by Reinke, Sara
They’d arrived at a low-slung building with a nondescript cinderblock exterior and narrow windows that had been tinted to prevent anyone from peeking through. There’d been no signage on either the building itself, or the front doors, that Mason had seen, and none on the back entrance, where the SUV had parked. There hadn’t been much by way of movement in the small rear parking lot, but once he’d followed Nikolić through the swinging glass-and-steel doors, Mason had been surprised to find a veritable hub of activity inside.
It looked like a gym, one of those high-tech fitness clubs with mirror-lined walls and gleaming rows of state-of-the-art equipment. More than a dozen young men were in the process of training here—all of them stripped down to athletic pants or shorts, bare-chested and chiseled, all of them sweat-glossed with exertion like nubile young gods. Some ran on treadmills, while others hefted dumbbells or free weights. Others sparred together on a large, open space in the middle of the room, exchanging swift, precise kicks and punches. A boxing ring had been erected on the left side of the room, and here, opponents traded gloved jabs delivered in rapid-fire succession with one another. From an overhead speaker system, the driving beat of hip-hop rhythm could be heard above grunts, groans, and the solid whap-whap-WHAP of skin striking skin. In stark contrast to the sharp, cold bite outside, the air in the gym felt muggy, the scent of human sweat so thick and pungent, it was cloying.
Mason had thought Nikolić would explain why they were there, but instead, he’d wordlessly weaved his way among the young men and equipment with a practiced sort of ease. A nudge from the driver of the SUV, who had followed them inside and had conspicuously carried a large assault rifle in his hands, had galvanized Mason into motion, and he’d trailed behind Nikolić.
Along the way, he’d watched as the big man would pause to exchange words or hand clasps with the young men working out. Nikolić’s mouth would stretch wide into a grin each time, and he seemed almost paternalistic as he praised each, clapping them on the tattooed shoulders, or tousling their sweat-soaked hair. Several older men who appeared to be trainers or coaches of some sort, and who were dressed in the black T-shirts and camouflage pants of Nikolić’s militia guards, also approached. With these, Nikolić’s smile would wither, and he’d draw them in close enough to murmur in their ears, instructions Mason couldn’t make out, but to which each man would solemnly nod and respond to with “Da, Šef.”
“What is this place?” Mason had finally asked, even though he had a pretty good idea. This was where Nikolić’s combatants in the Draka trained—the illegal fighting circuit Andrei and Julien had told him about. Clearly, it was also where the bulk of Nikolić’s money was invested; unlike the brothel, with its third-world living conditions, he seemed to have spared no expense on this facility. Large flat-screen TVs had been mounted along the walls, and images of men fighting in what looked like a chain-link enclosed cage showed on them simultaneously. Considering Mason could see that the men on TV had been at it for a while and were pretty battered and bloody, he suspected he was watching a prerecorded Draka match. And if they were at Nikolić’s training facility…
That means Edith is here somewhere, too, he’d realized.
Nikolić hadn’t answered, and as he’d led Mason out of the gym area and down a long, wide hallway, they’d been startled by the sudden, sharp report of gunfire. That was when they’d forced Mason into the small room off the corridor. He’d heard more gunshots as Nikolić’s guard had used the stock of his rifle to shove him, staggering, across the threshold. It was brightly lit from an overhead fluorescent panel, and Mason had blinked stupidly for a moment, blinded by the glare. He’d heard the door slam behind him, and had wheeled around just in time to hear the clicking of the lock.
And the rest, he thought, his brows furrowed in aggravation, is history.
“Goddamn it, let me out of here!” he shouted, beating on the door again.
The room had a small sink in it, and an overhead cupboard, along with a padded examination table, the kind you’d find in a physician’s office. He’d dug through the cabinets only to find a box of alcohol swabs, a jar of cotton balls, sealed vials of saline, some empty syringe barrels, a sphygmomanometer for measuring blood pressure, and other medical supplies. Maybe they’d used the room for performing routine physical examinations on Nikolić’s fighters.
Or maybe for doing something else to them, Mason thought, his mind turning toward Piotr and the blood-crazed thing he’d become after Nikolić had shot him up with Phillip’s serum.
“Nikolić!” he yelled, pounding on the door. “Nikolić! Open this door!”
To his surprise, he heard the latch click again, and he had to dance backwards as the door swung inward, nearly plowing into him and knocking him onto his ass. He caught himself against the examination table as Nikolić strode through the doorway, flanked on one side by his girlfriend, Anna—looking like she’d been on the losing end of a scrap with a weed whacker, judging by the numerous scrapes and lacerations on her face—and an armed guard on the other.
“It’s about damn time,” Mason said, trying his best not to look or sound as anxious as he felt. “What the hell’s going on?”
“Forgive me, Dr. Morin,” Nikolić said. “There was an…incident in another part of the building shortly after we arrived. I felt it would be best if you stayed someplace safe until I could take care of it.”
“Safe?” Mason demanded. “You locked me in here. I heard gunshots, for Christ’s sake!”
“Da.” Nikolić nodded. “That would be the incident I mentioned.”
“Is Edith alright?” Mason asked, and if it took Nikolić by surprise that he’d figured out that Edith was there, as well, it didn’t show on his face.
“She’s fine, Dr. Morin. Safely in her lab. I can bring you to see her in a little bit, if you’d like.”
“I’d like that, yeah,” Mason said. Nikolić smiled as he spoke, but he couldn’t help but feel that it was nothing more than a well-practiced poker face. He seemed to be making light of whatever had happened, but given the amount of gunfire Mason had heard, he doubted it had been anything minor.
Nikolić pivoted slightly toward Anna, draping his hand behind her slim waist. “May I introduce Anna Kovac, one of my close associates? Anna, ljubavi, this is Dr. Mason Morin.”
Anna nodded once in Mason’s direction, but her face was set in a surly expression, her brows drawn, her lips pursed. Mason remembered his younger brother Tristan wearing just such a look on his face when he’d been a very small boy, whenever Lisette would tell him no and he would be readying himself to pitch a tantrum.
“I’m afraid Anna was injured during the excitement,” Nikolić said. “I was hoping you might take a look at her, maybe stitch up some of these cuts on her face? With your plastic surgery expertise, I’m sure you can make it so she doesn’t have any permanent scars.”
“Uh, sure,” Mason said, still unable to shake the distinct feeling that there was something Nikolić was deliberately keeping from him, something big and important.
Nikolić motioned with his hand and Anna tromped forward, taking a seat on the side of the examination table. Mason went to the cupboard on the nearby wall and sifted through the contents again, pulling down the cotton balls, a bottle of saline, and some other supplies.
“I believe Andrei kept suturing supplies in that second drawer,” Nikolić remarked helpfully. At the mention of his friend’s name, Mason felt a pang of sorrow. It also reminded him to reach down, brushing his fingertips against the pocket of his jeans, where he could still feel the outline of the remote control tucked inside.
Mason carried his supplies back to the table and spread them out beside Anna. He pulled on a pair of gloves, unscrewed the cap to the saline bottle, and moistened some of the cotton balls.
“Andrei worked here, too?” he asked, trying to keep his voice neutral in tone as he leaned toward the young woman, dabbing lightly at one of the bloody lacerations on her cheek. She stiffened slightly, s
ucking in a hissing breath, but remained relatively still as he worked.
“Yes,” Nikolić said. “My boys here, they can get themselves into some scrapes. Sometimes they forget, you know? It’s only training.”
“For the Draka,” Mason said, and again, if it surprised Nikolić that he was familiar with this term, again it didn’t outwardly show.
“Yes,” he said. “They’re like wolf pups, all eager to prove themselves dominant in the pack. I tell them to save it for the ring.” He still wore that patently cool smile, and chuckled now, an equally fake laugh. “Andrei helped here before the fights, too. I’m hoping you’ll take his place…at least for tonight.”
Mason opened a suture kit and removed a swaged needle. The pre-attached thread was long, but he could trim in when he’d finished. Leaning forward, he used his free hand, his gloved fingertips, to gently pinch the edges of Anna’s shallow wound together. Again she grimaced as he stuck her, sliding the curved needle into her skin.
“What do you mean?” he asked Nikolić, again trying to sound casual.
“I mean my boys, they’re tough,” Nikolić said. As he spoke, he strolled closer, watching Mason intently as he worked. “They’re good fighters, all of them. I picked them myself. Piotr was one, you know.”
“I didn’t know,” Mason murmured, cutting a glance at Anna’s eyes as he spoke and seeing the brief flash of pain there at the mention of her brother.
“Da.” Nikolić nodded. “He was very good. Very strong. But they go against some giant bastards, brought in all of the way from Russia just to fight. That’s all they do—five, ten years, they train and fight. My boys, they need an extra edge.”
“You mean the juice,” Mason said and Nikolić nodded again. “You shoot them up with the juice so they’re stronger and faster.” And more aggressive, he wanted to add, but bit back. Nothing like the bloodlust to make you want to pick a fight.
“It’s not cheating,” Nikolić insisted, despite the fact Mason hadn’t said anything to this effect. “I sell it, too. There are some who will pay five thousand dollars a hit. And they do because they see my boys. They see how it works.”
“Nothing like a little point-of-sale advertising, I guess,” Mason remarked, snipping the extra thread after he’d made a small knot at the end of Anna’s wound. He opened a new kit to get a fresh needle and line, then began to clean the next cut.
“You’ll see tonight how fast it goes,” Nikolić told him, and when Mason glanced at him, curious, he added, “You’re going with me and Anna—our guest. I have box seats reserved. We’ll have champagne and enjoy the show.”
“Sounds great,” Mason muttered.
“And you’ll take Andrei’s place—you’ll give the juice to the boys,” Nikolić continued, either oblivious to, or ignoring, his sarcasm. “We give it to them intravenously, straight into the bloodstream. It’s more effective that way. You put it in their neck vein here…” He tipped his head back and pointed to his throat, the jugular vein. “…and it makes them mean.”
He said this as if it was a good thing, but Mason wasn’t so sure. Whatever the hell the juice was, it simulated the effects of the bloodlust in humans, which meant it worked directly on the limbic system of the brain—the primary region affected by bloodlust among the Brethren. The limbic system not only controlled emotions, but also served as the pleasure drive, stimulating sensations of lust, hunger, and thirst, among others. The limbic system also controlled the body’s fight-or-flight response to danger or distress, and the release of powerful hormones that increased physical strength, agility, and sensory awareness in response to those threats.
Intense sensations like anger, or—as Mason and Edith had demonstrated in the kitchen at Nikolić’s brothel—the stimulating smell of blood could trigger a rush of responses in a Brethren’s limbic system that comprised the bloodlust, but the Brethren were accustomed to this sudden, energizing surge. They knew how to control it. Humans didn’t; there was no way they could, and injecting the juice directly into the bloodstream—and in the neck, where it would quickly be transported through the heart and lungs, then upward almost immediately to the brain—meant their limbic systems could be over-stimulated, leaving them unable to cope. Michel had called a similar inability to control the bloodlust among Brethren a “feral fugue” state, meaning all control and rationale had been lost, and the aggressive urges of the hyper-sensitized limbic system would be acted upon without conscience or restraint.
Mason thought about pointing this out to Nikolić, of telling him the juice could do more than just make the young fighters he called his boys “mean”—it could make them downright out of control and murderous, just like Piotr had been. But instead, he pressed his lips together and focused on his work.
* * *
Another hour passed with Mason again locked by himself inside the examination room. This time, he kept himself busy by taking a closer look at the controller Andrei had given him. As near as he could tell, at one time it had simply been a remote device for a dog training collar. Mason could tell which button controlled the electrical shock—it was easy enough to recognize, with a little red lightning bolt on it. There were five other buttons to choose from on the front panel of the device, but none of the remaining pictograms lent any clue to their function. Which was just as well, Mason figured with a sigh, considering they probably no longer performed whatever function they’d been originally designed for. Nikolić’s tech guy, Vuško, had modified them in order to accommodate the trigger mechanism for the C4 explosives, as well as the electromagnetic generator he’d affixed to the collar.
His gaze shot toward the door at the sound of the key turning home in the lock. He’d been sitting on the examination table, but let his feet drop to the floor, then shoved the remote control beneath the long hem of his shirt, back into the hip pocket of his jeans. The door swung open and one of Nikolić’s guards walked in.
“You ready?” he asked Mason, who merely blinked at him, bewildered.
“For what?”
The guard uttered a snort, then flapped one hand in beckon, laying the other conspicuously atop the butt-end of a pistol holstered at his side. “Come on. They’re waiting.”
Once again, Mason found himself escorted outside to the black SUV with the featureless interior door panels. As he ducked his head and climbed inside, he saw Nikolić already seated and waiting for him. To his surprise, however, it wasn’t Anna sitting beside him.
Sofiya looked nearly unrecognizable from first glance in brightly colored eye-shadow, lipstick, and rouge. More like a little girl playing dress-up in her mother’s clothes than a femme fatale, or even Lolita, she wore a blue-green cocktail dress that hung by spaghetti straps from her narrow shoulders, and a scalloped hem that rode high on her thighs. Her shock collar had been removed and her hair curled, left to sweep in bouncy tendrils against her non-existent bosom. She had large hoop earrings on, the kind affixed with a multitude of rhinestones, so they flashed like disco balls whenever they caught a hint of light. Her eyes were round and filled with fear and when she saw Mason, something like abject relief washed over her.
“Anna.” As Mason settled himself stiffly in his seat, reaching for his seatbelt, Nikolić uttered the blonde woman’s name like it was an explosive curse. “She decides at the last minute she’d not going to come tonight. Her face, she tells me. She thinks she looks bad. You know how women get. Luckily I found us another date for tonight. At least for a little while. Right, ljubavi?”
There wasn’t much room between the two men and Sofiya in the seat, but she scooted as close to Mason’s side as she could manage, nearly huddling against him. “Da,” she said, little more than a whisper.
The rear hatch opened behind them, and Mason turned in time to see a pair of guards, each brandishing assault rifles at the ready, shove a man into the storage compartment at the back of the SUV. The man’s legs had been shackled to hobble his gait and his arms had been completely immobilized behind his back by black le
ather bondage sleeves that covered his hands and encased him nearly to the shoulders. Broad straps of leather had been cinched tightly to hold the sleeves firmly in place, and the sleeves had been locked together with thick steel clasps connecting a series of metal D rings in the back. A black leather hood, fashioned to resemble a dog’s head with pointed ears and elongated snout, had been strapped onto the man’s head; it included a leather eye-shield to keep the man blind to his surroundings. If it hadn’t been for the fact that Mason recognized his scent—would’ve known him anywhere by it—he wouldn’t have realized who the man was.
Julien! he thought, his breath tangling in his throat as he choked back the instinct to cry out his name aloud. He couldn’t risk Nikolić finding out the truth about them; God only knew what he’d do if he did.
Sofiya, however, felt no such need for restraint. She twisted in her seat, her eyes flown wide with shock and renewed fright, and reached for him. “Julien!”
Her cry sharpened with pain as Nikolić grabbed her by the hair, clenching his fist near her scalp as he jerked her back. He barked at her in Russian; Mason didn’t understand him, but he gathered the gist of it when Sofiya turned around to face the front windshield again, her posture rigid and trembling as she sat down once more. Her eyes had flooded with tears, however, and she uttered a soft mewl as they began to spill down her cheeks.
“Sofiya?” Julien said from the back of the truck, his voice muffled through the heavy lining of the mask. He lifted his head slightly, turning his face toward the sound of her voice. When he spoke again, it was in another language, something lilting and melodic that sounded like Russian to Mason’s unfamiliar ears. There was something gentle in his voice as he spoke, something soft and soothing that took Mason back two hundred years into the past as he remembered Julien speaking with Aaron or Lisette, and that same calm, comforting tone he’d always used.
Because he never wanted them to be hurt or afraid, Mason thought. No matter what happened to him…no matter what Lamar did…he never wanted them to feel frightened.