“Okay,” Nick said. “Grip the bar. Right there…” He waited until the man did as he said. “Good. Okay. Just stand there. Breathe. I’ll be right back.”
The panic rushed back to those dark eyes.
“What? Where are you going? Don’t leave me—”
“I won’t. Hey. Case. Calm down. Calm down, okay? I’m not leaving you.”
“You can’t leave,” the man blathered. “You can’t leave me in here—”
“I’m not leaving you,” Nick cut in, his voice back to a warning growl. “I’m not. I promise. I’m just going up to get a better look.”
Nick pointed at the security hatch as he spoke.
The man followed his eyes, paling.
After a beat of thought, he nodded again. “Okay.”
“Okay. Case? Grip the bar with both hands. The car’s going to move. It might move a lot while I try to get that hatch open. I need you to not freak out when it does. Just hold onto the bar and try not to get hurt. Okay?”
Nodding, the male human reached out, clutching the bar with a second white-knuckled hand. He gripped it like he was trying to crush it in his fingers.
“Okay,” he said, nodding again jerkily. “Okay. I’m all right. Do what you need to do.”
“Close your eyes. Breathe, Case. Don’t forget to breathe. I’ll be right back.”
“Okay.”
Nick waited until the human closed his eyes. Case’s mouth and forehead scrunched in concentration as he tried to do as Nick said.
Sighing a little internally, Nick looked back up at the hatch.
He knew, despite his words, that this might freak the human out all over again, but he didn’t have much choice.
He also couldn’t wait.
He leapt up, as lightly as he could, catching hold of the artistic designs done in gold metal on the ceiling of the elevator car. His attempts to do it lightly didn’t really help. Gripping two different Anubis dog heads in his hands, he grimaced when the car lurched back and forth, jerking crazily from the change in weight distribution.
The man below him let out a wavering shriek.
When Nick glanced down, the human was still on his feet, though, gripping the brass bar, his eyes squeezed painfully shut.
“You’re good, Case,” Nick called down. “Just hang tight, okay? I’m right above you.”
The man acknowledged his words with more jerky nods of his head.
Nick focused back up at the hatch.
Squinting at it for a minute, frowning, still swaying from where he hung, he examined the hinges, then the locked, old-fashioned handle sticking out in the middle of the panel. Contemplating both briefly, he gripped the locked handle, and wrenched it downwards, flexing his vampire strength.
The force jerked the elevator car violently.
The metal walls banged into the walls outside the car, louder that time.
On the plus side, the handle and the panel gave, more or less coming off in his hand. Still gripping the gold-colored handle, Nick yanked it the rest of the way off with a hard jerk, then dropped the panel to the floor below.
The human jumped when the car swung sickeningly again.
When it slammed into the outside walls, louder, he let out a terrified shriek.
Nick was kind of regretting not venom-ing him now.
“It’s okay, Case,” Nick assured him. “That was just me tossing the panel down. We’re all good. I’m going up. It’ll probably sway again, so don’t panic, okay?”
The human whimpered.
Before he could really get going, Nick made his voice stern again.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I’ll be right back. I’m not going anywhere, okay? I’ll be right here. I’ll be talking to you the whole time…”
There was a pause.
Then the human nodded again, swallowing visibly.
Nick couldn’t help noticing that Case didn’t open his eyes—or that the human’s skin was now the color of chalk, despite his fashionable dome-tan.
Nick pushed all of that from his mind.
Leaping up from where he hung on the gold dog heads, Nick caught hold of the opening to the roof of the elevator car, grunting when the car rocked crazily again. He pulled himself up, moving as smoothly and evenly as he could… but the car continued to sway and lurch, knocking him into the side of the rectangular opening.
He was only halfway through, but decided to wait, let it stabilize a bit. He hung there in a half-pull up, letting the rocking die down before he tried climbing the rest of the way up.
As he did, he tried to take his own advice to Case.
He couldn’t focus on his breath—as a vampire, he had none—so he focused on his body, his muscles, the currents of air around his skin. He spent those seconds of swaying re-centering himself, deliberately calming his mind and body.
He didn’t realize how tightly wound he’d been before he did that.
He had no idea…
Until her voice rose, bursting into his awareness.
It hit him only then that he’d been keeping her out, that he’d somehow been blocking her mind from his.
NICK? NAOKO… ANSWER ME! WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON? ANSWER ME, GODDAMN IT!
He grimaced, wincing.
He didn’t stop or slow his body though, climbing carefully up to the top of the elevator and gripping the cable in one hand.
He was relieved to see that cable on top appeared totally intact.
It must have been the cable below that snapped.
NICK!? NICK?! IS THAT YOU?
Hey, honey… he sent, his thoughts soothing. Calm down… it’s okay…
Don’t CALM DOWN me, Nick!
Even so, he could feel her relief, the instant she felt his presence.
That relief was so intense, it nearly made him dizzy.
Where are you? she sent. What the fuck happened? I felt something—
Another bomb, he told her, matter of fact. Two, actually. Two different buildings, including this one. I’m in the Brooklyn one. In the elevator. The bomb was in the lobby. I’m working to get us out now—
Her calm evaporated.
What? You’re trapped in an elevator? WHERE?
I’m getting us out now. Calm down… it’s okay, Wynter…
Us? Who the fuck is us?
One of Straven’s people.
Glancing down through the lit hole of the elevator car, he let her see the human crouched there, gripping the brass bar with both hands, like Nick told him to do.
Poor guy’s scared out of his fucking mind, Nick sent in a mutter. I need to get him out of here, before he flips out for real.
His eyes scaled the dark walls as he thought it.
He could probably climb the cable, even with the guy in a fireman’s carry. It wasn’t ideal, but Nick was less worried about the climbing itself than getting both of them out onto one of the floors with the guy in tow.
Frowning up into the darkness, he realized it probably wasn’t a smart risk to take, not without knowing where he was going.
No, he had to get one of those doors open first.
Then he’d deal with the guy.
“You doing okay, Case?” Nick called down. “I’m still here. The cable up here is fine. I’m just trying to figure out the best way to do this—”
“Don’t leave!” the man said, gasping. “Please don’t leave me here!”
“I won’t,” Nick assured him. “I promise. If I’m quiet for a minute, it’s just me trying to get one of the doors open to a nearby floor. Okay, Case?”
“Don’t leave me,” the man whimpered. “Please don’t leave me here—”
“Not gonna happen, Case.” Nick made his tone soothing once more, his voice almost a purr. “Don’t give it another thought, buddy. We’re in this together, okay?”
The human didn’t look fully reassured.
Nick saw him nodding jerkily again, his jaw clenched.
Exhaling a little, human-fashion, Nick glanced at the nearest segme
nt of wall. There was no elevator access to the floors here. They must have the elevators broken out by segments of the building, to get them to go faster.
In any case, all Nick saw was a cement wall on four sides.
He’d have to climb up the cable until he found doors he could open.
Nick, Wynter sent, alarmed. I don’t think that’s a good idea. You’re taking too long. All of this is taking too long—
There are no good ideas, babe, Nick sent back, sighing internally.
He didn’t wait for her response, but leapt up.
Getting as much air as he could, he grabbed the highest part of the cable he could in both hands and hung there briefly, until he could arrange the rest of his body, using his feet in the ridiculous dress shoes to grip the cable from below.
He tested his balance, and his weight on the cable, and the cable itself.
Then he began climbing up the braided steel, hand over hand.
Knowing he was likely shaking the car below him even more, he grimaced, but there was nothing he could do about it. He concentrated instead on moving as smoothly and evenly as he could, while also rising up through the dark shaft as fast as he could.
…This is the best, really the only idea I’ve got, he added belatedly to Wynter. If you’ve got any better ones, I’m all ears, honey.
There was a silence.
He felt her exhale in frustration.
You can’t just wait for the emergency responders?
In my estimation? Nick sent, sighing as he continued to scan the walls, climbing faster now that he had his rhythm down. No. We really can’t. And they’d have the same problem anyway. There’s no easy access to where we are… not unless they’ve got security doors in this shaft I can’t see.
Realizing that was likely, just for safety reasons alone, Nick focused harder on the walls, trying to see past the featureless gray surfaces. He focused with different bandwidths in his vision, but still couldn’t see anything—nothing he could figure out with his eyes alone. He sensed semi-organics in a few areas, but had no idea what those organics did.
He also wasn’t willing to waste time trying to figure it out.
Not until he’d gone up a little further.
He was trying to decide if he should call Jordan, get him to ask Straven about the security doors thing, about which floors had access—
—when he finally spotted the outline of double doors to his left.
He climbed faster.
As soon as he drew level with the doors’ outline, he leapt to a small ledge and a cluster of pipes to the right of the rectangle cut in the cement.
He felt Wynter let out a gasp when he did.
Jesus H., Nick… she sent, after he was hanging from the wall instead of the cable. For fuck’s sake… be careful.
He grinned, in spite of himself.
Instead of answering her, he felt over the wall, reaching out from his perch to see if he could jam his fingers into the opening between the two doors. After some grunting and effort, he managed it.
Renewing his other hand’s grip on a pipe in the wall, and checking to make sure his feet wouldn’t slip off the ledge in the crappy dress shoes, he yanked on the door, clenching his jaw as he fought to open it.
It didn’t budge.
Realizing there was probably an easier way to do this, too, he ignited the connection in his headset, pinging Jordan.
The other detective picked up after half a tone.
“Do I even want to know where you are right now, man?” Damon said. “The sensors only have one person in your elevator car now—”
“Probably not. As in no, you probably don’t want to know where I am.” Nick grunted a little as he yanked on the edge of one door a second time, trying to open the panels. “I don’t suppose Straven’s got a way to open the outer elevator doors? These suckers feel glued shut. Is there any way to—”
Damon seemed to get where he was going immediately.
“Hang on. I’ll ask.”
Nick heard him ask aloud, without bothering to dampen his microphone.
“I think Nick’s hanging from one of the doors inside the elevator shaft,” he called out. “He wants to know if there’s any way to open the outer doors. From here, that is. I guess his super-strength isn’t enough to pry them open, one-handed, while he’s gripping the elevator shaft wall with his fingernails…”
There was an audible snort that made its way to the headset microphone. Whoever it came from stood closer to Jordan than whoever Jordan was talking to.
Nick made that Morley in his head.
Then another voice rose from the other side of the room.
Nick could only hear every few words, but he guessed the answer he was going to get before Jordan focused back on him.
“Okay, Vampire Cowboy,” Jordan said, returning his focus solely back to Nick. “Straven says yes, he can get it open for you. Straven also says there’s no way in hell you can get those doors open on your own… not without a pneumatic device of some kind… or possibly military-grade explosives… so you should stop wasting your strength by trying. The mechanism is organic, A.I.-driven and tied to the security system, which is currently on lockdown—”
“Because that makes sense,” Nick grunted, rolling his eyes. “Nothing like locking your rich-ass tenants inside your billion-credit building when it’s under a terrorist attack.”
Jordan chuckled. “Just hang tight, man. He’s looking for you now. If you see a drone, don’t smash it, okay?”
“I make no promises,” Nick growled. “How am I supposed to know if it’s your drone or one from the terrorist fucks who just tried to kill me?”
Straven’s voice rose on the same line.
“I’m not a ‘he,’ Detective Jordan,” the vampire said primly. “I’d appreciate it if you could remember that…”
The vampire’s voice shifted then, as soon as Straven focused on Nick.
“Naoko, darling, I think I’ve found you. You climbed up to the thirtieth floor. Is that correct?”
“Beats me,” Nick said, shrugging. He glanced up the shaft, using his vampire eyes. “You forgot to paint numbers on the inside, Straven.”
The androgynous vampire let out a melodious laugh.
“Oh, I do so adore you, Naoko. Particularly when you are in the middle of death-defying, macho feats of courage and strength…”
Oh, brother, Wynter sent, snorting.
Straven trailed, right before their voice shifted to businesslike.
If they felt Nick or Wynter rolling their respective eyes, Straven ignored it.
“Okay,” Straven said. “Got it.”
There was a dull clang, and Nick pulled his hand back hastily as the doors began to roll smoothly open. Light poured into the elevator shaft, and Nick blinked, staring up at the statue of yet another Egyptian god (Horus?) above him.
It must be pretty big, if Nick could see it.
“Okay,” Nick said. “Got it. Thanks. I’m going back for Case.”
“Oh, Case is with you?” Straven’s voice expressed overt relief. “Thank the Source! I was ever so worried he wouldn’t be in the elevator with you!”
Nick frowned. “Didn’t your drone see him in the elevator car?”
“It scanned a human inside as it ascended the shaft. I didn’t get visuals,” Straven explained. “Thank you so much for taking care of him for me. I owe you a huge reward when I see you, darling Nick.”
Again, Nick rolled his eyes.
He didn’t bother to comment, though.
Instead, he squinted at the cable, trying to decide if it could deal with his weight traveling down and smacking into it at around eighty miles per hour. He’d been working out a lot the last few months, both for the fights and, let’s face it, out of frustration, most of that centered on Wynter, so he weighed more than he was used to weighing.
Yeah, I noticed, Wynter mused, soft.
Nick grunted a little, but didn’t pause in his assessment.
Th
e cable looked totally intact.
It wasn’t even just steel, he realized now.
It was wrapped in some kind of organic film.
“Hey, Straven. This cable. I think the lower one snapped. The top part looks fully intact still, but I’m not sure I want to test that, if there’s any chance it can’t deal with me. I also don’t want to waste time climbing down, if I don’t have to. What do you think? Can I just—”
Straven caught on, and interrupted, mid-stream.
“You can drop, Detective, dear,” they said demurely. “It will hold you perfectly well. Truly, it would hold ten of you, going three times that speed, if such a thing were required.”
“The lower one snapped,” Nick reminded him.
“I am told that was temperature-related. Not the same. My engineers are telling me that the cable will sustain that impact easily.”
Nick nodded.
“Okay. I’ll scare the shit out of Case, but I suppose he’ll recover.”
Before Straven could reply, Nick pushed off from the wall, and just…
Let go.
Going down was a hell of a lot faster than going up.
He slammed into the top of the elevator, with an echoing clang that even hurt his ears.
There was the barest pause after Nick landed—a moment of silence apart from the creak of the cable as the elevator car swung back and forth.
Gripping the metal roof of the car to stay on, Nick flinched as the sides bumped into the rails on either side of the shaft and realized only then that it had been totally knocked off its rails, as well, which also accounted for the swaying.
Then, a wailing, high-pitched scream broke out.
The sound erupted like a geyser out of the elevator car below him.
High, shrieking, panic-infused screams echoed up at Nick in the shaft. They were loud enough to hurt his ears, even more than his landing.
“Hey!” Nick yelled the word, poking his head into the hole. “Calm down! It’s okay! It’s just me, Case! Calm the fuck down, okay?”
The human kept screaming until he ran out of breath.
Then he just stared up at Nick, wide-eyed from where he’d jammed himself into the corner of the elevator car, panting. He looked like one of those extinct monkey breeds Nick remembered from the San Francisco Zoo when he was a kid, a lemur, or one of the other species with saucer-like eyes that never blinked.
The Prescient: A Science Fiction Vampire Detective Novel (Vampire Detective Midnight Book 3) Page 19