Speaking of Sasha.
Nikita could feel his warmth and weight down near the foot of the bed, curled up like a puppy on top of the covers. That happened often; he had his own bed – his own room, even, small though it was – but he didn’t like to sleep by himself. He snored soundly now, comforted by proximity and the safety of pack.
The phone stopped, and was silent a moment. Then started up again.
Nikita nudged Sasha with his toes. “Sashka.”
He got an unhappy whine in protest.
“I know you can hear that. It’s yours.”
Sasha huffed, and snorted, but sat up and fished his phone from his hoodie pocket. “Yes, hello?” he mumbled sleepily without checking the screen. And then his eyes popped open and he straightened his spine.
Nikita felt a thrill of nerves go down his back and sat up too, swiping the sleep from his eyes. “What?”
“It’s Trina,” Sasha said. “You better talk to her.” He passed the phone over like it was a bomb about to go off.
Nikita took the phone with no small amount of trepidation. “Hello?” he asked when he put it to his ear.
Trina breathed raggedly through her mouth, suppressed panic clear in her voice. “I can’t find Lanny.”
*
Trina wasn’t an alarmist – she was Russian, for God’s sakes – so when she woke and found that Lanny was no longer in bed beside her, she didn’t panic. When she didn’t find him in the bathroom, or in the kitchen, though, and he didn’t come back after an hour and didn’t return any of her calls…then she started to fret. When she’d showered, nibbled on some toast, and checked in at the precinct, and there was still no sign of him? Then she panicked. A little.
And she called Nikita. Well, Sasha, really.
Her great-grandfather, it appeared, was not a morning person. (Though if myth and legend was to be believed, no vampire was.) He stood with one shoulder propped against the fa?ade of his building, in rumpled clothes and unlaced combat boots, sporting bedhead and mirror-lensed shades, a Starbucks cup in one hand.
By contrast, Sasha looked bright-eyed, his own sunglasses nestled in his shiny, freshly-washed hair, his boots laced tight and his iced coffee down to the dregs.
“He came to you?” Trina asked, and felt her brows scale her forehead. “He asked you to” – a woman laden with shopping bags and two yelling children passed them on the sidewalk and she dropped her voice to a whisper – “turn him?”
Nikita shrugged, and the gesture struck her as so completely Russian – and so completely familiar. It was the same one-shoulder shrug her grandfather used when he wanted to be evasive. Not just her grandfather, she reminded herself – Kolya Baskin was Nikita’s son. Maybe one day that would stop sounding strange.
“He asked,” he said, voice gravelly as it had been on the phone a half hour ago. “I said ‘no.’”
“You said no?”
“Don’t shout.”
She took an aggressive step forward, figurative hackles lifting. “He’s dying, Nik. Why the hell would you tell him no?”
His mouth set in a way that suggested he was glaring at her. “I’ve never turned anyone, not for any reason. Why would I turn him?”
“Because I’m your family!”
“Guys.” Sasha wedged between them with a wriggle of his shoulders; it wasn’t quite a human gesture. “Don’t fight. Please. Let’s just find him, and then we can talk. Yes?”
Trina stared at Nikita a long moment, wanting him to know that she was pissed, that they would talk about this later, while her heart pounded and sweat gathered between her shoulder blades. If she let it, the fear would choke her, so she focused on the anger instead.
“Fine,” she bit out. She forced her expression to soften as she turned to Sasha. “Can you do the old nose trick again?”
He smiled. “It’s what I’m best at.”
With Sasha in the lead – his head up, nose lifted fractionally as he tested the air – they headed down the sidewalk, following the trail of scent Lanny had left behind. Trina wondered what her partner smelled like to a werewolf’s senses; was it the same sweat-bourbon-cologne cocktail she smelled when she pressed her face into his neck? Or were those superficial things swamped with the specific, biological scent of age, gender, and health?
Nikita walked beside her, and when she glanced down at her feet, she noticed that their strides were evenly matched. They both walked like people who didn’t have the patience for slow pedestrians. A purposeful, out-of-my-way kind of walk.
And it wasn’t a coincidence – it was genetic. She’d inherited the walk of a Chekist.
It was hard to stay angry with him in any real way when she thought about who he’d once been, and all that he’d lived through and seen. “Did you explain it to him?” she asked, in a more neutral tone this time. “Why you wouldn’t turn him?”
He snorted. “I might be a monster, but I can express myself, you know.”
“Yeah, yeah. Fair enough.” She sighed, and some of the tension in her chest eased. Worrying about Lanny was taking up all her energy; it was nice not to have to hold a grudge, too. “So?”
“Immortality is not a gift,” Nikita said. “No matter what spoiled Russian princes might think.”
“That sounds like a story.”
“Yes, well, I told your Lanny that it’s not a decision he should make lightly – living forever.”
Ahead of them, Sasha cocked his head a fraction, and Trina thought he must be listening to them.
Nikita took a breath and continued, lighter. “But I told him I could make him healthier. Help fight the cancer. Better, and surer, and not painful, like the chemo.”
“Wait. What?”
“I gave him a few sips of my blood.” He reached with the hand holding the coffee and tugged up his opposite sleeve, revealing a faint, silver-pink scar on his wrist. “It’s not permanent, I don’t think. But it will help.”
Trina ground to a halt, twisting her head so she could really see him.
One corner of his mouth lifted in a little facial shrug. It was hard to tell, with the glaring morning sun, but she thought he blushed. “You love him. I couldn’t just let him die.”
She wanted to hug him, but didn’t think that would be a good idea.
Sasha turned around, beaming. “We’re getting along again? Good!”
Nikita sighed. “Sasha.”
“Right. Yes. Tracking.” He went back to work and they followed him again.
It was a gorgeous, albeit sticky-hot day. One of those last hoorahs of summer, when the asphalt sizzled, but the air held the first faint whiff of September. A day when the kids ran and whooped and swung around lampposts, trying to wring that last precious drops of freedom out of each day before the new school year started. The air smelled of hot dogs, soft pretzels, and warm garbage.
All of this was lost on Trina, whose worry ratcheted up another notch with each step. Every moment they didn’t find Lanny was another moment he could be in danger, lost, hurt, or in lock-up.
That was the most-likely possibility: that he’d gotten drunk and passed out and been dragged into a holding cell until he sobered up. That was the least-frightening option, to be honest. At least then he’d be safe, and in the company of their own.
She’d just decided that must be it when Sasha didn’t just halt, but froze. All that moved were the ends of his hair, tossing gently in the breeze, and his nostrils as they flexed and tested the air.
“What?” Nikita said, and then he took a deep, audible breath and said, “Oh shit.”
“Vampire,” Sasha said, and shivered like a dog shaking water off its fur. Then, low and angry: “Alexei.”
“He was here?” Trina asked, trying to ignore the way her pulse tripped.
“With Lanny,” Sasha said.
Nikita said, “There was blood.”
“But…” An image of Chase Edwards’s drained and lifeless body popped into her mind and her breath caught hard and sharp in her lungs. “But we talked to him. He wouldn’t hurt Lanny. Would he?”
Nikita turned to give her an unreadable look through the lenses of his shades. “A vampire would do anything.”
Sasha took off at a run down the sidewalk.