Nocturne | ONC 2024

Fourteen: Negotiation

"What did she say to you?"

Aaron glanced sidelong at the vampire in the driver's seat beside him.

"Don't tell me you couldn't hear her from there. I thought vamps could hear a penny drop from a mile off."

Nikolai's face didn't change, but his hands tightened on the steering wheel. Just slightly. "She was warding against me."

"Against you?" Aaron asked, surprised. "Or vamps in general?"

"In general," Nikolai replied. "But nevertheless effective. I suspect she only works with the werewolves."

Judging by his own experience so far, Aaron couldn't really blame her. One species was hard enough to deal with. He settled back in the seat. The atmosphere in the car was strange; almost back to how it had been before, but not quite. There was an edge to it, as if they were both waiting for the other to make a move.

"But in that moment, me specifically," Nikolai said after a moment of terse silence, as if the admission was dragged from him. "She stopped me from hearing you the minute she touched your hand."

Aaron swallowed. The sorceress hadn't seemed pleased to see Meier, and if she had made her offer to him in such a way, he doubted he should be repeating it now. He couldn't trust Nikolai, not as much as he had been at any rate. He couldn't shake Bill's warnings from that morning.

"Have you met?" he asked carefully, instead of answering.

A flash of irritable violet. "As usual, Evans, she's probably familiar with my reputation. We've never met, as far as I can recall."

"And as I've said before, quite the reputation you have. Everyone seems to know you, or know of you." He frowned out of the passenger window. "Except the human authorities, apparently."

"I don't make a habit of working with humans."

"Because they're annoying?" A sharp glance. Aaron met it, made himself stare the vampire out. "I'm only parroting your words back at you, Meier. Is that why you won't talk about last night? Because I was a slip-up?"

"We don't need to do this now."

He shifted in the seat to face Nikolai. "No, we do. If you don't care, that's fine, but I do. I want to know why you're bothering yourself with me at all." He swallowed. "I want to know where you think it's been going."

"And that achieves what, exactly?"

He'd never managed to get under Nikolai's skin before; it was almost unsettling. And infuriating, that the vampire didn't seem to understand why he wanted to talk about this.

But he stopped himself from biting out the words queuing on his tongue. Made himself sit back, took a few steadying breaths.

"It won't happen again," Nikolai finally ground out.

"Fine." He couldn't help a last jab. "But if it meant nothing, why did you bother picking me up?"

Silence.

Then, "I never said it meant nothing."

-

"Another Nocturne." Bill sat back on his side of the desk, hands clasped over his midriff and a deep frown on his face. "That could be the worst of all outcomes."

Between them sat the laptop and the amulet in its evidence bag. Nikolai sat still as a statue on the chair beside Aaron, saying nothing. He'd said nothing since they'd arrived at the station, and Aaron was glad of it.

"Tell me about it," Aaron muttered. "But it makes an upsetting amount of sense."

"What's your view, Meier?" Bill asked. He did a better job than Aaron had of pretending everything was congenial, though Aaron had caught him looking between the two of them with deep suspicion when they'd entered the station lobby together.