“It appears,” Murphy said, “we might be missing an Albanian connection.”
“Albania?” Jetta said. “None of the ships have come from Albania.”
“What is he talking about?” Jean asked. “Is the American unbalanced?”
“I don’t know any Albanians,” Leonor said. “It’s not important. Who is running Albania? Athens, yes?”
“Saying Athens actually runs anything is being generous,” Jetta said.
While the rest of them started shouting over each other, trying to figure out who Cormac was talking about, Murphy slipped the piece of paper from his suit pocket.
King’s Cross Station, 4am.
He slipped the paper back in his pocket and absently noted that Anne had fallen silent at his side.
MURPHY wandered around King’s Cross for ten minutes before he managed to find Cormac O’Brien, who was smoking a pipe and leaning against one of the arches. The station wasn’t open, but there were still a few humans around. Murphy drew the fog closer, concealing them from curious eyes.
“King’s Cross?” he asked.
Cormac frowned. “That is a really cool trick with the fog. And my girl insisted we stay here. Platform 9 3/4 and all that. She made her bodyguard take pictures.”
“Platform what?”
Cormac lifted an eyebrow. “Don’t you read?”
“Not as much as I’d like.” Murphy took out a thin cigar and lit it. “Tell me about this Zara.”
“Sorry about the theatrics earlier. Not that I wasn’t genuinely pissed, but I don’t trust anyone in there.”
“But you’re meeting with me?”
Cormac blew out a stream of smoke. “I don’t think she has anything you’d be interested in buying.”
“Who is Zara?”
“A crazy Albanian water-vampire bitch.”
“I gathered as much,” Murphy said, trying not to snap at the man. “I’ve never heard of her.”
“She likes to keep it that way.”
“Why do you think she has anything to do with Elixir?”
“Because of the ports. Samsun. Poti. Varda. Athens doesn’t acknowledge it, but Zara’s been quietly running Istanbul for the past two years. That means nearly every ship that’s been carrying Elixir is leaving one of her ports and passing through the Bosphorus.”
Murphy’s instincts started humming. “Athens has controlled the Bosphorus for a thousand years.”
“More specifically, Laskaris does.”
There was the Greek connection. Athens might not be on the Black Sea, but they controlled it. Though Istanbul had changed hands in the human realm, in the vampire world, it had remained under Greek control.
“And Laskaris,” Cormac said, naming one of the oldest on the Athenian council, “is Zara’s current plaything. She hooked up with him after she broke with Oleg. She’d been overseeing the ports on his side until then.”
“The Russian? Were they lovers? I thought only his children ran his ports. You said she was a water vampire.”
“Yeah, I don’t know what they were,” Cormac said. “She hates him, that’s for sure.”
More of those disparate puzzle pieces fell into place. “So she broke with Oleg and took up with Laskaris?”
“Trust me, there’s no romance involved. Istanbul belongs to Laskaris. He’s the most active member of the council, but that’s not really saying much. He’s lazy as hell. Zara saw an opportunity to stick it to Oleg when she hooked up with him. She runs the strait for him and strokes his ego, and he lets her do what she wants while remaining under the radar. Rumor is Istanbul has been raising the tariffs through the Bosphorus over the past year or so. If they’re going up, it’s because of Zara.”
Because no one shipped anything—including oil—from the Black Sea without passing through the narrow seventeen-mile strait that connected the Black Sea to the rest of the world. And any freighter owned by an immortal paid a heavy tax.
It was one of the sole means of support the Greeks had managed to retain control over. If their court weren’t so bloated, it would have been enough. Sadly, the Athenians were more interested in luxury than economy.
Cormac continued, his empty sleeve waving as if he’d forgotten half his left arm was gone. “Oleg has been working on his Baltic ports for a few years now, but he still needs the Black Sea. Not enough of his oil pipelines going to the Baltic yet.”
“Most of the Elixir has been moving toward the North Sea and up to the Baltic.”
“I’d be willing to bet if you managed to nail down the vampires running those territories—which, let’s be honest, most of them are puppets for Oleg anyway—you’d see even higher numbers of Elixir infection than what you’ve seen in the Netherlands and Scandinavia.”
“She’s choking Oleg. Crippling the Baltic territories and forcing him to use the Black Sea,” Murphy said.
“That’s what I think.”
“And she’s using the Greeks to do it. Are they the ones producing Elixir, then?”
Cormac took another drag on his pipe before he spoke. “Probably. They’ve been trying to remain relevant for years now. They’re greedy. And they don’t like Russians. Laskaris, especially, would be happy to fuck with Oleg. And if Athens makes money in the process? All the better. They’re hemorrhaging Euros right now.”