Rare Vigilance by M.A. Grant

Chapter Seven

Hahn Lake didn’t strike him as the kind of town Decebal Vladislavic would consider an asset. What had once been a sparkling summer resort town had faded over the years. The local B&Bs and small chain hotels proclaimed vacancies as he and Cristian drove through the main strip, though they should have been filled at this point in the season. The downtown district could have been Anytown, USA. There was a small local hospital near one of the two churches. The churches looked so similar Atlas could only distinguish between their denominations thanks to the large signs posted out front. Several comfortably worn restaurants whose names were little more than a description of the food they served, and a post office were all within walking distance of the weathered-brick town hall and its short clock tower. Crammed in among the other buildings, various tourist trap boutiques showed their wares with dimly lit window displays. If Atlas ever needed to buy Bea a wood-burned anything or a bright sweatshirt whining Hahn-y, take me to the lake! he knew where to come.

If Cristian was equally unimpressed, he didn’t show it. He kept his head down, gaze fixed on his phone, and left Atlas to take in the sights on his own. Their destination was on the northeastern side of town, near a closed timber mill whose locked gates declared it would soon be converted into a packing plant for a company he didn’t recognize. As they drove by, he didn’t miss the large sign declaring the proposed project completion. Apparently, someone else had figured out that the project’s eleven-year late start wasn’t very promising; they’d spray painted FUCKERS over the company logo with fluorescent orange paint. There was no such vandalism on any of the signs at the closed cabinetmaking workshop a few hundred feet away, where the GPS informed Atlas they’d reached the end of their journey. The outside lights were on, allowing Atlas to find a parking spot near the two SUVs already there, though the interior lights didn’t appear to be on. All he could see was a faint pool of light, which did nothing to illuminate what they were walking into.

This did not look like a place to do any kind of good business. This looked like he’d stepped into an episode of some procedural show that would end with a jaded detective staring at his dismembered body before making a quip and sliding down a pair of aviator sunglasses.

“Who are you meeting?” he asked Cristian.

“Some delightful ruffians.” Cristian gave a sinuous stretch in the backseat and grinned at Atlas’s scowl. “Father is very interested in expanding his influence and they have been amenable to supporting his expansion...for proper financial backing of their business interests, of course. I’m here to seal the deal. Don’t make that face. This won’t take long. We go in, I charm them, collect some papers Father sent over, and we leave. In and out in ten minutes.”

There was no immediate threat to Cristian’s safety. There was no reason to lock the car doors and drive him away. Atlas frowned, but had no choice but to follow Cristian’s lead and exit the car. The door into the workshop was unlocked. Cristian pushed it open and sauntered inside, ignoring Atlas’s hissed order to stop so he could go first. A dusty electric lamp sitting on a desk behind the front counter was responsible for the light Atlas had seen from outside. An open door to their left revealed a shadowy break room and kitchenette. No one was there, which meant their only other option was going through the door into the rear section of the workshop labeled Offices-Employees Only.

He beat Cristian to the door first and drew to a stop. It forced Cristian to halt as well, which earned him a dirty look. “Mr. Slava,” Atlas warned quietly, “I realize you have no choice about attending this meeting, but please remember I also have a job to do here.”

“They aren’t going to hurt me,” Cristian grumbled. When Atlas held his ground, he threw his head back, sighed, and said, “Fine, I’ll listen to you. Can we go now?”

The door swung inward on slightly sticky hinges and Atlas could see a handful of people in the room beyond. Again, the fluorescent lighting was ignored, made up for by a floor lamp this time, which kept Atlas’s eyes from aching thanks to its soft light. Two men sat on a couch with their backs to the door, while others stood or sat in the shadows just out of the lamp. No one looked over at them; Cristian was expected, after all.

“Durand,” Cristian called out as he slid past Atlas into the room. “Decebal sends his regards.”

Atlas made it two steps into the room before Cristian froze. Atlas grunted and twisted to avoid colliding with him. He only partially succeeded, forced to reach out and grasp hold of Cristian’s shoulders so he didn’t knock either of them down. Cristian’s muscles were tense under the smooth fabric of his jacket and he stared ahead at the couch with something like horror. And then Atlas smelled it. Blood. Stale, metallic, almost moldy from the way it mingled with the dust coating the workspace.

He dug his fingers into Cristian’s flesh, tugging him toward the door. “Leaving. Now.”

He should have known it wouldn’t be that easy. Should have known Cristian had no intention of following through with his agreement. His misplaced faith allowed Cristian to shake him off easily and hurry toward the couch. Atlas swore and followed, trying to peer into the darkness around them. None of the shadowed figures moved and he realized grimly that none of them were supporting their weight independently. One slumped in a folding chair. Another leaned heavily against a filing cabinet. His gut pitched when he remembered Kurt’s head had tilted the same loose way when his corpse was lifted from the ground and tossed against a tree.

Stop. Don’t go back there. Stay here.Focusing on Cristian kept him from chasing the horrific memories of his platoon’s bodies scattered around him.

His charge had halted in front of the couch. His fists clenched, his jaw clamped, and Atlas braced himself for the sight he suspected he’d find. He held a hand uselessly over his nose to try to limit the stench and faced the bodies. There was blood, just not as much as Atlas would have suspected, which meant the smell was coming from the other bodies in the shadows. The lack of blood made the sight of the two men worse.

They were pale, one almost grayish, and the thin skin of their closed eyelids shone waxy in the lamplight. The shirt of the man on the right was stained with crimson blotches from the jagged wound in his neck. It was a nice shirt, fine cotton under an even finer black jacket, which probably hid more bloodstains. He was younger than Decebal, but not by much. His brown hair was brushed with silver at the temples. His open-mouthed grimace highlighted the silver streaks in his beard. The papers in his hand were still somewhat legible in spite of the fine spattering of blood over Decebal’s letterhead.

“Fuck,” Cristian swore when he spotted the papers. He took a step forward to reach for them. On gut instinct, Atlas snagged hold of his wrist and pulled him away.

Just in time too. The second man, who had been leaning just as bonelessly against the back of the couch, opened his eyes. Cristian and Atlas both lurched back in surprise, which brought an eerie smile to the man’s face. “You’re not Decebal.” He unfolded from his macabre place on the couch.

Atlas dragged Cristian behind him. He backed up with steady steps. Tripping over something could give this stranger a chance at Cristian.

The man tilted his head and the light from the lamp fell differently over his face. His brown eyes flickered amber, and memories of yellow eyes and sharp white fangs flashing in moonlight rose like a shadowed leviathan in the back of Atlas’s mind. He squeezed Cristian’s arm to ground himself and swallowed, forcing down his fear.

“You’re not Decebal,” the man repeated, slower this time, “and you brought a pet.” He sniffed the air and his eyes narrowed. “Why would you need a pet, I wonder?”

“Who the fuck are you?” Cristian demanded. He tried to get around Atlas, but a quick step and shift of body weight prevented it.

“I could ask you the same thing,” the man said. “But I think I already know.”

He hadn’t moved any closer to them. Their efforts to escape didn’t concern him. He seemed...bored, and that scared Atlas more than anything else.

“We thought Decebal would come himself,” the man mused. “We wished to discuss his surreptitious attempts to expand his borders. We never thought he’d send his son instead.”

Fuck. Whoever “they” were didn’t matter. They knew who Cristian was, which meant they’d been keeping an eye out for him. The danger was too great.

The mystery man rolled his shoulders, flexed his hands, and stretched his neck from side to side, like an athlete limbering up before a competition. A low rumbling growl built in the room all around Atlas—from the man, from Cristian, from his own imagination?—and Cristian tugged against his iron grip. Even that reminder of where and when he was didn’t help. The man turned farther into the light and Atlas’s heart lost its beat in a stumbling moment of panic. The scars on his neck and ribs stung like they’d been reopened. The creature standing across the room had given up all pretense. Yellow eyes with dilated pupils. Tips of long fangs pressing coyly into a lower lip as it smiled at them.

Vampire.

“No one is leaving,” the monster said with no little glee.

It lunged forward, moving fast, too fast, like they had that night in Romania. Atlas tried to push Cristian toward the door, but Cristian had already stepped around him. In front of him, with his back to their enemy, shielding Atlas.

He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. Could only marvel at Cristian’s fearlessness.

“Go!” Cristian shouted, face to face with Atlas, and then the word cut off, replaced with a grunt of surprise. He clutched at his armpit and spun away, roaring something at the snarling vampire behind him, who was already shifting his hold on the delicate knife he’d meant to use against Atlas. A knife he’d sunk into Cristian instead.

Adrenaline surged. The world narrowed to the task at hand. Protect.

He pushed past Cristian and met the vampire mid-charge. The elbow he landed to its throat stunned it for a moment, sent it off balance, and Atlas capitalized on that. He hooked his heel around the back of the vamp’s leg and toppled it. It snapped and hissed and clawed at his back as it fell. Snatches of the Romanian attack blurred and ran together with the present. His head echoed with screams and growls as he straddled a thigh, trying to control the vampire’s ability to twist free. The violent sting of fresh scratches opening across his back melded with the aching pull of the scarred skin crisscrossing his chest and abdomen stretching past its endurance as he fought to pin it with a forearm to the chest. The vampire twisted its head and fangs clicked as they snapped inches away from his neck. The healed gouges ripped into his flesh burned from the memory of fangs lodged in his throat.

One forearm to chest. The other hand holding the wrist, trying to control the movement of the knife. Atlas gritted his teeth and tried to slam the vampire’s arm down, dislodging its hold on the weapon, but it was too strong. He couldn’t win this fight.

Cristian appeared at his side. His knee slammed into the vampire’s stomach and as it curled up from the ground with a rushed exhalation of pain, Cristian’s hands settled firmly on either side of its head. He twisted, a brutal, confident movement, and the air resounded with the wet pop of vertebrae cracking. The vampire’s body went limp beneath Atlas, and he slammed its hand to the ground until the knife skittered out of its limp fingers.

“Bought a second,” Cristian panted, clutching at his injury. “Need to finish. His heart—”

Atlas staggered to his feet. A row of dusty pipe clamps hung on the wall nearby. He grabbed one, dragged it over, and clutched tightly at the black pipe as he raised it over the vampire’s chest. With a ragged bellow, he drove it down with his remaining strength. The end of the pipe ground into the concrete floor and he tore it free, repeating the staking again and again and again and—

“Stop,” Cristian urged, tugging at his arm with a hand. “It’s done.”

He blinked and let the clamp fall from his trembling hands. The vampire lay there, an ugly, uneven hole torn through its chest. Thick, dark blood dribbled sluggishly from the edges of the wound, and Atlas choked on rising bile.

Cristian pushed him back from the body. He went willingly, desperate to move his attention to something, anything, else. Like Cristian’s hand clutching at the wet fabric under his arm and the fine sheen of sweat coating his forehead.

“You’re hurt.” Atlas dug for his phone.

He hit the number he’d programmed in case of such an emergency and turned the phone on speaker so he could use both hands to paw at Cristian. Cristian swore and tried to avoid his inspection, but Atlas remained focused. He needed something to cling to as the adrenaline high faded. He needed to keep Cristian alive. If he did, he could prove everything that had happened to him was real.

The line clicked. “Doctor Dosou,” a woman said.

“This is Atlas Kinkaid. Cristian is injured,” he explained, still trying to get Cristian to move his hand away enough so he could see the wound.

“Slow down, Mr. Kinkaid. Where are you both?”

“Hahn Lake,” Cristian said aloud, hissing when Atlas tugged on his jacket lapel. He must have realized he’d lose the battle, because he dropped his hand and continued glibly, “How are you, Héléne?”

“What kind of injury?”

Atlas gently pulled the lapel away from Cristian’s chest and swore when he saw the slice through the armpit of Cristian’s jacket. “Knife to the armpit.”

“How deep?”

“Deep enough to be a problem,” Cristian admitted. “I think it nicked something.”

Atlas glanced up, surprised by the resignation in Cristian’s tone, and froze when he met a golden stare. The phone hit the ground between them and the screen shattered. Cristian stepped farther away, ducking his head to try to hide his features, but it was too late.

“You—” Atlas breathed.

Why was he on the ground? Had he fallen? No, the stripe on the dusty floor indicated he’d crawled backward, until his back was pressed against one of the old desks. He searched for the clamp, but it was too far away, lying beside the unmoving body of their original attacker. A vampire. Just like Cristian.

“Mr. Kinkaid? Mr. Kinkaid, please listen to me.” A calm, stern voice rang out from his phone speaker and he dimly remembered he’d been talking to the doctor.

“He’s a—”

“Yes, Mr. Kinkaid, I know.”

His voice rose, breaking as it climbed over the impossible truth. “—fucking vampire!”

“That is true, Mr. Kinkaid,” Doctor Dosou agreed. “He is also your client, and at this moment he may be dying.”

Every breath was a fight against panic. His muscles set and flexed, ready to flee the moment an opening came. But the doctor’s words cut through some of the instinctual response. “What?” he croaked.

“Blood loss, Mr. Kinkaid. I can’t see where he was wounded, but it sounds as though Cristian is suffering rapid blood loss. He’ll die.”

“Good,” he growled without thought.

Cristian, halfway hidden in the shadows, flinched.

“You have a job to do, Mr. Kinkaid,” the doctor tried to argue, but Atlas growled again. It was nowhere near as threatening a sound as the vampires had made, but it was raw and honest.

“Leave it, Héléne,” Cristian ordered.

“You need to feed—”

Cristian moved faster than Atlas expected, and Atlas banged his head and back against the desk in an attempt at farther retreat. Cristian, squatting with the phone in hand, watched him with an odd expression. “I’ll call you back,” he said quietly to the doctor.

“Cristian, don’t—” she protested, but Cristian hung up before her lecture could continue. He stayed crouched there and warned, “I’m going to toss this to you.”

Atlas didn’t watch the phone. He kept his eye on Cristian’s hand and dug his fingers into the concrete to keep from lashing out when the phone hit his stomach. It was his phone, it was his phone, it wasn’t something else—

“Mr. Kinkaid,” Cristian said, “I hate to interrupt your existential crisis, but we’re going to need to make some decisions rather quickly here.”

“You’re a vampire,” Atlas said. And then, because his night had already gone to shit, he decided there was no point trying for diplomacy. “Are you going to try to kill me too?”

“Yes, I am. And no, I’m not. Father would be very unhappy with me if I did.” Cristian grimaced and his balance wobbled. Rather than steady himself by untucking his hand from under his arm, which would stop his holding pressure to the wound, he fell gracelessly onto his ass. Sweat darkened the collar of his shirt, and his lips were tinged gray. “I need to get back to the house, but I don’t know how we can manage it in time.”

His mind latched on to the promise of a problem to solve, conveniently pushing the horrifying reality aside for a moment. He swallowed and asked, “Why not?”

“I need to feed to heal. There’s blood at the house.”

“If you don’t feed, you’ll die?”

He frowned and looked away. “Probably.”

The silence stretched between them. Atlas didn’t know how Cristian was keeping such tight control over his vampirism, but the feral behavior could come out at any moment. He’d seen it in Romania. He’d almost witnessed it already. Avoiding Cristian’s reach was the only way to keep himself safe.

He slid his phone in his pocket and held himself still, praying that a lack of movement wouldn’t draw Cristian’s attention and trigger a predatory response. There was no stopping his senses from running riot. The scent of blood and rent flesh mingled with the disturbed dust. Nothing else moved in the building, leaving him to listen to Cristian’s ragged breathing and the soft sound of liquid slowly dripping onto the floor.

Cristian was bleeding out. He shifted at the thought, torn between relief and regret. If he died, Atlas would be safe to flee. But if he died, Atlas would fail the job, which meant Bea would face Decebal’s wrath since her “best” agent sat there and let his son die.

Bea. She was working for vampires and had no idea. They could go after her at any moment. Would go after her if he failed.

“Fuck,” Atlas whispered.

Cristian tilted his head, but didn’t waste energy looking toward him.

He’d failed his platoon, in real life and in every nightmare he’d suffered after. He couldn’t fail Bea. Her death would kill him.

He clenched his fists. “You need to feed.”

“Obviously,” Cristian mumbled.

“How much?”

Cristian glanced at him, movement sluggish and painful to witness. Atlas buried that shred of concern. Cristian was a monster. A monster he was contractually obligated to protect. There was no room for worry or sympathy.

“I’m not sure,” Cristian admitted. He struggled to keep his head steady. “Enough to start the healing process. As long as I’m not dead when we get back, Héléne can fix me.”

“If I get you back, you swear your father won’t come after Bea?”

Cristian looked confused. “Why would he—”

“Answer me,” Atlas snapped. “Promise she stays out of this.”

“Fine.”

“On your life.”

“I promise on what little of it remains.” Cristian’s fangs made his smile too sharp, too cruel. Atlas shuddered.

He could do this. He had to do this. For Bea, he could do anything. “Get over here then.”

Golden eyes widened when Cristian realized what Atlas was offering and he gave a single, weak shake of his head. “No.”

“Then you’ll die.” Atlas let that cruel truth hang between them. “You can feed from me, or you can bleed out here. You decide.”

Cristian was too weak to stand. Instead, he dragged himself across the floor, his eyes fixed on Atlas’s neck. He was careful to not reach for Atlas, even as he drew within touching distance. Only when he was an arm’s length away did Atlas ask, “How do we do this?”

“I need a blood vessel,” Cristian said.

“Not my neck,” Atlas ordered.

Cristian, swaying faintly, didn’t protest. He forced himself to look away from his first choice, only to alight on Atlas’s arm. “Wrist or elbow?”

“Wrist.” An automatic response. Dislodging a monster from the elbow was far more difficult. He’d learned that the hard way.

“It’s going to hurt,” Cristian said. “Too weak to make it enjoyable.” He almost sounded apologetic. Only almost though, since his fingers were already dancing over Atlas’s arm, pushing up his sleeves and caressing the thin skin of his wrist, ghosting over the raised ridges of his tendons.

“Nothing enjoyable about your mouth on my skin,” Atlas informed him. His past attraction had died the moment he saw what Cristian really was. He closed his eyes, commanded, “Finish it,” and held his breath.

The bite was like nothing he expected. Quick, shocking, painful, yes. He knew that would come. But it was the growing pressure in his head, his panicked flashback to the attack slamming up against something else, something that grew inside his skull, coaxing and whispering and asking him to let it in and—

He lay on the ground, staring up into the yellow eyes of the gaunt, humanoid creature pinning him to the dirt. The shreds of fabric draping its body reeked of sweat and stale blood and worse things. Its thin lips peeled back from a mouth of jagged teeth, of long canines, and its overgrown nails—no, its claws—dug into his collarbone as it resettled its weight and prepared to latch on to his neck. Nothing but faint groans around him, too few and too quiet for anyone except the dying. If he could reach his knife, he might be able to save himself. But he’d have to time it right.

He had to survive. He had to get back to Bea. Had to warn his CO so no one else was sent here to die. He gave in to the pressure of its body, forced himself to relax, and waited. Patience. He must have patience.

The vampire—fuck, he didn’t have any other word for what these blood-crazed things could be—hissed. Atlas fought his flinch. Let it strike. Then he’d get his knife and gut it while it fed.

He didn’t plan for the explosion of agony as it struck. Its fangs slid into the sensitive skin of his neck like hot brands. A scream loosed from him in that flash of adrenaline. He scrambled for his knife, but it stuck in its sheath as he drew it. Rather than the stab and drag he’d planned in his head, he only managed a glancing slice against the vampire’s ribs.

It ripped its fangs free on a roar of fury. His blood streamed hot on his neck and he tightened his grip on the handle and struck again and again, praying to whatever god was listening for the sun to rise—

He reached for his sidearm, but it wasn’t there. Gone. Ripped away in the fight. No knife. No defense. He pulled his arms up, protecting his face and neck. He twisted and fought, choking and screaming from the weight on his body, still caught in the memory. A memory he’d forced down for so long that it never rose that completely, even in his nightmares.

“Fuck!”

The weight vanished and Atlas rolled to his side, heaving up bitter bile as tears and snot ran down his face from his uncontrollable sobs. He scrambled, digging for purchase against the ground. Retreat. Back against the wall, prevent others from sneaking up from behind, stay quiet so they couldn’t find him—

“Fuck, Atlas!”

Bits and pieces came back. A metal desk at his back. A steady ache in his wrist. The need to protect Bea.

“Can I do anything?”

“No,” he whispered past a raw throat. A gentle touch against his foot. He lashed out, kicking as hard as he could, and when he connected snarled through bared teeth, “No!”

“You’re here, Atlas,” someone said. “You’re not there. You’re here and you’re alive and...and, fuck, I didn’t know you’d let me in like that. Is that what happened to yo—”

He knew that voice, knew it was... Cristian. And as long as Cristian was alive, his promise to not let Decebal go after Bea was alive too.

“Car,” Atlas interrupted, trying to ignore his roiling nausea. He clawed his way to his hands and knees, forced wobbling joints to obey, rose through nothing but spite and sheer force of will and the knowledge that after this was over, Bea would be safe. He didn’t look back to see if Cristian trailed after him. He abandoned the workshop and rushed to the car, collapsing in the driver’s seat, still shaking and shivering as the adrenaline faded.

Later. He could break later.

The rear door opened and Cristian slipped inside, a loose roll of papers clutched in hand.

“Was it enough?” Atlas rasped.

“Yes,” Cristian whispered. “I’ll live.”

At the confirmation, Atlas called the doctor’s number again. The instant she picked up he rasped, “He’s fed. We’re heading back.” He hung up and put his phone on silent.

There was nothing left to do but drive. He pushed the speed limit, not enough to get pulled over, but enough to help him focus on the road ahead while reality set in. A vampire sat behind him, healing thanks to his blood running through its veins. How many nights had he woken up from nightmares, promising his dead brothers in arms he’d find a way to avenge them? And instead of staking Cristian, he’d ensured he’d live.

Cristian only tried to talk to him once. “What I saw,” he started.

Atlas turned on the radio. Without stations in range, the radio could only spit static at them through the speakers. Atlas turned up the volume until the static scraped over his skin like a metal rasp. However sensitive his hearing, Cristian’s was even more so. To be safe, he turned it up even more, until he couldn’t hear Cristian’s breathing over the noise.

Cristian didn’t try to speak to him again.

They arrived back at Decebal’s mansion with a few hours left in his shift. People spilled from the house, but Atlas ignored them and the itching under his skin. He looked back at Cristian in the rearview mirror and said, “No one touches my sister.”

“No one, I swear.” Cristian’s grip on the papers tightened. “But Atlas—”

“I quit.”

He abandoned the car. Cristian couldn’t follow after him, too busy assuring the others of his safety. The distraction worked. Atlas didn’t respond to Helias’s call. He didn’t look back at the house, unwilling to risk catching Decebal’s notice. He got into his own car and tore away down the private lane, leaving it all—the beautiful house, the hefty salary, and the monsters who’d tricked him into believing he’d had a purpose—behind him for good.