“But she’s a—”
“Librarian?” Kateryna shot back, her grip tight on the door.
“No, I meant someone not caught up in all this,” Ernie pleaded.
“Wrong,” Brody said. “The minute you stepped into that library she landed in it.”
He stared at the rearview mirror, his breath catching in his throat as the set of headlights loomed larger.
Cindy and Ernie craned their necks to see, hearts pounding as reality sank in.
“The library’s supposed to close in forty-five minutes,” Brody said, the urge to floor it increasingly hard to repress. “When it doesn’t they will figure out who skipped out of work. After that I guarantee you they will be stopping by Kateryna’s place for the kind of introduction we don’t want.”
Brody slowed when they approached the end of the alley, a main street beyond.
The Mercedes braked as well.
That was enough for Brody, who hammered the accelerator, the car fishtailing before the tires caught and they shot forward. He wrenched the vehicle into a tightly controlled slide at the next intersection and onto a narrow side street. The screaming tires straightened out. He punched it. Buildings flashed past on either side.
“Where am I going?” Brody growled at Kateryna, fingers wrapped tight around the steering wheel, his eyes jumping from the rearview mirror to the road.
She pointed in response.
Behind them the Mercedes slewed around the corner, lights flashing wildly, all pretense of maintaining discrete surveillance gone. Brody streaked through another intersection but their vehicle couldn’t match the German car’s power. Steel and high beams loomed large in the rear-view mirror.
The little Lada jumped every time Brody pushed his foot down on the soft pedal, trying to coax more speed out of the straining engine. They crested a slight rise, tires leaving the road’s surface, hanging in mid-air, followed by a sharp shrieking sound as their car thumped down. Brody wrestled the wheel to regain control. Two tires caught the sidewalk’s edge and held. He let the car go, racing along at a listing angle before he jerked the wheel, just missing a buttoned up news-stand. The acrid smell of burning rubber assaulted their nostrils.
Behind them breaking wood and glass rent the night as a corner of the news-stand shot into the sky. The Mercedes jagged violently, bouncing off a parked truck with a gnashing spray of sparks before pulling free. Brody zig-zagged across the road but he couldn’t shake their pursuers. The other driver gunned it, gaining quickly.
Had they been stuck in any kind of extended straight away they would have been doomed. However, Kateryna represented their trump card. She directed Brody on a dizzying series of rights and lefts, avoiding the broad main avenues, bodies thumping into the door panel each time they spun around a corner. Brody expertly negotiated the streets in a frenetic whirl of acceleration, downshifting, and braking as he maneuvered the stodgy sedan in a way the manufacturer never would have believed. He power slid through one more such turn, fighting the wheel of the slewing car but feeling better about their chances as he opened up a slight lead on the Mercedes—
A Volvo pulled out in front of them.
Brody slammed on the brakes, their car swerving crazily as the back end broke free.
Cindy and Ernie screamed as they spun out, slewing to a stop in the middle of the street and facing back the way they had come. Wide eyed, they stared in horror at the looming Mercedes. A broad Slavic face, white with desperation cranked his steering wheel. They braced for impact.
It never happened.
The driver had pulled too hard, the big sedan moving too fast for such a maneuver. The passenger side tires lost their grip on the road and the car’s front end tilted down. The hood blew out as its trunk shot toward the sky, the car airborne over the Lada and its complement of passengers howling bloody murder inside. The sedan’s hood came down and caught on the sidewalk’s edge not five feet to the Lada’s left, the passenger cabin tilting crazily. Then the entire vehicle slammed down on its roof, sliding, spinning, and sparking along the cobblestoned streets for what seemed to be forever until the German car’s torn and ragged fender caught an exposed drain vent. The car’s undercarriage angled up into the air and the gas tank cracked into a street lamp.
The Mercedes exploded, a bright flash and whooshing WHUUUMP lit the night, sending a fireball hurtling down the street to match the red and yellow flame shooting into the sky. A secondary explosion ripped through the car at the same time the speeding inferno slid to a halt.
Brody, Cindy, Ernie, and Kateryna gawked in awe, rivulets of sweat streaking their faces, eyes squinting at the burning car’s brightness. Brody snapped out of it first, cranking the ignition as a part of him wondered when it was death had ceased to be a surprise.
The Lada sputtered. Then the engine caught, and they sped off as the caterwauling sound of approaching sirens carried over the buildings. The blood pounding in his temples, Brody relaxed his white knuckled grip on the wheel and eased off on the accelerator. At this point speeding would only call attention to them.
“Do you think they’re—?”
“What about Owen?” Ernie cut Cindy off.
“We can’t call him yet,” Brody said, not wanting to think about what Cindy had been about to ask. “His phone could be compromised. We’ll drive back to Dibrovno. I have secure communications equipment but the range is limited. Besides, our showing up in town will be the last thing they expect. Once we contact Owen we can grab him and go.”
Lights pulled out behind them.
Brody tensed, but the car turned off into a parking lot. He exhaled audibly, his nerves jumping as his eyes flicked back and forth from the road ahead, to the rearview mirror, to the side mirrors, and back again in a continual loop. Kateryna stared outside. Vague shapes moved in the darkness. She snapped her head back around, fingers digging into the seat.
Within five minutes they pulled up to a row of well-maintained buildings near the edge of town. Kateryna led them into a narrow two story residence and up the creaking wooden stairs. They walked down a poorly lit hallway, coming to a sturdy looking door. She stopped, throwing the bolt open on not one, not two, but three locks. Brody glanced back at Cindy and Ernie. They were huddled like a couple of scared kids, gaping down the narrow hallway at the dark stairwell. He sighed and cleared his throat, waving them into the apartment.
Overpowering light assaulted Brody’s eyes. Every lamp in the apartment was on, tripped by bulky timers like the kind his grandma owned. Bars girded the twin windows in the living room, unusual for a second floor flat in this part of the world. The apartment was spartanly furnished minus several packed bookshelves.
Kateryna locked the door behind, and then rummaged in the small kitchen off the main sitting area. She produced a loaf of dark bread and a tin of smoked fish. After throwing some plates and silverware on the kitchen table she grabbed a bottle of bison grass infused Zubrowka Vodka. She muddled apple, cucumber, and mint then added the mixture to everyone’s glasses along with ice, and a generous amount of the yellowish tinted vodka. Finally, she grabbed another bottle of vodka, taking hers neat - pausing only to relish the hints of rye and vanilla. For those not drinking she boiled water, placing several delicately decorated white and blue porcelain tea cups on a serving tray. Then she slipped off to her bedroom.
Brody stood sentry at the window, riveted on the glade of trees across the street, eyes playing tricks on him in the silvery moonlight, not sure if he was seeing movement amongst the dark trunks and bushes.
Cindy and Ernie sat at the kitchen table, drinks in hand, chewing numbly on the soft and flavorful fresh bread, but tasting nothing. After a couple of minutes Ernie gently touched Cindy’s hand, “I need you to know something.”
Cindy’s eyes widened.
“We’ve got to remember that Brody’s got a job to do,” Ernie whispered.
“I trust him,” Cindy said. “In fact I’m not worried—”
“No, you’re missing my point,” Ernie said. “This isn’t about Brody. It’s about where this all goes. I just need you to know that I don’t care what happens to his investigation or me, for that matter. We’ve got to get Owen. He’s like a son to me. I couldn’t live with myself if—”
Brody turned away from the window.
Ernie sat up in his chair, pretending as if he was reaching for another slice of bread. He needn’t have worried.
Brody stared at the bottle of vodka, oblivious to anything else.
He turned away from the bottle and then looked back.
After several more seconds he gave in, stepping over and pouring himself a shot. He eyed the clear liquid dancing in the tumbler. It was then that he realized how badly his hand was trembling. He glanced up guiltily. Cindy and Ernie’s attention was turned toward Kateryna as she strolled out of the bedroom, a small suitcase in one hand and a thickly stuffed photo album in the other. Brody blinked; it hadn’t taken her more than a couple minutes to get ready. She must have had a bag packed and ready to go. He tilted his head back, the burning liquid washing away the metal taste of fear in his mouth. He drained the glass and glanced up, this time taking in Kateryna’s well-proportioned frame.
She caught him looking, suppressing a smile as she plopped down at the kitchen table.
In spite of his exhaustion Brody realized that it was the first time in forever that he had exchanged some light flirting and hadn’t thought of Julie. He slid into a chair opposite the librarian.
“What I’m about to say is unusual. Even so, its better I tell you about the town where you have been staying than you learn the truth in a more unpleasant manner.” Kateryna said as she opened the cracked and faded album cover. The photo album was filled with newspaper clippings, documents, and sticky notes overflowing with a densely jotted scrawl. Kateryna’s fingers carefully turned the page and stopped at a portrait of a handsome young man. He was named Aleksandr and had been her fiancé. She tapped the picture as she spoke, her eyes shimmering. It was the last picture she had taken of him before he disappeared outside of Dibrovno.
A freelance artist Aleksandr had taken a job photographing Ukrainian fauna for a local conservation group. He headed out on a Thursday, planning to spend a four day weekend getting the shots he needed. That Saturday afternoon Kateryna received a parcel addressed from Aleksandr. It was sent from the post office in Dibrovno. She found inside a World War Two era Soviet TT-33 semi-automatic pistol. Artifacts from the war turned up all the time, but this weapon’s clean surface hardly matched its age.
Nevertheless, the mystery surrounding the pistol became an afterthought when Aleksandr did not return from his trip. An initial investigation went nowhere. Six months later the authorities declared him dead. Kateryna fell into a deep depression. She quit her job, cut herself off from family and friends. Months passed in a fog of pain and sorrow.
Finally, on a bright and sunny day too beautiful to ignore she roused herself from her suffocating bed and began rebuilding her life. She was cleaning out Aleksandr’s stuff when she found the long-since forgotten pistol. Needing the money she decided to sell it.
The next day she went to one of the several local stores specializing in WWII and Soviet era militaria. The gloomy shop reeked of oil, leather, and cigarette smoke. Three old men played poker, ignoring her. She dumped the bulky weapon on the table, scattering chips and cards. One of the astonished men introduced himself as the proprietor, alternating between asking if she were a cop and where she had gotten the weapon. His eyes widened when she told him. He led her into the dank Cold War era fallout shelter that served as the basement. Row after row of bracket mounted sub-machine guns and assault rifles lined the cool gray concrete walls. Producing a beat up ledger the man scrolled down until his thumb stopped next to an entry for a TT-33 with the same serial number as hers. One of his smugglers had been travelling with a load of weapons stolen from an old Soviet-era arsenal. His runner had called in stating he was outside of Dibrovno and would be at the pick-up point within a couple of hours. No one heard from him again, or from two other smugglers later lost in the same area.
Meanwhile, alarm bells had been going off in Kateryna’s head. She had been a reporter prior to her fiancé’s death. Old instincts died hard. She took a job at the city library where she was horrified to find that a disproportionate number of missing person’s reports originated from near Dibrovno. There was no master database. Instead, she compiled the evidence as she went. There would be a story in the newspaper….father of…or long time worker…not seen since...pronounced dead...Kateryna flipped the album’s pages, revealing countless yellowed newspaper clippings.
“Then I compared the dates the smuggler gave for his lost couriers to when my Aleksandr vanished, putting both against the dates for the other missing persons…”
Brody, Ernie, and Cindy’s eyes drilled into Kateryna.
“What? What did you find?” Cindy finally bleated.
“They all disappeared during the night of the full moon.”
Chapter 21
August 2016 – Lviv, The Ukraine
“That’s just wonderful,” Brody said.
No one responded.
Brody glanced at the clock. His chest tightened as he realized how much time had passed. He looked over at Cindy, who caught his stare.
She turned to Ernie.
He didn’t notice, resting an elbow on the table, one of his large hands rubbing his forehead as he stared at Kateryna. She appeared too composed. He wondered when the dual strains of personal loss and the immense research burden would prove too much for her to handle.
“I found a lead,” Kateryna said, breaking the near suffocating silence.
“Can we discuss this in the car?” Brody said. “We’ve already been here for fifteen minutes—”
“That means we still have some time, no?” Kateryna said.
“Look, maybe you guys don’t understand,” Brody said. “If I don’t get results, and fast, then none of this means anything.”
“I get it,” Cindy said. “Nevertheless, whatever’s out there thrives in the shadows. The more we learn the likelier it is we’ll be able to bring its existence into the open.”
“Brody’s right,” Ernie said. “We’re not learning fast enough. Every piece we uncover, every connection put together – it makes things worse for us. That is, unless we can put the whole story together.”
“You’re overreacting,” Kateryna said.
“Are we?” Ernie shot back. “Do you honestly think Brody can protect us from these things? None of us can tell anyone what we’re thinking. We’re on our own.” Ernie turned toward Brody. “Even you are. Try telling your boss you think Karlovic might be a werewolf, and see what happens.”
“As I was saying, a few months back I found an article in the newspaper,” Kateryna cut back in. “It was about a missing Roma man whose mother came from Dibrovno.”
“Really?” Brody barked, his irritation coming through as what Ernie had said sank in. “Let me guess, you contacted this gypsy woman who might have knowledge of all sorts of legendary creatures. Leaving aside the borderline racism do you really expect us to buy—”
“As I was saying,” Kateryna said. “This spring I visited the man’s mother...”
The Roma community lived in a row of shabby houses near Dibrovno’s cemetery. Plum, apple, and cherry trees burst with life outside the cemetery’s wrought iron fence, moss-covered tombstones, and granite crypts. Kateryna parked her car on the sunken lane leading to the edge of town. As she stepped from her vehicle she spied a barefoot boy. He helpfully led her to the woman’s house.
A small garden abutted the single story residence. Several of the roof’s red shingles were fractured, the paint faded on the house’s walls. The police report had indicated a wom
an aged forty-five. But the person who answered the door appeared closer to sixty. Poverty and loss had taken a toll on her wrinkled face and heavy body.
“Hello,” the woman stated warily, her hand firmly grasping the door.
“I’m a reporter,” Kateryna said, offering her friendliest smile to paper over the lie. “I would like to ask a few questions about your son, Boiko.”
The woman tried slamming the door, but Kateryna snaked her foot in at the last minute, waving a picture of her fiancé, “Wait! My Aleksandr also disappeared outside Dibrovno. There are many more.”
All pressure on the door ceased so abruptly Kateryna almost fell over the threshold.
“I’m Vadoma,” The woman said as she glanced up and down the empty street. “Come.”
She ushered Kateryna in, bolting the door shut behind.
The pungent smell of cabbage smacked Kateryna in the face. The home was dark. The late afternoon sun had started its descent from the sky, and there were few windows. A portrait of Boiko took up much of the space on the cracked plaster wall opposite the entrance.
“Sit,” Vadoma said, waving her hand at the rickety kitchen table as she shuffled over to a cabinet and pulled out a liquor bottle. She set a small glass on the grimy countertop, filling it with strong horincă, or plum brandy.
Kateryna sipped at her drink.
“So, Miss…”
“Kateryna.”
“Aren’t there others you could speak with?”
“No,” Kateryna stated. She noticed an old hunting rifle leaning against the wall just below a wreath of garlic. “Boiko is the only missing local. The others were outsiders.”
“How many?” Vadoma said as she stepped over to a kettle on the wood fired stove, stirring a pot of boiling cabbage.
“At least three hundred.”
Vadoma’s shoulders stiffened visibly, “Yes. That would be about right.” She wiped her hands on a towel and sat down, “What I’m about to tell you must not be repeated, ok?”
Apex Predator Page 15