Page 3 of Helsing: Demon Slayer
As he made his way across the pool deck, Ryan scanned the rows of chairs and tables. No one paid him any attention.
Scratch that. There were several women in one of the hot tubs who seemed to watch him as he made his way to the stairs to the upper deck. Despite the wet hair and swimsuits, he recognized the rest of Markham’s friends: Caroline Hartley, Mercedes Lopez, Alexis Hammond, Ivone DeSousa, and Germaine Grimes. He’d memorized the names and all the salient details from the mission brief. Along with Tessa George and Jasmyn White, Dianne Markham’s friends could be best summed up in a few words: entitled brats.
Not individually, no. Some were downright admirable. Mercedes Lopez, for example, was a critical care nurse at Mass General Hospital in Boston. And Germaine Grimes worked in research on infectious-disease panels at a small startup in the suburbs. In fact, most of the women had something to do with healthcare. It was the one thing beyond drinking too much and dating like sailors on shore leave that they shared. Even Markham did social-media marketing for local hospital systems and doctors’ offices.
Ryan ignored the titters from the five women in the hot tub as he mounted the deck stairs. He could feel their lascivious gazes on his ass. Obviously, they didn’t see a lot of men who followed the Ranger physical-fitness regimen. Then again, they’d have to go to the gym more often to increase their odds of doing so.
At the top of the stairs, he headed straight toward the front of the ship. It was crowded even on this upper deck as people soaked up the sun on this sailing day. Tomorrow it would be deserted as the passengers hit the penultimate port of call, Split, Croatia.
Dammit. He’d forgotten his cover cocktail in the onslaught of focused female gazes.
He looked down at his cellphone, which displayed a tracking program. He’d dropped a nanotracker on Markham on the first night of the cruise. Miró Kos, the Kastriotis’ head of development, had assured him that it was virtually impossible for Olivia’s younger sister to find it, let alone remove it. It was also impervious to scans, temperature fluctuations, and water exposure. The tracker was so tiny that he’d had to use a specialized delivery device in the form of a dissolvable sticker to attach it to her purse—a sneaky act he hadn’t learned in the Rangers. After that, the nanobots in the tracker, keyed to Markham’s personal harmonics, activated and migrated to her skin. A little creepy, true, but effective.
The tracker showed that the package was in her cabin.
Ryan checked his phone. He’d missed check-in by almost half an hour. Olivia wouldn’t say anything, but he’d worked for the Kastriotis long enough and gone through enough action to be able to hear what wasn’t said.
He tapped his earlobe where his own nanocomm array clung to his skin. “Aerie Actual, this is Demon Slayer.”
His call sign had seemed appropriate last year when he’d witnessed his first actualdaemonsand possessed humans, but right now with the smell of the Adriatic fresh in his nostrils, it just seemed overwrought. Ryan shifted both forearms onto the railing and pretended to gaze into the distance. Maybe he’d look like he had a momentous decision weighing on him.
“Demon Slayer, this is Harlequin. You’re thirty minutes’ late checking in.” Olivia’s calm voice betrayed nothing. “According to the cruise itinerary, you’re sailing today. You haven’t gotten distracted from your mission, have you?”
“No, ma’am,” said Ryan, irritation hardening his tone. So much for thinking that his commander wouldn’t call him on being late.
“Then I’ll have your sitrep.”
“Package appears to be trying to evade her friends, Harlequin. She nearly made me this morning in the ship’s library when she ducked inside.” He left out the gut-punching kiss from the daily summary.
“Why?” Now a sharp note broke his commander’s normally smooth tone.
Ryan’s irritation made him blunter than was wise. “Probably because they’ve been trying to get her laid ever since she went cold turkey from dating apps and going to clubs.”
“That’s your take?” she asked. “Based on what? That Dianne’s traveling with her girlfriends instead of a boyfriend? That you got into her phone and didn’t find the Flrty app with dozens of swipe-rights on it?”
“Based on the fact that she doesn’t drink as much as they do. Or wear skimpy clothes. Or send come-hither glances at all the men around her.” Ryan shifted his weight as he looked east. He could see the Albanian coastline as a slate blue along the horizon. “At least three of the other women have hooked up on this trip. And the rest cheer them on. Except your sister.”
“But you think she used to be like them.”
“Hard to imagine spending so much time with friends you’re nothing like,” said Ryan. “Plus, she didn’t scrubtheirsocial media accounts. Her friends Jasmyn and Tessa have also said a few things when she’s not around.” He didn’t add that they’d complained that Olivia's sister thought she was better than them now.
“Maybe they’re the sort who like drama. They’re stirring up trouble. I know the type.”
“Except none of the other women disagrees or sticks up for your sister. Not even the two with steady boyfriends.”
Olivia sighed. Even though she was hundreds of kilometers away in the Albanian mountains, it sounded like she stood at his shoulder.
“Dianne always did have poor taste in friends. Okay, listen, just keep a safe distance for now. If she really does suspect you shadowing her, it’s going to make your mission harder.”
His mission? Somehow, he was supposed to get close enough to Dianne Markham to convince her to go with him to Fushë-Arrëz when she disembarked. And if that kiss was anything to go by, she wouldn’t forget him or go anywhere with him, not if she really wanted nothing to do with men.
He didn’t share his doubts. “Copy that, Harlequin,” he said instead, filing the emotional IED undernot my problem.
Two
Diannespenttherestof the afternoon in the cafeteria on the top deck where her friends never wandered. Even so, she sat in a corner away from the main walkway to the outside, watching. It wasn’t ideal. Although her back was to the wall, she couldn’t really escape if Tessa or Jasmyn spotted her. But given Jasmyn’s promise of some ‘potent shit’ in the form of cannabis gummies, Dianne was fairly confident that those two had disappeared to their cabin before heading midship to the pub for wings, fries, and cocktails.
No, it was Germaine, her own cabinmate, that would find her. The woman was a research scientist in infectious diseases. That’s what she did, after all—find elusive hidden things, like pathogens in degraded blood samples.
