Midnight In St. Pertsburg (The Invisible War 1) (17 page)

As they rode the elevator up, as the indoor heat soaked through her outer layers, more questions bubbled up in Rose’s head. “Nazeem—” A wide yawn interrupted her first inquiry.

“Go to bed, Rose.” The command was gentle; Nazeem’s reserve had returned. “There will be other opportunities to talk.”

Outmaneuvered for the night, Rose took his suggestion. She expected she’d have trouble winding down to sleep, but either the excitement of the day or the influence of Ian’s fairy circle sent her spiraling into unconsciousness as soon as she turned out the light.

CHAPTER NINE

Wednesday Day

Mike welcomed the dawn. He was too damn old to sit all night on the floor. Especially as long a night as this had been. The creatures of the night became a serious threat when night started before five in the afternoon and ended after nine in the morning. He and Ian had been sitting here for twelve solid hours, and that quite simply sucked.

The death of the doorway was less dramatic than Mike expected. As the red glow turned to white, the first rays of sunlight sent fingers through the cracks in the walls and revealed the closet to be just a closet. The mushrooms around it crumbled to dust. Mike had tuned out the eerie summoning hours ago, but its sudden absence let him relax muscles in his neck and shoulders he hadn’t realized he’d been holding tight.
 

Ian stood and stretched. Mike envied young bones and muscles that could still move so easily. “Well, that’s done with.”

Their car and driver sat waiting on the street outside. Mike was glad Rose had thought to send it back—he hadn’t remembered to ask, and it would have been a long, exhausting walk back to the hotel.

In the car, Ian yawned, the first outward sign he’d given of being tired. “I could sleep for a week. The tunnels always take it out of you.”

Mike’s body wanted nothing but to collapse into bed, but his mind and heart weren’t ready. As their driver let them out in front of the Astoria, he waved Ian inside. “You go on in. I’m going to have a smoke.”

“Sure. I’ll see you later.”

Mike nodded, snapped open his lighter. He
did
want a cigarette, had wanted one most of the night, but the day he let his habits rule him in the field was the day he hung up his cross for real. But now, giving in made an easy excuse to ditch Ian.
 

As a Templar, Mike had special dispensation from the Pope himself. While in the field, he wasn’t expected to attend services, and was only allowed to give confession to another Templar. No sense worrying the other priests with the idea not only was Hell a literal reality, but it was actively sending its warriors out against them.
 

Meditation, prayer, these were the working Templar’s most direct ties to God, and Mike could do that anywhere. Still, he liked to be in a church when he could. Mike stared across the square at St. Isaac’s.

Even with the doorway closed and the folk trapped on the other side of the curtain—even with the sun bright in the sky—the cathedral probably wasn’t safe. But if Mike were the sort of man to court safety, he would have become a parish priest in some quiet Illinois suburb. Mike wanted crosses and stained glass. Altars and angels. The physical tokens brought a sometimes necessary weight to his spiritual deliberations.

He finished the cigarette and resisted the urge to smoke another. Instead, he crossed the square.

This time of day, the tourists ruled the cathedral. Mike, in his collar and clerical shirt, garnered quite a few looks. Long ago, he’d perfected an expression with just the right level of disapproval to discourage people approaching him, and he used that now.

A gate—as ornate and golden as anything else in this city—blocked tourists from entering one of the side chapels. No guards seemed to be paying any sort of real attention, however, and Mike ducked through its narrow gap. No one moved to stop him.

The small chapel swam in muted colors as sunlight filtered through stained glass. Mike approached the altar and knelt, crossing himself.

Magic and faith had come to Mike at the same time and were inexorably linked in his mind. As he’d moved beyond the ritual and objects in his magic, so had he become lax with the rituals of faith. He still knew the mass—well enough to lead it—could recite the prayers, the supplications, the catechisms. But when he was alone with God, he’d found the repetitions of formulas of words as unnecessary as when he called on his magic.

“So here I am,” he said out loud, looking up at the cross. “Right where they told me to be.”

Working with vampires. Acting friendly with vampires. “Is that really what You want? I’m having trouble believing it.”

God’s stance on vampires seemed pretty damned clear. But the church, the church was run by men.
 

Politics were such crap. “What reason—what could we possibly need from them? What do we gain by allying with….” Abominations. Creatures that belonged on the other side.

Mike stood up, started to pace in front of the altar. “I follow orders. I’ve always followed the damned orders. Just once, I’d love it if someone told me why.”

Did the church want something with St. Petersburg? Were they involved with Rutledge’s secret employers? “Everything’s wrong in this city. I know we’re supposed to figure out why, but I don’t know where to even start with that. Hunt the murderer—that seemed straightforward enough. Until Anastasia and Andrei and this whole other world.”

Could voiders even breach the curtain the way Ian and the folk could? Mike had never heard of such a thing. He’d certainly never set foot in that in-between place before last night. But surely he wasn’t the first voider to cross. Surely the church knew. But then, why not teach people about it?

Was the church trying to protect its Templars? “What I felt last night, the power of that place….” It had been obscene. And so desperately seductive. “Lead us not into temptation and deliver us from evil.”

 
Mike thought he’d finished his battles with temptation, had come to terms with his his desires.

“Insidious place. It gets inside you. Touches inside you.” He didn’t want to go back in.
 

Mike stopped moving and bowed his head. “Grant me strength that I might serve You.” What choice did Mike have? He wasn’t Mother Teresa, leading through example. He wasn’t guiding a cute little parish, saving the people one soul at a time. This was his calling; this was his place. The Lord had called him into service, and this was what Mike had to offer.

“Grant me the wisdom to know friend from foe.” In this nightmare city, who could he even trust?

“May your wrath rain down on your enemies and your grace touch those in need.”

“Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.”

Now that he’d vented some, sleep was the next goal on his list. Unfortunately, as he stepped out from the chapel, a familiar figure caught his eye. Mike stalked out to the center of the nave, beneath the rotunda. “Excuse me.”

Rose jumped at the sound of his voice, spun to face him. “Where did you come from?”

Mike jerked his head in the direction of the chapel. “What are you doing here?”

Rose planted her feet, defiant. “It’s daytime. I figured it was safe enough. And I wanted another chance to look around without the risk of fairies attacking.”

“I don’t like you over here alone.”

“So what are
you
doing here if it’s so unsafe?”
 

“I’m more than capable of taking care of myself.”

“Oh blow me. If you’re not even going to follow your own rules—” Rose turned to go. Not out of the cathedral, deeper in.

Mike was exhausted and too old to think he could keep pushing his body forever. But there was obviously a problem here, one he couldn’t ignore and hope would go away on its own. “Wait. Rose, you want to go get some coffee?”

Rose blinked at his question. “What?”

“Coffee. Cof. Fee. You’ve heard of it.”

“Why?”

Holy Father, he was tired. “Do you have to fight with me about everything? I need some caffeine. I thought we might talk. That’s all.”

She still looked sullen, but now with a tint of curious. “Okay, sure. There’s a little teahouse Alec took me to. It wasn’t far.”

“Fine.” He put a hand on her shoulder, steered her towards the door. “Come on. I’m not getting any younger.”

“That’s for damn sure,” she muttered, then grinned at him.
 

Nice to know that if the politics didn’t drive him crazy, his teammates were giving their best shot.

*
   
*
   
*

The coffee wasn’t bad. Black and bitter, but anything smoother would have put Mike to sleep. Rose ordered tea, which was also black, but she added copious spoonfuls of the jelly that came with it.

Mike let her finish fussing with her drink before he spoke. “So what’s your problem?” Let her see that he could be blunt too.

Rose looked up at him, startled. “Problem?”

“Ever since we got here, you’ve been fighting with me.”

Rose balked, stared at her tea, wouldn’t look up. Mike preferred it when she yelled. At least then there was communication. Now he had to get her to talk, somehow. He knew he wasn’t any kind of diplomat. Especially when it came to coaching little girls out of whatever snit they’d gotten themselves into.
 

“You Catholic?” he asked.

“No.” Her denial was too vehement to be the whole truth.

“Raised Catholic, then?”

“Why does it matter?”

Mike threw up his hands. “How should I know? Here I’m trying to have a conversation, and you’re acting like I jacked your prom date!”

“Oh, very hip. They teach you that in priest school? ‘Relate to twenty-somethings on their own level using words they’ll understand’? News flash, Padre, I never went to the prom.”

“Yeah? Well, neither did I.”

Rose stared at him, eyes wide, then burst out laughing. Only for a minute, then she regained control of herself. Serious, now, but no longer petulant. “Were you—did you grow up in this life? Did you know you were going to be a Templar, even as a kid?”

Fair enough. Mike could talk about himself for a while if that’s what it took to get along. “I always knew I wanted to be a priest. The other side of it, they scouted me out pretty young. I was fifteen when I was officially inducted by the Templars.”

“I bet that was nice.” Rose sounded sincere.

“Oh, sure, it was great. Staying out late. Meeting interesting people. I got to watch one of my friends get his head ripped off by a demon when I was seventeen.”

“At least you
had
friends.” Mike saw the realization of the words she had just said come over Rose’s face, along with a look of horror. “Wait, I didn’t mean…that came out wrong.”

“No kidding.” Mike wasn’t sure this was going any better than the silence had been.
 

Rose drummed her fingers against the table, her other hand wrapped tight around her teacup. “I’m sorry, really. It’s just….” She started to speak, stopped, tried again. “I can’t think of any way to say this that doesn’t sound—well, stupid—but really, no one understood me.”

Rose leaned forward, engaging in the conversation for the first time since they’d sat down. “The trouble was, I understood everyone else. Perfectly. Do you have any idea what it’s like to grow up knowing how much everyone around you thinks you’re a freak?”

“Yeah, no other teenager ever felt like that.”

Rose shook her head, emphatic. “You think you understand what it’s like to be a sensitive, you think you can imagine. You have no idea.”

“Yes, I know. Everyone has their private pain. Everyone has their secrets.”

“Not from me.”

Mike didn’t know what to say to that. Rose kept going. “Want to know why I hate that collar of yours? Want to hear my sob story? Want to hear about the nuns that beat me or the priest who locked me in closets?”

“Locked you in…what?”

“Well that never happened. Nothing easy like that. Nothing I can just point to and have you understand. It was just…lies. From everybody.” Rose set her cup down and crossed her arms tight across her chest. “Starting with my parents. Don’t get me wrong, we were a basically happy family. They both had their tempers. They yelled some, but they laughed more. I can look back now, as an adult, and recognize that as relationships go, they had a good one.”

“
As an adult
,” she repeated, leaning forward again. “But try to imagine if you can, what it would be like as a kid growing up, knowing moment by moment just how much your parents love you. Sure, now I get that people get mad and people get frustrated and it doesn’t change how they feel deep down, but that kind of understanding is way too much for any kid. Any time they said they loved me, or they were proud of me, or whatever—every time they said something good and didn’t really mean it, I knew. That went for anyone. At home, at school.

“And yeah, at church. Sure, my parents were good Catholics and they dragged me along to mass with them. Where I listened to our priest’s very pretty words and felt every bit of the contempt behind them. That was the worst, because my parents knew I didn’t respect him and I couldn’t tell them why. I didn’t understand why they didn’t see it. But they just kept pushing me harder and harder and I’d get grounded and sent to bed without supper and all kinds of things because they thought I was just being willful.”

Mike couldn’t let that go by. “Give me a break. You were absolutely being willful. I’ve known you four days and I can guess that much.”

“Okay, yeah, maybe. But they wouldn’t listen. And I was too young to be able to make sense of any of it. And I shouldn’t have had to. Love is complicated and cloudy and that’s fine when you’re an adult, but kids should get to live the fairy tale.
 

“And now you’re here, and you think you know everything about everything, and that I’m just some sort of kid playing dress-up. You act like I can’t understand what’s going on, but the thing you’ve got to accept is that I know what’s in front of my face. I know what the world is like. Maybe even better than you.”

Mike shook his head. “I can respect what you’ve been through. I can accept that you know people are bad, even that there are bad things in the world. But so far, you haven’t acted like you know what that means. We’re in danger here. Real, physical danger. Including a bunch of voiders you’re not going to see coming. Until you demonstrate some sense of how to protect yourself, I’m going to keep telling you what to do.