Page 14 of Almost Midnight (Vampire Detective Midnight #8)

CHAPTER 14

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 Brick had been 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 get near Brick, 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 understand why they 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 doppelg?nger, 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.

Race war or no, he and Morley likely had a night of ongoing annoyance to look forward to. They’d interview people who told them nothing, check off boxes around local criminals and rival human and vampire gangs and learn nothing, and possibly even drag in some poor vampire fuck who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

If that vamp had neither alibi nor connections, he’d likely sit in an I.S.F. holding cell for a week while they tortured him and asked him questions. That was assuming they didn’t just kill him outright for the N.Y.P.D. and racial authorities win.

On the plus side, Charlie rode out with Nick and Morley that night.

She’d petitioned Acharya to replace Jordan until he was ready to re-join the force as a Midnight. Since they normally sent out two humans together, one senior detective and one junior, along with every Midnight, Acharya agreed to the temporary assignment.

“We’re not going to fucking find anything,” Nick grumbled again.

He watched Morley turn the wheel of the tank of a pool car. The old man took a sip of his blinking and flickering Yankees mug at the same time. At the next light, Morley pulled into a parking lot just outside the Cauldron.

They’d hit all the “normie” places the night before.

Tonight, they’d go looking for witnesses inside the Cauldron itself.

“They’re having us chase our tails out here,” Nick added sourly, glancing at Charlie in the rearview mirror. “I already told you both who’s behind it.”

Morley nodded, but the motion was barely perceptible.

“James, I’m telling you––” Nick began, a touch louder.

“Shut the fuck up, Midnight,” Morley breathed back.

He pulled the car, which was a much shittier antique than the car Nick had driven since he started the Midnight program in Los Angeles, into a narrow parking slot next to a falling down brick building. That building stood right next to the Cauldron’s main wall. The building probably should’ve been condemned years ago, but the bottom half had been turned into a guard post for the N.Y.P.D. instead.

Regular, non-homicide, uniform cops who patrolled this side of the wall also used it sometimes as a detention center for escapees from the Cauldron itself.

Morley pulled all the way into the parking slot right next to the building’s fire escape, and threw the monstrous sedan into park.

The old man hadn’t so much as looked at him since he told Nick to shut up, but Nick didn’t need him to. He got the message.

They were still being surveilled.

Nick, especially, was being surveilled. He might even have more eyes and ears on him now than he did when his doppelg?nger was out killing people, and the powers-that-be still weren’t entirely convinced Nick wasn’t involved.

Despite Morley’s warning, Nick was just annoyed enough to not drop it.

He was about to try bringing it up again, using more coded language maybe, when Morley nudged Nick sharply with an elbow.

Before Nick could decide how to react, James snapped the latch on the pool car’s antique door and stepped out. Baffled, Nick watched him climb out of the car.

When he saw the direction of Morley’s stare, Nick looked out the windshield.

He closed his mouth once he had.

Two plainclothes police officers were walking towards their car.

Nick didn’t recognize either of their faces, probably because he, Morley, and Charlie were operating slightly outside their normal precinct zone right then, being just a tick above the dividing line between jurisdictions. So what was the big deal? Why did two cops make Morley so paranoid? They likely were only here for the murder case, weren’t they?

Nick snapped his own latch and rose to his feet.

He saw and heard Charlie do the same behind him.

Nick stepped out from behind the door and shut it, right as Morley shoved a hand in his coat pocket and nodded to the two men approaching the car from his side.

Interesting. So they hadn’t come from the guard house building.

They’d come from one of the other vehicles in the parking lot, instead, or possibly from the street. Had something new happened? Were their more vampire-related deaths?

Nick watched them approach Morley, their sharp eyes assessing the old man.

Okay, he kind of got Morley’s paranoia now.

Something was weird about them.

They looked, well… something.

Not quite angry, but far from friendly.

They definitely exuded a “law enforcement” vibe, so Nick wasn’t too worried about them being mobsters or gang members in disguise. Since the crime officially fell within Nick, James, and Charlie’s purview, their being here shouldn’t set off any jurisdictional pissing matches. These guys must be based out of the precinct just north of theirs. That, or––

“Nick Midnight?” the first of them said.

Nick jumped.

What the fuck? Why would they care about him?

His eyes met Morley’s, although there’s no way anyone would mistake James for a vampire, given his gray hair and dark brown eyes and age-spotted skin. They gave Morley meaningful looks regardless, as if trying to silently communicate with him.

Maybe they were even talking to him via their headsets on a private channel.

“Is the sniffer Midnight with you tonight?” the second one asked, still looking only at Morley. “Is that him, by the car?”

Nick felt his mouth purse. What the fuck was going on?

He was right there.

He was obviously the Midnight.

So why were these assholes playing footsie with Morley about it?

Nick cleared his throat, and both sets of eyes flicked to his.

“I’m him,” Nick said clearly. “I’m the Midnight.”

The first one smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile.

“We need you to come with us,” he said.

Nick glanced at Morley, who might have looked unfazed, or disinterested, to anyone else. But Nick knew him. The old man was alarmed. His shoulders had stiffened, and he was staring at the two officers in a way that told Nick he was thinking, fast, or maybe understanding something already and trying to decide what to do.

Nick opened his mouth to answer the guy who’d addressed him, but Morley spoke up before Nick got out a word.

“He’s been cleared,” Morley said, his voice a touch cold. “Why is this necessary?”

“You’re not cleared to know that,” the first man answered with a smirk.

“Not cleared?” Morley frowned. “What the fuck does that mean?”

He still had a hand clenched in his pocket, and now Nick wondered if he was gripping a weapon. What was going on? Why the hell was Morley––

“I need to see a warrant,” James said now, his voice openly suspicious for the first time. “I want to speak to your supervisors, too. And to our station chief.”

“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” the second officer said.

The two cops stared at Morley flatly, and for the first time, it hit Nick that they weren’t entirely human.

Jesus. Were they hybrids?

They had to be. They definitely weren’t vampires, and Nick increasingly doubted they were fully human. That only left hybrids.

Which meant they probably weren’t cops.

Hybrids only worked for the H.R.A.

As Nick stared at them, his suspicion grew into something a lot more like certainty. Perfect bone structure, high cheekbones, a faint tilt to the corners of their eyes, both of which were pale blue, of an eerily similar shade. Contacts? It struck him as likely. They probably worked with some kind of dual-purpose lenses with virtual components for targeting, enhancing night vision, and whatever else.

They both had inhumanly perfect mouths. Long necks.

Both of them were above-average in height.

One might have been over six and a half feet, using the measurements Nick grew up with. The other was maybe an inch or two less, depending on the shoes they both wore.

They must be hiding their smell.

Pheromone spray?

They were definitely wearing something that blocked out their half-seer blood, making them smell human even to a vampire well-accustomed to the smell of seers. Which made sense, again, if they worked for the H.R.A.

But absolutely none of that boded well for Nick.

Fuck.

He felt his shoulders tense as he looked between Morley and the two agents.

Should he let Morley handle this? Play stupid?

Call Lara St. Maarten? Wynter?

Nick had never been picked up twice for the exact same thing.

Getting cleared in their system was never easy, but once he was cleared, Nick had found that it generally stuck. They didn’t like admitting they were wrong, not in either direction, not without some concrete reason to have changed their minds.

Had they found more “evidence” to pin on him? Had they decided to charge him for one or more of his doppelg?nger’s crimes? For his doppelg?nger’s actual death? For being involved in bringing Walker to the portal?

Or was it something new? Something he knew nothing about?

Had they decided he was some kind of rogue or traitor?

Had they dug up something on his prior association with the White Death?

Did they know about Wynter?

Was Brick right? Had the portal changed things? The fact that Lara more or less admitted that Archangel had been dabbling with portals in the past threw a lot of things into question. Was the H.R.A. also monitoring and watching for portals around the world?

Of course they would be, if they knew about them.

There was no possible way the human racial authorities would ignore something as huge as spontaneously-appearing inter-dimensional portals. They’d view something like that as a massive security threat, especially when non-human races were involved.

Nick felt his muscles start to bunch up.

Even apart from Morley’s reaction, Nick could feel something really fucking off with this. He fought the visceral instinct that told him to run.

Even so, despite that dense, panicked feeling, despite his strong sense that something deeply bad was about to happen, he never would have predicted the next step in this little dance.

Morley turned, and stared directly at Nick.

The old man looked pale under his dark skin.

His eyes held a fierceness that took Nick aback.

“RUN!” the old human snarled. “RUN, NICK! GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!”