He was well-hidden here, at least. Between the building, the umbrellas, and the overcast sky, he was more or less shielded from any ambient light.
Nick glanced to his right, and saw a curve of glass windows.
Squinting, he walked closer, pressing his face right up to the reinforced glass, using his hand to shield the glare, however dim.
A few seconds later, he pulled his head back.
Fuck. He knew where he was.
He’d never been here in person, of course.
But gaos… this couldn’t be a coincidence.
He stood there, chest clenched, his hands balling slowly into fists.
He was at that same restaurant he’d been dreaming about.
It didn’t look exactly the same.
The trees out here were bigger. There were more of them.
The décor inside those glass walls was more decadent, even more over-the-top than he remembered from those flashes of dream or memory or whatever they were. The main dining room behind the glass was decked out in hanging colored-crystal chandeliers, living ferns, dripping beads, green-glass teardrops
Alice in Wonderland. That’s what Jem called it.
Nick frowned, staring at the velvet, high-backed chairs surrounded elaborate, Louis the XVI tables. A massive, melted-looking clock in the shape of a rabbit hung on the wall next to a bar covered in augmented-reality screens, glass, and Art Deco shapes. An ivory-colored grand piano stood in the middle on a raised platform, surrounding by what looked living palm trees and covered in vases of roses.
It looked different, but it was unmistakably the same.
A sharp pain came to his chest.
If he’d still had a working heart, it would have been pounding.
He remembered that gilded ceiling.
He remembered tilting his head back, looking up at it while––
He cut off the thought.
Biting his tongue, he stepped away from the glass.
Moving out from under the shadow of the restaurant’s outer wall, he looked up through the branches and saw clouds overhead, reflected in the virtual dome over New York City. He knew that sky wasn’t real, but it was easy to forget sometimes, when it seemed to replicate the randomness of what he remembered of pre-war weather.
Where was it? Where was the restaurant located exactly, in terms of the geography of the park? He’d looked it up once, not long after the dreams started. He was pretty sure he’d found it at one point, a high-end, trendy restaurant located inside Central Park, that had existed there in some form since before the war.
He’d overshot, he realized. He was too far south.
At least he was on the right side of the park.
The restaurant lived on the west side, not far from the street, Central Park West. But it was south of the museum. He couldn’t remember how far south, but he was pretty sure it was at least a few blocks down.
Of course, he didn’t have his headset, so he couldn’t confirm that.
He scowled, remembering he also had to be on the lookout for drones.
He needed to get moving.
He felt for Wynter, confirming first that his recollection was correct.
It was. He needed to head north.
Sticking to the park was definitely the way to go.
Without waiting, he darted between tables, making his way back out into the trees.
Chapter 27
Dressing Room
He ran fast. Even for a vampire––he ran really fast.
Where he could, he ran all-out.
Increasingly, panic wanted to come screaming up out of him. That panic heated his chest, making it difficult for him to think, to make decisions.
He was taking too long.
He was taking too fucking long to get to her.
He almost forgot about clothes, about where he was going, when he burst out on 79th Street, not far from the Shakespeare Garden, which he also inexplicably remembered, even though he had no tangible memory of being in this park before.
Goddamn it.
Malek was right.
That damned prescient seer was right about him.
He’d erased his goddamned memories.
Shoving it from his mind, along with his fleeting memories of the restaurant where he’d come up from the sewer, he receded into the bushes when a car’s headlights erupted on the road, curving around the bend.
It was an antique, even older than Nick’s own antique automobile.
Like Nick’s, it looked like a real antique.
The car rounded the curve, and Nick got a better look at it––as well as the car’s passengers. Three in the back, plus the driver. All wearing formal wear. Two men, one woman. Maybe middle-aged? One of the men might have been younger, early thirties.
Nick focused on the car itself.
Rolls Royce.
If Nick had to guess the year… maybe 1950. Maybe as late as 1958.
Rolls’ weren’t really his kind of car, but there was no doubt it was beautiful, a shocking white with chrome trim, a massive grill with the original hood ornament and round headlights so bright they had to be using modern lighting techniques.
Nick made out the outline of the chauffeur in the front seat, complete with black and white uniform and an antique hat.
His eyes darted back to the three passengers in the back.
Being a vampire, he could see them more or less clearly––even in a moving vehicle, even at some distance, even in the dark.
Glancing down at his clothes, frowning at the smell still coming off his pantlegs and boots, Nick made up his mind.
He had to get inside that fucking banquet.
He wouldn’t be doing it like this.
Lowering his body, he crouched like a coiled cat, watching the approaching Rolls. He dug in with his feet, calculating the exact distance, exact speed, exact trajectory of the car. When the Rolls reached a dozen yards from the closest point…
He leapt, throwing himself up and out.
He landed on top of the car, landing neatly on the hood.
Well… “neatly” might be relative.
He could leap silently.
He could also land relatively quietly for his size, given what he was, at least on most surfaces. He could place his feet exactly where he wanted them––in this case, right on that pristine, white, metal hood, right in front of the driver.
He could land squarely on both feet, without his balance faltering.
He couldn’t land “quietly” when his weight crushed a big piece of metal.
The metal screeched, bowing inwards with a sharp, cracking boom, like the blast from a shotgun. Nick’s weight and speed crushed in the top part of the hood on the driver’s side, slamming and rocking the front of the car down onto the shocks and the wheels so heavily, the whole vehicle rose briefly onto those two wheels.
Through the windshield, Nick saw the driver’s eyes go wide and round.
The chauffeur’s hands jerked, turning white on the real-wood steering wheel as he swerved sharply left.
Those eyes never left Nick’s face. The driver’s mouth opened in a shocked “O” that made him look like a cartoon character about to drive off a cliff.
The car left the road altogether.
It bumped, hitting something, maybe a big rock. There was another screech of metal, then it was rolling faster, going down a gentle slope.
Right into a tree.
It slammed into the tree, hard.
Luckily, Nick glanced over his shoulder when the car started rolling faster, not long after it bounced over the rock. Mostly, he was making sure he wasn’t about to get decapitated by anything unexpected––a bridge, a street light, a random piece of metal.
Nick scanned the way forward, gripping the windshield through the driver’s side window to keep from being thrown off when it inevitably ran into whatever it was eventually going to run into. Luckily, the tree that found the Rolls Royce was old, and tall.
The lower part of th
e trunk had no branches.
The impact threw Nick into the windshield, then threw him back.
He was a vampire, so it didn’t damage him in any way, but cracking his nose into the windshield brought a brief, sharp flash of pain. If he hadn’t been gripping the metal and glass through that open window, he definitely would have been thrown into the tree trunk, and that would have hurt a lot more.
As it was, he recovered and merely crouched there, glancing down at where the trunk crumpled what remained of the Rolls Royce’s shiny, chrome grill.
The engine under the crumpled hood began to smoke.
Straightening, Nick leapt off the car, wincing for the brief instant his bare palms met the now-hot hood. He landed on the grass on the driver’s side, and peered in at the chauffeur.
The man was slumped forward, unconscious.
Blood trickled down his forehead.
He appeared to have been knocked out on the steering wheel.
Nick checked his pulse, verifying he was alive, then opened up the driver’s door. Unhooking the man’s seatbelt, which thankfully wasn’t original to the car, he reached all the way in and grabbed the human around the waist and under the shoulders. He yanked him out the open car door and swiftly transported him to a clear spot on the lawn, far enough away that if the car exploded or caught on fire, it wouldn’t kill him.
Standing over him for a bare second, Nick briefly considered venoming him, just enough to suppress his memories of Nick’s face… then decided to check on to the passengers first.
He didn’t have time to fuck around.
Anyway, he’d probably already been caught on surveillance.
He walked to the back door, hit the old-fashioned button in the handle, and jerked it open.
A woman screamed.
For Nick, rather than startling him, the sound brought an immediate flood of relief.
He hadn’t killed all three of them anyway.
Truthfully, it hadn’t occurred to him that was even a risk until he’d seen what the crash did to the driver. Approaching the back of the Rolls, he’d been bracing for more head injuries and fucked up human bodies. It was easy to forget how fragile the damned things were.
Thinking about that, thinking about that specifically in relation to Wynter, Nick winced.
He couldn’t afford to forget how fragile those bodies were anymore.
He needed to be remembering it all the time now.
Shoving away the thought, he bent down, staring into the back of the Rolls.
One of the men, who wore an old-fashioned tuxedo, gripping a top hat in one hand, was trying to open the opposite door. He was either panicking so much he couldn’t manage it, or had no idea how the old-fashioned door mechanism worked.
Nick put thrall into his voice, raising it.
“STOP.”
All three humans froze.
The male with his hand on the door froze in place, not even turning his head. The other two, who’d already been staring at him, locked their eyes on his.
Nick had no idea how he looked, but he could guess.
His fangs were extended. His vision was tinged with red.
He looked at the two males, realized the one in the old-fashioned suit was the closest to his size.
He looked back at the two other humans.
When he met the woman’s gaze, she flinched, blinked.
She wore a bright yellow dress, form-clinging and with enough fabric by her feet, it must drag a train when she stood and walked. An elaborate bow accentuated the low-cut back, resting right at the base of her spine and more or less decorating her ass. Delicate cloth framed her shockingly white décolletage, more or less forcing his eyes to the tops of her breasts.
He wondered if the woman knew she was wearing full-blown vampire bait.
To a vampire event, no less.
She probably did know.
He’d already surmised she’d come here with the man sitting across from her, the one whose tuxedo would definitely be too small for Nick.
His shorter, wiry frame wore his gray suit well, along with a patterned gold vest, gold cravat, and augmented reality sparkles. Now that he was looking between the two of them, Nick realized those sparkles were the same shocking yellow of the woman’s dress, making their outfits match in a way that might have been charming if he wasn’t in such a damned hurry.
More smoke was pouring out of the front of the car now.
“Get the fuck out,” he told the couple. “Go over to where the driver is, and sit down.”
They didn’t so much as blink.
They climbed out of the car and walked across the grass, the man supporting the woman with his arm as she navigated on awkwardly high heels.
Closing the door behind them, Nick walked around the back of the Rolls Royce and to the other side. He jerked open the door, and grabbed the arm of the man there. His hazel eyes widened on Nick’s face, but Nick didn’t hesitate.
He pulled him out, and walked with him, fast, down the road.
He got them to a thicket of trees, and brought the man behind it.
He could smell the fear on the human now.
He didn’t want to get blood on the clothes, but it was pretty clear he was going to have to bite the guy to calm him down.
Walking up to him, Nick tried to gauge his expression. He needed to get closer before he bit him; he’d likely need to undress him somewhat, as well. He needed to try and do that without alarming the guy even more.
The human’s facial expression wasn’t reassuring.
The male was close to his height, and not small, but he looked at Nick like he was about to urinate down his own leg.
That was the last thing Nick needed.
“Hey,” he said warmly. Reaching out, he clapped the human reassuringly on the shoulder, putting thrall in his voice. “Calm down. I’m a cop. I’m not going to hurt you… and I’m sorry I scared your driver like that. The NYPD will compensate you for the car.”
He paused, trying to decide if his words had helped at all.
From what he could tell, the man hadn’t even blinked.
“Relax,” Nick said, still gripping his shoulder. “Like I said, I’m sorry. But I need your help.”
The human’s expression didn’t relax in the slightest.
Nick now had his doubts the man could hear a word he was saying, at least in any way that was helpful. Nick could have been speaking Japanese.
He put a little more thrall in his voice.
“Take off your coat.” Nick stared into the human’s eyes. “You can put it and the hat down over there.” He motioned towards a stump under the small grove of trees.
When the human didn’t move, Nick prodded him with his hands.
“Your coat,” he said. “Take it off.”
Pausing, he added a sharper edge.
“Now.”
The human blinked, jerking as if Nick clapped his hands in front of his face.
Still wearing a facial expression like he had no idea where he was, or who Nick was, or what was happening, he began to shoulder off the long black coat he wore. Pulling it off his second arm, he folded it neatly and draped it over the stump, laying his top hat in the middle of it.
“Okay,” Nick said, still gauging the guy’s face. “Now roll up your sleeve. I need to scan your ident.”
The man blinked a second time.
That time, however, his mouth firmed, his face going less slack for the first time since Nick took him out of the car. Somehow, it seemed to finally penetrate that Nick had called himself a cop. Removing the cufflink he wore on his left wrist, he put it in his vest pocket, then began unrolling the white sleeve up a tanned arm.
As he did, there was a low whump from behind them.
Both Nick and the human turned, to see the front of the Rolls Royce now belching dark black smoke.
“They’ll compensate my friend? For the car?” the human remarked, adjusting his sleeve just above the elbow. He spoke with a British acce
nt. “Your police? Are you sure your people can afford that? That car wasn’t exactly cheap––”
“Don’t worry about that, sir,” Nick said calmly, using his cop voice. “This is a Protected Area emergency.”
The man nodded, but that pinched look didn’t leave his lips.
Nick saw it as a good sign.
Better angry and annoyed than afraid.
He really couldn’t afford to have the guy piss his pants.
When the man held out his forearm, Nick moved, vampire-fast, so the human wouldn’t have time to be scared. Gripping his arm in both hands, Nick brought it abruptly to his mouth, sank in his fangs…
…and pumped in enough venom to placate a rhinoceros.
The human let out a shocked cry as Nick’s fangs punctured his skin.
Then the venom hit.
There were a long-feeling few seconds where the human just stood there, his breath caught in his lungs, his head tilted back, his arm tensed where Nick held it in both hands. His whole body tightened, like he’d been about to try and escape, but when the venom hit, he just hung there, reacting to the influx of vampire poison.
Then he exhaled––a slow, heavy, borderline sensual sound.
“God,” he said, his head still tilted back, his eyes closing. “What did you say your name was?”
Nick didn’t answer.
Sucking down a few more mouthfuls of blood, in part to give himself a jolt of energy, and in part to ensure the male’s cooperation, he injected him with a bit more venom, just to be sure. He felt a faint twinge of guilt as he did, but it wasn’t for the human.
He knew Wynter would be pissed.
Remembering that, really feeling it, Nick unhooked his fangs.
“It’s Vlad,” he said pleasantly.
He raised his head, licking his fangs and lips so he wouldn’t spill any blood on the white shirt. Bending his head back down, he licked over the bite on the male’s wrist, knowing the venom would close the cut, well enough to keep it from bleeding on the shirt when he removed it.
“Feeling better, friend?” Nick said, smiling into the human’s face. “Are you recovering from that unfortunate crash?”
The male looked relaxed to the point of being sedated.
Fang & Metal: A Science Fiction Vampire Detective Novel (Vampire Detective Midnight Book 4) Page 26