Boris moved the hand that was over her mouth and grabbed her jaw. As he did so, Kat felt a sharp pain on both sides of her face. He yanked her mouth wide open. Vladimir stuffed the piece of metal in her mouth in a swift motion. It wedged between her molars.
Kat gasped, and her eyes widened.
Boris placed his lips on her ear. “Move a single centimeter, sweet Kat, and you will be in the throes of agony within seconds. That device is very, very sensitive.” He then licked her earlobe.
Kat’s breath became ragged and fear gripped her harder than Boris’ arms ever could. A tear leaked from the corner of her eye.
“What do you want?” Dimitri shouted from somewhere below.
Vladimir’s smile widened. “Why, your total surrender, dear boy. What else?”
“Let her go!”
Kat recognized Christopher’s voice and squeezed her eyes shut. Her jaw ached and wanted to close.
Vladimir pointed with glee. “Ah! There he is! The traitorous flesh of my flesh! You have returned, my prodigal nephew.”
“Let her go!” Christopher roared again. “Take me instead!”
Kat sucked in her breath and trembled. Boris’ grip on her torso tightened while his hand snaked up her shirt and fondled her breast. She opened her eyes. She could make out some silhouettes down below as her eyes adjusted to the harsh, bright light.
“That is not possible, dear boy. I demand the unconditional surrender of the entire Wolff family, or your sweet, precious Katherine will die while you watch. It would be such a shame to lose one so precious, rare, and young. It will be a long time of suffering, probably hours before she finally expires.” He turned to Kat and placed his long fingers around her throat. “Shall we begin?”
“No! No! We...we will talk with you, Vladimir. Please,” Dimitri begged. “Please. Let us talk like civilized gentlemen.”
Kat tried to calm herself as her jaw throbbed. Her mind worked to find a solution but came up empty.
Vladimir’s fingers slid from her throat. He turned toward Dimitri’s voice. “Bring the rest of your family out here where I can see them. Now.”
Silence filled the space. Kat heard whispers in her ear from the miniscule earpiece tucked deep into her ear canal and realized Boris hadn’t noticed it. She focused on the sound of her family’s voices to distract her from Boris’ hands, as well as the increasing pain in her jaw and desire to close her mouth. Dimitri was telling them all to come out. She noticed he called each of them by name, but didn’t call Peter, Anna, or Julia. Perhaps they were still inside somewhere?
As the Wolff family members gathered together down below to stand in a huddle, Barotkoff members slowly emerged and surrounded them. Everyone stepped over the piles of bodies that littered the area like fallen tree stumps.
Vladimir stared at the group and lifted his chin. “Bring them.”
“Take care, sweet Kat. Don’t bite down,” Boris whispered in her ear. Kat could hear the smile in his voice. “I want you so badly.”
Kat gasped and worked to keep her jaw open as they waited for her family to join them on the roof. Kat’s breath became ragged as she tried to keep from sobbing. That would make it more difficult to keep her mouth open. She heard the garbled voice of her uncle in her ear but couldn’t make out what he was saying through her own struggle.
Perhaps this was her end, after all. Kat vowed to hold off as long as possible, and her mind worked feverishly to uncover a solution that didn’t end in her agonized death. She especially didn’t want her family to witness it if it happened. Kat turned her gaze toward the door when her family trickled in single file, led by Dimitri. When Christopher entered her line of vision, Kat was almost undone.
His face was stone, but she recognized murderous rage in his eyes. He nodded at her and she held his gaze. She would find her strength in him. She would hold out. She would. For him.
“So, thank you all for coming.” Vladimir smiled and held his arms open as though greeting more guests to his fine estate. “I am sorry I have not had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of most of you before now, but it’s never too late to remedy that, now is it?”
“Enough,” Dimitri growled. “What do you want?”
Vladimir clucked his tongue. “I see where dear Katherine gets her lack of manners. You did not do well in raising this child, Dimitri.” His smile faded. “As I said, I want your total surrender, dearest Dimitri. We have been through enough together, have we not?”
“Let her go first,” Dimitri replied.
“Alas, that is not possible, dearest Dimitri. You should know better than that.” His voice lowered at the end and his smile vanished.
Kat felt the air tighten with tension. She tensed in response, but immediately forced herself to relax as it made it harder to keep her mouth open. The pain in her jaw was becoming unbearable. In the corner of her eye, she thought she saw a ripple of air near the door behind the gathered group.
“You won’t kill her. She is too valuable. She is a fertile ideal’nyy rebenok,” Anastasia said. “The first and only one ever. If you kill her, there will never be another.”
Vladimir’s mouth twitched up at the corners. “Is she? Perhaps there is another among you that we are not aware of.” His eyes bounced from Anastasia to Mariya. “We could always try breeding the two of you and see what we get.”
“Oh, yeah? Well, you can...” Anastasia made a move toward him with clenched fists, but Dimitri blocked her. She glared at her father. He shook his head.
“Oh, I like her! Feisty.” That came from Mikhail, who stood to the side with his bulging arms crossed across his massive chest. Kat noted with pleasure that there were streaks of dried blood down his right temple and cheek. He made a kissy noise at Anastasia. Her lips became a thin line and her jaw worked. She didn’t even glance at him.
“There may yet be another ideal’nyy rebenok produced from the Wolff clan,” Vladimir murmured and turned to Kat. “She is perhaps not as precious as we originally thought. I have been here for hundreds of years. I am a patient man. I do not mind waiting a little longer.”
“Let her go,” Christopher growled, his hands clenching and unclenching.
Andrei moved to stand in front of his cousin. “Or what? What will you do?”
Christopher glared at him. A smile slowly spread across his face. “I will take your head off, dear cousin.”
Andrei took another step until they were almost nose to nose. “Try it.”
“Enough,” Vladimir barked. He scowled at Dimitri. “Your unconditional and complete surrender is the only thing that will ensure your family’s survival. You see, we are about to rule this world as we were always meant to. Within a few weeks, the humans will beg us to take care of them. Their revered institutions are being reduced to rubble and even the haughtiest of them will be brought low. All their riches and everything they hold dear and believe in for their security will turn to vapor.” He snapped his fingers. “Poof! All gone. And we, we will become their saviors! They will beg us to rule them!”
“We know about your schemes and cyber-attacks,” Robert spat back.
Vladimir looked delighted. “Oh, yes, dear boy. We have many schemes, as you call them! Such an interesting term, that is. Schemes. I first heard it when I was young. Ah, but I digress! We have family all over the globe in key positions to execute our plan at the right time.”
Kat’s eyebrows rose. So, there were more members of the Barotkoffs aside from the ones here. This was new. She turned panicked eyes on her uncle, whose face remained impassive.
Vladimir’s tone picked up and he started to pace the area. “Yes, yes. Glorious it is! We have government officials, CEOs, financial regulators...oh so many. Our clan has been bred and spread throughout the world for maximum effect. Your little intrusion this morning does nothing to change that, can’t you see? The branch you see here is but a small part of the whole of us. You’re already defeated.” He barked out a maniacal laugh. “Even if you had succeeded in doing
whatever it was you wanted to do here, you still would have failed. Do you now see? Do you understand? Mother Russia will rise again, and we will take our ordained place as the head!”
Kat watched as Vladimir stopped and turned to face her uncle. Dimitri stood his ground, undaunted as Vladimir walked over to stand directly in front of him.
Kat slowly clenched and unclenched her muscles, trying not to alert Boris to her movements. Fortunately for her, he was too enthralled by the ramblings of his revered uncle to pay her much attention. His hand had slipped to her waist. She had no idea how to get out of this predicament, but she was not going down without a fight. And she determined not to go down in agony by biting down on this device.
“The only thing I understand,” Dimitri’s voice and gaze were level. “Is that you’re as crazy as a summer day is long. I think when you were inbred, one of your screws never got tightened properly.”
Vladimir sucked in his breath and his spine stiffened. He reached up with one hand and slapped Dimitri across the cheek. The sound of it rang across the rooftop.
“You will learn respect, dear boy,” Vladimir breathed. He turned and walked in front of Anastasia. Kat thought he was going to pass her by, but instead, he abruptly reached out and punched her in the jaw with his closed fist. Anastasia’s head snapped back, and she fell to the ground before she could scramble to her feet again. Her eyes were wild with fury and her breath huffed. She wiped the blood that oozed from the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand.
Several loud gasps were heard and the Barotkoffs moved in to restrain the Wolff clan.
Vladimir’s evil smile returned. “You will all learn respect, or you will die.”
“I believe it is you who will die.”
Vladimir turned to Mariya with surprised amusement. “We are glad that you are back, child. You may well be the producer of an ideal’nyy rebenok yourself.”
There was a ripple of air directly in front of Kat and she looked but did not see anything. Without warning, Boris’ hand was jerked from Kat’s mouth and the device yanked out of her mouth in a swift motion. Then, his arm was snatched away from her torso. She cried out and reached up to her mouth in disbelief. It was gone! Somehow, it was suspended in mid-air about two feet away from her.
“Now!” Peter’s voice bellowed.
Kat heard a pained huff of someone’s breath and the Barotkoffs all froze in place, their eyes bugged. All except Vladimir, who simply shivered and shook his head, then spun around with a confused look on his face. His eyes whipped around, trying to find the source of the strange occurrence. The Wolffs all looked around, too. What happened?
Christopher was the first to respond. “Julia has frozen them all! Fight! Now!”
The Wolffs responded immediately by attacking the nearest Barotkoff to each of them. Anna, Julia, and Peter suddenly appeared out of thin air. Anna had shifted and kept them invisible.
Bedlam broke out around her as the Wolffs leaped into action.
Kat sighed in relief. Anna winked at her, then Kat turned on Boris, who could barely move. He slowly reached his hands out to wrap his fingers around Kat’s throat, but she shifted and became a boa constrictor. She whipped her snake body around him and squeezed as hard as she could. They fell to the ground as Boris made gurgling sounds, his face turning a deep shade of purple in the bright light. She turned her reptilian eyes directly in front of his face to stare at him. His eyes bored into hers. The confusion she saw there turned to rage, which turned to shock as the life left his body. When Kat felt him go limp and knew he was dead, then and only then did she uncoil herself and look around her.
The first person she noticed was Julia. She was in a corner, shaking and sweating, her eyes were so bright they competed with the harsh artificial light that flooded the rooftop. Kat recognized what was happening to her – Julia found it just as difficult to freeze so many people as Kat did to block the humans like she had. It sapped her strength.
Kat turned her gaze to the individual fights that were taking place. The Wolffs were struggling as Julia weakened.
Vladimir roared and lunged for Anna, who screamed and lifted the device over her head. She barely avoided his grip. His hands grabbed at empty air. Her eyes were wide with fear and panic. She had no defensive capabilities other than making herself invisible, which she did immediately. Unfortunately for her, the device remained visible to mark her position.
“I’ll kill you!” Vladimir bellowed and lunged for her again. The device bobbled crazily in the air as she ran around and weaved through the fighting couplets on the roof and tried to escape him. Vladimir shouted at her in Russian and continued to pursue her.
“Freeze Vladimir!” Kat screamed at Julia.
Julia’s face twitched toward Kat in acknowledgement, then she turned her attention to her uncle and screamed with effort as she shifted her entire attention on him. The other Barotkoffs came back to life and fought in earnest with the Wolffs. Shimmers and flashes lit up the roof like a pack of paparazzi on the red carpet.
Vladimir stopped in his tracks and stared at the sky, then huffed his breath out. With a mighty shout, he shook himself. He turned his attention to Julia.
“You will die first!” He let loose what Kat could only imagine was a string of Russian profanities as he lurched toward Julia like Frankenstein. Julia’s screams became agonized as her eyes lit up so brightly that her face was lost in the brilliance of it.
Kat watched with rapt attention as Vladimir froze in place like a statue, his eyes burning with hatred. His eyes began to glow, and he moved toward her again like the stiff, old, arthritic man he should be.
A scream erupted near Kat and she turned to see a lightning fast shimmer of a person whip next to her. Suddenly, she found herself hurled from the rooftop high into the air.
With a gasp, Kat saw the ground rapidly approaching. On instinct and in an instant, she called forth the ice and turned herself into a giant rubber ball. She hit the ground and bounced several times before she started to roll. She quickly shifted back to herself only to see a cheetah land on the ground near her, followed in quick succession by another large cat, a gazelle, and a kangaroo, which landed hard and emitted a strange, high-pitched sound. They all quickly shifted back to themselves, and Kat found herself in the company of Robert, Alexander, and Steven. All of them had cuts and blooming bruises on their bodies. Alexander’s left eye was almost swollen shut.
“What happened? Who threw us off the roof?” Kat demanded.
Steven lay on the ground and grabbed his left leg. He moaned and rolled back and forth.
“I don’t know! I don’t know!” Alexander cried and stared at the roof.
Robert shook his head. “We have to get back up there!”
He was abruptly cut off by a loud scream and a large sucking sound. The wind around them suddenly picked up and moved toward the roof like a strong vacuum. Trees bowed almost to the ground toward the rooftop. The wind was so powerful it made Steven roll over and over toward it. He shrieked in pain. Kat, Robert, and Alexander were all pushed forward onto their hands and knees. Kat cartwheeled over and was pressed up against one of the dead bodies. Shouting came from the rooftop, then as suddenly as it started, it stopped. The entire space was silent as a tomb in the dim, earliest light of dawn.
Kat sucked in her breath and staggered to her feet. “What? What was that? What happened?”
The three of them that were upright began running toward the building and yelling. They were met with silence.
Steven sobbed. Kat turned toward her brother. She hurried over and dropped to her knees beside him. A shimmer caught her eye and she saw Robert turn into a jaguar and try to leap on top of the roof, but he came up short. He tried several times but gave up and shifted back to himself.
“Anybody??” Alexander yelled at the top of his lungs.
“We’re here! We’re here!” Dimitri shouted as he hobbled around the corner, equally helping and leaning on Peter. A large muscle-bound man
came behind him carrying Julia in his arms.
“I’m Anastasia!” the large man bellowed. “It’s okay. They’re all gone.”
Anna brought up the rear with Christopher, her face scrunched. She sobbed and clung to Christopher as he led her to the clearing. Once they stopped, she collapsed onto all fours and buried her face in the dirt. She emitted the most agonizing and mournful sounds. The rest of them crumpled onto the ground wherever they stopped.
Anastasia gently placed Julia’s limp and lifeless body on the ground next to Anna, who wrapped her arms around her dead sister and wailed. Anastasia shifted back to herself and wrapped her arms around Anna.
Kat’s hands flew to her mouth and she stared in horror around her. The dead bodies from the earlier battle lay strewn like a medieval battleground. The stench of death and blood was everywhere. Even the survivors, herself included, were caked with blood and sweat.
“What happened? Who threw us off the roof?” Robert demanded.
Dimitri rubbed his face and struggled to compose himself. “Not here, Robert. We have to go. Now.”
Christopher grabbed Kat in his arms and crushed her to himself. Kat held fast to him as though her life depended on it. He murmured something to her, but she couldn’t understand him. Her ears were stopped up by his strong arm holding her right next to his strong heartbeat. It was all she heard and all she cared to hear.
Somehow, the group collected themselves enough to stagger to their vehicles. Steven’s leg was obviously broken, and he cried out with every movement. They placed him as gently as they could on the backseat of the lead vehicle with his head in Kat’s lap. Christopher did his best to immobilize Steven’s leg for the journey by removing his own shirt and wrapping it tightly around the injury.
Robert leaned in to stare at Steven. “Hang tough, kid. You did good. Claire will take care of you when we get back.”
Steven bit his lip and nodded, his face pale and sweaty. Kat swept the hair off his face and saw the little boy that he was so recently staring back at her. Christopher’s arm around her shoulders was like an anchor.
Revelations: The Shifter Series: Volume Three Page 23
