by Ryan Schow
“How come I’ve never heard of you?” Ruslana asked.
“Same reason I’ve never heard of you. We both run in small, wealthy circles. You hustle for the elite, I am the dog rich folks bet on when nothing else sounds good on a Saturday night.”
“And this pays you well?”
“When I win, yes.”
“How often do you win?” Zoya asked.
“Often enough to afford to play from time to time—which reminds me, Ruslana, where do you stand on all this?”
“On all of what, Mr. Tarletski?”
“Your involvement with clients. You’re clearly not a woman moved by money, and power suits you, as I can see by your expression. What is it a woman like you does to play?”
“You shouldn’t ask her that question,” Zoya said as Ruslana turned away from him and gazed out the window.
“I’m no stranger to the macabre,” he said. “And I have a strong stomach.”
Ruslana turned and said, “With all due respect, Mr. Tarletski, you are a perverted man who likes to play with children. That is not macabre, and you do not need a strong stomach for that. You merely have to have some deep-seated psychological and sexual issues. Not that I’m judging.”
He wanted to strangle her for even saying those words, but he kept his cool because being a pervert was his cover. And he had seen a lot—too much. The violence and death he’d experienced, the murders he had taken part in…none of this was for the faint of heart.
“Dining on the innocence of youth is not my only vice, but tonight it happens to be my vice of choice.”
“What are your vices?” Ruslana asked. “Do you like boys, too? Films of the dying? Are you a drug addict, a vampire, a murderer?”
“That about covers the gamut.”
She indicated for the driver to pull over. This woman who was so beautiful online, and even more beautiful in person, was pretty like the devil—a true and fashionable monster, and dead behind the eyes.
“Answer the question,” Ruslana said.
“I don’t like boys, I’ve watched two snuff films in my life, I know two of the worst murderers in recent American history, and I’ve killed before. There are certain drugs I don’t take because I fight. If they’re exotic and untraceable, however, then I’m just as game as anyone else.”
“But do you have the money to indulge in such shameless delights?”
“Without knowing the price, how can I really answer that?”
“A man with unlimited wealth would have said yes.”
“A man with unlimited wealth wouldn’t fight for a living either. I know my limits, my desires, my vices and my weaknesses, which is why I never bite off more than I can chew.”
“And how much can you chew?” Ruslana asked.
“I want to chew on a fifteen-year-old, some arrogant little brat who never knew this world existed, or that men like me had inclinations as dark as these. I think blonds like Zoya are beautiful, but I want a brunette, American or Eastern European, and I want her tenderized ahead of time so she doesn’t stand out as bad when I’m done with her. I play hard, but I don’t maim or kill my girls, and I pay for what’s given to me, for what I take, and not a penny more or a penny less.”
When he said that, he shut his mouth and prayed he passed the shit test—for that was what this was.
“And if you wanted to kill your toys, how would you do so?”
“With a knife, up close.”
“When you kill someone with a knife,” Ruslana said, “what is that like?”
“What kind of question is that?”
Even Zoya looked nervous.
“It’s the kind of question I ask a man who asks for Vanko by name. It’s the kind I ask a man I do not know who asks for me by name.”
He hated the road he was going down. Nevertheless, he nodded like he got it. “When you first stick a man, or a woman, there’s a pop when the skin breaks and the knife goes in. The sharp inhale of breath, that juicy second before the pain rushes in and forces out a bloody shriek…that’s what comes next. Now some people shit their pants at this point. It happens, and you smell it. But if you twist the blade, really open up the wound, you hear that, too, and you smell the gore. We all know what that smells and tastes like, right?”
“Some of us, but not all of us,” Ruslana said, clearly amused.
“Now that could be the end of the story. You could take out the blade, run, give them a chance to live. But for guys who aren’t so charitable, guys like me, you stick them in the neck, turn the blade over, tear it out, and that’s when the warm, wet shower begins. You can block the arterial spray, if you want, maybe even cup your hand over it. But all that fear pumping through their hearts, that horror-stricken rush of adrenaline surging through their veins, that’s back pressure, the kind that, when opened up, sprays all over you.”
“And this happened to you?”
“Has it not happened to you?” he asked. “Or are you wanting to know because you don’t have the courage or the inclination to find out for yourself?”
“I have the inclination,” she said casually. “And I’m seldom short on courage.”
“It gets in your eyes, in your hair, all over your clothes and in your mouth. That’s what really happens. That right there is the real deal. So you want to ask what happens when you kill someone with a knife? Well, that’s my take on it.”
For the first time that night, Ruslana smiled, and it was like Satan himself was watching him through those lightless eyes of hers.
“It seems as though I might actually like you after all, Mr. Tarletski.”
“Please, call me Aleksander.”
He turned to Zoya, but where he had once seen the delight in her every expression, now he saw nothing but naked fear.
“Did you think you were with a lamb earlier?” he asked the young blond. “Or are you now just discovering you were in the company of a lion?”
“It’s not up to me to make these decisions,” Zoya said, “or these assessments.”
With that, Ruslana ordered the driver back on the road. They drove in silence into a ritzy neighborhood, beyond a pair of gates and a guard shack, into a place that shouldn’t exist in a country like Ukraine.
When they parked before the sprawling mansion, with its backlit sidewalks and manicured grounds, he got out and said, “I didn’t expect a house, but I can’t say I’m disappointed either.”
“When this blood sprayed into your mouth, when you tasted it,” Ruslana asked, apparently tickled by the idea of murder in such fashion, “what exactly did you feel?”
He’d tasted Ronnie Beckett’s blood, wiped it from his mouth and eyes, and he’d felt nothing but sheer disgust, self-loathing, sin. But that was because he had serial killer’s blood in his mouth, so much of it he wanted to puke and not stop until he’d completely turned his insides out and wrung every last drop of that maniac’s blood from him.
“I felt…euphoric,” he said, allowing a slow smile to build. “Have you tasted blood before, Ruslana? Be honest now, you’re in good company.”
“Who did you kill?” she asked, moving closer to him so just the two of them could converse.
“Who did I kill last, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“Have you tasted blood, Ruslana? Not a cut lip, or you sucking on a child’s wound, but have you hurt someone, then tasted their blood?”
He was thinking about VK, about Vampire’s Kiss. Ever since Mykola had told him about the elixir they were making from oxidized adrenaline and children’s blood, he couldn’t get it out of his head.
“Yes,” she admitted.
“And?”
“It tasted sweet, euphoric—as you said—invigorating.”
“Did you take it yourself, or did you buy the elixir? Because I find that taking it yourself is far more gratifying than buying it.”
“What about harvesting it yourself?” she asked, challenging him with another possibility.
Standing back, grinning like he enjoyed the
banter, he said, “I didn’t like you when I first saw you, and not when you pulled me over to see what a man like me does when faced with the concept of right and wrong versus need. But now I fear I may like you a touch too much.”
With this, she grinned. “I still don’t like or trust you.”
“Men like me couldn’t care less what women like you think. You’re Olena’s handler, right?”
“I am.”
“Is she your only child?”
“I have many to choose from. But Olena is one of the few that enjoys the rough touch of a savage man in need of relief.”
“It so happens I’m in need of relief.”
“Good. Follow me.”
He was disgusted by this kind of talk. Even worse, he was disgusted with himself for being so easily able to utter such atrocities. Without that practiced ease, however, he would not be in this world, penetrating the gates of people like Ruslana and Zoya, monsters parading around as aristocrats.
She walked him to a room, asked him to wait, then fetched the child. When the brunette walked Olena in the room, Atlas swallowed hard, shook off a wave of dizziness.
“Am I going to be alone with her?”
“I like to watch,” Ruslana said.
“If you’re going to watch,” he said, “then you’re going to join.”
“My rules,” she said.
“My money.”
“Olena, take off your clothes, and then take off his.” The child began to undress, but he quickly stopped her. Ruslana flashed him a nasty look. “You pay or you don’t leave.”
“I’ll pay, but this is not what I’m here for.”
“What are you here for?”
He withdrew the picture of Kaylee. “I want this girl.”
“Olena is prettier.”
“Not for sex. I was hired to find her. I’m not a UFC fighter, and my name isn’t Aleksander Tarletski.”
“I know,” she said, folding her arms.
“I know you know,” he said, “which is why I dropped the ruse.”
Shooing off the young Ukrainian girl, she said, “Who is this girl to you?”
“I was hired to find her.”
“You said that. But this girl…she’s no mule of mine. And she’s not Vanko’s mule either.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because I run this entire operation most days. Did you really kill people, and drink their blood? You were very convincing.”
He nodded in the affirmative, to which she said, “It must have been quite a feast.”
“A feast of violence. How do I know you’re telling me the truth?”
“Are you a cop, fake Aleksander?”
“The opposite, actually.”
She stepped forward, said, “Undress.”
“You first.”
She opened her blouse, unclasped her bra in the middle, then let both cups fall away. “See? No wiretapping device.” She pulled back her hair. “No earpieces either. So now it’s your turn. Undress.”
He had no weapons to hide, and certainly no recording devices, so he didn’t see the harm. When he got down to his underwear, she motioned for him to take them off.
“I was born with this weapon,” he said, pointing to his manhood.
Rolling her eyes, she stepped forward, opened up his briefs, and looked inside. When he drew a breath, she let go of the briefs. The waistband snapped on his skin, making him jump. She then grabbed all of him in a vicious, powerful grip, one that made him fold forward, one that made his eyeballs strain.
“This little American game you’re playing will get you killed in a country like this. Vanko is not Dasha Bykov. Vanko is a pretty boy, a fuck toy who likes to make money off his girls. He does not do the real work in this operation. I do. Do you know how easily I could have you killed? Right now, this very minute, if I wanted, you would be dead. But for some reason I like you. Maybe once upon a time, I had a heart and it beat sympathetic, like yours. But not anymore.”
She let go of his package, then clasped her bra back together and buttoned up her blouse.
“I don’t care about you or Vanko,” he said, everything aching. “I just want this to end so I can go back home. No offense to your country, but I like mine better.”
“I will show you my girls, and if you see this one in your picture, you can take her free of charge. But I assure you that you will not find her here. I’d remember a girl like her. She stands out.”
“Thank you,” he said, clearly out of his depth.
“Who beat you like this?” she asked, curious.
“I believe it was Dasha.”
“He has a heavy hand in all matters. Perhaps you are a dog that’s barking up all the wrong trees.”
“Why don’t you show me your stock and then I’ll go bark up another tree?”
“That’s a fine idea, fake Aleksander. I have watched many a man take off his clothes, but seldom have I watched one dress. Tonight I’ll watch you dress.”
She gave a flick of the wrist. Snorting out a hostile laugh, he pulled on his pants, got back in his shirt, put on his socks and shoes.
“It was less interesting than I thought,” she said. “Then again, I’ve seen so much so often, it takes an act of true depravity to excite me.”
“Dasha likes to shit on dinner plates, maybe you two can make demon babies together.”
“When it comes to sex with others, my kitty is exit-only,” she said, meaning she was a “girls only” kind of lover. “Follow me.”
What he saw as they walked through Vanko’s house horrified him to the core. This wasn’t a home, this was a brothel filled with kids. Doors had locks on the outside, like at Oleg’s house in Saint Petersburg, and there was soft music coming from inside each of them. There were also dozens of girls wandering around the grounds in various stages of undress, and then there were others walking off with men, boys, and girls. Part of him wanted to rage, to kill every single one of those soulless leeches, but the bigger part of him wanted to cry for all the lost children. How had humanity sunk to such levels of depravity? Just seeing their bodies on the move, knowing how delicate their young minds were, how they would never develop right, made him so sick at heart he could barely breathe. Their lives were the true tragedy, this den of iniquity the true hell.
When they were done going through the rooms and heading back to the front door, she said, “That’s all of them, fake Aleksander.”
“Thank you,” he said, disappointed that Kaylee wasn’t there.
“I’ll see you out,” she replied, disappointed as well.
He studied her as he followed behind…the curve of her hips, her confident stride, those bare shoulders, and that long black hair. This was truly a woman. Yet the men in this house had a taste for children. This seared his nerves, had him thinking he couldn’t just walk away from all this…this…depravity.
He saw a man waltzing down the stairs with a girl who looked like she was eight years old. When he passed by, Atlas couldn’t help himself. He threw a ridge-hand strike to the man’s Adam’s apple, surprising himself not only by his speed, but his ferocity. The brutal crunch was candy to an addict. Eyes narrowed, his chest heaved with rage. He simply stood there, looming over the dying man like Death himself.
Ruslana was at his side, hand on the crook of his arm. “That is the kind of thing you do to either get yourself killed, or get yourself laid.” He looked at her and for the first time since he’d met her, there was brilliance in her eyes. “If that man, who is now dying, wasn’t one of Ukraine’s most important creatures, I would ravage you right now for that. And then I would kill you.”
He was instantly hit with a Taser, his muscles clenching tight, his limbs going stiff. As the electricity surged through him, he felt spit and ragged air sizzling out of his mouth, and the backs of his eyes beginning to overheat. Then the juice stopped and he started to fall. Ruslana caught him.
“Thank you for showing me something interesting, fake Aleksander.” Turning, sh
e spoke to two of her goons—a pair of big Russian thugs in tight-fitting suits. “See that he is returned to the Continental. If he gives you problems, you’re free to kill him.” To Atlas, who was absolutely out of sorts, she said, “I trust this will be the last time we see each other.”
His eyes made that promise because he felt his words would come out in a slur.
Ruslana’s bouncers dragged Atlas outside, opened the car door for him, and shoved him inside, almost like he was oversized luggage being stuffed into an undersized trunk. To the driver, he said, “Take this walking nuisance back to the Continental.”
“Is he alright?” the driver asked.
“He killed one of our guests,” the man said. “But Ruslana…well, you know Ruslana.”
The driver nodded, then put the car in gear and took off. By the time they arrived at the Continental, Atlas was relatively certain he could form words while sitting up, albeit slightly slumped over and propped against the door.
The driver glanced over his shoulder and frowned. “We’re here, Mr. Tarletski.”
Atlas reached for the door, but his hands were still stiff, his body suffering an unnatural heat, almost like he was still cooking inside.
With a touch of desperation, he asked, “Aren’t you going to get my door?”
The driver leveled him with a cold stare in the rearview mirror. Exhaling with irritation, he unbuckled his seatbelt, then practically kicked open the front door. Seconds later, Atlas’s door was ripped open. Before he could spill out onto the ground, the driver grabbed him by the shoulder and yanked him out. He was dropped with a thud on the concrete drive, and the impact had him gasping for air. Then, for good measure, the driver kicked him right in the back. Atlas was no stranger to pain, but there was something about that particular shot that drove Ruslana’s point home. Fortunately, without an encore attack, the driver returned to his vehicle, dropped it in gear, and sped off.
Atlas picked himself up, aware he was being watched by guests and staff alike, then in a tottering Belarusian accent, he said, “Car service in this country isn’t what it used to be.”
Standing up, stumbling, then catching himself on one of the hotel’s pillars, he walked unsteadily into the lobby, took the elevator to his floor, then knocked on Cira’s door.
