Red Rooster (Sons of Rome Book 2)

by Lauren Gilley

  Nikita’s gaze dropped to the table, his blue-gray eyes glimmering like quicksilver in the gloom. He took a deep breath and looked, to her eyes, tired suddenly. The Great Patriotic War was long since over, but he still carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. He’d had only Sasha to worry about for a very long time, and in they’d blundered and given him a whole new pack to fret over.

  “What is the address in Queens?” he asked, accent thicker, now. “I want to leave soon.”

  There was no point arguing with him anymore. “Will you take Sasha?” Trina asked, as Lanny texted the address to him.

  “No. I’ll leave him here to watch over all of you.”

  “Then who’ll watch over you?”

  His smile was tight. “Rasputin could talk his way into any room, and so can I.”

  11

  Farley, Wyoming

  The first night in Farley, she dreamed of the Institute. Its white walls, and white floors, and white ceilings, and the white lab coats of the doctors. She dreamed of the heavy scent of bleach that always permeated the air, and the measured voices of the doctors and lab techs, one rising every so often in sudden excitement. Of the hard table beneath her back, the lights in her eyes, gloved hands pushing her thighs apart, and the cold air chilling her skin.

  “Sir, this one’s ovulating.”

  “The first one to do so?” Dr. Fowler’s steps clipped across the tile, hurried, thrilled. “Excellent.”

  Men standing over her, smiling down not at her face, but at her body, at what it could offer them. Cold hands, cold implements, and it hurt.

  A week later, she saw the first bright red drops of her own blood pattering onto the endless white stretch of tile. They’d taken something from her – the mask going over her face, gas filling her lungs, unnatural sleep taking hold of her – but hadn’t left anything behind. Not that time. They’d educated them all, tutored them with the finest materials – Dr. Talbot’s idea – and she’d seen the nature documentaries. Females ovulated, and they were bred, and they gave birth to offspring.

  That was when she ran away.

  Only, in her dream, she couldn’t run. In her dream, they put the cuffs around her wrists which sent electric shocks through her body, the pain arcing like lightning through her veins. And they dragged her up onto a table, and the lights blinded her, and the scalpel came down, and no, no, nononono–

  She woke with a start.

  The sheets were on fire.

  Just two small places, right beneath her hands, but it would spread, she knew. “Oh no.”

  Rooster stood by her bed, a damp towel in his hands. “Here, move,” he said, almost gently, and he patted out the flames, plunging the room in darkness once more.

  It was the dark of the wee hours, a few wan stripes of yellow from the streetlamp falling in through the half-closed vertical blinds. The room smelled like a freshly-snuffed candle.

  Red pushed her hair back off her face, found it damp with sweat at her temples. Her hands shook. “I’m sorry,” she said, and groaned. “Ugh, I ruined another hotel bed. I’m sorry.”

  Rooster sat down on the edge of his own bed, elbows braced on his knees, leaning toward her. “Hey, it’s not that bad. I bet we could find some sheets to buy here in town and replace them ourselves. No one will even know.”

  She gave him a lopsided smile that he probably couldn’t see in the dark. She could only just make out the shagginess of his hair and the breadth of his shoulders.

  Raw from the nightmare, she allowed herself a moment to feel really, truly guilty about what she’d done to Rooster. She’d followed him the night she escaped because she’d known he was a warrior – all the sad, shuffling people who came for treatment were – but also because, unlike the others, he had something angry and knife-sharp in his eyes. So many had looked hopeful; had been calm and composed, holding their partners’ hands and nodding along with the doctors, content to read magazines in the waiting room and wait their turn. But Rooster had bristled with anger, his gaze darting, assessing, looking for threats. Not frightened, but wary, like a cornered animal. And in all the nature documentaries she loved, it was the cornered animals who struck first.

  But now his life was nothing but one long, strategic retreat. He could never rest, never settle. Never fall in love, or have children, or make friends. He distrusted everyone, and liked them even less.

  That was her fault. And then she couldn’t even keep from scorching hotel sheets.

  During the day, she wouldn’t have said it. But now, held close by the dark, shaking from another nightmare, she gave voice to a question she already knew the answer to, just to let some of the frustration out before it started to boil. “Why won’t they stop hunting me?” she asked. “They have all the others. Why can’t they just let me go?”

  Rooster sighed and moved to sit beside her, his strong arm going around her shoulders and pulling her into his side. He gave her the same answer as always: “’Cause you’re just too special.”

  She wiped at her eyes with unsteady knuckles. “You don’t have to keep doing this. You can let them have me.”

  His arm tightened. “Maybe you should go back to sleep, ‘cause you sound delirious.”

  “I’m serious–”

  “So am I. They can’t have you. I won’t ever let that happen. Okay? Never.”

  But what about you? she wondered. What about your life?

  12

  New York City

  Lanny eventually came back to bed just before dawn; she felt the air mattress give beneath his weight. But he made no attempt to speak or touch her, and she drifted off before she had too much time to lament this strange distance between them.

  When she woke, daylight streamed through the windows, and Lanny was gone. In fact, everyone seemed to be gone.

  She sat up, blinking, and saw that the other air mattresses had been neatly made up, blankets folded, couch cushions plumped back up.

  Colette sat at the kitchen table, dreads pulled up into a topknot, sipping from a cereal bowl-sized mug. “Good morning.”

  “Morning.” Trina got to her feet, self-consciously tugging at her rumpled clothes, and made her way to the kitchen. Colette had been kind enough to loan her some yoga pants and a silk robe to sleep in, but she didn’t relish the thought of putting yesterday’s outfit on again this morning.

  “There’s tea,” Colette said, “and I started the coffee maker. I always got the impression cops lived off coffee.” She said it kindly, smiling.

  “We do,” Trina said, and poured herself a massive cup. “Do you know where the guys went?”

  Colette’s smile was small and pleased. “I’ve been meaning to reorganize and deep clean the basement for ages. It seemed like a good job for a bunch of restless hands.”

  Trina snorted. “And they went willingly?”

  “I let them know it would be in their best interest if they did.”

  She smiled, and sat down across from her hostess. “Thank you for letting us stay. This is all happening really fast and I have no idea what I’m doing, and…” She shook her head. “Thank you.”

  Colette’s smile slipped away, expression becoming more thoughtful, engaged. Trina wondered if this was the face she used when she was doing a reading for a customer. “How did Nikita find you? Was he looking?”

  Was there any sense in lying? She didn’t think so. “I’m still not exactly sure. I was having these nightmares, and I think they were his nightmares. The snow, and the wolves, and Sasha howling like his heart was broken. And one night I was – well, for lack of a better term – I possessed him. I think. Not on purpose. But I was in his mind. And he showed me what happened in 1942. I don’t understand how it happened, and I’m not sure he does either. But…”

  “But what?”

  Here, she hesitated. “Sasha thinks someone helped connect us. Psychically. And I think he’s right. I think it might have been Val.”

  Colette’s brows went up. “Prince Valerian? Hmm. Could be.�
�� She stared down into her tea, troubled now. “He’s always liked to wander. I haven’t ever known him to provide a connection for two people like that, but it’s possible. If he’s stronger, now.” A barely noticeable shudder moved through her, and she sipped her tea.

  “You’ve met him?”

  “Oh yes, child. Briefly. Here and there. But it was enough.”

  “Enough for…what?”

  “Enough to know that it’s a good thing he’s locked up, and I hope he stays that way.”

  “Huh. Nikita seems to think along the same lines.”

  Colette nodded.

  “Can I ask why?” She thought of the flash of the sword, of the mirth sparkling in the prince’s eyes. She’d honed her instincts as a detective, and she’d met a lot of people, men and women both, and she’d learned to spot evil hiding behind a smile and a show of fake tears. Val was unsettling, yes, but he didn’t stir the kind of certainty that had pushed her past decorum and straight into terrible confessions. He seemed genuine, somehow. She couldn’t put her finger on it.

  Colette set her mug down on the table with a quit click. “You don’t know who he is, do you?”

  She stiffened. “He said he was Vlad the Impaler’s brother.”

  “Yes. That’s the short answer. The long answer is that Vlad Dracul, of the first convening of the Order of the Dragon, had three sons. The eldest was half-mortal, birthed by his human wife. The second and third sons were purebred vampires, their mother was Dracul’s beautiful and mysterious Nordic mistress. The young ones were taken hostage by the Turks as boys, raised up by the sultan with the hope that they would eventually become rulers sympathetic to the Ottoman Empire’s expansion into Romania. Vlad Dracula grew up to become the Impaler; he launched a new crusade and ruled Wallachia with an iron fist. His little brother, Radu, grew up to become a traitor, and a brother killer.

  “Both are dangerous. Both are wicked in their own ways. I wouldn’t care to meet either of them in the flesh.”

  “Radu?” Trina asked.

  “He calls himself Valerian. I don’t know why. But I know that he shouldn’t be trusted. He was in chains long before the Institute bought him, and that’s where he should stay.”

  “If he’s so terrible,” Trina said, and realized she was angry, “then why not execute him? Why keep him locked up and take his blood like some sort of lab rat? That’s inhumane – at the very least.”

  “You lock human criminals up in prisons.”

  “Not for centuries.”

  Collette gave her a patronizing smile. “Don’t try to apply human morality to the things that happen to us. It won’t get you very far.”

  ~*~

  Nikita took the train to Queens. He’d always found it soothing; there was no view, but something about the rattle and the sway sent him back home, to the trains of Russia. Perhaps not a fond time, but a familiar one. It seemed fitting, given his errand today.

  The Ingraham Institute was, oddly, right out in the open. He’d envisioned an underground lair with caged lights and sinister service elevators. Instead, he faced a modern, five-story glass and concrete building with front planters full of tiny cypress trees. He stood on the sidewalk, looking at his reflection in the front doors. He probably should have dressed better, for the benefit of the security cameras, but he planned to take care of those right away. He tugged up the hood of his sweatshirt to cover his face, affected a limp, and entered through the airlock. He passed a bank of elevators, the restrooms, and vending machines, and another glass door let him into a waiting room where men and women with various braces, casts, and crutches flipped tensely through magazines.

  These were the wounded vets searching for a miracle cure.

  Several looked up when he entered. One even nodded in a commiserating way. You, too? his look said, like he saw something wounded in Nikita’s face.

  He nodded back and limped to the reception desk. The girl stationed there wore purple scrubs that matched her nail polish; her blonde hair had been styled into careful barrel curls, her makeup flawless. He didn’t see a ring on her finger.

  She glanced up. “Hi, how can I…” Her eyes widened, dilated. Caught.

  “Hello,” he said, and turned his voice to velvet. Pushed his will out through the air between them, imagined it as a net draping over her, wrapping her up, cutting her off from any thoughts or wants or needs that were not his own. “I was wondering if you could help me.” Help me, do for me, give me what I want, and I’ll reward you.

  She opened her mouth and half-smiled, a breathless, gasping sort of sound leaving her lips, almost like ecstasy. “Y-y-yes. I can help you.”

  He corrupted people. That’s what he was best at. Before, as an agent of the oppressor in a black coat, he’d corrupted slowly, a little at a time. His boys, Sasha, Katya. And then he’d devoured Rasputin’s heart and he’d gained the ability to corrupt immediately. He could have laid this nurse back across the desk and had her any way he wanted. Could have drained her dry and she would have thanked him for it.

  He corrupted, and he hated himself for that.

  But sometimes it came in quite handy.

  ~*~

  Lanny picked up a chair – it was the plush, cozy kind that came with a matching footstool, dark brown with orange and green flowers – and, marveling at the ease of it, shifted it to one hand, balanced precariously by one leg in his palm, the arm of it resting against his head. “Shit,” he said, laughing. “This is never gonna get old.”

  Colette had said her basement needed “some tidying,” which was so gross an understatement it was basically a lie. It wasn’t dirty; the concrete walls and copper pipes all seemed to be in excellent shape, no leaks or wet patches or mold. But it was a large basement, one with little root cellars and closets dug into the sides, and it was packed cheek-by-jowl with what looked to be centuries’ worth of furniture.

  The job seemed like busy work, but Lanny hadn’t felt like he could argue with Colette. He didn’t think anyone could.

  “Here, kid,” Lanny said, “catch.” And tossed the chair to Jamie.

  Jamie scrambled to set down the painting he held and said, “Oh shit, no!” eyes wide and panicked. He lifted his arms, though, and caught the chair. Cringing the whole time, and then gasping in surprise when he saw that he’d done it. “Fuck you,” he muttered.

  Lanny chuckled. “You’ve gotta lighten up a little. What good are super powers if we don’t use them?”

  Jamie lifted his brows. “Is that what you’re doing when you’re moping around scowling at nothing? When you tried to beat Alexei to death? Lightening up?”

  Lanny plucked up the chair’s footstool and chucked it across the room.

  Jamie caught it with less theatrics this time, expression smug. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

  “Shut up.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  It was quiet a moment as they picked through Tiffany lamps and elaborate chess boards, dusty rolled-up rugs and pottery that looked ready to crumble at a touch – Lanny let Jamie move those, not trusting his own indelicate hands.

  When Jamie finally spoke, his tone was hushed, and Lanny was expecting it. The air had vibrated with hesitant silence, the kind that wanted to be broken. “Hey, um,” he said. “You and Trina – you’re dating, right?”

  He snorted. “I dunno what you want to call it. We’re something.” Or at least they had been, before his turning. She twitched every time he touched her now, and he couldn’t blame her for that. She smelled nice – too nice – and he didn’t trust the wanting that built when he was around her, the need that was focused strongest in his mouth and throat and belly.

  “Are you nervous about, you know, hurting her? Accidentally?”

  “What do you think?” He hadn’t meant to snap, nor to growl. But.

  “It should come in handy at work, though,” Jamie said, changing the subject. “Chasing down criminals, making arrests. You’re not wrong about the super powers.”

  No, he wasn�
�t. Lanny opened his hand across the lid of an old steamer trunk, examined the fine, pale web of surgical scars that mapped the bones beneath the skin. His bad hand, the one that had been mangled in a bar fight years ago, the one that had lost him his preferred career, felt better than it ever had. He flexed his fingers and there was no stiffness, no catch in the joints. He made a fist and a thrill moved up his arm, down his spine. Healed; being turned had healed him.

  He caught Trina’s scent before he heard her voice: the lavender soap in Colette’s bathroom, and Trina’s skin, its own unique smell. She paused in the other room to tell Alexei and Sasha that breakfast was ready.

  His whole body was vibrating by the time she propped a shoulder in the doorway and said, “Bacon’s on if you guys are interested.”

  Jamie set down the lamp he held and headed for the stairs with the glee of a kid who’d just heard the ice cream truck.

  Lanny waited, until it was just the two of them.

  Trina had borrowed clothes from Colette: slouchy jeans with patches of silk, and lace, and velvet; a blousy peasant top with flowers embroidered around the collar. It softened her edges, made her look more feminine and vulnerable than she ever wanted to seem.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey.” She fiddled with the hem of her shirt and glanced across the room, toward the massive hanging lamp with its stained-glass grapes and leaves that Jamie had gone nuts over. “Damn, is that a real Tiffany?”

  “That’s what the art major said.”

  She whistled. “Damn. There’s probably all sorts of amazing stuff down here.”

  “Probably.” He didn’t give a damn about rare furniture. “Maybe after breakfast you can come sort through it with us.” He was a little ashamed of the hopeful note in his voice, but unable to stem it.

  “Maybe.” She frowned. “We need to go back to work. I called the precinct and said we were out chasing leads, but that won’t work as an excuse long-term. Shit.” She massaged the spot between her brows with a fingertip. “I don’t know what we’re going to do. I hate sitting around feeling helpless. Like some damsel.” She spat the word, lip curling in disgust.