Nadya's Nights: Road to Vengeance Page 3

  I think I’m acrophobic now, she thought. Heights had never really bothered her before, but she’d also never nearly taken such a potentially fatal tumble from them, either. High places can just fuck right off, she decided.

  And I’m not even through with them yet. She still had to make the leap to the next building. She shuddered at the thought and let herself lie on the rooftop for another minute, steeling herself. Then she sat up, let out a final long breath of air and looked over to the adjacent rooftop to make sure no one was guarding it.

  No movement, no silhouettes, nothing.

  Nadya stood and approached the other building. Glancing down off the edge of the building, she saw much the same thing as she did when she was dangling from the rooftop on the other side.

  A three-story drop to the hard ground.

  She also noticed a single guard leaning against the building she was after, smoking a cigarette. He wasn’t looking upwards and she hoped he wouldn’t. Even if he did happen to glance up when she made her leap, he probably wouldn’t see much more than a black shadow passing through an equally black sky. Some briefly obscured stars would be all he would notice, probably not enough to raise any alarm.

  Nadya backed away from the edge and turned her attention to the rooftop on the other side. The jump wasn’t impossible, but it would be tricky. The two buildings were the same height, which meant she’d have to totally clear the distance or not at all. She wouldn’t be able to scramble up the side this time, not with the guard just below. The distance looked to be about just over ten feet.

  A stretch, for sure.

  She looked back across the length of the rooftop she was on; it was about thirty feet. At least I can get a good running start first. Taking a final look at her destination, Nadya turned and strolled back across the rooftop to the furthest edge then spun back around.

  Narrowing her eyes and setting herself to start running, she made a few controlled breaths then took off, her boots clomping down on the hard surface of the roof. The edge grew closer and closer at an alarming speed. Before she knew it, she was at the end of the roof and she planted her foot down hard, launching herself into the air and propelling herself forward towards the other rooftop, holding her breath.

  For an eternity, it seemed, Nadya was airborne. The rooftop she was attempting to reach grew closer and closer. For a terrifying moment, she thought she wouldn’t make it, but she kept traveling further. She extended one of her legs outwards, joy filling her as she saw she’d place it down on the roof.

  She neglected to notice where her other leg was and as her extended foot hit the roof, her other caught against the edge and she tripped. Nadya stumbled forward, surprised by the sudden halting of her momentum. She raised her arms up in front of her to keep from bashing her face into the rooftop. Her air was knocked from her as she slammed down and she skidded forward a few feet, scraping the arms and elbows of her jacket a bit.

  As she came to a stop, she paused again, letting her breathing return to normal once more. She pushed herself to her feet and looked around the vacant rooftop, glancing behind her to where she’d launched from and feeling a smirk grow on her face. The hard part’s over. Killing people is easy compared to jumping across buildings. Part of her realized that should bother her. A larger part didn’t give a shit.

  Now I’ve only got to get from the rooftop into the building.

  Heading over to the far edge of the roof, Nadya lowered her body flat and glanced over the side. No guard there. She spotted a darkened window that looked promising and had to commit to another gravity-defying stunt to check to see if the coast was clear within.

  Pushing herself over the edge, she bent forward to move against the wall. Her blood rushed to her head and she quickly lowered herself further to peak through the window. It was dark inside, but she saw enough to confirm the room was empty. She reached down and grasped the window, pulling up on it. She let out a sigh of relief as the window slid upwards easily. If it had been locked, things would’ve become a bit more complicated.

  Making sure it wasn’t going to slam down like the previous window, Nadya pushed herself back up the length of the wall. She turned around, lowering her feet over first this time. She found the window ledge with her toes and got her legs inside the room before stretching the rest of her body down until she sat on the windowsill. Moving all the way into the dark room, she turned and slid the window closed again.

  Drawing the gun from her waistband, she stepped softly towards the only door leading out of the small room, noticing light coming in from under the door. She paused in front of it and held her breath, listening for any sounds on the other side.

  Hearing nothing, Nadya reached down with her free hand for the doorknob. She rested her fingers on the cold metal knob for a moment, listening some more, then turned and pulled, letting light spill into the dark room.

  On the other side was a long hallway with doors on either side. At the end of the hall, directly across from where she was, a staircase went downwards. The room she was in was at the corner of the hall and the hall turned into an L-shape moving further into the building.

  No one was in the hall in front of her. She crouched low and briefly stuck her head out, looking down the shorter hallway running past the door.

  No one there either.

  She figured they’d either left the third floor totally unguarded, or they were patrolling the building and she’d lucked out at the timing of her entrance. Not bothering to wait around to see which it was, Nadya exited the room and pulled the door closed behind her.

  It’s a sure bet that there’s at least a guard on the stairway. The question was whether she should clear the third floor first or just assume it was empty. Assumptions get people killed. And since she was the most likely person to suffer that fate, she decided to run a quick check of the top floor. She started down the smaller hall first, listening at each door before opening it quickly and sweeping her gun along the interior.

  There were four rooms along the hall and each one was empty. She turned and started towards the lengthier hall leading towards the stairs.

  Nadya stood outside the first door into the long hall, listening for sounds of occupancy, when instead she heard heavy footsteps coming up the stairs towards her.

  Shit.

  They were patrolling the building.

  She backed up and hid around the corner, pressing her back against the wall and quietly sliding the gun back into her waistband. No sense drawing attention to myself if I don’t have to. She waited, listening to the footsteps as they reached the top of the stairs. There was a brief pause and Nadya thought maybe the patrolling guard would just take a single look down the hall and continue back downstairs. The footsteps started again, growing closer to her position.

  No such luck.

  She waited where she was, staying completely silent, listening as the steps grew ever closer. She’d have to time her attack perfectly. Too soon, and the guard would be too far away for her to silence him before he raised the alarm, or he’d simply shoot her. Too late and the guard would have a chance of seeing her around the corner and the same thing would happen. The footsteps grew unbelievably loud in her ears but she continued to wait.

  She noticed a brief pause in the steps and figured he was about to round the corner. Nadya spun around and came face to face with the surprised guard, almost knocking her head into his chin.

  The timing was perfect.

  Nadya reached up and clamped one hand over his gaping mouth to prevent him from calling for help. Using that hand for leverage, she spun her lithe body around the larger man, getting her out of the line of fire of the rifle he carried.

  It also put her in the perfect position to conclude her attack.

  Wrapping her other hand around the man’s chin, she twisted hard and felt a snap from his neck. The man turned into a lifeless, limp form almost instantly. She lowered him to the ground as softly as she could; a difficult task due to his greater weight.

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nbsp; Once he was down, Nadya went around the body and grabbed him by the arms, dragging the corpse over to the small room she’d entered through. Opening the door, she pulled the body in then stripped him of his weapon and extra ammunition. She slung the rifle over her shoulder and slid the two extra banana clips into her jacket pocket then closed the door to the room and started back down the hall towards the stairs. The guard’s arrival had done two things for her – three if she included the weapon she’d stripped him of.

  It confirmed the top floor was empty, and it meant she’d have to finish her mission at a much faster pace. The guard would be missed before too long, so she didn’t have as much time to sneak around now.

  Palming the handgun, Nadya stopped at the top of the stairs, putting her ears to good use once more. There were no noticeable sounds, but by holding her air inside she could hear the breathing of another person just below. Maybe halfway down the stairs.

  She swung around onto the stairway, aiming the gun ahead of her. The movement was smooth and silent. The stair guard faced away from her; content in the knowledge that his comrade was making sure the third floor was void of any Russian girls with a hankering to do some murdering.

  Bad luck for the guy guarding the stairs…

  Nadya started down the steps towards the guard, intending to do to him what she’d done to his buddy on the third floor; snap his neck and drag him up into one of the third floor rooms.

  The plan went to hell when her foot came down on a step that had warped over the years. The creak wasn’t all that loud, but in Nadya’s ears it was the equivalent of a bomb going off.

  Just without the pretty flames.

  Nadya cringed and watched the guard turn towards her, his face going from calmness – apparently expecting to find his buddy coming back down to announce the third floor clear of any insurgents – to surprise.

  With no other options, Nadya tilted the gun back and slammed the handle and her palm into the man’s nose at a slightly upward tilt, smashing the bone and sending shards of it spearing into his brain.

  The man’s eyes went wide and blood gushed from the shattered nose. Before she could attempt to grab hold of him and lower him softly, he fell backwards. His heavy body hit the stairs and slammed down the hard wood, falling in only a way that a dead man could. He landed at the bottom of the stairs on the second floor in a heap and the alarmed voices Nadya heard from below were more than enough to tell her that her cover had been totally blown.

  “Cock… Sucker…” she muttered.

  Thrusting the pistol back into her waistband, letting loose with a further torrent of colorful Russian curse words, and pulling the rifle – an AK-47, which gave her at least some small comfort – from her back, she leapt down the rest of the stairs – about ten or so – and planted her feet down on either side of the dead man. Nadya raised the rifle to her shoulder and pointed it down the second floor hallway where six more guards – five men and one woman – were standing, getting their own weapons ready.

  The suddenness of the attack seemed to have caught them all unawares and she took advantage of it by squeezing the trigger on the rifle and unleashing a hail of bullets down the hallway. Screams filled the hall as she almost literally cut the guards in two with the spray of hot lead. Blood splattered against the wall as guards were knocked back.

  The kick of the rifle in full automatic mode made the thing buck in her slender arms and fucked her aim right to hell. What she’d intended to be a series of gut shots quickly stitched up their chests and higher. Nadya watched the female guard catch a round in the cheek and saw her brains spray out the back of her head.

  The last few rounds went far too high, going straight over the remaining guards’ heads and plunging into the ceiling, one smashing a light fixture and dumping the hall into semi-darkness. Then the rifle clicked empty in Nadya’s hands and the remaining guards – there were three of them – shook off their surprise and readied their guns.

  With no other options, Nadya leapt out of the hall and down the stairway in front of her leading to the first floor. No doubt, there’d be more armed guards down there but they might not be expecting a pissed off Russian girl to come bounding down the steps.

  She ejected the magazine from the AK-47 as she went down the stairs in a curled ball, somersaulting down the hard wooden steps. She felt a number of hard knocks against her body that she knew would result in painful bruises if she lived long enough for them to form. Hitting the bottom of the stairway, she launched herself to her feet and quickly surveyed the bottom floor.

  More guards, as suspected.

  Instead of trying to reload the rifle, she cocked it back and hurled it with all her might at the closest guard, who was raising a double-barrel shotgun at her. The butt of the rifle smashed into the man’s face and Nadya saw blood and a few teeth go flying. The man fell back, firing his shotgun into the ceiling.

  Four more men were behind him – although not quite as ready for her – and she charged them. Caught off guard by her bold charge, they scrambled to unsafety their weapons and bring them down on the young woman. By the time they managed, it was too late.

  Nadya was all over them.

  Grabbing the barrel of one man’s rifle, she shoved it out of the way just as he pulled the trigger and instead of blowing the Russian girl’s guts out he blasted his comrade in the groin. He let out an agonized howl of pain and dropped his gun, falling to the ground, clutching his destroyed crotch.

  Nadya brought her elbow back and smashed it into the man she was tangled with, crushing his windpipe. He, too, fell to the ground; only he was clutching at his throat, trying to breathe and finding it impossible. Nadya kept moving, barely slowing, advancing on the remaining two men. One had a pair of pistols and the other another shotgun. The man with the pistols raised both of them at her and fired franticly.

  Nadya felt a searing pain across her arm as she charged, not bothering to survey the damage at that moment. One of the man’s pistols jammed and it caused him to stop firing completely, trying to fix his one useless weapon.

  The second man – with the shotgun – was leveling the barrel on Nadya, ready to pump her face full of pellets. Knowing she wouldn’t reach him before he fired, she threw herself flat to the floor a moment before the man pulled the trigger. The shot went clear over her, destroying a particularly ugly painting hanging on the wall behind where she had been a moment before.

  The man’s expression of shock never had a chance to leave his face. As she’d dropped, Nadya pulled her pistol free and aimed quickly, pulling the trigger and putting a bullet through the man’s throat. Blood gushed down the front of him and he stumbled backwards, falling against a wall and sliding down, dead before he hit the floor.

  The final guard finally managed to unjam his pistol and grinned triumphantly. In his struggle, he hadn’t noticed the brief exchange Nadya and his comrade had just had. Growing confused when he no longer saw the woman in the hallway, he looked to the side and saw the dead shotgunner at his side. He heard a low, feminine whistle below him and looked down, staring into the barrel of Nadya’s gun.

  Nadya lay on her back with a cold smirk on her face as she pulled the trigger twice more, putting two rounds through the man’s chest and sending him stumbling backwards and falling to the ground. Nadya sat up, noticing her pistol was now empty.

  Tossing it to the side, she quickly stood and grabbed the shotgun from the dead man with the hole in his throat, pumping it to eject the spent shell. She heard something clamoring down the stairs and turned, raising the shotgun, readying herself for the remaining guards.

  Instead, her eyes widened as she saw a grenade bouncing down the steps. It reached the bottom, bounced off the front door and rolled in her direction.

  Thinking fast, she saw a door to her left and opened it, diving into a small broom closet. She didn’t know if it would be enough protection, but she didn’t have time to find anything better.

  The grenade blew.

  Chapter
Four: The Killing Continues

  The first floor of the building was in shambles.

  The grenade had scorched and demolished most of the wooden interior and had shredded the corpses of the guards strewn about. It was difficult to tell one body from another. The three remaining guards from the second floor came down the stairs slowly, weapons held ready. They surveyed the extensive damage on the first floor. Of all the bodies, they didn’t see the girl who’d attacked them. They proceeded further into the first floor, spreading out a bit as they did.

  One of the guards noticed a broom closet. The door looked as if it had been blown clean off by the blast. The interior of the closet was dark and silent, no motion coming from it. He stepped closer, raised his rifle to his shoulder, ready to squeeze the trigger at the first sign of movement.