Dark Demon (33 page)

Falcon is here. He will join us when he has helped your lifemate dispose of the enemy. Raven and Sara are on their way.

Tell them to hurry. We need someone working on her kidney.

Vikirnoff reached out immediately to include Natalya in the circle of information. He didn't need her trying to cut off Falcon's head with her sword.
He will come up behind them and they will not see him. Neither will you, but he will be there to assist you
.

If I can't see him, it isn't likely I'm going to chop off his head. Don't worry about me, I know what I'm doing. Take care of Gabrielle.

Vikirnoff worked meticulously to repair the damage done to the heart. This was a human woman, not a Carpathian. He didn't see how her body could go through the rigorous process of conversion when her heart was so badly damaged. She was barely alive. Mikhail was breathing for her as he drove the blood from her lungs. Vikirnoff contained her fading spirit, speaking softly, soothingly, whispering for her to stay with them. From afar a woman's voice joined with his, begging her sister to stay with them. It was heartbreaking. He had felt nothing for so long that now, when he needed to be strong, emotions choked him. This could have been Natalya.

Be careful Natalya.

Natalya allowed her gaze to rest briefly on Vikirnoff. There were lines of strain etched on his face. Whatever was taking place in the fight for Gabrielle's life was difficult and Vikirnoff was identifying, worried something might happen to her. Deliberately she brushed her mind against his in reassurance, and then turned her attention back to protecting him.

The door handle twisted with infinite slowness. Natalya resisted the urge to fire through the door, fearing the intruders might have a hostage as a shield. She inhaled, in an effort to catch the scents of anyone out in the hall. With the blood and so much fear and adrenaline, it was more difficult to distinguish individual scents, but far from impossible. There were four men and one woman. One very scared man and woman. It had to be the three accomplices and Slavica's husband and daughter.

Signaling Jubal to stand to the left of the door, she took the right side and waved Slavica into the relative safety of the bathroom. The idiots were coming in and they had to suspect that she had either taken Brent prisoner or killed him.

They are coming
. She sent the warning to Vikirnoff. He didn't even flinch or turn around, certain she would hold them off.

The door burst open. Shots exploded into the room, reverberating loudly, the sound deafening in the small space. The only people exposed to danger were Mikhail and Vikirnoff, but at her warning, Vikirnoff had obviously thrown a barrier around them to protect the prince and Gabrielle.

The attackers remained in the hall, shielded by the hostages. Mirko held his daughter's hand as they stood side by side, forced to obstruct the doorway and ensure the safety of their captors.

Natalya didn't want to risk hitting them and signaled to Jubal. He reacted instantly, throwing Slavica's daughter, Angelina, to the floor as Natalya yanked Mirko down. Even as she dragged him down, she embraced the change, clothes ripping into tatters and falling away from the fur-covered body. The tigress rose, roaring with rage, exploding from a crouch to full attack leaping over the top of the innkeeper's husband and knocking the three gunmen backward. Teeth buried deep into one throat while claws raked and tore at the other two bodies. The tigress ripped and mauled with relentless fury until there was no sound but the satisfactory death rattle in throats.

Natalya gave one last swipe of her paw to the man closest to her, the one who had held Angelina, and she turned and went back into the room, ignoring the way Jubal raised his eyebrow and the Ostojic family cringed a little as she padded back to the bathroom. Neither Mikhail nor Vikirnoff looked up from their work as she brushed past them.

Natalya dressed hurriedly. She had to get back out in the hall and clean up the mess before the inn emptied of the guests. They had to have heard gunfire, screams and the roar of a wild, enraged animal. It only took a moment to collect her weapons from the middle of her shredded clothes before she stepped out of the room into the hall.

A tall man with a wealth of black hair stood in the hall surveying the damage. "There was very little for me to do," Falcon said. "You seemed to have everything under control so I just directed the guests elsewhere and held down the volume."

Natalya gave him a small shrug. "I was really pissed at them. I'm Natalya."

"Falcon. I understand you are of the Dragonseeker line. You have Rhiannon's eyes. She was well-respected and much loved. It is an honor to meet you."

Two women materialized just to the left of Falcon. One had dark hair and incredibly blue eyes. She smiled at Natalya. "Thank you for your help. I'm Raven Dubrinsky." She indicated the other woman who had a wealth of thick chestnut hair and enormous violet-blue eyes. "This is Sara, Falcon's lifemate. I wish we could have met under better circumstances. Gabrielle is dear to us and we don't want to lose her."

"Vikirnoff isn't about to let her die."
Because she'd asked him not to
.

"It takes three blood exchanges to convert her," Raven said. "I am very afraid we'll have to space out the exchanges to give her the strength needed for the conversion and I'm not certain we have that kind of time. This is very risky."

"They have need of you inside. Raven," Falcon said. "Gabrielle is bad. Vikirnoff is holding onto her by a thread. You will have to see what you can do to help. Sara, they want you to work on the damage done to her kidney."

"What about the mess?" Sara looked around the blood-spattered hall. "We can't just leave it. Mirko and Slavica will lose all of their business."

"I will take care of this," Falcon assured her. "Perhaps, Natalya, you and Jubal would be willing to escort the Ostojic family to their residence and make certain they are safe. I will remove the memory from the daughter and distance the trauma of it for Mirko and Slavica. Mikhail will want to speak with them after he has finished with his task."

"Sure, no problem," Natalya said. She waved the Ostojic family past the carnage on the floor. Jubal led the way down the stairs while she guarded them from the rear. "Is everyone all right?" she asked.

Angelina bit back a sob and nodded, her eyes enormous. "I'm just scared. They didn't hurt me."

Slavica kept her arm firmly wrapped around her only child. "They beat Mirko, but he told them nothing." Anger crept into her voice. "They put a gun to our Angelina's head."

"Falcon will make certain she doesn't experience any permanent trauma," Jubal said. "You know they can do that. I'm so sorry this happened, Slavica."

"It is not the fault of our friends, or you. These people are madmen and they came to our inn to spy."

Natalya reached out to rub Angelina's arm, distressed by her quiet weeping. She hesitated, patted the girl and dropped her hand abruptly. "You were very brave. We have to walk downstairs and go through the big hall to get to your residence. Can you act like nothing is wrong? I'm sorry, I don't have the ability to make people look the other way."

Angelina nodded her head. "I can do it."

Jubal glanced over his shoulder at the girl's silent father. "Mirko, are you all right?"

"I am very angry."

"I'm angry, too," Jubal agreed.

"I'm sorry about Gabrielle. I hope they can save her life."

"I'm sorry about what they did to Angelina," Jubal replied. "I hate that we all have to worry every minute of every day that some psycho is going to try to kill us because Mikhail and Raven are our friends and Joie and Traian are family."

"We accepted the risk when Mikhail gave us a choice to know him for what he is," Mirko said. "I still cannot believe they threatened my daughter." His fingers curled tightly into fists. "They threatened my family."

"Well, they're dead now," Natalya said cheerfully. She gestured toward the few people wandering through the downstairs room and lowered her voice, keeping a smile firmly in place. "Slavica, thanks for the warning earlier. If you hadn't mentioned nightly chocolate, I might have opened the door without being prepared."

"I was about to take the hairspray to your room and just as I opened the door to go into the hall, they shoved me back inside. Fortunately they didn't realize the package was for you and I could tell them I was about to go to the kitchen for your chocolate."

"You got my hairspray for me? Thank you! I hope you got as many cans as you could find."

"I bought out the store, just as you instructed."

"You can't wait to play with that stuff, can you?" Jubal laughed.

She grinned at him. "Well, okay, maybe that's true. I want to see if it really works. It isn't like I'm going to go looking for trouble."

"That's exactly what you're going to do," Jubal objected.

"What are you planning to use the hairspray for, Natalya?" Mirko asked.

"She's developing flamethrowers to use on vampires," Jubal said. "Can you believe that?"

Natalya abruptly moved passed Slavica and Angelina to touch Jubal's arm, the smile fading from her face. "I need to make certain there aren't any nasty surprises waiting for us. Why don't you take them to the kitchen and let Slavica tend to Mirko's face?"

"I don't want you to go into their quarters alone. Vikirnoff will kill me. Literally."

She snorted. "He won't do any such thing, Jubal. Take them to the kitchen now."

Jubal's brows rose in sudden comprehension. "Because you think someone's in there."

"Slavica, take Angelina to the kitchen," Mirko ordered, his voice hard. "We are going with Natalya."

Natalya snapped her teeth together, irritated at the men's manly egos. She couldn't very well tell them they were going to be in the way. She preferred to fight by herself. Besides,
something
was in that residence, not some-
one
. The birthmark of the dragon burned hot on her body and she knew
nosferatu
waited inside.

"Please explain to me what you think is in my home," Mirko said.

Natalya exchanged a glance with Jubal and shrugged. "I believe the undead, the vampire is waiting inside for you and your family to return."

He stared at her face for a long moment. "And you were planning to go in alone, unaided to fight this thing?"

"I've fought them before." She patted her weapons and the single can of hairspray she had left in her bag. "I'm prepared."

"And this is what you use the flamethrower for? To kill the vampire?"

Jubal groaned and shook his head. "Do you have any idea how crazy this sounds? Have you seen a vampire? You're not going to kill one with a can of hairspray."

"I plan on bringing them down and then incinerating their hearts with the can of hairspray," she explained.

Jubal shook his head. "No vampire would dare come to the inn with so many hunters here. That's crazy."

Natalya shrugged. She was not about to argue when she was totally sure of herself. Something was in that residence. And she was beginning to think vampire weren't only in the Ostojic home, but perhaps in other parts of the inn as well.

She touched Vikirnoff's mind. The battle for Gabrielle's life raged on, but it wasn't going well. Vikirnoff was literally forcing her heart to beat while Mikhail breathed for her. She could hear the ancient healing chant, the voices swelling as Carpathians joined from a distance. She could hear a woman, most likely Joie, Gabrielle's sister, weeping as she tried to join the others in the chant.

For a moment Natalya was there with Vikirnoff, seeing the overwhelming task, the terrible damage done to Gabrielle, her body torn and drained of blood. Vikirnoff never faltered, never gave up. She could feel his determination, the endless strength and power he poured into Gabrielle's failing body.

Vikirnoff was a man of steel and compassion. There was something in him that drew her in spite of her every determination to hold him at bay, to be angry with him for binding them together, for making her so aware of him as a man and herself as a woman.

The task she'd asked of him was enormous and required every ounce of his will to keep Gabrielle alive, but he was doing it for her. And she was going into that room filled with vampires for him. She didn't exactly believe in putting herself in danger unless it was for a great cause. Keeping vampires off of Vikirnoff was an
excellent
cause. She blew a kiss toward the stairs.

"
Natalya
!" Jubal demanded. "Let's get this over with. I'm getting nervous thinking about going in there. Let's just do it."

"That's a vampire in there, Jubal," Natalya said. "You'd better be very sure you want to do this."

"I said I was going in."

"I just said, be sure." She didn't wait for his comment, but pushed open the door with caution. The lights were out. A lamp was overturned and lay on the floor, the bulb broken. Cans of hairspray were strewn across the floor and over by the window, a vase with wildflowers lay on its side, water forming a small puddle. Natalya drew her sword and stepped into the room, gliding in silence, her senses flaring out to "feel" the room. She signaled the two humans to stay back as she went farther into the residence.