Blood Hound

by James Osiris Baldwin

  I dropped my gaze to glance at it. The pendant trapped dancing pinpoints of light, shimmering flecks which seemed to twist and bend under Jana’s fingers as they slipped across its surface. Despite that, it had no magical weight to it, other than the way it drew attention to her hands. She really did have good hands, dexterous and finely boned. “What does Vincent look like?”

  “He’s a tiny little guy. Five foot five or so, thin build. He’s nervous and has big eyes, like a deer. Short beard, a lot of stubble.” Jana watched me watching her and dropped the pendant back to her chest. “Black hair, dark complexion. He always wore a Hornets baseball cap, whenever I saw him.”

  “Did he or Yuri report to you?”

  “None of the men report to me. I only arrange the legal side of the contracts. Identification, number plates, addresses, that sort of thing.” Jana pressed her lips together again. “Vincent came here and told the management he’d seen strange men hanging around his house, and he was concerned he was being scoped out. He wasn’t sure who and wanted third-party protection. Lev asked me to do brokerage. Yuri was assigned to stay with him three days ago at his house in Douglaston.”

  I repressed a grimace. Douglaston. I was going to have to go there and look around, and that meant a big house with lots of security that would make getting in and out difficult. Not impossible, but difficult.

  “I know, right? Typical Gold Coast Mafia.” Jana seemed to read my thoughts. She looked down, smiling uncomfortably. “I have to say, I’m a good judge of character, Mr. Sokolsky, and Vincent is a silly, nervous man. He’s got that tough guy front they all have, but you must understand that his facade is very superficial. I think he’s gone and done something stupid.”

  “I have no doubt.” What I did wonder, though, was what Frank Nacari had to do with it, or if he had anything to do with it. “Was there anything else he was wrapped up in that I should know about?”

  Jana sighed and looked at the wall past my head for a moment, then back to my face. “That’s about all I know. I’m sorry. But feel free to ask me any questions as they come up, and if you’d ever like to go with me and get a cup of coffee some time, you should definitely ask about that.”

  I was suddenly awkward in my seat, struck by a nameless gnawing sensation in my stomach. Maybe it was her voice, sighing like a flute. It had a strange champagne quality when she spoke, smooth and sweet and bubbly. Not that I ever drank champagne. I found it difficult to look away from her wrists. Maybe it was that. Her wrists. They were long and graceful, the skin flexing over the sharp point of bone each time she moved her hands.

  “Well, there’s nothing I can think of to ask, and I have places to be... Vincent’s residence, notably.” I gave the woman a quick, forced smile and rose on wooden feet. “Thank you for your time, ma’am. It was greatly appreciated.”

  “Not a problem.” Jana stood without any of the same haste, her voice light and playful. “I’m glad I was able to fill you in, Mr. Sokolsky. I just wish I knew where the little rat has gotten to.”

  “Alexi... is fine.” I nearly stuttered. “Just Alexi. And yes.”

  Unlike the men of the Organizatsiya, Jana didn’t hesitate to meet my eyes. Hers were very green, and for a moment, I flashed back to the figure in my dream: the chalk-like skin, the fall of white hair as it—she?—turned to look at me in shock in the second before I blew apart.

  Jana smiled, and her face came back into focus. “Well, Alexi, good hunting. And if you need anything, anything at all... you just let me know.”

  My face only started to burn when I emerged from the office and hit the wall of heat outside. The odd heaviness that had clogged my throat vanished as soon as I was clear of the building and could draw a lungful of air that didn’t smell like lilies. Outside, I leaned against the doorway and rubbed my face. I was a magus, I reminded myself. A spook. A killer. Predator of man. But the dead generally don’t have attractive hands and clean nails or flirt with you, and they unsettled me far less than that woman had.

  A throaty caw broke through the fugue of shame, and then another, long and languid. Across the lot, a glossy black raven drifted down to the ground and strutted across the concrete. It flashed me a brazen look, then fluttered and hopped up onto the hood of my car. I frowned and then scowled as the bird turned its head back and forth, before reaching down to pluck at the windshield wiper.

  I stepped out from the doorway. “Hey!”

  The wiper blade slipped from the raven’s beak and slapped back against the windshield, and the bird cawed at it and then at me. It was a huge animal, larger than a cat, with a vicious horny beak and white-gray eyes. They were so bright and so startling that, for a moment, its presence slapped me like a glass of cold water to the face. I felt like I was looking in a mirror: it was the exact same sensation I had felt when Binah had looked up at me from her mistress’s dead hand, but even more powerful.

  My gut lurched. Without thinking, I pulled my wallet from my pocket, heavy with change, and threw it hard. It struck the hood and bounced. The bird cawed in alarm, but instead of flying away, it launched towards me with its talons outstretched. Throwing my hands up, I barely got out of its way as it shot past, ruffling the air near my face. I spun around to track it, only to see it caw and strike at a wiry stray dog cringing by the dumpster. The dog shrieked, a high yelping cry as the raven’s talons scored an ear. The cawing, hissing bird drove the mutt along the wall, and it backed into the gutter with a shrill, strangled sound before it fled from the alley and out onto the street. Victorious, the raven landed on one of the dustbin lids, flicking its wings across its back with arrogant finality.

  I jerked my chin up, arms crossed. “Someone’s a prize fighter, aren’t they?”

  The raven quorked low in its throat, and then launched itself up again with powerful wings. It landed on the eaves of the building next door, fluffed its head feathers, and rattled a laugh that sounded so human it made my skin crawl.

  My eyes narrowed. “Who are you?”

  The bird did not reply or even acknowledge my attention, preening under one wing. It stopped, fluffed itself, and launched off into the heat of the day.

  Feeling somewhat foolish, I pulled my gloves up along my wrists and shivered. The perch the bird had occupied was vacant darkness, a yawning space of shadow that endured under the hot summer sun. Slowly, I went across and reached down to pick up my wallet from the ground. It had gone under the edge of my car, so I got down on my knees to reach for it. And there, on my knees and looking under the chassis, I glanced up and stopped. My ears started ringing.

  A plain steel box, maybe five by ten inches, was bolted to the underside of my fuel tank.

  Well, fancy that. Someone just tried to kill me.

  Chapter 6

  There’s two kinds of car bombs commonly used by professional wetworkers in this city. The first is an explosive device—putty, usually—attached to the engine. They rig a block of plastic explosive near the sump and run wires back into the dash. When you insert the key and turn the engine, the ignition triggers the explosion. The second kind has the explosive device mounted in a casing under the fuel tank. That type of bomb can be set off in a similar way—when you start the car—or from a remote control.

  Then there’s the third kind used by spooks: a bomb set up with a triggering sigil, which is activated in any way the creator pleases. Body pressure on the seat, engine ignition, opening the car door. Generally speaking, a professional is going to style it so the car explodes while the intended victim is inside, not outside, and the sigil ward is triggered automatically. The mage triggering the device doesn’t have to hang around, if they’re smart enough to account for all the variables.

  I was fairly sure, from the brief look I got before I backpedaled rapidly on foot out of the parking lot, that it was the cheaper and nastier gas tank setup, but I couldn’t rule out the sigil. Given the firepower I’d seen around Semyon and now Nacari, it was entirely possible that it was the latter.

  Th
e first thing I felt was anger, anger at having my property violated. Then came the confusion, then the fear. My heart continued to try to dig its way from behind my ribs as I feigned calm and kept myself at a quick walk. Not knowing what else to do, I found a payphone and called Lev’s office number. He didn’t pick up, so I phoned home in the hope that Vassily was still there.

  “Mister Sokolsky’s House of Hedonism, how can I help you?”

  “Someone rigged my car.” I ran my fingers back through my hair, massaging my scalp. “I’m stuck at Lev’s firm. Can you go get my tools and bring them here?”

  There was a long pause. “Wait. Rigged? What do you mean ‘rigged’?”

  “A bomb, Vassily. A bomb.” I rolled my eyes.

  “Jesus Haploid Christ,” Vassily said. “No, Alexi. No, I’m not bringing you your fucking tools so you can tinker with the bomb in your fucking car.”

  “It’s my car.” And it had been my car since I was eighteen. It had my things in it. “I’m not letting them destroy my car.”

  “Fuck the car, Lexi. Leave it there and get a cab to Mari’s.” Vassily sounded manic, on edge. “I’ll call Nic or Vanya and get them to send in the pros, man. We have guys who are paid to deal with that shit.”

  I had set up rigs in my time and was righteously convinced I could probably defuse this one, but he was right—Nic’s ex-military men had defused so many devices in Afghanistan that they had affectionate nicknames for the different colored wires. Either I did it or they did; there was no calling the cops. “Get a hold of Nic, if you can. It will cost me either way, but I’d rather owe Nicolai an extra couple grand.”

  “I’ve got money coming in if you need it. Meet me at Mari’s, okay? Don’t you dare go near that fucking thing.”

  I hung up and let myself lean against the side of the phone booth for a few minutes before I dialed the taxi. One did not need precognition to know it was going to be a very, very long day.

  Mari’s was an old glass-fronted deli owned and operated by my elder adopted sister. The white-and-blue awning brooded a dense cluster of chipped metal lattice tables outside, set up beside a simple sign in cheap gold paint and chalk with three words on it—Torty ta Chay: 'Cakes and Tea.' The deli had no written menu. It had been the cover business for the Lovenko family for two generations, started by Vassily’s adventuring parents before they took their final flight over the Gulf of Mexico. Their will passed it on to Vassily’s grandmother, Lenina, and then when she died, to Mariya.

  I pressed a hand to the glass door and let myself in, the cool sanctity of the place settling over me like a waterfall. The bell tinkled over my head, as it always had. Mari’s smelled of sugar, fried butter, old aftershave, and cigarettes. The Ukrainian community news was always playing under the soft music that looped on the overhead speakers, blasting out of an old radio on the menu and cutlery table. The customers, perched around tables with their cake and chessboards, simply picked up their voices to talk over them.

  “Alexi!” Mariya’s rich voice punctuated the burbling chatter. She appeared out of the storeroom and came around the counter, her face alight. “Handsome as ever. How are you? You look exhausted!”

  Handsome? Me? I smiled, briefly, as she touched my shoulders very lightly and kissed me hardly at all. I returned the gesture on her other cheek, taut with discomfort. “Maritka, I am well enough. Work has run late the last couple of nights.”

  Mariya clicked her tongue, examining my shirt. She fussed with my tie, even though it was already straight. “Alexi, I know you gotta do what you gotta do, but you’ll work yourself to death someday.”

  “Vassily said men like me kill themselves a lot.” I regarded Mariya levelly in return, looking for signs of ill health. She was in her early fifties, a good twenty years older than her youngest brother. The eldest living Lovenko had the same dark blue eyes and coarse wavy black hair as Vassily, her face strong and weathered from hard work. Mariya was almost six foot in flat shoes but less wiry than Vassily, with carefully curled and teased hair. She still did not speak much English. “You are well?”

  “Me?” She smiled widely with a sly, thin mouth. Both siblings were vaguely serpentine in their build and expression, and Mariya’s eyes were only slightly less hard. “Of course I’m well. But you need tea and something to eat.”

  “Is Semych here already?” Only in family company did I call Vassily by that name.

  “Out back with his deck of cards. I’ll bring you the usual something. Go catch up. Gossip is heavy today.” She waved me off with a little shooing motion.

  That reminded me. I moved only a step or two before looking at her over my shoulder. “Before you go, Mari... I was wondering. How do you think he is, now? Really?”

  The woman’s expression shifted into something I found nearly unreadable. Sad? Resigned? “He’s thin. Changed, somehow. I don’t know if you were with him before, but he went out last night and got really drunk. Bad drunk.”

  That was to be expected. If he’d taken Lev up on his offer and partied with the kind of women he liked to sleep with, he probably had five different kinds of herpes on top of his failing liver. “I wasn’t there. I left early.”

  Someone else entered the store, raising a hand and moving to the sandwich counter. With a last reproachful look, Mariya broke from me to serve up. I made my way through the shop, past the display of cakes I had never tried, and through a curtained doorway to the back-of-house. The halls were cramped, stacked with old boxes and sacks of stock used in the restaurant. A door near the rear entry was ajar, and the familiar smooth smell of Chesterfields wafted out from behind it.

  Inside, Vassily was engrossed in a hand of Solitaire, his cigarette hanging absentmindedly from his fingers. He jerked his head up as I came in and then sighed, setting down his spares and pushing his hair back from his face. “Jesus Christ, Alexi.”

  “They only call me Alexi, these days.” I bowed and spread my hands to the sides, but I don’t think he got the joke.

  “Okay, so, I’d just like you to know that I’m really happy you didn’t explode,” he said. “And also, I thought telling Mari that your car is sitting downtown loaded up with C-4 might not be a great idea. So I didn't.”

  “I think that was a very sensible conclusion,” I replied as I took my seat. "Neither did I."

  “Well, you know how it is. Great minds think alike.” Vassily drew hard on his smoke and exhaled with a sound of pleasure and relief. “Come on, sit down. We can get lunch and go home. I called Lev, and he said he’ll send Ivanko and some other guy to fix your car.”

  Ivanko was one of Nicolai’s old comrades in the Spetznaz GRU, and he probably knew more about car bombs than I ever would... assuming it was not magically triggered. “Thank you.”

  “No problem. You look like fifty kinds of shit.” Vassily stubbed out his cigarette in the tray. He didn’t light another. “Am I gonna have to start going places with you? Make sure you don’t get into trouble?”

  That reminded me acutely of the night before, his stepping up to Petro. I scrutinized him as I had Mariya. She was right: he looked dreadful. Thin, eyes sunken, brow sheened with sweat. He smelled of smoke and expired brandy. “We’re not in school anymore, Vasya. Petro was right. I can take shit and solve my own problems.”

  “I ain’t questioning that.” He looked away and turned a few cards over, shuffling through the deck. “Not at all. But do you really think that bomb was set up by some other crew?”

  I made a tutting sound. “I have no reason to think Lev would send me on a job and then try to kill me the morning after, if that’s what you’re implying.”

  Vassily sighed. “Not necessarily Lev, but I wouldn’t be surprised, you know? You did just kill Sem Vochin, and that dead Italian guy turned up yesterday. And I mean… he looked like he was killed with magic, didn’t he?”

  I grunted. Now that I was in cool, familiar surroundings, I was really feeling that tiredness. The burn in my muscles, an ache deep in my joints. “I was told not
to discuss it with anyone. So was Nic. I don't know why he didn’t keep his mouth shut.”

  “Because Nic doesn’t trust Lev as far as he could kick him, and he wants people to know what’s going on.” Vassily’s voice took on a familiar stubborn tone, one I hadn’t heard in many years. Insistent, distracted. He was a very intelligent man. Cavalier as he was, we both had earned our scholarships, and he’d always been my better at mathematics and chess. “Nic says a lot of guys have been dying since Lev took the throne.”

  “Nic was also the one who told me to tell you not to try and take him down.”

  “Well, sure. I’d be fucking crazy to. One bad word to my parole officer, and I’m back in the slammer.” Vassily scowled and toyed with the crushed cigarette. His usually restless hands were shaking, trembling as they roamed. “But I’m going to collect the information, and I’m going to hold onto it because damned if I’m gonna let some white-collar desk monkey destroy this place. I've got an MBA, Lexi. I know what guys like this do. They come in and clean an organization out, strip it bare, and fuck off to Miami with all the money. The only reasons he’s in the big man’s chair is because he’s got Sergei, Vanya and all of AEROMOR’s union guys backing him, and because of this cocaine gig. He’s got the boats and the goods.”

  I exhaled thinly and rubbed my mouth with the palm of my glove. “For now. He… has me on another job already.”

  Vassily pursed his lips, cocked an eyebrow enquiringly, and mimed shooting someone with thumb and forefinger. “Another friend of his?”

  “No. A contact. He wants him alive.”

  “Huh.” Vassily began to layer and sort the spares. His fingers were still shaky, but he played three-card Solitaire with the kind of skill that spoke of long practice. “Well, speaking of business, Nic already set me up with something. I can’t fucking believe it. Same day I get out, and he’s hanging the millstone around my neck. Oy. I have to see my parole officer on Monday.”

  “He asked you to work already?” I rested my forehead on my hand, leaning on the tabletop. “That’s... unnecessary.”