DPOV

Some good really had came out of our call to Tasha. We had been able to locate the call to Turkey and Turkey was Abe's home ground. By the next sundown, we were already up in the air and making our way to Ankara. We weren´t sure that Tasha, in fact, was in Ankara, but that was the closest city to the region Sydney had provided for us. The customs didn´t even look our way as Abe led us out of the terminal and into a car. And it wasn´t a surprise when the car drove us to a lavish hotel. Abe owned a penthouse in the hotel and we had every resource we could imagine within our reach.

We were pretty quickly able to locate the plane Tasha had used Abe himself had questioned the pilot and the flight attendants. They were rather cooperative and had provided us with a good picture of Tasha. She really hadn't changed and had remained as a Moroi. Maybe it was easier to get around as a Moroi. The flightpath narrowed down our search indeed to Ankara and its region, but the area that we had to cover was still significant. Our best chance was to monitor strigoi movement and hopefully get a glimpse of Tasha hunting. She couldn´t just walk to a feeder now that she was one of the most wanted fugitive in the world.

Abe also had put a word out there for Tasha. We had both the official and the underground society looking for her. We had eyes everywhere and we ourself kept going over the surveillance tapes of all the strigoi attacks at the area. Though Tasha was being really careful. We would get a glimpse of her in the west side of the Ankara and when we got there, we would get a phone call of a sighting of her at the east side of the city. She really was playing with us and we were always one step behind her. She deliberately kept her feedings unregular and traveled even long distances to hunt. It made us frustrated, but also relieved. If she was traveling, she couldn´t be torturing Rose.

My heart almost stopped when Adrian had run into the room one morning and yelled that he had been able to contact Rose. Everyone had started asking questions at the same time but I had just rushed to Adrians´side and shuck him. "Where is she?!". Adrian had told us every little detail about Roses descriptions of the place she was held in, about Lev the strigoi keeping an eye on her and about Tasha. It broke my heart to learn that she was kept in such bad conditions while pregnant. Back at Baia, we had made sure that everything had been perfect for my sisters while they were pregnant. We had attended to their every need and kept them safe and content. I had wished that I could have offered the same for my own wife and baby.

But my heart truly bled when Adrian reluctantly described Rose to us. Such an innocent question as "How is she holding up?" ended with tales of torture. It made my heart sink and the uncontrollable rage lift its ugly head again. My famous self-control had really been slipping lately and, I swear to God, Tasha would pay for it.

But Adrian's success took as a step closer to finding Rose. We hadn't really considered that Tasha would still be in liaison with strigois. Strigois needed to feed more often that Tasha, so now we had better a change of finding them. We changed our strategy. We still kept our eyes open for Tasha but concentrated our focus and energy on finding this Lev person. We only had Adrian description to go on, but that didn´t weaken our determination.

Adrian was able to keep in contact with Rose through their dreams and we came up with the idea of healing Rose remotely with spirits. Of course, it didn´t work as effectively as it would have in close proximity but it was still something. Adrian was going through feeders like socks, but he refused to stop. I was really grateful to Adrian and did everything I could to find him feeders and keep him comfortable. He was our only link to Rose and everyone was pampering him best they could. Abe even fly Mark and Oksana to Ankara to help Adrian. Oksana's job was to heal Adriann and sometimes help him with dreamwalking. Rose has asked to heal the baby first and we had honored her decision. It was eating me alive to think that she was making us chose the baby over her.

This morning Adrian told us the bad news. Rose was deteriorating fast so we needed to come up with something and fast. We decided finally to scatter around the city and go to the most popular nightclubs. It had been a long time since we had any sightings of Tasha or Lev and this night was our best and soon the only option to find them. I had put on my duster and hed to the west side of Ankara for a round. I sat in the bar drinking my vodka and keeping an eye on the room. Some of the girls had come to talk to me but I wasn´t interested in human or dhampir company. I kept watching a strigoi woman go around the club talking to the unsuspecting humans.

'"She´s pretty." Someone says from the bar stool next to me. I just growl something as a response and don´t take my eyes away from the woman. Maybe I could kidnap her and torture answers out of her. She has to know something about the other strigois at the area. Under normal circumstances I wouldn´t even consider something like that, but now...The person stays next to me and I can feel his gaze on me.

I finally turn to glance at him and I had to do a double take. He looks just like Randall. I swear to God, if he had more modern clothes and he was little shorter, he would be an exact replica. My hand automatically reached for my stake as I remark the red eyes.

"You don´t need that." He just says changing to Russian. His Russian doesn´t settle my nerves and I keep myself ready for attack.

"I am Lev." He finally says and watches my hand. Of course, he is. The strigoi we have been looking for weeks just walked up to me in the dimly lit bar and started to make a conversation with me.

"What do you want? Did Tasha send you?" I question clanging little around me. This could be an ambush. I am finally alone and Tasha could have sent her strigois after me.

"Tasha doesn´t know I am here." Lev relaxes a bit and orders a vodka for him. "Rose asked me to find you."

"She did?" I ask still suspicious.

"Yes, the blood is thicker than water." Lev just smiles little and hand me a paper. "The address." I take the paper confused and wary. I don´t fully understand what he means but I open the paper anyway. The address is located near here, but on the better neighborhood that we hadn´t considered. I lift my gaze to ask about the address but Lev is already heading to the door.

I quickly follow him and call Abe. I had just managed to give him the address when something hits me. I lose the phone but am able to scramble back on my feet stake ready at hand. Tasha stands before me smiling gently. "Dimka…"