Turning his back on the vengeful Gypsy, he dropped onto all fours and raced toward the crumbling catacomb. The very walls seemed to rumble angrily around him as he bolted into the beckoning tunnel, putting as much distance as possible between himself and Leyba’s losing battle against the determined Death Dealers.
The skull archway collapsed behind him, cutting off Leyba’s only escape route. As his powerful legs carried him into the future, he could not help reflecting on the irony that in the end, he owed his life and freedom to his greatest enemies.
Selene took a moment to catch her breath, then lifted the lip of the iron bell and crawled out from beneath its protective shell. As hoped, she found herself in a musty catacomb, somewhere beneath the ancient chapel. Glancing upward, she saw a jagged hole in the floor above her. The rat-a-tat of nonstop gunfire descended through the gap, and she surmised that Kahn and his team were still trying to shoot their way past Leyba’s automated defenses.
Good, she thought; that meant she had the murderous lycan all to herself. All lycans were her enemy, of course, but this hunt had become more personal than most. She owed Leyba for her comrades’ deaths.
She rose to her feet and brushed the dust and powdered stone from her leathers. In theory, Florescu’s underground command center was directly ahead. A flickering artificial glow, coming from farther down the tunnel, seemed to confirm that assessment. The unmistakable growl of a ravening werewolf sent adrenaline racing through her veins, and she hurried down the subterranean corridor, past carved stone niches holding rotting human skeletons. Her faithful Berettas rested impatiently within her grip.
The eerie radiance, which she soon identified as the light from one or more television or computer monitors, grew brighter as she approached a stone archway that seemed to open up onto a larger chamber beyond. She slowed her pace and approached more cautiously, wary of an ambush.
In the dim lighting, however, she never noticed the desiccated human rib, which snapped beneath the sole of her boot with a sound like a rifle shot.
Shit!
An armored figure stepped into view. Selene caught a whiff of burning petrol and threw herself backward only seconds before a stream of bright orange flames erupted from the nozzle of an all-too-familiar flamethrower.
She instantly flashed back to that awful night in Statue Park, when she had been forced to run for her life, leaving the burning corpse of another vampire behind.
Not this time, she vowed. She had planned ahead for this reunion.
Holstering her right Beretta, she drew a silver throwing star from her belt and hurled it with surgical precision. The spinning shuriken zipped past the flames and sliced through the fuel line linking the nozzle of the flamethrower to the metal tank mounted on Leyba’s back.
A startled cry emerged from the lycan’s helmet as the flamethrower’s fiery tongue sputtered out. Fuel sprayed from the ruptured line, dousing Leyba with gasoline, which streamed down the matte-black surface of her armor to pool at her feet. “Dammit!” the lycan cursed.
But Selene wasn’t done yet. Just as she had prepared, she flung a small plastic capsule at Leyba’s helmet. It exploded on impact, smearing thick black paint across the lycan’s bulletproof visor, effectively blinding her.
Leyba angrily ripped the helmet from her shoulders. Feral blue eyes glared at Selene with murder on her mind.
Selene stared at the face of Diego’s killer. She had never seen this woman before, not even in the coven’s comprehensive files on all known lycans.
“Who are you?” she demanded, aiming her Beretta at the woman’s forehead. Part of her wanted to execute Leyba on the spot, in payment for the lives of Diego and Yoshio and the Elders knew who else, but first she wanted some answers. “What’s behind this insane vendetta of yours?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know, blood?” Leyba snapped, tempting fate and testing Selene’s patience. “Maybe I just don’t like immortals.”
Keeping one eye on the petrol-soaked lycan, Selene scanned the dimly lit crypt. Shattered restraints occupied one corner of the vault, while the debris-covered floor also bore the bloody imprint of a lycan paw. She remembered the feral growl she had heard only minutes ago and looked in vain for a lurking werewolf. A heap of ancient skulls was piled high in front of what looked as if it might have been another set of catacombs. A squashed silver bullet rested on the floor, not far from the broken steel fetters.
What kind of party did I just interrupt? Selene wondered dubiously. Is there more to this story than just one crazed lycan bitch?
Before she could interrogate Leyba further, another burst of gunfire sounded overhead. Glancing up at the monitors, she saw that Kahn and the others had finally managed to shoot apart the chapel’s automated weapons systems. Her fellow Death Dealers advanced toward the rear of the chapel, looking for the entrance to the catacombs. Selene hoped she hadn’t complicated their search too much by dropping a jumbo iron bell through the back of the church.
Leyba’s own eyes followed her gaze. A bitter expression came over her face as she saw the other Death Dealers making their way toward her underground lair. She eyed Selene strangely. “Your eyes look like hers, you know…”
Whose? Selene blinked in confusion.
“Filthy vampire whore!” Leyba snarled, overcome by a sudden uncontrollable rage. Her face began to change, the nostrils flaring, jagged fangs erupting from beneath her lips. Half wolf, half woman, she charged at Selene as though determined to claim one last victim before meeting her inevitable end. Her cropped black hair turned into a wild mane. Froth bubbled from her snapping jaws.
Selene’s first shot ignited the petrol covering Leyba’s armor. Flames raced up the lycan’s body, setting her sable tresses ablaze. She howled in agony, sounding far less human than Diego had when he went up in flames. Selene stepped backward to avoid the thrashing figure, then emptied the rest of the silver magazine into Leyba’s skull, just for good measure.
The burning lycan dropped to the floor of the demolished crypt, her lifeless form joining the scattered bones of generations of long-dead monks. It was, Selene decided, a more dignified death than she deserved.
She heard bootsteps rapidly descending a staircase somewhere behind her. “Selene!” Kahn shouted. “Where are you?”
“Over here,” she called back.
Lowering her gun, Selene waited for Kahn and his team to catch up with her. Soon they would be able to retrieve Mason and return to the mansion, where she would be able to report to Kraven that yet another homicidal lycan had been exterminated.
Mission accomplished, she thought, yet a few lingering questions remained. Walking away from the smoldering corpse, she picked up the squashed silver bullet she had spotted earlier. Slick with lycan blood, it still felt warm to the touch. Where did this come from? she asked herself. And whose bloody pawprint is there on the floor?
She wondered if she would ever know what had really happened here.
Epilogue
BUDAPEST (A FEW WEEKS LATER)
“I am pleased to see you back in business, Leonid,” Lucian said with a sly smile. “I understand you recently ran afoul of a few of my, er, competitors.”
Florescu swallowed hard. “That’s nothing you gentlemen need to worry about,” the florid arms dealer insisted. “Just a slight misunderstanding.”
With Statue Park compromised, the meet was taking place in the bowels of a long-forgotten bomb shelter deep beneath the city’s subway tunnels. Water dripped from the ceiling, nurturing the mold growing over the concrete walls and cracked cement floor. Raze stood behind Lucian, watching over his leader.
“Of course,” Lucian reassured Florescu, amused by the human’s attempt to dismiss his recent involvement with both the Death Dealers and Leyba. He had no doubt that the vampires had sternly warned Florescu against selling any more arms to their enemies, yet if there was one thing Lucian had learned over the centuries, it was that human avarice was almost as undying as the Elders themselves.
&
nbsp; War makes strange bedfellows, just as some might say that strange bedfellows can often start a war. He, for one, was perfectly willing to keep dealing with Florescu, provided the human could provide the lycans with the weapons they needed to defeat their immortal foes. I have taken many risks and endured many ordeals to come this far, but all my sacrifices will have been worth it when Viktor lies dead at my feet—and my dear wife and child are avenged at long last.
“What do you have for us today, my friend?”
“Something I think you will be very interested in,” Florescu replied with a gleam in his eye. He was clearly happier talking shop than reviewing his recent misadventures. “Something completely new.”
He snapped his fingers, and one of his thuggish subordinates handed him a black leather briefcase. Florescu opened the case to reveal several rounds of glowing blue ammunition. Each cartridge seemed infused with encapsulated sunlight.
“Experimental tracer rounds,” the human announced proudly, “newly developed by the American military and already available on the black market—for very special customers.”
Ultraviolet ammunition, Lucian realized. His eyes lit up as he grasped the possibilities. Daylight harnessed as a weapon.
“Well?” Florescu asked. “Are you interested?”
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