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So yeah, not so great.

But it was something.

Nick stuck the umbrella under his arm, and he and Morley walked into the trees.

* * *

It was still too quiet.

Nick and Morley walked steadily through the trees, and Nick strained to hear anything he could, anything at all up ahead. His eyes scanned through maps on the virtual program of his headset. He flicked through road maps, topography maps, and finally found the real-time satellite maps that might give him some glimpse at what was actually happening now.

He found the cluster of cars he’d been looking for not long after.

They’d parked on the other side, taking a different dirt road to get to the bottom of the mountain. Nick frowned a little, wondering why they’d gone in on that side.

It meant they had twice as far to walk.

A second later, he realized he knew why.

He felt it somehow, but once he did he was sure.

Malek.

Fucking sneaky Malek had found a way to buy them some time.

Nick’s doppelganger had known where the portal was, but he didn’t know the roads. Malek somehow convinced him that going up from the other side of the mountain would be faster. Realizing he was getting all of this from the doppelganger himself, and that the other Nick now knew he’d been tricked, Nick felt his smile widen more.

He could have kissed Malek right then.

They were still behind the other team, but they weren’t through the portal yet.

Malek’s deception meant they were going to reach the portal at roughly the same time.

“What?” Morley whispered.

Putting a finger to his ear, Nick motioned at the trees around them, doing the best he could to convey that vampires could hear pretty much fucking everything, especially voices.

Morley rolled his eyes.

That time, he only mouthed the word, barely breathing it.

“What?”

Nick put his mouth by Morley’s ear.

“Malek,” he murmured. “He told them the wrong way.”

Nick triggered his headset, which still contained more security protocols and denser encryption than anything Morley was using from the NYPD. Once Nick had the satellite map where he wanted it, he projected it out as a hologram. Pulling the image up so it was easier to see, Nick showed Morley the figures as they walked up the other side of the mountain, aiming for the same clearing they were.

Morley frowned, watching them without slowing his pace.

After a few seconds more, Morley began walking faster, moving more rapidly but just as quietly through the trees. He never took his eyes off the map. He frowned as he stared at it, and a few times Nick got the impression he was counting all the figures he saw there.

Nick paced the human easily.

He wondered briefly if he should run up ahead.

That wouldn’t do much good, however, until he knew what he intended to do.