Black On Black (Quentin Black Mystery #3) (29 page)

“You
wanted
me to come?” I said.

“Of course.” He looked at me in genuine surprise. “You got into those files, right?”

Still fighting shock as I turned his words over in my head, I let out a humorless laugh. Looking away from his face, I cut through the last of the rope and yanked it off his wrist. I winced at the bruise and the cuts I saw there.

“I thought you wanted me to stay away,” I said, shaking my head. “I believed you that you were trying to save my life.”

“Miri.” Black’s voice remained openly startled. “They aren’t going to hurt you. Lucky’s people, at least, wouldn’t dare touch you. You found those files, right?” At my silence, his voice sharpened. “I needed your help. I knew they’d never let me go if you didn’t intervene directly. Don’t you understand? The whole thing was a test. Not just to determine how you felt about me, but to make sure I was good enough for you...”

I stared up at him again.
“Good
enough for me? I thought I was the dirt-blood half breed who deserved to die?”

He glanced around us, seemingly not hearing me, or noticing the fact that I continued to stare at him in disbelief.

“...I don’t know why they would have done it like this, if they really did involve Ian. Seems like a big risk.” Muttering, he seemed to be speaking almost to himself. “...Another test? But for who I wonder? Me? Or you? Or maybe he really is pissed about you and me and is hoping Ian will kill me before you can get me out of here. Maybe he cut a deal with him to let him have me if you walked out of here alive?”

“Who?” I said, not hiding my confusion.

He looked at me. “Lucky, of course.”

My frown deepened. “Black. Why
wouldn’t
they want me dead? Especially more than you?”

Again, he stared at me like he couldn’t believe what I was saying. “Did you read those files at all, Miriam? I all but told you how to get in. I told you where to find the information to push Lizbeth, if necessary. You used her to break into my safe, right?”

I continued to stare at him. “You sounded genuinely angry about that...”

He gave me a bewildered look. “Of course I sounded angry. They’d tapped my fucking phone, Miri. They had me in their damned construct for months so probably read half the thoughts in my head. I had to go through periodic scans just to prove I wasn’t feeding you information. I couldn’t be half-assed at all about projecting thoughts at you...
 
much less about policing what I said when you and I actually spoke. They made it crystal clear they didn’t want me telling you
anything
about their true motives, as in their mind it would ‘bias’ the test. I think initially they didn’t want you coming to get me until they’d had time to look me over. But they also wanted a true gauge of what you’d do if you thought I was in danger.”

He clicked under his breath, shaking his head.

“...Anyway, once I knew why they really wanted me, I had to spend most of my mental energy to shield them from seeing we were bonding...”

The look he gave me that time was almost nervous.

“I had no idea how he might react to that news, honestly,” he admitted. “Given how hostile he was to you and me already, I wasn’t feeling optimistic. And I
really
didn’t want to chance him finding that out while he had me in custody without you being here. I thought he might kill me on the spot...”

When I continued to stare at him, he frowned.

“You really didn’t read them?” he said, his voice bewildered. “Those files? Then why the fuck are you here, Miri?”

I closed my mouth with a snap.

“Of course I read them!” I burst out. “What the hell do you think I’ve been doing for the last four months, Black! I’ve done everything I
could
to try and learn about that damned religion, to try and push people and figure out––”

“Not
those
files,” he said, impatient. “The ones about you.”

Again, I could only stare at him.

I opened my mouth, about to answer, when a gun went off, echoing through the stone walls.

That time, it definitely wasn’t a tranquilizer gun.

Twelve

KNIFE TO A GUN FIGHT

I HIT THE deck instinctively, then grabbed one leg of Black’s chair, fighting to drag it across the floor, to get him out of the gun’s sightline. It was too heavy for me to move with him in it. I strained my muscles, but it wouldn’t budge.

Black started to get up, but I glared at him.

“No! Stay where you are, goddamn it!”

“Miri...”

“Help me!” I hissed at Nick.

Turning, I saw Nick gasping, holding his shoulder. He’d been hit.

Angel was returning fire with whoever it was. The sounds of a gunfire volley echoed through the stone chamber, disorienting me.

I stared between Nick and Black, trying to decide to do, when more gunshots came, that time from directly in front of where Black was tied to the chair.

Black once more started to get up, but I shoved him back down with one hand. I decided to try and tip the chair. On his back, at least the chair itself would provide cover until we could figure out what to do. Holding the base of
Winged Victory
, I planted my booted foot against the chair back, right by Black’s head. I kicked out at the heavy wood––hard, using all of my weight along with the additional the leverage from the statue. The chair barely budged.

Once I had the angle better, I kicked out again, using both feet that time.

The whole thing slid backwards a few centimeters. If that.

It was too damned heavy.

I was standing there, panting, realizing I was going to have to pull him off the glass wand, when Black let out a sudden, sharp, pained gasp.

I saw the glass wand disappearing backwards, out of his body.

I lunged for him even as he slumped forward, gasping. I felt relief on him, but also so much pain it briefly paralyzed me, blanking out my vision as I gripped his arms. Then I saw Nick. He collapsed on the marble floor behind the chair, the bloody glass gripped in his hand. He let it go while I watched, and the wand clattered to the floor with a sharp, pinging, glass-like sound.

It didn’t break.

While I focused on Nick’s pale face, Black slid forward, fighting to get off the chair. His legs didn’t hold, crumpling when he tried to stand. He landed hard, on his hands and knees. I heard him make a sound, somewhere between a groan and a grunt. I winced a second later when the echo of his pain slammed me a second time.

I felt his relief that time, too.

“Help me,” he gasped, holding up a hand. “Miri, it’s all right. Help me up.” When I pulled away from the base, crouching down to where he was, he was already trying to use the chair to get back up, his expression hard with physical pain.

“Black,” I said, alarmed. “Jesus, Black. I don’t know why Nick did that––”

He shook his head, gasping. “Don’t blame Nick. I asked him to do it. Help me up...”

I grabbed his hand when he held it out to me the second time.

Leaning all the way back and bracing my feet, I helped him up off the floor. By the time I got him up, both of us were gasping from the exertion. I was careful not to touch him anywhere near the hole in his side when I grabbed for him, gripping his good side when his legs once more half-crumpled under his weight.

He caught hold of the statue’s base in his hands once I brought him close enough.

Still leaning partway on me, he used the stone to work his way around behind it, until he was completely cut off from the shooter.

“Okay,” Black said, breathless. He pushed at my hands. “Let me go. I’m all right. Get him. Now. While your friend has Ian distracted.”

Realizing he meant Nick, I barely hesitated before I turned, staring at Nick on the floor.

Black was already taking off the outer shirt he wore, gasping in pain.

Pushing off the stone base of the statue, I crouched low, hurrying to Nick’s side with my head down. He was still mostly behind the chair, next to the bloody glass wand, so he had some cover at least. He looked dazed but he was conscious at least.

I peered past the chair once I was crouched behind it, trying to get a sense of where the shooter was firing from. Angel continued to exchange shots back and forth with whoever it was, and following her line of sight, I saw a flash when the next shots lit up the dark.

One o’clock. Level with the platform where we crouched, maybe slightly below. Whoever they were, they definitely weren’t firing a handgun.

Of course, like Black, I already assumed it was my ex-fiancé, Ian Stone.

Crouching down beside Nick, I grabbed his good arm and tried to haul him up to a crouch. When he was moving too sluggishly to really comply, I didn’t wait but began to drag him behind the chair towards the statue’s large base, keeping my head low. Nick was heavy as hell, but at least the floor was smooth. Once I got him going it was easier. A few shots glanced off the tile but most of them still seemed to be aimed at Angel herself.

Even as I thought it, I heard a grunt and a cry from her, and looked over sharply.

By then, I had Nick mostly behind the statue’s base.

Angel had a hand clamped to her ear. It looked like she’d only been grazed, but a lot of blood flowed down her neck from where her hand held the injury.

“Angel!” I called out. “Get out of there! Fall back! With us!”

She glanced over. Seeing me there, she looked for Nick, then seemed to make up her mind. I knew she probably couldn’t see Nick, but she likely assumed that meant he was out of harm’s way.

I dragged Nick a few more feet around the base of the
Winged Victory
to get him well out of range of the gun, watching as Angel made a crouching run for the base on the other side, using the low wall as cover. I watched her make her way around towards Black. A few shots ricocheted off the low stone pillars of the wall as she ran, but she managed to keep low enough that she made a poor target.

The trajectory of the shots told me a bit more about where Ian had to be firing from.

I got Nick further around the statue’s base and leaned him up against the stone.

I looked up at Black. He’d tied the long shirt around his waist, covering both ends of the puncture wound. I watched him grimace as he tightened his belt over the shirt, hooking the silver tongue in the leather at the smallest notch he could reach.

“You need help?” I said.

He shook his head, glancing at me. “No. Angel’s all right, too. See to him. Make sure he wasn’t hit anywhere else.”

Biting back fear at how pale he was, I looked back at Nick.

Nick looked pale, too. Doing as Black said, I checked his shoulder. The bullet had passed clean through. I could tell it hurt him like hell, but the bleeding had already slowed. He didn’t appear to have any cut arteries or anything that would risk his life.

“Where is he?” Nick said, gasping a little. “Ian.”

“Level with us. Maybe a foot or two below.”

Nick nodded, grimacing in pain as he glanced over his shoulder.

He looked up at Black then, frowning.

“He’s going to be okay, Miri,” he said. “Whatever they hit...
 
he’s upright. He’s not bleeding too much. It came out clean, whatever that fucking thing was. He’s going to be okay.”