“I’m serious. Tell Morley to give the okay. It’ll be over in a week. I’ll be the most boring interview subject you could possibly imagine. Right now you’re making me seem a hell of a lot more interesting than I am. If you just let me talk to them––”
“No,” Jordan said, his voice more of a warning. “Nice try, man. But no. I’ll tell Jordan you’re climbing the walls and tell him you offered to bore the press to death, but don’t expect either thing to sway him much. Too many people will find you ‘mysterious’ and try to dig into your life and background even more. Trust us. Trust Morley. This isn’t his first rodeo with the press… or with a big case like this.”
Nick bit his lip, fighting not to unload on the human again.
He could hear the finality in the other’s voice.
He had to fight not to yell at him anyway.
“You hear me, Midnight?” the other detective warned.
“I hear you.”
There was another silence.
Nick wasn’t sure how to say goodbye.
Jordan and he were friends now, much as he’d fought that in the beginning––and despite how pissed off the other man had been at him after everything went sideways with Nick’s first big case in New York.
Being normal friends with a human wasn’t something Nick had done in…
Well, a long time.
Then again, since he’d come to New York, it seemed like everyone and his brother, sister, aunt, uncle, mistress, ex-wife, neighbor, and cousin wanted to hang out with Nick and tell him their life story.
Nick hadn’t had this many people in his life since he was human.
To say he was rusty on the rules, much less the social niceties as they pertained to all of these disparate personalities, cultures, and expectations, would be putting it mildly.
In the end, he just terminated the connection.
Slumping back on his rust-colored couch, he stared at the dead, black monitor with a scowl on his face.
He thought about the reality of being locked in here for another week.
He thought about eating from lukewarm blood bags, reading books he’d already read, staring at nothing.
He should have gotten a dog.
“Fuck,” he muttered to no one.
Chapter 2
Tech Punk
He was halfway through a pull-up when his apartment buzzer rang.
He froze.
Hanging there, from the bar, he waited.
He didn’t have to hold his breath, since he didn’t have breath, but his whole body went still as he swung lightly back and forth under the doorway between his living room and kitchen, where he’d installed the bar.
Deciding they must have gotten the wrong apartment, he completed the pull up. Lowering his body back down slowly and smoothly, he raised himself back up again, moving at the same, steady pace.
His headset pinged.
Scowling, Nick dropped from the bar.
If Damon sent that female human detective over here, Charlie Villanova, they were going to have some serious fucking words.
Swinging his arms and shoulders around to keep them loose, he answered his headset.
“What?” he growled.
“Well good morning, sunshine,” a voice sing-songed through the line. “You gonna let me in, Naoko? Or am I going to have to call the cops? Tell them I have a suicidal vampire with a terminal case of old-man-itis on my hands? One with a bad case of Tourette’s, who’s barricaded himself inside his shitty, probably rank-smelling apartment by now, and will only make erratic grunting noises through his virtual transmitter?”
Nick felt some of the tension in his shoulders relax.
“Kit.” It wasn’t a question. “What do you want?”
“What do I want?” She grunted. “Well, gee, Nick. What I really want is to come all the way up to the vampire ghetto just so I can sit in your building’s lobby and talk to you on my headset… which I could have done from the comfort of my own damned house.”
Nick frowned. “You’re here?”
“Are you the world’s only deaf vampire?” she said.
When Nick didn’t answer, she sighed dramatically.
“I’m in the lobby. If I wasn’t, I’d be laying into your door buzzer about now… but they made me wait here until your security guy went up. They guy down here doesn’t have your headset number, and they say you aren’t answering your door.”
Nick thought about arguing with her, then realized she was right.
If she’d come all the way to Washington Heights, she must have a reason. It wasn’t exactly the safest place for a human, given that something like ninety percent of the residents up here were vampires.
Nick’s part of town was the higher-end part of that vampire enclave, but that wouldn’t matter much to a human. Nick’s building only rented to registered, government-employed vampires––as in, vampires who tended to toe the line and not engage in illegal or unauthorized feeding––but that wouldn’t matter to most humans, either.
It wasn’t a part of town most non-vampires ventured into.
Not if they could help it.
Even in the middle of the day, like now, it would be viewed as tempting fate.
Just sitting in his lobby was tempting fate, even with all the cameras.
Frowning, Nick said, “Okay. Give the guy my number. Or, shit… just put on the speaker. Let me talk to him.”
There was a slight pause.
Then a wary voice rose.
“Mr. Tanaka?” it said, hesitant.
“Yeah. Buzz her in. Her name’s Kit Fiorantino. She’s a friend of mine.”
“Yes, sir. Sending her up now.”
“Thanks.”
There was another fumble with the headset, then Kit’s voice rose.
“Okay, on my way, big guy.”
In the background, Nick heard the tell-tale sound of the door buzzer, followed by a loud click right before the buzzer cut off.
“You know which room it is?” Nick said.
“He just told me.”
“I’ll leave the door open,” he grunted.
By the time he’d gone into the bathroom, stripped off the tank top and shorts he’d been wearing to work out in, and spent about thirty seconds rinsing off in the shower, he could hear her clomping loudly down the hall, human-fashion. The sound grew nearer as he quickly toweled off, throwing on a T-shirt, jeans, and a heavier shirt over that.
Jesus, they were loud.
It sounded like she picking up and stomping down each foot as hard as she possibly could, then dragging each tennis shoe-laden foot purposefully along the surface of the linoleum like Quasimodo before picking it up and stomping down on it again.
By the time she reached his front door, he wondered if half the vampires in the building knew she was here. Since most of them worked at night, the building was more or less full during the day. Most of his neighbors wouldn’t head off to work for another few hours at least, since vampire shifts tended to start around seven or eight at night.
She pushed open the door, peering around the thick panel.
“Hey,” she called out. “You decent? I don’t want to walk in on anything that might shock my delicate sensibilities––”
“Are you deaf?” he grumbled, stepping deeper into her line of sight. “Blind? Or do you just want every vampire in the fucking building to know you’re here?”
She blinked at him.
He saw her blanch a little, and felt bad.
“Well?” he said, stepping forward. “Can you still not see me? Should I start waving my arms? Signaling you in semaphore?”
“Maybe if you stopped creeping around like a––”
“Vampire?” he retorted. “Is that what you were going to say, pipsqueak?”
“Like a creepy vampire,” she corrected. “Like an old man vampire who lurks in corners like some kind of weirdo, trying to freak out his human friends. Friends who came all the way here from Queens, I might add… just to do
him a solid. Friends who generously overlook the fact that he’s a misanthrope with anger issues and numerous social anxiety diagnoses.”
Nick grunted a half-laugh, in spite of himself.
“Close the door,” he grumbled, still buttoning up his shirt as he headed for his small kitchen. “You want anything?”
“Do you have anything? Anything an actual person can eat?”
Opening his fridge and staring at the pile of blood bags on the middle shelf, he frowned. He glanced at the refrigerator door, and saw a half-full bottle of low sodium soy sauce.
“No,” he said.
She laughed. “Then why offer?”
“Politeness?” Nick shut the fridge door and began opening cabinets over the sink. “I think I have tea somewhere. You like the artificial matcha stuff? Or we could order something. They have vamp services that deliver to the Heights. How long are you planning on staying here, being a pain in my ass?”
“However long it takes me to disable the sensors on that thing,” she said, walking into his kitchen and leaning her butt on the counter with a sigh. “…Or maybe electrocute you, trying.”
Glancing over, Nick followed her gaze to the ident-tattoo on his arm.
Realizing what she meant, he met her gaze, startled.
“Really?” he said.
“Well.”
Kit sighed, blowing a strand of her dyed blue and white hair out of her face. She’d bleached out the brown, he noticed, going full-bore platinum, maybe to contrast more dramatically with the turquoise blue tips and silver highlights.
“…Maybe,” she admitted, finishing her exhale. “Ms. St. Maarten gave me a few more things to try. You’re kind of our guinea pig at the moment, so we’re not one hundred percent certain we can disable it at all, to be honest. But I saw the simulations she ran on the original code, and this should work.”
“So you work for her full time now?” Nick said, frowning. “Ms. St. Maarten? You sure that’s a good idea, kid?”
Kit gave him a blank look. “I work for I.S.F., Nick.”
“You work for Red Sun Corp… technically. And you know what I mean.”
She frowned, then pushed up off the counter, motioning him over to the round table on the other side of his kitchen.
There were no windows, only a smooth, semi-organic wall with a number of high shelves and hooks. Nick could reconfigure part of that wall into a window if he wanted, or a storage cabinet––or even a power vent if he ever needed it.
It made cooking in here conceivable, at least.
He almost never did cook, though.
Frowning, he thought about that.
He hadn’t cooked once, in the two or so months he’d lived here.
Then again, he could count the number of non-I.S.F., non-official visitors he’d had inside this apartment on one hand. He hadn’t even had any other vampires over.
I.S.F. live-feed deliveries generally didn’t stay for meals.
When Kit unrolled a toolset on top of the table, along with a wraparound monitor that she spread out on the metal surface, Nick sat down on the seat across from her.
Shouldering off the shirt he’d thrown on over the T-shirt, he hung it on the back of his chair. Twisting back around to face her, he lay his arm on top of the table, the ident-tattoo facing up.
He’d figured she wasn’t going to answer him by then, but she surprised him, continuing their conversation belatedly as she hit through keys on the unrolled monitor.
“I think I work for her in the same way you do,” Kit said with a shrug. “In fact, I’m beginning to think both of us have been working for her a lot longer than either of us thought… and probably in more ways than we thought, too.”
Nick frowned. “Meaning what?”
“Just what I said.”
Turning over her words didn’t clear anything up.
“Cut with the cryptic, kid,” he said. “What do you mean? I haven’t lived in New York long enough to have worked for her in any capacity… for any amount of time.”
Kit shrugged, her eyes still down on her monitor. “Unless she had something to do with you coming here from L.A.”
Nick tensed.
Then he shook his head, frowning. “She didn’t.”
“You sure about that, Nick?”
“Did you hear that story?” he said. “About L.A.?”
“What story?”
His jaw clenched. The way she said it told him she did know. She must have looked at his record, the little shit. Figured. She did work for I.S.F.
“It was an accident,” he said, gruff.
“You killed a pedophile, Nick.” Glancing up from her monitor, she gave him a hard look, one dark eyebrow quirking over her eyes, which were a dark brown now, with a ring of bright turquoise showing that she still wore enhancement lenses. “You really think I’m going to give you grief about killing a pedophile? What kind of asshole do you think I am?”
Combing his fingers through his damp hair, he shrugged, watching her do something on her keyboard that made the organic metal tattoo on his inner arm light up.
“Ouch,” he said, wincing when it sparked.
“Don’t be a baby.”
“It was unauthorized,” he muttered. “The guy in L.A. He hadn’t been charged with anything yet. I was just supposed to be questioning him––”
“And you saw the full extent of what that sick fuck did,” Kit said, her voice holding a faint warning. “And you saw he would do it again, Nick. And again. You knew your testimony wouldn’t be enough to get him put away. Not for long enough. Not fast enough. Not under the current laws on vampire testimony. So you took him out. Sounds like the most rational thing in the world to me.”
Nick frowned, but didn’t answer.
After another moment, he raised his eyes, watching her warily.
From the coldness in her eyes, the hardness in her voice, he wondered if there was something personal there. Had something happened to her?
Someone she knew?
He didn’t ask.
Instead, he changed the subject.
“You really think she was behind bringing me out here? Ms. St. Maarten?”
Kit shrugged. “Dunno. But she sure seems to know an awful lot about you, Nick. Maybe she’s just an opportunist. Maybe she checks out everyone who crosses her path, anyone she thinks might be useful. But it’s interesting, don’t you think?”
“Interesting.” Nick grunted. He continued to study her face. “Do you trust her?”
Kit laughed, looking at him.
“Hell, no. Do you?”
He smiled back, shaking his head slowly. “I don’t trust anyone, kid.”
She snorted, rolling her eyes. “Bull crap. You’re a big softie, and we both know it. You hide it behind that scowly, vampire thing you do… but you ain’t fooling nobody.” At his disbelieving grunt, she added, “But I hope you’re serious about being careful around her. Ms. St. Maarten.”
Nick rolled his eyes.
“Gee, I don’t know, Kit,” he said, exaggerating their usual back-and-forth sarcasm. “One of the richest humans in the world, who gets fat off defense contracts, quasi-legal bio-tech, and super-sketchy organic machinery? Who heads a company that started off as an international, off-the-books cabal of professional killers culled from every private-sec and special forces group operating in the pre-war period? Why wouldn’t I trust her?”
She looked up, her eyebrows rising. “Really?”
“Really.”
Shaking her head, Kit snorted derisively, returning her eyes to her work.
“So what do you think she wants?” she said neutrally. “With you, I mean?”
Thinking about that, he shrugged.
“Dunno,” he said, copying her word.
Still thinking about her question, he pursed his lips in a faint frown.
“So far, I’m not getting any major warning bells,” he admitted. “Don’t quote me on that, though. I’ve been known to be horribly wrong about people
in the past.”
At Kit’s laugh, he glanced up, adding,
“…And I have some pretty big questions about her role in Archangel Industries, and their future plans. Particularly in regard to her pet projects. I’m especially curious about her overly-intense interest in New York’s non-human population.”
Kit grunted, reassured.
“Good,” she murmured under her breath.
Before Nick could ask, she went on in more of her regular voice.
“…Although,” she conceded. “She seems like a pretty valuable friend to have for a vampire. Especially a vampire with your track record.”
Nick grunted back.
He couldn’t exactly disagree with that.
Still, he found himself thinking about Kit’s words.
Like he’d just told her, he still had a lot of questions about Ms. St. Maarten and how she’d happened into his life.
Some of those questions, he couldn’t share with Kit.
Some of those questions involved seers.
Not hybrid half-humans.
Actual, full-blooded seers––some of whom, Nick happened to know, were either recently or currently living in New York City.
As in now. As in, post-Exodus.
Even if Nick did try to tell her, Kit would probably think he was nuts. According to possibly every other person on the planet––meaning, apart from Lara St. Maarten, Nick himself, and the seers in question––full-blooded seers were extinct.
There used to be seers here.
The entire planet fought a war between humans, seers and vampires, a war Nick was alive for, a war he fought in, alongside and against members of both races.
That war nearly wiped all three species out. It was the reason only vampires could survive outside the domed “Protected Areas” that remained.
Then, the seers left.
The event was enshrined in history books as The Exodus, and it happened about a hundred years ago now. It didn’t end the wars, not all at once, but it definitely started a whole new chapter for humans and vampires on this world.
Really, though, no one knew much about the Exodus.
No one knew where the seers had gone, or why.
Nick knew more than most, and he had no idea where the seers had gone, either. The entire race just up and vanished, leaving behind their half-human relatives, seer-human mixes called “hybrids,” who hadn’t left with them for whatever reason.
Eyes of Ice Page 3