Beautiful Monster-The Exchange (6 page)

Hollowness bore into Lev, dwelling side by side with the
happy thought he may be able to be with Carly after all. It was bittersweet.
Was he giving up too much? He let his thoughts become a question. “I will have
to die too?”

“You will be mortal again, my brother. You can either
wait until the time of your natural death or…” Alexei trailed off, averting his
gaze.

Lev understood what his brother was trying to say, and
he’d already decided he would go right away. Still, how could he allow Alexei
to sacrifice himself?

“I…I’m not sure,” Lev choked out in a thin whisper.

Boris playfully punched Lev on the shoulder. “It is what
your brother wants, comrade. Can you not see that?”

Lev let his head drop into his hands. The weight of his
decision was too much.

“Would you leave me and my brother alone for a while?”
Alexei asked Boris.

The big man was happy to oblige, leaving the room with a
smile. The brothers got to their feet as soon as he’d gone, and Alexei embraced
Lev, whispering in his ear, “You know he may be able to hear us?”

Lev nodded.

Alexei continued, “We must try our best to speak sotto
voce. I am sure Boris is more than a little interested in what we are about to
discuss.”

Lev nodded his reply.

“Most of us do not know where our makers have gone to
over the years, but I needed to keep track of Boris. I’ve known for a long time
what he’s wanted from me. Hell, look at him. Would you want to spend all of
eternity looking and smelling like that?” Alexei wrinkled his nose, and Lev had
to stifle a laugh.

“If you’ve managed to stay away from him for so long, I
don’t understand why you’re willing to sacrifice yourself now.”

“Brother, I am not as good as you make me out to be. Am
I afraid of Boris? Hell, yes. Do I really want to die? No,” he said in a
furious whisper.

Lev’s eyes widened. “What—”

Alexei muted him with a hand. “You must give up your
fantasy, brother. Carly is gone. She is not coming back. She
cannot
come
back, and you cannot get to her. But, with your help, we can get rid of Boris
once and for all, and I won’t have to live in fear.”

Lev had no words. He’d been sucker-punched. “You liar!”

Alexei held a finger to his lips and looked back over
his shoulder to make sure Boris hadn’t returned. “Shhh.”

“I should tell him your plan,” Lev said, no longer
keeping his voice down. “Besides, you can never kill him. Only his maker can,
and he has no idea where he is.”

“But I do,” Alexei said with a smile. “Will you help me,
brother? I really am sorry that it’s too late for you, but your heart will mend
in time. You’ll find another woman to love. You always do. Between the two of us,
we can overpower him. He’s not stronger than the both of us together. And
please, keep your voice down.”

“Why would his maker kill him? You’re not making sense.”

Alexei rolled his eyes. “Let’s just say he likes me.
Everyone does.”

Not everyone, Lev thought, then swung. His fist met
Alexei’s jawbone with a crack. “Bastard!”

Alexei put a hand to his jaw and rubbed. Shock was
written all over his face for a moment, then his demeanor changed, his eyes
narrowed, and he slunk into a crouch—hands raised, fangs at the ready. Alexei
was a blur as he plowed into his brother like a ram, sending him skittering
backward over a pile of books and magazines. Lev hit the floor but quickly
found his feet.

Another flash of movement caught Lev’s eye. Boris now
stood between them—arms spread out like a referee, a palm on each man’s chest.
“What the hell is going on?” His voice was a growl of discontent.

Lev shot daggers at his brother. Should he tell?
Could
he tell? If he did, it would mean the end of Alexei.

“Just a disagreement between brothers,” Alexei said,
giving his jaw another rub. He returned his brother’s gaze as if to send a
message to keep his mouth shut. “Perhaps we should go now.” Alexei took a step
toward the exit of the great room. “Lev and I will get back to you with our
decision.”

“No!” Boris bellowed. “This will be settled here and
now.” He bent to Alexei’s level, eyes narrowed. “Do you think me a fool?” His
purple lips spread into a grin. “I know where you live now. It was not
difficult to follow you home, you stupid creature.”

There was fear in Alexei’s eyes, and Lev
almost
felt sorry for him. Instead, he stepped away and allowed Boris center stage. It
felt as if he were watching a play, and he was eager to see what would happen
next.

The darkness in him surfaced. He let it take the reins
from the true Lev. He watched as Boris and Alexei began to circle each other.
Low growls percolated deep in their throats, fangs flashed, eyes narrowed.
Alexei was slighter and quicker, but Boris seemed made of brick and mortar—a
broad-shouldered, barrel-chested monster.

Alexei made the first move. Lashing out with an open
hand, he clawed a gash on the side of Boris’s leathery face. The big man
lunged, but Alexei sprung up quickly. His back was now against the ceiling
where he hovered in a corner and peered down with a smile.

Boris barreled toward a window but managed to swing over
a step to stop from crashing through the glass. He hit the wall with a thick
shoulder instead, leaving a cavernous dent in the plaster and sending a plume
of dust into his own face.

He shook it off like a dog after a bath then looked up,
but Alexei had already moved to the doorway and would have left, except Lev
made it there before him and stood solidly in his way.

“Brother?” Alexei’s voice was pleading and filled with
surprise.

There was no stopping what Lev had just set in motion.

Lev’s nostrils filled with the scent of coppery blood as
he watched Boris rip Alexei apart as easily as a man pulling pork from a barbecued
rib.

What the hell had he just allowed to happen? He fought
the impulse to stop the carnage. True Lev struggled to wrestle the reins from
the darkest part of him. It wasn’t easy to witness his brother die, but he did
his best to steel himself, closing off what was left of his heart, reminding
himself this was his only way to be reunited with Carly. And there was the fact
that Alexei had lured him back to Boris’s house under false pretenses—all
self-serving. Killing Boris meant freedom for Alexei. It meant never having to
look over his shoulder again, but what about him? Didn’t he deserve happiness?

The big man ripped Alexi’s right arm from his body and
hungrily put the stump to a mouth that seemed almost to unhinge. Boris sucked
and slurped until his face was a mask of crimson. He continued to pull Alexei
apart, limb by limb, until he was reduced to a pile of bones and blood-soaked
rags in a heap on the floor.

In all their years together, Lev was the responsible
one, always taking care of his brother. Alexei would think nothing of bringing
home beautiful young men or women, sleeping with them, feeding from them and,
more often than not, killing them. Lev was left with the aftermath of his
brother’s messes. This fueled his acceptance of the decision he’d just made,
and he couldn’t deny there was peace knowing there was a place beyond the
material world, at least for him. He was pretty sure Alexei would cease to
exist in every sense of the word. He suddenly remembered why Boris wanted
Alexei’s life so badly in the first place. He cringed and shook it from his
thoughts. It may not be true, he told himself. How could anyone take another’s
appearance?

He swung his thoughts back to Carly and contemplated the
ways in which he could end his own life. Surprisingly, that thought didn’t
bring a cringe but a worry instead—what if he couldn’t find her? What if all
this was for naught?

Boris’s eyes met Lev’s as he wiped his face with the
sleeve of his jacket. A long smear of crimson ran across the big man’s face,
making him look like a homicidal clown.

The impulse to run shot through Lev. He readied himself,
setting his sights on the front door of the dilapidated mansion, which he could
see from where he stood at the entrance to the great room. He didn’t want to
leave, not without the precious thing he’d come for. His soul would surely find
its way back to him, its owner. Wasn’t that the way it worked?

Then he saw it—a fine, colorless mist began to curl from
the heap of blood-soaked rags, like steam rising from a boiling kettle. It swirled
and spun and made its way over to Lev like a mini tornado. He dared not move
when he felt it begin to bore into the top of his skull. At first he felt
nothing but a little pressure, then his vision began to blur, and his senses
dulled. He saw more curling, churning mists—hundreds, maybe thousands. He
thought back to Boris’s words—that they were teeming with them. The mist-like
souls vanished through the closed window. No doubt let loose into the world,
they would head back to their owners. Lev briefly wondered about that. Where
would they go if the bodies they once lived in were dead? Or turned? He had no
answers or time. His brain seemed to be slowing down, his senses dulling. Lev’s
world went black, and the last thing he saw was the floor rising up to meet
him.

When Lev opened his eyes, his brother stared down at
him. Flat on his back, he was still on the floor of Boris’s great room. A bolt
of adrenaline shot through him when he realized it couldn’t possibly be Alexei.
His arms and legs began to work in an uncoordinated effort to get him out of
danger.

He heard his brother’s voice say, “Do not be afraid.”
Then a laugh. “I must find a mirror.” Lev watched as Boris peered down at his
hands and slender legs, how he passed a hand through thick black hair, then
felt his face, tracing a finger over an aquiline nose and chiseled jawline.

A sudden urge to retch came over Lev despite the fact
his stomach was empty and ached for food,
real
food. A vague remembrance
of how it felt to be hungry for food came to him, yet the sensation seemed new.
He didn’t want blood. In fact, the thought of it was repulsive.

Boris’s house, though huge, brought on an attack of
claustrophobia. Lev had lost his amplified senses, but still he was well aware
of the lurking danger. He could never go home again. Boris could come for him
any time he wanted. He needed what he didn’t have—time to figure things out.

He struggled to his feet, staggering like a newborn colt,
and had to grab the back of a chair to keep from toppling over.

Boris now stood at the other end of the room in front of
a mirror, sloppily wiping blood off his new face with a rag. He turned and
smiled at Lev. It was Alexei’s smile but somehow different. Lev had never truly
been afraid of his brother, but that smile sent a shiver down his spine. Then
it went out and Boris glared. “Leaving so soon?”

Lev felt heavy and clumsy as he took a few steps toward
the doorway. Boris beat him there, blocking his way, just as he’d blocked his
brother’s moments ago. A stab of regret pounded through him. He’d let his
brother die—let him be pulled limb from limb! Did he deserve to be with Carly
after what he’d allowed to happen? He’d never killed anyone, but he certainly
felt like a murderer now. He not only let it happen, a part of him also
wanted
it to.

That was the old Lev, he told himself, trying to lessen
his anguish. The Lev who was a creature of the night.

“You have what you want. Just let me go now,” Lev said,
trying to keep the panic from his voice.

Boris ran a finger along his own jawline, wiping off a
bead of blood, then he slipped his finger into his mouth and sucked. “I like
you,” he said and put an arm around Lev’s shoulder, leading him back into the
room. “Do you not want to hear about what I saw? About what I told you and
Alexei when we were outside?”

Of course he wanted to know. There was nothing he wanted
more. He’d hoped that once he was whole again, the portal would have opened on
its own, and Carly would have been waiting. But alarm rang in every fiber of
his being. He was about to become Boris’s second course. He’d have to find
another way back to Carly.

Boris still had an arm clamped around Lev, and though it
was now a smaller, thinner arm, and not the tree trunk Boris had sported, Lev
still felt its crushing strength. There would be no escaping his grip.

Boris pointed at the air in front of him, seemingly at
nothing. “Do you not see it?”

Lev shivered as he stared at the spot the man who looked
like his brother was pointing at, but he saw nothing.

Boris laughed in Alexei’s voice, but there was a bit of
Boris in the sound too. “You would have seen it earlier if you still had eyes
to see with. But there is something still here, a remnant of that…that swirling
ball of light your girlfriend disappeared through. I thought you might like to
see it. I have no use for it and no idea why it remains.”

Lev squinted and tried harder to catch a glimpse.

“It is right here.” Boris pointed directly in front of
his own nose. “I am so close, I could pluck it up and squash it.” He made
pincers out of his thumb and pointer and moved his hand over the spot where it
supposedly hovered.

“No!” Lev screamed, making Boris roar with laughter.

“Why would you want to be mortal again, stupid man? All
for what, a woman? You traded immortality and your brother’s life for nothing.”
His grin grew until it filled his face.

Lev barreled into him, managing to shove him only a few
inches.

Boris shot out a hand and wrapped it around Lev’s
throat, squeezing and lifting until his feet dangled a foot from the floor. He
could hardly draw a breath. Boris’s fangs slipped from his gums, and Lev knew
they would soon plunge into his throat. His only hope was Boris would kill him
instead of turn him back into a creature of the night.

“I am not that nice, Lev. I like you too much to kill
you. You are as beautiful as your brother.” He laughed. “I should say, you are
as beautiful as I am now. I shall like to have you around.”

Lev dropped to the floor, his back slamming against a
wall. He sat stunned for a few seconds before Boris came at him again. He
hardly felt a thing as his fangs hit their mark.