“Odd jobs,” Alexei deadpanned. “Like killing rejected test subjects?” Trina had relayed that information only an hour earlier, her findings about the victims that had turned up in bits and pieces lately.
Gustav smiled, and his eyes glittered. “Eliminating potential witnesses.”
“Your idea, or theirs?”
“Do you think those scientific cowards could safeguard themselves that way?”
Alexei swallowed. He’d killed before – every vampire had. Sometimes on accident, when he’d drank too much – too much to even allow a turning, after. And he’d killed in self-defense, flexed his strength when he needed it most. But the idea of devouring someone…of leaving only scraps of flesh and stray fingers…that revolted him.
“Naturally,” Gustav continued, “their slap-dash wolf mucked it all up. It was supposed to look accidental.” He grimaced. “Ferals really are useless.”
“They went after Trina Baskin.”
“Well, she was getting too involved, wasn’t she?”
Alexei breathed. In and out. Flexed his fingers. Rallied. “What was in it for you?”
“I already told you.” He cocked his head, as if curious. “Safety. Involvement on my own terms.”
“You could have avoided them. You could have left town. What was in it for you?”
The breeze cut between them in a sharp gust, little flecks of pulverized gravel pelting Alexei’s face.
Gustav stared at him a long, passive moment. Then he said, “I wanted the chance to join the war. To serve in Vlad Dracula’s grand quest for revenge.”
“That’s a lie,” Dante said in a low, choked voice.
Gustav’s gaze flicked toward him, expression darkening. “You’d be smart to keep your mouth shut. I no longer have need of your services.”
“I’ve been inside his head,” Dante said, turning to Alexei. His gaze was palpable, and Alexei turned toward him unwillingly, hating the way that big-eyed, desperate look tugged at his gut. “He doesn’t care about the war – not about this one, at least.”
“Norrie,” Gustav said smoothly, “you have exactly three seconds to shut your mouth, or it will be shut for you.”
“Lex,” Dante said, stepping in close, reaching for Alexei again.
Alexei stepped just out of reach, and something in his expression broke. Cracked wide open. Alexei thought he might cry.
“Kaiser Wilhelm, who hated your father – Gustav worked for him. This isn’t about Vlad’s war. He wants revenge on your family.”
He remembered Papa. Remembered a letter open on his desk, and Papa massaging his temples and groaning quietly to himself, lifting his head and forcing a smile when Alexei appeared in the doorway. What’s wrong, Papa?
Oh, nothing, my brave boy. Only my cousin refusing to see reason again. He loves war, that man.
“How–” Alexei’s breath shivered out between trembling lips. “How do you know that?”
“I’m a dream-walker,” Dante said, voice heavy with regret and apology.
Gustav said, “Kill him.”
~*~
“I think we need to get down there,” Trina said. Her heart had settled into that accelerated, metronome rhythm that had powered her through ever chase and dangerous arrest. The pulse of someone about to dive into a crack den in pursuit of a murderer. Gustav and Alexei had only been talking, but she didn’t need immortal senses to see that the tension was too high – and getting higher. That Dante was very visibly upset, and that, if left alone, the situation had the potential to explode into something violent.
Then Alexei, who’d been staunchly ignoring Dante, turned to him, and his expression went slack with shock.
Trina tensed. “Guys.”
“Yeah,” Nikita said, putting a booted foot up on the parapet. “We’ll go. Stay here and cover us.”
She reached out blindly, and laid a hand on the stock of Katya’s rifle where it sat propped beside her, clean, loaded, and ready to fire.
Lanny cracked his knuckles.
Gustav said something, and both the wolves flanking him shifted to their four-legged shapes.
“Shit,” she said, and plucked up the rifle.
“Guys!” Jamie said.
Sasha gave a loud sniff.
A sound behind them drew her attention, and she turned her head.
The rooftop door that led up from the warehouse below swung open, and a man stepped out of it. A hulking man, dressed for warmer weather in nothing but a tight, short-sleeved white shirt. He had to duck to get out of the doorway, and sunlight gleamed off massive arms that rippled with muscle. When she got a look at his face, she murmured, “Oh, shit.”
It was the vampire from the cage match. The one Lanny had fought, and Nikita had finished.
And he wasn’t alone. Other figures crowded out the door after him, men and women, all of them tall, athletic, bodies roped with heavy muscle.
“Vampires,” Sasha said, snarling, and shifted, a tall, shaggy white wolf standing with paws braced apart, claws digging into the gravel of the roof.
Trina raised the rifle to her shoulder, sighted, and fired.
~*~
The wolves shifted.
Gustav tucked his hands in his pockets, and looked content to wait for his Familiars to do his dirty work for him.
Both wolves lowered their heads, ruffs pricked, teeth bared, muscled bodies coiled and thrumming with energy. They leapt as one; it would take only a few long strides to reach their prey.
Who appeared to be Dante, and only Dante. They were gunning straight for him.
Dante froze in place, hand still stretched out toward Alexei, expression one of pale shock, and dread – a knowing dread. He could flee, and he might even get a good head start, but they would catch him. Nothing on two legs could outrun a shifted werewolf.
He lied to me, Alexei thought in the span between heartbeats, the moment when time slowed, and the inevitable carnage lay before him, a flower waiting to unfold. He pretended to be my friend, to care about me; tricked me into bed, and showed me his old books, and he was trying to hurt me the whole time. It would serve the bastard right to get torn apart by wolves.
But there’d been something terribly sweet, and terribly real in his gaze earlier, in his kitchen. When he’d plucked right through all of Alexei’s outer smokescreens and hit at the heart of what he really wanted. The confession he so rarely even acknowledged to himself. That he wanted honesty. That he wanted a family; people to trust and love.
Another lie. Dante was a dream-walker; he’d just admitted it. There’d been no perception there, only a cheap dip into Alexei’s mind. An invasion, another betrayal.
But he realized, in that frozen moment, that he wanted to hear all of that for himself. He wanted an admission.
Alexei snatched the hand that still hovered in front of his face, leapt backward, and pulled.
Dante toppled forward with a gasp, collided with him, and Alexei spun and shoved him.
The wolves overshot their target, snarling, but skidded and rebounded.
Alexei herded Dante behind him, and pulled the gun he’d tucked into the back of his waistband, one of Trina’s spare Smith & Wessons. “Guys!” he shouted up toward the roof.
A gunshot cracked through the air, rippling and echoing off across the water. A shot from a gun much larger and more powerful than the one he held in his hand.
~*~
Trina had fired hunting rifles off and on since she was sixteen, up at the family compound in Buffalo. Sometimes at hay bales with paper targets affixed, and sometimes, in winter, at leftover Halloween pumpkins; that had always been a pulpy mess. It turned out, firing close range at someone’s chest had much the same effect.
She aimed for the big vampire’s heart, but she didn’t have a bipod, and hadn’t had the chance to slowly, carefully set up her shot. The Mosin-Nagant pulled a little left, and the round exploded the vampire’s sternum, rather than his heart. Drilled right through with an awful, wet sound, and a spray
of blood, and bone, and viscera. It punched out the back, leaving a halo of blood on the ground, and for one wild, awful moment, she swore she could see daylight through him.
He staggered back a step, colliding with the vampire beside him; went down on one knee. Not dead, but heaving for breath, coughing up thick gobs of blood, more of it pouring crimson down his white shirt.
She raised the rifle to fire again, aiming for the heart again, bracing her elbow on her raised knee and trying to steady her sights.
A black blur dove in front of her, and she jerked her face off the stock. It was Kolya, spinning, his black coat flaring around his legs, sunlight glinting off the knives he held.
“Kolya, no! Shit!” Nikita cursed.
Sasha took off, falling into stride beside his resurrected friend.
The vampire that Kolya was gunning for held a length of pipe, and raised it to strike. Kolya, somehow, ducked beneath the blow, whirled in close, and buried a knife between the vampire’s ribs. It was so sharp, and his aim so true, that it slid in without resistance, with a low, wet sound. The blade had punctured the lung.
The vampire wheezed, and tried another hit.
Sasha closed his jaws on the vamp’s hamstring, and earned a high, startled scream.
Kolya stabbed with his other knife, in the soft, meaty front of the shoulder, just below the bone, and the arm holding the pipe went suddenly, dramatically limp, the pipe clattering to the ground.
The heart! Trina thought. Kolya hadn’t yet tried to go for the heart.
But she couldn’t worry about that now. More vampires were coming.
Nikita had engaged with one, and looked to safely have the upper hand.
Jamie was throwing a punch at another, and looked startled when it actually connected, and snapped the guy’s head backward.
And Lanny was–
Someone tackled her to the ground.
Panic spiked – but only for a second. Then she recognized the scent of cigarette smoke, and laundry detergent, and her favorite brand of coffee, and she recognized Lanny. Knew they were his strong arms around her, cushioning her, keeping her from smacking down into the gravel of the rooftop. As far as tackles went, it was very gentle; he cradled her, and bore her to the ground without a scratch.
But he was being all heroic and protective again.
“Lanny, you dumbass, get off of me! We don’t have time for this!”
“Sorry!” He surged to his feet, and launched himself at the vampire bearing down on them.
Trina scrambled upright, sweat-damp hands slipping a little on the rifle. Shit, shit. She couldn’t afford to get nervous. Couldn’t afford to think of them as immortal blood-drinkers who could rip her apart, but just as enemies. As targets that needed taking out.
(A small, terrified part of her was glad for Lanny’s intercession. She was way, way out of her league here.)
She steadied herself, one foot planted, knee serving as a makeshift stabilizer for her supporting arm, and sought a new target.
The big vampire, the one she’d shot, had lurched back to his feet, unbalanced and dazed. He’d suffered terrible blood loss, and needed to rest and feed. He clutched at the side of the squat building that housed the stairwell and door, his movements clumsy.
Quicker movement drew her eye. A female vampire was gunning right for her, a length of bright chain dangling from one hand, teeth bared in a snarl that showcased long, narrow fangs.
Trina steadied the Mosin-Nagant and fired.
The female’s face erupted in a shower of blood and bone, and the force of impact sent her body falling heavily backward like a felled tree. Her arms and legs flopped, and surged, and she emitted an awful, garbled sound that tried to be a scream.
A volley of short, cracking gunshots sounded to her right: Nik. These vampires who’d attacked them wanted to brawl, but Nik, she knew, still carried a handgun.
She turned to find another vampire down, bloody, twitching, and useless. Nikita’s jacket was pushed back, and she saw the knife at his hip. When the immediate danger was past, he would start cutting out hearts and burning bodies, she knew. She expected the knowledge to give her a sick jolt, but it didn’t.
More gunshots down below, three staccato bursts.
“Alexei.” She turned and headed for the edge of the roof.
~*~
Belatedly, Alexei realized he had no practical idea how to use a gun. Trina had shown him just an hour ago – “Two hands, like this, one for the grip, finger on the trigger, and the second to steady and support;” “I know that,” impatient; she’d lifted her brows – and he understood it in theory: make sure the safety was off, finger on the trigger, aim and fire. But marksmanship required patience, repetition, and practice, of which he had none at the moment.
He pushed Dante behind him with one hand, and held the gun with the other. Aimed at the oncoming wolf in the lead – Carey, he thought – and squeezed off three fast shots. The gun kicked harder than he expected; it bucked in his sweat-slick hand; he tripped and nearly went sprawling, only saved by Dante’s hands gripping his shoulders.
One shot connected, though. Carey yelped, and ducked sideways, skidding fast-first into the gravel. Alexei smelled blood, but had no idea which part of the wolf he’d hit.
Hannah gathered her hindquarters, sprang upward, and launched herself at him.
Alexei aimed the gun again.
And a jet of fire knocked the wolf aside. Hannah toppled to the ground beside Carey, squealing, fur aflame. She yelped and rolled frantically.
The sharp scent of a bonfire filled the lot; the scent of ash, and flame, of burning, and blood, and of magic.
Alexei turned, and there was the redhaired mage from the Institute, the one he’d kissed, and compelled, and just barely managed to overpower with Dante’s help.
He looked different. Still wearing the white scrubs from last time, but now with a long, olive green wool overcoat over them, and a pair of black sneakers. His hair, gleaming copper in the sun, faintly curled, stood up, wild, corkscrew tendrils waving in the breeze. But it was his face that stood out the most, his expression starkly different from the passive, automaton mask he’d worn in the Institute. Lips parted, cheeks flush, his eyes a clear, glassy green, hectic, almost feverish. He was a boy unmoored. Not a blank weapon, not a vengeful angel, but the trembling child wreck that he should have been from the first, incandescent with power, certain of nothing.
Gustav’s backup.
Except…it was Gustav’s Familiar he’d just singed, and it was Alexei he stared at now, blinking, and swallowing, and swaying forward.
Alexei wondered if vampires could have heart attacks.
He swallowed with difficulty, surprised by the even, pleasant tone of his voice. “Hello.”
The boy blinked at him a few more times. “Hello.” Faint, and then, wetting his lips, russet brows lowering, a little firmer. “Hello, Alexei Romanov.”
Dante’s hands tightened on Alexei’s shoulders in silent question. The wolves were stirring; Hannah whimpering and licking at her singed, smoking side, Carey getting unsteadily to his feet, holding one foreleg off the ground. They would heal quickly, but they were rattled.
Alexei said, “It’s Seven, right?”
“It’s…yes. No.” A groove appeared between the boy’s brows, and he chewed at his lip. “Sev…call me Severin.”
A small distinction, one Alexei didn’t understand, but one he’d honor if it kept them all alive.
“Okay. Severin. Are you here to help these guys?”
Gustav shouted, “What are you doing, you stupid brat! Don’t attack my wolves, attack them! Help me subdue them! The skinny one you can have! Roast him alive!”
Dante’s hands retracted, like he meant to flee.
Alexei darted a hand back and caught a fistful of the front of his jacket without looking. “Stay,” he ordered, so low, and authoritative, and uncharacteristic that Dante went still, probably with shock.
Severin glanced at Gus
tav, the furrow between his brows deepening, then he glanced back to Alexei. “No,” he said, “I’m not helping them.”
Then he flung up his arm and shot a curling, crackling arc of flame right at Gustav.
~*~
“I’m gonna assume that’s a mage,” Trina said, gaze trained on the impossible spectacle below. She’d never seen one in action before, the way fire jetted out of the boy’s open palm, directed with the force and accuracy of a flame thrower. The sight left her mouth dry, and her pulse skipping high and fast in her throat. Through Nikita’s memory, she recalled the flame throwers of Stalingrad, the awful hiss and rush as the jets blasted through blackened rubble and smutty snow, turning humans to living torches. There were no backpacks, no gas or hoses here, just a slender, redheaded boy with empty hands.
“Shit, that’s the kid we ran into the other night,” Lanny said, drawing up beside her. “What’s he doing here?”
Behind them, there was a pained grunt, a wet sound, and then the rasp of a knife against denim. Nikita joined them, wiping the edge of his knife on the leg of his black jeans. “Attacking Gustav, it looks like.”
Sasha – human-shaped again – and Kolya appeared, too, Sasha’s mouth wet with blood that he wiped at haphazardly with a sleeve. “We should go down there,” he said, bracing a hand on the parapet, preparing to jump.
Nikita stayed him with a light touch. “Or–”
“Nik,” Trina said.
“Fine, fine.”
Nik, Sasha, and Jamie went over, like it was nothing.
Lanny turned to Trina, opened his arms, and grinned. “Want a lift?”
“Um.” She trusted him, really she did, but the idea of falling that far, even in the strong arms of a vampire, turned her stomach.
“I’ll watch over her,” Kolya offered. The vampires they’d fought lay sprawled across the rooftop, either comatose, or injured too badly to heal in any kind of timely fashion. They could leave them; could go inside and down the stairs, or they could wait here.
Golden Eagle (Sons of Rome Book 4) Page 47
