“I’m doing all I can, Jessie.”
“What if I said it’s a matter of life or death?”
His eyebrows shoved together. “Are you in danger?” He leaned closer.
“Uhm.” Untouchable, they’d said. “It’s someone else. And I’m the only one who can help.”
“You start talkin’ like that and I might start to think you need to stay longer.”
“Okay, okay.” I waved my hands. “Never mind. It’ll work itself out. Somehow.”
“Dr. Jones said you’re doing better. She’s thinkin’ about giving you a better room. Without a camera.”
“That would be so awesome.”
“And I brought you something.” He passed me something beneath the table.
I shoved it into my waistband. “Another one?”
“Longer battery life, since I can’t sneak you a charger, and there’s a ringtone on it programmed with Pietr’s number—a ringtone nobody over age twenty can hear.”
“Cool.”
“Ain’t technology grand? You’re obsolete at twenty-one.”
I snorted. “Thanks, Dad.”
We both stood and I hugged him. Tightly. “Think about what I said. About life and death.”
“And you think about what I said about maybe you need to be here longer if that’s what you believe,” he repeated.
“Fine.”
He left and I flopped into the chair and the back of my neck tickled as I realized someone was staring at me.
Christian.
Shivering at the uncanny way he watched me, I stood and returned to my room, guards trailing behind me.
Inside I sent Pietr a quick text, saying I missed him and avoiding the weird and frightening things going on that I might have mentioned. I resigned myself to sleep, my fingers wrapped around the phone and tucked beneath my pillow.
The next morning I woke and called Pietr. Straight to voice mail. I readied to hear his standard message, but his words and tone had changed.
Tremendously.
“Leave a message, but don’t expect me to return your call promptly.”
I hung up and hit the number again. Definitely Pietr’s voice. But it was the voice he’d used with me when he’d dated Sarah in a misguided attempt to keep me safe. The cool, matter-of-fact voice made me shiver. It was like his mouth, his brain and his heart had somehow disconnected.
Pietr was in trouble.
And there was nothing I could do about it.
I just hoped someone else could help.
Alexi
Parking the car on a nearby side street, I walked the perimeter of the abandoned property looking for an easy way past the chain-link fence and the razortape crowning it. I hadn’t dressed for climbing. From the graffiti-tagged buildings inside, I knew kids had wormed their way in before.
And since only serious taggers came to a site prepared to cross razortape I paused, looking beyond the chain links to study the craftsmanship of their lettering.
Amateurs.
There had to be a hole in the fence easy enough for potheads and slackers to find.
Nearly around the property’s back I found the hole and slipped through. I picked my way around the rows of buildings, coming to the one Pietr had mentioned.
I glanced at my cell. Two minutes late. Not needing to rely on a watch or cell phone Pietr would be inside already and waiting impatiently.
Testing the door, I shouldered it open and let my eyes adjust to the dark. An open window flooded a section of the old warehouse with light, illuminating piles of pigeon droppings and shards of dusty broken glass. I passed a worn mattress dotted with a variety of stains, a large baby doll missing its right arm and head, the same doll’s hollow ceramic head with an attached handle making it a fine drinking vessel … I rubbed the chill from my arms near a discarded pair of children’s sneakers and finally found my way to him.
“You have certainly discovered a location where no one in their right mind would meet,” I congratulated him, stepping over the rotting body of a rat. I balled up a handkerchief and pressed it to my nose. “How can you stand it?”
His back to a wall, he stood cloaked in shadow. “Sometimes you must adjust your standards, da?” He took one small step forward, into the light where dust motes danced. This was not my little brother, the idealistic boy who tried to rescue kittens from trees not realizing how easily he tripped their prey-versus-predator senses.
This Pietr’s eyes never stayed still, never quite settled on me though we were not far apart. They danced all around us, searching shadows and watching all possible entrances and exits.
“I’ve made a deal,” he confirmed. “We’ll have the manpower we need to free Mother.” His eyes now simply avoided mine and although a smile slipped across his lips, it fled as quickly as it appeared. “But—”
“There’s a price you cannot quite pay.”
“I can pay the price—I’m more than capable of delivering on the promises I make,” he said. The words landed hard, smacking across my face. “But I don’t want to pay this particular price.”
“Jesus, Pietr.” I rubbed a hand across my brow. “What sort of bargain have you struck? And with a devil I know, or another?”
“The less you know, the better. I just need a couple things—consider it a morbid shopping list.” He handed me a folded paper. “Nyet. Don’t open it here.”
“Delivery: When and where?”
“It’s on the paper.”
“So that’s it? I’m your personal shopper?” It seemed I’d be shopping for us both.
“And research assistant,” Pietr said with a dark grin. “Tell me, Alexi, can you—can regular people—tell the difference between the scent of pigs’ blood and human blood?”
“If there’s no flesh attached…” I said, my stomach churning at the reasons Pietr might need such information to begin with. “It depends on amounts, but probably not.”
“Horashow. It only needs to buy me time…”
“You’re always trying to buy time, Pietr.”
“Da. Beg, barter, buy … maybe steal,” he whispered more to himself than to me. “I just need a little more—otherwise, time’ll be up for us all faster than we imagined.”
I grabbed his arm, but he shook me off. “Pietr. Tell me what’s happening.”