Blood Tally

Chapter 5

I spent four days wasting time, half-heartedly questioning my Cleveland-area contacts about thralls, Michael Pavlovich, and Boris Novak. It was a fairly fruitless endeavor. Nobody knew anything about Michael. The few people who did know Boris said he was an asshole. And thralls? Well. Nobody gives a shit about thralls. They were the persona non grata of the Other, lower on the totem pole than even imps. A teeny tiny bit of me started to feel bad for them.

I was attempting to sleep in on a weekend – I’d been told to take it slow, after all – when my phone began to buzz. I picked it up and squinted at the phone. It was eight in the morning. I would have ignored it if the number hadn’t said Justin’s Office.

That woke me up real quick. I sat up, wiping some drool from the corner of my mouth, and answered. “Alek Fitz.”

“Alek,” came Justin’s response. “It’s Justin. Long time no talk. You doing well?”

“Justin, it’s fucking eight in the morning on a Sunday. I might work these kind of hours, but I know you don’t. What’s going on?”

There was a long pause. “No small talk then, huh?”

I was worried now, and I rolled over to sit on the edge of my bed. Maggie, wake up.

I’m up. What’s going on?

I didn’t answer her. “No,” I told Justin. “No small talk. Is everything okay?” I felt a spike of fear as I wondered if OtherOps had found out that I was using that stolen login info to search their database. I reasoned with myself that even Justin probably wouldn’t give me a heads up if I was in really deep shit. He’d be knocking on my door with a couple of arresting officers, not calling me at this hour.

“Yeah, everything is okay,” Justin said slowly. “Hey, do you remember all that stuff with Kimberly Donavon?”

It was hard not to, between the necromancer that tried to kill me for Maggie’s ring and the whole situation with Ferryman happening at the same time. I switched gears mentally, but that fear didn’t go away. “I do.”

“You’re not ready to talk about that yet, are you?”

I felt Maggie tense up in the back of my head. I rubbed the gunk out of my eyes. There was no way he was calling just because of that. I hadn’t heard from him for six or seven weeks after I told one of his nosier colleagues to go fuck himself. “Not really,” I told him.

“That’s … not great.”

“Why?”

Another long pause. “Look, I’m not supposed to tell you any of this. My boss was pretty pissed that you wouldn’t testify beyond acknowledging that Nick the Necromancer attacked you. But here’s the deal: we’ve been investigating Kimberly Donavon’s involvement in all of that for the last couple of months while she sits in a holding cell in Canton. She hasn’t said a word since we arrested her, but we finally worked out a deal with her lawyer. In exchange for witness protection, she’s going to tell us about the whole situation.”

Maggie inhaled sharply. If Kimberly spilled her guts to OtherOps, they would know that I was holding Maggie’s ring. They might keep a lid on it and treat her privacy with respect … or the whole thing might go public and everyone would know that I’m carrying around a jinn. In the short term, that would destroy the ace-in-the-hole that gave me an edge in my job. In the long term, it meant that all of Maggie’s old enemies – or any human or Other who decided to try to capture the power of an enslaved jinn – would come looking to kill me and get her ring.

So. Not great news.

“Okay,” I replied lamely.

“Thing is,” Justin said, “we made that deal on Friday. Last night, someone shanked Kimberly in her cell. It was messy too. A corrupt guard made sure the cell door was open and two of the other prisoners tried to kill her. She’s still holding on, but she’s in critical condition. We’re moving her to a supermax hospital wing.”

I digested this news. I kinda hoped Kimberly didn’t make it but immediately felt ashamed at the hope. She was not a bad person, after all. I didn’t have to ask to know that Maggie was cheering for that untimely death. I considered the implications and wondered if OtherOps was going to try to finger me for the attack. “Is she going to make it?”

“The staff thinks so. The reason I’m calling you is this: we’re pretty sure someone put Kimberly up to the whole thing – hiring Nick to kill you and all that. It doesn’t make sense, otherwise. She’s an intermediary. I’m worried that whoever did this – well, they’re trying to shut her up now. And if they have the juice to get someone shanked inside an OtherOps prison, they’re probably a serious badass. I’m worried they might come after you directly, and I wanted to give you a heads up.”

“And?”

“Aaaaaand offer you protection if you’re willing to talk about it.” He kept talking quickly, before I could answer. “If you know something, we can put a couple of specialists on your tail, watching your back for a couple of months while we sort it all out. Even if it’s one of your clients, if they mean you harm, they’re going outside the Rules and it won’t affect your reputation to put a stop to the whole thing.”

I ran a hand through my hair, still trying to shake the last of the sleep from my head. Mags? I could feel her pacing around, the nervous energy trickling through the back of my head. It’s Matthias, isn’t it?

It has to be. The fucker let OtherOps get too close and is trying to clean up his mess now. Once he takes care of Kimberly and Nick, he’ll work out another way to get at me. At us.

Us. Maggie was his old enemy, but I was the bearer of her ring, so by default I was a target too. I was annoyed more than angry. Maggie was my friend. I would do what I could to protect her. How long do we have until Matthias decides to try again?

No idea. He’s patient as hell. I hope it’s not for a while, but …

But what?

I’m making my own plans. I still hope we can lure him in at some point and force him to let me out of here.

It was an option that we’d talked about off and on since I found out about Matthias. It put both of us at extreme risk, but it did so on our terms.

Do we tell OtherOps the whole thing and hope they can find Matthias before he decides to take another crack at us? Maybe they can convince him to let you out.

She considered this for a few moments. If I thought OtherOps could help, I would have said so long ago. But I don’t trust any of their magicians with my ring any more than I do Matthias.

Understood. If Kimberly pulls through and tells OtherOps what she knows, we might not have a choice. For now I’m gonna keep it quiet.

Agreed, Maggie replied.

“Alek?” Justin asked. “You still there?”

“I’m here. Look, I’ve got nothing to add. Sorry. Thanks for giving me the heads up about Kimberly. I’ll watch my back and let you know if anything else happens.”

Justin sighed unhappily. “You’re sure?”

“Definitely.”

“All right. I don’t mind saying I’m worried about you. Let’s get a beer soon.”

“Will do. Have a good one.” I hung up and blinked down at my bare feet for a couple of minutes, considering the conversation. “This is the last thing I need right now.”

Justin is a good guy, Maggie replied.

“Yeah, he is. Shit.” I looked at the calendar on my phone, then scrolled through the notes I’d taken over the last few days. I wondered if I was taking things too slow. It was time, I decided, to get back to work.

I waited a few hours before calling my client. He was answered on the fifth ring.

“Who the fuck is this?” a gruff voice asked.

“Boris, it’s Alek Fitz.”

He snorted. “Rockskin. What do you have for me?”

“I’ve got nothing. I’ve spent all last week trying to recreate a full file on Michael and trace his steps. If you want me to catch this guy, you’ve got to give me more information. I need to know his hobbies, his friends, what he does throughout the day. He’s got a life, doesn’t he?”

Boris made a disgusted sound. “I don’t know what he does. He’s my thrall, not my goddamned boyfriend. I’m out of town. Business trip. I don’t have time for your shit.”

“I’m telling you …”

“I’m telling you to do your job, rockskin,” he cut me off. “You call me again when you find him, yeah?” Boris hung up on me.

I’m beginning to think Boris might be hard to work with, Maggie said lightly.

“You don’t say?” I thumbed through my notes once more, looking for a handful of things I’d written down over the last couple of days. “Ah, here we go.”

What’s that?

I’m pretty sure this is Boris’s address. I’m willing to bet he has several other thralls. If Boris won’t help, I’m going to talk to them.

Boris lived off a deeply wooded, crumbling lane in North Royalton. The gravel driveway was barely visible from the road; just one cracked yellow mailbox marked the location, with the track leading down through the pines. I stopped in the street to watch the property for a moment, wondering how pissed Boris was going to be when he found out that I had come to his home.

“You sense anything?” I asked Maggie.

No wards. No protection of any kind, as far as I can tell. There’s some old barbed wire on the north end of the property, but who knows if that was even Boris who put it there. I sense three people on the premises. They’re all human, but they have that weird aura that thralls have due to their connection with their master.

No Boris?

No Boris, she confirmed. I’d be careful regardless. Vampires don’t live to be over a hundred without making some enemies, so I’d bet at least one of those thralls is armed and has instructions to shoot first and ask questions later.

Noted. I decided to head in on foot, leaving my truck parked in the lane and putting on my Valkyrie Collections ball cap and my flack vest – just in case. I made sure my Glock was loaded, slid it into my wallet, then headed in. There was a large No Trespassing sign just around the hill, and then the house came into sight.

It wasn’t exactly a castle. It was a two-story split level, kind of long and rambling with faded brown and green paint and a half-assed addition that seemed to collide with the hillside about thirty yards to my left. The roof was long overdue for replacement, most of the shingles covered in a thin layer of bright green moss. There was a patch of grass in front of the house, nicely manicured, but the rest of the yard was full of old junk – car parts, scrap metal, wood-ends from a sawmill. I took a guess that one of the thralls really wanted things to be neat and orderly, while the others, and probably Boris himself, didn’t give a shit.

There was a No Soliciting! sign on the front door. You getting anything else now that we’re closer? I asked Maggie.

Yeah. Like I said, no wards. Definitely a bunch of guns, but who knows if they’re loaded or if they’re antiques for his business. One of the thralls is downstairs watching cartoons. Another is off in a barn at the back of the property. The third is taking a nap. Nobody has noticed you yet.

I cleared my throat, straightened my shoulders, and pounded on the door.

Try again, Maggie told me after a minute. I followed her instructions. She said, Ah, napper has woken up. He’s heading down the stairs.

A split second later I heard footsteps, then saw a broad face peering through the window. It belonged to a man about my age, tall and heavy with a wispy beard. I tipped my hat and gave him a polite smile.

“No soliciting,” he replied through the glass.

“I’m not selling anything,” I told him. “Your master hired me to find your thrall-sibling. Just came by to ask you a few questions.”

He stared back at me with a mixture of dull kind of curiosity, one eye squinted at me like he couldn’t quite trust what I was saying. It made him look like he’d just shit himself. “I, uh …”

“It’ll just take a few minutes,” I assured him.

He kept that look on his face for several more seconds before he finally gave a resigned nod. I heard a couple of chains being removed, then a deadbolt sliding, and the door opened up. He was wearing a SpongeBob T-shirt and a pair of basketball shorts with tall athletic socks, his hair slick with sweat. “Hi.”

“Alek Fitz,” I introduced myself, offering my hand.

He shook it, his own hand doughy and sweaty. “I’m Sam. Sam Baskin. Look, I’m not sure if you’re supposed to be here.”

I cocked an eyebrow at him, putting on my best put-upon-working-Joe face. “Your master didn’t tell you what I’m doing?”

“He said he hired someone to find Michael, but he didn’t say you wanted to talk to us …”

“Can I come in?” I asked. “Thanks.” I squeezed past him without waiting for an answer. The foyer was old slate tile, the walls covered in a floral paper pattern that looked original to the house. The inside seemed organized much like the outside – there was junk everywhere, furniture and boxes piled up against the walls, but with a neat little pathway carved out through the middle, vacuumed and tidy. A quick glance into the rest of the house told much the same story. The junk itself didn’t quite seem to be hoarder level – it was fairly organized, without visible trash piled up – but it had long ago exceeded collector status.

Sam gave a defeated sigh. “I … I suppose you can come into the living room.” He gave me a consternated look. “Am I supposed to offer you something to drink?”

Boris doesn’t entertain much, does he? I commented to Maggie.

No kidding. I’m getting a better sense of the place now that we’re inside and it is just … wow.

“Nothing for me, thanks,” I said to Sam, following him into the living room. There were a dozen cages hanging from the ceiling, filled with exotic birds. They all began to squawk and talk as we entered, and it took Sam a good minute of shushing before they settled down. While he was doing that, I took another surreptitious glance at the place. Considering the birds, it smelled better than I expected. A bit musty, but whoever cared for the creatures kept them clean. There was one big kennel in the corner, but it was obscured by an old desk. There were couches, but they were underneath piles of boxes – Star Wars toys, hardcover books, stuffed animals, and miscellaneous electronics, at a glance. “You guys have an eBay store to supplement the antiques business?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Sam replied, a nervous smile flitting across his face. “Boris handles all the antiques, of course. We do the buying and selling of all the other stuff.”

“Michael helped with all that?”

“Before he ran away, yeah.”

I took out a notebook and a pen, trying to look professional, and leaned against a dresser that took up much of the middle of the room.

“What kind of a guy is Michael?”

Sam looked around one more time, as if trying to find someone else to answer my questions, before sagging slightly. “He’s a good guy. Quiet. Careful with the pets. Helps keep things at least a little tidy around here.” He flinched when he said tidy, and I guessed that he was the one responsible for the little bit of care going into the look of the place.

I was beginning to feel a little uneasy myself. I’d dealt with hoarders and shut-ins and all sorts of people and places in my time. Some of the situations just didn’t sit well with me, and this was one of them. This isn’t a nice place, I told Maggie. I don’t see any way that Boris is breaking the law, but I can’t believe he makes people live like this.

Maggie made a sound of agreement.

“Did you know he was going to run away?”

Sam shook his head.

Gently, I said, “I’m not going to tell Boris if you did.”

“I didn’t, I promise. Look, we all know our contracts. Boris might yell a lot, and he’s dirty as hell, but he’s not too bad a master. I’ve heard of worse. Mike didn’t give any sign he was planning on leaving. We just woke up one day and he was gone. Left a note for me saying that he’d muddied the trail and not to follow him.”

“His handwriting?”

“Definitely.”

“What does muddied the trail mean?”

Sam shook his head.

I asked, “And what day was this?”

“Last Tuesday.”

“Boris went looking for him?”

Sam shrugged. “I guess. Boris is gone a lot, what with his work. He said Mike would come back on his own soon. Threatened us all if we tried to leave. Then went about like business as usual. I was honestly surprised that he bothered to hire someone at all. He didn’t seem to care all that much. Then on Friday he got blood-drunk and started ranting about how if he didn’t make an example of Mike, then we’d all leave him.” It took Sam a moment to realize what he’d said, then his face went white. “But like I said,” he added quickly, “Boris is a good master. Great, you know?”

“Of course, of course,” I assured him gently. On the other side of the room, in the kennel that was out of sight, I heard something move around. It sounded bigger than the birds. I ignored it and brought Boris’s file up on my phone. “There are two other thralls, right? JD Butler and Ed Czechowski. Do they know where Michael went?”

Sam shook his head. “JD is brand new, and Michael and Ed have always avoided each other. Can’t say I’ve heard them exchange more than a few sentences.”

I wasn’t going to waste my time, then. “If you don’t mind me asking, what made you want to become a thrall?”

For a moment I thought I’d made a major misstep. Sam turned visibly pale, cleared his throat, and looked over one shoulder. He glanced around the room at anything but me before muttering, “Wanna be a vampire, you know? Immortality. Play video games for the next few hundred years.”

Humans are very odd, Maggie commented.

I pulled the conversation back to my quarry. “Do you have any idea where Michael might have gone?”

“If I did, I would have told Boris.”

“Right. Is there anything you might have … overlooked? Any little details that could be helpful in me tracking down Michael?”

Sam glanced off to one side, looking even more uncomfortable than normal. “I don’t know.”

Definitely lying, Maggie snorted.

I forced Sam to meet my gaze. “You’re sure?”

“Well … I mean, Boris probably already told you this, but Michael was getting sweet on a girl at his work.”

I wrote this down, using the opportunity to cuss Boris out in the back of my head. That asshole couldn’t have at least mentioned that Michael had a job? And a girlfriend? Aloud, I said, “Where does he work?”

“At a little garden shop down in Hinckley. Mum’s Hearth and Yard. I don’t know his girlfriend’s name. I don’t …” He trailed off, looking down at his hands.

Even without Maggie saying anything, I got the distinct impression there was more information. “Sam, my job is to bring Michael back safe and sound. There are proper Hunters out there who get their kicks from tracking down and murdering runaway thralls. If I don’t find him, one of them might.” It wasn’t exactly a lie. I’d heard a story or two. But it wasn’t necessarily the truth either. “His girlfriend’s name would be really helpful.”

I could see him wrestling with the decision. Finally, he said, “I think he wrote her name down somewhere. I’ll go look around his room. Be right back.” He hurried out before I could say anything. I heard his footsteps go up the stairs, then down a long hallway to the other end of the house. I pursed my lips, feeling a little pleased and a little crappy. Maggie, thankfully, kept her comments to herself.

I’d been alone for maybe twenty seconds when I heard a shuffle in that kennel in the corner. Curious what other pets they kept, I began to walk that direction but came up short when I heard a soft male voice say, “Hey. Hey, you. Come here.”

I paused. It was hard to pinpoint the exact location of the voice. “Excuse me?”

“Shush. I’m not talking to you.”

I glanced over my shoulder, then began to peek into boxes looking for some kind of radio or phone or something. “Who are you talking to?”

“Who do you think? Genie lady, would you tell your human to shut up for a moment so we can have a conversation?”

Uhhhh … Maggie said in my head. What the hell was that?

If my hackles hadn’t been up before, they were now. Maggie?

I have no idea. I can’t even tell where it’s coming from.

“It’s coming from the kennel in the corner, dummies. Human, bring your genie lady friend over here.”

You can hear me? Maggie demanded. It was the first time I’d ever heard her speak – inside my head – to someone else. It was weird.

“Of course I can hear you. Now you, human. Alek? Come over here.”

Slowly, hesitantly, I walked to the corner of the room. It was occupied by a kennel about six foot by six foot and maybe four feet tall. At first glance, it contained a whole bunch of old towels, a litter box, and an exceptionally large cat. The cat was maybe twenty or twenty-five pounds with a sleek blue-cream torte coat. It took a few moments of watching him before the cat gave itself a little shake and I could see that the fur on his back was actually wings that blended in perfectly with the rest of him.

Holy shit, Maggie said. That’s a sphinx!

I stared cautiously at the animal. I thought sphinxes had human faces. And were female.

“That’s rude of you to talk about me like I can’t hear you both. I’m an Egyptian sphinx, not a Greek one,” the cat – or rather, the sphinx – said. “And the human face things has a little truth to it but is kind of garbled, and … I’m not going to sit here and argue with you about what I am. I just need you to open the kennel.”

I could see that the kennel was latched, but it also had a little lock on it. Nothing fancy, just the kind people used on their luggage. “Why?” I asked.

“That’s a stupid question and you know it.” The sphinx’s brow furrowed, and he licked down one leg before staring back up at me. “Because I’m not an exotic pet. I’m an intelligent being. Because Boris is a jerk and Sam is going to be back here any moment.”

It took me two seconds of thinking about my own situation, then Maggie’s situation, then this admittedly adorable catlike creature talking to me before I bent over and fixed the lock between two fingers. I gave it a single hard wrench and felt it give way. I flipped the latch for good measure, then watched the front swing open. It was in that moment that I remembered how the sphinx from the tale of Oedipus definitely used to eat people.

I could have sworn that the sphinx smiled at me. Then, with the fwip of his tail and flutter of its wings, it slipped through the kennel door and disappeared into the labyrinth of junk within the house. I eyed the spot I saw him disappear, but I didn’t have time to think about it. I heard footsteps on the stairs and hurried over to the spot I’d been standing and pretended that I’d been on my phone the whole time. Sam appeared a moment later, a scrap of paper in his hands. He gave it to me.

“Her name is Ava Holmes,” he said. “I guess they’ve been dating for six months or so. She works with Mike at the garden center.”

I took the paper. It had the one name and a phone number written on it, but nothing else. It would have to do. “Is that all you’ve got?” I asked.

“I … I think so. Honestly, it’s weird having someone in the house. You better go. If you leave me a card, I’ll give you a call if I can find anything out.”

I tried not to glance toward the kennel in the corner. I wanted to make my own exit before the open kennel was discovered. “I appreciate it.” I handed him one of my cards and let him herd me toward the front door, pretending not to notice the look of relief on Sam’s face as I left. I was soon back in my truck, glancing toward the woods, hoping to have another glimpse of the sphinx. “That was weird,” I told Maggie.

You’re telling me. Sphinx are really damned rare. I can’t imagine where Boris would get one.

“I was talking about Sam and the house. But yeah, that too.” I checked the scrap of paper, writing down the name and number in my phone so I didn’t lose it, then put my truck in gear. I was beginning to feel like letting that sphinx out of its kennel was going to come back and bite me. “At least we have a lead now. Let’s get out of here.”