Nadya took a couple laps around the long table, getting used to the weight of the weapons. Her body still throbbed from the damage she’d taken the previous two nights, but a good deal of rest and a fair amount of painkillers had dulled the aches and made it possible for her to move around without wincing.
She test drew her weapons, seeing how fast she could get the weapons out of their holsters and ready to fire. The firearms were no problem, but the sword proved to be a bit tricky. That wasn’t a huge problem; she planned on using it to dismember any werewolves she took down.
That and, quite possibly, on Remy, to prolong his pain before she killed him. She could think of quite a few things she’d like to cut off of him, given the chance, but she wasn’t going to let her revenge cloud her judgment. If she had to make his death quick to keep herself alive, she’d do it. I may be prepared to die to kill Remy, but all things being equal, I’d rather not.
There are far better reasons to die than him.
Hearing footsteps behind her, Nadya turned swiftly, drawing one of her side arms and aiming it at the figure that had disturbed her.
Cyrus stopped in his tracks but didn’t seem alarmed. Instead, he narrowed his eyes at her. “I don’t appreciate having guns pointed at me.”
Nadya couldn’t help smirking at him before holstering the weapon. “Sorry. Just testing myself.” She turned to the open cases, now emptied of their contents. She closed them up. “Ulbrecht?” she asked, not needing to expand any further to let him know what she was talking about.
“He’s fine. He’s sleeping.” Cyrus crossed his arms at his chest. “He’s also not the one I’m worried about.”
Nadya finished closing up the cases and turned to face him. He still didn’t look very pleased. “You haven’t even known me a day. I broke into your house, forced you to treat my friend, and got a demented bloodsucker pissed at you. Don’t tell me you care what happens to me.”
“You’d rather I say good luck and don’t come dragging your half-dead ass back here?”
“More or less,” she replied. “You might not believe me when I say it, all things considered, but this does not, in fact, concern you. It’s between me and that cocksucker who tortured me. If you say you want to help then my reply is fuck you.”
Cyrus lifted an eyebrow at her. “That’s not a very kind response to an offer of assistance.”
“My response is fuck you because you’re already providing all the help you can and all the help I require,” Nadya continued. “Your job is to make sure Ulbrecht is safe and that he doesn’t become a monster that I’ll have to kill. That’s your job. If Remy sends any of his friends here then it’ll be your job to deal with them. Other than that, the best way you can help me is by staying the fuck out of my way. Clear?”
Cyrus was silent for a few moments, considering her words before he gave her a nod. “Alright, then. Good luck. And if you have to, you can drag your half-dead ass back here.”
A bittersweet smile formed on Nadya’s face. “Thanks. I wouldn’t worry about that second part. Once I leave, I don’t think you’ll be seeing me again.” She saw the look of concern on Cyrus’s face and spoke up again before he had a chance to say anything. “No, I’m not planning on getting myself killed. I just won’t be back.”
“What about Ulbrecht?”
Nadya looked down, fiddling with her ammo bandolier. “Way I figure it… if I don’t know whether or not the cure took, I’ll just assume it did. As long as he doesn’t cause trouble for my boss, it shouldn’t be an issue. Either way, I’m sure you can make sure he won’t.”
Cyrus nodded but she could tell he was going to say something anyway. “He cares about you. You do realize that? You care about him, too, obviously. Otherwise you wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble to keep him from turning.”
A brief wave of conflicting emotions moved through Nadya. Her feelings for Ulbrecht – which she wasn’t even positive she could define properly – mixed with anger and embarrassment at having someone else telling her about them. The concoction resulted in a rather odd expression, but only for a moment before her face went cool again, pushing away all those feelings and taping into the assassin side of her.
“I owed him. He saved my life, so I returned the favor. That’s all.” She could tell Cyrus wasn’t convinced with her response and that helped flare her anger. “I’ll be leaving now.” She headed past Cyrus towards the front door.
“You’ll be back.”
Cyrus’s words – so full of confidence – angered Nadya even more, but she didn’t reply. Instead, she opened the door and walked out, shutting it hard behind her.
As she headed for the Maserati, she tried to force the anger away, or at least transfer it to Remy. It was difficult. Despite every urge and rational thought she had to never come back or set eyes on Ulbrecht again, somehow she knew Cyrus was right.
She would be back.
Chapter Twenty-Nine: Vengeance Road
Getting into the Maserati, Nadya fired up the engine before pulling a small slip of paper out of her pocket. On it were the directions to get back to the place Remy had tortured her the previous night. It seemed to be the best place to start her hunt and maybe even take some revenge on Remy’s cohorts.
Pulling out onto the road, she drove, pushing all thoughts of Ulbrecht and Cyrus out of her mind and focusing solely on Remy. It wasn’t hard to draw up feelings of anger to help focus her energy and she did just that. Visions of blowing the bastard’s brains out with one of her pistols danced before her eyes and brought a satisfied smirk to her face.
The smirk faded as she heard the roar of motorcycles. Her eyes flicked up to the rear view mirror and spotted the headlamps of the cycles speeding up behind her. Somehow she doubted it was just a coincidence that a group of bikers had decided to pick the same road she was traveling down. For a split second, Nadya considered whether she should floor it or hang back and let them catch up so she could deal with them.
Well, there’s definitely one way to tell if they’re after me specifically…
Nadya’s booted foot slammed down on the accelerator, causing the car’s engine to rev up and send the vehicle jumping forward. As suspected, the roar of the bikes increased and Nadya saw them speed up behind her.
Definitely Remy’s cohorts.
Whether they were werewolves, vampires, or just dumb humans, she didn’t much care. Regardless, they were all going to wind up just as dead. With near blinding swiftness, Nadya hit the buttons to roll down the windows on both sides of the car. As they automatically descended, her hands moved to the shoulder holsters, grabbing hold of her pistols and yanking them free as she slammed her foot on the brake.
The Maserati’s tires screeched as the speeding car came to a sudden halt. Nadya’s brain felt like it lurched forward out of her body but she shoved it back into its rightful spot and brought both of her guns up, aiming them out of both windows as the bikes passed on either side to avoid hitting her.
As soon as she saw them pass, she fired, filling the interior of the car with deafening blasts. She heard yells and watched as at least two of the bikers went head over handlebars, slamming painfully into the pavement. The remaining four bikes swerved out of the way of Nadya’s aim. She turned her head and spotted them drawing pistols of their own.
Not wanting to get the car or herself shot full of holes, she stomped on the gas pedal. Before any of the bikers could open fire, the Maserati sped down the road.
The bikes gave chase, but there was no hope of them keeping up with the superior engine power of Nadya’s vehicle. Putting a fair amount of distance between them, she spun the wheel and hit the brake, skidding the car around one-hundred-eighty degrees so she faced the way she’d come. She hit the gas and rocketed towards the approaching motorcycles.
Shoving one arm out the window, she aimed her pistol ahead of her. Her first shot obliterated the headlamp of the lead cycle. Aiming a bit higher, Nadya fired again. The biker’s head snapped back, the back
of his helmet exploding in a spray of plastic and gore. He was lifted off the seat of his bike and flung backwards into the path of the cycle behind him.
That cycle hit the dead biker’s body and flipped forwards, sending the second biker slamming headfirst into the pavement while his bike continued to flip over him, snapping his spine clean in half. The two remaining motorcycles swerved out of the way. Before Nadya could take a shot at either of them, they turned down opposite side streets.
Cursing softly, she steered the car past the two wrecked cycles, glancing out to confirm that neither rider was moving, and then continued on her way.
It wasn’t long before one of the two remaining cycles was back on her tail. She couldn’t see the second one, but she knew it couldn’t be far off. Turning a corner, Nadya was blinded by the headlamp of the second cycle bearing down on her.
“Fuck!”
Jerking the wheel, she narrowly avoided having a bullet strike her in the forehead. Instead, it smashed through the center of the windshield and thumped into the headrest of the passenger seat. Letting out an animalistic growl, Nadya passed the biker on the left then immediately jerked the wheel to the right, sending the Maserati into a spin. As the car came to a stop once more, it was positioned sideways on the road.
Bringing up her pistol, Nadya fired out the window at the retreating motorcycle. The rear tire exploded as it was hit and the ass end of the bike slammed against the pavement sending up sparks. The bike swerved out of control before exploding into an impressive fireball.
A cool smile formed across Nadya’s face as she watched the biker burn, hearing his agonized screams.
Through the flames, the final cycle came soaring through the air. It hit the ground and sped towards the Maserati. The biker had his pistol out and fired at Nadya. Sparks flashed from bullets hitting the pavement. Nadya quickly slammed her foot down on the gas pedal, jerking the wheel and spinning the car around so she could speed down the road away from the approaching bike.
There was already one bullet hole in the car and she was not looking to add any more. Turning right onto another road and then making the next immediate right, she gunned the engine, speeding faster. Behind her, she saw the motorcycle turn onto the road as well, trying to keep up. At the next intersection, she made a left. The tires screeched as she hardly slowed to make the turn.
After that, another right and then a left and then another left, the turns coming so fast that the biker lost track of where she was. Making another left back onto the original road she had been traveling on, as she suspected the biker was dead ahead. She floored it, closing the distance between them with alarming speed and waiting till almost the last instant before shoving her pistol out the window and emptying her clip into the bike.
Nadya watched as the cycle’s headlamp exploded and then the front tire followed suit, causing the bike to flip forward and then fly up into the air. She kept her foot firmly planted on the accelerator and the Maserati passed under the airborne motorcycle. Looking into the rearview mirror, she watched the bike slam down into the ground hard.
Hitting the brakes, she pulled onto the side of the road and threw the car into park before opening the door and getting out.
As she approached the wrecked bike, Nadya ejected the spent magazine in her pistol and replaced it with a fresh one. She pulled the slide back, feeding a fresh bullet into the chamber. Stepping up to the wreckage of the motorcycle, she kicked it aside to reveal the mangled body of the rider. Reaching down, she grabbed the person by their shoulder and flipped them onto their back. The soft groan told Nadya three things.
The rider was still alive.
The rider was most definitely not a normal human.
And the rider was a woman.
Reaching down, she grabbed the helmet and yanked it off, watching as long, curly red hair spilled free from it. The woman was dazed and badly wounded, although Nadya could see her body stitching itself back together.
Slapping the redhead hard across the face to bring her around, Nadya grabbed hold of the front of her jacket, yanking her to her feet.
“Wolf or bloodsucking cunt?” Nadya asked in Russian.
All she got in return was another groan.
The woman’s right leg – which had been twisted almost all the way around – had already straightened itself out and she was able to remain standing without Nadya’s help.
She tried again in English. “Which brand of monster are you?”
Sucking in air through her teeth, the woman was clearly still in pain. “Fuck you,” she replied to Nadya’s question, also in English, although hers was tinged with an Irish accent.
“Alright, we’ll play this game…” Nadya pressed the barrel of her pistol against the Irish woman’s knee and fired. The boom of the gun was deafened by the agonized scream of the woman as the silver bullet tore through her kneecap.
“Fucking Russian whore!” the Irish lass howled, clutching at her leg.
Nadya smirked at the insult then looked down to the woman’s unwounded knee. “Oh, look… a whole other leg to shoot…”
She pressed the gun against the uninjured kneecap.
“Wait!” the Irish woman yelled, tears streaking down her cheeks. “Fucking wait!”
Nadya didn’t fire, but she didn’t take the gun away from her leg, either.
“Werewolf. I’m a fucking werewolf.”
“One of Remy’s bitches, I assume.” Nadya took the gun away from her knee and pressed it between the woman’s breasts. “Tell me where he is and I’ll make sure you’re dead before I start cutting you up.”
“Please!” the woman begged, her eyes filled with pain and fear. “Don’t kill me! I’ll help you take out Remy.”
“Why?” Nadya asked, her eyes narrowing.
She’d heard a lot of similar comments from people she was about to kill before. When you were two seconds away from death, you were a whole lot more likely to promise the person about to do the deed whatever you could.
Loyalty and morals kind of flew out the window when someone had the barrel of a gun pressed against your pounding heart.
Another look entered the woman’s eyes, besides the fear and pain.
Hope.
“Because. Remy isn’t one of us anymore. But he still wants to boss us around. Most of us had had enough of his shit even when he was a werewolf. Now that he’s a fucking bloodsucker, we have even less love for him.”
“The fact that a whole group of you just tried to kill me says otherwise,” Nadya shot back, keeping her pistol firmly placed against the woman’s breastbone. “Why should I trust you?”
“Because!” the redhead yelled, the hope in her eyes faltering. “Because… oh, Jesus, I’ll tell you anything you want to know. Just let me live…”
She sobbed harder, her hands reaching up and for a moment, Nadya’s finger tightened against the trigger of her gun until she realized the woman was pressing her hands against each other, praying. Whether she was praying to whichever god she preferred or to Nadya, herself, she wasn’t sure.
“You know what I want to know,” Nadya replied, her voice even but with a hard edge. “Remy. Location. Now.”
“Our hideout. He’s taken over the place,” the woman replied, speaking quickly and blinking away her tears. “He’s the oldest one of us, so he thinks that even though he’s not a werewolf anymore, he’s in charge of us. Everyone’s terrified of him! He killed Doyle!” Her crying strengthened again. “Fucking bastard took him apart piece by piece…”
One of Nadya’s eyebrows lifted. “And I give a shit about Doyle?”
“No, you don’t. But I did…” the woman said, her voice going soft. “I loved him…”
Nadya made a scoffing noise, rolling her eyes. She was tempted to take a lesson from Remy and take the woman apart piece by piece as well. The longer she stood around chitchatting, the longer Remy had to bolt or reinforce his position. Either way, it would make Nadya’s job that much more difficult.
“Pl
ease…” the woman said, and now Nadya could see that the fear had left her eyes, along with the pain. Even the hope seemed to have faded away. Now all that remained was anger. A specific breed of anger that Nadya found startlingly familiar.
The anger of someone looking for vengeance. The same look Nadya saw in the mirror more often than not.
“Let me help you kill that cocksucker. I don’t care if I die. I just want to die knowing I did all I could to end his fucking life.”
For some reason, Nadya actually found herself trusting the woman. It was that look of vengeance in her eyes. She knew it was. That look didn’t lie and it was impossible to fake.
Nadya's Nights: Road to Vengeance Page 17