Endless Chase (2 page)

Afanas Markova was a man who protected his family and those he considered
his
.

Her papa would understand her quest for revenge even as he worried about her. He’d trained her well, and she was quite able to defend herself. But then again, her father had been trained in several martial arts and in the art of weaponry. Yet he and her mama had been brutally slain.

Katya closed her eyes and allowed the image to permeate her being. She’d been checking out the local shopping possibilities and had returned just before ten o’clock at night to the quaint, isolated mountain chalet they’d been renting in the German countryside. The few servants who had traveled with the family had been given the evening off to enjoy the local taverns.

She’d smelled the smoke as she walked up the driveway. The acrid stench never seemed to fully leave her nostrils. Even now, she was often yanked from a deep sleep, the oily smell coating her senses and making her roll from the bed in terror. But it was always a dream, a memory of what had happened.

She’d seen the tendrils of smoke and run, her feet pounding up the driveway, but it seemed to take her forever to reach the house.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“Mama! Papa!” she screamed as she slammed the front door open, heedless of the black smoke pouring through the doorway. Coughing, she stumbled inward, bypassing the dining area and heading to the small study in the back of the home. That was where her parents had been when she’d left earlier in the evening.

Flames shot out of the parlor as she passed the open door. Crying out, she fell back and hit the wall. Her jacket was on fire and she beat the flames out, not even feeling the searing heat against her fingers as she continued onward.

The smoke was so thick she couldn’t see a hand in front of her face. A dull roar filled her ears and she realized it was the sound of the fire burning out of control. She tried to call their names again, but coughed instead. Breathing was becoming almost impossible.

8

Endless Chase

Using the wall as a guide, feeling its hardness beneath her fingertips, she closed her eyes and visualized the space. They’d only settled in yesterday, but she knew where she was. The wall dipped inward and she knew she’d hit a doorframe. The door to the study was closed. Groping for the handle, she ignored the pain that shot through her palm as the hot metal burned her skin. She twisted it and pushed.

Heat blasted her and she fell to her knees and began to crawl. The smoke wasn’t quite as thick here, so she reached out with her foot and kicked the door closed behind her. “Mama,” she whispered as she squinted, trying to see through the haze.

Her outspread fingers clutched material and she cried out in fright, praying she wasn’t too late to save her parents from the blaze. Katya’s fingers hit something wet and sticky. It was then she smelled it.

Blood.

She ran her hands up her mama’s body and stopped, her mind unable to comprehend what her fingertips were telling her. A silent scream forming in her throat as she realized her mama’s head was no longer attached to her body. Her thoughts went blank as she doubled over in pain. This couldn’t be. Not her soft-spoken, gentle mother.

Katya forced herself to look for her papa. Where was he and why had he allowed this to happen? Tears flowed down her face, blinding her as she sought him. Unable to see properly, she smacked her head off the edge of a table, falling to her side. She blinked to clear her vision and met her papa’s sightless eyes. His head was lying beneath the table, his mouth still open on a soundless roar.

Bile clogged her throat as horror filled her. She shook her head, screaming her denial, the raging fire forgotten as fury and terror swept over her. How could this happen? Her papa was larger than life, a man quite capable of protecting his family from any enemies. Not that he had enemies. Her papa made friends everywhere he went. Educated and cultured, without being snobbish, and having a keen sense of humor, her papa was sought out by all sorts of people—from heads of state to the local tavern owner.

Turning away, she reached out her hand and found his body not three feet from his head. She touched his chest, unable to believe he was truly dead. She frowned as her hand hit something sharp. She tugged at the small object, curling her fingers around it.

Glass shattered and the entire building creaked. Timbers fell and the ceiling caved in just a few feet from her. Flames fell into the room, shooting upward and outward, seeking more prey to devour. For a moment, the space was illuminated and she saw their bodies perfectly. Their arms were outstretched, their fingers almost touching, as if even in death they’d reached out to one another.

She frowned as a strange thought entered her mind. Where was all the blood? Their heads had been chopped off, yet there was hardly any blood. Her papa’s chest was split open and there was no blood. It was if they’d been drained dry.

9

N.J. Walters

Katya’s blood went cold. “No,” she moaned, covering her mama’s body with her own and rocking back and forth. This couldn’t be happening.

More debris fell from the hole in the ceiling. She could hear sirens in the distance, but it was too late. There was no help to be had for her parents.

A glint of gold caught her eye and Katya reached out without thinking and pulled the cross from what remained of her mama’s mangled neck. Her mama had worn it for as long as Katya could remember. It was ancient, a relic from a bygone civilization, and a gift from her doting papa. Gripping it tight, she gazed at her parents for one last moment.

Breathing was almost impossible now. She could practically hear her papa’s deep rumbling voice demanding that she leave. Katya was now responsible for all the people who relied on her family for their living. She was also now Sasha’s guardian. It was the thought of her eight-year-old brother that shook her out of her state of lethargy. He would have no one if she perished. He was too young to be left alone.

Turning away from the mutilated bodies of her parents, she crawled to the window.

She never looked back as she punched her elbow through the glass. It shattered and she sucked in a deep breath as the cool night air hit her starving lungs. Knocking the larger pieces of glass away with her arm, she hefted her leg over the sill and pushed herself out of the fiery room. The remaining shards cut through her skin, but she didn’t care.

Those injuries would heal, along with the myriad burns on her hands and arms. But the memory of what she’d seen would never fade, never be healed.

As she dragged herself away from the burning building, she could hear Rina, Sasha’s nanny, calling her name. Katya coughed, stumbling to her feet and heading toward the sound. She had to get them away from here. Whoever killed her parents might still be around.

Something pricked her palm as she dragged her feet forward. Opening her hand, she stared down in disbelief. Sitting beside the thick gold cross was the sharp object she’d removed from her papa’s chest. She’d forgotten she was still holding it. Her eyes narrowed. It appeared to be a dart of some kind with the end cracked off. What had it been doing in her papa’s chest? Rage pushed out the numbness that had settled over her. Fury surged through her veins, giving her energy as she pushed onward. Someone had poisoned her papa, and probably her mama, before murdering them.

Tucking the dart safely into her pocket, she looped the cross over her neck. The metal was hot and burned her skin, but she didn’t care. She was alive, and as long as there was breath in her body, she would search for the murderer. She would not rest until she had her vengeance.

Sasha called her name and Katya picked up her pace. Right now, the important thing was to get what was left of her family to safety.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

10

Endless Chase

“Are you all right, child?” He spoke first in Romanian, then in German, before trying halting English.

Katya jumped, coming to her feet and pulling a knife from her boot in one smooth motion. Luckily, she managed to stop herself from stabbing the priest who now stood beside her. She stumbled back, appalled at what she’d almost done. “I’m sorry, Father.”

The old man didn’t seem the least bit startled, as if having a knife pulled on him was a daily occurrence. “You seem troubled.”

She laughed, but there was no humor in the sound. “That’s an understatement, Father.” Katya returned the knife to her boot and straightened. Her hand went to the cross, tucked safely inside the collar of her long-sleeved shirt. She could feel the heavy weight of it pressed close to her heart.

He smiled and it deepened the wrinkles around his eyes. He looked to be in his seventies, perhaps even eighties, but his eyes were a vivid blue and were quite youthful. “I’m about to have some tea at my house if you’d like to talk.”

She blinked, not quite sure what to say to him. She couldn’t remember the last time anyone had offered her a kindness with no strings attached. That was a stark reminder of how much her life had changed in the past year.

He waited, expectantly. Katya felt the walls closing in around her. The candles seemed to flare higher, the flames mocking her. She had to get out.

“Uh, thanks, but I can’t. Not now.” She backed away until she exited the other end of the pew. Whirling, she stalked toward the door. It was hard, but she forced herself not to run.

“My name is Father Patrescu,” he called after her. “I am always here if you change your mind.”

She didn’t bother to answer as she burst out of the door and into the night, not stopping until the woods swallowed her up and the lights of the church were barely visible in the distance. Katya sucked in deep breaths, filling her lungs with the sweet, clean air of the Carpathian Mountains.

She could not waver from her course. She’d sacrificed too much, lost too much of her soul for her to turn back now. Her quest for vengeance had brought her here, to Transylvania, and to the Dalakis family.

And it was here she’d make her final stand.

11

N.J. Walters

Chase Deveraux strolled aimlessly through the dense forest, the heavy dew coating his boots and dampening his hair. There was a path of sorts, but he wasn’t afraid of becoming lost. He’d been tromping through these woods since he was a teenager, and at thirty-one, was quite familiar with them and all the creatures that dwelled there.

The moon wasn’t quite full, but there was more than enough light for him to keep from tripping and falling flat on his face. He should have waited an extra hour until sunrise, but he’d wanted to be standing in the meadow, amidst the colorful riot of wildflowers when the sun rose over the peaks of the Carpathian Mountains.

It was late summer, but the nights were chilly this high in the mountains. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket and kept walking. An owl hooted, but other than that, there was little sound beyond the rustling of his boots as he stepped over ground and grass and twigs.

There was something peaceful and calming about this place. So different from the hustle and bustle of New York City, the place he called home. No matter how busy he was with work, how many demands there were on his time, he always managed to carve out two or three weeks a year to spend at Dalakis Castle with his extended family.

He paused and peered through the gloom, checking to make certain he was still on the right path. Satisfied, he continued, his hiking boots eating up the distance as his stride lengthened. A sense of urgency permeated him. He had to get there.

Life was a funny thing. You just never knew where it was going to take you.

Orphaned at the age of eight, he’d been reared by his older sister Delight. They’d made a good life for themselves in New Orleans. For ten years, they’d both lived and worked in The Grande—a B&B run by Miss Nadine Grande. Well, his sister had worked, but he’d helped out doing whatever he could in between going to school, holding down a part-time job and working on his art. His sister had also moonlighted as a bartender at a local restaurant a few nights a week. It was that job that changed everything.

Delight had witnessed a murder one night while working late and had to run for her life, only to be rescued by Lucian Dalakis—who just happened to be a vampire.

Chase hadn’t discovered that pertinent little fact until his sister lay dying, a victim of the killers responsible for the murder she’d witnessed. Lucian had saved his sister’s life by converting her. His sister was now a vampire and Lucian’s wife.

It had been hard for him to deal with it at first. He’d been so happy that Delight had been saved, but it had quickly hit him that his sister was now immortal and he was not.

He would age and die. His sister would forever be twenty-eight. Already, he looked slightly older than she did.

12

Endless Chase

Beyond that, she could no longer walk in the daylight with him. Nor did she eat very often. He knew she could tolerate small amounts of food and she usually saved those times for when they were together, sharing small meals or hot chocolate chip cookies fresh from the oven. It was some normalcy in a world that had gone crazy overnight. But one thing that he’d never doubted was how much his sister loved him.

They’d gone from being a small family of two, plus Miss Nadine, to belonging to an extended, bossy, prying family. They’d all taken an interest in him, debating where he should live and where he should go to study art. They were loud and opinionated, and Chase loved them all.

Fatigue washed over him, reminding him that he’d been traveling for hours. Lucian had wanted Chase to take the Dalakis family jet for the trip, but he’d declined. He wanted to make his own way from New York to Transylvania, stopping in London and Paris for a couple of days to see some business colleagues before continuing on to Dalakis Castle.

He’d arrived only an hour ago. Not that he worried about waking anyone. He chuckled at the thought. Considering that his hosts were also vampires, it would have been more inconvenient for him to arrive at noon.