Page 11 of Crimson Oath
Oleg
Minsk, Belarus
Oleg strode through the darkened factory, his footsteps echoing in the hollow air. He glanced at the large four-wheeled tractors in the process of final assembly.
“The upgrades Polina did last year appear to have increased production,” he muttered to Mika, who was walking beside him. “This facility has moved from ten thousand units per year to being on track to produce over fifteen annually.”
“She was right to ask for the funds.” Mika Arakis, Oleg’s chief boyar, head spy, and personal enforcer, scanned the massive factory as they walked. “Humans will always need to eat. Can you believe these machines?” Mika pointed to one. “Imagine how quickly you could plow a field with these.”
Oleg nodded. “Their ingenuity amazes me.”
“Very clever humans,” Mika said.
When Oleg and Mika had been human, it would have taken ten strong men over a week to do the work that one of these machines could do in a day.
Oleg shook his head. “Truly remarkable.”
His commercial and political interests in Minsk were overseen by his daughter Polina, who had been running this area of his empire for nearly two hundred years.
A father wasn’t supposed to have favorite children, but Polina might have been his. She was steady as a rock and had been at his side for over four hundred years. Her mind was a thing of beauty, and she enjoyed the logistics of empire.
If Oleg had an heir, it could very well be Polina.
She knew when an embrace was needed and when a slap was more appropriate.
The metallic aroma of vampire blood hit Oleg as soon as he reached the darkened corner where the factory’s safety showers were located.
Instead of a worker washing off chemicals, the spare white stall was occupied by a battered vampire with dark hair, pale skin, and a sour expression. He was tied to a chair with twisted barbed wire, his feet were on concrete, and his eyes burned holes in Oleg as he approached.
“Polya.” Oleg stopped at the edge of the area lit by searing white floodlights. “What did you find for me, my daughter?”
Polina rose from the chair opposite the bloody vampire and walked to Oleg, lifting her face to his and smiling. “Papa.”
He kissed her forehead and both cheeks before he pinched her chin affectionately. “This is the driver of the truck that hijacked ours?”
“No, the driver is dead. He was human.” She nodded toward the vampire in the chair. “This is the one who killed the driver before I could get my hands on him.”
The vile criminals had beaten Polina’s employee nearly to death, then hijacked a shipment of electronics that had been headed for Brest to be distributed to their Polish partners.
Polina’s people had tracked the truck to a warehouse in Baranavichy and quickly dispatched the humans and vampiresguarding it before bringing what appeared to be the ringleader back to Minsk.
“He’s the last one,” she said quietly. “There were no humans left by the time we got inside. Three dead ones though. I believe they killed them as soon as they realized we’d found them.”
Humans had minds that could be bent with amnis. Humans could tell secrets even if they were trusted.
“And how many vampires?”
“Four.”
Whoever was targeting Oleg’s shipments was devoting resources to the job. This had gone beyond regional friction. “Did you lose anyone?”
“In this hijacking? One vampire. His people were skilled fighters, but the moment I grabbed this one, they all reacted. They were looking at him for cues.”
“So he was in charge.” Oleg glanced at the glaring vampire. “Language?”
“None that we heard. No names. No documents.”
So not only good fighters but disciplined.
