WEDNESDAY NIGHT
NOVEMBER 13th, 1991 MOSCOW, RUSSIA
A frigid gust of air blew in through the gaps in the boarded-up window, clearing the scents of tobacco and mildew from the poorly lit bedroom.
Every once in a while, Victor Brody wished for a heating system that actually worked. He glanced up at the air vent above his head and sighed. He wouldn't be surprised if the damned thing was iced over by now.
He returned his attention to the Remington 870 in his hands and continued to inspect it under the lamplight. The stock and pump looked a little worn as far as wood went, and their various little scratches and marks were telltale signs of the action the weapon had seen.
Just needs a polish and it's good as new.
A loud knocking from the apartment door reached his ears above the howl of the wind outside, and Brody perked his ears. The mercenary combed a hand through his shaggy blond hair and stood up from his desk.
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With a tug of his beard, he walked out of the damp, cold bedroom and through the equally untidy kitchen area up to the apartment door. He peered into the peephole to see a wide hazel eye staring back at him.
'Victor!' greeted the man cheerily through the door, 'May I come in?'
Brody stepped aside to allow his comrade entry.
Yuri Khanilov continued to sport his grin from behind his scraggly auburn beard. Brody focused his gaze on the manila envelope tucked under the man's arm as he shut the door behind him. Yuri led the way into the bedroom.
'I have been contacted by that new client, Tsaryov.' Yuri held up the envelope in a calloused hand. 'He is going to be paying us pretty handsomely.'
Brody found himself smirking at the word 'us.'
'How much?' he asked.
'Two hundred thousand rubles for a 'competitor' of his.'
Brody let out a low whistle as Yuri sat down on the messy bedspread and searched the inside of the folder with his fingers.
'Only for one man?' Brody asked. In reply, Yuri pulled out a pair of polaroid images and handed them over with a concerned frown. 'What's this?'
Brody found himself staring at what had to be the most luxurious-looking nightclub this side of Moscow. Through the grainy image, he could make out two guards—armed with rifles and clad in the sleek red suits of the Bratva, of course—standing on either side of the entrance of the two-story establishment. The second picture was not quite as interesting: a middle-aged man in a suit standing out on a balcony. His black hair stood out in the grainy image, as did the large scar along the bridge of his nose.
'I received those photos from him today,' Yuri said. 'One's Club Frost in town—Uglisky Avenue is where it is. The other is the guy we're going to take out, some Slavic gangster from America named Alek Malyshev. Our friend Tsaryov informed us that the club is his usual—should I say—safe house. I doubt anyone will be able to track us down if we're out quick enough.'
Too bad discretion had to come at the price of luxury, Brody thought bitterly.
'Reminds me of old times,' he said half to himself as he handed the photo back.
Yuri gave him a confused look.
'Those must have been some pretty wild times, comrade,' he said, 'this place is crawling with security guards, I would imagine. The Bratva are some tough bastards.' He looked at the shotgun resting on the desk nearby and smiled. 'I may have a chance to put my baby to good use. Looks like you did a good job fixing her up.'
With a swiftness that belied his age, Yuri made his way over to the desk and took the weapon while Brody turned to the door.
'Let's get moving,' he said as a grin made its way onto Yuri's face.
'I can only have two American assholes in my life for so long. Let us make our pay!' His fellow mercenary slung the shotgun over his back and grabbed two boxes of buckshot shells from the tabletop. 'We are animals, Victor!'
Yuri added an exaggerated baring of teeth, flexing his arms for effect. Brody gave his partner a slap on the shoulder as he led him to the door.
On his way out, Brody did his best to ignore the thugs and hoodlums guarding the apartments—or, as Yuri preferred to call them, 'tenants.' Every methamphetamine-fueled inquiry about where he was going the mercenary deflected.
'Out to cap another rich fuck, yes?' asked a dark-eyed gopnik—one with enough metal in his face to make a rifle magazine's worth of ammunition—as he descended the stairs alongside the duo. 'Best of luck, comrades. We could sure use some more booze with what you'll earn.'
Brody brushed him off as he and Yuri approached the two armed guards at the front door of the apartment complex. Stoically, the leftmost guard twirled the tarnished butterfly knife in his hand, took a puff of his cigarette and nodded his approval. With Yuri leading the way, the mercenaries stepped out into the freezing cold, ready to take on the Moscow underground.
• • •
The snow was only a few inches deep by the time the jalopy rolled to a stop a block away from Club Frost, which stood out in the dark winter night like a lavish star. Not that the snow was much of a problem, thanks to the wood slab tied to the grill acting as a makeshift snowplow. Yuri removed the keys from the ignition and drew his shotgun from the back seat.
'You brought a weapon, comrade?' he asked Brody as he put on a balaclava.
His partner retrieved a karambit knife from his belt—a curved blade of stainless steel fitted to a black handle adorned with red accents—and elicited a hearty laugh.
'Take my pistol,' Yuri said.
He reached into his holster, pulling out a tarnished PB handgun and handing it over grip-first, suppressor and all. When his partner hesitated, Yuri simply set it down on his lap.
'If you insist,' Brody sighed, tucking the gun away in his own belt. 'You would be surprised what I can do without a gun.'
Yuri raised an incredulous eyebrow and glanced out the frosty windshield at their target.
'You would be surprised by the potential number of riflemen in that building. No telling how many bodyguards there are.' With a quick pump of his shotgun, Yuri stepped out of the car as Brody followed suit and pulled his own balaclava down from the top of his head. It did little to ward off the biting winter air. 'You could also learn a thing or two about Russian hospitality,' Yuri added flatly.
Brody ignored the comment as he approached the front entrance, signaling with his hand for Yuri to stay put. He kept his stance a calm one and hid his pistol behind his back as he approached the two guards posted on either side of the door.
'Hey, asshole,' the rightmost one growled, bringing his Kalashnikov to bear, 'you have a—?'
Brody whipped out Yuri's gun, shot a round through the guard's eye and followed it with a shot to the other guard's neck. He motioned his comrade over and inspected his grim handiwork.
'Come on,' he said as pointed his pistol at the door, 'let's get this asshole.'
Brody forced the entrance open with a stroke of his boot and, with the swift ferocity of wolves, the mercenaries got to work.
Three guards standing in the middle of the lobby failed to react in time—Brody eliminated them with three headshots. A fourth was opened up across the teal carpeting by a well-placed shotgun blast, and a fifth came within striking distance with his butterfly knife before a karambit blade slashed open his jugular.
Brody allowed the familiar scent of blood to come to him as he tightened his grip on Yuri's pistol and thrust open another door to reveal a lounge area above an open dance floor. Garish blue and purple neon lights flashed and strobed from seemingly everywhere to the beat of the club music, permeating the tobacco smoke that swirled around the room like bolts of lightning in a thunderstorm and reducing any potential threats to hazy silhouettes.
A shout came from across the open floor and Brody kicked over the nearest table, sending shot glasses and an ashtray to the floor with a crash. He barely had the time to duck behind it before a deafening salvo of assault rifle fire tore apart the opposite wall.
After the gunfire ceased, Brody could hear an empty rifle magazine drop and he took his chance. He darted around the railed-off middle of the room and shoved his curved blade below the sternum of the nearest bodyguard before shooting another through the side of the head. A third he grasped by the hair and slammed face-first into the metal railing with a muffled crack, and he fired two shots into a fourth guard's torso before kicking him over the rail to the dance floor twelve feet below.
A fifth guard, who was heavyset to say the least, thrust open a door from behind. Brody whipped around, pistol in hand, and pulled the trigger—only for the slide to lock with a dissatisfying click. He dropped the empty weapon to the floor as the Russian drew back his fist, knuckle dusters shining beneath the cold blue club lights. Brody narrowly dodged the swing and reached for the karambit in his belt; things were about to get fun.
Panic emerged through the surging adrenaline as he groped at nothing. Frantically, he looked around the floor for it and found its curved hilt sticking up from the chest of a nearby corpse several feet away.
Not that it would do him much good anyway; the man before him had the physique of a tank, and he could surely kill Brody with a single punch.
The mercenary found himself backed up against the railing as he stared up into the bald, loathsome face of his adversary.
A sharp whistle broke the stillness.
The sound of thunder erupted from Brody's right as the guard's head exploded into a crimson mess. With a thud that nearly shook the floor, the headless body slumped backwards to the tile as Brody stood motionless, unable to process what had just happened.
A gloved hand waving in front of his face grounded him in reality. Yuri's beady eyes glimmered with disappointment as he handed a Kalashnikov rifle to his partner. Brody gripped the weapon as firmly as he could to maintain some semblance of dignity, but the other mercenary's expression failed to change.
'What you can do without a gun' my ass,' the Russian muttered. 'Follow me to the stairs, comrade, I've already cleared this floor out.'
Brody stepped over the freshly dead bear of a man to retrieve his knife. With a good tug, the bloodied blade slid from its victim easily.
'W—wait,' he stammered to Yuri, 'I couldn't reach my knife. Did you see that fat bastard's knuckles?'
Yuri ignored him and walked to the door from which the 'fat bastard' had come. With a defeated sigh, Brody followed him through the door and focused on the task at hand.
The two made their way through a narrow corridor that was filled to the brim with their usual handiwork. Countless bullet holes filled the walls, the white plaster was spattered and smeared with blood, and the mercenaries stepped over body after body; some were blown apart by buckshot, others slashed open shoulder to groin, and still others had their necks broken and skulls smashed by a rusty pipe still in Yuri's hand, dripping with blood.
'You take the second floor,' Yuri instructed as he thrust open a door into a brightly lit stairwell, 'and I will clear the basement.' He snatched a pistol up from a dead bodyguard and slipped it into his belt. 'Break is over.'
Without another word, he bolted down the stairs, leaving Brody to recompose himself.
With a deep breath, the mercenary stomped his boots up the concrete stairs as he twirled the ring of the karambit's hilt on his index finger. He stopped at the top of the stairs and stared at the aged wooden door before him.
No fucking up this time, he told himself. He clenched a fist around his knife and slung his firearm over his shoulder. I'm an animal, damn it!
He gritted his teeth and brought his leg back. It was time to show Yuri what he could really do.
The door yielded easily against his boot and knocked into a guard standing on the other side. The Russian stumbled and gripped the back of his head in pain before Brody drove the blade of his weapon through his throat.
'What the fuck!' came a voice from the next room.
Brody tore the shocked newcomer apart with rifle fire. The door behind where he once stood remained ajar, revealing the several armed guards at the ready within, and the mercenary acted accordingly.
Brody's aim was greatly improved by the brighter change of scenery as he blew them all away with a hail of bullets.
As if to complement the scene, similar gunfire broke out two floors below. Brody found himself smirking as he opened another door to a hallway leading to what looked like a private office.
Take your time, my friend, because I sure won't.
He could sense nothing but the reek of his bloody jacket as he stormed up to the door at the end of the corridor, rifle in hand. He shot the lock from the handle and kicked the door in.
There he was, dressed in an impeccable purple suit and snorting a line of top-notch cocaine: Malyshev. He glanced up and reached for something under his desk just as Brody pulled the trigger, blasting the man's brains out all over the rug behind him.
Another contract put to rest. Brody tossed his rifle aside and removed his balaclava to wipe the sweat from his eyes.
Once he opened them, the ceiling lights went out with a resounding pop. He found himself frozen stiff, eyes locked on the slumped form of Alek Malyshev. His leg began to itch.
For a while, there was nothing—no movement, no sound, nothing but the dim light of the moon outside. The itch had turned into a dull ache.
Then, a new voice broke the silence from behind Malyshev's desk—vaguely familiar, American, and absolutely arresting.
'Don't look so surprised.'
The dead man sat upright, motionlessly staring his killer down in the low light.
Brody could hardly find the will to speak. 'What the fuck?' he croaked. There was silence for the longest time before a surge of pain erupted in his leg, sending him kneeling with a wince.
'You're dying, Victor,' the voice said, 'or at least a part of you is.'
Brody clutched at the carpet and gritted his teeth as his leg continued to throb. 'M—Malyshev?'
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'No.'
Slowly, a dim blue light made its way through the doorway to illuminate the stranger's torso, and Brody's throat dried up at the sight.
What was once Malyshev stood behind the desk with his arms folded across the gaping hole in his chest, doing little to cover his perforated lungs and motionless heart beneath his suit. The only thing that truly seemed alive was the mask he wore: seeming to resemble a bird in the near pitch darkness, it blinked as it stared down at Brody, and its beak even moved as it spoke again.
'If there's one thing you prove Americans can outdo the Russians at, it's excel at violent brutality.' Brody could only gaze into the dark recesses that were the bird's eye holes. There was no life in them, only blackness—bottomless wells, darker than even the lightless room around them. 'The things you'll do for money.'
The mercenary weakly reached for a knife that wasn't there before finally buckling from the pain and rolling onto his back. A trickle of blood began to dribble down from beneath the animal mask.
The masked figure walked around the desk and kneeled in front of Brody—the light seemed to follow it, as its 'face' was still shrouded in darkness mere inches from Brody's own. The mercenary grimaced at the stench of death that followed him. His leg was on fire.
'Maybe Yuri is right.' The corners of its beak twisted into a scowl. 'Maybe you're nothing more than an animal.'
Brody's lightheadedness took its toll as he watched the blue light fade, leaving him in darkness once again.
• • •
Gradually, the pain returned to Brody as he opened his eyes. Above him strobed the sickly yellow lights of passing street lamps, and he could make out the howling of the wind and the sputtering of an ancient car engine. With much effort, he sat up from where he laid in the back of Yuri's jalopy with a pained gasp, and his partner looked back from the driver's seat with a relieved breath.
'You are one lucky bastard, Victor,' he said. 'That could have been your heart instead of your leg. Thank God Alek was too coked up to shoot straight, eh?'
Brody attempted to squint the stars from his vision as he inspected his wound. It was crudely wrapped in scraps of dark cloth, and it reeked of blood and vodka.
'Plus,' Yuri added with a thin smile, 'think of the money we'll be getting for your work. You did an excellent job, my friend.'
While Yuri might have been imagining bundles of money or a fancy new weapon, all Brody could see was Malyshev—scowling rubber mask and all.
I'm glad you liked how this turned out!
And, well, I'm not really sure I should be calling my other story a 'novel' yet. Sure, I plan on publishing it in several years after I write enough drafts and fine-tune it enough, but at the moment it's just an obscure story on the internet with a weird working title. It's a story following a small timber wolf and her family living among a tribe/pack/clan in a forested valley. When hunting out with her brother, she finds a pup being pursued by another wolf and tries to save the little one's life.. and then things go downhill. I'm sorry I'm not too good at summarizing it. The first seven chapters of the first draft are posted here, warts and all, if you're interested. Crescent-Draft One-Chapter IThunder crackled softly to the East as Aleda opened her eyes. The stone floor of the cave was slick from the rain, reflecting the moon and sparse clouds. And of course dA wouldn't just let it be a small URL. I'm currently starting a second draft, and this I have a much better idea of what I'm doing. If you care/don't care to read it, let me know. Sorry that was so long-winded, I'm pretty passionate about all this. Comments are closed.
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