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Nick knew it wouldn’t do her any good.

He heard the Stranger speak, his words a near whisper. That time, he seemed almost to be speaking to Nick.

“This will be over now,” he said quietly. “The bloodline will finish here. We can move on after this. We can do the rest without worry.”

The woman had stopped crying. Listening.

She stared up at him, wide-eyed.

She was beautiful. She looked rich.

But she stared up at the stranger’s face like she knew him.

“Who are you?” the woman whispered. “Who are you?”

He turned, smiling at her, still bouncing the happy baby.

“I’m your savior,” he said simply.

CHAPTER9

FRIENDS

Morley handed him a coffee.

Nick took it without a word.

He’d just entered the waiting room for I.S.F. interrogations.

He passed.

They told him his venom levels were good, nearly at one hundred percent.

They scolded him then, told him he wasn’t eating enough. They mother-henned him after torturing him for hours on that metal table.

They told him the blood analysis showed him to be significantly below healthy levels for a growing vampire boy. He was dehydrated. He was clearly showing signs of low energy and muscle weakness. They told him he needed to up his blood intake by four bags a day for the next two weeks. They told him they would send him an I.S.F. live feeder, whether he wanted one or not, if he didn’t improve his blood count significantly by his next physical.

They shook their fingers at him.

They gave him blood and made him drink it in front of them.

Without them saying it, they told him he’d passed the other test, too.

No way I.S.F. or the NYPD would look at those medical results and try to argue Nick murdered and ate ten people in Manhattan less than twenty-four hours ago.

The bodies had been fed on too much.

Hopefully those results would trickle down to all of Nick’s colleagues at the NYPD. By now, news of his arrest must be all over the precinct.

Nick took a sip of the coffee Morley gave him and grimaced.

“I should probably say thank you,” he grumbled. “But this coffee is shit.”

Morley grunted. “We’ll look for one of your high-brow bullshit fancy-cup connoisseur places on the way out, Midnight,” he said, only sounding faintly annoyed. “I forgot what a fucking snob you are.”

More than anything, though, the boss sounded relieved.

He must have heard something about the results, too.