Just to spite him, she halted mid-stride and ducked into a shop, the suitcase trundling along behind her. She would have left her single piece of luggage in a hotel, but she hadn’t bothered checking into one, since this was probably her last day on earth. Although it would have been a nice, final go screw yourself to pay in advance for a week at the Four Seasons, charging it on Elias’s credit card.
After a layover in Paris, she’d landed in Sheremetyevo and browsed gadget stores, sleeping for a while beside a quiet gate and eating in one of the terminal restaurants for a meal, but hadn’t been able to choke down a bite. Thank God no one was there to bear witness to how long she stalled at the airport or she would leave a legacy behind as a coward, instead of a badass slayer of vampires (sometimes).
Now her stomach growled and she found herself carefully selecting her final meal from a row of candy bars. A moment later, she dropped her Hematogen on the counter and asked how much, starting to take cash out of her inner jacket pocket. But she changed her mind and handed the bleary-eyed shopkeeper Elias’s credit card, instead.
Refusing to acknowledge why she’d done that, Roksana ripped open the wrapper, bit the end off the candy bar, and stomped toward the library.
She wouldn’t live her final moments on this earth as a wimp.
Roksana closed the door of the library basement behind her, sending a deafening echo out into the darkness. She was surrounded in black, the smell of dust and leather bringing her back to the last time she stood in this hall.
“Well, daughter.” Her mother turned sideways in her chair, throwing a leather-clad leg over the carved, wooden arm. “What will you do now that your training has been completed?”
“Avenge them,” Roksana whispered fiercely, the cold concrete floor serving as ice to her sore knees. All of her was sore, but the hurt was good. It was healthy.
“Yes, you will.” Inessa bit her lip in a considering way, as if they were discussing what to have for dinner. “You will enact revenge on the vampire who took the lives of your friends, as we discussed. His friends will be snuffed out to pay homage to your own. You will slaughter them all. The one who preyed on the innocents that night and all who associate with him. For they will prey on innocents as well. It is their nature. Hunting is what you do now. That is what we do. We slay. We do the dirty work and keep the sheep safe.”
Roksana nodded, ignoring the way her skull rattled from taking so many hits lately. “Yes.”
“I was lenient when you set that murderous vampire loose from our hold, but I understood your desire for an actual challenge. Revenge must be satisfying. It’s something I might have done at your age.” Her eye twitched. “I won’t be so lenient next time.”
A finger of cold traced each bump of Roksana’s spine. She still had no idea why she’d set Elias loose from the prison at the training facility, where Inessa had held him for a year. Only that she’d been physically incapable of putting a stake through his heart when his vigor had been visibly eroded, leaving behind nothing but hollow eyes and sunken cheeks.
And no memory of her.
Roksana ignored the coil of pain in her chest.
“Name the vampires you will kill. Engrave their names on your bones.”
“Elias Perry, Jonas Cantrell, Tucker Moore,” she intoned.
Inessa inclined her head. “They are in Coney Island. New York. Living in a cozy little horde, as they are wont to do.” A breath passed. “You are grateful for this information I’ve found for you, da?”
“Yes. I’m very grateful, Mother.”
That was not a lie. Not at all. She would never have known where to start tracking down the bloodsucker who’d killed her friends. Her mother was being generous.
Her mother was all she had.
The angel of mercy had given her a reason to live in her darkest hour.
She only kept her at arm’s length and left her in physical pain at the end of each day to make her stronger. To make her a warrior worthy of her legacy.
Inessa tapped a finger on her knee. “Remember, if only you’d done as you were told and begun training as a child, you would have been able to protect your friends that night.”
Knowing better than to show weakness in front of her mother, she merely nodded, commanding herself to keep the tears suppressed until later. When she was alone. “Da, Mother. You are right.”
“Hmmm.” Inessa’s pupils turned to daggers as she leaned toward Roksana. “Don’t come back here until every last one of them is a pile of ash. Do not embarrass me after I’ve given you this chance or you will suffer the fate of your friends. Am I understood?”