Midnight In St. Pertsburg (The Invisible War 1) (11 page)

Something was here. A lot of somethings. Skittering noises in the dark, chitinous chattering. Something pressed against her foot, then a cool, wet tentacle brushed her face.
 

Rose screamed. And ran. Scraping footsteps behind her. Something caught at her coat. Pulled at her hair.

A light ahead, one of the small side chapels. A beautiful woman stood in the gilded archway. “This way!” she called. “They can’t follow you into here.”

It seemed the best offer Rose was going to get. She ran harder, gave everything she had to just making it through that door.

A deafening crack split the air and the ground shook. Rose tripped and stumbled and fell. She looked behind, sure she’d be looking death in the face.

Instead, she saw Ian.

He shone, radiant in the darkness. He stood tall and calm, his hands on the hilt of a white-hot sword he’d driven into the marble floor.
 

Ian ran his hand along the edge of the blade, slicing his palm open. Blood dripped to the floor, and with each drip the shadows pushed back, dissolving into the more natural darkness. The woman at the chapel door hissed. Ian drew his sword from the ground and pointed it at her. She fled into the chapel and slammed the door behind her.

Ian came over to Rose, smiling and confident, his lingering excitement a driving pulse in her mind. He offered his non-bleeding hand. “Are you all right?”

Rose shook her head, confused. It had all happened so fast. And she’d been yelling at Mike—why had she been yelling at Mike?

Ian helped her to her feet. “Don’t worry. She was more in a mood to play than fight.”

Mike and Nazeem came back into view. They, too, had scattered, but no way to know if they’d been fleeing or giving chase. “Will someone explain what just happened?” Rose demanded.

“I will,” Ian said. “But not here. She might come back.”

Mike nodded agreement. “The hotel. And then we talk.”

*
   
*
   
*

Mike’s pulse had almost returned to normal. That brush with the folk—what else could they have been—left him more shaken than he would have expected.

It wasn’t the physical danger. Demons, voiders, vampires, folk, they all had their tricks and some things Mike could counter and other things he had to avoid. But those were surface threats. Fire and force, steel and strength could hurt you, even kill you. But they couldn’t touch you where it counted, couldn’t change the man inside.

The thing that gave him nightmares was the way some of the folk could reach inside you and stroke and tune your thoughts until you didn’t even recognize yourself. Not all, thank God. Demons could possess a man, but not a voider. Vampire mind-tricks similarly bounced off the mind of any voider who’d really settled into his powers. But the folk…the folk…

Mike had been much younger when he’d worked with that other hunter, Aidan. It never occurred to him he’d be just as vulnerable to fairy manipulation now as he had been then. Insidious bastards. And he and Rose had played right into their hands. Given them plenty of antagonism to stoke into blind rage.

Back in his suite, everyone settled in. Mike offered Ian a towel for his bleeding hand. Ian smiled his thanks, relaxed and easy.
 

Rose stood against the wall, across the room from everyone. Her arms were crossed tight across her stomach. “What the hell was that?”

Mike answered before Ian could. “You know what I do. You know what Nazeem is. Well, now you’ve been introduced to Ian’s specialty.”

“And that is?” Nazeem asked. Mike couldn’t deny a twist of cold amusement that they’d run into something he knew and the vampire didn’t.

Mike let Ian answer.

“The folk,” Ian said. “That’s what we call them. That’s what they call themselves. In legend, they have other names. The fair ones. The little people. The fae. Fairies. My family and other families like us, we hunt them.”

“You’re not a voider,” Nazeem said.

Rose started. “Of course he’s not.” She turned to Ian. “But you’re not exactly human either.”

He nodded. “We’re descended from them. I’m not one of them, but I have enough of their blood in me to work some of their magic and fight them on their turf.”

“And you knew about this?” Rose directed her question at Mike.

“I’ve worked with Ian’s people before.”

“I see I’m not the only one who isn’t sharing with the class.”
 

Rose’s accusation struck a guilty chord in Mike. Which made him mad again. “Look, what I said in there—yeah, they were provoking us, but that doesn’t make it any less true. You can’t hold back. Not if you’re going to be useful to the team.”

“Fine, but that goes both ways. If you want me to tell you stuff, you have to explain things to me. And not just treat my questions as an excuse to send me home because I don’t know everything already.”

 
It was a fair point, much as Mike hated to admit it. The more Rose knew, the better she’d be at her job. And for whatever reason, she already seemed better at her job than any other sensitive he’d ever worked with. Not that she needed to hear that from him. “You just keep holding up your end and I’ll make sure you know what you need to know.”

“Okay then, start with the fairies.” Rose looked to Ian. “I’m assuming they’re not like in stories.”

“Depends on which ones you read,” he answered. His hand no longer bled, and he’d turned the towel to a clean edge to wipe off his sword. “At best, they see humans as toys. They want to play with you, and they play plenty rough. At worst, they want your body for their puppet, your mind for their pet, and your soul for their food.”

Mike continued the lesson. “They come from the other side of the curtain, like demons. They have a lot of the same weaknesses. They don’t care for religious symbols, can’t walk on holy ground.”

“But we were in a church,” Rose argued.

Nazeem answered her. “A church that’s been the site of murders. It is most assuredly no longer holy ground.”

“Cold iron,” Ian said, back on track. “It’s one of the best weapons to fight them. It’s tied to our world. Not only does it hurt them, but they have no power over it. Other things cut through their glamours. Now I know they’re here, I’ll make sure everyone has protection.”

“What’s the curtain?” Rose asked, thoughtful.

Mike fielded that question. “The curtain is what separates our real world from the other side. The side where the magic comes from. All the dangerous stuff is over there, and most of it wants to come here.”

“And eat us,” Rose said.

“Now you’re catching on.”

Ian laid his sword across the desk and leaned back in his chair. He flashed a wry smile at Mike. “I guess now we know why I got invited.” His face sobered as he said, “I should have known to look in St. Isaac’s, after Rose told us about the killer. The folk can feel the bad places. They’re attracted to death and sadness and fear.”

Mike went over to the window, stared out at the cathedral that was becoming a serious pain in his ass. “So our killer desecrates the church, creates the negative energies. That draws the folk, who potentially kill more people.”

“There’s more to it than that,” Rose said. When Mike turned to look at her, she shrugged. “At least, I think. I mean, you said I should tell you what I think, so I am, but I’m not sure.” Mike circled his hand in the air, gesturing for her to keep talking. “It’s just—if you guys could see what I see, you’d understand. There’s more going on here than a few people dead and some evil fairies. I don’t know what—I don’t have the first idea what—but I don’t think we’ve seen the whole picture yet.”

“So how do we fight them?” Nazeem, to the point. Mike wished he understood the vampire’s game. Now Rose and Ian were sharing, but Nazeem was still noticeably quiet. What was going through his vampire brain?

If Ian noticed the vampire’s reticence, he gave no sign. “Like I said, I can give you tokens to make you immune to the glamours. Cold iron is something everyone can carry. And I’ve got iron crosses for Rose and Mike. Daytime cripples their powers and they can’t go out in sunlight.” Mike glanced at Nazeem, who saw him looking and smiled, dipping his head, acknowledging the striking similarities.

But Ian wasn’t finished. “The real issue is this—the fact that they’re here means there’s a doorway through the curtain somewhere nearby. They can’t exist in this world for long without that tie back to their own side to sustain them.”

Holes in the curtain were always bad. “Can you find it? Can we close it?”

“Maybe.” Ian tapped his fingers thoughtfully on his cheek. The cut on his palm had already pulled closed. Kid healed fast. “Normally it’s an ordeal in and of itself to find the doorways—the folk keep them pretty well hidden—but with Rose to help…”

Rose grinned. “If you can tell me what I’m looking for, I’m pretty sure they can’t hide it from me.”

“Once we’ve found it, we can close it. It’s dangerous, but with you guys along, it shouldn’t be too big a risk.”

This was starting to sound like a plan. A solid step toward a useful goal. “And once we close this gap, that will solve the fairy problem?”

Ian rocked his hand in the air. “It will stop any more from showing up, and any left on this side will have lost their link back to home. After a few days, they’ll just burn out and fade away.”

“Okay.” Hunting up the curtain rift was a win from every side. They’d be working to drive off the dangerous supernaturals, which was still Mike’s job, dammit. They’d be clearing potential interference in their search for the man who had attacked Rose. And it served as a nice distraction from the making-nice that Mike didn’t really care about. “I say let’s focus on this, get it taken care of before we worry about anything else.”

Ian ran his hand along the blade of his sword and it shimmered and faded, like a mirage up close. “Neat,” Rose said.

“We can search for the breach tomorrow. If we can find it by sundown, we can go in and close it tomorrow night.”

“Right. We’ll meet for breakfast then.” Mike glanced to the clock, saw it was well past midnight. “Better get some sleep.”

That got Rose and Nazeem out, but Ian lingered. “I just wanted to say thanks.”

“For what?”

“For taking this seriously. For hunting them with me. The folk are bad news. Not just for us, but for every person in this city.”

Mike understood. How could he not? “Kid, we’d be doing the exact same thing if some demon showed up hunting people for sport. Whatever Rutledge’s people want to pay us for, my first priority is
always
going to be making sure none of those predators from the other side are running around hunting people who can’t protect themselves.”

Ian nodded. “Me too.”

St. Petersburg seemed to get more twisted by the hour, Mike would sleep better knowing at least one of his teammates had his priorities in the right place. “Go on, get out. Big day tomorrow. Scoot.”

Still, for all the excitement of the day, for all his relief at having a concrete short-term goal, Mike couldn’t get to sleep until he’d pulled all the curtains shut, blocking his view of St. Isaac’s.

*
   
*
   
*

As they came out of Mike’s room, Rose caught at Nazeem’s sleeve. “Hey, wait up a sec.”

Nazeem stopped and turned to face her, his expression as inscrutable as ever. “Yes, Rose?”

“What the hell was that you did—“ Once again, they were in the hall, discussing things that should be secret. This time, Rose’s room was closer. She unlocked her door, pulled Nazeem in with her, terribly aware she could only do that because he let her. “In the church,” she started again. “When Mike was yelling at me. You did something, didn’t you? So I couldn’t talk?”

“I thought the argument had gone on long enough.” His tone held no apology.
 

“So, what, you can control minds?”

“In a limited sense. In limited circumstances. Yes.” Nazeem stood with his back to the door, not an inch further into her room than he had to be. But for all the discomfort of his posture, his gaze was unrelenting.
 

Rose thought of Anastasia, of how she’d been overwhelmed, subsumed by the Tsarina’s attention. “Can all vampires do that?”

“No. We do not wake from death any more alike than we were going to it.”
 

Rose dredged for every ounce of her will to stay focused on Nazeem’s face, to try to find a lie. She didn’t see one, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there.
 

Wake from death
, he’d said. “So you’re really….” Rose trailed off as a thousand questions came into her head. About vampires. About death. About Nazeem.

Nazeem must have recognized something on her face. His expression relaxed into an almost-smile. “Now is not the time for questions. It’s late. Mike was correct about you needing sleep. We can talk more later, if you like.”

“Count on it.” Nazeem opened the door to leave, but Rose stopped him one more time with a hand on his arm. “Just…don’t do that again. The mind control.”

Nazeem didn’t turn to look at her. His voice was cold and eerily calm. “This isn’t a game, Rose. Mike was correct about that as well. I will continue to do what I think is best for the mission and for the team.” He gently shook off her hand and closed the door between them with a firm click.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Tuesday Day

Rose lingered in bed longer than she should have, reluctant to leave the protection of Ian’s circle. In here she was safe and happy, protected from the bitter, hopeless, melancholy of the city.
 

It wasn’t like she didn’t acclimate. And that scared her as much as it reassured her. Last night’s freak-out in St. Isaac’s, with the folk yanking on her and Mike’s emotional strings, that was extreme. But Rose’s suspicion was that the city was having that effect on everyone to some small degree. Wearing them down, blunting their minds and hearts. She reminded herself to be watchful, but that idea alone was a hard one to cling to once she was outside Ian’s circle.

Rose dithered long enough she was last to breakfast again. Mike and Ian were already at the table with open menus before them, discussing the people they’d met so far in St. Petersburg as they perused breakfast options. The conversation was on Dmitri as Rose sat down. “The only man in this city so far who seemed happy to see us,” Ian said.