“How old is this photo?” I asked.
“Five or six years,” Boris shrugged. “Maybe less. Maybe more. Time, it …” He made a dismissive gesture, as if the years didn’t mean anything to him.
So I was looking for someone in their early-to-midtwenties who looked more or less like the kid in the photo. That wasn’t nearly as helpful as I’d hoped. “Do you have any other thralls? I’ll need to talk to them.”
“No. Fuck off. You don’t need to talk to anybody else. Find that fool and bring him back.”
I might have been offended by his unwillingness to make things easier if I wasn’t already at the end of my rope with this guy. I needed to leave before I actually did take a swing at him. “Anything else that would help me track him down? The faster I can do this, the less it costs you.”
Boris muttered under his breath, gave a shrug. “I’ll think about it. If I find anything else, I’ll let you know.” His tone told me that the very idea of making my job easier was an imposition.
“You’re too kind.” I returned to my truck without bidding him goodbye and sat behind the wheel, staring at him while he stared back at me. He flinched first, finally getting in his car and pulling out of the parking lot. I watched until the car was out of sight, then rubbed my eyes. I felt a hollowness in my stomach, a fog blanketing my thoughts that was the first sign of a bad depression. I fought it off. I didn’t have time to feel sorry for myself. I needed to get this stupid job over with as quickly as possible.
Whether I was able to contain my anger or not, I still felt betrayed. One of the unspoken kindnesses Ada had always showed as my owner was that I didn’t have to do any of the jobs that required me to bring in an actual person. Even she understood that making me do so was a cruelty. I produced the worn photo of the runaway thrall and studied it for a few minutes. “You know, maybe I should be glad of this,” I said.
Oh? Maggie answered.
“Yeah. Whoever this asshole is, he wants to be a vampire enough that he signed up for slavery. I don’t have the emotional energy for this kind of bullshit. Anyone who willingly becomes a slave needs to be tossed off the top of a tall building.”
I could sense Maggie’s disagreement. Normally, I would have invited her to argue the point. I did respect her opinions on this kind of thing. But not with this. Not right now. I was too damned angry. She said, Well. Probably best to just get it over with, right?
Right. I began to make plans in my head, working through what I’d need to do to track down a runaway. This was out of my normal wheelhouse. I considered calling Jose or Karen to get some advice, but something stopped me. Ada had me working this job for a reason. That reason might be secretive, even from my reaper coworkers. Besides, I tracked people down all the time. Just because the debtor and the debt were one and the same didn’t make any difference. I could do this.
My thoughts turned to Boris Novak. I could still see his leering, stupid face and I still wanted to punch it. He didn’t look like much, but he was still a vampire. Vampires were used to being at the top of the food chain, and there wasn’t a one who wouldn’t break the Rules if they thought they could get away with it. Boris was dangerous, maybe even to me. I made a list of a few items I’d want to keep on hand until the job was over – silver-tipped bullets, fresh garlic. Crosses, despite the press, wouldn’t do shit. But a stout wooden stake wasn’t a bad idea.
You know, just in case I had to defend myself.
I realized suddenly that for the first time I was seriously considering putting one of my clients in an unmarked grave. I scolded myself mentally and shook off the thoughts. This was just a bad day. I could deal with Boris, and I could do it as a professional.
Maybe just a few silver bullets.
My phone rang, jumping in my lap and bringing me out of my thoughts. “What?” I answered.
Ada croaked on the other end of the line, “Have you cooled down yet?”
“Boris just left. I’ll do the job,” I said dully. No need to tell her I was pissed. She knew.
“Good. You have another meeting.”
“Damn it all, Ada. I don’t have time for another …”
“Tonight. Eight o’clock. My house.” She hung up on me again.
My words caught in my throat. Her house. We never had meetings at her house.
Something is going on, Maggie said.
I sifted through my anger until I was able to force my brain to change gears. She was right. Something was going on. This job was bigger than Ada purposefully trying to make my life miserable. What it was, I couldn’t fathom. I took a few long breaths and got out of my truck, heading over to a nearby bush and searching through it until I found Boris’s cigarette butt. I carried it to a nearby trash can and disposed of it. By the time I was back behind the wheel, my head had managed to clear. Nothing to do but go to Ada’s tonight and find out what was really going on.
“Sorry for the mood,” I told Maggie. “It’s been a shitty day.”
No problem. I get it. If I weren’t stuck in here, I would have twisted his head around the wrong way and told him to walk it off.
“Maybe we’ll still get the chance,” I mused, putting my truck in gear and heading out. “To hell with all of this. I’m taking the rest of the day off and getting wings before this damned meeting.”
Chapter 3
My phone pinged that I had a new email on my way over to Ada’s house. I glanced down to see it was from a company called FindYourRelatives.com, and the summary cheerfully informed me that my DNA test – submitted more than two months ago – had finally returned some results. My heart did a somersault at the prospect. I pulled into a gas station, parked, and breathlessly opened my email.
My heart fell immediately. It said, We are delighted to tell you that you are one-eighth Norwegian fjord troll! Unfortunately, you have enough Other blood to prevent us from making human DNA connections. We are unable to connect you with any relatives you may have. We hope that in the future, technological advancements will allow us to definitively isolate the human side of mixed-blood DNA. Thank you for your patronage, and please sign up for our newsletter for future announcements!
I sighed, setting my phone down on the seat next to me and rubbing my eyes. Before a couple months ago, I’d never had even the slightest bit of luck looking for my parents. I knew I’d been sold to imps as a newborn, I knew that Ada now owned me, and that was that. But after Ferryman provided me with their names, I’d begun to look again. Unfortunately, those names were so common and my job kept me so busy that I’d only been able to do internet searches and make phone calls. I’d hoped a DNA test would narrow things down a bit. I’d hoped that my troll ancestry wasn’t so recent as to muddy the waters.
But it was, as it turned out.
Sorry, Alek, Maggie said gently. I knew you were hoping this would clarify things.
“Well, one of my great-grandparents fucked a troll. I guess I’ve got that going for me.” I read through the email again. “I didn’t know Norwegian fjord trolls were even close enough to humans to mate. I guess it gets boring up there during the long winter.” I pulled out of the gas station and headed to Ada’s, my mood sour and my thoughts drifting aimlessly.
Ada lived in an upper-middle-class neighborhood in Beachwood, Ohio. It was an understated subdivision in a rather pleasant little forest, just a few minutes off the freeway. The lots were small, but the trees and tall fences provided a lot of privacy between the big, flagstone-faced homes. If you didn’t know exactly what you were looking for, it was easy to miss the turn into the subdivision as well as the subsequent turn into Ada’s driveway. I’m pretty sure that’s by design.