Page 28 of Almost Midnight (Vampire Detective Midnight #8)

CHAPTER 28

THE OCEAN

“Well, isn’t this interesting…” The lulling, Louisiana-tinged words slid like silk down Nick’s spine, making him stiffen, mostly in blank shock. “…I’d honestly thought you and your twin fuck-buddies must have dropped down on a different world, one much more savory and seer-friendly than this one…”

Nick didn’t turn his head.

The voice alone brought up such an intense, bewildering cacophony of memory, dread, fury, disbelief, confusion, and rage, he didn’t move at all at first.

The owner of that voice plunked themselves down on the barstool next to him.

Then, and only then, did Nick’s head turn.

It happened seemingly against his conscious will, yet he was powerless to stop it. Nick stared at the familiar, handsome, large-featured face, the stylishly-rough, auburn hair half-up in a ponytail like a Mongolian pirate, and the wry humor in his cracked-crystal eyes.

“Clearly, you did not enter where and when we did, my prodigal seed,” the older vampire crooned. He motioned to the bartender with languid fingers, aimed his index finger at the liquid in Nick’s glass, then made the sign for two. He looked back at Nick, a full smirk on his face. “How are you enjoying our little paradise so far? You are drinking… apparently, excessively… and clearly alone. Trouble in paradise, offspring?”

Nick stared at those humor-filled eyes.

He still half-wondered if he could be hallucinating.

Had someone dropped something into his drink? How in the gods was he staring at Brick, after so many, many years of living without him on this world?

Things had changed a lot in that time.

The world he lived in now had already careened dangerously past the one he remembered as a human. The changes had crept up around him over decades like a slow-moving infection, with smoke billowing from coal factories in the early industrial age changing to emissions controls and bluer skies, cleaner water and cleaner human beings and better sanitation, then roads filled with cars and skies filled with airplanes and drones and satellites, then wars that wreaked devastation that made the industrial pollution seem quaint and almost cute.

That war had been raging for years now, more years than Nick could count.

He probably should have cared about that.

He probably should have tried to do something before it was too late.

After all, he knew what Charles was.

He knew how fucking dangerous that seer was, and the twisted anti-human ideology he lived and breathed. Charles already tried and failed to destroy Nick’s home world once. Black and Miriam had stopped it somehow, but Nick struggled to remember how.

He probably should have warned the humans the instant Charles started popping up in news programs and all over the underground web.

But then, Nick had thought Charles was dead, honestly.

Hadn’t Brick killed him?

Had his sire lied about that, too, for some reason?

Maybe Nick was remembering wrong.

It had been a very long time ago, after all.

A very long time.

Maybe Charles had gone the way of his faithful followers. Maybe he, too, got expelled from Nick’s birth dimension and into a whole new one… maybe even this one… and now he was here to try his fucked-up, racial-supremacy bullshit on a whole new version of Earth.

Or maybe he was a different Charles, a Charles who actually came from this dimension, and harbored all the same twisted fantasies.

Either way, Nick had decided it was no business of his.

He’d stopped trying to puzzle out how things went that way a long time ago, just like he’d stopped wondering what happened to Aura and Brick in the past however-many years.

Dalejem was dead.

That was the only thing that really had the power to move him, even now.

When he refocused on his sire, he saw the other vampire frown at him.

“Just how long have you been here, child?” Brick’s voice grew shockingly gentle. “You didn’t come through right before the war like the rest of us did, did you?”

Nick grunted.

“Not quite,” he muttered.

The bartender put down a new glass in front of him, and Nick downed the remaining liquid in his last glass before pushing the empty towards the human. The bartender quirked an eyebrow slightly, maybe because Nick was still conscious, despite what he’d drunk, or maybe because Nick and Brick were both obviously vampires, and the world had grown aware of their kind in the intervening centuries, or maybe for some other reason.

Whatever it was, Nick didn’t really give a shit.

“You must know we have been fighting,” Brick clipped, a touch short. “You surely must have heard or seen our work on the news. I am the leader of the White Death. The humans would all likely be dead without us, or living in slave camps overseen by Charles and his band of merry morons and psychopaths. This war would have been over a century ago, if we hadn’t deigned to come to this rather dented little world.”

Nick turned that information over in his head.

He did know of the White Death, of course.

He might avoid looking at news whenever he could, including news of the war, but he wasn’t able to avoid the headlines entirely.

Brick had been here for over a hundred years.

Brick had started the White Death. He was the famed leader of the elite cadre of warrior-vamps who fought alongside the humans to beat back the seers.

Nick might have thought it was a joke, if he still had a sense of humor.

“Don’t look so surprised, whelp,” Brick said, a touch of dark humor in his voice. He slapped a hand lightly on the top of the bar. “Did you really think I would sit back and let Charles destroy yet another of my worlds? Or that I wouldn’t aid humans, our only true cousins and food source, against such an evil incursion?”

He scoffed, smiling wider, but his eyes grew cold.

“I only wish I had gotten here sooner,” he quipped. “I would have cut the head off the snake before it managed to burrow in.”

Nick rolled that around in his head, the way he did the bourbon on his tongue.

Then, slowly, he shook his jaw in disbelief.

“I don’t even know why it would surprise me,” he said. “The Vampire King of the White Death? Of course that was you. Who else would it be? Who else would even come up with such a fucking melodramatic, over-the-top name as ‘The White Death,’ and then crown himself its king?” Nick took another drink, shook his head again, and snorted. “I’m surprised you didn’t declare yourself Emperor, Betial.”

Brick studied his eyes, that harder look still in his. “Why have you not joined us, brother?” he asked. “This is your world now, too. Is it not?”

Nick snorted openly, and rolled his eyes.

“No, thanks,” he grunted.

He took another long drink of bourbon, and set down his glass. Measuring Brick with his eyes, he frowned. “How the fuck did you end up here six hundred years after I got here?”

Brick’s eyebrow rose.

He fingered his rocks glass, studying Nick with a new interest.

“Six hundred years?” he queried mildly. “I take it that’s not colorful exaggeration?”

“It’s not.”

He didn’t wait for Brick’s reaction, or even look for it in his face but took another long drink from his new glass.

“When we came, none of this…” Nick motioned around at the bar with his augmented reality people and fantastical animals and flashing terminals and wall monitors filled with the bloody, burning images of war. “…was like this,” he finished, slurring a little. “Just a lot of mud and horses and farmers. Pretty beaches. Shockingly blue lakes and oceans. So many fish, you could walk on their backs. No acid rain. No bombs that destroy every animal, every bird.” He met Brick’s gaze blearily. “We lived in France for a long time. Fucking beautiful. Stupid. But beautiful. Stupid fucking beautiful, everywhere we went.”

He downed more of his drink, and wondered why he was telling Brick any of this.

He wondered why he wanted him to know.

When he glanced at his sire, he saw Brick’s eyebrows raised. Surprise lived there, but also an understanding that made Nick want to take it all back.

“The pretty one, your Dalejem?” Brick asked perceptively. “He is not here, is he?”

“No.”

“One of those stupid humans, perhaps?” Brick asked.

“Old age,” Nick corrected.

“Ah.” Brick clucked under his breath. “I am sorry, youngling. That is the disadvantage of falling for mortals. Even the longer-lived ones, like yours, must eventually perish.”

Nick’s jaw hardened, but he only grunted.

“You realize I’m likely older than you now?” he asked sourly. “…Youngling.”

Brick blinked.

Then his lips slid into a wider smile.

“Intriguing. I hadn’t realized that… but of course, you are correct.” His eyes grew shrewd. “And the girl? The other Dalejem? What happened to her?”

Nick thought about that, then shrugged.

“No idea,” he said.

“You have not seen her here?”

“I saw no one but Dalejem until about ten minutes ago,” Nick said, giving his sire a flat look. “Apparently the dimensional door likes to play with time as well as space.”

Brick nodded. He leaned his upper body against the metal bar, his eyes thoughtful. He propped his handsome head on a palm.

“So you have been… what? Sulking since your mate left this plane?”

Nick felt his jaw harden significantly more.

Before he could speak, Brick held up a calming hand.

“Relax, offspring,” he said. “You have my sympathies. But I am wondering if I can persuade you to take on in a more invigorating distraction.”

Nick stared at him, his jaw still hard.

Then he let out a barking laugh.

“You want me to join your war?” Nick took another long drink of bourbon, and plunked down his glass. “Why in the fuck would I want to do that?”

“It affects you,” Nick observed. “Unless you’re planning to commit suicide by seer when it’s all over, it affects you greatly, child.”

Nick grunted, then slowly shook his head.

“No.” Nick rubbed a hand over his face, battling a brief head-rush from the liquor. He knew it wouldn’t last long, thanks to his damned vampire metabolism, but it was a nice high to chase when he couldn’t beat the memories back any other way.

“Promised,” he said, without looking at Brick. “Fucker made me promise before he died. No suicide. I’m supposed to ‘live my life’ for both of us now… so if a seer kills me, it won’t be because I walked into it.”

Again wondering why he was telling Brick this, he fell silent.

He forgot that a moment later, however, and let out a low growl.

“Fucking stupid,” he added coldly. “I never should have agreed to that. Never.”

There was a silence.

Nick could practically hear Brick thinking through it.

Moreover, despite the intervening years, Nick could have laughed at the sheer predictability of what he felt off his sire. Brick was trying to figure out how he could use Dalejem’s death and Nick’s obvious inability to deal with it to his advantage.

The realization made Nick snort cynically, then dust off the rest of his drink.

He motioned for the bartender, then pointed at Brick.

“Two more,” Nick said. “It’s on him.”

Brick didn’t so much as lift an eyebrow. Clearly, whatever he wanted from Nick was worth the price of a few drinks. Nick suspected it was worth a lot more than that to Brick, but he really, really wasn’t interested.

“What if I were to make it worth your while?” Brick asked, his voice a touch more cautious. “In the short run, too, I mean?”

“And how would you do that?” Nick asked, giving his sire a bleary stare.

“I might have a solution for you,” Brick offered cautiously. “I suspect you could enjoy your life here again… under the right circumstances. Perhaps I can help you with that, brother…”

* * *

Nick jerked awake.

He stared at a view of blue and gold light, confused at first about where he was, and what he was looking at. Then he blinked slowly, and carefully moved the arm of his that wasn’t trapped under Wynter’s warm weight.

He lifted his freed hand, and rubbed his eyes.

He fought to make sense of what he’d just seen.

Once he had, he winced.

The memory wasn’t one of his favorites. In fact, it might be his least favorite of all the ones he’d seen so far. Truthfully, it almost embarrassed him.

He didn’t really want to dig into the reasons why, not now, not until they were somewhere safe, somewhere he could think. Would it make any difference in terms of where they were going now? Nick couldn’t imagine how it would. Still, it was hard not to feel ashamed of the person he’d been when Brick found him, or the fact that he’d spent so many years as a depressed, selfish, surly asshole who refused to lift a finger for anyone.

He grimaced at the thought.

He glanced down at the woman lying on his chest, her arm wrapped around his cold, vampire body. He tugged the blanket up higher around her shoulders and arms.

What would she think of him, if she knew?

What would she think, if she found out he’d sat out most of the war, preferring to sit in dark, windowless bars, watch the world burn through a haze of alcohol and indifference? What if she found out it was Brick who pushed him to do the right thing in the end? That it was Brick who bribed him to do something for someone other than himself?

Would it change her opinion of him?

How could it not?

“No,” a voice said, low, quiet, utterly calm. “I don’t think so, Nick.”

Nick’s eyes swiveled.

He blinked into Malek’s mismatched eyes, focusing on the lighter, bluer one, then the one so dark it was nearly black. The prescient seer returned his stare calmly, his face colored in blue and gold light from the glass portals into the ocean. Nick guessed the lights came from the outside of the submarine itself, given how fast they were moving, and how deep.

“And it wasn’t indifference, Nick,” Mal added, still in that matter-of-fact voice. “Not exactly. I suspect it was something closer to clinical depression.”

Nick frowned. Slowly, he shook his head.

“Vampires don’t get depressed.”

Malek blinked, then frowned. “That’s an illogical statement.”

Nick stared at him, then grunted a laugh, in spite of himself.

“Is it?”

“Yes,” Malek said, frowning. “You obviously were depressed. And for a very long time.” Malek paused for a moment, then shrugged. “It’s not so strange to me, maybe, because I’m a seer. I remember my parents. Not their faces, not anymore, but I remember their lights… their voices, how they were together. They could not have lived without the other. They were bonded. If one of them died, the other would have died with them.”

Nick thought about that, nodding.

He’d heard of such things. Dalejem warned him that if Nick died the true death, he would likely follow. He told Nick he’d probably be dead within weeks, if not days.

At the time, Nick had told Jem that he was lucky.

He still thought so.

“That might’ve been easier,” Nick admitted to the seer.

Instead of arguing, Malek nodded.

“It might have been, yes,” he said agreeably. “Your vampire nature clearly wouldn’t let you die like that. But you were still forced to go through all the emotional experiences that would have literally killed one of my kind.”

Nick nodded, leaning his head against the recliner headrest.

“Do you know how Wynter got here, Malek?” he asked finally.

“You told us how,” Malek said. “She followed you through the door.”

“Then you think I’m right?” Nick pressed.

Malek nodded, his eyes puzzled. “Don’t you?”

Nick frowned, but didn’t answer.

He gazed out at the ocean.

“Then she did come to my home world,” he muttered.

“Yes.”

“But she wasn’t from there?”

Malek shook his head. “No. She wasn’t.”

“So why was she there?” Nick asked, turning to look at him.

Malek frowned thoughtfully that time. His eyes briefly fell out of focus.

“I believe it was an accident,” he said slowly. “Maybe not hers, though.”

“An accident?” Nick stared at the young seer.

Malek’s eyes cleared. He inclined his head.

“In a manner of speaking, yes,” he said, sounding more sure. “Ironically, I think she was meant to come here from the beginning. You were right about that, too. The person who kidnapped her meant to bring her to this Earth. But, as you also said, the portal is unpredictable. It sent your mate to your world, instead, at a time when you were there. She later made it here on her own, but only because she followed you here.”

“Kidnapped.” Nick glanced down at where Wynter sprawled in his lap. Her smell filled his nose, seemed to fill his mouth. “Then I was right about Yi, too.”

Malek nodded slowly.

“I think so, yes,” he said. “He brought many seers here, I think. And he got here via a portal himself. I think he hoped to overwhelm the human population.” Malek’s eyes grew serious. “But not all of his acquisitions ended up in the same place as he did, Nick. Your mate was one of those. The portal took her to you.”

“But she was on my Earth with Jem,” Nick argued. “Why didn’t that happen the second time? Why didn’t she come through the same time we did?”

Malek held up his hands. “Perhaps she couldn’t. Perhaps the portal pushed the two versions apart, since they shared the same soul. Perhaps the rules of this dimension are different than the rules of yours. Such things are mysterious, Nick.”

Nick frowned, but only nodded slowly.

“Right,” he muttered.

He didn’t point out that some of the memories coming back to him now contradicted things that Malek had told him before.

Malek nodded agreeably. “I’m not always right in how I interpret what I see,” he agreed. “It all looks much clearer now that you’re remembering more, too, Nick. It makes me realize I got some things confused. It could be the doppelg?nger caused some of that, but I don’t think so. I think I was just wrong about some of it.”

Nick smiled at the young seer.

Malek had always been adamant his visions were highly subjective. Nick hadn’t entirely believed him, mostly because the precient’s accuracy rate was downright spooky.

“So she came here later?” Nick asked.

Malek nodded. “Much later. Well after the wars, if I’m right. She was young, and traumatized, and the seers who found her helped her to suppress some of her memories, too.”

“Traumatized?” Nick stiffened. He glanced down at his mate. “From what?”

“I don’t know. Something bad happened to her.”

“Yi?” Nick asked sharply.

Malek thought for a minute. “I don’t know. I don’t really get much when I look at that, Nick. Just darkness. A feeling of being trapped.”

Nick swallowed.

Part of him wanted to press the point, to get Malek to look harder. Another part wasn’t sure why he had any right to know that, when Wynter herself might not want to know.

He squeezed her tighter against him. He felt a faint grief, even a flicker of shame that he hadn’t been there for her, whatever it had been. He hadn’t been able to save Jem, either. In the end, he’d not been there when it mattered for either of them.

“I don’t think that’s true,” Malek said, his voice a touch reproachful. “I don’t think Ms. James would agree with that at all, Nick.”

Nick grunted a humorless laugh.

He suspected Malek was right, but that didn’t make it untrue.

“It doesn’t make it true, either,” the seer pointed out.

“Right,” Nick said, smiling.

His eyes returned to the port hole.

For a few minutes, he didn’t say anything.

He lost himself in the dense weight of the ocean waves, feeling like the view through that window matched something in him, somehow. The feeling of time passing, of change, of mystery and beauty and the hugeness of everything, and how living inside all of it made him feel incredibly small yet somehow significant anyway.

“It feels true to me,” he admitted. “Everything you said.”

He wiped his eyes, and he and Malek sat in silence for a while, watching the ocean.

It felt good.

Inexplicably, like the ocean itself, it felt right.