Vampire Detective Midnight

by J. C. Andrijeski

  “Am I allowed names for this intriguing family?” Ms. St. Maarten said.

  Nick almost smiled again.

  He had to give her props for her poker face.

  “I’m told the adult brother goes by John or Jack Bird,” Nick said. “The sister is Tailaya, or Tai. I don’t have a last name for her, or really for either of them, since she indicated her brother’s name is an alias.”

  At Ms. St. Maarten’s immovable expression, Nick quirked an eyebrow of his own.

  “Tai tells me you are an acquaintance of theirs. Or at least of his. Is that true?”

  Nick watched Ms. St. Maarten look at her bodyguard.

  After a brief stare between them, one where Nick caught not a single change in either expression, Ms. St. Maarten’s eyes and face turned smoothly back to him.

  “I do know someone by that name,” she said, her voice as neutral as his.

  “Do you know where he is now?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know where he lives? How I might contact him?”

  She gave him a sly smile, again quirking those perfect, red-painted lips.

  “I suspect you already know the answer to that, Detective, if you have his sister.” Her voice grew more pointed. “Is she in official custody? At the station?”

  Nick frowned faintly. “Is that important?”

  “Of course it is.”

  “Why?”

  She let out an expressive sigh, looking at him in feigned puzzlement.

  “Why, Detective?” she said. “Why, so I can send my lawyers down to speak to whoever is in charge, of course.” She gestured gracefully with a hand, glancing at Ms. Racine. “I can’t leave my friend’s baby sister in that terrible place. Not such a young child… not all alone. It is unthinkable.”

  Nick stared at her, trying to read past that unreadable face. Staring at those dark green eyes, he found himself thinking she knew exactly where Tai was.

  What he couldn’t figure out is how she’d known.

  “She’s at my apartment,” he said, blunt. “It’s not official. I pulled her out of the second crime scene… offering her my assistance after I determined her blood wasn’t like that of other children. I’m new to New York. I had nowhere else to take her. And I didn’t want to dump her in the Cauldron. So I took her home.”

  Her smile remained faint, her eyes assessing his. “And why wouldn’t you simply follow procedure? Turn her over to the proper authorities, Detective Tanaka?”

  “You know why,” he growled. “You know exactly what would have happened to her, had I left her for the forensics team to find. At a multiple homicide scene, no less.”

  “Ah.” Her smile grew, but her gaze remained flat. “So this was an act of charity, then. You took pity on the child. How noble of you.”

  Ms. St. Maarten’s voice remained light, borderline flirtatious, but Nick heard an edge there now, under her lilting sarcasm.

  “Such a precious age,” Ms. St. Maarten mused. “And quite a… well, delicious little creature. Wouldn’t you say so, Detective? How very convenient to have her staying with you. Unofficially. In your own home.”

  Nick frowned for real. “It’s damned inconvenient, actually. Not to mention there’s a good chance it will get me killed.”

  “So you would like me to take her off your hands?”

  “I would like you to tell me where her damned brother is,” Nick growled. “I’d prefer to hand her off to him—”

  “Why?” she queried. “Why him? And not me?”

  “Because, pardon my saying it, but I don’t know you, lady.”

  “You don’t know Jack, either,” she pointed out.

  “No. But Tai told me he takes care of her. I’ve got to hope her own brother isn’t going to sell her off for parts.” Nick felt himself lose patience with this game, even as his words grew blunt. “…Or try to clone her for defense tech. Or turn her into any other kind of lab rat. Or pet. Or whatever it is you want with the two of them.”

  Her amusement returned.

  “You think I might do those things?” she said, smiling.

  “Given your affiliation with Archangel,” Nick retorted. “I wouldn’t put any of those things past you, yes. Unlike most people, I’m old enough to remember where Archangel got their money before the wars—”

  “Detective Tanaka. Calm yourself. If anyone has a reason to be suspicious about motives, it’s me. And Jack. You leave me a cryptic message, dare I say, a threatening one, in the middle of the night. You make it clear you’ve stolen my friend’s sister… illegally… a vampire…”

  “I’m not eating her, for fuck’s sake,” Nick snapped.

  “Why wouldn’t I assume that?”

  “Because if I wanted to keep her, why the hell would I have contacted you at all?”

  She looked about to answer.

  Before she could, another cut her off.

  It didn’t belong to Veronica Racine, the bodyguard.

  This voice was male, and weirdly calm.

  “It’s all right, Lara,” it said.

  Nick stiffened, reaching for his gun. He turned, sharply, hearing the voice directly behind him, close enough to be an immediate threat.

  He found himself staring at a tall man with jet black hair, almond-shaped eyes, and high cheekbones. One of the male’s eyes shone a pale turquoise; the other was so dark it was nearly black. The hood was down this time, but he wore a gray sweatshirt with no sleeves, and green, military-style pants. His feet were bare, and he didn’t appear to be wearing anything under the sweatshirt, which was unzipped in front.

  His left arm had no barcode, no race-cat tat.

  It was also covered with decorative tattoos of feathers and bones.

  “I’m John Bird,” the male said, calmly.

  Chapter 13

  Stonewall

  “Jack—” the woman began, her voice warning.

  “It’s okay, Lara,” Bird said calmly, without taking his eyes off Nick. “He hasn’t hurt her. He won’t hurt her. Tai never would have gone with him, if he had any intention of hurting her.”

  Nick stared at him.

  Then, thinking about his words, he frowned.

  He opened his mouth, about to speak, when the other male cut him off.

  “She followed me?” Jack said, speaking to Nick. “Tai. She followed me to that park?”

  After a bare pause, Nick nodded.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “And you took her out of there?” Jack said. “How did you find her?”

  Nick’s puzzlement grew.

  “I smelled her,” he said, after a beat.

  “And you got her past all of those cops?”

  Nick’s frown deepened. “No. She did that. I left her my car keys. Told her to push whoever she had to, get into my car, and wait for me there.”

  For the first time, the tall male smiled.

  Something about that smile, on those features—which were completely foreign to Nick, yet somehow familiar all the same, if only for their blatant seerness—made Nick flinch.

  “Thank you,” Jack Bird said. “Thank you very much, Detective—”

  “Don’t thank him too much,” Lara St. Maarten muttered. “Don’t forget what he is, Jack. Or the fact that his message more or less hinted at blackmail.”

  Jack, or Malek, or Bird, looked at the mistress of the house.

  “I told you,” he said, his voice patient. “Tai would never have gone with him, if he wanted her for food. She would run away. She knows about vampires—”

  “Yeah,” Nick muttered. “About that.”

  When both of them turned, staring at him, Nick looked between the seated woman and the tall seer, his lips curled in an involuntary frown.

  “Seers can’t read vampires,” Nick said. “How the hell could she possibly know what I would or wouldn’t do?” His voice lowered to a growl. “Honestly, I was about ready to kick your ass. For letting her get all the way downtown on her own. For leaving her at the mercy of c
ontract killers and cops. But most of all, for not at least warning her about my kind. That she would just get in a strange vampire’s car, no questions asked—”

  “She can,” Jack broke in. “Read vampires.”

  Nick stared at him.

  Jack nodded, his eyes and voice serene.

  “Tai,” he clarified. “She can read your kind.”

  Nick continued to stare, absorbing his words.

  Then, he shook his head. “No.”

  Jack smiled. “Yes,” he said. “Sorry. But it appears she evolved to suit this world. She says she’s sorry, too. She tells me you’ve been nice to her. That you promised to bring her back cookies.” Smiling more wryly, he added, “She also informs me you speak Prexci.”

  “A little,” Nick muttered.

  “You’re talking to her?” Lara St. Maarten said to the male seer, her voice tight. “Right now, Jack?”

  “I just did, yes.” He glanced at Lara St. Maarten, his voice reassuring. “She’s perfectly fine, Lara. She likes this vampire. She promises he hasn’t bit her, and I feel no sign that there is any venom in her… or anything affecting her mind. He took her home and left her there on his couch so he could come looking for me. She told him about you. She didn’t tell him she could read his mind because she liked how unguarded he was with his thoughts. Since he clearly knows about seers, she was afraid he’d close his mind if she told him.”

  Jack glanced at Nick again, quirking an eyebrow.

  “Sorry about that,” he repeated, giving a seer’s shrug with one hand. “I guess I need to have that chat with her again. About using her sight in ethical ways.”

  When Nick frowned, Jack only smiled, making a reassuring gesture with his hands.

  Nick followed the male seer’s gaze to Lara St. Maarten. When he did, he saw her looking at him, Nick, not at Jack, a mixture of skepticism and puzzlement on her face.

  “You are a strange vampire, Detective Tanaka,” she said after a pause.

  Nick scowled.

  When neither of them spoke, just looked at him expectantly, he lost his patience.

  “Is anyone going to tell me what the fuck is going on?” he snapped. “I’ve got two seers who shouldn’t exist, one of whom is hanging out in my apartment, the other of whom likes to paint murder scenes before they happen. Both can apparently come and go from the Cauldron whenever the fuck they want and don’t have reg-barcodes or race-cat stamps, yet somehow no one ever catches them on surveillance. Meanwhile, I’ve got fourteen murdered hybrids with no real leads apart from the two of you, and that little girl tells me she came through a door from another New York—”

  “Hybrids?” Jack broke in. “You said the murder victims were hybrids?”

  Nick turned, aiming his scowl at him. “You didn’t know that?”

  Jack gave him a wry smile.

  “I don’t have your sense of smell, cousin,” he said.

  Nick’s temper broke for real.

  “Don’t fucking call me that!” he snapped.

  He said it before he realized why he said it, and well before it hit him how many goddamned memories that single word evoked.

  Biting his lip at the silence his outburst produced, he forced himself silent, too.

  He counted backwards, willing his vampire emotions to calm the fuck down.

  Then, remembering who first taught him that little trick, he felt his temper boil over all over again, forcing him to stop long enough to clear his mind for real.

  When he returned his gaze to Jack Bird’s face, the seer was watching him, his expression a combination of sympathy and wariness.

  “You knew seers,” he observed. “You knew at least one of them well. I am sorry, friend. Clearly, you are mourning for my kind—”

  “I don’t want to talk about that,” Nick cut in, his voice hard all over again. “I want to talk about the dead hybrids. I want to know who killed them.”

  Jack Bird didn’t answer at first.

  Measuring Nick’s face for a few seconds, he only stood there, silent, before nodding to himself slowly. Then, he exhaled, holding up his hands in a seer’s gesture of apology.

  “I painted them,” he said, that apology reaching his voice. “That’s all I know.”

  “You had nothing to do with their deaths?”

  “No,” the seer said, puzzled. “If you are right about what they are, why would I want to kill my own kin?”

  “You don’t know who they are? The victims? Or the killers?”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  “Are the killers pros? Did someone hire them?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Are they going to do it again?” Nick pressed.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Have you made more than the two paintings?”

  “Yes,” Jack said at once.

  “Of these same killers?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know,” Jack said at once. “Inside a building.”

  Nick frowned. “What do you mean you don’t know where? Didn’t you paint it at the location? Like the other two?”

  “No. I have a canvas. I could show it to you… or send it to the police, if you think it would help. But I don’t know where it is.”

  Nick’s scowl hardened. “When?” he said after another pause. “When is the next murder supposed to happen?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What the fuck does that mean?” Nick growled. “How could you not know when? Or where? How is that possible?”

  Jack gave him a puzzled look.

  “I’m a prescient,” he said, his voice borderline patient. “I can’t control what I know and don’t know. I get the pictures. I paint them. Sometimes I get a pull to paint them in particular places… sometimes I don’t. Sometimes it doesn’t matter where I paint them. All I know is what I see. All I know about what will happen is in the paintings themselves. I don’t know where unless the vision shows me. I don’t know when unless the vision shows me that.”

  “Why were you in the Financial District tonight, then? If you didn’t know when?”

  “I check on them. The paintings. I wanted to see if anything had happened yet.” He gave Nick a curious look. “You said sixteen victims? Does that mean the other scene was the one in the Bronx?”

  Nick gave him a hard look. “Yes. How many victims are in the third painting?”

  “Just one.” He frowned. “I think.”

  “One.” Nick felt something in his chest tighten, despite his lack of breath.

  He couldn’t explain that either, or why it made him so angry.

  “Why were you in the Bronx that night, if you don’t know when?” Nick said. “You were there, weren’t you? Someone contaminated the scene. Wasn’t that you?”

  His mismatched eyes puzzled, Bird shook his head.

  “No,” he said. “That wasn’t me. I haven’t been to the Bronx. Not since I made the painting. I haven’t left Manhattan since then.”

  Nick scowled. He glared at the seer, who was maybe an inch taller than him, even with Nick’s own decent height.

  Jack Bird, or “Malek,” or “Mal,” just looked back at him, his expression calm.

  Looking away, Nick scowled out the massive window of the high-ceilinged room instead. After another pause, he looked back at the male seer.

  Frustrated, he said, “Can’t you… I don’t know… try looking for more information?”

  Again, a puzzled stare from those dramatically mismatched eyes.

  “Do you have any idea how rare prescients are, Detective Tanaka?” Jack Bird said. “Even among my own kind?”

  “No,” Nick said. “Should I know that?”

  “We are extremely rare,” Jack Bird said, his voice still maddeningly calm. “One in several hundred million seers rare… and that is only a bare guess. From what I know, our prevalence depends strongly on the needs of a particular historical period. It is said there are entire generations, even at the
peak of our civilization, where no prescients existed at all—”

  “I’m not looking for a seer history lesson,” Nick cut in, still annoyed verging on angry, although he couldn’t have said why, exactly. “I’m looking to find whoever’s making a lot of hybrids dead. I’m looking for someone who apparently has no qualms about gunning down a bunch of kids.”

  Still frowning when he got no reaction from either of them, he hardened his voice.

  That time, he found himself glaring at St. Maarten.

  “Why the hell are you letting them stay in the Cauldron?” he asked her. “You’ve got the cash. You’ve clearly got the security people… not to mention your own damned building. Why the hell don’t you put them up here?”

  Ms. St. Maarten frowned, glancing at Jack. From her quirked eyebrow, and the dark look in her green eyes, she’d asked that question more than once herself.

  “We prefer it where we are,” Jack Bird said.

  “Why?” Nick said, turning his glare on the seer. “And anyway, who the fuck cares what you want?” he added in a growl, before the other could speak. “You shouldn’t leave your sister in there. She should be in school. More to the point, she’s not safe. Hell, a human girl wouldn’t be safe in there. Traffickers go in there, jackass, not to mention—”

  “Did you have any other questions for me, Detective Tanaka?” Jack Bird said, his voice polite. “Or can you bring me to my sister?”

  Jack Bird glanced at a piece of wall art, one that Nick hadn’t noticed was an old-fashioned, antique-style clock.

  “It will be dawn in a few hours,” Jack Bird said. “I would really like my sister back before you are forced indoors for the day, Detective… and before the vampires residing in your building return home from work. As they surely will be doing relatively soon. Na?”

  For a moment, Nick only stared at him.

  He was back to wanting to strangle the guy.

  One, for being such a shitty brother.

  Two, for being such a cagey, answer-dodging motherfucker.

  He had more questions at that point than he knew how to ask.

  He was also increasingly getting the feeling he was being blown off, if not dismissed outright, and not only by the rich person in the room.