Jordan’s gaze turned inward.
Presumably, he was consulting the map of the school.
“Yeah,” he said after a pause. “There’s emergency stairs on either side of the building. It looks like the kids can access those. Without setting off an alarm, I mean. But Tanaka, you can’t just—”
Nick was already pushing through the crowd of kids, moving against the flow of smaller, uniformed bodies. His eyes remained on the white-blond hair of the tall kid walking in the other direction.
The kid was moving fast; he looked like he was already halfway to the door.
“Hey!” Jordan followed after Nick, pushing through bodies as he tried to catch up. When Nick continued to pull away from him, he raised his voice. “Tanaka! Hold up! You’re not supposed to be out here, remember? That principal woman was pretty clear. We could get in a lot of trouble if—”
“It’s fine,” Nick called out, not looking back. “This will only take a second.”
His eyes lost the kid briefly, then found him, right as he looked back.
He was only a few feet from that emergency exit now.
Nick saw two other students with him now. One was the Asian kid with blue, metallic hair and silver eyes. The other was a slender girl with big eyes, a small mouth, and long, bright orange and yellow-streaked hair.
Realizing those kids were definitely going to get to the ground floor via the emergency stairs, and possibly disappear before he could catch up to them—at least if he continued to move like a human—Nick weighed whether it would be worth outing himself.
Jordan’s voice rose in his headset.
Hey, man… what are you doing? Don’t go full vampire on me, okay? You’re going to get us both in the shitter if we lose access to the school because some rich asshole lawyer says we botched our interrogation visit by not having the right paperwork…
Nick thought about that, without slowing his strides.
I’m not going to interrogate anyone, he said finally. You can do that part. I’ll just find them for us—
No! Jordan cut in. You can’t be out here, man. If anyone ID’d you—
What floor is this? Nick cut in. Second-years, right? The numbers correspond to the years? Most of these kids look younger than blondie and his friends.
He was still pushing his way through uniformed students.
The blond kid had his hand on the handle of the door up ahead. Nick watched as he jerked it down then promptly disappeared through the opening, followed closely by the Asian kid and the girl with the orange and yellow hair.
Nick glanced back at Jordan.
Didn’t Ms. James say the classrooms and years were broken out by floor? This is second-years, right? So what were a bunch of third-years doing, hanging out on this floor when they were supposed to be in class on the floor above?
Jordan frowned.
Briefly, his gaze turned inward as he consulted something on his headset.
Right, he sent after a pause. Those kids were all third years. The ones I interviewed, anyway. Same year as most of the victims from the park.
Which ones? Which of those kids did you interview?
That kid with the silver eyes. The girl with the orange hair. There was one other in that group whose file I saw. I don’t see him now, but he had dark brown hair… the one who looked East Indian.
What about the blond? Did you see his file?
I told you, I never seen the blond kid before. That includes his file. I have no idea who he is. But I’m guessing he’s at least a third year, with his height. That, or he’s been held back a year or two.
Nick nodded grimly, giving the other a sideways look.
“Interesting,” he muttered to himself. “The leader goes free but all of his followers make the list.”
“What?” Jordan said aloud.
Nick shook his head, not bothering to answer.
He continued walking fast—human-fast, not vampire-fast—until he reached the door to the emergency stairwell. By the time he was within a few yards, the foot traffic in the hallway had dried up to nothing. By the time Nick stood directly in front of the door itself, he couldn’t hear anyone’s footsteps in the corridor apart from Jordan’s.
The ones he could hear were descending the stairs.
Gripping the door’s handle, he jerked it towards him, only to have Jordan grab the metal panel from behind him, holding it open long enough to follow.
“What are we doing, man?” Jordan said.
Nick barely heard him.
Peering over the edge of the stairwell, he frowned when he didn’t see anyone.
Fuck moving like a human.
There was no one here.
Nick leapt up on the metal bannister. Balancing for a bare instant, he stepped off the edge, falling straight down through the hole between staircases.
“Jesus!” he heard Jordan burst out behind him.
Nick landed easily on the tile floor below. He glanced around briefly, saw the door to his left, and without waiting, shoved it open. He let the semi-organic metal panel bang shut behind him as he darted out into the school grounds.
He immediately regretted the decision.
Sunlight washed over his body, including the bare skin of his face, neck and hands. Grimacing and raising his coat-covered arm to shield his face, Nick shoved his other hand into his pocket and stumbled backwards, temporarily blinded. As soon as he could see at all, he looked for shelter, still trying to shade his face.
The only obvious escape was the same door he’d exited through.
He reached it in a fraction of a second despite how far out he’d darted onto the lawn, but when he yanked on the handle, it didn’t turn.
He cursed, yanking on it again.
Locked. Fuck.
It must have locked behind him automatically when he let it close.
He considered breaking it down, then just banging on it for Jordan to open up.
When pain flared hotly on the back of his neck, he realized he had no time for either.
Cursing under his breath, feeling the back of his neck blistering, Nick glanced around, still half-blinded, even with the dark contact lenses. Seeing a covered walkway, similar to the one he and Jordan used to gain entrance to the school, he pulled his jacket up over his head and ran, all-out, towards it. By the time he got under the stone arches and pillars making up the gothic-style walkway, his face, hands and neck hurt like hell.
He stood there, shaking in pain, biting his lip.
He hadn’t realized his fangs extended until he’d been standing there for a few seconds.
By then, he’d recovered enough from the shock that he felt the stares.
Glancing behind him and to his right, he saw kids staring at him, horror, fear, disbelief, and fascination in their eyes.
Nick had to repress the urge to hiss at them.
Instead, he pulled his fangs back under his lips, wincing a little when he cut his already-tender-from-the-sun mouth in the process.
Grimacing outright now, he looked back over the lawn when he heard the metal door bang open a second time. He saw Jordan standing there, in the shade, saw the other detective look around, then spot him on the covered walkway.
Nick just stood there as Jordan stalked rapidly towards him, a scowl on his handsome face. He glared at Nick openly, glancing at the kids staring at Nick’s profile as they streamed down the walkway and past Nick’s back, giving him an almost comically wide berth. Some left the covered walkway altogether, crossing the sunlit lawn behind him.
By then, Nick had figured out—mostly via smell—that the walkway where he stood connected the main building to the cafeteria.
For the same reason, half the kids at Kellerman Prep were on that walkway.
He’d outed himself as a vampire in front of the whole damned school.
Feeling more eyes on him, Nick glanced to his left, towards the cafeteria itself.
As he did, he saw white-blond hair, a smirk on bow-like lips.
&nb
sp; Nick was still staring at the kid, watching him say something to the Asian kid with the silver eyes, when the girl with the orange and yellow hair turned with both of them, laughing out loud after she got a look at Nick’s face.
All three of them just stood there for a few seconds, staring at him, knowing, triumphant smiles on their faces.
Like they’d made a fool of him, and they knew it.
Nick stared back at them, expressionless.
He was still doing that when Jordan grabbed him by the arm.
“What the fuck was that?” the detective hissed. “Have you lost your fucking mind?”
“We need names,” Nick growled. “On all three of those kids. I want names on the others, too. The ones who were with them when we first saw them in the corridor.”
“You’re kidding, right?” Jordan released his arm. “We’ll be lucky if they let us talk to a single one of these kids again. Did you miss the part where we didn’t come with a warrant for a vampire interrogation?”
“I didn’t interrogate anyone.”
Jordan let out an angry snort. “You can’t possibly be that naïve, Tanaka. Just you being in the damned building will make some of these parents lose their minds. Kids like this have lawyers, Midnight. Those lawyers will argue you even being in visual range of their kids, given your eyesight and sense of smell, is a form of invasive interrogation—”
“Fine.” Nick turned, walking back in the direction of the school. “We’ll come back with a fucking warrant.”
Jordan stared after him, raising his voice.
“You really think that’s going to happen now?”
Nick didn’t answer.
His face still hurt like hell, but he could tell it was already starting to heal.
Unlike in the old stories, sunlight didn’t kill vampires—not on this world, not usually—but it hurt like a motherfuck. It could also do a lot of damage to his skin, giving him a form of vampire cancer that took a lot longer to heal than most injuries vampires faced.
Nick would rather get shot with a plasma rifle in the gut than be exposed to a good, long dose of sunlight.
It was a little like taking a human and dumping them in a vat of acid.
Well, except vampires would eventually heal from most prolonged exposures to sunlight, even hours of it, and humans, well… humans wouldn’t come back from a vat of acid, not unless it was in a comic book, and then it was usually as a villain.
It could take weeks for a vampire to heal completely from sunlight, if not months.
Nick hadn’t been out there long enough for that.
Even so, he’d have one fuck of a headache in about an hour, not to mention his face and neck hurting for at least a few hours after that, if not all night and into tomorrow.
Jordan was staring at his face, then at his hands, frowning.
“Unbelievable,” he said, shaking his head. “You look like you fell asleep under a heat lamp for about eight hours… all so you could scare a bunch of fucking rich kids.” He grunted, hands on his hips. “Hope it was worth it, brother.”
Nick only half-heard him.
He was staring up at the small, red eye of a surveillance camera in the corner of the stone hallway. It hit him that Wynter James probably had access to the feeds from those cameras.
Thinking about that, he scowled hard enough that it hurt his burned face.
Jordan followed his eyes up to the camera, and cursed.
“That’s great. Just great. You really are a stupid fuck, Midnight.”
Nick decided not to respond to that, either.
He wasn’t altogether sure he didn’t agree with the human, anyway.
Turning his head, he gave Jordan a brief look.
“Let’s go back to the main building.” He frowned at the human’s disbelieving stare. “Just for a minute. I want to see something.”
Jordan shook his head once, adamant.
“No. No fucking way, Tanaka—”
“You don’t have to come with me,” Nick said, already walking around and past him. “I’ll meet you out in the lot. You can call us a car to take us back to the train station.”
Without looking back, he walked fast along the stone walkway, heading back for the main building. After a bare pause, he heard the human exhale in obvious frustration, right before he swiveled on his heel to follow him.
“If you get me written up, you and I are going to have words,” Jordan muttered.
Nick heard him, but pretended he didn’t.
Aided by the angle of the sun at midday, Nick managed to stay in the shadows as he traveled the angular path of the outdoor, gothic-style corridor back to the main building.
Even so, he still found himself following the darkest part of the shadow, wincing away from looking at the light on the lawn, windows or walls of the grounds on either side.
From the way his vision was dipping in and out, clouding at the edges, he’d also managed to damage his eyes from that brief stare into the sun.
Because of course.
Reaching the end of the flat walkway, he climbed the stone stairs under the arched roof that angled up to connect to the side of the building. Reaching the top, he pushed open the organic-metal double doors, ignoring a few straggler students who stared up at his face, nearly gaping at him as Nick made his way past and into the stone building.
He walked directly to the staircase.
Now wanting to get the fuck out of there as soon as possible, he began vaulting up the stairs to the second floor, not really caring if it made him conspicuous. Given that he’d just broadcasted what he was to the whole damned school, it could hardly matter now.
Using at least a fraction of his vampire speed, he reached the correct landing in seconds and found the section of window where he’d first seen the blond kid and his posse.
Before they’d noticed him, they’d been looking at something.
Nick wondered if Wynter would give him access to the security footage of the back of the building, so he might see what—or who—they were looking at.
Dismissing the idea a second later, for multiple reasons, he stared out through the slat-like windows instead. His eyes, which were slowly starting to clear, skimmed over the dark green grass, pausing to flicker up at the mountains off in the distance.
Brilliant clumps, patches, and lines of what looked like snow decorated the tallest of those peaks. From where he stood, Nick couldn’t tell if the mountains were a simulation projected by the dome, or if the range actually lived inside this part of the Northeastern Protected Area. Given that much of this protected area was rural, and how much land was covered by domes up here, it really could be either.
Still frowning, he went back to scanning the view.
He saw a farm in the distance, and what looked like an old-fashioned water tower.
He brought his focus closer, staring at a long, barn-like building that lived on the other side of what looked like a soccer field.
It was close enough, it was likely part of the school.
Nick’s eyes studied the white symbol painted on the side of the faded barn wood, noticing it for the first time, and he frowned.
He’d thought at first it was some kind of rustic company logo, but now that he was focused on it, he had his doubts. It looked hand-painted, like something a kid could have done. It didn’t look much like a company logo, anyway. It looked more like a hieroglyphic, or some kind of Celtic or runic symbol from an old deck of tarot cards.
Now that Nick was staring at it, it also looked almost like a person holding their arms up, like old symbols Nick had seen of fertility goddesses back in old-Earth museums.
On this symbol, however, the torso part, instead of having legs, was connected below to a circle that had a cross in the center.
Either part of it, or all of it, looked vaguely familiar.
He couldn’t place it, though.
He recorded it via his headset, even as he tried to sketch a simplified version using the eye-board styl
us of his headset in an attempt to jog his memory.
Whatever it was, it definitely looked like something a kid might find in an old library with a shit-ton of esoteric books—kind of like the books Nick had seen in Ms. James’ office. Kids tended to get fascinated by stuff like that, anything that smacked of the occult or secret societies or magic.
“What are you looking at?”
Nick turned, startled out of his thoughts.
He found himself facing the profile of Jordan, who’d joined him by the window, still breathing hard, presumably from trying to catch up with Nick first on the gothic walkway, then on the stairs.
Jordan looked openly annoyed now, like he was keeping his temper with an effort.
Looking at him, it hit Nick that the human really had been warming to him over the past few hours—at least somewhat—and now Nick might have blown all that newfound good will by going “all vampire” on the other man, like Jordan said.
Not to mention the fact that Nick had flat-out disobeyed his orders.
And, by extension, Morley’s.
“Hey,” Nick said, his voice subdued. “What is that symbol? Do you know?”
Jordan frowned.
Then, curious in spite of himself, he stepped closer, following Nick’s finger pointing towards the barn. Jordan lost part of his frown as he continued to stare at the symbol painted on the dark wood with white paint.
“It’s Pluto,” he said, his voice holding a vague surprise.
When Nick frowned, glancing at him, Jordan shrugged, returning his look.
“I mean… I think it’s Pluto. You know. Like from astrology? But there’s some extra on the bottom. Like maybe two symbols got mashed together.”
Nick frowned. “What would that extra symbol on the bottom be?”
“Shit.” Jordan shook his head, back to frowning, but now more in concentration. “I don’t remember. My grandmother was into all that astrology stuff. I’d have to see if my mom kept any of her old books. It might be the Sun? Or maybe one of the elements? Some alchemical thing?”
Exhaling, he held up his hands.
“Dunno,” he said after another breath. “And why does it matter?”
“This is where those kids were,” Nick said. “They were looking out the window. Right at that building. I think they were, anyway.”
Vampire Detective Midnight Page 22
