Daemon’s Mark

by Caitlin Kittredge

  The train ride back to Kiev was interminable. Masha slept, the heavy coma sleep of trauma victims who can finally relax and allow themselves to feel safe.

  She would need a counselor, medication, possibly for years to deal with the nightmares that would come.

  But that wasn’t up to me now. I would give her back to her mother and I’d go home. I’d done what Dmitri had asked of me.

  Margarita folded Masha into her arms at the train station in Kiev, crying and stroking her hair. She didn’t notice I was alone for a minute, but then her face went slack.

  I explained, as gently as I could, what had happened. What she would need to do for Masha. I don’t think much of it sank in, but by then the numbness that I’d let steal over me was real. I couldn’t muster the strength to do more than hug Masha good-bye.

  I wasn’t needed anymore.

  I walked out to the cab line at the front of the station, where I managed to convey to the bemused driver that I needed to go to the United States embassy.

  Explaining things to the consul was less trouble than I expected, possibly because I was dirty, covered in scrapes and sporting two major injuries.

  I had to call Bryson to verify my status as a cop and he let out a yell. “Wilder! Fuckin’ a! You’re all right!”

  “As ‘all right’ as can be expected after two weeks in Kiev,” I said. “I’m going to put the consul on the phone, David. Try not to swear at him, all right?”

  After I convinced the diplomatic liaison that I was who I said I was, he issued me a temporary passport and I booked a flight back to California. First class. I felt it was the least I deserved after being kidnapped and sold into sexual slavery and then putting a stop to inhuman scientific experiments funded by the Russian mob.

  So much for my resolution to cut my spending after my cottage burned down. If that wasn’t a sign to downsize, I didn’t know what was.

  I flew to Munich, and from there to San Francisco, taking a puddle-jumper flight to Nocturne International.

  Will was waiting for me at the gate. I had planned to be calm, and stoic, but I practically fell into his arms and buried my face against the lapel of his suit—the gray wool, my favorite. I let the tears come for the first time since I’d been abducted, silent and hot on my face, leaving a trail of moisture and mascara against Will’s shirt.

  “I’m sorry,” I choked. “I made a mess of everything.”

  “Don’t talk,” Will whispered, kissing the top of my head, holding me in a viselike grip that his slim frame belied. “Don’t say anything. Just let me hold you and convince myself you’re really here.”

  I breathed in Will’s scent, soap and aftershave and the sharp prickle of magick underneath, from the curse running in his blood. “It’s good to be home,” I whispered.

  “Good to have you,” Will said, finally releasing me. “Jesus, doll, you look like death warmed over.”

  “Feel like it, too,” I said.

  “How about a bath and a change of clothes?” Will said. “My loft is closer.”

  I shouldered the bag with Grigorii Belikov’s laptop inside. That, I’d made sure to retrieve before Masha and I left the lab. I only regretted that it wasn’t Grigorii and Dr. Gorshkov, in handcuffs. “Fine,” I said. “Lead the way.”

  Will got us back to his condo without breaking any major traffic laws and started a bath for me with the frilly kind of soap for bubbles, before sitting on the toilet lid as I stripped off my clothes painfully. “I’ll run a load of laundry,” he said. “You should have plenty of stuff to wear from the last time you were over.”

  “Burn those fucking clothes,” I said. “They smell like death.”

  Will’s eyes narrowed at the sight of my ribs, which had grown a spectacular blue-purple bruise, like a cluster of exotic orchids under my skin. “Who did that to you?”

  “Something that’s dead now,” I said honestly. Will passed a hand through his hair, his gesture of nervousness, his tell. I’d missed it so much that I had to restrain myself from kissing him, bruising him in turn.

  “I said I wasn’t going to ask myself what happened when you were abducted. I said I was going to wait and let you tell me when you were ready.”

  I paused, in my bra and jeans. “Will…”

  “I drove myself crazy during the time you were gone,” he said. “Thinking about what I knew about the trafficking rings the ATF had been involved in busting, and thinking about you with Dmitri Sandovsky.”

  That was all it took. I started to cry, my face crumpling up like I was five.

  “N-nothing…” I started. “Nothing happened … He’s dead, Will.”

  “Oh, Christ,” Will said, coming to me and pulling me to his chest. “I’m so sorry, Luna. What an asshole thing to say.”

  I looked at my bloodstained toes, at the Majolica pattern on the tiles on Will’s bathroom floor. Memories flooded back, the were sending them to me as vividly as if they were still happening. The crate. The man in my cell after Grigorii had decided to dispose of me. The sound his neck had made, snapping in the small space.

  Dmitri’s last breath, as his fingers slipped off of my skin.

  I’ve killed people before, good shootings all, and I still always felt the bottomless pit just beyond my toes. Now, I felt nothing. I didn’t have remorse. I didn’t have anything inside me except a monster and an empty place where everything else used to be.

  Will let me go, holding me at arm’s length. “Just tell me what to do, Luna.”

  “I need to be alone,” I said, wrapping my arms around me. “It’s not you, it’s just … I haven’t had privacy for weeks. Could you…?”

  Will nodded, jumping up too quickly, almost tangling in his own legs. “Of course. Of course I can.” He backed out and shut the door, which I locked. Not because I didn’t feel safe with Will, but because it was the first time I’d been able to do it since Nikolai Rostov had kidnapped me.

  I slipped out of my clothes, kicking them into the corner, and proceeded to scrub every inch of my skin that didn’t hurt too much to accept soap and water.

  While I scrubbed, I thought. Thinking may not have been my best course of action at the time, but I couldn’t stop my mind from unspooling once Will set me on the trail.

  I’d killed someone in cold blood, purely for survival, and I didn’t feel the least bit guilty about it. He was a rapist who got his rocks off with girls who were too scared or used up to fight back, true, but he was still dead and I was still the instrument of his passing.

  What mattered more was that I’d let the were take me again and again, and I hadn’t fought it, hadn’t tried to bring the beast under the control of my human side like I’d done so successfully for the past year. I’d let the monster run, and I’d enjoyed it.

  Will could never know.

  That decision settled like a small smooth stone in my gut. I kicked out the plug on the tub and stepped out, wrapping myself up in towels. The steam drifted around me and I scrubbed off the mirror with one palm.

  Lily Dubois was standing behind me, reflected in the mirror.

  I started, jerking around to find the space behind me empty. When I looked back at the steamy glass, she was still there. “Mirrors used to be made of silver,” she said. “My mom told me. Good thing for you they stopped doing that, huh?”

  “Lily…” I said.

  “I told you I wasn’t going away,” she snarled. “I’m a restless fucking spirit and you’re the poor bastard that I’m going to haunt until I get some fucking justice.”

  This was different than the dreams, than something I could brush off or chalk up to fatigue or fear. I was awake—I had the pruny fingers and toes to show for it.

  “Lily…” I sighed again, and dropped my gaze from the glass. “I’m listening,” I said.

  “You want to bring me justice,” Lily stated. “And if that’s really true, you might want to get off your dumb cop ass and start looking a little closer to home.”

  I glared at her. “You
know what, I don’t need that attitude from any snotty teenage girl, especially one who’s already dead.”

  Lily let out a high, musical giggle, then a patch of steam drifted across my vision and she vanished.

  Will pounded on the door. “Luna? Luna, who are you talking to?”

  “No one,” I sighed. “I’ll be out in a minute.” I got dressed in a pair of my own sweatpants and a jersey from Cedar Hill Community College, then ran a comb through my hair before tying it up. My hair dryer and all of my product was still at my apartment. Will and I hadn’t gotten to that stage yet.

  He looked up from the dining room table when I came out of the bathroom. “What’s this? You jack someone for their laptop in the mother country?”

  “It belongs to a guy named Grigorii Belikov,” I said. Will was trying to make nice, make light of our situation, and I wasn’t going to point out that he was doing a pretty piss-poor job. I was so starved for normalcy I would have watched him write a grocery list.

  “Belikov? How Bond villain,” Will muttered.

  “He was the ringleader of the operation in Kiev,” I said. “Sex slaves, blood sport, selling girls into bondage, all of the good stuff. He and his sister were in charge of the whole thing.”

  “I can take this down to the Bureau in the morning,” Will mused. “Let our tech people have a crack at it. Send what we have to Interpol and hope that they push for prosecution in a country that views interrogation more as a sport than a process.” He left the laptop and went into the kitchen. “You hungry? You have to be.”

  “I am,” I said. “But more tired. I’m going to take a nap.”

  Will nodded. “I’ll be here. Just in the next room. I’m not leaving.”

  I went over to him and wrapped my arms around him, feeling the tears start again. “Thank you,” I whispered, “for that.”

  “Doll,” Will said against my hair, “for that, you never have to thank me.”

  Tucking myself into Will’s king-sized bed, I finally let myself relax. I had been holding on to the thought that I hadn’t really escaped, that Grigorii or Rostov was going to burst in and wake me up, prove that I was still locked in some dank hole back in Kiev.

  The thoughts faded as I drifted off to sleep, but the dreams did not. I’d have them for years, if not forever. You can try to forget, but your dreams never do.

  Just something else I was going to have to live with.

  ———

  When I woke up, it was because I sensed another body standing over me. I lashed out, found myself pinned by blankets and six-hundred-thread-count sheets, and came upright, panting.

  “Easy,” Will said. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

  Sweat had broken out all over me, and my ribs still poked when I breathed in deeply. Bones take a long time to heal, even for a were.

  “No, I’m sorry,” I said. I was going to have to get a handle on this paranoia sooner rather than later. I was safe. I was home.

  “I just needed a tie,” Will said. “I’m off to take the laptop to our techs.”

  “I’m coming with you,” I said, throwing back the covers. I could see through the shades that it was morning.

  “You let me sleep,” I said accusingly.

  “Fourteen hours,” Will agreed, knotting a plum silk tie that set off his eyes. “Figured you needed it, doll, or you’d wake up.”

  “Just give me a minute to find some real clothes,” I said, digging through my side of the closet. A pencil skirt, a blouse that didn’t match, and a Ramones T-shirt. Fantastic.

  “Luna,” Will said gently. “You’ve just been through a huge trauma and you’re pretty banged up. Maybe you should stay in today?”

  I inhaled, my reflexive snarl at being told what to do building. Will sighed. “And that sounded like patronizing crap, but I’m worried about you, doll. You’re still shaky on your feet.”

  “Will,” I said. “I really don’t want to be alone. Can you just let me come to the office?” Admitting that the thought of his empty loft sent shivers through me felt like the worst kind of cowardice, but there it was. Last night, I couldn’t wait to get him out of the room and now I was clinging to him like some wide-eyed victim in a bad action movie.

  Could I be more pathetic?

  “Sure thing,” Will said. “I think there’s a pair of pants that are yours in the top drawer. Hard to be sure, what with all of my other lady friends…”

  I felt a smile twitch in spite of my mood. “You’re a jackass.”

  “Yeah, and that’s just one of my many endearing qualities.” Will slipped on his shoulder rig and suit jacket. I pulled on the pants, which turned out to be apair of black Dickies I’d used to paint the kitchen inmy new apartment that still bore wide swaths of “Summertime Lemonade,” and the Ramones shirt. I looked about as far from official as you could get, but I cared about as much as I cared about the feelings of the criminals I’d sent to jail.

  Will drove us, his Mustang purring through the early morning streets. The trees were budding and a few flowers were poking their heads out. Spring had started while I’d been away. “You tell Bryson and the SCS you’re back yet?” he said. “And your cousin?”

  “Holding off on all three until tonight,” I said. “I needed a day to just recuperate, get my head straightened out.”

  Will, to his credit, just nodded and pulled the Mustang into his reserved space in the parking garage underneath the federal building.

  We rode the elevator to the ATF’s suite with a bunch of FBI agents. My outfit got more than a few glances. The ATF offices are basically a cube farm, with a few offices to the back for senior agents. The ATF, unlike the FBI or the DEA, lets agents pick and run their own cases, each agent an autonomous unit.

  The tech room was in the back, a low space crammed with computer equipment and a few shaggy-haired agents poking at it. “Welcome to the mad science lab,” Will told me. “Agent Jensen, and our computer specialist, Mr. Pike.”

  Agent Jensen was tall and skinny, farm-boy blond hair falling in his eyes, while Pike was small, with delicate hands and features suited to working on machines equally delicate. “Pleased to meet you,” Jensen said.

  “Although I have to say, we had a bet running about whether the girl in the photo on Fagin’s desk was real or if he downloaded you off the Net.”

  “She’s definitely real,” Pike said. “Pay up.”

  Jensen grumbled and passed him a twenty. I looked at Will with a half-smile. “There’s a picture of me on your desk?”

  “From when we went down to Berkeley,” he said. “When I helped you with that stakeout on the weres who were hooking up with dealers in San Francisco and transporting the stuff back here?”

  “Right,” I said. Once we’d gotten the pictures we needed, I’d let Bryson and Javier handle the arrests and Will and I had taken a night to explore the city. And now the evidence was in public, for all the world to see.

  Dmitri would never have done that. Dmitri would never have the chance.

  The stone was back, twice as heavy.

  “So, this thing has a European plug,” said Pike. “And it looks like someone’s already cracked the hard drive. What exactly am I supposed to do with this piece of crap?”

  “Tell me what’s on the drive, for starters,” Will said. “Luna here risked a lot to get this thing, and the people it belongs to are of the big bad evil variety.”

  “Got it,” said Pike.

  “There are a bunch of spreadsheets detailing business transactions between sex traffickers,” I said. “But they’re in a code. Probably not much use.”

  “Human trafficking?” said Jensen. “That’s an FBI matter, William.”

  “Well, for now, I’m making it an ATF matter, Joseph,” Will said. “Can you scan the drive for me or not?”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Pike waved us off. “Go get coffee or something. I’ll be done in half an hour.”

  Will walked me back to his desk, where a stack of case files was waiting. “Feel lik
e helping me do some light reading?”

  “Actually…” I said, thinking of the stack of dusty folders I’d brought back from Kazakhstan, “I need to deliver something to the morgue. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  “Can I…” Will started, but I was already out the door.

  CHAPTER 25

  The city morgue wasn’t a far walk, and it felt good to be outside. The air was starting to warm up, to lose that moist, clingy coolness that it carried in the winter.

  I rode the elevator to Dr. Kronen’s office, figuring I’d just leave the files for him to look over at his leisure and then go back to Will, but the light was on when I arrived, so I knocked.

  “Come in, unless you’re here to interrupt me,” Kronen called. I poked my head in the door apologetically.

  “Sorry, Bart. Guilty as charged.”

  “Lieutenant Wilder!” he exclaimed. “Good gods, they said you were coming home, but I never expected…” He caught hold of himself, smoothing the ends of his tie over his Hobbit-style stomach. “How are you?”

  “I think I’m going to be all right,” I said, and half-meant it for the first time. “I’ve got something for you, Doc, if you feel like doing me a solid.”

  “Anything for you, my dear,” he said. “Anything.”

  It was the first time Kronen had called me my dear, and I felt a small smile curl my mouth. “I found these files in a defunct Soviet lab,” I said. “They were doing biological experiments, some kind of bioengineering on were DNA. Can you tell me more?”

  “These are in Russian,” said Dr. Kronen, paging through. “And although I am an accomplished pianist and a fair polo player, reading this is not among my skills.”

  “Polo?” I said. He waved me off.

  “But the test results are the same in any language. They were attempting to manipulate DNA, and the results are disturbing—the cells are turning on the body, destroying it from the inside.”

  “If this gene therapy actually worked,” I said, “what results could one expect?”

  “Weres, you say?” Kronen stroked his chin. “Were traits in a human body, I’d gather. Heightened aggression, heightened strength. An undetectable killing machine primed for blood.”