Pack of Strays (The Fangborn Series Book 2) (24 page)

“Danny,
stow
it. Dmitri Parshin, I understand parole. You’re giving me your word,” I said. “Whether I decide to rely solely on that is yet to be determined. For now, you’re sticking with us. You’re doing exactly what I tell you. And you’re going to help me, not solely with this promised show of force but with anything else
I wa
nt, until I say otherwise.”

“Or else?” The rain eased up and finally stopped. The others slowly calmed.

I chose, rather hopefully, to call it a good sign. “Or else, deal’s off. You’re no longer under my protection from any authorities looking for you, any crooks you might have double-crossed—I expect that’s a long list. Cross me, and I no longer go against my better judgment. Think of it as penance, or if you’re not feeling apologetic, say I’m exacting retribution. You have information
I w
ant.”

He nodded. “So you know I’ve had an association with the Order of Nicomedia?”

“I suspected. Sit. Talk.”

Dmitri took a seat on a chunk of broken wall. “Since our … last meeting, I determined I had to find out what they know about you. I was a member, had been accepted into their ranks. I always found their fear and hatred of your people laughable. I, however, used their resources to find what I wanted for myself.”

I held up a hand. “Wait, what do they know about your recent … movements? Activities? Have you been in contact with them recently—are they coming here?”

He shook his head. “They always knew better than to try and put a leash on me. In return for occasionally giving them good information, they ‘allowed’ me to come and go as I pleased. They do not know I am here.”

“But you had to tell them something in exchange for access for their records?”

“Yes, of course. I told them about you and everyone with you.”

He said it without shame, without fear, without hesitation. If he had been anyone else, confessing to a pissed-off werewolf that he’d betrayed everyone she loved, repeatedly, Dmitri should have been wetting himself. I could hear Danny gasp; the implications of what
Parshin had just said had struck him. I held up a hand. Danny kicked a rock and stalked off, but not so far he couldn’t hear.

It occurred to me: Dmitri’s life was altogether different. “What did you tell them?”

Dmitri hesitated for the first time, glanced at Danny. “There is much. Perhaps you could record this?”

I looked at my cousin. “Danny? Your phone charged up?”

Danny came back, pulled out his phone, pulled up an app. “Only because
you
asked, Zo.”

I had to hand it to Dmitri—giving Danny something to occupy himself was not a bad idea.

Parshin began. “So. They know you are a werewolf. They know you are investigating your origins, your parents. And they know why I went to Ephesus, what you were looking for. They probably know that you found it, though I do not believe they know exactly what happened.” He reached into his bag, and even though I had checked it, we all tensed. He pulled out a bottle of water and took a sip. “There were many dead men, much confusion. And few of them remember what happen. None of them, I believe, had so … personal … an experience as I did.”

I blew out my cheeks impatiently. Enough with his fascination; I wanted information.

Dmitri got it. And he spilled his guts.

The Steubens, Danny, and Will. Sean’s death—but nothing of
his continued presence with me. The Order’s history and the TRG—

That brought me up short. “Wait a minute!” I said, a terrible
idea striking me. “They’re not working together now? What’s
left of the TRG and the Order—they haven’t joined forces,
have the
y?”

“No, no. This is ancient history. A long time ago, your
Senator
Edward Knight brought a young man into his confidence. A brilliant scientist, most of his work was the backbone of the TRG’s research. But there was some dispute, and they parted ways.”

“Parted ways?” I snorted. “Yeah, I’ll say. Didn’t end up well for Porter; Knight talked him into committing suicide.”

Dmitri caught his breath. This was the kind of power he wanted, I understood. Problem was, he could never have it. “Porter’s work lives on, through his son. Sebastian Porter is the driving force behind the Order now. He is the Order’s most prized possession, most heavily guarded. ”

“But if we find Sebastian Porter … we find the Fellborn,” I said. “We eliminate him and his research. We stop whatever they’re planning in Boston. Wins all around.”

“Yes, but …” Dmitri permitted himself a humorless smile. “He
is
the Order’s most heavily guarded secret.”

“Do you know where he is?” I asked.

“I know where he was most recently, yes.”

“Then.” I shrugged. “Not so secret.”

“Perhaps I could still get in. Perhaps we could get to Porter without raising the alarm. But that would be as far as it goes. The sites are rigged, you know. We could never escape after.”

“I think you’re underestimating our resources.” I nodded to Vee and Danny and to Toshi, who showed real interest now that he was hearing about an attack on the Order. “And I think you’re underestimating my determination. We’re in bad shape, Dmitri
Parshin
. We need to do something, and in the next three days. It’s not going to be anything
short
of drastic.”

He raised an eyebrow.

I shrugged back at him. The time for cool and stoic was past. “So. You’re going to help me?”

“No threats?” Again, he was amused.

“Don’t need ‘em.” I cocked my head toward the still armed and very angry Vee, who was the least of his problems. “But no promises, either, if you don’t give me what I want.”

“I should think the liberal use of my funds as you traipsed across Europe would have been repayment enough.”

I scoffed. “You gave me that card to use. To commit your crimes. But you still owe me for making me do your dirty work, and God knows you owe Danny a lot. I’d like to think he’d contribute that to the cause.”

“I’d like to think I’d take it out of his hide,” Danny muttered.

Dmitri paused, and I thought I saw a little admiration on his face. “You always wanted to leave a way for me to find you.”

I said nothing. Just smiled.

“What is it that you do want, Parshin?” Danny was impatient now. “What are you after?”

“What I have always been after. The power of the Fangborn.”

I put my hands on my hips. “Dude, you know by now—I’ve told you: we’re born, not bitten. It ain’t gonna happen.”

He looked pained. “‘Dude?’ You call me ‘dude?’” He flicked his fingers, presumably to disperse the odious term on the winds. “We do not know yet what is possible. I know the Order has worked hard to simulate the strength of werewolves—”

“Have you seen those things?” I said, aghast. “The Fellborn? They’re mindless, brutes without volition. There’s no comparison, and you’re a fool if you believe that’s what you want. You’d be better off injecting yourself with a syringe full of steroids and PCP, if you want to be that crazy and strong.”

“They are also the ones making advances in synthetic
Fangborn
scent and in its opposite. That peculiar odor you say you detect in the presence of evil.”

“Yes, I know,” I said. “It’s a very good way of luring a lot of Fangborn to one place. They tried it out in New York, and now they have bigger plans.”

“So there may yet be a way to give me what I want,” Dmitri said. “We know your artifacts give you considerable power—”

I broke in. “Over which I have very little control and less knowledge.”

“And yet, we will see.” He thought a moment. “Ephesus, our bond. It did affect me profoundly—I will not deny it. And there is something to the notion that I want to … make amends. It is still an alien sensation, feeling guilty. I’m not sure I like it, never having known such a thing before. I wish to be rid of it.”

“And?” I said. I knew it wasn’t just this. Maybe I’d stripped the devil from Dmitri, or maybe I’d grown him a conscience—that couldn’t be comfortable after the life he’d lived. That didn’t mean he wasn’t still a schemer and out for only himself. There was no telling what he’d do.

“And, whether you like it or not, Identification Day is
coming
.
Whether the Order succeeds in alerting humanity to your
existence
—
and casting you as a threat to be eradicated—or
whether
your
political
factions and Senator Knight decide it’s time—it’s
coming
. The Fangborn are going to change the world, and I want that kind of power. If I can’t have it myself, I can buy myself a place near it with what I know. I also have a Fangborn artifact. And I’m offering that to you.”

I thought about it. It was dangerous, of course; but I knew he was telling the truth. And before I could worry about what the artifacts would do to me, I needed their strength to stop what was coming.

I’d be ready for him. I wasn’t the same person I’d been at Ephesus, either.

“Okay, you have an artifact,” I said. “Sold. I want it. I want to know the locations of the Order’s repositories, and I want to know how to find Porter and his lab. Where to?”

“Which first?” A rare glimpse of sour humor, a chuckle from deep inside his barrel chest. “You don’t ask for much, merely all I have.”

“You also mentioned an army. The time for that will be soon. What is closest?”

He shook his head. “Nothing is close. You are an optimist, so American.”

I rolled my eyes. Well,
duh.

“No, nothing is close, nothing is easy,” Parshin continued. “Only possible, maybe, with the two of us.”

“Okay, so how hard? How far?”

Dmitri smiled, and I knew enough to understand it had nothing to do with humor or happiness. “You will like it. We’re going home, Zoe Miller. Back to the scene of the crime.”

Chapter Eighteen

When we finally got back to Istanbul, we had only enough energy to eat and make plane reservations. I called Adam Nichols.

“Hey, I’ve finished my business here,” he said. “Where are you? I’ll meet you.”

“No, I’m leaving for Boston.” I filled him in on everything. “Meet me there, if you can. But I have a stop to make first.”

When he heard what I was going to do, he said, “I don’t like it. Let me meet you there instead.”

“No, I’ll see you in Boston. I’ll have Claudia call you and give you directions.” I had no idea what the Fangborn would make of Adam, who’d worked for Senator Knight. I’d leave it to Claudia to sort out. “Just … just be there. I … I’d like to know I’d be coming home to … I don’t know.”

“A friendly face?” he said, not without humor.

“At least that,” I admitted. “A little warmth.”

“I can do that.”

And my heart lightened.

“Hey, Zoe, I got you something—”

“Oh, jeez, I didn’t have time to shop for souvenirs.” But I did like surprises. “What is it?”

“It’s nothing big, but I think you’ll like it. Do you want me to tell you?”

“Yes! No! No, keep it a surprise.”

“Okay, I’ll keep it a surprise, and I’ll give it to you in
Boston
.”

“Okay,” I said, surprised at how thirty seconds of silliness could make me feel so good. “I’ll see you then, Adam.”

“Yeah, you will.” He hung up before I could say anything else, which was okay, because I wasn’t sure what else I should say. Having a surprise, a nice one, however small, was a treat these days. It made a change from anger and dread and kept me, for a moment at a time, from remembering that the Fellborn would attack Boston in four days.

Danny got his place closed up, and we restocked what we needed from the local market and from Dmitri’s supplies. No surprise, Parshin had a very posh set of rooms on the Bosphorus. Vee and Danny reluctantly ditched their pistols in his safe. Even as organized as we all were, we barely made the flight; the traffic from
Beşiktaş to Ataturk was miserable.

We changed planes in Munich, with about an hour until we needed to board. I ran to the ladies’ room and came out of the stall to find Vee staring at the mirror. Her eyes were bloodshot with exhaustion, and her dark skin was slack on her face. She’d been overextending herself on this trip and wasn’t rebounding.

To be fair, I didn’t look any better.

“What am I doing here?” she muttered to her reflection. She pulled her curls back into a knot at the back of her head. “I would give anything if it could be some other way.”

“Isn’t there?”

“No. It’s what I saw. And as soon as I saw
him
, I knew it was right.”

“You saw …?” But I already knew the answer.

She nodded miserably. “I had a vision of Dan right after I met you. And that’s when I knew I had to find you again. I knew the two of you were connected.”

“You did show up at exactly the right time,” I said slowly. “We’re all alive because of you.”

“Mission accomplished,” she said with a tired giggle. She leaned against the white tile. “None of it makes any sense, Zoe. I don’t believe in love at first sight: I know at some level, I’m taking in everything I see when I look at him, and analyzing it and knowing he’s a good fit for me. Maybe the only fit. I especially don’t believe in love at first sight with the
second
sight. It’s not just an oracle thing. I know it doesn’t make sense, but it’s absolutely right. I don’t want this.”

She burst into tears.

I wasn’t sure what to do. “He seems to, um, like you, too.”

“He does, I know. It’s …” She looked up at me. “There’s a big fucking question mark over
your
head. If you don’t succeed at … whatever it is you’re doing, it’s going to be very bad. If you do, I don’t see a happy ending, either. I only see more trouble.”

“Well, that sucks.” I made a face. “I kinda wish you hadn’t said anything.”

She smiled back. “Welcome to my world. It’s worse if you do nothing at all. But either way, me being here, being with Dan, makes it better somehow. It’s helping, but …”

“But you’re scared,” I said. “I know I am. I hate not knowing what effect my actions will have.”
Or whether I’m going to turn into a crazy old dragon if I keep on this path.

She nodded. “I went to a lot of trouble to separate myself from the Family. It was a big deal. So I hate this. I hate being back in, tangled up with all this shit. I hate being in the field. I hate the danger, the things we have to do. The only mayhem I’m interested in is in online gaming, right? And I hate that I get mad at Dan about it. I think, ‘What’s a guy got to do with my happiness? Why
should he have that kind of control over my life?’ My next thought
is ‘He
doesn’t
get to.’ I mean, I hate that.”

I nodded, and sighed. “I’ve been there.”

But she must have seen the look on my face, the one that said she didn’t talk about hate and Danny in the same breath. “But then I see him, and I get these stupid, happy, dangerous, romantic, crazy thoughts. My world goes upside-down and over the moon. He gets me, I get him, and I know I have to be here, no matter what.”

Then that was it. That was my goal. I’d keep doing the best I could to save my friends. Maybe my future wasn’t so bright, but theirs might be. That, I could believe in. That, I could trust and work for.

She rubbed at her face. “I would rather wake up with only work deadlines to worry about, you know? Feature freeze, code freeze.”

“Oh God, yeah.” I leaned against the wall opposite her. “I mean, this is some seriously crazy shit, and I am the last person on the face of the earth to be equipped to deal with it. Why not Claudia?”

“I know.” She nodded. “Right?”

“She’s tough, she’s strong,” I said, getting into the swing of it now that I’d said it out loud. “
And
she’s a fucking grown up. Why not Gerry or Fergus—or almost anyone else? Why me? I’ve got
no
training, I
barely
know how to use what I have, much less this … new stuff. And suddenly, these people are treating me like I’m giving the orders, like I know what I’m doing. It makes zero sense. But you said the alternatives are worse?”

“The alternatives are worse. What are you gonna do.” Vee wasn’t asking so much as commiserating.

“Yeah.”

She hesitated, then said, “I don’t think he would dump me if you said so, but I know your opinion means a lot to Dan. I don’t think we need to be friends, but …”

“No, I get it.” I thought about it. “We want the same things, right? But you mess with Danny, hurt him in any way, I will blast you into a thousand million little pieces, then jump all over them.”

A crowd of women, recently disgorged from a flight, flooded in and queued for the vacant stalls.

“Absolutely,” Vee agreed. “And if you and your weird-ass
jewelry
get him into any trouble, I’ll freeze time and cut your throat in your sleep.” She stuck out her hand. In other cases, these would be idle threats, made only to underscore our sincerity. The fact that they weren’t idle threats made us both freaks. Gave us a bond.

We giggled hysterically, drawing stares from the newcomers as we shook on it.

On the last leg of the flight, I sat next to Dmitri, keeping him next to the window. Toshi was beside me, sleeping soundly, snoring gently. I was glad for him; it was the first time I’d seen his face relax since Istanbul. I couldn’t sleep, so while I had him, Dmitri Parshin was going to give me some answers.

“You once had a fragment of a figurine. You wore it around your neck,” I said.

He glared at me. “You took it from me. Berlin.” As the cabin attendant passed, the bastard’s face changed to charming geniality in an instant as he asked for, and received, a drink.

“Yes. It fit perfectly with a larger piece that had belonged to my father. What do you know about him?”

“What was his name? What makes you think I should know anything?”

“I don’t know what it was, only that it wasn’t Miller. Let’s simplify it: Did you ever encounter the person who had the figurine your fragment matched?”

He looked thoughtful. “Yes, I met someone. He and I fought.”

“Tell me about it. Tell me about
him
.” Was he really going to tell me about the father I’d never met? My excitement rose, along with dread and anticipation. My mother had kept her mouth firmly closed on the subject, saying only that my father was a good man, but she was terrified of his vigilante family. That’s what kept us on the run my whole childhood, my unknown Fangborn family.

Dmitri glanced at me, up and down. “I suppose it could have been he. Your pale coloring, dark hair, green eyes. Slight build. He was not a … noticeable presence. He fought fiercely, though, and well.”

My hands gripped the arms of the seat. “Did you kill him?”

He shook his head. “No, no.”

“When was this?”

“Hmmm, late 1987, in New York City—”

That jibed with what my mother had said, that she’d left him when she discovered she was pregnant. She’d been afraid of his kin, thinking them gangsters and killers, not understanding she and they both were Fangborn. She once said that figurine was the only thing besides me she took from him.

Dmitri interrupted my thoughts. “Then we met again, briefly, about two years ago.”

I couldn’t have heard him correctly. “What?”

“In Alaska. Another attempt on my part to find his figurine. I didn’t know that you had it at that point.”

“But he was …” Adrenaline raced through me. “I was told he was already dead by then …”

“No, it was the same man. And he remembered me. The fight was a closer thing for me at that time.” Dmitri cocked his head and drained his whiskey, acknowledging a simple truth. “A little less luck, and I might have died that day.”

“But, wait …” How could my mother have known? She said that she left my father and then tried to hide from his family rather than let me get tangled up with them. She had loved my father but didn’t trust the business he seemed to be involved in.
Perhaps
she’d seen a picture of him in the paper and found out about his death that way. Maybe a mutual friend had told her? Unlikely.
Perhaps
it was more likely Parshin hadn’t met my father at all, but someone else who’d had possession of the figurine—no. My mother had had it all my life. “Was the figurine whole when you were looking for it? Or did you already have the arm?”

He frowned. “The arm snapped off that first day as he grabbed it away from me.”

I pulled out the last letter my mother had ever left me, one of the few treasures I carried with me, and read hurriedly. She’d written “gone,” not “dead.” So perhaps she hadn’t known, perhaps she meant only that he was dead to her. Maybe Dmitri had fought my father.

“Tell me everything,” I said again. “What his name was, where you saw him, and when.”

“The first time, I told you, was very quick. If we had more time, perhaps one of us would have taken the figurine intact. I had heard the thing was stolen from a collection, and I found the thief’s home. Unfortunately, your father—if that’s who it was—grabbed the piece at the same time I did. The police came, and the thief’s thugs. We broke away, each going our separate ways.”

“Okay,
not
a lot of detail.”

Dmitri snorted. “It was very dark, it was illegal, and I had no time or desire to exchange cards with the gentleman. But when I found the Order’s account of where that piece might be, years later, I offered to take that job. I went to Anchorage, found a flight to the small town, out in the middle of nowhere.” He looked as though h
e wan
ted to spit. “I might as well have been in Siberia. I found the house, I found the man—Richard Klein—was on the address. The name was probably fake. He was waiting for me. A good fighter,
he eventu
ally took his moment to escape with the figurine.”