Seven Kinds of Hell (30 page)

I thought about it; my skills might not be so useless to the Fangborn after all. “Any other Fangborn who are archaeologists?”

“Two, now. One is in Asia and the other is in New York, but he’s close to three hundred. That’s very old, even for us.”

“Two in the whole world?”

“There were more, in the nineteenth century, when science of the past was, well, more respectable, and a good cover for us to
travel and research. Frankly, the slowness of communication made it easier for us to hide in plain sight, and our numbers were finally increasing after the Great Reaping in the eighteenth century.”

Oh, of course. The Great Reaping.
What?

She continued. “Then, the world wars took a toll. Always the case with wars.” Ariana shook her head. “Unfortunately, humans are just getting more and more efficient at them.”

“Oh.”

After we boarded and cast off, it was too loud to talk, and if Ariana had answers to my questions, neither of us wanted to shout them. I could see the first glimmers of dawn in the east.

Once we were on the northern tip of the island, Ben had to cut speed. We pulled up on a small beach. The sea was as rough as it had been yesterday, but not as bad as I was expecting.

“Here’s the plan,” Ben said. “I’m going to let you off here. They’ll be looking for you to come to the main harbor. You’ll have to go south and west, across the island, to your meeting. The most obvious place is the museum plaza. I’ll see if the western landing is clear. If so, we’ll come around and see if we can’t thin Dmitri’s herd a little.”

“And what do I do?” I hadn’t told them everything; that I didn’t have what Dmitri wanted. And I might have skipped over the part where I’d be willing to trade him the golden disk they’d been guarding for Danny.

“Try not to get killed,” Ben suggested.

Ariana glared at him. “Just try and get Danny back. If it looks like things are…going to go badly, get feral on Parshin’s ass.”

I couldn’t help myself. I laughed. It helped.

“Seriously, you can do it. You did on Mykonos. You’ve done it at home. Take him out, save your cousin, and we’ll go back to our place. Ben will cook—he’s quite good—and after the falafel mishap, he almost always wears clothing when he’s in the kitchen.”

She made it seem easy. She made it seem…finite. I was finally coming to the end of this. It was a relief, thinking that.

Ariana continued, “Keep your eyes open, and get ready to take advantage, if you can.”

They took off, and I began to trot down across the island. Not too fast; I needed to give Ariana and Ben time to make their landing.

It was dark still, but sunrise was in about an hour. I was surprised at how well I could see in the dark, even skinself. The more I thought about it, the more I could recognize times when I thought I’d been unusually lucky, or maybe physically gifted. Now I knew it wasn’t because I was special.

It’s because I am a werewolf.

Although it was really the first time I’d said it as a matter of fact, it didn’t quite make sense. But I was tired and scared and drained, and it made me giggle. I thought of Danny and picked up my speed.

Over the next rise, and I slipped; gravel and cobbles rolled out of the way, and if I’d fallen, I would have pitched into the excavations of a house and eaten colored mosaic, busted a tooth, busted a bone.

But I didn’t, because I caught myself. Actually, I saw the peril before I had to catch myself, and averted it. I had talents, I had abilities…

…because I am a werewolf.

That gave me an idea. I didn’t want to give Dmitri the golden disk without making sure Danny was still alive; I had no idea how long Danny’s beating might have continued. I came up to the edge of the largest complex, the gymnasium complex, if I remembered yesterday’s lecture correctly. I found a piece of uncovered ground by the base of a pillar and pulled out my trowel. I buried the disk and covered over the area with loose gravel and weeds. Then I pulled out my notebook, checked my watch, and made the roughest of sketches. An uneven rectangle, about fifteen minutes’ walk from
where I’d been set down on the coast, within sight of two intact doorways. They weren’t going anywhere soon.

This was the most familiar thing I’d done in a while. I stuck my trowel into the back of my belt, dusted myself off, and continued.

The museum was in the middle of the top third of the island. I was approaching from the northeast; the landing where Ben and Ariana were going to land was to the west. It didn’t take me long to get there, and as I did, the sun was just starting to peek over the horizon. The last hundred meters seemed to take the longest; I was desperate to get there on time but reluctant to face Dmitri without the figurines. I actually stopped, but by this time I was so close I could see three men outside the museum. They saw me, spoke into radios, and gestured to me.

Dmitri was close.

I trudged up the path, almost paved with fragments of marble and rock, sherds among the poppies. There were wildflowers everywhere, and they were vivid red, yellow, purple, and blue against the radiant marble and dun stone as the sun rose.

Not a bad place for a confrontation.

With the sun rising, the place glowed almost white off the water; the reflections and refractions must have added to the liquid quality of the light. And even though I didn’t have full control over my powers, I knew, somehow, in this place I could summon the Beast easily.

If anything had happened to Danny, I
would
go feral on Dmitri’s ass. I could do that.

Because I am a werewolf.

As I approached, the men closed in. One pointed to the coffee shop I’d checked out yesterday. I went in.

There was no one else; the goons stayed outside.

I might be able to get Danny out, I reasoned, but could I outrun bullets, even in wolf form?

Probably not.

I’d just have to run interference and make sure Danny got to Ariana and Ben.

All but one of the tables were set up for the night’s mopping, with the chairs on top. I’d done enough mopping myself to know the process. One was not, and there were chairs around it.

I sat down, facing the doorway.

Dmitri was here.

Dmitri Alexandrovich Parshin was here and he looked like hell, even worse in the light of day than in the video call yesterday. Adam Nichols and his gang had hurt him back in Berlin. One eye was blackened and nearly closed; what I could see of the white was actually red with burst blood vessels. There was a serious case of road rash down that side of his face, and one arm was bandaged.

Good. Adam Nichols had taken a chunk off him.

“You are late.”

“I was delayed—I had to steal a boat. I’m here now.”

“I saw no boat in the harbor.” He snapped his fingers and one of his men approached. Dmitri said something to him in another language—Russian, it sounded like—and he left.

“I’m not real good at navigating. Actually, I’ve never driven a boat before. I just aimed for Delos and tried not to hit any rocks.”

“You would have passed Antonio Cavalli’s excavations from the main landing, a man of great learning. No matter, you are here.”

Excavations?
Not the Via Cavalli in Venice? Maybe the Beacon really did want me, had been leading me to it in Venice. “Hey, I’m just glad I figured out what you were saying.” I was in a bad mood and let it show. “Things were a little hectic back there in Berlin.”

At the mention of Berlin, Dmitri scowled. “I trust you have the figurines.”

“No. They were taken from me by that guy I saw in Berlin. Adam Nichols.”

“How?
When?
” He strode over to my table, slammed a pistol on it. “How could you, when so much relies on it? One of my men betrayed me, and Nichols has been dogging my steps ever since.”

“Trust me, it wasn’t my idea.” I eyed the pistol, and before Dmitri could pop an artery or do anything crazy, I said, “But I have something else, something that might be even better. A gold disk.”

“Do not waste my time.” He paced back and forth, then called one of his men in. He barked at him in Russian, and the only words I recognized were “Adam” and “Nichols.” Didn’t sound good for Nichols, whatever it was. Then I heard him say, “Connor,” and my heart almost stopped.

He strode back to me. “It was only those things I needed. Only those things I can use to become
oboroten.
”

“Does that word mean wealthy? Because I have access to an artifact that will certainly help.”

“That word means ‘werewolf.’ Here, today, I was going to become
oboroten.
”

I swallowed. “You can’t. It doesn’t work like that.”

He leaned into me. “What do you know about it?”

“You don’t get familiar with that kind of artifact without learning some weird shit,” I said. I was lying so hard about my familiarity with the figurines and the Fangborn I could have made the Olympic team. “And the reason I knew about them was because one of them has been in my possession for years. I met the people who’ve studied those things. I’ve listened, and I’ve read—it’s been my life’s work. And the only way you can become a werewolf is to be born one. You don’t get bitten, you don’t use broken fragments of two-thousand-year-old rubbish.”

“Nonsense.”

“You’ve been watching the wrong movies. You have to be born
oboroten.
Trust me.”

“Liar! I know I have the potential within me—it runs in my family! I have seen!”

That gave me pause—was it possible he was some kind of demented oracle Fangborn but not a shape-shifter? If so, he was almost as ignorant as I was, a stray, and I wasn’t going to give away any of my hard-won information about the Fangborn. It wasn’t up to me to solve his riddles.

“You know who has the figurines now; if you still want them back, you’ll find Adam Nichols. I bet a tough guy like you would be up for a rematch.”

No response from Dmitri, whose eyes had darkened and whose hands were clenched. I spoke in a hurry to keep his attention.

“I can buy Danny’s freedom, though, with an object at least as old as those taken from me. It won’t turn you into a werewolf either, but it’s worth a bomb, the price of gold these days. But before I hand over that to you, before I leave here safely with my cousin, we’re gonna have a little talk about what you knew about my father. See, I discovered the fragment around your neck mended with a fragment Ma’d had for years. A piece that belonged to my father. How did you know him?”

“Enough of this.” He snapped his fingers. Another man stepped forward.

Was that a noise back there? In the courtyard, a kind of scuffling? Was it possible Ariana and Ben had been able to circle around, undetected? My hopes soared, even as Dmitri shoved my chair over next to the wall.

“Check her bag.”

I had to buy some time and wanted to hold the Beast in reserve, so I made a show of hanging on to it. I tried not to let any of them see how the noise in the courtyard, real or imagined, had stripped away my fatigue.

Bad Guy One tore the bag out of my hands, unzipped it, upended it on the table. A half-drunk bottle of water:
thud, slosh.
Pens clattered; random notes, a thousand itineraries and ticket stubs fluttered out. Toilet paper. A plastic bag with Band-Aids, antiseptic cream, aspirin, and the spice container along with a couple of tampons topped the pile, as did my ratty, perennially empty wallet. Almost as an afterthought, the pile of cell phones I’d accumulated fell out and off the table.

Dmitri pawed through it, faint amusement his only expression. “This is the detritus of a very sad life, is it not, Zoe? I myself…frankly, I would be ashamed of this kind of poverty, not of material wealth but a…a sheer lack of character. There is nothing to distinguish you here. And I do not see the disk you promise.”

“Where’s Danny?”

“Danny is fine, fine.” Dmitri absently shoved the things back into the bag. He looked up and whistled sharply. “You can see him now.”

Bad Guy Two dwarfed the doors to the entrance. He dragged Danny in behind him.

Danny was a long way from “fine.” His face was purpled with bruises, both eyes nearly shut. His nose was bloody and twisted at an angle, and when he breathed through his mouth, bubbles appeared. He made a noise when he saw me, and got a fist in his stomach that doubled him over.

I cried out, stood. Dmitri pushed me back down.

“The figurines.”

“Stolen! Adam Nichols has them!” I couldn’t take my eyes off my cousin. Was this what I’d heard, just now, Danny being beaten up? “I can get you the gold disk! Give me ten minutes, I can get it! Take the gold, forget I ever had the figurines! They won’t turn you into a werewolf!”

“How do you know?”

“Because
I
am a werewolf!”

I felt stupid as soon as I said it out loud.

He stared at me, and I knew what he saw: a small woman, dirty and disheveled, the opposite of the power he sought. He knew
about the Fangborn, but he didn’t know all about them, else he wouldn’t be so obsessed with the figurines.

And it seemed he didn’t know about me.

He laughed hugely, then gestured.

Bad Guy Two took out a knife. The sight of it made Danny sink, all strength gone from his knees.

The knife should have terrified me. It should have triggered images in my mind that would haunt me all the years of my life to come. It should have immobilized me.

Danny was the last thing I had on earth, the last indication that I mattered as a person, all on my own, no hinky family troubles, no bizarre shifts in reality.

Somewhere beyond the now-familiar buzzing that seemed to fill my head as I saw my cousin begin to weep, as Bad Guy Two licked the blade with a kind of lust, I had only one thought:

Never mind the Beast. I’ll kill Dmitri with my own two human hands.

I began to catalog the vulnerable spots of the human body. Years of studying skeletons had provided a list.

Neck: Too narrow. I’d never hit it square enough.

Chest: Too many ribs.

Eyes: Too small a target…

Thought stopped. My head dropped. My hands fell to my sides. The buzzing grew, filled—charged—my entire body. The Beast was different, somehow, this time.