Fang & Metal: A Science Fiction Vampire Detective Novel (Vampire Detective Midnight Book 4) Read online

  FANG & METAL

  A Science Fiction Vampire Detective Novel

  JC Andrijeski

  Books in the Vampire Detective Midnight Series

  (Recommended Reading Order)

  VAMPIRE DETECTIVE MIDNIGHT (Book #1)

  EYES OF ICE (Book #2)

  THE PRESCIENT (Book #3)

  FANG & METAL (Book #4)

  Books in the Quentin Black Mystery Series

  (Recommended Reading Order)

  BLACK IN WHITE (Book #1)

  Kirev’s Door (Book #0.5)

  BLACK AS NIGHT (Book #2)

  Black Christmas (Book #2.5)

  BLACK ON BLACK (Book #3)

  Black Supper (Book #3.5)

  BLACK IS BACK (Book #4)

  BLACK AND BLUE (Book #5)

  Black Blood (Book #5.5)

  BLACK OF MOOD (Book #6)

  BLACK TO DUST (Book #7)

  IN BLACK WE TRUST (Book #8)

  BLACK THE SUN (Book #9)

  TO BLACK WITH LOVE (Book #10)

  BLACK DREAMS (Book #11)

  BLACK OF HEARTS (Book #12)

  BLACK HAWAII (Book #13)

  Books in the Bridge & Sword Series

  (Recommended Reading Order)

  New York (Bridge & Sword Prequel Novel #0.5)

  ROOK (Bridge & Sword #1)

  SHIELD (Bridge & Sword #2)

  SWORD (Bridge & Sword #3)

  Revik (Bridge & Sword Prequel Novel #0.1)

  SHADOW (Bridge & Sword #4)

  KNIGHT (Bridge & Sword #5)

  WAR (Bridge & Sword #6)

  BRIDGE (Bridge & Sword #7)

  Trickster (Bridge & Sword Prequel Novel #0.2)

  The Defector (Bridge & Sword Prequel Novel #0.3)

  PROPHET (Bridge & Sword #8)

  A Glint of Light (Bridge & Sword #8.5)

  DRAGON (Bridge & Sword #9)

  The Guardian (Bridge & Sword #0.4)

  SUN (Bridge & Sword #10)

  Other books by JC AndriJeski

  Alien Apocalypse

  The Culling (Part I)

  The Royals (Part II)

  The New Order (Part III)

  The Rebellion (Part IV)

  The Rings Fighter (Prequel)

  Standalones

  Shadow Wings

  Red Magic

  Copyright © 2020 by JC Andrijeski

  Published by White Sun Press

  Cover Art & Design by Damonza.com (2020)

  Ebook Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please visit an official vendor for the work and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

  Dedicated to

  Jem

  Contents

  Synopsis

  1. A Malfunction

  2. Ana

  3. Vampires Don’t Dream

  4. A Weird Scene

  5. Dead Midnight

  6. The Wall

  7. Metal And Flesh

  8. Is It Murder, Though?

  9. Daydreams

  10. Another Favor

  11. The Jungle

  12. Panic Room

  13. Him Again

  14. Ideas Are Like Poison

  15. All Of It

  16. A Missing Piece

  17. You Like Me

  18. The Real Reason You’re Here

  19. Seers And Their Gifts

  20. The Phone Call

  21. Bad Man

  22. Really Mad

  23. Found Again

  24. Not Even A Little

  25. Making A Run For It

  26. Memories In The Dark

  27. Dressing Room

  28. Looking For Wynter

  29. Panic

  30. Metal And Bone

  31. Bunker

  32. Hacking The Light

  33. The Other Seer

  34. A Foolish Thing To Do

  35. Waffles

  36. Mutual Understanding

  What to read next

  Sample Pages

  Prologue / Palace

  1 / Suspect

  2 / First Interview

  Untitled

  Series Summaries

  List of Book Titles

  About the Author

  Synopsis

  Someone wants all the vampires dead.

  They may have found the perfect weapon.

  Weirdest crime scene ever? Check. Guy eaten by a sentient wall? Check.

  Every shady government agency in existence playing coverup? Check.

  But is it murder?

  Nick Tanaka, vampire homicide detective for the NYPD, stumbles into a political minefield when their new Midnight, a rookie vampire cop straight out of the police academy, shows up dead inside a high security vault. Morley, Nick’s boss, wants answers, but no one wants the NYPD on the case.

  As a favor to Morley, Nick agrees to help, going to his contacts in the military-industrial complex to try and find answers.

  Instead, he uncovers a conspiracy led by a murderous fanatic and his band of “blood-purity” crazies, who appear to want nothing less than all-out race war.

  Worse, his hybrid girlfriend, Wynter James, is now in their crosshairs, too.

  Book #4 of the Vampire Detective Midnight series.

  VAMPIRE DETECTIVE MIDNIGHT is a romantic science fiction and fantasy series set in a futuristic, dystopian New York populated by vampires, humans and psychics trying to rebuild their world after a devastating race war nearly obliterates the previous one.

  A spinoff of the Quentin Black Mystery series, it features vampire with a past and homicide detective, Naoko “Nick” Tanaka, who gets transferred to the NYPD after a bad incident in Los Angeles forces him to start a new life. Nick works as a “Midnight,” or vampire in the employ of the human police department, but when he arrives in New York, he really just wants to be left alone to work, surf, and deal with his immortality in peace.

  Life, and the residents of New York, clearly have other ideas.

  Chapter 1

  A Malfunction

  “Excuse me… hi. Yes, hello. Are you the only security guard here?”

  Horace stared at her from behind the desk.

  Where had she even come from?

  Her voice was low, feminine, husky, strangely melodious. Something about it pulled his eyes and mind off the game show he’d been watching––yet without alarming him at how close she’d managed to get to his work station without him noticing.

  When he met her gaze, she smiled.

  That smile wiped out the last trace of his interest in the game show––really, in any of the countless distractions he’d been flipping through on the virtual screen inside his headset.

  “Are you working alone?” she said, that smile warmer. “Is someone else here?”

  Horace Ha blinked up at her.

  He hadn’t seen or heard a damned thing she’d said, not until a few seconds’ delay had passed. It didn’t help that she was maybe the prettiest woman he’d ever seen in real life. Long black hair draped over her shoulders in soft curls, framing a heart-shaped face with clear blue eyes, a full, sensual mouth, long lashes, high cheekbones.

  He glanced at the virtual screen inside his headset, ju
st long enough to note he had all the security and motion sensors up in the background, like always. He’d turned the audio for the motion detector alarm off, because of that malfunction they’d gotten in the basement, so that explained part of why he hadn’t been alerted to her presence.

  Still, he normally would have noticed any flicker of movement picked up by the cameras over the door leading into the security building’s lobby.

  He looked her over as his mind fought to catch up.

  Late twenties. Maybe early thirties.

  He couldn’t quite tear his eyes off hers, or off those long lashes.

  She was disturbingly, distractingly pretty.

  It took him a few seconds to decide why he was struggling so hard to think past that fact. It wasn’t like he never saw beautiful women in New York. There was something about her, specifically, that pulled him in a way that made him distinctly uncomfortable.

  Maybe because it felt entirely outside his control.

  Her lips and eyes continued to smile at him.

  Her thick black hair made her skin appear paler than it might have otherwise, but her expression remained friendly, almost intimate, without Horace ever feeling she was flirting with him, or playing mind games. One perfectly sculpted brow lifted in a still-polite question when Horace didn’t answer.

  “Are you alone, friend?” she prodded. “We picked up a second person on surveillance.”

  She wore a business suit, deep black, with a pale blue shirt underneath, one that matched her eyes. Then Horace noticed something else, something more relevant. The headset that wrapped around the back of her neck didn’t look civilian.

  That fact clicked with what he’d just said, and he found he understood why she was there.

  She had to be with one of the authority bureaus.

  They must have picked up his flag.

  For a few seconds, even with his new understanding, he couldn’t make himself look away from her eyes.

  Then he realized something else.

  She was wearing contacts. The pale blue lenses were likely meant to reassure him, to make him feel more at ease with her, but now that he noticed, he imagined the cracked-crystal irises that likely lived underneath.

  Vampire.

  He couldn’t say with one hundred percent certainty, but he would have bet a few hundred credits he was right. She was a vampire. That explained everything that unnerved him about her… her sneaking up on him, that stunning face, her melodious, predatory voice, the feeling of being both turned on and half-afraid.

  A lot of them wore contact lenses now.

  She seemed to sense the change in him.

  Those dark-red, lipstick-drawn lips, the color a perfect match for a ring that glinted from one finger, pinched in a bare frown.

  Her voice shifted from friendly to bluntly official.

  “Midnight,” she said, pulling a badge out of her jacket and showing it to him. “We got a ping for the silent alarm. Said you caught some kind of anomaly in the vaults? I was told they got hits for two employees, not one. Where’s your partner?”

  Horace Ha blinked.

  Her words penetrated slowly, like water around a porous rock.

  Eventually, the meaning of those words snapped him out of his less-than-polite staring.

  “I called it in––”

  “I know,” she cut in, a faint pinch now altering the set of her otherwise perfect mouth. “That’s why I’m here.” Pausing at his silence, she said, “Are you here alone?” Those pale blue, crystalline irises focused on his nametag. “…Horace?”

  After another too-long pause, he nodded.

  “Yes,” he said, flushing, and now embarrassed. “Errr… no. The company sent their own private security guy, someone who handles break-ins specifically. He went down there to check the vault in person. The anomaly, as you said.”

  Her perfectly-drawn lips tilted into a deeper frown.

  “He really shouldn’t have done that––”

  “He’s a vampire, too.” Horace blurted the words, flushing more when he realized what he’d said. “I’m sorry. I just mean… he can probably take care of himself.”

  Pausing awkwardly, still flushing, he added,

  “I really didn’t think they’d send anyone. I reported it, because it’s the law, but I figured it was an equipment problem. My bosses did, too. They told me if anyone in law enforcement saw my notice, you’d just look at it from there. From the station––”

  “We did,” she said.

  Even with her brusque, businesslike tone, her voice vibrated a low, husky purr.

  “Or I should say… they did,” she amended. “The tech team at the NYPD assessed the feeds you sent. The A.I. did a diagnostic check of your systems, looking for a malfunction that might have caused the readings you got. The problem is… Horace… that diagnostic came up negative. Your security system read as golden. Yet, the tech team noted the same anomalies in the vault you reported.”

  Pausing, she added,

  “The boss didn’t like it. They sent me.”

  “A Midnight?” He frowned. “I thought you only did blood.”

  There was a silence.

  Then the gorgeous, black-haired vampire gave a delicate shrug, tossing her head to get her black hair over one shoulder.

  “I was closest,” she said. “Sometimes, it’s just the luck of the draw, Horace. I was closest, and I had the time. So here I am.”

  Quirking her lips, she added, deadpan,

  “…And there could be blood. You never know.”

  Horace stared.

  From the flatness of her expression, he really couldn’t tell if she was joking, or not.

  Impatience grew visible in her eyes.

  “Can you take me down there?” she said, her voice back to politely patient. “Or are you hoping I will simply leave, Horace, if you continue to stare at me like that?”

  Horace flushed.

  His face grew so hot, he couldn’t speak.

  Stumbling over his tongue and lips, he rose abruptly to his feet, banging his knees on the desk. Wincing, biting his lip, he leaned down, pressing his thumb against the DNA scanner for the second time that night, flinching at the blood prick right before the light over the encased cylinder key went from red to blue.

  He spoke a code into his headset, using sub-vocals. He used his eyes to hit through a color and shape sequence only he could see. Once the mechanism verified his identity and unlocked, Horace grabbed the pale green security key from its holder.

  “Of course,” he managed by then, still tripping over his words, still blushing, his skin warm enough, he suspected his ears were bright red. “Of course. I’m very sorry, Ma’am. I’ll take you down there right away.”

  Avoiding her eyes, Horace Ha pulled himself out from behind the security console and desk, knowing both would lock down the moment he left them, refusing access to anyone who didn’t have the proper DNA.

  He banged his knee a second time on the way out, and winced, rubbing it.

  He didn’t glance back to see how the vampire detective reacted.

  Instead, he limp-walked towards the elevator bank, heading for the security elevator, the only one in operation when the building’s upstairs offices were closed.

  He glanced back at the female vampire only after he’d put the security key into the locking mechanism to the right of the door.

  Waiting for the key to verify access, he hesitated, then spoke to her.

  “I apologize,” he said. “We’re happy for the help. I just hadn’t expected anyone, and then I got two vam––” Cutting himself off, he gave her a forced, awkward smile. “I don’t get a lot of people in here at night.”

  She gave him a sideways look, gliding between her feet in a more graceful version of how humans sometimes fidgeted while waiting for elevators.

  He wasn’t sure what to make of her glance, not at first.

  He was relieved to see the frown briefly leave those full lips.

  “It’s q
uite all right, friend,” she assured him.

  He heard the barest trace of an accent that time, but couldn’t identify where it was from. He was tempted to ask her, to try and make small talk, but he worried he might inadvertently offend her again.

  Vampires could be touchy.

  Not like Horace knew a lot of vampires. He didn’t.

  His best friend, Mike, was what you might call a vampire expert, at least for a human. In his job at the I.S.F., he worked with a lot of vamps.

  He’d warned Horace not to piss them off.

  As the elevator doors opened, Horace caught the Midnight looking at him again.

  “You should call your security expert,” she said, before he could ask. “You should let him know we’re coming down. And check in. See if he found anything.”

  Her words flustered him all over again.

  Horace wanted to act normal, to treat her just like anyone.

  He didn’t know how to act normally around her. He didn’t know how to pretend she wasn’t a vampire––a ridiculously hot, female vampire cop, who kept talking to him like they were the same, like they weren’t completely different.