Midnight In St. Pertsburg (The Invisible War 1) (12 page)

“He was nice.” Rose poured herself some coffee from the carafe on the table. “I didn’t know priests were allowed to be that way.”

Mike rolled his eyes. “Nice or not, I don’t trust him yet. I’m glad he was willing to tell us things, but we should keep our information to ourselves for now.”

“I agree.” Ian didn’t look up from his menu. “Nice can be deceptive.”

Now it was Rose’s turn to roll her eyes. “Oh, really? Gee, guys, I’m just the sensitive here. I had no idea sometimes people aren’t always what they seem on the outside.”

Mike took a croissant from the bread basket and dropped it on her plate. “Fill your mouth with this.”
 

Undaunted, Rose took a cheerful bite. “So what’s the plan?”

Mike looked at Ian, expectant. “This is your show, Irish.”

Ian caught their waiter’s eye, letting him know they were ready to order. “First, we eat. Hunting the folk, even by daylight, can be dangerous. Best to start with a full stomach.”

Over eggs and bacon, Ian outlined his plan. “The folk can only get here through doorways—tunnels, really—formed between our world and theirs. There will be an opening on our side of reality, and then an opening to their side of reality, and in between, a maze of…well, it’s hard to describe. You’ll see it soon enough.”

Mike nodded as he chewed, as though this were old hat for him. Rose hated being the person in the room who didn’t know anything. “How do these doorways happen?” she asked.

“Most of them open naturally. I don’t really know how or why—Mike, you might have a better sense of the metaphysics behind it.”
“Most?” Rose didn’t like the sound of that.

Ian wasn’t concerned. In fact, he was as calm this morning as she’d ever seen him. “Trust me, if this doorway had been opened intentionally, we’d know. The sort of men who do that—they don’t sit around quietly, and neither do the folk they bring through.”

“Oh, you mean like they kill people? Maybe cut off hands? Maybe attack people in their dreams?”

Ian set down his fork and stared at her. His insides churned, thoughtful uncertainty as he considered her words, until his feelings smoothed back into the calm pool they’d been all breakfast. “First of all, your attacker was working with voiders. Faelocks, they don’t share. Second, if there were a faelock in St. Petersburg, the folk who attacked us last night wouldn’t have been playing. They would have been hungry, vicious, and deadly. We track faelocks through the trail of bodies they leave behind. If it were a faelock, we’d be talking a lot more murders than one every Saturday night.”

Did Ian not see the hole in his logic? “If you only find these guys when they kill lots of people, doesn’t that mean there could be others around who haven’t left a trail of victims and so you don’t know about them?”

Ian shook his head, making his hair flash ruby glints in the sunlight. Confidence echoed in every word. “Believe me, Rose. The sort of person who can make the deals these men have to make—who can sell his soul to the folk—he’s not going to be able to hide.”

Again, Mike was nodding agreement. “I’ve never met a—what’d you call them, faelock?” Ian nodded. “But if they’re anything like the sort of men who make deals with demons, then Ian’s right. They’re not quiet little wallflowers, willing to hide away in the dark of night. Men like this, they’re arrogant, confident, and utterly convinced they know better than everyone else. They’re not afraid of getting caught. They want to broadcast their superiority to the world.”

“Okay.” Rose let it drop. Ian and Mike had leaned in towards each other and pulled back from Rose. The assurance she could feel from Ian she could see on Mike. They were the experts here. They knew best. No point arguing any further. “So back to this doorway. How do we close it?”

“The doors only open at night. The sun destroys them. But they can’t close if something from our world is inside them, and if they can’t close when the sun rises, they collapse.
 
So once we find it, we go in, leave tokens at each side of the tunnel, and get out.”

Mike tapped his fingers on the tablecloth, thoughtful. “What’s to stop the folk on the inside from getting rid of whatever you put in there?”
 

“That’s why we use cold iron.”

Rose was also thinking. “What if a person were in the tunnel when the sun came up. Would that be a tie to the world?”

“Yes,” Ian answered. “And I’ve heard of it happening. But no one who ever was in a tunnel when it collapsed has been heard from again.”

Rose went for another croissant. Endless refills on bread was one of civilization’s greatest achievements. “So you go in at night, leave the iron, get out. Doesn’t sound so tough.”

“Well, of course the folk object. If you’re good—or lucky—you’re in and out before they notice you’re there. If not, it can be a rough fight.”

“Only until dawn,” Rose said. “Good old sun. Protects us from the fairies. Protects us from the vampires.”

“Yes.” Mike looked over at the wall of windows, where the late-morning sun streamed in. “And the days are getting shorter.”

Trust the padre to try to kill the mood. “So I guess we better get started.”

Ian drained the last of his coffee and stood up. “Meet me in my room once you’re done eating. We’ll need to gear up.”

*
   
*
   
*

Rose needed nothing but her coat. As she came back out of her rooms, she glanced down the hall at Nazeem’s closed door. How sad that he couldn’t come with them.
 

Ian already had quite an array of weirdness spread across his bed when he let Rose into his suite. A city map, a pile of dark metal spikes, glass vials of some clearish liquid, tree branches, legal pads, chalk, rope, and glowsticks. And forearm-sized metal crosses.

Mike was a couple steps behind Rose. After letting him in, Ian went to a dresser drawer and pulled out three necklaces. Rose stared at the shriveled, grey, leathery things that hung from them. “What’s that?”

“Dried mushroom on a silver chain. The mushroom was harvested at midnight under a full moon, while the doorway was open. It’ll let you see through their glamours.”

Mike took his and tucked it under his collar. Ian handed two to Rose. “One for Nazeem,” he said. “When he’s able to join us.”

Mike’s frown was so obvious even Ian saw it. “Trust me on this, if we get caught in there, we’ll want him along.”

Rose donned her necklace and instantly saw the now-visible sword hanging across Ian’s back. “Wow. I guess it works.”

Ian went to the closet to get his own coat. Leaning against the wall inside, Rose noticed a couple spears, longer than she was tall, of that same dark metal. “How did you get all this stuff through airport security?”

“Most of this, I have to ship.”

Mike had moved to the bed, to run his hand along the metal spikes. “Cold iron?”

“Yes. Take one of the crosses. You too, Rose.”

Mike held up his rosary. The tiny silver cross dangling from the end looked puny next to the ones on the bed, but Nazeem had flinched back from it fast enough. “I’ve got one.”

Ian shook his head. “Take two. Not just for the holy symbol, but for the iron. It’ll keep you anchored. Make it harder for them to summon you.”

Ian loaded the rest of the equipment into a backpack. “Let’s go.”

Once outside, Ian looked to Rose, but Rose still had no real idea what she should be doing. “What is it exactly I’m looking for?”

“The taint of fairy,” Ian said, as though that explained everything. “You should have gotten a taste of it last night.”

Sometimes, Rose felt like no one really listened to anything she said. “Yeah, remember St. Isaac’s? If there was fairy flavor mixed in there, no way am I sorting it out from that mess.”

“Okay.” Ian’s confidence didn’t waver. “We’ll just have to find another of the folk for you to get a feel for. Shouldn’t be too hard.”

“I thought you said they couldn’t be out during the day,” Mike said.

“They can’t be in the sun. But believe me, they’re out. I did some looking around of my own before breakfast.”
 

Ian led them up a block, to the canal that ran close to the Astoria. Rose let Ian worry about finding the folk and she concentrated on the people that flooded the sidewalks. She didn’t care for any of what she saw. The people here were worn down, empty, tired. Half a step from giving up on life.

Rose had dealt plenty with the disadvantaged. She’d worked with the poor, the suicidal, the homicidal. She’d interned with the social work department as well as in the local psychiatric hospital. None of it compared to the bleakness that marched the streets of St. Petersburg.

Rose noticed Mike watching her. He must have seen something on her face. “What is it?” he asked.

“The people here. It’s like they’re being eaten away on the inside. The older they are, the more miserable they seem. No, not even miserable. Just…dead inside.”

Mike’s lips pressed into a tight line. Rose wondered if he was aware of the determination forming on his face. He didn’t hide his disinterest in their real job well, but the more bad shit they stumbled across, the more Mike seemed to be involved. “There’s something bad in this city,” he said. “I’m starting to think St. Isaac’s is more a symptom than the heart of the problem.”

“Makes me wonder all over again what our employers brought us here to find.”

Mike didn’t respond, but his eyes narrowed and his mouth stayed tight.

“Over here,” Ian called from the edge of one of the many bridges that arched over the canal. Rose and Mike darted through cars that had no interest in yielding for pedestrians to join him at the water’s edge.

In the deep shadows beneath the bridge, three figures bobbed in the water. Long golden hair that didn’t quite cover their naked breasts clouded out around them. Sharp pointed teeth greeted Rose with a smile. Gentle laughter and salt-water blue eyes promised Rose unimaginable pleasures if she would only come down to see them.

Ian’s hand came down hard on Rose’s shoulder and she realized she had taken a step towards the low railing that separated the walkway from the water half a dozen feet below. She’d forgotten he was even there. Like Anastasia, the strange allure of these creatures had drowned out everything else.
 

Without the cloud of St. Isaac’s to dull her awareness, Rose had a very clear sense of these folk, of their otherworldly radiance, of their overwhelming attraction. Like Ian, they seemed more colorful, more real, more….

Like Ian.

Rose could have slapped herself. “Of course, you’re one of them, sort of. You feel like they do.”

A cascade of silver laughter rolled over Rose, from the women in the water. “Like us, little one?”

“Not like us.”

“His blood is weak. Watered wine.”

“Come dance with us, little one. Let us show you.”

Ian’s hand on Rose’s shoulder restrained her, as did the heavy weight of the cross in her coat pocket. Without those things, she would have jumped eagerly into the canal, gone to dance, gone to die. “I’ve seen enough,” she whispered.

They crossed the street again, Ian staying close to Rose and Mike only a few steps behind. When they had reached what Ian felt was a safe distance, he stopped. “I’m sorry. If I’d thought they’d try so hard to call you, I would have warned you better.”

Rose shrugged away the apology. “I was right, though, wasn’t I? You’re like them? At least, a little?”

“Sure. My family—other families like us—we can trace our lineage back to the Tuatha Dé, the gods of the folk, before they were driven from the Earth.”

“Well, that makes things easier,” Rose said with forced cheer, trying to shake off her experience with the creepy mermaids. “I can use Ian as my guidepost. I just need to be looking for something that feels like him.”

“How close do you need to be to this doorway to find it?” Mike asked, still grumpy, but trying not to show it.

“I don’t know. I’ve never done this before.” Rose squinted up at the sky, where the sun was already noticeably higher than it had been at breakfast. “Maybe we should call the driver. Ride around the city. See what there is to find.”

Neither Mike nor Ian had a better idea, so they turned back towards the hotel. It took several blocks of walking before Rose could no longer hear the alien laughter beckoning her into the darkness.

*
   
*
   
*

Rose pulled her scarf up over her nose as a cloud of dust rolled out of the abandoned building, disturbed by the rotting boards Ian had just pushed out of the window. Inside, everything was dark, but Rose was sure this was the right place. It throbbed with the strange, alien energy.

Mike stepped through the window and raised his hand to summon light like he had last night. Rose couldn’t help but feel a little jealous that her special gift didn’t provide her any helpful everyday skills like that.
 

“Hold up,” Ian said, digging around in his backpack. He pulled out some of the iron spikes. “Take these.”

Rose took one. It was heavy. “I have no idea what to do with this.”

“They won’t want to get close to it, so it could buy you some time.” Ian also handed her one of the flasks. “Holy water. It hurts them.”

With the holy water in one hand and the spike in the other, Rose still didn’t feel especially safe, but on the other hand, she couldn’t stand the thought of waiting outside.
 

Mike closed his fist, and when he opened it again, the light remained in a tight little ball. He sent it floating forward, down a short hall and through a doorway. “You expect we’ll run into very many of them?”

“Hard to say.” Ian had re-shouldered the backpack and drawn his sword in one fluid movement. “Usually, they don’t like to shelter too close to the doorways—too easy to get ambushed by something bigger and hungrier—but you never know.”

Rose focused her senses around the pulsing, keening energy that was fairy magic. “The doorway is upstairs. And something else, too.”
 

Mike had the big cross from Ian in one hand and his rosary in the other. “Let’s go see.”

Ian went first up stairs Rose wasn’t confident would support them all. They creaked underfoot—so much for any chance of surprise. Rose found herself tempted to pray for the first time in years. Although the padre probably had that under control. As long as God was paying attention to one of them, they should be covered, right?