Going Under Ch. 03

"This is why some vampires love the danger of Russia, it's always been so risky for them. It's had more holy men, real believers, than any country in Europe, then the revolution fanatics on top. The most mundane looking old women can be a real hazard here, something you're not likely to find elsewhere."

Unconsciously, Sara's hand was resting over where her silver cross was concealed. She remembered how it had burned Tatiana and she wondered how deep her faith in Cate truly was, and how far, like a true believer, that faith would be tested.

"Well, no use chatting. There's a PPK through in the range, plus an AK-47 to get you started. I'll bring the MP5K and we're away for an evening's entertainment." Dan said.

Sara walked the way she had seen Cate go, and soon Dan was beside her, guiding her through the low-lit shooting range where Cate was blasting away. Minutes later Sara had her ear protectors on and was ready to fire off her first assault rifle.

Part Three

Sara hurried up the steps to Heyse's dojo while Cate parked the car. She carried both hers and Cate's bags in her hands, barely aware of how much stronger and toned she had become in the few weeks of training. She liked how energised she felt after the twice weekly sessions of tae-kwondo. Heyse was doing a good business in teaching one-on-one, or one-to-two, in fact, as he liked to be able to step back from a spar and watch his pupils in action. Bodyguards, cops, business types themselves all lined up to get training to deal with Moscow's dangers. Sara was a long way behind Cate in tae-kwondo, but she felt she had a real knack that time and practice would develop. With the aikido too, things seemed to be coming together, and she felt she had found that break-through that many people studying martial arts long for.

Sara typed in the code number and the door slid open, she stepped inside, her leather coat just swinging clear of the closing door. In that instant Sara knew something was wrong. Almost without thinking she lowered the bags silently and reached for her pistol, tucked beneath her armpit. It slid free and she flicked the safety. Now all the lessons from training with Nikolai out in woodlands to the East of the city, came into play. Sara kept the barrel pointing upwards and strained to hear sounds which would give her clues to what was happening. Then she heard a scraping noise coming from the main dojo chamber just a few steps away, there was a yelp that sounded like a man in pain, and a growl that so took her back to the alleyway that night, so that she knew there had to be a wolf in there.

Sara turned, startled as Cate appeared beside her. She looked concerned.

"I smell wolves." Cate said quietly.

"What do we do?"

"We take them out, Ulrich might still be alive."

"But we've only got pistols." Sara said, a little embarrassed by her weak response.

"Every shot's going to have to count." Cate said, already making her way to the door, her large Glock gripped in both hands, held out in front of her.

Sara shook herself, remembering back to the patterns they had practiced so often. She slid along the wall, passing along parallel with Cate, her breath just coming as sharp pants. Then Cate kicked the door open and Sara almost screeched. In seconds she had scanned the room seeing Ulrich bound against the wall while two alien creatures, probably a foot taller than her, crouched over him. Nothing had prepared her for the sight of a werewolf in wolf form. The dark, matted hair, the reek of their sweat-drenched bodies she could cope with, but how strange they seemed with long mis-shapened limbs and faces impossibly long. These were neither humans nor animals, but something dredged from dark night thoughts.

Then, all was noise. Cate's gun flashed into life, three bullets tearing into the back of nearest wolf, thrusting him forward, falling on to Ulrich's battered body, emitting an unearthly howl. Yet he rolled and was scrabbling on the tatami to regain his footing. His mate turned and Sara lifted her pistol ready to fire. The pendulous breasts that hung from this creature stayed Sara's trigger finger as she realised this was a female werewolf, a concept her mind had never considered. In those seconds of hesitation the creature was leaping, its motions both human and canine in one. Now Sara's reactions came without thinking, her finger jerked and the bullet was in the creature, sliding into the outer edge of its shoulder. Sara shrieked, realising how quickly the distance between her and the wolf was decreasing. She fired twice, unaware where the bullets went and then it was on her. Sara was thrust back against the wall, her corset protecting her spine from the jolt. The smell coming from the wolf's throat brought bile into Sara's. Her arm was pinned and her pistol span away.

In those seconds that Sara believed were her last, muscle memories took over and in front of her she no longer saw the creature, instead it was Ulrich, it was Cate, it was the practice target and Sara's booted foot was lashing into the creature's knee as she span out from it. Now she was beside it, her hands raining blows into its arm and as it pulled back, crashing into its side. Sara danced away, as her blows, on top of the wolf's momentum, carried it into the wall. Sara's next kick lashed into the small of its back, and was followed by her foot coming savagely into its knees and thighs. As the creature turned, stooped, sucking in air heavily, Sara found her knife blade in her hand and herself springing forward, edge upwards so the knife slid off centre but deep into the wolf's gut. Taking the knife in both hands Sara ripped it upwards, slashing through tough flesh and fur, the silver burning a way through this alien creature's body as blood and organs slid warmly on to Sara's hands. Then the blade came free and Sara staggered back, trying to keep her grip on the slick floor. Seeing her gun, she leapt for it and turned to face the slumping wolf, an eerie howl coming from its mouth. Sara fired twice into its head and its body fell sideways, in moments becoming a decaying mass of fleshy debris.

Sara turned to look for Cate. She stood with her foot on the neck of the other wolf. Its right arm lay useless a few steps away. Cate was asking hurried questions, stamping down on the creature's genitals whenever its answers came too slowly. Then Cate had a slivered dagger out and was dragging it along the inner side of the creature's thigh and everywhere the blade touched, smoke rose from its flesh. Sara walked closer, knowing she had to harden herself to such activity. If the last few minutes had shown her nothing else, it was that she was part of a war and she had picked her side. Standing close to Cate, Sara felt safer, her breathing was becoming calmer. She wiped her dagger on the back of her glove and sheathed it. She reached for spare rounds in her pocket, slipped out the magazine from her pistol and began refilling it.

The wolf was blabbering quickly now, in some language Sara did not recognise as either Polish or Russian. Then Cate kicked his head aside and pinned his neck to the floor. She fired once through his head, the report sounding unnervingly through the quiet dojo. Cate turned and wrapped an arm around Sara.

"I don't hear the sound of militia sirens." Sara observed, almost as if trying normalise what had happened.

"No, inside here is pretty sound proof. I think we've got some breathing space, it's only Ulrich's body that's going to provoke questions and it looks like he's been done over by muggers."

"Yes. It's a risky business. Any business is risky in Moscow these days." Sara added still trying to rationalise the death, no, the torture, of a man she had come to know pretty well in the past weeks.

"Well, that's the way to start an evening's training." Cate said trying to sound light. "The two of them conned their way in here. They had got an inkling that Ulrich worked for the Kindred, they were trying to beat it out of him. They sound desperate. He knew nothing about our safe houses, nor about the dacha, but it sounds like the wolves are building up for an assault. Can you imagine the havoc a squad of wolves would cause, turning up at the dacha when they are in full party mode?"

"No. But we've stopped these two. Did you get leads out of that one?" Sara asked.

As Sara rested against Cate she could sense liquid beneath the vampire's coat. She pulled it back to reveal gash marks across Cate's shoulder and her front in the line above the corset. The rubber had been shredded revealing Cate's pale flesh beneath from which a very dark blood oozed.

"He was insistent." Cate said, a little distant.

"You're okay?" Sara asked trying to hide the panic she was feeling.

"Yes, you know us, we heal quickly."

Sara leant forward and began kissing Cate's cheek running her hands over the skin she so cherished, cleaning away the grime of the fight. Then Sara nudged towards the at the top of Cate's arm. Awkwardly she twisted her head to try to lick it clean, loving the way that she was washing her lover like some kind of cat. The thought aroused her and all the tension of the fight was flushed out of her. Just as her lips came close to Cate's wounded skin, she felt Cate grasp her wrist with that intense strength she had. Rather painfully she tugged Sara away so that he eyes could focus on Cate's face.

"No, we can't do this. It's nice, it's very arousing, but for me it'll all too easily turn into a feeding and then I'll be harming you more than healing you. For you to drink my blood would cause complications."

"You're a carrier of something?" It came out graver than Sara had intended.

"Of course. How do you think my 'condition' is transmitted? In my blood. You would have only to drink a few drops and you'll be 'infected'."

Sara was going to snap back the answer 'so?', but realised that was petulant. This was too important for a teenage response. "Isn't that the point of love? 'In sickness and in health?' I would want to have whatever you had even if I knew it would kill me. Do you think I could live if you were no longer here?" Sara's tone became increasingly that of a challenge. "If you just knew a fragment of the pain I felt when you left me, and even then I had the hope that you would come back. To know I had lost you forever would kill me quicker than any disease."

Sara turned away from her lover, scared that the relationship was less intense for Cate than it was for herself and that she was foolish to have let herself become so attached, because she knew that their souls had become fused and trying to separate them would end her life.

Cate reached her arms around Sara's neck, but she did not respond. "I love you as strongly, but such changes should not be entered into so casually, so lightly. You are only just learning the implications of what I am and what that means. There is no rush to change anything. I love you and we are creating a wonderful life together, but sound relationships only survive if built on solid foundations. I don't want any hurried work to build flaws into what we have."

Sara smiled. Cate's words did sound as if she had got them out of some American relationship book, but as she turned to face Cate again, she felt true sincerity in them, and the commitment Cate was making excited her. Gently she touched her lips to Cate's.

"Come on, join me in the shower, we can help each other get clean."

"And still be dirty." Sara joked.

"As dirty as you like." Cate said, but her words were smothered by Sara's tongue forcing its way between her yielding lips.

Then the woman broke. They killed the lights and barred the doors to any other intruders. Finally they headed to the changing rooms and sought out a warm shower.

Cate made to undo her corset but Sara playfully batted her fingers away and began releasing he straps. She hauled the corset off and tossed it aside. Rationally there was a thought that other wolves might come and they should be on the defensive, but Sara guessed that something, maybe facing death in the jaws of the wolf, made her focus now on being close to Cate, she knew she had to make love to her as soon as she could. Insistently Sara slid down the zip of Cate's catsuit, pushing off the leather coat with her spare hand. As Cate's pale breasts emerged, Sara's mouth locked hard on one, her tongue working at it vigorously as if it would give her sustenance. Then she was crouched on the floor, her hands stroking up and down the glossy rubber covering Cate's inner thighs, knowing that her pussy was pulsing just out of reach. Sara stripped off Cate's boots quickly, and then had the catsuit fully unzipped, letting it fall away from Cate's upper body, to reveal her delightful, shapely form. Sara pushed her fingers over Cate's mound finding the whole area moist with Cate's sweat and sexual juices. Roughly Sara let her fingers slip inside Cate, feeling the welcoming wetness and warmth. Their mouths were locked together, their tongues spiralling like fighting serpents. Sara's body was taut, shuddering with the thrill, realising the sensation of the rubber so tight against her as she pressed her body against her lover, now backed against a wall. Sara broke and lent back a little, smiling as she saw how her rubber-coated breasts so excited Cate's bare nipples as she swept side-to-side.

"Come to me, my lover." Cate said breathlessly.

For an instant Sara thought something was wrong, her legs felt weak and her pounding pulse sounded in her ears. As she quivered and staggered back weakly, she realised that Cate's words had triggered an orgasm. Her fingers fluttered everywhere, feeling a little cheated that they had not brought her to climax, and now imprinting the sensation by pressing the rubber hard against her slick body. Cate would not let her escape and strode forwards, manoeuvring Sara so now she was against the wall. Sara was powerless as Cate pulled Sara's slippery black shiny leg hard against the lips of her pussy, riding up and down it, her own juices meaning she slid across the smooth surface without friction until she was howling, joining Sara in the pleasure of climax. Hearing this, Sara felt her body shake again, and she understood she had been slid on to a series of multiple orgasms.

"No, no, nooo." Sara madly tried to fight against the repeated pulse, it somehow seemed wrong to feel so weak against the assault of pleasure, but truly there was nothing that she could do to stop it. As bright light blinded her eyes, Sara's words turned to 'yes', soon a loud, bellowed 'yes', as she emerged from old herself as a sexual creature she could never have believed was possible.

Hungrily, though aching with what her mind and muscles had been through, Sara stroked at Cate's sex, and easily brought her to climax again with her, so that in moments both women were simply panting, sweaty animals their minds dulled by the pleasures that coursed into every corner, every fibre of their beings.

The two women slumped back on the floor, entirely spent, but their bodies buzzing with excitement still. Feebly Cate began to release Sara from the rubber almost welded to her by the heat of her skin. For Sara everything was in a daze, distant, but seemingly wrapped in cotton wool, all light and delightful. Eventually, both entirely naked, the couple walked hand-in-hand to the showers. Sara stood limply as Cate switched on the warm water. Then she felt Cate's fingers caressing her side, brushing down gently from Sara's arm to her hips. Their breasts, still erect and excitable butted softly against each other's. Sara's mind ran with a thrill as she realised that there was nothing stopping her making love with Cate again, that in this afterglow lay the seeds of yet more orgasms. This time they were gentle, kissing slowly, stroking, touching tentatively at each other's body, finding delight in all kinds of places on themselves and their partner. The warm water ran comfortingly down them, washing away every ache and knot, making their skins glisten in the light. Then the action took a turn and Sara could feel the warmth of Cate's fingers in the warmth of her sex and returned the favour, each probing, stroking to match what the other did, as it became a symmetrical dance. Sara wanted to feel Cate hard within her so pushed more of her hand deep inside her lover. It proceeded with such ease through the slippery soft passage and as Cate picked up the cue, Sara was entered likewise. They rocked back and forth their hands pressing like pistons as they made each other their sexual puppet. Together they let rip a howl of pleasure, reverberating from the walls, filling their ears with the delightful sensations that they brought and they were given.

To Be Continued...