Nadya's Nights: Road to Vengeance (12 page)

Once they were back in the hall, she ejected the second spent magazine and inserted a third, then turned and ran back towards the lift.  She tapped impatiently at the button, wondering how long it would take the vampire to heal enough to give chase.

Luckily, the lift hadn’t descended far after depositing its last occupant and the doors opened to admit them.  Entering, she pushed the button for the ground floor then tapped on the button to close the doors.  Just as they slid closed, Elise’s door opened and Nadya saw the vampire come running out, looking severely pissed off.

Before he reached them, the doors shut and the lift started its descent.

Nadya shook her head.  “I have the worst fucking luck…”

Now they’d have to take the first car they came across.  There was no time to waste picking and choosing.  Remy would have to wait for the lift to return to get down, but that wouldn’t give them much of a head start.

The doors opened and Nadya rushed out, Ulbrecht right behind her.  They left the apartment complex and she looked from side to side, trying to spot a vacant vehicle.  The only one she saw was the Maserati.  Cursing, she moved out onto the street, looking further down the road.

Nothing.

From high above, there was the sound of shattering glass followed by a distinctly feminine scream.

Ulbrecht looked up but Nadya didn’t bother.  She grabbed him and yanked him out of the way of the falling glass shards.  The scream cut short, abruptly replaced by a vicious, fleshy slicing.  Nadya turned to see that a street sign had interrupted Elise’s fall by cleaving her in half, making quite a mess.

Her top half lay on one side of the sign, while her bottom half lay on the other.  Her guts were strewn over the sign.  Blood splattered the pavement from the sudden bisection as well as the subsequent impact she’d had with the ground.

Her eyes were still open, staring up at Nadya but not seeing her.  Or anything else.

Nadya wasted no time and moved over to the woman’s corpse.  Ulbrecht watched with a degree of disgust as she searched the lower half of Elise.

“What are you doing?”

Nadya rose a few moments later and held up the keys to the Maserati then ran for the car.  Needing no further explanation – and clearly not wanting to sit around staring at Elise’s gory remains – Ulbrecht followed.

Chapter Eighteen: Filling Up

“That was the werewolf from last night?” Ulbrecht asked.  “The one that infected me?”

For a few minutes after they’d gotten into the Maserati and taken off, he’d been quiet.  Nadya had glanced over a couple times and it looked to her as if he was trying not to be sick.  What had happened to Elise had been gruesome but she’d seen worse.

By the time he finally spoke, her mind had drifted a bit.  Trying to think about the new complications their situation had.  She suspected Remy wouldn’t just let them take off and leave him behind, so it was a sure bet he was trailing them.

The question was whether or not Elise had said anything to him about where they were going before he’d thrown her through the window.  Nadya had to plan as if she had.  Again, she was caught without any proper weapons to deal with her enemy and this time she couldn’t call anyone for help.

She blinked and looked over at Ulbrecht when he spoke.  “Yes,” she said simply.

He didn’t look so nauseous now, just confused.  It helped to remind her how little he actually knew about the way the world really worked.

“How is that possible?” he asked.  “I thought you killed that thing.”

She wasn’t sure how to properly explain the way werewolves worked, or how vampires worked, especially since she wasn’t exactly sure how they worked herself.  She sighed, lit another cigarette, and attempted to explain it to the best of her ability.

“Werewolves… They’re a sort of genetic disease.  The wolf virus gets in you, makes you one of them.  The only things that can kill you are dismemberment and silver through the heart.  If someone puts silver through your heart, you’ll die… but you’ll come back as a vampire.  The virus mutates and makes you a vampire.  I don’t know exactly why, but that’s how it works.”

She slammed the palm of her hand into the steering wheel.  “Should’ve taken the fucker’s head!  Stupid!”

Ulbrecht fell silent again. 
Taking in the new information
, Nadya figured.

She took a drag from her cigarette and glanced at the gas gauge.

Near empty.  They’d have to fill up soon.

I need more cigarettes, too.

She spotted a gas station and pulled in, stopping at one of the pumps.  Pulling out her wallet, she opened it to survey the status of things.  Grimacing, she pulled out the few bills she had left and looked through them.  It wouldn’t be enough, not with the car wanting high-grade petrol. 
It looks like I’m going to have to hold up the whole damn store just to keep going.

She looked over at Ulbrecht.  “Get ready to pump the gas.  This isn’t exactly going to be a legal transaction.”

She got out of the car and walked around, heading for the station.  Behind her, Ulbrecht got out and prepared to pump the gas.

Entering the station, Nadya took a look around and saw she was the only person in the station aside from the cashier.  He was an old man with plenty of wrinkles and white hair.  At least that would make things easier.  She walked up to the counter and asked for a pack of her brand of cigarettes.  When the old man turned to fetch the cigarettes, Nadya pulled her pistol out and pointed it at the man.  His eyes went wide as he turned around and saw the weapon.

With her free hand, she reached for the cigarettes and he handed them over.  “Don’t do anything stupid.  Turn on the pumps so my friend can fill the tank and we’ll be out of your way before you can say boo.”

The old man turned and flicked the pump on.  Nadya looked out of the shop to see Ulbrecht pumping the gas.

So far, so good.

She heard the sound of a shotgun being pumped and turned back to see a younger man stepping out from the back of the shop, aiming the shotgun at her.  He walked around the counter and held the barrel up close to the side of her head.

“Drop the gun,” he told her in heavily accented English.

Nadya lowered the gun slowly to the counter, setting it down.  As soon as the gun left her hand and she saw the man relax ever so slightly, her slow movements transformed into lightning fast ones.  She turned, lifting a hand and grabbing the side of the shotgun’s barrel, shoving it away from her before lifting her leg and slamming her booted foot into the man’s gut.  He went flying backwards, releasing the shotgun, and collided with a shelf of foodstuffs.  The shelf collapsed under the man and the foodstuffs went flying.

She flipped the shotgun in the air, grabbing hold of the stock and sliding her hand into the grip before turning and lowering the barrel to aim at the old man behind the counter who had been reaching for her discarded pistol.  The old man froze and Nadya reached down to pick up her handgun, sliding it into her waistband.

Just then, she caught movement from outside and turned her head to see Ulbrecht signaling her that the tank was full.  She turned back to the old man and gave him a nod and a smile.

“Thanks, old timer.”  She turned and walked out of the station, heading for the car.

Ulbrecht had already gotten back into the passenger seat.  Nadya rounded the car and handed him the shotgun through the open window then opened the door to get in.  She stopped suddenly as something flashed in her eyes.

She blinked and the car was gone.

A confused look crossed her face and she looked around herself to see she was no longer in front of the gas station at all.  She was surrounded by darkness.  She reached for the pistol in her waistband and felt only bare skin.  Growing alarmed, she looked down to find herself completely nude.  She looked up and looked around herself again, trying to look through the darkness that surrounded her, feeling increasingly uneasy with every new development she discovered.

She sensed movement in the blackness, rushing around her.  She spun, her pigtails swaying with the movement, and tried to track the perceived movement through the darkness.  She felt very vulnerable, with good reason.  Being stripped and doused into impenetrable darkness wasn’t exactly her idea of a good time.

Nadya caught sight of something and stopped turning, focusing her sight on the small glimmers.  They appeared to be yellow eyes, glistening in the dark.  Dread filled her and she tensed herself, ready to attack or defend.

She gasped in surprise as light illuminated the figure before her, blinding her momentarily.  When her vision cleared, her surprise intensified as she recognized the person before her.

“Impossible.  You can’t be here,” she said.

Remy gave her a smirk and stepped towards her.  “I’m closer than you think, little girl,” he told her.  He reached out for one of her small breasts and Nadya stepped back quickly, bringing a hand up to smack his away.

Instead, her hand passed right through his.  The move left her unbalanced and unable to react when he advanced on her again, much quicker.

Nadya gasped as one of his hands gripped her slender throat and squeezed firmly before lifting her off her feet.  She swung a fist at his head only to see it pass through him with no effect.  She kicked at his crotch with the same outcome.

“Vampires can’t do this,” she croaked out as he choked her.

Remy’s smirk became a wicked grin.  “Some can.”  His grip tightened, cutting off her ability to breathe.  “There’s a particularly special bond between a murderess and her victim.”

“You started it, asshole,” Nadya croaked out, continuing to struggle.  She kept attempting to pound him, but only managed to flail her fists and feet through him instead of into him.

“See you real soon, you little bitch.”

With that, Remy hurled Nadya into the darkness.  She fell but didn’t hit the ground.  The image of the vampire shrank as she continued to drop, arms and legs spread apart from her body, hair fluttering about her.

Finally, Remy’s form was no longer visible, but she kept dropping.  Then came the flashes in her eyes again.

Nadya hit the pavement hard, cringing in pain.  She looked up and saw she was back where she had been before the strange vision or hallucination or whatever it had been.

The Maserati was right in front of her, she was fully clothed, and her pistol was in her waistband.  Nadya got to her feet to see a concerned Ulbrecht looking at her from the passenger seat.

“It was nothing.  We need to go,” she told him, getting into the car and firing it up.  She hit the gas pedal and pulled back out onto the road, speeding off.

Chapter Nineteen: Road Hazards

Nadya tried not to think about the disturbing experience she’d just had, focusing instead on her driving.  She wasn’t prone to hallucinations, and the whole thing had felt too real to be one.  She knew vampires, like werewolves, had certain powers.  They varied from creature to creature.  There might have been a predetermined way of figuring out which ones were more likely to develop certain powers, but if so, she didn’t know what it was and she didn’t much care.

She was more concerned with what powers Remy specifically had.  The ability to yank her into some kind of weird realm where he had total control of not only her surroundings but of her whole being didn’t make her feel any better about the challenges that lay ahead.

She cursed softly and lit a fresh smoke, trying again to push the thoughts away.  There was no point worrying about it until she had to.  Until then, her main objective was to find this contact that could supposedly help Ulbrecht.

Hopefully her French informant hadn’t been throwing her a load of shit.  If so, she wasn’t sure what she would do.

It’s not as if I can go back and beat the shit out of her for giving me bad information.

As it turned out, her need to worry about what kind of powers Remy possessed became necessary all too soon.  Glancing into the rearview mirror out of reflex, she gasped as she caught sight of the demonic visage of the vampire.  She quickly turned her head, looking out the back of the car.

There was nothing there.

She turned back around, already scolding herself for being so jumpy.  As she turned to face forward again, she caught sight of Ulbrecht giving her a worried look.  She ignored it and turned her eyes to the road.  She wasn’t about to tell him that she was seeing things.  She checked the rearview mirror again and saw nothing but empty road disappearing into the darkness behind them.

Nadya took another drag from her cigarette and blew the smoke out the open window beside her.  She wondered how close Remy actually was.  She didn’t imagine his powers could work over a long distance, so that meant he had to be chasing after them.  That wasn’t a surprise, but what was was how he was managing to keep up.  Nadya wasn’t exactly being light on the gas pedal.  So he had to have a means of travel just as fast as the Maserati.

That was another disturbing thought.

Nadya turned slightly to flick some ash out the open window and her eyes went wide as she saw Remy outside the car.  Just standing there, grinning at her, as if the car were sitting still.  She cursed and flicked her half-finished cigarette out of the window at him.

The smoke passed clear through him and he laughed.

She could hear the sound easily enough and could feel it echo in her ears.  She turned away and focused on the road again, concentrating hard on it and trying to block out everything else.  She didn’t like anyone playing with her mind.  It was just as bad as someone playing with her body as far as she was concerned.

Maybe even worse.

She knew she wasn’t crazy, so if that’s what the asshole was trying to make her think, he was failing.  If he was trying to unnerve her, though, he wasn’t failing as bad.  Her hands clenched the steering wheel hard and her palms began to sweat.  Her eyes ached from focusing on the road and she blinked several times to relax them.

Nadya felt a tingle of fear in the back of her head, trying to work its way forward.  The feeling was certainly justified, given her current situation, but she hated it just the same.  She tried to force it to sit back down and shut the fuck up, but it was a persistent little bastard, and it was gorging itself on every one of her insecurities to grow larger.

She clenched her teeth hard, adding fuel to her anger so that it would squash the rebellious little snippet of her mind. 
Things are shitty, it’s a given, but the very last thing I need to do is let my fear fester and grow.
  If that happened, she wouldn’t be able to perform properly.  When the time came for her to act, she’d do something stupid and get herself and Ulbrecht both killed.

Slowly, her anger and the cold, rational part of her brain fought off the fear, beating it into submission and flushing it like some unwanted garbage.  Her teeth slowly unclenched and she let out a sigh of relief.

Then a fist slammed out of her chest.

Nadya’s eyes went wide and her mouth gaped open as she looked down and saw the arm that had grown from between her breasts.

No, not grown…

Blood covered the arm.

Her blood.

The hand at the end gripped something; something covered in blood and still pumping weakly.

Her heart.

Her eyes focused on her heart, watching it pump out the last of its blood slowly.  The blood dripped from the hand, falling onto her lap and staining her pants.  Blood crept up the back of her throat, fell past her lips, and trickled down her chin.

She watched as the hand holding her heart crushed her precious organ, making it explode and spray blood in all directions.  The windshield was painted crimson along with Nadya’s face.

After it finished destroying her heart, the hand opened back up and dropped the ruined organ into her lap, then yanked back through her chest, leaving a gaping, bloody hole there.

Outside of the gory hallucination Nadya was trapped in, her eyes slipped half-closed and her head fell back against the headrest of the seat.  Her hands dropped limply away from the steering wheel and the car drifted towards the edge of the road.

Ulbrecht looked over when he saw they were about to run off and saw the state Nadya was in.  He moved over and grabbed the steering wheel, straightening them out.

“Nadya!” he yelled to her, trying to snap her out of the daze she was in.

She didn’t react, seemingly comatose in the seat.  Her foot pressed down on the gas pedal and the engine revved making the car speed even faster down the road.

“Nadya, wake up!” Ulbrecht tried again with still no response.  Steering the car from the passenger seat at the speed they were traveling at was immensely difficult.  They came close to running off the side again and Ulbrecht jerked the wheel in the opposite direction, swerving them across the road.  He worked the wheel back again, finally getting the car more or less aligned.

He looked over at Nadya again and saw she was still in an unresponsive state.  Taking one hand off the wheel, he held it back and hesitated briefly before slapping her hard across the face.

Nadya’s eyes fluttered open and focused instantly, realizing what had happened.

“Fuck!” she yelled, reaching up and grabbing the wheel.  She let up off the gas and slowed the Maserati down.  She braked and pulled onto the side of the road then threw the car into park.  She sat back in the seat, breathing heavily.  Beside her, Ulbrecht was also out of breath.  She noticed her hands shaking and forced them to stop.

The fear was back and clawing strongly through her brain.  She told it to get back down where it came from and spent the next several minutes forcing it there.  Once that was done, she inhaled and let out the breath slowly.  Then she lit up another cigarette and took several long drags.

“Maybe you should drive,” she said to Ulbrecht quietly.