by Gaja J. Kos
The state of mind she had been in the previous night was a disaster. If a change of scenery helped her get some perspective on the whole situation—even a single thought that wasn’t so gods-damned bleak—it could mean a lot.
Rose finished her tea and promised Dr. Xu she would be back the instant she returned from her trip. The acupuncturist seemed satisfied with her reassurance and let her leave with only a slightly concerned glance.
It was the best outcome Rose could hope for.
A cigarette was between Rose’s lips the moment she stepped out of the building. Although she missed the cold—not the humid, shit excuse of a winter, but that crisp, fresh air that had followed in the brief period after February’s snowstorms—she was glad to feel the sun on her skin. Her body was tired from the session, but the warmth of the day fell upon her like a loving caress.
She looked around and smiled. Finally, Ljubljana had reached that time of the year when the city shrugged off the perpetual overcast skies and instead presented its old, beautiful essence under the breathtakingly clear blue color.
Rose leaned against the building, absentmindedly gazing at the busy road running alongside it. Soon, she would be in much more crowded quarters—but infinitely more pleasant.
She hadn’t wanted to admit it to herself earlier, but putting some distance between her and Slovenia’s capital carried an additional allure. It was in Ljubljana that Rose’s memories of Veles were at their most potent, after all.
It was true that they had spent the majority of their time in his main residence, but now that seemed more like a dream than actual reality. Here, however, she felt as if the god’s presence was woven into every aspect of her life. The phantom brush of his fingers accompanied her every time she walked the streets she had once traveled down hand in hand with the lord of the underworld. There was nothing to stop her remembering those benches and alleys where his gaze had stripped off the clothes she had lost on the floor of her bedroom later. And it was here that she had realized for the first time that the heartbreakingly handsome god loved her.
Silently, Rose hoped he still did.
A light tug at her power snapped her back to the present. It was a gentle tickle, nothing more than a passing spark—but it was a deviation from the desired behavior, nonetheless. Rose frowned, crushing the cigarette beneath her boot. She would snarl at Dr. Xu so badly when she next saw him if she had a reaction today.
Her flight was scheduled to leave in less than thirteen hours, and she dreaded the idea of spending the trip curled up in a ball of pain. But her energy calmed down almost as fast as it had flared to life, leaving her alone on the gravel of the parking lot.
Rose grimaced. Perhaps she had celebrated the control of her power too quickly. Or perhaps it had simply been that she had kept the energy locked up for too long.
Either way, as Rose left Dr. Xu’s building in the background, a resolution had settled itself inside her.
She would work through the doctor’s exercises every day. But she would throw in a few of her own, as well.
She had been cowering long enough from who she was.
It was time to come back.
Chapter 5
The warehouse was in a mostly abandoned part of town, in one of those areas the capital worked hard to hide from plain sight but remained standing in all its grim glory. It lay only a moderate distance away from the concrete residential blocks that grew on the outskirts—yet another thing no amount of greenery could beautify.
Dragan had remembered that some of those who had been eager to join the opposition back when he had still been frightened out of his mind by the near-death experience had talked about this place. About the privacy it provided.
Katja had conveyed the information to the pack the instant Dragan had called her. The weres had been hunting down places like this since the first attack on Rose happened. But most of the buildings and lairs they had hit were nothing but small meeting points—nothing that even came close to the half torn-down factory now looming before them.
The werewolves had suspected there were several base camps spread throughout Ljubljana’s territory. Despite their zealous hatred towards Rose, the vampires didn’t seem to have lost their senses completely. They knew a single location would turn them into sitting targets. And the bastards covered their tracks well.
But clearly not well enough.
Not only had the pack—with Dragan’s assistance—sniffed out one of their strongholds, but someone had beaten them to it.
“It couldn’t have been Rose,” Evelin commented as she eyed the carnage. “I don’t smell her, and the bodies are too fresh—unless she ripped them apart just before she left…”
“No, she would’ve told us,” Tim shook his head and kneeled down to better observe the corpses closest to him. “There aren’t any claw marks on them, either.”
Scanning the twenty or so dead vampires, Zarja frowned. Tim was right. Some bodies showed traces of a physical struggle, but the rest seemed to have simply dropped down, devoid of life. She curled her nose at the stench but forced her feet to maneuver past the outstretched limbs, taking care to not brush the bodies with the ends of her dark brown cardigan as she leaned over the untouched flesh.
“She could’ve taken their souls,” Zarja offered, although she didn’t truly believe the notion herself.
Even if Rose had begun to use her power again, resorting to that combination of golden light and olive flames to solve the rebel problem, she would need practice before she could target individual vampires. And this group—this group certainly was targeted.
As far as Zarja knew, Rose’s power picked its victims at random. Or by some loose approximation, at best. Unless there were a whole lot more vamp corpses scattered around Ljubljana, Rose wasn’t the one that had gotten to them.
Movement outside, Jürgen’s voice came through the open bond.
His brother added in a low growl, Three incoming.
Without missing a beat, Zarja’s gaze scanned their surroundings. Ample cover. They should wait this out.
She said as much to the pack, keeping an eye on Tim and Evelin as they disappeared out of sight, before she found a nasty looking alcove and crouched behind some crates. A sliver of space between the edges of the decayed wood offered her the opportunity to survey the main, body-littered floor of the warehouse.
Three pairs of footsteps tapped against Zarja’s ears, and she held her breath. She was the closest one of all her pack. Although she didn’t believe the vampires would be able to sense her presence, her tendons tensed, ready to give her a head start should the need to engage surface.
They’re almost in, Jürgen warned, but his words were lost in shrieks of terror as the three vampires beheld their murdered brethren.
Zarja saw the fear, the rage, and the murderous fury flash across their faces. It was a gamble to stay here—the vampires could easily resort to turning the whole warehouse upside down, searching for any traces of the attacker. Yet something in her gut told her otherwise.
If she was right, the payoff would be well worth crouching in dirty corners for a few, although nerve-wrackingly long, moments.
Curses echoed through the space, the amped-up promises of a bloody retribution. But none of the vamps moved from their position by the entrance.
Zarja smiled. So far, her instincts had put her on the right track. And as the three figures began murmuring plans of their future actions, she knew the developments would continue to go her way.
You guys stay here. Zarja released the words through the bond, channeling them towards Evelin and Tim, though all four werewolves could hear them. I’ll take the twins—if the boys are willing—and track the vamps.
Right to their next hideout, was what she didn’t have to say.
Jens and Jürgen growled eagerly in agreement while the remaining two sent their approval on the ethereal currents of the link that was woven between them.
We’ll regroup at Pri Sojenicah in the evening, Evelin
piped up before the weres began to move.
Evelin couldn’t hide her disappointment that she wouldn’t be among the three following the vampires’ scent trail, but there was no denying the need to divide and conquer, either. Zarja was excellent at tracking by herself, her senses almost as keenly developed as Evelin’s. She understood she needed to stay back and try to figure out who had dispatched the enemy vamps. If anybody could catch an odd scent in the warehouse, it was her.
Still, that didn’t mean she couldn’t yearn for the thrill of the hunt. With two cubs at home—despite doing everything in equal parts with Mark—Evelin hadn’t had the time to release the extra tension by tracking prey through the woods.
Hunting rogue vamps would undoubtedly quench that thirst.
But in the end, she had merely wished Zarja and the twins luck, listening to the silent footsteps as they stalked away from the warehouse, unseen by the three—more than moderately concerned—vampires. Even now, Evelin could smell the reek of fear oozing from every pore on their bodies. They might have cursed the killer of their brethren, might have wanted him or her dead, but most of all, they were petrified that next time, it would be them lying on the floor, their souls departed from this world.
Although frightened vamps were what had caused this unpleasant chain of events in the first place—and Evelin had no doubts the rest of the rebellion would lash out in retribution once they heard of the slaughter—at least the newcomers’ petrified reaction was good for something. It confirmed the werewolves’ presumption that the warehouse was one of the main lairs.
It hadn’t been only the number of deceased vamps that had spooked the three. By their steady heartbeats and calm, secure body odor as they walked up to the warehouse, Evelin knew the thought of an attack happening here hadn’t as much as crossed their rotten minds. And since the slaughter had come as a surprise, she figured the bastards hadn’t been bothered to probe the area with their vamp radars beforehand, in case something was amiss.
A slow smile spread across Evelin’s lips. The pack had been lucky.
If it hadn’t been for Dragan’s insight, looking into this place would never have crossed their minds. The area was abandoned, that much was true, but it was precisely that aspect that had kept it secluded from vampires as well. The surrounding residential districts were predominantly occupied by humans, and the nearest traditionals’ lairs were set on the other side of town—which meant the disturbing creatures had a lot of ground to cross if they wanted to attend one of the late night meetings.
Risks weren’t something the traditionals took lightly unless bloodlust hijacked their minds. Traversing Ljubljana’s outskirts and the city center was definitely out of the question under normal circumstances.
Evelin sniffed the corpses again, observing each and every face, the expressions that were locked in grimaces of imminent pain. But the shock of coming face to face with death wasn’t the only thing the vamps had in common.
They were all twentyfourhourlies.
Not a single whiff of their conventional brethren in sight.
Evelin frowned.
As unnerving as it was, the weres had become used to the cooperation of the two vampiric kinds. Their differently fueled wrath seemed to work well together, the groups successfully pumping one another up. The pack had accepted the liaison, and that had been a mistake.
Taking the space in now, Evelin realized they needed to expand their search.
“Fuck,” she murmured, conveying her realization through the bond.
It appeared that the traditionals weren’t invited to all meetings.
Which meant the whole wider area of the city just became a possible hideout location.
Navigating Ljubljana in the middle of a workday was far from a pleasant affair even when tracking assholes wasn’t on the agenda. This way, it was even worse. Zarja found herself scowling at the slow pedestrians that seemed to take up the whole sidewalk like an impenetrable wall while the twins were doing their best not to tackle the maniacs speeding past them on their shabby, rattling bicycles. The one good thing was the abundance of cover the crowds offered. The bad—aside from too many obstacles—was the frustratingly large amount of scents.
The weres couldn’t afford to let their targets slip out of sight for long unless they wished for their unique codes to blend with the masses.
Not being able to rely on her sense of smell, Zarja began to develop a new appreciation for humans in the security business. She couldn’t even begin to imagine how it must be to do this damned job day after day with only your eyes on the target.
It was torture, and every werewolf bone in her body was repulsed by it.
Luckily, her desire to bring down the bastards was greater than her discomfort.
The three vampires led the werewolves further into the city center, Zarja’s displeasure growing with each step. Along with that nagging feeling in her gut she would rather not have felt.
As the trio veered away from the riverbank and stalked through a few old residential blocks, Jürgen dialed Katja. Like every member of the pack, she had access to the maps they had put together, marking out all the possible meeting points of the rebellion groups.
Rebellion groups, Jürgen growled in his thoughts. Too fucking noble a name for those fucks.
Agreed, his brother rumbled back, equally pissed.
Despite learning how to erect the mind shield, the twins had a hard time keeping the gates closed between each other when agitated. Jürgen could almost see the unpleasant smile on Jens’ face as his twin crooned, The day when we rip them all to pieces can’t come soon enough.
Although the werewolves had agreed Rose should stay as far away from slaughtering vampires as possible, the same didn’t apply to the rest of the pack. They still had every intention of hunting down each fucker that dared to follow Vaclav’s bloody plans of vampiric superiority.
That was if the unknown other didn’t beat them to it again.
“Schatzi, do we have any potential red zones in Prule, Krakovo, or Mirje? Or anywhere in the proximity of these three districts?”
A rustle of paper came from the other side of the line, followed by a long exhale. “No, nothing. The area is supposedly clean.”
“Shit.”
“Something wrong?” the vampire asked softly.
“We’ll see.” Jürgen sighed. Agitation sparked up inside him, but none of that seeped into his tone. It couldn’t—not when he was speaking to Katja. “I’ll let you know when I can.”
“I know. I love you.”
“Love you, too,” he breathed, meaning every word. He put the phone back in the pocket of his pants and turned towards his brother.
Jens had heard everything. And had been feeding Zarja the information the instant Jürgen received it. They all looked grim as they stalked further down the streets, keeping their marks in sight. This hunt just may take longer than any of them had anticipated.
The closest confirmed hideout was on the other side of Golovec to the east, or the one the pack assumed was hidden in the Dravlje area all the way across town. They could end up stalking the vampires for hours, and, even now, constantly keeping the bastards in his line of sight augmented Jürgen’s urge to rip into their bodies with every passing moment. Just as he wanted to growl in frustration, the three vamps in front slowed their slightly hurried pace, blending into the thick crowd.
The three weres held their breaths. They were already right on the southern edge of the old town, the buildings around them now the beautifully crafted pieces of Ljubljana’s history that postcards were so very fond of depicting.
Zarja cursed silently, the sentiment echoed by the twins. The vampires appeared to have reached their destination.
They weren’t headed to another lair after all. This part of town was too public, too vanilla to harbor a large number of rogues.
Jürgen swore. Something wasn’t right.
The sweat that was trickling down Zarja’s spine as she stalked across the h
eated pavement had been in vain. She wanted to sink her claws into the three bastards for that alone. But with the area as crowded as it was, she couldn’t indulge even in that little bit of pleasure.
Fuming, she was just about to call the hunt off when the tallest of the vamps turned towards the large double-hung doors of an old, three-story building. The kind that undoubtedly had boasting rights to a wide stairwell and no more than six apartments with high ceilings and enough room to accommodate a small village behind its walls. Zarja lived in a similar one herself, albeit profoundly less upscale. And the same reason she liked her place so much was the one that made her frown as the vampires entered the house.
It was a bitch to get in unnoticed.
Keep your distance, she warned the twins.
A surveillance camera was hidden in a nook in the top left corner of the entrance, covering a good chunk of the sidewalk as well. Since the werewolves couldn’t simply storm inside without knowing what waited for them there—as much as Zarja’s claws itched for it—they had to be vigilant about being detected.
The camera was warning enough that whatever was going on behind the walls of the town house was big.
She backtracked to the twins, eying the neighborhood along the way. It appeared to follow the typical layout for this quarter of Ljubljana—the street allowed traffic, which meant the higher-end buildings came with private parking lots positioned behind the houses. The gates were more often than not found only on the front side, the back closed off by a high cement fence. Usually unsupervised.
The building the vamps entered was actually a structure that bound three individual parts together, each with its separate front door. But only one well-hidden driveway.
Zarja would have missed it if she hadn’t seen the same type being used before just a couple of blocks away from her own place. The large gate was built from two massive iron plates without any telling markings on them. It was placed right in the center of a high wall, so it appeared as if it belonged to the house next door. There was no chance to detect where the boundary between the two buildings lay if you didn’t know that bit of information beforehand.
