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

by Travis Luedke

  “Fuck.”

  It was all Aaron could do to follow her without sounding like a freight train running down the hallway. Doing his best to maintain stealth, he slid up on her as she stood overlooking a three foot high railing that led to a grand staircase curving down to the lower level. She tested the scents on the air and peered through the darkness into a huge open area, a great room with vaulted ceilings that reached high above. A slight whisper of sound caught her attention.

  Aaron’s senses honed to a sharp point as he watched Michelle gauge the stairs and the distance to her prey walking through the darkness of the lower level. He read the decision in her mind as she figured the stairs would give her prey too much warning. In the space of a breath she was up atop the heavy stone railing, poised for action. With one glance back at Aaron, a look of sheer anticipation and excitement, his lover launched into the air on a trajectory for her meal.

  Adrenaline coursing through his veins, Aaron considered the insane idea of following his unhinged lover. Then a second guard walked into the room twenty feet behind the first. Both men were armed with rifles hanging from shoulder straps, not your run-o-the-mill rent-a-cops.

  With a silent curse on his lips, Aaron did the unthinkable. He leaped onto the railing and pushed off hard, flying out into the open air, thirty feet above his target, the second guard. He prayed there wasn’t a third man trailing them.

  Michelle hit her dinner head on and the two of them tumbled across the million dollar marble floors. Aaron reached behind him for the hilt of his sword and slid the katana from its scabbard as the second guard shouted and brought his firearm to bear on Michelle and her victim.

  The man beneath Michelle fought a pointless battle. She tore through him without mercy, cutting off his scream with her teeth in his throat. The second guard finally sensed something coming and looked right at Aaron – too late. Aaron slashed through his left arm and bowled the man over. They ended in a tangle of limbs with the katana buried in the man’s ribs.

  A quick twist and shove, and Aaron cut straight through his heart. He stood up and pulled his blade free of the gurgling man then licked the blood off the sword. He wanted to curse Michelle as she guzzled down her victim’s life. The words caught in his throat. It had taken this moment to remind Aaron of his inherent nature, a predator. He slid the sword home in the inverted sheath under his coat and kneeled to catch a solid meal from the dying man at his feet.

  This is what vampires were made for.

  He’d been fooling himself to think he could function within the rules and conventions of the human world. After filling his gut, he stood to find Urvashi and the wolves watching him and Michelle from atop the landing. He sensed his master measuring him carefully.

  It had all happened so fast, like flipping a switch, and there was no flipping it back, not tonight. Aaron now had a new title to add to his resume – vampire assassin.

  * * * *

  Chapter 13

  Aaron sensed the wolves were unnerved by his and Michelle’s ferocity. The wolves watched Aaron and his lover with hard faces as Urvashi and Renault led them down the long sweeping curve of the stairs and out to the far side of the room. Even Katya stared at him with a funny look. Urvashi simply nodded as she sent a psychic kick his way. {{Michelle has been sated. Keep her close. Let the wolves find our prey tonight – it’s their fight.}}

  Aaron nodded and collected Michelle who was wiping blood off her face with her oversized jacket sleeve. She smiled as he took her hand and caught her eyes. Some semblance of the Michelle he knew and loved had returned.

  “Vash wants us to hang back. Please stay at my side.”

  Her eyes flashed in challenge, then tracked the wolves walking off in the dark distance. “Oui, mon cher, but not far behind.” She tugged on his hand and pulled him to keep up with her silent, graceful jog. She moved like a ballerina in black combat gear, dainty and deadly.

  The wolves led them through another large room filled with expensive, overstuffed couches and even more expensive hardwood tables, some kind of formal sitting area. They turned down a stairway into what must be a basement. The glow of sconce lighting on dark red walls reminded Aaron of walking through a dark, hushed theater. At the bottom of the stairs they encountered a set of oversized ornate hardwood doors. Locked.

  Ivan and Anatoly laid strips of grey putty along the seam where the double doors met. Aaron watched them, puzzled. “Let me just kick it open.”

  Ivan shook his head, a finger held to his lips to shush Aaron.

  Anatoly pointed at the door and whispered. “Beneath the wood is steel.”

  It finally occurred to Aaron what the wolves were playing with – C4 plastic explosives. Mission Impossible just became Mission Probable. These guys actually knew what the hell they were doing. They pressed grey clay all the way around the top and bottom and the entire vertical seam between the doors. They were going to blow the thing open, like a goddamn bank vault. And if that was the case, then this must be Dmitri’s personal chambers.

  Here they were shushing Aaron, got him all worried about making noise, and the bastards were about to blow shit up. Ivan signaled and led everyone back up the stairs. Anatoly and Ivan exchanged nods and Ivan flipped the toggle on his hand-held switch. In the confined space of the stairway, the sound was near deafening, but hardly any debris came in their direction. Ivan slapped Aaron’s shoulder and yelled. “Now!” He thundered down the stairs with the whole gang in a rush.

  Urvashi’s hand latched onto Aaron’s arm and her command washed over his mind. {{Wait.}}

  He stood rooted in place as Michelle slipped out of his grasp. She ran straight for the blasted doors and joined the wolves as they slammed into the jagged wood and pushed with all their weight. Like felling a massive oak tree, the doors splintered and cracked as they tilted over. Sounds of grinding steel accompanied the slow topple. A ton of steel and wood hit the inner chamber floor with a resounding boom and sent dust and splinters flying everywhere.

  Nothing moved. No one made a sound. The dust settled in the darkness, and the wolves waited. After several seconds, Ivan stepped forward, and they all moved with him in lockstep, right over the top of the doors. Assault rifles at the ready, three flashlights pierced the darkness and found a dusty, empty room. Light beams swept left and right, seeking anyone lying in wait.

  His master nodded to Aaron to move forward, and they followed the wolves into the dark room. Urvashi found the light switches on the wall and revealed glossy black floors, brown leather-upholstered seats and dark wooden circular tables. The place looked like an exclusive gentleman’s club. Urvashi nodded, giving the signal to move in behind the wolves. Aaron followed past the entryway to find low couches surrounding a 75’ television, and a fully stocked bar. The place had to be at least 3000 square feet. A fucking deluxe mancave.

  “Spread out.” Ivan waved his rifle and everyone fanned out to check the area.

  Wasn’t Dmitri supposed to be here? Aaron followed Katya as she checked behind the bar then tapped her on the shoulder with a whisper. “Is this where you thought he’d be?”

  Her lips formed a tight line and she nodded. Things were not going as planned.

  The thumps of something coming down the stairs had everyone turned around with rifles at the ready. Four little black metal balls rolled into the room to rest at Nikolay’s feet. He ran screaming, “Grenades!”

  Everyone hit the floor except Urvashi. Katya snatched Aaron’s jacket and pulled hard as she dived behind the bar. Like a film playing in slow motion, Aaron fell towards Katya, as he watched his master standing alone against the blast. Fire, smoke and shrapnel flew out straight for Urvashi and bounced off a spherical shield of golden light, sparks flying everywhere. Her aura had expanded several feet outside her body to form a protective bubble of telekinetic power.

  As he landed atop his bloodslave, making her grunt from the impact, he lost sight of the awesome display of Urvashi’s power. Bits and particles of shrapnel slapped into
the heavy bar furniture, but never made it through to Aaron and Katya on the other side. Aaron snatched Katya and rolled out from under a shower of busted glass from a shattered display case against the wall.

  Ears ringing from the blast, he shook off glass shards and pulled Katya to her feet. Urvashi’s aura had returned to its normal ethereal glow wrapped tightly around her skin, but she had drawn her sword and discarded the wooden scabbard. Aaron had learned in Paris that his master wasn’t much for conventional weapons. Urvashi preferred the samurai’s weapon, the thirty-one inch curved katana. She had trained Aaron to handle the shorter katanas – eighteen inch straight blades – wakizashis.

  She stood her ground, sword drawn, while twenty-some black-clad soldiers filed into the room bearing snub-nosed assault weapons. Katya squatted low behind the bar with her rifle aimed at the advancing men, but she held her fire. The soldiers darted into the midst of the downed, groaning wolves and stopped at a snapped Russian command coming from the stairwell.

  The shit has officially hit the fan. Aaron could already feel a bullet wound coming on. No way in hell he’d escape this mess unscathed.

  Urvashi held her sword up in defiance, like Uma Thurman facing down a horde of ninjas all by herself. Behind the soldiers walked a man who could be none other than Dmitri. For a supervillain, he wasn’t very tall or imposing, yet he had the cliché I’m-gonna-enjoy-peeling-your-skin-off grin. He looked every ounce the Russian bajillionaire with his pointy face, perfectly manicured, greased hair, and a tailored suit that probably cost more than his gardener’s annual salary.

  One glance at this slick bastard, and Aaron knew Dmitri had all the variables pinned down, his competition squashed, his deals closed with tightly-sealed tax shelters, and every dirty politician in the Kremlin eating out of his hand. Dmitri was mega-corporate corruption personified.

  A black and blonde growling blur struck the soldiers from the left side and two men in her path went down. A whip-crack sounded and Dmitri had moved ten feet, landing atop Michelle with a closed fist that ended somewhere at her ribcage. She went flying in a squeal of pain, bowling over two more soldiers to land in a tumble of blonde hair.

  The thing moved so unbelievably fast. How could they fight something that fast?

  Aaron stood in shock, then rage surged in on a flood of adrenaline. He tore through the room straight for the son-of-a-bitch. The wolves started shooting. Katya nailed three men in Aaron’s path, taking them down like an expert sniper. Ivan and Anatoly raised their rifles and unloaded their clips into the soldiers nearby, sending men flopping to the floor, screaming in agonized death throes.

  Aaron converged on Dmitri with both blades flying. The man who was definitely not a man moved in a blink, displaced to several feet away. Aaron could barely track him in time to arrest his momentum and redirect his attack. He sliced high and low, missing each time, but getting closer and closer by millimeters. The insanely grinning creature wouldn’t last forever, not if Aaron pushed at him hard and fast enough. He spun into a whirlwind of arcing blades, slashing through every soldier in reach.

  The thing backed away from side to side, always changing directions in a blink, never in the same place twice. A pistol materialized in Dmitri’s hand from somewhere and he fired as he dodged and evaded everything Aaron could throw at him. Rounds zinged past Aaron, barely missing him as he did his own version of the flash-dance, spinning left, then right, blades flying all the while. He knew that once Dmitri caught him with a solid shot, the odds would shift badly. The son-of-a-bitch was just too damned fast.

  Then Michelle streaked in with a fierce battle cry and raked her razor claws across Dmitri’s backside. His step faltered just long enough for Aaron to close the distance. Howling in rage, Aaron slashed through Dmitri’s arm and chest, cutting bone deep. The feeling of his sword severing flesh was the most satisfying thing he’d done all night long.

  He flipped his right hand sword around, lined up for the fatal slice.

  “Don’t kill him yet!” Urvashi’s scream cut through the melee of bullets and blood. A concussion of force blasted past Aaron, knocking him aside. The power hit Dmitri head-on, flattened his nose, and clipped Michelle spinning her off to one side. The semi-truck force of Urvashi’s will launched Dmitri flying across the room. He smacked the back of his head against the wall with a loud, resounding crack. In a slow exhale of breath, he bounced off the wall and hit the floor, unconscious.

  Dazed and seeing stars, Aaron watched his master spinning her great sword in a circular arc, cutting down the last of the soldiers who were unlucky enough to be anywhere near her. For a moment, he thought he saw a flare of her aura and power wrapped around the blade, as though she had reinforced the steel with her golden energy.

  Aaron pulled Michelle to her feet and assessed the damage. Everywhere he looked the floor was littered with dead and dying soldiers. Urvashi, eyes ablaze in fury, advanced on Aaron with sword in hand. He thought for a minute she planned to skewer him. He couldn’t match her skill with a blade, not even with the advantage of two to her one, and after seeing how she used her power to enhance her sword, fat chance he had of stopping her.

  “We cannot kill him until we find his vault and the formulas! He holds a stockpile of synthetic venom.”

  Aaron backed away from his master’s insanely glowing eyes. Her aura flashed in pulses of power washing over him with little spikey pinpricks. He’d never seen her like this before. “Alright! So we find his stash first. But then I’m cutting his head off.”

  Ivan limped over to Dmitri, his rifle pointed at the man’s skull. “No. He is mine. This life is mine to take. For the pack. For Rasputin.”

  Aaron wiped the blood off his swords on the jacket of a downed soldier and sheathed them. “Whatever. Let’s get it done.”

  “Anatoly and Nikolay are hurt.” Tears rolled down Katya’s face as she kneeled beside her packmates. The downed wolves were awake, alive, but not exactly mobile.

  Nikolay, who had been sitting up beside Katya, lay back with a sigh, still holding his AK-47. “I got three of them! I’m good.” He had scorch marks and several wounds visible on his legs and chest. Though a good ten feet away from the grenades, Nikolay had caught the worst of the blast shrapnel reflected off Urvashi’s powerful energy shield.

  Anatoly tried to stand but his weak left leg collapsed under him. The left side of his face and neck were streaked reddish black from shrapnel and black dust. He held his hand over his leg, trying to stop the bleeding. Katya rushed to his side to wrap his leg with a bandage from her first aid kit. He smiled at her through teeth gritted in pain. “Lapochka, I’m okay, Katya.”

  Urvashi looked to Ivan. “Can you walk?”

  The grizzly old wolf kicked Dmitri over onto his back and held his gun trained on his temple. “Where he goes, I go.”

  Amazingly, the thing on the floor was awake, still fucking grinning. “Do not mourn Rasputin. He was a plague on this land, a filthy gypsy dog.”

  Ivan cracked him in the ribs with a stomp of his jackboot and cursed at him in Russian.

  “You gypsies never forget a grudge. Griazniy tsigan!” Filthy Gypsies. Dmitri sent bloody red spittle back at Ivan.

  Aaron didn’t trust that they’d bested this creature so easily. He speared a probe into Dmitri’s mind and hit a solid wall blocking him out. He snapped at Urvashi, “I can’t get a read on him. Why?”

  Wheezing in pain from Ivan’s jackboots, Dmitri coughed blood on the floor and laughed at Urvashi. “Make sure your boy toys are better prepared when you send them into my country.” His gaze flicked to Aaron and an invading stab of black hatred pierced Aaron’s mind.

  It felt hard and painful, like a cold serrated edge tearing into his skull, scraping for information. He went down on one knee gripping his head in agony, trying to find a way to block out the marauding force of Dmitri.

  {{Stop!}} Urvashi’s power flowed into Aaron’s mind and suddenly a blockade shut Dmitri out. The relief was instant, almost euphoric.r />
  What hurt as badly as the assault, was the slimy taste of Dmitri’s mind. The violation crawled under his skin and even Urvashi’s psychic cleanse did not erase the greasy residual flavor.

  Dmitri’s mental voice slithered over and around Aaron’s mental block. [[You are fed by half-truths, living in ignorance. You are but a tool.]]

  Though coming from a corrupt, twisted creature bleeding on the ground, Aaron couldn’t immediately discount the man’s words.

  “Vir sapit qui pauca loquitur.” As she whispered the eerie Latin, something about knowing when to hold your tongue, Aaron felt a cold electricity flowing down Urvashi’s sword towards Dmitri. Her power clamped on Dmitri’s throat, almost choking him.

  “Show us where you keep the drug, or I will carve off every inch of your body a piece at a time, down to the bones. I can keep you alive for weeks while I slowly whittle away your flesh. I taught the Sultan and his warlords the myriad ways to make a man scream the deepest secrets of his soul. I will know what I want to know, this much is certain.” Urvashi dipped her sword towards his groin in indication of where she’d start hacking.

  Dmitri’s eyes tracked Urvashi’s blade, and his head nodded. Struggling to draw breath, he whispered. “If I give you what you want, what do I get?”

  Facing a gruesome, excruciating death, the bastard still had the balls to negotiate with a fallen angel. Aaron wanted to stick his sword in Dmitri’s gut on principle.

  “After I finish with my sword, I will let the wolves consume your flesh while you still live. Their teeth will be the last thing you feel.” She glanced at Ivan who flashed a bloody, carnivorous grin and nodded. Urvashi looked back down at her victim. “But I am not without mercy. Cooperate with me, and I promise you a quick, painless death.” Urvashi’s blade flicked up to Dmitri’s throat, light as a feather. She handled that steel with angelic power and grace.