“You believe in G.O.D., don’t you?” The figure did not speak, but its voice echoed around the room, breathless and fluted. It spelled out each letter slowly, shaping them like soap bubbles that burst in my ears.
I froze. The shadow of a man much larger than I loomed around me, cutting the light from the door behind. I heard a click, like a finger on a trigger.
“I need your help and your faith.”
My vision began to crawl with black spots, dancing specks creeping in from the sides of my eyes, but I could not move as I heard the trigger pull home.
In the split second before impact, the head of white hair snapped around like an owl’s, eyes wide with surprise. I saw Blue. Twin points of blazing white-blue that ate into me, drowned me, and filled me as my head shattered.
“… Bat’ko?”
My body hit the bed and bounced, pitching me to the side and then upright as I scrambled for purchase on sweaty sheets. My hand flew to my face: it was numb. Disoriented and heaving for air, I stumbled up, searching for a light. The room was pitch dark and freezing, the air thick, silent except for the rattle and spit of the air conditioner. I found a lamp and pulled the chain, leaning back against the wall beside it. It was the lamp on the bookshelf beside my altar.
I looked around and then down, and my eyes were drawn to the tarot card I had set out for contemplation earlier in the week. The Devil, the card of material entrapment, confusion, false self-image. It sat next to the tin dish of salt and water which held the caster I’d retrieved from Nacari, and as I stared at it, trying to figure out what was gnawing at me, I realized: The water had boiled off, and the salt was brownish, dull and stained. I could see the top of the caster protruding from the remains, like a half-buried skull.
When I could move, I pushed away from the wall and got the chalice on the way out. The rest of the apartment was gloomy, the air hanging still. I nosed through the darkness until I reached the kitchen, and then ran gloved hands over the edge of cold metal and the small gap between the fridge and the overhead shelf. I found the door and cracked it open: Light spilled over the brown linoleum tiling. Squinting against the glare, I got a jug of cold water and refilled the chalice to drown the sigil in fresh salt water. I put the whole thing in the icebox, tucking it securely between bags of frozen pelmeni.[13] It wouldn’t evaporate again.
“Mrr. Mrraw.” Binah’s was still getting used to the place, flighty and shadow-shy, but she arched against my bare legs like she’d always known me. Her fur was warm, a little damp. Sleeping on Vassily, probably. In the lapse of sound just as I bent down to pet her, I caught a flash of bright green noise: the telltale beep of the answering machine from farther back in the house. I’d slept so hard I hadn’t heard the phone.
I grimaced and stalked out at a quick walk. My stomach was twitchy as I strode into the den in the dark and then stopped, sniffing. It was humid in here, and smelled like male scent. Vassily was sleeping on the sofa. I crept past him, snoring away in his duvet, and unlocked my office door with Binah on my heels.
My office was the size of a large closet, barely big enough for a desk, shelves, and the case that held my father’s old sledgehammer. My work library was in here—references of old criminal cases, journals on forensic technology, a record of murders solved and unsolved, and local police bulletins on organized crime. My desk was surrounded by pinboards covered in news clippings and notes. You had to stay on top of what the other side was doing to be good at your job.
A long glass case next to the desk held the sledgehammer on its bed of purple velvet. It was a plain prison camp tool, unremarkable in every way except for the memories of mingled horror and victory it aroused in me. My father had used it for his executions, and I had used it to execute him. The haft was worn smooth, but the oiled iron head was dark and pitted with old blood. As always, I glanced at it as I shuffled into the chair and pressed the play button, switching on the desk lamp with the other hand. The machine whirred and clicked, winding the tape. While I waited, I rubbed at my itching jaw. My mouth was very dry. Bat’ko. I had heard that word very clearly, but it made no sense to me. ‘Bat’ko’ meant ‘father’.
Nicolai’s grating, dull voice spoke from the speakers, rough and flat from the electronic distortion. “Lexi, it’s Nic. Lev says he wants to see you at Sirens soon as you get this message. You’ve got business together.”
Chapter 4
Sirens was my own special hell. Between the clashing smells, the pounding music, flashing lights, and hordes of sweating, hooting twenty-something men, it was a purgatory of sensory agony. The colors flooded my mouth as soon as I stepped out onto the warm asphalt. The syrupy amber of bass, the high and wavering papery texture of treble, and the kaleidoscopic flow of muffled vocals from inside and around the club bubbled somewhere between the back of my tongue and my sinuses like a mixture of popping sherbet and razor blades.
“Whoo-whee.” Vassily was making the best out of a five-year-old Hawaiian shirt, new slacks, and Brylcreem. “It’s still baking out here. They got air-con in the club yet?”
“Uhn.” I didn’t want to have to talk, not until I had no other choice. I fumbled for a packet of Altoids while walking, put one in my mouth, and started chewing. The chill took the edge off.
The guard at staff entry, Ovar, could have modeled for a harem romance novel. At six and a half feet, Ovar was half a foot taller than Vassily, a full foot taller than me, and broader through the shoulders than both of us put together. The Georgian towered over every stripper, most of the other bouncers, and nearly all of the patrons like a mountain of muscles, black glittering eyes, and mustache.
“Ho, if it isn’t our star dancers!” he boomed in Russian over the lot as we trudged our way across. “My Zmechik and Charivchik,[14] look at you! Back together at last!”
“Ho-lee shit. Look who it is!” Vassily advanced, beaming. He clapped hands with Ovar, who pulled Vassily into a brief hug. “How you goin’, big guy?”
I chewed my candy and tried to look pleasant. The white-blueness of peppermint overrode the mashed odors of perfume, bleach, sweat, and sex I could smell from the door. One could only hope I’d brought enough to carry me through the night without a migraine.
“Good, good. Healthy and fat. But you, out of prison already and looking meaner than you ever did.” Ovar flashed a mouth of wet gold teeth. “Makes you a man, doesn’t it?”
“Sure does.” Something was missing in Vassily’s smile.
“Ha! Mind you, it’s soft here, in this country. Karaganda, now that was a prison.” Ovar was one of those relentlessly cheerful men whose voice, unfortunately, grated on my nerves. Words tumbled out of his mouth like black gravel, and I couldn’t shake the sensation or image as I shifted my weight uneasily on my feet. “But America? It’ll end up the same way, you watch. Land of the free, hah!” The huge Georgian hawked a gob of spittle onto the concrete. “Free to rot in jail.”
“Sorry to interrupt, but Lev is waiting for us.” I spoke up before Vassily could open his mouth and keep chattering. “We were called in with some urgency.”
Ovar’s eyes lit up, and the mustache bristled in excitement. “Oh-ho, fresh business. Well, he will wait. Go see Nicolai first. He has to be on the floor in twenty minutes. Lev can wait around in his fancy office, acting like he’s important. We have to make sure we remind him who really owns this city, eh?”
“Hey, he had big boots to fill. From everything I’ve heard, Lev’s doing a decent job of keeping the place clean,” Vassily said.
13
Filled dumplings common in Eastern Europe. Ukrainian-style pelmeni usually have pork, veal, potato and cheese or sour cherry fillings.
14
Most Slavic people have several nicknames. Zmechik—Little Snake—and Charivchik—Little Wizard—belong to Vassily and Alexi respectively.