Revenge for what? Selene wondered. Allegedly, the lycan called herself Leyba, but Florescu had professed to know nothing more about her motives or origins. Given just how scared he’d seemed of Selene herself, the ruthless Death Dealer was inclined to believe him. I should have known Diego’s killer would turn out to be lycan, she thought icily. Sounds as if I’m dealing with a rabid bitch here.
She checked the door of the refectory for booby traps, eased it open, then gestured for the rest of her team to follow her. Mason and Yoshio stealthily emerged from the rear of the chapter house, their matching black trench coats marking them as Death Dealers as surely as their grim, implacable expressions. They held their submachine guns, loaded with silver ammunition, at the ready as they crept after Selene, who was armed with her trusty Berettas. Her brown eyes probed the unlit chamber before her.
So far, so good, she thought. According to Florescu, who, along with his mistress, was now being kept on ice at a safe house in the city, the nerve center of the estate’s security system was located in a subterranean crypt under the adjacent chapel. Selene was taking an indirect route toward the entrance to the catacombs in hopes of avoiding detection, while the other strike team went for the direct approach. With any luck, they’d catch the murderous lycan between them.
She produced a miniature walkie-talkie from within the folds of her trench coat. “Selene to Kahn,” she whispered into the receiver. “We’ve entered the building through the chapter house and are now proceeding east via the refectory.”
“Roger that, Selene,” a voice answered through the walkie-talkie. She recognized the familiar Cockney accent of the veteran weapons master, who was leading a team consisting of himself, Nathaniel, and Rani. “We’re in position outside the main entrance to the chapel. Let us know when you need a big, noisy distraction.”
“You’ll be the first to know,” she promised him. The plan was for Selene’s team to attempt a covert infiltration of the former monastery before Kahn and his people unleashed a full-frontal assault. Let’s hope I run into this Leyba bitch first, Selene thought as Diego’s dying screams echoed in her memory. I want to put this mad dog down myself.
The refectory, where the long-dead brothers of Saint Walpurga had once taken their meals, had been converted into a lavish dining room, with a polished mahogany table long enough to seat a small army. Clearly, black-market arms dealing paid well these days, especially when one was supplying both sides of a twilight war that had been going on for centuries. Selene made a mental note to remind Kraven of Florescu’s double dealing before they let the nefarious mortal free again.
Skirting the edges of the elongated dining table, they made their way across the refectory toward the cloisters beyond. Selene hung back to watch their rear as her fellow Death Dealers approached the oak door at the far end of the dining room. A pinprick of ruby light caught her eye a microsecond before she identified it as a laser beam.
“Watch out!” she hissed.
Too late. Yoshio’s shoulder broke the beam, triggering an automated security response. Ultraviolet lights flared to life above them, blinding the Death Dealers instantly. “Shit!” Selene cursed as her skin began to burn. Although not as lethal as genuine sunlight, the UV radiation still hurt like the Devil. Somebody (Florescu? Leyba?) had obviously been worried about vampires.
Selene dropped to the floor and rolled beneath the table, putting a couple centimeters of solid mahogany between herself and the UV lights in the ceiling. She threw her arm across her eyes, which were already squeezed tightly shut.
A pair of boots bumped against her head. She heard a muttered curse and realized that Mason had sought shelter under the table as well.
But what about Yoshio?
The other Death Dealer cried out in pain as the radiation seared his face and hands. Boots pounded against the floor, racing madly away from the burning light. Selene heard Yoshio bolt for the door at the far end of the refectory. “Wait!” she called out. “It might be rigged!”
The doorknob clicked open, and the subsequent explosion confirmed Selene’s worst suspicions. She flattened herself against the floor as shrapnel slammed into the walls and furniture. Smoke and dust suffused the air, along with the acrid aroma of gelignite. “Yoshio!” she shouted, coughing on the harsh black fumes. Her ears rang from the explosion. “Talk to me, Yoshio!”
Only the sound of falling debris answered her.
“I think he’s gone,” Mason said, echoing her own thoughts.
Selene seethed in frustration. First Diego, now Yoshio! Two Death Dealers down, and the lycan murderess remained at large. Not for much longer, she vowed.
“What about you?” she asked Mason.
“I’m all right,” the American vampire answered. “I took a couple pieces of shrapnel, in the back and in my hip, but nothing a little blood can’t fix.” A sharp intake of breath belied his flippant tone. “Mind you, I can’t actually see what my wounds look like, what with the blinding light and all.”
Perversely, the blast that had apparently killed their comrade had left the infernal UV lights intact. Determined to do something about that, Selene rolled onto her back and fired blindly upward with her Berettas, targeting the lamps with more guesswork than precision.
Silver slugs tore through the mahogany tabletop and slammed into the ceiling. Lightbulbs exploded amid a shower of sparks, and blessed darkness descended on the dining room once more. Selene opened her eyes. She looked toward the fatal doorway.
Yoshio’s gory remains were splattered all over the walls and ceiling, beyond all hope of regeneration. His submachine gun was a heap of twisted metal lying in a puddle of blood and fallen plaster. The gruesome scene only made her more determined to liquidate the lycan responsible for this atrocity. There would be time enough to mourn Yoshio later. First, Leyba had to die.
Reloading her Berettas, Selene crawled from beneath the bullet-riddled table and checked on Mason. There were first-aid supplies back in their van, she knew, and a refrigerator filled with packets of cloned blood. “What do you need?” she asked him urgently.
“Don’t worry about me,” he insisted. Vengeful blue eyes glowed from a face burnt red by the brutal UV rays; her own face and hands felt just as raw. “I’ll be okay. Go get that stinking animal!”
A quick inspection confirmed that Mason’s injuries were more superficial than life-threatening. She breathed a sigh of relief, and not just because her fellow soldier was likely to recover; the last thing she wanted to do right now was give Leyba a chance to get away.
“Stay here,” she instructed Mason. She stripped off her long black coat and laid it like a blanket over her wounded comrade. The coat’s flapping tail would only be a liability if she encountered any more laser beams. She retrieved the walkie-talkie from inside the coat and was not surprised to find Kahn anxious for a report in the wake of the explosion.
Selene quickly updated him on the situation, including Yoshio’s death. “I can use that distraction now.”
“Understood,” Kahn said grimly. “Be careful.”
“You, too,” she replied, signing off.
A few moments later, the sound of gunfire issued from the other side of the monastery, where Kahn and his team launched their assault on the chapel itself. So much for subtlety, Selene thought; all hope of taking Leyba unaware had gone up in smoke the minute Yoshio triggered that first alarm. She knows we’re here.
Taking care not to step on any of Yoshio’s splattered remains, she raised her guns and warily moved through the exploded doorway.
“Goddamn bloods!” Leyba snarled. “They’re crawling out of the woodwork like cockroaches!”
She stared furiously at the mounted security monitors. Ghostly figures in long black coats swarmed across the screens. Lucian flashed back to another squadron of vampire warriors, ransacking a defenseless peasant village, and marveled at how little things had changed over the centuries. “Looks like you’ve got company,” he taunted Leyba. “Perhaps we have a co
mmon enemy after all?”
“Don’t get any ideas,” she warned him, not looking away from the banks of closed-circuit TV screens. Having silenced the alarms, her fingers now feverishly worked the controls of the security system. “This place belongs to Leonid Florescu now,” she informed him. “You know, your friend the arms dealer? I can fight off a battalion if I have to.”
As nearly as Lucian could tell, there were at least two teams of Death Dealers converging on the chapel. He watched as one team, led by a black vampire with a shaved head, stormed down the central nave of the old church, only to be driven back by a ferocious hail of gunfire coming from somewhere behind the altar. Lucian’s brow wrinkled in confusion. Who was firing at the Death Dealers? Was Leyba not working alone?
“A T-two remote-controlled weapons platform,” the onetime Gypsy wench bragged as if reading his thoughts. “Courtesy of the U.S. military, by way of the black market.” She operated the mechanism by means of a joystick attached to the control panel. “All strictly state-of-the-art.”
On the screen, the chapel’s invaders retreated behind the last row of pews and began firing back at the altar with pistols and submachine guns. Elsewhere, on another monitor, smoke and dust obscured the image from a once palatial dining room. Leyba peered intently at the murky screen, which suddenly went black entirely. “Son of a bitch!” she swore.
Lucian wondered about the camera at the other end of the darkened monitor. Damaged by the explosion—or shot out by an eagled-eyed vampire?
More important, he observed that the Death Dealers’ attack had definitely served to divert Leyba’s attention from Lucian himself. Indeed, so intent was she on defending her sanctuary that she hadn’t even noticed that the explosions above had begun to weaken the ancient limestone wall behind him. He tugged quietly at his manacles, feeling the silver-alloy chains give a little. He was still not quite strong enough to tear the manacles loose from the wall, not with this wretched silver bullet in his leg, but perhaps he could remedy that situation, now that Leyba was distracted.
He closed his eyes and concentrated, doing his best to shut out the din of warfare raging above, as well as Leyba’s angry curses. He focused all his willpower on the caustic lump of silver burning within his flesh, poisoning the very tissues surrounding it. Straining muscles rippled along his leg, while the tendons in his neck stood out tautly, like steel cables. Blood pounded in his temples. A tremor rocked his leg, making it difficult to keep standing. His jaws clenched as tightly as his fists. Out! he commanded. Out!
It had taken him centuries to master this trick, but at last, a slick, bloody wad of metal oozed out of the festering bullet wound. The pulped silver slug slid down his leg onto the floor, the muted clink of its landing completely lost in the roar of the gunfire.
That’s better. Lucian opened his eyes, which were now a brilliant cobalt blue. He stretched his fingers and felt long yellow claws extend from his cuticles. He licked his lips, even as his jaws protruded from his face.
Let Leyba concentrate on her undead intruders, he thought, at least until I complete the Change.
Selene’s skintight leathers gleamed like liquid obsidian as she stepped out of the refectory into the moonlight. Covered walkways or cloisters surrounded a square courtyard boasting an ornate marble fountain that Selene suspected was a fairly recent addition to the former monastery. Across the courtyard, at the far end of the cloister before her, the old dormitory ran from north to south, connecting to the chapel and bell tower on the left. Selene eyed the tower with interest, an idea forming in her mind.
The moon was only a quarter full, but Selene knew that was no guarantee that she wouldn’t encounter a fully transformed werewolf before the night was out. Too many lycans were able to transform at will these days; she had to assume that Leyba was one of them.
She stepped cautiously beneath the shade of the covered walkway only to hear the whir of electronic machinery coming to life in the center of the courtyard. Instinctively, she leaped upward, clinging to the cloisters overhanging ceiling with her hands and boots.
And just in time, too. A remote-operated machine gun rose from beneath the marble fountain and began strafing the cloister beneath her. Selene flattened herself against the stonework as powdered stone went flying beneath the relentless automatic weapons fire.
This place has too many bloody deathtraps, she thought irritably, uncertain whether to blame Florescu’s paranoia or Leyba’s. She guessed that she had inadvertently trod upon a pressure-sensitive tile in the walkway below. Very well. I won’t make that mistake again.
Hanging upside down from the ceiling, she crawled above the booby-trapped cloister until she came to the western wall of the dormitory, which had reputedly been converted into suites of guest rooms. What kinds of snares and pitfalls, she wondered, awaited within the long rectangular building?
She decided not to risk it.
Swinging up from beneath the covered walkway, Selene landed nimbly on the shingled roof of the dormitory. To her left, several meters away, the bell tower rose at least two stories above the roof of the chapel. Judging from the explosive racket emanating from the chapel itself, she guessed that a heated firefight was going on inside the old medieval abbey.
She unclipped her walkie-talkie and checked in with Kahn. “What’s your status?” she asked.
“Stalled for the moment,” he reported. She could barely hear him over the roaring gunfire in the background. “She’s got us pinned down behind the pews with multiple remote-controlled weapons platforms.” She heard an edge of frustration in his voice. “We could try to blow them out of the water with our grenades, but that might collapse the stairways to the catacombs themselves.”
“Well, hold off bringing the whole place down for a few more minutes.” She glanced again at the looming bell tower. “I have an idea.”
Selene scurried along the roof of the dormitory to the northern face of the tower. She quickly scaled the weathered stone spire, grateful to discover that there seemed to be less security outside the estate’s buildings than within. Reaching the top of the tower, she squeezed through a narrow window into the belfry itself. Fresh alarms sounded, but Selene didn’t care; if all went as planned, she wouldn’t be sticking around.
A single cast-iron bell, the size of a pup tent, hung from a sturdy oaken crossbeam. Selene hurried forward and placed a small explosive charge where the bell was connected to the beam. She set the timer for less than fifteen seconds, then ducked beneath the lip of the bell and yanked the clapper free before wrapping herself inside the curved metal surface. This is either brilliant or utterly suicidal.
She wouldn’t have to wait long to find out.
Five, four, three, two….
The charge went off, blasting the massive bell loose from its moorings. Selene closed her eyes and gritted her fangs as the bell plummeted down the length of the tower, taking her with it. Bullets and shrapnel ricocheted off the iron exterior of the bell as the accelerating object set off four stories’ worth of concealed deathtraps, but the dense metal casing protected Selene from harm, even as a roaring wind blew against her face and hair. She fought back an urge to shriek as the floor of the chapel seemed to rush up at her with terrifying speed.
Going down, she thought. Next stop: the catacombs.
The bottom of the bell slammed into the floor below—and kept on going, smashing through crumbling stone and tiles until it came to rest with a bone-jarring impact, at least one story below the chapel.
Selene dropped from the side of the bell onto a pebbly limestone floor. Her head was ringing, and every bone was vibrating like a tuning fork, but she appeared to be more or less intact. She checked her guns and was relieved to find them both still holstered to her hips. A rare smile graced her lips as she realized that her ridiculous stratagem had succeeded.
Ready or not, Leyba, here I come.
Lucian could not hold back a triumphant howl as he burst from his chains. Seated at her control panel, Leyba spun
around in surprise to see a huge black werewolf lunging at her. She grabbed for her gun, but not quickly enough; Lucian knocked the Walther from her hand with one swipe of his enormous paw.
Viktor chained me, too, he reminded her silently. You should have remembered how that turned out.
Leyba staggered backward. She snatched her bulletproof helmet from the counter and hastily placed it over her head. She faced the werewolf across the bone-littered floor of the crypt.
Her Kevlar armor, Lucian realized, presented Leyba with a double-edged sword. On the one hand, the high-tech body armor provided her with a degree of protection against his fangs and claws; on the other, it prevented her from making the Change herself.
Hatred blazed in Lucian’s cobalt eyes. Sonja’s pendant gleamed on his furry chest. He was considering his options when a tremendous impact rocked the catacombs, as though an asteroid had suddenly crashed to earth several meters away. Centuries-old skulls toppled from their perches. The bony chandelier plunged to the floor, the electric lights shattering in an explosion of glass and sparks. Only the phosphor glow of the security monitors lit the crypt, casting flickering shadows on the werewolf and his foe.
Out of the corner of his eye, he spied dust falling from the ceiling of the catacombs leading away from the crypt. The entire tunnel appeared in imminent danger of collapse, taking with it his best chance to get away from both Leyba and the invading Death Dealers.
Time to exercise the better part of valor, he concluded. As much as he longed to test his claws against Leyba’s armor, he could not risk falling into the hands of the Death Dealers again, not when he was so close to gaining his ultimate revenge. Destroying Viktor takes priority; Leyba is just a petty irritant by comparison.
Turning his back on the vengeful Gypsy, he dropped onto all fours and raced toward the crumbling catacomb. The very walls seemed to rumble angrily around him as he bolted into the beckoning tunnel, putting as much distance as possible between himself and Leyba’s losing battle against the determined Death Dealers.