by Sky Winters
The door opened once again, and another man in a well-tailored, dark suited entered, ordered a drink, and took a seat in one of the corner booths.
“Is that a threat?”
“Not at all. It’s a word of caution.”
Miranda watched as Roman’s eyes darted here and there over her shoulder, watching the men who entered the bar.
“Friends of yours?”
“Not exactly.”
Miranda regarded Roman with a skeptical glare, her eyes narrowed and her lips tight, before finishing her drink. As soon as her glass touched down on the bar top, she waved her hand, summoning the bartender. But as she looked down the length of the dirty, wooden bar, she saw that there was no one behind it.
“What’s going on?” she asked, looking around at the bar, which was now cleared of patrons other than her, Roman, and the handful of men who had just entered.
The three men all looked up at Roman, their faces darkened with conspiratorial smirks.
Miranda turned around in her chair, facing the three men. She stood up, one hand on her holster.
“NYPD,” she said, lowering her tone, “you all better start telling me what the fuck’s going on here.”
But before they could respond, the doors opened one again, and a woman entered, elderly in appearance, her white hair pulled back in a thick braid, her clothes elegant and old-fashioned.
“Roman,” she said, her voice thick with that same unidentifiable accent, though this one even more thick, as though English wasn’t her first language. “I see that our warnings meant nothing to you.”
“Madam Moroz,” said Roman, his body tensing as he stood from his chair.
“What exactly is it that you’re doing here?” she asked, her expression shifting from severe to one of seemingly genuine curiosity, “What exactly is your plan? Tell the NYPD about everything? As if they don’t already know?”
Miranda stepped backwards until she was side-to-side with Roman. She felt her body begin to tense.
“I’m hoping to keep the bloodshed to a minimum. What do you think will happen, exactly, if we start killing police officers? It’ll be war in the streets.”
Madam Moroz shook her head and stepped towards the pair.
“Why do you think I’m here?” she asked, her voice taking on the gentle, but firm tone of a parent speaking to an unruly child. “Why do you think anyone from the old country is here? War is inevitable.”
Miranda’s eyes moved down to Roman’s hands, which she saw tighten into fists. Then she moved up to his face, where she saw his jaw clench with tension.
“How many times was it we warned you? Two, three times?” Madame Moroz said, holding up two bony fingers, then three. “Me, I’m not an advocate of even one warning. We do things a little different back in Europe; might have something to do with why we’ve survived for so long, but what do I know?” she finished, her tone taking on mild sarcasm.
The men who entered the bar before her formed on her flanks.
Miranda’s eyes took on a frantic appearance. She had no idea what was being discussed, but felt more and more in danger as the seconds went on.
“And as soon as you and the rest of the old country started showing up, that’s went the trouble started.”
Moroz waved her hand in a dismissive gesture while rolling her eyes.
“It makes no difference. The issue is that you have a witness, a bitten witness, that you’re insisting on protecting for God only knows what reason- despite our warnings. And that’s enough for me. I don’t fuck around, as they say.”
Moroz turned, her flowing clothes rippling as she moved, her silver hair framing an expression of indifferent dismissal.
“Kill him, and the girl. Especially the girl.”
She opened the door, and Miranda felt fresh air rush into the stuffy confines of the bar.
“And don’t forget to clean up when you’re done, boys.”
As soon as the door shut behind her, the three men began to step towards Roman and Miranda- expressions of giddy murder playing on their faces.
“You guys don’t need to do this,” said Roman, extending his arm in front of Miranda, shielding her.
The men stopped and exchanged looks.
“No English,” said the middle man, a slim, youthful-looking man with dark hair tied-up in a loose bun.
“Fuck,” said Roman, realizing that there’d be no way to talk himself out of this.
Miranda didn’t wait for the men to reach them. With a swift motion, she pulled her pistol out of her holder, flicked off the safety, and brought it in front of her face. Time seemed to slow down once again as she aimed her weapon. She closed one eye, and brought the face of the leftmost man into her sights. She squeezed off one round before moving to the next man, firing another round, then repeating the process on the third.
Time came back to normal, and Miranda watched with horror as the three men recovered from the staggering of the shots. Aside from each having a small dark circle between their eyes where the bullets hit home, they weren’t affected in the slightest by her shots, regardless of how accurate she was.
“Don’t bother,” said Roman, “just get out of here!”
With that, he shoved her backwards, tossing her through the air and against the back wall of the bar, where she slammed into a dartboard and brought it crashing onto the ground with her.
When Miranda looked up, she saw the three men converge on Roman, pulling at his limbs as though trying to take him apart like a pack of wild dogs. Two grabbed at his arms, holding him into place while the first got in front of him with a cocky stride.
Miranda climbed to her feet, steadying herself against the bar. Spotting her pistol on the ground, she walked with sidling steps towards it, one eye on the scene between the four men.
The man in front of Roman spoke, foreign words leaving his mouth in a sneering sputter. Roman said something back, and though Miranda couldn’t understand him, the blow delivered by the first man into Roman’s stomach tipped her off that it likely wasn’t polite.
Miranda squatted down, taking her gun into her sweating hands. The man in front of Roman spoke once again, and Miranda could see his body tensing, getting ready to attack. She aimed the pistol once more, aiming it at the face of the first man. But as her finger came to rest on the cool, metal trigger, she watched as Roman burst out of the grip of the two men. With swift, superhumanly-deft motions, he cracked the leg from a nearby barstool off, and brought it up into the air, shoving it into the chest of the man to his left. The man froze in shock for a moment before shattering into a cloud of what looked to Miranda like black soot.
As Roman’s body followed through with the plunging of the broken wood, he moved down into a crouching positon. While down, he withdrew something from his ankle. Miranda couldn’t see its exact nature, but it was made of gleaming silver. With a swift leaping motion, he drove the thing into the second man’s chest, grunting as he shoved the weapon deep into him. Like the other man, he froze into place before exploding into a cloud of black. Miranda lowered her weapon, seeing now that her ineffective bullets would probably do even less good than she thought.
The last man, the one who stood poised to deliver a killing blow to Roman only a few moments before, stood in front of Roman, a look of terror on his face. The two men stood across from each other for an instant before the man made a mad dash for the door. Roman stopped him without any effort, and threw him backwards against the bar. Moving towards him with slow steps, Roman said something in his foreign tongue. The man held up his hands in surrender. Just like the cocky threats he delivered only moments before needed no translations, his pitiful plaints as Roman stood over him were clear, with abundance.
Roman removed the silver blade from the pile of black ash where it lay, and with a quick toss, flipped it around in his hand. Then, with another throw, he launched it into the chest of the final man. A look of pain crossed the man’s face as the blade drove into his chest, but only for an insta
nt before he shattered, like the others, into that same black ash.
Without waiting a second, Roman reached into the remains of the man, took the blade, and slipped it back into his ankle sheath. Standing back up, he turned to Miranda.
“We need to leave. Now,” he said, turning towards the front door.
Miranda didn’t need to be told twice.
Chapter 7
The sleek, black car sped through the narrow streets of the Upper West Side, whipping around the sharp corners of the city roads.
“Jesus, slow down,” said Miranda, her eyes flicking back and forth between the red glow of the speedometer and the rushing, honking traffic that Roman was weaving through.
Roman said nothing, his dark eyes focused on the road.
“At least tell me where we’re going,” Miranda said, images of the men exploding into black ash still fresh in her mind.
“East Village,” he said, his hair whipping backwards, his handsome face cast in a soft, white, throbbing glow from the streetlights they passed.
“What’s there?”
Roman said nothing as he made another sharp turn.
“You are aware that I’m a fucking cop, right?” Miranda said, pointing to the gleaming badge on her hip.
“My apartment,” he said, though Miranda got the distinct impression that he was telling her to get her to stop talking, rather than out of respect for her authority.
The skyscrapers of Midtown behind them, they made their way into the East Village. After a time, the car pulled into a small driveway that led into a two-car garage. The other car in the space was a sports car, as sleek as the one she was in, but in a polished silver rather than jet black. They got out of the car and Miranda followed Roman to a steel door that led out of the garage. He punched a number into the keypad, followed by pressing the pad of his index finger into a print reader, and the door opened with a pneumatic hiss.
“A little much for a bachelor pad?” Miranda asked.
He smirked.
“Welcome,” he said, gesturing for her to enter.
Miranda stepped into the darkness of the room beyond the garage door, and as soon as she went in more than a few feet, automatic lights turned on, revealing the interior.
The place was a vast, open living space, made up of stainless steel surfaces and modern, black furniture. Modern art pieces hung on the walls, and the centerpiece of the living area was a massive TV that hung on the wall over a fireplace that roared to life as they walked in. It was a sleek bachelor’s paradise, and Miranda had to make sure that her jaw didn’t hang slacked as she looked around.
And Miranda noticed something else – all of the windows where covered by a heavy, metal slide.
“Nice,” she said, awe creeping into her voice.
Roman said nothing, instead taking off his jacket and throwing it upon the silver surface of the bar that separated the living area from the kitchen. Taking an iPad from where it sat on the counter, he made a few swipes, causing the metal coverings to pull back, revealing the star-filled night sky.
“What’s with the slides?” Miranda asked, pointing towards the now-open windows.
“I’m not big on sunlight,” he said, with a tone that conveyed his desire to drop the subject. “Something to drink?” he asked, making his way over to a display of liquor bottles.
“Jesus, yes,” she said, “whiskey, please.”
Roman took a bottle of whiskey down and poured a small amount into the two glasses. Miranda watched as he took a small, red capsule out and plopped into his drink, where it dissolved in a foamy fizz, the drink now tinged red.
“OK, you’re going to need to tell me what the hell’s going on here,” she said, taking her drink from his hand.
Again, he said nothing, instead looking off into the distance as he sipped his drink.
“We’re going to need to lay low,” he said. “Those people that attacked us at the bar were just the first. I didn’t think they’d do anything as open as that, but now that they have, all bets are off.”
“I figured all bets had been off for a while,” she said before taking a small sip.
“You have no idea.”
He took another sip.
“Listen,” he continued. “Right now, you’re about as in-over-your-head as it gets. And if you want to stay alive, which I’m assuming you do, the best thing you can do right now is just shut up and do what I say.”
Miranda was stunned; she wasn’t used to being bossed around like that. She opened her mouth a bit, preparing to speak, but no words formed.
With that, he finished the rest of his drink with a quick toss. He strode across the living area and up a small flight of steel stairs that led up to the second floor. Miranda watched as he walked down a hallway and entered a room. Miranda heard the pipes in the walls shift, followed by the hiss of a shower turning on.
Taking her drink in her hand, she followed Roman’s path up the stairs, hoping that during the minute it would take to reach the door he went into that she would think of something to say- a witty retort, at the least. But when she saw that the door was open a crack, she decided to say nothing, instead looking into the room.
She saw Roman step into her line of sight visible through the crack in the door. Moving his hands up to his neck, he began to unbutton his white shirt, exposing a little more of what Miranda could see were taut, defined muscles with each unbuttoning. Eventually, he reached the last one, pulling his shirt up and slipping it off of his body, revealing a pale, hairless, sculpted torso. Miranda swallowed, frozen in place as she stared at Roman, enraptured by his body. He then kicked off his shoes, pulled off his black dress socks, and slipped out of his black, lean-cut slacks, now standing in nothing more than a pair of white, skin-tight boxer briefs. Miranda’s eyes drifted down, seemingly out of her control, until they came to a rest on the massive bulge of his crotch. She felt her skin grow hot as she watched him, a tight feeling forming in the pit of her stomach. Then Roman walked towards the shower, stepping out of the slim line of visibility that the open door afforded her.
She finished her drink, still not sure what to make of the display she had just witnessed. Since her ex left her, she had spent so much time subsumed by her work that she hadn’t allowed herself to even admire an attractive member of the opposite sex from afar, and here she was, seeing a nearly-nude, and nearly-perfect, male specimen. Before it seemed like any time had passed, the shower turned off, and Roman stepped back into the bedroom, wearing nothing but a white towel that hung loosely from his hipbones.
“Come in here.”
Miranda froze, her eyes wide, her lips tight. She said nothing, instead standing in the doorway, trying to will herself invisible. She knew that she had been caught, but for that moment, she pretended that simply staying still could make him somehow forget her presence.
“I knew you were there the moment that I stepped out of the shower. Come in, I want to take another look at your wound.”
Miranda took the rest of her drink in a quick, jerking toss, set it down on a nearby stand, and walked into the bedroom. The bedroom was as sleek and modern as the rest of the apartment, with slate grey walls and modern, black furniture. Miranda could see into the bathroom, noting that there was a multi-head shower and a large jacuzzi tub.
She approached Roman, who was still clad in nothing but his white towel. Roman looked her over, paying special attention to her neck.
“Closer,” he said, not moving his eyes.
She complied, now close enough to smell his fresh, clean skin and the warmth of the remaining hot water on his body.
Taking her small, pert chin into his hand, he turned her face to the side.
“You’ll be fine. You’re lucky- I’ve seen smaller bites be fatal.”
Miranda felt a strange swirl of emotions. The tension that had been building in her since seeing Roman’s body only increased, now feeling like a deep need, an itch that needed to be scratched, and wouldn’t go away, no matter how she trie
d to ignore it.
As though something had taken her over, she watched as her hands moved towards the top of Roman’s towel. Placing her thumbs behind it, she tugged on it, causing the fabric to fall from Roman’s body, leaving him completely nude. Her eyes moved down to his long, thick manhood, which now hung heavy and loose between his legs.
Roman got the hint. Moving his hand behind Miranda’s head, he pulled her close and pressed his lips against hers in a deep, full kiss. Miranda felt the electricity of the kiss rush through her as Roman went to work on her clothes, pulling her shirt over her head and unfastening her bra in quick, deft movements. Her lips still pressed against Roman’s, now feeling his tongue probe her mouth, she unbuttoned her jeans and pulled them along with her panties off, kicking them eagerly from her feet as they moved towards the bed.
Roman took his lips from Miranda’s and, with a sly smirk on his face, pushed her onto the bed. Miranda could see his cock grow more erect by the second; she couldn’t take her eyes off of it. She felt her mouth begin to water as she admired its size and girth.
Roman stepped towards her, pushing her legs open, his cock now pointing towards Miranda. He leaned his body forward while standing, kissing her once again, now along her jaw and neck, the sensation covering Miranda’s skin in gooseflesh. He then took his cock into his hand and, guiding it with care, plunged it into Miranda. She felt her body light up as he entered her, and reaching back, she grabbed onto the covers and pulled them into her fists.
Roman started with slow, steady pumps, fucking her with just the first few inches of his cock. Miranda felt her pussy grow wetter by the second, and as it did, Roman slid further and further into her. Soon, he was sheathing himself completely within her, moving his hips back and forth in quick movements, sliding his cock in and out of her. Miranda wanted to close her eyes and focus solely on the feeling of him fucking her, but she couldn’t take her eyes off of his body. She alternated between watching the tensing and flexing of his muscles, and the sight of his long prick move in and out of her. She listened to his grunts and the wet, sliding sounds of his cock plunging deep into her.
