The Shopgirl's Prophecy (Beasts of Vegas Book 1) (31 page)

“No.” Connor didn’t like talking about Ali with Volk. She was none of his business.

“But she’s not human, either, is she?”

“That’s enough.” He shot Volk a warning look. He wasn’t going to listen to criticism of Ali. He couldn’t handle it on top of the jumpy suspense rattling through him.

“She glows.”

So, Volk couldn’t take a hint. Fine. “Do you even have a plan? Because the only thing I know about you,
brother
, is you’re a great liar.”

Maks inspected the nails on his left hand. “I’m a survivalist.”

“Fine. What is your plan?”

Maks grew more serious. “He’ll be waiting for me, and he’ll be furious when I show up without Anya. But he’ll want to see us. We attack the moment he comes at me.” He peered thoughtfully at Connor. “Are you any good at killing your own kind?”

Connor nearly laughed aloud. Instead, he pulled the handgun from the rear waistband of his jeans and rested it on his thigh. “It’s a .45. You ever see one of these rounds blow through a body?”

Maks rolled his eyes. “Useless against the Big Man. You need a knife. Don’t worry, I have a spare.” He reached for his boot.

“I have a knife,” Connor snapped. Did he think he was an amateur?

Volk laid his hands flat on his knees. “Good. Carve him up from navel to neck, and don’t stop until you have his heart in your hands. You understand? Tear out his guts as fast as you can—intestines, liver, kidneys. He’ll keep fighting until you remove his heart or his head.”

Connor’s stomach roiled. This guy had allied himself with the Destroyer twenty-five years ago, and now he’d cut him in half without thinking twice. Not that Olek didn’t deserve it and worse, but the big picture became clear in Connor’s mind, like a strike of lightning in the dark.

Volk was about furthering Volk, and nothing else. He didn’t act unless it benefitted him, and damn whoever got hurt along the way. Like Ali’s mom. Like Ali. Like countless other victims. And now Olek, too. Maks didn’t give a shit about anyone but himself, certainly not him. Chances were, Connor would help kill Olek, and Volk would turn and gut him first chance he got.

“Olek dies,” Connor said, “and then what?”

Volk grinned. “Then we are free, brother.”

“You take over as the new warlord in town?”

His grin faded. “I haven’t really thought about it.”

Right
. In the quarter of a century he’d supposedly been hatching this plan, he’d never considered what happened ten minutes after he succeeded? “How will the other infecteds react?”

Volk’s smile disappeared completely. “They may fight back.”

“We’ll have to kill them, too?”

“Yes.”

“So, I’ll kill Olek, kill his loyalists, and when I’m done you’ll stab me in the back. Literally.”

That surprised Maks. He didn’t have a snappy comeback. “We have a deal, brother.”

“I’m not your brother,” Connor growled. “You expect me to go in there and do this for you—”

“For us. You want him dead, too.”

“—so you can rise up in his place? If I survive the next twenty minutes, I have to return and kill you next. Then another infected pops up like a whack-a-mole. And another, and another, and another.” Blood would flow without end.

“How adorable,” Volk sneered. “You think you could kill me.”

Connor didn’t answer. They both knew Maks wasn’t operating at full strength. Connor could own him without much effort at all.

Volk began to sweat. “Anya wouldn’t like that, and you know it. You saw her face when I told her about her mother.”

Connor gripped the steering wheel and groaned. “Ali was right all along. I’ll be fighting you bastards the rest of my life. It never ends.” And he’d left Ali standing there. God, the look in her eyes. She’d never forgive him. And he didn’t blame her. Somehow, he had to get back.

Lamplight glowed from inside St. Peter’s Hospital like an oasis in the desert. He drove within half a mile.

“Stop the truck.” Volk scanned left to right, squinting at the chain-link fence circling a maze of concrete buildings. “I guarantee we’ve been seen.” He turned in his seat, a dark, desperate look in his eyes. “Ready?”

The fact that he had to ask should have alerted him to the obvious truth.

Connor shook his head, a slow and deliberate back and forth.

“Don’t wuss out on me now,” Volk snapped, grabbing the dash and turning on him. “We have a deal. You can’t send me back in there alone. He’ll kill me, but he’ll kill Anya first. And in front of me.”

“I’ve made my decision.” Connor shifted into reverse. “Get the fuck out of my truck.”

“I’ll cut your throat, you little piece of—”

Connor flicked his wrist and fired a round from his .45 into Volk’s abdomen. Blood painted the passenger window. But the other man shook it off, and then moved ridiculously fast, slamming the back of Connor’s skull through the driver side window. Glass exploded.

Connor squeezed the trigger and fired a second time. Maks made an agonized sound and slumped unconscious into Connor’s lap. For a second, Connor couldn’t move, stuck in a sort of shocky state. His head hurt, but he was okay. The same couldn’t be said for Maksim Volk, whose back was a bloody mess. Connor leaned over the still breathing vampire, opened the passenger door, and shoved him out into the dirt.

“You’re right. Ali wouldn’t like it if I killed you.” Connor yanked the door shut. “You’ll live.”

#

Ali allowed Roz to sit on the floor for a long time because she didn’t know what the hell to do, let alone how to help the witch. She made eye contact with a stuffed deer, and stared so long her vision blurred.

He’d left. After everything they’d been through and talked about, after confessing her love for the jerk, Connor still left. As if she meant nothing. As if his agenda was all that mattered. Screw that. She mattered, damn it.

Finally, Roz rallied and stood. She grabbed a backpack and stuffed a couple shirts into it.

“What are you doing?” Ali asked.

She paused. “I don’t know. But I’m not staying here. If Volk could find us, so can Olek. No offense, but you’re sort of a powder puff, and we just lost our muscle.”

“Connor’s an idiot,” Ali vented, her voice unnecessarily loud. It felt good to yell.

“Yeah.” She continued packing.

“He’s stubborn,” Ali accused.

“Yeah.”

“And selfish and ridiculous and idiotic—”

“You said that one already.” Roz smirked.

“I think it’s worth repeating.”

He was all those things, but Ali still cared about the big dummy. And she couldn’t stand around waiting for him to die. She glanced at the weapons stacked and sorted around the room. “Grab the biggest, meanest weapons we’ve got,” she said.

“What?” Roz looked up. “Why?”

“We’ll take Volk’s Jeep. You know how to hotwire a car, right?” Ali palmed her Ruger and checked the clip. Full. “We’re going after Connor. He doesn’t have to do this alone, no matter what he says.”

“Okay.” Roz released an audible sigh of relief. “Right.”

Ali picked up a shotgun and a box of shells. “This is badass, right?”

“Hmm.” Roz cracked a smile. “It’s a start, but we can go bigger. How’d you like to use a flame thrower?”

#

Anya was more beautiful than Maks had imagined, certainly more beautiful than her photo ID implied. She was the mirror image of his little bird, the one thing she’d inherited from Uri being his blonde hair. He hadn’t expected that. If only the girl wasn’t in love with a total asshole.

Screw that arrogant kid. Connor Beckett had just catapulted to the top of Maks’ Feel My Wrath list. He’d deal with him soon—slowly and methodically, wringing lots and lots of pleasure from Connor’s agony. He’d break a bone for every drop of blood Maks had lost because of him. An inexperienced torturer might wonder whether the kid had enough bones. Didn’t matter. Maks would find enough.

A car skidded to a stop behind Maks and people jumped out. He should run for it because he knew from their scent that this was no Christian group out on a soul-saving mission. These were vampires, but he was too woozy from being shot,
again
, to stand up.

Somehow, from flat on his back, he had to talk himself out of a beheading.

The Destroyer ground his boot against Maks’ throat, flattening him to the ground. This was
so
not his day.

“Where is she?”

Maks mouthed the word past crushed vocal chords. “Escaped.”

Olek pressed harder. Muscles tore. Bones shifted. Maks jerked in pain, his hands scrabbling at the boot, but he might as well try to move a mountain.

He needed to talk to Olek without his new lap dogs sniffing around. He needed to explain things, in private, and turn the situation around. He could make Olek understand that Anya wasn’t important, that the invasion of Vegas was where he needed to focus. He’d smooth things over. He’d take his punishment. Everything would go back to the way it was, albeit with some new tension, but that would fade with time. He’d rise again. This wasn’t the end of Maksim Volk.

But they weren’t alone. He recognized Damian, Olaf, and Lisbeth. Killers, every one. Nearly mindless, especially Olaf, they worshipped Oleksander like a living god. But Maks hadn’t spent the last quarter of a century securing his position to be replaced so easily.

“I gave you a chance.” Olek backed off, and Maks sucked in air, coughing uncontrollably. “Now, I will find Anya.” The Destroyer gestured for his minions to haul Volk away. “Keep him in the cage until I return.”

No. No more punishments. Olek’s little games were deadly. Body parts sawed off. Some fed back to you. All sorts of creative torture. Maks wouldn’t survive, not in his pathetic condition.

“No!” He coughed and sputtered, but the best he could produce was a raw squeak of protest. It was the closest he’d come to a whimper in a quarter of a century.

Olek’s face flushed with pure rage. “You failed me!” He swung, his fist hitting Volk’s face with the force of a jackhammer. His right eye burst, and his vision fractured into red and orange fireworks. His head snapped back, and his body went numb from the neck down.

“I will hurt you like you’ve hurt me.” The Destroyer loomed over him, but his image flickered. He leaned close enough to blow his hot breath in Volk’s face. “And I will make you scream.”

All the remaining light in the world was fading…fading…fading…

…to black.

#

Fifteen minutes to Vegas, Connor came upon a fast-moving yellow Jeep running at him head-on. He stopped fast, his rear end skidding to the right, and he hopped out. The other car’s doors opened, and his girls climbed out. He saw Roz in his periphery, but he couldn’t take his eyes off Alina. She was armed with a flamethrower, the fuel pack strapped to her back.

That’s my girl.

“Are you coming to kill me?” he asked, not exactly kidding. They looked like a couple of heartless mercenaries trussed up for war.

 “We were coming to save you,” she called back. “What happened?”

“Change of plans,” Connor said. “We’re getting the hell out of Nevada. Now. Together.”

“Good plan,” Ali agreed.

“Ditch the Jeep,” he said, turning his back on them. There wasn’t a lot of time. “My truck’s faster. Roz, you’re driving.”

“Screw you. I’m not taking orders from you anymore.”

He deserved that. And a hell of a lot more. He glanced over his shoulder. Roz stared at him like she wanted to eviscerate him.

“I’m sorry.” He lowered his voice, and said it again. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re saying that a lot lately.”

“I was trying to keep you alive. You know I’d never put my hands on you.”

“But you did.”

“I’m sorry.”

Roz took a deep, chest-swelling breath and exhaled. “Fine. Let’s go.” She grabbed a duffel bag from the Jeep, set it in the bed of the Ford, and helped Ali out of the flamethrower contraption. It followed the other weapons into the truck.

Ali tried to go around him, but he grabbed her by the arm. She wrestled him like a wildcat. “Stop it,” she snapped. “I’m pissed at you.”

“You were right,” he said, keeping a firm hold on her. “I should have listened to you from the beginning. Volk wasn’t going to help me. He was going to use me, and then dispose of me.”

“Of course he was, dummy. A blind man could see that.” She ceased struggling.

“We can’t fight the infection with violence,” Connor said.

“No shit.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t listen sooner.”

“Yeah, well. Good.” Ali glanced away and down. “Did you kill him?”

“No. But I shot him. Twice.”

“He probably deserved it.”

Somewhere down the road, past the clumps of sagebrush, Connor heard a poorly tuned engine in high gear. His stomach clenched, acid pooling in his guts. Too soon. The horde had caught up.

“They’re coming,” he announced, his pulse kicking into overdrive. There was no cover. “Get a weapon in your hands.”

Fuck it. He was faster. He darted for the pickup, grabbed a rifle and tossed it at Roz. She fumbled it, swearing loudly. He tucked his .45 down the front of his jeans, but then he remembered what Volk had said about killing an infected. He couldn’t find his Bowie knife, though, and didn’t have time to look for it. He grabbed a pair of 9 mil’s and pushed them into Ali’s hands.

Connor didn’t need to see behind him to know the vehicle had stopped a hundred feet or so down the road and three vampires approached on foot. He stared into her eyes, willing some of his strength to flow into her.

“Shoot them. Don’t pause to think.”

Ali’s eyes brimmed with anxiety. “You mean fight? Here?”

“There’s no point in running. They’ll never stop hunting you.”

“How do you know?”

“It’s what I would do.” Those vampires would push their hunk of junk until the engine exploded. And then they’d run like animals for miles and miles to find her. “Roz, juice up.”

The vampires were slowly closing in. “I’ll do everything I can to protect you.” Connor hugged Ali briefly. “I love you too.”

Time was up.

He turned, pushing Ali behind him, and faced three vampires. Oleksander stood apart. On his left was a freakishly tall redheaded bastard. The third infected was a woman, the same one from their previous meeting in an alley behind a grocery store. The vamp who’d nearly sucked him dry. She smiled a hungry, mocking smile, clearly remembering him.