The Nightlife Moscow (Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Suspense) (The Nightlife Series Book 5) (8 page)

Michelle stood quietly to one side of the open area of the
warehouse and watched the wolves carefully. They chatted among themselves as
they assembled guns and combat gear laid out on a large conference table. Every
time Anatoly whispered and glanced her way, she knew he was up to something and
it involved her. She vaguely recalled that she had once trusted Ivan and Katya,
but now, the constant threat of wolves surrounding her pushed her to the edge
of violence. She’d never let these wicked beasts out of her sight again.

Waking up to a howling black animal had brought back an
avalanche of memories better left buried in her dark past. The gut-wrenching
fear of being eaten alive flowed through her veins once again. Snapping jaws
latched onto her arms and legs, barking muzzles glistened with her blood, and
the remembered agony of being torn to shreds by their grinding jaws made her
teeth drop down, ready to shred flesh and kill her enemies.

These men had tried to eat her, had partaken of her flesh,
and she would not soon forget. If not for Urvashi’s conviction that Dmitri
intended to sell vampire’s venom to the world, Michelle would drag Aaron from
this place right now.

Michelle’s survival instincts had kept her alive for near a
century, at the price of great loneliness. Though she loved Aaron deeply and
couldn’t stand the thought of being apart from him, living in the company of
wolves was destroying her sanity.

Aaron stayed close at her side, watching her. His concern
showed clearly on his face. He was probably digging through her mind, seeing
how she felt. If so, he would know that soon, wolves and vampires must part
ways … or else.

He directed her over to a dusty old couch in what passed for
a living room in this decrepit hovel. He was trying to ‘manage’ her.
How
sweet
. Only at the lowest point of her life, during WWII, had she been
forced to live in a hellhole like this. Every second spent in this industrial
wasteland grated on her soul.

Aaron brushed his fingers across her cheek and turned her
away from the wolves to face him. “It’s only temporary.”

Oui, reading her mind once again.

She caught Ivan staring at her, a strange look of apology on
his face. The old wolf must have realized his mistake in leaving her to wake up
next to Nikolay. She could almost forgive him. Almost.

Though she got frisky with Ivan, enjoyed his powerful body
and easy humor, that intimacy was now over. She assessed the room for exits,
plotting how many of them she could kill to clear a path to her escape. One
more threatening move in her direction, and she was gone. Anything in her way
would be cut to pieces.

Their dog scent floated thick in her nostrils. She sniffed
herself. “I smell like animal. Is disgusting.”

Aaron hugged her tighter and glanced back to Katya. Michelle
followed his gaze and the bloodslave returned Michelle’s stare. Michelle gave
the wolf-girl the full assault of her direct eye contact. A smug satisfaction
filled her at seeing Katya look away, unsettled. From the moment Michelle
realized what Aaron had done to Katya, she knew taking a wolf as bloodslave was
a huge mistake, far worse than his infatuation with Anastasia in Las Vegas.
Dealing with bloodslaves was one thing, but Michelle had no desire to be
involved with these wolves or dance around Katya’s acceptance issues.

Aaron kissed Michelle on the cheek. “Are you sure you’re up
for this? We’re going after Dmitri tonight. I need you focused on the enemy.
The wolves are not our enemy.”

If he had survived being eaten alive by wolves, he would
not speak with such assurance.

She delved into the eyes of the man she loved, wishing there
was some way to go back in time, to New York, to the time when Aaron was simply
her lover, under her control, and so much easier to deal with. He had become a
complex creature now, much more than a man, and far more dangerous to her heart.

In the debate of love versus survival, Michelle knew she’d
stand at Aaron’s side no matter what, wolves or no wolves. “I am focused, on
you. Don’t worry, Aaron. Je t'aime pour toujours et à jamais –
I’ll love you
forever
.” She glanced at the wolves. “I endure their company, for you. But
I don’t have to like it.”

Aaron followed her eyes towards Ivan and gang. “You weren’t
complaining about waking up to Katya in your bed.” His searching gaze returned
to her, with an uncharacteristic hard look. “You need to understand that Katya’s
going to be with us,
indefinitely
.”

Michelle leaned in close to speak low against his ear and
licked her lips. “She tastes good, is true.”

Aaron snickered. “She’s more than just food, Michelle. You
know that.”

“Not to me.”

* * * *

Urvashi watched Ivan adjust Aaron’s bulletproof vest. She
marveled at how the last hundred years of technological advances had
transformed men into formidable warriors. When she first laid eyes on the great
iron battleships of the 1940’s she knew a turning point had been reached in human
history. Technology and its applications would determine man’s destiny. Guns
had changed the world dramatically. She had never before feared man with his
spears, arrows and swords. Guns made all the difference. In the course of
taking down Dimitri and all his goons, a protective vest might be wise. Why not
gear up like everyone else?

Aaron caught her watching him and asked, “Aren’t you wearing
armor?”

The curious look in his eye struck her as a challenge. The
boy wanted to test her mettle. She sensed his desire to see what she could do,
find her limits. Perhaps she might learn those limits for herself. She had
rarely tested her abilities to the point of failure.

She shook her head and winked at him. Aaron laughed.

She wondered at the design of fate for placing this boy in
her path. She had shied away from Dmitri decades ago, disgusted with the dark
corruption of his soul. In her vast experience, supernatural aberrations like
vampires and shapeshifters often pursued dark, wicked lives of self-indulgence,
seldom striving for greatness or enlightenment. Yet here and now, this pack,
and this brash young man she held in blood-bond, presented an unusual combination.
Powerful, gifted supernatural creatures who cared about humanity. A rarity that
intrigued her.

She had kept tabs on this wolf pack for a very long time,
watching them drift back and forth across Europe. As mercenaries, they took
jobs when it suited them, and used their unique abilities to charge into the
thick of battle, fearless. They were nothing like Dmitri or the other monsters
she had known over the centuries.

She liked these wolves, with their simple lifestyle and
common decency. She prayed to gods she no longer believed in that she did not
lead them all to their deaths.

“Listen, these are the ground rules we must consider at all
times.” She addressed the whole pack, and Aaron. “I have arranged some help to
get us into Dmitri’s compound without alerting his security forces. There is a
standing agreement between Dmitri and the Moscow police. They will not enter
his compound. He runs his own army of security.”

She pegged each of the combatants with a direct look,
ensuring she had their attention. “Small arms fire should be fine. Police will
not attempt to gain entry or interfere unless there are major explosions.” She
looked to Ivan and caught a smirk from him. “I mean it Ivan. We must mitigate
the noise level of this invasion if we are to take control of Dmitri’s compound
without police interference.”

* * * *

Aaron pulled his heavy black leather coat over the black
hardshell body armor and tactical gear that Ivan had fitted him in from head to
toe. He turned to catch Michelle hissing at Ivan. “Don’t touch me!” She grabbed
Ivan’s wrist and dug her claws in, a ferocious snarl on her lips.

Ivan jerked out of her grip and backed away, hands in the
air. “Trying to help.” He watched her warily, confusion and frustration
crossing his features. The wolf didn’t understand that the flirtatious, sexy
woman he’d played with the night before had been replaced by his worst
nightmare.

Aaron slipped his arm around Michelle and held her against
him in a tight, loving hug. His lips brushed against her ear in a whisper.
“Calm down. No one here will hurt you.” He looked to Urvashi for help. He’d
never seen Michelle like this, so jumpy and vicious. “Let me help you with
this.”

Michelle stilled under Aaron’s hands as he attempted to
adjust the straps on the oversized body armor. It wasn’t exactly made for her
petite frame, but considering the situation, they needed all the protection
they could get. He’d seen Michelle shot up four times in only four months. The
woman attracted bullets quicker than a fucking magnet.

Urvashi watched Aaron struggling with Michelle’s gear and
nodded to her manservant Renault, a silent signal. The short man dressed in his
well-fitted body armor looked at Aaron and Michelle with an irritated squint. He
snubbed his nose toward Aaron, “He’s got it covered.”

Urvashi stared at him without a word, a look that clearly
communicated what she wanted.

“Vampire imbécile.” Cursing, Renault walked up to Michelle
and pushed Aaron’s hands away from her. “Ne bouge pas, I will fix it.”

The smug little French creep ran his hands all over
Michelle’s body, heedless of the intimate parts he fondled. He swatted Michelle
on the ass when he finished, and had to duck as the razor edges of her claws
missed his eyes by a mere millimeter.

Aaron growled at the grinning prick. “She’ll take that smile
right off your face, along with the rest of the skin. Just walk away, dude.
Walk. Away.” Aaron’s solid hold on Michelle’s arm was the only thing keeping
her from shredding the fucker.

Urvashi watched them both, and sent a look of warning at
Aaron. {{Keep a grip on your pet. If you want to survive the night, everyone
must work together.}}

With an arm squeezed around his pissed off vampire lover, he
nodded once to his master. Michelle, ever sensitive to Aaron’s private
communications with Urvashi, caught them staring at each other and snorted her
disapproval.

“Follow your master’s orders like the rest of her dogs.”

Renault’s head snapped around. He’d assumed Michelle was
talking to him. He took one look at Aaron’s face and laughed aloud. “Abruti.”
Retard
.

It was shaping up to be a long night.

* * * *

Michelle shivered in the frigid night air as they stole down
the half-lit alleys of northeast Moscow, working their way into the dilapidated
slums of the Golyanovo District. Some of the more historic areas with chipped
old brick and the tell-tale layering of many generations of patchwork
renovations reminded her of those vicious nights so long ago when she hunted
the rooftops of Paris, killing Nazis at every turn. Teeth fully elongated,
claws out and ready, adrenaline sang through her veins. Not even the subzero
Moscow winter could dampen her fervor to feast on the blood of men, as many as
she could get her hands on.

Aaron jogged at her side, silent, brooding. Unlike the
militant wolves with their assault rifles and pockets of ammunition and
grenades, Aaron carried only a pair of swords in a slim sheath beneath his
jacket. The blades had served him well in London, and Michelle had to admit,
her lover demonstrated a lethal grace with them.

Michelle preferred to taste the last heartbeat of her kill,
warm blood and the slick delight of entrails on her hands. Her former master Julian,
sick son-of-a-bitch that he was, had instilled in her the long-standing habit
of killing bare-handed. When necessary, and justified, Michelle truly enjoyed
the art of killing. She had no problem embracing her desires. In fact, tonight,
she looked forward to a return to the nights of yesteryear when her belly was
full and her victims were many.

The wolves signaled to stop when a pair of fifty story
buildings came into view. Anatoly held out his hand for them to wait, then
jogged ahead and slipped into the ground floor entryway of the left side
building. The place had several boarded up windows, and in many cases sheets
and blankets served as curtains. Everything about the place spoke of ruin and
poverty, like a flashing neon sign with the words “Russian Ghetto – prostitutes
and drugs complimentary.” Trou paumé –
a godforsaken hole
. Housing of
last resort, but it was better to squat in a Stalin-era concrete shitbox than
freeze to death on the streets. Although she’d surely find a few good meals
within the rotted walls, this was not her choice of venue to enjoy Russian
nightlife.

Aaron scowled at the complex and then the wolves. “Why are
we here? Expecting to find Dmitri slumming it?”

Ivan shook his head and grinned. He glanced to Urvashi. “You
did not tell them?”

Urvashi locked eyes with Aaron, and then looked up the
paint-peeling concrete walls to the rooftop. “This is where we catch our ride.
I told you, we’re not walking in the front door of Dmitri’s mansion.”

Aaron scowled back at his master then looked to Michelle.
She shrugged. Michelle didn’t really care who, what, when or where, as long as they
stayed out of her way when the killing started.

* * * *

At Anatoly’s signal, Aaron dashed across the empty street,
following the wolves into a double set of steel doors that led to an open
entryway of scuffed-broken asbestos tile flooring and dinged up lime-green
walls. Anatoly held the right side door open for them as the wolves silently
slipped through, single-file, to gather at the steel-grated window covering the
front desk. Aaron sniffed the air, catching the scent of a man’s cologne, but
no security guards showed their faces. As they passed the partially open door
to the front desk, Aaron caught a wisp of chemical scent before he saw the man
sprawled out on the dirty tile, his chair tipped over where he’d been taken
down. The smell of Chloroform wafted around the man.

Slinking around in the dark, geared up for war, he felt like
he’d been transported into the midst of a Mission Impossible film.
Your
mission, should you decide to accept it, is to kill a Russian vampire hiding in
his fortified mansion protected by an army of militant mafia fuckers
.

He glanced to Michelle as her hungry eyes settled on the
unconscious guard, ready to take a chunk out of the poor guy. He stopped her
with a grip on her arm, and a whisper. “Not yet. You’ll get your fill soon
enough.”

Michelle growled low in her throat at being denied a meal.

Katya looked at Michelle, then Aaron, a worried expression
on her face. She glanced to Ivan who shook his head. Anatoly led them to an
ancient elevator that reeked of cat piss, and they all crammed in for a ride to
the top floor. Katya’s concerned eyes caught Aaron yet again.

Aaron jabbed his gaze at each of the wolves in turn. “You
know how it feels when you’re starving and haven’t eaten a decent meal in
days?”

A couple of wolves groaned with a
not-again
sound, but
Katya nodded slowly. She was the only one in the elevator who felt the need to
give blood, almost as much as Michelle needed to feed.

“Imagine that feeling multiplied by ten.”

The wolves rode the rest of the way up in silence, everyone
ignoring the fact that they had starved Michelle to the edge of her control. Though
Aaron’s belly churned with a gut gnawing pang, his appetite was only a shadow
of Michelle’s need. Another beneficial side effect of feeding from Urvashi–his
hunger for blood had mellowed significantly.

At the top floor, Anatoly led them down a scarred hallway
with tattered carpeting, apartment doors on either side. At the end of the hall
he opened a dirty-beige steel door with suspicious dark red stains and stepped
through to a concrete stairwell. The cement walls had no paint or plaster to
cover the pock-marks and lines from the original construction. The interior
decorators must have exhausted their lavish budget by the time they considered
the stairwell.

Aaron grabbed Michelle’s hand and pulled her up the stairs
to a locked door that had some kind of Russian warning sign. Ivan stepped up
with a lock-pick gun in hand and jigged it back and forth until the knob turned
to click open.

The powerful gust of freezing winds tried to slam the door
closed, but Ivan shoved through and led the way out onto the rooftop. At fifty
stories up, the wind cut through Aaron’s clothing with icy blades. He couldn’t
remember a time when he was this cold. Shivering so bad he could barely speak,
he chattered, “You people are fucking nuts! Who the hell hangs out on Moscow
rooftops at Christmas?”

Urvashi, little miss fallen angel, didn’t shiver once. She
marched right out into the arctic gale winds and disappeared around the corner
of a rust-covered rooftop HVAC unit. Everyone followed her around the corner, and
a flat-black military helicopter came into view. The blades spun in a lazy-slow
rotation, silent in the howl of the wind. A man sitting in the cockpit nodded
to Renault.

The bastard had connections. Either that or Urvashi did. As
though reading his mind –
she probably was
– Urvashi winked at Aaron.

Ivan slapped the angular side panels of the aircraft and
grinned like a teenager with his first car. “We should have done this years
ago!”