Author's Preface
July Monona, Wisconsin 1994
The warm July heat hung heavy over Monona, Wisconsin, carrying the sweet, heavy scent of freshly cut lawn and damp soil.
Five-year-old Richard was in the back garden, a small plot of green behind their modest suburban house a real home with a yard, a world away from the cramped, shadowy apartment where he'd been born. Almost all the Russian in their daily lives had been stripped away now. To the neighbors, she was just Tina, a quiet mother raising a energetic American boy. Richard was bouncing around with the unrestrained, clumsy energy of a five-year-old, chasing a blue dragonfly near the edge of the small decorative garden pond.
Then came the sharp crack of slipping gravel, a terrifying gasp, and a wet, heavy thud. Tina spun around from the patio, her heart plunging straight into her throat.
"Richard!" He had fallen hard across the jagged slate stones surrounding the pond's border, the ones she had told Alex about removing a thousand times, sharp and jagged edges had torn deep into his back. Blood bright, impossibly vivid, and thick was suddenly everywhere, pooling into the dark soil and staining his yellow t-shirt.
The sheer volume of it sent a jolt of ice straight through Tina's veins. Richard let out a piecing, ragged scream, his small frame shaking uncontrollably as he clutched at the horrific gash.
"Oh God, oh God Дерьмо, Дерьмо" Tina scrambled across the grass on her knees, her hands instantly slick with blood as she tried to press her skirt against the tear. Her mind raced in pure maternal panic. Too much blood. It's too deep.
Aleksandr was still at work at the site. She couldn't wait.
"Hold on, sweetie, hold on! Mommy's got you!" Tina scooped his small, trembling body into her arms.
Ignoring the crimson smearing across her own clothes. She ran frantically toward the driveway, her breath coming in ragged, terrified hitches. She managed to yank open the back door of the sedan, carefully laying him across the bench seat. "Stay still, малыш, stay still, we're going to the больница right now!"
Her hands shook violently as she reached for a clean towel from the front seat to press against the wound. Panic clawed at her throat the memory of old whispered warnings, of the dark history she thought she'd left across the Atlantic, roaring back into her mind like a shadow. Her grandfather's warning about any boys born in the family.
She turned back into the rear seat, grabbing his small arm to firmly apply the towel.
"Richard, look at Мамочка, look at-"
Tina froze. The words died in her throat.
The heavy, frantic crying had abruptly softened into small, shuddering hiccups. Richard was looking up at her, his wide hazel eyes blinking away tears. Tina pulled the blood-soaked fabric back, her breath hitching in her chest.
The gash was gone.
There was no deep tear.
No jagged flesh.
No active bleeding at all.
Beneath the thick, drying red coating his skin, there was only smooth, intact, pale skin not even a scar, not even a faint scratch. It was as if the rock had never touched him.
The blood drying on his arm and on her hands was the only proof that seconds ago, his flesh had been ripped open. Tina fell back onto her heels on the driveway pavement, her hand covering her mouth as a cold, suffocating terror washed over her. Her skin went completely pale under the harsh summer sun.
"Mommy, Mommy, look I'm red" Richard bounced.
She stared from the bloody towel in her trembling hands to the little boy bouncing once more on the car seat, unbothered by the arm that was pouring blood moments ago.
Okhotnik na vampirov.
Had he inherited the burden?, she hoped he hadnt.
---
5 o'clock rolled around, allowing the cool evening air to settle over the neighborhood, bringing a quiet calm to the area.
Aleksandr pulled his battered Toyota into the driveway, he sat there pushing away the days punishing workload like he did every night but looking at the house he instantly felt lighter and more relaxed.
Lately, he and Tatiana had been talking about the future about having another child, hopefully a daughter. For years, Tatiana had refused, gripped by the quiet, terrifying fear that Richard might have inherited her grandfather's bloodline and the powers tied to it but Richard was five now, a happy, normal little boy who had never shown a single sign of anything unnatural. Slowly, the panic had begun to fade, and she was finally coming around to the idea.
Aleksandr stepped out of the car, breathing in the cool night air.
Then he froze.
There, on the dark pavement right beside Tina's car, was a thick smear of dark, dried blood. Nearby lay a crumpled, crimson-stained towel.
His pulse spiked into instant, suffocating panic. Dropping his briefcase onto the concrete, Aleksandr didn't care about the noise, he sprinted up the steps and slammed through the front door.
"Tanya! Tatiana!" he yelled, his voice tight with fear as he rushed into the hallway. "Where are you? What happened?!"
He burst into the living room, his heart hammering against his ribs. He found Tatiana curled up on the couch alone, still covered in blood.
"Tat? What's happened?"
Her head snapped up at the sound of his voice. She looked entirely drained, her face ash-white against the dark stains smearing her arms, her skirt, and the collar of her shirt. She was holding a cup of tea, but her hands were shaking so hard the porcelain rattled rhythmically against the saucer.
"Sasha..." she whispered, her voice paper-thin and trembling.
Aleksandr dropped to his knees right in front of the couch, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. He reached for her hands, his eyes frantically scanning her face, her chest, her arms trying to find the source of the terrible red mess. "Are you hurt? Where is Richard? Tanya, look at me. Who did this?!"
"It isn't mine," she breathed, her hazel eyes wide and glassy with a distant, terrifying shock. "It's Richard's, Sasha. It's all Richard's."
"Richard's?" Aleksandr stood up, his eyes furiously scanning the dark hallway. "Where is he?" He looked back at her, his voice rising in panic. "Where is he, Tat?!"
She reached out for him with trembling hands and pulled him back down.
"He has the burden, Aleksandr," she sobbed, tightening her grip on his sleeves as she pulled him closer. "We have to save him."
Aleksandr's chest heaved as he let her draw him in, the weight of her trembling hands anchoring him to the sofa edge. He took a slow, deep breath, forcing himself to stay grounded in the quiet living room despite the panic radiating off her.
"Tanya, look at me," he said, his voice lowering into a steady, gentle rhythm as he cupped her hands in his, feeling the cold shake in her fingers. "Breathe. Just breathe for a moment. We are right here, inside our home. Everyone is breathing, and everyone is safe."
He didn't rush toward the stairs, nor did he let his mind spiral into old family folklore or distant, shadowy fears. Instead, he stayed entirely present in the reality of the room: the quiet hum of the July evening, the warmth of the house, and the steady, unbroken calm echoing down from upstairs.
"Let's get you cleaned up first," Aleksandr said softly, focusing entirely on caring for her in the moment. "We can take a step back, catch our breath, and figure out what happened together one step at a time."
---
December Monona, Wisconsin 1999
Tatiana stood in the quiet darkness of the living room, watching the television screen as the world prepared to welcome the new century. On screen, a vast ocean of millions had gathered in Times Square to witness the historic event.
Aleksandr was somewhere in that roaring crowd. A last-minute business trip regarding industrial drill machinery had tied him up out east, and with the holiday travel chaos, he hadn't been able to make it back home to Wisconsin in time. Now, as the final hours of the millennium ticked away, he was standing beneath the bright neon glare of Manhattan while she watched the spectacle from their quiet house in Monona, holding a warm cup of tea as the blue light of the broadcast flickered against the walls.Richard was out at a friend's house tonight.
Tatiana had been reluctant to let him go, but Aleksandr was supposed to be home. Now, standing alone in the soft, ambient glow of the bedroom dressed in her finest silk and lace, the quiet sting of disappointment settled in their romantic night wasn't going to happen.
She let out a soft, heavy sigh. Ten years. They had been in America for a decade now, and even as Richard's impossible, terrifying powers had become fully evident, Aleksandr had fiercely guarded this one sanctuary. One night a week, just for the two of them. It was a grounding ritual a reminder that they were husband and wife, not just guardians of a dark, dangerous secret.and it was something she always looked forward to.
Then, the telephone shrilled from the nightstand.
The harsh, metallic ring shattered the silence, echoing through the empty house. Tatiana froze, her eyes drifting slowly toward the receiver. It was 11:30 PM on a historic New Year's Eve, the eve of a new millennium. Who could possibly be calling now?
A cold prickle of instinct washed over her skin as she picked it up.
"Hello?"
"Tanya... it's Daisy."
"Oh. Hi, Daisy..." Tatiana forced a polite, neighborly warmth into her voice, though her grip on the plastic receiver tightened. "How are the boys? Not staying up too late, I hope?"
"Well... um..."
Daisy's voice trailed off, hollow and strangely thin, punctuated by the frantic, breathy edge of someone struggling to catch their breath.
A heavy, sickening stone of dread dropped straight into the pit of Tatiana's stomach. "Daisy? Are you okay?"
"Y-yes... and no."
"Okay..." Tatiana's voice dropped, the soft Americanized 'Tina' accent instantly hardening. "Is everything alright? What's going on?"
"Um... I'm so sorry, Tanya," Daisy stammered, her voice beginning to tremble uncontrollably. "Rich cut himself about an hour ago. Bad."
Every drop of color instantly drained from Tatiana's face. The room seemed to tilt beneath her feet as the warm air in the house turned as cold as ice.
"How bad?"
"Well... bad. Do you know our shed?"
"Yes, the pretty glass one Alex and Warren built last year?"
"Yes... the boys were tossing a football around, and Richard fell right through the panes. I'm sorry, I freaked out, there was blood everywhere... I made him strip down to check the damage, but there was no cut.
Дерьмо! Дерьмо! Tatiana thought, her pulse hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.
"Is he okay?" she managed to ask, her voice dangerously level as she fought to keep her composure.
"Yes, yes... I just freaked out. There was loads of blood, but not one single scratch."
"Daisy, breathe," Tatiana urged, taking a slow, steadying breath of her own. "Do you want me to come over and pick him up?"
"No, no, they're sleeping in the den and... oh God, I'm sorry," Daisy wailed down the line, the leftover adrenaline finally crashing over her as she began to sob. "I... I even nearly c-called an ambulance b-but... oh, I'm so sorry!"
"Hey, hey, it's okay, Daisy," Tatiana said softly, doing her absolute best to reassure her friend, who had just witnessed an impossible miracle without any way to understand it.
"It must be the wine," Daisy sniffed, desperately trying to rationalize the impossibility of what she had seen. "I'm so sorry..."
"Hey, it's okay. Look, are the boys okay?"
"Yes..."
"Then breathe, okay? When's Warren back?"
"In ten minutes."
"Well, why don't you two cuddle up, take a beat, and welcome the new year in together... okay?"
"Okay... I'm sorry, Tanya. I... I didn't know what to think. Maybe... maybe it was just red paint or something."
"Yeah. True," Tatiana murmured.
Какое везение, she thought bitterly to herself as she stared into the dark corner of the empty bedroom. What luck.
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