He trailed, and his fear exploded back over Nick through his blood.
“Not us?” Nick said. “What do you mean, ‘not us’? Was he a vampire?”
The human hung from his back, gripping Nick’s waist.
“Was he a vampire, Case?” Nick repeated, sharper. “Or something else? This man who came to the building? You said he wasn’t military? What was he?”
For a long-feeling few seconds, where Nick continued to climb, the human didn’t answer.
Nick was about to try again, to rephrase the question, to ask him again—
—when a sharp report echoed through the elevator shaft.
Gunshot.
That was a goddamned gunshot.
NICK— Wynter sent, terror in her thoughts. NICK GET OUT OF THERE!
He cursed, then leapt, moving without thought when he heard another shot.
He slammed into the wall.
Grappling in a panicked urgency, he grabbed the rails on either side of him.
The elevator rails.
He gripped them tightly in both hands, holding onto Case purely with balance and the male human’s weight. That weight had somehow gotten heavier in the intervening seconds. The arms that had clung to his waist now hung loose down Nick’s back.
Nick’s leg hurt too, probably from banging it into the wall when he jumped.
Is he dead? he sent to Wynter.
He might be. He’s gone quiet. Nick… his mind.
I know, I know…
Nick fought to think, staring up the tunnel.
Someone was shooting at them.
Someone was fucking shooting at him.
He was definitely starting to take this personally.
Another report pinged off the walls, echoing up the tunnel, and Nick flinched, ducking between the rails. That shot seemed to come from below that time, rather than above, like the first two had. It was hard to tell for certain, though, given the strange way sound moved and echoed inside the metal tunnel.
As soon as he had his balance back, and Case balanced on his shoulder in a way that felt remotely stable, Nick started crawling upwards again.
More or less throwing caution to the wind, he moved fast now, using the elevator rails on either side of where his body hung. He had to stop every few handfuls of seconds to adjust Case’s weight, to keep the human on his shoulders while he climbed.
He managed it mostly be climbing straight up, with little swaying, his arms spread wide apart to catch the human if his weight started to slide.
He could feel the shift in the air currents from the open doors above.
Another shot went off, and Nick ducked again.
The drone, or whatever it was, was ascending.
Nick wondered why it hadn’t killed him.
Then he wondered if the body of Case was the only thing keeping him alive.
Shoving that from his mind, he sped his climb, risking knocking the human off-balance even more… risking dropping him… in part because some part of him already knew the truth.
He knew Case was already dead.
He made it up the final few feet to the open door…
And leapt up to the edge of it.
The dead weight of Case’s body nearly pulled him back, nearly pulled both of them back into the shaft.
Then Nick fell forward, and collapsed on the carpeted floor.
He was crouched there, after he’d dropped the human, when he heard it.
The buzzing drone rose up, level with the doors.
Nick grabbed the closest thing he could find… the human, Case’s, semi-organic, silver metallic shoe. Wrenching it off the male’s sock-less foot, he threw it as hard as he could at the hovering drone, without stopping to think if the damned thing would have automatic targeting.
The metal shoe slammed into the drone, bouncing it backwards and down even as it drove the drone into the opposite shaft wall. Nick heard the metal clang as the drone hit, even as he lurched up, hitting the elevator panel with both palms to close the outer door.
There was an atonal ping…
Then the thick doors closed.
Nick collapsed back on the carpet, closing his eyes.
Chapter 14
Relief
“Hold up your hands!” a voice barked. “You! Yes, You! Do it now! Right now, jackass!”
Nick complied without thought.
Holding his hands straight above his head, he didn’t even try to sit up. As a result, his arms and hands hung more or less parallel with the blood-red carpet.
Only once he had them completely up and his hands and palms visible did he tilt his head backwards to see who was speaking.
He still lay under the Horus statue, or whatever it was.
Horus? Osiris?
Regardless of its proper name, the Egyptian god-thing with the big hawk’s head stood probably a foot taller than he did.
Or it would, anyway, if he ever managed to get up.
“Get up!” the same voice growled. “On your knees! Now!”
Nick could see now that the voice belonged to a guy in black armor, one of his eyes hidden behind what looked like a screen for a virtual laser scope.
Five other guys just like him also stood there, in identical outfits.
They all aimed laser targets at different parts of Nick’s body.
Most focused on his head and chest.
“Get the fuck up!” another of the black-suited commandos snapped. “Now!”
Nick sat up cautiously to comply, his hands and arms still in the air.
“I’m NYPD—” he began, his voice a low growl.
“Shut the fuck up!” the first commando snapped. “Did I ask who the fuck you were? Did I? No. I didn’t. Because I wouldn’t believe a damned word you said… vampire.”
Nick scowled, but tried to keep most of it off his face.
He knew better than to argue.
Arguing would likely only get him shot, given what he was. Still moving slowly, carefully, so as not to scare the two guys with the laser scopes pointed at his head, or the other four who pointed them at his neck and chest, Nick slid around so he was facing them, rising stiffly to his knees, his hands still held over his head.
At every move he made, a sharp pain worsened in his thigh.
By the end, it got bad enough to make him gasp.
It also made it hard to keep his hands in the air. Instinctively, he wanted to reach for his leg, to feel over the wound, maybe just to press on it.
Shy of doing that, all he knew was that the whole muscle was stiff, and hurt a hell of a lot more now than it had while he’d been climbing.
In fact, it hurt like a motherfuck.
It hurt enough to make him wonder if he’d been shot.
“Run my barcode,” Nick began, trying again. “I’m a Midnight. I’m here on a case—”
“Shut the fuck up! Did you hear me? I said shut it! Now!”
Nick clenched his jaw.
Again, he figured it was better just to wait, to not argue.
By now, he could feel more weapons pointed at him, too—more than he could see with his vampire eyes. They probably had drones covering them from the other side, too small for him to see easily, and gods knew what else.
Fucking assholes. Wynter’s mind burst loudly into his, her thoughts so angry they were shaking. Racist, piece of shit assholes—
It’s okay. Really, it’s okay, honey. I’m used to it.
Somehow, feeling her fury diffused the worst of his.
Still, he felt bad she was watching this, and in some ways it pissed him off more that they were scaring her. He tried to pull her mind off it, to distract her from the guns.
Can you read any of these jokers? Do they work for Straven, or—
No, she sent, her mental voice still cold with anger. No. They’re with Home-Sec. The feds are in the building now. They have emergency crews below, working on getting people out, mostly civilian residents. These guys are part of the first team that went through
the roof.
Do they know anything about that drone?
There was another silence.
Then Nick felt her shake her head.
No. He thinks you killed that human.
Only then did Nick remember the person he’d lugged up the cable to whatever floor they were on now.
Case. He’d forgotten about Case.
He turned his head, looking for him on the floor, and the guns rose higher.
“Don’t fucking move—” the first guy snapped.
That time, it wasn’t Nick who cut him off.
“What the hell is this?” an outraged voice said. “Jesus Christ. Take your guns off him. Now! Didn’t you run his damned bar-code?”
The guy in the black armor looked up, his expression hard.
Nick felt himself relax.
He’d already recognized Morley’s voice.
“Sir,” the soldier said, his voice hard. “We caught this vampire right after a kill. There was an explosion nearby, and when we came to investigate—”
“That’s our Midnight,” Morley snapped. “That’s our fucking Midnight. He didn’t kill anyone. He was trying to save that man’s life.”
He must be badging them, based on what Nick could see in the Home-Sec guys’ faces.
“Let him go,” Morley finished, his voice cold, holding an audible thread of disgust. “Now. Take those fucking guns off him. We need him in the other room. He was trapped in the elevators when the bomb went off… he’s the closest thing we have to an eye witness right now, and we’ve got I.S.F. agents and Home-Sec command waiting to debrief him—”
“Like I tried to tell you,” Nick muttered, unable to help himself.
The guy in the black body armor glared at him.
After the barest pause, he raised the barrel of his rifle, which was harnessed to his waist and shoulders on some kind of swivel mount.
Nick had seen that kind of thing before, but not in a long time.
It looked more like something he’d seen during the war.
You sure these guys are Home Sec? he asked Wynter. Not military?
There was a silence.
Then Wynter sent, No. Not totally. The guy in front, the one who kept yelling at you, he thinks he’s answering to Home-Sec, though… right now, at least, for this job. They’re some kind of special unit. He definitely got his training in one of the military branches.
Well, and the equipment— Nick began.
Before he could finish, Morley snapped at him.
“Put your fucking arms down, Midnight. You look like an asshole… and not only because of those damned eyesores you’re wearing. What? Did we pull you off the golf course? In the mid-1980s?”
Nick frowned, looking down at his clothes.
He’d forgotten about that.
Morley’s voice grew slightly more subdued.
“Come on. Get up,” he said, gruff. “I wasn’t lying to this asshole. We need you in the other room. Now.”
Nick turned his head, looking at Morley for the first time as he lowered his hands and arms.
Then, seeing the body on the floor in his periphery, his eyes flickered to Case.
For the first time since they’d been on top of that elevator car, Nick saw the male human’s face.
He could almost understand, really, why the Home-Sec guys—or whatever they were—were so twitchy with him. Nick’s fresh fang marks were dark and visible on the ghostly white skin of the human’s neck. The way he lay there, face up and pristine, it would have been the first thing they saw—not the gunshot wound in the back of his head from the miniature drone.
Of course, the far messier, scorched gunshot wound in the male’s chest might have clued them off that the situation was a bit more complicated—but a lot of humans lost their ability to be super-reasonable when it came to fresh fang marks on human corpses.
Hell, a lot of them got pretty weird when they saw those distinctive marks on a human who was still alive.
Nick rose mechanically to his feet, still staring down at Case’s face.
He hadn’t killed him.
He knew he hadn’t, but for some reason, it still felt like he had.
He forgot about his leg until he took his first step.
Immediately, his knee wavered… then buckled.
Nick cursed, letting out a surprised grunt.
Losing his balance, and his sense of equilibrium for that bare second, he caught himself with one hand on the nearby statue. He glanced up at it once he gripped the textured stone with his hand and palm, staring at the gold-plated hawk’s head, the body covered in engravings of Egyptian hieroglyphs. In the alcove where it lived, two palm trees framed it on either side, both housed in clay pots covered in more colorful hieroglyphs.
Before he could find his balance, Damon Jordan appeared at his side.
Nick looked at him.
Seeing the annoyance, worry, and frustration in his friend’s eyes, he tilted his head sideways, shrugging apologetically.
Half in disbelief, Damon snorted, shaking his head.
“You’re an asshole,” the cop snapped.
“It’s been mentioned.”
“Trust you to get shot. Knowing you, you did it on purpose… so I get to look like the dick when I want to put your head through a wall.”
“I think you’re okay on that score,” Nick said, glancing over his shoulder at the Home-Sec team. “No one here will care. Hell, they’d probably pay to watch.”
Jordan grunted another disbelieving laugh.
Slinging a muscular arm around Nick’s waist, Damon pulled him roughly upright, using his own body as support as he began walking him down the hall in the direction from which Morley first appeared.
Nick couldn’t feel anything but relief.
He fought with how to express that relief somehow, but came up blank.
He was relieved, though.
He was relieved to see Morley, too.
Throwing his arm carefully over the male human’s shoulders, he clenched his jaw against the pain in his thigh, glancing down at the wound. Now that he was mostly upright, and able to look at it without risking being shot by trigger-happy yahoos, he could see a scorched hole in the fabric of the lime-green pants, and dark-red blood dripping down his leg.
“Thanks for coming to find me,” he said finally, after they’d been walking for a few yards.
“Yeah, yeah. Whatever, Midnight.”
“…and for not saying anything about the clothes,” Nick added.
Jordan grunted a laugh.
“Yeah, about that,” the detective said. “Morley was being generous. You look like a drunk P.I. from an old detective movie.”
“Hawaii Five-Oh,” Nick said, gasping a little when he put too much weight on his leg. “I thought Magnum P.I., personally, but Wynter said it was definitely Hawaii Five-Oh.”
Jordan grunted another involuntary-sounding laugh.
Nick got the impression the human detective really was mad.
Or maybe he just really, really wanted to be mad, but instead was struggling not to be amused. Maybe even relieved.
“You two nut-bags are perfect for each other,” Jordan said finally. “You know that, right? You’re both out of your fucking heads.”
Nick nodded. “Noted.”
“Is she the reason you weren’t here all day? Or answering your headset?”
When Nick only gave him a flat look, Jordan burst out in a laugh.
“You went there, didn’t you? After all your bullshit about how you weren’t good for her… how you were just going to fuck up her life, if the two of you got involved… how she’d probably end up addicted to your venom… you went for it. You holed up with her somewhere and the two of you just spent all night—”
“Yeah,” Nick said, wincing. He waved his friend off with the hand attached to the arm he had over Jordan’s shoulders. “Yeah. You’re right. Just don’t finish that sentence. Please.”
“I don’t know if I should congratu
late you, or toss you off the roof, man.”
“Yeah.” Nick winced again from the leg. “Yeah. Me too.”
“Don’t think agreeing with me is going to get your sorry ass off the hook, Tanaka—”
“I don’t.” Nick shook his head. “Don’t worry.”
“You’re an asshole. In fact, both of your craziness aside, I might have to have a little chat with Ms. James the next time I see her. I’m beginning to think she could use psychological help for not telling you to take a flying leap at that club. With your stupid, crazy, stalkerish bullshit. Not to mention what you did in front of her date…”
Nick listened to the human grumble at him.
He listened to every word Damon said as he limped his way down the hall.
He didn’t bother to argue with any of it.
He didn’t even bother to point out that it contradicted a lot of what Jordan said to him at that club, about how he should grovel, and try to fix things with Wynter if he could.
He didn’t bother because he could hear what lived under his friend’s annoyance with him, why he was so pissed off at him at that particular moment.
Because of that, maybe because of a lot of things, Nick couldn’t really find it in himself to be annoyed back, or even to contradict anything his friend said.
He wasn’t even sure he disagreed with him.
Truthfully, more than anything…
He was touched.
Chapter 15
A Lot Of Nothing
“Whoever it was, they could have killed me,” Nick said.
He gave Straven a flat look.
Then, after a beat, he slid his gaze back to Jordan, and to Morley.
“…They didn’t,” he added. “I have no idea why. But if that drone got close enough to Straven’s guy to put scorch marks on his head and chest… he definitely could have shot me in the head too, and made me fall down the shaft, or even onto the top of the elevator car.”
Despite what Morley told those Home-Sec jokers in the black armor, so far, it had only been Morley and Jordan debriefing him, with a few odd questions from the private-sec team that was liaising with I.S.F., Home-Sec, and the NYPD.
The Prescient: A Science Fiction Vampire Detective Novel (Vampire Detective Midnight Book 3) Page 21