Page 142 of Black to Light

“I really don’t,” Black said.

I started to point out the ridiculousness of that claim, which might have turned this into a real argument, then bit my lip and forced myself to look away. I stared out the window, watching the clouds turn purple and pink as the sun set somewhere on the other side of the railcar.

“You always have an opinion,” I muttered under my breath.

Black grunted, not quite a laugh.

“Okay,” he said frankly. “Yes, doc, I do. So my opinion is, I think it’s impossible to know the answer to these things right now. And it’s impossible to know what motivates a vampire. Especially one like Brick, who we already know has multiple reasons to be completely fucking insane, and who hasn’t exactly spent the past one hundred years trying to work through his issues.”

That time, it was me who snorted a little.

Black didn’t laugh with me. He stared out the window instead.

As he did, his gaze grew increasingly inward.

A resolve grew visible in his eyes as I watched.

“You’re going to kill him, aren’t you?” I asked, blunt. “All this time, with the truce, you were waiting for him to cross the line. To break treaty. To come after Nick. You weren’t going to break it yourself, but now that he has––”

Black leaned towards me and kissed me on the mouth, silencing me.

When he leaned back in his chair, his gold eyes held a denser fire.

“You’re a little too perceptive, wife,” he murmured.

I thought about everything I’d said, everything he’d said.

I thought about Black’s sudden and inexplicable calm. I thought about how strange it was that he no longer seemed angry, or tense. I thought about the nightmares he’d been having for years now, ever since Brick first entered his life, the anger hecarried with him after Louisiana, and after Brick kidnapped me out of my office on Fillmore.

I remembered the way his eyes looked when he first got out of that prison. That was something that would be burned into my memory and heart forever.

But it wasn’t even only those things. It was Black himself, time and again, even beyond everything with Charles. It was what mattered to him, in terms of keeping himself and his people safe, keeping thisworldsafe from the darkest of dark forces.

It always came back to the people and creatures who used and enslaved others, just like he’d been enslaved on Old Earth.

Maybe Black was a bit like a vampire himself.

He could wait. He could be patient.

He could bide his time.

Whatever the truth of it, Black didn’t answer me in words, but I saw the answer clearly in his gold eyes. He was finished with the shadow Brick cast over his life.

He was finished with the lingering threat, a threat that would never go away, not as long as they both remained alive. He was sick of the nightmares, the feelings of being lost, the venom addiction he still occasionally struggled with, the false alliances and fake treaties he knew Brick would never honor, at least never in good faith and not for very long.

And now Brick had finally given him an opening.

Now Brick had finally given him an excuse.

Maybe I shouldn’t be at peace with that, but I was.

It still didn’t answer my questions about the rest of it, though.

34

THE CÔTE D’AZUR

“They just disembarked,” Alisha announced.

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