Vampires of Moscow (Blood Web Chronicles Book 1)

by Caedis Knight

  “I know about the pills, little Witch. We tried one together, remember? Let’s go back to bed.”

  I grab his hands through the bars, snapping him out of his tired daze. “Your brother did this, Lukka.” I show him the marks on my neck. My lip starts to tremble and I swallow down the onset of tears. “He’s developed something that not only means he can drink Witch blood, but he absorbs our powers, my powers. Konstantin hurt me, Lukka, and even Dimitri’s in on it. They killed Ansel.”

  A shadow passes over Lukka’s face, his features setting like stone.

  “You’re saying my brother fed on you?” He strokes the side of my neck and I can’t help a tear from falling down my cheek. “And killed Ansel?”

  He’s still holding my hand, his cold fingers interlaced with mine. I squeeze them. “Please,” I plead. “Get me out of here. Quietly. Dr. Vassily is inside the lab and he says he’s going to kill me.”

  “No,” Lukka says, shaking his head slowly. “Kostya makes happy drugs. He would never bite a Witch. He would never bite you. I don’t understand.”

  “Your brother made that medicine over there,” I whisper, pointing at the full syringe on the floor by his car. “It’s derived from an antidote I had. It helps Vamps feed on Witches and absorb our powers.”

  Lukka makes a face, his fingers slipping from mine.

  “Please!” I cry. “Take it, if you don’t believe me. Take it and then feed on me. It will give you Verity powers and then you will know I’m not lying.”

  “You want me to inject myself with something from a parking lot floor?” he says.

  I look at the lab door behind me. We don’t have time for this! I lean forward and hold his face in my hands. All I see before me is the broken boy who lived in squalor and idolized his big brother. An orphan who never wanted to grow up. The only man who has never lied to me.

  “Lukka,” I say, staring into his milky eyes. “I know the world is a bad place, and I know you don’t want to see it, but this is your chance to save so many people. Innocent Paras, humans, and children like the ones you already care for. Please, inject yourself and drink from me, and you will know that I’m not lying to you.”

  Lukka swallows, tattoos jumping at his throat, and gives a light nod before walking over to the car and taking the syringe. He’s a Vampire, he knows there’s nothing he can inject into his body that will kill him, but he still looks hesitant as he plunges the needle into his arm.

  “Now what?”

  I push my arm further through the bars, my eyes begging him to trust me.

  “Bite me,” I say under my breath. He stares at me for a long time and I nod. “Please,” I mouth.

  I can see the shift in his gaze. No Vampire can hear those words without being aroused. His fangs grow quickly, thick and white, and he looks down at my hand now cradled in his. Then gently he leans down and plunges his fangs into my wrist. I gasp at the sting, but it’s not unpleasant. Unlike his brother’s attack, Lukka’s bite is gentle, hesitant, and just as quickly he pulls away. He’s waiting to see what effect my blood has on him. He looks up, a light frown flashing on his forehead. Nothing. I haven’t poisoned him.

  “I told you,” I say. “I can’t kill you now.”

  He smiles. “Little Witch, I’ve wanted to taste your blood since the first moment I saw you. You taste like strawberries in winter.”

  My stomach spasms with images of the last three nights we’ve spent together, but I don’t have time for flirting. We don’t have time for flirting.

  “Drink,” I say, but he’s already there, my wrist pressed against his eager lips, my blood dripping in scarlet rivulets down his chin and dripping on to his bare chest.

  “I hate your lips on my skin,” I say.

  Lukka jumps up like he’s been shot, covering his ears with his bloody hands.

  “What was that?” he cries.

  I smile. “A lie. Us Verity Witches hear a strange ping in our heads when someone lies. Now you can too.”

  His shock turns to a grin. “So, you do like my lips on your skin?” he says.

  I roll my eyes. “You disgust me, Lukka. The last three days have been awful. And that thing you do with your tongue? I hate it.”

  He screws up his face as the three pings of a lie ringing through his head have him wincing in discomfort. “So unpleasant! Do lies feel like that every time?”

  I nod. “Unless I’m telling the truth. Watch. You’re the only one I trust in this country,” I say.

  He waits, his face falling slack as no ping resonates through his mind. His hand darts through the bars and he strokes my cheeks now wet with tears.

  “Your brother hurt me,” I say again. Lukka’s jaw tenses. Silence. “He is creating pharmaceuticals to sell to other Vamps. Super blood he’s been draining from his workers, your staff, by spiking their food. Pills to help Vampires walk in the sunlight. He killed Ansel, her boyfriend, hundreds of illegal immigrants. He’s dangerous.”

  Lukka’s fangs have detracted and his demonic grin has been replaced with the face of a boy who has never known love. He goes to say something when the door behind me slowly creaks open.

  Lukka disappears in a blur.

  Has he gone? Has he left me? I quell the mounting panic climbing up my chest.

  “Shut the fuck up!” the doctor shouts, striding over to me. “Have you been drained to insanity that you’re now sitting here talking to yourself?” He looks at my bloody wrist. “Are you trying to kill yourself before we do? Mr. Volkov should have finished you off while he was bleeding you dry, you dirty…”

  The doctor doesn’t have the chance to finish his sentence before the bars of the cage are ripped out and Lukka is holding him up against the wall by his throat. He slams the back of the scientist’s head against the concrete.

  “Have you been hurting my little Witch?” Lukka shouts in his face.

  Dr. Vassily’s head shakes violently from side to side.

  “No! Of course not! I would never hurt her.”

  I can only imagine how loud those pings in Lukka’s mind are, because they are loud in mine too. Lukka’s fangs grow again and he tightens his grip on the doctor’s throat.

  “Have you been killing innocent humans to sell their blood and create drugs?”

  “No,” Dr. Vassily croaks.

  And that is the last words he’ll ever utter as Lukka dives at him and takes a lump out of his jugular, spitting the fatty mass of blood and tissue onto the floor. He lets go of him and the doctor’s body falls to the ground, his head hanging on by nothing but his exposed spine. Lightning-fast he grabs the side table by the door and smashes it against the wall, driving the splintered wooden leg into the doctor’s chest. I’ve never seen a Vamp get staked before. I expected him to explode messily, or turn to smoke, but instead Vassily just collapses. Slowly, like a human.

  Lukka turns, and I recoil. He looks like a demon; his handsome face smeared red and his white designer trousers soaked in the doctor’s blood.

  “I’m glad I wore plastic shoes,” he says, licking his lips.

  I throw my arms around his neck covering myself in sticky gore, but I don’t care - my clothes are already encrusted with my own dry blood. Lukka holds me tight and I realize it’s not just relief he’s feeling. He’s upset about his brother - I proved that I wasn’t lying about the doctor, therefore Lukka also knows everything I said about Konstantin is true. I place my hand on the back of his head and he holds me to him tighter.

  “Thank you for believing me,” I say.

  “You’re bad at lying. I already told you that.”

  I look down at the Doctor beneath my feet.

  “Sorry you had to kill him,” I say.

  He shrugs. “Never liked him anyway. Besides, killing is easier the more you do it.”

  I feel the ping of his lie and I embrace him harder. Who would Lukka have been had Konstantin not kept so much from him, while using him as his own personal guard dog?

  “We have to get you out of he
re,” he says, his voice shaking a little. “I can only protect you so far.”

  I nod. “I need to fly back home. My passport is in my bag. I will get a taxi.”

  “No! I will take you, my car has tinted windows so I’ll be fine. The keys are in the office.” I go to stand by his car but he pulls me to him again. “You are coming with me. I’m not letting you out of my sight until you’re safe. Let’s go.”

  “But won’t Dimitri be in the club? He’s there day and night.” I imagine him racing back to Konstantin as soon as he killed Ansel. Piece of shit!

  Lukka steps back and strokes the hair out of my face, leaving a line of blood in its wake.

  “You think that teddy bear scares me?”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  It’s strange to be back in the club during the day. All the shutters are down but the cleaners haven’t yet been. The place is a mess. Glasses are scattered all over the tabletops and floor, and one solitary stiletto sits on the small podium stage. I recognize it, it belongs to Ansel. Belonged. I swallow down the guilt. I could have saved her if only I’d met up with her sooner instead of spending three days in bed with Lukka. It’s my fault she’s dead.

  We walk past the bar and stage and head towards the door marked No Entry. Just as Lukka goes to tap in his code a gruff shout echoes from the other side of the club.

  “Where are you taking her?”

  Dimitri is bounding over to us, his huge paw-like hands clenched into fists. He’s still wearing the baby blue Adidas tracksuit, the jacket zipped tightly over his barrel-like middle, but he’s taken off his stupid hat. I notice a dark mark on his sleeve and realize with a start it’s Ansel’s blood. Images flash through my mind of the bear slicing through my friend’s neck. My head begins to swim and I blink, doing my best to focus.

  Lukka turns to Dimitri, pushing me behind him, and gives the bouncer a slick-red smile.

  “Fuck off and go back to your cave,” he says.

  Dimitri’s eyes are black and perfectly round, like two pebbles pushed into a snowman’s face. “Konstantin says no one is allowed in his office, and that includes you,” he barks at Lukka. Dimitri’s copious gold chains clink together as he stands before Lukka. He rubs a hand over his buzz-cut, his neck as wide as his boxy head, and tips his chin up to signal us to leave. “Take the Witch back to her cage or I’ll gut her like I did her friend.”

  The two of them stare at one another, white eyes boring into bear eyes. Neither of them moves, watching, waiting.

  “I don’t take orders from you,” Lukka growls, then he flies at the bouncer, teeth bared and eyes flashing with white-hot anger.

  He aims for the jugular, knocking Dimitri down and plunging his fangs into his neck. With a roar, Dimitri rears up and pulls the Vamp off him as if he weighs nothing.

  The bouncer is already tall, but now it’s like he’s standing on tiptoes towering over Lukka. Slowly at first, then all at once, Dimitri rises taller and taller, his legs thickening and shoulders rounding. The bouncer’s tracksuit fades and in its place is white fur stained yellow by Moscow’s smog, thick and matted like piss-stained snow. Dimitri’s hands have turned to giant paws, his palms black and padded, and nicotine-stained claws spring out like daggers and swipe at Lukka’s chest.

  The bouncer is a polar bear? A huge motherfucking polar!

  I’d guessed Dimitri was a bear from the first time I’d met him. I thought he was your average woodland bear or something, I don’t know, but nothing this huge. As he rises on his back legs he’s nearly double my height and I let out a yelp and I duck behind a column. He swipes out again and snarls, making Lukka stagger back.

  I watch as they stare at each other, the bear on his hind legs and the Vampire with his fangs out ready to pounce. In a blur, Lukka flies at him again, and with impossible speed jumps up at the bear’s throat and digs his fangs into Dimitri’s neck once more, this time ripping at his flesh. Dimitri’s bear fur is thick and coarse, but it’s quickly turning pink as blood oozes down his neck. Lukka jumps down and spits out a lump of flesh, like a Russian Mike Tyson, his face smeared with blood and thin white hairs sticking to his bloodied lips.

  “Get back,” he shouts out at me, putting out a protective arm as I step behind the column again.

  Dimitri sways then falls to all fours with a thump. His head is lagging but his eyes are still piercingly black and fierce. Lukka looks like he’s ready to strike again but then, with an almighty cry, the bouncer lunges at him. With the strength of ten men he knocks Lukka over until Dimitri is looming over him, one giant paw pinning down his chest, the other clawed paw raised and ready to disembowel. Lukka looks at me fleetingly and my chest constricts. He can’t move. Lukka is trapped.

  “I will kill you, Dimitri,” he growls, but we both know the bear has won.

  I look around for something to throw at Dimitri who’s roaring up at the ceiling with such force I can feel it vibrating through me. I consider throwing a barstool at him, or a side table, but after my pathetic aiming efforts with the glass bottles and Lukka’s car earlier, that’s not a risk worth taking. Putting down the chair I glance over at the small stage beside me and pick up the abandoned stiletto.

  This is a stupid fucking idea. But, to be fair, my best ideas normally are.

  Giving a ferocious cry of my own I run at Dimitri. He has his giant paw in the air, and just as he’s about to swipe at Lukka I jump up and stab the stiletto heel into the Shifter’s temple. It makes a sickening squelching sound as I drive it deep into the bear’s head, right up until the platform sole of the shoe, pushing as hard as I can.

  “This is from Ansel to you, you ice-capped piece of shit!” I scream as blood sprays over my hands and up my arm.

  The bear stops, closes his eyes, Lukka stills beneath him. Then, with a soft whine, Dimitri crashes down to the floor.

  All is silent as I stand there, my arms warm and sticky with blood, staring down at a giant polar bear with a stripper’s shoe sticking out of his head beside an injured Vamp who I’ve spent the last three nights having wild sex with.

  What even is my life?

  “You’re OK,” Lukka confirms, seeming more worried about me than he is about himself. He jumps to his feet and pulls me towards him with both hands on my behind. He kisses my neck, smearing Dimitri’s blood all over my collarbone. After a minute my trembling body and shaky breaths return to normal but he continues to hold me. “You saved my life. That makes you my hero, little Witch,” he whispers in my ear.

  “Come on,” I say, taking his hand. He’s shaking too, but you wouldn’t know it by the red-smeared smile he’s giving me. “Let’s get out of here before your brother finds us.”

  “Too late,” comes Konstantin’s voice behind us. “I’m already here.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  I notice right away that Konstantin has changed his clothes since our last meeting in the cage. He’s wearing a three-piece suit made of navy wool, complete with a faint print stripe and polished leather shoes. Unlike his brother, he clearly hasn’t been sleeping while I suffered alone in my cell.

  He looks down at the bouncer on the floor. Dimitri has remained in animal form. I wonder how Konstantin will explain to the cleaners what a huge polar bear is doing lying in the middle of a strip club with a sparkly stiletto sticking out of his head.

  Ansel got her own back on the beast after all. I want to smile, but I don’t.

  “I’m surprised to see you here, little brother,” Konstantin says, taking in the blood on his chest and clothes. Lukka’s holding my hand, and it gives me a small thrill that Konstantin isn’t liking it. “You don’t normally get involved in my business ventures,” he says.

  “Saskia isn’t a business venture,” Lukka hisses. “She’s a person. You had her in a cage, Kostya, and you hurt her. I’m getting my car keys and I’m getting her out of here.”

  “You know she’s a reporter, right?” Konstantin says. “She works for The Blood Web Chronicle.”

  Lukka isn
’t hearing any pings, and the pain in his eyes makes my stomach contract. He looks away from me and lets go of my hand.

  “Release her go, brother,” he says to Konstantin again.

  “I can’t. If I do then the first thing she’ll do is expose what we’ve done.”

  “What you’ve done!”

  Konstantin rounds upon his brother, his face inches from his.

  “Everything I’ve ever done, I’ve done for you.” He says it so quietly goosebumps rise all over my flesh. “Your expensive clothes, those ridiculous cars you drive, our mansion – who pays for that? I looked after you as a child and I’m still looking after you now. I give you everything, Lukka. I make you happy. I’m on the cusp of a great breakthrough, a chance for us to return to who we once were. Everything you love you will be able to do in the sunlight, you will have infinite power, and all for the sake of a feeble few who don’t matter to anyone...like this one.”

  In a blur, Konstantin’s hand shoots out and grabs me around the throat.

  “Let her go!” Lukka shouts as his brother drags me over to one of the small stages and throws me against the dance pole. My head cracks against the metal and I stumble, landing on my backside. He produces some extra-long zip ties from his suit pocket and binds my wrists together around the pole.

  “Who the fuck carries zip ties in their pocket?” I say, trying to keep the fear out of my voice.

  “The kind of Vampire who needs to keep girls like you under control. I told you, we’re not finished yet!”

  “Look at what your brother is, Lukka,” I shout. “He’s dangerous. He killed your mother with his bare hands because he can’t control himself.”

  Konstantin turns to Lukka, his face filled with derision like everything I say is exhausting.

  “Brother,” he says, walking over to Lukka with confident strides. “Of course, I didn’t kill our mother. Saskia is deranged. I would never lie to you.”

  I hear a number of pings and I know Lukka can hear them too. Konstantin is lying and he’s breaking his brother’s heart right in front of me.