Blood Recall

by Connie Suttle

  "Yes, sir."

  "Kill them and destroy their remains. I have no use for them now. They are a drain upon the country anyway."

  "I'll see to it."

  I walked away from him; I had no more patience for such. I didn't understand why Liron wanted so much of the bone dust—I had a good supply of it already.

  "I am taking what you have," Liron turned a corner of the facility ahead of me and began walking in my direction.

  "What about the clothing production here?" I asked. "We have enough for the uniforms I ordered, but more will come in the next few days."

  I caught sight of his stormy expression and stopped talking. "Be happy that I find what you have sufficient—barely." He now stood in front of me, so close I could feel breath upon my face. "I have need of it. You are the one who can wait for more."

  What did he want with it? I couldn't fathom his reasons, but they had to be enough. My words of rebuttal were clenched behind my teeth and my anger fizzled.

  I would wait to have uniforms protected with bone dust. It did not matter that I had to do so. Liron had need of our current supply.

  "I can have it loaded for you," I managed to offer as he stalked away from me—in the direction he'd came.

  An angry gesture of denial was all I received as he disappeared around the corner.

  Ordinandis, Refizan

  Breanne

  Ever since half the city had burned, there was debate among politicians regarding Solar Red and whether Alliance troops should be requested to keep the peace and force the temple to account for their involvement.

  Too many of Refizan's leaders had been bought by the renegade religion, however, and they refused to cooperate in asking for help.

  Whether that would end up being a good or bad thing was irrelevant. Time was winding down and the final battle was gearing up.

  A hush had fallen over the city, too, as if it were holding its breath, waiting for the blow to fall. People everywhere were afraid, and looked suspiciously at anyone they didn't know well.

  Solar Red, backed by an actual, revenge-seeking rogue god, had spread terrorism across a peaceful planet. Liron deserved the worst anyone could throw at him because of that.

  As for finding him or the Ra'Ak or some of the priests—that had become an impossibility. More Sirenali were involved, no doubt.

  Or Sirenali bone dust.

  Lissa, I sent to her, I think I know the whole reason why they're making so much bone dust in Russia. It isn't just to hide the Baikovs.

  You just scared the snot out of me.

  You and Zaria have to go shut that operation down, I told her. When you get there, bend time backward.

  I see what you're getting at, she said. I'll do my best.

  Erland, get everybody together, I sent to him. We need to have a meeting.

  Edinburgh, Scotland

  Lissa

  "I think we need to push things up," I told Zaria. I'd sent mindspeech to find out where she was; she and Ilya had gone to a restaurant outside the hotel, so he could have breakfast.

  "You mean trade places sooner than tomorrow?"

  "We need to get into the country sooner, and that's the only way I know how to do it," I said.

  "There is a faster way," Ilya set his coffee cup down.

  "What's that?"

  "Come with me. I can call General Baikov and tell him I am turning myself in. You can set me down at the checkpoint in Ukraine that is closest to Moscow. If you remain unseen, as I know you can, you may follow when they take me to Baikov for questioning."

  "He'll do this himself?" My eyes widened.

  "He won't be able to help himself—or stop himself from landing a few blows. Do not protest," he held up a hand when Zaria thought to do so. "I am used to this. It means nothing."

  "Where is this checkpoint?" I asked.

  "On the Russia side, just past the border," Ilya explained, pulling out his cell phone. He had a map displayed quickly, and showed us where it was.

  "If we set down just inside the border," I said, "We can skip going past the Ukraine checkpoint."

  "True. We need a car," Ilya said. "People walking in tend to upset the guards."

  "We can get a car, no problem," Zaria mumbled, staring at the map. "What do you want to drive, Ilya?" Her eyes met his.

  "I always wanted a Hummer."

  "Okay."

  "The time in Moscow is three hours later than it is here," Ilya added.

  "When would you like to get there?" I asked him.

  "If I call Baikov now, and tell him I can arrive just before sunset, you understand that his uncle may take an interest in my appearance as well."

  My head jerked up and I stared into Zaria's eyes. Two for one, I sent to her. Her reply was the barest nod.

  "Good enough. Make the call," I tapped Ilya's phone. "We'll be right behind you the whole way."

  Zaria

  "Winkler, you and Bill need to be on the first plane back to the States," Lissa told them. She'd called a meeting the moment we returned to our hotel.

  "What about me, Tiessa?" Rigo asked.

  "Rigo, if you wouldn't mind guarding them on their journey, that would take a big load off my shoulders," Lissa explained.

  "We should be fine—I'll find a military transport to take us to France, and from there, we'll take Winkler's jet to D.C.," Bill said.

  "We don't know what they have planned, and somebody may have to get you off that plane in a hurry," she told him. "Rigo can do that, and he's not susceptible to any vampire's compulsion."

  "Not even one that's older?" Winkler's eyebrow lifted.

  "There are no vampires older than I on this planet," Rigo sniffed.

  "Damn," Bill whispered. "I'll get it set up, then." He nodded to Winkler and Trajan.

  I take it things are changing? Charles sent.

  Things just got speeded up. We're sending Bill and the werewolves home. The rest of us are taking the scenic tour into Russia.

  I heard that from Bree already, he returned. Have fun. Be careful. Don't forget to write.

  I'll be sure to send a postcard, I retorted.

  Good enough.

  "General Baikov is expecting me at the checkpoint," Ilya walked in after having a phone conversation in the bathroom. "I believe he intends to come himself; he says a helicopter will be waiting to take me to Moscow. Even with a helicopter, the trip will take around two hours."

  "Can't be helped," Lissa said. "Get packed up. Bill, will you handle checkouts later?"

  "Sure."

  "What are you going to do between now and time to go?" Winkler frowned at Lissa.

  "We have to find Ilya a Hummer."

  "I was very disappointed when they stopped making them," Ilya walked around the used black Hummer sitting on a car lot in Little Rock, Arkansas. "This one looks in good shape."

  "We'll only need it for a little while," Lissa agreed. "Although this price is outrageous." She stared at the priced scrawled on the windshield while frowning deeply.

  "Lookin' for a Hummer?" A used car salesman sidled up to us. As if all three of us standing around the only Hummer in his parking lot wasn't a good enough indication.

  "We'll take this one," I said, to quell further discussion. I had no desire to watch the overly-large digits appear in his mind as he added up his commission.

  The car wasn't worth ninety-seven thousand, but Ilya wanted to drive it into Russia. Therefore, we would drive the damn thing into Russia.

  "It better work," Lissa glared at the man.

  "Come on in and we'll talk financing," the man waved us toward the nearby showroom.

  "No need. I have a credit card," Lissa whipped out a black American Express.

  "Oooh—fancy," I teased her.

  "You know it. Come on Elmer, let's get this show on the road."

  "Elmer?" Ilya hissed as Lissa started to follow the salesman, who was almost running toward the showroom.

  "That's his name. Didn't you read his name tag?"

>   "Elmer. Fine. Let us spend money like we have good sense," Ilya gestured with a hand. "I could have gotten him down to seventy-five, I think."

  "Men. Always wanting to haggle," I teased and bumped his shoulder with mine. He laughed, and that was the reason I did it.

  Ordinandis, Refizan

  Breanne

  Somewhere, across the city, the original Lissa sat on the rooftop of a building with Dragon, waiting for the sun to set. Once darkness fell, the city's vampires would stream from their hiding places to join the fight against Solar Red.

  I worried they'd be slaughtered completely, this time; that all of us could go down, in one way or another.

  I, too, sat on a rooftop, waiting for the final shoe to drop, as the old saying went.

  "Bree?" I heard Ashe's voice before he appeared—he'd flown in as the bumblebee bat, only to materialize at my side.

  "Ashe," I acknowledged his presence, while never taking my eyes off the Solar Red temple not far away.

  "I ah, got word from Randl."

  "What did he say?"

  "He said you might need this."

  This turned out to be a gold coin. Heavy, too, as I took it from his hand.

  "But why?" We were about to engage in battle. Why would I need money? I stared at the coin in my hand. Yes, it was beautifully made, as if it had been minted in a long bygone era. There was no date on the coin itself, and I found that odd.

  "Did Randl tell you anything else? Such as why I might need a gold coin? I mean it looks really nice and all, but how will it help? We're about to go to war here, I think."

  "You need it because I hide myself in it."

  I jerked back as a man with an odd smell—like flowers and rivers and freshly tilled earth—appeared on the rooftop before me.

  "Who the hell are you?" I demanded, scooting and scraping backward on the roof tiles at his sudden appearance.

  "I am Refizan. Who did you expect?" he asked.

  Chapter 16

  Ordinandis, Refizan

  Breanne

  "I am mother and father nature, but more than that," he explained. "I warn you, I will not participate in the battle itself, but I will help you however I can."

  "How's that?" I asked, wondering how father nature could help anyone in this situation.

  "I can feel them upon the planet. You may not see unless they become visible, or drop their cloak of Sirenali dust. If they touch my lands, however, I will know what they are, and how many."

  I stared, open-mouthed. I know I did. "They can't hide that from you?"

  "It is something I can do, yes." His gesture could have been a shrug. "We do not fight this battle. The war we will fight is in the future, alongside the Reviendus Ar'pexi.

  Reviendus. It meant Soul of the Universe. Ar'Pexi—it meant holder of many souls, and worked both ways; they held him, he held them.

  "Honey, I don't think I have time to ask all the questions I have," I told Refizan. "Right now, I need you to give me numbers and kinds, if you can."

  "Shall we start with the Ra'Ak, then?" he asked.

  "Please."

  On the Border Between Russia and Ukraine

  Lissa

  "I'm glad we don't have to drive the whole way to Moscow in this thing," I said as we bounced along.

  "I can fix it, if you want," Zaria offered. Ilya, who was driving, appeared to be having a good time—or as much of a good time as he could, considering what he was facing only a short distance into Russia.

  The checkpoint—and General Baikov—were no doubt waiting for him.

  "The original owners took this thing up and down rocky cliffs, I just know it, and now it rides rougher than a buckboard filled with splinters," I complained.

  "There, all fixed," Zaria waved a hand.

  The difference was like night and day. We now traveled smoothly along E101, and I could see the checkpoint ahead of us.

  At least six armed guards stood at the crossbar, and on either side lay black-and-white painted concrete barriers.

  "Any last words of advice?" Ilya asked before I turned Zaria and me to mist.

  "Don't take your medallion off unless I tell you to," Zaria said.

  "Right. I love you, by the way," he announced to a seemingly empty vehicle, before slowing to a stop in front of the guards.

  With a sigh, he put the vehicle in park and shut off the engine. Then, he slowly opened the door and slid to the concrete surface of the road, his hands held high. Earlier, he'd handed all his weapons to Bill, so they'd find nothing in the Hummer or on his person.

  Still, they weren't gentle when they cuffed him. When General Baikov came walking out of the small guard house wearing a huge frown, Zaria's mental gasp frightened me.

  He's obsessed, she sent to me. I can't see the location of the experiments in him.

  Damn, I replied. Well, here's to a two-hour helicopter ride to the Kremlin, then.

  That's always been one of my dreams, Zaria's sending dripped with sarcasm.

  We followed Ilya's forced path to a waiting helicopter, and misted inside once he was seated and buckled in.

  We'll have to mute the noise, I told Zaria, as a headset was placed over Ilya's ears.

  On it.

  The trip took a little more than two hours, and we landed atop a building on the outskirts of Moscow.

  A quick mental search told me it was an office building, with some holding cells in the basement. Ilya would be taken to one of those, unless I was badly mistaken.

  Ilya

  I'd been here before.

  Twice.

  Both times I was questioned—and beaten—before I was sent to a prison cell for a few months.

  Third time is the charm—the old English saying sighed through my memory. Upon leaving the helicopter on the rooftop, I was led to the doorway that opened onto stairs, leading down to a small landing where an elevator and more stairs waited.

  Baikov wouldn't take the stairs—we'd ride the elevator to the basement. I found myself hoping that my guardian angel—if she were such—was invisible beside me. It gave me comfort to imagine it, even if she weren't there.

  Seven floors downward, the elevator stopped on the lowest level. There were no windows here, and little hope. Most understood, once they were brought here for questioning, they would not walk out as free men or women.

  If they survived their questioning, they would be hustled out in chains and loaded into a prisoner transport, bound for one prison facility or another.

  When the doors opened, we were met by two others. One was the usual, armed guard, the other, thanks to the images supplied by Lissa and Zaria, I recognized as Ivan Baikov, Kornel's many-times great-uncle.

  "Follow me," the armed guard led us toward a hallway. I'd gone this way before. Bright lights and an uncomfortable, steel chair, bolted to the sanitized, concrete floor, waited there for me.

  A door into an interrogation room opened; the strong scent of bleach reached my nostrils. Someone had died here not long ago, and they'd used the substance to disinfect and clean the floor and the chair.

  "Sit," I was half-thrown onto the chair in question—at least it was dry after its most recent cleaning.

  More chains appeared as I was connected to the chair itself, hands, arms, body and legs.

  "So," Ivan Baikov began. "My nephew tells me that you have cooperated with the enemy against us."

  "In what way? Is he sure of my cooperation?" I responded with a question of my own. "Perhaps they also held me—as you are holding me now—in only the highest regard."

  "You will answer truthfully from now on."

  If I hadn't seen the light in his eyes as he gave the command, I might not have understood that he was laying compulsion. I think I should have been helpless against him after that, but I wasn't.

  "I didn't cooperate with anyone," I said, working to keep my voice even.

  "But you were seen with them."

  "Because I wished to learn why they had such an interest in killing Genera
l Baikov."

  "They wished to kill me? You know this how?" Kornel asked.

  "I intercepted a communication sent by the werewolf in Dallas. You told me to watch for such things, did you not?" I blinked at Kornel, feigning innocence. "He attempted to learn who had broken into a safe deposit box at a bank in Austin. Somehow, General, your name had surfaced and he considered you a person of interest in this theft."

  "Did it mention me by name?" Kornel demanded.

  "It only said Baikov. What else was I supposed to think?"

  Kornel and Ivan exchanged a look. "Perhaps it was the scent that tipped them off?" Ivan said quietly. Kornel nodded, in an attempt to convince his great-uncle of his understanding.

  I knew Kornel. He understood nothing.

  "Tell me about the vampire princess. Lissa. I was engaged to her once," Ivan barked.

  "I had no knowledge of her engagement to anyone—that was never revealed to me. I'm sorry I can't report on any of her movements—she told me not to."

  "You were under her control?"

  "I did what she asked. I don't recall much of it."

  "Do you know where she is now?"

  "No. Once I managed to escape and meet Andrei in Dublin, I don't know anything of her movements."

  "How did you kill the guard we sent to keep your son safe?"

  I wanted to laugh at Kornel's description. Only he would call a KGB assassin a guard.

  "I shot him. I feared Andrei was in danger. Was he not in danger?"

  "We will revisit that. How did you escape at the train station in Birmingham?"

  "Our follower dropped a pen. When he bent down to retrieve it, Andrei and I disappeared in the crowd."

  "He knows nothing," Ivan flung out a hand in anger. "Kornel, he is all yours."

  "Very well," Kornel said. "Shoot him," he ordered the armed guard.

  The guard's pistol was removed from his side holster, and the gun aimed at my forehead from perhaps fifteen centimeters away.

  I refused to close my eyes.

  Therefore, I watched as the pistol was fired. Instead of killing me instantly, the bullet ricocheted backward and hit the guard in the forehead instead. Kornel shouted; the guard dropped to his knees and fell face-first toward me, spreading blood down my pants leg as he slid against the fabric. Ivan began to curse.