No Shelter

[Ivan Sarkozy]

Takehiko Mizushima looked the neighborhood over. Red light district, with all that implied. Looked like a club just down the street. Probably a strip club, though this far more upscale than the other joints he'd been in. Mostly as part of his work. He wasn't exactly making the big bucks as a cop. Maybe now that he was with Domovoi, though he wasn't holding his breath. Heart and financial capital of the world it may be, but somehow all that largess didn't exactly trickle down to all of them on the government payroll. At least not at his level. Junior grade detective wasn't exactly high level.

Still, it wasn't like he did this job for the money or the glory. Ilyasa wasn't the kind of girl who was impressed with money anyway, for which he was very thankful. Being a second generation immigrant to Moscow didn't exactly lend one to such things. But he was happy with his life, for the most part.

Especially now that he finally was able to get some answers. Well, not exactly answers. More like glad that he could be involved in figuring out what the hell was going on in this city. Serial killers. Cannibals. Random mutilations. All where the perp was invisible or otherworldly or whatever you wanted to call it. His superiors hadn't been happy with where his investigations had gone. There wasn't exactly a selection for "vampire" in the online forms he had to fill out.

Domovoi was a far better fit. It seemed all of his coworkers had strange run-ins in their line of work. Sarkozy called them the moster squad and he liked that. Better than the "Z-Files" some of the old-timers kept suggesting. And now Sarkozy was laid up in the hospital. He'd gone to see him and the guy was in good spirits. It wasn't an official visit anyway. He wasn't the lead detective on this anyway. The "new guy" Vega was- well they were all "new" guys- and he was gonna be interviewing Ivan at some point if he wasn't already. But Takehiko had seen the videos. The guy had been hurt pretty bad. He doubted he'd be coming back to the squad.

Which meant it was all the more imperative that they find this asshole Volodin. Nobody walks away from hurting a cop. The blue shield was a real thing, as he would soon find out.

He radioed Kip at the station. They were trying to track Volidin. It was one of many leads."Alright, I'm at the location. You have an idea where he might have gone?" Or even if it was him, he didn't add. Thermal fingerprinting was fickle at the best of times. Which made sense. A thermal image print of a person depended on their total body heat. That changed over time and with different activities. You needed a long scan to get the underlying baseline that didn't change. And it wasn't like Volodin had stood there in the market just for that purpose.

Still, it was better than nothing. An affirmative came back from Kip- with attitude, of course. He'd heard the unspoken criticism. Oh well. So Takehiko was blind. Well, he was just doing reconn anyway. He wasn't supposed to engage Volodin. Domovoi was suddenly stretched thin with the new attacks. But this guy took precedence for him.

After a moment of looking around he decided to start canvassing using a picture on his wallet. People weren't helpful, which didn't exactly surprise him. Not like cops were well liked here. Soon enough, he was in front of Kallistis. The bouncer looked like he wouldn't let him in until he flashed his badge. The guy rolled his eyes but let him in. A manager came by and tried to reign him in- they had high rollers as their clientele and liked their privacy- he was having none of it.

"You know about what's going on, right? Crashed planes? Terrorist attacks? Custody Security isn't sitting on its hands. Nor will it tolerate obstruction." Those were the magic words, of course. You don't get in the way of a Consulate, not if you knew what was good for you. He might be overstating his credentials, but the mood in the city was fearful and the manager knew he was right.

The guy backed off and he proceeded to float from table to table. Of course, he found the same lack of helpfulness at most. Finally, he stopped at one table- group of maybe 5 guys sitting around.

To one of them, looked to be the oldest with long blond hair, he asked, "You seen this guy?" showing the picture of Volodin as he said it.


Edited by Ivan Sarkozy, Aug 10 2015, 11:44 AM.