Chapter 23 Dimitri
DIMITRI
As Dimitri pushed the bar door open, his world came to an abrupt stop.
An immortal had Mattie's hair wrapped around his fist, her head wrenched back at a painful angle.
His other hand was on her breast, squeezing hard enough that Dimitri could see her wince even from across the room.
The immortal's mouth was crushed against hers, and she was struggling—weakly, uselessly, her hands pushing at his chest with all the effectiveness of a moth batting against a wall.
Three other immortals sat at a nearby table, watching like spectators at a show.
Dimitri didn't pause to think.
His hand went into his pocket before his brain caught up, his fingers finding the familiar shape of the syringe he'd filled up this morning with a neurotoxin, the hand of fate prompting him to prepare for just such a scenario. The rubber stopper came off with ease, and he broke into a run.
The immortals at the table glanced up with amused expressions on their hard faces. They didn't see him as a threat. He was human, weak, and harmless.
The immortal assaulting Mattie didn't acknowledge Dimitri until he was close enough to smell the sweat on the guy's big body.
He was too preoccupied with his helpless prey to notice or care about the human and the hand holding a syringe until it was plunged into his flesh at the junction of neck and shoulder.
For one crystalline moment, everything was still, and then the immortal tossed Mattie aside like she was a rag doll and spun around with a snarl. His hand went to the spot where the needle had pierced his skin.
"What the fuck?"
Dimitri stopped breathing.
The neurotoxin was supposed to work immediately, dropping the bastard like a stone, but it didn't.
The immortal's face contorted with pain, and a violent twitch ran through his body, making his limbs jerk, but he didn't fall. He didn't collapse into a paralyzed heap the way Dimitri had expected.
He lunged lightning fast, and Dimitri didn't have time to dodge. A meaty hand the size of a frying pan closed around Dimitri's throat and lifted him off his feet.
"You little shit." The words came out slurred, the toxin clearly affecting the immortal's motor control, even though it wasn't incapacitating him. "You'll pay for this with your worthless life."
"Tarik!" One of the others stood up. "Put him down! He's the scientist Lord Navuh brought to work on the enhancement project."
"I don't give a damn about who he is." The hand around Dimitri's throat tightened, and dark spots bloomed at the edges of his vision. He clawed at the immortal's wrist, but it was like trying to pry apart an iron vice.
"I'm going to kill this piece-of- shit human." Tarik's face was inches from Dimitri's, twisted with fury, his fangs fully elongated and dripping venom.
The hiss came a split second before those monstrous fangs pierced Dimitri's flesh, and a white-hot lance of agony started at the junction of his neck and radiated outward in waves.
He screamed, his body convulsed, and the world narrowed to that single point of contact where Tarik's fangs had sunk into his flesh.
The cold slithering of venom replaced the fire of the incisions, and Dimitri felt himself shutting down.
This was death.
He was dying. The immortal was killing him, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
At least the pain was gone. At least he'd died trying to do what was right.
Somewhere far away, Mattie was screaming.
Suddenly, the fangs pulled out of his flesh, and Dimitri crashed to the floor in a heap of nerveless limbs. Blood was pouring down his chest, soaking through his shirt, and the bar tilted around him, the ceiling spinning overhead.
"—going to kill him, you idiot!" Someone was shouting. "Lord Navuh needs him, and he will execute all of us for interfering in his enhancement project."
Dimitri tried to move, tried to get his body to respond to his commands, but everything felt wrong. Disconnected. Like his brain was sending signals that got lost somewhere along the way.
"He stabbed me with poison." Tarik's voice was thick, the words slightly garbled.
"Look at him. He's half dead while you are still standing. What if he's the only one who knows the antidote? Besides, your life will be over anyway if Navuh finds out you murdered his pet scientist."
Dimitri's vision was fading, darkness creeping in from the edges. He could hear them arguing about what to do, how to cover this up, but the words were becoming harder to follow. Like listening to a conversation through water.
"...just say he got into a fight..."
"...got drunk..."
"...let's get out of here before..."
Then they switched to a different language, and he couldn't follow at all. Didn't want to. He no longer cared.
Dimitri was at peace, and he was drifting.
Nothing mattered anymore.
Mattie mattered. Where was she? Was she okay?
Dimitri tried to turn his head, tried to find her, but his body refused to cooperate. The last thing he heard before the darkness took him was her voice, distant and distorted, calling his name.
"Dimitri! Can you hear me?"
Her voice pulled him back from somewhere dark and formless. He felt drugged, woozy, and if it was anyone else's voice, he wouldn't have bothered to open his eyes because the void was calling to him, luring him to leave all his earthly troubles behind and drift toward the eternal. Toward peace.
He forced his eyes open for her, and when he saw her face hovering above him, pale and tear-streaked, he knew he had made the right choice. He had to stay in this world for her.
She needed him.
"He's waking up," a male voice said from somewhere to his left. "Thank God."
Dimitri recognized the voice. It was the barman. Anil.
He tried to speak, but all that came out was a croak. His throat was on fire.
"Don't try to talk." Mattie rested her hand on his chest. "You lost a lot of blood before the wounds started to close."
He was on the floor, the immortals were gone, and the bar was empty save for the three of them.
"How long?" The words came out as a rasp.
"Nearly an hour," Mattie whispered. "I was so worried."
"I'm sorry." He tried to lift his hand to cup her cheek, but it refused to obey his command.
"It's not your fault." She brushed a strand of hair off his forehead. "I'm just glad you woke up."
"Where are the bastards?" he asked.
Mattie glanced at Anil. "They left right after they told us not to say anything about the incident. They don't want Lord Navuh to find out."
Right. The cover-up. He'd heard them planning it, in those last fuzzy moments before he'd lost consciousness.
"The cameras," he murmured. "Everything was recorded."
"They probably know who to ask to erase it," Anil said. "The other three were really worried about Lord Navuh executing them for harming his scientist."
"I just hope they don't come back." Dimitri tried to lift his hand again, and this time it responded. "I don't have any more syringes." He cupped Mattie's cheek. "I need to get back to the lab and prepare some more, but with higher potency toxins. This one was underpowered."
"What you need is to get in bed and sleep this off," Mattie said.
"My bed is in the lab." He tried to push up and immediately regretted it as his head spun, or rather, the world around him did. "My quarters are in the lab building."
"We'll help you get there." Mattie slid her arm around his middle. "Anil, can you please help me?"
Together, they got him into a sitting position. Even that small movement sent waves of nausea rolling through him. He pressed a hand to his neck, wincing at the tender flesh there, and his fingers came away sticky with blood.
"How bad is it?" he asked.
Mattie and Anil exchanged a look that told him more than words could.
"The other immortals pulled Tarik off you, and his fangs tore your throat.
" Anil observed the wound with clinical detachment.
"The good news is that the venom has healing properties, so the wound stopped bleeding.
The bad news is that it looks bad, and you will have to cover your neck with a scarf until it heals completely. "
"Great. Where am I even going to find a scarf on a tropical island? God, I miss Siberia."
Mattie chuckled. "If you are joking, you must be feeling better."
"Who said I was joking?" He let Mattie and Anil haul him up, but his legs seemed to have forgotten how to work properly and refused to bear his weight. In the end, Mattie took one side and Anil took the other, and they half-carried, half-dragged him toward the side exit.
The night air was warm and humid, smelling of tropical flowers and salt and making his head swim even worse.
"Left," he managed. "The lab building is to the left."
They slowly navigated the paths between buildings, pausing whenever Dimitri's legs threatened to give out. They encountered a few guards on the way, but they assumed Dimitri was drunk, and the bar personnel were helping him get to his room.
No one stopped them or even asked what they were doing out so late.
As the lab building loomed ahead of them, dark except for a few emergency lights, Dimitri fumbled for his keycard and nearly dropped it before finally managing to swipe them in.
The door clicked open.
"Second floor," he said.
The stairs were a nightmare, each step making his vision blur and nausea rise in his damaged throat. By the time they reached the second floor, he was operating on pure stubbornness and the knowledge that if he passed out, Mattie and Anil would have to carry him, and he wasn't sure they could.
His room was a slight improvement over a prison cell, with a narrow bed, a tiny desk, and a small, attached bathroom, but right now it felt like salvation.
Once Mattie and Anil deposited him on the bed, he just lay there, breathing hard like a fish out of water. Mattie searched his bathroom for the first aid kit while Anil hovered near the door, looking torn between wanting to help and wanting to retire for the night.
"You should go," Dimitri told him.
"I'll wait for Mattie. I don't want her to walk back to the hotel alone."
Mattie emerged from the bathroom with the first aid kit and a wet towel. "I'm staying here tonight." She sat down on the edge of the bed and began cleaning the blood from his neck. "Someone has to keep an eye on Dimitri." She smiled at Anil. "You can go. I'll see you tomorrow."
He looked conflicted, but only for a short moment. Then he nodded. "Well, good night. I hope you're good as new by tomorrow."
"Thanks," Dimitri said. "I hope so too. I'm not looking forward to wearing a scarf in the heat."
Anil smiled and asked, "Do I just walk out the front door?"
"Yes. It will lock behind you."
After Anil left, Mattie took out several bandages from the kit and began wrapping them around his neck. He watched her face while she worked—the furrow of concentration between her brows, the way she bit her lower lip when she was focused.
"Thank you for saving me," she said softly. "It was very brave of you."
"I didn't think. I saw him forcing himself on you and reacted on instinct."
She arched a brow. "Was it instinct that caused you to fill up a syringe with poison and carry it around in your pocket?"
"It was instinct," he confirmed. "I must be a little clairvoyant because just yesterday I was thinking that I can't protect you from those leering immortals.
I'm a powerless human without a weapon. That was when I resolved to equip myself with a weapon of my own making.
I made a neurotoxin that was supposed to be strong enough to stop an immortal in his tracks, but apparently I miscalculated, which is embarrassing.
I've worked with these immortals long enough to know everything there is to know about their tolerance thresholds. "
"Maybe you were rushing it?"
He turned on his side and smiled. "I might have. I was also a little preoccupied."
"Oh, yeah?"
"Yeah. I kept thinking about seeing you again tonight, and I was willing for time to go faster."
She made a sound that was half laugh, half sob. "Because of me, you almost died tonight."
"Almost doesn't count. I'm here, you're here, and those immortals are not going to bother you again."
"Says who?"
"Says I. They are obviously afraid to harm me because I'm important to their boss, and I will protect you. I will improve the toxin so it acts immediately, and I will give you syringes so you can protect yourself."
Mattie closed her eyes. "That's sweet of you, but we both know that it won't help. Even if I had ten syringes on me, I would have been helpless against those barbarians. Women are defenseless on this godforsaken island."
She was right, and he didn't have an answer for her. "I wish I could come up with something that will make you repulsive to them."
Her eyes widened. "Like a bad body odor?"
He laughed. "Something better. Something that will hurt them if they try to touch you."
"Is there a thing like that?"
"Not yet, but I will try to think of something. Maybe my boss will help me come up with ideas."
She arched a brow. "The drunkard?"
"He has his best ideas when he's drunk."
"Interesting." She kicked off her shoes and stretched out on the narrow bed beside him, resting her head on the uninjured side of his chest.
"What are you doing?" he asked. "Not that I mind. I don't mind at all. But won't you get in trouble if you don't sleep in your room tonight?"
"I'm staying. Someone needs to watch over you, and my roommates might not even notice that I didn't sleep there tonight. We don't work the same hours." Her arm draped across his stomach. "I want to take care of my hero."
"I'm no hero."
"Yes, you are." Her arm tightened around him possessively, or at least that was how he wanted to interpret it.
"Stop arguing and go to sleep," she added.