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“When?” he asked. “How long ago?”

“Do the specifics matter?” Brick asked. He threw up an indifferent hand. “It was during the war. As a condition of our agreement, I insisted you fight with us for the remaining conflict, and to lead part of the vampire armies. You agreed to that, as well.”

“I wasn’t in the war before then?” Nick asked, frowning.

“No,” Brick answered, a touch sourly. “You were not.”

“Why?” Nick asked, genuinely bewildered.

Brick shrugged. “You chose to sit out the war before then, insisting it had nothing to do with you. You were never what I’d call anenthusiasticparticipant, Nick, but before our agreement, and your subsequent memory wipe, you were adamantly neutral, and chose to drink away your time during the war, instead.”

Nick frowned. Could that possibly be true?

He felt weirdly guilty at the thought, which made him think it might be.

But why? Why the fuck would he have sat on the sidelines, drunk, while the world was being destroyed? Who evendidthat?

Brick sniffed, pulling Nick’s eyes back to his.

“When you came to me, you were at your wits’ end,” the older vampire continued, blunt. “Frankly, you were suicidal. You agreed to be an active participant in the war as a condition of my help. And you agreed to help me strengthen and organize the White Death, in the event we were able to bring the war to an end.”

Brick threw up another vague hand, his eyes flat.

“Obviously, I could not say with certainty when that warwouldend,” he added. “Or evenifit would, but there was a specific timetable associated with the second part, assuming we were successful in ending hostilities. You met my conditions. All of them. And then you stayed for additional time after that.”

Nick’s teeth began to ache from clenching. “That sounds like a long time.”

“It was,” Brick affirmed.

“How long?” Nick asked.

“Well over a hundred years.”

Nick nodded, his jaw still painfully clenched. “And how much of that time went well past the terms of our original agreement, Brick?” he asked sourly. “Since I don’t remember making that deal with you, I can only assume I didn’t remember it then?”

Brick shrugged, as if the distinction didn’t interest him much.

“You stayed for the length of your contract with me, and when it was done, I released you,” he said. Brick’s voice grew a touch darker, and significantly more tinged with violence. “And yes. Youhadforgotten the contract entirely by then, as a function of the work we performed on your memory. Itoldyou when you were free of obligation to me. Is it my fault you chose to stay for an additional few decades?”

“Decades.” Nick stared into the dark area under the stairwell, unmoving. “I see.”

“I could have told you that you’d contracted yourself to me forlife,Naoko,” Brick said, his warning colder. “I could have just as easily kept you on forever, with you none the wiser. Instead, Iinformedyou when the contract between us had been fulfilled. I letyoudecide when to leave. And I did not stop you when you insisted you wished to. I released you freely. Was I thrilled, when you informed me you’d decided to rejoin the human world…?”

His lip curled in distaste.

“I was not,” he clipped. “…Yet I did not interfere.”

Brick’s crystal eyes flushed scarlet as he stared at his progeny.

“I sometimes see that as a mistakenow,to be honest,” the older vampire admitted. “But, at the time, I did nothing untoward. I did not get in your way when you decided to leave our protective enclave. I did not prevent you from becoming a Midnight. Nor did I try to intervene when you moved to the Mexi-Cal Protected Area to work for the L.A.P.D.” Again, his lip curled. “I have even largely left you alone since you returned here, to New York. After all, it wasyouwho came tomehere, initially, pet. As you are wont to do.”

Nick felt his jaw harden at that observation, but he didn’t speak.

Brick was right.

Hehadgone to his sire on his own.

Nick had gone to Brick for information, and even for help on more than one occasion.