Daemon’s Mark

by Caitlin Kittredge

  “Is it true that you have a new suspect in my daughter’s case?”

  “Hex me, where are you getting this from? This is a confidential investigation, even, I’m sorry to say, to a victim’s family.”

  “Reporters have their sources,” Nate Dubois said. “I have mine. You close this case and nail this bastard or the pack is going to consider you an enemy along with this John Black.”

  They didn’t have his real name yet. I had a little time. “I don’t appreciate being threatened, Mr. Dubois. Or didn’t Teddy tell you that?”

  “You have our warning, Miss Wilder,” he said, shortly. “Now I have to go make arrangements for my daughter’s funeral, when you people finally release the body.”

  “And you have mine,” I said, cold. “Good-bye, Mr. Dubois.”

  When he hung up, I started the car and drove, too fast, just to drive and try to shake off all of my problems. I ended up at the Port of Nocturne again, which in daylight was as sad and run-down a spot as you could ever end up in. I turned onto the access road before the gate and drove down to the vast columns of the Siren Bay Bridge, humming softly from the traffic above.

  There’s a troll under the Siren Bay Bridge. He—at least, I think it’s a he—came through the temporal rift left by a Wendigo hunger god when he was reborn. Exploited by the Thelemites, he now lives safe and sound, bound by magic and the sea.

  “Hey there, big guy,” I said, getting out and sitting on the hood. The rain had stopped as suddenly as it had begun, and mist rolled off the bay, obscuring the roadbed of the bridge two hundred feet above us.

  The troll was dozing against the cement embankment. It cracked open one eye when I pulled up and then went back to sleep.

  “So,” I told it, “I have a case that will never be closed and a were pack that will kill me if it isn’t. And I have a day to make it right. Got any ideas?”

  The troll grunted and shifted, scratching its scaly green back against the concrete.

  “You’re a big help,” I said. “I suppose if we caught Salazko in the act, we’d have something to hold him on and the district attorney could tie up the federal prosecutor long enough for me to find some evidence.”

  The bills of lading were still in a plastic baggie in my glove compartment and I felt for them, reading the tiny, faded type. All of the shipments were outgoing from the same berth in the port, a week or a week and a half apart.

  “You know what they say,” I told the troll. “Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds. No offense, if you two are related.”

  I’d have one night, at the most, for my plan—stake out the port, get hard evidence of Salazko importing girls or exporting gods-knew-what, and get him in custody before Agents Hart and White caught on to my scheme.

  For that, I’d need help, and I wasn’t going to find it sitting around talking to a troll. “Appreciate the help,” I told it, before I got back in the car and called Will.

  CHAPTER 7

  “So let me get this straight,” Will said, once I’d assembled him, Bryson, Batista and Zacharias in the conference room of the SCS. “You want us to stake out the Russian mob on their turf under the nose of an ongoing FBI investigation that we’ve specifically been told to stay out of?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Which is why we need you, my darling.”

  Will shrugged. “I don’t follow.”

  “If you are leading the operation then it’s not our fault, is it? The FBI has nothing to screech about.”

  Batista nodded. “I like that. Who the Hex does the FBI think they are, anyway? Coming in here, stepping all over us.”

  “Yeah,” Bryson said. “Fuck ’em.”

  Andy blushed, but he looked excited, like I’d suggested sneaking into an R-rated movie. “I agree, ma’am. This is our investigation.”

  “You do realize that if my supervisors find out about this, I’ll be written up and probably lose my job?” Will said. I gave him my best innocent expression.

  “Please? For me? I’m adorable.”

  “Sure,” Will snorted. “For you.”

  “And you get a chance to make the FBI look like a bunch of flatfooted federal donut-munchers,” I said. There was no love lost between the ATF and the feds. Will’s mouth quirked.

  “Well, sure. There is that. I’ll requisition some equipment from my friend in technical services and we’ll meet at the pier once it gets dark.”

  “I’ll call the port authority and let them know we’re coming,” Andy said.

  “No,” I told him. “Anyone in the port could be in bed with the Russians. Why don’t you try to find out who Salazko is working for, instead? And requisition a surveillance van from the motor pool. One of the new ones, not the one that smells like old hot dogs.”

  Andy nodded and went back to his computer. If there was one thing I could count on him for, it was obsessive fact-checking and following my instructions.

  “What do you want us to do?” Bryson asked.

  “Until tonight, sit there and look pretty,” I said. Natalie Lane stuck her head into the conference room.

  “Sorry. Am I interrupting something?”

  “Always,” I said. “What can I inconvenience myself for you and do this time?”

  Lane rolled her eyes. “May I see you for a moment?”

  I stepped into the hallway with her. “What? What is it?”

  “I understand you’re set on this Salazko as a suspect?” she said. “Not that you’ve been sharing any information with me willingly.”

  “He had the motive and opportunity,” I said. “He looks pretty good from where I’m sitting.”

  “And you base this on the fact that he’s involved in prostitution?” Lane said.

  “Lady, what is your point? Are you only around to state the obvious?”

  Lane sighed. “Look, I don’t take any pleasure in this, but I think Salazko has an alibi.”

  Fan-freaking-tastic. “Are you really that hard up? You want to show up the freak squad that badly?”

  “Believe it or not,” Lane growled, “I’m doing my job, something you seem distinctly uninterested in.”

  “What?” I snapped. “What could you possibly have to prove by alibiing a mobster other than to show me up and get a pat on the head from all of the other sex detectives?”

  Lane’s eyes narrowed. “Maybe the truth? Salazko may be bad, but he’s not our kind of bad.”

  I crossed my arms, not wanting to admit she had a point. “I assume you can show me some proof?”

  “Would we be talking if I didn’t?” Lane said. “I do my job well, Lieutenant. I don’t have the luxury of screwing around and hoping no one notices.”

  “You are just aiming straight for my fist in your face,” I muttered, grabbing my jacket and following Lane. “I’ll be back in an hour,” I called to the others.

  “I’ve worked with these girls before,” Lane said when we were in her silent-running Japanese toy of a car, “when a customer roughs them up and we’re lucky enough to find out how old they really are.” She drove us toward Needle Park, the section of the city where drug deals were as plentiful as ice cream trucks.

  “And Salazko brings them in?” I said. “I figured that was his deal.”

  “His name rang a bell,” Lane said as we turned down an alley stacked on both sides with boxes and discarded appliances. “A girl had eyeballed him as one of her regular customers when we brought her in on a solicitation rap. Fifteen.”

  “A year older than Lily,” I murmured.

  “This can be a little rough if you’re not used to it.” Lane drew the hybrid to a stop at the end of the alley.

  “I’ve pretty much burned out my shock and horror at the human condition,” I told her. “Between the shootings, ritual murders, death threats, black magick…”

  Lane stopped me. “Fine. Just let me do the talking, and don’t act like you’re here to bust anyone. These girls are in enough trouble as it is.”

  I followed her to a graffiti-covered door
at the end of the alley. The markings were mostly wards from various witch gangs, all of them spent and faded. Whatever lived here now was much, much worse.

  Lane buzzed, then pounded on the door with the flat of her hand. “Privyet! Open up.”

  “Maybe nobody’s home,” I said. At that moment, the door cracked and a thin-faced girl stuck her head out. Hair that had seen at least five bleach jobs too many was piled on top of her head like a bird’s nest.

  “Da? I help you?”

  Lane smiled perfunctorily. “I was wondering if we might talk to Mika?”

  “Mika is sleeping,” said the girl, starting to shut the door. I caught it, not even having to strain. The girl, all skinny bones and huge eyes, was about as strong as a kitten.

  “Please,” I said. “We just want to talk. It’s important.”

  “Look,” the girl said. “We have papers, all. We not do anything wrong.”

  She jerked against the door until I let go, and slammed it shut. I looked to Lane. “Okay, clearly the Mother Theresa act isn’t gonna work.” I pounded on the door, feeling in my wallet for cash.

  “Go away,” the girl hissed when she opened up again. “You will scare customer.”

  “First of all,” I said, “It’s two P.M. on a weekday. You don’t have customer. Second of all…” I flashed her a twenty. “We just want to talk to Mika. We’re not here to go all la migra on your fine establishment, all right?”

  The girl pursed her lips, looking over her shoulder. If her pimps found out she’d let two cops into their brothel, she’d catch hell, probably in the form of a fist. But money that didn’t have to be shared with said pimps was a stronger temptation, and she snatched the twenty from my hand.

  “Upstairs. The second door on the left.”

  Lane nodded her thanks, and we stepped into a dank back hall that smelled of unwashed bodies, stale cooking and staler vodka.

  A few girls were sitting against the wall, smoking or nodding, and a pop station burbled from the front of the building, which I guessed at one point had been a restaurant.

  The industrial kitchen was to my right and I glanced in, just to make sure Sergei the Russian Pimp wasn’t waiting for us with a shotgun. Just another girl, singing to herself in Ukrainian as she stirred a pot on the range.

  Dmitri, my ex, would have been able to tell me what the song was, probably even from what town in Ukraine the girl was from.

  But he wasn’t here, so I followed Lane up the stairs. She knocked on the second door. “Mika? Mika, it’s Detective Lane.”

  Shuffling, and the door opened on another skinny girl with pale, bruised skin and deep half-moons under her eyes. Mika had a short, dark bob, one I was willing to bet a wig covered during work hours. She was pretty, in a wide-eyed Wednesday Addams way, but she had the slippery, slow glance of a junkie. There were bruises on the insides of her arms, handprints, and I pegged her as a pill-popper. Cheaper than heroin and doesn’t leave unsightly track marks.

  “Yeah? What is it this time?” she sighed. Her English was good, her accent the clipped and rounded syllables of Moscow.

  Lane looked at her reprovingly. “I told you to go to a hospital, have those bruises checked out.”

  Mika snorted. “Nothing’s wrong with me except I lose money every night I don’t work because of these fucking marks and then I have to spend another day in this place working off my debt.”

  I was starting to like Mika, chiefly because Lane turned pink and puffed up like an angry mama blowfish at her words. “Listen,” I said. “We’re here about Ivan Salazko. Is he the one who roughed you up?”

  “Johnny?” She spat the name. “Yes. Him. Fucking pig almost tore me apart and then he beats me and takes back his money, and the house allows this because he sells them good fake papers. I told Detective Lane all of this already.”

  I slid my gaze to Lane. “Then maybe she should file a report and bring Salazko in so I don’t go chasing my tail in a murder case?”

  “I did all of that,” Lane sighed. “There’s no evidence besides the word of an illegal and someone like Salazko can just buy an alibi from one of his scumbag mob buddies.”

  “Wow.” I shook my head. “You wouldn’t know it to look at you, but I think you have even less faith in humanity than I do, Natalie.”

  “It’s not like I didn’t try,” Lane hissed at me. “The Russians can do whatever they want with the money they earn off the sweat of these girls’ backs, and we’re virtually powerless to stop them. The system in this country isn’t set up to deal with…”

  “Spare the lecture and spoil the lieutenant, will you?” I said. “Mika, when did Johnny do this to you?”

  “Two nights ago,” she said. “I’m tired. Can I go back to bed now?”

  “How late was he here?” I said.

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. Sunup?”

  Hex it all, anyway. “Thank you,” I said. “Go back to sleep. And lay off the Oxy—that stuff will put holes in your brain.”

  She curled her lip at me. “I take care of myself.”

  “You’re what?” I said. “Seventeen, eighteen?”

  She stuck out her bony hip and I saw more bruises, disappearing into the waistband of her pink workout shorts.

  “Sixteen. So what?”

  “And Salazko shipped you over when you were fourteen or fifteen?” I said. Mika sneered.

  “Johnny Boy isn’t part of the outfit. He likes to think he is, but he’s just a geek with Photoshop and a laminator. Thinks he can act like a gangster because gangsters pay his bills.”

  Lane held out her hand. “Come with us. We can get you into rehab and I’ll talk to INS. Maybe you can stay here.”

  “Promises, promises,” Mika said, and slammed the door in our faces.

  “If Salazko isn’t bringing the girls in, who the hell is?” I said. “And who had a reason to kill Lily Dubois?”

  “You got me,” Lane sighed. “I don’t deal with the intricacies of the mob, I just deal with the fallout they leave behind.”

  “Something funny about the Russians,” I mused as we left the brothel and climbed back into her car. “They’re not like the Italians and the cartels. They don’t send messages with their killings—no two in the back of the head, no you-know-what cut off and stuffed in your mouth.”

  Lane crinkled her button nose. “Is there a point to your frequently inane rambling, Luna?”

  “Oh, it’s Luna now, is it?” I pulled out my BlackBerry and scrolled through the address book to Bryson’s number. “I mean that if Lily got herself into something bad, a mob hit might look a lot like black magick.”

  “Okay,” said Lane. “But Salazko has an alibi. Who could have done this to her?”

  “Mika said that Salazko liked to play gangster,” I said. “Maybe he introduced her to some real ones.”

  Bryson mumbled hello around a mouthful of food. “David, call Dellarocco for a lab report and get it over to Fraud. Tell them they want to pick up Ivan Salazko ASAP.”

  “What about the FBI?” Bryson said. “And our surveillance setup? You don’t like Salazko for this homicide anymore?”

  “The FBI can deal with Salazko on their own time,” I said. “And don’t worry about that, David—you’ll still get to peep through binoculars at hapless gangsters.”

  “On it,” he said, sounding considerably more cheerful. “Where you want I should send the Fraud boys?”

  I gave him Salazko’s address and turned to Lane. “Home, Jeeves. Let’s show some inter-task-force cooperation.”

  Lane frowned. “Pardon?”

  “Drive, woman!” I said. “I have something I need to say to Salazko before I cross him off my suspect list.”

  “Fine,” Lane said. “But then you’re going to let me get back to work.”

  “It’ll be worth it,” I said as we turned into Salazko’s neighborhood. “Trust me.”

  CHAPTER 8

  A plain motor-pool car was parked the other way across the street when we pulled
up to Ivan’s building, and I went over and knocked on the window. “Hello, there. My good friend Detective Lane and I happened to be driving by and thought you could use the assist.” I showed my shield to the two detectives in the car.

  “Detective Kilkenny, Detective Bolton,” said the guy behind the wheel. Kilkenny was as Irish as his name sounded, with red hair and skin that looked like it would scorch under a lightbulb, while Bolton was a mountain of muscle that would have stopped me in my tracks even fully phased.

  “It’s your warrant, boys,” I said. “I’m just here to help.”

  Bolton jacked himself out of the passenger seat, running a hand over his shaved head. “Freak squad here to help. Sure.”

  “Look,” I told him. “I’m very useful. I can dazzle the suspect with my feminine wiles and kick down doors and all sorts of skills normally reserved for the cop shows on TV.”

  Kilkenny snorted a smile. “Salazko. This guy connected?”

  “Likes to play that he is,” I said. “Probably has a gun.”

  Kilkenny heaved a sigh. “Great.” They went into the lobby and started up the stairs, and Lane and I followed them, guns drawn. Bolton pounded on the door.

  “Ivan Salazko. We have a warrant.”

  The door opened a crack, and Salazko stuck one bleary eye to the space. “You have the wrong apartment. Go away.”

  “That’s him,” I said.

  I had to give Bolton and Kilkenny credit—for guys who spent most of their time chasing identity theft and white-collar scams, they were a well-oiled machine. Bolton kicked the door in and Kilkenny made a hard entry, shoving Salazko backward onto his ass and covering the room. Bolton covered him, hauling him to his feet.

  Johnny was in boxers, an Orthodox cross studded with diamonds hanging in his mat of chest hair. “What the hell is this? You can’t just bust in here! This isn’t Stalin’s Russia.”

  “Funny you should mention that,” I said, hauling him to his feet and pulling out my cuffs. I snapped them on his wrists. “I met one of your countrywomen earlier today.”

  Salazko met my eyes. “I know you. You were at the OK…”