Ghost Soldiers (18 page)

“She's my friend, let me do this.” She never looked away from Anca, who now stared back in disbelief. “I made him do it, Anca. I was hurt, good as dead. He didn't want to, but I forced him. If you're angry, be angry with me.”

Anca closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the door. “I didn't want to believe it was true.”

“It's true. Now I need your help. Will you help me?”

“He's a murderer. A killer. A vampire.”

“So am I, now. Forget him. It's not about him. It's about us. Last time I checked, we were best friends. Remember? You don't like beer, and you threw up on me the time I convinced you to try some. Right? You wanted to dye your hair green, and I talked you out of it cuz I like black on you.”

Anca's mouth twitched in something that might've been a smile, there and gone in an instant. She opened her eyes and glanced at the sword. “He shouldn't have your blade. They gave it to you with your knighthood. It's not right.”

“He's just borrowing it. And I never used the damn thing anyway.” She touched Anca's wrist. “Let me have the gun. We're not going to hurt you. I swear it on my honor as a Thorn knight.”

“Not that I have a choice.” Anca slowly turned her hand over, and Bailey took the Makarov and handed it to Karl. With the gun out of her hands, the last fight seemed to bleed out of her, and she drew in a shuddering breath. “He's your Master. If he orders you to kill me, you will.”

Karl pulled the blade away from her throat and sheathed the sword again. “You're safe as long as you don't try to stop us. I don't want to hurt you.”

Anca said nothing. She remained pressed against the door, as far from them as possible.

Bailey tried a smile. “Come on, it's
me
. You know me.”

“I knew you. The Watchers felt you die. They won't put your name on the Lists if you've become corrupted.”

“I'm not corrupt. I'm just Bailey Fletcher. Uber-handler wizard and punk princess of America. Same as always.”

“Have you fed yet?”

Bailey flinched. She turned away and walked to the huge table, ignored the chairs and hopped up on it. Through the link, Karl could feel her hunger for blood simmering just below the surface of her thoughts. Her proximity to Anca had strained her will and tested her hard. Her discipline had held her in check, but Karl siphoned some of the hunger, some of the blood desire across the link into himself, diminishing her need. It wouldn't work forever, but for now it was the best he could do. Bailey glanced at him, and he could read the gratitude in her eyes.

“No, I haven't fed,” Bailey said softly, and she scrubbed at her face with the palms of her black fingerless gloves. “Look, Sorin Cojocaru's after us. The mission went to shit. They made Vali and left his corpse for us to find. Lord Sokoll ordered me to prosecute the mission anyway—turned it into a goddamn suicide mission. Cojocaru
knew
we were coming after him. We couldn't touch him and he knew it. We only escaped because Karl shot the vampire Cojocaru needed. Now he needs more.”

“And he's after you,” Anca finished.

Bailey nodded, swinging her dangling legs back and forth. “Command sent a team to clean up. Then they sent a vampire hunter.”

“Not just any hunter.” Anca circled wide around Karl until she stood across the room with her arms folded. “They sent Erik Deor.”

Bailey didn't reply, but Karl felt the sinkhole open inside her mind and all her hope fall inside. He'd heard the name once or twice but had never seen Deor. According to the talk, Deor was a hunter of high renown, stalking through Europe like a wraith.

“Only the best for us.” Bailey glanced at him, despair in her eyes. “Or for you, I guess.”

“Lord Sokoll wants him expunged,” Anca said. “Some people…they whispered about a cover-up. Erasing mistakes. You should've had more support, Bailey. I'm sorry.” She looked over at her gun in Karl's hand. “I'm supposed to tell them where you are, if you contacted me. I told them you were too smart to come here.”

Bailey barked a laugh that sounded more like a cough of pain. “Yeah. Too smart for that. We need weapons and we need help getting out of Romania.”

Anca stared at her, and though her face remained still, her eyes were haunted. “If I help and someone finds out, I'd be attainted. Stripped of my knighthood. Executed.”

“We're holding a gun to your head,” Bailey said. “Tell them you tried to shoot Karl, but he was too fast, stole the pistol. You're not a warfighter type anyway, Anca, they'll believe you.” She climbed down from the table and stood near Karl, suddenly seeming reluctant to move too close to her friend, as if Anca were a deer that might startle and flee at the slightest provocation. True enough, he supposed. “Please. We'll never be back. Karl just wants to go home.”

“They won't believe he left me behind alive.” She glared at Karl again. “He did you no favors, enslaving you.”

He wouldn't stoop to arguing or justifications with her, but Bailey spoke up instead.

“If there's slavery, I sold myself into it…because I have to make things right.”

“No one likes martyrs. I don't even have a place to mourn you.”

“I don't need it.” Bailey grinned, but it was fierce instead of happy. “I'm going to change things someday, you watch. Change everything. How the Thorn sees vampires, sees the rest of the world. I might be a vamp, but I'm still Bailey Fletcher, a Thorn knight.” She touched her forehead. “Here.” She touched her chest over her heart. “And here.”

So painfully naïve, but hearing it from her lips gave him pause, dulled the edge on his lingering anger at her manipulations and how she'd backed him into a corner until he'd made her his sireling. He hadn't the heart to rub her face in how foolish it was to believe the Thorn would ever change or would ever see her as anything but a monster. She should've known it already.

Anca stared at her. “You have something of the wolf-spirit in your aura now, but also darkness.” She glanced at Karl. “Just take the gun and go. There's a spare magazine with silver rounds in the kitchen. I don't have anything heavier.”

He nodded to her, but she ignored him and focused on Bailey.

“A cargo freighter, the MCS
Talos
, sails out of Constanta in two nights and stops in Boston. He was supposed to leave on it, if the mission was successful.”

“Thank you,” Bailey said.

“Will the Thorn be waiting for us?” Karl asked.

“I don't know. Maybe.”

He could hear the truth in her words. Another huge risk, but the freighter might be the only chance to escape Romania and leave Cojocaru behind. The longer they stayed, the less likely they'd ever leave, so he saw little choice but to take the chance. If Anca betrayed them, it was over. He didn't like to trust other people, especially someone loyal to the Thorn, friend of Bailey's or not. At least he had the Makarov now, as small and pitiful a reassurance as that might be.

“You should clear out,” he told her. “Cojocaru might track us here, and he'll kill you.”

Anca nodded. She took a couple of steps toward Bailey, her arms lifting as if she wanted to hug, but she drew up short. Her hand went to her neck and touched the silver chain.

“I'm sorry, Bailey, so very sorry. Remember me, will you?” Anca wiped at her eyes. She turned away and hurried through the doorway into the kitchen. A few seconds later she returned with the extra magazine and shoved it at Karl. “I'll tell the Watchers you wanted to know about trains headed to Sarajevo. It will buy you some time at least. Take care of her. She's my friend.”

“I will,” he said. “Thank you.”

She didn't answer. They moved to leave. Anca stayed in the doorway to the kitchen, fiddling with the silver chain near her throat with its pendant of holy symbols still hidden below her shirt.

No one said another word. Through the link, he felt every shade of Bailey's pain as she pulled the door closed behind her.

Chapter Nineteen: Rat and Whisper

Maria Ricardi laid low. She made no contact with any of her soldiers or skippers. Avoided all restaurants, kept away from her father's grave, stayed sharp on the lookout for the Thorn or Cojocaru's pet shark with the goddamn bone flute. She ditched her current cell phone—the second one recently—and switched to a new prepaid cell. None of her people knew where she lived now, thank God, and she had no contact with the rest of the
borgata.
Things would stay that way
until she resolved a few of these headaches. Yeah, and in between she'd worry about Karl and constantly second-guess her promise to stay away from Romania.

She took Xiesha's advice and paid a visit to one of Karl's informants, one of the few he'd ever mentioned by name. Little Ricky.

Little Ricky lived in Mattapan, inside a hideous square apartment complex with zero architectural flair and more than its share of urban blight. Inside, the carpet running along the interior halls stank of stale cigarette smoke and the lingering scents of a thousand pungent meals, lamb and ginger and old fish. Drifts of dead bugs filled the bottoms of the light fixtures. Some woman on another floor yelled in what sounded like Haitian Creole, the same words over and over again. The entire place sagged under the weight of its own working-class weariness, and she already wanted to be gone. Too damn easy to imagine being trapped in grimy shitholes like this for so long it sanded down every shine of hope, every dream of better days.

She'd never heard of Little Ricky, but that meant nothing. She certainly didn't know the length and breadth of the criminal population in Massachusetts, and since the guy wasn't made—maybe an associate at best—she couldn't have been expected to know him. Yet, when she stood in front of door 248A, staring at the cracks and nicks in the gray paint, she felt a pang of sympathy for him, living here with the dead bugs, smelling the fish.

A television babbled behind the door. Some reality show from the sound of the histrionics. She lifted her fist and knocked three times, her knuckles resounding on the cheap door paneling. Inside the apartment, a woman said, “Who the fuck's knocking at this hour?”

“How the fuck should I know?” This voice belonged to a man. Dare she hope it was Little Ricky?

“It better not be one of your asshole friends. I told you I don't want any fuckin' tweakers here.”

The door opened a crack, the chain still engaged, and a man peered out at her. Stubble covered the man's fleshy cheeks, and his dirty blond hair had been done up in dreadlocks. The unmistakable stink of weed wafted out from the apartment. “Yeah? What is it?”

“I'm looking for Little Ricky,” she said, and tried to give him a pleasant, unthreatening, closed-mouth smile. “You him?”

“What do you want?”

“I need information and I have cash.”

The crack in the door lost another few inches until she could only see one eye peering out. “Who wants to know?”

“Maria Ricardi. I'm a friend of Karl Vance.”

The door slammed.

Shit.

She stood there waiting. Another door farther down the hall cracked open. She caught a glimpse of a brown face with dark eyes staring at her before the door closed with a click and the rattle of locks.

Maria knocked again, softer this time. “I'd like to speak to you, Ricky. Nothing to worry about. Just a chat.”

No answer from Little Ricky, but from deeper in the apartment the woman yelled, “Goddamn Jehovah's Witnesses! We worship Satan, so make like a tree and get the fuck outta here!”

“I only want to talk.” Maria kept her voice low and compelling. Either her name or Karl's had clearly spooked the guy.

A long silence spun out, and then, from very close to the door panel, a tired voice said, “How'd you find me?”

“Everybody can be found, Mr. Richard Steven Roberts. Though it's easier for me, since I got a guy at the DMV. Like I said, I just want some information, and I hear you're the man.” She paused. “I'd also like to stop talking to this door.”

No answer. She raised her hand to knock again when she heard the rapid thump of approaching footsteps. Little Ricky said something, sounding urgent, maybe even afraid. She could hear his hummingbird heartbeat through the door. She cocked her head and listened harder. The other heartbeat sounded strange, slower, but with a slight fluttering echo between the
thub-dub
beat.

The chain rattled and the door swung open. A woman stood there with one hand clutching the doorframe as she glared at Maria. She was about Maria's height, with bleached hair showing roots, smeared eyeliner along her right eye, a hard, angular face, and a belly that bulged beneath her maternity blouse. She bared her teeth in a twitch of facial muscles a far cry from a smile. Her eyes narrowed as she looked Maria up and down.

“Look, you stupid dago bitch,” she said. “How many ways do I got to say it? Get the fuck
out
.”

The slur sparked and spun in the darkness of her mind like a firecracker on asphalt, but Maria kept her voice calm, almost robotic. “I'd like to speak with Little Ricky.” She wished she had Karl's skill with mind tricks so she could just influence her way past this abrasive skank. “I'm not sure what the problem is. I'm willing to pay—”

“Then come back tomorrow morning. It's almost midnight, for Chrissakes. Don't you fuckin' guineas ever sleep?”

Little Ricky appeared behind the woman, his round, doughy face ashen and bright spots of terror shining in his eyes. He quailed under her scrutiny, but he didn't retreat. He set one meaty hand on the woman's shoulder. Her scowl deepened, and her mouth thinned into a tight pale line.

“Hey, Tanya, enough, all right?” Little Ricky said quietly. “Let me take care of this, all right?”

“What? Like I'm gonna leave you alone with this bitch? She's gonna be on her knees offering to
pay
you—”