Emerald City Blues (9 page)

Dasha drew back a pace, dark eyes widening in surprise. "You
knew?
How?"

I shook my head. I wanted to laugh, but it hurt too much. "He’s Gerd's oldest journeyman. He’s the one who pushed hardest for Gerd and the Circle to go intervene in the war.
It made sense, but that’s not how I knew." It was a bluff. But Dasha didn't know that. Acting cocky and arrogant while still chained up and helpless is a wonderful way to get someone to overestimate you.

"You have
it. You have his measure." She breathed the words as if afraid someone would hear. Come to think of it, that might be exactly the case.
Nikolai's measure.

I tried to keep a poker face but inside my thoughts went like sixty. Nikolai Davidovich was supposed to be dead, just like the rest of the Circle. I'd drunk a shot of vodka for him just the other night. But he wasn't dead. Somehow he had escaped the destruction of the Circle, cheated death on that muddy field in France. He was here. And so was his apprentice. They had come here for something only Gerd would have: Nikolai's measure, the arcane link Master Gerd had required of all his apprentices. It both gave him tremendous power over his pupils and at the same p
rotected him from them.

Masters usually
kept their measures hidden away somewhere secret, somewhere safe where no one would ever find them. Nikolai thought I had his.

“You will give it to me.” Dasha stepped close, closer than she had been when she caressed my cheek. Her face was inches away, her dark eyes boring twin holes into mine. God help me, I wanted to fall into them.
She wasn’t using the Art. She didn’t have to. "Just because Nikolai cannot harm you while you have his measure, does not mean I am hindered so.
You will give it to me now.
”

I was close to drowning in those eyes. I closed my own and talked fast. “No. Here’s how this is going to work. You’re going to untie me, and then I’m going to go deal with Nikolai.”

“Is that so? And why should I do that, instead of keeping you tied up until you give me what I want?” She whispered the words. I could feel them on my skin, she was so close to me. “I think you will give me everything I want, right now. Because if you do not, I will show you some of what Master Nikolai has taught me since the War. You see, he has shown me the true Art. And unless you give me what I want, I will show it to you – and you will not enjoy it, I think.” Her voice was a dusky purr that promised exquisite suffering. And god help me, it made me want her even more. She stood close behind me now, so close I could feel the power building up in her. She was going to do something. Something awful, probably. And she was going to do it soon. I tensed, and she laughed softly. “You see? I have all the cards. Why should I let you go?”

“Because you’re his apprentice, Dasha. He has
your
measure, so you can’t do a thing to him. I can. You want power. I want some justice. Do we have an understanding?”

There was a long pause. Then I felt her lips brush my neck, just behind my ear. I tr
ied not to shudder. And failed.

“Very well.” Her lips flirted with my skin again as she spoke. “But I have my price.”

There’s a funny thing about gambling with your life. Sometimes you roll a hard six just when you need it most.

He smiled like it was funny. I wasn’t laughing.

"
Look. Malloy should make a full recovery. The warehouse fire is still being investigated. There's not a single blessed thing to tie me to the murder of Thomas Cooke. So why am I here, exactly?"

"Because you're a person of interest until I say otherwise, angel." Lieutenant Sneer - the plaque on his desk said Lt. James Mercer, but
I preferred my version - leaned forward over his desk, eyes narrowed to slits as he gave me his best piercing gaze cop routine.

It failed to impress the daughter of the police captain
that his fellow officers had nicknamed Iron Mike. He had picked the wrong mark for that act, and definitely the wrong day. I let my tone grow sharp. "Something wrong with your vision, Lieutenant? Or did someone forget to teach you when you were a child that staring is impolite?" I was just about done with this whole mess. All that stood between me and my lonely, neglected bed was one smirking, smarmy police officer with a chip on his shoulder when it came to women detectives - or maybe just women.

He actually
simpered
at me. "Why don't you tell me one more time what happened this morning on the
Lenin?
I'm sure it's all just one big misunderstanding." He was trying to sound reasonable but it came across as feigned, saccharine, and completely ridiculous. People should stick to their natural strengths. His was not sweet sincerity. More like snide sarcasm and poor anger management.

This wasn't going away until I threw him something. Or, more to the point, someone.
I had to make sure that someone wasn't me. "All I can tell you is what I have already said before," I began patiently. I didn't feel patient. I felt equal parts outraged and exhausted, with a sprinkling of terrified after-shocks thrown in for good measure. But I recited what he wanted to hear, or something close.

"I was working a case last night. No, I won't tell you who the client is or what the case was about, not without a subpoena.
"
I recalled the feeling of her hand grasping my forearm while she took the handcuffs off me. I still remember how hot her fingers felt on mine, all but burning my skin, and how cold my Beretta was when she handed it back to me.
"I encountered Officer Malloy off-duty by the port. We were talking when we heard the sounds of a struggle come from the
Lenin.
"
Dasha led the way back to the cargo hold, threading silently among the crates to the stern. I smelled it before I saw it. A large space had been cleared there. Incense burned and the red candles were placed just so. He was preparing a ritual of some kind. I was pretty sure didn't want to know what kind.
"Officer Malloy and I ran up to the deck and found Mr. Davidovich beating Miss Kildyusheva with a club."
Nikolai looked up when I cleared my throat. He smiled and pointed Gerd's
primstav
at me. Crates flew like chaff. So did Dasha.
"Officer Malloy intervened and was struck several times bef
ore disarming his assailant. Then Mr. Davidovich threw Officer Malloy through a window."
Seeing me unharmed made Nikolai pause. Then, from out of nowhere, Malloy leapt onto him from atop a stack of crates. He struck with the sound of an egg cracked into hot skillet and was instantly flung backwards. He collided with a bulkhead and fell to the floor, stunned and bleeding from a dozen wounds.
"I attempted to assist Miss Kildyusheva in getting out of harm's way. Then Mr. Davidovich rushed at me and Miss Kildyusheva. I pushed her out of the way and dodged Mr. Davidovich's rush. His own momentum carried him over the side and into Puget Sound."
'Give it up, Nikolai. We both know you can't do anything to me.  I hold your measure.' He kept advancing, slowly. An awful light grew on the
primstav
and coiled up his arm, wreathed his shoulders and set an eldritch halo about his head. His eyes were electric with power but his voice was soft. 'Shall we see about that, failed apprentice? You are just like that old man you once called Master: blind to the inevitability of your death at my hands.' Nikolai raised the
primstav
and pointed it at me. Runes of power thundered from his mouth.
"We didn't hear anything from him after that, as we were busy providing first aid for Officer Malloy."
I raised my Beretta and shot Nikolai in the face. He flew backwards and struck the hull. He never moved after that.
"A short time later Officer Nyquist came on the scene and helped us take Officer Malloy to Swedish. Miss Kildyusheva declined medical attention and left to check into a hotel, but with Officer Malloy in a bad way, Officer Nyquist requested that I come and make a statement."
I pulled Dasha to her feet, helped her collect her wits, and together we half-dragged Malloy off the ship. It was pure luck Nyquist came by when he did. Dasha made sure he remembered events just the way she described them to him, then made herself scarce while I ushered Malloy to the hospital.
"I was still making an official statement when you came on shift this morning and decided to involve yourself in someone else's case."

Mercer hadn't changed his position for the whole length of my recitation. I was pleased. I'd gotten it more or less verbatim from the first time I'd told it to him, about an hour ago
, and kept the truth well hidden behind my eyes. He was less pleased, apparently.

"Your story doesn't hold water," he said bluntly, leaning back in his wooden chair and lighting up a cigarette. He was letting the suspect sweat and then say too much. More cop school tactics. "No one on
any of the other ships in port saw anything like the altercation you described. I had men out in boats dragging the harbor for this
Dah-vee-doh-vich
character you claim assaulted you and Malloy. They couldn't find a body. So, did he swim away, angel?" He made little dog-paddling motions with his hands. "Out of Elliot Bay and Puget Sound, across the Pacific and back to Russia, maybe?"

I shrugged. It wasn't worth telling him what I thought. He had yet to believe a single thing I'd said. "You're the
detective-lieutenant around here. I'm just an honest, hard-working citizen doing her civic duty." I gave him my brightest smile and he chewed nails for a while. Long enough to discover he didn't much care for the taste, anyway.

He
made a shooing gesture at me. "All right. I'm done. Go on, get out of here." I rose. "But don't leave town, angel. You're still a person of interest until I say otherwise. If I can't lay eyes on you any hour of day or night I feel like it, we're going to have an issue and there's going to be a judge involved in it. Understand?" I did, and let him know it by carefully rolling my eyes as I adjusted my father's fedora and shrugged back into my trench coat. I'd just laid my hand on the door knob to escape when Sneer resurfaced for one last thrust.

"Oh, by the way - you wouldn't happen to know where the
Lenin
went, now would you?"

I gaped
at him. "It's
gone?
"

He smiled
in polite disbelief and took another drag, then shook his head as he blew out grey smoke. "I have to hand it to you, lady, you're one hell of an actress. Yeah, she's gone, angel. Vanished in a cloud of smoke. Poof." He illustrated with his hands. "Convenient. That's what we call it in the cop trade when material evidence of a crime disappears.
Con-ven-i-ent.
" He dragged out the word.

I snorted.
"Let me get this straight,
Lieutenant
. You let the scene of a crime disappear on you?" I snorted. "You're going to have to do better than that in the future, Mercer, or they'll take away your shiny bars and your cute little office." I let myself out before he could reply. The door closing behind me was the sweetest sound I'd heard in days.

I went out onto the street and was surprised to see it was already late afternoon. Time flies when you're arguing with idiots. I caught a trolley, riding it just long enough to make sure I wasn't followed leaving the station. I jumped off a block later and walked down Second Avenue to Yesler Street, loitered a few minutes more, then went into the Seattle Hotel. The desk clerk immediately recognized the description I gave him and told me she was in room 37.

I went up the stairs, weary and yet elated. I'd unraveled a major case, brought Tommy's murderer to justice, and kept myself alive. Now I was about to pay a call on a beautiful woman who had more than one excellent reason to keep me happy. If I could just discover I'd been adopted by the Rockefellers, life would be peachy.

I stopped to rest at the top of the stairs to the third floor. Maddening as Mercer's ham-handed interrogation techniques were, they had given me a chance to figure out something that had been bothering me ever since I woke up in chains in the
hold of the
Lenin.
Gordon Beskins, my eternally patient lawyer, had come down to the police station to protest the unconscionable mistreatment of his client
et cetera et cetera
. But while he had the bluebottles running out to fetch me coffee and a sandwich and
for goodness sake just look at her, am I the only one with common decency in this sorry excuse for a police department,
he slipped me a note. It was his research on Gerd's bequest. As I was still a minor at the time of Gerd's death, it had been given over to my father in trust for me. But I wouldn't have to go far to find it. I was wearing it now: his fedora.

After Gordon took point on keeping the blue-uniformed dogs at bay,
I went to the ladies' room and sure enough, inside the hat band was a thin coil of blood-stained silk thread, exactly the length of the perimeter formed by the pentagram of Nikolai's head and outstretched limbs. Nikolai's measure had been in my father's hat all along. No wonder I hadn't noticed it when I tried that Seeing on the dock - it was on top of my own head. And a good thing I was still wearing that fedora when I was chained up, let alone when I confronted him there in the bowels of the
Lenin.