Chapter 474
They met Pavel in the lobby. He saluted, then ushered them to the subway station. "I will escort you to the airport and your plane. Someone will meet you in Obigarm, though I cannot say who. You may have heard that their Birlik was attacked? Many of their staff were killed."
Birlik. The word conjured memories of a devastated building and a bloody battle. "You don't mean the Birlik in Uzbekistan?"
Pavel nodded. "The human borders and vampire borders are not always the same. You might consider the area the Birlik rules over to be several different countries, but to us it is only one."
She let it go. She could barely manage geography as she knew it, let alone as the vampires saw things.
The airplane was waiting, just as Pavel promised. Katelina strapped herself into the seat and said a quick prayer for survival. As it finished, she thought of Jorick's old pessimism, God-"does not protect my kind."
The answer she'd given him brought her some comfort. "If God created everything-why would you be any more eternally damned than the rest of us?"
As Jorick had said, what was the difference between meat and blood, between letting someone else butcher your dinner and doing it yourself? Either way, the animal was dead and you were the one who benefited. As long as she didn't kill people she'd be fine.
Wouldn't she?
The plane was the same one they'd brought from Munich. Though it had leather seats and polished wood surfaces, there was no TV or entertainment. Luckily, there was a supply of blood. Despite Wolfe's incredulous looks, Katelina drained several bags during their five hour flight.
The airport they landed at was nothing more than a concrete strip and a parking lot. There were no hangars, no towers, and no one to meet them. Just wet asphalt, empty fields, and a cluster of dark houses up the hill.
The rain fell noisily around them, like a thousand footfalls. Katelina covered her ears against it. How long would it take to get used to her new hearing?
They climbed back on the plane and waited until a van parked next to them. A moment passed, as if the driver was hoping to avoid the weather, before the door opened. A vampire in a navy blue coat hurried to the aircraft.
"I apologize for the delay," he said in a crisply accented voice. "You are Scharfrichter Wolfe, yes? I have orders to take you to the suspected hideout where we have assembled a small team. They are mostly new recruits, but they will perhaps be helpful to you."
New recruits. Because most of the old Executioners were dead.
Katelina grabbed her bag with their new clothes in it and followed the others to the van. As they drove, Wolfe questioned their driver about Malick and the reports, but he didn't have any answers.
"I'm sorry. I am not familiar with the situation except what I was ordered to tell you. I was only asked to escort you because I had an investigation in the area. A kidnapping," he added. "A human family. Someone thought there might be rogue involvement but I could find no evidence. It is more likely they picked up and left for a place where there was more food and more money."
An uncomfortable silence settled over them. Katelina watched the wet trees and soggy, mountainous terrain pass. Though winter snows were gone, spring hadn't touched the land with green yet, leaving fields bare and trees naked hands to claw the night. With the steady beat of the rain it felt bleak and seemed the perfect place to finally kill Malick.
Nearly an hour later they skirted the edges of a small town. Katelina had brief glimpses of roads winding up the sides of craggy hills into the mountains. When the last buildings fell away it was just such a road they took.
"We will be there soon."
Despite the driver's promise it was another twenty minutes before he stopped the van at the side of a dirt track. He tugged a map out and motioned to an inked circle. "It's there. An old house. There are some outbuildings, but they're decayed, and not much use to anyone. You can reach it if you follow that path into the mountains. It should not take long. The sun will rise in roughly three hours. We have shelter in Obigarm, but I must leave with enough time to get there."
"And you're not waiting," Jamie finished.
The driver nodded. "If you are not back by six I will assume you have found shelter with the rest of the team, or that you've been killed." Katelina flinched and he gave an unapologetic shrug. "I do not have all the details but have come to understand that what is hiding there could make the Children of Shadows look like fluffy puppies."
Katelina climbed out into the drizzle. She hitched her bag over her shoulder and silently asked Jorick if this was a good idea. The hard look in his eyes was all the answer she needed. Whether good or bad, he planned to kill his master.
Wolfe checked the map a final time. He stashed it in his pocket then led them forward. She mentally waved goodbye to the van and told herself they'd be back soon, covered in the ancient master's blood.
They wound their way up into steep hills. The dirt road was slick mud. Increased stamina only did so much, and Katelina was dirty and tired by the time they topped the ridge. Her wet clothes stuck to her skin, and her hair dripped in her eyes. Thankfully the temperature didn't bother her, or she'd be freezing.
The weather beaten house came into view, nestled in a shallow spoon shaped valley. Mist clung to the ground like smoke and swirled around what was left of the outbuildings. The driver was right; little more than frames, the structures were worthless except as an ambush point.
They drew to a stop on the sheltered side of a large rock. Katelina wrung out her shirt. "Where are the ones we're supposed to meet?"
"That's a good question," Jamie said. "Like the van, they're late."
"Or dead." Wolfe sniffed the air. The others followed. Katelina tried and was instantly assaulted by a thousand damp smells; wet earth, dead leaves, soggy wood. She'd just decided it was pointless when she caught the edge of something else. Something that made her stomach tighten.
Blood.
Wolfe pulled his many bladed weapon from his coat. Jamie drew his sword. As if by silent agreement they plunged into the open. Katelina followed, her bag raised like a club.
They stopped at the mouth of the valley. Wolfe sniffed again. "Someone is there. No, two of them."
"The pair from the silo," Jorick said.
They started forward again. "Be careful, little one," Jorick whispered back to her. "I don't sense Malick, but that doesn't mean he's not here."
Or that he won't show up.
