“Where is Aleksander Kashnikov?” Nikita demanded, shouted really, his accent thicker than it had been in years. When no one answered, he fired a shot straight overhead, and heard crystal shatter. A few thick pieces rained down on the floor around them, and the lab coats screeched collectively. “Where is he?”
“You’re fucking insane,” Lanny muttered, and Nikita was dimly aware that he was clearing the rest of the foyer, checking for threats. “I love it.”
Nikita lowered his Smith & Wesson, so its barrel was trained on the huddled techs as he stalked toward them, wooden bootheels kissing the floor with a sound like gunshots. He was reminded, ridiculously, of walking across the Kremlin’s high-gloss floors.
“Are you deaf?” He reached them, and toed a cowering woman’s hand away from her face. She made an animal sound of terror and looked up at him through a sheen of tears. “Where is my wolf, bitch?”
“So angry,” Alexei mused at his side, but made no move to stop him.
“D-d-downstairs,” the woman stuttered.
Then that was where he would go.
He didn’t realize he was in the process of stepping over the woman until a restraining hand landed on his arm.
“Whoa,” Lanny said when Nikita snarled at him. “I get it: you’ve got a one-track mind tuned to Sasha. But maybe we should figure out how to get downstairs first, yeah?”
Nikita snarled again, because this was going too slow.
“Yeah,” Lanny sighed. “Come on.”
*
Jamie wasn’t ready to shoot people. Even if he could work the gun – which he knew he could thanks to practice with Trina’s dad – and even if the threat was very prevalent – which it was at the moment – killing wasn’t something Jamie could stomach.
“You killed last night,” Nikita had told him levelly, and he’d been overcome by a wave of nausea.
It hadn’t felt like killing. That night – “come here, little one” – with the weight of a comforting hand at his nape, and the heat of a living body at his chest, the wonderful, thrilling bloom of fresh blood in his mouth, he’d felt so very alive. How could death beget that kind of wild self-aware life?
In his sated, post-blood ecstasy, it had been so easy to overlook the two dropped bodies. The way Nikita and Lanny had hefted them over a fence and into a tangle of roadside kudzu.
But he had killed.
And he didn’t think he could do it in good conscious, unless his blood lust was up.
So for now, the plan was to blend in. To find Sasha.
They’d bought a cheap blazer on the way down, and as soon as they were past the door, he ducked into a dining room with a table as long as a football field and shrugged into it. Put a pair of useless glasses on his nose and a fake ID badge hanging out of his pocket. A disguise that would have never worked under normal circumstances, but right now, with Nikita and Lanny creating a violent distraction, Jamie might be able to slip in unnoticed.
He took a deep breath, started forward, and caught his reflection in a gilt-framed mirror.
Just weeks before, he’d been worried about final exams and portfolios. Now? He was a party to murder, and rescue, and had fed off a man’s blood. Had taken his life.
He shivered all over, and walked deeper into the house.
*
There were two doors that led to the cell, one made of bars, and one that looked like something used to secure a bank vault, or the hold of a Navy ship. Beyond that was a spiral stone staircase, straight out of a castle, and the only way was up.
Val went first. They encountered more guards on the ascent, but Rooster never had to fire off a shot. Val broke one’s neck and sent him tumbling down the stairs past Rooster. Another he looked like he might bite, and Rooster hustled him past with a terse, “Not time.” Val sighed and slammed the man’s head against the stone wall.
At the top, they emerged into a long, low-ceilinged stone room that Rooster recognized by smell: the place of dust and mildew. He saw boxes arranged on several long rows of metal shelves; boxes stacked in corners; boxes gone damp and sagging apart, spilling books like rice from a sack. Boxes that looked charred at the edges.
He couldn’t see any guards yet, but heard shouts and running feet.
Val grabbed his sleeve and towed him around a shelf. “You’ll probably need that gun now,” he said, primly.
He slid into the role of shooter without thought. He handled a gun the way other men handled shaving razors, or the gearshifts of cars. A brainless, instinctual exercise, without flinching. One. Two. Three. Four.
He turned to find Val dropping the fifth, wiping his mouth with his tattered sleeve, eyes electric with something like joy. “Come on.”
Another staircase, and then–
It had to be a lab. A seemingly endless stretch of low tables and desks cluttered with everything from computers to beakers. A stunned once-over revealed designated workstations, metal tables, half-walls and curtained partitions; industrial coolers and fridges, big banks of monitors. Heavy wooden doors lined the walls. And it was chaos: tipped-over chairs, strewn papers, abandoned monitors. Rooster saw flashes of white as techs hid beneath tables. Others were disappearing behind the sliding-shut doors of an elevator. Screams. Shrieks.
“Shit,” he murmured, and was almost overwhelmed.
A young man with glasses and a pocket protector tried to sneak past, and Val snatched his arm. The kid squealed and went limp.
Val gave him a shake. “My weapons. Where are they?”
The kid went the color of spoiled milk and gaped up at him. “I – I – I.”
“My sword, you idiot. My daggers. I know they’re here.”
“Tr-try the – the weapons room,” he finally stammered. When Val dropped him, Rooster thought he might have fainted. Val leaned down, snapped his laminated ID badge from his lapel, and stepped over the poor boy.
No, not a poor boy. These were the people who’d treated Red like a science fair project. Fuck all of them.
“We don’t have time for this,” Rooster growled, tailing Val as he began opening doors and looking for the promised arsenal.
“Believe me,” Val said, trying another, and then another in rapid succession. “When we run into my brother, you’ll wish I was armed…Ah! Here.”
Like everything else about this place, the weapons room was impressive as hell. Cabinet after cabinet of guns and knives in all varieties. An indoor shooting range.
And set off by themselves, two ornate wooden cases with velvet lining the color of blood. One was empty. The other held an honest-to-God sword. The daggers arranged around it had jewels set in the hilts, but the sword – simple, masculine, and gleaming – was the showstopper.
Val pulled the little padlock apart like it was made of taffy and murmured something low in another language as he lifted the sword from its velvet bed. Tilted it so the overhead light ran down its length in one long flash.
“Hello, gorgeous,” he said in English, and smiled with all his teeth showing.
“Let’s get a move on,” Rooster growled.
There was a scabbard, too, sturdy leather with an intricate strap that Val ducked through so sword and scabbard lay down his back. “Yes, fine. Let’s get the children.”
*
The walls of their room dampened the scents and sounds beyond, but Sasha could still tell that something was happening. A great stirring of panic that lifted his hair on end.
He wanted, so badly, to believe that Nikita…that the others…And yet he feared it, terribly, because Nikita was brave, and stubborn, and wonderful, but this place was a fortress, and rescue wasn’t possible.
“Sasha,” Red said beside him. “What are you–”
“Shh.” Footsteps just outside the door. He grabbed her wrist, straining to listen, ready to bundle her into the corner as best as his shaky limbs could manage if someone came through the door with the intent to hurt them. They were too valuable to kill, he knew, but there was no way Dr. Talbot would let Nik waltz right in and drag them out. “Listen.”
An electronic chime as a keycard was used, and the lock disengaged.
Sasha began to shake – shakes on top of drug shakes – and he gritted his teeth, fighting with a sudden wave of faintness. He couldn’t black out now.