Page 211 of White Wolf

“Your girl?” Lanny guessed.

Nikita pressed his lips together, hand tightening on his glass until his knuckles turned white.

“Katya,” Sasha said, when it became apparent that Nikita wasn’t going to answer.

“Trina’s great-grandmother?” Lanny said.

“Yes.” Nikita’s voice was all gravel and grit. His throat jumped when he swallowed. “I left her human.”

Lanny felt like he stood on the edge of a cliff when he said, “Do you regret it?”

Nikita breathed a humorless laugh. “Yes, and no. Yes for me. No for her. Not ever – she didn’t deserve that.” He looked up then, and Lanny had no idea what his own face was doing, but it prompted Nikita to say, “You’re surprised.”

“No, I…well, I mean. Yeah. Who doesn’t want to live forever?” But he heard the hollow sound of his voice.

Nikita cocked his head, and for a moment, he didn’t look quite human. Same face, same shoulders, same unruly dark hair, same threadbare shirt. But something in the tilt of his head spoke of prehistoric times, when birds bigger than men walked the earth; spoke of an hour in the night that no living thing had seen.

Lanny shivered.

“You don’t want to live forever,” Nikita said. “Do you?”

“I…”

“It’s alright. I think better of you for it.”

He sighed, and felt something that had previously been locked tight inside him loosen. Like a muscle cramp that finally eased. “I was raised Catholic,” he said, and then the valve was open, and he could give voice to the things he hadn’t been able to tell Trina. “I believe in God. In heaven. I think our souls go there when we die. Well, mostly.”

Nikita nodded.

“What happens…what happens if you don’t die? If you cheat death…doesn’t that make God angry? Shit, I sound like a kid.” He wiped at his face, trying to ease the tension between his brows.

“A good question,” Nikita said. “And I don’t know the answer.”

“Well that’s comforting.”

Nikita drained his vodka and, unasked, Sasha got up to take the glass into the small kitchen and pour him another. “Maybe I should tell you some things, and then you can tell me some things, and then we can really talk.”

Lanny didn’t know what that meant, but he was adrift here, so he nodded.

“Here’s what I do know about vampires,” Nikita continued. “They are immortal. They require food and drink, just like humans, but they also require the blood of living things. Animal blood can get you by, but there’s a natural craving for human blood – it’s stronger. We” – he said, gesturing between himself and Sasha – “have a theory that it goes all the way back to Rome, that it’s an instinct that helps turn people into subjects. You can literally hold their life in your hands.”

He made a disgusted face, took a sip of his refreshed vodka, and pressed on. “Humans can be turned. Which you saw. But vampires can breed, too. And unless you cut the heart from their bodies, they can’t be killed. Mostly.”

“That what you did with Chad Edwards?”

“Yes.”

“You done that a lot?”

“When necessary. When I come across a vampire who kills people when he feeds.”

“Nik believes in humanity,” Sasha put in. “He has a big heart.”

“No. I’ve had enough of killers, is all.”

The two immortals stared at one another, Sasha’s gaze asking for a little lenience, Nikita glaring back at him. They created the sort of tableau that Lanny had only ever seen in affectionate, but long-suffering marriages. The thought made him want to laugh, and maybe it was the vodka, but in that moment he couldn’t help but like them, at least a little. And he approved of Nikita’s attitude toward the whole thing. He guessed.

Nikita sighed, exasperated, and finally gave Sasha a tiny smirk – the boy beamed in response and settled down into his chair, satisfied – before turning to Lanny. He grew thoughtful. “You watched me snap Chad Edwards’s neck tonight, and then you came to see me.”

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