Page 68 of Crimson Oath
“She won’t do that.” Oleg lifted his chin. “What do you want?”
“We encountered someone who may have information about the matter in Minsk.”
“Excellent.” Oleg turned to look at Grisha. “Keep me updated. And please go outside.”
“Y-yes, Mr. Sokolov.”
Mika kept his voice low. “I have news from Polina.”
They walked through the offices of SMO International where humans tapped on computers and spoke into headsets in a myriad of languages, ushering the flow of goods around world shipping lanes.
“And what has my daughter found?”
He’d told Polina that Ivan might be working with Vano and his clan. The head of the Eastern Poshani had his headquarters near the border of Polina’s territory, so it made the most sense for her to follow up the lead.
“Polina has found a ghost,” Mika said quietly.
Oleg stopped in the middle of the hallway, nearly knocking over a short secretary who was carrying two cups of coffee.
“Who?” he growled.
The wide-eyed secretary scuttled off.
Mika waited for the hallway to clear. “Danior Kosinski is not dead.”
“That’s one of Sami Novak’s frequent roommates, correct?”
“Yes.”
So this was another vampire who had attacked his people.
“It would be more correct to say that Danior is not deadyet.” Oleg thought about Mr. Goretski using a walker at the age of forty-two.
“Her people stopped a truck at the Polish border trying to cross into Belarus with a load of stolen liquor,” Mika said. “One of her men recognized the name and the face from a briefing a few weeks ago. She’s holding the humans the vampire had with him, but she sent Danior to the citadel.”
“Excellent.” An excellent excuse to go to his favorite home. “Call Cesar and get the plane ready.”
Oleg was going home.
The wind vampirewas buried in one of Oleg’s dungeons, his neck broken and his body encased in the earth. Oleg sat in a chair on the other side of the dungeon and watched him.
“You risk the ire of the Poshani.” Danior sneered. “When my people find out you have taken me?—”
“Your people already think that you are dead.” Oleg sipped a cup of black Ceylon tea flavored with orange peel. It was excellent. “I’ve already paid the blood price to Vano’s people through Radu. You do work for Vano, correct?”
The man shut his mouth and stared at the wall.
Oleg set the cup on the round table his servants had brought into the dungeon and brushed a flaming hand over his chest.
He was shirtless, not because of the warm spring night but because occasionally letting his fire creep out and cover his body seemed to terrify the wind vampire currently buried up to his neck.
Mika was sitting backward on a chair and looking down at Danior. “You’re in Vano’s family, aren’t you?”
Danior said nothing.
“We can keep you here for quite long like this,” Mika said. “I’ve heard that the worst thing you can do to a Poshani vampire is contain them. It poisons your blood.”
Danior was admirably silent, but his eyes flicked to Oleg as the fire vampire stood and walked over to the buried vampire.
