Legacy in Blood (Book 1 of The Begotten of Old Series) (21 page)

Volsky relaxed his hold, but he did not release his captive’s arms and for greater effect he pressed his knee onto Lawrence’s spinal column. Lawrence grunted and changed his tune.

“Works every time,” said Volsky. “Turns any bull into a calf.”

“My back,” groaned Lawrence. “Hey, let me go…”

But Pavel did not release him.

“Who are you people?” asked Lawrence, almost crying.

Marisa pulled out her identification and flashed it in his face. The drunk, still pressed against the wall, slanted his eyes towards the badge.

“The Coalition of Special Services, Special Agents Volsky and Sukhostat,” explained Marisa. “We need to ask you a few questions.”

After these words Volsky finally released Lawrence.

“Ah, jeez,” he gasped, breathing out noxious fumes from last night’s cognac and this morning’s vodka. “Why are you forcing your way into innocent people’s homes, breaking backs…. Did you learn that from the Americans? What do you need from me?”

“You should have invited us in,” advised Volsky. “It’s a bit awkward standing around in the doorway. And next time, don’t burp in your company’s face. They might misinterpret that.”

The following thirty minutes in Lawrence’s apartment conclusively convinced both Marisa and Pavel that they could strike this boorish ex-thug who could no longer hold his liquor off the ‘Top Five’ in the werewolf investigation.

“His reform is for shit,” said Volsky as soon as he and Marisa were out of the range of Lawrence’s hearing. “He’s probably got guns hidden in his fucking closet.”

“But his alibi is ironclad, Pavel,” she said. “And that means – to hell with him and his guns. Let him be someone else’s headache.”

“I’ll give you that,” said Pavel. “Let’s move on to our tycoon.”

And so now they were standing at the front gates of Soigu’s mansion, waiting for the owners to finally deign to pay attention to them. Pavel pressed the button on the video intercom for the fifth time.

“The Coalition of Reinforced Unified Special Services,” he repeated.” Open up.”

“Well, they’re clearly at home,” said Marisa, trying to make out what was happening beyond the wall. “Even if we can’t see them.”

“Where else would they be, damn it, at this ungodly hour?” Volsky hissed through gritted teeth. “For gentlemen millionaires this is the time of sweet repose.”

And Pavel once again raised his voice: “Open the gates!”

“Why should I?” said a voice from the intercom.

The voice was imperious and calm. Marisa thought that the metallic tone in the man’s voice had nothing to do with the intercom – it was just part of his voice.

“Because we are asking you to,” declared Pavel, looking sullenly at the intercom.

Volsky stretched out his hand and waved his identification in front of the video camera, which was now aimed directly at him and Marisa.

“Open the door, please,” continued Pavel. “We would like to talk to you.”

“Really?” asked the voice derisively. “But I haven’t the slightest desire to talk to you.”

“See here, Soigu,” Volsky replied rudely. “Don’t make problems for yourself. It would be best if you open the door willingly. Or we’ll return later and it will be worse for you.”

“You’re welcome to try,” sneered the speaker coldly. “Just don’t forget to bring a warrant with you. No one from your office will take a step beyond these gates without a warrant.”

Something crackled in the intercom – apparently the speaker had shut off.

“Let’s go,” said Marisa. “It’s time to call Papa.”

“Asshole,” spat Pavel.

They walked towards the car.

“It’s him, I feel it in my gut that it’s him,” added Volsky.

“Why are you freaking out?” asked Marisa. “There’s little evidence, and that little bit is entirely circumstantial. With his connections and money and an army of lawyers…”

“That’s why I’m freaking out,” Pavel hissed through his teeth.

“Well, you shouldn’t,” she said. “We need to tail him, and catch this genius in the act.”

Marisa stopped short of the car, not wanting to return to the stuffy interior. She turned her face towards the rays of the sun and narrowed her eyes with satisfaction.

“Do you think we’ll succeed?”

Marisa opened her eyes. Volsky was staring at her questioningly.

“Pavel, I scarcely recognize you,” she frowned in surprise. “What do you think we’re playing at here? Use your brains!”

“He’s as cunning as the devil!” retorted Pavel. “He’s smart and he’s onto us, I’m sure of it, damn it.”

“It goes without saying,” agreed Marisa. “This is not some stupid herd of bloodsuckers waiting to be picked off in an enclosed space. That he is a non-human – this we still need to prove. He’s smart, cynical and cruel. He lives with a sense of absolute entitlement. But…”

Pavel was listening to each of her words. But then the sun suddenly passed behind a cloud and Marisa felt an unpleasant chill, which was intensified by an uncanny sense of imminent danger.

“Alright, let’s get in the car,” she said.

After she slammed the door shut, Marisa raised the window and felt calmer. Apparently, Pavel’s nervousness had infected her and mingled with the mess of feelings that Marisa had been carrying around all day. She again thought of Ruslan, but she was able to take herself in hand and insulate herself against dark thoughts in time.

“Sure, this scum thinks he can do anything,” said Marisa, uncharacteristically spiteful. “But that is the thing that will eventually play right into our hands. He’s stopped pretending to behave – he’s blown his cover. And that means that he’s let down his guard. We’ll follow his every move. Sooner or later he’ll screw up, you’ll see.”

“Sooner would be better,” grumbled Pavel, as he jabbed his fingers at the buttons on his cell phone.

He was dialing Goldberg’s number.

The conversation with that boy from the police amused Soigu greatly. He only regretted that the distance had been too great to allow him to delve more deeply into the child’s mind. Soigu thought that the girl who was with him was very beautiful. Judging from the way she looked at her partner, there was more between them than a simple working relationship. The girl’s gaze had been full of passion and desire, a fact that did not escape Soigu’s attention regardless of the video monitor that separated them.

Well, since these two had graced him with their presence at such an early hour, their department must have dug something up on him. He’d been unwise to be so careless lately, especially with those lovers who’d been screwing in their car when he discovered them. The sweet languor once again spread through his loins. He remembered how relentlessly he had clawed at their bodies, how the blood poured like a fountain from the woman’s neck. He no longer wished to skulk and hide. Even if they did find him out, what could
they
do to him? What could those humans really do to him? Put him in prison? Kill him? That was too ridiculous. But he could do much to them, for when all was said and done there were far worse things on this earth than death. They should fear him. And he would spit on them. With a warrant or without, he had no fear of those little humans…

However, the little slut from the department was definitely nice. He hadn’t bothered to remember the boy’s face, but hers…and especially that lustful, greedy gaze. In his lifetime in the human world, Soigu had rarely encountered humans in whose gaze lurked such a maelstrom of emotions.

Abruptly he experienced an overwhelming flood of sexual energy.

He walked quickly, tearing off his jacket as he went, and then he burst into his wife’s bedroom. Stella, who was diverting herself by flipping through celebrity magazines, stared at him in fear.

“Did something happen?” she asked.

“You’re not drunk?” asked Soigu.

“No,” replied the woman timidly. “I went down to the pool and swam for a while. I’m thinking about sitting down to write another book. I’m trying to find some ideas.” She gestured towards the magazines that littered the bed. Stella hadn’t touched any alcohol since the day before yesterday. By this morning she looked fairly respectable, and instead of the usual reek of alcohol, the smell of elegant perfume wafted from her. But Soigu didn’t care either way – other images flickered in his lustful imagination.

“Turn around,” he ordered as he approached the bed.

“Oh, Alex,” moaned Stella later, after it was all over. “You are such a wonderful lover. I hate you, but for sex like that I could forgive almost anything.”

Soigu paid little attention to her. Rising from the bed and glancing critically at himself in the mirror, he decided to put on a different suit. Not even bothering to grab his jacket from the floor, he left the bedroom.

“Where are you going?” Stella asked, blinking in confusion.

“I’ll call,” said Soigu and then slammed the door shut.

He was in an excellent mood. Yesterday some humans had come into his office – they were pestering him for money for a ballroom dancing championship. Two hundred thousand dollars would grant the donor the privileges of primary sponsorship. Soigu could have easily parted with the money. But he was not interested in ballroom dancing and he refused. The visitors left upset that they had strutted in front of him for almost an hour displaying their feathers, only to have him refuse their request.

Soigu sneered and headed for the garage. Perhaps today he would allow himself to be indulgent and do a favor, within certain rational limits, for the next petitioner. And tonight he would give himself a little present. Yes, definitely tonight. He’d had enough of denying himself pleasure and of suppressing his desires. In the final analysis, the humiliating saying that ‘you’ve got to know your limits’ had been thought up by humans. And the Begotten of Old did not need limits.

At headquarters Marisa and Pavel encountered a healthy dose of cynicism mixed with morbid curiosity.

“We know all about the tycoon-werewolf and his wife the romance novelist,” declared Arvid.

“Well, please brilliant Arvid, enlighten me,” said Marisa. And with that, Arvid, Bumblebee, Marisa and the other agents all began arguing with each other.

“Everyone shut up right now and listen to me,” Pavel yelled

Pavel’s authority was indisputable. At the sound of his voice a dozen grown men sat down in their places and prepared to listen.

“Alright, here’s what we’re all doing,” said Pavel. “Arvid and Genaro, you’re on stake-out. I want you to monitor all his movements around the city. Where, when and with whom he meets. Next, electronic surveillance – that’s Bumblebee and Graham. I need every single word, every breath of his documented. I should know what he says, when he fucks his wife…”

“If he actually fucks her,” interjected Bumblebee and immediately chuckled softly at his own wit.

“…how many times he takes a shit,” Volsky continued, unruffled. “What he eats, what he drinks, and how he lives in general. I hope that’s all clear? Search for ways to infiltrate his house.”

Volsky turned to Okahito, “I want you to get me a sample of his DNA.”

“What kind of sample?” asked Okahito.

“Any kind,” snapped Pavel. “A used condom, his spit, the clippings from his toenails – it doesn’t matter as long as we can extract something from it. And I don’t give a rat’s ass how you do it – even if you have to scrape the shit off the bottom of a toilet bowl!”

“How am I going to do that?” asked Okahito doubtfully.

“You can sneak into his office,” said Volsky. “Let’s move on. Artur, investigate his biography in and out, down to which maternity ward he was born in. Dima, you dig up all his business contacts. And his accounts, debts, loans – in short, whatever you can get. Gasan and Stefan, you will interview the two remaining suspects – the producer and Millionov – so that we make sure all the bases are covered…Is that clear to you all?”

Volsky’s eyes were flashing and Marisa noticed that she was not the only one watching him with admiration. Naturally, no one dared to contradict him.

“Then let’s get to work,” said Pavel. “And remember: I am ready to let you get away with anything just so long as it digs up something that proves Soigu’s complicity in these murders. Just don’t get lazy.”

Marisa was sorry that Goldberg was not with them. At that moment Papa would definitely have been proud of his students.

CHAPTER SIX

 

1.

 

Cruelty is the most ancient pleasure of humanity.

 

Friedrich Nietzsche

 

Crouched in the seat of the car, Vasilisa yawned, covering her exposed fangs with her palm by force of habit.

“Are you going to sit there thinking for much longer?” she asked Dalana discontentedly. “If so, can I sleep while you do?”

There was not a single living soul on Snoilskyvagen at three o’clock in the morning. The car was parked inconspicuously not far from an old building, every detail of which seemed a concretization of the placid silence. Dalana listened intently to the dreams of the tenants, but she was not interested in the secret fantasies of the building’s inhabitants, only in estimating how dangerous the building and its occupants were, and specifically how dangerous the enormous apartment on one of the upper floors was. Taken as a whole, the building was not dangerous. There was no Master here, none of the occupants were servants of law and order, and there were no likely hiding places.

Shut up and stop bothering me
, Dalana said to Vasilisa.
If you bug me one more time, I will call off the whole thing.

“Well, what are you scared of?” the transmog asked. “Is one of those – what do you call them, god-hunters? – sitting up there in her apartment?”

I’m afraid of many things,
remarked Dalana coldly.
And it wouldn’t be bad for you to be afraid of things from time to time. Fear helps one evade many troubles.

“Or maybe it gets you mixed up in just as many,” replied Vasilisa. “It’s all a matter of opinion.”

“Shut up,” Dalana repeated aloud. “I mean it.”

Catching her serious, unblinking stare, Vasilisa decided to submit.

Several hours ago Dalana had managed to find out a number of curious facts. Now she was aware that the god-hunters, as Vasilisa called them, were part of a fairly serious organization – an international association of intelligence professionals that was tasked with protecting the world from the supernatural.

“These god-hunters, as you deign to call them, are the Coalition of Reinforced United Special Services,” Dalana continued dryly. “These humans have almost done you in twice. Do you want to give them a third chance? I don’t.”

“Are you worried about me?” asked Vasilisa.

“As a matter of fact, I’m worried about myself,” responded Dalana, and then she returned to her pursuit.

The clarification of the acronym was not the end of Dalana’s new information about the Coalition – nor about Special Agent Marisa Sukhostat. There had been all sorts of information in the heads of the crusaders (Dalana intended to keep using that nickname), but the information the dying Toad had given her was just as valuable. It turned out that a large number of informer-mediums worked for CRUSS. For the most part they were charlatans or banal conjurers, but there were a few real mediators between the worlds among the Coalition’s informants. One of these had been tipped off by the Toad and had brought the crusaders to
Wing
. Dalana did not tell Vasilisa about the Toad, who had died a few hours later in her damp cell. But the girl received detailed information about the medium. This medium was called Zemfira and she lived in the largest apartments in the building on Snoilskyvagen.

Right now, at the beginning of the fourth hour, Zemfira was sleeping peacefully and did not suspect that death in the form of a bloody-minded transmog was keeping vigil under her windows. Vasilisa was obsessed with the idea of personally snapping the informer’s neck.

“Well, that’s it,” Dalana had finished her mental reconnaissance. “Let’s go.”

Contrary to Dalana’s apprehensions, Vasilisa meticulously adhered to all of her instructions. Carefully shutting the car door, the girl slipped behind Dalana through the darkened archway into the interior courtyard. Some of the informant’s fourth-floor windows faced onto that courtyard. Dalana estimated the distance to the closest window. She should have just enough strength to soar aloft with Vasilisa – just so long as everything went smoothly. Not a single window was lit; the courtyard resembled an empty well. Dalana once again marveled at how easy it was to slip into the interior courtyard of an apartment building in Stockholm, even in a good neighborhood.

She should have moved into one of those deluxe apartment buildings,
Dalana sneered mentally.
Madam Prophetess is greedy.

She’s a bitch,
Vasilisa answered darkly.

Let’s go. Hold on to me and try to be quiet for a while, at least while we’re in the air.

Vasilisa awkwardly clasped Dalana around the neck.

Hold on to me or else you’ll fall,
warned Dalana.
Like you did in the club, remember?

“Uh-huh,” the transmog mumbled.

Dalana realized too late that her reminder had stirred up a whole whirlwind of negative emotions. She patted the girl encouragingly on her neck.

Are you holding on tight?

Vasilisa linked her fingers, signaling her readiness. Dalana hugged her firmly around the waist.

Be extremely attentive and wary on the windowsill. It’s very narrow. Don’t make any superfluous movements while I cut the glass. Bear in mind, if you lose your footing, I won’t have time to catch you.

“I know all of that,” grumbled Vasilisa. “Press myself against the wall and keep watch on the windows opposite. Though it seems to me that even if a cannon fired, no would wake up, and if someone did wake up, he wouldn’t look outside.”

“And we’re off,” Dalana said in a whisper, and in the next instant they were airborne.

Zemfira awoke because of a strange sound in the kitchen and instantly knew that someone was in her apartment. Shivering from terror, she also knew something else – there would be no salvation. They had come to kill her.

Jumping up from her bed, Zemfira dashed to the bureau that stood by the opposite wall in an attempt to reach the gun in the top drawer. She was too late.

A black shadow darted towards her from the open bedroom door and knocked her from her feet with one powerful blow. Zemfira sprawled on the floor, keening like a dying rabbit.

“If you keep screaming, your death will be all the more agonizing,” whispered the shadow. “Bitch, you are going to die because of your avarice.”

“Please don’t, pl-please,” babbled Zemfira. “I’ll give you everything, all my money and jewelry…everything I have…take everything, just don’t kill me…I beg you…”

Then another shadow appeared in the bedroom – taller and more muscled than the first. She began to speak, but Zemfira did not hear her voice; it was as if the shadow was in some unearthly way conversing with her inside her mind.

Now, you will tell me everything you know about a person by the name of Marisa Sukhostat and CRUSS. Relax and open the stream of your thoughts, transmit them clearly and accurately. Try to stick to the point and I will not lay a finger on you
, promised the second shadow.

Vasilisa watched with facile interest as Dalana mesmerized the victim. From the outside it looked fairly odd. Vasilisa had seen the effect Begotten of Old had on humans before. She also had firsthand knowledge of something quite similar. Still, Dalana’s manipulations were strikingly different from those that Mentor had used. He usually put the prey into a trance with his voice; Dalana weaved from side to side as if she was an enormous cobra and she transformed her words into a powerful, mental deluge that she guided directly into the brain of the hypnotized woman. Vasilisa could not hear what was in this flood, but she knew that nothing could make her want to be in the position of this pitiful fortuneteller….What, was she really pitying this beast? Oh no, Vasilisa would not allow herself to feel any pity, for there was no pity that could overwhelm her desire to quickly have done with the hateful stoolie.

“That’s it, you can begin,” said Dalana. “I’ll wait for you in the kitchen. And don’t show too much zeal or she’ll wake up the entire neighborhood.”

Zemfira felt the strange cloud that had filled her head begin to disperse. At the same time she saw that only one shadow remained in the room – the smaller one.

“P-please…take my mo…ney,” said Zemfira with difficulty, hardly able to budge her numbed tongue.

“You know, I am really am a bit hungry,” said the shadow in a sinister voice.

With these words her eyes flashed so brightly that Zemfira’s blood froze in her veins. Somewhere in the back of her mind a nebulous thought took form: the monster with the burning eyes had absolutely no need for her money.

“Yes,” hissed Vasilisa, enjoying the state of catatonia that had embraced the prey and fettered her arms and legs. “You are exceedingly well-fed, and at any other time I would drain you dry with pleasure. But you know what?”

Vasilisa crept extremely close to the woman, who was paralyzed with fear, and sank down onto her heels.

“I will not drink your foul blood.”

And with these words Vasilisa jabbed the tensed fingers of her right hand into her victim’s neck. She fumbled with the cartilage of the larynx for a moment then caught hold of it with all five fingers and in one abrupt and powerful tug she ripped it out of the throat. A torrent of hot blood surged from the wound. Zemfira wheezed once then crumpled to the floor.

Vasilisa straightened up and glanced once more at her victim with loathing. The woman was already dead.

“A dog’s death for a dog,” said Vasilisa hollowly as she turned away.

Reflexively she put her left hand, unstained by blood, into the pocket of her jeans. Knowing full well about the phenomenal neglectfulness of her younger sister, Lucinda had always equipped the pockets of her clothes with clean handkerchiefs. But now there was no handkerchief. In the pocket of these oversized, second-hand pants she found only a piece of paper folded in two. Well, it would do just fine.

Vasilisa wiped off her bloodstained fingers and tossed the paper aside, then suddenly turned round and kicked the lifeless corpse with all her strength.

“Bitch,” she screamed, with a voice that broke from a rising sob. “Take that!”

She kicked the corpse again. The woman rolled over onto her side from the kick.

“That’s for Lucinda, that’s for Nicholaus…”

This time Vasilisa’s foot hit bone.

“That’s for all of us!”

And, unable to control herself, Vasilisa burst into tears.

In the kitchen Dalana could hear everything. She was thinking about stepping in when Vasilisa suddenly bounded into the kitchen.

“Sorry, I went slightly mad in there,” said the transmog.

Her eyes were still shining with tears, but her voice sounded even and sure.

You didn’t touch anything, I hope?
Asked Dalana.

Besides the throat of that bitch – nothing
, replied Vasilisa.
Let’s get out of here.

When they were in the car, Dalana noticed how odd and awkward Vasilisa looked in her clothing. She looked like a curious child who had crawled into her mother’s closet without permission and had dressed herself in the first thing she found.

“You look quite silly, you know,” remarked Dalana.

“And what I am supposed to do about that?” grumbled Vasilisa, and she defiantly turned away towards the window.

The remainder of the drive passed by in gloomy silence. When they returned to the apartment, Vasilisa locked herself in the bathroom with the clear intention of not coming out for several hours.

What’s the matter? Why are you dissatisfied?
Dalana asked through the door.

I don’t know what you’re talking about,
answered the girl.
I did what I wanted. I had my vengeance. And now I simply want to be alone.

It was the first time that Dalana had found herself in such a situation. She was an active individual, a doer, and part of her was deeply indifferent to Vasilisa’s distress. Hadn’t the head of the informant been part of the commission? Well, she got what she wanted, paid for in advance. But another part of Dalana pitied the transmog, who did not seem to know what to do with all this emotional turmoil. That was it, the duality of human nature, that same complicated double sided emotional landscape that begat feelings of conflict and contrariness all on its own. Vasilisa had received what she wished for, but it did not give her any satisfaction. The pain had not gone away once vengeance was accomplished. Quite the contrary, it just made more apparent the cursed, grey emptiness into which her fulfilled wish was reborn. ‘Be careful what you wish for’. They were true words, words to live by – especially in the human world.

In the meanwhile, day had already broken. Dalana planned to visit Soigu’s country estate, while the day had not yet achieved its full strength. She also needed to replace her car.

I’m going out
, said Dalana.
I’ll be gone for several hours.

To her astonishment, Vasilisa remained quiet, but the sleepy kitten came in from the living room. Flicking its tail, it stretched and yawned sweetly.

It seems you have a visitor
, Dalana addressed the girl again.
Be sure not to eat it without me.

“She’s my friend,” Vasilisa’s voice traveled through the door. “Please don’t joke like that anymore.”

Dalana grinned. It seemed that the girl’s customary refractoriness had returned to her. That meant that everything was as it should be.

The sun had already risen when Dalana, in a dirty Volvo, drove up to the entrance check point of the community that Alexander Soigu used as his refuge.

“State your business,” said the guard sleepily as he leaned out of his booth.

Dalana was disguised as a servant or housekeeper, a tutor or a nanny – that fit the dirty, unimpressive ‘junkyard on wheels’ she drove. The guard swept his eyes over the scruffy, plain looking girl sitting behind the wheel of the tin can and decided that he didn’t have to be polite.