Page 67 of Sinner's Salvation

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Baz said, raising his voice and walking over to push the two men apart.

Huh, she wasn’t the only one concerned with their behavior.

“Back off, both of you. Get your hands off your guns. Nobody is shooting anybody. The owner of this hotel, Yvgeny Breznik, left strict instructions about that. I don’t give a shit if you two want to start the fight at the OK Corral down on the street, but you’re not doing it in here.”

“Who the hell are you?” Ledger asked, frowning at Baz.

“I’m Bazyli Breznik. My cousin, Yvgeny, owns this bui—”

Ledger pulled his gun out and shot Baz in the chest. The sound hit Anna’s head loud enough to make her duck.

Baz fell to the floor.

Nika, the FBI agents, and the Homeland Security agents all pulled their guns on each other.

“What thefuck?” Nika shouted at Ledger.

“Shit,” Evan breathed. “That’s got to hurt.”

“It’s a good thing he’s wearing that vest,” Anna said, shaking her head. “What if that idiot had shot him in the head, like he did to me?”

Evan tilted his head. “A very good thing. Was Baz expecting this?”

Anna shrugged. “Yvgeny has safe rooms and escape routes and Baz wears body armor. We all have our own way of coping with our paranoia.”

Evan gave her a half grin. “It’s not paranoia if it happens.”

“Stop,” she said, waving one hand at him with a shooing motion. “Now you sound like Bazyli.”

Another shot rang out.

Had no one disarmed that moron? Or had the second shot come from a different part of the hotel?

There were people from four different groups in the hotel now, all of them armed. Most of them were on the ground floor, but a few had wandered to other floors, looking for who knew what.

Anna studied the screens.Where, where, where...there!

In Yvgeny’s apartment, Nika stumbled backward and hit the wall. She slid down it, leaving a wide streak of blood behind on the wall.

Oh, no.

Baz, who had been trying to get up from the floor, but not making much of an effort because getting shot while wearing a ballistic vest still hurt, finally pushed to his feet.

“Nika!” he shouted, and shoved the men between him and her out of his way.

“Look at him,” Ledger screamed as he struggled with two FBI agents trying to subdue him. One of them finally took his gun away from him, but Ledger twisted out of the grip of the other with a wide smile on his face. “See, see, I told you. He’s not human and neither is she. She’s his girlfriend. She’ll be fine.”

Baz tore open Nika’s shirt. Blood coated the left side of her torso, trickling down from a hole in her chest. “Someone call 9-1-1,” he shouted. “She’s bleeding like a stuck pig.”

Brian knelt next to Nika and put his hands over Baz’s. “I’ve got this, go rip that asshole a new one.”

Baz stared at Brian and the expression on his face froze Anna in place. She’d seen him look like that only once in their very long lives. It was right after his wife and son had been murdered.

Baz had gone on a killing spree that had lasted for weeks.

He got to his feet and turned toward Ledger, who was still yelling. Something about how he’d discovered that there were real vampires in the world, and they were the secret to eternal life.

“I’m not some fairytale creature, you fucking moron,” Baz snarled at him as he pulled his shirt up. “I’m wearing a ballistic vest, or I would be bleeding out like the woman you just shot.” He patted his chest until he found the bullet, still nestled in an indent in the vest.

---