Page 29 of Almost Midnight (Vampire Detective Midnight #8)

CHAPTER 29

BAD NEWS

Nick sat across from Tai, who was crashed out on Malek’s lap.

Malek, who also looked dead asleep, lolled back on the recliner opposite Wynter.

Wynter, on the other hand, was awake now, and listening to music. Nick glanced over periodically and watched her sketch images on one of Kit’s tablets.

That’s how the four of them were arranged when Walker approached their facing seats.

“We’ll be near the shores of England soon,” he told Nick.

Forrest glanced at Wynter. He looked away when she didn’t glance up from where she concentrated on her drawing.

“Three hours, they tell me,” he said, again addressing Nick. “We’ll be visible to their perimeter security then, and within range of their defense systems. We’ll start slowing down over the next hour, so I wanted to give you a head’s up. They obviously won’t be shooting at us, not unless things are much worse on land than I was led to believe.”

He said it like he meant it to be a joke, but the comment fell flat.

Nick was still stuck on the reality of them crossing the Atlantic Ocean without taking a rocket plane, or at least one of the underwater tunnels that sent trains barreling from one end of the ocean to the other. He was a little shocked they’d nearly reached their destination.

Forrest just stood there, like he expected Nick to have questions.

“How long have we been out here?” Nick asked finally.

He knew it had been at least a few days. Three? Four?

That was still eerily fast to cross the entire Atlantic in a submarine.

Had he completely lost track of time out here?

“If we were still going to London, it would be five days when we arrived,” Forrest said. “That’s dock to dock. This particular ship can actually do New York to Plymouth in three days, going all-out, but they detoured a bit, mostly to make sure we’re not being followed.”

Walker’s expression and voice turned grim.

“I wasn’t totally kidding about my comment just now,” he said. “A lot is going on up there, Nick. People are looking for you.”

“For me?” Nick frowned, blinked. “The H.R.A., you mean? The N.Y.P.D.? Or Farlucci? Did they put in a complaint for breach of contract?”

Forrest shook his head, his expression faintly bewildered.

“Breach of contract? No. You’re way beyond that now, Nick. Your face is all over the news feeds. Footage of us breaking into the Archangel site is all over the news feeds. You must know how that looks to them? They’re calling you a terrorist.”

Nick nodded, biting his tongue.

“Ah,” he said.

“‘Ah’ is one word for it,” Walker said. “I can think of a few others I might’ve used.”

Forrest went on in that same, half-incredulous voice.

“They think you joined the White Death, and are fighting with Zoe and the others. Truthfully, they think you lead the White Death now. They’re calling you the Vampire King. They’re saying it was you who ordered Brick’s murder.”

“That’s ludicrous,” Nick cut in, annoyed. “They must have surveillance of what happened? Surely they know it wasn’t me who did that, but Lara St. Maarten?”

“Probably, yes,” Forrest conceded. “They probably do know that. But that story doesn’t exactly fit their preferred narrative right now, does it? ‘C.E.O. of Archangel Murders Infamous Vampire King of the White Death’ doesn’t quite have the same ring as ‘Famous Vampire Cage Fighter Goes Rogue, Leads Bloodbath of Innocent Humans.’”

Nick folded his arms, staring flatly up at the hybrid.

Forrest stared back, unapologetic. “You said it yourself. Brick’s body disintegrated. With no physical evidence, they can make up any story they want.”

Nick pursed his lips, but didn’t argue.

There was nothing to argue about. He agreed with Forrest.

Walker folded his own arms, still holding Nick’s gaze.

“They’re also saying you killed Lara St. Maarten, which is perhaps even less surprising. And that you were the mastermind behind blowing up the facility.”

But Nick had just caught something else.

“Wait,” he said, sharp. “Back up. Did you just say if we were going to London? Like we’re not still going to London?” He stared up at the hybrid. “Are we no longer going to London, Forrest?”

Walker exhaled, and Nick couldn’t tell if it was in annoyance for him asking, or relief that Nick had finally gotten there.

Probably a bit of both, if Nick had to guess.

“Mi6 was, understandably, a little nervous about declaring you to be in their custody, given the stories coming out of New York,” Walker said.

His voice grew nearly blunt.

“No matter how my country words it, or what excuses they give for working with you, it’s going to be a diplomatic shit-show, Nick. They’ve discussed different ways they might justify it to the H.R.A., and in the end, decided the situation is simply too volatile right now. Even if they tried categorizing you as a political refugee, New York might decide to treat it as a hostile act. Maybe even a declaration of war.”

Forrest lifted one eyebrow.

“Total shit-show were the words they used,” he added drily. “There are notices out over all the official channels about you being a wanted fugitive and enemy of the human racial authorities. They claim you’ve killed over a hundred human beings already. And, of course, that you’re leading an army of vampires with the sole goal of racial conquest.”

Nick felt his muscles start to clench.

It must have been more of a reaction than he realized, because Wynter looked over, her own eyebrow arched. Her eyes held an open scrutiny when she looked between him and her ex-husband. She didn’t speak, but Nick saw her make a subtle hand gesture, and then the very faint sound of the music she’d been listening to went silent.

“You’re saying we can’t go there,” Nick said. “That’s what you’re saying, right? England is out for us, as a refuge. We’re no longer welcome.”

There was a silence, then Walker exhaled.

“We’ve discussed it, as I said. They aren’t idiots, Nick. They know the H.R.A. and the New York authorities are playing fast and loose with the truth. I’ve convinced them to take you to France instead. Until we can determine the best way forward.”

His eyes held a subtle meaning Nick couldn’t possibly be misunderstanding.

France.

Nice was in France.

The caves in Nice with the petroglyphs and prehistoric paintings were in France.

The portal Nick had fallen through with Dalejem was in France.

“What about your person?” Nick asked, his voice quieter. “I thought you said they were in England. That we would pick them up in London––”

“I did say that,” Forrest affirmed, his voice a touch lower, too. “But I managed to get ahold of her. She’ll meet us in Antibes. It is one of the few viable docking areas in that part of France.” He paused. “It’ll extend our trip by about a day.”

Nick felt his shoulders start to unclench.

Even so, a nagging doubt remained with him.

“Antibes isn’t all that close to Nice,” he pointed out. “There are no docks nearer?”

Forrest frowned, his eyes holding an open puzzlement.

“No, Nick,” the hybrid said. “You understand where Nice is, don’t you? That entire section of coast is part of the Dead Zone. It’s completely uninhabitable.”

* * *

They’d all moved their chairs now. They adjusted them all so that they sat nearly in a circle with the center being the aisle between the two sides.

Kit and Malek were the only two in a different row, and they leaned against the backs of their chairs so they could see everyone as they began to talk.

Everyone now knew about the change in plans.

Everyone understood they had to find a way to reach the cave in Nice.

“There must be some kind of vehicle that goes out there?” Kit ventured. “I mean, they used to send people out to Zombieland back home, didn’t they?”

“They didn’t last long,” Wynter said, giving the twenty-something human a sour look. “It’s a death sentence, Kit. It’s worse than a death sentence, from what I know. Which is why they don’t allow it anymore.”

“But Nick can do it,” Kit pressed. “It’s how I met him. He was outside the dome surfing.”

“Nick’s a vampire,” Tai pointed out.

“The point is, how do the rest of us get out there,” Charlie added in a grumble.

Walker interrupted before they could get any further, his voice a touch louder, and more authoritative-sounding.

“It’s worse than that,” he said. “Their ‘Zombieland,’ or Terres Mortes, as the Europeans call it, is particularly toxic. And nowhere is as bad as the shores of the Mediterranean. The war was brutal there, with vampires holding most of Europe towards the end of the war, and the seers under Charles using all manner of biological weapons to hit them from Africa and the Middle East. They used ships as bombs filled with nuclear waste, and even now, the water is so badly irradiated, its basically a toxic sludge that can kill a human being in under five minutes. There’s even been discussion of draining the sea entirely, filling it in with treated sand, or some other neutralizing agent… or even putting it under its own dome. Nick might remember this. Malek tells me you fought during that part of the war, and mostly in Europe…”

Nick blinked in surprise.

He glanced at Malek, who returned his stare unblinkingly.

Nick looked back at Walker.

“I don’t,” he said. “Remember it.”

Walker hesitated, seemed about to ask, then glanced at Wynter and shrugged. “Well, regardless, you couldn’t have picked a more inaccessible part of the world for your portal. Assuming it’s even still there.”

“I thought you were on board with this, Forrest,” Wynter said, sounding faintly annoyed. “You said before you wanted to reach the portal, too.”

“I do,” Forrest affirmed. “But I want everyone here to know what they’re getting themselves into. I’m working on finding us some shielded transport that’s designed to withstand the contamination, but even the very best shielding they have only lasts a few hours, especially once you get that close to the coast. I’ve been in contact with a research team out there, and they inform me that the nearest dome is roughly ninety minutes each way to Nice, and possibly longer to get to the grotte itself. Which makes the parameters very tight.”

Walker’s voice grew openly warning.

“Remember, wherever we go, we have to time in a return trip, in the event we can’t get inside,” he added. “And we would be foolish not to work in some padding, in case we encounter any problems. We have no idea what we’re going to find in Nice. I doubt anyone’s been out to that particular spot in years, although hopefully the science team can tell us something. They should at least have current maps, either from satellites or heavily-shielded drones.”

His mouth firmed as he looked back at Nick.

“The whole area could be collapsed,” he pointed out. “The cave itself might be completely inaccessible… and the dirt is often even more toxic than the air, so the likelihood that we could dig it out is pretty much nonexistent. In any case, we’re going to have to watch every minute, because there’s no room at all for error on the shielding.”

“But we can try again, right?” Kit said. “We can do a scouting trip first, maybe, then go back if we run out of time? As long as we’re careful, we could probably get out there even a second or even a third time, right?”

She sounded so hopeful, Nick couldn’t help but glance at her.

He wondered, again, why she was so eager to get off this world.

She had family here. As far as Nick knew, there were no problems with her family, no serious ones at least. He’d always thought Kit was close to them.

But she seemed as anxious to leave this dimension as Malek.

He looked back at Walker when he realized the hybrid was answering her.

“…but when the time runs out, we must go back,” he was saying seriously. “And yes, we can maybe try again, maybe even a handful of times, like you said… but each trip will require a new and/or re-shielded vehicle, which is very expensive. And each trip gets more risky for that reason alone. Large transfers of credits between my accounts and Nick’s and whoever else’s, all going to the same research center in the south of France will send up red flags. The H.R.A. will likely get curious. They monitor accounts of non-humans even more closely than they do human beings… and we’re talking numbers that would definitely pique their curiosity, even in normal times, much less right now. I’ve already paid for our first trip out, but I think it would be foolish to assume we could conduct endless trips out to the site and not alert the authorities.”

Nick scowled a little, but nodded.

It was a good point.

His accounts were likely frozen by now, anyway.

Wynter’s could be frozen, as well.

They couldn’t count on having enough, in any case, not if the equipment was as expensive as Forrest was saying, and Nick had little doubt it was.

“What about when we arrive?” Nick asked, gruff. “We can’t drive the vehicle into the cave, even if the passageway is open. I’m assuming that wasn’t the plan?”

Walker nodded.

“Suits,” he said. “Semi-organic, plasma-field, molecular-shielded suits.”

Everyone groaned a little, and Nick felt his jaw harden.

A fully-armored vehicle lasted only a few hours in that level of radiation, but they were supposed to walk around in the worst of it wearing nothing but fucking suits?

Walker didn’t dissuade them from their skepticism.

His voice grew openly warning.

“You’re right. It’s not ideal,” he said. “The suits are heavy, and the shielding on those only lasts about fifty minutes, and that’s on the high end. We should assume we only have about forty safe minutes once we leave the vehicle, which is twenty minutes, each direction. After that, we start losing years off our lives with every second we’re out there. And that’s assuming we can even get inside the cave without touching any of the contaminated materials with anything but the boots.”

Walker’s grim look met Nick’s.

“You’ll want to work in padding along with the return trip for your time estimates with those, too, in the event we hit a wall somewhere inside the underground cavern. We may not be able to see how intact the cave is from the outside. We can try sending in a drone first, but that takes time, too, and there’s a good chance the drone will fry up before it can explore the entire cave well enough to return and send us a decent image. I doubt the radiation will allow for a clear signal while the drone’s underground.”

Nick felt his jaw harden more.

Christ. This was sounding more and more like a suicide mission.

He glanced at Kit, then at Charlie.

How could he ask humans to do this? Hybrids were bad enough, but any seer or hybrid would be more resilient than a human, especially an older human like James Morley.

He met James’ eyes at the thought.

“I’ll be fine, Midnight,” the senior detective said firmly, clearly reading some inkling of Nick’s thoughts. “Don’t worry about me.”

Nick only nodded.

The claim that he would be “fine” was ludicrous, of course.

So was the demand that Nick not worry.

But there was nothing else to say about the thing, really.

This was the hand they’d been dealt.

These were the parameters they had to work with.

Nick, like the rest of them, was already committed.