Black On Black (Quentin Black Mystery #3) (11 page)

That pain on him intensified.
Miri...
 
I understand. Gods...
 
I really really understand. I know it’s hard. I know what you’re going through right now, but please don’t come here––

What I’m going through?
I sent.

He fell silent.

That time, a density lived in his silence.

When he still didn’t speak, my heart started beating harder in my chest.

Black? What am I going through? What are you talking about?

When I couldn’t feel anything from him, I felt myself listening harder, even as I fought to understand what I’d already reacted to. Before I could wrap my head around it, his presence surrounded me, filling me from all sides. I got a flicker of the dome where he sat, remembered where he was. Even as I did, his thoughts backpedaled.

They grew subdued. Cautious.

He sighed, as if giving in.

I just meant...
 
the seer thing, Miri. The seer thing, you understand? You’re changing. I know you’ve noticed. We’ve talked about it.
He hesitated. That time, I felt the barest hint of calculation behind his thoughts.
Well. Perhaps not in so many words...
 
but I thought we’d talked about it somewhat. More or less. You said you’d felt things. You said I was different, too. You said we both felt different to you. Remember, Miriam... ?

I frowned. My fingers wrapped around the pendant I wore, the one he’d given back to me.
I thought you said that was nothing.

It is nothing,
he said at once.
You’re only half seer. It’s not a big deal.

How am I changing, Black?

Even as I asked it, I knew.

I knew some of it at least.

His thoughts grew cagier.
I can only feel pieces of it, doc...

I tugged on the chain around my neck.
Stop dancing, Black. Tell me. Changing how?
I focused back on the ceiling, my face warming.
You mean the sex stuff?
I grunted.
Like the fact I practically raped you while you were here?

I told you why I said no,
he sent.
I explained that, Miri.

I know you did. That wasn’t a dig. Not at you anyway.

He had explained it. Finally.

In part, at least.

We talked about that during the same period when we first started talking again over Christmas. I still couldn’t quite believe his reasons. I don’t mean I think he was lying, but what he’d told me blew my mind a little.

A ninety-year-old virgin,
I mused.
How is that possible?

I’ve fucked humans,
he reminded me.
A lot of them, Miri.

I grimaced.
I know. I was joking...
 
and gee, thanks for that. I really needed that visual to go with my nightly dose of paranoia...
 
so, thanks, Quentin.

His pain worsened when I said his given name.

I felt embarrassment on him too.

I am embarrassed,
he admitted after a pause.
That’s why I said it. I apologize.

Relaxing, I shook my head where it rested on the pillow. His honesty still disarmed me. Especially when it came to personal things.

Sighing, I sent,
Why would you be embarrassed with
me
of all people?
My jaw tightened.
I got raped, Black. A psychotic seer raped me. That hardly counts as ‘experience.’

It’s more experience than I have.

Feeling my mind spark at that, he sighed, backpedaling again.

...
You know what I mean. Anyway, neither of us knowing what the hell we’re doing isn’t exactly comforting, Miri.

I rolled my eyes a little. Even so, I felt him dodging still and it frustrated me, partly because I couldn’t feel what was behind it. I knew he didn’t want to talk about this––about any of it, really––but I had no idea why. When I first met him, he’d been so blunt about sex it constantly caught me off guard. I would have said I was a difficult person to shock before him, but he’d done it pretty much every time we had a conversation.

Whatever I felt on him now, it wasn’t shyness.

I smiled wryly.
You think I’m going to give you a bad grade on your seer sexual performance, Black?

There was another silence.

Miri,
he sent, his mind stiff.
It’s not a big deal. You’re only half-seer, but your needs are changing. You’re going to need...
 
different things now.

Different things?
I was genuinely thrown.
Like what?

Taking a breath, he hesitated.

For a second I saw him again, leaning against a stone pillar, aiming the rifle down on a mosaic floor, at least eighty feet below him. He was focused on me, but I felt that split in his mind too, maybe in more than two segments.

I could almost feel him choosing words before he spoke.

You’re changing a little more than I thought you would,
he admitted after that pause.
I just wish I was more...
 
you know. Experienced. With such things.

I laughed.
Jesus, Black. What are we, in high school?

Miri...
 
stop making this a joke. Please.
His thoughts grew serious, open enough to disarm me a second time, and to cut off my laughter.
Not when I’m so far away. I’m sorry I said the thing about Solonik. Where I’m from there’s not this weird shame thing you have about rape. I wasn’t implying anything at all about consent...
 
I was being literal and saying you’d actually had physical intercourse with a seer. I haven’t done that with a female seer...
 
even forced. I have zero experience of the anatomy of how that works. I don’t know the angles of it...
 
He trailed, as if searching for words.
... any of it.

Biting my lip, I nodded, thinking.

It wasn’t just what he’d said.

I could feel him trying.

He’d been trying a lot with me, I realized.

Pretty much every conversation we had, I felt him trying to communicate with me, to clarify things between us. Ever since Christmas, after those weeks where I’d refused to talk to him, where I got drunk and kissed Nick and Black flipped out, eventually admitting he’d never been with a seer and that he didn’t want me to have sex with anyone else. Ever since then, he seemed to take all of our conversations a hell of a lot more seriously.

Realizing I wanted to do that too, I exhaled again.

Okay,
I sent.
Thanks for explaining that. And I’ll stop teasing you about sex. Just stop talking about what a man-whore you are, okay? I got the memo. I don’t need to hear the details...
 
seriously.

I felt him agree, even as more relief came off him.

Understood. I don’t want to hear about your past lovers, either.

I nodded, smiling a little. Sometimes his language bordered on old-fashioned.

That warmth coiled deeper between us, making me sink into the mattress. It also made the emotional thing worse.

Gods.
He exhaled and that pain on him sharpened.
You contacted me on a job for this? To make me afraid you were breaking up with me? I feel like I should go read seer sex manuals. I’m so turned on and relieved and fucked up right now I might need to jerk off...

I laughed, unable to help it.

Then he seemed to remember what we were talking about before.

You don’t really know where I am, Miri?
he sent.
You’re not really coming here?

But I did know. I did know where he was.

Miri, you can’t come here. You can’t.

Why not? Are you going to tell me the reason?

That silence returned. I could feel more there. Things he was unwilling to say. Those things pulled at me, tugging on me in the space between us, fighting for me to understand them. He
wanted
me to understand them. He wanted it so badly. He wanted me to get some message there, but whatever it was, he couldn’t tell me outright.

I was still fighting to understand, growing more and more frustrated with every passing second, when he exhaled. I winced, feeling a wave of what could only be depression steal over him. I felt more pain in that too.

Miri,
he sent.
I miss you. I miss you so much. But you can’t come here. You can’t.

I didn’t answer.

I was still listening, straining to hear.

The contract is time-limited,
he continued.
It’s more than half over. I’m coming back, Miri. I promise you I am...
 
as soon as it’s done.

I nodded, pressing my lips together as I stared at his ceiling.

But I couldn’t get it. Whatever he wanted me to hear, I couldn’t hear it.

My thoughts turned bitter.

You know they’re playing you...
 
don’t you, Black?

There was a silence, then he exhaled again.

Yes. But the truth is, from their perspective, I’m a risk to them. I’m a wild card in their eyes...
 
unaffiliated. So they see me as a potential threat. Their primary concern is to make sure that regular humans don’t know too much about people like me.
He paused, and I saw him lean back against the stone pillar.
They’re worried it might cause a panic. Or persecution. Remember how I said my people were persecuted where I’m from?

I frowned. He’d said a lot more than that.

But I’d already picked up that Black thought we were being overheard.

Whoever was listening, he clearly wanted them to think I was clueless.

Well. More clueless.

But why would you ever expose them?
I made my thoughts skeptical.
Wouldn’t you just be putting yourself at risk, too?

He sighed. For the barest flicker, I felt gratitude in that sigh.

He was relieved I was playing along.

I still didn’t know why though, what he wanted to tell me.

They don’t know me, doc. To them, I’m an x-factor. The main reason they want me here is to assess my ideology. I think they want to make sure they don’t have to worry about me doing something crazy. That I’m still conscious of the dangers around exposure.

I felt truth in that and nodded, thinking.

So they were worried about Black being unaffiliated. Check.

But what else was he trying to tell me?

Even as I thought it, he sighed again. I felt a faint warning on him that time.

I shouldn’t even be fucking telling you this,
he added.
But a lot of what they’re doing while I’m here is testing me. They’re dragging me to these religious things. Having me do hits for them. They ask me to consent to each job first, but it’s like a morality test...
 
like they’re assessing my personal code of ethics. They’re trying to determine how I feel about human beings. They want to know how much I mind killing them. They want to know where I draw the line.

Pausing, he added,
Killing doesn’t come naturally to seers any more than it does to humans, Miri. We have to be trained to kill, just like you do. It might be even harder for us, since we tend to feel more than your race does.

I nodded. I still couldn’t quite wade through what he was telling me, though.

I heard him hitting on the “you’re a human” thing pretty hard. Meaning, he wanted whoever was listening on the other end to think of me that way, too. Since it was different from what he’d said to me before, I couldn’t help but be puzzled.

Clearly, he didn’t want these people thinking of me as seer.

Again, a warning pulsed off him, rippling over me like an electrical current.

Black,
I sent, pushing the rest out of my mind.
What does any of this have to do with me? Why can’t I go there? They must know you and I are dating, right?