by Anna Abner
He smelled fresh blood as Olek fed his three acolytes from nearby soldiers’ throats.
Maks didn’t care. His little bird had been cut into pieces. He would never care about anything again.
“How?” He cradled Katya’s head. “We are not animals. We are not experiments.”
Not that the U.S. Army hadn’t tried. For twenty years they’d been cutting imprisoned vampires open, testing their blood, pushing the limits of their mortality. Volk and Olek had been their preferred test subjects, though, and Volk had endured an eternity of pain and agony.
He would repay every second.
“I swear to you,” Olek said as his three warriors rose up around him, “we will make the human race suffer for what they have done. We will burn their world to the ground.”
Olek started to walk away, but Volk didn’t follow. He curled around Katya’s remains and was content to die from the grief splitting him in two.
“We go.” Olek grabbed Maks’ collar and pulled.
Maks scrambled to keep a hold of Katya’s skull, but he was only able to snatch her necklace off her neck, pulling strands of red hair with it before his master tossed him, Freddie, Dawn, and Lara into a Humvee with an unconscious soldier.
If he must live a little longer, then he’d get his revenge.
While they drove out of the base and into the mountains, Maks sank his teeth into the dying soldier’s throat, Katya’s locket clenched in his hand.
Chapter Two
Three months later…
A bus tour to the Hoover Dam wasn’t answering any of Alina Rusenko’s questions. It was a distraction.
She rolled her head on her shoulders to alleviate the headache she’d carried around since landing in the sweltering Nevada heat ten days ago and caught sight of her cousin Stefan sitting across the aisle from her.
“How much further?” she asked.
Stefan grunted something unintelligible and went back to sleep. Her cousin suffered DVD withdrawals. This was the longest she’d seen him off the sofa and away from his widescreen telly all weekend.
Her extended family in Paradise, Nevada were strangers. They’d been nice enough to house her while she searched for answers about her early life, but the more questions she asked, the more tours they sent her on. And every single time Stefan accompanied her as protection. Her bodyguard. What a joke.
At home in London, Dad never would’ve sent her off on a road trip with a near stranger. Working as a shopgirl was the most dangerous activity Dad allowed her to do. But Dad was dead, and he couldn’t object to anything anymore.
The wind picked up, and she smelled sagebrush and dust through the open windows as she checked her phone. Twelve-thirty, local time. Grumbling, she unpacked her brown-bag lunch. Carrot sticks. Hummus. A can of soda she passed to Stefan. Her aunt Natalie was trying to accommodate Ali’s vegetarianism, but it was hit or miss. Today was pretty good.
She munched on her food and stared at the passing desert wasteland.
All her life, she’d accepted as gospel that she’d been born in Odessa, Ukraine. Her mother’s name was Katherine Kirstak, and she’d died giving birth to Ali.
But after Dad passed away from a massive coronary, she found keys to a safe deposit box she’d never known about. Inside was a photograph of a red-haired young woman and a marriage certificate for Uri Rusenko and Kate Kirstak. The ceremony had taken place in Odessa, Ukraine.
Stranger still, were records from a secret bank account. Her dad had been sending money to an account in Las Vegas, Nevada for the past twenty years. Almost the same time Ali had been alive on the earth. Finally, discovering letters and emails from an aunt and uncle Ali had never heard of—her dad had always claimed to be an only child—had been the final straw. She’d closed up his house and booked a plane ticket to Sin City.
Why would Dad lie? That was the most perplexing part of the entire mystery. What was he hiding? And why?
To her, Vegas was the city for marrying in a hurry, gambling away fortunes, and hiring hookers. Plus the urban legend that after the vampire horde had been defeated in Prague, the U.S. Army had hidden them in the Nevada desert. But neither of those things had anything to do with her or her family. So, what was Dad’s secret?
A classic yellow Jeep straight out of the eighties passed the tour bus on the left, disappearing from view.
Ali chewed a carrot stick. Maybe there was no mystery. After five days in Paradise, Nevada she’d seen the Grand Canyon, the Las Vegas Strip, and Death Valley, but she was no closer to understanding the identity of the redhead in the photo, why it appeared her dad was married a second time, who he was bankrolling on the down low, or why he’d lied about having an extended family. Maybe he was just a secretive guy. He’d kept her secret her whole life. He was good at hiding things.
Ali leaned her head against the seat rest and watched an endless expanse of sand broken by scraggly creosote bushes with tiny yellowish-green leaves. The bus was quiet enough for a quick nap. Several of her fellow tourists were already asleep, including her brutish cousin.
She removed her ponytail to rest more comfortably, smoothing the sticky blonde strands off her neck when something in the air around her shifted, an almost imperceptible change, like the atmosphere before a thunderstorm.
The bus driver slammed on the brakes, swerved, and crossed the center line when gunshots sounded, and he overcorrected. The bus tipped. For a breathless moment, the enormous vehicle hung suspended as it balanced on two wheels. The driver, though, couldn’t return them safely to their proper position. Ali was thrown against the opposite seat, glass exploding as the bus crashed onto its side and slid sideways across asphalt.
The bus ground to a stop in the sand, but the world continued to spin.
The shrieking was deafening. “Stefan?” she called. “Can you hear me?” Her foot was twisted among the seats and tossed luggage. Though nothing seemed broken, she’d been through a blender, and her head felt twice its normal size.
“Alina?” Stefan’s face appeared above her. “Are you hurt?”
She smelled kerosene, and she reached for Stefan’s hand at the same time a flaming glass bottle sailed down through the bus’ front door and burst against the driver.
Oh, God. Not real. The room temperature jumped several ticks as a wave of heat blasted the side of her face. Yep, real. Orange and red flames washed up the benches and crawled across the aisle. A second bottle broke against a man’s back, transforming him into a human torch. She screamed.
People rushed the rear of the vehicle, trampling each other. They bottlenecked at the emergency exit, everyone shoving to reach the handle first. She shuddered, her brain refusing to compute. It was like watching a horror film.
Stefan lifted her by the arm and shoved her toward the second exit to her left. The one closer to the fire. Her long sleeves and trousers tripped her up, tangling her limbs, but her cousin yanked her along. The flames spread, leaping across the seats.
A young man dropped through the front door of the overturned bus, landing gracefully atop the smoking steering wheel. An inhuman maneuver. Which meant one thing.
Vampire.
She’d never seen a real, live infected before. Only heard stories. The man with the midnight black hair was younger than she was and so out of place in a pair of dark slacks and a well-made shirt amidst the smoke and chaos, Ali wondered for a moment if she hadn’t passed out and begun dreaming.
His cold, blue eyes locked on her face, and he seemed momentarily entranced by her, not the other way around. And then everything became very, very real. That whole unattached observer thing—long gone.
There was no safe place to go but to the rear of the bus. Ali bolted. Outside, she’d be safe from the fire and the vampire. She could find a passing car and call for help. Fresh air and room to run became super important priorities. Stefan was right behind her.
Until he wasn’t.
She glanced back as the teenaged vampire cut her cousin’s throat from ear
to ear, and Stefan’s blood sizzled through the flames.
Panic surged through her, forcing her to move faster. She scrambled, dry heaving on the way, choking on smoke. There would be time for crying later. When she was alone. Until then, she must hold it in and use it like jet fuel in her escape.
They’d passed a miniscule town twenty minutes back. Someone in one of the houses would help her. One moment he was on the other side of the bus and the next the vampire locked his bloody fingers around her wrist. She couldn’t pull free no matter how hard she tried.
“No,” she said, struggling with the emergency hatch now at eye level. One-handed, she couldn’t even wiggle it.
She should have stayed a simple shopgirl, should have remained in London where tour buses weren’t attacked by infecteds and burned down with people still inside. She was going to lose it. Scream, puke, pass out. Something bubbled up inside her.
No, no, no.
The vampire hauled her toward the front of the bus. She fought, but it was useless.
Please let it be over quick. Kill me, drain my blood, but don’t start eating my insides until I’m dead.
In a hurry, he dragged her over the seats of the overturned bus, walking right over Stefan— No. Don’t think about that now. She’d lose her last thread of control.
The vampire dragged her through a wall of fire, and she ducked her head, the flames singeing her hair and scorching the long sleeves of her blouse.
As if she didn’t weigh a thing, he hauled her to the bus doors, now above her head. With a single swing of momentum, he tossed her up through the doors and onto the side of the bus. The metal was scorching hot, though, and she rolled off, landing hard in the dirt.
The vampire alighted beside her.
“What do you want?” she pleaded.
Not even pretending he might answer, he forced her onto her feet. Under the scents of smoke and blood, he smelled nice. Vicious murderers weren’t supposed to smell good.
A vehicle approached, its engine roaring as it circled the bus and then stopped fast a hundred feet away. Her lucky, lucky day. Praying the pickup was chock full of police, the army even, Ali fought to free herself or at least warn them the well-dressed young man beside her was a killer without conscience.
A young man hopped out of the passenger seat with a rifle aimed at her. Or possibly aimed at the vampire, it was hard to say. Struggling against her abductor was useless. His arms were like metal bands.
The vampire pulled her more fully in front of him, clasped her fingers with his right hand and held his dirty knife near her throat with his left. Though everything about the vampire at her back screamed threat, he didn’t hurt her, didn’t cut her. Irrationally, her hand spasmed, clutching his more tightly, but the teen vampire’s full attention was on the tall, armed man in front of the truck and only marginally on her.
“Please,” she cried, her voice catching. Damn it. Stupid family mysteries. She should be at home in her little flat in Hampstead, not about to die a painful death in the middle of a road that led, literally, nowhere. The infected pointed the blade of his knife at the man with the rifle as if it were a warning before returning it to the side of her throat. Ali closed her eyes, her muscles tensing.
The rifle fired, the vampire’s body seized, and maybe without even meaning to, he cut her. A pinch of pain, and then warm blood gurgled over her collarbone. Making a sound of pain and surprise, the vampire fled.
“Oh, shit.” Ali dropped to her knees, her head spinning like a carnival ride. She slapped her fingers to the cut, but blood flowed through them, around them, down her chest. The guy across the desert had shot at her. Yeah, he’d only hit the vampire, but that wasn’t the point.
Like a crushed flower, she wilted onto her back and blinked at the blindingly bright sun above her.
Voices pinged back and forth above her head. Strange, disembodied voices. A man and a woman.
“It was Maksim Volk. Did you see him?”
“He’s gone. Let’s get out of here.”
“She needs help.”
“You saw his blood splatter. She’s got an open wound. She’s infected.”
“We need to know for sure.” The man with the rifle pressed his palm hard against Ali’s throat. An electrical charge of pain flashed.
She had tunnel vision, seeing a patch of sky, amethyst blue, and very little else.
“Help me,” Ali cried, her bloody hands tangled up in his.
“I’ve got you,” he answered.
“Oh, goodie.” The woman’s voice, dripping sarcasm. “You know how much I love strays.”
He lifted Ali off the ground, and she was flying, no floating. It was kind of nice, really, not to feel her body. She closed her eyes, and shadowy, frightening thoughts invaded, melodramas with the sound turned down.
She must have passed out because time didn’t match up right. Someone sat on her hips, trapping her arms to her sides, jerking her back into reality.
She swiveled her head, taking in crown molding, the coppery smell of blood, and a young, raven-haired woman perched on top of her. “Please stop.”
“If I don’t stitch you up and slap on a bandage, you’re going to bleed to death.”
“Leave me alone.” Ali’s vision flickered. These were the good guys, right? Not like the teenaged vampire on the bus.
The needle tore through tender flesh, and Ali writhed.
“Lie still!” The woman grabbed her by the arms and gave her a shake. “You want me to nick your carotid?”
She couldn’t calm down. She should, but she couldn’t. A wave of fear rose up.
“I got it.” The man appeared in her periphery. He pulled her head gently into his lap and took both sides of her face in his hands, holding her still without making her feel like a psych patient.
He had a nice face. Dark eyes. Deep voice. And he’d saved her. He’d killed the infected.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Alina Rusenko. Ali.”
“I’m Connor Beckett. She’s Roz Carrera.”
Roz jabbed her again with the needle, but Connor’s fingers ran softly across Ali’s scalp, and the pain lessened. So did the fear.
“Am I going to die?” She’d been so certain of her imminent demise when the vampire had appeared behind her. Her ears replayed the screaming, hissing, and splattering noises in perfect pitch. She closed her eyes, but that only made it worse.
“Nah,” Connor said. “You lost some blood, but he missed the important stuff.”
“Yeah.” She tried to laugh, but coughed instead. “Lucky me.”
“Just about done.” Roz growled, pulling a little tighter on the thread.
Ali groaned, her fists clenching. The last time she’d been in this much pain she’d been twelve and had broken her wrist playing soccer in the wet grass. Her father had come to the hospital and scowled from the doorway to make sure she wasn’t hysterical. If she’d lost control, he would’ve hit her until she regained control or passed out.
The broken bone had hurt more than anything she’d ever experienced, but she hadn’t cried. Not a single tear.
“I have to call my uncle.”
Connor’s fingers ran gently through her hair. “Try to relax.”
“He doesn’t know where I am.” Was she back in Paradise, Nevada? Or had they made it to the Hoover Dam?
Roz clipped the stitches and crawled off, none too gently.
Without the weight of the woman holding her down, Ali floated again, slipping away from the pain and the blood.
#
Maksim Volk didn’t have many options. Dizzy from his close shave with a rifle slug, he knew he should return to Oleksander in his current playpen in Paradise and admit failure. But he couldn’t move his legs just yet and drive his Jeep any further along Highway 93. He tilted his head against the seat and clutched the pendant around his neck.
Anya was alive. Somehow, she’d survived the past twenty years and shown herself in the Nevada desert.
He’d had his hands on her. And the strangest thing was, she smelled exactly the same.
And then some self-righteous gun nut had nearly blown Maks’ head off his shoulders.
He’d pay for that.
Maks’ legs spasmed, and he regained enough muscle control to turn the ignition and kick the accelerator. He drove erratically west from one highway to the next, his mind still on the bus crash. Just as Olek had predicted, Anya was on the vehicle and unprotected. His spies had known everything.
If it weren’t for that asshat with the rifle, Anya would be in the seat beside him.
Taking a quick detour for sustenance, Maks drove down the Las Vegas Strip, marveling as he always did at the people, at the lights, at the excess. Twenty years was a long time, and so much in the world had changed in two decades. He’d grown up in the Ukraine, not poor exactly, but not wealthy. So much waste shocked him, though it didn’t seem to bother the flocks of people crowding the casinos and spilling onto the streets.
A little past the hotels and bars, a few turns from tourist central, Maks parked his newly acquired yellow Jeep in an underground parking structure beneath an abandoned hospital. The derelict building had become Oleksander the Destroyer’s new compound. Thus far, no one had disturbed them. In fact, it seemed as if the U.S. Army was keeping their escape a secret, perhaps in hopes of recapturing them without the public or press knowing what had happened three months ago.
Maks had no intention of going back.
He avoided the places in the massive complex Olek’s cronies preferred to hang out in and limped straight to his private rooms in the old neo-natal unit. He whipped open the door of a former broom closet to reveal his captive blood donors. One female and two males, three random tourists who’d never come home from their holidays in Vegas.
“Touch me, pretty boy,” the female warned, “and I’ll bite you back.” She’d nearly freed herself. Small hands. Maks would have to re-tie her. But later, not now.
Her amber eyes took in his head wound. “Why are you so bloody?” she asked. “You’re covered in it.”
He ignored her and pulled the nearest male from the closet. The man squirmed, squealing in fear, and nearly broke free. Weak as Maks was, he struggled to subdue the man long enough to wrench his chin up and expose his warm, tender throat. Maks salivated in anticipation even as he searched for a spot not already bruised, bit, or broken.
