The Nightlife Moscow

by Travis Luedke

  Urvashi watched them both, and sent a look of warning at Aaron. {{Keep a grip on your pet. If you want to survive the night, everyone must work together.}}

  With an arm squeezed around his pissed off vampire lover, he nodded once to his master. Michelle, ever sensitive to Aaron’s private communications with Urvashi, caught them staring at each other and snorted her disapproval.

  “Follow your master’s orders like the rest of her dogs.”

  Renault’s head snapped around. He’d assumed Michelle was talking to him. He took one look at Aaron’s face and laughed aloud. “Abruti.” Retard.

  It was shaping up to be a long night.

  * * * *

  Michelle shivered in the frigid night air as they stole down the half-lit alleys of northeast Moscow, working their way into the dilapidated slums of the Golyanovo District. Some of the more historic areas with chipped old brick and the tell-tale layering of many generations of patchwork renovations reminded her of those vicious nights so long ago when she hunted the rooftops of Paris, killing Nazis at every turn. Teeth fully elongated, claws out and ready, adrenaline sang through her veins. Not even the subzero Moscow winter could dampen her fervor to feast on the blood of men, as many as she could get her hands on.

  Aaron jogged at her side, silent, brooding. Unlike the militant wolves with their assault rifles and pockets of ammunition and grenades, Aaron carried only a pair of swords in a slim sheath beneath his jacket. The blades had served him well in London, and Michelle had to admit, her lover demonstrated a lethal grace with them.

  Michelle preferred to taste the last heartbeat of her kill, warm blood and the slick delight of entrails on her hands. Her former master Julian, sick son-of-a-bitch that he was, had instilled in her the long-standing habit of killing bare-handed. When necessary, and justified, Michelle truly enjoyed the art of killing. She had no problem embracing her desires. In fact, tonight, she looked forward to a return to the nights of yesteryear when her belly was full and her victims were many.

  The wolves signaled to stop when a pair of fifty story buildings came into view. Anatoly held out his hand for them to wait, then jogged ahead and slipped into the ground floor entryway of the left side building. The place had several boarded up windows, and in many cases sheets and blankets served as curtains. Everything about the place spoke of ruin and poverty, like a flashing neon sign with the words “Russian Ghetto – prostitutes and drugs complimentary.” Trou paumé – a godforsaken hole. Housing of last resort, but it was better to squat in a Stalin-era concrete shitbox than freeze to death on the streets. Although she’d surely find a few good meals within the rotted walls, this was not her choice of venue to enjoy Russian nightlife.

  Aaron scowled at the complex and then the wolves. “Why are we here? Expecting to find Dmitri slumming it?”

  Ivan shook his head and grinned. He glanced to Urvashi. “You did not tell them?”

  Urvashi locked eyes with Aaron, and then looked up the paint-peeling concrete walls to the rooftop. “This is where we catch our ride. I told you, we’re not walking in the front door of Dmitri’s mansion.”

  Aaron scowled back at his master then looked to Michelle. She shrugged. Michelle didn’t really care who, what, when or where, as long as they stayed out of her way when the killing started.

  * * * *

  At Anatoly’s signal, Aaron dashed across the empty street, following the wolves into a double set of steel doors that led to an open entryway of scuffed-broken asbestos tile flooring and dinged up lime-green walls. Anatoly held the right side door open for them as the wolves silently slipped through, single-file, to gather at the steel-grated window covering the front desk. Aaron sniffed the air, catching the scent of a man’s cologne, but no security guards showed their faces. As they passed the partially open door to the front desk, Aaron caught a wisp of chemical scent before he saw the man sprawled out on the dirty tile, his chair tipped over where he’d been taken down. The smell of Chloroform wafted around the man.

  Slinking around in the dark, geared up for war, he felt like he’d been transported into the midst of a Mission Impossible film. Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to kill a Russian vampire hiding in his fortified mansion protected by an army of militant mafia fuckers.

  He glanced to Michelle as her hungry eyes settled on the unconscious guard, ready to take a chunk out of the poor guy. He stopped her with a grip on her arm, and a whisper. “Not yet. You’ll get your fill soon enough.”

  Michelle growled low in her throat at being denied a meal.

  Katya looked at Michelle, then Aaron, a worried expression on her face. She glanced to Ivan who shook his head. Anatoly led them to an ancient elevator that reeked of cat piss, and they all crammed in for a ride to the top floor. Katya’s concerned eyes caught Aaron yet again.

  Aaron jabbed his gaze at each of the wolves in turn. “You know how it feels when you’re starving and haven’t eaten a decent meal in days?”

  A couple of wolves groaned with a not-again sound, but Katya nodded slowly. She was the only one in the elevator who felt the need to give blood, almost as much as Michelle needed to feed.

  “Imagine that feeling multiplied by ten.”

  The wolves rode the rest of the way up in silence, everyone ignoring the fact that they had starved Michelle to the edge of her control. Though Aaron’s belly churned with a gut gnawing pang, his appetite was only a shadow of Michelle’s need. Another beneficial side effect of feeding from Urvashi–his hunger for blood had mellowed significantly.

  At the top floor, Anatoly led them down a scarred hallway with tattered carpeting, apartment doors on either side. At the end of the hall he opened a dirty-beige steel door with suspicious dark red stains and stepped through to a concrete stairwell. The cement walls had no paint or plaster to cover the pock-marks and lines from the original construction. The interior decorators must have exhausted their lavish budget by the time they considered the stairwell.

  Aaron grabbed Michelle’s hand and pulled her up the stairs to a locked door that had some kind of Russian warning sign. Ivan stepped up with a lock-pick gun in hand and jigged it back and forth until the knob turned to click open.

  The powerful gust of freezing winds tried to slam the door closed, but Ivan shoved through and led the way out onto the rooftop. At fifty stories up, the wind cut through Aaron’s clothing with icy blades. He couldn’t remember a time when he was this cold. Shivering so bad he could barely speak, he chattered, “You people are fucking nuts! Who the hell hangs out on Moscow rooftops at Christmas?”

  Urvashi, little miss fallen angel, didn’t shiver once. She marched right out into the arctic gale winds and disappeared around the corner of a rust-covered rooftop HVAC unit. Everyone followed her around the corner, and a flat-black military helicopter came into view. The blades spun in a lazy-slow rotation, silent in the howl of the wind. A man sitting in the cockpit nodded to Renault.

  The bastard had connections. Either that or Urvashi did. As though reading his mind – she probably was – Urvashi winked at Aaron.

  Ivan slapped the angular side panels of the aircraft and grinned like a teenager with his first car. “We should have done this years ago!”

  Chapter 12

  Aaron and Michelle huddled together on the cold steel bench inside the helicopter across from Urvashi and the wolves. From the tenor of Michelle’s thoughts, Aaron knew she thought the same as him: This is so fucked up.

  Aaron noticed right away how Renault stayed aloof from the rest of the wolves, squatted down on one knee to the side. They all eyed him with none-too-friendly looks. There was bad blood somewhere in that deal.

  The helicopter leaned slightly as it banked into a turn, flying high above the city, staying above the ceiling of visibility. Aaron worried they’d be a floating target once they descended on Dmitri’s place. The guy would probably have some rooftop surveillance and security. Damn wolves. Going off half-cocked again.

  Finally, his curiosity overca
me the chattering of his teeth. “How are we going in? Won’t they see us trying to land a helicopter on the roof?”

  Ivan snickered. “Who said we’re landing?”

  Ivan’s perverse sense of humor had gotten old – fast. “How the fuck are we getting in if we don’t land?”

  Anatoly laughed aloud and reached down into a duffle bag filled with gear. He pulled out several nylon harnesses and heavy black ropes. “We go in quiet, deadly.” He ran a finger across his throat.

  Ivan’s broad grin shone white in the darkness of the helicopter interior. “Tonight, we are not wolves. We are assassins dropping from the sky.”

  Anatoly handed out the harnesses to each person and strapped one around his waist and upper thighs. Aaron watched in utter disbelief. These fools were planning to drop him and Michelle out of a helicopter without any training whatsoever.

  “I’ve never done this before!” He yelled over the top of the heavy thrum of the helicopter.

  Urvashi looked at the harnesses in Aaron’s hands and shook her head. She leaned across and snatched the nylon away from him. Instead of yelling over the top of the rotors, she spoke directly into his mind. {{I am leading this, not them. Do not fear. Everything is in order.}}

  A protest came to his lips, but he shut his yap. Though he’d rather not admit it in front of the men, he found it very difficult to trust the wolves. Their lack of organization and communication scared the shit out of him. The wolves seemed to know what they were doing, but hadn’t bothered to let Aaron and Michelle in on their plans. He hated following their enigmatic lead. But he would follow Urvashi. She kept far too many secrets for his comfort, yet he trusted her with his life.

  Michelle squeezed his hand and her eyes bored into his with the unspoken. She left her mind wide open, and he saw clearly what she had to say. Ropes, helicopters, whatever. None of it mattered to her. She wanted to kill everything in her path and gorge herself on the blood of her victims.

  The chopper flight path crossed the winding Moskva River twice as they flew south and west, to the far reaches of Moscow where the city thinned out into more residential areas. After circling around once, Aaron realized their destination, the biggest building in the area, the only place surrounded with a concrete fence. Aaron’s unnaturally clear night vision honed in on the massive compound below. The place could have been a luxury palace fit for kings, but the assault-proof fence topped with steel spikes and razor wire ruined the effect. The setup had to be worth double digit millions, maybe even triple digit.

  Moscow harbored more billionaires than any other city in the world. Looking at Dmitri’s fortress, the bastard was obviously one of the many fat cats swelling the statistics. As they descended, he noticed finer details of the statues, fountains, and shrub-lined pavement that encircled what was actually two separate mansions. A massive portico with huge pillars framed the doorways of both buildings. Each mansion could have been a modern replacement for the Whitehouse. The layout was easily fifty plus acres. Though a heavy blanket of snow covered everything, the walkways and driveways had been cleared, just like major city streets. Dmitri must command an army of attendants and security to keep a place like this in order.

  “Impressive, no?” Ivan grinned like a madman. He had to be batshit crazy to think their gang of misfits could actually take on someone protected in this fortress. They’d probably have an easier time trying to assassinate the President.

  We’re gonna get lost in this fucking place.

  No wonder Dmitri’s men had found them so easily the other night. He probably had paid informants on every street corner in Moscow. Ivan’s assertions that Dmitri had affected the course of Russian history suddenly sounded much more believable in light of the monstrous double mansions. A man with this kind of wealth and power could do anything. Worse, he would kill anything or anyone to keep that position.

  Anatoly said something to the pilot, and pointed at the top of the southern building. The chopper slipped through the night, humming its stealth blades into position fifty feet above the roof. No sooner had they stopped to hover over the mansion, than Nikolay slid open the side door and slapped his rope clasp into an overhead steel rung. A second later he stepped out into the arctic wind and slid down the rope.

  One by one the wolves followed Nikolay’s example, sliding off backwards as they rappelled down onto the roof. Renault, the smug bastard, grinned at Aaron in challenge as he shoved off into the wind and slid down his rope. Katya was the last of the wolves to go. The brat winked at him and blew a kiss on her way out. Though frozen in the subzero wind chill, he felt his face warm with embarrassment that he wasn’t bold enough to try rappelling.

  Urvashi stood between Aaron and Michelle offering an arm to each of them. “Hold on.” Her voice seemed to carry unnaturally over the hum of wind and rotors.

  She stepped up to the open door with the vampires in hand and winked at Aaron. “Jump.”

  And they did.

  Though he knew he could survive the fall and live to fight another day, if he landed wrong on the icy rooftop, he might be out of action for the night. He struggled against the urge to close his eyes and pray. As the ground flew up towards his feet he felt a hard jerk upward from Urvashi’s painfully strong grip. A subtle flash of energy flared beneath them and all momentum slowed to a crawl. Only her crushing hold on his arm kept him from dropping out as she arrested their fall and touched down gently on the icy blacktop roof. She had somehow cushioned their landing with her telekinetic power.

  Aaron looked to his master in awe, and caught another split-second flash of the thing hidden beneath the human mask. When she flexed her power like this, she revealed her true form. Although grateful for her abilities, the thing beneath the Kim Kardashian skinsuit gave him a bad case of the creeps.

  The ropes dropped from the chopper and it hummed away, leaving them no option but to go forward with this ridiculous plan. The wolves already made their way down the roof to the edge, assault rifles with night vision scopes at the ready. They looked like a special ops team sneaking up on Osama Bin Hiding.

  He, Michelle and Urvashi trailed after the wolves, slipping and sliding on the ice-encrusted slope of the roof. Squatted along the roof edge, the wolves surveyed the grounds with their night-vision scopes, looking for any sign they’d been detected.

  Ivan waved Aaron and Urvashi over to his side. He pointed down the wall towards a window with a small semicircular balcony. “We enter here. Anatoly will go first.” Urvashi nodded and Aaron nodded right along with her, glad they weren’t trying to send him in first.

  Michelle crept up silent beside Aaron and tapped Ivan’s shoulder. “I will follow him.” Ivan and Urvashi gave her identical looks of alarmed suspicion. She growled low and snapped. “I have been hunting in the darkness for decades. Do not deny me!”

  Ivan held up his hand to silence her, but answered her demand with a terse nod. Aaron didn’t like it any more than Ivan did. The woman was wound tight as a bowstring, ready to snap.

  Urvashi’s intense look came with another psychic bump. {{She is your responsibility. Ensure that she doesn’t jeopardize our mission.}}

  Fuck. Stuck babysitting the psycho vampire bullet magnet on a killing spree. The fun never ends in Moscow.

  Anatoly gripped the indentations in the brick fascia for handholds and quickly climbed down onto the balcony. Using a lockpick gun, he opened the door and worked his way inside. As soon as he slipped through, Michelle flowed off the side of the building and landed on the balcony silent as a cat burglar. She was in the door faster than Aaron could curse her name.

  Urvashi’s intense eyes flashed with another warning {{Get control of her!}}. Aaron scooted off the side of the building to follow his errant lover. He plopped down onto the balcony in a not-so-graceful thud, and raced past Anatoly after Michelle. Anatoly did a double take on Michelle as she lit through the room, making a beeline for the nearest warm body. It was an oversized bedroom suite, with a huge four poster bed, and a lone ma
n who had begun to wake up from the disturbance they were making at the balcony.

  Aaron hoped to god it was Dmitri as Michelle landed on the unsuspecting man. Her teeth settled into his throat with a wet crunch, and she sucked his blood down so hard and fast that the man went into coronary in a matter of seconds. His body was dead by the time she sat up for air, a wondrous look of satisfaction on her red-smeared lips.

  Anatoly stared at her sideways, as if she’d grown a beard. His eyebrows raised, obvious fear in his face, he pointed at her. “She was hungry, dah?”

  Aaron nodded.

  The rest of the wolves gathered inside the room and quietly closed the balcony door while Ivan checked the corpse in bed. His eyes scrunched up and he looked to the wolves.

  “Who was it?” Nikolay asked in a hushed whisper. Both Ivan and Michelle shrugged their shoulders at the same time. She had killed a man, probably a servant, and no one had a clue who he was. The guy never even had a chance to wake up properly before she sucked him dry.

  This was not the Michelle Aaron had lived with the past four months. Hunger and anxiety had stripped away her usually rigid self-control. He wondered where his lover had disappeared to, and when she might come back to him … if ever. She was up off the bed and headed for the doorway without another word.

  Urvashi’s command slapped his mind. {{Follow her! She is your responsibility.}}

  Michelle slipped out the door, and Aaron jetted after her. The hallway was wide and long, stretching over a hundred feet in both directions. Michelle stood poised, her nose wrinkled once to the left, and she flitted off so fast she blurred out of focus.

  “Fuck.”

  It was all Aaron could do to follow her without sounding like a freight train running down the hallway. Doing his best to maintain stealth, he slid up on her as she stood overlooking a three foot high railing that led to a grand staircase curving down to the lower level. She tested the scents on the air and peered through the darkness into a huge open area, a great room with vaulted ceilings that reached high above. A slight whisper of sound caught her attention.