Trina wasn’t nervous. Well, she was, but she’d suppressed it. She had a task, and no amount of nerves would keep her from it. She wondered, faintly, if this was the way Katya had felt, taking a steamer to Stalingrad, a rifle slung over her shoulder. On her way to kill Nazis.
She clocked Dr. Fowler through the window of the coffeeshop and walked past him without turning her head, shoulders back, gaze forward, strides brisk. She made it inside, down the aisle of tables, and managed not to acknowledge him at all until she was sitting across from him. Then she pushed her sunglasses up into her hair and said, “Thank you for meeting me,” in the chilliest voice she could conjure.
He seemed properly off-kilter. “Yes, well. Of course. Thank you for – I think we can both help one another.”
“Hmm. Maybe.” She pulled her phone from her pocket, a photo already pulled up on the screen. It was a close-up Harvey had sent her of the teeth marks in the abdomen of one of their vics. She set the phone down on the table and slid it just close enough for him to see, keeping her hand on it. “Take a look at that, Dr. Fowler, and tell me what you see.”
He made a face, clearly taken aback. “This is…this is a crime scene photo–”
“Autopsy, actually, but close enough. These right here?” She pointed. “They’re teeth marks. Fang marks, as in, not human teeth.” She pocketed the phone and sat back. “When were you going to tell me that your escaped patients are werewolves, doctor?”
He stared at her a moment, gaping, sufficiently shocked. He blinked, and shook his head. Some of the coyness crept back into his voice. “Detective Baskin, I’m surprised.”
She lifted her brows.
“That you would even entertain an idea like that. Werewolves? Oh, is this a joke?” He looked relieved, and then stern, a transparent attempt at acting. “I didn’t take you for someone who would use murder victims to play pranks, but clearly–”
“You know who I am,” she said, and he stilled. “The Ingraham Institute was founded in 1942 in Stalingrad. The first person they studied was a nineteen-year-old from Siberia named Sasha Kashnikov. If you work there, then you know that. Just like you also know that you’ve seen my last name on some paperwork somewhere. Let’s not play the monsters-don’t-exist game, because you’re obsessed with them.”
He stared at her, jaw clenching.
“You’re in charge of the wolves that killed that family, which makes you my number one suspect at the moment.”
He smiled, thinly. “Do you think that will hold up in a court of law?”
“Crazier stuff has.”
His smile widened. “You’re out of your mind.”
“No. I’m impatient – there’s a big difference. Where’s Sasha, Dr. Fowler?”
Now his smile curled up at the corners, Grinch-like and smug. “I’m sorry. Who?”
“Where’s Sasha?” she repeated, and this time the question was punctuated with a soft click.
Dr. Fowler’s smile faltered; he jerked a little in his chair. “You didn’t.”
“I very much did.” The Smith & Wesson .45 fit her hand with the familiarity of an old friend, reassuringly cool and heavy. “If you’re going to operate outside the law, then so am I. I’ve had very little sleep in the last week, you’ve kidnapped my friend, and I’m an excellent marksman. So unless you want me to Han Solo your ass through this table right now, you’ll tell me what you did with Sasha.”
He met her stare-for-stare. “I didn’t do anything with him. It’s like I’ve already told you: I work with helping vets. Sasha is of no interest to me.”
Her hand tightened on the gun. “You’re on very thin ice, doctor.”
“As are you, I believe. You have no evidence for your case – at least not any that you can actually take to your captain, and the clock is ticking.” He leaned forward, voice lowering. “It seems like everything’s been upside down since your life got tangled up in other people’s business. If I were you, I’d forget about Sasha and worry about your job.”
She leaned forward, too, though the gleam in his eyes sickened her. “Last chance.”
“You won’t shoot me.” He held her gaze a moment, then smiled with satisfaction and got to his feet. “I’m sorry we couldn’t work something out, detective. It’s a shame.”
“Wait,” she said, just before he turned away. “Not today, you’re right. I won’t. But someday. Eventually. I will shoot you. And I can promise I won’t miss.”
He snorted, amused. “Good afternoon, Trina.” And walked to the door.
When he was gone, Jamie twisted around in his seat, his eyes huge. “Um. What.”
Trina sighed and holstered her gun. “Yeah. I know. Let’s hope that bought the guys enough time. I kinda got…carried away.”
“Are you really gonna shoot that guy?”
“One day? Yeah. I think so.”
*
Lanny reached for his badge when they crossed into the lobby, intending to flash it, but Nikita batted his hand down.
“You won’t need that. Watch.” And he proceeded to turn the brain of everyone they encountered into worshipful mush.
“This is seriously creepy,” Lanny said, as Mona the Adoring Nurse led them to Dr. Fowler’s office. “That’s what you did to me, isn’t it?” He turned to glare at Alexei, who walked beside him.
Alexei, the little shit – he was a prince after all; weren’t they all little shits? – shrugged, as remorseless as ever. “It was for your own good.”
“So was hitting you in the face. How did that feel?”
Ahead of them, Nikita snapped his fingers, a voiceless command to shut up.
“Who the fuck put him in charge?” Lanny muttered.
Alexei snorted in an agreeing way.
The office door was locked. “Oh, I can,” Mona started to offer, and Nikita snapped the handle off with one effortless twist of his hand. Lanny heard the other half hit the floor inside the office, and Nikita pushed his way in.
They all filed in after, finding the space surprisingly cramped; Lanny had expected someone with Fowler’s penchant for theatrics to work in an office with a massive, ornate desk and shelves full of oddities. Instead, the space felt just like any hospital office, with a cheap desk and rolling chair, white walls, and several wall shelves of plastic-covered file folders.
“Mona,” Nikita said, and his voice was off: soft, and low, and cloying in a way that made Lanny’s skin crawl. “Why don’t you go stand guard for us?”
Her voice was wrong too: slow and syrupy. “Okay.” She wandered out, smiling, dazed.
“Dude,” Lanny said, and shuddered. “That is fucked up.”
“You can probably do it too,” Nikita said absently, sitting down in the desk chair and waking the sleeping computer.
“I what?”
“It’s hereditary. Well. I guess that’s what you’d call it. It can be passed through breeding and through siring.”
“What can?” Lanny was starting to feel panicked.
“Enchantment,” Alexei explained. “Rasputin could enchant others, which is why I can, and why Nikita can.”
“You can too,” Nikita said, clicking away on the keyboard. “Ah, here we go.”
“But…I don’t want to.”
“I’ll teach you how,” Alexei said with a wink. “You might like it.”
“What? Ew, no–”
“Hand me the flash drive,” Nikita said, snapping his damn fingers again. “Quickly.”
“Bite me,” Lanny said as he handed it over, then chuckled. “Shit, you probably will. God, what is my life now?”
Alexei grinned.
Nikita turned around slowly; the chair squeaked as it spun. His gaze was downright hateful. “Sasha,” he said, forcing the enunciation, “is locked up somewhere having God knows what done to him. You two idiots can crack jokes about your horrible lives on your own time. We need to find him. Now.”
Unless the teller was his ma, his captain, or Trina, Lanny didn’t, as a general rule, like to be told what to do. But beneath the harsh mask Nikita wore, abject terror flickered in his pale eyes. Whatever panic Lanny might have felt about his theoretical brainwashing abilities, Nikita was feeling ten times that – because his best friend, probably his only friend in the world, who he probably loved more than regular people ever loved their friends, had been kidnapped. And, okay, yeah: Lanny got that.