Exhaling in an annoyance she didn’t even try to hide, she wrenched her arm free of his fingers and walked towards the side of the room, without so much as a word to the blond, who frowned at Nick openly for the first time.
Clearly, he thought Nick was there to poach his tasty-looking new treat.
At another time, Nick might have bothered to reassure the guy that wasn’t the case. Under the circumstances, the blond vampire’s dick and fangs were pretty much at the rock-bottom of Nick’s priorities.
“You can’t be here,” he told her, as soon as they were out of the vampire’s earshot. “Is Morley here? Jordan?”
Exhaling another annoyed breath, she came to a stop, folding her muscular arms and turning on him. “Yes. We’re all here, Nick. In part trying to save your ass… which is going to be a hell of a lot harder with you showing up here, looking like some kind of pre-war socialite.”
Nick frowned. He was tempted to ask her how the hell she knew what a pre-war socialite looked like, then shook it off.
“Where?” Nick said. “Where are they? Can you raise them on your headset?”
For the first time, she frowned at Nick more in surprise than annoyance.
Walking around him, she stared at his ears and the back of his neck.
“Where the fuck is your headset?” she said.
From her tone, she might have suddenly noticed he wasn’t wearing pants.
“I… lost it,” Nick said.
“You… lost…. it.”
“There isn’t any fucking time for this,” Nick growled, throwing a measure of thrall into his voice. “Can you raise them or not? I need to talk to them… Morley especially… right away.”
When Charlie continued to stare at him, that surprise fading back into a harder, cop-like wariness, he caught hold of her arm again.
“Right away, Charlie,” he repeated. “Right away.”
He didn’t want to thrall her for real.
He didn’t want to, but that would be the next step.
He was already gearing up to do it, conscious of the blond vampire watching them both from a distance, obviously picking up on the intensity in Nick, not to mention Charlie’s annoyance. Clearly, the other vampire was gearing up to protect his new crush. He might have something to say if Nick took her out of the room for real, especially if it wasn’t wholly of Charlie’s own free will.
Nick would deal with him too, if he had to.
It turned out, he didn’t have to.
Charlie stared at Nick a beat longer, her eyes dark with Pharaoh-like make-up, her cheeks covered in sparkles, her black-glittered lips appearing to dance in the flickering candlelight. Nick stared back at her, flinching when the human exhaled.
That time, it sounded like defeat.
“Fine. All right,” she said, scowling at him. “I’m supposed to be dark right now, with your pals from Archangel listening… but since you look like you’re about to bite me, I have to assume this is serious.”
Still thinking, she grunted, adding,
“That, or it’s more crazy with you and that girlfriend of yours. Either way, I don’t want to be in the middle of it.” She frowned harder at him. “It’ll probably be overheard though, Nick. Morley warned us that whoever’s behind this, their tech skills exceed ours… and your Archangel pals will definitely be listening in.”
“I don’t give a fuck––” Nick growled.
“I gathered that,” she said drily. “That’s why I just pinged Morley my location.”
Nick opened his mouth, then closed it.
“Thanks,” he said, gruff.
Glancing over her then, he nodded towards the dress.
“You look nice,” he said. “You should let Jordan see you in that.”
She stared at him.
Then she let out a disbelieving laugh.
“You really are batshit, Nick,” she mused, her voice verging on affectionate. “I hope she appreciates you. Does she know how insane you get when you’re worried about her?”
Nick frowned. “You saw her? Here?”
“Yeah.” Charlie folded her arms, looking vaguely annoyed as she motioned in the direction of the corridor leading to the main entrance to the museum. “Her and that St. Maarten bitch. That tall, hot guy she’s always with, the one with the weird eyes…”
Charlie grunted, facing Nick, her eyes showing a sudden sharpness.
“They had a kid with them, Nick,” she said, her voice verging on an accusation. “Did you know about that? Your girlfriend was holding her hand.”
Nick hesitated.
Noting Charlie’s eyes growing increasingly sharp, he made a noncommittal gesture. It didn’t occur to him until later that it was a seer’s gesture.
“Yeah,” he said, reluctant. “I knew about that.”
Charlie stood there, waiting for an explanation.
Nick didn’t give her one.
Really, it took every ounce of his willpower not to grab her, shake her by the shoulders until she told him where the fuck Wynter had gone. He told himself not to overreact. He told himself to wait for Morley to ping back.
He tried.
He couldn’t do it.
“Where?” he said, his voice harder. “Where were they? Where did they go? Do you know?”
Charlie let out a humorless grunt.
“Charlie,” Nick growled. “Where the fuck did she go? Is she in the building?”
His eyes darted back to the blond vampire, right as the other male took a step in their direction. He’d clearly seen Nick’s clenched hands, and clearly didn’t like whatever he saw in Nick’s face.
“Jesus,” Charlie said, drawing Nick’s eyes back to hers. “You really are a lunatic when it comes to her.” Pausing a beat longer, she frowned. Her voice lost its coyness, turning matter-of-fact. “I don’t know where they are, Nick. I assume the security station? They went through an ‘employees only’ door behind the covered ticket counters. Near the main entrance. They had one of the museum security guys with them. She was wearing a hot dress, I’ll give her that. Your girlfriend’s got some serious va-voom.”
Pausing, she sharpened her voice.
“Why the hell didn’t you tell me she worked for St. Maarten now? I thought she was the principal at that boarding school for rich brats in the north?”
Nick scowled. “She doesn’t work for St. Maarten. She’s with her tonight, but this is a one-off. She just happened to be with me when––”
But Charlie gave him a disparaging look.
“You might want to tell her that,” she grunted. “And St. Maaretn. I saw your girlfriend’s I.D. scan when it went through. We’re on the same channel as I.S.F. and the governor’s private security. Morley and Jordan saw it, too. She had an Archangel code. A classified ‘home defense security’ code… which means it’s official.”
Nick frowned. He opened his mouth to refute it a second time, then closed it.
Why was he arguing the point? He had no doubt St. Maarten could get Wynter any kind of clearance she wanted, even just for one night.
Still, something in Charlie’s words made him nervous.
He refocused on Charlie to find her watching his face, her mouth firm.
Still watching him, she exhaled.
“Morley and Jordie went with them. They left with the whole Archangel crew. That’s why you haven’t seen them on the floor.”
Gauging his frown, she added,
“Of course, that was then. I have no idea if Morley’s with them still. From what he told me, he’s trying to play both sides. He’s got me and Esteban down here, working the crowd, looking for White Death and Yi’s people… and he’s working the side with Archangel.”
Grunting, she added, “St. Maarten’s being cagey as fuck, though. As usual. That’s why he told me to stay off her channel––”
“Cagey how?” Nick said, frowning. “Did Morley say?”
“Something to do with White Death. Some deal she made with their king––”
“Deal?” Nick stiffened. “What deal? What the fuck does that mean?”
Charlie held up a hand, her gaze going internal as she touched her ear. Nick knew both gestures meant she was talking to someone.
Morley, Nick surmised. He’d answered her ping.
Whoever it was, they didn’t talk long.
A handful of seconds passed, then she looked back at Nick.
“What?” he growled. “What did he say?”
Charlie motioned him towards the main corridor.
“Front of the museum,” she said. “Morley’s by the entrance. They’re waiting for you.”
Nick was already turning, starting to walk away.
Charlie stopped him, grabbing his arm, and he froze, long enough to stop himself from wrenching free.
He looked back, staring Charlie in the face, hoping his fangs didn’t show.
Charlie noted the tension in his face. After a bare pause of her own, where she looked about to make a crack, she leaned to his ear.
“They saw you come in on the monitors, Nick,” she said, quiet. “The Governor knows. I.S.F. knows. NYPD knows. Archangel knows. St. Maarten wanted to gas you, or tase you, drag you out of here. Morley talked her out of it, but everyone agrees we need to get you off the floor. Morley’s waiting for you, presumably to bring you back with him to the Archangel security team, but be careful, Nick––”
“Wynter?”
Leaning back, Charlie snorted, as if she couldn’t help herself. “He didn’t say. I assume she’s still with them. She’s probably holed up with St. Maarten.”
Nick nodded.
He gave her arm a brief squeeze in thanks.
Then he was moving, walking away rapidly.
He didn’t look back. He didn’t even bother to disguise his race as he made his way, ghost-like, through the crowd.
He was wholly, one hundred percent focused on getting to Morley, on Morley bringing him to Wynter, on finding out exactly why Wynter was suddenly on the Archangel payroll.
That’s probably why he didn’t notice a damned thing.
Not until the screaming started.
Chapter 29
Panic
Wynter’s face appeared in his mind.
…so clear, so sharp, it shocked him.
She had to be in danger. For him to see her so clearly, she had to be in danger.
She was here. She was inside the building.
…and people were screaming.
His mind lost cohesion, broke apart.
Then it sharpened abruptly, animal-like.
He broke into a run.
…a vampire run. He ran all-out, at a speed that would have made him little more than blurry wind to human eyes. He slid around and between them like water around stones. He ran straight for the doors to the main hall. He ran straight for the screams.
He already knew where the screaming came from.
It was the first room he’d really looked at when he arrived, the one he remembered most vividly from those picture books when he was a child, the high-ceilinged exhibit hall filled with dinosaur bones. It was definitely the dinosaur bones that caused it to imprint itself on his kid brain, but he found he remembered every detail of the room, to the point where he wondered if he’d actually been here before––in person, that is.
It was also the exhibit hall he’d gawked at as a vampire, right after he passed through the lobby with its security checkpoint, electric security wall, and covered ticket booths that once shuttled human tourists through by the thousands every day.
All of that flashed through his mind as he ran.
He didn’t think about what he’d find when he got there.
Animal vampire brain was just about running, about covering ground, about fighting, about reaching Wynter and killing whatever might be threatening her.
He darted through the open doorway and into the hall––
––and slammed into a crush of people running the other way.
The wall of human flesh was too dense for him to force his way through without hurting them. They screamed around him, hurting his vampire ears, disorienting him.
His eyes tracked over faces, looking for ones he recognized.
He didn’t see anyone he knew.
Even for a vampire, getting around them was a bitch.
In the end, he did something he rarely bothered to do, in part because of what he was, and in part because it tended to out him as a cop.
Hardening his shoulders against the constant buffeting by the screaming crowd, he bent down and clicked on the anti-grav boots he’d kept on under the tuxedo. He programmed them for the orientation he wanted, forced to do it by hand since he’d ditched the headset, then clicked them to activate on contact.
He straightened with an effort, still surrounded by shoving and screaming humans.
Glancing around to get his bearings, he leapt up in the air.
He aimed for the wall to the right of where he’d been standing, and landed squarely on the white-painted surface.
The boots caught.
Nick tested them by rocking his weight up and down, then began to walk, cautiously at first, leaning sideways to touch the wall with his hands, in part to reorient his own sense of direction and balance. Once he got the hang of it, he began to walk faster.
Soon he was jog-walking… then running.
He headed in a straight line for the building’s main entrance.
The shoes weren’t really “anti-gravity,” of course. That’s just what they called them.
If anything, they were the opposite.
They created gravity where there wasn’t any.
By emitting a programmable attraction field that could attach them to most surfaces, the boots allowed NYPD officers and detectives to walk or even run at almost any orientation––even upside down, from the ceiling.
Being a vampire, Nick didn’t usually bother with them. Most of the time, he could navigate odd angles purely via speed and agility.
But not tonight. Not in a panicked crowd of humans rushing at him madly, trying to get past him to get away from…
Well, something.
Nick still wasn’t sure what they were running away from.
For a brief instant, he remembered the sentient wall. He remembered the cop stuck in that wall, and wondered if he’d gotten there via anti-grav boots, as well. Then he remembered Ana Nuñez in the ceiling, and looked up.
Nothing.
He didn’t slow his progress, but continued to scan for threats.
The ceiling was high and still, curved in a long, majestic dome, with octagonal patterns etched into the bone-white surface. Nick glanced to his right then, and saw something else––a big hole in the wall up ahead, the same wall Nick was running along. Red granite pillars stood in that open space, holding up the stone arch.
He’d have to jump.
Conceivably, he could cross the floor there, if the crowd was thin enough. He could jump down, disengage the boots, and just walk. He wasn’t thrilled with the idea of returning to the floor, though––not until he’d pinpointed the source of those screams.
Still turning over options, he continued to run, mind-numbingly slow in the anti-gravs, but also slow enough to look for what everyone else was running away from.
He didn’t see any movement apart from the panicking crowd.
He looked for those metal “creatures” from Malek’s painting, but saw nothing on the ceiling, the pillars, to either side… nothing that would have caused the screams… nothing that would have caused the mad stampede towards the museum’s interior.
He wished like fuck he had his headset.
He felt completely blind without it… like he was missing a limb.
It was funny to think this had once been normal for him, to not have information at his fingertips, to not be able to communicate with anyone he wanted, more or less whenever he wanted. He’d been a cop like this.
He’s solved murders like this.
The
memory somehow focused his mind.
Perhaps it was a coincidence, perhaps not, but that’s when he saw it.
Well… them.
That’s when he saw them.
Right as he did, they also saw him.
Chapter 30
Metal And Bone
It looked like an animal.
Not quite like the creatures from Malek’s painting, but damned close.
Way too damned close.
A massive, bony head rose up above the crowd, coated in morphing metal, and Nick’s jaw dropped as he skidded to a halt on the surface of the wall.
Nick watched incredulously with his vampire eyes, catching every molecule as it rearranged itself, watching as it flew around the dinosaur’s skeleton like swarming insects, or possibly liquid metal, configuring around a series of magnets.
Once he saw it, he didn’t know how he missed it.
The dinosaurs.
The fucking dinosaurs… those remnants of lost creatures that so fascinated him as a kid… they were alive. The metal whatever-the-hell-it-was molded around those bones and joints, replicating to create ligaments, flesh, muscle, claws, eyes…
Teeth.
A muscular tail whipped around in the high-ceilinged space, and screams grew higher-pitched, more filled with terror as it threw a half-dozen humans into the wall.
The sound of their impact was... disturbing.
Bones broke from the force, a hard, wet sound that made Nick grit his teeth. He didn’t know how many humans heard it in all the screams and yells and frantic scrambling for the doors, but that impact echoed in Nick’s mind, wiping out everything else.
Nick counted four… five… no, six.
Six of the creatures had molded themselves onto fossilized dinosaur bones.
One of them, what he remembered as some kind of smaller version of a T-Rex (Allosaurus? his kid-brain mused) lunged for a target as he watched, grasping it in its jaws as it ripped into the front of it with its front claws from behind. Unlike with a T-Rex, those claws were long, shining with green metal, razor sharp.
They cut into the male they held and he hissed, twisting around to fight, screaming, his eyes flashing scarlet––
Fang & Metal: A Science Fiction Vampire Detective Novel (Vampire Detective Midnight Book 4) Page 28
