Tasha was unsurprisingly not difficult to track. The first Strigoi we came across was happy to tell us about that "scarred-face fire bitch" he had run into just last night. He and several other members of his coven had been assigned to find her and kill her. With narrowed eyes, he warned us not to interfere with this assignment. He claimed it was a personal matter, to which I internally rolled my eyes. Nobody had more personal problems with Tasha Ozera than I did.

We assured him that we wouldn't interfere with his assignment and asked for a few popular places we could go to feed. He shared the name of a nightclub. We weren't dressed for the club, but it didn't matter. We wouldn't have to go inside.

Masha set up recon in the empty bakery across the street. She and I sat on the floor, sharing a thermos and keeping watch for Tasha. As the hours passed and Tasha didn't show, Masha left the watching to me and began pulling her near-infinite supply of weapons out of her backpack.

"A gun?" I asked. It seemed so crude. Masha looked at me like I was stupid.

"This woman's elemental magic is fire, isn't it?" At my nod, she rolled her eyes. "Not exactly a useless magic against us. She won't fight fair. We shouldn't either."

I gave her the last swig of blood out of the thermos and resumed my watch.

There! Tasha. In the flesh. Unmistakable with a scar marring her face, she was speaking to the bouncer. I tapped Masha on the shoulder, who put down the gun she was cleaning and peered out the window to look.

I pointed out Tasha and she nodded. Soundlessly, we repacked our things and exited the bakery. Careful to keep to the shadows, we waited against the alley wall for our opportunity.

The Strigoi from earlier emerged from the back exit, his teeth in a human. Sloppy. Sloppy enough, perhaps, for Tasha to notice. And sure enough, the next person out the back door was Tasha, brandishing a stake.

I had the element of surprise, as Tasha was so focused on the Strigoi from earlier that she hadn't even bothered to check her surroundings. She opened her mouth to scream as I melted out of the shadows, which I ran over and quickly covered with a hand.

"Be quiet and stay still." She immediately narrowed her eyes and began punching and kicking at anything she could reach. I winced as a particularly well-placed kick hit my knee.

"I asked nicely," I sighed, picking Tasha up by her neck and dropping her against the cement. I sat on top of her to keep her still, pinning her arms with my knees and covering her mouth with my hand.

"Leave Russia. Leave Russia and never come back or I'll kill you." I slowly peeled my hand away from her mouth, lip curling as I noticed chapstick grease on it.

"Where is he, you bi–" Tasha's eyes widened as she noticed Masha behind me.

"Were you going to call her a bitch? Not a nice way to speak to your superiors, is it?" Masha knelt by Tasha's arm, stroking the woman's bare arm with the lightest of touches. Tasha's eyes widened and I put my hand over her mouth again preemptively.

Faster than Tasha could see, Masha twisted Tasha's left wrist around in a circle. Even using two hands, I couldn't fully mute Tasha's terrible scream.

The Strigoi finally looked up from the human he was feeding on.

"Hey!" he yelled gruffly. He dropped the human he was feeding on, letting her crumple to the pavement. He narrowly avoided stepping on one of her limbs as he approached us.

"You said you'd stay out of it!"

Masha dusted off her jeans and stood up, making it a point to step on Tasha's broken wrist as she crossed over to the Strigoi from earlier.

"Finish her off, Liss. I'll take care of this." I nodded and removed my hand from Tasha's mouth to accept Masha's backpack.

"You have him, don't you?" Tasha asked, eyes narrowing.

"Of course." She brought her hands together to make a fireball, but I knew that move too well. After all, she was the one who had taught it to Christian. A quick turn of her right wrist made the fireball sputter into nothing.

"You bitch! Leave my nephew alone." I grinned at that.

"Mine now."

"And where is Dimitri? I know he came with Christian."

"You can see him if you want to." Her eyes brightened. I closed my hand around her throat, pressing her into the cool concrete. "In fact, you'll see him soon."

Rather impressively, she managed to knee me in the back hard enough to knock me off balance. She immediately began to scramble to her feet, desperately looking at the exit door to the club. I had forgotten that she used to teach some sort of fighting style to humans. Too bad I was much stronger than her. A well-placed elbow had her on her knees. A second one had her wheezing for air.

"Rose wouldn't have wanted this," she said between wheezes.

I grabbed her ankle and knocked her off balance. She screamed as she attempted to catch herself with one of her broken wrists.

"She's dead." My voice was icy.

"She'd hate what you've become."

"Shut up!" I wrapped my fist in her ponytail and swung, hitting her head against the building wall. She only smiled, blood dribbling down her chin. I kicked her, sending her skidding down the alley.

"Christian won't–" She never finished that sentence, as half her teeth ended up joining the cigarette butts on the concrete.

"Liss!" Masha's voice rang out from the other end of the alleyway. Her battle with the other Strigoi was going as well as it could, but she looked exhausted. It was time to end this.

Tasha took the time I was distracted to use the last bit of her strength to create a small, orange fireball that she quickly launched at me.

I mostly sidestepped it, but a bit of the flame caught my jacket. Swearing, I pulled the jacket off. As I dropped the jacket to the ground, the dark handle of the gun peeked out. I grabbed it, turned, and fired.

The Strigoi from earlier dropped to the ground. A bullet certainly wasn't enough to kill him, but it was enough to get him off Masha.

"Christian won't want this," Tasha said from behind me. I turned to glare at her. Her blue eyes were filled with pain and pity. "He'll choose to die instead."

Filled with rage, I trained the gun on Tasha and fired repeatedly until the gun clicked. Tasha's body jerked as the bullets tore it apart. Stepping over her, I used my jacket to pick up the stake she had dropped. A quick examination revealed a ring of engraved circles around the bottom.

Masha took my free hand. "Let's go," she said. "He'll be waking up soon."