Wallbanger (20 page)

One arm free, Kizzie took the blade and Zlata
tried pulling against the line around her foot. “Go! Get out of
here!”

“You don’t know the way,” Zlata insisted.

“Bitch!” Sacha charged, knocking the girl
over and she shrieked. “Why are you off your knees?”

Zlata cowered, putting up a hand to block a
punch. It landed against her forearm and she hissed. He threw
another, this one connecting with the girl’s chest, rocking her
thin body back. He stalked to his table and grabbed another blade,
returned to her. “More cutting for you, puppet!”

Feeling returned to Kizzie’s body, hot and
hard, making her aware of the ache in her shoulder. Both arms
freed, she made the final cut through the rope at her foot and
stood.

Hurt like hell.

She pushed it aside.

Sacha’s back was to her, so focused on
attacking his puppet he’d forgotten she was there. The adrenaline
in her veins slightly countered the drug in her system, and, only a
bit fuzzy, she charged, hand landing on the hilt of the knife,
pushing it in deeper. He roared and arched his back, and Kizzie
yanked it out, twisting on the way. “Run!”

Zlata hesitated a second before darting
through the closest exit.

Sacha recovered quicker than she’d expected,
now standing between Kizzie and that exit. Three others to choose
from, but the girl was right—she’d be lost. She hadn’t seen
anything on the way in; he’d overtake her quickly. As crazy as it
seemed, the best tactical option given her current condition would
be to stand and fight until the man was down.

Or she was.

Battered and bruised but at least on the
floor, Kizzie was once again alone with the demented puppeteer.

* * * *

The wound was nothing. Sacha knew he had the
upper hand. This bitch did not know the routes. That’s why she
stood there like a cornered rabbit. She would panic and then he’d
finish playing with her. Might not even take the time to string her
up.

“Come, syestra.” He jumped at her, just to
make her flinch. She didn’t waver; arms down, knife held out to her
blood-streaked left side. It would only make things interesting. He
liked when his puppets had life.

He could wait her out. Eventually she would
make a move, and then he’d attack.

She didn’t rush him. Her gaze briefly strayed
to an exit, returned.

It angered him further. Even in this she was
disobedient! She should have attacked—lesser creatures would do
that. Lash out in a frenzy.

With a maniacal scream, he charged, swinging
the knife wildly, trying to strike anything he could. He just
missed slashing her stomach, but she dropped to her knees, rolled
out of the way. She was up and behind him in a matter of seconds.
Her blade scratched him at the same moment he made a wide, backward
arc with his, the quick zip of his ripped cloth nothing compared to
the satisfying drag that let him know he’d found flesh.

She recoiled and he followed with a kick to
her middle. The bitch stumbled backward, landing on the ground with
a thud.

Sacha laughed. “This is what disobedience
earns you, syestra.” His foot found her ribs—her hip, her
arm—kicking over and over until she’d curled onto one side to get
away, moaning in agony. “Next. Time. You. Listen.”

He lifted his foot to stomp down on the side
of her head. And screamed when the blade sliced cleanly through the
sinew of his arch.

Sacha fell to the ground, and she staggered
to her feet making a wild swipe at his leg before hobbled through
an exit.

That slash connected; a fiery burn erupting
over his flesh and he screamed. “I will still find you!”

It took a few moments to regain his footing,
and once he had, the pain was nothing more than a dull prick masked
mostly by the cocaine and adrenaline in his system. Hobbling, he
pushed it to the back of his mind and decided to take a different
path to block her. Only one way in or out of the chateau. She was
trying to get out—he’d meet her there.

The cunt had cut him. She would pay.

12

Gun at the ready, Xander stood pressed
against the wall of Sacha’s office, waiting for both the software
to finish and to hear back from Marchande. He wasn’t sure how many
guards had been dispatched to kill him. Leaving the room at the
moment wasn’t exactly an option. His current position gave him the
advantage should anyone come in. He’d simply turn and shoot. Didn’t
plan on sticking around for the ask questions part.

A soft beep and the computer was done with
its work. He hurried to the machine and removed the jump drive, not
bothering to turn it off. The phone vibrated and relief swept
through him.

“All clear?”

“Just the outside. Still have two in the
house with you. Want them dead?”

He did; wanted to do it himself. But anger is
louder than necessity. He could just as easily avoid conflict and
go out the window, work his way to the front. “No. Be out in—”

A loud crash to his left made his head snap
up, and Xander spun and raised the weapon, finger on the trigger.
The bookcase had fallen over.

“He…You come! Gigi…” the ghostly shadow
shrieked in English so broken he could hardly make it out. Her thin
body materialized before him, ignoring the pistol in her face and
approaching directly. “He kill…”

Zlata?
He lowered the gun a hair,
trying to follow the wisps of conversation while keeping in mind
she was Sacha’s sub and could have been sent to take him out.

“You…” She was breathing hard, struggling to
get the words out.

“Na Russkom,” he commanded.

She seemed to snap to attention, switched to
her native dialect. “Gigi. In the dungeon. Hurry or Sacha will kill
her!”

* * * *

Halfway through the tunnel, the warrior raced
to untie the ropes she’d donned for so long, replaced them with the
clothes she’d stashed almost a year ago. There were two such
extension tubes outside of the main labyrinth cut in the event of
an emergency, just wide enough for a man Sacha’s size to pass. He’d
given her the perfect out and never even suspected.

Sumi affixed the beautiful collar around her
neck and added the padlock, tucking the jewelry beneath her
clothing. A nice present for her Mistress. Maybe she’d let Sumi
keep it for the work she’d done. She tried to smile at the thought
of going home, but her tongue was swollen in her mouth. It hurt so
badly, swallowing was a problem, and she could feel the saliva
pooling at the back of her throat. Nevertheless, she was free, and
that earned a little grin.

Dressed in jeans, shirt, coat, and tennis
shoes, she jogged the last hundred meters to the exit, which ended
in a locked metal door. She pulled the key from her pocket and let
herself out—or in, as it were, stepping into one of the city’s
underground parking caverns. The door swung closed, resuming its
look as an unremarkable janitorial closet.

At a locker bank not far away, she located
box 299 and unlocked it, removed the contents—clean passport, cell
phone, and enough cash to see her home safely. According to the
digital clock on the opposite wall, she had about ten minutes until
the next metro train arrived. There were so few people at the
station this time of morning that getting lost in a crowd was
impossible. She kept her head down—an easy thing to do—and walked
toward the self-serve ticketing booth to pay her fare. Once she was
safely aboard the train, she’d make the call.

Sacha Sokoviev would finally be dead; Xander
and that bitch Gigi would join him.

And the warrior would fade away like
mist.

* * * *

Circles.

No matter which way she turned it seemed
she’d already travelled that path, and the deep breathing did
nothing to keep away the panic.

He was behind her, or maybe in front of her
now. Kizzie wasn’t sure anymore. Every channel appeared the same.
She stopped to listen, hoping to hear Sacha thrashing along after
her, but the only sound was her own blood thundering in her
ears.

Fear,
she thought, recalling Xander’s
voice during their training,
Sacha thrives on fear.

That’s why the tunnels looped round and
round; why she couldn’t seem to get out of them; why she couldn’t
hear him behind her.

He wasn’t chasing.

He was waiting.

Letting her run ragged until she was consumed
by it.

Then he’d strike.

Fear was a potent drug.

Debilitating….

Or motivating. Just a matter of
perspective.

She ignored the pains in her body, the deep
slice and bruised side, and stopped in the center of the path. One
eye had already begun to swell; closed so tightly only a sliver of
sight could be gleaned through it.

She shut it and relied on the other.

Her breathing slowed, but her heart did not
stop pounding. He was out there, stalking her. He’d catch her—she
might as well get used to that fact. But he didn’t know how she’d
react.

And he didn’t know about Sumi’s bomb….

Another step forward and her knee wobbled,
nearly buckled, but held. She took another, and another, hobbling
along with a hand on the rock wall for support. A few feet ahead,
the tunnel opened up, dropping her in a new cubby. She’d chosen
incorrectly the last two times. At least that’s what she assumed,
because she wasn’t out from under, and her internal compass clued
her in that she’d travelled east to southwest already.

Paused for a breath, Kizzie felt her skin
tingle—
behind you!
—and immediately turned and swung, fist
connecting with flesh. Her adrenaline spiked, and she followed with
her right arm, remembering too late the dislocation, and it dropped
like dead weight at her side. She was too hurt to scream, kicked
out with her good leg and stumbled to the floor.

“…me!”

The voice barely registered, the tight grip
holding her up by her shoulders doing more harm than good. She
caught a brief glimpse of his face and stopped fighting.

“He back there?” Xander asked, turning to
move the way she’d just come.

She latched on to a fistful of his shirt and
tugged with what strength she could. Then Kizzie started walking
again. Didn’t matter that she staggered, so long as she kept going.
Didn’t know if he understood her or not. She had to move.
Survival at all costs.

Zlata overtook her. Xander scooped her up,
loping the dead weight that was her arm over his shoulder.

She grit her teeth. She wouldn’t give in to
it now.

They traversed another set of tunnels and
ducked into an anteroom she’d never have found on her own.

Then the ground shook and the tunnels
collapsed.

13

Marchande yanked a beanie down over his ears,
dampening the sole sound of the hot air blowing through the vents.
He stepped from the car, boots crunching in the snow as he headed
toward the lit building.

He walked in like he owned the place, heading
past the empty receptionist’s desk to the back of the ward, and
slipped inside a dark exam room. With a handy penlight, he made
quick work of the lock on the narcotics cabinet, located several
vials of morphine. Lidocaine and suture kits were pulled from a
nearby drawer along with saline, gauze, syringes and needles. A
handful of packaged sterile gloves joined the rest in his coat
pockets before he sauntered out of the unit, winking at the
confused attendant back from her cigarette break.

The procedure took place behind a nearby gas
station. Like most things in Helsinki at that hour, the place was
closed. By the dim light in the cab Kizzie lay naked in the cramped
back seat of the Rover. The wounds were cleaned with efficiency,
but she fought against the lidocaine injection.

“No…No nee—”

Her wounded side and arm were stitched with
precision. She grunted then cursed when her shoulder was forced
back into the socket with a sickening pop. Another fight against
the morphine shot, but since then she hadn’t made a sound. Her body
covered with Marchande’s coat, the group continued toward their
destination. They were taking a risk, and if it didn’t pan out,
Kizzie would be the only one who suffered.

Two miles later, Marchande checked the
rearview. Zlata shivered in Xander’s suit coat, her skin pale as
the snow on the ground. Fear was clear on her dirt-streaked face,
but to her credit she hadn’t shed a tear since leaving the
collapsed tunnels of the chateau. Five seconds slower and they’d
have been buried in the rubble.

Zlata cradled the other woman’s head in her
lap, wiping the sweating forehead. Kizzie was feverish—whether from
an infected cut or from the intensity of the ordeal they didn’t
know. Either way was a problem.

Phil glanced at Xander, seeing the blank look
on his friend’s face. “We can leave her here if—”

“Not an option and you know it. How would she
explain it?” Xander said. “She’ll be fine.”

By the way Xander crushed the square of white
leather in his fist, Marchande was certain he was trying to
convince himself.

A red light was up ahead. He ran it.

And the next one.

“No way he got out.” Xander didn’t respond
and Phil said, “I know that look, X.”

“What look?”

“That look you get when you’re about to do
something stupid.”

“There’s no look, Phil.”

“No, no—that’s the look. It’s not to be
confused with your usual stup—”

“She still breathing?” Xander asked in
Russian, interrupting his buddy’s rambling. Zlata nodded. He
addressed Phil again. “Pull over.”

Marchande kept driving. “You’re too close to
it, X. Let me—”

“Gde tvoya sem’ya?” Xander opened the glove
box, hand delving into the depths.

“Sertolova, north of Saint Petersburg,” came
the response in the same dialect.

Xander bobbed his head, frowning as he
searched the box again. He turned in his seat and reached out
toward Zlata’s chest. The woman inhaled sharply, muscles stiffening
at the impending contact.