No doubt Boston was wondering about him by now. Niko hit the speed dial for the Order's headquarters. Halfway through the second ring, Gideon picked up.
"Niko, for f**k's sake. About time you reported in." The warrior's vague English accent sounded a bit rough. Not surprising, considering that Niko was calling in the middle of the day. "Talk to me. You good?"
"Yeah, I'm good. My objective here in Montreal is f**ked ten ways to Sunday, but other than that, 'sall good."
"No luck finding Sergei Yakut, I take it?"
Niko chuckled. "Oh, I found the bastard all right. The Gen One is alive and well and living north of the city like some kind of throwback to Ghengis Khan."
He gave Gideon a quick rundown of everything that had happened since his arrival in Montreal - from the ass-kicking welcome he'd gotten from Renata and the other guards, to the strange handful of hours he'd spent at Yakut's lodge, culminating with his discovery of the dead humans discarded out back and his subsequent ejection from the property.
He described the recent failed attempt on the Gen One's life and the incredible role Mira played in thwarting that attack.
Niko left out the part about what he'd personally seen in Mira's eyes. He saw no reason to share the details of a vision, which, despite Renata's insistence that Mira was never wrong, had roughly zero chance - no, scratch that; it had exactly zero chance - of happening now.
It should have come as a relief to him to know that. The last thing he needed was to get mixed up with a female, especially a piece of work like Renata. Yakut's blood-bonded mate. The thought still gnawed at him, far more than it should. And he wasn't feeling particularly chipper about the fact that even the slightest recollection of that kiss with her was enough to render him as hard as the granite tomb that surrounded him.
He wanted her, and there had been a split second as he was leaving the lodge that he thought she might come after him. He had no reason to think it, but it had been a nudge in his gut, a sense that maybe Renata might run up behind him and ask him to get her out of there.
And if she had? Christ, he might have been just stupid enough to consider it.
"So," he told Gideon, mentally steering himself back to reality. "The net of it is, we can't count on any cooperation out of Sergei Yakut. He basically told me to shove it, and that was before I called him a sick f**k in need of a muzzle and choke collar." "Jesus, Niko," Gideon sighed, probably, on the other end of the line, scrubbing his hand through his spiky blond hair in frustration. "You really said that to him - to a Gen One? You're damn lucky he didn't tear your tongue out before he sent you on your way."
Probably true, Nikolai acknowledged to himself. And he'd have lost more than just his tongue if Yakut knew the kind of lust he had been feeling for Renata. "You know I'm allergic to ass-kissing, even if the ass in question happens to be Gen One. If this was a total public relations mission, you picked the wrong guy."
"No shit." Gideon chuckled around another low curse. "You coming back in to Boston, then?"
"I see no reason to linger. Unless you figure Lucan will look the other way if I decide to go back and put a torch to Yakut's house of horrors. Put him out of business, at least for a while."
He was kidding...mostly. But Gideon's answering silence told him that his fellow warrior knew the wheels were turning inside Niko's head.
"You know you can't do anything of the sort, my man. Way out of bounds."
"And doesn't that suck," Nikolai muttered.
"Yeah, it does. But this kind of thing belongs to the Enforcement Agency, not us."
"Tell me how Yakut is any different from the Rogues we take off the streets, Gid. Hell, from what I've seen of him, he's worse. At least the Rogues can blame their savagery on Bloodlust. Yakut can't even cling to blood addiction as his excuse for hunting those humans out there. He's a predator, a killer."
"He is protected," Gideon said, firmly now. "Even if he wasn't Gen One, he's still a civilian, still a member of the Breed. We can't touch him, Niko. Not without a lot of serious shit hitting the fan. So, whatever you're thinking, don't."
Nikolai exhaled sharply. "Forget I said it. What time should I plan on catching a ride back to Boston tonight?"
"I'll have to make a couple of calls to get a flight plan filed on short notice, but the private jet 's still waiting for you at the airport. I can text you the time once I have it firmed up."
"Okay. I'll chill and wait for your go."
"Where are you at, anyway?"
Nikolai glanced at the coffin behind him, the other one across from him, and the bronze urn gathering dust on a pedestal against the back wall of the dark mausoleum. "I found a quiet little place to grab a rest in the north end of the city. Slept like the dead, in fact. Or with them, at any rate."
"Speaking of dead," Gideon said, "we've got a report of another Gen One killing overseas."
"Christ. Picking them off like flies, aren't they?"
"Or trying to, from the looks of it. Reichen's following up on the report from Berlin . Got an e-mail from him that he'll be calling in later today with an update."
"Good to know we've got eyes and ears that we can trust over there," Niko said. "Shit, Gideon. Never would have thought I'd have any use for a Darkhaven civilian, but Andreas Reichen is proving to be a damn good ally. Maybe Lucan ought to officially recruit him into the Order?"
Gideon chuckled. "Don't think he hasn't considered it. Alas, we're just a part-time gig for Reichen. He may have the soul of a warrior, but his heart belongs to his Berlin Darkhaven."