Golden Eagle (Sons of Rome Book 4)

by Lauren Gilley

But the vamp got Nikita’s jacket in one hand, and dragged him in closer, fangs bared even as his eyes watered from the blow he’d taken. He was going to try to bite, tear Nik’s jugular out with his teeth, taking advantage of their proximity; moving into Nik, rather than away from him.

  Dimly, he was aware of Sasha tangling with the female vampire, his snarls and growls, and her own feline growls in return.

  The vampire ducked his head.

  Nikita tightened the hand latched onto the vamp’s collar, and whirled, using the vamp’s forward momentum against him.

  Slammed his face right into the wall.

  His nose broke with a wet crunch, and Nikita karate chopped him in the side of the neck. The vampire gave a low, guttural sound of pain, and, while he was dazed, Nikita took a firm, two-handed grip on his head – the nape and the jaw – and snapped his neck with one clean movement.

  When he let go, the body dropped. Like his friend, still alive, but badly damaged enough that, without sleep and several feedings, he wouldn’t be fighting anymore tonight.

  Nik turned, and saw that the female was down, too; she and Sasha had fought their way nearly to the intersection of the three hallways. Sasha’s muzzle and, chest, and front paws were dark and sticky with fresh blood, and the woman lay with eyes shut, barely breathing, her torso so bloodied and shredded it was impossible to tell the extent of her injuries beyond grave.

  “Okay?” he asked Sasha, and got an affirmative sneeze and head toss.

  Nikita heard a snarl behind him, turned–

  Just in time to see a vampire bearing down on him.

  And to see Val sitting up, suddenly, eyes flying open. He swept his sword out in a low, vicious swipe, and it went through the approaching vampire’s knee.

  The limb severed. The vampire fell, what was left of his leg gushing blood. He twisted over onto his back, snarling, hands lifting.

  Val stood, smooth and unwavering, and lifted his bloodied sword; pressed the tip to the vampire’s chest, right above his heart. He smiled. “Apologies. I feel it’s important I tell you my blade is called Mercy.” And pressed down.

  Blood welled up and overran the vampire’s mouth. He gasped wetly, jerked a few times, and stilled.

  Nikita wanted to chastise Val for enjoying this – but he was enjoying it, too. He’d examine that feeling later.

  Will and Lanny returned. Lanny’s arm was oozing blood, but he didn’t seem badly hurt, and he’d managed to obtain one of the riot shields. “You boys mind if I lead the way?” he asked, hefting it.

  Val motioned toward the open doors with his bloodied sword, still grinning. “By all means.”

  ~*~

  For some reason, it seemed strange that a place as sinister as the Ingraham Institute received regular deliveries of things like toilet paper, and frozen meals on trays, and new bed linens, but they did, and tonight was delivery night for a frozen food truck. It was already backed into the loading bay when Alexei, Dante, and Severin approached. They’d gone the long way around, wrapped up in their dark jackets, arranged – not purposefully – according to height, so that their shadows slanted across the pavement in slender stair-steps, shortest to tallest, with Alexei in the center.

  The truck’s headlights were on, and all the little running lights along the roof and body of the trailer. A roll-top door up on the platform beamed out the cool white light of an industrial complex; long, plastic flaps designed to keep out birds held back ropes.

  They walked down the length of the truck without slowing, until they reached the back of it, and startled the trucker as he was loading boxes onto a handcart.

  “Hey, what are you–”

  “It’s fine,” Alexei told him, voice resonant with compulsion, and the man subsided, standing still, hands lax, gaze going unfocused.

  They went single-file up the narrow concrete stairs to get to the dock itself, and through the pulled-aside flaps. They entered a wide staging area, with cinderblock walls and concrete floors, a square drain in the center. Crates were stacked along one wall, and several employees in work pants and smocks were carting frost-crusted boxes along on handcarts, through a second set of plastic flaps into what Alexei knew – from Severin and the blueprints – was the kitchen.

  “Excuse me,” Alexei said, and, when heads turned toward him, he said, “please evacuate the building. Everything is fine.”

  The hand carts were rocked down off their wheels, and the glassy-eyed employees trooped out onto the loading dock in an orderly line.

  As they proceeded into the kitchen – a typical industrial kitchen, lined with stainless sinks, ovens, stovetops, centered with long stainless and butcher block prep areas, floored with grubby clay-colored tile – Alexei was aware of a low buzzing in his back teeth, in his bones, even, that was totally internal. The humming of adrenaline barely suppressed. If he thought about it, fixated on the task at hand – the enormity of what they were attempting, larger and more dangerous than anything he’d attempted since killing a pack of Bolsheviks in a Siberian wood – he’d be reduced to a crouching, shaking ball of nerves, keening quietly, a useless child. It didn’t matter how strong vampires were, or what powers they possessed: humans were always more plentiful, often more vicious. They had technology, and innovation, and he’d seen what they’d done to Dante, seen him chained, and shaved, and clapped in silver, helpless to their every whim. He couldn’t survive that; he couldn’t.

  So he didn’t think about it. Pushed all his anxiety ruthlessly down, and followed the script. He was born a royal; he could have followed a script in his sleep.

  He compelled the kitchen staff with a few words and the force of his will – with Rasputin’s gift – and sent them to the loading dock, too. The kitchen led into a dining room, and that was where Severin had promised they would find his siblings, sitting down at the metal cafeteria tables for a supper laid out in the compartments of a tray, one of their doctors/tutors/minders trying to make polite chitchat they wouldn’t understand because they lacked all the proper cultural references.

  A set of swinging doors gave them access, and they pushed through–

  To find the dining room empty. The lights had been cut down to half-brightness, and the tables gleamed faintly beneath them, all empty.

  He turned to Severin, his adrenaline starting to lap up his insides like water as a storm came in, toward a level too high to suppress. He had an angry question poised on his tongue, but he swallowed it when he watched Severin’s eyes widen, face paling further beneath his scattering of freckles.

  “They’re not here,” he said, with more emotion than Alexei had ever heard in his voice. “They’re supposed to be here. But they’re not.”

  Alexei very carefully didn’t say duh.

  “They knew we were coming,” Dante said, grimly.

  Alexei strained, and wondered if he heard the staccato cracks of gunshots somewhere deeper in the vast facility. “Why have the regular delivery made?” he asked.

  Dante said, voice haunted, “They needed us to have a point of entry.”

  It was a trap.

  Alexei shivered. “Where to next?” he asked Severin.

  The boy swallowed, and considered a moment. “Our room,” he said. Softer: “I think.”

  “Lead the way.”

  He did, slowly at first, just a few steps, and them visibly squared his shoulders, and marched along, toward a set of doors that presumably led out into a hallway.

  As they followed, Dante touched Alexei’s arm. At first, Alexei thought he was trying to get his attention, but then Dante’s hand closed, and gripped tight, nails biting through the wool of Alexei’s jacket.

  “What?” he asked, turning to him.

  Dante stumbled to a halt, his other hand going to his forehead, eyes half-lidded, and watering. He wore an expression of terrible pain, like he had back at his apartment. “Lex…” Voice faint, breath strained. “I don’t know…my head…”

  Severin pushed through the doors.

  “I
can’t…” Dante said.

  There was the click, like a lock sliding into place. And then a banging: Severin pounding on the doors.

  “What–” Alexei started to ask again.

  Dante flinched, and a second later Alexei noticed the dart sunk in his neck, its little feathers hot pink. It hadn’t been there a moment before.

  Someone had…

  He felt a prick at his own neck.

  And then everything went black.

  ~*~

  The black thing fluttering past the window had been Kolya dangling from a rope. Will had produced a harness for him to wear, but she wasn’t sure if he’d done it, or found it too difficult. Reincarnated or not, his part of the plan hadn’t been one she’d wanted to foist on a human, but he’d assured them he could do it, and do it he had.

  It being place one of Will’s little supersonic, silent pulsing glass-breaking devices on the window, which Much would then trigger remotely.

  He’d done it, obviously, and then fired the arrow that had taken one of the guards in the neck.

  After that, it was chaos.

  While Dr. Fowler was still gaping, frozen, Jamie leapt up and shouted, “Stop!” Even though his voice and will hadn’t been directed at her, Trina still paused a moment, a wave of malaise washing over her.

  She shook it off, though, in time to see that Dr. Fowler had indeed stopped, gaze going glassy, but the second guard hadn’t, for some reason. Were some people immune? Or was part of his gear able to repel compulsion?

  It didn’t matter. He lifted his rifle – an AK – and fired a round straight at Jamie.

  Jamie had tried to dodge, already realizing what she had, but you couldn’t move faster than a bullet. He went down with a low, whimpering growl.

  Trina shoved her chair back and dropped beneath the table, grabbing Mia’s sleeve and all but dragging her after. “Get down,” she hissed, towing her in. And then, though it wasn’t the time, but because she couldn’t keep from saying it in the midst of her panic, snapped, “Your dad’s Dr. Talbot?”

  When Mia grimaced, her fangs elongated, gleaming sharp points. “I’m sorry–”

  “Whatever.” She’d worry about it later. She fumbled down in her boot and drew her spare gun; the guard had her .45, which she would have preferred, but the nine mil would have to do. And it had silver bullets, whatever that was worth.

  She registered a wealth of sounds at once.

  Jamie snarling.

  The guard who was still alive saying, “Two vampires, one mortal,” presumably into his earpiece, talking to whoever was out there shooting.

  Whoever was shooting, and probably shooting at Fulk and Anna.

  A loud thunk.

  A curse from the guard.

  And the tinkling of broken glass.

  She glanced toward the window.

  It was a window went all the way down to the floor, frameless, and two hands clutched the edge: long, pale fingers, and black tape over the palms and knuckles, for stability and protection. The hands flexed, and then an arm reached in, another, and Kolya dragged himself up into the conference room, onto the floor, and unclipped the carabiner that had held his harness to the rope he’d used to rappel down.

  Above him, shining faintly in the overhead lights, she glimpsed a bit of silvery cable, and a second later, Much came zip-lining in from the rooftop across the street – zip-lining fast.

  The thunk she’d heard had been the end of his line – some complicated grappling-hook-cum-arrow device he’d shown them earlier – and a second thunk was the soles of his boots colliding with the remaining guard, and sending him toppling in an unconscious heap.

  Trina crawled out from under the table and stood, gun ready. When she was upright, Much had dropped down off the line unslung the bow from his back: not a modern compound bow like her uncle used to deer hunt, but one made of gleaming, polished, flexible wood. Not a longbow, she knew, because that would have been nearly as tall as Much himself.

  He knocked an arrow and gave them all a businesslike once-over. “Injuries?”

  “Jamie.” Trina climbed onto the table and dropped down on the far side, kneeling beside him. “Jamie, you good?”

  He was on his knees, clutching his arm; it hung limp at his side, but she could see that the bleeding had already slowed, and he glanced up at her with a lucid grimace of pain.

  The miracles of vampire biology.

  “Yeah, I’m alright.” When Trina put an arm around his waist, he stood on his own power, and didn’t even lean into her. “Shit, that hurts.”

  “Getting shot usually does,” she said dryly.

  “There’s too much shooting,” Much said. “Something’s wrong.”

  Trina heard a rustle, and then a gasp.

  With Jamie hurt and distracted, his compulsion had worn off – and maybe Dr. Fowler had been making a break for it, but wasn’t now; Kolya stood behind him, an arm around his throat, point of a knife indenting the skin below his eye.

  “Call them off,” Trina said, motioning to the inner wall of the room, “and you can still walk out of here alive.” She wished, suddenly, that she’d set up a code word with Harvey, so she’d know when to “accidentally lose” the connection with the camera. Hoped, knowing how savvy she was, that she’d cut it on her own initiative when she realized Trina was about to commit murder on camera.

  Then decided she didn’t care.

  “Call them off,” she repeated. “Or he’ll throw you out that window.”

  A breeze gusted in, accentuating her point.

  Despite the knife against his face, Dr. Fowler grinned. “I can’t. Once you set them loose, you can’t call them back. That’s how this works.”

  Trina stared at him. “What?”

  Jamie gritted his teeth, and compelled again. “What are you talking about? Call off your little soldiers.”

  “I could. But they aren’t who you should be worried about.”

  The hair on the back of Trina’s neck stood on end.

  “Who?” Jamie demanded, the force of the word ringing out like a struck bell. Trina felt another wave of blankness, anxiety easing momentarily.

  Kolya’s arm slackened; the knife pulled away from Dr. Fowler’s eye.

  Placidly, Fowler said, “Romulus’s pets.”

  Far away, deep on the other side of this floor, a sound echoed. A chainsaw, Trina thought, at first, its motor cranking up.

  Mia stood, inhaling deeply. “Guys. I smell…”

  Much’s eyes went wide. “Vampire.”

  Not a chainsaw – a roar.

  The door behind her flew open with a crash.

  She dropped and whirled on instinct, gun up, and saw black-clad Institute foot soldiers. Row after row, all bottle-necked together, armored shoulder pads clacking together as they fought to get through the narrow doorway.

  For a terrible, slow-motion moment, she saw light glinting off the helmets of the ones farther back, and farther behind that. They were hopelessly, helplessly outmatched in every way, all armed, two gun muzzles pointed right at her, and all she had was one nine-millimeter with silver fucking bullets in it.

  She had a split second to wish she’d taken the time to get some sort of last I-love-you to her parents; that she’d kissed Lanny more ferociously back at the hotel.

  And then one of the wheeled chairs flew threw the air and crashed into the first two soldiers coming in.

  It didn’t slow them down much, but enough.

  While Trina was gaping, a hand grabbed her arm, and dragged her backward. Someone stepped in front of her – Mia, it was Mia, Mia Talbot. Val’s mate. When the first shot fired, Mia angled her body, and took it in her shoulder. She let out a soft grunt, an expulsion of breath, too shocked and pained to scream – Trina had seen that a lot, in her line of work. People didn’t scream when they were shot; instead, they deflated, like the bullet had put a hole in them and the life had started rushing out, the ability to scream and panic along with it.

  The shot tur
ned into a volley.

  For a split-second, one she wasn’t proud of, Trina whited out. Her mind went totally blank with panic. She’d gone through a range of exercises, shuffling as part of a team through abandoned buildings, wearing flak vests, shooting at paper targets that sprang up on hydraulics. Fake drug raids; simulated active shooter situations.

  She’d never gone through a simulation like this: a dozen armed soldiers bearing down on her.

  A friend’s girlfriend standing in front of her, taking bullets for her.

  Shit. Shit, shit, shit.

  But the Baskin in her finally took hold, and she scrambled back, motioning to the others, shoving rolling chairs out of the way.

  She saw that Much had dropped his bow and produced a gun, was returning fire, using a turned-around chair as a shield.

  She caught Kolya’s gaze. “We have to flip the table.”

  He nodded.

  “Jamie.” When he glanced her way, she slid him her gun under the table. He caught it with another nod, and joined Much in firing back. They were drawing attention away from Mia, keeping the soldiers logjammed in the doorway. But they would push through, soon; bull their way in, despite taking fire. And Mia…

  She couldn’t think about that yet. One thing at a time.

  The table was the kind composed of two segments, connected and locked in the middle. By the time she had it unlocked – gunshots crack-crack-cracked in the background, the incoming breeze doing nothing to alleviate the ear-piercing echo of them – Kolya was beside her. They separated the two halves, and then together heaved it over onto its side.

  Much and Jamie joined them; Trina had the absurd thought that they were in a trench, in the midst of a battlefield.

  Well, they were.

  Much passed her his gun. “Here.” Pulled something else from his pocket, a canister. One with a pin, that he pulled, and then lobbed toward the door.

  Trina got off one shot – right through the thigh of a soldier as they started to swarm in – before thick, green smoke billowed up from the cannister. It curled, and writhed, and gave just enough cover for Much to vault over the table and go after Mia – who lay in a heap, blood pooling out around her on the industrial grade carpet.