The Devil Is a Gentleman (19 page)

“Why did you let him see Natalie, then?”

“Most unfortunate,” he said. “The Morrigan demanded to see him before he died. She promised to give us information in return. Then she let him escape. The information she offered turned out to be the place he died. Silly, that.”

“So that’s how you made him disappear,” I said.

“We cleaned up his mess if that’s what you mean. It must have been some show when he finally burst,” he said, unable to repress the smile any more. “Pity I wasn’t able to see it.”

“You’re a real piece of shit, you know that?” I said.

“And yet,” he said, nodding at the woman, “I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes.” Dorrance clamped his arm around me hard. I looked at the woman, who had opened her book. Shapes rose from the pages and changed in front of her. She was speaking in a low voice, her eyes bright white. There was a painful tingle on my skin and behind my eyes.

“You need to stop, Dorrance,” I said. I felt my body going rigid, the magic encircling me. “You won’t like the way this ends.” I couldn’t move my jaw and it was hard to breathe.

“On second thought,” he said, “I think I’ll look into your claim that your father is alive.” I tried to scream, but I was completely paralyzed. I couldn’t even move my eyes. He put his mouth next to my ear. “You’ll do nicely to summon old Sasha from the depths of Hell.” Then Dorrance was sitting across from me again in a colorless blur. He smiled at me and tapped the glass behind him and the car began to move. “Thank you for such a lovely chat, Niki. It really has been a pleasure.”

I dreamed of Natalie. She was asleep and dreaming deeply in her vault, only now she was the one in the bed, her breath rattling in her chest, rather than the stick-thin angel. A woman was rocking in her chair. She was singing softly, her sweet voice echoing in the metal room. I took a step forward and the rocking stopped. The woman was silent. Suddenly afraid, I didn’t know whether to go to Natalie or run away. The woman’s face was in shadow. I took a step back, but the door to the vault swung shut behind me. The walls crawled with red fire. I looked at the woman again and she rose, ever so slowly. Then either time or reality shifted, because she was right in front of me. She reeked of death. I could taste her rotting smell in my mouth. But her eyes were dark and cloudy. I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t scream. Then a voice in my head said, “Look at me, Niki.” I looked at the woman again. “
Ya lublu tebe,
” she said aloud, her voice soft in my ears.“I love you.” Her decomposing features melted back together. I smelled lilies and I knew who she was.

“Mom?” I said.

I woke with a start. My head throbbed and ached as if it were full of sand. I touched my forehead gingerly and tried to swallow. My arms felt awkward and heavy, and it felt as though my throat was cracking. My lips hurt. The air felt close, like I was in a small room, but I was afraid to open my eyes because of the pain in my head. I heard footsteps going away, muffled as though on a carpet. There was the click of a door opening and closing. I seemed to be lying on some sort of bed, thin, like a cot. I moved slightly and heard a metallic creak. I opened my eyes slightly, and when the dim light didn’t make my head explode, I opened them all the way.

My surroundings came into focus. I was in a small room. I was lying on a folding cot with a thin blanket thrown over me. My stomach churned whenever I tried to move. If that woman had casted on me, I didn’t think I was reacting in the usual way. I remembered when Gage had frozen Eli. He had been fine right afterward. I wondered if Dorrance had shot me with the tranq dart for good measure.

There was nothing on the walls, no shelves or pictures of any kind. The room didn’t even have a smell. The ceiling was made up of uniform white cork tiles, and the floor was covered in a cheap blue carpeting. It was as bland as any office building. There were no windows in the small room, and it dawned on me that this was probably a small supply closet in H&H Financial.

A round tray on the ground next to me held a pitcher with what looked like water in it. I slowly turned over, fighting the nausea. The cot was close to the ground, so I managed to clumsily reach the plastic cup next to the pitcher and pour water into it, sloshing some onto the tray. My limbs were still stiff. I put the cup to my lips and took tiny sips, waiting for the gurgling in my stomach to subside before taking the next sip. The water was room-temperature, which probably helped. I drank the whole cup before long and reached for the pitcher to pour another glass.

I was halfway through the second cup when I heard the bolt click on the other side of the door. The knob turned and Yuri walked in, his shirtsleeves rolled up to reveal his heavily tattooed arms. He sat in the chair next to me. He was holding a large mug of something, which he handed to me. I looked at him questioningly.

“Broth,” he said. “Drink it. It will help with the nausea.” I took the cup and took a small sip. He was right. My stomach started to settle almost with the first drink. “So,” he said, leaning forward, “I think you have changed your mind.”

“About what?” I croaked. “Where the hell am I?” I tried to sit up more, but my body wasn’t quite ready for that. I leaned back on my pillow.

“You know where you are,” he said.

“Yes,” I admitted. “Did you set this up?”

He laughed. “You credit me with much power,” he said. “I do not control what Dorrance does.”

“Does he control you?” I said. “Is this some kind of trick?”

“How could this be a trick?” he said.

“I don’t know,” I said. “All I do know is that you came to my house, and then I was pushed into Dorrance’s car and shot full of something, then I woke up in a camp bed in Dorrance’s building. The same building where he is keeping my sister. The same building that you are paid to guard. Excuse the goddamn hell out of me, but I’m a little confused as to your role in all of this.”

Yuri nodded and rubbed his short cropped hair. His forearm was covered with a tattoo of a fully-robed executioner. I looked away. “Before Sasha escaped from prison last month, he told me about your sister Natalie. I’d gone to visit him. I always went to see him when I could. I already knew about The Morrigan, of course, but that was the first time I understood who she was, and how she became what she is. Sasha thought Dorrance would have him killed, so he asked me to stay and watch over the girl. For me, it was about loyalty. And honor.”

I was silent, wondering if our shared code of honor came from the Ukraine, or from the Russian prisons. Probably both, I decided.

“My father had a saying,” Yuri said. “
S volkami zhit’, po-volch’i vyt’.
It means, to live with wolves, sometimes you must howl. So I came here. I howled. But now I am no longer a wolf. You and I, we are not wolves. We are hunters.”

I stared at him for a minute. He stared back, his expression indiscernible. I sipped my broth. I felt much better, my stomach had calmed down. “Why do you need me?” I asked quietly.

“You are Slobodian,” he said. “I am too quiet for these men. They respect me, but I do not think they would follow me. They like someone brash. Someone with passion. Like Sasha.”

“And like me,” I said. I finished the broth and handed Yuri the mug.

“Yes,” he said.

I frowned and looked down. I could feel his eyes on me. It was eerily quiet in the room, the only sound our breathing. My head was starting to clear, but it still felt thick. “I want you to get Bobby Gage out,” I said. “Do you know where he is?”

Yuri nodded. “Yes.”

“Get him out of there. No matter what happens. I want him safe. Those are my conditions.”

“It will not be easy,” said Yuri.

“Why not?”

“They have him bound with magic, just in case you try something, ” he said. “I’m supposed to take you in at sundown. They want you for the ritual. They will kill him anyway, though, after they drain you.”

“Why do they want my blood?” I said. “I’m no angel.”

“They do not tell me,” he said. “I only know what they plan. Before they wanted you to convince the little girl to comply. This is what I am told. But now they change their minds. There is something about your blood.”

“What about Natalie?” I said. “Where is she?”

“In her vault,” he said. “She will not talk, though.”

“Can you get her out?”

“I will have to take the angel, too,” he said.

“The angel will do what Natalie says.”

“I will arrange to take down the guards. Dorrance put them inside with her now that she cannot set them on fire.”

“They’re not yours?” I said.

“No, Dorrance has his own. Ever since Sasha left.”

“Will they be there when this ritual happens?” I said.

“Yes,” he said. “I am only allowed in to make sure you don’t try to kill anyone. I am ordered to use extreme violence if necessary.” He grinned. “They just don’t know that I will use it on them.”

“How many personal guards are there?” I said.

He shrugged. “Five on the vault, twenty on The Blood.”

“Are The Blood really dangerous?” I said.

“They are dangerous,” he said. “My men are fearless, but they fear The Blood.”

“Why?” I said. “The angelwine?”

“It’s more than that,” he said. “They have a Caster. The angelwine is magically altered to be stronger, last longer. It is like any drug, too much and you’re dead, but they’ve been taking it for so long it is a part of them. The Blood have perfected taking the angelwine. They are very strong and they know how to control it.”

“How many of them?” I said.

“Twelve,” he said. “Always twelve. That is why Bradley was brought in. Lindblum died and they have to have twelve. I do not know why they have this rule. There are eight men and four women. Dorrance calls the shots. They all listen to him.”

“So why wait?” I said. “Why don’t we just rush the guard, grab Gage, and take out as many of The Blood as we can?”

“If we wait,” said Yuri, “The Blood will all be in one place. They will think they’ve won. And then we strike.”

I thought of all the dead killed by The Blood, human and angel. And later tonight they were planning to kill me and Gage. “It is a good plan,” I admitted. “They can’t keep getting away with this.”

There was the sound of muffled steps, then the door opened. I looked back to see a man, young, stocky and blonde-haired. He had an arrogant scowl on his face. “Yuri,” he said, “the offices are nearly cleared.” His accent was clearly Russian.

“Luka,” Yuri said. “What did you tell them?”

“Computer update,” he said, smirking. He glanced at me and his lip curled.

“You cleared the building?” I said to Yuri.

Luka was in my face in an instant. “You don’t talk to him, bitch. You shut your mouth. He talks to you, got it?” His eyes were narrowed and I felt a spray of spittle hit me in the face. His curled lip had a silvery layer of peach fuzz. He had his hands clenched at his sides.

Yuri stood up calmly and walked to the other side of the bed to stand by the youth. He reached out one of his massive hands and grabbed Luka’s face, his fingers spreading out like a giant spider. Luka’s pale blue eyes widened between the outstretched fingers. Yuri walked forward, pushing him backwards until the kid crashed into the wall. Yuri grabbed Luka’s throat with his other hand. He took the hand from Luka’s face and reached into his own pocket. He brought out a gun. I could see him slowly squeezing the kid’s pale throat and I watched as Luka’s gray slacks darkened around the crotch. He made a gurgling noise and his face turned purple. Veins popped out on his forehead.

Yuri let go of his throat and the kid crumpled to the floor. Yuri grabbed him by the collar and dragged him, still coughing and spluttering, to the side of my cot. The big man lifted him up, holding Luka’s head to look at me. Yuri pressed the muzzle of the gun hard into the side of Luka’s head.

“You see this fine woman?” said Yuri. He pressed harder with the gun. “
Do you see her?
” he screamed.

“Yes,” gasped Luka. He looked terrified. Tears welled up in his eyes and I could see the beginnings of a hand-shaped bruise on his neck. A trickle of blood dripped from where the gun pressed against his head. “Beg her forgiveness,” said Yuri in a deadly quiet voice.

“What?” said Luka, clearly confused.

“Beg her forgiveness or your brains will be splattered all over the room,” said Yuri calmly.

“I
—
I’m sorry,” said Luka, looking from me to Yuri. “Please forgive me, I didn’t know.”

Yuri grabbed the back of the kid’s head and pushed Luka’s face closer to mine. “Do you know who she is?” said Yuri.

“Sh-she’s the one they want dead,” he said, frantic. “For the bloodletting.”

“This,” said Yuri, “is Nikita Slobodian. Her father is Sasha Slobodian. And you are nothing to her. She could pop your balls under her heel and not give a shit. So you will listen to her, obey her, and show her some respect.”

I stared at Yuri, not quite able to process what was happening. My head still wasn’t operating at top speed. I stayed silent. The boy was gawping at me as though he was having a hard time understanding as well. “I’m sorry,” he whispered to me.

“You want me to kill him, Niki?” said Yuri.