“Sticks and stones, Alexei,” she said.
“You are a consistent and inflamed boil on my ass,” he said. “Why are you causing me such strife? You trouble my cities, wage war on my subordinates, and disrupt my agenda. Don't you know how busy I've been? You are like the apocalypse with tits! Worse yet, you are causing me sincere financial stress.”
She snickered while he ranted.
“And you have no trouble running obedient dogs throughout the world, gathering hordes of unclean mutts, all of which worship you. Do you understand what you’ve done to my reputation? Where do you see this going, Svetka, with all your little gangs and riots? Such a waste! You are exhausting yourself to no end. When your rebellion is done and the dust has settled, your species will find themselves precisely where they've always been: under my thumb. How will you ever change that?”
She smiled. “I could bite off your thumbs.”
“Always with a crude response. But then, I do like them violent.”
“Let me down, and I'll show you violent.”
“I do hope so. We shall celebrate my stateside visit with a bit of sport. Tonight, I am entertaining a significant family. Milan will be attending. You do remember his wonderful gambling vice? He presented me with a wager, the old fool. He claims to be in possession of the most ruthless mutt ever to exist. Quite the bastard of a beast, so I hear. Milan wagered his mutt could beat my mutt in a friendly fight to the death. What do you think, darling?”
“I'm not your mutt.”
“You are if I say so, and I do. Concern yourself with two things: regaining my favor and winning this fight.”
“Or else?”
“Or else I'll leave you in those silver razor chains while I initiate raids on your kennels in Kiev, Moscow, Rome, Prague, and Berlin. Tomorrow, five more cities. Maybe the humans won't kill everyone, but damage will be done. Your festering sore of a revolution will be revealed. The weak and unlucky shall die. Unfortunately, so many of your children are weak and unlucky.”
Svetlana hanged in the chains. Motionless. Her face remained as slack and unyielding as physically possible. She mirrored Alexei's face. What else could she do? Foam at the mouth and shout undignified phrases? I hoped she was smart enough to keep passion under wraps until she could put it to good use.
Alexei touched her foot, running his jeweled finger along her instep. I looked around for a weapon, a brick, anything…
“Still need convincing, love?” he said. “I’ll happily arrange for the rest of your brood to be rounded up, pelted, sold, or traded to my associates. Many vampires are intrigued by my ingenious approach to solving the conflict with your species.”
“Consumption wasn't your idea, asshole,” she said. “Your impotent brain didn't create shit. I’ve never met a more unoriginal and downright boring vampire.”
“I have made Consumption stylish again, which is what matters.” Alexei circled, watching each pulse and tic of her. “Think of all the vampires I could inspire if I were to dissect and donate a kennel of hot young mutts. The little ones make the best party favors since their meat is so tender. Not good for much else, are they? I loathe to keep them as pets. Their whimpering and howling quickly become tiresome. I hear humans have devices they use to deter canines from barking. Do you think I should invest in this? Or maybe removing the vocal cords entirely would be the best alternative. What do you say?”
Svetlana didn't say anything. He threatened to drag her children to a chop shop and harvest their organs for a vamp buffet.
“You're a bastard,” I said. His eyes cut to me, and I met the cold gaze of something reptilian. Whatever allure the Sigurd had, Alexei lacked. Looking into his eyes, I wanted to stomp his face down into the hard cement of his warehouse. Unfortunately, I was the weakest creature in the room, unarmed, and my mouth tasted of vomit. I didn't even have a shoe to throw. Svetlana shot me a warning glance. Since I couldn't breathe without feeling torn up, I decided to keep to myself for a while.
“If you must have added incentive,” he said. “Consider what the other mutt will gain from the wager. With you dead, Phoenix will fall to a mutt who colludes with vampires and won’t hesitate to ruin everything you worked for. He’ll overrun your flea-bitten house and destroy your clan. While Milan and I will oust the pompous ass, Sigurd, from his roost, the victorious mutt will singlehandedly strangle your revolution.”
She said, “Who do you want me to fight?”
“Does it matter?” Alexei said.
“Let me down. I'll kill this mutt for you.”
He laughed. “I'm not about to set you free without some show of loyalty. I won't allow an animal to embarrass me in front of my visitors. Prove you deserve to fight for your people. Start winning me over. Show me you know your place, mutt.”
“Why would I do that?” Her voice was tired and disinterested.
He smiled a grin which showed all his teeth in their full potential. “Listen to you. Even begging, you're so full of pride. This is a safe place, dear. You can talk to me. Why not admit, Svetlana, that you don't believe your own words? You don't want to struggle in this endless battle against my kind. Don't fight me, edelweiss. Look at you: chained up, miserable, and in pain. You've done this to yourself. You're nothing without me. Don’t you realize what I’d do for you? I can keep you in comfort. You’ll be safe, fed, and content. Submit to my authority, and you'll never know want. Aren't you tired?”
“Nothing a nap won’t cure.”
“So clever. Damned witty. Thinks she knows everything. Strong, yes, but not stronger than me. Not crueler. I can make you suffer in ways you’ve never dreamed. I can take everything from you.”
“Big talk,” she said. “Little man.”
“Not as little as you wish to believe. I’ve built a great reputation through painstaking massacre and deliberate murder. Don’t forget who I am: the Bloodied Fist, the Hungry Heart. You are nothing but the curr who tries to weaken my name and degrade my legacy. I have plans for you, Svetka, and my reach is longer than you could ever imagine.” He held out his hand. “Baby doll, come here.”
I thought he was talking to Svetlana, but then the girl in the pink dress with white lace and blood stains circling the hem, she emerged from the shadows as if she’d always been there. Hauntingly, she walked to Alexei like a child approaching an altar. As if she’d been schooled in communion and Jesus and the Holy Ghost and yet had no concept of sin, no reference point for guilt. I thought, she looks familiar.
Twelve years-old, sick, and delicate. And she reached out, this baby doll, and took his hand.
“Don’t,” I said, but she already had. He patted her hair, silver rings gleaming above her blond curls. He snuggled her against his side, paternal and familiar. The visage of a doting parent. His fingers slipped along her chin and angled her face upward. Fingers denting her plush cheeks.
“Don’t,” I said, but he already did. His hand curved down the way someone would soothe an injured pet, only his claws sank into the pale flesh below her chin and he dragged the sharp points around, scratching savage gaps in her tiny throat.
Please, please let her be a vampire or a wolf or some other monster…
She immediately bled and began to die. Alexei dropped her. She fell to the ground and did not get up. The macabre pitter patter of her shoes scuffing the stone accompanied my heaving breathing.
“The poor darling,” Alexei said. “It came with dreams of seeing its long-lost sister and reuniting the family. You did this, Svetlana. Tore them apart.”
He wiped his bloody hand on the girl’s dress.
“I’ll kill you,” Svetlana said. “I’ll tear off your beard and bring it to Tatka, and she’ll destroy your bloodline. I will point and laugh while your dynasty fades to dust under the raging temper of a child wolf.”
I stared at the child, apparently Tatka’s sister, and promised I’d help. If Tatka wanted to slaughter anyone, I’d be there with a machete and Ag rounds to avenge this dead girl. Because it was stu
pid. And senseless. Killing children to make a point...it was sacrilegious and inhumane.
Smug and unconcerned, Alexei lifted his hands. “Why fight it? Do you really believe you deserve better than me?”
“Yes,” Svetlana said.
He laughed like they were sharing jokes at happy hour. “You are a liar and a hypocrite. Your species is shit and you know it. Despite your rebellion and the futile speeches, when you get off the soapbox, you see your kind for what it really is: an abomination, a pale shadow of my glory, an ugly rendition of everything unnatural. The twisted cobwebs under creation's musty ass…that's what wolves are made of.”
“Not true.”
“Why else do you remain barren? Why so vigilant with your infectious blood? After all these years, you've contaminated no other creature. Innately, you know your species is a disgusting divergence of nature.”
Svetlana ground her teeth. “What do you want?”
“Make a mutt for me,” Alexei said. “Prove you're willing to work with me and not against me, and I will release you to fight for your people. Defy me, and I'll throw off the wager and have everyone killed.”
I began to get a bad feeling. Had I been smart, I would have stopped to wonder why Alexei bothered keeping me alive. He didn't say outright it was me he intended to sacrifice in the demonstration, but clearly my death was on the agenda. I rolled onto my side and pushed myself upright. With a hand on the wall, I might be able to stand. Running, however, was completely out of the question.
Svetlana said, “What could contaminating someone possibly prove?”
He snagged a lock of her hair, sniffed it, and examined it. “I might see such unprecedented cooperation as indication of your ability to follow orders. How else can I trust you to play along when Milan brings his mutt to my cage?”
“You know I don't have trouble killing,” she said.
“Ah, yes, I know! How many nights, sweetness, have we spent in our pursuits? Countless starry evenings in a hunt so invigorating, so poignant, that afterward, forever, all other meals are doomed to pale in comparison. The finest wines become nothing but sawdust on my tongue. Our ballet, our war…was there ever so great a declaration of love? How often, fang to claw, must we dance? You are the song of my winter heart.” He appeared mesmerized by the individual strands of her hair as it sifted through his fingers. “You know me because you are mine. And I would never let you go. Come with me, edelweiss, and be my hot winter storm.”
Her look permitted nothing. “Milan and who else?”
“You know the old goat. He flocks with his full buffet of twinks. Pan, Weinstein, and Gatell of House Jasher will witness the wager. And don't even consider losing! I've bet half of France on this. If you don't come through, I'll punish everyone I can get my hands on. Starting with your bratty infant, Vanya. Now, set yourself to the task and make that thing a mutt.”
That thing being me.
“No,” she said.
“Would you throw your entire kennel onto the chopping block for one girl?” Alexei said. “Good enough to fuck but not convert?”
“No reason to be crude,” I said.
Alexei said, “If you don't want her, I don't need her.”
He reached for me. I kicked him in the patella, nearly losing my balance. He dipped and fell to his knees. I backed along the wall, putting distance between us. Alexei hissed. His face contorted, eyes sinking deep in a skull that grew too long. His mouth stretched and snaky fangs gleamed. My blood pumped madly, wildly, and there was enough adrenaline in my system to jump-start a Buick. He slashed at me, fast, and nicked me with his fingernail.
The minute scratch bled like arterial spray.
Alexei was doing his vampire plague, commanding my blood. I clenched my hand on the mark, using pressure to try to staunch of blood. It didn't help. Red gushed over my fingers, leaving me swooning and panicking against the stone wall. After all the shit, this was how I died: scratched by a vampire. Not quite a warrior's death. I screamed in his face, assailed him with my horrible breath, then head-butted his nose. He bellowed, back-pedaled, and cursed in a language I didn't understand. He grabbed me, but his hand slipped on the blood. I fell and didn't have plans of getting back up.
Maybe it was for the best. Would it be so awful to die human?
“Wait,” Svetlana said. “Let me down. I'll play your game.”
“I'm dying just fine on my own, thank you very much,” I said, vision swirling. Alexei snapped his fingers, and my hand magically stopped bleeding. He flipped a switch, preserving me for his theatrics.
I did not want to be a mutt. I didn't want to die either, but shit. I hoped Svetlana had a trick up her sleeve, but when Alexei unchained her, I quickly learned otherwise. Her face was quiet and empty, like she was no longer a person, only an object. It did not bode well for me.
She rotated her sore shoulders, stretched and cracked her knuckles. Without meeting my eyes, she stalked me, closing the distance at a steady, determined pace. “Don't make this difficult, Kaidlyn.”
Yeah, right.
“Svetka,” I said. She didn't hesitate. Alexei stood back and smiled. Dizzy from blood loss, nauseated from the tranks, and without my guns, I couldn't fight the meanest mutt around. I might as well be naked on a silver platter. Her chin dipped, and her spine sloped.
“Don't,” I said, but she pounced anyway.
I threw myself back and kicked my legs up. My heels struck her chest. Her density throbbed down my legs, startling me with her weight, and I launched her back. She fell, grunted, and immediately rose to her feet. Nonplussed.
“Stop!” I shouted.
Her eyes didn't even see me. There was no talking her down. She decided what she needed to do, and her will was absolute. Her hands swelled, fingers sharpened. She snatched my ankle and swung it out from under me. Wham. I landed on my back, teeth clacking, breath knocked around. I elbowed her in the face as she crawled up my body, but she took it three times and continued coming. I had seen her kill an assault vehicle; what hope did I have?
The silver collar cut at her throat as her body thickened with the change. I grabbed the collar and held her off, struggling to keep her teeth away from me. The collar’s spikes cut my fingers as I sawed it into her throat.
I needed a plan B.
She didn't give me the time.
Her claws stuck deep beside my breast. I had no breath. She dragged the claws south to my hips. I screamed. The pain erupted like a mushroom cloud of agony and fire. My body rose as if jolted by electricity. Her disease scorched me. Her maw opened wide and bit my shoulder. Mutt teeth sank so deep they ground on bone. My bone. I ran out of scream and couldn’t catch my breath.
Svetlana rolled off, turned her back, and walked away.
My body shuddered and quaked, nerves trying to sort out the trauma. The tears on my chest and ring of tooth marks on my shoulder burned like fresh lit gasoline. My gut and ribs surged with cold. Fingers numb. Spine shuddered and danced. Shock. Definitely going into shock.
Alexei laughed and left. I didn't care. I remembered the little girl in the whorehouse, infected with a strain so rampant she could shed hours later.
Some strains ran hotter.
I was screwed. As if her bite wasn’t enough, her contagion spilled into all my open wounds. Damage done. I could only hope my body died before the disease set in.
Maybe she was bluffing. After all my field wounds, a part of me hoped nothing would come of it. Just another day in the life.
The unraveled flesh didn’t hurt like it should have. Bad news. Shock, of course. Significant blood loss made everything dreamy. The stone wall of the circular pit became fascinating, like a spacious mausoleum built for me. I touched my sides, checking the extent of damage from feel alone. My hand came back slick with blood, watery with intestinal goo. I was done for, but death took longer than I expected.
The first time I saw Svetlana, I knew the bitch would kill me. Somewhere along the way I'd forgotten how dangerous she was. I
became careless because she rocked my world. And now I was simply waiting to die.
Pathetic.
My vision went myopic as my head filled with the sand of shock. Left arm and shoulder ruined, right oddly undamaged, legs still weak, guts tentatively contained. No weapons. How could I kill the bitch without a gun? Clap my hands and believe in fairies? Getting off my back seemed like a good way to start. All my movements came slow and careful, like a drunk person pretending not to be intoxicated.
Upright, I got a better look at myself. Seeing didn't help; I swooned at the sight of my solar plexus naked under the claw marks, the sheen of intestines waiting for the remaining peritoneum to give and let fall. Her claws were so sharp the wound could have been made with knives. What worried me was how little it bled. My legs shook like I was trying to punt the globe across the galaxy. My body slunk, suggesting a passive death might be a good option. Perhaps I could rest until I had a plan.
Svetlana came into my world of vision, and I stopped caring about a plan.
“You should sit,” she said. Rage boiled up in me, and my uppercut caught her perfectly under the jaw. She dropped the case she was carrying and rose a few comical inches off her feet. “Christ!”
The follow-up punch landed straight on the silver collar and pushed it deep into her neck. She covered her throat and roared. Since I couldn't stand without the wall's support, I wasn't equipped to do much else. I could club her with the big case, but I didn't think I'd be able to stand upright once I bent over.
Svetlana said, “I might have deserved that.”
“Might have? Cunt!” I tried to kick her, but she swept aside my flailing leg.
She grabbed my shoulder and shoved me to the floor. I groped at her wrist but wasn't in any shape to stop her. She opened the case which was loaded with medical supplies from a century past.
What the hell was she doing? I was dying.
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