Fang & Metal: A Science Fiction Vampire Detective Novel (Vampire Detective Midnight Book 4)

by JC Andrijeski

  A slight stab of guilt hit him, as all of this spun through Nick’s mind.

  He hadn’t called Tai in a long time.

  Too long.

  He should’ve checked in with her, at least.

  “She understands,” Malek spoke up calmly from the seat next to him.

  Nick turned, staring at him.

  Malek blinked placidly, going on without acknowledging Nick’s harder look.

  “She talks to your mate, Ms. James, a lot,” the seer offered. “They are becoming quite close. Tai knows much of what you are doing through her. She asks about you, and Ms. James answers.”

  Staring out the window, Malek went on in the same flat tone.

  “Ms. James also lets Tai come to her house when Tai tires of ‘playing human,’ as you put it,” the seer said. “She lets Tai relax there, and let her guard down. It is a safe space to her. Ms. James is proving a better role model in such things than me.”

  Nick frowned at that, glancing at the seer.

  There was no self-pity in the observation, or even emotion Nick could hear.

  Turning over what Malek said, Nick stared out his own window, thinking.

  “How is she with school?” he said, gruff. “Friends?”

  Malek blinked, his expression blank.

  Glancing over, Nick frowned, seeing the confusion on the seer’s face. Realizing what the confusion meant, he grunted, fighting not to roll his eyes.

  “Yeah, okay. You have no fucking idea.” Thinking about that, remembering exactly what Tai was, what she was capable of, he frowned again.

  He wouldn’t want to be the human kid who bullied Tai enough that she snapped.

  That would be the last mistake that little shit ever made.

  “I do not know,” Malek said, his voice faintly worried. “She does not tell me such things. I do not know if she thinks I would not understand… or if she does not want to worry me. I confess, I’m not really sure how to ask.”

  Nick grunted at that, too.

  “Big surprise,” he muttered.

  “I had hoped you might talk to her, Nick.”

  Nick frowned at that, but didn’t answer.

  He knew the seer meant well.

  He knew Malek loved his sister. He wasn’t sure how he felt about Mal’s seeming desire to put Nick in more of a parental role, presumably to fill gaps in Mal’s own ability to act in that capacity, but he knew it came from a place of love.

  Gazing out at the trees flowing by out the window, Nick fought to think about Tai, about what she might need now. A few seconds later, he dismissed it, realizing it was useless to try to second-guess all of that, not until he saw her… not until he got a chance to actually talk to her.

  The problem was, without the kid to chew on, other things wormed their way into his mind. Unfortunately, they were things he had even less capacity to think about rationally.

  Biting his tongue lightly with one fang, he tried to focus on the nature inside the dome, feeling a building pain in his chest.

  He was starting to associate trees like this, blue skies like this, with Wynter.

  The association intensified as he found himself recognizing specific buildings between those long stretches of green.

  He fought back and forth on how to approach seeing Wynter herself.

  Because of course he would see her, whatever Malek’s agenda.

  Nick tried to decide whether to call ahead… let Wynter know he was on his way… or if he would rather remain silent, surprise Wynter at her work. He wanted to talk to her now. Some part of him screamed at him to call her now.

  Another part of him craved surprising her. He craved seeing the exact expression on her face, when he walked through the door with no notice.

  He wanted to see what her eyes did.

  He wanted to see it on her face, if she was happy to see him.

  Hell, he wanted to see her, period.

  He wanted to see her so badly, his fangs were extending, just thinking about it.

  Gaos. It had only been a few days.

  Why did it feel like it had been weeks since he’d last been with her?

  “She is your mate,” Malek said simply. “You want her with you all the time. It is highly unusual for mates not to share a residence. Or a bed. Full time.”

  Nick gave him a hard look.

  “Just stay out of my fucking head,” he advised.

  “Why?” The seer gave him a flatly curious look. “I can feel you wanting to talk about it. There are things you want to ask me, even. Something about a dream––”

  “Stop.” Nick’s stare went from grim warning to full-blown death stare. “Shut the fuck up, Mal. I mean it. And you’re wrong… I definitely do not want to talk about that. I don’t want to ‘ask’ you anything.”

  “It feels like you do.”

  “No,” Nick growled. “It doesn’t.”

  “It does to me.”

  “No. It doesn’t.”

  The prescient fell silent, his expression unmoving.

  Nick distinctly got the feeling that his words hadn’t swayed Malek in the slightest.

  It was still strange to Nick, how Malek could be so damned emotionally sensitive at some times, then completely flat and unaffected at others.

  His sister, Nick realized.

  Tai was the X-factor.

  Whenever anything came up that had to do with her, Malek lost his ever-living shit.

  Malek turned, staring at him.

  That time, a flame grew visible in those mismatched eyes.

  Seeing it, Nick had to fight not to smile.

  “A little too on the nose?” he muttered.

  Seeing Malek frown, Nick shrugged, glancing back out the window on his side.

  “Just saying… you sure seem to dish it better than you can take it,” Nick observed.

  “You’re definitely good at changing the subject,” Malek returned, his voice still calm, but slightly louder. “This is a gift of yours, I’ve noticed… that, and viewing conversations about anything personal in your life as some kind of attack. Something akin to a physical blow. Something requiring an immediate counter-blow––”

  “Maybe I just get sick of nosey seers rooting around in my brain.” Pausing, Nick remembered something else. “And I thought you couldn’t even read my fucking mind. I thought it was only Tai who could do that. You said before it was just Tai, not you.”

  The prescient seer fell silent, lips pursed.

  “Great,” Nick growled. “So you lied.”

  “Prescient seers are different,” Malek said.

  “No shit.”

  “I’ve been doing it all day. I haven’t been trying to hide it––”

  “Sure. Whatever, Mal. You only lied about it for, what? Months?”

  “You don’t even mind really,” Malek said, frustrated. “It’s just another excuse.”

  “Just stay out of my fucking head––”

  “More misdirection,” Malek said. “More distraction. More attempts to score points, rather than engage honestly.”

  Pausing, the seer added,

  “You know you can trust me. I know this, as well as you. You know I would never share anything you told me, or harm you with it, or use it against you in any way.”

  The seer frowned slightly, his eyes still unnervingly calm.

  “…You know all this. You just prefer not to engage with me. You prefer not to engage with anyone. You prefer to tell yourself you can’t trust me, so you don’t have to tell me anything that might make you feel vulnerable. Even though a part of you would like to tell me things.”

  He added,

  “…You like me more than you want to admit, Detective. I might even remind you of someone. I don’t know who. I just know, it is not the person you think it is.”

  There was a silence.

  Then Nick looked away, back to scowling faintly as he stared out the window.

  He considered jabbing verbally at the seer again, then decided that would only
prolong this fucking conversation, and he’d had enough.

  They didn’t talk again until the robo-taxi made a turn onto the long, black-stone driveway leading up to Kellerman Preparatory School.

  Chapter 18

  The Real Reason You’re Here

  Tai was waiting for them.

  The young seer stood on the curb under a large tree with thick, white-gray roots. It looked like a massive sycamore, maybe one that had been tinkered with genetically, or where two or three trunks had grown together into a giant, octopus-like mass.

  Next to the white trunk, Tai looked impossibly small.

  Her slight, little-girl body was additionally dwarfed by an enormous, all-black umbrella she gripped by the handle and held over her left shoulder. She turned her head as their vehicle approached, gazing at the taxi’s darkened windows as she kicked at the grass with the toes of the boots Nick bought her, not long after she started school.

  The size of the tree, the size of her umbrella, her purple shirt, her retro blue jeans and thick blue scarf––it all made her look like a cartoon child from a comic book Nick remembered from when he’d been even younger than her.

  Her face lit up in a smile as the taxi pulled to a stop.

  She walked up to the sliding door even before it began to open, tilting the umbrella so that it completely covered the opening in the back of the car.

  Nick looked up at her, grunting.

  He couldn’t help smiling a little at the expression on her face, in spite of himself.

  “Your brother call you?” he said. “Or is this just more of your freaky seer shit?”

  “Freaky seer shit,” she said cheerfully. “Also… he called.”

  “You tell Ms. James?” Nick said, lifting an eyebrow.

  “No.” She laughed. “Did you decide if you’re going to surprise her or not?”

  Nick nodded. “I decided.”

  “So which one are you going to do?”

  “Like I’m telling you,” he retorted.

  He climbed out of the back of the robo-taxi, taking the umbrella from her hand when she offered it to him. The sycamore cast a large ring of shade, but he appreciated the gesture. There was at least a small gap between the shade of the tree and the covered walkway that would take them the rest of the way up to the main school building.

  “Thanks,” he said, promptly knocking into her with an arm and making her laugh. “How’s school? Your brother didn’t seem to know shit.”

  “Which part?” she said at once.

  Nick thought about that, frowning. “Which part do you like the most?”

  “My friends,” she said promptly. “And astronomy classes. And archery.”

  Nick winced at that last.

  He didn’t know why he winced, even after he’d done it.

  Thinking about that, the sheer weirdness of that, he frowned.

  Unfortunately, Nick wasn’t the only one who noticed his odd reaction. When he glanced to his left––right as the tall, male seer was climbing out of the back of the self-driving taxi––Nick caught Malek watching him, an unveiled interest in his mismatched eyes. Seeing the curiosity shining there, Nick felt his mouth slide into another scowl.

  Rather than answer the look there, he returned his focus to Tai, who was now watching both of them. Nick knocked into her again, and she giggled.

  “You’re like a wall,” she informed him. “Like a cement wall.”

  “Just keeping you on your toes.” Hesitating, he said, “So you’ve got friends, huh?”

  Tai laughed. “Yes! Of course I have friends! I’m in school.”

  “Are they okay? These friends? Or are they little jerks, like you?”

  “Jerks,” she said promptly. “Definitely jerks.” Knocking into him, she laughed when he didn’t move at all. “Aren’t you going to ask me the other thing?”

  Nick frowned. “The other thing? What other thing?”

  “What’s my least favorite part? You can’t ask one and not ask the other.”

  “Says who?” Nick said.

  “Everyone knows that,” she informed him loftily. “It’s balance. Like yin and yang. I learned about that, too… from Ms. James.”

  Nick thought about that, even as he began to follow her towards the covered walkway.

  “Maybe I want to focus on the positive,” he said.

  She let out an annoyed exhale, but nodded.

  “Okay.”

  Nick smiled in spite of himself.

  It was so obvious she didn’t approve. It was so obvious she really wanted him to ask her. He let them walk a few steps more, then nudged her again, right as they were reaching the end of the shadow cast by the giant sycamore tree.

  “Okay, okay,” he said. “What’s the worst part of school? What’s the suckiest crappiest part of having to be here, rubbing elbows with the normies?”

  “Being far away from my brother,” she said, as if she’d been waiting to answer. “Being far away from you.” Her nose wrinkled as she thought. “…and the Dimitry Yi jerks.”

  Nick frowned, but she didn’t seem to notice.

  Still thinking, she added,

  “Oh. This boy named Jessup. He always tries to sit in my lap and he smells like pickles. And meatloaf day in the cafeteria…” She shuddered, sticking out her tongue and making a bleh sound. “And my desk chair is weird and lumpy.”

  Nick laughed. He couldn’t help it.

  “That’s quite a list,” he informed her.

  “I’ve got more things I like, too,” she said, a little defensively. “I like the trees up here. The grass is nice. I saw a fox the other day. I like Ms. James. We talk almost every day now.”

  Leaning closer to him, she motioning for Nick to lean down, too.

  Realizing she wanted to whisper in his ear, Nick complied.

  Once he was close enough, she murmured, softer,

  “She’s training me,” she confided. “Ms. James. She’s teaching me really cool stuff. Stuff Ms. St. Maarten and her people didn’t know to train me in. Like real-life seer stuff.”

  Nick’s eyebrows went up.

  He really wanted to know what that meant.

  Seer stuff? What kind of seer stuff?

  Hesitating, he frowned slightly, tempted to ask, but he knew he shouldn’t. He especially shouldn’t here, on the school grounds. He’d made that mistake here before. He’d made that mistake the first time he’d come here, the first time he’d met Wynter.

  The thought brought a dense shiver to his skin.

  “And I like my counselor,” Tai added, speaking in her regular voice again. “Ms. James got me that, too. He’s really nice. He’s another hybrid. He makes dumb jokes, and asks me a lot of weird questions about my dreams.”

  Nick nodded.

  He fought a twinge of jealousy, mad at himself for even going there, but unable to help it. He knew it was fucking ridiculous. He also knew he still had hang-ups about Wynter with other hybrids, or anyone with seer blood, really… even Malek.

  It didn’t help that he was ninety-percent sure Wynter’s ex-husband had been a hybrid. She’d never come out and admitted that to him, not even obliquely, but she hadn’t denied it when he asked. She hadn’t denied a few things he’d asked about that.

  Tai laughed, smacking into him.

  Nick’s head turned.

  “Hey!” he said, sharp. “Grown up brain. Stay out of grown up brain.”

  “You’re being dumb,” she informed him.

  “Probably.” Exhaling, he gazed up at the main school building as they reached the edge of the covered walkway. “But grown ups are kind of dumb.”

  “She talks about you all the time,” Tai said. “I didn’t even know she’d been married before. She doesn’t talk about him. Ever.”

  Nick pulled his eyes off the stone columns lining the arched walkway and glanced at her. Frowning a bit as he realized the kid had been reading his mind again, he shook his head.

  “That’s grown up stuff, too,” he said. His vo
ice grew warning. “And don’t you dare tell her I’m here. In fact, you and your brother should scram until I can say hi to her at least. Then your brother’s supposed to show me something… or tell me something… I’m still not clear on that part,” he added, turning his head to scowl at Malek.

  “But that’s not why you’re here,” Tai said, puzzled, glancing at her brother. “Mal… you brought Nick up here to keep him safe, right? To make sure he wasn’t there? When that thing went after the other Midnights tonight?”

  Nick came to a dead stop on the stone walkway.

  He stared at the kid.

  Tai stopped too. She turned to face him, her small, faintly-sculpted mouth curled in a puzzled frown, her arms folded over her chest.

  “He told you, right?” Tai said. “Mal? He told you what was coming? What was in that painting? About the seer with the glowing eyes? All the dead vampires?”

  Nick stared at her.

  Then he turned his head, staring at Malek.

  The tall, male seer shoved his hands into his pockets, avoiding looking back at him.

  At least he had the grace to blush.

  Nick clicked over as soon as Jordan picked up.

  “Where’s Morley?” he said, without waiting for the human to speak.

  Jordan paused, obviously taken aback.

  When he finally spoke, Nick could hear the evasion there.

  “He’s running down some things,” Jordan said cagily. “Talking to a few tech people. Probably the few St. Maarten gave him access to. He’s also doing some research on how the vault heist happened, how they managed to program that nanotech remotely. It’s looking more and more like they had help, either from one of St. Maarten’s people, or––”

  “It was a seer,” Nick cut in, harsh. “It was hacked by a seer… a hybrid maybe. Something that was able to talk to the machine, to befriend the damned thing. That’s what St. Maarten wouldn’t tell us.”

  Jordan went dead silent.

  “Is it still happening?” Nick growled. “That thing tonight?”

  “What?” That time, Jordan sounded confused.

  “The graduation ceremony. With the Midnights. Is it still happening?”

  Jordan stared at him through the connection.

  “I saw the painting,” Nick growled. “By the Artist. The one he thinks is related to the vault heist. If the painting’s right, tonight could be a bloodbath.”