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He would remember who he was, even if it killed him.

CHAPTER14

THE NEW GUYS

Frustratingly,he had to leave for work again before Wynter returned home.

He took another shower.

He also put on his uniform that time, and his newly-assigned police headset, to replace the one he’d lost, and grabbed his official, N.Y.P.D.-assigned plasma handgun, which he strapped to a thigh holster and activated with the new headset.

He left the Archangel headset Lara had given him in a bedside storage bin.

He also left a note for Wynter in their private network queue, the one Kit had fire-walled off for the two of them, so there was some chance of their communications remaining private. He left her flowers on the apartment’s kitchen table, something that would maybe soften the fact of him not being there, or maybe it wouldn’t.

The restlessness in him was getting worse.

He had the unnerving feeling that he was being watched, and by more than just Lara St. Maarten and Archangel. The whole time he was inside Phoenix Tower, he felt eyes on him, of course, but the few times he left Phoenix Tower, he felt eyes on him, as well, even when he’d only gone down the street to pick up roses and a vase to leave for Wynter.

Maybe for all those reasons, not to mention the frustrating non-event of the memory work he’d done with Malek and Tai that morning and afternoon, he wasn’t in the best mood when he met up with Morley.

It didn’t help that he’d gotten a message from Lara informing him that he wouldn’t be cleared to see Jordan at his “vampire assimilation” sanitarium for at least a few more days, and even then, he’d only be able to see his friend under strict supervision.

Lara seemed to think that supervision would only be enforced for the first few visits, basically until the paperwork went through. She let Nick know she left the unsigned forms on his public network queue.

Unfortunately, because it was a medical contract, the program would track Nick’s eye movements to make sure he read it all before he signed, so just going through the damned thing would take him at least an hour.

He’d do it tonight, after Wynter was asleep.

She might be willing to wake up for him tonight, since tomorrow was Saturday, and she wouldn’t have to work. He’d already floated the idea to Malek, Kit, and Tai that they could maybe spend the day at the indoor, artificial beach in midtown Manhattan.

Well, assuming Nick didn’t have a cage-fight.

He hadn’t heard from Farlucci since the last one, so he assumed he didn’t.

As for right now, Nick didn’t have a lot of patience for working the crime scene of these Yi-fanatic fucks again. After his talk with Lara, and his even more annoying talk with Brick, Nick was more or less positive the White Death was behind the deaths, even if Brick hadn’t authorized the kills specifically. Given the blood he’d smelled on his sire’s clothes and hair, he suspected Brickhadbeen involved.

He’d likely ripped out at least one of those throats himself.

Unfortunately, Morley couldn’t simply report in to Acharya on a slip of paper that the station’s Midnight was convinced his sire had done the deed.

They needed actual evidence.

Brick wasn’t exactly the type who’d agree to a voluntary interview, even under ordinary circumstances, much less confess. Truthfully, Nick doubted the human authorities ever getnearBrick, even if the N.Y.P.D. and the H.R.A. teamed up, and they had an ironclad case.

For all those reasons, when Nick met up with Morley, and found out they were still on the fucking Yi case, he was pretty convinced the entire night would be a colossal waste of time.

He also didn’t understandwhythey were still on it.

Either the N.Y.P.D. wasn’t clued-in on the deal Brick struck with the H.R.A., or Brick was right, and something had changed.

Did Brick really think the H.R.A., Archangel, and the N.Y.P.D. had declared all-out war on vampires, though? Nick had to admit, the idea didn’t sound as crazy to him in the light of day. He’d already seen a number of hysterical-sounding news segments on the feeds, blaring a four-alarm fire around the Cauldron murders and blaming them on “vampire political radicals.”

He’d known things were gradually breaking down in human-vampire relations for a while. Ever since Yi really hit the scene, it had been ramping up even faster. Nick’s own arrest, and the murders committed by his doppelgänger, only fed those flames further.

But were things really so bad out there, that they were on the verge of entering another race war, like Brick claimed?

Nick felt sick even thinking about it.