Page 134 of Black to Light

“No,” Black growled. He gave Cowboy a fierce look. “You’re not. I get it, brother. I absolutely do. But nofuckingway. I’m handling that end of things.”

Anger flared in Cowboy’s eyes.

It was an unusual enough occurrence, I couldn’t help but stare. I only looked away when Cowboy glanced at me, that anger still dancing in his blue irises.

Black raised his voice, now very deliberately not looking at Cowboy or Angel. I might’ve been wrong, but it seemed like he avoided Dexter’s gaze, too.

“Listen up,” he said, holding up a hand. “We’re splitting up. Team Two is at ground zero. Dexter and Mika on point. You’ve got Angel, Cowboy, Alisha, Javier, Ace, Holo, A.J., Rafe, Reuben. Pick a partner and make sure you don’t lose track of anyone. See if we can get a body count and an ID on everyone who’s dead or injured. Take photos of faces and distinguishing features. Tattoos, birthmarks, clothes, scars, distinguishing marks. Bodies, if the faces aren’t usable. If you don’t have a face, be thorough. Shoes. Earrings. Nail polish. Etc. Send them directly to Alisha, nowhere else. She’s in charge of IDs. Anyone run into any issues with the local cops or first responders, make sure Mika or Holo take care of it.”

He didn’t say part of that aloud, but again, we all got it.

Mika and Holo were the two seers he’d given Team Two.

There was another unspoken understanding behind his words.

The thought made me feel sick, but I knew I hadn’t misunderstood him.

He wanted them looking for proof of death for the girl, Aura.

I don’t know about the rest of them, but I wasn’t feeling optimistic.

Jem seemed to have kept the girl alive for a reason, after all.

He’d turned her into a suicide bomber.

He got her new, chic, age-appropriate French clothes. Then he’d loaded her backpack full of explosives and sent her through the front door of a building on a busy Parisian street to blow it up from the inside. I could only assume he’d been up there with the rifle in case he missed anyone he’d been targeting with the bomb.

What thefuck,Jem?

More and more, I wondered if Nick and Black were right, and this really was Brick and Prometharis doing this. They really must have implanted him.

Nothing else would explain this. Nothing else made any kind of sense.

Anyway, a gruesome, public, suicide-bomb attack struck me as the kind of thing a vampire, especially Brick, would do. Not to mention the drama of the added sniper, and the choice to do it all on a beautiful Sunday morning in a busy shopping district in broad daylight. This was pure spectacle. Jem wasn’t about spectacle, not unless there was a strategic reason. Jem was a pragmatist when it came to anything resembling a military operation.

That definitely could be Brick, though.

The fact that Brick hated Dalejem probably more than any person alive, apart from Charles, only added plausibility to the theory.

But it also begged a few more questions.

Hadallof the deaths we’d been investigating for the past week been orchestrated by Brick? Had Dalejem pulled the trigger on Frasier and Ungerman, too? Was that the real reason he’d volunteered to go to New York? Had he sat up on that balcony on Oyster Point Boulevard and blown Lucian Rucker away with a high-powered rifle, too?

In light of recent events, it seemed likely.

Yet nothing about any of this felt likely at all.

The Dalejem I knew wouldn’t deliberately kill achild.

He wouldn’t kill another seer, especially not one so young, so damaged, who’d already led such a tragic life. The Dalejem I knew was a huge softie. He was a sucker for a hard case, and even a lost cause. Like Nick, he collected strays, especially the human, seer, and vampire variety. He looked for the good in people everyone else had given up on.

Like Nick.

Everything in meknewthat about Jem, down to my bones.

There’s no way this was him. The blackouts, the missing time, the odd behavior. Jem hadn’t struck me as insane, but he’d struck me as out of control, as someone afraid, and confused, and powerless to stop whatever was happening to him.

When my vision cleared, I found myself looking at Black.

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