldn’t be much worse than Ship Rock,” he said, cracking open a crawfish with his fingers and sucking out the insides. Tossing the
shell into a bowl beside the metal one filled to heaping with more of the steamed shellfish, he added, “None of the bloodsuckers we found would tell us much, though.”

  “Maybe it was the bow and arrow Magic had aimed at their chests,” Frank snorted from his left, chuckling as he glanced at the teenaged girl on the porch.

  He was eating a giant plate of pancakes, I noticed.

  I couldn’t help but find that an odd juxtaposition with the crawfish.

  “Magic?” I said, following his gaze. “Her name is Magic?”

  Frank gave me a strange look, quirking an eyebrow. He looked like he was about to answer me, when Black spoke, turning Frank’s attention back to him.

  “You get a good look at them?” Black said. “The vampires you found. Could you remember their faces well enough to picture them in your head? In detail?”

  Frank nodded, his eyes puzzled as he dug back into his pancakes with a bent fork.

  “Sure,” he said. “We had lights. They were pretty freaked out by the number of us. And the bow, like I said. And our knives. I don’t think they were expecting that. They were…”

  He glanced at Easton, who chuckled.

  “…Polite,” Frank finished with a grin. “Then again, we didn’t give them much choice.”

  That time, it was me who grunted.

  I was eating a bowl of grits with maple syrup, butter and a plate of cornbread. I really had no idea how hungry I was until someone placed both plates in front of me. Now I was scarfing down cornbread covered in butter between mouthfuls of grits like I was worried someone might take either thing away from me.

  “What’s your gut on it?” Black said, motioning with a fork over the fried catfish he was eating. “You think they knew anything?”

  Easton and Frank again exchanged looks.

  Frank shrugged his massive shoulders.

  “Honestly? No. They knew who Brick was, of course. They’d heard rumors he escaped. But I don’t think they were hiding him back in that swamp or anything.” Frank pointed vaguely over the table with his fork. “They did mention he’s got a big house in New Orleans somewhere. A big mansion inside the city. They thought maybe in the French Quarter.”