Bishop's Flight, page 7
“Fuck all the way back to Dublin, you glorified gopher. And tell your wife I said hello.” Carwyn was smiling when he got off the phone. He tapped on the divider, and the window rolled down. “Wallace is letting his manager know we’re coming and has instructed her to cooperate.”
Bernard turned and looked through the window. “We’ll head to the… less reputable clubs first. It’s more likely that Zasha fed there. We can ask about the girl at the nicer clubs. There are two in particular that human pets tend to frequent when they want to be bitten.”
The girl Lucas knew as Angel was definitely human according to his guards. She’d tried to strike up a conversation with the boy a few times at the casino, which put the guards on alert.
“They’d been talking before he slipped his guards,” Carwyn said. “She planned this.”
“I’m sure they did. Lucas is a very bright young man.” Bernard looked grim. “Guarding him has been a challenge since he was a child.”
“I’m surprised Rose ever let him leave the house.”
Bernard had nothing to say. Carwyn had met the type before and could spot loyalty in the man’s carriage. He’d worked for Agnes and Rose for decades. Nothing could convince him to say a cross word about his mistresses.
“Vampires with power produce enemies no matter who they are,” Carwyn said. “Human family members are always targets.”
“This enemy was unprovoked.”
“Surely this isn’t the first challenge to their power.”
He’d bet that the two women had suffered more than their share of opportunists who underestimated them. They were young in the vampire world and relatively inexperienced.
“This is the first challenge that has violated their aegis like this.”
Carwyn frowned. “Zasha Sokholov doesn’t follow any accepted rules of combat.”
“Apparently not.”
They pulled into a strip mall where neon lights flickered in the window and a crooked beer sign pointed to the entrance of the club. The cars in the parking lot were a mix of rusted beaters and discreet luxury sedans.
“Feeding club?”
“We’ll start with the seediest” —Bernard got out of the car and straightened his suit— “and work our way up. I hope you fed before you joined me, because I would not advise tasting anything on the menu here.”
Carwyn glanced at the sign over the awning. Desert Craving. It was made of cracked vinyl, and there were at least three lights out, leaving the sign looking more like Dese t ravin.
“They don’t even clear enough to fix the sign?” Profitability was usually a given in a vampire club. Humans craved the bite, and vampires were happy to pay for it. It was as much of a no-brainer as humans and casinos.
“Oh, they clear plenty.” Bernard slid on a pair of blue mirrored sunglasses. “They just like this place exactly the way it is.”
They went to three clubs before they had any success, and they got their first hit at Tequila Chaser, Gavin’s country-and-western establishment near Fremont Street.
“Oh, this girl.” Gavin’s manager Justine was cooperative. “Yeah, I’ve seen her. She likes the older ones, but she hasn’t caused any issues here. I told her no feeding was allowed in the club except from designated donors, but she just picks them up and takes them other places.” She shrugged. “You know how bite addicts are.”
There was country-and-western music blaring over the speakers in the club, and a mechanical bull was tossing pretty young men and women off its back as the crowd whooped and hollered.
It was hardly the atmosphere Gavin cultivated in most of his clubs, but Carwyn had to admit the place was packed. It was a caricature of a cowboy bar, and many vampires were dressed the part. Carwyn had even seen a pair of chaps with fringe down the side.
“How long has she been coming around?” Bernard asked.
“Maybe two or three weeks? I don’t notice all the bite bunnies, but she stood out with that hair and that skin. I thought she was your kind at first.”
“Why?”
“I mean, most people around here aren’t that pale, and…” Justine shrugged. “Just her manners, I guess. She felt older than she looked. That’s usually a clue.”
It might also indicate the young woman had been raised by vampires.
“Did you get a name?”
“I didn’t, but it would probably have been fake if I had. You can check with the security guys if you want. If she had an out-of-country ID or something, it might have stood out.”
“Did she have an accent?”
“Yes, Russian,” Justine said. “We get enough of them here that I can recognize it.”
Bernard asked, “Do you remember who she was spending time with?”
“Mostly old rich vamps looking for blood and sex. She seemed to like men and women equally.” Justine frowned. “Actually, there was someone who caught my attention because it seemed like they were going to have a problem but they ended up just talking.” She snapped her fingers. “Sokholov.”
“Zasha Sokholov?”
Justine frowned. “I don’t know who that is, but this was one of the clan soldiers. I don’t know his name. Dark hair and a cross tattoo right in the center of his neck. Kind of the typical look for that crowd.”
“Do they come here a lot?”
“Not a lot, but when one of the bosses is in town, they’ll usually go to Gavin’s other place” —Justine smiled— “the one without the bull, if you know what I mean. The bosses go there to talk business, and some of the soldiers hang out here. They like girls in tight outfits and cowboy hats.” She put on a Russian accent. “Very, very American.”
Bernard smirked. “Thanks, Justine.”
“Anytime, Bernie.” She winked at him. “Gavin tells me Rose and Agnes need a favor, we’re always happy to help. We like things nice and boring here in our little corner of the desert.” The crowd whooped as another person went flying off the bull. “Our version of boring anyway.”
“You said something about the door guards?” Carwyn asked.
“Sure.” She slid out of the booth and held out her hand. “Let me take you over.”
“Oh yeah, I remember her.” The guard was a burly human with a thick neck and tattoos on his neck, but these reminded Carwyn of the designs he’d seen among Latino men in Los Angeles, not Russian gang tattoos. “Anna something?”
“Not Anna,” his partner said. “Alina but call her Angel.” The man smirked. “Typical bite bunny. They usually pick some kind of name that’s going to sound more exotic. Like the vamps care.”
Bernard glared at the man and growled.
The human stepped back and his puffed-out chest deflated a bit. “I just mean the girls who want a vampire to notice them, they don’t want to go by Suzy, you know?”
Carwyn put on his soothing voice. “I understand your meaning, but I’ll bet she stood out anyway, didn’t she?”
“I thought maybe she was albino because of the skin and the hair, but her eyes were really blue.”
“And she had roots.” The other guard handed the picture back. “I noticed them the last time she came in. She definitely dyed her hair.”
“Contacts?”
Both men shook their head. “No idea. Her ID was Russian; we could read the birthday. That’s all we care about.”
“Passport?”
“Yeah, but I noticed she had a US license too, so I don’t know if she’s been here for a while or it could have been a fake license.”
“State?”
The men exchanged a glance.
“Not Nevada,” one said. “Not California or Arizona either.”
The other man snapped his fingers. “It was the one with the red, white, and blue flag in the corner.”
“The United States?” his friend asked.
“No, dumbass, a state.”
“Texas,” Bernard said. “Was it Texas?”
“Yeah,” the first guard said. “That was the one. She had a Texas ID.”
Carwyn immediately stepped away and turned on his phone.
Lee answered, and he had clearly been sleeping. “Carwyn, I told you—”
“Alina,” he said. “Look for Alinas with Texas driver’s licenses. There can’t be that many of them. There’s not a huge Russian community in Texas.”
“Alina’s a pretty common name.” The man sighed. “I will start on it first thing in the morning. I can hack into the Texas DMV no problem. Their security is shit.”
“Good. Go back to sleep.”
“This could have been a text, Carwyn.”
“My fingers are too big for the little keyboard.” He snapped the cover back on the phone and walked back to Bernard. “Did they give you anything else?”
“They knew the name of the man Justine mentioned, the soldier from the Sokholov clan.” Bernard looked angry.
“That’s excellent.” That was a lead. “Who was it?”
“His name is Mika Arakas, and I know him because he’s Oleg Sokolov’s enforcer. He always brings Mika when he’s in town.”
Carwyn cocked his head. “Is Oleg in town right now?”
“He got in a week ago.” Bernard’s face was stony. “And Mika was definitely with him.”
Ten
Brigid fought against the dawn, but it was inevitable. Whether she wanted it or not, she and Carwyn were in their day chamber when the sun rose and still had two leads to follow at nightfall.
She fell asleep in Carwyn’s arms and woke at dusk knowing that their first night was gone.
One down. Three left.
“What do we know about Oleg Sokolov?” Brigid asked. “I know Murphy hates him, but that’s ’cause Anne and Oleg are friends and get together a couple of times a year.”
Anne O’Dea was the mate of Brigid’s old boss and the only vampire therapist that Brigid knew of. She’d always wondered if Oleg was a friend or a client, but Anne was tight-lipped about the Russian.
“Well, he’s not a sociopath, because Anne wouldn’t be friends with a sociopath,” Carwyn said. “He’s a complicated figure who lives in a brutal world. His sire was a madman, and the scattered remnants of his extended family tend to feed into the worst stereotypes about Russian vampires, so you can imagine he’s cranky about Zasha.”
Oleg Sokolov.
The difference in spelling was intentional. Oleg had spent centuries distancing himself from the more brutal family he shared a sire with.
That sire was dead, and rumors said that Oleg had been the one to finally kill the old man.
“Two fire vampires from the same sire?” Brigid said. “That’s unusual.”
“I’ve heard Russians say something along the lines of ‘The smoke of hate hides the fire of fear.’” Carwyn’s arm came around Brigid. “Old Sokholov’s children were sired in fear. He cultivated it among his offspring. It’s no wonder that two of his children were sired to fire.”
“Could Oleg have anything to do with this?” Brigid asked. “Do ya think he knows what shite Zasha is up to?”
“I doubt it, but there’s only one way to find out.” He kissed her forehead. “Time to go ask for an audience with the Russian.”
But before they met with the Russian, they needed to update Agnes and Rose and find out what Lee had discovered about Alina during the day.
They dressed in haste, both wearing black to blend in with the Las Vegas crowds. As much as Carwyn could ever blend in.
“Tell me something good,” Brigid said to Lee when they exited their day chamber.
“Alina Oorzhak, and you’re welcome.” He pulled up a file with a picture, a birth certificate, and a passport. “Born in 1997, she’s twenty-six years old, and she was surrendered to the state when she was seven. Parents both died in a car accident.”
“Horrible,” Brigid muttered. “She’s young. When does she pop up again?”
“No school records that I could find, but she applied for a passport when she turned eighteen, and since then she’s traveled pretty extensively. No employment on record, so someone else is paying the bills.”
“Zasha?”
“Definitely could be.” Lee turned his chair toward them. “She entered the US for the first time three years ago on a tourist visa and has been hopping in and out of the country since.”
“Interesting.”
“She got an ID in Dallas using a forged birth certificate, uses that for getting around in the States.”
“Does she have an address in Dallas?”
“Only real address on record is an apartment in Moscow that seems abandoned and a mailing address here in the States.” He turned and clicked to the next screen. “A public mailbox in San Francisco.” There was video on the screen of a dark-haired Alina going into a storefront with sunglasses and a hoodie on. She gathered a bunch of mail from a small box, tossed most of it, then walked out of the store with a few items clutched under her arm. “That’s all, folks.”
“That’s a lot,” Carwyn said. “Good job, Lee.”
“And Brigid, I tracked down that server you got the phone number for last night. Her name is Savannah Smith, and she’s a part-time dancer at a club here in town in addition to her job serving at the hotel. I called and she’s working tonight.”
“A dancer?” Brigid asked. “Like for one of those fancy casino shows?”
“Uh…” Lee looked uncomfortable. “No, a dancer as in she takes off her clothes and spins around on a pole at the Pink Daiquiri nightclub in Henderson.”
“Oh right.” Brigid blinked. “Well, at least it’s not cold.”
Carwyn was trying to hide his smile. “Indeed.”
“Okay, let’s head to the Del Marco and update Agnes and Rose.”
“We may need to use them to contact the Russian too.”
Lee’s eyebrows went up. “Anytime I hear a nickname that’s just a nationality, I’m wary.”
“You should be.” Carwyn put his hand on the small of Brigid’s back and ushered her to the door. “Keep your phone on.”
Agnes was stony faced, and Rose was mildly frantic. The girl, luckily, was not in the room.
“We got another photo today.” Agnes handed it over to Carwyn. “Three nights.”
Brigid took the photo and examined it. Unlike previous photographs, in this one the young man was not blindfolded and he stared straight at the camera without a single sign of fear.
Rose was pacing in the office. “He’s not blindfolded. That means he’s seen their faces. That means they’re going to kill him.”
“I’m sure they might think they will,” Brigid said. “But we’ve already made progress. We found a young woman Lucas was talking with and messaging. We suspect she’s the reason he ditched school and his guards. We’ve identified her, and we’d like your help setting up a meeting with Oleg Sokolov. Bernard mentioned he was in town.”
Agnes and Rose exchanged a look.
“Does Oleg have something to do with Zasha?” Rose’s lower lip was trembling. “We always assumed they weren’t connected even though they had that same nasty man as a sire.” Her fangs dropped down and she bared her teeth. “Bring him to me!”
“Rose.” Agnes’s voice was sharp. “Let them speak.”
“We don’t know that he’s connected to Zasha, but his enforcer—”
“Mika Arakas,” muttered Agnes.
Carwyn took over. “Arakas was seen arguing with the young woman who was messaging Lucas. We think the young woman is connected to Zasha, but Arakas seemed to know who she was.”
“The Russian has a house here in town that he keeps for his people to use,” Agnes said. “I’ll have Bernard call them and tell them you need a meeting.”
“Give my name first,” Brigid said.
Carwyn stared at her.
“I’ve a connection to Anne, and Oleg and Anne are friends. He won’t consider me a threat, and he won’t wanna piss off Murphy.”
“Two fire vampires in the same room?”
“I’m too young for him to consider me a threat.”
“Fine.” Carwyn clearly wasn’t happy. “But don’t think you’re going alone.”
“We have two leads,” Brigid said quietly. “And limited time. I’ll take Bernard. You and Miguel should go find Savannah and see if she knows who the businessman is.”
He raised an eyebrow. “My darling girl, are you forcing me to go to a strip club in Henderson?”
She smirked. “Better you than me.”
Brigid sat in the back with Bernard as their driver was waved through the gates of a large compound in a gated neighborhood along the shores of Lake Las Vegas. There were thick walls around the property, and shaded walkways, stark landscaping, and bubbling fountains decorated the grounds.
The house itself was a brutal concrete facade with very few windows and broad balconies stacked on three levels. Ornate tiles decorated the front of the house, which was painted a stark white.
“So warm and cozy,” Brigid muttered.
“Oh yes, when Oleg Sokolov comes to mind, the first word I always think of is cozy.”
Guards were everywhere, nearly all of them with the heavy black tattoos on their neck and face that characterized Russian organized crime.
Scattered among the human guards, the vampire lieutenants were conspicuous for their clear complexions and neat suits. The humans might be wearing the uniform of a gangster, but Oleg’s own men looked like business professionals.
“He was cooperative about us comin’?”
“More than cooperative—he seemed happy on the phone.” Bernard pursed his lips. “Damn near jolly.”
“Why is that more frightening?”
“I don’t know, but I agree.”
They drove up to the main gate, and a man in a suit opened the car door. Brigid and Bernard slid out, nodding at the collection of vampires around them.
“Brigid Connor.” A tall man appeared at the top of the steps and spread his arms. “Dear friend of my friend Anne.”
Oleg Sokolov was tall and barrel-chested with a thick brown beard and closely cropped dark brown hair cut to military precision. His face was angular and handsome with high cheekbones and a honed jaw marked by a vicious scar that crawled down his neck to his collarbone. His eyes were a smudged grey, and his lips were sensuously full.
