Page 61 of Almost Midnight

Race war or no, he and Morley likely had a night of ongoing annoyance to look forward to. They’d interview people who told them nothing, check off boxes around local criminals and rival human and vampire gangs and learn nothing, and possibly even drag in some poor vampire fuck who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

If that vamp had neither alibi nor connections, he’d likely sit in an I.S.F. holding cell for a week while they tortured him and asked him questions. That was assuming they didn’t just kill him outright for the N.Y.P.D. and racial authorities win.

On the plus side, Charlie rode out with Nick and Morley that night.

She’d petitioned Acharya to replace Jordan until he was ready to re-join the force as a Midnight. Since they normally sent out two humans together, one senior detective and one junior, along with every Midnight, Acharya agreed to the temporary assignment.

“We’re not going to fucking find anything,” Nick grumbled again.

He watched Morley turn the wheel of the tank of a pool car. The old man took a sip of his blinking and flickering Yankees mug at the same time. At the next light, Morley pulled into a parking lot just outside the Cauldron.

They’d hit all the “normie” places the night before.

Tonight, they’d go looking for witnesses inside the Cauldron itself.

“They’re having us chase our tails out here,” Nick added sourly, glancing at Charlie in the rearview mirror. “I already told you both who’s behind it.”

Morley nodded, but the motion was barely perceptible.

“James, I’m telling you––” Nick began, a touch louder.

“Shut the fuck up, Midnight,” Morley breathed back.

He pulled the car, which was a much shittier antique than the car Nick had driven since he started the Midnight program in Los Angeles, into a narrow parking slot next to a falling down brick building. That building stood right next to the Cauldron’s main wall. The building probably should’ve been condemned years ago, but the bottom half had been turned into a guard post for the N.Y.P.D. instead.

Regular, non-homicide, uniform cops who patrolled this side of the wall also used it sometimes as a detention center for escapees from the Cauldron itself.

Morley pulled all the way into the parking slot right next to the building’s fire escape, and threw the monstrous sedan into park.

The old man hadn’t so much as looked at him since he told Nick to shut up, but Nick didn’t need him to. He got the message.

They were still being surveilled.

Nick, especially, was being surveilled. He might even have more eyes and ears on him now than he did when his doppelgänger was out killing people, and the powers-that-be still weren’tentirelyconvinced Nick wasn’t involved.

Despite Morley’s warning, Nick was just annoyed enough to not drop it.

He was about to try bringing it up again, using more coded language maybe, when Morley nudged Nick sharply with an elbow.

Before Nick could decide how to react, James snapped the latch on the pool car’s antique door and stepped out. Baffled, Nick watched him climb out of the car.

When he saw the direction of Morley’s stare, Nick looked out the windshield.

He closed his mouth once he had.

Two plainclothes police officers were walking towards their car.

Nick didn’t recognize either of their faces, probably because he, Morley, and Charlie were operating slightly outside their normal precinct zone right then, being just a tick above the dividing line between jurisdictions. So what was the big deal? Why did two cops make Morley so paranoid? They likely were only here for the murder case, weren’t they?

Nick snapped his own latch and rose to his feet.

He saw and heard Charlie do the same behind him.

Nick stepped out from behind the door and shut it, right as Morley shoved a hand in his coat pocket and nodded to the two men approaching the car from his side.

Interesting. So they hadn’t come from the guard house building.

They’d come from one of the other vehicles in the parking lot, instead, or possibly from the street. Had something new happened? Were theirmorevampire-related deaths?

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