Maybe Jordan just thought it was funny that Nick was being lazy about climbing a few flights of stairs, given what he was.
Whatever it was, Nick let it go, focusing again on their surroundings.
He’d more or less adjusted to the colored contact lenses by then.
His eyesight still felt faintly blurred, and perceptibly darkened—and if he wasn’t careful, he ended up focusing on the colored lenses instead of what lay beyond them—but he’d adjusted enough that they didn’t interfere much with his sight.
He and Jordan were halfway up the second set of stairs, which ran up either side of the building after splitting apart on the second floor, when a bell went off, echoing up the staircase and down the corridors on the floors above and below.
Seemingly within seconds, the stairwell filled with kids.
They gave him and Jordan a wide berth, but Nick saw eyes on them, taking them in, measuring them, many seeming to know them as cops. He didn’t notice any tagging him as a vampire, which is all Nick cared about, but it was still vaguely unnerving, having all these kids looking them over like aliens that landed in their midst.
Nick knew how fast rumors spread in schools; chances were, that was doubly true in a place like this, where the kids actually lived here.
They’d probably all heard about their classmates being killed by now.
Some might even know what those classmates had been.
They flowed by and around him and the other detective, a sea of black and gray plaid skirts mixed with white shirts, black pants and red ties, all of the bodies paired with those clothes slowing to look at them as Nick and Damon ascended the stairs to the next landing, then the next, climbing the final flight to the administrative offices up above.
The top floor was relatively quiet.
It was definitely a lot quieter than the staircase, or the halls they’d passed on each landing as they ascended up through the building.
Kids still milled around, coming in and out of doors.
Their eyes still widened when they saw Jordan and Nick, and they still scurried out of their path like frightened cats, possibly in part because of their heights and builds.
At the end of the hall stood the largest of the doors.
Nick had already noted the “Principal’s Office” plaque on the outside, shining faintly in the dim light through the lace curtains of a nearby window.
For some reason, just looking at it gave him a faint shiver of misgiving.
He probably should have listened to that—the misgiving part, that is.
He didn’t, though.
He wouldn’t even remember it until much later. It would take him even longer to make sense of what that misgiving actually meant.
How he felt it, how he knew everything was going to change for him again, even before he’d walked through that door—he had no idea.
Maybe it was the dead hybrids that brought all of that up in him again.
Maybe it was Tai, or Malek… or just the sheer fact of running into seers again, for the first time in over a hundred years. Maybe it was something about New York itself, which seemed determined to drag Nick out of his comfortable isolation, despite his best efforts.
Maybe it was just his time.
Karma. Fate.
Something like that.
Nick didn’t know.
Even months later, after days of thinking about it, he didn’t know.
Then again, Nick was dumb like that—at least when it came to himself.
Chapter 17
Principal’s Office
Nick followed Jordan to that heavy door with the silver plaque, still frowning at it without knowing why.
It wasn’t until they were almost all the way there that Nick saw the desk hiding in an alcove to his left.
A woman in a grey suit sat behind that desk, a liquid monitor on the table in front of her.
She was manipulating something on the monitor with a narrow, bright-silver stylus, as well as likely a mind-board, given the gear wrapped around her head.
She could see past her virtual view, however.
She looked at them directly once they were in her immediate line of sight and smiled.
“Detectives Tanaka and Jordan?” she said politely.
Jordan nodded, flashing his badge, likely unnecessarily at that point.
“Is Ms. James available?” he said politely. “I believe we’re a little early.”
The woman’s gaze turned inward briefly, enough to tell Nick she was probably conversing with her employer via the virtual connection. Her eyes clicked back into focus a few seconds later, and she smiled at them.
“You can go right in,” she said, her voice friendly. “Ms. James is waiting for you.”
Jordan smiled back, thanked her, then walked directly to the wooden door. He didn’t wait, but grasped the old-fashioned, wrought-iron handle and turned it clockwise.
The well-oiled door opened with a soundless click.
Nick walked in after the human detective, glancing around the oddly round and high-ceilinged space.
He immediately felt like he’d entered a magician’s owlry.
Or maybe a witch’s tower.
The entire place was filled with books.
The whole office appeared to be one giant, circular bookshelf, covered in leather- and cloth-bound books. Nick’s eyes scaled up, tracking books and levels of bookshelves above where they stood. Apart from a small reading nook in front of a round window covered with cushions, where he could see a glimpse of blue sky, sun and clouds from the upper dome, Nick didn’t see a lot of breaks in those circular shelves.
He didn’t look down until he heard her voice.
“Well, you aren’t quite what I expected,” the warm voice said.
Nick flinched, even before he met her gaze.
He’d expected an older woman.
He’d expected a nun-type figure, someone he could picture owning a lot of cats.
He’d expected, without realizing he expected it, frumpy clothes, maybe a mother-of-pearl brooch or a real string of pearls inherited from a great aunt, both accenting something like a purple woolen suit that looked like something the Queen of England would have worn, back when there was still a Queen of England. Too many movies about gray-haired school marms, he supposed.
She said the words to both of them, ostensibly, but Nick saw her eyes rest a few beats longer on him.
He found himself staring back at her, unable to stop staring once he had.
She definitely wasn’t old… or frumpy.
She was a few decades south of old, or even what he would consider middle-aged, even in a human.
She couldn’t be more than thirty-five.
Forty, tops… but he highly doubted she was that old.
Long, thickly luxurious, loosely curled, raven-black hair hung down her shoulders and back, decorated with streaks and strands of green, blue, and scarlet woven in, the combination somehow further highlighting her shockingly blue-green eyes. Her full mouth had a touch of plum-colored lipstick that complemented her skin tone, while her eyeshadow and the faint glitter on her cheeks matched her eyes and the streaks of color in her hair.
Long, toned-bordering-on-muscular legs ended with feet wrapped in old-fashioned high heels with little straps around her slim ankles. She wore a light blue, wraparound dress which ended just below the knee and matched the color of her shoes perfectly. Sheer, dark-blue stockings somehow matched the rest of it, but Nick couldn’t have said how.
A silver pendant sparkled from just above her half-exposed breasts.
If he’d had a teacher who looked and dressed like her when he’d been a kid, he would have come to school with a hard on pretty much every day.
Well, a more specific and directed hard on, at least.
She definitely wasn’t what he’d pictured.
She looked more like a painting, one that somehow fit with the stone walls and all the books and the reading nook high above—but more like a wi
tch living in a tower at a magical studies school than his idea of a school principal.
He wondered if she was a good witch or a bad one.
The passing thought distracted him briefly, enough to make his jaw tense.
He was still staring at her when she crossed and re-crossed her legs. Not only did he get a better look at her legs when she did—he also got a good inhale of her scent.
Once the latter reached him, he had to fight to keep his fangs from extending.
It took him a few seconds more to fully comprehend why that was.
Then, all at once, he understood.
Jesus.
She was a hybrid.
She was a fucking hybrid.
She was a knockout, a hybrid, and she ran this damned school. No wonder so many of the students here had mixed blood. It explained a lot, even if it utterly and completely knocked him off balance.
Did Morley know? Did he know what she was?
If he had, he likely would have warned them.
The I.S.F. must not know, either, or they would have included her name in their electronic debriefing of possible victims requiring protection and registration by the H.R.A. Hell, given that she was an adult, and one in a position of authority, they probably would have arrested her for living under a false racial identity.
Nick definitely hadn’t seen her face or name in any of the Archangel files.
Still, the longer he looked at her, the more whiffs he caught of her skin’s scent, the more sure he was.
She was definitely a hybrid.
He saw her eyebrow raise in his direction, an overt question in those aquamarine eyes, and Nick forced his gaze off hers, glancing at Jordan only to find the human detective looking at him with a flicker of amusement.
At first Nick wondered if Jordan picked up on something too.
Then he realized Jordan was laughing at him.
Clearly, the younger detective had noticed Nick’s reaction to the “hot teacher.”
He probably figured Nick wanted to fuck her.
Or bite her.
Or both, most likely.
Clenching his jaw, Nick fought to shove away thoughts of either fucking or biting—not to mention the accompanying images that wanted to rise—before he started thinking about either thing in a way that mattered. Even wearing contacts, he couldn’t afford to have his eyes go full red. The contacts were designed to mute that, of course, making the color change too subtle for most human eyes to discern, but he didn’t want to take any chances.
Anyway, contacts wouldn’t help him if his fangs grew visible.
Jordan cleared his throat, glancing at Nick again.
Nick couldn’t help but hear a hint of that lingering amusement in his partner’s voice as Jordan held out a hand to the school’s principal.
“Ms. James?” he said. “Thank you for making time for us. I’m Detective Damon Jordan.”
He glanced at Nick, who still stood there like an asshole, trying not to stare at the unnervingly attractive hybrid in the sky-blue dress with those stunning green-blue eyes.
“…This is my partner. Detective Nick Tanaka.”
The principal of Kellerman Prep turned, staring directly at Nick.
When he didn’t move, she held out a hand, a faint smile touching the edges of those perfect lips.
“Detective?” she said.
Her voice held a faint rebuke.
Nick reached out without thought, shaking her hand cautiously.
He nodded to her, trying to act like he was just Jordan’s quieter, more socially-awkward partner. He wasn’t able to do it very convincingly though, or without a flood of real embarrassment.
Those bright, blue-green eyes studied him almost openly, even as she motioned them both to the leather chairs that sat in front of her antique wooden desk.
Maybe in part to get those eyes off him, and to get his own eyes and mind off her, he found himself looking over the surface of her desk, taking in the things that covered it. It was an odd assortment, which helped with the distraction; on the other hand, those things gave him odd hints to her personality, which didn’t help much at all.
An elaborate model of the solar system made of brass sat on one corner, what appeared to be a type of perpetual motion machine as the planets revolved smoothly on their elliptical orbits.
It took him a few seconds to realize the sculpture emitted a faint strand of music.
Archaeological artifacts appeared to be scattered on top of stacks of paper. A ceremonial knife rested on a stand of some hard, dark wood. An overgrown fishbowl filled with what looked like living plants, along with a small stone replica of the school covered in moss, took up most of the other side of her desk, the only spot of brightness in all that green being where the three large goldfish lurked.
A coffee cup with a ceramic, gremlin-type creature peering over the rim left a ring of faint brown on several folders balanced on one corner of her desk.
She was a coffee drinker. Who liked old things.
And quirky things.
And fish.
And, presumably, music.
He glanced at the shelves behind her and found himself scanning spines.
He couldn’t discern any logic to her organization system.
Classic and contemporary fiction titles stood next to history tomes and even fatter books labeled as mythology from various regions of the world and occult sciences. He saw a physics text next to a book on dragons, and a book he’d read years ago on theories of a multi-dimensional universe next to a full set of children’s books he’d read to his nieces and nephews back in San Francisco while he was human.
Pushing the memory from his mind with a wince, he forced his attention back on the conversation already taking place between Jordan and the woman.
“…We were told the I.S.F. already forwarded their list of suspected non-reg’s, meaning those with falsified identities,” Jordan was saying carefully.
She nodded, rocking lightly in her swivel chair.
“Yes. That’s right,” she said. “They were here most of last night. I didn’t get a lot of sleep, truth be told.”
Again, Nick felt her attention on him.
Her eyes never left Jordan.
“Yeah.” Jordan smiled back at her. “I know the feeling.”
Her smile grew warmer. “I bet you do.”
Jordan let his own voice grow warmer.
“About that list,” he said, his voice almost coaxing. “Would it be possible for us to talk to some of those students? With faculty present, of course, if that’s required. There are also a few employees on the list, if I’m not mistaken?”
“There are,” she affirmed.
Jordan glanced at Nick, then back at her.
“So, would you have a conference room we could use? For the interviews? We were hoping we could do them all in one place. Maybe you or one of your staff could help us out, bring the people we need to talk to here?”
The woman’s full lips pursed.
She tapped an old-fashioned pen against those lips, leaving small dots of plum-colored lipstick on the silver pen as she leaned back in her worn leather chair.
Again, Nick felt most of her attention on him as she rocked lightly in the antique chair. Her eyes never appeared to leave Jordan, so maybe it was all in his head.
The two of them definitely seemed to be warming up to one another.
Realizing he was jealous of the human detective, he fought not to scowl.
Then she spoke.
Involuntarily, his eyes shifted back to her.
“You can,” she said to Jordan, emphasizing the word carefully, even as she aimed another flickering glance at Nick. “I’m afraid I can’t let your partner accompany you on those interviews, detective.” She gave Nick a faintly apologetic look. “…I’m sorry.”
Jordan and Nick exchanged looks.
Then Jordan returned his gaze to the woman.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” he said politely. “But why not?
”
Her full lips quirked in a faint smile.
Her eyes rested on Nick directly that time, seeming to stare through him as she held his gaze.
“Because,” she said, those blue-green eyes piercing his. “Unless you have a warrant on you somewhere for an interrogation by a vampire, I can’t risk the legal exposure, Detective Jordan.”
Nick flinched.
He somehow managed to do it without looking away from those blue-green eyes.
He opened his mouth to speak, but Jordan held up a hand towards him, an unmistakable request to let him handle it.
Nick immediately shut his mouth.
“You had I.S.F. here all last night,” Jordan reminded her. “You’re not going to pretend they didn’t have vampires working with them?”
“They did,” she said, nodding agreeably. “But none of them wore contact lenses.” She gave Nick a fleeting sideways smile. “And they had a warrant for a vampire.”
She gave Nick another apologetic look.
Nick distinctly got the impression that one was at least partly mocking.
“Maybe you aren’t aware of this, Detective Tanaka, since the rules are different in New York,” she explained. “But the Northeastern Protected Area requires a specific warrant for a person of your… unique abilities.”
Nick didn’t answer.
Jordan cleared his throat.
She swiveled those blue-green eyes back to him.
“Does it matter?” Jordan said. “If I.S.F. already talked to the same people—”
“I’m sure you can get the notes from them,” she cut in succinctly.
“But they aren’t interested in the murders,” Jordan said. “They’re looking for race and reg crimes. Not for whoever is murdering half-humans.”
Nick saw her lips pinch, there and gone.
She didn’t like that term.
Noted.
Exhaling, she leaned back in her chair, regarding Jordan coolly.
“I might, normally,” she said after a pause, shrugging a little, as if making a minor confession. “I’m not always such a stickler for the rules. But in this case, I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist. I received a hold order this morning… from the parents of some of the kids. It specifically denies access to anyone attempting to ascertain the validity of an official racial designation without a warrant specifying cause related to an unrelated investigation.”
Vampire Detective Midnight Page 18
