The Nightlife: London (Urban Fantasy Romance) (The Nightlife Series) (3 page)

Her tantalizing power permeated through his cock and balls, worked
through his whole body.  She made him feel more alive than ever before.  Their
robes fell to the floor and she went down on her knees.

Sniffing his cock, she teased with feather soft licks.  “Tomorrow
night, bring your pet.  If I have to smell her sex all over you, I might as
well enjoy it too.”

* * * *

The next evening, right after sunset, lounging on
golden-weaved pillows in their pastel striped hotel suite, Aaron explained
Urvashi’s plans to Michelle.  She reacted as expected –
not happy
.

“What is she doing now? 
Chienne fou
.  She will kill us all.”  Despite
her ire, Michelle pecked Aaron on the cheek and held his chin, pinning him with
her vivid, emerald green gaze.  Her flawless pale skin, elegant, patrician
features and golden-blonde hair had never failed to hold his attention, but it
was her eyes that always snared him.

“Michelle, you have to trust her.  I trust her.”  He wished
he could share his connection to Urvashi with Michelle, the way they used to
share everything.

“You are blinded by your bond to her.  For me, is simple.  She
does not love you and I do.”

“This has nothing to do with love.  It’s about getting the
job done.  You’ve been hot to find Michael Jamison for weeks.  We’ve gotten
nowhere until last night.  This is our first lead since he killed that bank
teller.”

Although the BBC news declared the woman’s death a cardiac
arrest, Urvashi had ferreted out the truth.  The woman had been left in the
alley, short a couple pints of blood, with telltale puncture wounds on her
neck.  Aaron continually wondered why Jamison murdered the bank teller.  Maybe
he simply couldn’t stop feeding until he killed her, an accident of sorts.

Michelle pulled Aaron’s face to her, nose to nose.  “
Oui, mon amour
, we will find
him soon enough.  But I have always worked alone.  I trust no one but you.”

He took her hands, curling his fingers with hers.  Michelle
had gone through hell with her master, Julian, decades ago.  The man had fucked
her head up royally.

“That was the life Julian taught you.  But it is not our
life.  Michelle, I want to live, with you, for real.  No more hiding in
nightclubs and back alleys.  We are going to start building a life, connecting
with people, trusting people.  We’ll start with Urvashi.  My father said people
deserve the benefit of the doubt until they prove otherwise.  Trust is a two-way
street.  You have to give to receive.”

“You cannot see her.  She is dangerous to you, like we are
dangerous to people.  And you are blind to her as people are blind to us.”

“I know things about her you don’t understand.  She is
ancient, older than even she knows.  But beneath all those hundreds of years
lies a person, a woman, and she can be trusted.  I believe she is worthy of our
trust.”

“How do you know she is a woman?  Is a mask.  She can change
shape.  She is not human.  I smell her.  I see her aura.  She is something
else.  A fallen angel?  Is
très
mal
.  I have not lived a hundred years by being stupid.  She is
dangerous.”

“Okay, even if you’re right, it doesn’t change anything.  I
am bound to her.  We have to find a way to make the best of it.”

Urvashi entered Aaron and Michelle’s hotel suite with
divinely impeccable timing.

Michelle snarled,
“
Quand on parle
du loup!
” 
Speak of the devil.

Urvashi held her hands in the air with an exultant grin.  “And
here I am.”

“Ladies, can’t we just get along?”  One of these days he’d
have a wicked catfight on his hands.  And it’d be ugly.  Inevitable.

“Of course.  I just came to make sure you two were ready for
our next big adventure.”  Urvashi’s static powered fingertips traced his
shoulder.  “I hope you appreciate how much trouble you have been.  Beyond
her.”  Urvashi pointed towards Michelle, as if it was so horrible to tolerate
her presence.  Aaron’s autonomy with Michelle had been granted by Urvashi,
begrudgingly, at his steadfast insistence.

The severity of his master’s eyes spoke to serious
business.  “I called in favors on this one.  Albanians are not easy to deal
with.  But I happen to know people who spent some time in Kosovo.  They have
dealt with the KLA and the mafia families before.”

“Friends in low places?”

“Unfortunately, yes.  We meet them tomorrow night.  Bring
the katanas.”

“What good are swords against guns?”

“Just bring them.”

* * * *

The following night Urvashi, Aaron, and Michelle piled into a
taxi to go for a ride.  Michelle patted Aaron’s leg with a knowing smile when
Urvashi directed the taxi driver back to Soho.  Aaron recalled Michelle’s
little tutorial the first time they hit that neighborhood.  “This is the
cesspit of London.  Strip clubs, prostitution, black market deals.  It will be
fun.”  She had grinned in anticipation.

Aaron thought it would be interesting at the very least. 
“Sounds like my kinda place.”

Now, Urvashi was taking them back to the cesspit, to her
friends
.

Staring out the taxi window, he took it all in as they
passed through Chinatown and into Soho.  He couldn’t really tell the difference
from one to another, it all looked much the same.  The sign high up on a wall
said ‘Brewer Street.’

He wriggled, trying to get comfortable with a katana sheath
digging into his back. 
Fucking swords
.  How crazy is that?  Urvashi had
trained him with a katana for several weeks in Paris, but since coming to
London to hunt Jamison, they’d had no practice time.

“Who are these people?”

Urvashi ignored him.

“Vash, who are we meeting?”

“As you said, ‘Friends in low places,’ mercenaries.”

“Oh, I bet the swords will really impress them.”

“Perhaps.”

Michelle stayed silent, wrapped around his arm.  He’d been
pressuring her hard to maintain congeniality with Urvashi.  She kept her eyes
fixed on the passing scene outside.

The taxi stopped at a boarded up storefront with apartments
above.  The seemingly abandoned building was sandwiched between a Thai massage
parlor and a sex shop showcasing brilliant red BDSM latex and all kinds of
interesting accessories.  The place caught his eye immediately.

He tapped at the glass, pointing at the sex shop, and
teased, “Are those nipple clamps?  That’s just what you need, Michelle, a
crotchless latex bodysuit, and electrified nipple clamps.”

She grinned, no objections.  He knew she’d buy it if he asked
her to.  As of late, Michelle seemed to have lost the ability to say
no
to him.  She’d wear it too. 
Oh so tempting
.

“Whoever said the English are conservative must have missed
Brewer Street.”

Icy fingers of wind howled and scraped across Aaron’s
exposed face and ears as he stepped out into the sidewalk, the ladies right
behind him.  Burrowing into the high collar of his pea coat to ward off the
wind-chill, he thought they should be in Miami, on the beach, feeding on drunken
tourists.  England was a cold bitch in December.

Urvashi tried the door and found it unlocked.  “Come, they
are waiting for us.”

The wind followed them in and whisked the dust off the
floors of the mostly vacant room.  To one side hung a heavy boxing bag and a
faded target board mounted on the wall.  Two knives stood out from the center
of the bullseye.

Maybe the swords were a good idea.

A large grey-blond man sauntered in and stared at them with
a steely gaze.  “Well, what do we have here?  A couple of leeches?  Americans
suck.  But American vampires ...”

“Definitely leeches.”  A dark-haired woman with pale skin
and a similar grey-blue gaze stepped out from behind the man to glare at the
trio.  “Smells like walking death.”

Urvashi slid up on the man, her electric fingers stroking
over his shoulders to embrace him in a warm hug.  “It’s been a while, Ivan. 
Please have patience.  Trust me.”

Aaron snorted derision.  “I don’t know what you smell, but
this dusty shithole reeks of wet dog.”  He glanced around looking for the mangy
mutt.

Both Ivan and the woman growled, as if they’d been
personally offended.  “You are asking much, woman.”  Ivan complained to Urvashi
as he stared down Aaron and Michelle.

“So glad to meet your
friends,
Urvashi.”  Aaron
wondered why everything with Urvashi had to be so damn complicated.

Urvashi held Ivan’s scruffy chin like that of a petulant
child, a three hundred pound muscle-bound, petulant child.  “If you want to
hunt a vampire, then you will have to work with these two.”

“Why not kill all three?”  Ivan winked at Aaron and
Michelle.

As the word
kill
left Ivan’s lips, Aaron snapped both
swords down from the inverted sheaths strapped to the center of his back, his
hands suddenly full of surgical-sharp Japanese steel.  “I’d just as soon cut
you in half right now.”

He tried to pierce Ivan’s mind with his telepathic probe,
and hit a solid wall.  The woman was no different.  They’d been trained to
defend their thoughts against mental intrusion.

Aaron whispered low to Michelle, “You take her.  I got him. 
And be careful, they are more than they seem.”  Yet again, he wished for his
psychic bond with Michelle, so he could communicate all these little nuances by
instant thought.  They had once been so deeply connected that he couldn’t tell
where he ended and Michelle began.

“Nice blades.  Too bad you brought blades to a gunfight. 
Not smart.”  Ivan pulled out an Uzi from behind his back and shoved a foot-long
clip from his cargo pocket into the handgrip of the gun.

“Stop this now!”  Urvashi moved in between Aaron and Ivan –
hands splayed out towards each of them.  “Lock down the testosterone for a
minute.  We are here to pursue a common enemy.  We both need something from
each other.  Let us negotiate as men and women, not animals.”

Aaron noticed Ivan and Katya carried the same strange
coloration in their auras as Urvashi’s manservant, Renault.  These two were
definitely something more than human, and the wet dog stink was emanating from
them.

“We know what we are, but what the fuck are you?”  Aaron
slid the tip of his blade past Urvashi’s shoulder towards Ivan.  The seconds
stretched past in tension-filled silence.  Blood pumped in his ears with the
thud of his heart.  It was strangling.

Michelle sniffed the air.  A look of pure hatred crossed her
face.  Her snarl set the hairs on the back of Aaron’s neck jumping.  She lunged
forward with her jaw unhinged and claws at the ready.  Aaron caught her with
his left arm, sword in hand.  He strained to stop her advance as she screeched. 
“They are animals!”  Michelle hissed right in his ear, fighting against his
strength.

The pale, dark-haired woman snapped back.  “We are hunters. 
We hunt creatures like you.  And though your flesh tastes gamey, nasty, we’ll
gladly eat you for lunch.”  Her nose curled up.  “We eat vampires on
principle.”

Michelle spat venom at her. 
“
Mange merde et mourir
.” 
Eat shit and die
.

Aaron pushed harder to move her back away, conscious of her
snapping teeth, all too close to him.

Ivan growled, leaning forward with barely contained
aggression.  “We are wolves – the Volki of Siberia, and you should be afraid.” 
His words sparked a memory.

Aaron and Michelle looked at each other, both grasping the
same recollection.  They had once shared minds, relived the tale of Michelle’s
life in Paris during WWII.  She had encountered an unusual pack of wolves in
the middle of the battlefield.  Four of them stalked her out into the
countryside, standing all the way to her chest, with glossy black pelts and
unusual amber-golden eyes.  Weak and disoriented from gunshot wounds, they
circled and attacked simultaneously.  Aaron knew Michelle’s agony as their
teeth tore through her flesh and bone.  Those animals were big, strong,
unnaturally so.

Michelle had fought with every ounce of strength and fury,
an insane frenzy of slashing claws and gnashing teeth.  She survived to stagger
away from the encounter, barely able to keep her feet.

Watching the pair of them closely, their eyes had shifted
from pale blue-grey to a jaundiced yellow.  A twinge of intuition clicked into
place.  These two might be related to the pack that attacked Michelle all those
years ago.  Probably not a coincidence.

Aaron glared at the two wet dogs.  “Sure, it’s easy to
target one lone woman wandering through the countryside in the middle of a war
when you’ve got your whole dog pack behind you.  But the odds are even now.  And
I’ll cut you both to pieces if you ever threaten Michelle again.”

The woman’s eyes bulged, and the truth dawned across her
face.  “You!”  She lunged around Urvashi, straight for Michelle.  “Murdering
bitch!  I’ll tear you to pieces and chew the marrow from your bones!”

“Not happening.”  Aaron’s blade sang through the air to
score a line across her throat, stopping her in mid-stride.

Ivan’s machine pistol popped over the top of the woman’s
shoulder, aimed straight for Aaron’s chest.  Aaron froze.

Ivan whispered soft and calm.  “Stand down, Katya.  I know
you want revenge, but we didn’t come for this.”  When she didn’t move he yelled
in her ear, “I said stand down!”

Her throat visibly constricted.  Aaron could see the battle
waging insider her, and finally, her stance softened.  Ivan’s pistol never wavered
as she backed up two steps.  He was prepared to kill.

Fucking swords in a gun fight.  Damn Urvashi.

Katya still wanted her pound of flesh.  “She killed Andrei! 
How can you stand to look at her?  You were there!  You remember the sight of
her, covered in blood, a filthy murderer!”

Ivan slid his arm around Katya, and pulled her back as he
stepped her beyond the reach of Aaron’s sword.  “And we almost killed her.  She
is lucky.  Andrei has been gone seventy years.  Nothing will change that.”

In her emotional turmoil, Katya’s mental block slipped. 
Aaron dived in and caught a whole new perspective.  In Katya’s mind, he saw a
wretched creature with matted blonde hair in a shredded white dress, covered in
blood from head to toe, completely feral, a wild animal with fangs and claws
bared, hissing like a viper, spitting venom.  This monster, Michelle, could not
be beaten.  Over and over again they came at her, from different angles, hoping
to catch her off guard and take her down.  She was too strong, too fast, her
insanity had given her such wicked strength and speed.  Katya’s brother Andrei
was one of the best, most fierce of hunters, but he didn’t last more than a few
seconds against Michelle.  This screaming banshee sliced Andrei to bloody
ribbons and snapped his neck.

A bare-handed butcher.

Katya’s vivid memory sent a chill down Aaron’s spine and
churned his gut.  It was all so fuzzy in Michelle’s mind.  She barely
remembered those days when she had lost her mind, lost her way, and somehow
found a way back to sanity.  But to Katya, it was one of the most traumatic
things she had ever witnessed.  The emotional scar from Michelle’s dance of
death with Katya’s wolf pack ran deep through Katya’s psyche.  It pained her to
this day.  And there was something ugly lurking beneath the surface of her
renewed grief.

Hatred – plain, simple loathing.

Katya’s mental shields slammed closed, barring him from her
mind.  He didn’t catch the full reasons, but Katya vehemently hated vampires. 
She would slaughter them all if given half the chance.

And didn’t Ivan say Siberia?  Ivan and Katya?  Russian mercenaries.

Fuck.

What were Russian werewolves doing in London?  Was Urvashi’s
servant, Renault, part of their pack?  He and Renault had never gotten along. 
Since arriving in London, Urvashi had dispatched her servant to some business
elsewhere and Aaron was glad for it.  They were all better off without dogs
sniffing around.

“This isn’t going to work, Vash.  They hate us.”

“You do not know me, don’t pretend.” Ivan warned in his
heavy Slavic accent.

Aaron looked pointedly at Katya, still restrained by Ivan’s
hefty embrace.  And now that he really looked at her, he saw something he
wished he hadn’t – a resemblance to his deceased wife.  With her higher cheek
bones, and that Eastern European chin, she reminded him of Anastasia, his Snow
White.  The only difference was Katya’s dark hair cropped short above the
shoulders.  Ana’s hair had been luxuriously long, he’d loved running his
fingers through it.  The likeness stung deep.

This woman, who hated his guts and wanted his severed head,
would be a constant reminder of the wife he had loved and lost in Las Vegas.

“Stop staring at me or I’ll gouge your eyes out,
iobanie strigoi
!
”  Katya growled low in her throat, an
animal sound that buried into Aaron’s skin.

“You must guard yourself, Katya.”  Urvashi slipped her hand
over Katya’s cheek in an affectionate warning.  “Or he will be in your head,
stealing all your dirty little secrets.”  She winked at Aaron.

Aaron had dug into Urvashi’s head only once, by mistake.  That
brief glimpse had revealed millenniums of Urvashi’s life.  She was the most
inhuman creature he had ever met, existing apart from the great rat race of the
world – an immortal observer of mankind’s penchant for repeating the same
mistakes over and over again.

“Are we going to play nice now?”  Urvashi’s face turned
solemn, and the weight of her expectations settled on Aaron’s shoulders.

He sheathed his twenty-four inch blades.

Michelle inhaled as if to say something incendiary.  Aaron
stilled her with a hand on her shoulder and a look.

Finally, he nodded to Urvashi, and sensed her satisfaction
that they were getting somewhere.

Ivan pulled Katya tighter into a hug and whispered, “Leave
the dead in their graves.  We have a murdering vampire to hunt.”  Jaw clenched,
she glared at Michelle and Aaron, then nodded.

Ivan patted her on the shoulder and grinned at Aaron.  “So
what’s this I hear about Albanians?”

* * * *