And there was only one person he could think of to ask to help him find out.
• • •
THE monastery’s shared phone was tucked into a small cubicle off the main dining room to afford those who used it a modicum of privacy. It reminded Gregori of phone booths, from the days when there had been such things inside hotels and various other establishments.
He pushed the buttons for one of the few numbers he had memorized and waited to see if anyone was home. Evening meditation started in half an hour, and he was determined to be there, even though it was optional, to demonstrate the dedication he intended to pursue from now on.
The phone rang a few times, and Gregori was almost ready to give up when a voice as smooth as caramel said, “Hello?”
“Hello, Mikhail,” he said, with the slightest frisson of hesitation. He and his youngest brother had finally reconnected earlier in the year when Mikhail had sought him out in the Otherworld for help with his own transformative issues, but before that they had not spoken for months, each one licking his wounds in private after their terrible ordeal at Brenna’s hands. They were on good terms now, but had never gotten back the easy camaraderie they’d enjoyed for centuries before their worlds had come crashing down around their ears. Their brother Alexei was still lost to them, following his own (presumably self-destructive) path.
“Gregori!” Mikhail said, with every indication of startled delight. “This is a pleasant surprise. I knew that story about you locking yourself up in a monastery was some kind of joke. Jenna owes me twenty dollars. Marvelous.”
Gregori rolled his eyes. “I am afraid the story was correct, dear brother. You will have to pay your wife that twenty after all. I am calling from the Shira-in Shashin Buddhist Monastery in Minneapolis.”
There was a choking sound on the other end of the phone, which it took Gregori a moment to recognize as smothered laughter.
“You’re in a Buddhist monastery in Minnesota?” Mikhail said. “Isn’t that taking austerity to something of an extreme?”
“Says the man living in the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York,” Gregori rebutted. “I doubt it is any colder here than it is there.”
“Yes,” his brother said. “But I have a very warm wife.”
“You win,” Gregori said dryly.
“I always do,” Mikhail said. “But I doubt you called to compare winter bragging rights. What can I do for you?”
Gregori hesitated again, but there was no point in having called if he didn’t ask the question.
“I was wondering if you might be able to help me with a problem,” he said.
“Of course.”
“I have not told you what it is yet,” Gregori pointed out.
“Doesn’t matter,” Mikhail said. “The answer is yes no matter what.”
Gregori’s chest filled with a feeling of warmth that had nothing to do with the weather in either of their locations.
“I appreciate that,” he said. “But you might change your mind when you hear what I’m asking.”
“I doubt it,” his brother said. “I’m bored out of my mind. Barbara is off on some Baba Yaga mission that she didn’t need me for, and I haven’t quite figured out what else I want to do with my life yet. Jenna is talking about opening a little shop come spring, selling Barbara’s herbal remedies and other locally made goods, but I can’t quite see myself as a shopkeeper, can you?”
Gregori envisioned the ever-charming Mikhail behind a counter, eyes twinkling at all the women who came in to shop. “I suspect you would be a huge success, actually,” Gregori said in a dry tone. “But it does seem a bit sedate for you.”
Day laughed. “That’s what Jenna said. I did talk to Barbara’s husband, Liam, about maybe joining the sheriff’s department as a deputy.”
“Oh?”
“He suggested that I would be more likely to cause trouble than to stop others from causing it,” Mikhail said. “I was deeply hurt.”
Gregori chuckled. “I am sure. Well, if you are quite certain you are at loose ends, I need someone to do some legwork for me.”
“Great!” his brother said. “I’ve been thinking about becoming a private detective. This sounds like good practice.”
“It might in fact be,” Gregori agreed. “But it would require a certain subtlety. So no trench coat and fedora, I’m afraid.”
“Spoilsport,” Mikhail said. “What are we talking about?”
Gregori took a deep breath. “Well, I have been thinking about how helpful you said your mother was in teaching you to master the unusual abilities you manifested after our misadventures.”
“You mean, the fact that I started turning into a big green creature when anyone or anything threatened Jenna?” Day said with a snort. He tended to be more plainspoken than Gregori, although nothing like their middle brother, Alexei, who once answered the dreaded “Does this dress make me look fat?” question with “Of course it does. Don’t you own a mirror?”
“Yes, that,” Gregori said. “As I mentioned in my letter, it occurred to me that it might be advantageous to seek out my own mother for advice.”
There was a pause on the other end of the phone. “I take it this means you are still having precognitive incidents?”
“Yes.” Gregori figured he owed his brother the entire truth. “Plus reoccurring dreams—nightmares, really—that might be actual visions.”
“That sounds bad,” Mikhail said. “I assume that whatever you haven’t mentioned yet is even worse?”
That was the problem with traveling with someone for over a thousand years: Mikhail knew him all too well.
“I seem to have developed healing abilities,” he said.
“Um, that should be a good thing, shouldn’t it?”
“It would be, if I could control them. And if they did not drain my own life energies when I used them.”
Mikhail sucked in air loud enough for Gregori to hear it on the other end of the call. “Shit.”
“Exactly,” Gregori said. “I have been hoping that the discipline of studying to be a monk would help with both areas, but so far, I am not making much progress.”
“Hmph,” Mikhail said. “So you’ve decided to seek out your mother, in case she has some insight.” There was another pause. “Uh, do you think she is still alive?”
Gregori shrugged, knowing his brother could not see the gesture. “I have had some success in tracing what I believe to be the community she founded. There was evidence that they were in Russia until the tsars fell, which is not so long ago, as our timeline runs. Of course, there is nothing to say that she was still with them, but the most recent information I came across would indicate that possibility.”
“You want me to go to Russia?” Day asked.
“Not at all,” Gregori said. “This newest clue points to a possible site in Manitoba, but I have not been able to narrow the location down to less than about a two-hundred-mile radius, in an extremely isolated rural area. It might be a wild-goose chase.”
“I am quite fond of geese, myself,” Mikhail said with the gleeful tone of a man looking forward to an adventure. “Especially with a nice plum sauce. Besides, Jenna has been bugging me to take her on a vacation. This will be perfect.”
“Somehow I doubt that the wilds of Canada in the middle of winter are exactly what she had in mind,” Gregori said dryly. “Especially if the baby still has croup. But either way, I would be grateful if you could look into it. I will e-mail you the specifics as soon as I can use one of the public computers at the library.”
“Sounds good,” Mikhail said. “I’ll let you know if I find anything.”
“Thank you,” Gregori said. “Give my love to Jenna, and kiss the baby for me.” He had his doubts about Mikhail’s wife wanting to take a journey to the frozen middle of nowhere with an infant, but he suspected that if his brother was as restl
ess as he sounded, Jenna would be happy to let him run off on his own for a few days. A restless Mikhail was an annoying Mikhail.
“Will do,” Day said. “So, how is this whole monk thing working out for you?”
Sun hesitated. “It . . . isn’t quite as straightforward as I had expected it to be.”
His brother chuckled. “Oh? What’s her name?”
Gregori hung up on him.
CHAPTER 16
DESPITE the sliced tires and the dead rat, Ciera was more determined than ever to continue her search for Skye’s killer. Especially after what had happened with Gregori. She wasn’t sure if she could ever have something approaching a relationship, but their one night together had left her feeling unusually wistful about the idea. She knew that there could never be anything but friendship between them, although if she was being honest with herself, at the moment, she couldn’t imagine being with anyone else.
Surely that was just from lack of experience, though, and not any genuine attachment? Under the circumstances, genuine attachment would only lead to heartbreak. The man was going to become a monk, for God’s sake.
Still, now that she’d had a taste of how good it could be to share intimacy with someone who cared about something more than control and ownership, she thought she’d like the possibility of having that in her life. Someday. Maybe. But that wasn’t going to happen until she fulfilled her vow to Skye to track down and punish her killer. And yes, she was well aware that if Skye were around, she would never expect Ciera to do such a thing—but the whole point was that she wasn’t around.
The more Ciera thought about it, the more she was convinced that the threatening gesture hadn’t come from Victor. If he had tracked her down, he would have just shown up on her doorstep. She shuddered at the thought.
No, it was much more likely that the unsubtle violence of the message meant she was finally getting close to her quarry. She wasn’t sure why the drug lord hadn’t just had her killed; maybe he’d given the assignment to scare her off to a flunky because she wasn’t a big enough menace to bother with himself. Either way, she suspected she was running out of time.
The closer she got to uncovering the identity of Skye’s murderer, the more likely it was he would decide she presented some kind of risk to him after all. If he figured out that she was also the masked vigilante before she could take him out, that would remove the one advantage she had left. She would need to move fast.
Luckily, she had a pretty good idea where she could find a weak link in his organization.
• • •
IT took two nights before Ciera was able to catch the girl on her own. Hanging around outside the bar where she had almost died made Ciera’s stomach hurt, but it was the only place she knew to find the supposed victim she’d been trying to rescue that evening.
The first night, the girl walked out in the company of a tall Latino man in his late twenties with long, greasy hair and multiple earrings. He had one arm slung casually over her shoulder while he smoked a cigarette that perfumed the air with the scent of clove. Ciera couldn’t be sure, but there was nothing about the girl’s posture that indicated she was being coerced, although it was possible she was just putting on a good show.
Ciera thought, with some irony, that it was much more likely that the show had been the one put on for Ciera’s benefit earlier in the week. One way or the other, she was going to find out. If the girl really did need to be rescued, Ciera was still determined to do it. If not, well, she was going to get some damned answers.
Luckily, on the second night, the girl left the bar on her own and walked a few short blocks to a slightly run-down-looking apartment building, hugging a fake fur coat around her thin body against the cold. The lock on the front door was such a joke, Ciera had it opened before the girl had even finished walking up the three flights of stairs to her apartment. Ciera was able to run silently up the stairs in her soft-soled boots, so close on the girl’s heels that Ciera had shoved her inside the apartment and closed the door solidly behind them before her target even had time to react.
Ciera clicked the lock and held up one hand in warning as the girl opened her mouth to scream.
“Don’t,” Ciera said gruffly. She wore the balaclava and hoodie from their previous encounter, so while her appearance might be startling, she was certain the girl would know who she was. Wide eyes and a guilty expression confirmed her suspicions.
Silence reigned through the apartment for a moment and Ciera had a chance to glance around. Like her own place, the small room was furnished with mostly secondhand pieces, although there were a few nicer touches that had probably been gifts from someone with more money and slightly garish taste. A large poster of a kitten with big eyes was the only thing on the walls.
The girl wrapped her arms around herself, eyes darting left and right as if searching for a way out.
“Something you want to tell me?” Ciera said, still using the raspy tones that disguised her gender. “Maybe about why you lied to me?”
Pink-tinted lips opened and closed like a goldfish’s in a bowl. “I, uh. They said you were dead,” the girl whispered. According to the pile of mail lying on a table near the door, her name was apparently Shawnda. She gave Ciera a shaky half smile. “I’m really glad you’re not dead. Really I am.”
Uh-huh. “That’s all very well and good, but I still want to know why you set me up.” Ciera crossed her arms and tried to look menacing. From the pinched expression on the girl’s face, the attempt was successful. Of course, it wasn’t hard to be scary when you were wearing a mask. Even a woolen one that itched in the warmth of the stale-smelling apartment.
“I, uh, it wasn’t my fault,” Shawnda whined. “I had to do it. My boyfriend, Charlie, got the word from Seymour, the guy who runs his gang, who got the word from his boss, who got the word from someone way higher up than them. They needed someone to convince that masked guy—you, I mean—to come try a rescue, so they could beat the crap out of him—I mean, you—and teach him—I mean, you—a lesson.”
Ciera narrowed her eyes. “So they made you do it?”
Shawnda hung her head. “No. I volunteered.”
Great. What a sucker she was. Clearly the girl had never been in any danger at all.
“Why would you do that?” Ciera demanded. “I’m trying to help people like you.”
“I don’t need your help,” Shawnda said defiantly. “I’m, like, really happy. Charlie loves me and I love him, and that’s why I did it. He and Seymour and the rest of the gang, they were seriously freaked out. Whoever the guy was that sent the orders down, he scared the pee outta them all.”
She wrung her thin hands. “And for good reason, it turns out. When the attack on you went wrong, Seymour ended up dead in an alley. Charlie has been scared half to death ever since, and spends all his time looking over his shoulder and getting high. He hardly even pays any attention to me at all, and we’re, like, super in love.” She sniffed and rubbed her nose on her sleeve, looking like a puppy who had been kicked when it had expected treats instead.
Swell. Ciera stifled a sigh. She couldn’t even bring herself to be mad at the girl. The combination of teenaged hormones and drugs didn’t exactly make for good decision-making under the best of circumstances.
She decided to take a different tack. “You know that Charlie isn’t going to be safe until someone takes out the guy who ordered this. You’d be helping to keep him safe if you help me.”
“But, I mean, the guy can’t blame Charlie for the way things went down. It wasn’t his fault.” Shawnda bit her lip, smearing pink lip gloss on her teeth.
“Was it his gang leader’s fault?” Ciera asked. “And why would Charlie be so nervous if he didn’t think he could be next?”
The girl rubbed her nose on her sleeve again, then scrunched up her forehead, obviously trying to think it through. Ciera suspected she was coming down off of some
kind of high, although it was possible she simply wasn’t that bright to begin with.
“So, uh, if I tell you what I know, you would, like, take out the guy who is making Charlie all tense and stuff? Can you do that?”
Ciera had no idea. She also thought it was unlikely that this scrawny teen junkie knew anything that could be helpful, but that’s why Ciera had tracked her down, just on the off chance she did.
“Of course I can,” Ciera said, trying to project a confidence she didn’t necessarily feel.
“Well . . .” The girl drew the word out until it was practically a sentence. “It’s not much, but I guess it wouldn’t hurt to tell you.” She took a step forward and lowered her voice, as if the mystery boss might be listening at the window. On the third floor.
“So, like, before the whole thing went down,” she said, snapping her gum nervously, “I overheard Charlie and Seymour talking about someone named El Capitán who supposedly runs the entire Twin Cities organization for the cartel. Seymour was freaking out because he said it was a bad thing to have this guy notice you.”
Considering that the late, unlamented Seymour had ended up dead, Ciera had to think he’d been on to something there. “Just the name? That’s all you’ve got?” It sounded familiar, though, like something she’d come across in Skye’s records, or maybe even heard her mention back in the day.
Shawnda shook her head, making her stringy dirty-blond hair swing from side to side. “Just that, and something about him being too good to come downtown where the riffraff hung out, on account of he might get one of his fancy suits dirty.” She rubbed one hand across her eyes, smearing her copious eye makeup. “But I guess they were wrong, because the day Seymour got shot, I heard there was a ginormous, expensive car parked out in front of the bar. Seems like the big boss was so mad about how everything went down, he came down and shot Seymour himself.”
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