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. 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?”
“Do you trust her?” Nick said.
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 just hide it behind that scowly, vampire thing you do.” 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 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 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 to be 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—but actual, full-blooded seers that lived in New York.
As in now. As in, post-Exodus.
Even if Nick did try to tell her, Kit would probably think he was nuts if he tried to explain. According to every single person on the planet apart from possibly 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 war ended.
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.
They left behind vampires.
They left behind full-blooded humans.
…and not much else.
Once the reality of the Exodus sank in, everyone thought the seers were completely gone. As in all of them gone. As in, not a single one stayed behind.
Until recently, Nick believed that, too.
He believed it right up until he moved to New York City, and happened upon two full-blooded seers living right here, off the grid, in the fenced-off part of the city known as The Devil’s Cauldron, or simply “The Cauldron.”
The only other person who knew about these two seers—at least as far as Nick was aware—was one Ms. Lara St. Maarten, majority stockholder and functional head of Archangel Industries.
Nick still hadn’t heard the story of how Lara St. Maarten met those two seers—an adult male named Malek and his kid sister, Tailaya, or “Tai.” He also didn’t know precisely what St. Maarten’s relationship to the two of them entailed. Nick got her to agree, and Tai’s big brother, Malek, to agree, to set the kid up with a fake identity and send her to school.
Still, he worried about her.
He worried about her in the school. He worried about her around humans.
He also wondered what Ms. St. Maarten’s ultimate agenda was for Tai and her brother, and why she was so involved in their lives in the first place.
He wondered this about Tai, in particular.
The fact that Archangel’s biggest profit centers remained in organic machinery and genetic tech didn’t exactly ease his mind.
“Anything you want to share?” Kit said, her voice studiously casual. “You’ve got that look on your face again. You have suspicions about her already, don’t you?”
When Nick looked up, giving his friend a quizzical look, the twenty-something punk-tech frowned.
“Really?” she said. “Now I get the confused puppy look?”
Nick sighed. “I don’t know anything. My suspicions are there, but nonspecific.”
She nodded, but from her frown, she wasn’t wholly convinced.
“Just keep those cop senses honed, okay?” Kit said. “You’re taking a lot on faith already, Nick. With her, I mean. If she could get you reinstated as a Midnight after you went off the reservation last month… she could also get you locked up if you piss her off. Or if you just don’t want to do something she wants you to do.”
Kit shrugged, keeping her voice neutral.
“I mean… don’t you worry maybe you’re already a little too involved? Too obligated? Given what and who she is?”
Thinking about that, Nick grunted.
“Subtle,” he said, quirking a dark eyebrow at his friend.
She smiled. “I’m all kinds of subtle.”
“I could say the same about you, you know,” Nick said, jerking his chin towards the console she’d unrolled on his kitchen table. “You work for I.S.F., darling. There’s a reason most vampires call it ‘I.S. Fucked.’ If I piss you off, you could literally have one of I.S.F.’s enforcement teams pick me up. Hell, you could hand me over to one of their alligator-wielding psychopaths… and giggle while they rip the heart right out of my chest.”
She gave him a mock serious look.
“Oh, they wouldn’t do that, Nick. Not right away. You’d chill for a few months in an underground lab first, getting your blood drained, your venom harvested for ‘study’—”
“Yeah, yeah,” he grunted, rolling his eyes. “And my skin ripped off my body for ‘regenerative’ study for vain humans afraid of death—”
“Said like a cocky immortal,” she grinned, kicking him under the table.
Still thinking, he grunted, glancing up from where he’d been watching her hands glide over the paper-thin, organic-metal sheet she�
��d rolled out on his kitchen table.
“So who am I more stupid for befriending?” he said, gruff. “You, or the nice lady with the private army? Should I trust her less, just because she likes collecting favors from disgruntled vampires, and poaching my friends to do her dirty work for her?”
Kit snorted a laugh, shaking her head.
Her spiky white and blue hair rippled as she did, and he noticed a fresh bruise on her arm past the sleeveless T-shirt she wore.
“Fair point,” she said, grinning at him.
“You been in the ring again?” he said, motioning with his chin at her arm. “Ow,” he added, wincing when she did something that made his tattoo shock him again. “Take it easy there, Dr. Frankenstein.”
She grunted, shaking her head. “Count on you to make a reference to something a few hundred years old.”
“A reference you got,” he reminded her. “What does that say about you?”
“That I’m a geek,” she replied promptly. “And I have an extensive movie collection.”
Nick nodded. Even so, he found himself noticing that her face was slightly swollen on one side, too. It was subtle, and she’d covered it with make-up, but now he couldn’t un-see it. Now that he was looking, he noticed bruises all over her. One lower down on her other arm. One on her collarbone she’d also half-covered in make-up. One on her neck. A few red marks on her knuckles and fingers.
His vampire sight picked up on swellings and bruises under the shirt, too.
“Take it easy with the night boxing,” he said. “You look like you broke a few ribs.”
“Don’t use your X-ray specs on me, vampire,” she said, quirking a pierced eyebrow at him. “If you want to see naked women that badly, I can direct you to some great porn sites.”
“Why does everyone want to feed me porn?” he muttered. At her laugh, he nudged her arm. “Hey. I’m serious about the fighting. Take a few weeks off. I don’t care how good you are. You break your neck, I’m going to be pissed.”
She shrugged, but he saw her lips thin. A puzzled look rose slowly to her eyes as she continued to focus down on the screen.
“How did you know I fight?” she said after a pause. “I never told you that.”
He grunted a laugh.
“I knew the first time I met you. I could see it on you… even while you were chewing me out for the crime of carrying a surfboard.”
She looked up, her enhanced eyes refocusing on his, even as the frown grew more prominent on her full lips.
“No, you didn’t,” she said.
“The hell I didn’t,” Nick said. “It was like the first thing I thought about you. I was a lot more surprised when I found out you were a tech-punk with the I.S.F. I had you pegged as a semi-pro fighter who worked as a bartender in Queens during the week.”
“That’s… specific.”
Nick tapped his temple. “Cop brain. Old habit.”
She continued to frown, staring at him for a few seconds more before she shook her head, turning her gaze back down to the flat-screen terminal.
“So why don’t you come to a fight?” she said, her voice causal.
He smiled.
“When’s your next one?” he said. “I’ll come.”
“Tonight.”
Nick frowned. “No. Did you just fucking hear me? You need more recovery time, Kit. You’re not doing your career any favors if you give yourself brain damage.”
She shook her head, rolling her eyes at him.
“Relax, old man,” she said, exhaling. “We’re in the Protected Area championships this week. Everyone is beat to shit. That’s the point. I’m not about to give up my slot just because my grumpy vampire friend is having a parental moment. You can either come down and cheer me on, shouting out distracting and unhelpful fighting tips, like the rest of my family and friends… or you can yell at me afterwards while I’m spit-polishing my trophy.”
Nick sat there, frowning.
After a pause, he conceded her point with a shrug of his own.
“Well, if it’s tonight, I can’t go,” he said, gruff. “I talked to Jordan. They want one more week of me indoors.”
Kit inclined her head, a gesture he couldn’t quite interpret. She didn’t look up from the keyboard she’d conjured on the lower part of her monitor’s screen. Her fingers glided over it while Nick watched, moving with the precision of a brain surgeon.
“If this patch works,” she said, her fingers still dancing over the keys. “They won’t know where you go tonight. Isn’t that the point, Naoko?”
Nick frowned.
Thinking about that, he frowned harder.
“True,” he said, cautious.
“In fact,” Kit went on, giving him a sideways smile. “If this patch works, Detective Midnight, you can program in any scenario you want, in terms of where you will be tonight. The I.S.F. and NYPD won’t know any different. Just set start and end times so it can construct a realistic-seeming log.”
Nick stared at her. “Are you serious?”
“Do I sound like I’m kidding?”
Nick thought about that.
“What about surveillance?” he said. “In here, I mean? The building?”
“Ms. St. Maarten assures me that won’t be a problem anymore. The I.S.F. has subcontracted routine vampire surveillance to Archangel, as of this week. St. Maarten’s arranged to have Red Sun—specifically, me—oversee the transition on the tech side.”
Grunting, she gave Nick a flickering glance.
“She’s already had me isolate your surveillance records from all other vampires living in this building,” Kit added. “She requested me as the project manager to oversee the contract full time. She got me a promotion in the process, and upped my security clearance.”
Nick frowned, staring at her. “Why?”
She snorted. “Gee, Nick. Dunno. Maybe I’m good at my job?”
“That’s not what I mean. Why is she doing all of this?”
There was a silence where she continued to work over the keyboard.
Then she shrugged.
“Well, you did get her out of a murder rap, Nick,” she said.
“That can’t be all of this,” Nick said. “It can’t be.”
“Nope. Probably not. That was kind of my point earlier.”
When he didn’t say anything, she shrugged.
“Then again,” she said cautiously. “Are you really going to look this particular gift horse in the mouth? From the way she was talking, if this works, you’ll be able to go pretty much wherever you want. You’ll be able to do whatever you want, see whoever you want. Which is something no vampire can say these days.”
“Some can,” Nick muttered.
“Yeah. Terrorists. And those scary fuckers in the vamp mafia.”
Nick thought about that.
She wasn’t wrong.
Still thinking about that, about everything she’d said, Nick frowned. As he continued to turn over his tech-punk friend’s words, however, that frown faded.
“You make very good points, Ms. Fiorantino,” he said, bowing his head formally.
“Thank you, Detective Tanaka. I believe I do.”
At that, he couldn’t help it.
Nick Tanaka, employment designation Midnight, chuckled.
WANT TO READ MORE?
Continue the rest of the novel here:
EYES OF ICE
(Vampire Detective Midnight #2)
Series Summaries:
VAMPIRE DETECTIVE MIDNIGHT features vampire with a past and homicide detective, Naoko "Nick" Tanaka, in a futuristic, dystopian version of New York City. After a bad incident in Los Angeles, Nick gets transferred to the NYPD, where he works as a "Midnight," or vampire in the employ of the human police department. When Nick arrives in New York, he really just wants to be left alone, but life, and the residents of New York, have other ideas.
QUENTIN BLACK MYSTERY SERIES is a dark, gritty paranormal mystery romance with science fiction elements, starring bri
lliant and mysterious Quentin Black and forensic psychologist Miriam Fox. The series spans continents and dimensions as Black solves crimes, takes on other races and tries to keep his and Miri’s true identities secret to keep them both alive.
BRIDGE & SWORD SERIES is an epic, apocalyptic world and alternate history of Earth, one peopled by a second race called “Seers,” a psychic, hyper-sexual, emotionally volatile and immensely powerful race discovered in Asia at the beginning of the Twentieth Century. It stars a woman grappling with her role in bringing about the end of one world and the start of a new one. Follow Allie Taylor and her antihero partner, Dehgoies Revik, as they fight terrifying enemies and one another in a passionate story spanning centuries, filled with unpredictable twists, turns and betrayals, and an epic battle of light vs. dark.
THE MORPH SERIES is a science fiction mystery romance centering on shifters from another world, called morph. Earth humans remained blissfully ignorant of the existence of alternate dimensions until Nihkil Jamri tries to save private detective, Dakota Reyes, while he is surveying Earth.
ALIEN APOCALYPSE is a post-apocalyptic dystopian romance series about a tough girl named Jet Tetsuo who grew up on Earth following an alien invasion. Forced into living among her conquerors, she learns to navigate a dangerous world of sexy aliens, enemies who pose as friends, treacherous humans, traitors and unlikely allies, even as she becomes their most famous fighter in the Rings, their alien version of the coliseum.
Books in the Vampire Detective Midnight Series
(Recommended Reading Order)
VAMPIRE DETECTIVE MIDNIGHT (Book #1)
EYES OF ICE (Book #2)
THE PRESCIENT (Book #3)
Books in the Quentin Black Mystery Series
(Recommended Reading Order)
BLACK IN WHITE (Book #1)
Kirev’s Door (Book #0.5)
BLACK AS NIGHT (Book #2)
Black Christmas (Book #2.5)
BLACK ON BLACK (Book #3)
Black Supper (Book #3.5)
BLACK IS BACK (Book #4)
BLACK AND BLUE (Book #5)
Vampire Detective Midnight Page 33