In For the Kill (McClouds & Friends #11)(106)

Via Savoni proved to be a sad, seedy place, once an expanse of olive orchards. In the middle of the last century a factory had been built there and then subsequently abandoned. Its roof was caved in. Huge slabs of rusty, corrugated metal hung askew. The place was surrounded by nondescript smaller buildings that had grown up around it like mushrooms and been abandoned in their turn.

Number eighty-four was a scarred, featureless door in a long, rough concrete wall, the faded, stenciled number barely legible. The roadside was overgrown with weeds and strewn with garbage.

Sveti rang the bell. They heard a metallic rattling noise from the inside, but there was no subsequent movement or sound.

She rang again. Wind sighed, in the grass, the bushes. The smell of manured fields drifted on the breeze, acrid and heavy.

“Ehi!”

Sam almost jumped out of his skin.

It was a kid who had called out to them, maybe ten years old, on a beat-up pink bike that was much too small for him. He was tanned a deep brown, dressed shabbily, with broken flip-flops. His bike rattled and thudded over the broken pavement as he approached. He stopped about ten meters away. His dark eyes were sharp and calculating.

“Venite,” he said. When they did not move, he frowned, and beckoned impatiently. “Aò! Movetevi!”

“Tu chi sei?” Sam demanded. Who are you?

The kid ignored his query. “Sveti?”

She nodded. The kid beckoned and turned, tottering away on his bike. Sveti followed and Sam kept pace, his hand on his gun. He hated having a young kid in this mix. The situation had lacked only that element to make his stress complete. Put a f*cking cherry on top, why didn’t they. Throw in a toddler, maybe a gurgling newborn.

The kid made sure they followed, but kept a careful distance from them as he led the way through the deserted buildings. Finally, he stopped by a gate, which was slightly open and askew on its hinges. He pointed to it and pedaled away like the demons of hell were chasing him. Sam was glad to see him disappear. One less target to feel responsible for.

There was an acre or so of orchard inside the gate, bounded by a stone wall with broken glass jabbed into cement adorning the top of it, jagged and hostile as shark teeth. Sveti slid sideways through the broken gate before he could stop her. He followed swiftly after.

There was a squat, miserable little building made of roughly poured concrete. The windows were shuttered, the door closed.

Sam pulled Sveti back as she reached for the door, and shoved her behind himself, putting his fingers to his lips. He pushed the door open, bursting in with his gun drawn.

It was dark inside, the air stale and close. Light from the door poured in, revealing a table with a glowing laptop and a tangle of wires and cables. There was a cheap metal bed frame, covered by a bare mattress. Upon this cot a figure lay, flattened and insubstantial, more like a shadow than a person. The figure shifted, moving slowly.

“Sveti?” His voice was gravelly. He sat up.

“Sasha? Oh, Sasha!” She ran at the guy.

Sam was intensely uncomfortable to see Sveti kneeling on a filthy floor in her crisp white dress, her arms around another guy. The situation did not improve when his eyes adjusted and he saw more details of the nasty little room. Unsavory stains on the mattress, plates of spoiling food with flies crawling on them. On a chair next to the bed was a plastic bag of white powder, a spoon, a syringe, a lighter.

He’d seen way too much of that poisonous shit, after years spent in police work. He hated the soul-killing addictive drugs. What they did to people, kids, families. What people were disposed to do to obtain them.

Sam stared at the guy, whose chin rested on Sveti’s shoulder. He’d seen people in very bad shape, but not since his mother’s death had he seen anyone on this side of the dividing line between life and death look as bad as Sasha did. His dark hair was lank and unwashed, his eyes so lost in shadows, they stared out of gray pits. His lips looked blue, his cheeks caved in. His skin was yellowish gray.

His arms, wrapped around Sveti, were thin, but his hands seemed unnaturally large, hinting at the size he should have been if his weight had been normal. Sasha’s eyes opened and saw Sam observing the slovenly scene, the baggie. His gaze slid away, ashamed.

Sveti asked a question. Sasha replied in the same language.

Enough bullshit. He hadn’t come this far to be linguistically cut out of the conversation. “Does he speak English?” Sam asked.

Sasha’s lips moved. He coughed, closed his eyes. “Yes,” he said, his voice halting and scratchy. “It is n-n-not perfect, but I—”

“Use it, imperfect or not, and keep me in the loop. Tell us what’s going on. Why the scavenger hunt mindf*ck to get us here?”

Sasha stared at him, blinking, and turned to Sveti. “Who . . . ?”

Sveti shot him an entreating look. “He’s, ah . . . he’s my—”

“Her boyfriend,” Sam supplied. “And bodyguard. We need to get the hell away from this place. We’re too isolated. Too exposed.”

“He’s a friend who’s helping me,” Sveti corrected quietly. “His name is Sam Petrie. He’s a police officer. You can trust him.”

“But can we trust you, Sasha? What are you doing, other than getting high and moping in the dark? Practicing for the tomb?”

“Sam?” Sveti sounded shocked. “What the hell?”