Nikita closed his eyes and fought it a moment, like always, the awful craving. Then swallowed again, and again, panting. This must be what junkies felt like, he thought. Or maybe it was worse; this was stealing.
Sasha stroked his hair, rubbed the back of his neck. “Come on,” he said, sweetly. “You’ll be better after. You have to. It’s alright. I’ve got you.”
The pressure inside him was a vacuum, pulling hard, hard at his insides, an emptiness that no food or drink could ever fill. He’d tried before, eaten until he was sick, but it didn’t matter. The ungodly strong cells of his body wanted blood, too, needed it. Demanded it of him until he was no longer a man at all, but a monster.
With a hand resting on the back of his neck, Sasha leaned in close, the smell of him perfect, sweet. “It’s alright, Nik,” he whispered in Russian. “There’s no one here but us animals.”
The pressure snapped, like it always did.
And though he always wanted to be gentle, he wasn’t.
He lunged, grabbed Sasha roughly by the shoulders, and pressed him flat to the bed. He went willingly, turning his head to the side, baring his throat. He’d worn an old, stretched-out shirt just for this purpose, one that exposed him from jaw to clavicle. He held Nikita’s arms and urged him down with quiet, soothing words.
Nikita saw and understood all of this, on some plane of his mind capable of thought. But it was instinct that brought the growl up out of his throat, low and deep like a panther’s; that bent his head, and bared his fangs. Sasha neck was very pale, and very vulnerable, the shapes of tendons and blue tracks of veins visible just beneath the skin.
Nikita breathed in – blood, blood, blood – and then sank his fangs deep. The skin gave, and then the blood was in his mouth, hot, salty, thick. Wolf blood wasn’t quite like human blood – it was better, rich and strong, metal and chocolate, wine and opium.
Cars slipped past on the street below, muted honks and engine sounds through the window. A vendor across the street hawked bagels and coffee. A tumble of children’s voices, squeal of industrial brakes: a school bus loading. Someone in the unit down the hall slammed a door, and a baby started crying. The world was waking up.
And in the fat bars of sunlight that striped his bed, Nikita drank.
The worst part was that though he hated it, he loved it, too. When the first swallow went down his throat, a violent chemical reaction kicked off inside his too-strong, immortal body. All the hollow, dark corners of his insides lit up like Christmas day. Every sense sharpened. Strength surged in tides through his veins. When he drank, he felt ten-feet-tall and unstoppable. And he got hard. It was the best he’d ever felt in his life – and that was what always told him that it was wrong. Nothing that perfect could really exist.
He took seven deep gulps, and then pulled back, his lips and the inside of his mouth slick and warm with blood, bright pearls of it sliding down Sasha’s throat and landing on the pillow. He stared at the wound – already closing – and hovered a long moment, braced on his hands, dizzy, his whole body throbbing. It took every ounce of self-control not to move his hips, not to grind his cock into Sasha’s hip. No doubt Sasha felt it, but he never said anything, never moved away, either. There had been once, early on, in Siberia…and Nikita said no…and that had been that. He couldn’t control his own body, and they didn’t talk about it.
“It’s alright,” Sasha said, voice strong and soft at once. He wasn’t hurt, his eyes still bright and full of warmth. He was strong, could stand to lose a little blood. “Come here, brother.”
He cupped the back of Nikita’s head and pulled him down so they lay overlapping. “It’ll be alright in a minute,” he soothed, fingers sifting through Nikita’s hair. “It’ll pass.”
Nikita closed his eyes and pressed his face into the worn cotton of Sasha’s shirt, smearing blood all over it.
The clock out in the living room ticked, and his heart eventually slowed to match it. The morning continued to unfold around them, and it did indeed pass. For a little while, a few days at least, he could fight the craving, until he was weak and shaking, and it started all over again, and Sasha offered his clean, white throat, a sacrifice he didn’t deserve…but could never refuse.
38
LION’S DEN
“This goddamn thing,” Lanny muttered, jabbing at the USB port on his computer with the flash drive they’d gotten from the hospital. His hands were shaking too badly to make the connection.
“Here.” Trina leaned over him and tried to take the drive, but he finally managed to slide it into the port.
“I’m fine,” he said, too harshly, and she sighed. All his drunken vulnerability of last night was gone now, replaced by a grouchy, nauseas, bleary-eyed asshole who had either forgotten what he’d said to her, or was pretending it had never happened.
She resisted the urge to whack him across the back of the head – but just barely.
On the screen, a browser full of video files popped up, and Lanny clicked on the latest one, the one which had hopefully caught their body-snatcher leaving the morgue.
“It’s those cult people again, ten to one,” Lanny said. “They got spooked and didn’t have a chance to take the body, so then they decided…”
He trailed off.
On the screen, the heavy double doors to the morgue opened from the inside, and someone stepped out into the hallway. Someone pale and naked, clutching a white sheet around himself. Deep circles under his eyes, a fading bruise on his neck where before there had been a bloody bite mark.
The bustling detective bullpen around them faded into dull background noise. Trina couldn’t even blink.
“Chad Edwards,” she said.
Lanny said, “Holy Jesus. Holy shit.”
On the video, Chad’s eyes seemed to glow.
“This isn’t happening,” Lanny said, sounding numb. “This is some kinda prank.”
But Trina knew it wasn’t. “Do you believe me now?” she asked, while her heart tried to beat its way through her ribs. “We’ve got to find Sasha and Nikita.”
~*~
It took the rest of the day to make everything about the missing body official – and with Harvey’s phone call and video footage like they had, which hospital security had already watched – they had to go through the motions. A team of lab techs dusted the morgue for prints, snapped photos, swabbed everything, and generally made it impossible for Harvey and her crew to do their jobs.
“You’ve gotta get them outta here,” she told Trina, starting to sound desperate.
“Soon,” Trina promised with a thin smile, though she knew it probably wouldn’t be.
They had a sit-down with their captain, flipped through a half dozen other active cases from surrounding precincts that were similar to Chad’s: young victims, male and female, no blood, nasty bite marks on their necks.
The words serial killer floated in the air above the bullpen. As did the word hoax once the other detectives saw the video.
It was four o’clock by the time Trina pushed back from her desk and took her first deep breath of the afternoon. Her eyes were blurry, and her head hurt, and she felt like she was underwater.
Across the desk from her, Lanny looked even worse. He was staring at his computer, at a still shot of a very not-dead Chad Edwards pushing through the morgue doors.
When he felt his eyes on her, he said, “It’s not real.”
“You know it is,” she said, quietly so no one else in the bullpen could hear.
He shook his head. “When you die, that’s it. No coming back. It’s not real.”
And suddenly she knew why it was bothering him so much. It wasn’t just the impossibility of her still-alive great-grandfather, the absurdity of supernatural beings and walking corpses. It was because it didn’t seem right that something unreal could exist while Lanny himself – strong, tough, boxing-ring Lanny – was dying.
A lump formed in her throat.
And a tiny kernel of an idea took root.
He responded almost instantly. Yes! Lion’s Den in 10?
Yes.
She stood up. “Come on, man,” she said, too-cheerful. “Let’s go get that drink you’re always talking about.”
He surfaced as if from a dream, snapping a startled look her direction. “What?”
“Bourbon, you old drunk. I’m buying.”
That got him moving.
It was twelve blocks, so they drove – Trina drove, insisting she wouldn’t buy him a drop unless he handed the keys over right now. He did, grumbling, throwing himself down in the passenger seat like a child.
She could see the fear lurking in the corners of his eyes, though. He was rattled, and badly. Which made her feel even worse about what was about to happen.
“The hell?” Lanny asked, peering through the window at the façade of the pub once they were parallel parked on the street. “Why are we here?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t come here to pick up women,” she said, sliding out from behind the wheel and smoothing her blazer. She’d been in jeans, tank top, and dark gray jacket all day, and felt wilted and overheated, nervous as a cat suddenly. This wasn’t a date – she didn’t care what either of these men thought of her looks. But she wanted to be someone worth seeing, she realized. She wanted to appear put-together and in-control, and not the frazzled, frightened kid that she felt like right now.
She leaned down to look into the side mirror and apply a quick layer of peach lipstick.
“Trying to get lucky?” Lanny asked with a smirk.
“Something like that.” She elbowed him as she stepped up on the sidewalk. “Come on, come open the door for me like a gentleman.”
“Don’t I always?”
He did; his mama had trained him well. For the most part.
The Lion’s Den had been many things in its long history. A speakeasy, a mob-owned underground fighting ring, a gay bar, a sex club, and now, finally, a regular old pub. That was the impression it gave at first, anyway; once you got inside its maze of rooms, and mirrors, trapped amongst dark-paneled walls and green leather booths, you started to feel like you’d gotten lost in a time capsule – or maybe a funhouse. The shadows were a little too deep and the wait staff a little too disinterested. It was the perfect place to score a hit, hire a hooker, meet an anonymous hookup, plot a murder, hire a hit-man. Trina had no doubt its walls had seen and heard everything imaginable. Now, they were about to see and hear a little more.
Her boot heels clicked across the dingy octagonal tile of the entryway, a glassed-in airlock with wooden coat hangers and an old brass shoe rack. It was like stepping back in time. The air lock fed into a long, tin-ceilinged room with dim lights, bar along one wall, row of booths on the other. To the left was a sequence of connected dining rooms, from which she could hear the low murmur of early happy hour conversation. To the right, and up three steps, was a small room set in the pub’s front bay window, the shades at half-mast, buttery summer sunlight fanning across the floor. Three tables, three high-backed booths. At one of them, right in the window, sat two young men, low tumblers of clear liquid in front of them.
Trina froze in her tracks.
It was them. It had to be.
One was platinum-blond, his hair shoulder-length, cut to frame his face. He looked achingly young, fresh out of high school, features almost delicate, his eyes a shocking shade of blue when he glanced at her. The other was brunette, a little older, cheekbones for days, cigarette between his lips even though he wasn’t supposed to smoke in here. Both of them wore tight jeans and combat boots. The brunette had a battered denim jacket with the sleeves cuffed. Both threw off a distinct punk vibe, the kinds of guys who slept late on weekdays and spent their afternoons thumbing through old vinyls in retro record shops just to be ironic.
But there was something…something just slightly off about them. The brightness of their eyes. The way the denim jacket looked authentically decades-old. Something intangible.
The blond stood up when he spotted them, wide, happy smile splitting his face. It was Sasha, just as he’d been from her dreams, and her vision.
Which meant the haunted-looking man with her father’s cheekbones and a double-headed eagle patch sewn to the collar of his jacket was Nikita. Her family.
She realized three things all at once.
One: Sasha was coming toward her in fast, bounding strides in a way that was undoubtedly wolfish. It was true, then, all of it.
Two: Lanny had said her name at least four times by this point.
Three: she was going to faint.
“Whoa,” Lanny said. He caught her from behind just as Sasha reached them and took hold of her arms.
“Ekaterina,” he said, then everything went black.
~*~
She came to on her back, the plush bench of a boot beneath her, a cool, damp cloth pressed to her forehead. Lanny’s worried face hovered over hers, and she wondered how she’d missed that he was sick; he looked lined and sallow, evening light from the half-covered windows picking out all the little lines around his eyes.
“Lanny,” she started, reaching for him, and then clarity returned. “Oh shit.” She tried to sit up.
“Hey.” Lanny caught her and tried to make her take it slow. “Easy. You alright?”
“Yeah, I’m…”
He was in the booth beside her; she’d had her head in his lap, she realized. Someone had brought a glass of water with which he’d dampened a napkin. Nikita and Sasha sat side-by-side across from them, Sasha openly worried, Nikita harder to read.
Her vision swam and she clutched at the edge of the table. “I’m okay, I’m okay.”
“Yeah, sure. You got a tumor too?” Lanny joked, but it came out harsh and fretful.
“No, I just…” She shook her head to clear it – bad idea – and blinked her eyes back into focus.
Lanny sighed. “Were you gonna tell me we were meeting these shitheads before or after you passed out?”
“Hey,” she protested.
Sasha said, “It’s fine. He doesn’t like us. Understandable. He just wants to protect you.”
“Did I fucking ask you, blondie?”
“Lanny.”
“It’s fine,” Sasha said, his smile amused, but kind.
“Here, drink this.” Nikita slid his glass of vodka across to Trina and, well, that seemed like a good idea.
She downed it in two swallows. “It’s really you, isn’t it?” she asked.
He nodded, expression guarded.
The vodka had hit her empty stomach with a warm flare, and it spread quick. Somewhat revived, she took a deep breath and said, “Right. Lanny, this is Nikita Baskin. And Sasha…”
“Kashnikov,” he supplied. He tilted his head, and a fading sunbeam landed on the side of his throat, on a fading purple mark there that startled her.
He noticed, smile tweaking.
Lanny noticed too. “Jesus Christ,” he said. “It’s you two. Goddamn it, Trina, did you bring your cuffs in? A little warning woulda been nice.” He fumbled at his belt, looking for his own.
“Stop,” she said, laying a hand on his arm. “Let them explain–”
“Like fuck,” he muttered, breath coming in frantic little huffs. He was winding up tight, reminding her alarmingly of the boxer he’d been, rather than the level-headed cop he was now.
“Listen to me,” Nikita said, and Lanny froze. His voice was low, but resonant, flavored with Russia, powerful in a way that sent a shiver skittering down Trina’s back. The look he leveled at Lanny belonged in a previous century, in a time of world wars and double-agents, of dead tsars and slaughtered thousands.
Trina didn’t breathe.
Across the table, Sasha caught her gaze and mouthed it’s okay.
Nikita said, “You’re looking for the creature that’s killing young people outside of clubs, yes? That isn’t me. I’m the same sort of thing, but I�
�m not doing that. Yes, I bit Sasha.” He tipped his head to indicate his friend. “My kind have to feed, and I feed from him, because he’s strong, and because it keeps me from hurting anyone. Innocent people,” he added, an amendment.
Lanny stared at him, expression slack with shock. “And I’m what, just supposed to take your work for it? I’m not even sure you are what she says you are.” Tilt of his head toward Trina.
She snorted. “Thanks.”
Without any fuss, Nikita reached with one hand and lifted his upper lip with his thumb. His teeth were white, clean, even. And his canines were sharp points. They didn’t stick out, didn’t draw attention or give his mouth that unnatural, lumpy look that fake movie fangs always gave actors; but as they watched, they seemed to drop, growing longer, curved and wicked, meant for tearing into animals.
“Jesus,” Lanny hissed.
The canines retreated and Nikita dropped his hand, shrugging. “There are other ways to show you, but less pleasant, I think.”
“Do the growl,” Sasha suggested. Then, grinning, gave one of his own, a low, deep, obviously canine rumble.
Nikita stopped him with a hand on his arm. “That’s enough, bratishka.”
“It’s okay, we believe you,” Trina said.
“I don’t,” Lanny said.
“I believe you. Lanny’s being a stubborn ass.”
Sasha laughed.
Nikita shrugged. “It’s okay that he doesn’t believe. Suspicion is good, I think.”
A waiter in a green apron arrived, asking if Sasha and Nikita wanted more vodka; they did – Sasha drained his still-full glass and then set it on the waiter’s tray. Lanny asked for bourbon. Trina ordered coffee.
“I’m not losing consciousness again,” she said as the waiter walked off. “I want to understand this.”
Lanny gave a noncommittal grunt beside her.
“He wants to understand, too, but, you know, he’s got that whole stubborn ass problem.”
“I will walk right out that door.”
“Do. I’m calling your bluff.”
White Wolf (Sons of Rome Book 1) Page 45