Chapter 10
Dyson curtly ordered a pint of the cheap beer that seemed to constitute the staple of the regulars' diet and took up a half-turned position at the farther end of the counter, comfortably uncovered by any of the overhead lights, looking around with pretend idleness. The girl who he had been following had taken a seat at one of the corner tables, asked for a vodka and was casting worried glances at her wrist watch, obviously waiting not only for her order to be brought. She seemed both out of place and unobtrusive at the bar, like someone who had seen their fair share of seedy haunts but would much rather be at a public library at the moment. The wolf was watching her beautiful profile framed by the long dark hair, her face composed and unreadable while her little fingers, fidgeting with her cell, were the only giveaway of her nerves.
A less than squeaky clean glass was flopped in front of him by the bar-tender who was clearly not afre big tips and he was forced to take a sip of the murky liquid to keep up the appearances. "A couple of centuries ago I would've let out the publican's guts for serving pig-swill like that," the wolf told himself grimly but maintained a civilized face through the next careful mouthful, all the while keeping his eyes glued to the girl over the rim of his glass. A rather childish impetus to stroll over and claim both the unoccupied seat next to her and a bit of her attention overtook him and Dyson almost smiled. "She can't recognize the wolf she had freed in the human clothes and I, at the very least, could look into her mesmerizing huge eyes," he continued his inner monologue.
Still on the fence as to his further course of action the wolf gulped down some more of his beer and the acrid taste strengthened his grip on reality. "That's before she brands me a weirdo or a stalker or both and runs off after kneeing me in the nuts," he told himself sensibly, "Unless I thank her for saving me straight away and offer to pay for her drink in gratitude. And then she can take exception to my socializing style and run off screaming after distracting me with some damage to my sensitive parts."
Dyson frowned as it hit home that tracking the girl down was, in fact, much easier than coming up with a less than lame chat-line for her. The moment was, any way, lost as a short broad-shouldered fair-haired man lowered himself into the vacant seat opposite the girl with a grin on his face. The accent when he started speaking was a dead giveaway even if his round face with high cheekbones wasn't.
"Privyet, my dear cousin," he drawled in a wooden version of English that the wolf's enhanced ears picked easily and recognized from his days of working a Russian people trafficking chain with Hale a couple of years ago.
"Any news, Dima?" the girl asked in a no-nonsense manner her cold tone mismatched with the soft features of her young face but reinforced with the arctic look of her light eyes, "Any merchandise for me?"
"The money?" the man she had called Dima asked back never losing his grin.
The girl's hand patted a purse lying on the table next to her and looking distinctly stuffed. The man's hand in its turn slipped inside his loosely–fitting jacket and Dyson tensed despite himself, ready to streak across the distance between them if anything remotely threatening showed up in Dima's hand. The Russian man never knew how close to a nasty brush with a moody wolf he had come as he produced a small plastic tube of pills.
"Aren't you stocking up on all kinds of weapon?" Dima inquired, "A gun last week, sleeping pills today, next thing you'll ask me for a sword."
"I've already got one," the girl swiftly pocketed the tube and kept questioning as Dyson tensed again as her next words raised a flaming red flag, "Any information on the doctor?"
"Doctor Isaac Taft is still under the radar," Dima admitted melancholically, "But I am working, Kenzi."
"False alarm, not that doctor," Dyson remarked to himself, "And she is Kenzi."
"Wok faster," the girl who now had a name snapped at her cousin, "or I might start considering tapping other sources."
"Come on, Kenzi," the man whined, "I tracked him to his last job but three years ago he just disappeared, I've already checked his relatives ad his ex-wife and kid in Scarborough and … "
"I've given you half of this info," the girl chastised him, "And you haven't exactly been busting your hump on this one ever since. Up your game, Dima, or I'll find someone faster for the job. Ponyal?"
"You knew he used to work with our Lora?" the Russian suddenly asked in a grin-free, low voice and for the first time in their convo Kenzi was the one to look down and lose the upper hand.
"Lora worked at the same university, same lab, they were colleagues, rumors say they were lovers," Dima tacked on, still in a serious, almost sympathetic tone.
"I know they worked together," Kenzi finally managed out, "She told me he was the most brilliant scientist she had ever met, maybe even as brilliant as she … as she was."
"That's why you're interested in him? You think he can help you find Lora?" the man kept asking, eagerly watching the play of emotions for a few seconds allowed on the pale face.
"Yes, Dima," Kenzi looked up after a micro meltdown, her features solidifying into resolve, her voice confident again, "I think he can help me get my only sister back. So, move your ass and make it happen for me and tehn you'll have all the crispy-crispy notes I've promised for your assistance. And in the meanwhile I have a new little assignment for you. Another man to track, I've got a name and an address but I don't think he uses both or either of those now. He used to be a cop, 15th division though … "
And there Dyson, who had been listening to the family exchanges avidly, felt a dizziness that he chose to put down to his recent blood loss. The doubt segued into certainty as Kenzi recited his details to the Russian.
"He looks late thirties, blond, curly, blue eyes, kinda handsome, ok, scratch the kinda, really handsome," she went on with his description and the wolf was dangerously close to blushing, "Can't say from the photo for sure, but I should think tall and athletic."
"You haven't seen him?" Dima asked leisurely and Kenzi shook her head. "Not really," she almost smiled at the irony that was lost on her collocutor, "Get that hacker friend of yours to work on the police database, check the address but I wouldn't hope for much. Call me as soon as you find anything."
"And that," she slipped a wad of notes from her purse towards the man who took hold of it with the practiced speed straining to defy a policeman's eye, "is for the meds."
Dima beamed another satisfied grin, rose from the seat, attempted to plant a wet kiss on the girl's cheek that she angrily brushed off and left the bar. Dyson hurriedly turned away and hid his face in his half-empty glass – he had been a self-assured fool to feel safe from detection and to have completely forgotten about the bill-fold and the ID and the cell he had left behind in his clothes. So, this Kenzi girl was looking for him the same way he was looking for her. That discovery didn't exactly encourage him to act on the impulse he had entertained to go up to her and talk to her, seeing as playing the mysterious stranger was now out of the question.
Dyson was not really worried about the Russian guy looking into whatever trail he might have left at the cop shop or at his last known address but watching Kenzi was becoming increasingly difficult if she was armed with his mug shot. On the other hand, her search for him, as well as a couple of names she had dropped, was an added incentive not to lose sight of the walking 5 feet 3 enigma.
While he was processing the recently acquired information, the girl downed the finally served vodka shot, flipped a crumpled bill on the table and got up from her seat without as much as a waver. From the convenient shade the wolf observed her leave the bar and was on the verge of calling for a timeout until he could think through his next move. The timeout idea, however, was a short-lived idea as he saw a figure in baggy pants and lumpy jacket with a baseball cap low over the forehead follow Kenzi out. Though Dyson couldn't really see the person's face and only registered him when his back was already making a hurried exit after the young human, he knew the smell that hit him – the smell of a fellow fae.