Page 27

26

THE HUNT

“ H ow do we even know for certain Jem is the one behind this?” Nick scowled. He looked between our faces, his own highly defensive, bordering on hostile. “We don’t know. We don’t. You really think this is a coincidence?”

He motioned in a circle with one pale hand.

“All this shit revolving around the girl while we’re in the middle of this mess with Prometharis and their illegal tech? She’s got one of those implants in her. Not to mention the fact that we found her under Rucker’s damned floorboards. You have to know that’s valuable to more than just us! The tech in her head alone is valuable!”

“You smelled Jem,” Black said, his voice hard. “Where Angel was taken.”

“Maybe he was taken, too!” Nick burst out. “Maybe all four of them were taken by someone at Prometharis… or Archangel, maybe. You know what they’re like! Archangel could have decided the tech was dangerous. Maybe they took Rucker out, like Gorren said!”

I watched Nick’s face from where I leaned against the built-in, mid-century cabinet against the wall behind Black’s desk. We were back in the Black Securities and Investigations suite, in Black’s enormous, glass-enclosed office that overlooked most of the rest of the business offices, at least when the glass walls were left transparent.

Right now they were dark.

The only view we had was of the Bay Bridge.

Black scowled at Nick. “You don’t really fucking believe that, do you Nick?”

“I don’t know what I believe,” Nick shot back. “I’m just saying, we don’t know. This might not be what it looks like. It might not be about Jem at all. He might be just as much of a victim as the girl. For all we know, someone’s been fucking with his mind for months!”

Black frowned.

He looked at me, one eyebrow slightly quirked, then back at Nick.

“I’m not saying Jem’s not involved,” Nick growled. “I’m just saying we don’t know in what way. And the fact is, we really don’t know who took her. Or why. You say that tech can block seers, right? And that it’s completely unique? So there are a lot of reasons why someone might want to get ahold of it––”

“You mean vampires,” Black said, blunt.

Nick’s complexion darkened. “I didn’t say vampires.”

“You didn’t have to say fucking vampires to mean vampires, Naoko,” Black growled. “Did you mean vampires? Or not? Because that’s about the only thing I know of that could overpower a seer like Jem… at least without a decent amount of firepower.”

Nick’s eyes hardened.

I knew some of it was the name Black called him.

Nick had never particularly liked it when people called him by his full name, but he really didn’t like it now. I was pretty sure that had something to do with the fact that his vampire sire, Brick, called him that, as did the rest of Brick’s coven.

Despite the supposed special bond between a vampire and their sire, Nick and Brick never had what I’d call a “harmonious” relationship. That was probably because Brick made Nick a vampire against his will. Brick chose Nick. He got close to him, stalked him, kidnapped him, and then, from the very small amount Nick told me about his turning, tortured and killed him as a human over the course of something like fifteen hours.

It was highly unlikely Brick would ever apologize for that, or even believe he’d done anything wrong. Maybe for the same reason, I also doubted Nick would ever “make peace” with the manner of his “birth,” or with his sire.

“Fucking Brick,” Nick muttered.

I jumped. For a few, bewildering seconds, I wondered if Nick had been reading my mind.

Nick wasn’t looking at me, though. He was staring at out at the view of the San Francisco Bay. Looking at his face, all at once, I understood.

“You think Brick did this?” I said.

Nick winced, but didn’t answer me.

“Why?” I asked. “Why would you think that, Nick?”

“Yeah, why?” Black growled, staring between both of us.

“It might be a coincidence,” Nick muttered.

“What might be a coincidence?” Black growled.

I gave my husband a faint warning look, and he bit his tongue. His eyes never lost that intense, frustrated look, and he didn’t look away from Nick’s face. Both things told me I wouldn’t have much time to talk to Nick before Black started pushing him a lot harder.

“Nick,” I said. “Have you seen Brick recently?”

There was a silence.

Then, after darting me a look that could have cut glass, Nick nodded. “Yes.”

“What. The. Fuck––” Black growled.

“Quentin,” I warned. I looked back at Nick. “Where? When?”

“Here. San Francisco,” Nick said. “On the wharf. Four nights ago.”

Everyone in the office fell silent. I saw Ace and Mika exchange looks, eyebrows rising. Everyone in Black’s company, at least of those of us who worked here, in San Francisco, knew about the truce with Brick. Brick promised not only Black, but Nick also, that he would stay away from all of us if we stayed away from him.

Both sides had explicitly agreed upon a sort of “truce of mutual non-interference” between seers and vampires. A big part of that truce had been Brick’s promise that he would stay away from Nick. That truce had been in place for almost two years, ever since we did that job in New York, and as far as I knew, it hadn’t been broken.

Not until now.

“What did he want?” I asked Nick. “Did he tell you?”

Nick let out a humorless laugh. He rubbed his face with a hand, leaning against a metal strut in the glass wall. “Not exactly,” he muttered. “No.”

“What did he say?” Mika asked.

She was leaned against the same bookshelf and cabinet as I was, her arms folded.

Nick looked at her, and a bloom of scarlet now showed in his eyes. I knew it wasn’t aimed at us, that the aggression there was very likely aimed at Brick, and the situation, and his overall worry about Jem.

I felt Mika tense, anyway.

“He said he wanted to say hi,” Nick said, angry sarcasm bleeding from his words. “He also said he was here, in San Francisco, on some kind of job.”

“What kind of job?” Black growled.

Nick swiveled his gaze to Black. “He didn’t say.”

“Did you follow him?” I asked, my voice still calm.

Nick shook his head, and rubbed his face again. “No.”

The silence grew a lot more tense.

“What the fuck else did he say?” Black blurted. “Are you seriously saying he walked up, said hi, I’m here for a job, what’s up, bro… then left?”

Nick exhaled. I knew it was all for show; Nick didn’t breathe anymore.

“Basically, yeah,” Nick growled back. “He managed to work in a few insults, and a few shitty comments about Jem. He stared at me a lot. He refused to answer my questions. He refused to acknowledge his even being there was a breach of the truce––”

“Why the fuck am I only hearing about this now?” Black asked.

Nick folded his thick, marble-like arms. He stared levelly at Black.

“I didn’t think you’d want to hear vampire shit right now,” he said, voice frank. “I figured it was better to hold off until I knew if there was a reason to be concerned.”

“Is there reason enough now, Tanaka?” Black retorted.

I held up a hand between them. I gave Black another warning look.

“He’s not wrong,” I said to Black, quiet. “We wouldn’t have been particularly open to that information right now. Given everything.”

Black gave me a disbelieving look.

“Are you fucking kidding me right now, wife?” He looked between me and Nick as his voice rose. “The girl is gone. She has one of those gaos- damned sight-blocking chips in her head. Jem, a famously level-headed and calm-minded seer, just kidnapped two of our people… two of his friends … for reasons unknown, after acting like a goddamned lunatic for hours. But you both think it’s totally fine that I had no reason to think I might have needed to up our anti-vampire security measures a little bit?

“Aura is gone, yes,” I warned. “But Cowboy, Holo, and Dog were found unconscious, alive, and without a scratch. They had no drugs in their systems, no vampire bites on them, and none had suffered so much as a hit over the head. Nothing we did in the area of ‘vampire security’ would have prevented Jem from overpowering the three of them––”

“I might have asked the damned question!” Black exploded.

There was another silence.

In it, no one would really meet gazes with me, Nick, or Black.

“I don’t know if it’s Brick,” Nick said finally, breaking the impasse. “I don’t know if vampires had anything to do with any of it. All I know is, Jem wouldn’t do this. And if it helps…” Nick glared at Black. “He wasn’t acting like someone being manipulated by venom. I should know.”

“He wasn’t acting like someone who was addicted to your venom, you mean,” Black retorted back. “It might look a little different when his loyalty isn’t to you, Nick.”

I swallowed at that, looking between them.

I had no idea which of them might be right.

I found myself remembering Solonik, the assassin seer who’d once held me hostage. Nick fed on him for months. Jem more or less fed Solonik to Nick, to keep Nick alive while Jem tried to reach him as a newborn in the snowy forests of Russia. Solonik turned into a desperate, obedient puppy dog, and basically Nick’s willing slave. Nick eventually handed him over to Brick, mostly just to get rid of him.

We’d all felt pretty weird about that.

Solonik cried, but only because he’d wanted to stay with Nick.

But then, a few months later, Charles and everyone who’d been loyal to Charles had gone, taken away by that being, “Dragon.” Brick told us that Solonik disappeared along with the rest of them. When Brick got back to where he’d left the seer, he found only an empty cage.

I honestly wasn’t sure how I felt about that, either.

Mostly, I decided it was a good thing.

Gods only knew what Brick and his coven would have done to him over the two years since. Given how Solonik had treated me, not to mention all the humans he’d killed, and other seers, and children he’d helped Ian burn and murder in Thailand, I probably shouldn’t have felt as guilty about what became of him as I did.

It was hard not to feel guilty, though.

Solonik had been turned into a slave. He basically had no will of his own anymore.

I wondered if he’d been rehabbed in some way by Charles and the others, wherever they ended up.

“No,” I murmured under my breath. “Jem wasn’t acting like a venom addict.”

“You don’t know that,” Black warned. “Like I said, it would look different if he wasn’t loyal to Nick. I was still able to do jobs for Brick when they were using venom on me. It took everything I had in me to fight back. I had to work with other seers for months, and even then, it was a relief when I could just do the job Brick wanted me to do. Brick’s used other seers and humans that way, too. We didn’t always catch those immediately––”

“But how long had they been feeding on you?” I pointed out. “Months, right?”

I looked between Nick and Black, suddenly feeling more sure.

I aimed a finger at Nick.

“Are you telling me Nick wouldn’t notice bite marks all over Jem for months? He wouldn’t notice another vampire’s venom in Jem for months?” I saw Nick flinch, right before he frowned. “His own boyfriend? He wouldn’t pick up on that?”

Black’s pupils contracted slightly.

His expression remained hard, though.

“They could have hidden the marks,” Black said. “They did on me.”

Now Nick looked openly skeptical, though.

I frowned, and vehemently shook my head.

“No,” I said. “Black, Nick isn’t me. I didn’t know anything about vampires, but Nick is a vampire. He would have smelled the blood, if nothing else. He definitely would have noticed.” I looked at Nick, waiting for him to back me up. “Right? There’s no way Brick or one of his coven could have been grooming Jem for weeks, or even days, without you noticing. Black’s told me how insanely sensitive your nose is. You would have smelled the other vampire on him.”

There was a silence.

I could see from Nick’s face that I’d reminded him of something his mind couldn’t refute. He knew I was right. He knew there was no possible way Brick could have done this, certainly not in such a short time, not the way he and Black had been saying. There was no way Nick wouldn’t have seen the signs. Hell, he likely would have sensed another vampire’s presence around his mate, even apart from the smell.

He would have tasted the venom on him.

He would have known.

“Jem wouldn’t do this,” Nick repeated, stubbornly. “He wouldn’t.”

“The fuck he wouldn’t,” Black muttered. “He already did.”

“––Whoever did it,” I broke in, giving Black a warning look. “We have to try and figure that out using only the facts. We can’t let what we wish to be true get in the way,” I said, looking at Nick. “And we can’t let what we’re afraid might be true get in the way, either,” I added, giving Black a meaningful stare.

I glanced at Mika, and she nodded to me, eyes serious.

She motioned subtly with her hand for me to go on.

I exhaled, feeling like I still had a metaphorical hand on Black and Nick’s chests, keeping them apart in some way.

“Look,” I said, subduing my voice with an effort. “We can all agree that it was likely Jem’s body that did this, right? Maybe not his will, in whole or in part, but his skillset, his sight, and his mind did this? Right?”

I looked between Nick and Black again, looking for agreement.

I saw it, grudgingly on Black, and more angrily on Nick.

“Whoever did this, they knew our tech,” I pointed out. “They hacked our semi-organic security system. They enacted a comms and phone blocker over the entire building, even the garage. They looped our CCTV seamlessly with past recordings, and changed the time signature on the one showing Jem entering our penthouse. They set off the alarms and shut down the building remotely… likely after they were safely away. He didn’t hurt anyone,” I added, quieter. I met Nick’s gaze. “He hasn’t hurt anyone, Nick… not yet. But none of our seers can get past his shield. We need your help to find him.”

Nick’s eyes remained stubborn. “I just don’t think he would do this––”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Black growled. “How many gaos- damned seers do we know who could have done it? Yarli couldn’t have pulled this off. Even with the Dragon thing in me, I couldn’t have done it, either. Or the doc. Your boyfriend’s skillset is all over this.”

Without waiting for Nick’s answer, Black looked at me.

I saw a faint apology in his eyes, and his voice lost its punch when he spoke next.

“Miri’s right,” he said. “We’ll figure out the why of this, and who’s to blame, once we’ve found Jem and the others. Right now, our priority has to be bringing them all back. We need to find Angel, Javi, Jem, and the girl and bring them in, alive and unharmed.”

Nick scowled.

His crystal, vampire-clear eyes were now tinged with a darker bloom of scarlet.

I still didn’t get the sense that Nick’s aggression––or fear, most likely––was aimed at us, but I saw a lot of eyes looking at Nick nervously now, and watching his vampire irises change color. Like Mika, they were letting me talk to Nick and Black for them, but I suddenly wondered how they all saw Nick in this moment. It struck me that they were looking at him like he was somehow less human, and a lot more vampire, with Jem gone.

Nick definitely felt those stares. He looked around and scowled at all of them. He clearly thought exactly none of us were on his side when it came to Jem.

“Do you have any idea where he might have taken them?” I asked Nick. “Can you think of anywhere he’d go that would require Black’s plane?”

Because that was another thing that happened.

Jem used that extra twenty or so minutes while we were scrambling around the California Street Building, trying to turn off alarms, to take one of the company cars to the airport ahead of us, and steal Black’s private plane. He’d pushed Black’s ground crew, dismissed all of his flight personnel, then pushed San Francisco air traffic control to get it up into the air.

He’d also taken off without logging a flight plan.

I couldn’t help but be disturbed by the forethought and planning that had to have gone into some of this. Even Jem couldn’t have done it entirely on the spur of the moment. That meant the counseling session with me had likely been part of his plan, if only to distract me and Black into thinking he was complying with Black’s wishes.

I understood Nick’s stubborn compulsion to understand why.

I couldn’t make sense of any of this, either.

I definitely couldn’t figure out why he’d taken Angel.

Javier made sense, in a brutally pragmatic way. Javier was a pilot. Jem was a pilot too, and together, the two of them could have easily gotten Black’s plane into the air. They’d also be able to land it in a new airport and take off for a second destination, maybe after pushing ground crew to refuel and run a few safety checks.

But why the fuck had Jem taken Angel?

Was she there to convince me and Nick to keep our distance?

“We don’t have time for this,” Black growled quietly.

I bit my lip, but did my best to clear my mind.

He was right.

Yarli was coordinating long-distance with Rafe, Sully, Vixen, and others, trying to find Jem and Aura in the Barrier, although Black seemed to have little hope of that working. Dexter was trying to determine their flightpath with the help of Black’s contacts in the military, mostly via satellite and radar, using footage from the S.F.O. airport.

But Black was right. We didn’t have time for this.

Every one of us needed to be looking for Jem, especially if Nick couldn’t help us.

Nick glared at me, then around at the rest of the seers and humans filling the glass-enclosed room. It struck me again that Nick really was alone in a lot of ways, and probably felt it keenly right then. The only vampire in a sea of warm-blooded bodies that only somewhat looked like him, he normally did his best to “blend” with the rest of us, but for the first time in a while, I wondered how much it bothered him, being entirely cut off from his own kind.

“Whatever he wants with them,” Nick spoke up next. “He won’t hurt them. He definitely won’t hurt Ange or Javi. He won’t hurt the girl, even if––”

“You don’t believe that,” Black said.

Nick gave him another icy look.

He went on to me like Black hadn’t spoken.

“All I’m saying is, even if Jem did do this, on his own, I mean, and even if he’s angry at the girl or doesn’t trust her for some reason… he won’t hurt her.” Nick’s marble-white skin seemed to shift even whiter as his eyes grew a darker shade of blood-red. “If he took Aura away, and it was his own choice, it’s because he really does think she poses a danger. That doesn’t mean he’ll fucking kill her. Hell, I posed a bigger danger and he didn’t kill me. You’re acting like she’s already dead. Like he’s some kind of serial killer––”

“No.” Black’s voice came out harsher that time.

I started to speak, but Black glared a warning at me that time.

He aimed a much harder version at Nick.

“We’re not playing this game anymore, Naoko,” Black warned. “What exactly has been going on with Jem? Because he might not be getting fed on regularly by Brick and his merry fucks, but this weird behavior from him definitely isn’t new. It’s been going on for a while, hasn’t it? And you’ve been helping him to hide it.”

Nick scowled. Still leaning against the wall, he refolded his arms.

Black’s gold eyes grew darker.

“Are you going to tell me about it?” he growled. “Honestly, this time? Or should I suit up the entire goddamned team with high-powered tranq rifles and sight-restraint collars so we can bring him down and drag him back here to shackle him downstairs? What’s it going to take to get one of you to fucking level with me about what’s been going on?”

I winced, but, like Black, my focus remained on Nick.

It was a good question.

Something told me Nick realized it was a good question, too.

He didn’t get angry. Instead, his face went nearly slack. He combed a hand through his hair, making it stand on end, and looked Black right in the eye.

“I don’t know,” he said, sounding defeated. “I really don’t. I would tell you if I did.”

“When did it start?” Black asked.

“About three? Four months ago? I can’t be sure exactly. It wasn’t much at first, just little things. Unusual mood swings, occasional disappearances––”

“Disappearances?” My eyebrows rose. “For how long?”

Nick looked at me, his expression tired. “It varied. Usually only a few hours. They’ve gotten longer lately. His denials have gotten more crazy, too. He refuses to admit he’s doing anything strange. I don’t know if it’s fear, or––”

“Could he be blacking out?” I found myself remembering that strange way that Jem’s face and eyes changed, right before he left our session. “Could it be he really doesn’t remember? Maybe he’s covering up more than you know.”

Black, who clearly felt and saw my memory right then, looked to Nick for his answer.

“I don’t know.” Nick shook his head, frustrated. “I really don’t.”

“Why the fuck didn’t you come to me with this?” Black growled angrily. “Jesus fuck, Nick. This really might not be Jem. Someone else could be doing this to him. Someone could be controlling him for their own reasons. Or did that really not occur to you until now?”

Nick’s jaw hardened more.

He stared sightlessly at the copper-colored carpet.

“Honestly, I thought I was doing something to him,” he admitted. “I stopped feeding on him weeks ago, and that pissed him off, too, but I was worried it was me. I thought it might have something to do with my venom––”

“Or someone else’s venom,” Black cut in darkly.

Nick looked up at him, his crystal eyes now swimming with scarlet.

“You still think this could be Brick?” Nick asked, his voice suddenly a lot harder. “Even with everything Miri said? She wasn’t wrong, you know. About any of it.”

Black’s voice turned coldly sarcastic.

“Do I still think it could be Brick?” he retorted. “Let’s see. Has the thought crossed my fucking mind? Yes, Nick. It has. Maybe Brick found some way to do it so that no one would notice. Maybe they found a way that even you wouldn’t notice. Maybe Rucker’s implants were the business Brick came here to deal with, and he’s using Jem and the girl to get what he wants. Maybe Jem has a fucking chip in his head, Nick… did you consider that? How would we even know? It’s not like we ever thought to look for one. Maybe the vampires and Prometharis are already in bed together…”

I frowned. Fuck. Of course.

This couldn’t all be a coincidence.

These things had to be connected in some way, didn’t they?

“Where was Brick, last you knew?” Black folded his own arms and stared at Nick. “Before you saw him here. Before he came to San Francisco, where was he?”

I looked at Nick, too.

According to the truce, we were all supposed to stay away from the vampires, and especially away from Brick. That said, I knew Black had Nick keeping tabs on them, anyway. He didn’t let Nick get very close, but Black wanted to know where they were. He wanted a rough idea of what Brick might be up to, at least in the larger sense. He also wanted eyes on whatever location they might be operating from.

It didn’t bother me.

There was exactly zero chance Brick wasn’t doing the same with us.

“France.” Nick’s voice sounded harder now, but also less defeated. “Paris, specifically. But that was months ago. There was also that thing in Istanbul I told you about, and a possible sighting in Cairo. I don’t have anything concrete for the past month. But last I knew, they were using Paris as their home base. Everywhere else was short-term.”

Before Black or I could speak, Kiko poked her head in through the glass door.

“Dex thinks they’ve got him,” she called out. “Satellite caught them at take-off, just like you hoped, and we think we’ve mapped their current trajectory.” Her voice remained all business. “One hour lag, but they’re definitely heading east over the continental U.S.A.”

“Where?” Black asked.

“We don’t know for sure, but they’re pretty high up. Dex says likely New York, Boston, New Jersey, D.C. Somewhere in that area.”

I couldn’t help noticing she very studiously didn’t look at Nick.

“Dex is on hold with Grant Steffans of Homeland Security,” Kiko continued. “They’ll let us know as soon as your plane starts coming in for an approach at any of the airports, including smaller, private ones. He’ll have to refuel if he plans to continue east past New York.”

I glanced at Black, and he met my gaze with a scowl.

I knew now why Jem took Black’s plane, versus someone else’s.

We couldn’t exactly climb onto a commercial flight to follow them if we had absolutely no idea where they’d be landing.

“Oh, I’m working on that, doc––” Black muttered under his breath.

Kiko beat him to the punch.

“We’ve also secured that plane you asked for, boss,” she added. “The fastest we could get was ninety minutes to lift-off, but it can cross the Atlantic if we need it to.”

“Good,” Black grunted.

He glanced around at the rest of us, his eyes stopping on Nick.

“I want everyone who’s coming ready in thirty-five minutes. Cars loaded and leaving the garage in forty-five.”

No one said a word.

We all just rose to our feet and began filing out of Black’s office, including me.