“What?” Kutkha’s tone twisted with dark amusement. “Will you drill out my knees, too?”
I exhaled thinly. It was starting to rain now, a light misty haze, and I fixated on the swirling particles to give my eyes something to chew on. "Stop being a smartass. Vassily-"
"Is still dead, my Ruach.”
“Stop.” I pulled over as the rain intensified, staring at the buildup on my screen as it began to blind me. The calm executioner’s confidence drained out of me. The engine rumbled like a cat’s purr while I clutched my head and willed Kutkha to shut up. But he wouldn’t: his thoughts, his agenda were his own, but he was part of me. Or, more accurately, I was part of him. “Just stop.”
Kutkha’s eyes burned in the gloom. “They are gone whether or not Celso Manelli lives or dies. They are gone when we are in Europe, or if we stay here. They are gone."
Gone. Gone gone gone. “Please just let me-”
“No.” The air was opaque now, blue-black and sucking. “I will not ‘just’ let you live the Lie.”
I’ll live a lie if I damn well want to, is what I wanted to say, but I couldn’t voice my petulance with any seriousness. The unspoken words rattled around my otherwise blank, exhausted mind. What I really wanted was to turn around, dig up Joe, reanimate him and kill him again. Instead, I fumbled for the windshield wipers and turned them on, sweeping the rain off the glass.
“You vowed yourself to me, Alexi. You vowed that you would grow for our sake.”
“I know.” But the resistance remained.
“It is not safe to stay near Sergei.” For a moment, Kutkha’s voice was almost soft. “We must go. You are done here.”
I didn’t feel ‘done’, though not for lack of preparation. My luggage was packed with money, clothes, my most important books and magical tools, and I’d left a go-bag out in Sheepshead Bay in case anything went wrong. I’d spent the last two weeks securing a fake passport, a two-way ticket to Spain, and a one-way train ticket to Germany. I had my photos and papers, and a fake ancestral I.D. We were set. But I was going to have to leave knowing that another man had been at that apartment: the man who had blown Mariya’s head back across her shower wall, and that he was alive and she was not.
“Do not make me regret empowering you, my Ruach.” Kutkha swiveled his head, looking across with eyes like the core of a star, smoking white and churning with constant motion. Momentarily, I met his gaze… and their gravity caught and held me. “By all rights, you should be dead… but you wanted to survive. And they would want that, too.”
Vassily and Mariya. My throat thickened. “I’m… I am abandoning them here, Kutkha.”
“They are dead, Alexi. You cannot abandon what is no longer here.”
The cold reminder did nothing to chase away the childish conviction that I was abandoning them to lie in their cold graves, while I fled the Organizatsiya and the life they had died to protect. Vassily had been a Vor v Zakone to his bones, the picture of a free-wheeling, quick-thinking thief-in-law. He had been the kind of man who could spin a million dollars out of five hundred. Once, a long time ago, he debated better than most lawyers. Sergei had picked him for his brilliant mind… brilliance that proved so fragile that five years in prison and the machinations of his comrades had crushed him like a crane fly.
And now? He was dead. Even though I knew it wasn’t my fault, it sure as hell felt like it.
I shifted gears, backed up, and pulled out onto the highway. Kutkha was right, as always. We had to follow the plan. It was a good plan, and if executed smoothly, it would work. Take the cat, leave the lights off, the car in the lot, the door locked and warded. We could get to the airport in the morning, be in England by the evening, and on our way to continental Europe the same day. We would change our money in Spain, convert the lot to Deutschmarks, and head to Bremen. In Germany, I could disappear into the Ukrainian Jewish diaspora without so much as a ripple, just as my parents had done when they’d fled Ukraine for America. But after that? No idea. I lived day to day as part of the New York Bratva, enjoying short periods of peace interspersed with episodes of hectic violence. There were days where I collapsed onto my bed in the mid-morning after working all night, sore and exhausted, patched up, amazed that I was still alive. This was the first time the future had ever existed as a concept.
Earlier in August, I’d faced down demons, DOGs, an insane sorceress, a sixteen-man shootout, and seen the I of GOD itself. My best friend had died in my arms; I’d had a gun shoved in my mouth, been tortured, kidnapped, and nearly car-bombed. I’d eaten from the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge and faced death more times in that one week than I had in the last six years. But not a single one of those things were as intimidating as the prospect of freedom. I had most of a double degree in law and psychology that would get me approximately nowhere without grad school. Besides that, my only skills related to wetwork. Shoot a gun, throw a knife, sling a spell… sure thing. But hold a job? Finish grad school? Did they even have grad school in Germany?
The yawning expanse of that lifetime, all those years ahead, unseen… it felt like looking down the empty blackness of a gun barrel. A real gun would have been more comforting. At least the outcome was certain.
Something resolved in me: a deep, hot anger, the kind that burned a hole right through the gut. My jaws tensed until my teeth locked. I hauled the wheel and turned back out onto the road, wipers swiping the first rain of Fall off the windshield. “I’m checking out the club tonight.”
“Alexi-”
“No. You’ll get what you want. We’ll be on that flight come hell or high water. But just remember that you helped me out once, you got me out of one bad situation, Kutkha. Every other time, it was just me. I killed the DOGs. I freed Zarya and shook off the dope. I coped just fine without you before, and I’ll do it again if I have to.”
“As you say, proud Ruach.” Kutkha’s molten white gaze bore into me from the arc of my peripheral vision, as bright and cold as the Morning Star at dawn. “As you say.”
Get Stained Glass on Amazon.com: https://amzn.com/B01J2QT0H6
Burn artist: free novella
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Set five years before Blood Hound, BURN ARTIST documents the last major events before Vassily’s incarceration.
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Books in the Alexi Sokolsky series
Available now from Amazon and Kindle Unlimited!
Burn Artist | Book 0
Blood Hound | Book 1
Stained Glass | Book 2
More books by James Osiris Baldwin
God Has Heard – Available in Paperback and Kindle
When God is used as a weapon, nothing is sacred
Fix Your Damn Book! – A Self-Editing Guide for Authors
Paperback, Kindle & Hardcover. Read on Kindle Unlimited!
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Charm School: A young mage must fight his demon master and find his own purpose and freedom. Get it here:
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Grave Beginnings: Vincent Graves is a body-hopping detective. Incarnated into the bodies of the slain, he must solve their murders in a race against the clock. Get it here: http://amzn.to/2dhoxPc
Vincent Graves wakes up in the body of a man who died in an asylum and has to find his unearthly murderer. Get it here:
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Structure of the Yaroshenko Organizatsiya
The Yaroschenko Organizatsiya is actually two gangs: the largely autonomous Brighton Beach/USA faction who identify with Sergei’s surname, plus a larger Organizatsiya in Kiev, Ukraine who call themselves the Sviatoshyn Gang. As of 1991, the hierarchy is as follows:
Pakhun
Avtoritet
Lev Moskalysk
Brighton Beach Advokat
Alexi Sokolsky (in training)
Volkhv/Spook
Alexi Sokolsky
Brighton Beach Kommandant
Nicolai Chiernenko
Brighton Beach Street Captain/Head of Security
Petro Kravets
Red Hook/East Village Kommandant
Vanya Kazupov
Red Hook Advokat
Yegor Gavrilyuk
Red Hook Street Captain
Ivan ‘Ivanko’ Andreichenko
Translation Guide
There is quite a lot of Russian and Ukrainian slang and cursing to be found in Blood Hound and the future books in the series. This is a hyperlinked translation guide: just click the ‘Click to Return’ link to return to your place in the story.
Iaz mi huia (Click to Return)
Bulgarian for ‘eat my dick’. Calling him a cocksucker, in other words.
Krokodil (Click to Return)
Krokodil – ‘Russian heroin’ – is a nasty homemade injectable drug made from oxycodone crushed, boiled and distilled. It is notorious for causing people to become violent, and creates huge gaping wounds and large patches of scaly skin from necrosis. It’s REALLY bad for your liver.
Organizatsiya (Click to Return)
Organization. Along with ‘Bratva’ and ‘Brigada’, Organizatsiya is the self-identifying term for the ‘Russian Mafia’.
Muzhiki (Click to Return)
Literally just means ‘men’ in Ukrainian, but has a specific rural, blue-collar context. Used to refer to one’s brigada.
Avtoritet (Click to Return)
Authority. The ‘ground commander’ or 4-star general of any given Organizatsiya. They effectively rule, but generally answer to a Pakhun or a board.
Advokat (Click to Return)
‘Advocate’. A senior advisor to the Avtoritet. Somewhat like a Consigliere in the Italian mafia.
Kommandant (Click to Return)
A cell commander or the leader of a brigada, who answers to an Avtoritet. They are generally hands-on street commanders who lead small teams and directly supervise criminal operations. They also tend to do (and farm out) a lot of enforcement work.
Katsap (Click to Return)
A rude Ukrainian term for ethnic Russian people.
Blanks (Click to Return)
A slang term for non-magical people.
Horilka (Click to Return)
Ukrainian style vodka, typically flavored with spicy peppers, fruit, or herbs.
Pelmeni (Click to Return)
Filled dumplings common in Eastern Europe. Ukrainian-style pelmeni usually have pork, veal, potato and cheese or sour cherry fillings.
Pakhun (Click to Return)
The ultimate authority of an Organizatsiya. The Pakhun (literally ‘prince’) is generally a thief-in-law with great seniority. They are often involved in government and high-level corporate work, especially in gas and energy ventures. They may manage multiple Avtoritets and multiple criminal ventures and are rarely ever involved in street-level work.
Consigliere (Click to Return)
The advisor to a Don of an Italian mafia.
Vor v Zakone (Click to Return)
‘Thief in Law’. The formal term for an old-school, prison trained Russian gangster. The title conveys prestige, but as of 1991 it was reserved for older Mafioso.
Perestroika (Click to Return)
The political reforms that broke down the Iron Curtain and opened up the USSR to the rest of the world, courtesy of President Boris Yeltsin.
Zmechik and Charivchik (Click to Return)
Most Slavic people have several nicknames. Zmechik – Little Snake – and Charivchik – Little Wizard – belong to Vassily and Alexi respectively.
Drecksnest (Click to Return)
'Asshole of the universe'. A poetically German way of saying ‘everything is shit’.
Blatnoi (Click to Return)
Blat’ is the Russian term for ‘face’ or ‘honor’: a very important concept in most Eastern European and Asian countries. Blatnoi are people who have ‘face’ – who are socially important and able to leverage favors. Vassily maybe being a bit ambitious here.
Spetznaz GRU (Click to Return)
Russian Army special forces.
Ruska Roma (Click to Return)
Russian ‘gypsy’. Gypsy is a racist pejorative for Roma people; Alexi is inclined to describe Vassily’s Roma heritage in respectful terms.
Do zla boga (Click to Return)
‘Give it to the Black God’. A common Ukrainian curse, fairly mild, which is used like ‘Oh for God’s sake’ in English.
Bozhe/Bozhe mir (Click to Return)
God/My God. Very mild curses, kind of like ‘goodness me’.
Afterword & Acknowledgments
The first prototype for Alexi, Dante, started out as a character in an old IRC D&D group that I played with while I was in university. We were running a campaign in the Forgotten Realms setting - a protracted PVP murder-mystery style plot, where one of the characters was the murderer and had to pick off the other characters while they tried to figure out what was going on. The Dungeon Master asked me if I'd like to play the murderer. I made a Lawful Evil cleric with the ability to disguise his alignment, and deployed him as the healer for the party. He was so effective that they only worked out who it was when it was far too late. In a single session of absolute carnage, he strangled the paladin, poisoned the fortress well so that all our NPCs were sick, then let the forces of darkness in to overwhelm our weakened garrison. He then kidnapped the cute (male) rogue, who became his loyal brainwashed boy-toy, and took the artifact the garrison was supposed to be protecting. Everyone had a great time, but they were floored by this motherfucker: a fussy, thoughtful, outwardly compassionate but deeply bitter and merciless man capable of great foresight. Dante was compelling, confusing, and contradictory. I knew I’d found a winning archetype.
Alexi began to take more shape when I deployed his essential characteristics for a WOTC d20 Modern game, this time, as a mundane-but-talented crooked cop. As time went by, I gradually began to conceive of the character as being an organized criminal rather than a corrupt policeman, and the rest of his backstory followed. But it wasn't until I entered the Dermal Highway setting that I fully realized Alexi for what he was... a character who exists in multiple places and multiple times. Part James Bond, part Dr. Who, part Constantine. The first draft of the book was written in 2009.
While working as a bouncer in 2010, I got a telecommute job for a small magazine in Australia. Seeing the opportunity for what it was, I gave up all of my personal possessions and traveled the world for three years, moving from country to country and keeping up a long-distance relationship with my soon-to-be wife. But I knew, as soon as I left Australia, that all roads led to Brighton Beach. I got there at one in the morning on a very hot night in 2012. The train carriage had one sleeping, coked-out office worker, two Russian women, and me - a very nervous Australian backpacker. Expecting to be mugged at every turn, I eventually found Brighton 8th Street, where I walked in on a fight between a cat and a raccoon. The fight was being cheered on by a group of cheerful Slavic men in sleeveless undershirts and gold chains, bottles in their hands, cigarettes in the corners of their mouths. They welcomed me like I'd come home, as did everyone else I met there. In other words, the place was pretty much as I'd always imagined it.
BLOOD HOUND was also written during one of the most difficult periods of my life: my transition from female to male. When BLOOD HOUND was first being drafted in 2009, I was changing names, changing sex, and only really just coming to terms with the many traumatic events I suffered in the past. The book is very different to how it started out, and Alexi's story is not my story, but the transformational aspect of this is definitely personal.
This novel could not have been written without the help of many people: Canth?,
Stacy, Joey, Joey, Amanda, #The_Highway and House Whitebird crews, and the many fleeting inspirations that were given to me by friends, family, strangers and enemies.
About the Author
Dragon Awards-nominated author James Osiris Baldwin is a transgender man from Australia who writes gritty LGBT-inclusive, dark fantasy and science fiction. He was the former Contributing Editor for the Australian Journal of Dementia Care and has also worked for Alzheimer's Australia.
He currently lives in Seattle with his lovely wife, a precocious cat, and far too many rats. His obsession with the Occult is matched only by his preoccupation with motorcycles.
Contact James by email: [email protected].
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