Page 5 of The Harbinger

I snapped my fingers at the attendant. “Get a cover on my seats before we take off. I don’t want her sullying my leather.”

The attendant nodded and disappeared as if fire licked her heels.

Dmitri, my driver and chief bodyguard, sat across from the TV at the far end of the plane and flipped it on.

“Did you know about this?” I flicked a finger at our new tag along with a scowl.

He shook his head. “Nyet.”

“What are you guys saying?” the girl said, raising her jerky arms above her head and wiggling her fingers in front of her face.

The attendant walked back with a black garbage bag, and Vlad pulled her from her seat while Ivan sat on his phone, ignoring the young chit he’d found.

“Ivan.” His attention turned to mine. “Make yourself useful.”

The girl’s eyes grew as big as tea plates when he stood from his seat and slunk towards her. Her skinny frame hosted bruises along her upper arm, her knees, and a large purple irregular circle that disappeared beneath her soiled shorts.

“Where did you find her?”

“At the gas station. She approached Vlad, asking for money or something, but he told her to get lost. She took off down the alleyway, and that’s where we found her after Nina went missing.”

“What if she’s thepolitsii?” I’d had run-ins with the American police, with schemes so amateurish that they resembled children playing cops and robbers.

Vlad shook his head. “She’s crazy. And I doubt she’ll remember anything tomorrow.”

I frowned and walked toward her as she plopped into the newly protected chair, pressed her palms into her forehead, and screamed before her eyes rolled into her head.

She slumped over, her frail frame tossed to the side like yesterday’s trash, her limp arms stretched out in front of her.

“She’s been doing that a lot, too,” Ivan said.

I pulled my suit slacks up my thighs and kneeled in front of her. Her lips moved, but no words passed her cracked lips.

“Before or after she tested the product?” I tapped her cheek to rouse her.

“Since we picked her up. We thought she might have taken something before, but she was coherent until her first episode.”

I leaned over her, lowering my ear to her lips, hoping to catch the symphony of speech, but there was only silence. Her stringy blonde hair hung down around her shoulders, a few stray strands like webbing across her face.

“How long does it last?” I pressed my fingers to her rapid pulse thrumming in her neck.

Ivan stepped up, his eyes lashing across her features, and a strange sensation pulled my hand into a fist. “Last one was about thirty minutes long.”

“It could be the cocaine or whatever she used beforehand.”

I pressed my finger to my lips.

It wasn’t the cocaine. Sure, it caused numbness and euphoria, but not like this. It didn’t put you out.

I leaned over her, dipped my finger into the top of her shirt, and pulled it away from her dirt-covered pale skin.

Her pink nipples tightened against the material, and a small groan slipped from her lips again as I looked for a wire or even awireless device, but the only foreign object she possessed was a thin silver ring wrapped around her finger with a small circle on the top. In the center, etched in black, was the sigil I was all too familiar with. An upside-down triangle with curled tails, a V at the base, and an X in the center.

My stomach clenched.

There’s no such thing as coincidences.

“Was she with anyone else?”

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