by Craig Zerf
The man in the passenger side wound down his window.
‘Mit csinálsz.’ He shouted above the howling of the wind. ‘Te egyedül vagy?’
‘I’m sorry,’ replied Emily. ‘I can’t speak Hungarian.’
‘Is okay. I speak English quite good. I ask if you alright. You got troubles?’
‘Thank you, I’m fine. Just taking a walk to clear my head.’
‘Come. Get in car. Is not safe outside.’
Em shook her head. ‘No thank you. I’m fine.’
The man opened his door, stepped out and grabbed Emily’s arm. ‘Please, I insist. Is not safe here. Get in car.’
Emily shook her head again. Then she felt a sharp prick and looked down. The man had a stiletto knife in his hand and he had jabbed it lightly into Emily’s side, piercing her jacket and shirt.
‘No more to argue,’ he said. ‘Get in car or I stick you real bad.’
Emily wondered if she should simply tear the knife from him and ram it into his eye but she remembered Muller’s talk about Hungary being the center of the world’s sex-slavery trade and her curiosity got the better of her. So she decided to get into the car merely to see what these two were up to.
The man opened the back door and bundled Emily in. He followed and sat next to her, his knife still touching her side.
The driver turned to look and then he laughed. ‘Blonde,’ he said. ‘And pretty. We got lucky.’
‘Is good catch,’ agreed the other man. ‘Let’s go before this weather gets even worse.’
The driver nodded and set off, heading towards Budapest.
Emily said nothing and neither did her so-called kidnappers. After twenty minutes they began to drive through built up areas. Initially they seemed fairly up market and middle class but, as they continued, the houses became more and more dilapidated and run down until they were driving through a mix of new building projects and forlorn ruins with boarded up windows and tarpaulin covered doors.
The car pulled up outside a four story building that, although run down, looked like some care had been taken over it. The windows all contained glass and the door looked new and sturdy.
The man next to Emily pricked her with the stiletto as he opened the door.
‘Hey,’ she said. ‘Quit it. If you want me to move then just say so. Enough with the knife, okay?’
The man looked puzzled at her feisty attitude and then he simply nodded and pushed her towards the front door. The driver used a series of knocks on the front door, obviously a code. Seconds later the door was opened by a young man carrying an AK47 assault rifle. He ushered them in and Emily was engulfed by the warm air as they entered.
‘We had a good hunt,’ said the driver to the assault rifle wielder. ‘Blonde, American. Very pretty. Found her walking down the road alone in the middle of the blizzard.’
The gun man stared at Em. ‘Do you think that maybe she’s simple?’ He asked.
The driver shrugged. ‘Who knows? Who cares? Get her to a room and tell Vasile, I’m going to get some coffee.’
The gun man grabbed Emily by the arm. ‘Come,’ he said as he dragged her towards the stairs. ‘I take you to room.’
Emily made sure that she moved when he pulled. If she wanted to she could have simply stood still, her super-dense Shadowhunter muscle weighing in at around three hundred and fifty pounds even though she looked like a slender athletic teenager.
The gunman took her up two flights and then down a corridor. The walls were painted a gloss institutional green and the carpet looked like it was a leftover from some 1970’s casino, a psychedelic mixture of orange, brown and yellow whorls.
They walked past about nine doors until they came to one that was open. Gunman pushed Emily inside and then turned the light on. The room was tiny. A single iron bed. Gray blanket. A chipped ceramic basin in the corner. No furniture.
‘You stay here,’ he commanded. ‘I bring the boss. His name is Vasile Constantin. You will call him, sir or master. Understand?’
Emily nodded.
The man leered at her. ‘He will be testing you out,’ he made a thrusting motion with his hips and laughed. ‘If you get what I mean?’
He closed the door behind him as he left and Emily heard the rasp of a key as he locked it.
Emily waited for a few seconds to make sure that he had left and then decided to take a look around the building. She opened the door by simply grasping the handle and turning until the lock popped and it swung open. Then she proceeded to the room next to hers.
The door was also locked but the mechanism went the same way as she casually destroyed it with a twist of her wrist.
The room was almost a carbon copy of hers but for the fact that there were two beds crammed into the tiny space. The lights were on, a bare twenty watt bulb doing little to dispel the gloom. Two girls lay on the beds. It was obvious that they were both stoned out of their minds. Dark bruises and needle tracks ran down their arms. And their eyes, although fully open, were unseeing.
Emily leaned over the bed and took their pulses. Both weak but regular. She left the room and proceeded on to the next one, smashing the door open once again. Another two girls. But these two were slightly more compos mentis. They squealed in fear as Emily walked in and then they both did a perfect double take as, instead of one of the men, they saw instead a tall blonde teenager.
‘Ki vagy te?’ Asked the one.
‘Sorry,’ apologized Emily. ‘I don’t speak Hungarian.’
‘American?’
Emily nodded.
‘Who are you? What are you doing here? If Vasile or one of his men find you out of your room they will punish you.’
Emily shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘They will try to punish me. Now, talk to me, how many girls are there in the building?’
Neither girl answered. Instead they huddled together, their faces masks of terror. Shaking.
Emily pointed at one of them. She seemed slightly older and marginally less terrified. ‘You,’ she said. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Nicoleta.’
Emily couldn’t but notice how remarkably beautiful the girl was, notwithstanding the abuses that she had suffered. ‘You tell me, how many girls here?’
She shook her head. ‘I not sure. Many girls. Sometimes more, sometimes less. They do not let us out of the rooms much. Then once a month or so they take girls away and new girls come.’
‘Where do they take them?’
‘Not know,’ said Nicoleta. ‘It will soon be our turn to go. Once we have been salted.’
‘Salted?’ Asked Em.
Nicoleta nodded. ‘They give us drugs. Even if we don’t want. Much drugs. Then they send men, filthy animals, to do stuff to us,’ she looked down, her face a picture of self loathing and disgust. ‘Soon we do anything for drugs. Anything. We become worse than garbage.’
Emily shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘It isn’t your fault. It is they who are the lowest of the low. Not you.’
Nicoleta started to answer but instead she reeled back in shock and screamed.
Emily turned around to see the gunman standing in the doorway, a look of utter surprise on his face. ‘Is you,’ he said. ‘You not in room.’ He looked at the shattered lock. ‘How you do this?’ he enquired. ‘You got hammer?’
‘For sure, yeah,’ said Emily, imitating the man’s accent. ‘I got big sledgehammer.’
The gun man pointed the AK47 at her and squinted suspiciously. ‘Where you hide hammer?’ He asked.
Emily shook her head. ‘Man,’ she said. ‘You definitely win the stupid prize.’
‘Please,’ begged Nicoleta. ‘Do not make him angry. He will punish us all.’
‘No ways, sweetheart,’ said Emily. ‘His punishing days are over. Trust me on that.’
The gun man stepped forwards. ‘On your knees, bitch.’
‘What’s your name?’ Asked Emily.
‘Get on knees,’ shouted the gun man in return. ‘Now.’
‘First tell me your name.’
The gun man looked puzzled as the absurdity of the situation got to him. ‘Is Eugen, why?’
‘I think that it’s only polite to know a man’s name before you kill him,’ said Emily.
Eugen stepped forward and raised the AK47 jabbing it at Emily’s face in an attempt to smash the barrel into her temple.
It was the last thing that he ever did.
Blood sprayed from his ruined throat as Emily slashed it wide open, tearing away his veins, arteries and esophagus in a welter of gore.
She caught the gun before it hit the floor, checked that it had a round in the chamber and then swung it over her shoulder, hanging by the leather strap.
Behind her both of the girls whimpered in terror.
‘You girls stay here,’ said Emily. ‘I’m going to take a look around, take some names and kick some butt.’
The Shadowhunter ghosted out of the room and down the corridor. For the first time since she had been bitten Emily walked with a purpose. She was doing some good and it filled her with righteous ire. She may be Nosferatu, she may have to feed off human blood and she may be the incarnation of darkness but, by God, she was not going to allow what was happening in this building to continue. And as she walked down the corridor she vowed that her quest would not stop there.
The criminal underworld of Budapest was in for a rude awakening.
She swung the AK47 off her shoulder and carried it at half port, ready to rock and roll.
A door at the end of the corridor burst open and two armed men stepped out. Before they could react, Emily shot them both in the head, the noise of the assault rifle thundered through the building like the wrath of God.
An alarm sounded, high pitched shrieking as it stridently called the gangsters to arms.
She could hear women screaming. Men shouting. Footsteps running down stairs and corridors.
Emily thought about waiting in the corridor and then taking them out as they entered. But that would likely bottle her in as she was sure that after she dispatched the first couple the rest would back off and wait. Or worse, throw in a couple of grenades. She wasn’t up to speed with what ordnance they possessed or even how many of them there were so she decided to take the attack to them.
She stalked to the end of the corridor and listened. She could detect multiple heartbeats and had to concentrate to separate them. The girls were easy to filter out, their pulses racing but weaker than the men who were high on adrenalin as opposed to drugs. At least six thugs upstairs and another four below.
The sound of footsteps muffled by carpet. Moving slowly. Carefully in an attempt to be silent. Two men climbing the stairs from below, not realizing that there is no such thing as silence to someone with Emily’s enhanced senses.
Em waited until they were almost at the top of the flight, ready to step onto the landing and then she stepped out, lined them up and shot them both in the chest. Two double taps.
Their lifeless bodies tumbled back down to the ground floor. They both carried pistols and Emily scooped them up, slid them into her belt and ran back up the stairs. They were both Tokarev TT-30’s. Crappy relics from the Second World War. But a weapon is a weapon and Emily knew that the more firepower she had, the better.
She detached the AK’s magazine and checked how many rounds were left. It was a twenty round mag as opposed to the usual thirty rounds. She had used six so had fourteen left. She rammed the mag back knowing that she would have to conserve her ammo.
Then she lay on the floor and popped her head around the corner of the landing. Two more men were crouched at the bottom of the stairs. Both carried short submachine guns and as soon as they saw her they let rip. Slugs ricocheted off the walls and splintered the brick work as Emily rolled out of the way.
She heard someone coming down the stairs and knew that the thugs above her were taking advantage of the gunfire to attack. She raised her weapon and, as two men came running into view she opened fire, hitting them in the legs. They tumbled down and she sprang to her feet, ran over to them and quickly dispatched them, breaking their necks with practiced ease.
There was a lull in the fight and then the men at the bottom stated shouting to the men above. Obviously discussing what to do next but it did Emily no good as she couldn’t understand them.
Eventually someone shouted from above her.
‘Hey, who are you?’
Emily decided that answering would do her no good so she simply kept quiet.
‘I’m talking to you,’ the man continued. ‘But if you don’t want to answer me that’s fine, have it your way.’
Emily heard a muffled confab as the men above her discussed their next move. There was the sound of a door opened and then she heard a girl whimpering in fear.
A shot rang out and a body was thrown down the stairs to land in a crumpled heap at the bottom. A mere few feet from Emily. It was a young girl. Like the others that Em had seen she had track marks on her arms and she was scantily dressed. Unlike the others, she had been shot in the head.
‘Every twenty seconds that you don’t answer I will kill another one,’ informed the voice from above. ‘Now, who are you and who are you working for?’
Emily took another look at the dead girl. Blood pooled on the floor under her head. She was still a child. Younger than Emily herself.
And the world seemed to shift.
Emily stood up and walked to the stairs. Eschewing any plan she simply stood at the top, shouted and then slipped the fire select mode to full auto.
‘Hey. Get some.’
Both of the men opened fire as did she. Lead slugs cracked and whistled past her and she felt a slight tug as two of them struck. One in her upper thigh and the other in the side of her torso. She burned off her remaining fourteen rounds in just over two seconds, ripping into the two thugs, killing them instantly.
Then she dropped the assault rifle, drew her two pistols, turned and sprinted up the stairs, her injuries already healing as she ran.
There was nothing that the remaining four gangsters could do. Emily was simply moving too fast. Their meager mortal senses barely had time to register a mere streak of color and a thunder roll of gunshots before they fell to the floor, victims of multiple gunshot wounds.
All except for one of them. The man who had shouted his question to Emily. The man who had killed the young girl.
Emily disabled him swiftly by snap kicking him savagely in both of his knees, smashing them like dry firewood and dropping him to the floor. Then she casually grabbed his pistol from him, snapping his wrist as she did so.
He keened in agony as the pain from his massive injuries washed over him.
Emily waited for him to calm down before she spoke. ‘Vasile Constantin?’
He looked up at her, tears running down his face. ‘Please,’ he gasped. ‘A doctor, for the love of God.’
‘Are you Vasile Constantin?’ Asked Em again.
He nodded.
‘So you run this place? This is your set up?’
The human trafficker stared at Emily for a few seconds before he decided that perhaps she might be merciful if he cooperated fully. He shook his head. ‘No,’ he denied. ‘I am just a soldier. A nothing. A caretaker, if you will. There are another four such establishments dotted around the city. They are controlled by the Foldessy Family. Powerful men. I fear that you have made a big mistake. Now, please, I have cell phone here, use it to phone doctor for me.’
Emily shook her head. ‘Where were the doctors for these girls? Tell me, where are the Foldessy Family based?’
Despite his pain Vasile started to laugh, a low grating sound. ‘Why? You think that you can fight them?’
Emily went down on one knee, brought her face close to Vasile’s and then bared her fangs, allowing them to grow in front of him. Then she growled.
The gangster almost fainted in fear. ‘Istenem segits,’ he whispered. ‘God help me. What are you?’
‘I am death,’ said Emi
ly. ‘Now where can I find the Family headquarters?’
As she spoke she heard the sound of vehicles pulling up in the street outside. Many vehicles.
‘There is no need,’ whispered Vasile. ‘When you attacked us and we set of the alarm, it also sounds in the Family headquarters. Those cars that you hear, that is them. And even you, the very devil itself, cannot stand against the Foldessy’s. There are too many and they are too powerful. They are an army.’
Emily stood, went over to the window and looked down at the street. At least ten cars and SUV’s had arrived. And out of them jumped men. Men dressed in black combat gear like a SWAT team. Automatic weapons, machine guns, grenade launchers. Thirty, maybe forty of them.
‘Oh, crap,’ mumbled Emily.
‘Vasile laughed out loud. ‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘Oh very much crap for you. But if you treat me well then perhaps they will be lenient to you. Do me no more harm and I will put in good word for you. Okay? You agree?’
Emily walked over to the trafficker of young girls, grabbed him by the throat and threw him out of the window as hard as she could.
In the street below the gathering forces saw a man come crashing through the window, sail through the air and smash heavily into the opposite building some twenty yards away before bouncing back to land in the middle of the icy street, the body limp and broken like a sack of rotten fruit.
Chapter 23
Troy came running back into the restaurant. ‘She’s not there,’ he blurted out. ‘She’s gone.’
‘Hold on,’ said Sylvian. ‘Calm down. What do you mean she’s gone?’
‘I went out for a smoke and decided to check on Emily. She wasn’t in the bus. She’s not in the restroom, or the shop. I even climbed onto the top of the bus and I couldn’t see her anywhere. She’s gone.’