Vampire Detective Midnight

by J. C. Andrijeski

  Nick whistled under his breath, in spite of himself.

  Wynter gave him a flat look.

  “Are you a fan of his father?”

  “A fan?” Nick met her gaze, surprised to see actual anger there. “No. I mean, I’ve heard about him going after the dark networks. I can’t say I’m opposed to that… but I wouldn’t call myself a fan. I’m more kind of blown away at the parents you’re dealing with.”

  Some of the anger leached from her eyes.

  “Yeah,” she said, leaning into the wall, her tone more subdued. “Well, his son has the gift of politics, too, unfortunately. He’s popular. He’s also a good student and speaker… a natural leader. He’s made himself the school’s champion of Dimitry Yi and Eifah, and self-appointed expert on Dimitry Yi’s ‘teachings.’ Kids claim he’s actually in contact with Dimitry Yi, and acting as some kind of unofficial chapter leader within the movement.”

  Shrugging, she refolded her arms.

  “Whether that’s true or just teenaged bragging, a lot of kids listen to Harrison,” she went on, still frowning. “Some, like Yanno Lee, the kid with the blue hair… and Ero Morrison, the girl with the yellow and orange hair you mentioned… are more like followers than friends. I think Ero is his current girlfriend.”

  “I noticed he wasn’t on the list of kids Jordan interviewed,” Nick said. “Kingsworth, I mean. No connection between him and the murders?”

  “Apart from him and his followers hating hybrids?” She squeezed her own elbows. “No. I don’t think so.”

  “You don’t think them hating hybrids might be relevant?” Nick said mildly.

  “Relevant, sure. But enough to point a finger at him without evidence?” She frowned, her blue-green eyes sharpening. “They’re kids, Nick. Morley was clear in terms of the parameters of the interviews he wanted. He also described a near-military hit to me—”

  “Yeah,” Nick said. “Like something professional killers might do. As in people who work for money, Wynter.”

  He paused, letting her think about his words.

  “These kids all come from money, right?” Nick said next, still studying her face. “Gavin Kingsworth’s kid would know all about the dark networks. He would know hired killers advertise their skill-sets on there… right alongside snuff porn, illicit drugs, vampire venom, and sex-for-hire hybrids and vamps.”

  She stared at him, her expression openly incredulous.

  “You’re saying these kids hired hit men?” she said, still staring at him. “To take out their damned classmates?”

  Nick shrugged.

  “I’m not saying that. I’m just curious why Jordan didn’t get Harrison’s name on the shortlist for interviews.”

  Her expression grew even more incredulous.

  “I gave Detectives Jordan and Morley the names of the kids they asked for. That’s all I’m legally allowed to do. They wanted the names of kids who actually knew the victims, Nick—”

  “I’m not accusing you of anything, Wynter—”

  “Well it sure as fuck sounds like it.”

  She was staring at him now, a near-hostility in her eyes as she gauged his face.

  Nick looked back at her, puzzled now, as much as anything. He could tell their conversation was upsetting her, but he still hadn’t pinpointed the exact source of her emotional reaction—or even what that reaction was.

  “What about the adult victims?” he said after a pause. “Any chance there’s a connection there? With the vics in the first killing?”

  She frowned, blinking at Nick with long dark lashes, lashes that exquisitely framed those stunning, aquamarine eyes.

  That time, Nick saw real bewilderment in her expression, minus any of the anger or defensiveness or whatever it was he’d been feeling off her before.

  He saw the confusion in her face, in her eyes, even in the set of her mouth, well before she spoke.

  “What adult victims?” she said.

  He blinked.

  Then he stared at her.

  She didn’t know about the deaths in the Bronx.

  How did she not know about the deaths in the Bronx?

  He was about to answer, when a ping went off in his ear.

  Recognizing the tone as a police communication, he picked up without thought, holding up a hand to Wynter to let her know he needed a minute.

  “Midnight,” he said, seeing it was Morley.

  “Break’s over, Midnight,” the detective growled. “Get your ass down here. Now. Gertrude will feed you the address.”

  Before Nick could ask a single thing, the other man severed the connection.

  Chapter 22

  Vampire Of The Hour

  “What took you so long?” Morley frowned, taking a sip off his artificial coffee and blowing on the opening in his shape-morphing travel mug. “Jordan got here before you… and he lives all the way across town.”

  Hearing the clear annoyance in the detective’s voice, Nick hesitated—but only for one of the human’s heart beats.

  Firming his steps, he walked the rest of the way to the senior detective.

  They were inside the River of Gold.

  Nick recognized this street, and the tall, black-stone building that rose in front of him, the symbol of a flaming bird etched into the side, decorated with dark, virtual flames that seemed to lick around the phoenix symbol that stood over six stories high.

  “Phoenix Tower,” he muttered.

  He glanced at Morley. “What’s going on, boss? Gertrude didn’t say.”

  Morley gave him a grim look, sipping at his artificial coffee.

  “We caught our hybrid killer,” he said, his voice low. “I just got the word from the forensics team. They brought in federal agents, given who it is.”

  “Which is who?” Nick said, frowning.

  “Your pal.” Morley turned, giving him a level stare. “Lara St. Maarten.”

  Nick blinked, staring at him. “What?” When the other male didn’t answer, Nick frowned. “What makes them think it’s her?”

  “Evidence, Tanaka. You heard of it, maybe?”

  “But how did they get onto her?” Nick said, still struggling to wrap his head around this. “Did someone tip off the department?”

  “Her ex-husband turned her in.”

  “Ex-husband.” Nick blinked. “But why? Why would she do it?”

  Morley looked at him, his expression still annoyed.

  After frowning at Nick for a few seconds, he seemed to give in.

  “Looks like it started off as some kind of domestic thing,” he said, blowing on the opening of the travel mug. “Jealousy, maybe… coupled with disagreements about how to raise the kid.” He gave Nick a grim look.

  “…The lab techs finally managed to ID your vic from the dumpster. The one in the Bronx. Turns out she was the new wife. Stepmother to St. Maarten’s son.”

  Nick frowned. “She has a kid. St. Maarten?”

  “Apparently so.”

  Nick looked back towards Phoenix Tower, fighting to think.

  His mind tried to connect the dots.

  The St. Maarten woman.

  Malek. Tai. The paintings.

  The woman in the dumpster.

  The woman in the dumpster was St. Maarten’s ex’s new wife? That was a little too close to ignore. As far as evidence went, it was still circumstantial, but it made it doubly strange that St. Maarten claimed to know nothing about the murders.

  Still, this didn’t feel right.

  Whatever else he’d thought of that odd meeting he’d had with St. Maarten and Malek, it never once crossed his mind that either of them might actually be behind the murders.

  Maybe it should have.

  From next to him, Morley sighed, exhaling air from between pursed lips.

  “I guess this St. Maarten woman was the last one to see the wife alive,” he said. “Kingsworth thought she’d left for Europe, so he didn’t even report her missing until—”

  “Wait. What?” Nick stared at Morley. �
�Kingsworth? As in Gavin Kingsworth? That’s the ex-husband?”

  Morley gave him a disbelieving look.

  “What kind of rock did you crawl out from under, Midnight?” he said. “You didn’t know the two of them used to be married?” When Nick only stared back at him, Morley let out a low grunt, shaking his head. “I know you’re new to New York, but I thought you would have known that much, at least—”

  “So it was Kingsworth who turned her in?” Nick said, still thinking. “He claims she did it? What’s his evidence?”

  “Jordan’s up there now,” Morley said, motioning towards the tower with the hand holding his coffee cup. “There was some kind of physical altercation, and Kingsworth called us. He says St. Maarten confessed to killing his wife… and that she threatened to kill him. According to him, St. Maarten found out the new wife was a hybrid a few months back and became completely obsessed. She was convinced the new wife was trying to seduce their son, who’s a senior at that Kellerman school—”

  “Did she blackmail them?” Nick said. “St. Maarten?”

  Morley looked at him. “Kingsworth didn’t come out and call it that, but she was threatening to call I.S.F. if she didn’t get full custody of their son. She also threatened to take the kid out of that school… put him somewhere in one of the Protected Areas out west. So yeah. Pretty much blackmail, by most definitions.”

  Nick stood there, frowning.

  “You want me to go up there?” he said. “Help Jordan?”

  “They’re bringing her down now,” Morley said, pausing to aim another annoyed scowl at him. “Don’t bother. Maybe if you’d gotten here at a reasonable fucking time.”

  He aimed his hard look at Nick a beat longer.

  Then, exhaling, he looked back towards the building, taking another sip from the steaming mug.

  “This is going to be a damned media circus, Midnight,” the detective muttered. “You’d better expect we’ll get caught up in it. All of us. That includes you. Especially after that mess at Kellerman today.”

  He gave Nick a harder look.

  “It’s only a matter of time before it gets out that you’re the vampire who went up there, and threatened the life of that Kingsworth kid.”

  “Wait. What?” Nick turned sharply, staring at the other male. “What are you talking about?”

  Morley stared back at him.

  Then his expression cleared. He finally seemed to understand why Nick hadn’t been responding much to his angry and accusatory looks.

  “You really don’t watch the news, do you, Midnight?” He grunted, staring back at the Phoenix building. “You know you probably got that woman fired?”

  Nick blinked, frowning harder. “What woman?”

  “What woman?” Morley gave him an exasperated look. “Are you serious? You were overheard, Midnight. Worse, they got you on tape. Every news network in the Protected Area has been playing the damned conversation between the two of you on a loop for the last hour. Her asking for your number. Her accusing you of wanting to have sex with her. You more or less threatening to hurt her—”

  Nick winced, biting his tongue.

  He didn’t ask if it had come out that she was a hybrid.

  He had to assume it had.

  “Parents are already threatening to sue,” Morley went on grimly. “She’s been suspended by the board, of course… mostly for not kicking you off campus the second she found out what you were. There’s also talk of suing the NYPD. And me, for sending you up there without a warrant. Once this stuff on St. Maarten breaks, you can bet the conspiracy nuts are going to go crazy. They’ll say the NYPD sent you up there to cover up the murders, especially if it gets out you visited St. Maarten the other night. Half the country saw you chase those kids out into the sunlight. It looked like you were targeting that Kingsworth kid in particular. He wasn’t even on the list of possible witnesses, for fuck’s sake—”

  Nick felt like he’d been punched in the face.

  Or maybe hit in the gut with a sledgehammer.

  “—Once it comes out that kid is Harrison Kingsworth, the media outlets are going to have a field day. It’s why we’re trying to keep this quiet, Midnight. At least until we can determine whether the St. Maarten woman did it.”

  He gave Nick an openly cold look.

  “You know Kingsworth senior is sleeping with the principal, right? The one at the school?”

  Nick stared at him. “No. I didn’t know that.”

  Morley grunted, taking a sip of his coffee.

  Remembering how weird Wynter got when he brought up Kingsworth, Nick just stared at him, his jaw clenched hard enough to hurt.

  When Morley turned, his voice was back to being hostile.

  “What can you tell me about this St. Maarten woman?” he said, taking another sip of coffee. “Jordan says you swore up and down today, you’ve got no connection to her—”

  “I don’t.”

  Morley glared at him for a beat, then nodded. “That better be true. I find out you’re lying to me, that you knew her, you know, before that impromptu ‘meeting’ you took with her in her penthouse in the middle of the night, I’m going to kick your vampire ass—”

  “I reported in about all that—” Nick began.

  “You didn’t disclose shit to me, Midnight. Not until way after the fact. Gertrude told me where you were that night.” He grunted, giving Nick a sideways look. “And if you think that report you filed is convincing… think again. Your ‘explanation’ about how you got to St. Maarten’s place has holes in it I could drive a truck through.”

  Nick opened his mouth to speak.

  Thinking better of it, he closed it.

  “Yeah,” the detective said, scowling. “You best be quiet right now, Midnight.”

  Nick felt his jaw harden.

  After another pause, he spoke up anyway.

  “Am I under investigation? By the precinct? I.S.F.?”

  Morley didn’t answer.

  Nick stared at him, fighting an impulse to ask it again. Clenching his jaw, he subdued his voice with an effort.

  “I’ve lived in this damned city for two weeks,” he said. “You really think I’ve had time to involve myself in some kind of conspiracy? One that involves me partnering with the Governor’s ex-wife? Leading hit squads to kill unreg’d hybrids? That strikes you as a reasonable hypothesis, sir?”

  Morley continued to stare off, not speaking.

  As Nick talked, however, the human’s face gradually shifted from a harder, more suspicious anger to something closer to annoyed.

  When Nick fell silent, the detective nodded, seemingly to himself.

  Taking a sip off his mug, he shrugged.

  “Yeah,” Morley muttered. “That may be. But it sure seems like someone wants to make it look like you’re involved.” He gave Nick another annoyed look. “You got enemies I’m not aware of, Tanaka?”

  Nick frowned back at him. “Maybe I’m just convenient.”

  “Convenient?” Morley grunted, his scowl returning. “S’ far as I’m concerned, you’ve been anything but.”

  “A lot of people hate vampires,” Nick said, ignoring the other’s sarcasm. “A lot of people would believe anything of us. Any of us.”

  Morley thought about that.

  Then he grunted, pulling his travel mug into his chest, shivering against the cold wind tunneling between buildings and pulling his coat tighter around him.

  “Well,” the human said, his voice slightly more subdued. “Either someone’s got it in for you, or you’ve got pretty shitty luck, Tanaka. Even for a vampire.”

  Nick frowned.

  Still, he couldn’t really argue with that.

  Nick was about to try and talk to the detective again, to ask about Kingsworth senior, when he heard activity by the building’s entrance and followed the senior detective’s gaze back to Phoenix Tower.

  He aimed his eyes at the glass double doors just in time to see a number of men and women in dark, expensive-looking suit
s emerge.

  All of them had tense expressions on their faces. They were talking in turns to a wiry, East Indian-looking man in an even more expensive-looking suit.

  After a few seconds, it struck Nick that he recognized the Indian man.

  He recognized the distinctive, aquiline nose, the high cheekbones, perfectly-combed black hair, serious brown eyes, and even his green silk tie and gold rings. The man nodded seriously to something one of the women was saying, his whole manner exuding reassurance.

  Nick had placed him by then.

  It was Jagan Acharya, the current NYPD police lieutenant.

  Jagan or “Jag” Acharya was the same man whose photo Nick passed under on his way to the elevators in the 17th Precinct just about every damned day.

  The group of suits, what now looked unmistakably like lawyers to Nick, continued to circle Acharya like wary birds of prey. They didn’t look placated by his words, or remotely reassured by anything he was saying. Rather, they looked like they were memorizing every word in case it might be useful to them in a future lawsuit.

  Unable to discern much of what they were saying, even with his vampire hearing, given the wind tunneling between the buildings and the distance, Nick found his eyes and ears checking out the rest of the scene.

  “How are you going to get her back to the precinct without anyone noticing?” Nick said, still staring past Morley at the group of lawyers surrounding their semi-famous police lieutenant. “The press always has drones hanging around the intake doors, don’t they?”

  Morley exhaled, turning to glare at him.

  “Don’t worry about that, Midnight,” he said, sharp. “Worry about your own damn self. I want you to sit down with internal affairs. Tonight. Before the media rips us a new asshole, you and Jordan are going to describe exactly what happened today, at that school. And you’re going to tell them every single damn thing that led you to this woman’s penthouse the other day, and every word the two of you said to one another once you got here. Understand?”

  Nick kept his expression utterly blank.

  “Yes, sir,” he said. “I understand.”

  “You’d damned well better.”