Midnight In St. Pertsburg (The Invisible War 1) (13 page)

Ian kicked in the door at the top of the stairs and Rose staggered back at the wave of despair that hit her like a physical force. Only Mike’s hand on her arm saved her from falling back down the stairs. She couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see through the darkness that surrounded her.

“Rose!” Ian’s voice came from two different places as she heard through two sets of ears. She saw Ian, Mike, and herself as Ian rushed through the open door, trying to defend her from an attack that wasn’t.
 

The moment hung forever, then Rose was yanked back into herself by the wrenching pain at her shoulder. She righted herself, so Mike could let go without her tumbling backwards. “Ian, wait!” she called out.

In the corner, huddled in a lump of willowy limbs and gossamer hair was the unearthly beauty Rose would have imagined when they first started talking about fairies. The woman looked up at the three of them, liquid blue eyes wide with the fear Rose felt pulsing through her.
 

This woman was nothing like the creatures in the water had been. Rose felt no hunger, no malevolence. “She’s hurt,” Rose said. “And scared. And sad.”

Ian still had his sword up. “Don’t move.”

Rose couldn’t tell if he was talking to her or to the fae woman. Either way, “Dammit. Listen to me. She’s not dangerous.”

“You don’t know—”

“No,” Rose whirled on Ian, “
You
don’t know. There’s something wrong with her.”

Ian struggled. Rose could feel it inside him. But once again his bright emotions were the palest of watercolors next to the richness and strength of this woman. It was as though Rose had been staring into a mirror all her life and only now turned to see the real world.

Mike looked around, his cross still pointed at the fairy woman. “Is that our doorway?”

Rose risked a look back, saw mushrooms growing in a ragged ring out of the rotting wood floor. They surrounded the doorless closet. “Woah.”

Ian looked too, and the sharp flutter of his startlement cut briefly through the presence of the fae. “Shit.”

Mike now split his attention between the woman and the door, waving his cross back and forth. “What? Ian, talk to me.”

“That’s not a natural breach. That spot was chosen; the doorway anchored.” Ian’s sword didn’t waver; it still pointed in a straight line towards the fae. “Rose, get two more of the iron spikes out. Cross them on the floor, right in front of the doorway. That will keep any more of the folk from coming through when it opens back up.”

Rose did as she was told, but kept a close eye on Ian and the woman. Since that initial, overwhelming blast of sensation, the fae had huddled back into herself, both physically and psychically.
 

Ian didn’t miss Rose’s looks. “Listen to me. She’s dangerous. Have you already forgotten the
rusalka
under the bridge? If this one weren’t wounded somehow, she’d be trying to kill us.”

“If. Maybe. All I know is what I feel from her. This isn’t like the women at the bridge. She’s different.”
 

“Listen to Ian, Rose. Remember he’s the expert here.”

They were both determined to be frustrating. “So am I, remember? This is what I do, and I’m telling you, there’s something different.” They didn’t understand, and wouldn’t understand until Rose proved her point. She darted around Ian and reached out to touch the fairy woman’s cheek.

With Anastasia, Rose had been assaulted with the vampire’s power. It had pushed against her, forceful, irresistible. With the fairy, it was completely different. She didn’t push against Rose. She opened herself to Rose and Rose slipped inside.

Rose ran through the night, a hunter, free. Weak, ponderous mortals surrounded her, but couldn’t see through the mists in which she cloaked herself. Any of them could be hers, but none she saw were fit to be her prey. Tonight, the game mattered more than the death that would mark its end.
 

But before she found suitable sport, a voice called to her. Irresistible, powerful, hungry. Here, the vision fractured, lost its clarity. Rose caught glimpses, fleeting images. A man so beautiful Rose could barely stand to look at him. A hunger, dark and terrible. His breath against her cheek. His teeth against her skin. The ecstasy. The pain—

Rose gasped and jerked back, breaking the contact. “Oh god!”

“Rose!” Mike and Ian exclaimed in unison.

“No, I’m all right. It’s not—she didn’t do anything to me. It’s just, I felt what happened to her. Someone—something—he kissed her, or bit her, and there was this horrible wrenching feeling, like having your guts sucked out. Only more important.”

Finally Ian lowered his sword. Rose felt his confusion, but this close to the fae woman it was like listening for one trickle of water in the middle of a storm. “I don’t understand.”

“What’s there to understand?” Mike asked. “So what if she’s wounded? That should make it easier to get rid of her.”

Rose turned back to the fairy. “We have to help her.”

“No.” Ian’s voice was flat. “I don’t know what you’re feeling from her, Rose, but you have to trust me.”

Rose reached back out to touch the woman again, let herself be pulled back into the fairy woman’s thoughts. “Why are you in here?” she asked, trying to lock the question tight enough in her head to guide the vision.

She saw the room, this room, at night. She’d dragged herself here, desperate to reach the doorway. She had to get home, back to fairy. Only then could she heal. If she stayed much longer here, she would dissolve into nothing.

Too much of her had been taken. The door wouldn’t open. She collapsed in the corner, exhausted, waiting to die.

“She wants to go home,” Rose said, pulling away more slowly this time. “That’s all. Isn’t that good enough?”

“As soon as the sun sets, this doorway is going to open. When that happens, if she goes through, she’ll warn others we’re coming. If they know—if they’re ready for us, we’ll be killed.”

Mike, of course, backed up Ian. “Creatures from the other side, Rose—even when they look harmless, they’re not.”

“But she
can’t
get through. That’s her problem. I saw it. She can’t cross the doorway. Something’s been taken from her and she couldn’t make it work.”

“Then better we put her out of her misery.” Ian took a step forward, but Rose moved between him and the fae woman. “Rose,” he pleaded. “Be reasonable.”

“She’s scared and hurt. You made the folk sound inhuman, monstrous, but she’s not like that. So either you were lying, you were wrong, or there’s something strange happening here that maybe we should try to understand.”

That time it sank in. Even Mike lowered his weapon. “Tell us what you saw.”

Rose described the vision as well as she could. Both Ian and Mike listened attentively. “Could it have been a vampire?” Rose asked when she had finished. The feel of teeth on her neck had been vivid. As well as—“It felt—“ Rose’s cheeks flushed at the memory. “
She
felt, I mean, it was—“ Rose couldn’t find words to describe it.

Ian shook his head. “I don’t know. I’ve never known vampires to hunt the folk but then,” he smiled and his honest amusement fed energy into Rose, “I’ve never known vampires.”

“More questions,” Mike muttered. “I’d be really happy if we started to get some answers.”

Ian sheathed his sword, a good sign as far as Rose was concerned. “Okay, I might know how to help her. I’ll need to bring back something from the other side, when we go in to close the doorway. But,” he added quickly when Rose smiled, “I’m not putting Mike and Nazeem and I at any more risk than is necessary. If it looks too dangerous, if we come back without the means to heal her, then we’ll have to kill her.”

Rose nodded, recognizing the best deal she was going to get when she heard it. And she trusted Ian to do what he said he would. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me till it’s over.” That situation resolved, at least for the moment, Ian crossed to the closet doorway, ran his hand along the rotting wood. “Well, one thing I can say for sure, this doorway’s been here quite a while. Years, I would say.”

“And that’s good?” Rose asked.

“Yeah. It means whoever opened it is long gone. Faelocks—they burn out fast. If we hunters don’t find them, the folk they deal with get bored. Or angry. Or forgetful. Whichever, it ends badly.”

Ian stepped back, careful not to disturb the crossed spikes on the floor. “Not long till sundown. You should send the car back for Nazeem. I’ll keep an eye on things in here.”

Rose felt his sincerity, sensed no deception, no intention of hostility towards the fairy woman once they were out of the room. No, it was Mike who was, again, starting trouble. “Rose, you should go back with the car. This is going to be dangerous, and a sensitive won’t help us any.”

“No,” Ian said, before Rose worked up her objections. “We’ll want someone on the outside. Trust me.”

Mike disapproved—that was clear enough on his face—but he held his peace. Score one for Rose. Before he could think up an argument, she slid past him and pelted down the stairs.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Tuesday After Dark

Mike waited outside with Rose for the vampire to arrive. Independent of the threat of vampires and fairies roaming the streets, this part of St. Petersburg was seedy enough for the regular human population to present a threat to a twenty-something girl standing on her own outside an abandoned building. Even if Rose kept assuring him she’d recognize anyone dangerous long before they got close to her. The bruise still visible under the hair she let hang loose attested to her vulnerability.

Bad enough St. Petersburg had vampires, evil fairies, hostile voiders, and shadowy unknown killers. Rose might be the worst danger of all, if she gave him a heart attack with her constant insistence on rushing into danger. She was not only the most powerful sensitive he’d ever met, but also the most stubborn. He might have respected that if it didn’t put them all at risk.

Well past dark, the car returned bearing Nazeem. Rose dutifully held out the extra necklace and explained its purpose while Mike kept an eye out around them. The vampire, at least, seemed to recognize the potential dangers of their location and hurried Rose through her rundown of their afternoon. “Ian is inside?” he asked when she paused for breath.

“Yes. And we’ve left him alone too long.”
 

Thankfully, Rose took the hint. “Okay, back inside then.”

Nazeem stopped outside the broken window, took a breath. “What is it?” Mike asked, trusting the vampire’s senses more than he did the vampire.

“I’m not sure. It smells strange. And do you hear the buzzing?” Mike shook his head. Rose did the same. “If madness had a sound, this would be it.”

On that encouraging note, Mike stepped in through the window. “Ian?” he called out.

“I’m here,” came Ian’s response from upstairs. “The doorway’s open.”

They hurried up to join him.
 

Ian sat in one corner, his sword naked across his lap. In the opposite corner, the fae woman crouched, staring at the door, naked hunger on her face. The iron cross was still in place. “Don’t go near the mushrooms,” Ian warned.

Now Mike could feel the buzz Nazeem had mentioned, like a swarm of mosquitoes at his neck. His instinct was to try to swat them away, even as he knew nothing was there. The closet still looked empty and dark except for…just out of reach…movement. If he could get a little closer, he could see it….

“Mike!” Ian was next to him, a hand on his shoulder.
 

“Dammit,” Mike muttered, realizing he’d just behaved like a novice. The call of the women beneath the bridge he’d expected, resisted. The doorway was at the same time more powerful and more subtle. He took out his rosary, wrapped it around his hand. The buzzing faded to nothing.

Ian stepped into the mushroom ring and stuck his head into the closet. “Okay, I don’t see anyone waiting for us. That’s good.” He turned back to face them, an eager grin on his face. “Okay, this is going to be interesting.”

Mike hated interesting. Interesting never led to anything good. “What should we do?”

“I’ve never done this before with a vampire or a voider,” Ian said, his tone apologetic. “Normal humans can’t cross the ring, not without help. But I think you two should be able to. Walk towards the mushrooms, slowly. If you start to feel sleepy or angry or any weird urges, like you want to start drinking blood or something, back off.” Ian stopped, thought a moment, then blushed. “Nazeem, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“It’s all right,” the vampire said with the slightest of smiles. “I understand what you’re saying.”

Mike walked forward one step at a time. The crucifix in his hand warmed, but he felt no other symptoms. He stepped across. Beside him, Nazeem did the same.

“Okay, good. Great.” Ian turned to Rose. “Now this is important. Whatever you do, don’t step inside. If you start to feel like you want to, touch your cross. It’ll help anchor you.”
 

“Is there anything I should do? Any way I can help?”

“Just stand guard.” Ian pointed to the fairy in the corner. “Keep your weapons handy. Watch her. Watch the door.” He pulled the rope out of his pack and threw it to her. “If the call starts to get too strong, tie yourself away from the circle.”

Rose’s eyes went wide. “What do you mean by that? I thought you said people like me can’t cross the ring without help.”

“No.” Ian was as sober as Rose had ever felt him. “But if you get close enough, something from this side can pull you in.”

Mike only half-listened. Now that he was inside the ring, the buzzing had returned. With it, an almost desperate curiosity to see what was through that door. “We going in, Irish?”

Ian nodded. “How about some of that light?”

Mike focused his mind against the buzzing, called his power. The energy exploded through him and he was blinded by the white-hot glow of his own spell. Mike immediately dampened it, blinking as his eyes re-adjusted. Ian and Nazeem were watching him. “Sorry. Magic here is…different.”

“This is where it comes from,” Ian said. “We’re on the other side now.”