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  Larson let the statement hang in the air and I was about to respond with something defensive and indignant. I caught myself before the words came out and I called to Chris, “Chris!”

  He didn't look up from his knee, “Yo!”

  “Chaperone service!”

  Now Chris looked up, “For you or me?”

  I sighed and looked back at Larson, “Me.”

  Chris looked surprised at my response and Alpha turned his attention toward me as well. “Oh,” Chris managed, “well, all-righty then.” He tossed the icepack on a table and shuffled over to me, “Let's do this.”

  I could feel all eyes in the room on the back of my head as I moved to the rear door, unlocked the padlock and slid the chains away. Through the door was a large but simple storage area, having one corner completely enclosed, floor to ceiling, with a heavy gauge chain-link fence. The lockable area was a major reason we had chosen this location as our base, but instead of using it to secure valuable equipment or other items of worth, we had locked our “guest” inside.

  The man’s name was Timberland. Not a first or last name, as far as we knew, but it appeared as though “Timberland” was identification enough for most people. Larson had called in a favor from a friend of his in the FBI, and we had what appeared to be a complete history of the man’s activities dating back twenty years. Before that, the guy was a mystery. It was as if he just popped into existence as a guerilla fighter and mercenary at the age of eighteen.

  I walked closer to the cage, pulled a folding chair away from where it stood leaning against a wall and opened it. Never taking his eyes off of me, Timberland faced me and knelt into a crouch like a catcher waiting for a pitch, while I sat on the chair.

  I felt Chris walking up next to me and I turned to whisper, “Chris, give us some space, would you?”

  Chris didn’t say anything, he just backed up to stand against the rear wall of the room as I leaned forward in my chair, my face less than a foot from the chain fence that served as a wall of Timberland’s cage, and just stared at the man crouching before me. Timberland returned the look, but his expression had a fierceness to it that seemed as primal as any apex predator. I could tell that despite the barrier between us Timberland’s body was taut and ready to react, in either attack or retreat, depending on whatever I was planning.

  I don’t know if I surprised him or not, but he jolted slightly when I simply asked, “What did Whelan do to you?”

  Timberland’s face lost its ferocity, and a look of genuine concern as if a long held secret had been suddenly and completely exposed.

  “He get you hooked on something?” I asked, “Something that you're hurting for now?”

  Timberland smiled at my question and shook his head. He stood to his full height and stretched his arms before answering me, “Nothing so basic as drug addiction, I assure you.”

  “What then?” Timberland seemed reluctant to tell me, so I added, “Listen, I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what you need.”

  Timberland’s face never lost its smile, “You want to help me? Really?” Timberland made a show of looking at the cage, “Doesn’t seem like it.”

  “In all fairness, you did try to kill us.”

  “You were a soldier, right?” Timberland asked rhetorically. “Then you know it wasn’t a personal thing. I was on one side and you people on the other. Simple as that.”

  In fact, I was never in the military, but I am and have been what my people call a “Hunter” for almost as long as I have been alive. In the past, Hunters would go out and collect the blood my people needed in order to survive. How they got it? Well, that wasn’t always a friendly “social service.” Today we have resources that sustain us without our needing to hurt anyone, but I was still trained to be highly proficient in some very ugly and violent skills, just in case I would ever have to use them at some unknown time in the future. Having said that, I have never fought as a soldier. I have never faced and fought in order to kill a foe for no other reason than because someone in an organization with more authority than I possessed told me that I should. Every time I had ever resorted to violence it was because there had been a threat either to my extended family or to me personally while I had been a detective with the LAPD. I have also fought with lethal force in a defensive manner, but I’ve never harmed a hair on anyone who wasn’t a threat. I had never really thought about it before, but a soldier is told to go somewhere and fight, maybe even die, because it was his or her ‘duty’ and obligation to do so. There’s no actual malice toward the human being that a soldier finds in the crosshairs of their rifle, there is only the knowledge that, if the role were reversed, then that person would pull the trigger just as quickly.

  Finally I said, “So it wasn’t personal? So what? That just means it wouldn’t be personal if you killed me or my people once I let you free.”

  Timberland chuckled and shrugged, “I suppose that’s true. So how do we fix this?”

  I held up a key to the padlock of Timberland’s cage, “We figure out a way for both of us to get what we want.”

  Timberland froze and his eyes darted from my face to the key and back again.

  I said, “I’m thinking it’s the only way to make this work.”

  Timberland moved as close to me as the cage would allow and knelt back down into that crouched position again.

  “I take it, as I am not dead or already free, that you didn’t find what you were looking for at the strip club?”

  I nodded, “We found Pollard, but the girls weren’t with him.”

  Timberland nodded his understanding back, “So that just means Pollard turned them over to Lagos.”

  I didn’t say anything and Timberland read my silence before he said, “But you knew that already, right?”

  “Yes,” I answered, “so the question becomes, where do we look next?”

  Timberland began shifting a little and his face melted into an uncomfortable expression.

  “You know where he is, don’t you?” My voice grew in volume and a dangerous edge I hadn’t intended found its way into my words.

  Timberland’s eyes met mine and then looked down to the floor before he replied, “I think I do.”

  “You think?!”

  “Can’t be sure,” Timberland admitted, “but it’s really the only logical location.”

  “Where?”

  Timberland stood and took a couple steps away from his side of the cage, “That information will cost you that key.”

  I shot up from the chair and grabbed the fence, screaming, “You tell me where or I’ll rip you apart and leave you in that cage to die!”

  Timberland had jumped back another step as I exploded from the chair and clawed at the fence like I was trying find a weak point to get through. I heard Chris take a couple steps toward me as well and I did my best to calm myself as Timberland smiled smugly at me.

  “That isn’t going to happen and we both know it.” The tone of Timberland's voice made my ire rise again and I immediately tried harder to recompose myself, but not before Larson came running into the room.

  Larson was aiming his assault rifle with the red laser sight’s beam penetrating through the cage and producing a red dot in the center of Timberland’s chest.

  Chris had a hand on my shoulder and was talking quietly so only I could hear him, “What’s up?”

  I struck the cage as I turned away, “He knows where the girls are.”

  Chris looked at me with concern, but then turned to Timberland and smiled, “He does, does he?”

  Something in Chris' expression must have unhinged the man as he immediately objected, “I didn’t say that! I said that I believe I know the only logical place where Dimitri Lagos would be.”

  Larson's eyes were darting back and forth between Timberland and me, but didn’t miss a beat, “And where is that?”

  Timberland looked down to the red dot on his chest and swallowed, “The cost of that information is the key to the cage.”

&nb
sp; Larson looked like he was about to laugh when he said, “Okay, the information for the key.”

  Timberland pointed a finger at the red laser dot on his chest, “Mind pointing that somewhere else.”

  “That wasn’t part of the deal.”

  Timberland seemed to regain his nerve, “I think you are missing the spirit of the deal.”

  “You want to check with your attorney, first?” Chris asked unhelpfully.

  “Fine,” Timberland sighed and rolled his eyes, “I’ll be more specific. That information is the last of what I have to give and, after that, I am going to be useless to you. That means things can only go from bad to worse for me, so I have to…”

  As he spoke Timberland’s voice suddenly faded to silence and his eyes grew wide as they focused on something behind me. I turned to see Alpha and William ducking through the doorframe to enter the storage area. Alpha was as intimidating and as alien looking an image that anyone could imagine; however, it was William that Timberland’s eyes were focused on, as the captured man’s body began uncontrollably shaking with fear.

  Seeing the apprehension in Timberland, I made a decision. I walked over to the cage and used the key to unlock the padlock and opened the door. Timberland quickly looked at the open door, but didn’t move from where he stood in the cage.

  “You have a deal,” I dropped the key on the floor just inside the cage.

  Chris called to me with quiet warning in his voice, “Steve?”

  “Go get a laptop with Wi-Fi, Chris.”

  I could feel Chris’ eyes on me, but he backtracked his way out of the room without a word.

  Larson kept the red laser dot on Timberland’s chest and never turned his head as he asked, “You know if you let him go and the information turns out to be a ruse, then we’ll have lost our only asset.”

  “Yep,” I confirmed as I walked into the cage, “but you aren’t going to lie to us are you?”

  Timberland didn’t nod his head rapidly in panic, but it was clear the man was terrified as his words broke when he said, “I-It’s all I have left to give you.”

  Chris came back into the room, sat on the floor and opened the laptop.

  I started to say, “Can you turn on that GPS…” when the computer erupted in a piercing cacophony of electronic music that someone had once told me was called “Dub-Step.” It was an often repeating, bubbly and obnoxious sound that was guaranteed to make your brain drip out of your left ear if you listened to it for too long without being under the influence of narcotics.

  All eyes turned to Chris who quickly closed the laptop in embarrassment, “Um, sorry. I had my earphones on when I last used the...” he pointed to the computer helplessly, “...you know.”

  Chris ran a finger to the side of the computer and apparently hit a “mute” switch, because the computer remained silent when he opened it again.

  “Um, okay… so you were saying something about a “GPS” or whatever?” Chris asked seemingly desperate to change the subject.

  I closed my eyes and took a deep calming breath, “I want that thing where we can see locations in real time. Maybe a satellite shot or something like that?”

  “Ah, gotcha. One sec.”

  Chris’ fingers flew across the keyboard with only a couple brief pauses for connections to be made before he said, “Okay, tell me where to look.”

  I turned to Timberland, “You’re on.”

  Sheepishly Timberland said, “Nazran.”

  Larson’s eyes shot wide from behind his rifle and he slowly lowered the weapon to his side.

  “Nazran? As in Ingushetia, the Russian Republic? Are you sure?” Larson asked.

  Timberland nodded, “Dimitri Lagos basically owns the entire city. I was supposed go there to deliver…” The mercenary paused as he turned to look at William, “Well, you know.”

  I nodded, “That’s pretty much all that Pollard had told us before…” my voice trailed off but, of course, Chris was there to pick up where I left off in his own inscrutable way.

  Chris didn’t look up from his computer screen but indicated with a thumb in William’s direction, “Bigfoot stepped on his head. It went ‘squish.’ Literally.”

  Timberland’s eyes darted from Chris to William and back again in rapid succession before Larson broke the momentary silence.

  “And now we have confirmation.” Larson cursed, “Well, shit.”

  “What?” I asked.

  Larson walked over to Chris, “One of the worst Goddamn assignments I ever had was in that corrupt cesspool.”

  “When was this?” Timberland asked.

  Larson stood over Chris as he looked at the computer screen, “September,’93.”

  Timberland snorted an ironic laugh, “Well, it’s a hell of a lot worse now, and I certainly wasn’t looking forward to going there.”

  “Okay, I located a satellite that can visualize the city as a whole or center on a specific street, anything more specific?”

  I raised my eyebrows at Timberland who shrugged his shoulders, “I was going to be given a location once I arrived.”

  “So you want to give me a random city in the middle of Russia and I’m supposed to do… what?”

  “Just wait until nightfall,” Timberland suggested. “I told you, Lagos owns the city and is running it like some kind of den of depravity for thrill seeking party goers. He’ll turn up. Just keep an eye on the screen and focus in on any hot spots of activity.”

  “Why would an ancient vampire want a...?” Chris had started to ask the question before the obvious answer popped in his head, “oh, never mind.”

  I looked around the room and saw multiple heads shaking “no” at me. Timberland noticed it too and said, “I know, the information is thin.” He glanced down to the key on the floor in front of him, picked it up and held it out to me, “Give this back once you locate him on that thing.”

  I looked over at Chris who offered, “Might as well, I’m going to lose this satellite picture in,” he checked the computer screen, “twenty three minutes anyway. There won’t be another in range until half past midnight Nazran time.”

  I shrugged and looked around the room for anyone to voice an objection. When none came I held out my hand to Timberland and he casually dropped the key into my outstretched hand.

  All the hard expressions in the room softened a bit as I backed out of the cage.

  Timberland sighed, “Mind if I use the facilities before you lock me up again?”

  Chapter 6

  Pokrovskoye, Siberia. 1914.

  Summer in Pokrovskoye, Siberia was the only time of year where the average daytime temperatures almost reached the freezing point. Currently the temperature was a mere twenty degrees and Alexei had to wear several layers of clothing to protect himself from the cold as he walked across the patches of permafrost that crunched under each footstep despite his attempts to keep his noise to a minimum. His hands were feeling slightly numb at this point and he was considering returning empty handed to the village, but the thought of enduring the scoldings of his teacher Rasputin quickly erased any such inclination he might have had.

  He was less than a mile from the village where he and Rasputin would travel once or twice a year so the Starets could either visit with his family or drink excessively with his friends. Alexei felt cooped up the instant they had arrived and his restlessness had gotten the better of him the second he saw the animal tracks along the outskirts of the village. He recognized the track immediately as belonging to a large reindeer, not an unusual track for this area since the villagers raised these animals for transportation, leather goods and food; however, these tracks were of a lone animal with no signs of being part of any herd, domesticated or otherwise.

  Although Alexei was only ten years old he had become an exceptional student in the art of tracking and hunting. Rasputin had made sure of that and made sure that the Tsar’s game hunters would take Alexei out on several of their hunting expeditions and instruct him in those skills along the way.
No one in the royal family understood why Rasputin was putting such emphasis on this particular subject; however, they did see a change in Alexei both physically and emotionally whenever he returned with the hunters. Given Alexei’s otherwise frail countenance under normal circumstances, he would always return looking exceedingly robust after the hunt, which made the Tsar and Tsaritsa even more convinced of Rasputin’s genius.

  Alexei never told anyone his secret, not even Rasputin, about what he did when he was left alone with the day’s kill. As an apprentice to the hunters Alexei was always tasked with the duties of hanging and dressing the kills while the hunters cleaned themselves and their weapons before the evening meal. With a little bit of imagination, not to mention the fact that the hunters were always eager to get to their drinking after the hunt had ended, Alexei was able to concoct a viable story that enabled him to perform the bleeding and skinning of the animals out of sight of the otherwise preoccupied hunters. It was at this time when Alexei could no longer resist the temptation that burned within him the moment the hunting party collected their fallen prey. Now that he was alone to set about his grizzly duties, Alexei would gorge himself on the still warm blood of the freshly killed animals. Sometimes he feasted with such intent that he would have to regurgitate before subsequently resuming his insatiable consumption, until no blood remained. The duty was doubly convenient as everyone at camp mistook his blood-spattered appearance for youthful enthusiasm in the performance of his duties as opposed to the more macabre reality. Alexei never understood why he suddenly had this desperate need when he left the city for the countryside, but he was thankful that he wasn’t ever overcome at home; as he feared what he might do if he was ever tempted with no animal resource.

  Now Alexei was alone and convinced of his ability to make his first solo kill. Strangely, he wasn’t overwhelmed with the need for the blood like he usually was when he left the city, but the thrill of the hunt weakened his resolve to resist. He held the barrel of the rifle directly in front of him as he continued forward, following the tracks until he saw his quarry less than forty yards in the distance. Alexei had watched the hunters load, shoot, and reload the rifles they used so many times that he felt he could do it on his own with ease. When he had stolen the rifle from the blacksmith’s shed earlier he was relieved to find it already loaded with its single shot capacity. This meant he didn’t have to steal any ammunition, which would have been exceedingly more difficult.