Chapter twenty one

I was back at the bunker sitting in front of one of the screens and it was showing a live police conference. I had a cup of steaming hot chocolate in my hand, it was a habit from back when I was in the orphanage and Victoria used to give it to us when we were sick. With the day I had just had I thought I deserved one. Next to me on my left, sipping a cup of tea that he spiked with vodka when he thought I wasn't looking was Sergei and to my right drinking his own cup of tea was Kazimir.

The police officer displayed on the screen was the stereotypical slightly round man with a handle bar mustache that did little to hide his smile,

"One hour ago police received a report that there was an unresponsive naked man found at the back of an office building. Two officers were dispatched to see what was going on and found a naked man with a sticky note on his forehead that read 'garbage' dumped alongside the trashcans of the building. The officers immediately recognized the man as Vadim Grekov since they had seen him at the station that very same day. When the officers attempted to question him about what had happened to him they found him completely unresponsive. The concerned officers then took him to the psychiatric hospital where he now currently resides."

All of the surrounding reporters started to raise their hands and wave them around to get the man's attention, he eventually picked one of them, "Do you know what happened to Mr Grekov?"

"According to the professional psychiatrists at the hospital , he is in deep psychosis caused by weeks , possibly months of intense torture but since we know this to be impossible we asked them whether the torture could be done in six to twelve hours. They all agreed that it was impossible to cause that type of trauma without causing the subject's death. We called a medical doctor to do a complete physical checkup on Mr Grekov to check if there were any signs of torture. He came up with absolutely nothing, Mr Grekov is physically more fit than he has ever been in his life, even his cavities are gone. The conclusion that the doctors reached after consulting with each other was that a person used some sort of mind altering method like hypnosis to damage Mr Grekov's psyche. "

He chose another reporter who asked," Is there any truth to the rumors that the police aren't taking this case seriously because of Mr Grekov allegedly being the butcher?"

"The only thing we know is that Mr Grekov's car was wrecked somewhere along route 49 and that he was found naked behind a building downtown completely unharmed, at least physically. There is no physical evidence to even indicate that a crime even took place."

Another reporter," What do you say about reports that a bullet was retrieved from the tire of the wrecked car?"

"No such evidence was reported or checked into our evidence locker, that means that the reports are mistaken."

The police officer wasn't even bothering to pretend to be serious as he answered that question. He was selecting the next reporter when the phone connected to the computer started to ring.

Kazimir quickly muted the video and picked up the phone. I couldn't hear both sides of the conversation so all I heard was,

"Hello......yes, you can find that person here, who am I speaking to? .........oh I see, I shall get her right away."

He mouthed the words 'Vladimir Mikailov' and took out a stick of the voice altering gum to give to me. I chewed quietly for about a minute and took the phone from Kazimir.

"I'm sorry for making you wait Mr Mikailov, I was a little busy when you called, how may I help you?"

"I was just wondering the same tying. I had a background check run on your name and unless you can grow wings and fly all the way from Siberia , you are not the Persephone from sweet poison. Before we can proceed any further who are you really?"

"I am the enemy of your enemy Mr Mikailov, my aim is to eliminate as many of the monsters that are attacking you as possible. As for my name , I have grown attached to the name Persephone , you can keep calling me that."

"Persephone , the queen of the underworld , I think it suits you. Especially after your recent work, I found it quite impressive."

"The meeting was four days ago, if you were impressed by that you would have called earlier."

"That was very impressive, but I was talking about your work with Mr Grekov. You know my personal physician went in to see him, he came out completely mystified. You made a man lose his mind because of overwhelming fear without putting a single scratch on him. You wouldn't share your method with me would you? I will of course pay you for your trouble."

"My methods would be totally useless to you, now is that the only reason you called me?"

"Not at all, I called to tell you that I owe you a hundred thousand cash reward for the monster you killed four days ago and you can come and collect it at anytime."

"Nice try Mr Mikailov, but I wasn't born yesterday. If it's about the money I can give you an account number that you can deposit it in."

"Alright fine, I want to meet you face to face and talk about the 'monsters' as you call them."

"That's OK with me, as long as I decide the time and place. And you can relax, it's going to be a public place so that you won't do anything inappropriate. I will call you back with a time and place, good night Mr Mikailov."

After I hung up I suddenly had a thought, could it be a coincidence that Vladimir 'the puppeteer' Mikailov suddenly called me after Grekov directly challenged me and lost? Could it be that he arranged for the whole thing as some sort of a test? It does match his Modus operandi and he was paying an awful lot of attention to something that had very little to do with his mob empire, it was very suspicious. I hope he didn't have anything to do with that woman's death because if he was responsible for it ,Sergei's father or not I was going to go after him.

And when I get him he will find out what the methods he was so curious about were.

When I used them on him.