Nadya’s Nights: Road to Vengeance

Night Two: Race for the Cure

Chapter Eighteen: Road Hazzards

by Indy McDaniel

Copyright © 2009 Indy McDaniel

Nadya tried not to think about the disturbing experience she’d just had, focusing instead on her driving.  She wasn’t prone to hallucinations, and the whole thing had felt too real to be one.  She knew vampires, like werewolves, had certain powers.  They varied from creature to creature.  There might have been a predetermined way of figuring out which ones were more likely to develop certain powers, but if so, she didn’t know what it was and she didn’t much care.

She was more concerned with what powers Remy specifically had.  The ability to yank her into some kind of weird realm where he had total control of not only her surroundings but of her whole being didn’t make her feel any better about the challenges that lay ahead.

She cursed softly and lit a fresh smoke, trying again to push the thoughts away.  There was no point worrying about it until she had to.  Until then, her main objective was to find this contact that could supposedly help Ulbrecht.

Hopefully her French informant hadn’t been throwing her a load of shit.  If so, she wasn’t sure what she would do.

It wasn’t as if she could go back and punish the woman for giving her bad information.

As it turned out, her need to worry about what kind of powers Remy possessed became necessary all too soon.  Glancing into the rearview mirror out of reflex, she gasped as she caught sight of the demonic visage of the vampire.  She quickly turned her head, looking out the back of the car.

There was nothing there.

She turned back around, already scolding herself for being so jumpy.  As she turned to face forward again, she caught sight of Ulbrecht giving her a worried look.  She ignored it and turned her eyes back to the road.  She wasn’t about to tell him that she was seeing things.  She checked the rearview mirror again and saw nothing but empty road disappearing into the darkness behind them.

Nadya took another drag from her cigarette and blew the smoke out the open window beside her.  She wondered how close Remy actually was.  She didn’t imagine his powers could work over a long distance, so that meant he had to be chasing after them.  That wasn’t a surprise, but what was was how he was managing to keep up.  Nadya wasn’t exactly being light on the gas pedal.  So he had to have a means of travel just as fast as the Maserati.

That was another disturbing thought.

Nadya turned slightly to flick some ash out the open window and her eyes went wide as she saw Remy outside the car.  He was just standing there, grinning at her, as if the car were sitting still.  The Russian girl cursed and flicked her half-finished cigarette out of the window at him.

The smoke passed clear through him and he laughed.

She could hear the sound easily enough and could feel it echo in her ears.  She turned away and focused on the road again, concentrating hard on it and trying to block out everything else.  She didn’t like anyone playing with her mind.  It was just as bad as someone playing with her body as far as she was concerned.

Maybe even worse.

She knew she wasn’t crazy, so if that’s what the asshole was trying to make her think, he was failing.  If he was trying to unnerve her, though, he wasn’t failing as bad.  Her hands clenched the steering wheel hard and her palms began to sweat.  Her eyes were beginning to ache from focusing on the road and she had to blink several times to relax them.

The Russian assassin felt a tingle of fear in the back of her head, trying to work its way forward.  The feeling was certainly justified, given her current situation, but she hated it just the same.  She tried to force it to sit back down and shut the fuck up, but it was a persistent little bastard, and it was gorging itself on every one of her insecurities to grow larger.

She clenched her teeth hard, adding fuel to her anger so that it would squash the rebellious little snippet of her mind.  Things were shitty, it was a given, but the very last thing she needed to do was start to let her fear fester and grow.  If that happened, she wouldn’t be able to perform properly and when the time came for her to act, she’d do something stupid and get herself and Ulbrecht both killed.

Slowly, her anger at herself and the cold, rational part of her brain fought off the fear, beating it into submission and flushing it like some unwanted garbage.  Her teeth slowly unclenched and she let out a sigh of relief.

Then a fist slammed out of her chest.

Nadya’s eyes went wide and her mouth gaped open as she looked down and saw the arm that had grown from between her breasts.

No, not grown…

The arm was covered in blood.

Her blood.

And the hand at the end was gripping something.  Something covered in blood and still pumping weakly.

It was her heart.

Her eyes focused on her heart, watching it pump out the last of its blood slowly.  The blood dripped from the hand, falling onto her lap and staining her pants.  Blood began to creep up the back of her throat and then started to fall past her lips and down her chin.

She watched as the hand holding her heart crushed her precious organ, making it explode and spray blood in all directions.  The windshield was painted crimson along with Nadya’s face.

After it finished destroying her heart, the hand opened back up and dropped the ruined organ into her lap, then yanked back through her chest, leaving a gaping, bloody hole there.

Outside of the gory hallucination Nadya was in, her eyes were half-closed and her head had fallen back against the headrest of the seat.  Her hands dropped limply away from the steering wheel and the car began to drift towards the edge of the road.

Ulbrecht looked over when he saw they were about to run off and saw the state Nadya was in.  He moved over and grabbed the steering wheel, straightening them out.

“Nadya!” he yelled to her, trying to snap her out of the daze she was in.

She didn’t react, seemingly comatose in the seat.  Her foot pressed down on the gas pedal and the engine revved making the car speed even faster down the road.

“Nadya, wake up!” Ulbrecht tried again with still no response.  Steering the car from the passenger seat at the speed they were traveling at was immensely difficult.  They came close to running off the side again and Ulbrecht jerked the wheel in the opposite direction, swerving them across the road.  He worked the wheel back again, finally getting the car more or less aligned.

He looked over at Nadya again and saw she was still in an unresponsive state.  Taking one hand off the wheel, he held it back and hesitated briefly before slapping her hard across the face.

Nadya’s eyes fluttered open and focused instantly, realizing what had happened.

“Fuck!” she yelled, reaching up and grabbing the wheel.  She let up off the gas and started to slow the Maserati down.  She braked and pulled onto the side of the road, then threw the car into park.  She sat back in the seat, breathing heavily.  Beside her, Ulbrecht was also out of breath.  She noticed her hands were shaking and forced them to stop.

The fear was back and clawing strongly through her brain.  She told it to get back down where it came from and spent the next several minutes forcing it there.  Once that was done, she inhaled and let out the breath slowly.  Then she lit up another cigarette and took several long drags.

“Maybe you should drive,” she said to Ulbrecht quietly.