Blacker than Black (14 page)

“Hypno-hit, eh?” he comments after hurriedly swallowing a mouthful of half-chewed vegetables.

“That’s what it looked like to me.”

Blue catches the notations on the bag’s label and his brows crawl down. It’s not his first time around the block; he’s seen evidence labels before. “Nothing good ever comes of this shite.”

“We don’t have any reason to believe the situation was influenced by hypno-induced persons,” I counter.

“On the other hand, Black, we’ve no reason to rule out the possibility, do we?” Jhez retorts before unloading her fork into her mouth.

I sigh and wonder why that comment reminds me of one of my earlier conversations with Garthelle. “Right. At any rate, anything you can find out about its source, where it’s customarily distributed, the dealers, their regular clientele . . . it would be valuable to us.”

“And to our employer,” my sister amends blandly.

Blue stares at her, fingers faltering in the process of tucking the bag into the inner pocket of his jacket. An expression of pure and unadulterated horror plasters his features. “Please don’t tell me someone’s finagled you into taking a pimp.”

Jhez snorts. “No, never. You know better than to even think that.” She waves her hand. “It’s rather complicated at the moment.”

Blue’s gaze flicks over the flat. “Yeah, looks complicated,” he deadpans before returning his attention to the plate of food.

“Did you check into what I asked you about earlier today?”

“Mmm. Indeed I did. And you were right to be worried.” Blue reaches into one of his cargo pockets and sets a few prescription bottles on the coffee table in front of me. “I brought you a cocktail. The chi-boosters and signature dampeners you know, I’m sure. And,” here he pauses and clears his throat, “and a new one I recently encountered on the market. Dampener. It clouds your aura.”

I stare at him. “And what’s the benefit of that?”

Blue shrugs, chewing quickly. “Red mentioned a recent john of yours is still pulling. This might kill it some. I don’t know for sure, though. Like I said, I’m not real familiar with it.” He glances at me, rolls his eyes. “It’s fine, Black. I use it sometimes when I feel like I’m in sensory overload. Gives me a break from all the music for a bit.”

“How much do I owe you?” The three large bottles are crammed with injector capsules; it’s quite a haul in terms of street value.

But he shakes his head. “Pad the boss’s price on this job and we’ll call it even, eh?”

I laugh and reach out to squeeze his shoulder. “Thanks.”

“Anything for my Bruise Brother.” He giggles, wrapping an arm around my waist and pulling me against his side in another spontaneous display of affection.

“Hey, what am I, recycled sludge?”

I frown and hold Blue possessively to my side. “Well, I guess we could adopt the name Torture Team”—a bit of bright red blood to go with our black and blue—“but the Bruise Brothers will always predate that.” I stick my tongue out at her.

Jhez shakes her head. “That sounds . . . morbid.”

“Morbid,
Red
, would describe your hair. Your roots are starting to show,” Blue observes somberly. I collapse against his side, laughing.

I’m glad she invited him over. He has that knack for pulling me out of even the deepest funk.

“Great.” Jhez surges from her spot and collects the empty plates. “I’m paying a visit to your sister.” She carries the plates to the kitchen, abandons them, and grabs her jacket. “Don’t worry, I’ll be back in time to catch the limo with you later.” Jhez pulls the door shut behind her and silence descends.

I look at Blue only to find his somber expression has returned.

“Tell me about this john of yours.”

His words make me flinch. There’s no accusation, no flippancy; only concern and curiosity. Yet telling means I’ll have to relive every last detail. Pulling away from him, I sit back and watch my hands skim the soft texture of the couch.

“That bad?”

I shrug.

“Come on, Black. Get it off your chest, eh?”

“It’s the Monsieur of York.” Blue gazes at me in silence and waits. He’s not a Nightwalker; there’s not much I can say that he’ll understand. I meet his gaze and shake my head. “Jhez already berated me for it without saying a word.”

He reaches out and pulls me into a hug, making me thankful yet again for the physical nature of his emotional expressions. Because right now it’s exactly what I need. Don’t know if I could handle aural tangling.

“You’ve still got your gun for the drugs, right?” he asks softly, chin resting on my shoulder.

I nod, my cheek brushing against the smoothness of his clothing.

“Use them.”

My Bruise Brother, Blue.

I first made Blue’s rather odd acquaintance the same day I lost my “Nightwalker virginity.” He’s the reason that day stands out in my mind.

Because the john was obviously forgettable . . . since I can’t recall but a few vague details of the individual.
Lyche.

I can easily recall the unpleasant quality of the experience. It was emotionally akin to being raped. Or at the very least, equivalent to having your first sexual experience with a complete and utter stranger. Swift, painful, brief.

Wham, bam, ciao . . .

I recall shoving futilely on the vehicle’s door as insanity threatened to overwhelm my last shreds of coherent thought, unable to escape until he crammed a filthy-looking finger on the lock release. He dangled the credit chit out in front of my face and laughed, a caustic and raucous sound that grated against my chi, and as soon as I snatched it, his hand slapped down on my shoulder and shoved. I landed hard on the cement of the walkway, disoriented, the breath knocked out of me, a sensation crawling along my skin like a million tiny knives slicing my veins open.

Someone reached down and grabbed me, hauling me to my feet by my upper arms. Something in the touch impressed me more than anything else; I was hardly fourteen at the time, still a kid, still trying to come to terms with the fact that Jhez and I were nothing more than the street urchins we’d been living as for almost two years.

“Gutter shark! Go piss up a rope!” A remarkably small-sounding voice barked the eccentric slurs from behind me.

The filthy john, in his shabby clunker-coupe, made a rude gesture in response before his vehicle shot away from the curb and out into the sporadic stream of traffic.

“If you’re gonna do that, you really should be more selective about which vamps you sell to.” The advice carried an almost amused quality, and I fumbled with my ratty excuse for a jacket, trying to straighten the oversized outerwear on my shoulders as I turned around.

The boy grinned at me from beneath the messiest, most vivid mop of blue hair I’ve ever seen. Blue eyes, the color of a sunny summer day, winked at me.

“Thanks.” I rubbed at my face in an attempt to chase off the disorientation. When I wobbled, the boy steadied me with a firm grip on my forearm. He didn’t manage to avoid the wristband with dull black spikes jutting from it, but it didn’t appear to bother him.

“Whoa, you need to sit down.”

I took his advice and lowered myself to the pavement. More of a controlled fall, but he made no comment, just settled down next to me.

“Name’s Blue,” he said, still grinning.

“Fits you. My sister calls me Black.”

“Well, Black. Hope you don’t take on too many as rough as that one, or you won’t last too long out here.”

I grunted, not really wanting to talk about it. “Do you . . . ?”

“Gaia, no. I’m a dealer. All the ’walkers know me around here.”

“Ah.”

He grabbed my wrist and pushed the sleeve of my jacket up. In one swift, blurred movement, he shot me in the crook of the elbow before I could collect enough coherency to resist.

“
Fuck
. Ouch. What was that for?”

“Chi-booster. Make you feel like yourself again in no time.”

I opened my eyes and glared at him, at the slim injector gun disappearing back into the inner pocket of his jacket. “Do you usually go around randomly shooting ’walkers?” I sniped, feeling dizzy and lightheaded as the pain receded.

His grin slipped a little, his lips flattening. “Sorry. That was your first, right?”

I sighed and leaned back on the pavement, propping myself up on my elbows. “Yeah.” And it made me feel like the smallest, most worthless piece of gutter trash.

If someone had offered an alternative at that moment, I would’ve accepted it without question.

“First one is always the worst, even when it’s not as bad as that guy.”

I narrowed my eyes and studied him a little closer, but it was difficult to see past the blueness—hair, brows, eyes, clothes, everything was a shade of blue. Earring, wristbands, even the decorative chain on his baggy pants. “How long you been on the street?”

“Since before the disclosure. All that did was change what I deal. Now it’s mostly prescription stuff, since only
they
can get it.”

Good point. I stared at the concrete, scuffing one of my shoes over the edges of a crack in the walkway. The friction obliterated the stem of a small weed into a smudge of green goo. The world wasn’t so blurry now. Details were coming into focus, sharpening. I could feel the booster he’d shot into me thickening my aura; it was like a shot of adrenalin after running a marathon.

Second wind. Easy for me to see, in that moment, how a ’walker could get hooked on the stuff. Even easier to see how so many of them killed themselves so fast. Take a john, shoot up, go out for another. I shuddered.

“Cold?” Blue asked with a warm smile. “Come on, I’ll buy you a java. Best place in the metro is only a block or two from here.”

I didn’t correct him, just pushed myself off the chilly sidewalk and offered a smile. “No, this one’s on me. For the boost, ’kay?” I recall fingering that credit chit between my fingertips, hand buried in the deep pocket of my pants, as we walked. I felt rich for the first time in what seemed like forever.

We sat together on an overstuffed loveseat in a back corner of the same java house where Jhez and I met with Garthelle not long ago, sharing the radiant body heat of comfortable closeness and sipping caffeine and cocoa, thankful to be out of the biting wind that whipped down the streets of the Blue District.

We talked about trivial things I can’t recall now. It isn’t the conversation that stands out in my mind even now, but him. In the metro, it’s rare to encounter a person so engaged with life, with simply living. I didn’t want that afternoon to end; I dreaded the somber shadow that would descend over me the moment he walked away. And I dreaded even more not ever seeing him again.

It didn’t matter where he came from, who he was, or even what he did for a living. In the course of my time on the streets, I’d learned quickly about the limits of the individual—and the concessions one makes, one can make, while still holding firm to that measure of ethics and personal morals that defines who we are.

Blue’s aura was soothing, companionable, the calmest hue of that color I’ve ever felt. To sit in his presence was to have it radiate outward and engulf you. It wrapped me in its embrace that afternoon much the same way his arms do on a regular basis still.

I sit on the smooth black leather of Garthelle’s limousine, resenting the stiff, unwelcoming surface. Heavy, rarely used leather has that essence. Panic surges up, threatening to choke off my breath. I’m an oak tree trying to resist a tornado’s raging fury. Jhez manages to look resigned, but I can sense the tension in her where she’s perched on the seat across from me.

Blue shot me up rather nicely before departing. He could tell the pull was too strong for me to manage alone that first time. Double dose of chi-boost and a dampener. I tried to resist the dampener. Came up with any number of reasons why it was a bad idea. And he just stood there and stared at me in silence. Waiting for me to wind down, run out of excuses.

Not all of it was excuses, though. Which is why I’m panicking more the closer we get to the castle. Without the link with Garthelle—whether it was formed inadvertently or deliberately matters little at this point—the vamp no longer has leverage.