Vampires of Moscow (Blood Web Chronicles Book 1)

by Caedis Knight

  The rest of the girls carry on their chattering in a mix of Russian and English, most of them talking about Lukka, but I keep my gaze fixed directly on Ansel. She’s applying concealer under her left eye.

  I sit at the mirror beside hers and she flinches.

  “Hey, I’ve not seen you around,” I say as cheerily as possible.

  She gives me a faint smile but doesn’t raise her head. When you’re a reporter you see a lot of shit, and when you’re a Verity Witch you know when someone is hiding something from you. Just as I suspect Ansel has a bruised eye and a light cut on her forehead. The bruise has started to fade into shades of green and yellow, which explains why she’s been avoiding the club the last few days.

  “Who did this to you?” I say, louder than I mean to.

  She doesn’t reply as she dusts her forehead with more powder.

  I pull her chair and swing it around to face me. She yelps.

  “Ansel! Who hit you?”

  “No one,” she says.

  Ping. Although I don’t need to be a walking talking lie detector to have worked that one out.

  I give her a look and she sighs.

  “I changed, and in my animal form I was hit by a car.”

  Another ping.

  I lower my voice. “Tell me the truth, Ansel. Who hit you?”

  She sniffs and dabs under her eyes with a tissue.

  “Maxim. He got jealous about my dancing. He hasn’t been himself lately, he’s been really jittery. Probably working too hard.”

  I place my hand on her shoulder but I don’t say anything.

  “Please don’t tell anyone at work,” Ansel says, her dark eyes looking up at me beseechingly. “Especially not Dimitri. The bouncer? He’s very protective. He’s had a crush on me for a long time. He’ll kill Maxim if he finds out it’s him who hurt me.”

  “This isn’t right,” I say, understatement of the century. “You can’t stay with a man who treats you like that.”

  Ansel dabs makeup under her eyes which are swimming with tears. “I know. It’s the first time it’s happened, it’s not like Maxim to be aggressive. He was so ashamed of himself he left. I want to talk to him, but now I can’t find him,” she says so quietly I have to lean in to hear her. “He’s missing.”

  She applies some bright red lipstick but I can see her hand is shaking.

  “Missing?”

  “My brother said he didn’t turn up to work yesterday. He’s never done that before.”

  All the other girls have left the room and it’s just the two of us. A faint thud of techno music vibrates from the club, but other than that all is silent.

  Ansel takes a deep breath and blinks rapidly, attempting to keep tears from smudging her eye make-up, briefly her rabbit ears flicker. “He’ll come back. He’s not a bad man, he’s just had a lot on his mind lately. Things at work have been...difficult.”

  “Like what?” I ask. Although I already know the answer.

  “Maxim’s bunkmate was found dead last week, and it’s not the first death.”

  I play dumb. “Dead?”

  “And Maxim has all these crazy theories. When he’s not working, he’s staying awake looking into it. I told him to stop, that it’s dangerous, and now he’s...” She dabs at her eyes and I place my hand on her shoulder again.

  “Who does Maxim think killed his friend?”

  She wipes her nose with the back of her hand. “At first he was convinced it was the police, they are brutal towards immigrants, but my brother Arman thinks it’s just local thugs who want bribes.”

  “And they don’t suspect the people they work for?” I ask.

  Ansel’s chin quivers and she bites her lip. “Vampires? They don’t even know they exist, let alone that they’re our bosses. I could never tell them the truth. My brother barely tolerates my shifts.”

  I raise my eyebrows at the last comment.

  “Do you think someone at KLV Construction is killing their workers?”

  Konstantin must be thinking the same thing if he has me listening out for leads in his club. Yet, wouldn’t it make more sense for me to be talking to people on his site than here? Maybe I’ll ask him.

  Ansel mumbles “I have no idea,” and with a final sweep of blusher heads for the door. I follow. I should at least look like I’m doing my job. She holds the door open.

  “Thank you,” she says.

  “What for?”

  “For helping me the other day, and for listening.” My stomach dips with guilt. “Let’s do breakfast again,” she says.

  I smile and we head up the stairs to the club.

  It’s a quiet night. It’s my first Wednesday and I guess it’s the quietest night of the week. So much for Hump Day.

  I collect a few glasses to keep myself busy and take them over to the bar. Monkey Boy is there tonight. He’s there every night. Don’t workers get a day off around here? He’s chatting to the bear bouncer, clad in his usual XXXL blue Adidas tracksuit. The hairs on the back of my hair stand on end. I don’t like that guy, and I don’t trust the monkey either.

  “Quiet night,” the barman says to me as I hand him two champagne flutes.

  I nod.

  He glances at the bouncer then back at me. “I hear Konstantin wasn’t very happy with you last night.”

  “What did Mr. Volkov say?” I ask.

  “That you did not ensure the Swiss had a good time.”

  Would Konstantin have said something so crude? Mo looks gleeful. Typical gossip-loving monkey.

  “Who told you that?”

  He glances in the direction of the bear. So, the bouncer is spreading rumors about me. What a piece of shit.

  “I was there to serve drinks, not myself,” I say.

  “I heard you had to be rescued.”

  “Listen...” I call out loudly so that the bear can hear me too. “If you and Masha and the Bear want to gossip, that’s up to you, but from where I’m standing you two look like nothing more than a couple of Desperate Housewives of National Geographic.”

  With that I march to the boss’ office, not wanting to hang around long enough to see the bear’s murderous glare.

  I knock on Konstantin’s door but there’s no answer. The door is slightly ajar so I push it open slowly. He isn’t here.

  Shall I wait for him?

  I take a seat. Then get up. Then look at the strange bewitched map on the wall. Then sit back down again. Jesus, how did I go from utter exhaustion to this weird restless energy?

  I shut the door quietly and walk over to his desk. It’s covered in paperwork. I didn’t have Konstantin down as messy with admin. It all looks boring, though, nothing but extensive contracts and a litter of invoices. I move on to his laptop where his inbox is open. With a quick glance at the door, I swipe the mousepad and scan through hundreds of Russian emails, waiting for something to catch my eye. More contracts, shipping updates, negotiations - more boring stuff. I head to archived emails. Then I spot them, two emails from two different PI’s, and a report from a hacker. I click on the attachments. Interesting. All documents focus on Konstantin’s business partner, Boris - his routines and locations, as well as what the hacker found in his Blood Web inboxes and computer files. Wasn’t Boris the man Konstantin mentioned last night? The one linked to the Swiss Vamps?

  I shouldn’t be shocked. Of course, Konstantin would have PI’s and hackers in his employ, and of course, he’d have them looking into his colleagues and employees' business. Why the fuck not? It’s no wonder he found out my real name. All he’d need was a hacker to cross-reference my photograph with US security docs and he’d easily find my real passport.

  But, I remind myself, it doesn't mean he knows I work for The Chronicle. Thanks to Jackson, that information is far harder to find than my birth name.

  I keep scrolling through Konstantin’s inbox. Most of his emails are linked to the Black Rabbit, but then I spot a KLV email. With another glance at the door, I search the word KLV and scan through all the constr
uction-related emails until I find something of interest. This one looks different from the rest. It was sent last week and it’s from a doctor who works with KLV. In the attachments, there are printouts and hospital-type graphs detailing patient heart rates and BMI, and next to each result is a name and a photo. I flick through them. It’s all young men, some of them wearing safety helmets with the KLV logo on. Ansel said the Volkov brothers really look after their construction staff, but extensive medical reports? Why?

  I zoom into the pdf to take a closer look when the rattle of the door handle alerts me someone is entering the room. Shit! I snap the laptop shut in such a hurry I knock a vase of flowers over. For fuck’s sake, I’m a bundle of nervous energy tonight! I drop to the ground to pick up the glass and that’s how Lukka finds me, on all fours, my bright blue dress riding up my backside.

  “I’m very happy to see you too, Saskia,” he says, coming closer. He smells of soap and his bleach blonde hair is wet and combed back.

  I scramble to my feet and find myself practically nose to nose with him.

  “Is that how you always wait for my brother?” he asks.

  I pull down my dress. “I forgot to tell him what those Swiss men said about Boris last night and I… I knocked the vase over.” I push the broken glass into a pile with my foot. “All good now. Have you seen your brother?”

  “He’s at KLV tonight. He’s there more and more lately.”

  I think back to the PDF on Konstantin’s laptop. What the fuck was that about?

  “Your builders work at night?”

  “All our workers work day and night,” he says. “How do you think we got so rich so fast?”

  “But you hire humans.”

  Lukka laughs. “Of course, we hire humans. You think a Para would work so hard for such low wages? It’s different at the club, here we pay well because our clients like the variation of our dancers, and our dancers have fun too. Because we all know when it comes to sex us Paras do it better.” He smiles at me when he says that and my guts twist. “But onsite we need our men working without complaint, day and night, rain and shine.”

  “Is that why you give them physicals?” I ask.

  Lukka’s forehead wrinkles and I could seriously punch myself in the face. What did I have to open my big mouth for?

  “I don’t know anything about physicals,” he says.

  He’s telling the truth.

  “My mistake. Ansel said her brother works for you and that his bosses look after him. I’m just being American. You know, presuming you offer healthcare and all that.”

  I roll my eyes and Lukka laughs. “Maybe I can talk to Konstantin at the construction site,” I say. “You know, if he’s there right now?”

  Lukka shakes his head. “He doesn’t like visitors on the site. Talk to him tomorrow. Actually, have the night off.” I raise my eyebrows and he smiles. “It’s quiet and you look tired. Get some sleep and I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

  I nod in agreement. I am going to need my beauty sleep, not because I’m tired but because Lukka has just confirmed exactly where I need to be tomorrow.

  Time to do some daylight digging at KLV construction.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The stroika, as the driver refers to it, is a wide icy lot. I had no idea what to expect from a Russian building site. Manhattan is over-populated and our construction sites are narrow and tall, peppered with men in neon hard hats who eat sandwiches in rows and whistle at you when you walk by. There are a lot of men on this construction site too, but almost none of them in hardhats. As I make my way through the center of the lot, I catch fragments of languages - Kazakh, Tajik, Korean…

  I can see the start of an ugly cream-colored building. They’ve built the parking lot first, it’s unfinished and hollowed out in patterns like a honeycomb. Men go in and out slowly, like bees suffering from the cold. How can people work in these freezing conditions?

  The edges of the lot have trailers on them. There’s one bulky guy at the edge of the site yelling out orders in Russian. I stay away, observing for about ten minutes, but the cold is relentless. I swear my spine is beginning to freeze despite my bulky coat. I opted for sneakers instead of stripper heels today, but it turns out you can feel the cold snow more through sneakers than through heels. Go figure.

  I watch the workers, attempting to pick out an anomaly, strange behavior, something important or valuable. I get nothing, they just look like a normal group of workers. I look back over to where the man was barking orders, but he must have disappeared into one of the warm trailers. Fuck it. I’m out of options. I walk up to the largest trailer and knock. The barking man opens the door and stares down at me with surprise. I don’t think he’s used to seeing women at his job.

  “Angliskii?” I ask, highly doubting that this man speaks English, but it will give me added credibility. I peer past him to see who else I need to fool, but there’s no one there. Inside is nothing but a boxy TV playing…porn. Hah! This will be useful.

  He shakes his head at my English request.

  “My name is Jennifer Laverne,” I continue in perfect Russian. I clear my throat, buying myself some thinking time. “I represent Mr. Bloomberg, an American investor backing this development. Did Konstantin Volkov not tell you I was coming?”

  He fidgets uncomfortably. “Ugh, nyet.”

  I make a show of peering past him again, this time more noticeably. I arch a brow and he follows my gaze, finally realizing he’s left his cheap porn playing on the TV.

  “You’re supposed to show me around the site so that I can tell my superior, Konstantin’s investor, how the project is going. But if you’re busy I can reschedule with him.”

  I watch as fear flashes across his pig-like features. I’ve got him. He’s not going to risk his boss getting a call about this.

  “Of course,” he says, putting on a coat and switching the TV off. “Tea or coffee?” he grunts, pointing at his stash of brown plastic cups, a pot of instant coffee, and some stale-looking Christmas chocolates.

  “No thanks. Just the tour.”

  He shuts the door to his trailer behind us and we head over to the other trailers, entering one full of security monitors.

  “This is where the night watch sleeps,” he explains. I nod along and take photos, pretending to annotate them on my phone. He doesn’t look enthralled by the fact that I’m taking photos, but what’s he going to do? I have the porn card and the ‘I’m on a first-name basis with your boss’ card. I briefly imagine that these might be the pictures used for my news article and I feel a little pride that I’ve gotten this far. One week in and my leads are finally getting hotter.

  The man points at the different video feeds and explains the development layout to me.

  “Where are the blood test reports?” I ask, thinking back to the PDF on Konstantin’s laptop.

  Mr. Pig-face screws up his tiny eyes and sticks out his lower lip like he has no idea what I’m talking about. Lukka doesn’t know, and the man before me doesn’t know, but I wasn’t imagining it - I definitely saw medical records of the workers.

  OK. I need to wing this. “My employer cannot afford a public scandal,” I say importantly, hoping the man doesn’t realize I haven’t a clue what I’m talking about. “I have to make sure this project is low risk, you understand? A breakout of disease, or leaked information on dire working conditions, would interest the press and could cost your investor dearly. Is there anything...unusual...I need to know in advance?”

  I let the bait hang there, hoping he takes it. He doesn’t.

  “There’s nothing wrong here.”

  Ping.

  “Fine,” I concede. “Then show me around the rest of the site.”

  I try to tune out the snooze-fest that is Mr. Pig-face mansplaining to me how cement is made, what the different machines are for, and how they will finish the building work. The whole tour lasts fifteen minutes and I’m so cold I’m scared to move my fingers in case they snap off.

  �
��What are your employee working hours?” I ask.

  “Eighteen-hour shifts, seven days a week.”

  What the fuck! One hundred and twenty-six hours a week and no day off? That’s impossible. No human can manage that!

  “My boss told me you’re having problems with the workforce,” I venture.

  “What kind of problems?”

  “That some of them are disappearing.” I keep my tone neutral. “Did that affect the timeline for completion?”

  He looks me over, as if he’s only just noticed I’m a young woman. His beady eyes pause, then scan me from head to toe and finally settle on my sneakers.

  “No one has disappeared here. Every worker is accounted for.”

  Ping. Ping.

  I don’t have time to question him over his lies. He’s looked me over and made assumptions, and the assumption is that I shouldn’t be there.

  “Tour over,” he says coldly, then turns and walks back to the trailer.

  Shit. Shit. Shit.

  I shouldn’t have worn these shoes. Dead giveaway. No one who represents a foreign billionaire wears cheap sneakers. I start to make my way out of the lot, but a sound stops me in my tracks.

  “Arman!” someone yells.

  I turn and see one of the workers shouting over to his colleague. A man turns and I catch his face. There’s something familiar about him, not just the name but the shape of his warm eyes and smile. That has to be Ansel’s brother. He dumps a load of equipment he’s carrying then heads over to the colleague calling him.

  I plant myself in his way.

  “Hey there. I’m a friend of your sister’s. From the club,” I say.

  His eyes widen as he takes me in, but then his expression grows somber.

  “Don’t call it a club,” he says, “That place is a whore house. But I know my sister is a good girl.”

  I have half a mind to lecture this dude on feminism and terminology, but that’s not what I’m here for.

  “She’s upset about your friend disappearing. Maxim?”

  He’s a little taken back, then he looks even more miserable.