Elgin

  *Get over it and be nice Cutter.*

  He heard Elena respond at last, in Russian, “Understood sir.” And she hung up the phone.

  “Viktor messed up, SVR has evidence he’s mixed up in the elimination of an FSB team in Chechnya that was trying to shut down a terrorist cell that’s also running a white slaving operation. His whole network’s under suspicion, meaning me and six others. They’ve ordered me to kill Viktor.”

  “Loyalty test and problem solution in one elegant package,” Elgin growled.

  “It means the hitman could be one of the others, with the same orders, but who thinks I’m Viktor’s pet, a couple of them are sure I sleep with the slimy bastard.”

  “Oww...they’d do that?”

  “Give multiple people the same elimination order?” she snorted, “Yes, I’d bet they have. Would they point us at each other and hope we’d succeed in eliminating each other? Possible but unlikely, too many opportunities for ugly loose ends.”

  “So there’s about to be a Russian gang war in Manhattan?”

  “Oh yes.”

  “The hitman’s outside our door, he’s got a passkey. But he’s not doing anything.” Which was puzzling, a hitman wouldn’t wait around.

  She rolled off the bed, “Can you show me his face?”

  The door appeared to turn faintly transparent, the man outside was youngish, round faced with round lensed granny glasses and a long dark trench coat. He was leaning against the wall on the opposite side of the hallway, he looked like he was sweating and was hunched a little as if he had a stomach ache.

  “Oh Vitally, you should stick with a camera, you’re not cut out to be a killer.” She drew her pistol, and walked to the door, “Can you open it?”

  “Yes.”

  She brought her pistol up, pointing through the hazy door “Do it.”

  “On three, one, two, three,” the door simply vanished.

  “Don’t move Vitally,” Elena snapped.

  The young man gaped at her, at the missing door, the big hole in the end of the little automatic. He lifted his hands, “Loretta?!” it was a squeak, he was begging for his life, while he’d been given orders to kill, he knew that she was a killer.

  “Come on in, hands up, don’t do anything stupid and you’ll get to go home and watch porn on your big screen TV again.” Elena beckoned Vitally in.

  Once he was inside the door reappeared. Elgin pulled the coat off the shaking man, it dropped to the floor revealing the carrying sling - firing brace of the machine pistol that hung under his left arm, the long silencer and extended magazine giving it a menacing presence.

  In a few more moments the machine pistol was on the lounge chair and Vitally was bound to one of the desk chairs.

  Elena put her pistol away and sat down on the end of the bed, “Tell me what you thought you were doing Vitally,” she ordered flatly, in Russian.

  The young man cringed, looked at Elgin, “With him here?”

  Elgin looked over from where he was inspecting the pistol and webbing, “Things are not always as they appear,” he said flatly in Russian, which made the other cringe and go even whiter.

  The damn broke, “Washington called me, told me that Viktor has gone rogue and ordering me to eliminate him. Viktor had told me earlier that you were going to be with a mark, that I was to take a photograph. I knew....” he swallowed looked at Elgin, “Thought I knew that you were Viktor’s woman. Viktor’s got those biker bastards he’s taken up with all around him.”

  “So you figured that while you didn’t have the guts or skills to kill Viktor you could break in here, riddle me, and an innocent man, and offer my scalp as a token of your loyalty?” Elena asked good naturedly, Vitally looked like he was going to be sick.

  Elgin picked up a piece of paper that had a few seconds before been a request to conserve water by reusing towels, he held the picture out, “Do you recognize this man?”

  Vitally blanched, “Yes, he’s with Viktor all the time,” then his eyes widened and he looked at Elgin with new fear.

  Elena took the picture, frowned at it, “Who is he? He does look familiar.”

  Elgin grinned crookedly, “Not sure I appreciate that, he’s my uncle, usually called Claw these days.”

  Vitally was shaking like a leaf, “Your uncle....you are with them?”

  “Last time I saw my uncle he and some of his gang tried to kill me, most of them ended up dead, so, no, I’m not with them.”

  Elena looked at the picture again, “I’ve never seen this man, or other bikers, where did you see them?”

  “Some old warehouses near the river.”

  Elena glanced at Elgin, “Viktor’s always met me at his office up town.”

  Vitally giggled, “He has the hots for you, wants to impress you. The warehouse is where his real business is, it’s got cages for the stock,” he leered at her

  There was crack and Vitally’s head rocked back, he’d never even seen Elena start to move.

  She was in his face, “They’re human beings Vitally, its your sort that make the Viktors of the world possible. I did what I did because its what the SVR needed, not because of Viktor. This business is a cover, not what we are, Viktor chose his side business over his duty and got patriots killed,” she snarled, Vitally ducked his head, hiding his shame and anger.

  Elena got even closer, “Do you know the address?”

  Vitally sullenly shook his head, “No, I’m met and taken there, through some tunnels at the end.”

  “Did they take your cell phone when you met them?”

  “Yes,” There was a sullen satisfaction in his tone.

  She glanced around Elgin, “That’s enough?”

  “More than sufficient,” Elgin replied with a grim smile.

  -o-

  It was still ridiculously early when Zeph met Elgin and Elena at a coffee shop not far from the place Vitally’s phone had shown as his rendezvous point with Viktor. A snowstorm had blown in just after midnight with the typically grim results in New York. The doorbell jingled as she opened the door, slipped in and shut it as quickly as possible then she stamped the slush off her boots, waved to the couple and got herself a cup of hot coffee with lots of cream and sugar.

  Elgin and Elena had called Zeph just after midnight and briefed her on the situation, which was, to say the least, surreal, but then her whole life had been surreal since her stay in Beauty.

  She looked at Elena who was staring out the window with a pensive expression. Like most girls and women in ‘the profession’ she didn’t look like a hooker when not dressed and made up ‘for work,’ she was just the pretty girl next door. Of course the fact that this ‘girl next door’ was a trained Russian spy and assassin and that Elgin was madly in love with her just made the whole thing another ten levels of messed up.

  Sitting down she came to the point, “No sign of Rachel or Olga and the police, even my contacts, put on a mask of caring but don’t. They’re still dealing with the fallout from the implosion of the HP.”

  “They know it was the HP?” Elena asked.

  “Yes and your friend Valery isn’t the only girl who’s had an epiphany of recovered memory about being drugged or hypnotized. I hear the vice squad is tearing their hair out about it and the FBI and Homeland Security are all over the place because of the big bang and now this.”

  “Inevitable I suppose,” Elena said, looking at Elgin, “Your compatriots have any ideas?”

  “Ideas no, information yes. The passage from the parking structure to Viktor’s hideout was easy enough to trace. A clever location, someone wanted to spiffy up an old section of factory and warehouses on the river front, they did a lot of basic bracing and rewiring work throughout the structure and gutted then rebuilt the front section, but have never gotten around to finishing up, the back four fifth’s are almost untouched. Turns out that Viktor’s front office is in the ‘front,’” Elgin air quoted the word, “section and his dirty work goes on in the back.”

>   “Elgin says the Cauldron that was stolen from the witches coven is there.” Elena said it quietly, with an expression that said she was having a hard time believing she was saying the words and believing them.

  “Now we know where the Claws retreated to, why they vanished, who’d have thought about New York?”

  “Is Double Eagle a front of some kind then?” Zeph shook her head at her own question, “No, it’s been around, and with the same principles, for a lot longer than this has all been going on.”

  “It was, and may still be, a front, for the SVR. Whoever started it was pretty arrogant, the company crest outline is identical to the SVR crest.” Elena said with a wry grin, “The FBI has a reputation of being technically adept but very blind in certain ways.”

  “You didn’t know about it before then?” Zeph checked.

  Elena shook her head with an almost whimsical grin, “I’m cannon fodder grade, do the job, keep the mouth shut.”

  “Do your friends have an in at Double Eagle?”

  “The Iffrit’s gotten bugs in, but Double Eagle’s irritatingly security conscious. They train their people to keep a lot of things in their head and they mulch any hard copy in house. Communication goes through satellite links and they are very good at hiding their data streams. What I know is that most of what they buy is legit, however a lot of the funds that they manage have at least questionable origins. If the Claw is a customer he’s been one for some time. Dmitri Andropov does know Viktor and has visited him in his front office multiple times, not clear if he’s ever been in the back office.”

  “Did you trace the note I got telling me to back off and let Double Eagle manage the negotiations from today or else?” Or else first Olga and Rachel, then Allen, then her mother and father, and finally Zeph, would pay the ultimate penalty. The note had looked like a formal invitation, thick paper stock, bold embossed letters, reinforcing the message of ruthless arrogance.

  “Not yet, the Iffrits...” Elgin started.

  Cutter broke in, *Something just burnt out the nanite infestation in Viktor’s back office. And something is tracking in on you. Very close, a vehicle coming down the street.* He was sitting side on the to window, he saw a hulking Escalade drive past.

  “Someone, probably my loving uncle, has tracked me.” It was well past the coffee house when its brake lights lit up and it drew to a stop in the mouth of an alleyway. The rear doors opened and two figures emerged to cross the street.

  “Crap, now I’ve no idea what’s going on,” Zeph muttered from beside him.

  “You saw her as well.” He grunted, “So what the hell does it mean that Dmitri Andropov’s bodyguard is involved with magic?”

  Elena spoke up, “I’m pretty sure the man was one of Viktor’s other operatives, I’ve never met him, but I’ve passed messages to him, he was supposedly in deep cover.”

  “Maybe he was, both of them are armed and coming this way.” There was a clatter, and when Elena and Zeph glanced back Elgin was gone.

  In the dusk of the shadow realm Elgin hopped through the window onto a clear street with a haze that almost looked like mist the only indication of snow. He strolled up the street and then turned. The wind was blowing hard from his back, slapping cold pats of snow on his neck.

  The pair of Russians were a few steps from the entryway when they sensed his approach. The woman turned, her pistol already coming around when he tagged them both. In an instant they were all staggering, on the suddenly dry, if crumbly sidewalk, then Elgin went sprawling into the snow in front of the coffee shop door.

  Climbing to his feet he brushed himself off, looking back he saw the Escalade still waiting, he turned back and strode into what had turned into a blizzard, he wasn’t going to risk dropping back into the shadow realm here, not with two armed and frightened killers in the immediate area.

  The driver saw him coming, looked around wildly for the others then gunned it, spinning all four wheels for an instant before the traction control took over and pulled him out of his illegal waiting spot and into the road.

  A minute later Elgin re-entered the coffee shop, giving the puzzled barista a smile as he came back in and sat down.

  “So they know I’m not dead and that I’m just as dangerous as ever and they’re down two guns already.” He said staring back at Elena who was glaring at him with pursed lips, “I would have taken you as backup but you can’t translate in and out of the shadow realm and all I did was pop them over there. They may or may not turn back up eventually but it won’t be until this is all over.”

  Zeph was only half listening, she was at least a little used to Elgin’s…oddities, “What are we going to do about Rachel and Olga, they have to be in Viktor’s back office.” She didn’t say, and neither Elgin nor Elena were going to point out, that there was an equal chance the girls were already dead.

  Elgin shrugged, “You have those two samples from the girls?”

  Nodding, Zeph pulled out two small baggies, inside were several hairs, one a light brown the other reddish, “Olga and Rachel.” She identified in turn the hairs she’d gotten from the girl’s hairbrushes at their apartment.

  Opening one then the other Elgin took a strand from each, he squeezed one between thumb and forefinger, it turned to dust as he opened the pinch, then the other went the same way. He looked up, “Both still alive, both in the general direction, I’m not going to try for more until we’re in position to grab them.”

  Zeph sighed, “thank God, how though?”

  “I am going to go in high, drop in on the roof and work my way down, I doubt they’ll expect that and if you have the right uh, tools, going down from floor to floor does not necessarily involve stairs or elevators,” Elgin grinned evilly.

  “You’ll fly in this weather?”

  He glanced out, “I, or rather the Iffrit has flown in worse, but most of it will be in the shadow realm, again I doubt they’ll have a lookout on the other side, they’re not used to uh, sorcerous war.” He glanced at Zeph, “And Zeph I need you to be on the outside, back at your firm, waiting for a call.” His eyes flicked to Elena and then away, “Elena can be your bodyguard, I want you both out of the battle zone till its mostly...”

  Elgin felt a prickling on his neck, outside it seemed to have gotten darker, a car veered off the street and spun onto the sidewalk. Down the middle of the street strode a massive figure, a rolling gait, long black hair blowing in the wind though the snow seemed to swirl away from the long dirty trench coat.

  “Where the hell are they getting vampires from? There shouldn’t have been two within a hundred miles of each other.”

  “I thought vampires couldn’t go out when the sun was up?”

  “They can’t stand the rays of the sun, the high energy UV photons set them on fire, thick storm clouds work as a shield.” He glanced, realized that Elena’s eyes were glazing, though her whole body vibrated with the force of her effort to stay in control.

  The snow was blinding, a car didn’t see the vampire in time and ran into it, the car crumpled like it was hitting a telephone pole, though the vampire went staggering backwards. Its red slash of a mouth open in a bellow of pain. Regaining its balance it leapt at the car and ripped the roof off.

  Elgin grabbed the monsters arm and twisted, but the world stayed cold, something anchoring the living dead thing in the real world. Next thing Elgin knew he was flying through the air. The change hit him half way to a crushing collision with a brick wall.

  The huge black wolf twisted in mid air and met the wall with all four paws and then leapt off it as if it had been the ground. The vampire had forgotten the screaming woman in the car with its roof ripped off like a meat can’s lid, and turned with an inhumanly wide gaping mouth revealing not two fangs, but a mouth filled with daggers.

  Hitting the ground almost at the vampire’s feet the wolf went for a leg with a mouth equipped with an equally appalling set of fangs. The vampire tried to kick but the black wolf was too quick,
its fangs sank in and it let its body, easily as heavy as the mountainous vampire, slide around. Neck muscles straining, teeth embedded to the bone the wolf rolled and twisted, like a shark or a croc, and with a hideous crack and a scream that might have woken the dead, the vampire’s lower leg was ripped off.

  Flinging its head, sending the hideous trophy sailing a hundred feet down the road, the wolf snarled, its bright blue eyes glittering as it circled for the next strike. The vampire was still squalling, but had somehow not fallen, it was hopping on one foot, the truncated leg dangling in air, a few thin streams of oil black blood dripping down to melt the ice and snow on the roadbed.

  Judging the vampire’s rather erratic motion well the wolf bounced to the side then drove at his enemy, the vampire flung up an arm, a mistake the wolf had expected. Jaws with the power of a digging machine latched on and the wolf twirled its massive body again, and there was another horrific crack as a joint failed and the unearthly scream came again.

  An arm, ripped off at the shoulder, went flying down the street.

  Somewhere, someone who had been funneling power to the vampire weakened, distracted by the reflected pain, nearly sucked dry by the vampire’s futile fight. The wolf grinned, though the expression was perhaps more a snarl of victory, revealing the ranks of fangs. This time the leap was almost puppy like.

  Wolf and vampire vanished from the ‘real’ world.

  Elgin wolf rolled through the man shaped cloud of smoldering dust that had been a vampire on the other side and shook himself hard. The individual motes of dust caught fire, one by one, then by the hundreds, and tens of thousands, with a burst of yellow fire and whomp of heated air it was gone, whatever vague remnant of a human mind and soul it had contained, also gone.

  He looked around, no sign of the two assassins from a few minutes before.

  Then a bullet hit the wolf in the shoulder, he spun and leapt in one fluid motion. The woman never flinched, firing twice more to no effect, before the wolf tore her head from her shoulders. The body and the head the huge wolf spat out both flickered out of existence as whatever it was that had made her at least nominally human, departed.

  The other assassin wasn’t made of such stern stuff, he had popped out to take a shot at the wolf and seen the woman torn in two, turning he ran, trying to fire at the wolf as he ran. He was only a few hundred feet away when he stepped across a realm lip and vanished into a mirror realm.

  Elgin unfolded from the new shape and shook himself, “Okay, that was not nice.” He muttered wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Ah, that memory is going to make me sick when I have time.”

  He turned, continuing his memory distracting muttering, “Okay so are they going to keep throwing things at me?” Elgin stepped back onto the crumbling sidewalk and then back into the anchor realm. Not far away Elena stood with her pistol in hand but discreetly hidden in a pocket, scanning the street.

  On the far side of the street a stalwart pedestrian was screaming at the bloody two part horror sprawled on the sidewalk. The woman in the crashed car was punching blindly at her steering wheel under the non existent protection of the half ripped off roof.

  Elgin couldn’t help himself, he gathered Elena in his arms and hugged her hard, burying his face in her hair for a few blessed seconds.

  She twisted to put an arm around him, her gun hand came out empty to turn his head, her eyes afraid, “Elgin? Elgin! Are you all right?” He nodded, grimaced, and she kissed him fiercely, then pulled away, “Look, I understand, I’d be in the way. But you have to go. They’re trying to keep you away, to distract you and make it impossible to get to them. You need to go before they fling something else at us.”

  He nodded, kissed her, “That was what I was coming back to tell you.”

  “Zeph’s calling her boyfriend for a ride, we’ll wait for you, and call in the cavalry when you’ve taken out the monsters.”

  Another quick peck and he turned away, into the shadow realm where he could trot to the cross street which had enough room for the Iffrit to unfold.

  -o-

  The Iffrit touched down on the roof above Viktor’s back office, folding back into a great pale gray wolf before the roof had to take up the full load. Trotting to one of the stair heads on the roof the Wolf settled down to listen, his color and patterning shifting till he was a pile of snow against the wall. The guards who burst out onto the roof from the stairs didn’t see him, even when one of their powerful flashlight beams passed over him. The three were dressed very roughly; except for the professional way they moved with the rifles they looked like homeless wrecks.

  After a quick quartering of the roof, and a hand signal that indicated there was another team up here they came to stand by the stairhead. One of them spoke into a microphone hidden in his sleeve “Clear sir,” in perfect Russian, his voice much younger than his face..

  “Nothing my arsehole, you fool.” The heavily accented Russian was clear, the voice that of an old woman, puffing and panting, “The Yelbegän is here, so near it will fry your fool brain boy.”

  “Shut up BabaYaga,” snarled the man who’d reported, “There is no ice dragon up here!”

  “So you say...” and the old voice rolled into an incantation that Cutter recognized. Elgin launched himself forward just before the wall he’d been leaning against blew apart in a gush of sulfurous smoke and fire.

  The old-young man saw the wolf and his finger mashed his trigger back to full auto and he hosed the rounds at the half seen shape. Bullets glanced off the almost-wolf’s flank stinging, he shifted into the shadow realm and the floor gave away under him.

  An instant after he had landed on all four feet in a shower of disintegrating dust he heard cursing in the wheezy old woman’s voice. He had intended to do this soft, but that option had apparently hadn’t been available.

  The BabaYaga appeared, she looked like a fat old woman but the Iffrit’s memories and senses told him the BabaYaga wasn’t human, she was another remnant of an ancient invasion. Individually her species was worse than the Basik but they were solitary by choice and usually avoided humans, living in the far north forests where the temperatures were more to their liking. The BabaYaga were powerful magic users and this one’s presence probably explained the presence of the vampires, which were also creatures of the cold and dark north.

  “Yoohoo, Yelbegän is that you?” The thing that looked like a nice fat old granny, sang sweetly in Russian. She was scanning the loft, obviously not able to see him and her magical senses blunted here.

  She wasn’t very patient, “Hide here will you worm? Got a taste of my power and didn’t like it did you? You will not pass Sister Myyr.”

  “Myyr, why did you leave your distant cold hole in the rock to join the smelly ones?” Cutter called in her specie’s language, he and the Iffrit had met this creature before.

  Her mouth opened but no sound came out, as she shuffled backwards, “You are dead, the teller of truths said so.” then she was gone.