A Posher Apartment Building in Moscow, Tuesday Afternoon, Still in 1902

[bitten_notshy]

Jack could not honestly say he was surprised when Dyachenko asked if he recognized a ring that had been found tucked into the dead woman's pocket. It was a vampire court ring (with an odd pale-blue sapphire that he knew belonged to Irina's former patron, Starkad. (Of course, Jack thought, slightly irritated. Someday he was going to help solve a crime that had nothing to do with vampires. Or werewolves, for that matter, hard as that might be to pull off these days.)

Dyachenko had named the woman as Olesia Valentinova Sharankova. Jack only dimly recognized the name -- he'd known her by the nickname Lesya, and only slightly at that -- but she'd owned the gallery where Irina most often exhibited her paintings.

The one unexpected thing about any of it was, the ring wasn't hers. Which made it look even more like the entire thing was a set-up.

After a day's fruitless searching, Emma had finally persuaded someone to get a message to Irina. A bit later, the response came: She would meet with them.

It was rather ingenious, the way Irina had holed up in Lesya's abandoned flat. The police were done with it, and no one else seemed likely to disturb the rooms for some time. Jack reminded himself to congratulate her as they tapped at the door late Tuesday morning.

[OOC: For she who is here and two NPCs. NFB.]

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[ofthe-blood.livejournal.com]

The slender young woman who peeked out a cracked door before opening it to admit her visitors was a few inches taller than Jack. Her dark hair was twisted into a pinned-up braid, and she'd dressed in a loose man's shirt, trousers, and a jacket.

Her eyes were red-rimmed, and she sniffled as she stepped back. "You always see me at my worst," she said, in strongly accented English. "Hello again. Your friend --?"