The Nightlife Moscow (Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Suspense) (The Nightlife Series Book 5) (12 page)

“You have my promise. When this night is finished, I’ll take
you wherever you want to go.” Aaron backed off, and gave them some space to
breathe and calm down. The gunfire had stopped, and he looked back over his
shoulder to see if anyone was following.

Kristina kissed her child on the cheek and looked up to
Aaron with a deep well of emotion. “There is a special place in hell for those
who harm children. Do not forsake your promise.”

* * * *

Urvashi cut into Aaron’s mind with an urgent command. {{Dmitri
has escaped. Do not let Kristina out of your sight until she shows us where to
find the serum.}}

Aaron suspected that crafty son-of-a-bitch would get away.
Dmitri was too damn fast, even injured. Everyone knows an animal is most
dangerous when it’s wounded.

His arm wrapped securely around Kristina who held Lana in her
arms, Aaron marched them back to the scene of carnage. Realizing what the child
was about to witness, he stopped them at the far edge of the hedges. “Stay
here. Go nowhere. I cannot protect you if you run. Trust me, you need my
protection right now. Dmitri has escaped.”

Kristina’s eyes flared with horror, but she held her tongue.
Lana simply nodded and held onto her mother. Aaron suspected the woman was
probably too terrified to move, at least for the moment. A deep well of
sympathy flowed out of Aaron for this poor woman and her child, and the dark
future that lay ahead of them if he couldn’t track down the fucking super
villain vampire and put an end to him.

Aaron had been slashing and hacking up soldiers with glee,
damn near humming with the adrenaline rush, and this woman had been running to
save her daughter. Yet again, he wondered where the hell his humanity had gone,
leaving this psychotic predator inside his head. Like Michelle, he’d begun to enjoy
the killing a little too much.

Urvashi sailed down from her majestic high-flying act and
landed several feet in front of Aaron, her sword stashed back in its scabbard. “Stay
with her. I will collect the wolves.”

Relegated to babysitting.

Focusing on the littered bodies and mayhem, he found Michelle
on her hands and knees, gorging on a mostly dead soldier who could no longer
scream because she had torn into his throat. She finished him up, sat back on
her heels and wiped the blood off her face. He couldn’t tell if she was
injured, but, when she stood, she favored her left leg with a limp. She made
her way to him, glancing around casually at all the dead and dying. The woman
was a fascinating study in contradictions. Perfectly happy killing and maiming
her enemies, she could also be a deeply compassionate and caring creature. She
had hammered caution and restraint into him at every turn, and yet didn’t
hesitate to dig her hands into the bloody gore when the time came.

Katya was holding her left shoulder and Aaron caught the
glistening reflection of blood running down her gloves and arm. His instinct
was to go to her immediately, clean and tend her wounds, and take her straight to
bed for some sexual healing.

With the adrenaline rush gone, Aaron started shivering as
Urvashi made the rounds, checking on Ivan, then Katya. The big man was growling
something at her, his arm flying off in the air. He was pissed as hell. Her
lips formed a tight line of disapproval as he shook his finger in her face.
Aaron focused in to better hear what he was saying.

“You promised me Dmitri’s head. Last time we lost two good
men, and now our entire pack is at risk based on your promises.” He looked
around in a circle. “I have nothing but your promises.” He leaned forward into
Urvashi’s face. “Bring me his fucking head.”

Aaron had never heard Ivan speak to anyone with such
vitriol. Not even when the wolf was spitting mad because Aaron had hooked Katya
as a bloodslave. Ivan had been harboring this vendetta for a century, letting
it fester and stew into a nasty pot of hatred.

Urvashi put a gentle hand on Ivan’s face, and Aaron could
feel her powerful soothing aura flow over the angry wolf. “I will not fail you,
Ivan. Give us a chance to see it through. I will deliver Dmitri to you this
night. I give you my word.”

The wolf watched Urvashi carefully. Like flipping a switch,
he dialed back the aggression and held her hand with his own. “I know you won’t
fail me, because I will have his head tonight, even if I have to tear it from
his body with my own hands.”

After staring at each other for a time, they parted in
mutual understanding. Urvashi moved on to find her servant sprawled out on the
ground. She reached down and pulled a mewling Renault to his feet. He had a
weak right leg, a grimace of pain, and generally looked like shit. The gang had
seen better days.

Aaron wondered how Nikolay and Anatoly were doing, if they
had been ambushed by another batch of the seemingly endless supply of
cannon-fodder soldiers Dmitri employed. Considering these wolves had survived
so many decades, some more than a century, from war zone to war zone, Aaron
figured they would recover well enough. All they needed was a chance to change
and
whammo,
like new again. Katya could probably heal herself far easier
than Aaron playing his incubus routine.

He shook his head in awe of the predicament he found himself
in,
again
. Hunting billionaires, babysitting werewolves, answering to a
fallen angel, and still attached to his psychotic French vampire lover who
reeked of blood as she hugged him to ward off the chill. He returned Michelle’s
embrace and tried to let the absurdity of the moment slip away in the warmth
and comfort of her arms.

The mess of his life provided one sure advantage – he never
had a shortage of sexual partners.

Kristina murmured something to Lana in Russian, her mental
shield solidly in place, blocking Aaron out of her mind. Aaron wondered just
how much Kristina could be trusted. She’d been driven to such extremes for her
survival, and to protect her daughter. No telling what she might do.

Ivan, Katya and Urvashi joined Aaron and gang in the street.
Renault remained sitting on the edge of the concrete fountain.

Aaron stepped up to Urvashi and nodded towards Renault.
“What’s up with the gimp? He’s not coming?”

Urvashi shook her head in dismissal and moved past Aaron to
face Kristina. “I will honor Aaron’s promise to you and your daughter,
regardless of what the pack wishes. But first, you must lead me to the vault
and show me how to open it. And you must help us track Dmitri. You know his
comings and goings, this place, everything about him.”

Kristina started to balk. “I’ll help, but I don’t have the
code to open the…”

Ivan chuckled, having regained a touch of his humor. “Don’t
worry about getting in. Just get me to the door.” He patted several filled
pouches hanging from his batman utility belt. “I have the key to any door.” The
blood-splattered wolf had a twinkle in his eye. Aaron suspected Ivan never got
tired of blowing shit up. Probably the most fun he’d had in a while.

Katya’s face turned sour and she stepped towards Urvashi.
“Kristina owes us a blood debt for the lives of Abram and Vitaly. It’s not your
place to forgive her debt.”

Urvashi glared at Katya. “I’m not the one who sent her to
Dmitri, but if she cooperates, I will be the one to get her out. Your debt is
with Dmitri, not Kristina. She is but another of Dmitri’s countless victims. Do
not make enemies of those who would otherwise be friends.”

Katya backed off grudgingly, but Aaron knew her shit wasn’t
over, not by a long shot.

Urvashi nodded to Kristina. “Lead the way.”

They stayed close to Kristina as she led them around the
bushes, Lana clinging onto her hand. Aaron watched as mother and daughter
plodded along, slow, exhausted. It was driving him nuts. They should have been
there already, ten minutes ago.

Aaron reached out to Kristina. “Here, let me carry her. We
need to move faster, and I can protect her better than you can.” She looked to
her daughter who was watching Aaron. “We need to go, let me help you. Trust
me.”

Kristina leaned down to her daughter. “Go with him, Lana.
It’s okay. Mama’s tired.”

Mama looked beyond tired. She was ready to collapse.
Michelle became impatient and snatched Lana off the ground to hand to Aaron.
The girl yelped, but didn’t complain any further as Aaron snugged her up in his
arms. He assured himself the girl would keep quiet and nodded to Kristina. “Let’s
do this.”

He and Kristina started moving at a fast clip, and everyone
behind jogged to keep up. They raced around the circular driveway and quickly
covered the distance to the front steps of the second mansion. The massive oak
double doors were locked, so Aaron dropped back, keeping a solid grip on his
cargo, and let Ivan do his thing. The Russian didn’t bother with explosives
this time, he simply kicked hard and busted through the right side of the
doors. Several gunshots flew through the opening where Ivan would have been if
he hadn’t sidestepped immediately. With a wicked grin on his face, he pulled
the pin on three grenades and tossed them into the partially open door. Ivan
ran back down the steps to a safer distance.

Aaron jogged even farther from the door, to the center of
the driveway, hoping to keep Lana calm. She jerked and squealed in his arms
when the explosions hit, blasting open the other door, but when she looked up
to him, he held her gaze steadily. “We’re going to be okay. I got you. It’s
fine, Lana.”

With tears rolling down her face, and a quivering bottom
lip, she must have understood him, because she nodded before burying her face
in his jacket. The damn girl was adorable. Why did he have to be here, in this
frozen, corrupt place, with this soft kitten of a girl scared shitless in his
arms?

He should be in Southern France or Florida or the Caribbean,
somewhere warm and fun. He shook it off and watched Ivan and Katya advance
through the doors with their rifles up. A few quick shots fired and no more
noise came from the entryway. Urvashi followed the wolves in, drawing her sword
as she walked through the busted doors. Aaron had yet to see her really cut
loose with that thing. She must be saving it up for a deserving opponent.

With the firefight for the entryway finished, Aaron nodded
to Kristina and Michelle, then slipped through the doorway into the second
mansion. About half a dozen disposable soldiers were strewn across the
entryway, twitching through their death throes. Ivan and gang waited in the
center of the room. Kristina stepped over the dead, trying her best not to look
at the men, and motioned with her hand to the left hallway. Ivan and Katya went
first, scanning the room through their night vision scopes. Everyone else
followed.

This was another formal sitting room, but with Victorian or
Edwardian furniture, all dark wood and creamy white upholstery. Kristina
indicated another hallway across the room, and Ivan and Katya took the lead
with their rifles.

At the end of the hall, Kristina walked up to the glossy
wood paneling and reached down to the floorboard, to a hidden switch. The panel
popped open revealing a hidden doorway. Behind the wood panel lay a staircase
and yet another eerie descent with wall sconce lighting.

Fuck.
The last time they tried this shit, they had
walked straight into a trap. With his free arm, Aaron snatched Kristina by the
collar of her coat and hissed in her ear. “Who is down there waiting for us?”

She shook her head and tried to back away in fear. Her voice
came out in a breathless whisper. “This is where he keeps the otrok. This is
what you wanted.”

Urvashi’s impatient gaze pegged Aaron as she passed him by
with her sword drawn. She stood poised on the first step. “Regardless of what awaits,
we are going down. Now. Trust in me, Aaron, I always protect what’s mine.”

Her assurances stirred up a boil of conflicting emotions,
primarily irritation. He hated being referred to as
property
. Yet, he
sensed there was something that had gone unspoken. As usual, her words brought
more questions than answers.

Urvashi led the descent into the room. At the bottom of the
stairs was a single doorway.
Locked
. Urvashi broke the lock with a hard
jerk-twist. She ripped it open and stood looking into a pitch black room with a
dark brown ceramic tile floor. The weak light from the stairwell penetrated all
of three feet into the gloom.

No shots fired. Nothing. After a moment, Urvashi walked
straight into the darkness. Ivan and Katya followed on her heels, flashlight
beams sweeping left and right. Then Michelle. Aaron went in last, one hand
holding Kristina, the other carrying Lana. The girl was nodding off on his
shoulder.

As they progressed, a small squishy sound came from the far
end of the room. Aaron tensed up, expecting the worst, but nothing happened.
Finally, Aaron’s enhanced night vision adjusted to the gloom, and he was better
able to see that it was actually two rooms. A large open archway led to another
room where the noises were coming from. The first room had several low couches
of dark colored leather in semicircle around a television, behind that a dining
table, and the wall was lined by another fully stocked bar. Through the archway
Aaron could make out vague shapes, including the biggest bed he’d ever laid
eyes on.

Mancave #2.

Then something moved by the bed, and the squishy sound
stopped.

He silently handed off Lana to Kristina and drew both
swords. Something was standing in the deeper shadows in that room, and Aaron
had a suspicion he knew exactly what it was –
a wounded vampire.

* * * *

A series of clicks sounded off from the wall at the bar and
Aaron stopped dead in his tracks to peer through the darkness in the direction
of the noise. He could see nothing but the shape of the bar and liquor bottles
lining the wall. Then a bunch of little red laser lights speared through the
darkness to find their mark. Two lasers hit Aaron’s chest. He had a split
second to notice Kristina had a laser on her chest too, and then he decided.

The monster would have to wait
. In a blinding flash
of speed he dropped both swords and hit Kristina head on, nailing her and Lana
against the wall and out of the immediate line of fire. As the girls squealed
from the unexpected impact, Ivan and Katya both yelled, “Get down!”

The echoing rattle of automatic weapons fire was followed by
screams of pain. It was all Aaron could do to get the girls down on the ground.
Panic surged through him as he screamed from a bullet slashing through his
right thigh. He scrambled desperately to pull the girls to the cover of the
dining table and chairs. Still in shock, the pain hadn’t come on yet, but he
knew it would hit soon enough.

Strange flashes of golden light illuminated the room like a
disco strobe. Aaron bobbed his head up off the floor to see Urvashi centered
within the flickering energy of her protective aura-shield. The staccato
gunfire striking her shield caused little sparks of light. She moved twenty
feet in an instant and struck the bar in blur of flashing blade and telekinetic
power. Each of her whip-crack sword strikes blasted away huge sections of the
bar. The explosive force penetrated through to the soldiers hidden behind the
partition. Sounds of mutilated flesh and men dying filled the air as Urvashi
demolished hardwood and marble countertops to get to the soldiers trapped on
the other side.

She worked her way down the bar with sweeping up-down
strokes of her sword, hacking-blasting-smashing through anything in her path,
an Angel of Death using a katana as a bulldozer.

It was the most amazing and disturbing thing Aaron had ever
witnessed.

Though her attack only lasted a few seconds, throughout
Urvashi’s reign of hellfire and fury, Aaron caught several more distinct
snapshot glimpses that painted a clear picture of the angular jawlines and
cheek bones of a reptilian female creature beneath the human façade. Urvashi
was not even remotely human, had never been human, and Aaron began to wonder if
such a thing had ever been born on the planet earth.

A nasty sensation crept up Aaron’s spine and he looked
towards the archway. Bastard Dmitri stood there watching them all with a grin
that wasn’t quite …
happy
. He looked constipated, or perhaps a predator baring
its teeth in menace. Aaron looked down to Kristina and Lana who were hugging
each other, crying and shaking. He wanted to do something more for them. Killing
Dmitri was the only thing that would solve their problems.

Aaron stood up on his shaky right leg and tested his weight.
His leg held, though it was starting to burn like a bitch. Dmitri sized him up
in a minute, and dismissed him to focus on Urvashi who was making her way out
of the wreckage and death at her feet. Aaron reached for his swords and found
empty scabbards.

Fuck.

They were on the floor where he’d dropped them. He eyed
Dmitri once more, and caught him tracking Aaron’s gaze over to the blades.
Shit.

They both went for the nearest blade. Aaron reached one a
split second before Dmitri slashed at his head. Aaron rolled out of the way and
escaped with a deep gash on his temple, but with his head still attached. He
scrambled to his feet, sword at the ready and parried a flurry of hacks from
Dmitri. The fucker was fast, strong, and relentless. Aaron backpedaled, blocking
Dmitri’s blows non-stop – left, right, high, low, left, right, up from the
bottom, down from the top and a straight stab.

Dmitri reached too far with his stab and left himself over
extended. Aaron spun as he side-stepped and ripped a quick slash across
Dmitri’s chest. The vampire staggered back in a roar of pain and fury, and
suddenly landed atop Aaron with a vicious right cross.

Aaron’s jaw crunched as his head snapped around and he landed
several feet back on his ass. He suddenly understood what people meant when
they talked about
seeing stars
. His vision was nothing but flashes and a
blur of tears as waves of pain exploded across his jaw and skull.

He had a moment of clarity to see Dmitri standing over him,
sword held high, already in the middle of a lethal downward stroke. Then
Urvashi was there. Her sword flashed in front of Aaron to deflect Dmitri’s
killing blow. The surge of her power flowed over Aaron like a warm breeze, but
hit Dmitri like a Mack truck. The vampire’s head snapped back and he flipped
end over end in the air and smacked the floor face-first. The force of his landing
cracked the ceramic tiles.

“Oh shit, that looks like it hurt.” Though Aaron could
hardly move his jaw without pain, he grinned wildly. His master had turned the
tables and saved his life, exactly as promised.
Dmitri was fucked
.

Standing over her conquest with her sword raised, she
pitched forward and cried out as gunfire erupted from a new troop of disposable
soldiers coming down the stairwell. Several bullets hit her and she staggered.
Her aura-shield formed an instant later, almost reflexively, sending the rest
of the shots ricocheting off her power.

Two soldiers broke off from the group and focused their
rifles on Aaron. As they fired, he was already up and moving. Too slow, one
bullet seared into his shoulder and sent him spinning through the air to land
on his back. He lay there, breathing hard, trying to focus past the stabbing-throbbing-burning
agony in his leg and shoulder. By comparison, the sledgehammer headache Dmitri
had given him wasn’t so bad. One soldier approached cautiously, rifle pointed
at Aaron’s head. Aaron groped around for his lost sword and saw it resting
several feet away on the floor. Though he knew he had to do something right
away, he couldn’t force his fuzzy mind to focus past the pain.

A loud growl split the air and the bloody wreck that was
Ivan regained his feet and tossed his rifle aside. He’d obviously taken several
bullets, but his ferocity was a palpable force in the room. Then Ivan’s face
began to contort, elongate. A massive snout emerged and his lips peeled back
away to reveal inhumanly large, sharp teeth. His eyes blazed golden, and he
held his hands in front of him as they reformed into some sort of clawed
appendages.

The soldiers panicked and called to one another in Russian. Ivan
became the sole focus of their rifles. The wolfish man staggered as several
rounds hit his chest, but he held his footing. The beast was still wearing body
armor.

Ivan’s howl cut through the room, a baleful sound of animal
rage. In a blink, Ivan leapt atop the soldier standing in front of Aaron,
cutting through the man with nothing but teeth and claws. The soldier’s rifle
fell to the floor as Ivan shredded flesh with a viciousness only seen in the
animal kingdom. The Russian hadn’t even bothered to finish his transformation
to wolf. He was an abomination, something
in between
man and wolf – and
far more savage than either.

In seconds Ivan had chewed the man’s face off, skinned his
skull, flung the flesh aside and crushed his cranium in the power of his massive
jaws. Aaron managed to scramble back out of the way of the gory corpse that
Ivan tossed aside.

With Ivan’s freak show distraction, Urvashi had a chance to
recover and move in for attack. In three seconds flat she downed four men,
almost cutting one soldier in half. The last four soldiers scattered to escape
her lightning strike sword. Two sprinted up the stairs, cursing all the way. The
other two got as far from Ivan and Urvashi as they could. They took opposite
sides of the room, tripping over furniture and bodies in the darkness. Urvashi
lit into the backside of one runner, and Ivan loped in the opposite direction
after the other one. By the time Urvashi finished slicing and dicing her man,
Ivan had the last soldier’s face in his massive jaws, pawing through his belly,
gutting him as his jaws shook their prize so hard the wolf broke the man’s
neck.

Ivan dropped the dead body from his teeth and scanned the
room looking for new prey. His grotesque head turned back and forth in
indecision. Aaron whispered a prayer to the powers that be as Ivan’s inhuman
eyes settled on him.
Please, God, let this creature recognize me.
He
hoped the intelligence inside the monster was still fundamentally
Ivan
. A
movement on the floor drew Ivan’s attention. Dmitri had woken up. The
Ivan-wolf-thing went straight for the downed vampire in a dead run, a wolfish
grin on its chops. A century of vendetta was about to get paid in full.

Aaron scooted back to lean up against the side of the couch,
trying to get past the pain. He wanted to shut his eyes and rest, but, there
was no way to stop watching what was about to happen. Ivan jerked Dmitri off
the floor with a solid chomp on his left shoulder. He stood with the man in his
chops, Dmitri screaming in agony, thrashing about.

The vampire still had some fight left in him. He cut a
wicked right hook into the side of Ivan’s snout and tore the wolf loose from
his bite. The monster stumbled back several steps, shook his head with a
groaning growl of pain, then flexed its man-wolf claws and barked in Dmitri’s
face. The vampire hissed and retreated until his back hit the wall.

In a flash the wolf hit him, pinning Dmitri to the wall, and
his mouth descended on the vampire’s face. At the last second Dmitri cursed
hard in Russian and used his formidable strength to choke Ivan, shoving him
back by his throat. Ivan’s claws raked through Dmitri’s upper body and the
vampire went down with the savage blows. Ivan was on his prey, relentlessly
biting, clawing, snapping and growling, an animalistic ferociousness Aaron
never imagined the old man possessed.

Suddenly a woman rushed out the archway from the bedroom
with a pistol in hand. She could have been a Russian supermodel if not for the
blood crusted on her throat, which had dribbled down onto her expensive white
blouse.

It clicked then,
the feeding noises.
Dmitri had been
charging up on blood in the bedroom when they first walked into the room. The
woman screamed shrill threats in Russian and started shooting at Ivan’s back.
The creature howled in pain and thrashed. It was the opening Dmitri needed.

The vampire rolled over atop Ivan and started pummeling the
beast into a bloody pulp. Aaron knew too well the power behind those fists, and
poor Ivan was taking it repeatedly.

Urvashi flitted past and literally
disarmed
the woman
with one swipe of her great sword. The shooter’s gun fell to the floor, along
with both her disembodied hands, as blood sprayed from the stubs of her arms.
Screaming in shock the woman looked at Urvashi in horror and the fallen angel
finished the job with a blurred flick of her blade. The woman’s head toppled
over sideways and hit the floor before her shaking corpse could join it. A few
seconds later the headless body flopped over atop its missing parts.

Dmitri stood up over Ivan, his hands covered in gore,
knuckles shredded to the bone. The son-of-a-bitch was hard as nails. Shot,
stabbed, clawed, bitten, sliced, diced, pounded and pummeled, Aaron marveled at
the fact the vampire was still alive, let alone standing. Ivan was laid out,
his breath a gargle coming from his bloodied and broken face. Aaron doubted the
old wolf would live much longer.

Heaving to catch his breath, the vampire faced his nemesis,
Urvashi. “Was it worth it? Your ridiculous crusade?”

She dropped her sword low, and slowly glided the blade out
to the side, seemingly relaxed. Aaron sensed the deadly coil of tension in his
master, and he was glad to be far out of her reach.

“I told you to cease creating that abomination in your
laboratory. When you released the serum on the streets of Moscow, I warned you
to give me the drug and destroy the formula before someone else could replicate
it. When you refused, I told you I would stop you at any cost. Your foolishness
has brought us to this moment.”

She raised her sword high, in preparation for the killing
blow.

From behind her came three women in blood splattered
t-shirts and blouses, tears running down their faces. They were terrified, must
have been hiding in the back bedroom all this time. The blonde in front spoke
in stutters. “Please, I beg you, do not kill him. You condemn us all.” Her
English bore a heavy Slavic accent, obviously a second language.

She stepped forward into Urvashi’s kill zone, either brave
as hell or extremely desperate. The woman dropped to her knees and tugged on
the pant leg of Urvashi’s black combat gear. “If Dmitri is gone, we will have
no one. We will die or go insane. Please have mercy. If not for him, for us.”

The women were shaking, bawling. Aaron read the intensity of
their need plainly in their minds. The other two wanted to join the blonde
begging for Dmitri’s life, but were immobilized by their fear.

Bloodslaves.

“Holy fuck.” Aaron was stupefied.

His master was unperturbed. “Your fate will be determined
later.” Urvashi dismissed their pleas, just like that. “As for Dmitri, his life
is forfeit.” Her sword flashed without warning and Dmitri’s head flopped
backwards off his shoulders and his body slumped over beside the unconscious beast
that once was Ivan.

As the life left Dmitri’s body, Aaron felt a psychic whiplash
of power from the dead vampire, like rubber bands pulled tight, then snapped
back. All three women flopped to the floor, holding their heads and screaming
in agony. Aaron could almost feel their pain as Dmitri’s psychic bloodslave
bond was ripped from their minds.