Chapter 468
The train stopped at a dimly lit platform. Through the windows, Katelina could see a formation of vampires wearing long black coats. They stood motionless, assault guns leveled at the train cars.
Jamie and Jorick glanced at one another before sliding into defensive crouches. Pavel waved his hands quickly. "No, no. Is all right. I will go first." He pushed the door open and slowly stepped out, his hands up. One of the guards shouted to him in Russian and he called back.
A guard hurried forward and dug in Pavel's coat. He came back with papers, which he read quickly and handed off to someone else. For a tense moment Katelina thought they might shoot him.
The vampires lowered their guns and relief swept over her. She was surprised at the intensity of it. Had she been that worried?
With the all clear, they disembarked. Pavel motioned them together and explained, "The facility is through this door, down a long tunnel. Everyone inside is dead, except for the renegades. The guards, you might call them, have this entrance secured. The only other access point is from outside, but vampires should not be able to come in or out of it since the sun is up."
"I doubt that Malick is as trapped as you think," Jorick said.
Wolfe glared at him, then drew his multi-bladed weapon. Jamie pulled his sword from his hip. Katelina and Jorick were unarmed, as was Braydon.
They probably don't trust him enough. But if that was true, what did it say about her and Jorick?
Two of the guards opened the bunker-style door with a metallic groan that made Katelina's stomach quiver. Her eyes moved past the heavy frame to a corridor so long that the end was lost to blackness.
They headed into the concrete tunnel. Paint peeled on the walls, revealing bare gray patches. Old light fixtures hung every so often, their bulbs dark. The air of neglect thickened the deeper they went. Katelina imagined the tons of earth above them, waiting for one weak spot to give away and allow it to come down in a crushing cascade. She'd seen vampires buried alive as punishment; the old way, they called it. Though she'd found it horrific, she'd never understood the true terror of it until now.
The tunnel ended at a blast door. Wolfe gave Braydon a final warning look, then stashed his weapon and turned the wheel-like handle. The metal complained loudly, and Katelina could see that, despite his vampiric strength, it took effort.
He was finally able to swing the door open. Just inside, two vampires lay slumped on the floor, their chests gaping holes. Congealed blood pooled around them, already partially dry.
Jamie knelt next to one of the bodies and touched the jelly like gore in the chest cavity. He rubbed the goo between his fingers. "Three hours, maybe longer."
Wolfe nodded. "No doubt they secured the rest of the base first, then caught this pair as part of their clean up."
Katelina stepped back. "If this is a human base, why are there vampire guards?"
"What better defense against would-be terrorists than a vampire?" Pavel asked.
"Yes, but what are they doing in a human missile base?"
"Vampires have as much interest in defending the silo as the humans. As the Khudshiy Bies explained, there is always a contact within the human government who knows about vampires. At the time of construction it was the minister of defense, who no doubt learned of it from Stalin, one of his predecessors who was responsible for the secret underground. With this in mind arrangements were made to have vampire guards secretly included in all missile bases."
Katelina blinked. "As in the Stalin? The communist guy?"
Pavel opened his mouth, but Wolfe waved him to silence. "That definition will do. Now be quiet."
They crept quietly down a corridor made of welded steel, to another blast door. This one opened easier than the last. Once they stepped through, Katelina looked back to see signs, both on and around it, written in angry red letters. She couldn't read the Russian words, but she guessed they told the human occupants to never, ever open the door.
Katelina smelled the blood before she saw the bodies. The scent made her stomach rumble. The sight had the opposite effect. Three men were scattered around the room in pieces, blood splattered over the walls and floor. An arm dangled from the overhead light fixture. A tangle of muscles hung from its socket like the tassel on a sick chandelier.
"This wasn't on the security footage," Katelina said.
"No." Jamie paced the room. His dark eyes moved from body part to body part. "It seems extreme, even for Malick."
Katelina thought of the atrium in America. Bodies lay heaped on the floor, blood running from their ears and mouths, while Malick and his henchmen marched over the grisly carpet, bones crunching beneath their feet. "He enjoys the extreme."
They all looked to Braydon, as if waiting for confirmation of his previous master's work. "I don't know. I was in charge of guarding the oasis."
"And kidnapping Katelina," Jorick snarled.
"That was my first assignment. He sent me to test my loyalty."
Jorick stepped closer to him, his hands fists. "And how did you do?"
Wolfe pushed the two men apart. "You forget we have a job to do. Or are Americans really unable to follow orders?"
"I follow no one's command." Jorick spun on his heel. "Come, Katelina."
Jamie's eye roll was almost apologetic.
With their weapons at the ready and their quick, precise movements, the vampires reminded Katelina of hunters or special ops soldiers. She followed them, unsure what to do. She tried to sniff the air, as they did, and was instantly assaulted by a hundred and one scents cobbled together into something truly horrible. How they could get anything useful from it was beyond her.
A hole in the floor was ringed in caution stickers and revealed a descending metal ladder. A second, staggered from the hole, went up.
Wolfe hesitated. "There are vampires in both directions."
"Malick is below," Jorick said. "That's where I'm going."
They nodded silent agreement and jumped through the hole one after another. Katelina squatted next to it, her muscles tensed and ready. Her instincts screamed for her to stop. Leaping through story-high holes was how people broke their legs.
Jorick made an impatient noise from below. Finally, she climbed down the ladder.
When she reached the floor she found the vampires waiting. Instead of a hole leading down, there was a sealed hatch. Jorick mouthed, "There is someone there."
Wolfe turned the wheel while Jorick, Jamie, and Braydon readied themselves. Katelina tried to feel the vampire below, as they did. The heaviness of Malick's presence in the lowest level, like a storm waiting to break, overrode everything else.
When the hatch opened, the four vampires dropped through. Katelina climbed down as quickly as she could. The small room below was empty, as were the dark doorways. She sniffed, and came away with nothing useful. Maybe they were wrong.
The males tensed. Katelina's eyes swung instinctively to the doorway. A tall thin vampire with messy hair stepped forward.
"Braydon? Have you come to rejoin us?"
There was something about the vampire that left Katelina quaking inside, though she wasn't sure why. Then she met his eyes. Cold, pale eyes that took her back to Malick's lair. She was strapped to a table and he stood over her. It was Harn. Malick's torturer.
