Page 28 of Nocturne

27

LENA

T he first blow comes from Valtu.

One moment he’s standing in the doorway, dark and imposing like some gothic aristocrat. The next, he’s across the room, his fist connecting with Konstantin’s jaw with a sickening crack that sends the vampire crashing through a nearby table.

The club erupts into chaos.

Tatiana’s dagger slips from Callahan’s ribs as her attention diverts. I seize the opportunity, grabbing her wrist and twisting sharply away. The blue blade clatters to the floor, and I kick it away before she can recover. Callahan is already on his feet, squaring off against one of the vampires who rushes toward us.

All around us, the elegant facade of the Crimson Clover disintegrates into violent mayhem. Vampires clash with preternatural speed and strength, their movements blurring as they tear into one another. The humans still conscious enough to register the danger scramble for the exits, screaming in terror. Those chained to the feeding alcoves remain unaware, their drugged minds unable to process the nightmare unfolding.

Katya lunges at me, her face transformed by rage into something inhuman and terrible. Her glamour drops completely now, revealing her true form—skin like alabaster, veins visible beneath like dark rivers, eyes glowing with unholy hunger.

“You aren’t going anywhere,” she hisses, fangs fully extended.

I meet her attack head-on, centuries of instinct taking over. We collide with enough force to shatter the table between us, our bodies crashing to the floor amid splinters of wood and broken glass. Her hands go for my throat, nails suddenly elongated into talons that tear at my skin.

I buck upward, throwing her off balance, then roll to pin her beneath me. My own fangs descend, a growl rising from deep in my chest. This isn’t the controlled, civilized vampire I present to the world—this is a pure predator.

And I won’t back down.

Katya slashes at my face, her nails leaving burning tracks across my cheek. I retaliate with a punch to her sternum that would kill a human instantly. She merely gasps, momentarily winded, before returning with a flurry of blows too fast for human eyes to track.

From the corner of my eye, I see Callahan grappling with a vampire. He fights with remarkable precision, his movements controlled and effective. The training of his human life merges seamlessly with his vampiric strength, creating a lethal combination.

But I can’t focus on him—Katya demands my full attention, her attack relentless and vicious. She fights like someone with centuries of experience, each movement calculated to exploit weakness. I’m holding my own, but barely.

Across the club, my allies are engaged in their own battles. Abe faces off against a vampire I don’t recognize, his usually gentle demeanor replaced by cold efficiency as he tears out his throat. Ezra and Adonis work in tandem, their skill evident in how they anticipate each other’s moves as they take on multiple opponents.

And Valtu—Valtu is Dracula. With terrifying grace, he tears through the Ivan’s’ forces, his face a mask of focused fury. Blood spatters his clothing, none of it his own. Then again, I’ve seen him chop thugs up and put them in my freezer, so it shouldn’t surprise me.

A crash from behind me signals new danger. I throw Katya aside and whirl to find another vampire advancing, holding the blue blade. He tries to stab me with it and I block his strike, the impact making my arm shake, throwing me off balance.

Before he can strike again, Callahan is there, intercepting the blow meant for me. He grunts as the knife cuts along his forearm, but pushes through the pain to drive his fist into the vampire’s throat with crushing force.

“Thanks,” I gasp, regaining my footing.

Callahan nods, already turning to face the next threat. We stand back to back, creating a unified defense as more of the Ivanovs’ followers converge on us. Fighting alongside him feels natural, instinctive—as if we’ve done this a thousand times before. I can’t help but flash him a smile.

He smiles back, fangs and all.

My momentary distraction costs us. Konstantin flies at Callahan, while Katya reappears, her talons slashing across my back, tearing fabric and flesh alike. I cry out, stumbling forward as pain blazes along my spine. She follows, relentless, leaping onto my back and driving me to the floor.

“Where do you think you’re going?” she hisses into my ear, her weight pinning me down. “You belong to us now.”

Her fangs pierce my neck before I can respond, the pain sharp and immediate. The sensation of being fed upon is violating, intimate in all the wrong ways. I thrash beneath her, trying to dislodge her as my strength begins to ebb.

Then, suddenly, her weight is gone. Callahan has torn her away, flinging her bodily across the room. His eyes are wild, red pupils expanded until only a thin ring of blue remains visible, fangs fully descended.

“Don’t touch her,” he growls, the sound barely human.

Katya rises from the wreckage of a shattered bar, blood—my blood—staining her lips crimson. “Protective, aren’t we?” she taunts. “How sweet. Father will enjoy breaking that bond.”

Before Callahan can respond, Tatiana appears behind him, her blue dagger raised. I shout a warning, but it’s lost in the cacophony of battle. The blade descends toward his back?—

Only to be intercepted by Valtu, who catches Tatiana’s wrist in mid-strike. With a twist and a sickening crunch, he separates her hand from her arm, the dagger and severed appendage falling to the floor, blood and muscle splattering like raspberry jam.

Tatiana’s shriek of pain rises above the chaos. Valtu doesn’t pause, driving his fist through her chest with enough force that his hand emerges from her back, clutching her still-beating heart.

“Send my regards to hell,” he says coolly, before crushing the organ in his grip.

Tatiana’s body crumples, already beginning to desiccate as death claims her. True death—not the half-life we vampires lead, but the final end that awaits even our kind when our hearts are fully destroyed.

Damn.

Katya’s scream of rage and grief shakes the foundations of the building. “Sister!” she wails, her face contorted with anguish. She lunges toward Valtu, but Konstantin intervenes, grabbing her arm.

“Not now,” he hisses. “We need to retreat. The gateway?—”

Whatever else he might have said is lost as Adonis joins the fray, his massive form colliding with Konstantin’s with enough force to shatter concrete. They roll across the floor, locked in combat too vicious and fast to follow.

The tide of battle has shifted. With Tatiana’s death, the Ivanovs’ forces falter, uncertainty replacing their earlier confidence. There’s no doubt that Shanghai Red is aware of the scuffle down here, and the cops will be on the way.

“Lena!” Abe calls. “We need to go. Now!”

I turn to Callahan, reaching for his hand. “Come on!”

But where he stood a moment ago, there’s only empty space.

“Callahan?” I spin in place, scanning the chaos for any sign of him. “Victor!”

Nothing. He’s vanished amidst the melee.

Panic surges through me—cold, sharp, and all-consuming. “Callahan!” I shout again, pushing through the thinning crowd of combatants. “Where are you?”

Valtu appears at my side, his hand closing around my arm. “We need to leave,” he says urgently. “The building’s compromised.”

Only now do I notice the smoke filling the upper reaches of the club, the crackle of flames from somewhere above. In the chaos, someone has set fire to Shanghai Red upstairs, and it’s spreading rapidly.

“I can’t find Callahan,” I tell him, still searching desperately. “He was here, just a moment ago?—”

“No time,” Valtu insists, already pulling me toward the exit. “The fire will reach the gas lines soon and the police are on the way. We can’t afford to get caught, do you understand?”

I resist, digging in my heels. “I’m not leaving without him!”

Valtu’s expression hardens. “He’s gone, Lena. The Ivanovs have him.”

The words hit me like a physical blow. “How do you know?”

“I saw two men take him during the fight. They had the blade of mordernes. There was nothing I could do, I couldn’t reach him in time.”

Cold dread settles in my stomach. “We have to go after him. Now.”

“And we will,” Valtu promises, his grip on my arm unyielding. “But not like this. Not outnumbered and unprepared.”

Logic wars with emotion as smoke thickens around us. If the Ivanovs have Callahan, charging blindly after them won’t help him, especially if we don’t know where they’re going. But leaving him in their hands, even for hours…

“Lena,” Valtu says, his voice gentler now. “He’s stronger than you think. And they won’t kill him—they need him.”

Before I can ask what he means, a section of the ceiling collapses nearby, sending burning debris crashing to the floor. The decision is made for me—stay and burn, or retreat and plan a rescue.

With a final desperate glance around the burning club, I allow Valtu to lead me toward the exit. The others are already outside, Adonis carrying two unconscious humans under his arms, Ezra and Abe guiding the rest toward waiting vehicles.

The night air hits my face, cool and sharp after the smoke-filled club. Flames are now visible from the upper floors of Shanghai Red, orange fingers clawing at the night sky. Sirens wail in the distance—fire engines and police, both too late to matter.

I scan the street frantically, hoping against hope to see Callahan emerging from another exit. But the only figures moving in the darkness belong to our own group and the disoriented humans we’ve rescued before they burned to death.

“Get in,” Abe orders, holding open the door of a black Packard. I obey mechanically, still searching the shadows as we pull away from the burning building, the other cars following in a somber procession.

The drive passes in a blur, my mind replaying the fight in endless loops, searching for the moment I lost track of Callahan, for any clue to where they might have taken him. Each scenario I imagine is worse than the last—Callahan tortured, drained, killed for interfering with the Ivanovs’ plans.

Or worse—used somehow in their ritual. Another sacrifice to open their precious gateway.

“The Ivanovs won’t harm him immediately,” Abe says. “They’ll want to know what he knows, who he’s told. They’re hand over fist with Cohen, they’ll be looking to protect those interests.”

“They’ll torture him,” I say, the words tasting bitter.

Abe’s silence is confirmation enough.

The drive along the coast, shrouded in the marine layer and the thick darkness, feels like it takes forever. My relief is palpable when the Malibu colony rises into view. The other cars pull in behind us—Ezra and Adonis in one, Valtu in another. The rescued humans were dropped off at the hospital, Abe explains as we exit the vehicle.

“I need to go after him,” I say as soon as the door closes behind us. “I can track him. I can?—”

“You can get yourself killed,” Valtu interrupts, his voice sharp. “Or worse, captured. Which is exactly what they want.”

I round on him, fury replacing despair. “What do you mean, exactly what they want ? Why would they care about me specifically?”

The vampires exchange glances, a silent communication passing between them. Finally, Abe steps forward, his expression grave.

“Your blood type,” he says simply. “It’s AB negative.”

I stare at him, the implications sinking in. “How long have you known?”

“Since a couple of hours ago,” he admits. “I called your parents.”

My eyes bug out. “My parents?”

He nods. “Yes. Of course, they knew your blood type. Didn’t want them to worry about it though, so I didn’t mention the murders. Luckily the AB negative information about the cases hasn’t yet hit the papers yet. But the moment I learned that, I knew you’d need backup after all, signal or not.”

“So I’m next,” I say, blinking at the truth.

“You won’t be next,” Valtu says, putting a comforting hand on my shoulder.

“Then Callahan will be,” I say. “Don’t tell me that’s his blood type too?”

“No,” Abe says. “He’s O positive.”

“Then why take him? Please, I don’t understand.”

“We have an idea.”

I sink onto the couch, the fight temporarily draining out of me. “Then tell me the idea. Tell me everything. No more secrets. What are the Ivanovs planning? What is this gateway? What new world are they talking about?”

The four vampires exchange glances again, some unspoken agreement passing between them. Abe sits beside me, while the others arrange themselves around the room—Ezra perched on the arm of a chair, Adonis standing like a sentinel by the door, Valtu prowling restlessly near the windows.

“Skarde,” Abe begins, the word heavy with history, “as you know, is the king of the vampires, sire of us all. He lives in what some call the Red Realm. Not a physical location exactly, but a dimension adjacent to our own, accessible only through certain doorways or through specific rituals under specific conditions The Ivanovs were among the last to leave Skarde,” Abe continues. “They were expelled, to be precise. For practices considered abhorrent even by vampire standards.”

“Blood rituals,” I guess. “Like the ones they’re performing now.”

Abe nods. “That, and worse. They’ve spent centuries trying to find a way back. Every few decades, they attempt the ritual, always failing. Always leaving a trail of bodies in their wake.”

“But this time is different,” Ezra adds. “They believe they’ve found the key. A specific sequence of sacrifices, each with particular attributes, culminating in a final offering that will tear open the veil between worlds.”

“Me,” I say flatly. “Because of my blood type.”

“Not just your blood type,” Abe corrects. “Your nature. A vampire with AB negative blood. It’s extraordinarily rare, more so than with humans—I’ve encountered perhaps one or two in all my centuries.”

“So they’ll try to drain me dry to open their doorway,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady. “To escape a world where they can’t freely slaughter humans.”

“It’s more complicated than that,” Adonis says, speaking for the first time since we arrived. “Many of our kind believe humans are destined to destroy themselves and this world with them. That our only hope for long-term survival lies in returning to the Red Realm.”

“Do you believe that?” I ask, looking around at each of them.

“I believe in balance,” Abe says carefully. “In finding ways to coexist. The Ivanovs never sought that balance. They see humans as livestock, nothing more.”

“And what happens if they succeed?” I ask. “If they open this gateway? Theoretically, they would leave this world. Isn’t that for the best?”

“Theoretically, yes,” Abe says. “But you, my dear…you’re the price. Which is why the doorway won’t be opened.”

“We won’t let that happen,” Valtu says.

“When did you learn all this?” I ask.

“Non-stop digging since you left the house,” Ezra says, jerking his shoulder toward Abe. “Their detective skills are on par with Callahan’s.”

The mention of his name makes my heart sink.

“What about Callahan?” I press. “Where does he fit into their plans?”

Another exchange of glances, this one more weighted than before. Valtu opens his mouth to speak.

“Val,” Abe says, a warning in his tone.

But Valtu shakes his head. “She deserves to know what we learned. Especially now.” He turns to me, his dark eyes uncharacteristically serious. “The Ivanovs aren’t just any vampire family. They’re one of the original bloodlines from Skarde. Some of the oldest vampires alive. Their blood carries potency. Power.”

Understanding begins to dawn. “And Callahan?”

“Dmitri Ivanov had a son,” Valtu says simply. “A child he gave up for adoption thirty-five years ago, as an experiment. To see if vampire nature would emerge even without knowledge of one’s heritage. To see if blood truly is destiny.”

The room tilts around me as the implications sink in. “You’re saying…Callahan is Dmitri’s son? He’s an Ivanov?”

“By blood, yes,” Abe confirms gently. “Though not by choice or knowledge.”

“That’s why he’s so strong,” I murmur, remembering how he matched Konstantin in combat despite his newborn status. “Why his transition has been so strange…so violent.”

“And why Dmitri won’t kill him,” Ezra adds, trying to assuage me. “The Ivanovs are obsessed with bloodlines, with legacy. Dmitri won’t destroy his own son, no matter how he was raised.”

“He’ll try to turn him instead,” I say, cold certainty settling in my stomach. “To bring him into the family. To make him an Ivanov in truth as well as blood.”

The silence confirms my fear.

“And you found this out through your detective work too?”

“We suspected when you first described him,” Abe admits. “A vampire who didn’t know what he was until his thirty-fifth birthday? A vampire that was adopted? Then when Valtu met him…”

“He moves like Dmitri,” Valtu interrupts. “Looks like Dmitri, too. I know the Ivanovs. He has the same patterns, the same instincts. Blood remembers, even when the mind doesn’t.”

I rise abruptly, pacing across the room as I try to process everything. Callahan, an Ivanov by blood. A son of the man behind Elizabeth’s murder, behind the ritual killings, behind the horror we’ve witnessed. The same blood flows in his veins as in Dmitri’s, as in Katya’s and the now-dead Tatiana’s.

Wait a minute.

“Tatiana,” I say slowly, making a face. “Katya. They’re his sisters?”

Abe nods. “Yes.”

I grimace, my stomach growing queasy.

“Something wrong?”

I shake my head. I’m not going to get into the fact that his sister did some questionable acts with Callahan, right in front of me. Thank god she’s dead.

And thank god he isn’t one of them. His blood doesn’t define him, any more than my AB negative status defines me.

“We need to find him,” I say, turning back to face the others with new conviction. “Before Dmitri can convince him that blood is destiny. Before he makes Callahan into something he isn’t.”

“We will,” Abe promises. “But not tonight. We need to plan. The Ivanovs will be expecting an immediate rescue attempt. And first we have to find them.”

Logic tells me he’s right, but every instinct screams to go now, to try and find Callahan before it’s too late. I think of him alone with Dmitri, learning the truth of his parentage, being offered power beyond imagining. Would he resist? Would the man I love withstand that temptation?

I have to believe he would. Have to believe that the connection between us is stronger than blood ties he never knew existed.

“First light,” I say, making it clear this isn’t a request. “We start searching at first light. We do as Callahan would and turn over every stone, follow every lead, and we don’t give up until we find out where the Ivanovs have taken him. I won’t leave him with them a moment longer than necessary.”

Abe studies me for a long moment, then nods. “First light,” he agrees. “But until then, you rest. You heal. You prepare. We all do.”

The others filter out of the room, leaving me alone with my thoughts. Through the side windows, I can see the lights of Los Angeles spread out below like a carpet of stars brought down to earth, the curve of Palos Verdes and San Pedro right behind it. Somewhere out there, Callahan is facing the darkest truth of his existence.

I press my hand against the cool glass, a silent promise carried on the night air.

Hold on, Victor. I’m coming for you. No matter what.