The Prescient: A Science Fiction Vampire Detective Novel (Vampire Detective Midnight Book 3)

by JC Andrijeski

  That pain throbbed in his chest, confusing him, making him feel simultaneously like an asshole and completely unapologetic about that fact.

  He knew what he should do.

  He knew exactly what he should do.

  That hard pain in his chest worsened, rebelled against that knowing. So did just about every nerve-ending in his body, not to mention a denser, unnamed emotion that was making it hard for him to think clearly at all, or even look at her.

  Clenching his jaw, he led her to the taxi door and opened it.

  When he stepped out of the opening, leaving room for her to enter in front of him, she came to a dead stop.

  That time, he looked at her.

  He met her gaze, his hand gripping the doorjamb of the robo-taxi, his other hand hanging at his side from where she’d released it.

  When he met her gaze, he more or less saw the expression he’d expected to see.

  Only it held more anger than he expected, not less.

  A lot more anger.

  “Wynter—” he began, his voice hard.

  “Get in the taxi, Nick,” she said.

  “Wynter!” he growled.

  “Get in the goddamned taxi, Nick. Now.”

  He met her gaze.

  He hadn’t realized until then that he’d looked away.

  He didn’t want to argue. He wanted to yell at her, but he didn’t want to argue… and he knew he had zero excuse for doing either thing, other than a selfish desire to want to siphon off emotion in her direction.

  He stared at her instead, for a beat too long.

  “Get in the car, Nick,” she said through clenched teeth. “Now. Or I’m going back into the club until I find someone who will.”

  Heat flared in his chest. Briefly, he couldn’t speak through it. He couldn’t even think through it. He wanted to bite her.

  He really wanted to bite her.

  Goddamn it.

  He wanted to slam her against the taxi and bite her.

  They stared at one another, and he found himself remembering her on the dance floor, with him, with the other vampire. He remembered how happy she’d looked with the other male, even with her embarrassment at not knowing the dance. He remembered the concentration he’d seen in those blue-green eyes as she struggled to learn.

  Somehow, remembering all of that only made his anger worse.

  Exhaling in fury, she turned.

  She started walking back towards the club, moving fast.

  Nick was faster.

  He lunged for her.

  He moved without thought, without modulating those movements at all. In a human heart beat, he was in front of her, between her and the club.

  Gripping her arm in one hand, he had to make an effort not to shake her.

  He led her with him back towards the robo-taxi.

  The door of that taxi was still open.

  “I’m not getting in without you,” she snapped. “If you try to force me, Nick—”

  “I’m not forcing shit,” he growled back. “I’m going with you.”

  “If you don’t, I’ll just get in a cab and come back,” she snapped. “I’ll come back tomorrow, too, Nick. And the night after that.”

  His eyes closed, longer than a blink.

  When he did, he couldn’t help noticing his fangs were extended.

  He re-opened them to find her glaring at him, trying to pry his fingers off her arm.

  She was right. Now he’d gone past just being an asshole.

  Now he was manhandling her.

  He could call it whatever he wanted, but she knew and he knew he’d fully intended to shove her into the back of the taxi.

  Still staring at her, he felt his indecision, frustration, anger… whatever else… come to a kind of crescendo somewhere in the forward parts of his mind. Releasing her arm, he slid past her, moving in a jerking, half-impulsive, half-angry lunge. Rather than dragging Wynter into the back of the robo-taxi, he vaulted inside himself.

  Again, he didn’t bother moving like a human.

  He landed on the padded taxi bench by the opposite window, and waited.

  As he did, he heard an amused chuckle.

  That time, it didn’t come from Wynter.

  He looked up. He focused past Wynter herself, past her shadowed outline to the door of the club, where the Latino bouncer still sat on his stool. He had his thick arms folded over his chest, and he was watching the two of them, chuckling in overt amusement.

  “I think you’ve met your match, Wolf,” the bouncer called out.

  Nick scowled, unable to help himself.

  Wynter, who was climbing in after him, didn’t so much as give the bouncer a backwards glance.

  “Didn’t I see this fine lady walk in with another brother?” the bouncer called out louder, his amusement more audible. “…and already she’s got you on a leash?”

  “Fuck off,” Nick growled back.

  The bouncer burst out in a laugh.

  When Wynter slammed the door of the robo-taxi behind her, the Puerto Rican vamp threw his head back, still grinning. Even with the door closed, Nick heard the exact instant he belted out a long, rising wolf-howl, louder and more drawn out than the sound he’d made when Nick and Jordan first walked into the club.

  Nick fought to ignore that, too.

  He fought to ignore everything.

  He didn’t even look at the destination Wynter punched into the map-pad on the wall between the AI driver and where they sat.

  It didn’t fucking matter.

  Nothing mattered anymore… apparently.

  He sat there, staring forward as the robo-cab began gliding smoothly backwards out of the alley.

  Then Wynter slid into his lap, moving towards him and onto him, and half-winding herself around him before his mind could catch up, before he could think, before he could decide what his reaction should be—much less what it actually was.

  He half-caught her there instead, coiling his arms around her and yanking her deeper into him, wrapping his fingers into her hair. He was still being too rough. He was being too fucking rough with her.

  She gasped though, and he felt that pain on her worsen, even as her body went soft in his arms, under his fingers and hands.

  Her mouth found his and he gripped her tighter, kissing her back, kissing her harder, letting out a low growl that made her clutch at him more.

  He knew he should push her off.

  There was surveillance in the fucking taxi.

  There was surveillance—

  “It’s too late,” she snapped, raising her head and glaring down at him. “When are you going to get it through your fucking head, Nick? It’s too late… by a long shot.”

  Staring up at her, he fought to think, fighting a rising pain in his chest.

  He stared at her, watching her stare back.

  Her eyes were glassy again, like they had been in the club, and he swore he felt it even more intensely now… he felt that pain in her, even as her chest heaved, even as she stared at him.

  “I don’t want to lose you,” he growled, speaking before he thought. “I don’t want to fucking lose you. Do you get that?”

  Her brow furrowed.

  Her anger didn’t dissipate, but it mixed now with a frustrated bewilderment.

  “So you break up with me?” she snapped. “How does that make sense, Nick?”

  “You know how,” he growled back. “You know, Wynter… don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about. Don’t pretend you understand so little about how this works. I can’t have you the way you are now. I can’t. Not the way you want us to be together. If you listened to a single damned thing I’ve told you, you’d know that.”

  She blinked at him, even more bewildered, and frowned.

  When she opened her mouth, he cut her off before she could reply.

  “I’ll change you. I’ll fucking change you. You know I will. I’ll change you… and I don’t want to. It scares the shit out of me, Wynter.”

&nb
sp; “I know that,” she snapped. “I know it scares you, Nick.”

  “Well, maybe you should listen to me, then. Maybe you should actually respect my fears about this, and not keep telling me I’m overreacting… like all of it’s in my head. Maybe you should stop pretending I don’t have legitimate damned reasons to feel the way I do—”

  She was already shaking her head.

  Some of the anger went out of her voice when she answered him.

  “It’s too late, Nick.”

  He frowned.

  “You might not like it,” she said. “But it’s too late.”

  “No,” he growled.

  She didn’t flinch.

  She didn’t change expression at all.

  He watched her look at him, and he hated the knowing, the understanding he saw in that look. He hated that, on some level—maybe a lot of levels—he knew she was right. Knowing that only made the pain in his chest worse. It only made him feel like shit, like everything bad that happened, everything bad he did, was somehow inevitable.

  “No,” she said, soft.

  Her fingers caressed the hair off his forehead.

  That pain on her worsened, closing his eyes, even as she softened in his lap.

  She kissed his forehead, the side of his face, his jaw, his throat.

  She kissed him, massaging the back of his neck, his chest, his arm.

  He felt himself softening as she did.

  He didn’t seem to be able to help that, either.

  He didn’t seem to be able to do a damned thing about any of it.

  When she opened her mouth again, he held up a hand.

  “No,” he growled. “No more talking. Not here. I can’t. I’m fucking serious, Wynter.”

  That time, a flicker of frustration came to her eyes, even with the understanding he felt on her… along with that pain that now nearly crippled both of them.

  In the end she only nodded, coiling her arms around his neck. Blowing her still-sweaty bangs out of her perfect, angular face, she gazed past him, out the back window of the taxi.

  She didn’t try to talk to him again.

  Nick didn’t speak, either.

  He also couldn’t quite tear his eyes off her.

  They sat there, silent, Nick staring up at her, while she stared past him, her face entirely devoid of feeling, illuminating nothing. He could feel things off her still—longing, frustration, patience, anger at him, hurt because of him, that deeper pain, a wanting for the two of them to be alone, to be somewhere alone, where she could speak freely.

  Her face showed none of it.

  From her face alone, she might have been in the taxi without him, going God-knew-where at God-knew-what-time-of-night.

  Something in that expression made him want to shake her.

  But he didn’t.

  He also didn’t look away.

  The taxi was slowing.

  Somehow, it felt different from the times before, when it slowed for traffic or for a traffic light, for a crosswalk filled with drunk pedestrians stumbling out into the street, going from one bar to another, from one club or party to another.

  This time, it came to a stop by the curb, not behind another car.

  Nick looked past Wynter, who still sat coiled in his lap. He gazed up and out the darkened windows at the building looming over the sidewalk.

  He hadn’t realized how far he’d let his mind go down the rabbit hole until he recognized where Wynter had taken them. It wasn’t his apartment in Washington Heights; she’d brought them to Grand Central Station.

  He looked at her, quirking an eyebrow.

  Giving him a sideways look back, she exhaled in obvious frustration, then climbed off his lap and towards the door of the taxi. He watched her hit the release to the door, then wait as the A.I. disengaged the locks and the metal panel began sliding sideways.

  He didn’t know what she was thinking.

  Again, as always, he had no idea what she was thinking.

  He could guess, though.

  He guessed she thought she was going home alone. He guessed she thought she would get back on the train and go to the Northeastern Protected Area alone. She probably thought Nick had changed his mind again, that he’d already come with some reason, or some list of reasons, real and imagined, to back out of what he started at the club.

  As the thought solidified, Nick only paused for a beat more.

  Then he reached for her, vampire-fast.

  Catching hold of her arm, he pulled her back, right as she would have left the taxi.

  She looked back at him, quirking an eyebrow. Her mouth was hard, and he found himself thinking she still saw this as him being indecisive, as him going back and forth, as him coming up with stories and excuses. He found himself thinking she’d given up on him again… and now she just wanted to go home. If he was going to crap out on her, she didn’t want to listen to his bullshit reasons. She didn’t want to listen to his bullshit, period.

  He couldn’t really blame her.

  He also didn’t want her to leave.

  He didn’t want to wait for a train ride, for another taxi ride, for another hour or two of silence to pass between them.

  Still holding her arm, keeping her in the back of the taxi, he activated his headset. Looking away from Wynter’s questioning gaze, he hit in an ID code, connecting terminals with a private line he’d gotten from Archangel, who now oversaw security on his government-owned apartment building in Washington Heights.

  “Hey,” he said, when the person on the other end picked up. He spoke aloud, for Wynter’s benefit. “Did I wake you?”

  “No,” a grumpy voice responded. “Maybe. Not really.”

  Nick wasn’t sure how to interpret that.

  Shrugging it off, he made his voice blunt.

  “I need privacy tonight. Can you turn everything off in my apartment? All of it? They don’t have it running all the time, do they?”

  “No, but—”

  “Then shut it off. Audio, too. Especially audio.” He paused at her silence, glancing at Wynter. “St. Maarten won’t give you shit for that, will she?”

  There was another long-feeling pause.

  “No,” his tech-punk friend, Kit, said finally. “I don’t think so.” Kit’s voice went from sleepy to annoyed. “A little head’s up would’ve been nice, though, Naoko. Like, couldn’t you have told me this a few hours ago? Not at two in the damned morning?”

  “It’s not difficult, is it?” Nick said. “It won’t take you long?”

  “Ten minutes. Five,” she amended, and he could almost see her rubbing her eyes, blinking them awake. “I’m doing it now. So four.”

  “Then do it, then go back to bed.”

  “I wasn’t sleeping,” she grumbled.

  He wasn’t sure how to respond to that.

  Truthfully, he didn’t want to ask. He found himself involuntarily picturing interrupting her in the middle of sex, and felt bad in a different way. He also felt weirdly invasive for even going there in his head. For a number of reasons, Kit still seemed ridiculously young to him, even though she was technically an adult.

  “Well,” he said, after a too-long beat. “Sorry. This wasn’t planned.”

  “Do I want to know?”

  Given what he’d just been thinking about her, Nick let out an involuntary grunt of humor. Looking at Wynter, who was still watching him, and listening, since he’d deliberately chosen to speak out loud so she could listen to him, Nick felt his lips firm.

  “Probably not,” he said. “But it’s nothing illegal.” Thinking, he realized that wasn’t fully true, and shrugged. “Anyway. I’m sure I’ll tell you at some point. Or not.”

  Kit, his first real friend in New York, who also happened to oversee the surveillance on his apartment now, courtesy of Lara St. Maarten and Archangel Industries, let out a half-laugh.

  “Gotcha.”

  “Sorry again, kid,” he said. “I owe you one.”

  “I think the tally’s a bit high
er than one, Nick—”

  “I’ll take you surfing tomorrow,” he offered impulsively. “How’s that? Or… if tomorrow’s bad, whenever you have time. You pick the day.”

  He practically saw her brighten, even before he heard it in her voice.

  “Really?” she said. “Tomorrow? You won’t bail on me this time?”

  “Really. We can meet at that indoor surfing place you told me about. The one in Midtown. Say… four o’clock?”

  “Yeah. I’m so there!”

  “Okay. Get some sleep.”

  “I wasn’t sleeping—” she muttered again.

  Not wanting to pursue it that time, either, Nick terminated the non-network connection, refocusing on Wynter. He studied her eyes and face as she did the same to him, her mouth pursed under a faint wariness in her eyes.

  He saw confusion in her eyes too, or maybe just sensed it on her. He understood the confusion less than the wariness he’d first sensed. That confusion wasn’t about his intent with the call to Kit. She clearly understood exactly what he’d just done and what it meant.

  “Okay?” he said.

  There was another long-feeling beat.

  Then she nodded slowly.

  He tugged lightly on her arm.

  “Come back in, then,” he said, his voice more cautious.

  After a beat where she felt even more confused, maybe even thrown entirely off balance, she nodded again, not speaking as she slid her legs back sideways, so she was sitting on the fake-leather seat facing forward.

  Nick hit the button on the side of the robo-taxi, and the door slid shut.

  Without looking at her, but feeling her eyes on him, he punched his own address into the panel for the A.I. to follow.

  As the taxi pulled away from the curb, Wynter folded her arms, shivering a little as she slid back on the seat, staring at him. He started to shoulder off his jacket, but she held up a hand.

  “Don’t,” she said. “Just turn up the heater.”

  “I don’t get cold—” he began, but she kept talking.

  “You’re sure about this?” she said. “You want me in your place?”

  Thinking about that, Nick resumed taking off his coat, nodding. “Yes.”

  “Yes? Just like that? Okay? Just like that? You were dead against this before, Nick. When we were dating, you were against it. You didn’t want me anywhere near your place.”