ANGEL DROVE THE blue Barracuda down from Potrero Hill in silence.

None of us spoke at all those first few blocks.

We stared out the windows numbly as we headed back towards downtown.

At the Tanaka house, we’d broken the silence eventually.

We tried to find out exactly when Mrs. Tanaka last talked to Nick, what he’d said to her exactly, where he’d said he was, who he’d said he was with. We tried to find out anything she would tell us about this so-called new job of his, and his new employer. We tried to find out how many other times they’d spoken over the past two months, whether anyone else in the family had spoken to him, if Nick said anything about when he’d be back in San Francisco.

Black read her of course.

So did I.

Neither of us could really determine anything conclusive, though.

Human memories aren’t like seer memories. They lack the crystal clarity and precision of seer memories. They lack the attention to detail, much less the memory of every word spoken, and the exact tenor of the voice itself. Neither me nor Black could tell absolutely without a doubt whether the phone call had even taken place, much less if she’d actually spoken to Nick. We couldn’t definitely confirm most of the details she said came from the call itself.

Clearly, whoever Yumi Tanaka had spoken to, they were angry at me and Black.

They felt wronged by us, perhaps even betrayed.

Whatever they told Yumi, it definitely made her mad at me and Black, too.

My mind spun around all of it, unable to pull it apart, to make sense of it.

I couldn’t make up my mind whether I could feel even tentatively hopeful or happy about this, or remotely relieved. Mostly, I just felt paralyzed.

I wanted so badly to believe it was true, that Nick was alive, that he was working some high-paid job in Europe, that he was just angry at us for leaving him in that dungeon and then that tree on Koh Mangaan, not burned to death or killed by vampires.

I wanted to believe it, but none of it felt right.

Something was off about all of it.

All of us felt the wrongness of what she’d told us. I think Black felt it even more than me, but we didn’t talk about it for those first few blocks as we drove towards downtown.

Even if Nick was somehow alive, I couldn’t make sense of how I felt.

I couldn’t even decide if I should be angry that Nick hadn’t called me or Angel. Could he really have been so furious with us that he’d ask Brick to take him out of there? That he’d just fucking bail on us, letting us think he was dead?

Would he really let me and Angel think he was dead?

Would he do that to Angel?

Even if he was furious with me, which I could comprehend at least, how could he do that to Angel? Angel got stuck in that horrible place on Koh Mangaan with him. Wouldn’t he at least want to know that she and Cowboy were all right, along with Dex, Mika and Alice?

I tried desperately to hear Nick’s voice through Yumi Tanaka’s mind.

I tried to hear the Nick I knew in it, to feel him somehow through her, but what came through struck me as… strange.

It wasn’t not-Nick.

But it wasn’t really Nick, either.

“Vampires?”

I looked over at Angel, who’d finally broken the silence in the car.

She didn’t look away from the windshield as she pursed her mouth. We were heading down 7th Street towards Market by then, and her eyes flickered to the street light and pedestrians as we entered the more crowded intersection at Mission Boulevard.

Slowly, Black shook his head. “No.”

He gave me an apologetic look then glanced at Angel.

“I really don’t think so, Ange,” he said.

She pushed past his words, pretending that Black hadn’t understood what she’d been asking him.

“Could it have been other vampires?” she pressed, glancing in her review mirror at Black, who sat behind us. “Brick? One of his pals? Calling to convince us Nick’s still alive? Vampires can mimic human voices, right? Didn’t you tell me they can do that? That they can mimic a particular voice almost exactly?”

There was a silence.

Then Black shrugged, gripping my hand tighter where he held it. His arm reached between the seats to hold it tightly in my lap.

“Why, though?” Sitting up, he leaned through the gap between the seats. He leaned his shoulder on me, turning to look at Angel. “Why would they do that, Ange?”

Angel snorted.

No humor lived in her voice, or in the grim look she aimed at the road ahead.

“Gee, I don’t know, Quentin? Maybe to screw with you?” she said caustically. “Why else do they do anything? Doesn’t Brick live to fuck with your head?” Glancing sideways and catching my frown, she scowled back. “Oh, come on, doc. You know Brick’s got a thing for your husband. This is probably that psycho’s idea of flirting.”

I frowned, but couldn’t really argue.

Hell, she was probably right.

“I am right,” she said, almost like she’d heard me. “What the hell else could it be? Or do you really think Brick offered Nick some high-paid gig in Europe? And Nick is… what? Letting us think he’s dead? Calling his parents to troll us long-distance? Does any of that sound remotely like the Nick Tanaka you know?”

Frowning, I glanced at Black, who frowned back at me.

“Or do you think Brick still has him captive somewhere?” Angel said, scowling, her eyes showing she was still working through the possibilities herself. “Do you think he bit Nick and had him make the call? To get us off his back?”

The silence deepened.

Thinking about the possibilities inherent in that, I grimaced.

That time, I answered her, though.

“I didn’t before,” I admitted. “I never would have gone to the Tanakas if I didn’t believe he was likely to be dead. Now?”

I glanced at Black, then back at Angel, shaking my head.

Clicking softly under my breath, I swallowed.

“I honestly don’t know. What if he is alive? What if Nick’s leverage, like we originally thought?” Swallowing again, harder, I stared out the window. “Or what if Brick just likes him? What if Brick decided to keep Nick for himself?”

Angel looked at me.

I saw that warring conflict in her eyes.

I could tell she was just as afraid to hope as I was.

“Then he’d still be alive,” she said finally. “He wouldn’t be dead.”

Again, Black frowned.

I could tell something was bugging him about all of this, about all of the possibilities we were raising. He stroked my fingers and inner arm, still leaning against me on the seat, that frown still tightening his face and jaw.

On the other side of him, Angel frowned as well, obviously thinking still.

“We’re sure he’s not a vampire?” she said.

Black clicked under his breath, shaking his head. “It’s incredibly unlikely, Ange. I can think of a half-dozen possibilities that are a hundred times more likely.”

“Like what?” Angel said, pointed.

“Lucky,” Black said, blunt. “I could see Lucky having him. For all we know, Brick made some kind of deal with Charles. Nick could have been a part of that.” Exhaling, he combed his fingers through his hair, muttering, “Although truthfully, I don’t get why we wouldn’t have heard from him yet, either, if that’s the case. Unless he’s waiting for something. Maybe for us to make a move against him. Or he’s planning on making me another job offer.”

There was another silence.

That time, it was me who broke it.

“Well, we know it’s not what Mrs. Tanaka said.” My voice hardened. “Nick would never just take off, take some new, fancy job in Europe, and not even tell us he was alive.”

I looked at Angel, pressing my lips together.

“He wouldn’t do that to you, Ang,” I added. “Maybe to me and Black, but he’d never do it to you. If he’s mad at anyone, it’s the two of us. Which Mrs. Tanaka more or less said. She seemed surprised you were there with us at all.”

Pausing, I looked between the two of them.

My jaw tightened when I saw the sad, worried look on Black’s face.

I didn’t try to interpret what it meant.

Truthfully, I didn’t want to know.

“Nick’s not cruel like that,” I said, looking back at Angel. “Nick’s not that kind of person. Even if he was really pissed off at us… even if he was hurt, even if he felt betrayed, even if he’d had enough with the whole seer-vampire-whatever… he wouldn’t let us think he was dead. He wouldn’t do that. That’s not who he was.”

Realizing I’d just talked about him in the past tense, I winced.

The wince was painful, making it hard to breathe.

Wrapping my arms around my torso, I grimaced, feeling that pain in my chest sharpen back to a hot spike in my solar plexus.

“He wouldn’t,” I muttered, biting my lip. “He wouldn’t do that.” I looked at Angel. “Do you think he would do that to us? Really? Why would Nick do that to us? To you?”

Angel frowned.

Turning the wheel slowly as we passed through another intersection, she didn’t look over from where she stared out at the San Francisco streets.

After another beat, Black exhaled.

Lifting my hand to his lips, he kissed my palm, then leaned deeper into me, merging more of his light into mine. His light felt like a caress now, like it patiently smoothed some part of me, calming it down without words, without thought or reason.

“We all know Nick wouldn’t do that, doc,” he said, gruff. “He wouldn’t do it to you, any more than he would do it to Angel.” He paused, studying my eyes. “You heard Yumi. He loves you. You don’t do that to people you love.”

I sat there, staring out the window of the Barracuda.

I took a deep breath, trying to absorb his words, trying to make them feel real. I knew what he was saying.

I knew what Black was pointing out about me, too.

It was guilt.

Guilt was making me lose perspective on Nick, and on myself. My mind was going crazy with guilt, so I was imagining a Nick who saw me the same way I saw myself. I was imagining a Nick who blamed me like I blamed myself.

“Anyway,” Black went on, his voice even lower. “That’s not the real question, doc.”

When I looked over, he glanced at me, his face only a few inches from mine.

I returned his calm gaze, fighting to relax, to let that heated light of his do what it was trying to do and unclench the muscles in my body, most of which were tensed into hard knots. A part of me felt like I wanted to scream.

Another part of me wanted to burst into tears.

Forcing both reactions as far out of my light as I could, I refolded my arms even tighter, clenching my jaw.

“What’s the real question?” I said, gruff.

Clicking softly, Black looked out through the windshield, where it was just starting to rain. His gold eyes followed the light drops pattering the curved pane of glass, running in lines away from the wind.

“What do we do now?” he said simply.

Angel and I both frowned.

Glancing at one another, we frowned harder, but neither of us spoke.

Truthfully, I doubt either of us had a good answer.