Page 189 of White Wolf

But then he would shut his eyes, and remember Sasha’s stricken face, his mouth red and dripping, the monster’s neck-meat caught between his teeth. Evil blood, but given with love, by someone undoubtedly good. And maybe that kind act had been the thing that kept the taint at bay. After all, when he passed a razor blade down the tender inside of his arm, the blood always ran red, the way it had before Sasha kissed a madman’s blood into his mouth and made him immortal. It wasn’t the black, nightmare stuff of his worries.

If Sasha said he didn’t taste evil, then he must not. Sasha was still as honest as the trembling, brave boy they’d stolen from Siberia seventy-five years ago.

“What’s he said?”

“I don’t know. Trina said–”

And then she appeared, stepping around the corner and catching sight of them. She looked dead on her feet, eyes half-closed and smudged with dark circles as livid as bruises. But she scraped up a smile and a quick wave as she came to them.

“Sasha’s catching you up, I see,” she said, and to her credit she sounded more confident than she no doubt felt.

Nikita straightened up, spine going rigid, heels snapping together out of old habit. He linked his hands behind his back, and he was a Chekist again.

Trina noticed, throat moving as she swallowed.

“I’d like to see him.”

She nodded. “It’s gonna take some creative lying, but yeah, I want you to be the one to talk to him. Follow me.”

~*~

She and Lanny had a few nervous witnesses to the Chad Edwards murder who wanted to talk off the books; that was what she told Delgado in the break room when she went to get coffee for everyone. Lanny had secured the back-corner interrogation room they used for CIs, the one right by the emergency exit for a quick getaway. Given that their captain wasn’t in, that it wasn’t even nine in the morning, and that everyone around here seemed as zombified as she did, she was hoping they could have at least fifteen good minutes to talk before anyone got suspicious and poked their head in.

She took an old empty donut box down off the top of the fridge to use as a tray and, armed with coffee, went to begin the strangest interview of her life.

Lanny was holding up the wall outside the interview room, eyes shut. She’d seen him nap standing up before, and she wondered, in the moment before his eyes opened, if he was doing so now.

“You left them in there alone together?” she asked.

He shrugged and reached for one of the coffees. “Not like we can really stop them if they want to kill each other.”

She sighed. “Guess you’re right.”

She was too tired for this interview. Past tired. She was starting to see little flickers of colored light at the corners of her vision. She couldn’t remember when she’d last eaten and all her muscles felt like overcooked pasta.

“We can throw ‘em all in a holding cell,” Lanny offered, voice going gentle. A gentleness that, given her current state, almost undid her.

She wanted to lean her forehead against his chest, feel his heart beating, breathe in the musky smell of his drying fear sweat and shut down for a minute.

Instead, she squared her shoulders the best she could and said, “No, I want to get it over with.”

He opened the door for her and she walked into a room that was achingly silent. Like a pane of movie prop glass waiting to shatter.

Sasha stood against the far wall, arms folded, face a tight, angry mask. On sentry duty. He was young, and handsome, and sweet-looking, so it surprised her to see the way aggression hardened him into a man…and something beyond that. Something inhuman that sent fast chills skittering down her back. She could have put him in a lineup, she thought – which one of these men is a werewolf – and any stranger off the street could have picked him out.

Nikita sat across the small table from Alexei, his chair at an angle, legs crossed, one negligent arm braced on the table edge. He held an unlit cigarette between two fingers, his gaze unreadable in the moments when it shifted from the window to the tsarevich.

Alexi, by contrast, was pale and distressed, his emotions playing across his face with childlike innocence and unselfconsciousness. If it was an act – and she’d seen plenty of those – then it was a good one.

All three of them looked at her when she entered, and for one heart-stopping moment their gazes said,we’re not like you. She was walking into a den of literal monsters.

But then Alexei ducked his head and the spell broke.

“Here.” She set the makeshift tray down. “It’s not Starbucks, but it’ll get the job done.”

Nikita reached for one, and Sasha stepped up to get another. Trina set one out for Alexei and then sat down in the chair next to Nikita with all the grace of a puppet with cut strings. She heard Lanny’s shuffling footsteps behind her, the rustle of his coat as he braced his shoulders back against the wall. It was a great comfort to know he was back there, and it gave her the strength to pull on her detective persona and fix Alexei with the steadiest look she could manage.

“You’re telling me you’re Nicholas and Alexandra’s son,” she said, without judgement. When he nodded, she said, “Explain how that’s possible.”

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