Daemon’s Mark by Caitlin Kittredge (web ebook reader .TXT) 📕

“I know what I’m doing,” Grigorii snarled. “I’ll find her. Now go back downstairs and mind the till. Peter needs me for something. Probably can’t figure out how to check his email again.”

Ekaterina’s footsteps retreated, and Grigorii twisted the doorknob and stepped in.

His reaction to seeing me alive and well wasn’t at all what I expected. He smiled, a slow one that grew from the corners of his lips. “Joanne. You came back to me.”

I pointed the Walther, gesturing him into his desk chair. “I just couldn’t stay away.”

Grigorii slid into his leather chair and cocked his head toward the door. “You can tell your unwashed friend that he doesn’t need to hide.”

Dmitri shut the door with a bang. “Where is she?”

“Please,” I said. “I’ll handle this, all right?” I pointed the Walther back at Grigorii. “We’re looking for a girl. Masha Sandovsky. One of your thugs kidnapped her from outside of her school.”

Grigorii spread his hands. “This name means nothing to me.”

“Think fast,” I said. “I’m not in the mood to be patient. Or kind.”

“I think your information is perhaps faulty, Joanne,” said Grigorii. “Maybe your unpleasant friend has led you astray.”

Faster than I could react, Dmitri had closed the distance between them and grabbed Grigorii by the back of the neck. “This is my daughter, you son of a bitch, so you have five seconds to tell me where she is before I rip your throat out.”

Grigorii swallowed and turned to look at me. “Talk some sense into him, Joanne, before someone gets hurt.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I’m not my werewolf’s keeper.”

Grigorii sighed and rotated his gaze back to Dmitri. “Let me go and I will provide you with the information I have.”

Dmitri bared his teeth. “I think I’d rather beat it out of you, Belikov.”

Grigorii rolled his eyes. “Have it your way.”

Dmitri went backward, hit the wall hard enough to dent it and slid down, his eyelids fluttering. “Just a little shock,” said Grigorii. “Not much more than what you got in your cage. Elemental magick can be disorienting, though. Let’s give him a moment.” He ran a hand through his hair. “What do you think of our fair city, Joanne?”

“Hex you,” I said. “What did you do to Dmitri?”

“Shocked me,” Dmitri said, getting to his feet. “Our boy here is a gods-damned living stun gun, isn’t that right, Belikov?”

“I do have some control over electricity, yes.” Grigorii shrugged, not seeming bothered in the least that I was holding a gun on him. Then again, I guess when you’re the living version of Electro, you don’t have to be.

Grigorii rubbed his neck and smoothed down his shirt. “I’ll give her the information you’re looking for, but only her. You leave the room.”

“No way,” Dmitri said. “I’m not leaving you two alone.”

“Then I’m sure your daughter will enjoy her new life,” said Grigorii. “The young ones are profitable. They can get as many as fifteen men a day.”

Dmitri roared, and I put myself between Grigorii and his swing. “This is not helping Masha. Wait outside.”

He glared at me, black spilling across his pupils, and I cursed under my breath. The daemon was coming out, grabbing hold in moments of stress and anger, taking one more piece of Dmitri away.

“Dmitri,” I said, keeping my voice even. “Leave.”

“Luna?” he said, blinking. His eyes were back to green. “Did I…”

“I’ll take care of this,” I said, shoving him out the door with more force than was strictly necessary. “You need to wait out there.”

I shut the door after him and turned back to Grigorii. “I don’t know what you think that accomplished.”

“It got you alone,” Grigorii said, standing up. “So difficult to talk when some oaf is blundering around.” He approached me and reached out his hand. “Put the gun down, Joanne. Let’s talk about this and be civilized.”

“You don’t know the meaning of the word,” I said, but I lowered the gun a fraction and didn’t flinch when he reached out, slowly, and brushed a midnight strand of hair from in front of my eyes.

“I don’t know where the girl is that you’re asking about,” he said, his fingertips lingering against my cheek. I met his eyes.

“You’re lying.”

“And how do you know that?” Grigorii said. “You can read my mind, perhaps?” The fingers slid down my jaw, to grip my shoulder and pull me closer. Was he going to bargain with me or make out with me? I felt a tremor of panic in my chest at being so close to him again and fought it down.

“I know that you kidnap girls and sell them,” I said. “You and your sister care less about them than about a piece of trash on your shoe, so don’t pretend like you’re innocent. It doesn’t suit you.”

“If I am all the things you say,” Grigorii said, his other hand traveling over the curve of my hip, “a pimp, a liar, a seller of flesh—then why are you not running from me, far and fast as you can?”

I shoved the Walther into his gut, hard enough to send a breath from his lungs. “You make a better target up close.”

Grigorii’s lips peeled back in a smile. “I was afraid that you would spurn my advances.” His hand on my skin clamped down and the cold was all over me, like being dipped into a frozen lake naked. Not cold, I realized …

shock. It was dancing in me, just like the silver that had put me down.

My knees buckled and I lost my grip on the gun. Grigorii eased me down to the floor as I fought to breathe, the air whistling in my chest.

“Let me tell you something about my sister,” he said. “Our family lived in disgrace after the Romanovs fell, for generations. Ekaterina was bought by a man in our village in Siberia—a filthy, fat man. A whoremonger who took her away and cut her when she tried to escape and come back home. I killed him, hung him