Page 22 of Almost Midnight

“Bullshit!” Nick snarled.“Gaos.Will you just stop already?”

He stared at her, fighting back the urge to threaten her openly, or even to use his thrall on her. He wondered if it would even work on Lara St. Maarten. He had his doubts. She probably had some kind of implant that neutralized vampire powers of persuasion.

“The sheerlengthsyou’ve gone to, to keep me from knowing other portals have appeared,” he said next. “The sheerlengthsyou and Brick went to, to convince me thatthiswas my dimension, my Earth, that everyone I knew back there was dead, that my entireworldwas dead from self-immolation. Fucking videos and fake research jobs. An antique car… did you do that, too? Or was that little detail Brick’s? All to convince me that there’s no other place that’s even remotely lessterriblethan it is here––”

“You don’t know that it’s not true,” Lara snapped.

“The hell I don’t!”

“A wish-fulfilling belief is notknowledge,Detective Midnight,” she said coldly. “And now, thanks to you, everyone you care about believes the same fantastical nonsense you do. Even Tai and Malek, who should know better, will have to live with the veryfalseimpression that just on the other side of that door lay some kind of seerparadise,just for them. A seer and vampire sanctuary waiting for you and the rest of your friends!”

“You don’t know that it doesn’t exist,” he countered coldly.

“Those records are a hundred years old,” she retorted.

“That doesn’t mean the planet isgone,”Nick retorted back. “Or that the humans and other races there made the same sick choices your people did. Or that the timeline you encountered mirrors ours in any way!”

He nearly said that Dalejem had been dead here, on this world, for hundreds of years.

He didn’t say it, though.

He pulled the thought back at the last minute.

Lara St. Maarten didn’t seem to notice.

She rolled her eyes, not hiding her disdain.

“Whatever, Nick,” she said dismissively. “You can believe whatever you wish. Just know that your fanciful beliefs have repercussions. Nowyoumust deal with the consequences of the false hope you have given all of your supposed loved ones.”

Her eyes grew darker.

“Unfortunately, so mustI.You fed them false expectations, childish dreams, a fantasy of some ‘perfect world’ where humans and seers and vampires all supposedly live in harmony and equity… something we both know is unlikely in theextreme,if not outright impossible. If they are upset about losing that now, that is entirelyyourfault, Nick.”

Nick stared at her in disbelief. “You think they’d be happier thinking every dimension in the universe fucking hates their kind?”

“I think reality is always preferable to delusion, Nick.” She folded her arms tightly. “You need to grow up. Stop living in the past, with your dead seer husband, and join the present, with the living. Be here for Wynter, and for that seer child, who loves you.Theyneed you, Nick. Your mythical, long-dead world doesn’t. It hasn’t needed you for a long time.”

Nick bit his tongue harder.

He didn’t speak. He didn’t trust himself to speak.

St. Maarten continued coldly, “You need to face facts, like an adult––”

“Face facts?” Nick growled. “What facts would those be, Lara? The continual need for me to come and go whenever you click your manicured fingers? Purely because you feel entitled to own me, my wife, those two seer kids––?”

“Malek is an adult,” St. Maarten cut in.

“Only by human standards,” Nick retorted. “And he’s not exactly had anormallife, has he? Being forced to raise that kid since she was practically a baby?”

“What do you know of it?” St. Maarten re-folded her arms even tighter. “I’ve been looking after the two of them far longer than you have, Detective. You want to play father with them? Fine. I’ve not interfered, even though you’ve barelybeenin their lives, and you’ve hardly been a ‘good’ role model for either of them when you have been. Youstillknow almost nothing about what either is even capable of… or what it takes to keep them from doing immense harm to themselves and others…”

Nick felt his fangs extending as she continued.

Her voice grew more biting.

“…But, please, please,dofeel free to ‘educate’ me on who they are, Detective, as well as their circumstances in life, and what would be best for both of them. Clearly you knoweverythingabout them, and I know nothing. You surely know everything it entails to keep the girl, in particular, from accidentallykillingthe people she loves, like she did her parents. I’m sure it wouldn’t even occur to you tothankme for what I’ve done to keep her from killingyou,Detective. Or Ms. James. Or Kit, or Jordan, or Detective Morley, for that matter.”

She fingered more hair out of her face.

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