• • •
VICTOR strolled into the hospital room, wrinkling his nose at the acrid smells and harsh lighting. He hated places like this one, where weakness was everywhere and the only people with control were the doctors, who were mostly faking it anyway. Illness and disease made him twitchy. Thankfully, broken bones weren’t catching.
He’d had one of his connections inside the hospital—he had them everywhere it might be useful—check on Nate’s condition. The man was a mess. A bunch of cracked ribs, both arms broken, a smashed kneecap, and a myriad of other, smaller injuries, including one hell of a shiner. Idiot. Allowing himself to be caught alone in an alley was a rookie move, exactly the kind of thing that explained why he was still a low-level dealer. Low enough on the food chain that he looked both startled and alarmed when he recognized the man in the expensive suit who’d just walked into his room. Good. Let him squirm.
“Mr. Mendoza,” Nate said, struggling to sit up a little straighter. Hard to do with both arms in casts, although someone had tucked the bed’s remote next to his hand. “Uh, what are you doing here?”
Of course, someone like Nate had no idea who Victor really was. Victor rather enjoyed masquerading as middle management in the drug cartel’s local organization, when in fact he was the head of the entire thing. It amused him to speculate about the mysterious boss man with everyone else, as if he had no more idea than they did of who was in charge. Only the few trusted lieutenants one or two rungs down the ladder had that piece of information. Knowledge was power, and Victor enjoyed power more than almost anything else—even more than money, although that was another strong motivator.
You didn’t get to be in his position by letting anyone threaten either.
Normally, someone on Nate’s level would be below Victor’s notice, but he had a strong suspicion as to who was responsible for putting the dealer into this hospital bed. If he was right, he didn’t want anyone else asking these questions for him.
“I was in the neighborhood and one of the boys mentioned you were in here, so I figured I’d check on you,” Victor said. Only a moron would believe such a lame excuse. Luckily, he appeared to be dealing with one.
“That’s real nice of you, sir,” Nate said. “Tell you the truth, I was kind of worried I might lose my spot, since I’m going to be laid up in this damned hospital for quite a while. I’ve been really working my ass off, moving lots of product, getting a lot of new customers. This is going to set me back some.”
You think? Victor barely managed to suppress an eye roll. By the time Nate got back out to the street, he’d be lucky if someone hadn’t scooped up not only his dealing location, but his girlfriend, his car, and all the crap in his apartment. Whoever said there was no honor among thieves clearly hadn’t had a chance to compare them to drug dealers.
“Don’t worry about it,” Victor said, leaving the since there is nothing you can do anyway unsaid. “Tell me, did you see who did this to you? You took quite the beating. The person who did it must have made an impression.”
“Tell you the truth,” Nate said, “I don’t remember much of it. It was all kind of a blur. Doc says I’ve got a concussion, too, so it ain’t that strange I don’t remember.”
Victor swore quietly to himself, trying to decide if he believed Nate or not. In his experience, guys who kept saying that they were telling the truth probably weren’t, but the chart had mentioned a concussion, so it was possible that in this particular case he should make an exception.
“It ain’t fair if I lose my territory and all my customers, just because some asshole decided to put the beatdown on me, is it?” Nate griped. “Can you maybe talk to someone? A guy like you, you got influence.”
You have no idea, you twit. Victor had influence not only in the criminal world, but also on every level of local politics, law enforcement, and plenty of mundane, legal businesses as well. Knowledge might be power, but influence was power too. And power was definitely Victor’s drug of choice. If you had power and control, you didn’t need to bother with any more temporary highs.
Victor ignored Nate’s whining. Life had nothing to do with fairness and everything to do with making things go your way. If Nate hadn’t learned that yet, Victor doubted this incident would teach him anything either.
“Did you see your attacker’s face at all?” he pushed. “Skin color, eye color, height?”
“He was wearing a mask,” Nate said with a little more exasperation than was safe for his continued health, considering whom he was talking to. “I didn’t see nothing except fists and feet and these two sticks he kept whacking me with.” He held up one arm an inch to demonstrate what he meant. “Fucking things broke my damned arms.”
Ah. “Your attacker used fighting sticks,” Victor said. “Could it have been a woman?”
“A woman!” Nate’s voice went up an octave in his indignation. “I’m telling you, that guy was at least twice my size. No way a woman coulda kicked my ass this bad. Hell no, it wasn’t no woman.” He subsided, cursing to himself, and Victor almost laughed.
Almost. The situation at hand was too serious for that, no matter how comical it might seem.
“Fine, fine,” he said, making calm down motions with his hand. Clearly, the idiot knew less than nothing about whoever had attacked him. Luckily for him, that was the right answer in this particular case.
“Just out of curiosity,” Victor said in a casual tone, “did your assailant say anything? Maybe mention someone named Skye?”
Nate scrunched up his eyes and thought for a minute. “I dunno, maybe. I kind of remember something like that at the end, but I was hurting so bad, I wasn’t paying much attention. Either way, I never heard of anyone by that name. Sounds like some kinda stripper, but I don’t know anyone named Skye.” He thought some more. “He did say one thing I remember, ’cause it seemed kinda stupid. He said that now I’d know what it felt like to take a beating. I mean, what kinda thing is that to say?”
Victor smoothed his neatly trimmed mustache with one manicured hand. “Really. That does seem odd. Had you hit anyone else lately?”
Nate laughed, then clutched at his ribs as best he could with both arms in casts. “Sure. You want a list?”
“Actually,” Victor said, feeling in his coat pocket for his iPad, “I do.”
• • •
LATER, when he had returned to his elegant apartment far from the parts of the city where he did much of his business, Victor called Mickey, the underling he had keeping an eye on Ciera. Or Suzy, as she had been named when he’d pulled her off the streets and taken her in, so many years ago. Suzy Johnson, a mundane name for a girl who had been anything but that.
“Mickey, this is Victor.”
“Yes, sir. What can I do for you?” Victor could almost hear the man snap to attention through the phone. Mickey didn’t know how high up Victor was in the organization, but he had a better idea than some.
“You can tell me where Miss Evans was last night. I assume you were watching her?”
“Yes, Mr. Mendoza. She went to that soup kitchen, same as she does most nights. Got out of work, went back to her apartment and changed clothes, then went straight to the shelter. She was there all evening.”
“Indeed,” Victor said. Maybe he had been wrong. “What time did she leave?”
There was a momentary pause on the other end of the call and the harsh sound of a throat clearing. “Uh, well, I’m not completely sure.”
Victor didn’t bother to say anything, just tapped one finger on the glass table beside him as he waited for clarification.
It wasn’t long in coming, as Mickey went on in a rush, as if trying to get his excuses out before his boss could scold him for failing in his duties.
“I think she must have gone out the back, Mr. Mendoza. Leastwise, I didn’t see her come out the front door from where I was sitting in the coffeehouse across the street. I
t’s not like I can go inside and watch her, or hang out on the street in front of the shelter all the time, looking like some goddamn stalker or pedo-whatsits.”
“I believe the word you are looking for is pedophile,” Victor said, allowing his displeasure to creep into his voice. He was not happy to hear that Mickey had let Ciera slip through his fingers, but in all fairness, there was no way one man could keep track of her every movement, and Victor didn’t want to assign anyone else and be more obvious about it. Mickey could be trusted to keep his mouth shut, but that was a rare talent.
And since Victor didn’t want people wondering why he was so interested in some do-gooder librarian, he would have to settle for sporadic reports with occasional holes in them, like this one, and fill in the spaces himself when he could.
He suppressed a sigh. “Completely understandable,” he told Mickey. “I’m sure she just headed home that way. You’ve told me she’s done that in the past. You did your best. Nothing to worry about.”
The other man swallowed hard enough that Victor could hear it through the phone. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. Do you want me to follow her again tomorrow?”
Victor thought about it. “Better take a day off and tend to other things,” he said regretfully. “It’s one thing for people to take you for granted as a regular at the coffee shop; it’s another for you to be there all evening every evening. Besides, there’s a little matter I need you to look into for me downtown. I think one of my associates may have gotten greedy and made some bad choices. I’m afraid he might need to become an unhappy example for his peers.”
“You got it, sir,” Mickey said, sounding a bit happier. This type of job was what he preferred to do—simple, violent, and straightforward. “You’ll text me the info in the morning?”
“As always,” Victor said, and hung up without another word. Niceties were for equals and people you were trying to impress. Flunkies just got on with the job if they knew what was good for them. Victor rarely wasted his time on politeness; he simply didn’t see the point.
He put his state-of-the art phone down on an antique credenza and poured himself exactly two fingers of Chivas Regal Royal Salute scotch. Victor had very few indulgences, but he insisted on the best for all of them. Of course, best could be a relative term.
He slid open a drawer in the painted Venetian credenza and pulled out a picture in a simple fourteen-karat-gold frame. A younger Ciera stared up at him, less poised but still stunningly exotic, her hazel eyes wide with an intoxicating combination of adoration and fear.
She had been sixteen when he met her, just barely surviving on the streets, and so beautiful that she took his breath away the first time he’d seen her, even clothed in rags and dirt and stinking of living rough. He’d taken her in and taken her over, remaking her in the way that worked best for him.
Her already low self-esteem and the self-loathing her parents had instilled in her had made it easy to manipulate her, and the drugs he’d gotten her hooked on had simply twined the chains more closely around her ankles. Victor had dressed her in the best clothes and set her up in style, asking only that she bend completely to his will. And for a while, she had.
But in the end, she’d had more backbone than he’d bargained for, and had finally broken free from him with the help of a woman named Skye Blue, a relentless crusader who worked with the poor during the day and roamed the streets at night like some kind of demented champion of the underdog with long graying blond hair and a hero complex. Well, he’d taken care of that. But not before she’d cost him Suzy. Ciera. Whatever she called herself, she’d belonged to him.
Ciera was the only thing he’d ever wanted that had gotten away from him and he’d never forgotten her. But killing Skye had made things too hot for a while to pursue the girl—who knew the damned hippie had come from such a wealthy and influential family who would raise such a fuss? Besides, truth be told, he had already been finding Ciera a little too hard to control, and she’d gotten under his skin in a way no woman had before or since. It seemed wisest to simply let her go, and replace her with a series of younger, more malleable successors.
But that didn’t mean he couldn’t keep a watchful eye on her.
He was well aware of her after-hours activities, was even happy to allow her to continue them, since much of the time she was taking out his competition. If she went after one of his underlings and got away with it, well, then clearly that person couldn’t be trusted with responsibility. Like that idiot Nate.
When she’d left him, money from Skye helped her to change her name, get a place to live, go back to school, and rebuild her life. He liked to think that he’d allowed that, too, as one last parting gift. She hadn’t escaped him so much as he’d permitted her to leave. Even as he told himself that, the delicate gold frame bent a little bit under the pressure of his fingers.
He put it down and took another measured sip of his expensive scotch.
She was full of surprises, his Suzy. Too bad he didn’t like surprises. He had no problem with her following in her mentor’s footsteps, playing at ninjas after dark, deluding herself that she could make a difference.
But if she insisted on continuing to search for the person who’d killed Skye Blue, he might have to change his mind about his hands-off approach. The woman might have a special—or at least unique—place in his affections, such as they were, but even she could only be allowed to get so close to the truth.
If she became a threat, he wouldn’t let a little thing like a touch of fond nostalgia get in the way of doing what needed to be done. He’d like to think that Ciera, more than anyone, would understand that.
CHAPTER 7
SUN set aside the latest stack of (largely useless) research he had been reading through and pulled out some writing paper instead. He was making too little progress too slowly. His new gifts, if you could call them that, were becoming more obvious with every day and, as yet, he was no closer to figuring out a way to either control or banish them.
His nightmares were increasing in number and severity; last night he had woken at midnight covered with acrid sweat from a dream in which he had been slowly drowning in cold, white snow that crept up from his feet until it covered his face and head. Right before he woke up, all his bones had turned into icicles and cracked into a thousand pieces. It had taken him until almost four to get back to sleep, a nearly useless exercise when he was required to arise at five for early-morning meditation.
Gregori was stronger than most and had impressive endurance, but even he was starting to feel the strain. His mirror showed him lines that had never appeared around his eyes and mouth before, an unwelcome preview of the aging process that now lay in his future.
The healing gift was proving to be almost as problematic as whatever clairvoyance plagued his dreams and occasionally sent unsettling tremors through his days.
Yesterday he had accidentally brushed up against a woman with a migraine. That had been an educational experience. Sun had never given much credence to those who complained of blinding pain and nausea from such things, since the Riders were rarely prone to mundane afflictions. The woman had suddenly looked much better, but he had spent an hour in a dark corner before his reaction eased enough for him to return to his work. He had felt the sudden urge to apologize to everyone he had ever met who had suffered from headaches.
Such incidences were bad enough, but what if he had bumped into someone with cancer or some incurable illness? He had no idea how much healing his body was capable of before it succumbed to the process. He needed answers, and they seemed to be in frustratingly short supply.
It was time to ask for help, as much as it pained him to do so.
Dear Mikhail,
I hope you are well and that life with Jenna and the baby is proving to be all you had hoped it would be. As I mentioned in my last letter to you, I have had some unusual occurrences that lead me to believe that I, too, ha
ve been affected by the large dose of the Water of Life and Death Barbara was forced to give us after our unfortunate experience with Brenna. Or possibly, as was at least partially true in your case, the changes we went through have allowed some inheritance from my mother to come to the surface in, shall we say, less-than-optimal ways.
I have been attempting to control these “gifts” through meditation and discipline at the monastery and also am doing my best to track down Iduyan’s current location, if in fact she is still alive after all these years. I have found a number of indications that the community she founded so long ago in Mongolia eventually moved to Russia and then from there to someplace in Canada, possibly Manitoba, after the fall of the tsars. But whether or not they still exist, and whether my mother still resides among them even if they do, I have not as yet been able to ascertain.
My abilities have taken some alarming turns of late, including an involuntary healing performed on a teen with a broken wrist, which proved to be both uncomfortable and draining. I was wondering if you have had any success in learning to control your own new abilities, and if so, if whatever you have learned might be helpful to my situation.
I would appreciate any aid or suggestions you might have.
Yours affectionately,
Gregori
• • •
SUN knew it would be at least a couple of days before his letter reached his brother in upstate New York, where he was currently living with his new wife, Jenna, and her—their, although Day was not technically the father—infant child. They had chosen to settle near the small town where Barbara’s husband, Liam, was sheriff. It had seemed an odd choice to Gregori, but apparently it was working out quite well.
Then, of course, it would take another couple of days for any return missive to reach him, and since Mikhail had never been the best of correspondents, it would likely be even longer until Gregori heard back. In the meanwhile, he resolved to apply himself to his studies with even more fervor than before.
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