Page 20 of Almost Midnight (Vampire Detective Midnight #8)

CHAPTER 20

THE VAN

The cave’s walls stretched high up over his head once Nick vaulted out of the visitor center tunnel. He was now in a dark, cold, damp place, running along a metal catwalk with the lightest steps he could manage.

He knew vampires waited up ahead, more than one, more than a handful, even.

He had to move fast while making as little noise as fucking possible.

Nick could already hear more than just vampires up ahead, and that concerned him a lot more. More to the point, Nick could smell them.

He could smell his mate, the pungent odor of his blood and sweat, the fact that he hadn’t showered in at least a day, probably because he’d been on the run since they’d first begun following him after he stole Black’s plane from San Francisco.

Dalejem had led them to Paris first, and then he’d fled down here, to Nice, for reasons Nick couldn’t come close to understanding.

He’d dragged the girl into the cave with him, which was even weirder.

Not only that, it was a real prehistoric cave, one that had once been inhabited by Nick’s ancestors, by the ancestors of all humans. Its rough walls were covered with stick paintings of animals and whales and humans and birds. It was wild to Nick, that the careful marks still stood out starkly on the rock, even after thousands of years.

He would love to come here with Dalejem sometime and explore it for real.

Right now, however, recreational cave exploration was pretty low on Nick’s list of priorities. He had no idea why Dalejem had brought the girl here, but the vampires had followed them, and now Nick’s mate was in danger.

He could feel that danger all around him, coiling and uncoiling, waiting to strike.

Brick was here.

Brick apparently had decided it was time to deal with Nick’s mate decisively, once and for all. Whether it was revenge for what they’d done to Dorian, or simply Brick’s petty rage at Jem having so much sway over Nick, didn’t really matter anymore.

Brick had made up his mind to kill Jem.

The thought brought a visceral panic.

It pushed Nick’s feet faster on the mesh metal walk.

By now, he no longer cared if he made noise.

It didn’t fucking matter now.

He’d just rounded the final corner, a sharp turn where the cave wall jutted out over the metal walk, when the cavern opened up again.

Nick’s vampire eyes picked out the coiled snake about to strike.

Jem hadn’t seen them yet. He hadn’t heard them.

His mate was fucking brilliant and amazing and downright dangerous in his own right, but he still wasn’t a vampire. He didn’t have a vampire’s hearing, or their sense of smell. He didn’t have a vampire’s reflexes, either.

“Jem!” he cried out, unable to help himself.

Brick moved before Nick finished yelling out his mate’s name.

Then Brick had his arms wrapped crushingly around the male seer.

He pinned Jem and trapped him before Jem could writhe free.

Jem let out a gasping, choked, disbelieving cry, already losing most of his breath.

Brick pinned his arms to his sides, pinned the big seer’s back to his stone-like vampire chest. Vampires were stronger than seers, even well-built, muscular, and highly-trained seers like Jem, who could fight so well it was breathtaking.

Brick reinforced his grip, smiling now, or maybe grimacing, Nick couldn’t tell, then yanked Jem so close, the seer’s attempts to head-butt him only met empty air.

Jem wouldn’t be able to break Brick’s face with his skull, anyway.

Brick was more likely to break Jem’s skull with his face than the reverse.

Brick tilted his neck and head, licked his full lips with a shocking red tongue, and sank his fully-extended fangs into the muscle of the seer’s neck.

Nick screamed.

The smell of Jem’s blood reached him instantly. The scent filled his nose, lungs, and head, making him dizzy before Brick completed the full arc of his bite.

That scent, coupled with the sight of his sire feeding on his mate, hit at something so animalistic in Nick, his eyes clouded scarlet mid-leap.

His fangs extended to their full reach so fast, the transition nearly hurt.

A guttural snarl exploded from his throat.

His body didn’t need his mind to know what to do.

He didn’t bother to run to the end of the metal catwalk, but leapt up to the balcony rail and threw himself down towards the cave floor.

He was going to kill that piece of shit bastard for real this time.

He was going to rip out Brick’s fucking throat, tear his head off with the spine still intact, then beat his sire’s inanimate body to a pulp with his own goddamned skull––

* * *

“––Penny for your thoughts, offspring,” a silky voice purred.

Nick’s eyes clicked into focus.

Like every other time, he had no warning in either direction.

He had no idea he had gone until he’d already come back.

Nick’s mind was now shifting channels while he was wide awake––without warning, seemingly without any specific trigger, which was a bit worrisome, frankly. He’d just been sitting there, hadn’t he? He’d been listening to them talk about strategy, about how they’d divide up the group once the first part got completed, assuming it all went well.

Fuck, he hoped he didn’t do that during the operation.

If he did do that out in the field, it would be a serious fucking problem.

It wasn’t even solely those few seconds where Nick lost awareness of where he was.

He felt off-balance afterwards, too.

If he’d been human, he’d be breathing harder.

His heart would be thudding wildly.

He’d be disoriented.

He’d probably think he was having a full-blown panic attack.

As it was, heat filled his chest. Nick’s muscles clenched so hard, he worried about ripping open the organic bandages or seams on one of his deeper wounds.

His vision had also flooded with scarlet in that silence, making the inside of the dark vehicle even darker. His fangs had extended to their fullest extent. Both things made him hungry and aggressive, and overly aware of his own venom. That hunger and rage and aggression heated his chest so intensely, he struggled to form rational thoughts.

He’d drunk as much of the synthetic blood as he could before he left.

He’d wanted to drink from Wynter when she offered, too, but he’d begged off after thinking about it, using the excuse he’d had enough, and they had plenty of synthetic blood left. He’d reminded her that she couldn’t afford to be weak for this, not even a little bit.

And yes, those things were part of it, too, but the truth was, Nick also wasn’t sure he wanted Wynter feeling or seeing everything he experienced in there.

Things could go wrong.

Things would inevitably go off-plan, at least somewhat, no matter how careful or lucky or fast-reacting they were. Nick needed her clear, and Wynter wouldn’t be clear if something bad happened to him and she felt it.

All of that went through his mind in a flash.

Then he was remembering what he’d just seen.

He aimed his scarlet eyes at Brick.

The other vampire blinked, a mildly surprised look spreading over his face.

Even with his tinted vision and the darkness in the back of the empty supply van, Nick could see the other vampire’s face in every detail.

“Should I ask?” Brick queried, lifting an eyebrow. “You look positively feral, Naoko. Did I do something to offend? Because I thought you were on board with this plan.”

Nick bit his tongue.

He glanced around the back of the van, which held nine of Brick’s White Death vampires, including Zoe, along with Tai, Kit, Wynter, Malek, and Charlie.

Forrest and Morley sat shotgun, and in the driver’s seat, respectively.

Those two had positively insisted on coming along, despite Nick’s protests.

Wynter, Kit, Forrest, and Morley would be a kind of secondary team on comms and computers. They’d aid with security systems, doors, access codes, blueprints, comms, and external exits as much as they could, once Kit hooked directly into the system lines housed in a box outside. They’d also monitor and report the reactions of the larger Archangel network, and let them know if anything big was coming their way.

They had two drones to aid with this, which Wynter would pilot.

The rest of them were pure combat extraction.

Wynter had a lot to say about Nick being in the combat group, versus hanging back with her, Morley and Kit.

In the end, she seemed to accept that it made no sense to keep him out of the forward group, but she never stopped voicing just how much she didn’t like it.

The truth was, Nick would be wasted anywhere else. The vampires of the group, Nick included, had by far the most military experience.

Still, Nick understood Wynter’s point of view.

He’d be sharing the same loud opinions if it was Wynter leading the charge. Hell, he was having virtually the same reaction to having Malek and Tai out in the field with him. And he didn’t particularly like Charlie out there, either, give she was still injured from the harpoon.

The reasons for including Tai were obvious.

When it came to sheer firepower, no one could match the kid.

Her brother, Malek, had a dual purpose. He was there to warn them about whatever might be coming, and because he was surprisingly good with a gun.

Shockingly good, really, according to Tai, who informed Nick of her brother’s abilities with absolute confidence.

“You can’t shoot as well as him,” she’d assured Nick. “You can’t. Even as a vampire. He’s better than anyone Ms. St. Maarten has ever put him up against. He’s a… what’s the word? Prodigy? Savant? He’s gifted.” She gave her brother a look of adoring pride. “More than a natural. He’s more like a freak. But not in the bad sense. He’s a good freak. But dangerous.”

Malek had let out a snort at that point, and rolled his eyes.

“Stop describing me,” he told her, and cuffed her shoulder. “You’re just being unkind now.”

“I’m not!” she protested.

“You are. Or else you’re just really bad at words.”

Nick had frowned, looking between them, but he didn’t say anything.

Malek hadn’t argued with her overall premise.

And, kid or no, Tai wasn’t prone to exaggeration.

If she said Mal was spookily good with a gun, then he was.

Malek hadn’t argued the point at any other time while they were getting ready, either. He’d merely strapped on armor with the rest of them, his fingers practiced.

Nick watched with a kind of perverse fascination as the tall, lanky seer proceeded to pick out guns from the large store of weapons the White Death offered them. He tested sights, tested the various weights in his hand, asked a few questions of some of the vampires about recoil, accuracy, and action on various guns he was less-familiar with.

He asked about organics, too, and relative bullet speed.

Then he proceeded to place guns in holsters on a variety of different parts of his body. The attention he put to each individual weapon, checking each one meticulously and positioning it just so on his body after sorting through different-sized holsters and handles convinced Nick.

The kid certainly didn’t handle weapons like any seer, vampire, or human he’d ever known, apart from maybe Dalejem.

Well, and Black.

Still, Nick couldn’t shake his unease.

He hated putting either of the kids on the front line, but like Wynter with him, he couldn’t really deny it made sense.

Tai could probably take down most of the facility on her own.

If Malek was really that good, they could definitely use him.

They’d all been checked for additional trackers, even in their skulls and other bones, to make sure St. Maarten wouldn’t be able to pinpoint their individual locations. Every person on their team had their ID trackers removed, apart from the White Death vampires, who had their own trackers taken out when they joined the vampire underground.

Some of the vampires, like Brick, had never worn trackers at all.

Nick was pretty sure Zoe had never worn one, either.

Brick delicately cleared his throat.

Nick turned to stare at him.

Remembering his vision of the cave, of Brick drinking from the neck and shoulder of Dalejem, Nick felt his temperature spike a few degrees hotter.

“We’re going to have a talk, you and I, when this is over,” Nick said in a low growl.

Brick’s eyebrow spiked a little higher. “Oh? Are we?”

“Yes. We are.” Nick glared at him. “I have questions. Specifically about a cave in the French Riviera somewhere.”

Brick looked taken aback for real.

“You remember?” he asked in surprise.

“Not exactly.” Nick glared at his sire again. “But I’m starting to.”

Brick had schooled his shocked look back into one of bland indifference.

“Well,” he said brusquely. “Now is not the time, offspring. Is it?”

Nick felt a harder knot grow in his throat. “No. I suppose not.” He glared at his sire again. “But there will be time after, Brick. I’ll make sure of it.”

One of Brick’s wicked smiles spread slowly over his handsome face.

“Well, I suppose you’d better make sure you survive this, then,” the older vampire quipped. “Hadn’t you, Naoko?”

Brick winked at him, then leaned against the metal wall, and folded his arms.

Nick didn’t answer.

Still, something about the older vampire’s words struck him oddly, anyway. They sent a shiver down his spine, and made him grimace without really knowing why.

Nick thought later that he should have paid more attention to that.

At the time, he simply leaned his back against the truck’s metal insides right next to his sire, even as he pushed Brick himself forcibly from his mind.

He hoped like hell Jordan was still inside the building.

He ignored the feeling of ghosts that wafted through the truck, touching him just enough to briefly chill his vampire bones and skin.