The Shopgirl's Prophecy (Beasts of Vegas Book 1)

by Anna Abner

  Volk was about furthering Volk, and nothing else. He didn’t act unless it benefitted him, and damn whoever got hurt along the way. Like Ali’s mom. Like Ali. Like countless other victims. And now Olek, too. Maks didn’t give a shit about anyone but himself, certainly not him. Chances were, Connor would help kill Olek, and Volk would turn and gut him first chance he got.

  “Olek dies,” Connor said, “and then what?”

  Volk grinned. “Then we are free, brother.”

  “You take over as the new warlord in town?”

  His grin faded. “I haven’t really thought about it.”

  Right. In the quarter of a century he’d supposedly been hatching this plan, he’d never considered what happened ten minutes after he succeeded? “How will the other infecteds react?”

  Volk’s smile disappeared completely. “They may fight back.”

  “We’ll have to kill them, too?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, I’ll kill Olek, kill his loyalists, and when I’m done you’ll stab me in the back. Literally.”

  That surprised Maks. He didn’t have a snappy comeback. “We have a deal, brother.”

  “I’m not your brother,” Connor growled. “You expect me to go in there and do this for you—”

  “For us. You want him dead, too.”

  “—so you can rise up in his place? If I survive the next twenty minutes, I have to return and kill you next. Then another infected pops up like a whack-a-mole. And another, and another, and another.” Blood would flow without end.

  “How adorable,” Volk sneered. “You think you could kill me.”

  Connor didn’t answer. They both knew Maks wasn’t operating at full strength. Connor could own him without much effort at all.

  Volk began to sweat. “Anya wouldn’t like that, and you know it. You saw her face when I told her about her mother.”

  Connor gripped the steering wheel and groaned. “Ali was right all along. I’ll be fighting you bastards the rest of my life. It never ends.” And he’d left Ali standing there. God, the look in her eyes. She’d never forgive him. And he didn’t blame her. Somehow, he had to get back.

  Lamplight glowed from inside St. Peter’s Hospital like an oasis in the desert. He drove within half a mile.

  “Stop the truck.” Volk scanned left to right, squinting at the chain-link fence circling a maze of concrete buildings. “I guarantee we’ve been seen.” He turned in his seat, a dark, desperate look in his eyes. “Ready?”

  The fact that he had to ask should have alerted him to the obvious truth.

  Connor shook his head, a slow and deliberate back and forth.

  “Don’t wuss out on me now,” Volk snapped, grabbing the dash and turning on him. “We have a deal. You can’t send me back in there alone. He’ll kill me, but he’ll kill Anya first. And in front of me.”

  “I’ve made my decision.” Connor shifted into reverse. “Get the fuck out of my truck.”

  “I’ll cut your throat, you little piece of—”

  Connor flicked his wrist and fired a round from his .45 into Volk’s abdomen. Blood painted the passenger window. But the other man shook it off, and then moved ridiculously fast, slamming the back of Connor’s skull through the driver side window. Glass exploded.

  Connor squeezed the trigger and fired a second time. Maks made an agonized sound and slumped unconscious into Connor’s lap. For a second, Connor couldn’t move, stuck in a sort of shocky state. His head hurt, but he was okay. The same couldn’t be said for Maksim Volk, whose back was a bloody mess. Connor leaned over the still breathing vampire, opened the passenger door, and shoved him out into the dirt.

  “You’re right. Ali wouldn’t like it if I killed you.” Connor yanked the door shut. “You’ll live.”

  #

  Ali allowed Roz to sit on the floor for a long time because she didn’t know what the hell to do, let alone how to help the witch. She made eye contact with a stuffed deer, and stared so long her vision blurred.

  He’d left. After everything they’d been through and talked about, after confessing her love for the jerk, Connor still left. As if she meant nothing. As if his agenda was all that mattered. Screw that. She mattered, damn it.

  Finally, Roz rallied and stood. She grabbed a backpack and stuffed a couple shirts into it.

  “What are you doing?” Ali asked.

  She paused. “I don’t know. But I’m not staying here. If Volk could find us, so can Olek. No offense, but you’re sort of a powder puff, and we just lost our muscle.”

  “Connor’s an idiot,” Ali vented, her voice unnecessarily loud. It felt good to yell.

  “Yeah.” She continued packing.

  “He’s stubborn,” Ali accused.

  “Yeah.”

  “And selfish and ridiculous and idiotic—”

  “You said that one already.” Roz smirked.

  “I think it’s worth repeating.”

  He was all those things, but Ali still cared about the big dummy. And she couldn’t stand around waiting for him to die. She glanced at the weapons stacked and sorted around the room. “Grab the biggest, meanest weapons we’ve got,” she said.

  “What?” Roz looked up. “Why?”

  “We’ll take Volk’s Jeep. You know how to hotwire a car, right?” Ali palmed her Ruger and checked the clip. Full. “We’re going after Connor. He doesn’t have to do this alone, no matter what he says.”

  “Okay.” Roz released an audible sigh of relief. “Right.”

  Ali picked up a shotgun and a box of shells. “This is badass, right?”

  “Hmm.” Roz cracked a smile. “It’s a start, but we can go bigger. How’d you like to use a flame thrower?”

  #

  Anya was more beautiful than Maks had imagined, certainly more beautiful than her photo ID implied. She was the mirror image of his little bird, the one thing she’d inherited from Uri being his blonde hair. He hadn’t expected that. If only the girl wasn’t in love with a total asshole.

  Screw that arrogant kid. Connor Beckett had just catapulted to the top of Maks’ Feel My Wrath list. He’d deal with him soon—slowly and methodically, wringing lots and lots of pleasure from Connor’s agony. He’d break a bone for every drop of blood Maks had lost because of him. An inexperienced torturer might wonder whether the kid had enough bones. Didn’t matter. Maks would find enough.

  A car skidded to a stop behind Maks and people jumped out. He should run for it because he knew from their scent that this was no Christian group out on a soul-saving mission. These were vampires, but he was too woozy from being shot, again, to stand up.

  Somehow, from flat on his back, he had to talk himself out of a beheading.

  The Destroyer ground his boot against Maks’ throat, flattening him to the ground. This was so not his day.

  “Where is she?”

  Maks mouthed the word past crushed vocal chords. “Escaped.”

  Olek pressed harder. Muscles tore. Bones shifted. Maks jerked in pain, his hands scrabbling at the boot, but he might as well try to move a mountain.

  He needed to talk to Olek without his new lap dogs sniffing around. He needed to explain things, in private, and turn the situation around. He could make Olek understand that Anya wasn’t important, that the invasion of Vegas was where he needed to focus. He’d smooth things over. He’d take his punishment. Everything would go back to the way it was, albeit with some new tension, but that would fade with time. He’d rise again. This wasn’t the end of Maksim Volk.

  But they weren’t alone. He recognized Damian, Olaf, and Lisbeth. Killers, every one. Nearly mindless, especially Olaf, they worshipped Oleksander like a living god. But Maks hadn’t spent the last quarter of a century securing his position to be replaced so easily.

  “I gave you a chance.” Olek backed off, and Maks sucked in air, coughing uncontrollably. “Now, I will find Anya.” The Destroyer gestured for his minions to haul Volk away. “Keep him in the cage until I return.”

  No. No
more punishments. Olek’s little games were deadly. Body parts sawed off. Some fed back to you. All sorts of creative torture. Maks wouldn’t survive, not in his pathetic condition.

  “No!” He coughed and sputtered, but the best he could produce was a raw squeak of protest. It was the closest he’d come to a whimper in a quarter of a century.

  Olek’s face flushed with pure rage. “You failed me!” He swung, his fist hitting Volk’s face with the force of a jackhammer. His right eye burst, and his vision fractured into red and orange fireworks. His head snapped back, and his body went numb from the neck down.

  “I will hurt you like you’ve hurt me.” The Destroyer loomed over him, but his image flickered. He leaned close enough to blow his hot breath in Volk’s face. “And I will make you scream.”

  All the remaining light in the world was fading…fading…fading…

  …to black.

  #

  Fifteen minutes to Vegas, Connor came upon a fast-moving yellow Jeep running at him head-on. He stopped fast, his rear end skidding to the right, and he hopped out. The other car’s doors opened, and his girls climbed out. He saw Roz in his periphery, but he couldn’t take his eyes off Alina. She was armed with a flamethrower, the fuel pack strapped to her back.

  That’s my girl.

  “Are you coming to kill me?” he asked, not exactly kidding. They looked like a couple of heartless mercenaries trussed up for war.

  “We were coming to save you,” she called back. “What happened?”

  “Change of plans,” Connor said. “We’re getting the hell out of Nevada. Now. Together.”

  “Good plan,” Ali agreed.

  “Ditch the Jeep,” he said, turning his back on them. There wasn’t a lot of time. “My truck’s faster. Roz, you’re driving.”

  “Screw you. I’m not taking orders from you anymore.”

  He deserved that. And a hell of a lot more. He glanced over his shoulder. Roz stared at him like she wanted to eviscerate him.

  “I’m sorry.” He lowered his voice, and said it again. “I’m sorry.”

  “You’re saying that a lot lately.”

  “I was trying to keep you alive. You know I’d never put my hands on you.”

  “But you did.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Roz took a deep, chest-swelling breath and exhaled. “Fine. Let’s go.” She grabbed a duffel bag from the Jeep, set it in the bed of the Ford, and helped Ali out of the flamethrower contraption. It followed the other weapons into the truck.

  Ali tried to go around him, but he grabbed her by the arm. She wrestled him like a wildcat. “Stop it,” she snapped. “I’m pissed at you.”

  “You were right,” he said, keeping a firm hold on her. “I should have listened to you from the beginning. Volk wasn’t going to help me. He was going to use me, and then dispose of me.”

  “Of course he was, dummy. A blind man could see that.” She ceased struggling.

  “We can’t fight the infection with violence,” Connor said.

  “No shit.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t listen sooner.”

  “Yeah, well. Good.” Ali glanced away and down. “Did you kill him?”

  “No. But I shot him. Twice.”

  “He probably deserved it.”

  Somewhere down the road, past the clumps of sagebrush, Connor heard a poorly tuned engine in high gear. His stomach clenched, acid pooling in his guts. Too soon. The horde had caught up.

  “They’re coming,” he announced, his pulse kicking into overdrive. There was no cover. “Get a weapon in your hands.”

  Fuck it. He was faster. He darted for the pickup, grabbed a rifle and tossed it at Roz. She fumbled it, swearing loudly. He tucked his .45 down the front of his jeans, but then he remembered what Volk had said about killing an infected. He couldn’t find his Bowie knife, though, and didn’t have time to look for it. He grabbed a pair of 9 mil’s and pushed them into Ali’s hands.

  Connor didn’t need to see behind him to know the vehicle had stopped a hundred feet or so down the road and three vampires approached on foot. He stared into her eyes, willing some of his strength to flow into her.

  “Shoot them. Don’t pause to think.”

  Ali’s eyes brimmed with anxiety. “You mean fight? Here?”

  “There’s no point in running. They’ll never stop hunting you.”

  “How do you know?”

  “It’s what I would do.” Those vampires would push their hunk of junk until the engine exploded. And then they’d run like animals for miles and miles to find her. “Roz, juice up.”

  The vampires were slowly closing in. “I’ll do everything I can to protect you.” Connor hugged Ali briefly. “I love you too.”

  Time was up.

  He turned, pushing Ali behind him, and faced three vampires. Oleksander stood apart. On his left was a freakishly tall redheaded bastard. The third infected was a woman, the same one from their previous meeting in an alley behind a grocery store. The vamp who’d nearly sucked him dry. She smiled a hungry, mocking smile, clearly remembering him.

  “Blessed is my power. I call upon thee.” Roz spoke in a terrified whisper.

  Connor didn’t check to see if her power was working or not. By the sound of her voice, she was still a witch on the fritz.

  Olek folded his arms across his wide chest, as casual as could be, while Connor’s pulse thundered against his ribs. “Save Anya,” he said to his minions. “Kill the other two.”

  The whole world jerked into motion.

  Big Red came at him like a freight train. Connor fired six rounds as fast as his finger could move. As the vampire slammed him into the dirt, he heard Ali firing her 9 millimeters. Once, twice, three times before she squealed in pain or fright, he couldn’t tell which, and stopped shooting.

  Righteous fury swept through him like a kind of supernatural power all its own. He was wrath. He was vengeance. He was a fairy tale monster come to life. And these fuckers were not leaving this spot alive.

  Big Red drove his forehead into Connor’s nose. Pain and blood blinded him. And then it was more than pain. Red stabbed him in the belly, angling the knife up toward his heart.

  Roaring, Connor bucked and knocked Red to the side. He took the handle of the knife and slid it from his own abdomen. He flipped the blade and attacked, sticking and moving, faster and then faster, stabbing the vampire so hard, his fingers followed the blade through his abdominal cavity, banging into ribs. Red dropped to a knee, and Connor cut his throat.

  But it wasn’t enough. He kept sawing, furiously, before Red rallied. He had trouble with the vertebrae, but in moments, Connor held a knife in one hand and a severed head in the other.

  Heal that, motherfucker.

  Connor stood, taking in the state of things with a sweep of his gaze. Roz knelt in the grass, calling her power over and over and over. Useless. Nobody paid any attention to her. Olek was rooted to the same spot, arms folded, smirking as if oddly pleased with Big Red’s death. And Ali. Oh, God. She laid on her back, frozen, the female vampire standing over her. She preferred blades, too, but hers was a machete. And she carved designs with it into Ali’s chest. Blood covered her like a blanket. Saving Ali didn’t include keeping her safe, apparently.

  Connor fired the remaining rounds from his .45 until he heard a gut-clenching click. He flipped the blade, so slippery, and threw it overhand at the bitch. She ducked it, and it sailed off into the night. She smiled and rushed him, slashing like Zorro with a long, curved blade. Fool that he was, he’d thrown away his last weapon.

  She cut him on the left forearm, and then the right side of his jaw, before swinging again. Connor stepped back, but she was quicker, and the blade burrowed into his chest, catching in his ribs. With a sinister smile, she levered them open and his whole body vibrated like he’d been electrocuted. With one well-aimed slice, she’d have his heart and lungs in the palm of her hand. He had to be stronger than her, there was no other option.

  He gra
bbed the blade with both hands and yanked. She pushed back, and the machete cut through the soft tissue of his fingers, grinding against bone. He twisted and took the machete from her, forcing her off balance for a fraction of a second. He swung for the fences. Her head joined her friend’s on the ground.

  Ali lay on her back, whimpering. And Connor forgot about Oleksander, combat, or anything except her. Ali was hurt, and his insides churned.

  “Shh,” he whispered. “Hush, you’re safe.” The vamp had made a mess of Ali’s chest. Blood ran in rivulets along the sides of her neck and down her belly. He found the deepest cut and pressed both of his mangled hands to it, trying to stop the bleeding. She flinched, and it took that long for him to realize what he’d done.

  Her eyes widened. “Your blood.”

  No. His tainted blood was mixing with hers.

  “Enough,” came a growl from behind him. Before Connor could raise an arm to defend her, Olek had him by the neck. He lifted him off his feet and held him one-armed, like a garden tool, at eye level. And he wasn’t gentle about it. Olek’s fingers tightened, squeezing the blood and oxygen from Connor’s brain. Snap, crackle, pop.

  Connor reached out with his good right arm for Olek’s eyes, but the vampire took his forearm and snapped it in two, and then with a flick of his wrist, dislocated his shoulder. Connor’s arm fell like a dead weight to his side.

  Ali struggled to her knees, God bless her, and fired three rounds at the Destroyer. Later, he’d insist on target practice because at least one hit Connor in the belly by mistake.

  “Soon, you’ll come to me, you’ll see my kingdom, and you’ll swear loyalty to me,” Olek said to him, unfazed by the bullets flying. “But not yet. Today is Anya’s day.” He pivoted and tossed Connor through the air.

  He saw dark sky, Roz, and Ali before hitting the cab of his truck, metal buckling from the force. And because his body was no longer his to control, he dropped to his knees, hovered there for a moment, and then fell face first into the dirt.

  #

  Ali scrambled toward Connor, but Olek picked her up like a child and trotted off down the road.