Black As Night (Quentin Black Mystery #2) (32 page)

I’d double back and head for the Skytrain.

At least aboveground I’d have options.

I began to wonder if maybe a taxi wouldn’t be a terrible idea after all, when suddenly a white SUV with tinted windows was bearing down on me, driving a dangerous-looking speed over the lawn of the park coming from the east. I watched it weave around a metal statue in the park right before it slammed into a park bench, turning it into kindling.

The engine revved as it hopped the curb. Then, with a crunch of metal and skid of the tires, it slid to a fishtailing stop in front of me.

Relief exploded in my mind.

I already knew who it was, even before he leaned over and shoved open the passenger side door.
 

“Get in!” Black yelled, gripping the steering wheel with his other hand.

Gunfire lit up around me, hitting the dirt near the line of grass and setting up puffs of dust. I ducked in reflex, although I could already tell he wasn’t aiming at me. Even as I thought it, I heard a plink and a crack as bullets hit the side of the SUV and then one of the bullet-proof windows.

Then Black was leaning out the window, returning fire.

I threw myself into the floor of the shotgun seat as soon as I was close enough and slammed the door shut.

Black was already flooring the gas.

Panting, realizing only then that I had a darting, aching stitch in my side and my head was pounding so hard it felt like someone was hitting me with a mallet in the back of the head, I dragged myself up to a seated position until Black barked at me.

“Get down, Miriam. Between the fucking seats! As close to me as possible!”

I didn’t think, I just obeyed.

Crawling over the seat I landed in the space on the floor near the gearshift, and immediately felt a cloud-like...something...envelope me. Realizing Black was shielding me even as I watched him drop an empty clip from his gun to the floor next to me, jamming in a new one with the edge of the steering wheel, I fought to catch my breath.

My foot hurt so bad by then I practically moaned. It felt like someone had stuck a knife under my right toenail and left it there. The heel of my cut foot hurt so bad I couldn’t find a position that made the pain less.

I gripped the side of Black’s seat when it felt like Black hopped another curb. I heard horns blare as he must have thrown the SUV into traffic, and then my stomach lurched as he executed a tight U-turn, bringing another blare of angry horns right before he hit the gas again hard, accelerating as he wove down the street.

Only after we’d been driving for about ten minutes did I look up at him.

Seeing the grim look on his face under the mirrored sunglasses, I watched his hands grip the steering wheel turning us at the next intersection. He had the gun back in a side holster now, but I saw him wince when he cranked the wheel again.

“You got hit.” It wasn’t a question. “How bad?”

“It’s okay,” he said, dismissive.

“It’s a fucking gunshot wound,” I said. “You don’t get to be cavalier about that.”

“I’m fine, Miri.”

“Where? Where did he get you?”

“In the shoulder.” Glancing down at me with a taut smile, he added, “He’s a better shot than I gave him credit for, given that he was coming at us at a dead run. I think he would have killed me if he hadn’t been trying to avoid hitting you.”

I frowned, but didn’t bother to say I told you so.

I thought it though.

When I did, he startled me, stroking my hair with a hand.

“I know,” he said, softer.

I felt some part of me relax. Seconds later, I realized that a good chunk of the reason was that I could no longer feel Solonik.

The other part, I didn’t really want to think about right then.

“I can shield you when we’re this close,” Black said, glancing at me. “It’s harder at a distance, doc...especially when he was closer to you than I was and blocking me at every turn.” His voice grew thicker, holding enough emotion to make me wince, although he didn’t look away from the road. “I’m sorry, Miriam. You were right.”

I shook my head. “No, I wasn’t,” I said. I looked up at him, conscious of his fingers still in my hair. “I didn’t want you to stay because of me,” I said. “I wanted you to stay because I thought he’d kill you, Black...then come looking for me after.”

His eyes shifted down, staring at me through the mirrored shades. His mouth curled in a bewildered frown.

“Are you fucking serious?” he said. “
That’s
what you were worried about?”

I bit the inside of my cheek, fighting an irrational desire to hit him again.

“Where are we going now?” I said only.

He exhaled, sounding tired. Exhausted really.

“I don’t know.” He glanced at me, his mouth set in a harder line. “We found Lawless’s grandson.”
 

I caught hold of his hand at that, squeezing it. “Thank God.”

I felt the relief on Black too.

“I wasn’t lying to Solonik,” Black added, his voice colder. “I called Anders, told him that I needed them to deal with him...that he was jeopardizing our deal. Anders promised to pass my message on to Lucky. I have no idea if they’ll do anything about it.”

“What does your gut tell you?” I said, smiling wanly.

He glanced down at me, and some of the hardness went out of his expression.

“Honestly? I have no idea, Miriam.”

He jerked the wheel to the right again, taking us down a different road. Whatever the change had been, the road sounded different here. I wondered if he’d taken us onto a bridge, or possibly the onramp to a freeway. Shoving it from my mind as I realized it didn’t matter, and moreover that it was better if I didn’t know, I leaned back against the base of his seat.

“So what now?” I said finally, hearing the tiredness in my voice.

“I’m thinking.”

“Well, think aloud at least,” I said. “Let me think with you.”

Black sighed, but I heard a smile in it that time.
 

“I’m thinking I don’t want him following us back to San Francisco,” he said. “...But I’m also not sure how to deal with it from here without risking both of our lives again.” He glanced down at me. “He got into that hotel too easily, Miri. He got past my people too easily.”

“So?” I said. “What does that mean?”

“In terms of the how?” he said. “I don’t know. He shouldn’t have been able to do that. Not in this dimension.” He returned his eyes to the road. “I’m wondering if he had help.”

“What kind of help?” I said.

He clicked under his breath, but didn’t answer me.

“So what does that mean?” I asked him again. “For us?”

I rested my head against the seat, wrapping my hand around his thigh without really thinking about what I was doing. I felt him jump a little when I did it, then relax, even as his hand fell briefly back to my hair, stroking me absently. I could almost feel him thinking though, only half-way with me as his mind operated in some more distant place.

“Black?” I prodded, shaking his leg a little. “What does it mean? In terms of our options.”

“It means I have to find some way to outsmart him,” he said, sighing.
 

He lifted his hand from my hair and started to raise it––I could tell he’d forgotten about his shoulder when he winced as he returned his fingers to the steering wheel, his expression pained.
 

Glancing down at me, he added, his voice taut, “It means I can’t rely on the usual means of getting at him, Miri. I can’t overpower him with people and weapons. I have to find some way around his sight.”
 

Looking back at the road, he frowned.

“He’s better than me. Or he has access to some kind of help that’s giving him a serious leg up on what I can do in this dimension. Whatever the reason, I can’t rely on resources alone to compensate for what he seems to be able to do. Not with you wholly untrained in most of the combat side of things...” Feeling me tense, he glanced down. “Seer stuff, Miri. I know you can handle yourself. That’s not what I meant.”

I nodded slowly, thinking.

“We’ll need to be smarter than him,” Black added. “If we’re not, we’re both dead.”

Thinking about that, I knew he was right.

I wondered if there was a way I could help him with that. Not just the thinking part, but the fact that I still had a connection to Solonik himself. I might not be able to feel it right then, but I knew it was still there. Like a television set that had been muted, I could see the moving pictures somewhere; I just couldn’t hear them.

“Don’t do that,” Black warned.

When I glanced up, startled, he was glaring at me through the sunglasses.
 

“Don’t go poking around in Solonik’s mind right now, Miri. I mean it. I appreciate you wanting to help, and I’ll gladly accept it...but not like that. There’s no way in hell I’m letting you get near that psycho’s mind again...not for any reason.”

“Why?” I said, frustrated. “If I can actually
use
this thing, rather than just be victimized by it, then shouldn’t we at least try to take whatever advantage we can of––”

“No!”
Black exploded, cutting me off.

I jumped, startled by the emotion in that one word. When I looked up, frowning, he gripped the steering wheel so tightly the knuckles of both hands were white.

“Goddamn
it, Miri! Stay away from his fucking mind! Do you hear me? STAY AWAY FROM HIS FUCKING MIND!” He glared down at me, breathing harder, but I felt fear on him that time, not anger. “Do you not realize how fucking
close
that was just now?”

I blinked up at him, still taken aback.

“Is that a serious question?” I said.

He clenched his jaw, then shook his head as if with an effort, clicking under his breath without looking at me. “Every time you even
think
about that psychopath right now, you connect your mind to his. What he did to you...it’s too recent. Do you get that? It’s
too fucking recent,
Miri. I can’t fix it in twelve hours. You need to stay
away
from him, goddamn it...or I’ll knock you out so you can’t think about anything at all.”

Removing my hand from his leg, I stared up at him incredulously. “So what if we need it to track him? To get ahead of
him
for a change? You’re really not going to use every possible advantage you have, just because––”

“You let
me
handle it, goddamn it!”

“You just said he’s better than you,” I reminded him mildly. “You just said it, Black. That the seer stuff on its own won’t be enough. You don’t have the luxury to not use me, not if––”

“I don’t give a good goddamn what I just said! You work for
me,
Miriam. You do what
I
say in this or so help me god, I
will
knock you out...or I’ll pump you so full of drugs you can’t reach him.”

My warm feelings towards him abruptly vanished.

He must have felt it, because he raised his voice even more.

“If he gets you on a plane...you’ll fucking disappear. You’ll
disappear,
Miri. I’ll never find you again. Do you really not understand that?”

I stared up at him, back to bewilderment when I felt the emotion seething off him.

“Again,” I said. “Is that a serious fucking question?”

“I don’t know...is it? Because I’m beginning to think you really
don’t
get it. I’m beginning to think you’re not listening to a fucking thing I’ve been telling you––”

“Stop talking, Black.” I clenched my jaw, not looking up that time when he turned. “You need to stop talking. Right now, Quentin. I mean it.”

After what looked like a brief struggle between different parts of his mind, he fell silent.
 

Looking back at the road, he clenched his jaw so hard his cheek jutted out.

“Fine,” he growled.

When I glanced up, I could tell he was genuinely trying to drop it, maybe even to erase the whole conversation from his mind. I could also feel him going over his comment about drugging me in his head, wishing he hadn’t said it.