Rasputin's Prodigy Page 9

  “Sleep, shower, eat and then make a plan.” I said with a sigh of resignation.

  “Okay,” Chris nodded, “do you think you can stay awake long enough for me to take a shower?”

  I only nodded my reply and Chris rose to walk into the bathroom. I think I managed to keep my eyes open until I heard the water from the shower stop, because after that I only remember Chris shaking me awake three hours later.

  I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and asked, “Everything okay?”

  Chris turned back to his laptop and starting punching keys, “So far so good.”

  I spelled Chris and let him catch a couple hours of sleep as I showered, checked the guns, and strapped my Glock into the shoulder holster I preferred. The gun wasn't overly large, and could easily be concealed under my jacket. The shoulder holster was cumbersome and I wouldn't win any quick draw competitions, but my priority was concealment and, as long as I wore the jacket, no one would know I was armed.

  I sat quietly as Chris slept and my mind drifted to Lei. I smiled and shook my head as I thought how, even though we both looked to be in our early thirties, we both were approaching eighty years of chronological age. We had known each other for nearly our whole lives and had been in love most of that time as well, but we had only become engaged a little while ago. Looking back I couldn't imagine why we, or more specifically, why I had waited so long to ask. Sure, we lived dangerous lives, as our people’s “Hunters,” but that hadn't been the reason that kept us from tying the knot. Maybe it was because the marriage ceremony had always seemed something for regular people? If I were to be honest about it, then I'd have to admit that the whole thing had always seemed like a silly religious or legal binding that supported the coupling of two people into a marriage within our modern society. As Lei and I, by design, weren't part of that society, it had always seemed sort of unnecessary to me. We were together, so what more was required for the likes of us?

  Then I had left her, and the rest of my people, over a misunderstanding that still stabs at my core when I think about how arrogant I had been. I still remember the look on Lei's face when I finally asked her to marry me. I remember her shocked look, as my question had caught her off guard. The way she trembled as I fumbled over the words that came out of my mouth. The nervousness that I had no reason to feel as I asked the question, as well as my combined relief and exultation when she accepted.

  I was wrong. Marriage was a very big deal, regardless of our being part of society or not. Then, just as soon as we had gotten used to the idea, she was taken from me. I shook my head to clear the anger and sadness from the front of my thoughts, and felt a cramp in my right hand. I looked down to see my fist clamped tightly in a ball with small trickles of blood peeking through the creases. I had been clenching my fist so hard that my fingernails had driven into the flesh of my palm. I wiped the tiny amount of blood away on the black jeans I was wearing and turned to look at Chris' laptop. He had the satellite image up of the main street where we had previously located Dimitri and his entourage.

  I watched the screen in a kind of trance-like state, as miscellaneous people walked by and various cars drove past. I only looked up one time, and that was only when I heard footsteps in the hall just outside our room. This wasn't the kind of place that had room service, turn down service, or any other service for that matter, but that didn't mean there weren't other people staying in the hotel. I removed my Glock from its holster and aimed it at the door as the footsteps grew louder, but whoever was out there simply continued past the door and the footsteps gently faded away, until I heard a key unlock a door further down the hall. I could hear the door close, but I didn't put the gun away until a couple of minutes had past.

  When I finished holstering the weapon I turned to find Chris sitting up and alert as if ready for whatever might happen next.

  “Everything all right?” he asked.

  “Guess so. You up for good?”

  Chris rubbed some sleep from his eyes, “Yeah, did you order any room service?”

  I laughed, “You would trust this place with room service, assuming they had any in the first place?”

  Chris looked bewildered for a moment then, even though I saw the comprehension fill his eyes, he asked, “So, no room service?”

  I reached into one of our bags and pulled out one of the protein bars that we had been living on for the past couple of days.

  Chris let out a moan as he looked at the bar, “I never thought I'd develop a distaste for chocolate.”

  At those words my head shot up and my eyebrows raised as I stared at Chris. He had unwrapped the bar and was in the process of taking a huge bite when he noticed my expression and froze, mouth agape and bar halfway inserted into his maw.

  His eyes rolled from me, down to the bar and back before he slowly lowered it from his mouth and asked, “What?”

  “Are you sure you're hungry for food? Lack of interest could mean you're in need.”

  The “need” I was referring to was the concentrated serum that my people use to stave off the effects of the Porphyria.

  Chris looked at the bar, concerned, “I can usually go a week before I feel the slightest need for a shot.”

  “I know,” I said sympathetically, “but the travel was tough. Your body may have burned through it early.”

  Chris looked up, “You seem okay.”

  “I'm older than you.” It wasn't a great answer, but it was true. Chris was relatively new to being one of us, while I was born with the condition. As a rule, the whole “turning a normal human into a vampire thing” is a bit of a false legend. In fact the only time I have ever seen it done in my lifetime was in Chris' case, but that was because he received a near total transfusion of Alpha's blood after he had been gut shot and was almost dead anyway. Alpha has blood type “O” which makes him a universal donor and the combination of his blood, plus my kind's natural resistance to any viral infections or bacterial pathogens had saved Chris from both the lethal blood loss, and the septicemia that a bullet wound to the gut usually causes. The trade-off for saving his life, was that Chris couldn't go back to being “normal” again, as Alpha's blood changed him on his cellular level.

  Chris looked down at the bar and quickly took a bite that reduced it by a half. Chewing quickly, he forced the bolus down, and took the other half with the same vigor until it too was in his gullet.

  I frowned, but Chris said, “If I'm still not right in fifteen minutes, then I'll take the shot.”

  Concern faded from my features and I smiled back, “Fair enough, but if you have any doubts wake me up, right?”

  “Okay mom,” Chris mumbled while reaching for a bottle of spring water, “Get some rest already.”

  I nodded and switched places from the desk chair to the bed as Chris pulled a towel out of the bathroom and doused it with the water from the bottle. I remember him wiping his face off and moving to the desk chair, but that was the last thing I can remember before Chris was again shaking me awake.

  “Steve! Wake up! He's here,” Chris was pointing excitedly at the laptop screen. “Dimitri is here!”

  Chapter 9

  When Chris was saying “here,” what he meant was the satellite imagery being played on the laptop showed that Dimitri had arrived in front of the buildings that he owned and ran as nightclubs. Just like the similar images we had been watching via satellite, before we had started out. The scene played out pretty much as it had before, with three Rolls Royce vehicles in varying colors arriving on the scene and the celebrity-like people emerging from the vehicles, followed by the bodyguards parting the lookey-loos, and clearing a path for Dimitri and his entourage to access his establishments.

  I first scanned the crowd and then the car windows for any sign of Lei, not that I was really expecting for her to be in tow as Dimitri made his kingly rounds, but I had to look in any case.

  “To the roof!” Chris exclaimed as he grabbed an expensive pair of Swarovski binoculars from one of the camera bags and mad
e for the door.

  It was all I could do to keep up with Chris as he lunged for the door, but I managed to grab my own set of binoculars before heading to the stairway that would take us to the roof. Chris reached the roof access door before me, only to find it locked. I'm not sure if that violated any of the building's safety codes, or if there even were any safety codes in Nazran that could be violated, but the thought was quickly put aside as Chris began pounding his shoulder against the locked door and latch.

  I watched him bang against the seemingly immovable door a couple more times before asking, “You done?”

  He stopped and rubbed his shoulder while peering at me with a look that was a mix of indignation and embarrassment.

  Before Chris could make one of his patented quips I asked, “Did you even check to see if there was an alarm?”

  Chris had his index finger raised at me as if about to scold me like a disconcerted parent, which froze mid-wag as he looked from me to the door frame. He scanned the door for a couple of seconds, then said with a satisfied and mockingly official tone, “There doesn't appear to be any wiring or electronics attached to it that would indicate it an alarm.”

  I nodded my head and shrugged my shoulders, “Okay, just wanted to be sure,” and then I kicked the heavy metal door just beneath where the latch of the door was fitted into the frame. There was a sound like a gunshot, as the metal reinforced door bent and tore and the latch ripped through the wooden frame, and the door flew open to the outside.

  Chris had ducked instinctively from the sound, then looked at the opening and shook his head. He muttered, “Goddamn show off, that's what you are...” There was more mumbling, but he had moved through the opening I had created, and I couldn't hear him clearly after that.

  Chris may have become one of us since Alpha's blood had transformed him, but he hadn't had the benefit of a lifetime of living in the abandoned Las Vegas silver mines where rock climbing was considered a mode of transportation. That life had made me very, very strong.

  We worked our way through some of the machinery that had been installed on the roof and stood near the edge. In the distance we could only see a collection of lights from the cars and street lamps, along with the general movements of the crowd of people in the ambient wash of those lights. The binoculars were powerful with a rating of 12 x 90 and their magnification pulled us in close, so that we could see almost as well as if we were standing on top of a building right above the crowd. I could see that Dimitri had already made his way into the building and his bodyguards had taken up positions outside the door of the nightclub and began restricting entry at this point.

  “Same routine every night,” Chris said as if confirming a question that I had asked.

  “You’re sure?” I said.

  Chris lowered the binoculars, “Yup. At about seven o'clock the dinner rush starts to slow down, and by eight thirty the waiters have started coming out of the back, moving into the alley over...” Chris paused as he raised the binoculars back up to his eyes, “...there, where they begin to stack the folding dinner tables. See?”

  I raised my own binoculars and scanned to the left where Chris had indicated. The alley was dark, but it still had enough illumination for me to see the wall of stacked folding tables. Further down the alley I could see a pair of homeless men who were just ambling over to one of the nightclub's dumpsters, where they would probably search the trash hoping to find their evening meal.

  Chris continued, “By nine o'clock the last of the diners are finished, and the remaining tables are stacked. Then the club closes for thirty minutes, and the bouncers get the people who showed up early to form a line on the street outside. The club reopens at ten o'clock and pretty much everyone who is in line gets allowed into the club, but anyone who shows up after that initial opening has to wait, except for certain “VIP's” who also arrive in fancy cars, to be escorted into the club by the bouncers. Dimitri's arrival is the only variant, as he can show up anywhere between eleven o'clock and midnight”

  I lowered the binoculars and asked, “So how does this help us get Lei back?”

  I looked at Chris who was still scanning the area with the binoculars. He shrugged, “Always a good idea to know their routine, right?”

  I hadn't registered the cold, but when I blew out a frustrated sigh my breath made a plume of chilly mist. It turned into a wispy, disintegrating cloud in the air in front of me. I knew that Chris was right, but I had really been hoping against all common sense that I'd catch a glimpse of Lei, or even for that matter, Pha. Just something that would tell me that they were still alive and unharmed.

  “Uh-oh!” Chris' voice was jovial as he spoke so I didn't react strongly to the outburst.

  “What's up?” I asked.

  “Working girls at ten o'clock.”

  I smiled, sighing at Chris' ridiculously naive and effortless ability to be distracted by the opposite sex, especially when it came to the more provocative women of the world. The guy was a world-class sex hound, and now he was one of us, meaning that he was completely immune to the dangers of STD's, which was like giving him a special license to fully indulge in what would otherwise be highly risky behaviors. Keeping track of him in Bangkok had been especially trying, and some of the positions we had found him in, passed out drunk and ensconced among of any number of paid partners, were bordering the ludicrous.

  “Don't suppose you could keep your mind on...”

  “Whoa! No pants!” Chris cried out as his finger rapidly spun the focus dial on the binoculars, “That one isn't wearing any pants in public!”

  “Chris, what...” the inane statement caught me off guard and I raised my own binoculars up to witness the spectacle for myself, “Where?”

  “They're one alley over from the back of Dimitri's nightclub.”

  I looked but all I could see were a trio of club goers, who I guessed were taking a shortcut from wherever they had parked for the night.

  “Um, Chris...Those are guys, and they all are clearly wearing pants.”

  “What? How could you...?”

  I could hear Chris shuffle his feet before he said, “No, no, you scanned too far. You're looking two alleys away.”

  I was about to adjust my view when a shadow appeared behind the jovial men I had spotted and started to slinking towards them. Realizing what was about to happen I wanted to call out, but remembering that we were nearly a block away and several stories above street level there was no way anyone could hear me, even if I had a megaphone, which I didn't.

  “Just keep walking guys. Keep walking,” I muttered to myself, as I watched the shadow close the distance between itself and the trio.

  I heard Chris' concerned voice ask, “What's up?” but I couldn't tear my attention away in order to answer. The trio had only taken a couple steps before they would walk out of the alley and into the lighted street. They were nearly to safety when, of course, one of the men began searching in his pockets for something.

  “No, no, no. Don't do it,” I said aloud, as the man pulled a pack of cigarettes out of one pocket and fumbled to remove what I guessed would be a lighter from another. He stopped as he pulled the lighter from his pocket and began falling a couple steps behind his friends, who turned to look back at him. I saw the shadow dart behind some garbage cans or some other stacked up alley trash when the two men turned to look back toward the alley, but a couple quick flips of the smoker's wrist sent his friends on ahead, and he continued to fumble with his lighter. No sooner had his pair of friends turned away from their colleague than the shadow burst from its hiding place grabbing the smoker from behind. One dirty hand clamped tightly across the man's mouth while the opposite arm encircled his throat, simultaneously lifting and dragging the smoker back into the darker shadows of the alley.

  The attack had been so quick and well executed that the smoker's pair of friends never heard nor suspected a thing, as they walked away chatting, none the wiser.

  I heard Chris take in a quick breath and knew
he was watching the same thing I was with all of his previous interest in the women of the night momentarily forgotten. The shadow dragged the smoker to the far side of the alley where it opened onto a perpendicular street. Light spilled into the space near where the attacker dropped the smoker's now unconscious body and the thief turned out to be nothing more than an ordinary man, who began to rifle through the smoker's pockets.

  “Everywhere I go, there's always an asshole,” Chris sighed as he watched the mugging take place.

  I refocused the binoculars and could just make out the rising and falling of the smoker's chest, “The guy's still alive. It's just a robbery.”

  “Think so?” Chris asked, “I'm not so sure.”

  I lowered my binoculars, “Why not?”

  “Because there's a cop watching the whole thing from across the street and clearly able to see into the opening of that alley.”

  “What?!” I quickly raised my binoculars and traced a path from the alley up to the street where it opened, and indeed there was a uniformed man watching the entire crime and doing nothing to stop it. I didn't recognize the uniform, but with his “nightstick” and sidearm he did seem a lot like he might be the local constabulary.

  I looked back into the alley and saw the mugger finish stashing things in his pockets and then turn towards the street. The criminal froze momentarily when he saw the “cop”, but it seemed to register on him that the officer wasn't going to do anything, so he slowly turned to walk away from the scene.

  The cop watched the mugger go, and turned back to the body that lay unconscious just inside the alley. He seemed to consider what to do for a few seconds before the smoker's friends reappeared on the far side, obviously having realized their friend hadn't followed them. Apparently they had come back to locate their missing buddy and were moving hurriedly up the alleyway calling the man's name.

  I looked back at the cop, thinking he might make a show of concern now that there would be witnesses to his presence, but he instead pulled a radio from his pocket and spoke into it briefly before reattaching it to his belt. The smoker's friends had just reached the halfway point, when four men appeared on the street and closed off each opening to the alley.