The Pretender (The Soren Chase Series Book 2) (25 page)

Soren didn’t think it was possible for Friday to look even more surprised, but somehow she did. Her mouth practically hung on the floor. He gently reached over and shut it.

“What the hell is going on?” he asked.

“You look like Soren.”

He looked in the mirror again, and for a split second had no idea what she was talking about. Of course, he looked like Soren. Who else was he supposed to look like? And then the memory of everything she said last night came rushing back.

He stared at his image in the mirror in wonder.

“So I do,” he said.

He flexed his hands self-consciously, watching his movement in the reflection. Being Ron Davis had felt like wearing a set of ill-fitting clothes. But Soren Chase felt comfortable in a way he hadn’t realized until he’d had a chance to shed the identity. It felt like him.

But if he was happy, Friday was not. She looked at him as if he’d grown a third eye on his head.

“That’s not possible,” she said. “How did you do that?”

Soren shrugged. “Dunno. I woke up this way.”

Friday seemed at a loss for words, looking from the mirror to Soren like she thought he might suddenly morph back into Ron.

“I thought . . .” she started, and drifted off. “This shouldn’t have happened.”

“Well, we’ll figure it out later. We’ve got to go.”

He headed to the door. It took him a moment to realize Friday wasn’t following. She stood there, still naked and staring at him. He recognized her expression only because Ron had seen it on Carla’s face before, and Soren could still access Ron’s memories. Friday wasn’t just alarmed that Ron had morphed back into Soren. She was personally upset.

His brain started making connections it should have made long before. He’d been so caught up in Alex’s kidnapping and then his own beating at the hands of Rakev that he hadn’t been thinking straight.

“You knew I was a pretender before the car chase, didn’t you?” Soren asked. “Your real mission wasn’t to get some item, and it wasn’t to help Alex. You came for me.”

Another thought hit him, this one even more disturbing.

“You know who I am,” he said. “You know my real name.”

Friday’s eyes met his, and she cocked her head to the side.

“Falk,” she said. “You’re Falk. Did you think your fellow doppelgängers were so stupid we couldn’t figure it out?”

Soren didn’t know why he was surprised. But theorizing that she knew his identity and having it confirmed were two different things.

“But he’s a bad guy,” Soren said. “You said so yourself. Why help him? Why try to make me back into him?”

Friday took a step back, clothes appearing on her body as she did so. She was suddenly dressed in black pants and a light blue blouse, and looked like she was going to take tea at a fancy hotel.

“Because like it or not, you’re one of us,” Friday replied. “Our people need help, and we’re desperate. We need a bad guy.”

“So who are you working for? Rakev?”

Friday shook her head emphatically.

“God, no,” she said. “As if anyone would work for that maniac. He knows nothing of your true identity. And I am genuinely interested in helping to stop him. He has something I want—something
we
need.”

“What?”

“I don’t think sharing that information would be a good idea, Falk. I’m not sure whose side you’re on.”

“That’s funny. I can’t even tell what the sides are anymore.”

Friday kept looking at him strangely, and it took a moment for Soren to identify the emotion on her face. She was scared of him. He couldn’t tell if that was because he was Falk, or because he’d become Soren again.

“Who are you working for?” Soren asked.

“The same people I always work for—our people,” she said. “If you remembered more of Falk’s memories, you’d know that. I’ve only ever had one agenda, and that is helping us.”

“And what about Audrey? And Rakev? Were you really hired to become her?”

Friday nodded.

“Yes,” she said. “Rakev put out the job and I took it, knowing it would put me on a collision course with you. I didn’t realize what he was going to do to the girl.”

“Did you know he was going to take Alex?”

“No,” she said firmly. “I’m not saying I would have stopped it if I did, but no.”

Soren glanced at the door.

“We need to get going,” he said. “Assuming you’re still trying to help me.”

“Our deal is in place, if you want to keep it,” she said. “If you help me get something from Rakev, I’ll help you save Alex.”

Soren thought of the text message that Glen had sent, talking about the
Cursed Dagger of the Tsars
. He remembered Terry mentioning it a couple months ago. He didn’t know what it was, but he didn’t want it to end up in her hands.

“I can’t give you the dagger,” he said.

Friday looked confused. It might have been an act, but he didn’t think so.

“That’s okay,” she said. “I’m not after any dagger.”

“Then what do you want, Friday? What is this really about?”

“A gun,” she said.

“A gun? You’re doing this all for a gun? Why?”

“It’s a special one,” Friday said. “It can kill doppelgängers.”

Sara sat alone in a small conference room in the police station, brooding. Ken and his fellow detectives had thrown every kind of threat at Gregory Ivanovich, and none of them had registered.

The police had raided his apartment and found nothing of value. His fingerprints had turned up no criminal record. Despair clung to Sara. Time was running out for Alex, and they were no closer to discovering his whereabouts.

Her train of thought was interrupted when Ken walked through the door. He looked terrible. His wounds from the attack last night weren’t significant, but he’d had barely any sleep. His face was haggard and drawn.

“You should go and get some sleep, Ken,” she said gently.

He looked taken aback.

“It’s not even noon,” he said. “And I have no intention of taking a nap until Alex is safe with you.”

“I know, but—”

“I don’t know what right I have to say this,” Ken said. “I know that you and I are . . . well, it’s complicated.”

She started to object, and he raised a hand.

“I’m not trying to have a state-of-our-relationship talk, Sara,” Ken said. “I’m just saying I’ve gotten to know Alex very well in our time together. I love him, too.”

Ken’s face started to crumple for a moment, and she felt her own start to follow. But he managed to get his emotions under control while she let tears spill down her cheeks.

“I know you do, Ken,” she said.

She rose from her chair and hugged him tightly, momentarily taking comfort in his embrace. When this was over, she should reassess her feelings for him. This was the second time he’d come through for her, and she owed it to him to decide once and for all where she stood.

There was a knock on the door. They broke apart.

“Come in!” Ken barked.

Both Glen and Alice nosed their way into the room, accompanied by a plainclothes police officer.

“These two wanted to see you, Detective,” the cop said. “I told them you were tied up, but—”

“It’s all right,” Ken said. The cop turned and left the room, shutting the door behind them. Sara eyed the pair curiously. Wallace had told her the two of them had been working nonstop even after the attack, but they didn’t look nearly as exhausted as Ken or she. Maybe it was because they were younger.

“You have something?” Ken asked.

Alice and Glen shared a look. “Yes, I think so,” Alice said. “We don’t know where Rakev is, but we might know who he is and have a sense of what he’s up to.”

“I’ll take anything,” Ken said. “Fire away.”

“We worked on two different tracks,” Glen started. “Alice was looking for mention of a ‘man made of smoke.’ I was looking at Rakev’s connections. We ended up in the same place—”

“Which we think is a good sign,” Alice finished.

“I started looking at the leprechauns,” Glen continued. “Rakev employs at least two, both of whom I’ve met. They’re brothers; Lochlan and Keevan. They have different powers. Lochlan can do little illusions: make people hear sounds, maybe see some stuff, that kind of thing. Keevan can teleport small distances. And both of them enjoy working with serious firepower.”

“I can’t believe I’m hearing this,” Ken muttered. “Leprechauns.”

But Sara was too numb to be surprised.

“If I couldn’t find Rakev, I thought maybe I could find some record of those two,” Glen said. “And I did. I found a mention of a pair of Irish brothers who ran a speakeasy in Boston in the 1920s. There was a mugshot from an arrest during Prohibition. It’s Lochlan for sure.”

Glen took something out of a folder he was carrying, and handed a sheet of paper to Ken.

“They have digital records that go back that far?” he asked while taking it.

“Wallace paid someone to find the relevant record in the archives and scan it in,” Glen said.

Ken handed Sara the sheet to see a printed copy of an old black-and-white photo. The man glaring at the camera didn’t look particularly supernatural. He just looked mean.

“Okay, where does this information get us?” Ken asked.

“Lochlan was acquitted of all charges and let go,” Glen said. “Probably greased some palms.”

“This is Boston we’re talking about,” Ken broke in.

Glen nodded. “But what’s notable is who also got off. In the raid that busted Lochlan, they also captured another businessman, described as Polish. His name was Igor Trumna. Here’s where things get interesting. In Polish, Trumna means ‘coffin.’ Guess what Rakev means in Czech?”

“Son of a bitch,” Ken said, and whistled.

“No, coffin,” Glen said.

Alice gave a sharp laugh that she cut off when nobody joined her.

“If I’m right, Igor Trumna is Silas Rakev,” Glen said. “And if that’s correct, we have a bit more to work with, because I think he likes to stick to a pattern.”

“We’re looking for aliases that in other languages mean ‘coffin,’” Ken said. “That is inspired, Glen. Very nice work.”

“I have a few already,” Glen said. “But you should hear from Alice first.”

“I’m going to need to back up a minute,” she said. “Are either of you familiar with the ‘Tunguska event?’”

Sara shook her head.

“It’s a large explosion that occurred on June 30, 1908, in Siberia,” Alice said. “The exact cause is unknown, but the prevailing theory is that it was a meteorite. The destructive power it unleashed was immense, more than ten thousand times the force of the first nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima. It’s estimated to have knocked down trees within eighty million miles.”

“Jesus,” Ken said.

“If it had occurred in a city, it would have leveled it,” Alice said. “But it occurred in Siberia and, as far as anyone knows, there were no deaths connected with it. But it did scare the hell out of people because it showed what a meteorite blast could do. Anyway, because the area was so remote, there were very few witnesses. One described a ‘bluish light’ and a monstrous noise, like a thousand cracks of thunder happening at once. He saw the trees nearby light up in flame, and he was knocked off his feet. That’s what he told the first scientists who interviewed him. His name was Sergei Semenov.”

Sara started pacing. The story was interesting, but she failed to see why it mattered.

“Semenov told them something else, too, something that did not make it into the official report issued by the Soviets in the 1930s, but was contained in old KGB files which are now, thanks to some hackers, freely available on the Internet,” Alice said. “Semenov said that four hours after the blast, a naked man came stumbling out of the ruined forest. According to Semenov, he was shouting and crying at the same time, occasionally looking up at the sky and yelling something at it. When the man spotted Semenov watching, he disappeared in a cloud of black smoke.”

Sara stopped pacing.

“Over the next several days, nearby villagers reported missing animals. At first it was small pets, then livestock, and eventually, people,” Alice continued. “On multiple occasions, neighbors reported seeing a ‘man made of smoke,’ who vanished and reappeared at will.

“Semenov kept his family inside, refusing to let them work the fields or even milk the cows. He hoped the nightmare would move on before they all starved to death. But one afternoon, the man appeared in Semenov’s kitchen. He was still ranting and raving, but this time he spoke fluent Russian. He kept asking Semenov where he was, but apparently the answers he gave weren’t satisfactory. The man threw Semenov’s wife across the room without touching her, then kept talking to Semenov like nothing had happened. Then he abruptly disappeared again, leaving Semenov unharmed. When he told the scientists the story, Semenov called the thing a Raróg—a Slavic mythical creature whose name literally means ‘demon of the whirlwind.’”

Ken started to ask something, but Glen cut him off.

“Story isn’t over yet,” he said.

“In an addendum added more than two decades after the original report was filed, one of the report’s authors said that Semenov had told him something else as well,” Alice said. “This was something apparently the agent didn’t want to file in the original report. Semenov said he saw the Raróg later. There was a propaganda film showing old clips of Lenin and Stalin from the days immediately after the Russian Revolution. In one of those clips, Semenov claimed the Raróg was there—standing right next to Stalin on a podium. He was being decorated for bravery as a soldier who had killed dozens of ‘enemies of the state.’”

Alice nodded and Glen jumped in while Sara tried not to let her mouth hang open in shock.

“I checked the story,” Glen said. “In the early days, the Bolsheviks were vying for power, and there’s the story of a soldier named Alexei Grob who wiped out a contingent of tsarists. Would you like to guess what Grob means in Russian?”

“Coffin,” Sara said.

“So what you’re telling me,” Ken said, “is that Silas Rakev is some kind of Communist alien who fell from the sky?”

Glen smiled at him.

“Shit, man, that’s exactly what I said. Truthfully, though, I don’t think he’s an alien. Grob vanishes from the history books in 1921, after he was rewarded with a job to find and destroy ‘decadent’ historical art and artifacts. My guess is he took the job because he was looking for the dagger. But it was no longer in Russia.”