It wasn’t that vampires — or this probably-a-vampire, in particular — looked different. It was that the windows had been taped over, sunlight kept at bay. It was the way his eyes glinted like mirrors, the way he looked at them all like they were … options. Food. Or something.
John stepped in, right on her heels. Danny took one look at Adalia and rushed over.
Carlisle held up her hand again. “She’s fine, Kendrick.”
“She doesn’t look fine.” Danny took Adalia from Miles like the young woman weighed no more than a feather pillow.
At least Adalia’s condition looked like it had sucked some of the happy from Everard, and Carlisle hated herself a little bit for enjoying it. Still, he hadn’t had the night she’d had. “We had a bit of a run-in.”
“With who?” This from Rex. Which was good, the old guy could be counted on to not lose his cool even in some pretty exciting situations.
“No clue,” said Carlisle. “I honestly have no clue.”
“I went on a date,” said Miles. He was making his way towards the kitchen. Moved around Barnes with a nod, the usual Miles ease-of-life smoothing his passage.
“Miles,” said Carlisle, “if you’re about to make coffee, don’t.”
“I—”
“Because,” said Carlisle, “you’re the only person in the world who can make instant wrong. I asked Everard for a coffee.”
“You did?” Everard was looking confused, but everyone did when Miles was in the room.
“I did,” said Carlisle. “And I asked for breakfast. And while that’s happening, while you’re doing your magic in the kitchen, we need to talk. But before any of that shit, I need to know who this asshole is.” She pointed at the probably-a-vampire. Again.
“I’m—” started the probably-a-vampire.
“What happened to Adalia?” said Danny.
“She’s fine,” said Carlisle.
“She’s unconscious,” said Danny.
“Kendrick,” said Carlisle, “it’s been a long night. Long morning, too. I’ve walked about halfway between Manhattan and here, I’ve got a blister the size of Staten Island, and since being woken up by our resident circus clown Miles at about three in the morning, I’m tired.”
“I told them,” said Rex, “that—”
“The thing is,” said Carlisle, “that Miles didn’t even wake me. You know how it is, being the Shield of the fucking Universe, right? Something’s going on, and I get a little nudge. I was already awake by the time Adalia’s phone buzzed, I’d called a cab and everything. We were ready to leave before Sleeping Beauty had even woken up. She’s, and I’m being serious here, going to be fine, because if she wasn’t I’d be going berserk, and as you can clearly see I’m fine. Just like she is. Kendrick, put the woman down.”
Danny seemed to realize she was still carrying her daughter, and laid Adalia on a couch at the side of the room.
“That’s what I said,” said Rex. “What I was trying to tell them earlier was—”
“What I still need are the same fucking three fucking things,” said Carlisle. “I don’t want to overstate the situation, you know it’s not really my way, but as I see it I could use a coffee, some breakfast, and a name. For that guy. Right there.” She pointed at the probably-a-vampire. Again.
“I’m Jeremy,” said the probably-a-vampire.
“Great, Jeremy.” Carlisle sighed. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I can’t tell if I’m pleased to meet you. Because, well, because I’m pretty sure you’re a vampire.”
“I’m a vampire,” said Jeremy.
“Who,” said Carlisle, choosing her words carefully, “let you out of the cage?”
“It’s not like that,” said Everard. “It’s—”
“Everard,” said Carlisle, “you better be making a pot of coffee while you’re talking.”
“Yes ma’am,” said Everard, automatically. She could see the wheels going around in his head as he checked himself, then checked himself again. Probably a thought like wait, what? and then settling on whatever, coffee is good.
All eyes in the room did a slow swivel towards Rex. He looked around, did a quick double-take, then said, “Hey. Now, c’mon. We weren’t going to leave him in the cage.”
“We were,” said Carlisle, “going to use the vampire as a lab rat. You know, because they control all the corporations, drink the blood of the innocent, and are generally not nice. And we needed intel.”
“You don’t need intel,” said Jeremy. His eyes caught Carlisle’s attention. Little pieces of polished glass, that’s what they looked like, no color, just pale mirrors glinting at her across the room. “You need someone to pray for you. Because we don’t just drink the blood of the innocent. It’s not that we’re not nice. We rule the world, fool. You’re our food. You’re nothing. You’re beneath us. The things we’ve done to people, you don’t know even the tiniest part. You think you know suffering? We’ll show you suffering. We’ll end your rag-tag little cabal like it never was, erase it from existence like everything else that’s stood before us. You think that, what, a couple of werewolves makes you unique? We destroyed all the other werewolves. We ate them, like a snack, it didn’t take us long at all. Just a few years, and they’re gone, and you’re all going to die.”
The Eagle was in her hand without a thought, roaring at the vampire, but he wasn’t there where she was shooting. He moved around her shots as she squeezed the trigger, just like she’d seen Danny do, or Everard, but even faster. The couch behind the vampire puffed as her rounds hit it, explosions of stuffing filling the air, but the vampire was still moving, and she was still firing. Barnes crouched down — good idea but poor execution. The television in the corner shattered into a thousand pieces of glass and plastic as the vampire turned lazily in place, her bullets missing it by an easy inch or more. Easy, because she was sure the thing was moving just enough to not be hit. It could have moved more, she was sure of it, and she began to feel real fear. That old man has doomed us all.
Danny had made it to the vampire, grabbed onto it — but no. She hadn’t, she’d almost done it, Carlisle had expected her to, but she’d … missed. Fumbled the catch, and was tumbling across the room, caught by a backhand that hit her almost as an afterthought. It bought a precious few seconds, that tangle of bared teeth and missed punches, and a new magazine was snug in the base of the Eagle, the weapon hungry for more, shouting at the vampire each time she pulled the trigger. Everard stepped in — he’s forgetting the damn coffee again, and why am I thinking of the coffee, we’re all going to die — roaring at it, his eyes bright and yellow and fierce. The vampire stepped around his swings like Everard was an unruly toddler, all windmilling arms with no purpose. A single punch hit Everard square in the chest, sending him tumbling across the room, crashing into Jessie, who was leveling a weapon, some kind of automatic rifle, but it didn’t matter because they both went down in a tangle of limbs and unchecked anger.
The vampire turned to Carlisle, took a step towards her with those silver mirrors for eyes looking right at her, into her, like she was lunch, like she was nothing at all. The Eagle clicked empty, the slide racking open, smoke curling from the weapon. The vampire took another step. Right then, of course right then, Miles stepped between them. Brave, stupid Miles. She felt something in her chest, a feeling like no, not this one, not this friend, take me instead, I was the one that started shooting at it, it was me, don’t you see, that made it angry, but it didn’t matter what she felt, because Miles was there. Between her and her fate.
It didn’t matter, the vampire ducked under a swing, picked Miles up like a sack and tossed him across the room, right into Danny. They went down into a pile. It wouldn’t take long before Danny was back up, but Carlisle guessed that didn’t much matter. Because then, right then, the vampire was in front of Carlisle, a hand at her throat. The Eagle had been removed from her hand like a child’s toy, and she felt herself lifted by that hand, her neck popping as all her weight went throu
gh it. She choked, gagged, her hands clawing at the vampire, looking for a pressure point, anything, but nothing worked, it was like the thing felt no pain, like it didn’t have a nervous system to work with.
Like it was already dead.
She felt the room starting to go dark, the pressure on her carotid artery doing more than the loss of air. She’d probably suffocate in a minute or two, but she’d be out in less than ten seconds with that kind of pressure, and then she’d die, and not even see the end as it hit her. You never thought you’d die in your sleep, Carlisle, but here you are.
The vampire let her fall, and her hands found her own throat, gasping for breath. It held up the Eagle, looking at it, then pulled the weapon apart in a few quick motions, the pieces of the gun falling to the ground at its feet. It crouched down in front of her, and she felt its hand on her chin, pulling her gaze up.
Those terrible mirrors for eyes were gone, and it was just some guy in front of her, a guy named Jeremy, and he looked sad, looked like he’d just kicked a puppy by accident. “Do you see?” he said. “Do you understand? Intel won’t do it. You need to learn, because the rest of them, they won’t stop.” He let his hand fall from her chin, stood up, and held his hand out to her.
Carlisle looked around. Saw Everard, looking thoughtful. Danny, like she wanted to kill someone, but also like she thought she couldn’t, not this time. Miles, holding the back of his head with a hand, wincing. Pearce, her weapon held low, her face blank, like she was waiting to be a soldier again. And poor Rex, who’d stood still as a post, struck dumb. Barnes, back up but arms crossed, a look of astonishment on his face, like he’d just learned something he didn’t have the mental cubic inches to process. Adalia, still asleep, and that kind of thing just wasn’t natural, but there it was. Her eyes went back up to the hand held out to her.
“This is how you do it, isn’t it?” she said, not taking the hand.
“Yes,” said Jeremy, and it was Jeremy again, not the vampire, not the thing made of speed and power and death. Just Jeremy. “We’re … just built a little better than the rest.”
She took its hand, felt herself hauled up like she was four years old again, weightless, and she tottered a little on her feet. “And you … want to teach us to fight.”
“Hell,” he said. “No. You already know how to fight. I think, well, I think together we can work out where the strengths are, what the weaknesses are.”
“Together,” she said, the word tasting bitter for some reason.
He saw it in her face. “Hey,” he said. “He said we were looking for a cure. We were looking to fix it.”
He was obviously Everard. That was just the kind of thing he’d say. Carlisle thought about that for a few seconds. “Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, we’re looking to fix it.”
“Then we do that together,” said Jeremy. “I … look, I don’t want to rain on your parade, but you had the drop on me and I still kicked your asses. But. But I think, together, that won’t happen again. And we can fix it.”
Together. With a vampire. Carlisle looked around the room. The Knight, his Sword, and his Shield. The Good Right Arm, the Lost Warrior, and the Guide. Their Prophet Adalia, and Barnes, and then finally back to the vampire. It wouldn’t be so crazy, would it? It’s not like we’re a normal bunch of people as it is. “Together,” she said.
Jeremy nodded.
“Okay,” she said. “I still need that fucking coffee though.”
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED SIXTEEN
Maksimillian Kotlyarov was nobody’s fool. He looked across the counter at the young man who wore a green apron and no smile and said, “Maksimillian Kotlyarov is nobody’s fool, da?”
The young man looked at him like he was lost, stuck on a raft of what the fuck in an ocean of how did I get here. “Sir, I’m not sure—”
“I said that I wanted a big breakfast,” said Maksimillian. “Like a real Amerikanskaya. A breakfast that one man would have trouble lifting.”
“Sir—”
“And you have given me,” said Maksimillian, “a single bagel. With a coffee of ordinary size.”
“It’s—”
“And,” said Maksimillian, holding up his cup, and pointing to the writing on the side, plain old Max written in a hurried hand, blue pen somehow softer than the strong black strokes he’d been expecting, “you have not spelled my name correctly.”
“Hey,” said a man beside Maksimillian, “just order something else.”
Maksimillian turned to look at the man. Just an ordinary man, looking more tired than he should, which made him more ordinary than anything else in this city that cared little for its people. Not that cities cared, they weren’t actually alive, thinking and breathing, but it felt like that sometimes. It felt like this city took people, chewed on them like a dog with a bone, and left them less than they had been. Maksimillian put his cup on the counter, tossing the paper bag holding his tiny — tiny! — bagel alongside it. He clasped the man by the shoulders, gave him a small shake, and said, “My friend, it is not that simple.” He let the man go, looking at the astonishment on his face. “I know you see this. You have come to this city — you have traveled far, da?”
The man looked lost. “I’m from Queens.”
“Exactly so,” said Maksimillian. “You give your lifeblood to this city, and it casts it aside, makes you work long hours, for little pay.”
“I guess, but—”
“And just imagine,” said Maksimillian, “that the thing you want, just to start the day again with a little, how do you say nadezhda, is this word hope?”
“Hope’s a word,” said the man.
“Hope,” agreed Maksimillian. “You want to start the day with this hope, so you come to your favorite breakfast spot, for a delicious breakfast of unimaginable size, and good coffee.”
“With you so far,” said the man, “but—”
“You order the breakfast,” and here, Maksimillian turned the man with one hand, pointing with his other at the clerk, “and then this man robs you.”
“I—” said the clerk
“You tell him, you say to him, ‘I am Maksimillian Kotlyarov, and I need a breakfast of enormous size. The sort of breakfast two men would eat.’ He asks you,” and Maksimillian shook the man gently, for emphasis, “whether you would like cream. Of course you do!”
“I do kind of like cream,” said the man, nodding. “It’s not good for me, but—”
“But it gives hope, da?”
“Yeah,” said the man, “I guess it does.” He was sounding more certain, almost a little angry.
“So you tell me, like a true friend, to order something else.” Maksimillian let the man’s shoulder go. “I tell you, also as a true friend, that I can’t let this go. That I must get satisfaction.”
“And this asshole,” said the man, jerking a thumb at the clerk, “sold you short?”
“He did,” said Maksimillian, nodding.
“Hey,” said the clerk. “It’s not like that—”
“Buddy,” said the man, “you best put this back together, and by back together, I mean you better come out with a decent sized breakfast for the man here.”
The clerk blinked, swallowed, blinked again. “I—”
“And this time,” said Maksimillian, “you should spell my name right. It is not Max,” and he used a finger to jab at the letters on the cup, “like some kind of pet dog. The woman with the green hair, she spelled it correctly.”
“Ady?” said the clerk. “She—”
“She is no ‘Ady,’” said Maksimillian. “That is not her name, any more than mine is the name of a pet dog.”
“For Chrissakes,” said the man at Maksimillian’s side, “at least do the man the courtesy of spelling his name right.”
“It’s fine,” said the clerk. “I got it.”
“Where is the woman with the green hair?” said Maksimillian, leaning across the counter. “I feel, it is like these sorts of mistakes — honest mistakes, simple ones, but i
mportant mistakes, mistakes that rob the day of hope—”
“Hope,” agreed the man at Maksimillian’s side.
“Da. I feel as if these mistakes would not be made if the woman with the green hair were here. Where is she?”
“Didn’t come in today,” said the clerk. “I think she’s going to be fired.” He swallowed, blinked again. “I shouldn’t have said that. I’m a little—”
“Lost, without hope,” said Maksimillian, “like the rest of this city. Perhaps you should order a large breakfast also.”
The clerk thought about that. “You know, maybe I should.”
“Da. Is good.” Maksimillian breathed in, his chest expanding, something at the top of his back clicking back into place. “Now I know what I am doing with my day. I will go find hope.”
• • •
Maksimillian left the Starbucks with a spring in his step, a number of paper bags held in one hand, a large coffee in the other. He let himself be tugged along by the flow of humanity as they surged this way and that, trying to get to their work, or their gymnasium, or their life coach, or whatever it was that these Amerikantsy did in the morning. It was no longer early; many of the city’s workers would have started hours before, but Maksimillian had adjusted the start of his days to match those of the woman with green hair.
Didn’t come in today was not a good way for the start of his day, whether it was early or late. He was so sure he had stopped the vampiry yesterday, he was certain this was not a problem to do with them. It was a problem of another sort, and would need Maksimillian fed, the hunger gone from inside him, at least for a little while.
He sat on a bench, chewing. His breakfast had served its purpose, but it was clear that the replacement clerk for the woman with green hair didn’t listen to his customers’ needs. Oh, he listened to their words, but bagels were not the same as sausage, not here in Amerika, not back home in mother Rossiya either. Such a simple thing could starve a day of … hope. And Maksimillian Kotlyarov had just started to feel that sensation again, for the first time in a very, very long time.
The Night's Champion Collection: A supernatural werewolf thriller trilogy Page 88