Loose Connections [Almaz]

[Helena]

Helena watched the woman on screens for a while before she made any move to act. She sat in her office, studiously cleaning the last of the blood from her nails and adding the final addendums to today’s copious notes. As the file saved and she set the recorder aside, her analytical mind moved seamlessly from one puzzle to the next. Natalie sat alone at the bar, her posture all the lazy arrogance of one who invited no company – but dared to the challenge. Almaz was not the sort of place the glittering socialites usually favoured. Which was exactly the way Helena preferred it. The underworld was a far simpler arena to navigate: one did not have to bother with being liked, one just had to brandish enough money to get what one wanted. Back home it had been uncouth to do one without the social niceties of the other. An entirely inefficient way to operate.

When she was good and ready, Helena sent word to lead her visitor up. Baphomet’s ears perked when the door opened, and stayed alert when the stranger was let in. At a discrete gesture from his mistress, the doberman stretched to his feet and padded closer for a better look. To her credit, Natalie only shifted her palm to let him sniff, though his giant head came almost to her waist. Usually people were more demonstrably afraid, or at least surprised. And perhaps she was, but nothing permeated the smooth mask of her expression.

“Miss Grey, I presume.” A brow slithered up, but Helena did not bother to soften it with a smile. Frankly she didn’t care what sordid history sullied the name, but she knew she wanted no trouble at her own door, and Grey could certainly be that. The whole court fiasco had been quite enough of that kind of inconvenience. Likewise, since she was not looking to replace her very dead husband, she had no interest in the sorts of networking that might bring her into the hideous Moscovite social scene. Almaz might be the kind of crass that curled Helena’s lip, but it was an excellent deterrent to all the accoutrements of her old world legacy name. When you were an Asquith, people always wanted something.