Daemon’s Mark

by Caitlin Kittredge

  “I don’t know.” Dmitri shrugged. “Guess she’s a little hard of hearing.”

  I slung my bags onto the bed and flopped down. “If this is your cockeyed way of seducing me…”

  “Sweetheart, if I wanted you, you wouldn’t be fighting me,” Dmitri said.

  I sat up straight, folding my arms. “Oh, is that right, sweetheart? ”

  Dmitri smirked. “That is correct.”

  “You’re an asshole,” I said. Dmitri smirked again, setting down his bag and moving toward me.

  “Yeah, sweetheart, but I’m your kind of asshole.” He pinned my legs against the mattress, leaned forward and inhaled my scent, his breath tickling my ear and behind my neck, something he’d loved to do before.

  “Dmitri…” I warned. “That’s far enough.”

  “Come on, Luna,” he said. “That human can’t give you what you want. I can.”

  “Dmitri, this isn’t you,” I said. I couldn’t see his eyes, but the sibilant echoes in his tone were familiar. “Stop it now, before I have to hurt you.”

  “I want you to hurt me,” he hissed. “Like you hurt me before, because then I can hurt you. I can hold you down and make you scream how sorry you are, over and over again.”

  The click of the Walther’s hammer was the only sound in the small, stuffy motel room. I pressed it into Dmitri’s temple, hard enough to leave a mark like a kiss.

  “I know how much fun you’re having,” I said. “But I’m telling you now that you either leave Dmitri out of this game until we find his daughter or I’m going to blow holes all through your shiny new toy.”

  “You turn me on when you threaten me,” Dmitri murmured. “Do you remember how we met? You pointing a gun at me. Begging with that body of yours to be taken down a peg or two.”

  “I mean it,” I said. “I’m not so sentimental that I wouldn’t kill a man who’s basically dead already just to shut up your incessant yapping, Asmodeus.”

  I was that sentimental, but Asmodeus didn’t know that about me. He hadn’t exactly seen my soft side.

  After an interminable moment, Dmitri released me. I shoved him away and stormed out the door before he came back to himself and I had to explain what had happened, again.

  Shoving the Walther into my waistband, I stomped across the parking lot toward the back of the hotel. Asmodeus had a lot of nerve screwing with me this way. I wasn’t some plaything on a string that could be jerked back and forth at will.

  I was around the corner, out of sight, and I dropped down on the curb, putting my head in my hands.

  Biggest mistake of your life, Wilder. How could I have thought that helping Dmitri was the right thing to do?

  The sensible thing? I could be home with Will now, safe, warm, and not trapped in a motel in Kazakhstan with my possessed ex.

  Crying caught my attention, from beyond the cluster of trash cans. I stood up, moving toward the sound.

  “Hello?”

  The crying stopped abruptly, and I heard breath and a heartbeat. “Everyone okay back here?” I said, dropping my hand to my gun.

  I peered over the cans and saw a pudgy girl with her knees pulled up to her chin, tears running down her reddened face. “What’s up?” I asked. “You don’t look too happy.”

  She couldn’t have been more than sixteen or seventeen, hair dyed shocking purple at the tips and grown out to mousy blonde roots. I saw pink indentations where piercings had sat on her lips and nose, but no jewelry. Her dress was thin cotton and she was sporting a heavy cardigan, like the woman in the front office.

  “I know you can understand me,” I said. “I heard you stop crying as soon as I said something.”

  “I can’t talk to you,” she hissed. “If I talk, the missus will get me into trouble.”

  Her accent was thick—Scottish, I thought—and she flinched away when I crouched down beside her. “What’s your name? Mine’s Luna,” I offered, when she didn’t say anything.

  “Gillian,” she finally mumbled. “But the missus just calls me girl or some insult in languages I don’t understand.”

  “Where are you from, Gillian?”

  “Why are you asking me all of these bloody questions?” She checked a battered watch, bright purple that matched her hair. A child’s watch, something you’d buy at the mall to try to look cool.

  “Because I’m looking for another girl, the daughter of a … a friend, who also came here. If you help me, I’ll make sure you get back home.”

  “Glasgow,” she said in answer. “I met a bloke and…”

  “You woke up in Kiev?” I guessed. The story was getting downright common.

  “Stupid,” she muttered.

  “No,” I said, reaching out again and putting a hand on her shoulder. “You were just trusting, like we all were. Tell me about the missus.”

  “She’s a regular fright, isn’t she?” Gillian asked. “Practically runs the village, collects money from the shopkeepers, tells the pickpockets when they can rob the tourists—not that we get many that speak English in this place. Arse-end of the world, this is.”

  So much for the kindly old grandmother. I should know better—kindly old grandmothers are always wolves.

  “Have you seen another girl?” I said. “About fourteen, red hair, speaks Ukrainian?”

  “Haven’t,” Gillian said. “I’m just an odd hearth witch—my mother taught me the circle and a bit of casting, but that’s all. But apparently over here I’m worth something.” She snorted. “Figures. First time in my life I’m worth a damn and I get sold to some crusty old horror to be a servant girl. Like a bloody fairy tale.”

  I sighed. “Is there anyplace in town that you know of—a brothel, or a tavern, anywhere they’d need a young girl for something less than savory?”

  Gillian lifted her shoulder. “Only weird thing in this place is the old laboratory complex.”

  Laboratory? Oh, this was going to be seven kinds of not good. “What kind of lab?”

  “Dunno,” Gillian said. “It’s some old Soviet heap that they put up when they had control in these parts. Biohazard symbols all over the gate, padlocked and dark—spooky fucking place. I don’t go near it.” She gave a shiver.

  “Okay,” I said. Cold storage. That could be anything, but a lab experiment was as likely as any other outlandish possibility I could come up with. “Thank you, Gillian.”

  “Oi,” she said. “What about all of your grand promises of a rescue?”

  “You’re going to come with me,” I said, reaching out. “You’ll stay with my friend until I find Masha, and then we’ll all be leaving here together.”

  “They took my passport in Kiev,” said Gillian. “Can’t leave the bloody country, can I?”

  “Why don’t you let me worry about that?” I said. She let me help her up and we speed-walked back to the motel room, where I unlocked the door. Dmitri jumped out of the chair where he’d been waiting, panic on his face.

  “Luna, I…”

  I held up a hand. “Save it. This is Gillian. She’s another one of the Belikovs’ pieces of merchandise. She’s going to be staying with you.”

  “With me?” Dmitri folded his arms. “What about Masha?”

  “Dmitri,” I said, gesturing Gillian to sit on the bed. “After what just happened, do you really think you’re fit to be out walking around? Stay here, look after Gillian and I’ll be back with Masha soon.”

  I grabbed my bag and left again before he could object. I was sick of him calling the shots, sick of being pushed around by Asmodeus, sick of Eastern Europe and the whole sordid mess.

  I was tired. Too tired to keep marching. I just wanted to turn around and go home. But Masha was still missing, and she was still my responsibility because I’d said I’d help her.

  Making promises to victims was something I thought I’d gotten better at, and yet here I was, walking deeper into the nightmare because I was the only one who would go in after her.

  CHAPTER 21

  The walk to the lab
was long and hot, and my tank top was soaked through with sweat by the time I crested the hill outside of the village and looked down into the valley.

  The complex wasn’t much to look at—three buildings connected by walkways, the entire thing enclosed with barbed-wire fences and warning signs in Russian, bearing the old symbol of the USSR.

  It was, as Gillian had said, padlocked and spooky. I shaded my eyes and looked at the road leading in and out. The earth was cracked and dry from lack of rain, and fresh tire tracks were pressed into the roadbed.

  Maybe not so abandoned after all. I stopped to take a swig from the water bottle I’d bought at Stop 13 and started down the track. Sometimes the direct approach is best. I dumped a little more of the water down the front of my tank and into my hair to simulate sweat-drenched agony, and walked to the gate.

  “Hello?” I called, rattling the mesh. “Hello, is anyone here?”

  A long wait passed me by, and I began to think I was wrong, that Masha had been delivered somewhere else and I was a crazy person shouting at an empty lab complex.

  Then a buzzer sounded, and the gate rolled back. I stepped inside and started as it shut behind me with a clang.

  “Walk to the nearest building,” a disembodied voice screeched from a PA speaker. “The yellow door. Push it open and step inside. Do not deviate from my instructions.”

  “I’m a little lost…” I said, keeping up my innocent tourist act. “Can you help me?”

  “Walk,” the voice ordered sharply. “The yellow door.”

  So they had eyes on me. I walked, taking in my surroundings as I did in case I had to make an escape later. The buildings were rubbed clean of insignia by wind and rain and everything had that hunkered-down weathered look of old, abandoned places. It was a simple foursquare complex connected by walkways above my head with a central yard made of concrete.

  The yellow door led me into a dark room, a desk, achair and a security grate all I caught before it slammed shut behind me and left me in total darkness, the kind even my eyes couldn’t penetrate.

  “Hello?” I said again, not needing to fake the tense tone in my voice. “Are you still there?”

  There was a buzz and a parade of fluorescent bulbs flickered on, illuminating the holding cage I was in as well as a long gray hallway beyond, accented with pea-green linoleum. Soviet aesthetic at its finest.

  “Okay,” I said. “I’m no longer amused by this. Either show yourself or I’m leaving.”

  “You can’t leave.”

  The voice wasn’t disembodied, and without the distortion of the PA it was very, very familiar.

  Grigorii Belikov stepped from the shadows at the far end of the hallway and paced toward me, his suit navy blue with a lighter pinstripe today, his smirk growing. He had a bandage over his nose, but I gained some small satisfaction from the purple bruise on his face.

  “Oh,” I said. “Watch me.” I turned around and made for the door, which declined to yield under my weight. I gave it a kick, full power, and barely managed to dent it.

  “This was once a lab that engineered biological weapons,” said Grigorii. “Those doors are meant to keep you in if there is an outbreak.” He extended his hand. “Tell me where my records are and I’ll let you go, Joanne.”

  “Hex you,” I snarled, backing as far away from him as I could. “What are you even doing here?”

  “You stole something of mine,” he said. “When that happens, I find the person who took it and get the item back. I’d prefer to do it without a fuss, Joanne.”

  “You’re a slaver,” I said. “You don’t get to decide what you keep and what you don’t.”

  Grigorii sighed and depressed the button to open the security gate. He came within arm’s reach of me and tapped his finger on his chin. “Do you remember what happened the last time we got this close, Joanne? Or is it Luna? Luna Wilder? That were, Kirov, was quite confused by the time I finished with him.”

  I flinched. Grigorii patted me down and took away my gun. I let him. I hadn’t forgotten the punch he packed.

  “Well? Which is it?”

  “Luna,” I said. “I seem to remember last time we were close, I smashed your pretty face in, tied you up, and stole enough evidence to put you in a dark and unpleasant Russian prison for seven lifetimes.”

  Grigorii chuckled. “Do you know who I’m named for, Luna?”

  “I have a feeling you’re going to tell me.” Could I Path Grigorii’s energy, if I was ready? There was some magick I couldn’t absorb. Could I take the chance, knowing what he’d do to me if I didn’t overpower him?

  Masha and Dmitri were depending on me to get out of this in one piece.

  “Grigorii Rasputin,” he said. “The advisor to the Romanovs, whom they poisoned, shot, stabbed, beat, castrated and finally drowned. Some say that even with these ministrations, Rasputin did not die but instead used his power to rise again, stronger than before. And that is me as well, Luna. You may think you have drowned the last remainders of my spirit, but I will dog you for a lifetime, like a sentient shadow, until I get what I desire.”

  “Spooky,” I said. I definitely couldn’t risk trying to Path his energy now, stuck in this lab as I was. I had to talk my way out of this. “That’s supposed to scare me into giving the laptop back?”

  “One lives on hope,” Grigorii said in the same dry tone. His hand flashed out and he grabbed me by the hair, bending my head back and exposing my neck. “Something else to consider—if you don’t give it back, I’ll be forced to kill that brute you left back in the village. And the fat sow, too. Such a shame. But this is a dangerous part of the world, and tourists often run into unfortunate trouble.”

  I swallowed the sudden dry lump in the back of my throat. “You make a good case.”

  “And your decision?” Grigorii said. I unstrapped my bag and held the laptop.

  “One condition.”

  “You’re in no position to bargain, but name it. It might be mildly amusing.”

  “You let me see Masha Sandovsky after I give this to you.”

  Grigorii snorted, and it turned into a full-blown laugh. “But of course. That was my intention all along.”

  Huh. Could have fooled me. “I asked after Sandovsky when the two of you … visited me,” Grigorii said. He snatched the laptop from my grip with surprising speed. “He’s been sniffing around my establishment for a few weeks, and it seems I did sell his daughter. Ironic. Most weres know to leave us be, but not him. Particularly dense, that one.” He gestured for me to walk ahead of him, and we wound through a maze of corridors, all equally featureless and gray.

  “Why are you here?” I asked again. “This is an awfully long way from Kiev just to gloat at me.”

  “I’m a businessman, Luna,” Grigorii said. “And when my business is challenged, I take steps to ensure it doesn’t happen again. I told you, Luna. I’m a troubleshooter.”

  We descended a set of narrow stairs painted with bright red warnings, about falling or running, I imagined. There were doors along this corridor, doors with small round windows and heavy locks that the cop in me knew could only be one thing. “This is a jail,” I said.

  “A containment facility,” Grigorii corrected me. “For test subjects. And now, for my business interest and the women who serve it.”

  He looked down to the end of the cell row, where a figure sat at a switchboard. “Sixteen, please.”

  The door buzzed, and swung open with a Dr. Caligari –style creak. I balked reflexively at the darkness inside. Grigorii put his hand on the small of my back, rubbing in circles. Caressing. “Easy, Luna. I won’t let anything bad befall you.”

  I gave a loud growl. “That is really not a good idea, sport.”

  “As you say,” he smiled. He gave me a hard shove and I fell forward into the cell. Grigorii dusted his hands off on a crisp red handkerchief. “Luna, meet your Masha Sandovsky. I’m sure the two of you will become fast friends.” He turned his head. “Close sixteen.”

 
; The door slammed shut and darkness closed over my head like cold water, but this time I peered into it, trying to see something, anything. I blinked and let my eyes shift, the silver tones jumping out at me, detailing a bench bed with no mattress, a steel toilet bolted to the floor and a hunched figure next to it, her forehead on her knees.

  “Masha?” I whispered.

  She raised her head a fraction. “Yeah, what of it?”

  A swell of relief built in my chest and I inhaled and exhaled the stale air. “Your father sent me. He’s been looking for you for a while.”

  Masha made a derisive sound in the back of her throat. “Dmitri?”

  “Do you have another father?”

  She blew out a breath. “The dude doesn’t show up for most of my life and then suddenly he’s all in my business. Whatever.”

  “Listen,” I said. “You’re here because you made some shitty choices and your dad came after you. He’s trying, Masha—and I know for a fact that he is going to be really, really fucking glad you’re all right.”

  “That’s nice and all,” she muttered. “But I’m not getting out of here.”

  “Not true,” I said. “I’m going to take you back to your dad and he’s going to take you home.”

  “You’re in this cell same as me,” she said. “So, good job there.”

  I grimaced. “I wasn’t expecting Belikov to show up and ambush me.”

  Masha sighed. “He does that. But hey, at least you know he won’t kill you. At least not until you’re not useful anymore.”

  “Meaning what?” I asked her.

  Masha lifted her head. “You’ll find out. Someone comes every day around this time and…” She sighed. “You’ll just find out, okay?”

  The door clicked open again with a buzz, and I recognized the silhouette immediately. “Mikel,” I said. “It’s been too long. Threatened anyone who can’t fight back lately?”

  “Get up,” he said. “The both of you.”

  Masha got up and shuffled into the hall obediently. I followed her, keeping my eyes on Mikel. He smirked at me. “Locked up again. Bad habit with you.”

  “Before I leave here, I’m going to punch you right in that smirk,” I told him.