The Prescient: A Science Fiction Vampire Detective Novel (Vampire Detective Midnight Book 3) by JC Andrijeski

Author:JC Andrijeski [Andrijeski, JC]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: White Sun Press
Published: 2019-08-29T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

The Second One

Nick knew it was coming.

It still managed to come out of nowhere.

The first explosion is when he heard something metallic snap.

An echoing, sonic kind of vibration, almost a twanging vibrated the elevator car—right before something hot slammed it violently from side to side. Nick felt the heat rise around the outside of the metal as it happened, raising the temperature more slowly on the inside where he and the human crouched.

Closing his eyes, he envisioned smoke, air, fire from the blast… some combination of all three.

He lost his balance in those first few seconds.

He lost it badly enough, he nearly fell.

He was forced to grab the bar with his second hand as he fought to stay on his feet.

The man next to him hit the floor, hard, then slammed against the wall to the right. He let out a shriek, a half-yell, a half-scream, slamming into the opposite end of the car before Nick reached out and grabbed hold of his arm, yanking him closer to where he crouched. When the shaking paused for a few seconds, he gripped the man’s shoulder, holding him down.

“Is it over?” the man said, shouting, panting, his voice rising.

“No—” Nick began.

The elevator car slammed sideways again, bouncing and jumping, then throwing them up in a hard snap. The violence of the jerk pulled the human halfway up to the ceiling of the car.

He yelled out in terror, flailing his arms and hands.

He reached for Nick, for the brass-plated walls.

When he collapsed onto the floor, Nick grabbed him a second time, right before the car started jumping again. The human would have hit his head on the brass bar, but Nick managed to hold him down that time, gripping him tight enough on the shoulder to keep him from flying up and braining himself on the car walls.

He could hear the explosions dying down.

They were still loud.

They were still really damned loud, especially to his vampire ears.

The diminishing rumbles trembled the elevator car, the cable swinging the car into the walls on either side, lurching it sickeningly back and forth… but Nick could hear the violence of the explosions receding.

The alarm on the elevator grew in his awareness at the same time, loud in his vampire-ears as he stared up at the flickering lights on the ceiling of the car.

“What’s down there?” Nick said, half-shouting. “What’s down on the lower floors? Anything besides the building lobby?”

The man blinking, panting.

He stared up at the flickering lights, his expression blank, his mouth ajar as he looked up past Nick, his eyes glassy.

“Hey!” Nick shook him, sharpening his words. “What’s on the lower floors? What are they targeting?”

“Nothing.” The man shook his head. His expression cleared marginally as Nick forced him to think, to try and answer him.

Since that had been at least part of Nick’s goal in asking, he felt his shoulders relax. He couldn’t afford to have the guy go into full-blown shock, not if he could help it.

“The ground floor doesn’t have much,” the human said.

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