Black of Hearts, page 44
part #12 of Quentin Black Mystery Series
A bear rug, complete with head, claws, and tail, lay on the floor between the leather furniture and the hearth.
I counted seven dead bodies.
Half-finished drinks stood on the low, carved-wood table.
Two cigars smoldered in stone ashtrays.
One smoldered on an expensive-looking rug.
A few more rocks glasses, half-filled with melted ice and clear liquid stood on the marble mantle.
The room had the air of a gentleman’s parlor more than a library, but I wondered what they were all doing in here. Having a meeting? Getting wasted on vodka and smoking Cuban cigars? Unlike the bodies on the floor above, these men didn’t appear to be armed, and none of them wore combat clothes, or armor.
I didn’t see any guns.
Realizing Solonik must have killed all of them, just like he had the soldiers and guards upstairs, I frowned, staring around at the scattered corpses.
All of them were men.
All of them wore business suits, complete with jacket and tie.
Most were in the forties range. I saw one who was older, maybe in his sixties or seventies. Another may have been in his mid to late thirties.
I followed Nick, walking around the strangely dated carpet––a thick beige, rust, gold, and red thing made up of large and small diamond shapes. I noted another of those round, weirdly futuristic-looking terrariums in one corner of the room, next to an antique globe and a full suit of armor. I looked at each of the dead men in turn, focusing on their faces.
None were Alexei.
Behind me and Nick, I heard Solonik and Jem muttering to one another. Whatever it was they were arguing about, it wasn’t only in their minds anymore. They were arguing out loud now, if in soft voices.
Nick must have heard them, too.
He also heard them a lot more accurately than me.
Coming to a dead stop, he frowned, staring back at the two of them.
“What does that mean?” he said, aiming his words and eyes at Jem. “Did he just say that we need a key? What kind of key?”
Solonik looked up from where he’d been huddled by Jem’s ear.
Clearly the seer had forgotten that vampire hearing was better than human hearing, and seer hearing, for that matter.
Solonik wasn’t the only one who looked bewildered, however.
“You speak Russian?” Jem said, his voice openly surprised.
Nick’s face tightened. He glanced at me, then back at Jem.
“Not really,” he said, gruff. “I mean… I understand a little.” When Jem continued to frown, Nick nodded towards Solonik. “I know klyuch, and nyet, eto ne srabotayet. He said something about a key. Right? He said we need a key. He also said what we’re trying to do, using Alexei, won’t work. Or am I understanding that wrong?”
At everyone’s blank stare, Nick looked flustered.
“Am I right?” he said. “Or not?”
Jem walked up to him, the astonished look fading from his face. When he was close enough, he wrapped an arm around Nick’s waist.
“You’re right, brother,” he said, kissing his face.
I blinked a little. I couldn’t help it.
Nick glanced at me, clearly uncomfortable, and muttered, “Fuck. Don’t act like understanding a little Russian is some kind of superpower. I was in Afghanistan for four years. Miri probably knows as much as me, if not more––”
“No,” I said. “I don’t.”
Nick scowled a little in my direction, but didn’t argue.
Jem nodded, but didn’t take his hands off Nick.
In fact, I distinctly got the impression he would have had his hands on more of Nick, if me and Solonik hadn’t been there. I would have laughed, but right then, Solonik hissed in open anger, glaring at Jem.
“Take your fucking pretty boy hands off him, you piece of shit kneeler.”
Panther barked at Solonik.
“Hey!” I said, soft. “Panther. Hush.”
The dog looked at me, surprised.
At my facial expression and hand-signal, he stopped barking. When Solonik moved closer to where Nick and Jem stood, however, Panther growled at him. It was low enough that I didn’t worry people would hear it on other floors; it more just puzzled me.
Panther was already protecting Nick?
Clearly, my dog didn’t see any need to protect Nick from Jem.
Just as clearly, Panther felt differently about Solonik.
I watched the wolfhound stalk in a slow circle around the tall, violet-eyed infiltrator as if measuring him from all sides. The fur on his ruff stuck up; his tail stuck out straight as he lowered his head, his eyes never leaving Solonik.
He growled menacingly the whole time.
Smiling down at Panther, Jem released Nick, most of him at least, but I still saw that intense look in his pale green eyes as he held Nick’s gaze. I also couldn’t help but follow the motion of Jem’s hand as he paused to rub Nick’s chest through the bullet-proof vest.
His voice, on the other hand, shifted to businesslike.
“Yes,” Jem said, matter-of-fact. “To answer your question of before… yes. You heard him correctly, brother.” Pulling his hand briefly off Nick, Jem motioned towards Solonik. “Your pet says the collars they make here, in Russia, don’t use retinal or fingerprint or blood scans to open. He says the ones they make here have keys.”
I frowned, briefly forgetting the weirdness that was Nick and his new boyfriend.
“So Alexei was bullshitting me?” I said.
Nick looked over at me, grunting.
“That surprises you?” he said.
Thinking about that, I admitted,
“Only that he’d be smart enough to do it.”
Still thinking, I added, “Is Solonik sure the key thing is true, though? I mean, they must have gotten the tech from Charles.” I motioned towards the ring around my throat. “There was no organic tech on this version of Earth until Charles began to engineer it. So why would these collars be any different from the ones Charles is using?”
“Solonik says they stole it from Charles,” Jem corrected. “He says Charles would never willingly give humans organic tech… much less organic, sight-restraint tech for use against seers. From what Solonik says, that’s doubly true for these guys.”
Tilting his head sideways, as if listening, Jem nodded.
I realized Solonik was saying something to him again.
“These guys infiltrated Charles, early on,” Jem added, flipping a hand sideways. “Solonik says they figured out early that a good chunk of Charles’ people were ‘different’ and had ‘special skills.’ Apparently, the Russians had their own psychic programs, military ones. Uri comes from the KGB, the Soviet Union. Alexei spent time in the GRU. So the idea wasn’t as foreign to them as it might be to someone in the American military… or American organized crime.”
Jem resumed rubbing Nick’s shoulder, barely seeming to notice he did it.
He glanced at me, adding,
“Even now, they have strong ties to the Kremlin. They were the cause of Charles being booted out of Spetsnaz, Solonik says… and losing access to many of the resources Charles previously had inside Russian military intelligence. Solonik says Charles moved much of his operation to Asia because of this, although he maintains a handful of connections here, via rival factions inside the Kremlin and some of the oligarchs.”
Jem glanced at Solonik, who was still glaring at him.
He was mostly glaring at Jem’s hands touching Nick.
Jem quirked an eyebrow at the other seer, then looked back at the rest of us.
“According to Nick’s pet junkie here––” Jem began sourly.
Solonik growled.
He sounded just like a dog, and from by my feet, Panther growled back, barking his aggressive, big-dog bark.
Fighting a smile, I motioned for Panther to stop, and he did, sitting by my feet and whining as he looked up at me.
“You don’t like being called a junkie?” Jem retorted to Solonik, for the first time looking and sounding genuinely annoyed. “What would you call it, brother? When you hover around him like he belongs to you? Like a drug addict protecting their own private stash––?”
“Jem.”
Nick’s voice was low, a harder warning.
When Jem glanced at him, Nick met his gaze, obviously wanting his boyfriend to stop antagonizing the psychopathic seer infiltrator who had a crush on him.
Jem ignored whatever he saw there.
His hand lingered on Nick’s neck, stroking Nick’s strangely perfect, strangely chalk-white, vampire skin as he went on.
“––Anyway,” Jem went on, his voice still faintly annoyed. “The point is, they had to reverse-engineer tech they stole from Charles. Naturally, they changed things. Solonik says they still don’t understand organics well enough to get them to perform complex tasks. The imprinting tech was too difficult to replicate, so they just remade them with keys.”
I nodded.
It made sense.
Even so, I nodded towards Solonik.
“Is he telling the truth?” Looking at Solonik, I frowned. “I mean, why would he?”
Looking at Solonik, Jem shrugged, then met my gaze.
“He’d eat dogshit if Nick asked him to, and Nick is the one who gave him the order to find Alexei. He only asked me about why because he didn’t want to irritate Nick.”
Pausing, he added more sourly,
“I’m more curious about where everyone is.” Jem’s eyes shifted around the room. “Did Solonik put them all to sleep? Because this can’t be everyone.”
I followed his gaze, frowning along with him as his words sank in.
Jem was right.
What we’d seen so far––it wasn’t enough people.
Moreover, I could see the small, black fixtures on the wall that I now realized were cameras, the same type that had been fitted into the walls and ceiling of my own room. That meant they likely had audio surveillance in here, too.
I glanced at Nick.
He returned my frown, having followed my eyes to the cameras. I could see the wheels turning in his head, right before he walked up to Solonik. Getting close enough to be more or less in the infiltrator’s face, he made his voice gruff, borderline threatening.
“What do you know about this?” he said. “Where are the rest of them, Solonik?”
The seer shrugged, but I could see the hedging there.
Clearly, Nick could, too.
“Solonik,” he growled. “Answer. Now.”
The seer tensed. He was taller than Nick, by an inch maybe, but he lowered his head, somehow making his entire demeanor and posture submissive.
“Yes,” Solonik breathed. “I know.”
I jumped.
It was the first time I’d heard him speak English.
It didn’t occur to me until then that he’d been speaking Prexci, the seer tongue, when he snapped at Jem.
“There is more people,” Solonik went on, his voice close to a whisper. “Some I put to sleep, brother, so they do not bother you. But there are more.”
I knew that low, thickly-accented voice all too well.
But I’d never heard it like this.
He sounded so meek, so fearful, so damned eager and borderline excited that Nick was focusing on him, I barely recognized anything about him. Watching those violet eyes focus hopefully on Nick’s face, I looked for the trick, the manipulation, feeling my bewilderment worsen as I realized there wasn’t one.
Already, it was getting hard to reconcile this new, Nick-obsessed Solonik as the same person I’d been terrified of in San Francisco, much less the one who’d kidnapped me in Thailand. My fear of him was already fading to a sort of repulsed pity.
“I am sorry I did not tell you this, brother,” Solonik breathed. He reached up tentatively, stroking Nick’s hair. “He is right. I do not wish to bother you.”
Nick’s jaw tightened.
Unlike with Jem, I saw him recoil at the other’s touch.
He didn’t push Solonik off him, though.
“When we are upstairs, I handle main construct,” Solonik explained, his eyes eager once more, looking for approval. “I hack this, get them to shoot one another. I take out cameras. I go to ground floor, where there is more security… I shoot them. I find cameras, monitors. I come back upstairs. I look for Alexei.”
“Did you find him?” I said, my voice incredulous.
Solonik gave me a bare look, his eyes full of disdain.
Nick growled at him. “Answer her, goddamn it.”
“Yes,” Solonik said, making himself submissive once more. “I find him. Alexei is inside panic room. With Uri, and others. I can’t get to them there. There is field…” He motions around his body, indicating a kind of sphere shape. “There is no Barrier. I cannot get in. I cannot get them to come out. I come in here…”
He motioned around the bookshelf-filled room, mouth pursed.
“…I also look for something, anyone Alexei care about, maybe. Anything that might bring him out.”
“What floor?” I said. “Where is the panic room?”
Solonik looked at me, scowling. “Seventh floor. Uri’s apartments. Upstairs.”
“Can they hear us?” Jem said, his voice as incredulous as mine. “Do they have access to surveillance? Can they hear us talking right now?”
“No.” Thinking, Solonik frowned. “Da, well… I do not think so. I turn off everything. When I am in security place, I turn it all off. All but one camera, inside panic room.”
Jem, Nick and I exchanged looks.
I honestly couldn’t tell if this was the good news, or the bad news.
I mean, the good news seemed to be that no one was going to shoot at us, at least not right away. The bad news was, we had no idea how to pry them out of the panic room, or who they might have called for reinforcements.
Because of course they would have called for reinforcements.
We could just leave, of course.
We could leave through the snow, steal a car, take our chances on getting the collar off me some other way. But that meant our only way out of the country might be via an airport or a train station, and I wasn’t sure I liked our chances, given where we were.
We could potentially drive to another country.
But that meant time. It still meant border hassles, and it meant a lot of time.
Too much time.
Given what I could feel about Black around the edges of my vision, I didn’t like the idea of taking days, possibly even weeks to get to him.
Moreover, I knew it wouldn’t necessarily be any easier to get out either of those ways, not with a collar around my neck, a vampire in tow who was sensitive to sunlight, and two seers who were pretty obviously not “normal” in terms of their appearance.
If Uri and Alexei were that connected to Russian military and the government, they might have arranged to have alerts posted about us already.
Then there was Charles himself.
Black would have bulletins out with Nick’s face, as well, and probably Dalejem’s.
At least some of this must have been running through Nick’s mind, too.
“Is what you told Jem true?” he said, still frowning at Solonik. “Do we need a key to open Miri’s collar?”
Solonik hesitated, then nodded.
“Why didn’t you tell me that? Why didn’t you tell me that first?”
Solonik’s eyes darted to mine, then back to Nick, showing a faint panic.
“You say nothing about collar, brother,” he said, reaching for Nick again. Nick evaded his hand, and Solonik’s voice turned pleading.
“You say nothing about this!” he said. “You say find assholes who take her, so I look for them. You say protect Jem, so I do this––”
“How would you know about Alexei?” I cut in. I looked at Nick, then back at Solonik. “How did he know to look for Alexei? How did he even know what he looked like?”
Solonik scowled, giving me a hard look.
“I know this piece of shit,” he muttered. “I know Uri. I know Alexei. I know these assholes from before. I work for your uncle, remember? I look for his face.”
Solonik’s eyes shifted back to Nick, his voice lowering to a growl.
“I do this as fast as I can, no questions asked. You do not say why you want him. I think it is not important that I know, that you tell me if I need to know this.”
From behind him, Jem let out an annoyed, obviously skeptical grunt.
Solonik glared at him, his violet eyes cold.
“Fuck you, kneeler. I do not lie.”
“Shut up,” Nick snapped. “Both of you.” He focused back on Solonik, his crystal eyes tinged with scarlet. “Who would have it?”
Solonik looked bewildered. “Have it?”
“The key, Solonik,” Nick growled. “Where should we be looking to find the damned key? Did you see it on the surveillance monitor? Is it definitely in the panic room, with Alexei and the others? Or is it on one of the soldiers, upstairs?”
When Solonik tried to touch his hair instead of answering him, Nick moved his head sharply to the side, knocking the other’s hand away. Solonik looked chastened, but also sulky. He glared briefly at Jem, clearly blaming him.
From Jem’s face and clenched jaw, he wasn’t thrilled with Solonik touching Nick, either.
It struck me suddenly, that Jem wasn’t just disgusted by the other seer; he was jealous. He was jealous enough, I wondered if Nick had been doing more than just feeding on Solonik, especially given how vampires normally fed.
“Solonik?” Nick growled. “Where is the key?”
Solonik tore his eyes off Jem.
His eyes went instantly from predatory to submissive as they focused on Nick.
“I think key is with this Alexei,” he said grudgingly, in his thickly Russian-accented voice. “I see this, when I am looking on surveillance.” He motioned towards his upper chest. “He wear this around neck, like jewelry. I think this is key, what I saw. He is wearing robe. Open collar. So I see this. I notice.”
Nick turned, looking at me.
“Did Alexei wear anything around his neck?” he said.
I frowned.
A memory rose behind my eyes. Alexei’s fingers toying with a chain around his neck. A visible smirk on the Russian’s lips as metal glinted between his fingers, reflecting red and orange hues from the fire’s grate.
I counted seven dead bodies.
Half-finished drinks stood on the low, carved-wood table.
Two cigars smoldered in stone ashtrays.
One smoldered on an expensive-looking rug.
A few more rocks glasses, half-filled with melted ice and clear liquid stood on the marble mantle.
The room had the air of a gentleman’s parlor more than a library, but I wondered what they were all doing in here. Having a meeting? Getting wasted on vodka and smoking Cuban cigars? Unlike the bodies on the floor above, these men didn’t appear to be armed, and none of them wore combat clothes, or armor.
I didn’t see any guns.
Realizing Solonik must have killed all of them, just like he had the soldiers and guards upstairs, I frowned, staring around at the scattered corpses.
All of them were men.
All of them wore business suits, complete with jacket and tie.
Most were in the forties range. I saw one who was older, maybe in his sixties or seventies. Another may have been in his mid to late thirties.
I followed Nick, walking around the strangely dated carpet––a thick beige, rust, gold, and red thing made up of large and small diamond shapes. I noted another of those round, weirdly futuristic-looking terrariums in one corner of the room, next to an antique globe and a full suit of armor. I looked at each of the dead men in turn, focusing on their faces.
None were Alexei.
Behind me and Nick, I heard Solonik and Jem muttering to one another. Whatever it was they were arguing about, it wasn’t only in their minds anymore. They were arguing out loud now, if in soft voices.
Nick must have heard them, too.
He also heard them a lot more accurately than me.
Coming to a dead stop, he frowned, staring back at the two of them.
“What does that mean?” he said, aiming his words and eyes at Jem. “Did he just say that we need a key? What kind of key?”
Solonik looked up from where he’d been huddled by Jem’s ear.
Clearly the seer had forgotten that vampire hearing was better than human hearing, and seer hearing, for that matter.
Solonik wasn’t the only one who looked bewildered, however.
“You speak Russian?” Jem said, his voice openly surprised.
Nick’s face tightened. He glanced at me, then back at Jem.
“Not really,” he said, gruff. “I mean… I understand a little.” When Jem continued to frown, Nick nodded towards Solonik. “I know klyuch, and nyet, eto ne srabotayet. He said something about a key. Right? He said we need a key. He also said what we’re trying to do, using Alexei, won’t work. Or am I understanding that wrong?”
At everyone’s blank stare, Nick looked flustered.
“Am I right?” he said. “Or not?”
Jem walked up to him, the astonished look fading from his face. When he was close enough, he wrapped an arm around Nick’s waist.
“You’re right, brother,” he said, kissing his face.
I blinked a little. I couldn’t help it.
Nick glanced at me, clearly uncomfortable, and muttered, “Fuck. Don’t act like understanding a little Russian is some kind of superpower. I was in Afghanistan for four years. Miri probably knows as much as me, if not more––”
“No,” I said. “I don’t.”
Nick scowled a little in my direction, but didn’t argue.
Jem nodded, but didn’t take his hands off Nick.
In fact, I distinctly got the impression he would have had his hands on more of Nick, if me and Solonik hadn’t been there. I would have laughed, but right then, Solonik hissed in open anger, glaring at Jem.
“Take your fucking pretty boy hands off him, you piece of shit kneeler.”
Panther barked at Solonik.
“Hey!” I said, soft. “Panther. Hush.”
The dog looked at me, surprised.
At my facial expression and hand-signal, he stopped barking. When Solonik moved closer to where Nick and Jem stood, however, Panther growled at him. It was low enough that I didn’t worry people would hear it on other floors; it more just puzzled me.
Panther was already protecting Nick?
Clearly, my dog didn’t see any need to protect Nick from Jem.
Just as clearly, Panther felt differently about Solonik.
I watched the wolfhound stalk in a slow circle around the tall, violet-eyed infiltrator as if measuring him from all sides. The fur on his ruff stuck up; his tail stuck out straight as he lowered his head, his eyes never leaving Solonik.
He growled menacingly the whole time.
Smiling down at Panther, Jem released Nick, most of him at least, but I still saw that intense look in his pale green eyes as he held Nick’s gaze. I also couldn’t help but follow the motion of Jem’s hand as he paused to rub Nick’s chest through the bullet-proof vest.
His voice, on the other hand, shifted to businesslike.
“Yes,” Jem said, matter-of-fact. “To answer your question of before… yes. You heard him correctly, brother.” Pulling his hand briefly off Nick, Jem motioned towards Solonik. “Your pet says the collars they make here, in Russia, don’t use retinal or fingerprint or blood scans to open. He says the ones they make here have keys.”
I frowned, briefly forgetting the weirdness that was Nick and his new boyfriend.
“So Alexei was bullshitting me?” I said.
Nick looked over at me, grunting.
“That surprises you?” he said.
Thinking about that, I admitted,
“Only that he’d be smart enough to do it.”
Still thinking, I added, “Is Solonik sure the key thing is true, though? I mean, they must have gotten the tech from Charles.” I motioned towards the ring around my throat. “There was no organic tech on this version of Earth until Charles began to engineer it. So why would these collars be any different from the ones Charles is using?”
“Solonik says they stole it from Charles,” Jem corrected. “He says Charles would never willingly give humans organic tech… much less organic, sight-restraint tech for use against seers. From what Solonik says, that’s doubly true for these guys.”
Tilting his head sideways, as if listening, Jem nodded.
I realized Solonik was saying something to him again.
“These guys infiltrated Charles, early on,” Jem added, flipping a hand sideways. “Solonik says they figured out early that a good chunk of Charles’ people were ‘different’ and had ‘special skills.’ Apparently, the Russians had their own psychic programs, military ones. Uri comes from the KGB, the Soviet Union. Alexei spent time in the GRU. So the idea wasn’t as foreign to them as it might be to someone in the American military… or American organized crime.”
Jem resumed rubbing Nick’s shoulder, barely seeming to notice he did it.
He glanced at me, adding,
“Even now, they have strong ties to the Kremlin. They were the cause of Charles being booted out of Spetsnaz, Solonik says… and losing access to many of the resources Charles previously had inside Russian military intelligence. Solonik says Charles moved much of his operation to Asia because of this, although he maintains a handful of connections here, via rival factions inside the Kremlin and some of the oligarchs.”
Jem glanced at Solonik, who was still glaring at him.
He was mostly glaring at Jem’s hands touching Nick.
Jem quirked an eyebrow at the other seer, then looked back at the rest of us.
“According to Nick’s pet junkie here––” Jem began sourly.
Solonik growled.
He sounded just like a dog, and from by my feet, Panther growled back, barking his aggressive, big-dog bark.
Fighting a smile, I motioned for Panther to stop, and he did, sitting by my feet and whining as he looked up at me.
“You don’t like being called a junkie?” Jem retorted to Solonik, for the first time looking and sounding genuinely annoyed. “What would you call it, brother? When you hover around him like he belongs to you? Like a drug addict protecting their own private stash––?”
“Jem.”
Nick’s voice was low, a harder warning.
When Jem glanced at him, Nick met his gaze, obviously wanting his boyfriend to stop antagonizing the psychopathic seer infiltrator who had a crush on him.
Jem ignored whatever he saw there.
His hand lingered on Nick’s neck, stroking Nick’s strangely perfect, strangely chalk-white, vampire skin as he went on.
“––Anyway,” Jem went on, his voice still faintly annoyed. “The point is, they had to reverse-engineer tech they stole from Charles. Naturally, they changed things. Solonik says they still don’t understand organics well enough to get them to perform complex tasks. The imprinting tech was too difficult to replicate, so they just remade them with keys.”
I nodded.
It made sense.
Even so, I nodded towards Solonik.
“Is he telling the truth?” Looking at Solonik, I frowned. “I mean, why would he?”
Looking at Solonik, Jem shrugged, then met my gaze.
“He’d eat dogshit if Nick asked him to, and Nick is the one who gave him the order to find Alexei. He only asked me about why because he didn’t want to irritate Nick.”
Pausing, he added more sourly,
“I’m more curious about where everyone is.” Jem’s eyes shifted around the room. “Did Solonik put them all to sleep? Because this can’t be everyone.”
I followed his gaze, frowning along with him as his words sank in.
Jem was right.
What we’d seen so far––it wasn’t enough people.
Moreover, I could see the small, black fixtures on the wall that I now realized were cameras, the same type that had been fitted into the walls and ceiling of my own room. That meant they likely had audio surveillance in here, too.
I glanced at Nick.
He returned my frown, having followed my eyes to the cameras. I could see the wheels turning in his head, right before he walked up to Solonik. Getting close enough to be more or less in the infiltrator’s face, he made his voice gruff, borderline threatening.
“What do you know about this?” he said. “Where are the rest of them, Solonik?”
The seer shrugged, but I could see the hedging there.
Clearly, Nick could, too.
“Solonik,” he growled. “Answer. Now.”
The seer tensed. He was taller than Nick, by an inch maybe, but he lowered his head, somehow making his entire demeanor and posture submissive.
“Yes,” Solonik breathed. “I know.”
I jumped.
It was the first time I’d heard him speak English.
It didn’t occur to me until then that he’d been speaking Prexci, the seer tongue, when he snapped at Jem.
“There is more people,” Solonik went on, his voice close to a whisper. “Some I put to sleep, brother, so they do not bother you. But there are more.”
I knew that low, thickly-accented voice all too well.
But I’d never heard it like this.
He sounded so meek, so fearful, so damned eager and borderline excited that Nick was focusing on him, I barely recognized anything about him. Watching those violet eyes focus hopefully on Nick’s face, I looked for the trick, the manipulation, feeling my bewilderment worsen as I realized there wasn’t one.
Already, it was getting hard to reconcile this new, Nick-obsessed Solonik as the same person I’d been terrified of in San Francisco, much less the one who’d kidnapped me in Thailand. My fear of him was already fading to a sort of repulsed pity.
“I am sorry I did not tell you this, brother,” Solonik breathed. He reached up tentatively, stroking Nick’s hair. “He is right. I do not wish to bother you.”
Nick’s jaw tightened.
Unlike with Jem, I saw him recoil at the other’s touch.
He didn’t push Solonik off him, though.
“When we are upstairs, I handle main construct,” Solonik explained, his eyes eager once more, looking for approval. “I hack this, get them to shoot one another. I take out cameras. I go to ground floor, where there is more security… I shoot them. I find cameras, monitors. I come back upstairs. I look for Alexei.”
“Did you find him?” I said, my voice incredulous.
Solonik gave me a bare look, his eyes full of disdain.
Nick growled at him. “Answer her, goddamn it.”
“Yes,” Solonik said, making himself submissive once more. “I find him. Alexei is inside panic room. With Uri, and others. I can’t get to them there. There is field…” He motions around his body, indicating a kind of sphere shape. “There is no Barrier. I cannot get in. I cannot get them to come out. I come in here…”
He motioned around the bookshelf-filled room, mouth pursed.
“…I also look for something, anyone Alexei care about, maybe. Anything that might bring him out.”
“What floor?” I said. “Where is the panic room?”
Solonik looked at me, scowling. “Seventh floor. Uri’s apartments. Upstairs.”
“Can they hear us?” Jem said, his voice as incredulous as mine. “Do they have access to surveillance? Can they hear us talking right now?”
“No.” Thinking, Solonik frowned. “Da, well… I do not think so. I turn off everything. When I am in security place, I turn it all off. All but one camera, inside panic room.”
Jem, Nick and I exchanged looks.
I honestly couldn’t tell if this was the good news, or the bad news.
I mean, the good news seemed to be that no one was going to shoot at us, at least not right away. The bad news was, we had no idea how to pry them out of the panic room, or who they might have called for reinforcements.
Because of course they would have called for reinforcements.
We could just leave, of course.
We could leave through the snow, steal a car, take our chances on getting the collar off me some other way. But that meant our only way out of the country might be via an airport or a train station, and I wasn’t sure I liked our chances, given where we were.
We could potentially drive to another country.
But that meant time. It still meant border hassles, and it meant a lot of time.
Too much time.
Given what I could feel about Black around the edges of my vision, I didn’t like the idea of taking days, possibly even weeks to get to him.
Moreover, I knew it wouldn’t necessarily be any easier to get out either of those ways, not with a collar around my neck, a vampire in tow who was sensitive to sunlight, and two seers who were pretty obviously not “normal” in terms of their appearance.
If Uri and Alexei were that connected to Russian military and the government, they might have arranged to have alerts posted about us already.
Then there was Charles himself.
Black would have bulletins out with Nick’s face, as well, and probably Dalejem’s.
At least some of this must have been running through Nick’s mind, too.
“Is what you told Jem true?” he said, still frowning at Solonik. “Do we need a key to open Miri’s collar?”
Solonik hesitated, then nodded.
“Why didn’t you tell me that? Why didn’t you tell me that first?”
Solonik’s eyes darted to mine, then back to Nick, showing a faint panic.
“You say nothing about collar, brother,” he said, reaching for Nick again. Nick evaded his hand, and Solonik’s voice turned pleading.
“You say nothing about this!” he said. “You say find assholes who take her, so I look for them. You say protect Jem, so I do this––”
“How would you know about Alexei?” I cut in. I looked at Nick, then back at Solonik. “How did he know to look for Alexei? How did he even know what he looked like?”
Solonik scowled, giving me a hard look.
“I know this piece of shit,” he muttered. “I know Uri. I know Alexei. I know these assholes from before. I work for your uncle, remember? I look for his face.”
Solonik’s eyes shifted back to Nick, his voice lowering to a growl.
“I do this as fast as I can, no questions asked. You do not say why you want him. I think it is not important that I know, that you tell me if I need to know this.”
From behind him, Jem let out an annoyed, obviously skeptical grunt.
Solonik glared at him, his violet eyes cold.
“Fuck you, kneeler. I do not lie.”
“Shut up,” Nick snapped. “Both of you.” He focused back on Solonik, his crystal eyes tinged with scarlet. “Who would have it?”
Solonik looked bewildered. “Have it?”
“The key, Solonik,” Nick growled. “Where should we be looking to find the damned key? Did you see it on the surveillance monitor? Is it definitely in the panic room, with Alexei and the others? Or is it on one of the soldiers, upstairs?”
When Solonik tried to touch his hair instead of answering him, Nick moved his head sharply to the side, knocking the other’s hand away. Solonik looked chastened, but also sulky. He glared briefly at Jem, clearly blaming him.
From Jem’s face and clenched jaw, he wasn’t thrilled with Solonik touching Nick, either.
It struck me suddenly, that Jem wasn’t just disgusted by the other seer; he was jealous. He was jealous enough, I wondered if Nick had been doing more than just feeding on Solonik, especially given how vampires normally fed.
“Solonik?” Nick growled. “Where is the key?”
Solonik tore his eyes off Jem.
His eyes went instantly from predatory to submissive as they focused on Nick.
“I think key is with this Alexei,” he said grudgingly, in his thickly Russian-accented voice. “I see this, when I am looking on surveillance.” He motioned towards his upper chest. “He wear this around neck, like jewelry. I think this is key, what I saw. He is wearing robe. Open collar. So I see this. I notice.”
Nick turned, looking at me.
“Did Alexei wear anything around his neck?” he said.
I frowned.
A memory rose behind my eyes. Alexei’s fingers toying with a chain around his neck. A visible smirk on the Russian’s lips as metal glinted between his fingers, reflecting red and orange hues from the fire’s grate.
