Page 27 of Almost Midnight (Vampire Detective Midnight #8)
CHAPTER 27
THE UNUSUAL SHIP
Their transport didn’t turn out to be what Nick expected.
He’d known it would likely be water transport, of course. They were right by the ocean, after all, near what had been Brighton Beach.
Nick thought it would be a small boat, though, and that it would take them to the airport without leaving the domed waterways. He figured they’d go from Sheepshead Bay into Jamaica Bay, and eventually to the modern airport by what had previously been J.F.K.
From there, they’d board an airship.
Walker made it clear from the beginning they’d be taken to the Federation of the United Kingdom. That federation consisted of a network of protected areas operating under a larger government across the whole of the British Isles. Probably because it was an island, that older political entity retained more of its original shape than most of the old nations. It also had a more cohesive system of trade, transportation, laws, and foreign policy than most parts of the world.
But yes, that’s what Nick figured: small boat, short ride across the two bays, drop-off, then airship.
For the same reason, when they all walked cautiously to the shore of Sheepshead Bay, Nick scanned the horizon for a boat, something big enough to fit all nine of them, but not so big it would be noticed by military surveillance when they got close to the airport.
Instead, he watched Walker reach the organic metal, reinforced dock, and begin to walk out to the very end of it. Nick couldn’t fathom why the other man appeared to be in such a hurry, with no boat even visible yet––until he saw it, a long, dark shadow at the end of the dock.
His mind had categorized it as an optical illusion, an effect created by the dock itself, combined with the brightness of the dome’s moon.
Then the top of that shadow opened while he watched, and the figure of a person popped out from beneath a hinged hatch.
“Jesus,” Morley breathed next to him. “Is that a submarine?”
Nick blinked.
Fuck a duck. Morley was right.
Now Walker was waving to all of them impatiently, and looking around as if he was worried about drones, or maybe being seen by a camera they’d missed.
It struck Nick that Walker was right.
They couldn’t linger out here.
It also struck him that this vehicle, whatever it was, wasn’t taking them to the airport.
They were making the entire journey across the Atlantic in a gaos- damned submarine.
He glanced at Wynter, who still stood too far away from him, far enough that he struggled not to go and pick her up and stand her next to him. He gave her a wan smile.
“You’re not claustrophobic, are you?” he asked.
Kit let out a high, nervous laugh.
All of them began moving a few seconds later, making their way for the metal dock with its ridged footholds, and towards Walker, who Nick could now see talking to the man who’d emerged from the submarine’s top hatch.
Nick only picked out a few words in the whipping wind.
“…one newborn vampire. Drugged right now… need to secure him somewhere for the trip. And probably feed him––”
“Not a problem,” the other man said, dismissive. “You sure you want all of them to come? Not second-guessing any of them, are you, Forrest? We can claim there’s limited room, if you want anyone off the list.”
Walker visibly flinched.
“I was told it was all approved,” he said stiffly.
“It is.” The man smiled. “I just heard your wife’s new fuck-toy is among our proposed guests. I wasn’t sure how you were feeling about that, so I thought I’d give you an out.”
“I’m not feeling anything about that,” Forrest said, annoyed. “She’s my ex- wife, Peters. Not my current wife. We’ve been divorced almost eight years. And I told you, he’s the only reason I’m still here––”
The man was already waving him off.
“Trust me, I’m not complaining,” Peters said, smirking a little. “Mi6 is thrilled. The Minister is thrilled. The King is thrilled. I suspect all three will start in on trying to recruit your new friends the second you reach shore. Especially the seers, but the vampires, too. You’ve probably heard about the problems erupting from––”
“We’ve heard,” Walker cut in. “We heard about Madagascar, at least. Are you aware of what happened in this Protected Area tonight?”
The other man nodded. “We’ve been listening.”
“Well, you can imagine why we might all want to leave then,” Walker said sourly. “It’s not going to be safe for non-humans in the North Americas for much longer.”
“Yeah.” The man exhaled. “Not super-safe now, from we can tell.”
Forrest turned his head, and Nick could have sworn Walker was looking directly at him.
“Incidentally, Nick… the vampire my wife is currently married to,” Forrest added meaningfully. “…Is probably listening to every word we say right now. So you might want to lay off a bit, before you manage to annoy him. He’s the leader of this bunch, and they’re tight. All of them. Me included.”
The man hesitated, then nodded. “Understood.”
Nick had a nearly overwhelming desire to smirk at that, maybe even to flash Walker and his Mi6 pal a bit of fang to press the point.
He didn’t, though.
He was too busy staring at the submarine and wondering if they’d make it all the way across the Atlantic before war erupted in the outside world for real.
* * *
The submarine ended up being a much faster method of transport than Nick would’ve believed. It was also a lot bigger.
They must have dug out that part of Sheepshead Bay to accommodate the damned thing, or ships like it, because Nick climbed down that ladder under the hatch for a while before he reached the bottom, and entered the sub’s main hold.
Nick realized a lot of things once he got down that ladder.
One, the entire area of the hatch proved to be a morphing extension made entirely of organic metals. The whole thing retracted once they were all inside, and reformed the submarine into a smooth, bullet-like shape that reduced water resistance down to nearly nothing apart from the sheer displacement from its actual size.
All of them, apart from Jordan, who was given his own room, were ushered into a long passenger carriage with reclining seats and windows on either side. It felt being given the entire first class section of a large airplane, or maybe a private suite on a luxury train.
All of them immediately began acting like tourists.
They clustered by the windows and peered out into the water, exclaiming over things they could see and pointing.
Nick had to admit, he was as fascinated as the rest of them, and just as glued to the view.
The submarine powered up slowly at first, until it got them to the edge of the underwater dome. The British military personnel, or Mi6 agents, or whoever happened to be driving this thing, must have either hacked their way into New York’s dome permission codes, or somehow got official permission to pass.
Either way, barely thirty seconds ticked by before that door began to open.
The submarine moved gracefully into a series of locks that eventually spat them out into the open ocean.
The view got infinitely more interesting after that.
Wrecks of old ships, some of them positively enormous, littered the waters around the Long Island shore. Warships, rocket ships and airplanes could also be seen through the yellow-tinted glass, along with missiles that hadn’t exploded or got disarmed before impact, ancient helicopters, and even land transport vehicles and one long, snaking piece of subway that somehow ended up out there. Once they ventured out past the island’s shore and into the North Atlantic, they saw fewer direct reminders of the last war.
The view also got a lot stranger.
The cabin grew silent as everyone stared out into the oddly greenish-gold water.
Occasionally, one of them would shout out and point, and a massive animal would swim by, something that only vaguely reminded Nick of the ocean fauna he remembered from before the war. A shark that looked forty feet long, sporting a mouthful of teeth like splintered glass. Whale-like creatures with long, armlike limbs. What looked like a seal only with a freakishly human-like face. Winding eels and bloated fish covered in what looked like twinkling gold starfish. Nick swore he saw something that looked like a mermaid, and Kit backed him up, declaring she’d seen it too, including the long, seaweed-like, green-blue hair.
Some of the things Nick saw, he didn’t get a good enough look to classify at all. Some looked so different from anything he knew, he didn’t know how to classify them. Human-sized animals with long spindly legs crawled along the ocean floor. Clouds of flower-shaped creatures he imagined must be jellyfish swarmed over large mammals like piranhas.
The submarine began to pick up speed.
It was gradual in the beginning, like a train building up speed to its highest gear.
It grew harder to see in the murk, the faster they went.
Then, all at once, it became impossible.
Bubbles ran up the sides instead, and vibration shivered the glass.
Walker explained to all of them that the ship sent out a loud, sonar-like pulse, both as echo-location but mainly to warn any living creatures to get the hell out of the way. He said it was shockingly effective; there hadn’t been a collision with this type of high-speed underwater vehicle since they’d first been put out into the field.
Still, Nick couldn’t help growing a tad nervous as they continued to pick up speed.
The crew brought them food, maybe to distract them.
They seemed used to people growing nervous in their ship; it also struck Nick that they were inordinately proud of their unusual vehicle.
They’d even named it, calling it Fiona Flower, or “Fi” for short.
Not long after all the humans and seers ate, they started to fall asleep.
Wynter, who sat next to Nick in a set of two chairs on the port side of the submarine, more or less fell asleep on Nick, after convincing him to lean his own chair back so that they would be level and she’d have more room.
She’d lasted about three minutes after he acquiesced.
Nick got a pillow from one of the crew members once she was out. He slid the pillow under her head, wrapped her in a thick blanket, but otherwise, he left her alone.
Once he had her where she seemed comfortable, he adjusted his own weight in the comfortable recliner, and turned his head to look out the window at the churning water and bubbles. He enjoyed the feeling of motion as they accelerated through the ocean; it felt almost like being on a ship, like being rocked to sleep under the waves.
Eventually, he found himself closing his eyes.