Evgeni (Siberian Ambush Book 1) (2 page)

Mentally running through her pre-mission checklist, Celia identified a rather large problem. While her jeans, T-shirt and hoodie were appropriate for the cool Texas weather of late November, they definitely would not do in the subzero temperatures she would certainly encounter when she reached Russia. She thought of all the tactical gear hanging in the closet of the office she rented in downtown Houston, the front for her illicit company. None of it would work.

Celia punched the speed dial key on her cell phone assigned to Perry, her black market munitions and supplies contact. As always, he answered on the first ring.

“You’ve reached the international headquarters of Perry Acquisitions, how may I help you?”

She fought the urge to roll her eyes. The so-called international headquarters of Perry Acquisitions was the orange and white vinyl banquette of his beloved vintage Airstream, parked in a trailer court on the outskirts of Houston. Why he chose such a nomadic existence was beyond her. As an arms dealer, he made quite a comfortable living.

“Perry, it’s Celia. I’m going to need some cold-weather gear.”

“How cold are we talking?”

“Extremely cold.”

“When?”

“Oh, like right now.”

“Christ, Celia!” Perry exhaled in annoyance. “You do love testing me, don’t you?”

“Does that mean you can help me?”

“I might have something in mind…”

Chapter Two

Frigid blasts of arctic air bit at the crests of Celia’s cheeks and the bridge of her nose, the only patches of skin left bare by her heavy black face mask and ballistic glasses. Tightly hugging her face, the glasses kept the snow flurries out of her eyes. Others in her position might have chosen a sturdier, more advanced set of night vision goggles, but Celia didn’t need them.

Not only did she possess accurate night vision, but she also had the ability to sense body heat. Those were only two of the benefits of her lineage, specifically those genes donated by her half-vampire great-grandmother, a Brazilian
dhampiresa
, and her maternal grandfather, the alpha from a long line of Danish werewolves.

Leaning against the nearest cedar tree, Celia pulled down the edge of her gloves and checked her watch. It was almost eleven, still too early to break into the mansion she’d been surveying for the past twenty minutes. Normally she preferred to launch her burglaries between two and five in the morning, a time span that she considered the safest, but tonight was different. She had to weigh the risks of waiting against those of Bianca’s odds of survival.

But first she had to deal with the jittery sensation spreading through her body. She recognized it as one of her warning signs of hypoglycemia and quickly sought to diffuse a potentially problematic situation. Reaching into one of the pockets of her vest, she withdrew two small plastic tubes of glucose gel. She twisted off the tops and squirted both into her mouth before swallowing.

Grimacing, she tucked the empty tubes back into the pocket.
New and improved cherry flavor, my ass.

Teleporting from Houston to Russia had utilized an incredible amount of energy. One of the side effects was a dramatic drop in her blood sugar levels. Knowing her body, Celia was always prepared to combat hypoglycemia and always attempted to absorb as much excess energy as possible prior to a continent jump. She made a habit of practicing intense meditation before long-distance transfers to calm her mind and prevent the mishaps that could occur when using such a dangerous travel technique.

To make up for the energy she would lose during this particular trip, Celia had taken a long walk through Houston’s Galleria mall, soaking up every ounce of available energy from the passersby. Some might consider it psychic vampirism, but she unapologetically considered it a smart move.

While the glucose gel worked its wonders, she performed recon. Maintaining her cover, Celia closed her eyes and extended her infrared field, searching and scanning the property for any thermographic imprints. Every heartbeat or blip of heat transferred an imprint to the mental map she was creating. With extreme ease, she separated the outlines of nocturnal and hibernating beasts scattered throughout the woodlands surrounding the estate from the eleven human heartbeats congregated in the lower right corner of the house.

Servants, she surmised. There wasn’t much she could do about them, but at least they weren’t in the area of the house she needed to infiltrate. Besides, it wasn’t likely that anyone would even hear her entrance or exit in the cavernous estate that was Leshnikov Palace. Located thirty kilometers south of St. Petersburg, the neoclassical mansion painstakingly built by eighteenth-century peasants contained hundreds of intricately designed and fabulously decorated rooms, very few of which were inhabited.

“But where’s Evgeni?” she whispered anxiously, already rescanning the house and surrounding territory for the owner’s thermographic imprint. When she didn’t find it, she warily assumed that her old acquaintance was out of town and decided to proceed with extreme caution.

Celia usually teleported into and out of the places she burglarized, but with Evi’s home it wasn’t that simple. Because Evi was descended from an extremely archaic and powerful magical line, Celia knew that his property was protected from overtly magical infiltration attempts.

No, she would have to do this the old-fashioned way. The plan was to get in and get out as quickly as possible, hopefully without having to use the sidearm strapped to her thigh or any of the pouches and vials of potions and dusts she carried with her.

With graceful agility, she easily vaulted over the twenty-foot iron gates, landed safely on the snow and rapidly moved to the tree line. Taking advantage of her crisp night vision, she darted from trunk to trunk, moving closer to the left wing of the estate. Subzero gusts pelted her body but the nanotech fibers of her tactical catsuit maintained her core body temperature while wicking moisture away from her skin. The numerous pockets lining the matching tactical vest were also incredibly handy for storing all her necessary gear.

She’d have to remember to thank Perry for coming through splendidly. It was amazing what the man could acquire with a little cajoling and cash.

Finally, she reached the house. Her back against the stone, she listened intently for any strange sounds before extending her radar and scanning for any nearby heartbeats. The coast was clear. She checked her watch and set the vibrating timer for six minutes. Surveying the closest window, Celia decided that as a point of entry, this old casement window was as good as any.

Very quickly and quietly, she removed the circular glass cutter from a vest pocket, dried a patch of window and applied the suction. With great care, she cut a circle the size of a dinner plate and discarded the glass in the nearby snow. Cautiously, she slipped her arm through the freshly cut hole, rotating her elbow so she could unlock the latch. She lifted the window and, inevitably, it squealed with resistance. Reassured by the fact that this wing of the house was empty, Celia climbed through the window and gently closed it. To avoid rousing suspicions, she left the curtains drawn exactly as they had been before her entrance.

On tiptoes, she slipped into the hallway and began navigating the labyrinth of corridors in her search for the vault. Childhood memories of playing within the walls of this museum of antiquities and rarities allowed Celia to scurry without pause along her preplanned route. As she rounded a corner, Celia’s cerulean eyes landed on the surprisingly well-preserved mille fleur tapestry running the length of the right wall. She slowed her pace, her eyes searching the weaving for the lone red rose among the green and white.

Aha!

Lifting the musty tapestry in that section, Celia slipped between the fabric and the wall—and there it was! A rather generic wooden door that Celia knew was the entrance to the Leshnikov family vault.

She retrieved a plastic baggie from another vest pocket and shook the contents onto her palm. Without wasting a second, she placed the sliver of lotus root under her tongue, shivering at the bitter taste even as she pressed the wad of chicory to the door with her left hand.

“
Sign argis
!” She clearly spoke the ancient unlocking spell that had been drilled into her mind from preschool. Instantly, the locks disengaged. There was no lock, magical or conventional, that could withstand her family’s oldest incantation.

She slipped the lotus root and chicory back into the vest pocket and entered the vault. It was a stone room lined with floor-to-ceiling shelves that held both supernatural and culturally significant objects, from enchanted amulets to some of the only surviving Albrecht Dürer woodcuts and prints. Inarguably, the vault was a treasure trove of priceless objects.

For the briefest of moments, Celia felt guilty about stealing the Leshnikov family’s most prized heirloom, but the consequences of failure were unthinkable. Come hell or high water, she would save her sister’s life.

Celia visually sorted the containers lining the shelves, excluding those that were too small or too large to contain the blade. Bewildered by the lack of locks on any of the containers, Celia nervously searched the dozen or so remaining boxes and chests, cautiously checking the bottoms and sides for trip wires before touching them.

This is too simple
, she anxiously thought.
Surely Evgeni didn’t expect the vault door lock to keep all of this safe?

Lifting the lid of a simple pine chest, Celia discovered what she sought. Resting on a bed of crushed green velvet, the sheathed Blade of Amrita hid in relative obscurity.

After ensuring there were no booby traps, Celia gently took the blade from the chest, surprised that it felt lighter than when she had held it some twelve years ago. Her fingers, however, trembled just as they had when Evi had allowed her to hold the blade on her twelfth birthday. He’d brought her into the vault to choose a birthday present, and of course she had wanted the blade. She remembered his good-natured laugh, how he had offered to let her hold it for a moment while he procured a different item, a leather scapular imbued with the power to prevent fire damage.

She still had the scapular but rarely wore it. It was too difficult to separate her happy memories of Evi from the bad.

Like most people in her trade, Celia considered the Blade of Amrita the Holy Grail of magical artifacts. The provenance surrounding the blade was sketchy at best, but the bare facts were known. It had been forged in Ancient Sumer as a ritual implement and had migrated to the Hindu Kush during the campaigns of Alexander the Great. A Bactrian bladesmith had created the scabbard for the then-naked blade, and after a turbulent and murky history, the blade had somehow found its way into the possession of a traveling Leshnikov during the Dark Ages.

Very slowly, she examined the brass scabbard embedded with polished blue and white topaz cabochons. Assured that it was the original, Celia unsheathed the blade. Sharp as a razor, the double-edged dagger had been finely honed from honey-colored imperial topaz but was tipped with a finely shaved garnet stone. A magnificent specimen of craftsmanship, the blade had been stamped with a cuneiform phrase, the symbols undecipherable to her. Supposedly the combination of topaz with garnet enhanced the blade’s magical properties.

An unexpected vibration along her wrist made Celia jump. Heart pounding, she remembered that it was only her watch timer. With the blade in hand, she hurriedly closed the chest and slipped out of the vault. She retraced her steps, climbed through the window and began the short sprint to the gates. Above her, the moon threatened to slide free of the cloud cover and she quickened her pace to avoid being caught without cover. No more than fifty yards from the gate, Celia felt the first sensations of success tingling along her spine.

Unfortunately, it was short-lived.

From the tree line on her right, Celia heard the unmistakable warning growl of a large cat. She glanced in the direction of the noise. Strike that. Not a cat. A tiger.

A really fucking huge Siberian tiger.

“Shit!” Celia cursed and kicked her sprint into overdrive as the colossal creature bounded from the woods. Although her first instinct was to lift her gun and pop off a few rounds, she stymied the thought. As a personal policy, lethal methods were always used as a last resort. Normally she tried to stun her enemy first.

And she couldn’t kill this tiger. Memories from her childhood, memories long repressed, surfaced. That smile. That Russian accent. The kindness and friendship. The easy familial relationship.

Celia pulled energy into the fingertips of her left hand and hurled a swirling violet energy ball at the sprinting feline. It impacted the creature’s side, making the tiger yowl in pain, but did little to slow its progress.

“Fuck!”

If she could just make it over the fence and onto neutral ground, she could teleport to safety. Massive paws pounded the snow behind her. The tiger was gaining on her. She judged the distance between her feet and the fence and realized that she was at least twenty yards from it. There was no way she could vault over from this distance. She had plenty of supernatural gifts, but flying wasn’t among them.

As she reached for her gun, a bone-rattling roar split the night, the infrasound waves penetrating her body, vibrating her organs and momentarily paralyzing her muscles. Feet stuttering, Celia tumbled to the packed powder with such force that snow slid underneath her glasses and found its way into her nostrils, shocking the sensitive passages. She scrambled to her feet, throwing the glasses aside and roughly wiping the snow from her face.

Within four steps, the beast tackled her. Head swimming, Celia tried to breathe, to regain control of her limbs. Balling up her left fist, she punched the tiger on its nose before landing a right hook against its neck, the scabbard of the blade clamped between her fingers slicing the tiger slightly. A paw swatted at her face but the nanotech fibers of her mask prevented the claws from doing any damage.