The Shopgirl's Prophecy (Beasts of Vegas Book 1) (13 page)

“So, I’ll be on my way,” Alina said.

Connor shook his head. “Not yet.”

“Why not?” She’d put in her time. She’d jumped through their stupid lie detector hoops. Enough was enough.

Roz shuffled her papers. “Because you’re walking vampire catnip. You’re not going anywhere until we figure out why.”

“If I leave the country tonight, none of this matters.” No vampires in England. Problem solved.

“You could help us get to the Boss Man. Your prophecy, remember?”

If they refused to release her, she’d be forced to ditch a newly infected vampire and his very pissed off bestie to get out of the country. Not exactly a simple proposition.

Truthfully—Ali wouldn’t admit it to Roz, though—she was a tiny bit curious about this Anya stuff. It could have something to do with her dad’s super secret, off-the-books safe deposit box. And she wasn’t technically due home for another four days. What was a couple more in search of her dad’s secrets and her uncle’s motive for linking her to a vampire prophecy?

Roz read the indecision in her eyes. “Let’s go, then.”

“You can find out what it means?” she clarified. “You can tell me for sure if I’m Anya?”

“That’s the plan. But in the morning,” Connor said, his gaze lingering on Ali’s face. “You haven’t slept.”

She shrugged. Not since her uncle’s house. A lifetime ago.

“So we’ll camp here and hit the road in the morning,” Roz said.

Ali forced a weak smile. “Okay. I’ll give you another day.”

The clinic was dark and deserted when they ambled back in. A tumbleweed could have blown by and it wouldn’t have been out of place. Maria must have put together the clues behind Connor’s speedy recovery and made a break to safer ground. She’d left a note, though, on the inside of the front door.

If you’re not all gone by morning, I’ll be back with a grenade launcher.

—M

“I like her style.” Roz chuckled, wadding the note and tossing it behind the desk in the general vicinity of a trashcan. “I can sleep out here.” She gestured to the dumpy chairs reserved for visitors and waiting patients.

“You two will sleep in an exam room,” Connor said, in a do-not-fuck-with-me tone. “One with a lock on the door.”

Ali’s eyebrows rose sharply. “Where will you be?” He expected her to go beddy-bye while a brand new infected roamed around the building? A single, hollow door wouldn’t keep him out for even a second if he wanted to get in. She remembered the hatchback car folding like cardboard under his attacks.

“The truck.”

“Oh.” Still not cool. And totally not safe.

Connor held up a hand for quiet, tilting his head to the side. And then she heard it, too. An engine. Footsteps. Her pulse kick-started. Please, no more trouble. The front door swung open and a uniformed medic strolled in. Connor’s ride was here.

Connor inched around Ali, putting himself between her and their guest. But the driver didn’t look threatening. In fact, he wore very shiny black shoes and about half a gallon of gel in his combed hair, but he had a nice face. He acknowledged each of them, but spoke in Spanish to Connor. Roz stepped forward and answered for him.

Ali whispered, “She speaks Spanish?”

The ambulance driver said something in an exasperated tone and thrust a clipboard at Roz. She signed it, and then he left.

“That was the transport from Vegas?” The one meant to drive a critically ill Connor to a real hospital for recovery. Except things hadn’t worked out that way.

“What did you tell them?” he asked.

Roz crossed the room, headed out. “I told him the man he came for is dead and buried.” She rushed past them, shutting the door behind her. Something like pain flashed in Connor’s eyes, and then he followed his friend outside.

Ali sat in one of the waiting area chairs, not even wanting to know what those two were up to. Besides tying her to some random prophecy, of course. Anya from Nadvirna. Why would her father take one secret to his grave, literally, but her uncle seemingly reveal another? Had her family really believed she and Anya were the same person?

Connor stomped back in hauling sleeping bags, blankets, and a couple backpacks from the truck. And then he chose a room.

It was surprisingly cozy. Warm, butter-colored paint. Tile floors. A faint smell of cleaning fluid. Ali could handle it for one night.

The witch called dibs on the gurney, not even pausing a split second to check if Ali minded. Nope, just dumped her packs on the bed and claimed it. Ali put together a pallet against the wall farthest from the door. It wasn’t so bad. The tiles were hard, but they were cool to the touch.

Connor inspected the space like a man obsessed. He quietly double-checked Roz’s loaded weapon. Just in case. Then he fiddled with the door. It had a lock, but not a deadbolt, so he broke apart a table and created a wedge to barricade the door from the inside. Then he packed and re-packed a canvas sack full of toiletries. When he stood up again, he had a gun in his hand.

“Ali,” he said quietly, edging into her corner. “This is for you.”

She stared at the thing, not even wanting to touch it. She wasn’t a gun lover, had always believed owning weapons led to dangerous accidents.

“No more pretending,” he said, deadly serious. “The infection is stronger than I am. Everyone gets a weapon, and everyone carries it at all times.” He swallowed. “Do you know how to use this?”

She shook her head. Of course not. She worked in a jewelry shop not a firing range.

“K.” He took another step, moving in close enough that she felt the heat coming off him like a stove. “This is a Ruger LCP. It’s semi automatic, so it’s fast, and it fires six shots from a magazine. .380 caliber. It’s easy to use. I’ll show you.”

He released the magazine, clicked it into place, and then chambered a round. “Now you show me.” He handed her the gun. It was pretty, if handguns could be considered attractive. It was blue and small, about six inches long and half as tall. She went through all the steps, finally placing her finger lightly on the trigger.

Connor whispered, “If the door opens, shoot at it until you’re out of ammo.” He was so earnest, his eyes dark and sincere. He didn’t look like a killer at all.

The intruder she pictured wasn’t him, but Maksim Volk beating down the door. After all, anybody could stumble upon them. Somebody like a vicious, bloodthirsty vampire. Oh, wait. She was going to camp out with one of those. Right. Her life was on a great trajectory. Just super.

“You think that’s going to happen?” she asked.

“I might…do something.”

Her stomach dropped, and she backed away, bumping into the wall. He’d only woken up infected hours ago. And he hadn’t fed. How bad were his cravings?

“To us?”

“No.” Connor looked aghast. “To myself. To keep me out for a while.”

“You mean hurt yourself?” Oh, God. Ali imagined him shot, bleeding, or hanging from a tree.

“Nothing permanent.”

He’d already been hurt today. Horribly hurt. She couldn’t stand the thought of him in more pain. “Please don’t do that. I’ll never be able to sleep if I think that.”

“It’s all so surreal.” He shook his head slowly. “It’s like I’m just standing around waiting for the switch to flip. Boom, I’m a monster.”

The switch had been flipped. The monster was out. “If Olek and Volk can control it, so can you.”

“But they’ve had decades of practice. I’ve had a couple hours.” Connor squeezed her upper arms, maybe harder than he knew. “Get some sleep. You’ll feel better in the morning.”

“Okay.” What she really wanted to say, was,
You scared me today. When you went down, when you wouldn’t wake up, when you stopped breathing—I thought I was watching you die.

All trace of humor gone, she set the Ruger on the floor beside her pallet of blankets. He tsked, picked it up, and showed her how to easily conceal it in the front pocket of her borrowed shorts. But it was cold and heavy against her leg. Besides, it would be exactly her luck to shoot herself through the crotch. As soon as he settled down, she’d stash it in a backpack or something.

Ali wasn’t going to shoot him anyway. He could give her all the lessons he wanted to. He could certify her a professional sharpshooter, but it wouldn’t make a bit of difference. She’d become a vegetarian for a reason. Violence wasn’t in her blood.

Connor hadn’t even passed out of sight before Roz descended. She caught up to him in the hallway. If they started kissing, Ali was out of there. Just friends, her ass.

She listened to their hushed voices through the open door.

“This isn’t working. We need a new plan.” Roz.

“What are you talking about?” Connor.

“You almost died today.”

“I wasn’t—”

“Don’t bullshit me.”

“It’s not the first time I lost a fight.”

“Are you trying to get yourself killed?” Her voice broke. “I couldn’t get to you fast enough.”

“You knew what you were signing up for.”

“I didn’t know you’d run off the first chance you got to face Oleksander by yourself.” Roz’s voice rose by degrees, as if she’d forgotten they had an audience. “Haven’t I proven myself?” she complained. “I thought we were a team. We attacked the army base together. Why would you run off and leave me like that?”

“I couldn’t risk getting you hurt, too.”

“I’m here to help you. Let me help!”

Shuffling feet. Ew.
Please say they’re not holding each other
.

“I wouldn’t do anything differently,” Connor said.

Roz sighed, long and loudly. “Fine, but killing infecteds to draw Olek out of hiding isn’t working. He’s not coming. We can stay here, kill vampires the rest of our short lives, but it won’t get us any closer to the Destroyer.”

“Luring him out is the only option.”

“Then think of a new carrot. What we’re doing obviously isn’t tempting him. At all. He wasn’t there this morning for us. I’m starting to think he was there for her.”

More rustling. “Let’s talk about it in the morning.”

“Sure. Good-night.”

Before he left, Ali called, “Um, Connor?”

He grunted from the doorway.

“Tomorrow, can we drive by my uncle’s house to collect my purse?”

Silence. “Didn’t we already get your purse out of the bus?”

“Yeah, well, there was a lot of stuff going on. I left it in Paradise. Not on purpose,” she rushed to add. “But it’s there.”

Roz made a lot of unnecessary noise pulling out a pair of pajama bottoms.

“Okay,” he finally answered. “It’s on the way. Sort of.”

“Thanks.”

“K. I’m going. Lock this door. And remember what I said.”

She patted her bulging pocket. He nodded and left.

Roz locked the door, and then barricaded it with the wooden wedge.

Ali took off her shoes, socks, and borrowed shorts. The gun went in one of the shoes in the corner.

Rolling onto her back, Ali stared at the ceiling. She would not cry. So what if she was scared and jumpy and achingly alone? So what if Connor was infected and might try to break their necks at any moment? So what if she was stranded in a foreign country with no money, no passport, and no phone? She was a big girl, and she would not cry. Not in front of the witch.

#

If Maks didn’t collect Anya himself, if one of these other two animals carried her to Olek first, he might as well not return to the Destroyer’s lair at all. The penalty was death. No trial. No community service. Just dead. Which really pissed him off. No one had any idea how hard he’d worked to gain Olek’s trust and his begrudging respect, such as it was.

Maks had been there when Oleksander murdered the other eleven lieutenants, could remember it like it was yesterday. Olek’s plan to overrun the world with his three brothers and twelve ravenous warriors at his side had gone up in flames. Because he’d infected men randomly. There had been no calculated acquisitions.

Oleksander was a Big Picture thinker, not a details man. After one year of disappointment, he cut eleven of the twelve into pieces and pissed on their remains. Maks had watched them die, his eleven brothers, having no idea until the very end that he’d survive. That, for some reason, the Destroyer favored him.

Maks had been petting and preening the Destroyer ever since, knowing deep down that, as of that day, his life was on loan.

Those had been easier times, strangely enough. After the culling, he became everything the Destroyer wanted and needed, a professional Olek pleaser. But after twenty plus years of wallowing in grief for his great, failed dream and suffering untold agony at the hands of American soldiers, Olek had become bitter on top of psychopathic.

This little game of cat and mouse over Anya felt worse than all the other games Olek had put Maks through. A sane man might tell him to take the opportunity and escape to Canada or Mexico or home to the Ukraine. A sane man would do it. But Maks’ little bird would want him to do the right thing, and he wasn’t going anywhere without Anya.

So, he drove on. Paradise was his first stop, since he’d already lost sight of his two competitors. Outside the hospital, the tow truck had careened southwest at an indecently high rate of speed. The other vehicle, a gray van, had headed southeast. Maks followed the van.

His Jeep couldn’t keep up, but it was okay. He didn’t need to keep up. He just had to get to Anya first.

Paradise was slowly waking up as he drove through. Human perseverance always surprised him. Vampires had ransacked a home here, tore up the family inside, and feasted like pigs at the trough. But instead of packing up and moving on, most people stayed put. Though they might increase the size and caliber of their arsenals.

The home in question came into view, nothing left but a foundation and charred beams rising from the earth like rotten teeth. Someone had burned it to the ground. Perhaps the neighbors. Or that boy, the over-confident pup who’d chased them down yesterday like a one-man battalion. Perhaps he’d cleaned up after them.

Ahh. His luck was turning. The gray van sat on the other side of the house. Maks parked the Jeep and slid out, drawing his only weapon, a six-inch steel blade with an engraved handle.