I entered the front door, ignored the Russian model playing hostess, and smiled for the security camera near the ceiling over her station. The uberskinny thing flinched when she saw me but said nothing, choosing to look at her phone instead, attempting to look bored and above Earthly matters.
A right turn led me through an employees-only door and into a long hallway. More cameras monitored my progress and I gave each one my brightest smile. But no fang. I’m not that kinda girl.
The hallway took a sharp left and two big bruisers stood guard over the door at the end. Neither said a word as I approached but both of their heart rates picked up and I don’t think it was due to the motorcycle leathers I was rocking… at least not entirely. One of the sides of beef looked straight through me but the other one gave me a wink and a flicker of a smile. Ah, adrenaline junkie.
Winky pulled the door open for me and I never even slowed down. I found myself in the reception area, another Russian beauty manning the secretary’s… excuse me… personal assistant’s desk beside the only other door in the room.
This one looked me dead in the eye with a thousand-yard stare that promised she had seen things that would make a homicide detective lose their lunch. She raised one eyebrow in a cool manner, in a way that said she knew both who and what I was, but still wasn’t even slightly impressed. “Svetlana Kuznetsova, former Russian Foreign Intelligence Service operative, recently employed by Michail Yahontov,” said a tiny voice in my ear, the words accompanied by the creepy crawly feeling of the microdrone hiding in my hair.
“You’re new,” I said in Russian. “Svetlana, is it? I heard there were cuts in the SVR budget, what with the government regulated to being just a computer’s puppet.”
She was young, not even thirty, and I was impressed that her poker face stayed in place even as her heartbeat stuttered.
Her blank expression become downright stony and her right hand twitched ever so very slightly toward the blank screen embedded in her desktop.
“I’d ask you announce me, but it’s been taken care of,” I said, still in her birth tongue as I breezed past her and through the door just as her telecom gear chimed.
“Michail, how’s things?” I asked the man himself, switching to English. His finger was still touching his intercom button.
Michail Yahontov had been the boss of this particular sub gang for over ten years. He was now in his mid-forties, trim and fit, at the peak of his facilities, showing just a bit of gray at his temples.
His office was ultra-modern, minimalist with a glass-top desk that was more table than office furniture. The whole top was a touch-sensitive screen and there were no drawers or privacy panel to hide his suited legs.
Sitting to my left were his right and left-hand men, Sacha and Timofey. Sacha was his numbers and information guy, Timofey his number one enforcer. I had dealt with them, many times.
“You should take care, Lydia. Not all of my people are intimidated by your special nature,” Michail said with a frown. “I would hate for an accident to happen.”
“Who? Your ex-SRV vamp hunter, Svetlana? Please. And we both know that if anything happens to me, you would all die, accident or no accident. Hell, the ramifications would go all the way back to rodnaya strana.”
He frowned, as did Timofey. Sacha kept his face passive.
“You take the protection of your computer overlord for granted. Has no one ever told you that’s not wise?”
“Computer schmooter. I’m talking about the Coven, Chris Gordon, Tatiana, and, oh yeah, the Warlock who can kill you all from his bedroom. Wouldn’t even have to change out of his pajamas.”
Michail smiled thinly, but his eyes were unamused. “As amusing as it is to exchange threats, to what, pray tell, do we owe the dubious honor of your visit?”
“You just started trafficking girls. Stop.”
He was silent while his business guy, Sacha, narrowed his eyes at me. Timofey was trying for a death stare but once you’ve seen an extremely old vampire do it, mere humans pale by comparison.
“While not admitting to anything you’ve accused me of, I would say you should touch base with your own people first.”
“Next stop on my list, Mikey,” I said. “Your first and only shipment was intercepted at sea. The girls have all been freed. Your shipping partners did not survive the experience.”
A jolt of worry crossed Sacha’s face while Michail’s went blank.
“And before you point out that rescuing the girls at sea was a rookie mistake and we should have waited, well, we already know who ordered the shipment in Europe. They won’t be ordering any more, so you can go ahead and delete them from your contacts. Free up a little memory on your phone.”
“You meddle in things that have a delicate balance,” Michail finally said.
“See, you got it wrong, but you’re using the right word. Balance. It’s pretty important to some of us. Ending sex trafficking is a great way to help balance the universe.”
“You spew philosophical gibberish,” Michail said.
“Actually, no. Let’s say you’re about to fight a war with an ancient race of space-faring beings and you anticipate killing huge numbers of them with violence on a scale never seen on this world. It’s entirely possible that if you found yourself in such a situation, you might seek to balance the scales of karma by ending certain crimes against humanity. Every little bit helps, right?”
Michail frowned at me. “She’s talking about the witch,” Sacha said. His boss turned the frown on him. He shrugged. “Witches are always going on about
