by K. T. Tomb
“Are you ready for the next part, Nora?” he asked after she’d finished her report.
“Apprehension?” she asked, though she knew the answer.
“Are you in the proper state of mind to do it?”
“I will admit that I am very angry,” she replied. “But I am angry on behalf of his pregnant wife and those small children.”
“Not vengeance then?”
“I’d be lying if I told you that I didn’t want to even the score.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Alfred responded. “And there ought to be some desire to give him a little taste of his own medicine. Have you found any indication of crimes committed?”
“None yet.”
“Very well. Have you considered a way to keep yourself focused on your duty so that you don’t take things too far?”
“I have,” Nora answered.
Alfred spread his hands apart, and raised his eyebrows in an unspoken question.
“For the sake of his wife and children, I’d prefer to see the man become a useful father and husband,” she responded.
“This is your request?”
She took in some air, nodded. “It is.”
“So be it. I will see to him personally.” Alfred paused a moment, looking directly into her eyes and studying her. “I’m going to assume that you’ve determined a way of luring him into the alley?”
“I have.”
“Well, then, Nora, go to it.”
With that statement, she was dismissed. She transmuted into the owl for the flight back across London. If while in her owl form, a smile could register upon her beak, it was certainly there. Not only was she at peace in the sky, but when dawn broke, she would dish out some justice, too.
***
“Nora Kelly.” Edwin Burberry clucked his tongue when he saw her struggling along the street. “Where have you been? You’ve a debt to repay and you’re way behind. I might have to collect a little extra.”
Nora had changed into her old clothes and had given every appearance that she was suffering from another night of opium.
“Leave me be,” she groaned.
“We’re right back where we were before, whore,” he hissed as he took hold of her arm. “Except this time, there won’t be some dandy to come along and rescue you.”
“Just go home to your wife and children,” she responded.
“Oh, I intend to, but I’m gonna take what you owe me first.”
Nora made a half-hearted attempt of swinging her knee at his crotch. He blocked her blow and then grabbed a handful of her hair.
“You just settle down and take what’s coming to you,” he growled close to her ear.
Nora bit her lower lip and reminded herself to stay focused. First, she had to get him into the alley. If she started in on him out in the open street, someone was bound to see her, and she couldn’t draw anyone’s attention. She had a very specific mission, and it began with the alley.
The sudden backhand across her mouth made her see red, but she swallowed her anger. Focus on the mission. “No need for that,” she said. “I... I’ll give you what you want. Just don’t hurt me.”
“Not hurt you? I don’t think you know me very well.”
She put up the appearance of fighting feebly against him, but allowed him to drag her into the alley. Nora fought a brief feeling of helplessness as he did so, but reminded herself that she was helpless no more. He shoved her against a brick wall and delivered another punch to the face that was meant to knock her teeth out.
Except, of course, Nora had caught his arm in mid-swing.
She allowed the fluorescence to appear in her green eyes, which was a neat trick Andrik had taught her only days before. It had the desired effect. Edwin cried out and struggled briefly with her before heaving another fist. She caught that as well. She clamped down onto both of his hands with all her strength. Almost immediately, she felt the bones of both wrists shatter. He cried out, louder than she expected... and a lot higher pitched, too.
For some reason, this caused her to grin. Maybe because the man wasn’t so tough, after all.
The problem was, he was making too much of a ruckus, and so Nora delivered a series of powerful backhands at him, three in total, one after another, first her left, then right, then back to her left. They were enough to leave him sprawled against the brick wall, bleeding from his mouth and nose, his hands, broken and limp at his sides.
In a way, Nora felt sorry for him. He truly didn’t stand a chance against her. In fact, no man did. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that.
No, not true.
She was sure. She liked it.
The blood was... enticing. Her mission had been specific. No feeding from the man. She was only to leave him chained to the very pipe he was slumped next to. Still, the throbbing carotid vein in his neck was there for the taking. It would be a meal that would satiate her in the truest sense of the word…
She remembered his wife and children. For them, a bad man was better than no man at all. With a second chance, perhaps he would turn to caring for them like a proper husband and father. I have to trust Alfred. She raised a broken wrist and bound it to the pipe with leather straps.
Bound it tightly, and, no doubt, painfully.
She grinned ruefully and turned away.
Chapter Twenty-one
“Very good job, Nora,” the Duke praised as Nora, Andrik and Alfred were ushered into the spacious drawing room of White Hall, at his estate. “Alfred informs me that our Mister Burberry was dazed, but otherwise unharmed, unless you count the broken bones in his wrists. I believe that’s acceptable, given the circumstances.”
Alfred watched Nora’s reaction to the Duke’s praise. Her response was humble, but he could see the new confidence in her eyes. He glanced at Andrik and winked.
Andrik nodded and smiled.
Alfred and some special friends of the Duke, former members of Her Majesty’s Royal Marines, had recovered Burberry from the alley, not long after Nora had secured him there. He was stunned and shaken, much of his earlier bravado had already been stripped from him, thanks to Nora. They’d placed a bag over his head and taken him to a secret location, and began what the Duke called his rehabilitation.
Burberry had begged for his life, cried for his wife and children, and swore that he had no idea that Nora was in service to Her Majesty. Alfred had replaced the bag, took him on a slow tour around London, and finally delivered him at the door of his home.
“We’ll be watching you day and night, Burberry,” Alfred had whispered in his ear as he cut his bonds. “Watch carefully where you step, eh?”
Burberry nodded and scurried up the stairway and into his home.
Alfred smiled now as he relived the memory, certain that his point had been made. He was in the midst of enjoying that small victory when the Duke cleared his throat to begin discussing business.
“Nora,” he began. “I would have liked to keep you in training a bit longer, as would Alfred and Andrik. There are still many things for you to learn and many skills to master. But we have great need of your service in the field right away. You handled yourself superbly during your practice mission, you blended in well, you obtained the information you needed and you remained in control as you carried out the mission, in spite of the circumstances. None of us have any doubt that you will serve Her Majesty well in MI-6.”
“Thank you, sir,” Nora replied.
“You and Andrik will be departing for the principality of Wallachia tomorrow night. This is an area of particular interest for me, given that my ancestry is rooted in that area. We have an agent watching what is going on there, but activities have increased in that region and it has become more than Miko can handle alone.”
The Duke turned to face Alfred.
“Alfred, please brief them on the latest intelligence we received from Miko.”
Alfred nodded. “The latest stirrings in the Balkans are mostly centered around Moldavia to the north of Wallachia. We h
ave received coded messages from Miko suggesting that Russia is planning a move to the south along the western coast of the Black Sea. What is their objective? For that, you need to understand the conflict that is taking place much further to the south in the Ottoman Empire and even into Palestine.
“Because of an increased presence of Islam in the area to the south of Constantinople, Christians in those areas are increasingly in need of protection. Who is going to protect them is causing a dispute between the Ottomans, who are allied with the Roman Church and the Russians, who are allied with the Eastern Orthodox Church. On the surface, this is the conflict between the two. Underneath, it is an excuse for the Russians to obtain access to a warm water port.
“You see, Russia controls ports to the north, which are, of course, in cold water. Their warm water ports are all in the Black Sea. The problem they face is that the Black Sea is landlocked, the only way for Russian ships to leave the Black Sea is through the Bosphorus Strait, which passes through Constantinople in the Ottoman Empire. As you can imagine, whoever controls the strait also controls access to the Sea of Marmara, the Aegean Sea, the Mediterranean and ultimately, the surrounding ocean. Any questions so far?”
“What interest does Her Majesty have in the dispute?” Nora asked. “That area is thousands of miles from here.”
“Good question. Her Majesty is acting in the interest of our allies in that area, mostly the Ottomans and Turks, but also with France. However, the Crown is trying to downplay our involvement, but we can ill afford for things to get out of hand in that region. English companies have a large number of business interests in the Balkans, which are, essentially, the countries that extend west from the Black Sea to the Adriatic Sea. Additionally, Her Majesty has plans for a telegraph line which extends to New Delhi in our Indian territories. That line, necessarily, has to pass through Constantinople.”
“Could Her Majesty not deal with the Russians to accomplish the same goal?” Nora asked. “After all, our relations with Russia, according to what we’ve been studying, aren’t really that bad.”
“Keep this phrase in mind, because it is, in essence, what your mission in Wallachia is going to be about: status quo. We don’t want to rattle the egg basket and crack any eggs. If Russia makes a move south into Moldavia and Wallachia, Russia will become an imminent threat to the Ottomans and Turks.
“Talks in Constantinople have broken down. Her Majesty’s Royal Navy, along with the French, is already on station in the Dardanelles to the south of Constantinople in support of the Turks. With solid intelligence, Her Majesty hopes to contain this conflict in the Crimea, in the Northern Black Sea. To do that, we must ensure that the Russian army is not able to make its move along the western coast of the Black Sea and get at Constantinople.”
He paused and smiled at Nora, and then at Andrik. “That’s where you two come in. In support of Miko, you’ll help Her Majesty’s interests to remain exactly as they are in the Balkans.”
Chapter Twenty-two
Their flight, both in owl form, from London to Bucharest had been exhausting.
Each leg of the journey had grown a little bit longer. The short flights from London to Reims and Zurich had only been warm-ups to the longer flights to Vienna and finally, Bucharest. Nora had reveled in the flights, seeing the countrysides of England, the Strait of Dover, France, Switzerland, Austria, Transylvania and finally Wallachia passing by below her. In some ways, she wished that she could remain in her owl form and just explore the wide world with the currents of air lifting her wings. The two agents made their flights from dusk until dawn, changed into bats, and found a secluded place to rest. In Bucharest, they restored themselves to their natural state and checked into a hotel, just as a typical tourist would do. Thus, they began to blend in.
“How are you feeling, Nora?” Andrik asked as he entered her room and awakened her after darkness fell. They had slept throughout the day after checking into the hotel and going to their separate rooms.
“I am tired, but I will manage. In truth, I could remain an owl and take in the entire world on my wings,” she said, yawning and stretching.
“If only it was possible,” he replied. “But we have work to do. We are to meet with Miko. It is essential that you understand a few things about him before we have our meeting.”
Nora saw the shadow of something bitter spread over Andrik’s eyes. They were far from fluorescing in that moment. He is not fond of this Miko. I wonder what’s behind that. She hoped she was about to find out.
“Miko was a vampire before he was recruited into service with MI-6 by Alfred. I’m not sure how much Alfred told you about his first attempts at recruiting, but they were, for all practical purposes, abject failures.”
“He told me that he had to terminate the first two,” Nora replied. “He never explained further. He only explained that, as a result, the agency had changed his recruiting tactics, beginning with you, who he raved as being highly successful.”
A half smile cracked Andrik’s lips and, for a moment, his eyes started to fluoresce before dimming again. “There is a strong presence of MIs in this region. Moldavia and Transylvania have the greatest concentration, but Wallachia runs a close third. A mixture of what can be deemed as ‘good vampires’ and ‘bad vampires’ is rampant throughout the area. The higher concentration of bad vampires is in Transylvania and Moldavia, while Wallachia tends to be more suitable for good vampires.”
“What is the difference?” Nora asked.
“Perspective, mostly,” he replied. “There is a greater distinction between evil vampires, who inflict as much cruelty as possible, and more civil vampires, of course, but that’s not really what is meant by good and bad in this respect. Good vampires, for our purposes, are those who support what Alfred and the Duke call the status quo. Those vampires tend to have come out of the Danube. They’re content with what is here and they don’t wish for it to change. The bad vampires—”
“Wait,” Nora interrupted. “Why did you call it the Danube? I thought that was a river that flows south of here and then empties into the Black Sea to the northeast.”
“That is the Danube River, but I was referring the Danube drainage basin. Even Vienna is on the Danube, so technically, it extends into Austria, Hungary, Germany and Poland as well. For our purposes, we’re talking about those countries and principalities in the Balkan area.”
“Then why didn’t you just call it the Balkans?”
“Allow me to finish. The bad vampires come from an older lineage. Ironically, the same lineage as the Duke. They tend to align themselves with an older order. In that older order, Ukrainian Russia tends to have more influence. Their homage is toward Czar Nicholas. The good vampires align themselves with the new order of the Ottomans and Turks, which aligns with Her Majesty’s interests.”
“So, the first two recruits were aligned with the wrong side.”
“They didn’t appear to be so in the beginning, but as things turned out, they were playing both sides, ultimately advancing the Czar’s interests.”
“And Miko?” she asked.
“He is a confirmed new order vampire from the Ottoman region of Bulgaria to the south of the Danube.”
“But his name has Russian origins, doesn’t it?”
“Very astute, Nora. That is one of my concerns too. The Bulgarian variant of the name Michael is Mihail, which would make him Miho. When he ascended, however, he called himself Miko, which tends to follow the Russian variant of Mikhail.”
“Maybe he just likes the sound of Miko more than Miho,” Nora shrugged.
“You’re probably right, but names have meaning behind them, especially when they are given after their ascension. It makes me wonder about his loyalties as well.”
“Putting all of that aside, when, and to what purpose, are we meeting with Miko?” Nora asked.
“We are to be briefed on the most current events and given assignments,” he replied. “As to when... he should be arriving at any moment.”
Chapter Twenty-three
Miko, in the form of a rat, had paused inside the wall to listen to the conversation which was taking place between Andrik and the new recruit. He knew the true source of Andrik’s bitterness toward him. It had to do with agent Olena, a Transylvanian MI. Andrik had been responsible for exposing her true nature to Alfred and the Duke. From that point forward, Andrik had always been suspicions of Miko.
Distrust me, does he? I think this would be the perfect moment to make my entrance.
Miko slipped through a hole in the baseboard and scurried across the floor to the center of the room, noticing that the agent with long, copper-colored hair scrambled away from him and up onto a chair. He transformed to his natural form and spun around toward her, extending his hand.
“Do not be alarmed, my dear,” he said in his thick Slavic accent. “Miko at your service.”
“You entered true to form, I see,” Andrik snapped.
“Of course. I play the role of the rescuer quite well, too,” Miko responded, narrowing his eyes in Andrik’s direction before turning them back toward the lovely creature still standing on the chair.
Miko focused on the lovely features of Nora’s pale face, framed in coppery curls, which tumbled past a generous swell in her chest and terminated at her narrow waist. In spite of her start, her green eyes began to fluoresce as she recovered her composure. He drew her down from the chair with a bow and kissed her delicate fingers. “Yes. I heard every word of it. It was in order to rescue this exquisite creature from your lies that I have made myself known.”
“I spoke the truth,” Andrik retorted.
“Not on all counts,” Miko replied. He looked again at Nora, studying every inch of her from the top of her glistening, copper tresses to the tips of her delicate feet. “I assure you, Miss Nora, that I am to be trusted. Please, disregard what this snake has tried to plant inside your head.”
