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

by JC Andrijeski

  More dust filtered down, making both of us cough.

  Slowly, the rumble receded.

  “What the hell was that?” I said.

  My voice shook, panic infusing my words, making it loud. I watched Black sit up, his head cocked as if listening for more. Shouts got louder outside the door, in Italian and English. Black climbed nimbly to his feet, grasping my arm and elbow tightly in his hand as he helped me up next to him. His light sharpened somewhere in that pause, even as he pulled me to him, wrapping an arm around me. He still held me when he pulled his phone out of his jacket pocket where it lay on a rack or wine bottles. He hit a single button before putting it to his ear.

  “Yeah,” he said, to whoever picked up on the other end. “Where is everyone?”

  After a pause, he gripped me tighter.

  “Yes.” His voice was hard as metal now. “Send them now... don’t wait for us. Bring clothes for me and Miri.” A pause. “The wine cellar.” Pausing while the other person spoke again, he cut him off with a growl. “––Then tell them to go on foot. They need to get inside the blast radius before they shut the area down. See if you can get special clearance from the Colonel, but don’t wait for that. Have them do it en route.”

  He hung up, gripping me tighter in his arms. “You all right?”

  I nodded. I extricated myself from him just enough to adjust the dress I was wearing, pulling it down over my hips and legs.

  “Don’t bother,” he told me. “You might as well take it off.”

  There was a knock on the door, even as he said it.

  Black zipped up his pants and opened the door, keeping me behind him. His shirt still hung open as Dex handed through two black backpacks and two kevlar vests. He handed two guns with holsters through once Black passed the backpacks to me.

  “Jesus,” I said, looking at all of it as Black closed the door. “What happened?”

  “Empire State Building was hit.” He gave me a grim look. “Nick, Angel and Cowboy were down there.”

  My throat closed. I didn’t speak as he handed me the smaller of the two kevlar vests. Inside the black backpacks were clothes for each of us. For me that meant black pants, boots, a t-shirt, underwear, socks and leather grip gloves. I didn’t say anything but threw on the clothes as quickly as I could, barely remembering to put on the bra before I tugged the shirt over my head.

  Next to me, Black also dressed swiftly and silently.

  We were opening the door to leave the cellar when Black’s phone rang again. Dex was waiting for us outside the door. He nodded to me grimly while Black started talking to someone. That time, whoever it was sounded like military.

  “No!” he snapped. “I need satellite images. Now. And see if you can get clearance to get a drone down there. I have people missing.”

  Dex squeezed my arm, pulling my eyes off Black. “Angel called me right before,” he said. “We’ve got people looking for them right now, Miri. We’ll find them.”

  I nodded, feeling numb.

  I looked at Black when he raised his voice a second time.

  “No!” he snapped. “We’re not waiting for that. I need to find my missing people. You should want that anyway. Whoever did this, they probably cleared the area already. My people may have seen something…”

  Black started moving towards the staircase.

  Me and Dex followed behind him. Halfway up the stairs, Black reached back and grabbed my hand, tugging me closer to him without taking the phone from him ear. He brought us through the kitchen, where we were stared at by cooks in black and white checkered pants and stained white shirts. Most of them were clustered by the door, as if trying to decide what to do. Black shoved his phone into his back pocket, but didn’t speak to anyone as we passed, or even seem to notice them, despite the stares we got.

  It occurred to me how both of us looked.

  We were clothed now, but Black and I were also sweaty, covered in grime and cement dust, and dressed like combat soldiers. Black’s hair was dusted with cement. He had cuts on his arms from broken glass and held my hand as he led me by the stainless steel counters. If it wasn’t for the hand-holding, we might have looked like members of a SWAT team, given the kevlar vests and our all-black clothes. At the very least, we looked like cops, if not military.

  Or terrorists, my mind supplied helpfully.

  Black pushed his way past the few cooks standing by the kitchen’s swinging doors and led us into the dining room, which was even more empty than the kitchen. It hadn’t really occurred to me until then that we hadn’t left the restaurant where we’d met the two investment bankers; I recognized the space now, even with the lights out and almost no one inside.

  When we walked out the front doors and onto the street, it was immediately clear where everyone had gone.

  The entire street was filled with people and parked cars. Taxi drivers and their fares stood with doors open, staring up at a cloud of smoke north of where we stood. I gaped up at it, feeling like I was in some kind of bad dream. Some part of me couldn’t believe I was seeing this happen here again, that I was looking at an image out of real life, not an old news report or a documentary. Above the smoke, the spire of the Empire State Building punctuated the air. Black gripped me tighter, weaving us through onlookers until we reached Javier and Alice, who stood by a black SUV. I looked around, but didn’t see the limousine we’d arrived in.

  “Did you send the others on?” Black said.

  Javier nodded. “They left right after you called.”

  “Is there any way through?” Black said. “Now, I mean. For us.”

  “It won’t be easy,” Javier said, gauging the sidewalks on each side. “Nor likely legal.”

  “That’s not what I asked,” Black growled.

  Alice was already holding open the back door. “We’ll get you as close as we can,” she promised.

  Javier climbed into the front seat without waiting for Black’s response. He was already starting the engine by the time the door closed behind me.

  20

  MISSING PIECES

  “WE FOUND THEM,” Dex said, turning in his seat to look at me.

  “Where?” Black said.

  “They’re on the other side of the barricade. EMTs have them––”

  “Are they all right?” I blurted. “Are they all alive?”

  Dex nodded, clasping my hand from where he sat next to me. “They’re alive, Miri. They’re beat up pretty bad, but Ravi says they’re going to be fine.”

  “Ravi?” Black said.

  He looked away from the windshield, where he’d been staring through the glass at the smoke clouds ahead. His expression hardened.

  “Ravi’s down there already? Who sent him? Charles?”

  I barely registered his words. I took the first full breath I’d managed since Black told me Nick and Angel were in the blast area. I looked down, and found my fingers wound into Black’s. His other arm wrapped tightly around my back, and he’d been massaging my shoulder. I’d barely noticed until I exhaled that held breath.

  “––Charles’ people are there already?” Black repeated, his voice a growl. “Where did they come from? The hotel?”

  Dex shifted his dark eyes from me to Black, his expression grim.

  “There’s a whole team of them about four blocks north of here,” he said. “One of the nearby hospitals already set up some kind of informal medical drop zone near Park and 30th, which is where they found Nick, Angel and Cowboy. Apparently EMTs and police started bringing wounded there, since there was already at least one ambulance nearby.”

  Dex’s dark eyes shifted back towards me.

  “Ravi’d already left them with paramedics there when they called in,” he added. “He was heading for ground zero with a few others of Charles’ people.”

  Dex paused, returning his gaze to Black. “Ravi said Nick, Angel and Cowboy saw at least one vampire at the site, not long before the bombs went off.”

  Javier was slowing the SUV. Looking out t
he window, I saw we’d reached a police car barricade, which appeared to be blocking Park Avenue just before the intersection with 28th Street. Javier was still slowing the car when cops approached our vehicle, banging on the sides of the SUV, ordering us to stop.

  Black got out of the car seemingly the instant Javier hit the brakes. I saw the door open. I watched Black straighten. Then I saw him stare directly into the eyes of the nearest cop glaring up at him. The man stared back, red-faced and angry, his hand on his gun.

  Then, the cop’s face abruptly blanked.

  “We’re supposed to be here,” Black told him, his voice hard.

  There was a pause where the cop only looked at him. His face contorted briefly in frustration, like he wanted to yell at Black to get back in his car, to turn around and drive back the way he came, but he couldn’t. After that frustration eased, the cop’s features grew calm, matter-of-fact. He nodded, looking around at the rest of the uniformed officers standing in a cluster around the SUV.

  “They’re cleared,” he said. “Stand down.”

  A second cop standing there had drawn his gun.

  He had soot on his face from smoke, like he’d been working a lot closer to the blast site when the bombs went off. From his expression, he looked ready to fire on us, just from shock and adrenaline alone.

  He stopped at his fellow-officer’s words, however, staring at Black.

  Blinking, he gave Black a once-over, taking in the kevlar, his clothes and his size. He holstered his sidearm, frowning.

  The first cop’s voice turned matter-of-fact.

  “We can’t let the car through,” he said to Black, reverting to cop-to-cop speak. “Emergency medical vehicles only. That’s from Home Sec, so I got no say in it, so don’t even bother.” Frowning, he gazed north up the avenue. “Road’s full of debris past 30th, anyway. We’re having a bitch of a time stopping and re-routing traffic from the east and west, but they think they’ve got most of it cleared out now.” He aimed his frown back at Black. “Either way, you wanna go in, you’ll have to leave your car and go on foot. No exceptions.”

  Black nodded. He took his hand off his own gun then.

  It was the first time I’d realized he’d been ready to draw it.

  Turning, he gave Javier a nod. Javier, who’d been listening through the open driver’s side window, glanced around at the rest of us in the car.

  “Everybody out,” he said.

  I slid over on the car seat at once, leaving the car followed by Dex. Alice opened the front passenger door and got out as well. Then Javier switched gears. Gunning the engine, he backed the SUV away from the barricade, leaving me, Black, Alice and Dex behind. As he did, the cops who’d been clustered around the car backed off, their expressions visibly calmer.

  They still looked wound up, though, and I realized again these weren’t emergency responders called in from the precincts. These were the actual beat cops who’d been working this area when the bombs went off. They were still waiting on the bomb squad, the F.B.I., Homeland Security and whoever else.

  They all seemed to think Black was part of that “something else.”

  Black motioned for us to follow him around the police car barricade on the west side of the street. It was only then that I realized how oddly quiet it was on this segment of road. I could hear and see sirens up ahead, and people stood around the barricade on either side, most of them staring at the smoke in the air like they were in shock. I couldn’t help thinking about 9/11 again as I looked at them, wondering how they were coping with this, given that their city had been under attack like this before.

  I suspected the fallout from today wouldn’t be small.

  Anger briefly overcame me. Brick would pull something like this for that reason alone. He would use New York as an emotional target. There was no way anyone could be calm or rational about a major attack here, given what happened before.

  Screams echoed between buildings along with ambulance sirens and car horns. None of it felt very far away. Grimacing at the clouds of white smoke still rising up into the sky, I hoped again with everything in me that Angel and Nick were okay.

  Black took my hand.

  Without a word, he began leading us up Park Avenue, heading north.

  A few minutes later, Javier sprinted to catch up with us, fitting an earpiece in his ear as he ran, a walkie-talkie clutched in his other hand. I noticed only then that he wore kevlar, too, and had one of those vampire-tranquilizer guns slung around his broad shoulders.

  None of us asked Black where we were going.

  WHEN I SAW them, I wanted to shout out.

  I wanted to, but I found my voice failing me, so I only watched them in the moments it took us to walk to where they were, a smile breaking out over my face even as I fought tears.

  Amid all the chaos around us now, the sheer normalcy of seeing them there froze my mind briefly. I began walking faster, dragging Black with me instead of the reverse.

  Two blocks north and one west of the barricade, chaos had erupted.

  Suddenly the road was full of ambulances, cop cars and people. A lot of those people were covered in soot and what looked like chalk dust. A lot of them were bleeding and some were screaming. Still, strangely, my first thought was, this isn’t as bad as I expected.

  I guess I’d seen way too many documentaries on 9/11.

  Of course, we were still four blocks from where the bombs had actually gone off.

  Here, traffic still made its way through the streets, most of it emergency vehicles coming from NYU and Mt. Sinai Hospitals, as well as Bellevue and others to the East. Regular cars filled the road as well, along with motorcycles and trucks, taxi cabs and bicycle delivery riders––basically all the people who would have been down here when the bombs went off.

  Nick and Angel sat on the back end of one of the ambulances, side by side. My stomach dropped all over again when I saw how pale Nick was, as well as the blood-soaked tatters of his shirt near the lower part of his torso. Paramedics had cut it open to get at the wound, and I saw an open gash just about where his ribs ended, surrounded by ghost-white skin.

  I relaxed somewhat when I saw him smiling, joking with the woman working on him even as he winced and grimaced from her wiping his wound with antiseptic-soaked cloths. She smiled back at him, shaking her head in amusement, which relaxed me still more.

  If Nick was feeling well enough to flirt, he couldn’t be in too bad of shape.

  I looked at Angel next. Her expression was a lot more grim.

  I didn’t see as much blood on her as I did Nick, but a nasty cut traveled down one side of her face, from what looked like a lump swelling on her forehead down to her lower cheekbone. Her hair looked badly singed and she had soot all over her arms, neck and face. One of the paramedics was doing something to her leg, making her wince. I noted she had smaller cuts all over her bare arms, as well, just visible around the tank-top she wore, given all the smoke and dust. I wondered how many bruises that soot and smoke hid, as well.

  Both of them looked like they’d gotten hit in the head pretty hard––hard enough that they might be sporting concussions. Nick’s temple looked like it was swelling, and his bare bicep, which looked shockingly white since it wasn’t covered in soot, wore a bruise as big as my hand. Despite his flirting with the cute paramedic, he looked pretty beat up.

  I didn’t see any bite marks, but I couldn’t be sure.

  “Not dangerous, huh?” I muttered. I walked fast in front of Black, aiming my feet for the open end of the ambulance. “No more dangerous than anything else we’ve been doing?”

  Black didn’t answer.

  His fingers tightened in mine, right before he sped up, reaching my side and pulling me closer to him. Once he was walking next to me, he wrapped an arm around my back, as well. Feeling the protectiveness wafting off of him, I bit my lip, trying to keep from making any more cracks about how not-safe my two closest friends had been while on this secret mission of his to spy on vampires.

/>   When I walked up to Angel, I realized Cowboy was standing near the ambulance’s open doors, as well. He was talking to Michelle and Devin, two of Black’s people, motioning with his hands in a kind of approximation of falling. When he turned towards me, I flinched, seeing a bruise on his face even bigger than the one I’d seen on Angel. He also had a thick knot on his forehead that looked painful, already swollen to the size of a golf ball. Like Angel, he was covered in soot and small cuts. His jeans were ripped badly on one side, his calf covered in bruises and smears of drying blood.

  Black started talking before I could.

  “What the fuck happened?” he snapped.

  He aimed the question at Cowboy first, then scowled at Nick and Angel.

  I felt the intensity of relief on his light, from seeing them alive, but I found myself wondering if Angel, Nick or Cowboy did. Clutching Black’s side, I sent warmth into him, and felt a coil of pain come off him in a thick cloud.

  He glanced down at me, then turned back to the others and lowered his voice.

  “Are you all right?” he said, gruff.

  Angel burst out in a laugh.

  I admit, hearing her laugh relaxed another of those knots that hadn’t quite loosened in my chest. I found myself hugging both of them, ignoring the paramedics as I wrapped my arms around each of them twice. I hugged Cowboy then, too, who seemed uncomfortable with the display but tolerated it, patting me on the back with one hand and muttering something under his breath I didn’t catch.

  Once I’d pulled away from the three of them, Black tried again.

  “What did you see?” he said. “What happened?”

  Cowboy glanced at Angel and Nick.

  Then all three of them started talking at once.

  I was still trying to sort through the different things they were each describing when Black cut them off, his voice blunt.

  “Was it vampires?” he said. “Why didn’t you call me?”

  I flinched, turning to stare up at Black.