He hadn’t wanted to come.
He definitely hadn’t wanted Wynter to come.
He didn’t want her face or name anywhere near this mess.
St. Maarten, however, didn’t ask.
They were still in that bunker under the Natural History Museum when the Archangel CEO began making phone calls.
At the time she’d made the calls, he’d been splitting his attention between listening to the Archangel medical techs question Wynter and Malek about what happened to Tai, listening to St. Maarten, listening to the Archangel employees talk about containment of the nano-animal, and eavesdropping on Jordan and Morley checking in with the NYPD.
Of course, all of that had been hours ago.
Nick’s timepiece said it was now getting close to noon.
They still had the whole place to themselves. Which was odd, yes, but no less odd than St. Maarten suggesting they come here in the first place. She’d assured them all, more than once, that all the surveillance was switched off, but Nick wasn’t naïve enough to believe that.
Not with this much liability hanging over her head.
Apart from all the arguing and accusations, St. Maarten bizarrely treated the gathering like some kind of reward, even a cocktail party. She suggested food items from the rec center’s menu, ordered them coffee and mimosas, cinnamon rolls and jam, cream cheese, lox, bagels, buttered croissants, grilled meats.
She offered them an omelet bar.
Breakfast tacos. Waffles.
Nick didn’t even eat and some of that sounded good.
Of course, some of that might have been Wynter. Wynter was so starving, her mind was like a nonstop litany of different foods, even before they left that bunker under the museum. Even now, with a plate of food in front of her, she was so hungry she was having trouble making up her mind to eat it.
Pancakes, her mind muttered as she frowned up at Morley. I should have ordered waffles. I really wanted waffles. Blueberry fucking waffles. With like a pound of butter. I want sausage after this. And bacon. And a giant espresso with real cream…
Nick might have found it cute at another time.
As it was, it was distracting him to the point of making him anxious.
He finally grabbed the arm of a passing waitress, pulling her down to his mouth so he wouldn’t interrupt the conversation around them.
“Waffles,” he growled. “Blueberry fucking waffles. A cappuccino with real cream. A lot of fucking butter… and real maple syrup. And sausage. And bacon… whatever you have that’s decent.”
The woman blinked wide, enhanced blue eyes at him.
She didn’t look afraid so much as confused.
“It’s not for me,” Nick growled, louder than he should have. “It’s for my wife.” He jerked his chin towards Wynter. “Her. Over there. Don’t wait for her to finish that. Just bring what I asked. I’ll pay for it.”
The waitress stammered something, but Nick only released her arm.
He watched her walk away.
When he turned back, exhaling as if he’d just prevented a bomb from going off, he found Wynter staring at him, her mouth hanging like he’d just threatened the waitress’ life.
“What?” he growled.
She blinked, shutting her mouth with a snap.
When he continued to glare at her, she held up her hands, then turned back to the pancakes she’d been contemplating before he ordered her another pile of food.
While ordering the food she’d wanted eased that anxious, stressed feeling somewhat, he still found himself overly conscious of her hunger. It reminded him of things he hadn’t had to think about in years.
Decades, really.
Like the fact that seers needed to replenish on food after they exerted their aleimi, or living light. Like the fact that exerting their light like that, for prolonged periods of time, also made them horny… and highly emotional, verging on irrational.
Nick felt Wynter’s eyes dart back to his face.
He didn’t have to look over to feel her frown.
He found himself thinking about Tai, hoping like hell they were taking good care of her, that they weren’t leaving her alone, that someone was making sure she was well-fed, even if it was intravenous. She’d still been unconscious when Nick last saw her; they’d been loading her for transport back to an Archangel lab to be monitored and treated.
Nick couldn’t for the life of him understand why he hadn’t demanded to go with her.
He couldn’t understand why Mal hadn’t done the same.
But Nick couldn’t think about Tai, either.
He looked back out over the hyper-blue water, trying to calm his mind.
His eyes refocused on the rolling, artificial ocean just as another machine-generated, perfect half-pipe curl crashed down onto glass-clear water. The water roiled and frothed forwards to meet the wet sand, gliding up the beach to within ten or so feet of where he sat.
He really, really wanted to go surfing.
They were on the “expert” side of the beach, unlike when Nick came here with Kit. This part of the underground “ocean,” which stretched the length of some of the coves Nick used to surf back in California when he was a human… and even as a vampire in Los Angeles and Santa Cruz… had the space to create decent waves.
His vampire eyes scanned the view further back, deep into the warehouse’s depths, where the truly big waves lived.
He wanted to try one of those.
He knew they’d be tame compared to what he experienced outside the dome, but he had a feeling he’d enjoy them a lot anyway.
He’d enjoy them in a whole other way, maybe a way more reminiscent of when he was human, and looked to the ocean to impart a modicum of serenity.
He glanced at Kit, who sat on the lounger next to his.
The kid hadn’t said much, either, since they got here.
She was looking at the water, too.
Watching her face, her tired-looking, slightly melancholy face, and her pale blue, mechanically-enhanced irises, Nick frowned. He couldn’t help wondering how she was doing with all of this. At the same time, he wondered about the day they’d come out here, if Kit knew who owned the place when she suggested it.
He wanted to believe she didn’t.
He wanted to believe it was a coincidence.
His basic trust of most if not all members of the human and seer species had dropped to around a negative fifty in the past forty-eight or so hours.
Pushing the suspicion from his mind, he sat up.
He removed his shoes, one at a time, still listening more or less involuntarily to the rest of them speak. He tried not to listen, but he couldn’t entirely help it, and not only because they were so close, and he was a vampire.
“––That’s not acceptable,” Gavin Kingsworth snapped, turning on St. Maarten. “Damn it, Lara. You have to know how insane that is. I cannot allow you to keep that thing, not now that we know it can be hacked by any tech-punk with sufficient skill and something to prove.”
He glanced at Kit as he said it, and had the grace to flush.
“I don’t mean on your team,” he clarified, even as Kit raised an eyebrow at him. “If Yi’s got people who can hack the damned thing, then others will, too. There are a number of vampire cells that employ their own hackers… not to mention the thousands owned by White Death.”
Again, Kingsworth seemed to remember who was listening.
He turned, giving Nick a bare glance, right before he looked at Wynter.
Nick couldn’t help noticing the fucker didn’t only look at her face––or that he frowned, giving Nick a second glance that made it clear he wasn’t thrilled with Wynter’s taste in men.
Given that he was Governor off the entire New York Protected Area, the wealthiest and most prominent protected area in all of what remained of the United States, and the fact that Kingsworth could likely have Nick “re-programmed” for even sleeping with Wynter, Nick kept his mouth shut. He was keenly aware that his relationship with Wynter w
as illegal, given what she was––given what Kingsworth knew she was.
For the same reason, he would just sit there and play dumb and compliant, no matter what it cost him, especially around someone like Kingsworth, or the Lieutenant, or anyone who could hurt either or both of them.
He didn’t have to like it, though.
Jealous, Wynter murmured.
Nick glanced at her. Is jealous better than homicidally protective?
She snorted softly, taking a big bite of butter and syrup-covered blueberry waffle, a smile toying at the edges of her lips.
Marginally better, she conceded as she chewed.
He hadn’t noticed the waiter return to bring Wynter the food he’d ordered for her. Seeing it now, he felt a relief that was indescribable, like someone had lifted an enormous weight from his shoulders. He knew how ludicrous that was, but it didn’t matter.
Still, his mind didn’t focus only on that.
He’d caught enough of the conversation that time to realize something.
Kingsworth didn’t know about Yi. That meant the I.S.F., Homeland Defense, and the NYPD didn’t know about Yi, either. Lara St. Maarten hadn’t told her ex-husband everything that went down in that bunker.
Morley and Jordan hadn’t told Lieutenant Acharya everything, either.
Almost as if he heard Nick’s thoughts, Morley turned.
The salt and pepper-haired human gave Nick a hard look, one that contained an open warning. Nick gave the other male a blank look in return, a little annoyed Morley was being so heavy-handed. Neither Lt. Jag nor Kingworth were idiots, whatever their other faults.
He needn’t have worried.
Apparently, Kingsworth and Lt. Acharyra were done for the day.
The Lieutenant stood up first.
Holding an almost absurdly old-school data tablet in one hand, and his formal uniform hat in another, which he’d apparently worn to the banquet, he exchanged pleasantries with St. Maarten, bowing all around, and began to make his way back to the building’s entrance. The I.S.F. and Homeland Defense agency representatives left with him, along with several people who Nick had thought worked for Archangel.
Charlie made her apologies and left, too, looking exhausted.
Kingsworth stayed a few seconds longer.
He spent most of that time frowning at his ex-wife, as if second-guessing everything he’d heard and believed a few seconds before.
He looked at Wynter next.
Then finally at Nick.
Nick didn’t have to be a seer to see the annoyance reflected in his eyes, or to guess what the man was thinking. He knew he didn’t know everything. He was pissed his ex-wife was holding out on him. He was pissed Wynter appeared to be in St. Maarten’s camp now. He was pissed Nick was fucking the hybrid he’d wanted in his own bed.
Nick gave him a flat-eyed stare in return.
He really, really hoped it conveyed how little Nick cared about his opinion about much of anything.
At the same time, he knew it would probably be better for himself, and for Wynter, if the human saw nothing in his expression at all.
In the end, Kingsworth bowed, and removed himself from their presence.
Nick watched him walk out.
Then as if by some invisible signal, their entire group let out a collective sigh of relief.
Chapter 36
Mutual Understanding
“What the fuck was all that?” Nick growled. “I mean it… what was that? Why did you even bring them here? Is it blackmail, making all of us accomplices? Or was it just so all of us would know how much you’d already fucking lied to them?”
St. Maarten gave him a cold look.
Still staring at him, she took a sip off her rose-colored champagne flute. Whatever liquid was inside it, it wasn’t wholly champagne.
From the smell, Nick guessed pink grapefruit.
Knowing St. Maarten, the grapefruit was real.
His mouth hardened. “You know what that means for the rest of us? Getting caught up in your bullshit? You know what we’re risking, right? Not just me… but Wynter. The kid. Malek.”
Nick motioned towards the black-haired seer, who stood apart from the rest of them, staring out over the roiling ocean.
“Hell, Kit, too,” Nick growled. “Morley. Jordan. All of us. Maybe the humans wouldn’t have their brains wiped… or end up dead or cut up into pieces in a lab… but they could end up in jail if it came out. You know that, right?”
St. Maarten’s mouth firmed, but she only twirled the stem of her champagne flute in her fingers, her blood-red nails tapping the glass.
Nick opened his mouth, about to say more, but Kit raised a hand.
“Nick, stop.”
He did, mostly because it was her who said it, but also what he heard in her voice. He glanced at her, seeing worry in her face, exuding from every part of her.
Not worry. Fear.
Kit cleared her throat. Her voice shook less when she went on, but Nick could still hear it at the edges of her words.
“Can we all just stop for a minute?” she said, looking around pleadingly at all of them. “Can we just get a few things straight, first?”
Jordan glanced at Morley with a frown, then at Nick.
Nick scowled at St. Maarten, then let his eyes return to Kit.
“Sure, kid. Ask whatever you want.” He couldn’t stop himself from glaring at St. Maarten a second time. “…I’m sure we’d all like a little fucking clarity right now.”
Kit gave him a small frown.
She looked back over the rest of them, stopping on St. Maarten.
“Okay,” she said, exhaling. “Okay. Look. So I get that the guy in the basement was Yi. Okay… weird. Weird that he came on his own, and didn’t send someone else, given his whole cult thing… but fine.”
She glanced around at everyone again.
From her expression, she looked like she really, really hoped everyone would disagree with the next thing she said.
“…But he was a seer, right?” she said, that hope audible in her voice. “I didn’t imagine that? He was seer. As in, one hundred percent, non-hybrid, full-blooded seer?”
St. Maarten gave her a flat look, lowering her champagne flute.
When everyone else remained quiet, she exhaled in obvious annoyance.
“Yes.”
“A telekinetic seer?” Kit clarified, looking around at the rest of them again, pausing on Wynter that time. “Because… wow. I mean, shouldn’t we talk about that? About this totally dangerous, totally illegal seer who tried to kill that kid? Not to mention the fact that Nick fed on him, and that’s like… a major no-no, right?”
Nick frowned a little at that.
He glanced at Wynter before he could stop himself, his frown deepening.
What the hell did Kit think was going on all night?
He’d just assumed she knew.
He figured she knew more than him at this point, truthfully.
She worked for St. Maarten full time now… and Malek and Tai worked for St. Maarten… and now Wynter got dragged in, too. Given all that, Nick assumed Kit had also been brought into the “yes, there are seers and some of them work for Archangel” category of employee. Glancing at Jordan and Morley, Nick frowned more.
What the fuck did these two think was going on?
Was it possible Nick knew more about last night’s events than anyone here apart from St. Maarten, Wynter, and possibly Malek?
Kit was waiting for an answer, though.
When no one gave it, she exhaled in obvious frustration.
“Where the hell is Yi now?” she said. “Did Archangel get custody of him? I mean, how is that legal? Why doesn’t the government have him in some kind of locked-down, high-security super-seer cage? I thought telekinetics were like… mondo-deadly and dangerous, right? As in, human-beings-obliterated-off-the-face-of-the-planet kind of dangerous––?”
“We don’t have him,” St. Maarten cut in, sniffing. “You are incorrect.”<
br />
That time, Nick stared at her. “What?”
Kit looked between them.
After a pause where no one spoke, she cleared her throat.
“Well. Who does, then? It’s pretty clear the Governor had no idea what was going on––”
“Let me deal with that,” St. Maarten said.
There was a silence.
In it, Nick stared at St. Maarten, watching her take another sip of champagne.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” he said.
Lowering her glass, Lara glared at him. “Do you require a translator, Detective? Archangel does not have custody of Dimitry Yi. We handed over custody of him to another party. Prior to the authorities arriving.”
Nick’s frown deepened. “Who?”
“That isn’t your concern.”
Again, the rest of them exchanged looks.
Then Morley snorted.
Nick glanced up at him, hearing the understanding there.
“She gave him to the vampires,” Morley said, shaking his head in disgust. “She gave him to White Death… probably in exchange for the shiny piece of sentient machine they stole from her. That, or to save her bony ass from being a vampire pull-toy.”
St. Maarten turned her gaze coldly on Morley.
Something in the look there made Nick think Morley had surprised her, though.
After a longer pause, she lowered her glass to the table beside her lounger, setting it down with a solid clank.
“I had no choice,” she said.
At Nick’s incredulous sound, she glared at him, her green eyes as cold as glass.
“We have an agreement… me and your vampire king. They do not have sole custody of Yi. We are sharing it. At least until we have a better idea of what he is. Brick assured me they have the facilities to hold him safely. He assured me he would be discreet. They also returned the sentient machine, as you say… and promised not to ‘deploy’ Yi in any way that would harm either of our races.”
Shrugging, folding her thin arms across her chest, she added,
“I agreed to the same, regarding our prototype.”
Morley and Nick exchanged looks, both of them frowning.
A half-beat after, Jordan joined them with his own distinct sound of disbelief.
Fang & Metal: A Science Fiction Vampire Detective Novel (Vampire Detective Midnight Book 4) Page 34