Pyotr stopped walking and leaned against a tree in Central Park for a moment, taking his time to light a cigarette and slowly exhale the smoke. “Do we yet know how many are still loyal to their bond to Dimitri?” When Vikenti didn’t immediately answer, Pyotr stared at his ancient friend. “Just as I thought. There is no way yet to know.”
“What is to know is that she walks this path every night, and for every night that we wait, she grows stronger. For every night that we linger in worry, another may beat us to our objective and claim his victory—then we would have to assassinate him. Not such an easy task.”
“But we do not yet know of her numbers, those that stand with her.”
“How many of Dimitri’s loyalists will stand to be told they cannot procreate? What leader of a coven from the old world would have such an edict that no more of our kind could be made?”
Vikenti spat on the ground, his dark eyes narrowed with disgust. “Who will now change the way they once fed freely to accept her preposterous notions of drinking only from the wicked—no longer tasting the pure innocent? Ha? You have no answers.”
Feeling victory in his grasp, Vikenti watched his friend take a particularly long drag off his cigarette before he pressed on. “And now she organizes them in vigilante squadrons to help humans. Dimitri’s made men must spend their nights in service to their food? Where is the honor in that? It is madness—no, it is weakness. Her connection still to the human condition is an opportunity. But we must be quick, my friend, for her ranks will attempt a coup. Of this I am certain. It is rumored that they are already assassinating each other for the chance to be the first to go against her while she is still new.”
“You know this rumor must be false or there is some element of this story we do not know. Her own made or those she inherited from Dimitri cannot kill her.”
“But they can align with others not of her line and give them critical details to make it easy for them to assassinate her … so says our master, Aleksei. He was giving us a hint, giving us a clue to increase his territory without his hands getting dirty on this.”
Pyotr pushed himself away from the tree he’d been leaning on. “And there are two of us. This inheritance of Dimitri Andropov can go to only one.”
Vikenti smiled, allowing a bit of fang to show. “Then, my friend, I suggest you hurry at the task. May the best man win.”
*
Winter wind cut at her face, but she didn’t hunch against the cold. Leather coat wide open, she allowed it to billow out behind her, enjoying the sting of feeling halfway alive. Frigid temperatures bit into her arms and torso, ignoring her black sweater, and then wrapped around her black leather pants and boots, chilling her legs. The cold evening air was obviously in no mood for compromise tonight; but then again, neither was she.
Tanya watched dispassionately as humans bundled up against the elements walked quickly and kept their heads down. Cattle. The thrum of their heartbeats and blood was intoxicating, but she had to show restraint as she scanned dull minds when she passed warm bodies. The homeless had committed no crime beyond being poor and mentally ill. To her way of thinking, to feed on them and then kill them would be unjust. They’d already gotten the shit end of life. Same with the working girls on the streets, she thought as she passed a group of shivering prostitutes. Someone was already kicking their asses; someone was already sucking the lifeblood out of them, be it a pimp or their drug dealer or the johns that kept the trade going.