Page 35 of Almost Midnight

Not a single lit window could be seen along the entire blank surface of wall, despite the fifty-plus stories. Yet Nick had zero doubt that many, many pairs of eyes likely watched them from those same windows, and could see the dead bodies. That darkness was a tell in its own right. The first instinct in a place like this would be to make oneself invisible.

Tons of residents likely watched him and Morley look their way that very minute.

Morley took another sip from the horrible Yankees mug.

“N.Y.P.D. sent drones when the security perimeter got tripped,” Morley explained. “They think the original trigger was plasma rifle fire, so audio, but the perps shot down the flyer they sent down pretty quick, so they lost a lot of the data. The assassins might’ve worn heat-signature-disguising clothing as well. Masks, cloaks, and head coverings, so Gertrude didn’t get clear images of faces or bodies. They had their ident tats and implants covered with scramblers.”

Morley gave Nick a dour look.

“So far, officers are coming back with fuck-all from knocking doors, despite the several hundred windows facing this way,” the older human grunted, not hiding his annoyance. “No one’s willing to say dick. I doubt that will change, but they might send up some Midnights once they figure out which windows had the best vantage on the scene, see if they can venom them into telling us something. It won’t be admissible on its own, of course, but we could use it to find the perps, gather our own evidence along the way.”

Nick nodded expressionlessly, but he could read between the lines.

“You think this was vampires.” Nick didn’t say it like a question.

Morley shrugged. “I think theymight’vebeen vampires, yeah.” He motioned with the hand holding the gaudy, fading-neon mug. “They might’ve gone with the excessive head shots to cover up bites. Of course, there are a lot of other reasons they might not want their vics to be recognized, but given the focus on the necks, it’s a consideration.”

Nick nodded, his expression still.

He’d already wondered the same, truthfully.

There was no reason to use such a big weapon in such close quarters, and a lot of reasons not to, unless the victims were already dead and you were trying to obscure the race of the killers. It would only buy them time, of course.

“The squints will be able to verify all of that, of course,” Morley affirmed, as if Nick had spoken a portion of his thoughts aloud. “Until then, they want you and me to start knocking doors, too. At least until we can get a few more Midnights up here.”

Nick felt a little sick, but he only nodded.

Wynter wouldn’t like that, either.

She absolutely hated it when he bit anyone else, even for work.

Not for the first time, or the last, given he was now back in this world for real, and this was his life again, Nick wished he had some fucking control over how the case got run. If he was in charge of the case, he wouldn’t bother going after human eye witnesses at all.

He’d find someone in the Cauldron who worked this kind of black market shit for Yi or even for vampires, and see what he could find out from them.

Mostly likely, the lowliest bottom feeder in the Cauldron could tell them more than some low-level desk jockey schmuck who lived in one of these apartment buildings at might have glimpsed a guy getting shot in the face from a hundred feet away.

But Nick knew why the bosses would want to go this route.

They’d want humans to say they saw vampires feeding on these guys.

If they did, then they were going to make political hay on these deaths.

Nick found that pretty gross, personally. Not only would it not help them find the actual killers, it would likely inspire copycats and retaliation that would confuse the case even more. Anyway, these fucks and their racist Yi and Eifrah tattoos practically screamedcome fucking kill mewhen they wandered this close to the old Vamp District.

A lot of Nick’s brethren were still pretty pissed off at the bombings and widespread arson that targeted their ghetto.

It had thrown a lot of them onto the streets, and worse.

While most of the vampires who’d lived in the area had been the responsible, hard-working type of vampire, with registered work-designations and categories, who earned their regular H.R.A. live feeds and paid their taxes and dutifully picked up their synth blood bags every Tuesday from the dispensary, and allowed the government to violate them regularly in the name of being “one of the good ones,” there would definitely be some among them whodidn’tfall into that camp, and who might take things into their own hands.

There’d be some who maybe started out as “good” vampires, only to change their mind about that when humans came after them and their families.

That shit was fucking personal.

These jackasses, whoever they were, had been really fucking dumb, doing a deal this close to the Vampire District, with all of their bullshit Nazi tattoos visible and uncovered on their arms, and likely on their faces and necks, too, when they still had anything significant left of either.

Maybe they thought everyone had gone from this area, but they hadn’t.

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