Dance-walking to the second table, she scooped up the alligator by its smooth black handle, bringing it back to the vampire strapped to the stainless-steel. The vampire’s bare chest didn’t move, which was strange with its eyes open, staring up at them. It looked like it was trying to speak, but it couldn’t through the paralytic they’d given it.
Still, it was trying.
An hour ago, it wouldn’t have been able to do that.
“Hurry up,” Michael urged. “He’s coming out of it.”
She nodded seriously, lips pursed.
Michael watched as she positioned the round sets of silver, serrated teeth above where the creature’s heart was located––which happened to be the same place they lived on a human. The creature looked strangely veiny and thin for a vamp, having been robbed of most of its blood. He’d been nearly the size of the cop lying at Michael’s feet when they started, if about three inches shorter.
Flipping open the back end of the pole, the woman glanced at Michael, as if asking permission, or maybe just checking she was doing it right.
“Go on,” he said, nodding. “That’s right. The thing has sensors. It’ll grab the right part.”
Nodding solemnly, she looked back at the vampire’s naked chest.
Firming her jaw as if bracing herself, she hit the button at the end.
The device leapt into life.
It darted out, fast as a striking snake.
Michael watched, still fascinated by the process, despite how many times he’d seen it. He stared, mesmerized, as those razor-sharp teeth ripped into the thing’s chest. The alligator slid through the vampire’s body as if completely without obstruction––cracking through bone, penetrating skin and muscle as if all were made of soft butter. It passed through all of it on the way to its goal.
It didn’t stop until it found it.
Clamping down over and around the animal’s heart, the alligator finally paused––
Then retracted in a single, smooth pull.
It ripped the whole heart out with it.
The whole operation took about three seconds.
The vampire on the table tensed.
It lay there, panting, as the device paused, silver teeth closed around its heart.
Then it slumped.
Michael barely noticed its muscles had tensed until they relaxed, all at once.
The eyes––those clear, glass-like, ice-like eyes––immediately grew milky.
Michael swore he could see the demon leaving their bodies at each undead monster they deprived of its heart. He glanced at Melissa, who alternated between grinning with delight and grimacing at the sight of the blackened, dripping heart at the end of the pole.
“Hey. Hurry up. Dump it,” he reminded her. “The bin’s over there.”
She jumped, glancing at him, then nodded.
He watched her walk the organ gingerly over to a big outdoor garbage can lined with a blood-stained silver liner. She held the heart clamped in the alligator teeth away from her body, lips twisted in a grimace.
She hit a second button on the side of the alligator pole.
Both of them watched the device open its teeth with a clang, dumping the heart in the trash with a dull thump.
“Okay,” Michael said, exhaling. It was always a relief to see one of these things go. “I’m going to get Felix. Wash that thing off. Then see if you can start getting the next one’s clothes off so we can get him hooked up.”
She gave Michael another pouty look, wrinkling her nose.
Seeing her look from him to the alligator, which was still dripping with the black, grossly viscous vampire blood, he let out a humorless grunt.
“Too late to complain now, darling,” he said. “You wanted to be the one to do it. You begged to be the one to do it. Washing off the alligator is part of the job. Get it done. Now.”
He checked his watch, already heading for the door leading out to the garage.
“If we hurry, we should have time to get through the rest of these.”
She nodded, but continued to wrinkle her nose as she brought the semi-organic device over to the industrial-sized sink.
Pushing through the door to the garage, Michael smiled to himself as he headed for the van, where Felix was probably either taking a nap, smoking, or playing a game in virtual.
Every soul Michael helped free was another step towards redemption.
Melissa might do it for the venom.
Felix might do it for the money.
Michael had his own reasons. He suspected his reasons brought him a lot more genuine happiness than Melissa’s or Felix’s brought them.
Michael did it for the betterment of the world.
He did it for every human whose body had been robbed from its soul by one of these blood-sucking demons.
He did it for every human being that used to be.
He did it for the human race.
He did it for God Himself, who made them in his image.
Most of all, he did it for family…
Chapter 1
Two Days Earlier
Nick exhaled in frustration.
He was already annoyed, although not with his friend.
Well, only marginally with his friend.
Okay, maybe he was a little annoyed with his friend.
“I thought I was back on duty this week. You said three weeks. Then four weeks. It’s going on five fucking weeks, Jordan––”
“Are you seriously whining about this?” Detective Damon Jordon frowned at him through the virtual monitor. “Really, Midnight? You want to go there? After you’re finally back in my good fucking graces?”
Nick scowled.
The human wasn’t wrong. It took him half of those weeks to wheedle his way out of the doghouse with Jordan, and since then he’d been treading pretty fucking lightly with the other man, who he now considered a real friend.
But enough was enough.
Nick grunted into the silence.
“You try being locked up in a government-owned apartment for over a month,” he said, fighting his voice back to a low grumble. “When you don’t fucking sleep. When you’ve watched probably every movie that’s ever been made… including the really really bad ones, Damon. When you’ve read six books every twenty-four-hour period for the past three weeks and you’ve actually run out of things you want to read––”
“Not my problem, Tanaka.” The handsome black man visible on the monitor shook his head, jutting his jaw. “As for books, ask Charlie. I hear she’s got a wicked vampire porn collection.”
“Hundred bucks says I’ve read most of it already,” Nick muttered.
Jordan laughed, as if in spite of himself.
“TMI, Tanaka… T-M-I…”
“Look,” Nick said. “Just ask him. I’m not talking about going out clubbing. It’s surfing for fuck’s sake. No one goes down there. No one. I’ll go in the middle of the night, if it makes him feel better. I’ll go any time of day he wants…”
Jordan let out a vaguely long-suffering sigh.
It made Nick’s teeth grind more.
Then again, this might be the hundredth time they’d had this conversation over the course of the last two weeks.
“No,” Jordan said, the tiredness reaching his voice. “No, Midnight. And hell no. There are media drones all over the damned city, including down by the buffer doors. There was also some mention about you surfing in at least one article I saw––”
Nick swore under his breath.
Jordan talked over him.
“––just one of those damned things tags you with facial-rec software, and it’ll set off alarms every reporter in the New York Protected Area will hear––”
“Like bats,” Nick muttered.
“I was going to say dogs… but yeah. And then what? They’ll be waiting for you outside the force field gates with full media crews. And we look like assholes, since we’ve been telling them you’re in ‘rehabilitation’ to appease the anti-vampire a
ctivists––”
“You mispronounced ‘racists,’” Nick muttered.
“Whatever,” Jordan said, annoyed. “Just suck it up, okay? Or we really will send you in for some fucking attitude-adjustment.”
“Is that supposed to be funny?”
There was a silence.
“No.” Jordan sighed, pursing his lips before he gave Nick an almost-apologetic look. “Not really. But it wasn’t a threat, either. I just never know how to shut you up when you get like this, Tanaka––”
Nick started to speak, but Jordan cut him off.
“––Look, save your breath. My hands are tied. They really are. We’re doing the best we can for you. I swear we are. Morley is. I am. We’re just trying to keep a low profile with all of it, too. Keep people from overreacting, all right? We can’t fix paranoia about rogue vampires overnight, so we’re working with what we’ve got.”
Nick fell silent.
He wanted to tell Jordan whatever it was they were doing, it wasn’t enough.
He wanted to tell the other male he was losing his fucking mind, being locked up in here, caged like an animal. He wanted to tell him vampires didn’t do well in captivity, even if it was well-meaning captivity.
He honestly wasn’t even sure if he was exaggerating at this point.
He needed to get the fuck out of here.
He needed to get the fuck out of here.
One night.
Part of one night.
Six hours. Long enough to clear his head.
“Look.” Jordan sighed, obviously picking up on Nick’s agitation. “You’re the one who went off half-cocked. You’re the one who left in the middle of an I.S.F. interrogation when you were under investigation by internal affairs. You have no one to blame but yourself––”
“I caught the little psychopath, didn’t I?” Nick growled.
“Luck,” Jordan said. “By all rights, you should have gotten your head torn off.”
There was a silence.
Then both of them laughed.
“Fuck you,” Nick said, shaking his head and smiling.
“You’re not my type,” Jordan shot back. “But I could send Charlie over for you… if you’re really that bored.”
Nick didn’t answer.
When the silence stretched past where he probably should have answered, Jordan laughed.
“Don’t tell me you’re thinking about it? I thought she wasn’t your type?” Jordan’s voice lowered to a mutter even as he rolled his eyes. “…although how that fine woman could not be anyone’s type is completely beyond me. It kind of makes me wonder if you’re into the female persuasion at all, Midnight. Or a little blind, maybe. Or into something really weird I don’t really want to know anything about…”
Nick felt his jaw clench.
Then, after a beat where he questioned how they’d gotten onto this subject in the first place, he shook his head, staring into the dark monitor.
“If you’re that into her, you should go for it, Damon.”
“I thought we were talking about you, Midnight.”
Nick fought a scowl. He tried to decide what he could say that would get Jordan off this topic, or at least off Nick himself.
Unfortunately, the other detective took his silence the wrong way.
“Jesus. You are thinking about it.”
“No.” Nick shook his head, adamant. “I’m really not.”
“Bullshit, man. You’d be an idiot not to think about it… ‘type’ or no. I see how she gets around you. She’s another vampire groupie. You’ve got to at least be tempted. Especially when you’re stuck indoors.”
“I’m really not,” Nick said. “…Tempted. At all.”
“You sure? I’m telling you, she’d go over there in a heartbeat. Unless you’re already got another woman squirreled away somewhere…?”
Nick didn’t answer that fast enough, either.
He hesitated, and that time, Jordan heard it.
“Jesus. That’s it. That’s it.” Jordan whistled, laughing. “How did I not see it?”
Nick was already shaking his head. “No,” he said.
“You’ve got a girlfriend.”
“No. I don’t.”
Jordan laughed aloud. “No wonder you’re climbing the fucking walls. Why doesn’t she come visit you, Tanaka? You worried about the media getting wind of her, if she started showing up at your place every night?”
Nick shook his head, although not really in a no. Scowling, he fought for a good answer to Jordan’s teasing.
He didn’t have one.
“Who is it?” Jordan said. “Is it one of your blood connections from I.S.F.? Or someone you met out in the honest-to-goodness real world?”
Nick scowled. “I don’t date I.S.F. feeds.”
“So real world, then?”
Nick felt his jaw harden more. “Just drop it, Damon.”
“Naw. You got me curious now.”
The other man’s voice grew cajoling. Nick saw the virtual version of Jordan lean back in his chair, propping his booted feet on something hard and metallic, probably his desk in the bullpen at the police precinct.
“…Just tell me who it is,” Jordan wheedled. “Who’s the real reason you don’t want me sending Charlie over there in a leather corset and negligee, carrying a bottle of champagne and a big box of vampire porn?”
Nick exhaled in frustration.
“Look. I just don’t date people I work with, okay? I don’t date I.S.F. feeds. I prefer to… compartmentalize.” Scowling at the other’s laugh, he added, “Why don’t you invite Charlie to your place in that negligee you’ve obviously spent waaaay too much fucking time thinking about?”
Damon laughed. “Fine, fine. But you’re getting some action there, right? You have I.S.F. feeds coming over, right? Actual people, I mean?”
Again, Nick fell silent.
Then, slowly, he shook his head.
He knew they’d know, down at the station, who was coming and going from his apartment. Anyway, he was trying not to lie to his human friends these days, at least no more than he absolutely had to.
“No,” he said, his voice a faint warning. “Not right now.”
“Why not? I.S.F. still giving you a hard time about what happened? Or––”
“No,” Nick said, unthinking. “I canceled them.”
Dead silence.
Nick immediately regretted his words.
He regretted it even more when Damon burst out in a shocked laugh.
“You cancelled them. Really,” he said, his voice openly amused. “How incredibly interesting. And why is that, Midnight?”
Nick scowled. He couldn’t think of a good reason for that, either.
None he was willing to say.
Jordan snorted another laugh. “Holy shit. You do have a girlfriend. You have a goddamned, real-life girlfriend.”
Then, seeming to think about his own words, he laughed even harder.
“…Oh my God. I’m an idiot. Of course. Of course you do. Hot for teacher lady. That sexy principal at Kellerman Prep, the one you rescued. Ms. James. That’s her, right?”
Nick exhaled. He didn’t need to breathe, so he didn’t need to exhale either, but imitating human mannerisms was second-nature to him now.
Moreover, some human mannerisms were more expressive than anything in his vampire repertoire, especially when he was interacting with actual humans.
“I don’t have a fucking girlfriend, Damon,” he growled.
“Bullshit.”
Nick closed his eyes, longer than a blink, wishing like hell he’d kept his mouth shut.
The problem was, on this particular subject, he couldn’t decide himself what he really thought, or what the exact truth was.
He had canceled the I.S.F. live feeds.
He had done that––Nick himself.
More than that, he’d done it on his own, without anyone asking him to do it. He’d also done it at a time when he really could have used the diver
sion––not to mention the company.
But feeding was complicated for vampires.
Up until recently, Nick generally fucked his food.
At the very least, he asked it for oral sex.
He could still be doing that.
No one asked him to stop doing that.
No one asked him anything about it at all.
He knew it wasn’t helping his house arrest any, being stuck here alone every day, but he wasn’t willing to reinstate the live feeds, either. The reality was, he really had no idea what was going on with him in that department.
It wasn’t a conversation he’d had––not even with himself.
“Look,” he said, making a more irritated noise when Jordan still didn’t speak. “I really don’t have a girlfriend. As for the I.S.F. live-feed thing, it just gets old after a while, dealing with government employees for something that’s not supposed to be so… mechanical. I needed a break. Being stuck indoors was making it worse, not better.”
Pausing, he added,
“And don’t send Charlie over here, all right? I’m serious. It’s bad enough being trapped here under house arrest. The last thing I need is a stalker with a vampire fetish.”
Jordan laughed.
“I’m serious, Jordan,” Nick said. “That would not be funny. At all.”
“Not for you, maybe.” Jordan snorted another laugh. “But fine, fine. I won’t send Charlie. And I won’t pry any more, since you’re obviously getting all bent out of shape about it…”
Still replaying Nick’s words, he added,
“…But damn, Tanaka. House arrest? Seriously? You are such a drama queen. You’re not under arrest. You’re staying low as a courtesy to your police lieutenant. Not to mention your immediate boss, me, and the rest of your precinct. You’re not much good to us as a detective if the damned press is all up in your ass all the time. We actually need you to, you know… be a cop again sometime. When all this dies down.”
“You want this to die down?” Nick growled. “Put me in front of the press, Damon. Let me give a few dozen monosyllabic interviews. Trust me. They’ll get bored quick.”
Jordan laughed at that, too. “Whatever man.”
Eyes of Ice Page 2