Before the opposite wall was a bronze bust of the first man, the founder, Walter Wondermann, a glossy rendition of someone so important—or self-important—that a statue was required in the building that bore his name.
I swallowed hard. How could I broker a deal with a man of this sort? He was rich; he was powerful; and who was I? Just another Russian-American struggling to make a better life for himself and his siblings.
And, evidently all of the students at Junction High School.
So little of what I had become was what I had expected to be.
I forced my feet to move me forward. To propel me toward the security guards who would be the first judge of my worthiness. If they would allow me to pass, I was as good as home free. But if they stopped me…? I blinked as I arrived at the counter. I had not imagined the possibility of rejection.
“Hello, yes, can I help you?” a security guard asked. His hair was thinning on top as much as his middle was expanding.
“Da—yes,” I stammered. “I am here to see Mr. Wondermann.”
He looked me up and down, his gaze skeptical. “Do you have an appointment?”
“Nyet—no.”
“Not every person walking in off the street gets to see the head of the corporation. He’s a very important man with a very busy schedule.”
“I understand,” I said. “I realize he is a very busy and important man. However, I feel certain the information I have is information that he would want to be aware of as soon as possible.”
“Really? So you feel that you are important enough—or the information you have is important enough—that you should be able to just immediately go to the top of the building and see the man who owns everything here?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s start with your name.”
“Alexi Rusakova.”
He picked up the phone and punched in a few numbers.
“No—wait. That name might not mean anything to him.”
He hung the phone up and glared at me. “So are you Alexi Rusakova?”
“Yes. Yes, of course. But he might know my family better by my grandfather’s name.”
“Oh, I see. So this is a case of my grandfather knew his grandfather and so now we should be best friends? Hey, Mikey, get a load of this guy. He comes in off the street and he thinks he should be the boss’s best friend because his grandfather and the boss’s grandfather used to—what?—play cards together?”
Another guard looked at me and pursed his lips. “Beat it, buddy. We get a dozen like you every morning. Everyone knows someone who knows the boss. It’s like—what?—seven degrees of separation from Kevin-freakin’-Bacon. The boss is a busy man. He don’t have time for class reunions. Especially when it’s not with members of his own class—if you know what I mean.”
The first guard snorted at his comment and looked me up and down again. This time more pointedly. No. I didn’t belong to Wondermann’s social class—I had to presume he could afford to make his very own—but I knew he wanted what I had. It was just a matter of getting a message to him so he could say yes and invite me up.
“Tell him I know about the village of Bolkgorod and what happened to the children.”
The guard’s eyes narrowed. “Are you threatening him with libel or slander? This village, and the kids there—are you some fruit loop trying to make a quick buck by making some bogus blackmail claim? Because the boss, he has lawyers, you hear what I’m saying? Lawyers that make everyone else’s lawyers look like angels.”
“Yeah he do, Benny,” Mikey agreed solemnly. “Take a little advice, pal. You don’t wanna mess with the boss.” He leaned across the desk’s wide, black counter, cupping one broad and worn hand around his mouth. “This one guy—he came here spouting some pretty crazy stuff about the boss and so the boss said, Yeah. I’ll see him. So the boss saw him and … well, let’s just say no one else ever saw him again. If you catch my drift.”
“Geez, Mikey.” Benny waved at him. “You’ll make the poor kid piss himself. Look. It’s not like the boss is in with the mob or nuthin’, but you don’t wanna make him angry. Got it?”
“I’m not here to make him angry,” I assured. “Or to be fitted for cement shoes.”
“Heyyy. He caught my drift. Yeah, the Hudson’s lookin’ mighty full already. Don’t wanna be chummin’ those waters.”
“But,” I concluded, “I do want you to deliver my message. I’m Alexi Rusakova. Grandson of Mordechai Feldman. Son of Hazel Feldman, and I know what happened to the children of Bolkgorod.”
“He’s a ballsy one, ain’t he?”
I merely tilted my head and appraised them both through slitted eyelids. I would stand my ground. I widened my stance, threw back my shoulders, placed my fists on my hips, and made my body language clear.
The guard picked up the phone again. “Yeah, Stewart, could you deliver the following message to the boss? Yeah. I know. He’s a very busy man. Oh, yeah? In a meeting right now?” He looked at me, warning hot in his eyes.
I just stared back, daring him to hang up. To not follow through. Thank god I was a better bluffer in conversation than in poker. “That’s okay, I’ll wait. You’ll need pencil and paper. No. Sure. It can be pen. Hey, did you see the Mets game? Yeah, yeah. Of course you did. Quite a last inning, huh? Good. You ready? Here’s the message: I’ve got standing right here before me a guy who says he’s Alexi Rusakova, son of Hazel Feldman and grandson of Mordechai Feldman—no, that’s not all. No. I know, right? Not often we pass along the whole family lineage. Anyhow. Guy says to tell the boss he knows about what happened at Bolkgorod and the kids there. Says he wants to talk to the boss. Huh. I’ll find out.” He cupped the phone’s mouthpiece with his hand. “You wanna talk to the boss about the kids?”
“In a way. Yes,” I agreed. The kids were directly connected to the Rusakova bloodline. And the Rusakova bloodline was connected to the research I could provide. If he was willing to stop the drug trials on the students of Junction High and withdraw all his company’s supplies to their cafeteria.
“Yeah. He says, in a way, yes. How the hell should I know?” Again he covered the mouthpiece. “In what way?”
“Tell him I know the offspring of those children.”
“Something about he knows the offspring of those kids. Yeah. Sure. I’ll hold.” He looked at me, his eyes going vacant for a moment. “Mikey,” he grumbled, “how do we get better music for when we’re on hold? This elevator crap’s about to put me to sleep. It can’t be good for business.”
“What would you suggest?” Mikey asked, shaking out a newspaper only to fold it over and scan the lobby once more.
“I dunno. Something cool—something that pumps you up—like Meat Loaf. Bat Out of Hell would keep me on the line.”
“I’ll make a note of it,” Mikey said with a grin. But he simply set the paper down, adjusted the flashlight on his belt, and said, “I’m going for rounds.”
“Yeah. Sure.”
His eyes flashed, and I knew the guard on the other end of the phone was back. “Oh, yeah? Well, I’ll be damned. Thanks, Stewart.”
He set the phone back down. “Yo, Mikey. Hold up. I need you to escort the good Mr. Rusakova to the penthouse.”
Mikey’s eyebrows shot up. “Seriously?”
“Very seriously. You gotta key?”
“You kidding me?”
“Yeah, I guess so. Hold on. I’ll get it outta the lockbox.” He fumbled a minute below the counter and I heard the squeak of hinges as something opened. Victorious, he held up a simple-looking key and keyring.
Mikey took it, an air of solemnity passing between the two. “Come with me.”
I nodded and followed him down a hall and to a bank of elevators.
He glanced at the line of them—all identical and gleaming—and then turned down a smaller hall I would not have noticed, and paused outside an elegantly crafted metal gate that fenced in an older, engraved elevator door.
He pressed the single button and
the doors pulled apart. Then he motioned for me to step inside.
Within the whole of New York City, it is often remarked that the building with the most elegant elevators is the Flatiron Building. Having one brief occasion to be inside one, I would have agreed.
Until now.
The walls were lined with mirrors and giltwork, but done so as to be a fine integration of modified stained glass and mirror shards. It was like standing in the middle of a Tiffany lamp—as if I were the light.
Above my head hung a chandelier that swayed very gently as we left the first floor and made soft tinkling noises as we rose toward the penthouse.
Mikey stood nearly in the elevator’s center, which, considering the size of both the guard and the traveling box, still left ample room for me.
“The boss likes his stuff fancy,” Mikey explained. “Gold leaf, Swarovski Crystal…” He eyed the chandelier warily. “Me? I prefer a single bulb in a simple light—something I don’t hafta worry about comin’ crashing down on my head.” He shrugged, the epaulets on his uniform crinkling. “But I’m a simple guy. The boss is far from simple.”
“How so?” I asked.
He shrugged. “He has exotic tastes and a history that’s a bit hush-hush. People claim he did some highly illegal things back in the day.”
Highly illegal. Like being a very big part of a group that kidnapped children, killed their parents, and experimented on their genes to force them to change into werewolves. No wonder his employees thought his history was a bit hush-hush. Some things you did not want getting out. Of course some things were hardly believable if they did get out. “What do you think?”
“He’s the head of a multinational corporation. Let he who’s blameless cast the first stone, you know? What corporate head hasn’t done some dirty dealing?”
“An excellent question.” I shoved my hands in my pockets and looked down at my loafers. “So. Any other rumors about the boss?”
“The normal stuff. That he bugs every room and taps every wire.”
“Prudent behavior in a large company of such value.”
“See, that’s what I think. You gotta look out for number one and that’s just what the boss is doing. Can’t fault a man for protecting what’s his and keeping control of it.”
Especially if what is his was most of the work that went into designing werewolves. “So how old is the boss now? He must be, as they say, getting up there…”
The elevator rocked to a gentle stop, the chandelier quivering and throwing prisms of light onto the mirror pieces. Disorienting at best.
The doors began their slow slide open and Mikey said, “The boss is a tough old bird. His age don’t matter. This is your stop.…” With a flourish suiting a doorman more than a guard he pointed me out into what was essentially a large foyer.
More tropical plants lined the broad expanse, filling the space with a humidity and richness of scent the werewolves would have found cloying with so much sweetness. I breathed deep, remembering a brief jaunt to the tropics with fondness and wondering if this was anything like Nadezhda’s current location would smell.
“Greetings,” a man in a sharp suit and tie said. “I have heard that you are Alexi Rusakova, the son of Hazel Feldman and grandson of Mordechai?” He stuck out his hand and I grabbed it, giving it a firm shake.
“Da, I am the same.”
“Quite a pedigree you have there—if you don’t mind me using the term pedigree.…”
“It seems appropriate.”
“Well, Mr. Wondermann is ready to meet you. We’re all very curious to hear about this information you have. It seems you know quite a bit about our operations already.”
He stuck out a hand, motioning me forward toward a high set of windows just beyond a large desk with an empty chair.
“Will he be arriving soon?”
“Oh. I apologize.” My guide slipped around the huge desk and made himself comfortable in the chair.
I swallowed hard. This was not what I expected. “So, Mr. Wondermann…”
“Senior? He’s my father.”
“Oh. And he’s…”
“Unavailable. But I know everything he does. And a bit more.” He rested his elbows on the desk and steepled his fingers.
I nodded lamely, slowly recognizing my guide from the portrait downstairs, evidently painted a decade earlier. The last ten years had not softened him at all, indeed it appeared they’d done the opposite.
“Please sit.” He motioned to a glossy leather seat. “I am very excited to meet you, Alexi. My father and your grandfather knew each other quite well.” He studied my face. “Didn’t they?”
Again I nodded.
“So I remember my father’s version of what happened at Bolkgorod, but I’d like to hear yours.” He left the desk and approached me, sitting on the couch’s armrest, perched like some bird of prey examining a potential meal. “Tell me a story, Alexi.”
So I told him the story of Bolkgorod, but far more important was what I said when I’d completed my tale. “Your corporation is currently running drug trials on students at Junction High School, just a few hours from here by train.”
“Yes.”
“I need that to stop.”
He blinked at me. “And why should I stop it?”
“You surely have all the data you need already and you’re putting your test subjects at great risk.”
He shrugged. “Go public.”
I knew a dare when I heard one. “We both know no one would believe me.”
He smiled.
I set my jaw. “I know how to cure the oboroten.”
“Good. And?”
“I’m only a step away from perfecting the cure.”
He nodded slowly.
“And if you have the perfected cure…”
“I can, of course, reverse-engineer it and make sure the triggering of a werewolf is irreversible.”
“Da.”
“You would give me that knowledge to save a handful of pimply faced students at a public school that’s always at risk of having funding pulled due to mediocre performance?”
“Da.”
“Do you imagine yourself some hero?”
“Hardly,” I admitted.
“I always thought it might be fun to be a villain—some hero’s nemesis. But, if you’re no hero…”
“Sorry to disappoint you.”
“Close to having a permanent cure? Let’s say we make this deal. What do you have for me as insurance that you won’t go back on it? What do you have of value to give me in good faith?”
“A poem that gives the basic ingredients for the cure.” I held out a copy of the page from Grandfather’s thirteenth journal. “You stop the tampering and give me a lab and you’ll get your perfected cure.”
He motioned me forward and, reaching across the desk, took the paper I pulled from my pocket, unfolding it carefully. His eyes lit at what he saw. “How interesting. I do so enjoy poetry.” He extended one hand and I took it, shaking it firmly. “It appears we have a deal.”
Marlaena
That night I ran for more than the hunt and the sensation of being wild and free. I ran to clear my head and I let my human worries jumble in with my wolf’s mind.
Rounding a corner in a trail out near the Rusakova house I caught an odd scent and slowed down, circling back.
A wolf? Dead?
At the base of a tree was a lump, obscured by a coat of snow. I nosed at it. Definitely wolf. I began to dig. Past the snow was a thin layer of rocks and dirt. And beyond that was fur. And flesh. I summoned my hands to tug the frozen thing free.
A pelt. My heart sped. A wolf pelt. Sucking down the scent I realized I recognized it.
The Rusakova female—Cat. Was this what happened when one was cured? They left behind a pelt? Buried it? Morbid curiosity grew inside me. Then where was Pietr’s?
I moved more slowly through the area, nose snuffling a hairsbreadth above the snow. They were both cured. At the same time … ah.
His was buried deeper, more carefully, and just down the hill from the house. I drank down his scent, warmth filling my every cell. What was it about Pietr Rusakova?
And twisting faintly around his scent was another. I paced a few steps to the left. Another grave. Also carefully constructed. Here the scent was weaker—older. But … I prowled the site. I had to be certain. I breathed as deeply as I could, my ribs aching as my lungs filled to capacity and pressed against them.
There was no doubt about it.
The second pelt was also Cat’s.
But from perhaps a month earlier.
How did a cured werewolf have two discarded pelts? And why bury one so far away from the other—and in a hastily constructed shallow grave?
Perhaps Dmitri’s concerns were warranted.
Maybe the cure didn’t always hold.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Jessie
I just couldn’t understand it—how was Pietr so quiet, soft spoken, and uninterested in seemingly everything? How was it fair that my beautiful Russian-American werewolf was not only less wolf but also seemed to be less man?
Of course, I also couldn’t explain the inexplicable draw of the mall. And yet, we were all headed there together. It was a diversion. A needed break.
Sophie was getting better, having stopped eating the school food again; Marlaena had seemingly decided to leave us alone—which only worried me more—and Alexi was spending weekends in the city working on whatever had allowed him to get the company to stop sending the tainted food to Junction High.
And I was spending way more time than anyone should in the boiler room talking to kids, some of whose powers were waning—some of whom believed their powers had been the only thing that made them special.
So the mall was at least a way to take my mind off of that. And put it back on the problems Pietr and I were still having.
Max still flirted, although more gently now, and teased and played, and although some aspects of his personality seemed lessened, somehow it did little to diminish who he really was. It sucked. Amy was still trying to avoid heat and passion, and her boyfriend had some, while I was desperate for a little bit of passion and it had been wrung out of my boyfriend like water from a sponge.
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