“He wants us to have dinner with him,” Nick said, blunt. “Brick. I had to tell him I was exclusive to get him to back off… and he said to bring you over, so he could meet you.”
“Did you tell him yes?”
Nick grunted, a humorless half-laugh.
“No. Fuck no, I didn’t tell him yes. I didn’t say anything. I just got the hell out of there, before he started trying to screw with my head for real.”
She nodded, frowning.
He felt her thinking about that.
He felt her jealousy worsen as she turned over his words.
They’d been in the private room at the back of Le Chat Noir for over an hour now.
Nick still hadn’t learned a damned thing.
He’d watched Straven order them a bizarre assortment of food.
Looking over the table again now, it hit Nick that they were the kind of food-choices only a vampire of Straven’s age could make… meaning one who forgot how human meals worked, and how they tended to combine and pair different types of flavors.
The result was an odd mish-mash of ill-combined food.
A giant kebob stood in one part of the table, complete with portable fire and a sharp, curved knife to carve off strips of the rotating, inverted pyramid of spiced meat.
Caviar stood in an enormous koi-painted bowl next to the kebob, along with some kind of pie, maybe pumpkin or some other squash from the smell, and a giant bowl of salted edamame mixed with dried crabs and shrimp.
Next to that stood a bowl of fresh whipped cream, and a box of half-used nitrogen whippets that several of the humans had been inhaling before laughing hysterically and doing shots of expensive tequila.
Jellybeans filled another bowl, next to a pan of slightly-burnt baklava, a platter covered in miniature hamburgers and giant dill pickles… and another platter with waffles and bacon.
Sugary, colored sprinkles covered the bacon and a large block of butter.
Nick also saw a small heated bowl filled with chocolate fondue.
Just looking at it all made him feel sick.
He’d noticed Wynter hadn’t been eating any of it, either.
She laughed, rubbing her hand over his thigh, sending a jolt of sensation up his hurt leg to his groin.
“You fed me more food today than I normally eat in a week, Nick,” she said softly, leaning against his chest. “I probably won’t be hungry for another three days.”
He grunted, trying to focus, trying to get his mind on anything but her hand massaging his thigh.
Instead, he leaned down, kissing her again, fighting not to nip at her tongue with his fangs when she kissed him back.
He lost track that time, of how long they were doing that.
At some point, Straven noticed.
“Awwwwwww….” the vampire said.
Turning around on the faux-leather sofa, they wrapped their arm around Wynter, grabbing hold of Nick’s shoulder on the other side.
“The two of you are just… darling,” Straven slurred. “Absolutely adorable in every way. I can barely contain myself, just watching the two of you.”
Shaking Nick’s shoulder gently, they threw their head back in a half-groan.
“Gaos. You are both just so endruk et dugra… well, cute. I’m hard as a rock right now, if you want the truth. You are like sex on a stick, both of you.”
Nick tensed, unable to help it.
The vampire’s use of seer language definitely didn’t help.
Straven’s glassy eyes focused on Nick’s over Wynter’s head, seemingly oblivious to the half snarl that involuntarily curled Nick’s lips as soon as the other vampire touched her.
Nick knew his reaction was absurd.
He knew that, but he still had to bite his lip to remain silent. More than anything, he wanted to tell the other vampire to get their fucking hands off his goddamned girlfriend, and to do it now, before he bit Straven in an altogether not-friendly way…
Girlfriend.
There was that word again.
Wynter’s hand massaged Nick’s thigh.
The rhythm and motion confused him, both calming the worst of his paranoia and making everything in his brain exponentially less rational, and significantly more cloudy. Once he noticed her hand there, his mind, his thinking, his ability to concentrate on anything to do with the case, anything to do with Straven… really anything to do with anything apart from her… pretty much evaporated.
He wanted to take her out of there.
He wanted to take her home, and put his cock in her.
Hell, he doubted he’d make it back to his apartment first.
Some part of his mind was already fantasizing about fucking her in that moonstone dress, either over a table in an adjacent room, or in the back of a robo-taxi.
“I am so jealous,” Straven added, their voice shifting back into that drawl, reminding Nick absurdly of his sire, despite how little similarity the two shared. “…Really I am. So insanely, irrationally jealous…”
“You might want to curb that impulse, Straven—” Nick began in a growl.
“Nick,” Wynter warned, soft.
The white-haired vampire’s eyes shifted down when she spoke, meeting Wynter’s.
Straven’s lips curled softly, smiling into Wynter’s face.
“You are just so lovely, my dear,” he murmured. “So lovely.” He kissed her cheek, caressing it with the back of his fingers. “I cannot remember the last time I saw a creature so lovely…”
Nick’s whole body was clenched by now, despite Wynter’s warning fingers and hands on him, fighting to calm him down.
Creature.
He’d just called her a fucking “creature” again.
“…I don’t suppose either of you would be willing to let me watch.”
Straven’s eyes rose to Nick’s.
Studying Nick’s expression, Straven’s enhanced irises flushed visibly with scarlet.
“…In the vampire sense of watching, that is,” the older vampire added. “I confess, I am tempted to offer you a bribe at this point… along with endless promises to behave. And I really would be a very good vampire, brother. I promise you that. I don’t need to touch her. I don’t even need to touch you. It’s just been so long. So very, very long, since I’ve seen one of her kind. I find myself quite delirious in her presence.”
Nick’s frown deepened.
He glanced down at Wynter, then back at Straven.
“I’m not sure what you mean, brother-sister,” he said, his voice a flat warning.
“A seer,” Straven clarified, smiling into her face. “Gaos. They are just such lovely creatures, aren’t they? Otherworldly. Ethereal. Endlessly charming… like living art. It really is such a shame we never managed to get along. I adore them so. I miss them so. I miss them so horribly, terribly, awfully. So when I saw you with this one, I confess, I about died of jealousy, brother. I don’t know how you’ve managed to hide her, but—”
“Straven.” Nick reached over Wynter, gripping the other vampire’s wrist. He had to fight not to grab Straven by the throat. “Shut the fuck up. Now.”
The vampire glanced up at him, blinking.
They looked between Nick and Wynter, then smiled.
“Oh, I am terribly sorry,” they apologized. “I have forgotten myself, I’m afraid. I have let myself become over-excited…”
Nick glanced at Wynter, and saw her forehead pinched with worry, too.
Nick leaned his mouth close to Straven’s ear, even though the other vampires with them were on the other side of the table, and clearly distracted with the now-four humans who sat with them, in various states of undress.
“You can’t possibly tell me you’ve never had a hybrid,” Nick said, his voice a low threat. “Yes, we’re keeping her mixed blood a secret, but that doesn’t mean—”
Straven burst out in a laugh, throwing back their head.
When they looked back at Nick, Nick was scowling.
“What?” Nick grow
led.
“Is that what you’re telling yourself she is?” Straven smiled into Nick’s face, their expression bemused, even past the sheen of sweat from whatever drugs swirled around the famous vamp’s system. “You are the one with the imagination, brother. What an interesting fiction you are telling yourself. Truly, you should be the artist—”
“Of course she’s a fucking hybrid,” Nick growled, low. “What the fuck else would she be? A peacock?”
Straven laughed again, looking between him and Wynter.
The white-haired vampire pointed at Wynter with one finger then, their enhanced eyes on Nick’s from only a few inches away.
“That, my dear brother, is no hybrid,” they murmured, soft. “She is one hundred percent seer. She is so seer, I’m shocked everyone cannot see it, just by looking at her. I would pay millions just for a few nights in her company. Just for a few swallows of her blood, I would pay thousands… tens of thousands.”
“No,” Nick growled. “You’re wrong.”
Straven laughed again. “The hell I am. I would bet my cock on it.”
“She’s not a fucking seer,” Nick growled through gritted teeth, his voice still a bare murmur. “What are you doing? Trying to get us both killed? Or just me?”
When Nick leaned back, he found the vampire smiling at him knowingly.
Straven looked at Wynter, then back at Nick…
…and burst out in another laugh.
“Gaos. It’s worse than I thought. You really believe it. You’ve really convinced yourself what you just said is true.”
Smiling wanly, the vampire copied Nick’s soft voice, raising a glass of some colored, sickly-sweet smelling liqueur to their lips and taking a long swallow.
“You are lying to yourself, brother,” Straven said, matter-of-fact. “Moreover… you know it. Your cock knows it. Everything about you knows it. I can see it in the way you hover over her, ready to die to keep me from her. I can see it in how you utterly lose all sense of rationality when you are with her. Some of that is love, yes… but that doesn’t fully explain it, now does it? It doesn’t explain the animalistic irrationality of it all. Does it?”
Nick glanced around the table, fighting the impulse the other vampire was describing even as Straven spoke.
He glared back at the wealthy artist, feeling his fangs extend.
“Do you want me to kill you, Straven?” he said, soft.
Straven threw their head back in another laugh.
Leaning forward, they touched Nick that time, caressing Nick’s jaw and throat with their fingers, letting them linger around his lips and fangs.
“Of course not, brother,” Straven said, amused. “I think I’m half in love with you. You really are such an unusual vampire, you know…”
Straven murmured the words, speaking in barely a whisper, his fingers still caressing Nick’s skin.
Glancing at Wynter, Nick frowned.
He was still looking at her when he made up his mind.
“Sorry, honey,” he said.
Without waiting for her to react…
…he sank his fangs into the androgynous vampire’s throat.
Chapter 20
Say That Again,
And You’re Dead
Nick didn’t wait, but injected venom into the other vampire, drinking hard on the vein as soon as his fangs punctured the chalk-white skin.
He knew Wynter was right.
Being a non-vampire—well, more to the point, being at least partly seer—she would likely get more off Straven than he would, if she let Straven feed off her. Vampires, as a general rule, were better at masking their thoughts from other vampires than they were from non-vampires who happened to have seer blood.
That being said, he wasn’t about to give Straven proof as to Wynter’s race.
Moreover, vampires couldn’t always be trusted with seers, or even hybrids.
They had a tendency to get drunk off their blood.
They also had a tendency to get psychotically possessive with them.
Nick just had to hope Straven was wasted enough already that they wouldn’t be very effective at blocking or hiding thoughts they didn’t want Nick to see.
For the same reason, Nick didn’t wait after he bit them.
He immediately probed the other vampire’s mind.
Tell me about the project you and Abe Silverton were working on, he sent through the blood. It’s time, Straven. We need to know. We need to know before you end up dead.
“No,” Straven said, their voice a half-moan.
The androgynous vampire tried half-heartedly to pull away from Nick’s fangs, but Nick clamped down with his fangs, growling softly, keeping Straven positioned so that their back faced the vampires at the other end of the table.
“Hey!” one of the lawyers said, the one Straven called Theodore, or “Teddy.” “What are you doing? Don’t do that!”
Nick heard the rat-faced one hiss at him, though.
“Shut up. Leave him alone… someone has to get it out of him.”
Nick looked over in time to see Teddy staring numbly at the older lawyer with the narrow, sharp-featured face, the one Straven called Reginald.
Tell me, Nick sent, focusing back on Straven. Let me help you.
The vampire’s mind swirled, but Nick honestly couldn’t tell if it was from drugs, or because the vampire was trying to keep Nick out of their thoughts.
Then Nick’s vision slanted out.
The room around him vanished.
Behind his eyes, he saw a flat piece of organic-infused metal, about the size of a stick of gum, sitting on the palm of a hand. From the angle of the hand in front of him, as well as its rough size and shape, Nick guessed he was seeing Straven’s own hand.
Straven was holding the piece of metal.
“Is that it?” a voice, not Straven’s, called out through a loudspeaker.
“Yes,” Straven said. “Remarkable, isn’t it? But they assure me it works perfectly.”
The piece of metal shone a dark, forest green, shot through with streaks of paler green and silver. The way it shimmered in that unmarked white palm, it looked like a pure organic machine, with no dead metal or other parts in it at all.
Nick watched through Straven’s blood as pale white fingers plucked the chip out of Straven’s palm, holding the chip briefly up to the light before inserting it into a port on a flat console. Nick realized then that Straven stood in some kind of lab, in front of a group of humans.
The vantage changed as Straven turned their head.
Abe Silverton, who Nick knew only from photos, stood on the other side of a glass wall. He was grinning ear to ear, watching excitedly as Straven hit keys into the console.
“You sure this won’t hurt you, buddy?” the human called out through the intercom between the two rooms. “You won’t be hurt, right?”
Straven looked up, giving the male human a thumb’s up.
“Try it, then,” Abe said. “Turn it on!”
Straven chuckled.
The sound vibrated Nick’s chest, so close to him, it really felt like his own body. He watched those white fingers punch another couple of codes into the console.
Then a sound rose.
Nick could barely hear it.
That meant Straven could barely hear it when it happened in that lab.
“Can you hear that?” the vampire said, turning towards Silverton.
Abe Silverton looked confused.
He tilted his head, pursing his lips.
“No,” he said after a pause. “You can hear something?”
“Barely,” Straven admitted. “I’m not surprised you can’t.”
“How will we know if it works?”
Straven turned towards the row of humans, who stood on the other side of a protective shield. There were eight of them, Nick counted, and while they were closer to Straven than they were to Abe Silverton, there was still a good fifteen or so feet between the androgynous vampire and where they stood.
“Try it,” Straven said with a shrug. “Issue them a command. Use the mindboard.”
“Okay.”
There was a silence.
Straven continued to watch the humans, only glancing up at Silverton when nothing happened at first.
Then, as Straven watched, all of the humans began undressing themselves, taking off first their shirts, then their shoes, then their socks—
“Did you do that?” Straven said, delighted. “Did you tell them to do that?”
Abe Silverton laughed.
“Should I have them start blowing each other?”
It hit Nick suddenly that they were both wasted. He’d barely noticed, since Straven was high as a kite now; it hadn’t felt any different being inside the vamp’s memory.
Now it really hit him, though.
These two assholes had been completely fucked up on drugs in some top-secret lab, conducting experiments on live humans.
“What did you type in?” Straven said.
“Just… get naked, basically.”
Straven laughed that high-pitched cackle.
“Do it!” they exclaimed. “I want to see the blond one suck off the guy with the tats. Have the other one fuck her in the ass!”
Nick winced, grimacing…
The image broke apart, bringing the room back into focus around him.
The darkness of it, after the stark-white lab, was disorienting.
Nick unhooked his fangs from the other vampire’s throat, still grimacing, still feeling sick from what he’d just seen.
“You’re a piece of shit,” he told the other vampire.
Straven looked at him, their enhanced eyes glassy from drugs, but now wider than they had been. “They volunteered,” they said, their voice half a whimper. “They volunteered. We paid them for those experiments.”
Nick just looked at the famous vampire, feeling nothing but disgust.
“Where is it now?” he growled. “Where’s the prototype, Straven?”
“Nick,” Wynter murmured. She slid her hand over his chest, not quite inserting herself between him and Straven, but somehow pulling Nick more into her. “Calm down. Relax. Whatever it is, people are staring, and he’s still a celebrity—”
The Prescient: A Science Fiction Vampire Detective Novel (Vampire Detective Midnight Book 3) Page 28