Midnight In St. Pertsburg (The Invisible War 1) (22 page)

He smiled at her then, a soft, wistful expression. “Of course, you’re right. I’m not being fair. I apologize.” His thumb brushed across her wrist, a brief caress before he released her hand. “I’ll see you upstairs, once the others are awake?”

“Definitely.” Before Rose could think better of it, she leaned in and dropped a quick kiss onto his cheek. She fled the room before he said anything in response, but the warm wave of his pleasure followed her to the elevator.

*
   
*
   
*

Ian and Mike were already awake. Mike looked as rough as Rose felt when he answered her knock on his door. Ian’s eyes had the hint of dark circles forming, a tinge of purple that made his face elegantly soulful rather than the baggy mess it would have done to Rose. Seeing him rumpled and uncombed and still magnetically gorgeous cemented Rose’s certainty of what exactly she’d seen last night. Or at least, whose expertise was going to matter.

“Come on, we’re meeting in my room.”

She showed them the charred circle of carpet first, then recounted her dream in careful detail as Ian and Nazeem moved the bed and carpet aside. The runes he had drawn with chalk were now black scores against the hardwood floor.
 

“Make any sense of it, Irish?” Mike stood just behind Ian, watching over Ian’s shoulder as Ian examined the ruined writing.
 

Rose spoke up with her theory. “It’s one of those people you told us about before—the faelocks—isn’t it?”

Ian traced a graceful finger along one of the burned-in lines; it came away sooty. On the outside, he looked calm enough, but Rose could see the truth of his unease. If anything so intense and radiant as Ian’s emotions could be described as mere unease. “I think it must be.”

“Faelock?” Nazeem perched on the edge of Rose’s bed, where he was out of Mike and Ian’s way, but still close enough to study the circle.
 

“Men and women who sell their souls to the folk for power.” Ian stood up, brushed his hands on his jeans, heedless of the dark streaks they made. He kept scuffing at the circle with his foot. “They take the fae magic into themselves, become more like them—beautiful, powerful, and bugfuck crazy.”

“You’ve fought these guys before, right?” Rose asked.

“Oh sure.” Rose had to be impressed with Ian’s outer demeanor—neither Mike nor Nazeem had clued in to the fact something about this wasn’t business as usual. “Several with Andy and Mal. Two on my own since I earned my sword.”

Rose gave up beating around the bush. “Then what is it? What’s got you so freaked out?”

“I’m not—” Ian looked at Rose and like he’d flipped a switch, vibrant amusement washed through him and drove back the hammering nerves. “I guess you can tell something’s wrong.”

“Half the sensitives in Europe can tell something’s wrong. Come on—what’s up?”

And just like that, Ian’s good humor vanished and his frustration pounded against her once more. It made Rose dizzy. “It doesn’t make any sense. There’s got to be something I’m not seeing.”

Ian was still holding back, and Rose couldn’t tell what or why. Annoyingly, Mike got to the answer before she did. “It’s okay, kid. If there’s anything experience prepares us for, it’s that there are always going to be more things outside our experience. No one expects you to know everything. Tell us what you’ve got and we can figure out the rest.”
 

Ian took a deep breath through a cloud of relief. “Okay, well, on the one hand, it has to be a faelock. The man you describe, Rose, that’s someone filled with the magic of the folk. More magic than I or any other people like me have. Faelocks go all the way. And even if you hadn’t told us about him opening another door,” Ian waved his hand towards Mike, “the dreams I had last night, the fact none of us slept well—I would have figured that out. And that would be absolute proof of a faelock in town.

“But then I think about the folk we’ve seen so far in St. Petersburg. They’re settled, comfortable. St. Petersburg is their home and they don’t act at all like anything recent has riled them up.”

Rose still didn’t see the problem. “So maybe the faelock has been here a while.”

“That’s just it—becoming a faelock, it’s not exactly a long term investment. Our brains don’t handle that kind of power well, and the folk know it. When a faelock is around, the local folk go into a frenzy—you ever hear stories of the wild hunt? That’s the sort of thing the folk get up to when a faelock is around.” Ian dug a piece of chalk out of his jeans and started tracing new, crisp lines over the old.

Nazeem watched him work; Rose tried to memorize the shimmery rippling of his insides, map it to curiosity. “Could the faelock have been away?” Nazeem asked. “Perhaps he only just returned to St. Petersburg because we closed the other door.”

“Or in hiding?” Rose added. “Flying under fairy radar?”

Ian didn’t look up. “The thing is, none of those answers are good answers. Because a faelock thinking and planning like that—I’ve never heard of it. I didn’t think it was possible. If any of those things are true, this guy is beyond dangerous.”

“Is that going to work?” Rose had to ask. “Just redrawing the circle?”

“The surge of power from the doorway opening last night is probably what burned it out like this. I figured you’d want it back working again. Especially now that you’re dreaming about the faelock in addition to the killer.”

Mike had to step back as Ian moved around to reach the runes right in front of him. He, too, seemed very interested in what Ian was doing. “Before, you didn’t think our killer could be a faelock. You still sure about that?”

Ian shook his head. “At this point—after what Rose saw—I’d say all bets are off.”

Rose wished she could have believed they were the same. More comforting to think there was only one powerful, crazy killer in the city. “Sorry guys, but this faelock, he felt nothing like the shining man. I can’t believe it’s the same person.”

That led to a dour silence as Ian finished the circle. He and Nazeem moved the carpet back into place, and then the bed, but the bed did nothing to hide the ugly black ring charred into the carpet’s surface. “That’s going to be kind of obvious,” Rose pointed out.

That earned her another of Ian’s radiant smiles. “I’ll just drop a glamor on it. No one will ever notice.”

Handy thing, magic. “So what now?”

“We keep running into new questions,” Mike said. “I’m ready to get some answers.”

“The meeting with Karchenko,” Nazeem said.

“Yeah. I want to hear what he knows.”

Rose, herself, was ready for something to start making sense. “Off to Revelations, then.”

*
   
*
   
*

Even during the day, Revelations had a bouncer at the door. Mike wondered if this was standard procedure, or if Svetlana had upped her security because of the murders. Like the other bouncers, this one recognized Mike’s group and opened the door to them, speaking in Russian. Mike picked out Karchenko’s name from the otherwise incomprehensible syllables.

“He’s waiting for us on the top floor,” Ian translated.

The bar was empty except for a scrawny teenager mopping the floor. The kid stopped working to gawk at Mike, Ian and Rose. Mike ignored him and went straight for the stairs.

Poulov Karchenko looked utterly out of place in the frilly white room. Grizzled and scowling, with a half-empty bottle of vodka the focus of his attention, he belonged at a bar-stool in some seedy dive, rather than at the polished white table in the corner of this elegant space. “So,” he said without looking up, “You came.”

“What do you know about the killer?” Rose blurted out.

A smile teased at Karchenko’s lips as he refilled his glass. “Come, sit.”

Mike wished Karchenko had been more talkative in their last meeting, or that Justin had had time to tell them more about the internal politics of the Revelations voiders. The information in their dossier had been maddeningly sparse.

Mike could guess a few things, just from the looks of the man. Karchenko was Mike’s age, at least, and looked every bit as worn. His clothes were well-tailored, but shabby. His suit hadn’t been new in years. Here was a man who had known better days.

Ian and Rose took chairs across from Poulov. Mike pulled his around to the end of the table so he could keep an eye on everyone. “If we’re going to talk, let’s get to it.”

“First, refreshments. What kind of host would I be to invite you here at lunchtime and not offer you a drink?”

Mike didn’t need Rose to tell him Karchenko was stalling, but he couldn’t think of anything to do but play along. “Sure. Coffee would be great.”

“I’ll take a coke,” Rose chimed in.

“Me too,” Ian said.

Karchenko went to the intercom on the wall, buzzed it on. “Felix, vodka.” He returned to the table, unapologetic. Mike didn’t miss Rose’s glance at the clock on the wall. Only barely past noon.
 

The scrawny kid came up the steps bearing a tray with another bottle, four glasses, and a plate of sandwiches and what looked like mushrooms and pickles. They smelled of salt and garlic. He put the tray on the table, gave them all a quick smile, and pulled the curtains closed around the table.

Karchenko filled all four glasses and handed them out. “A toast,” he said, “to old friends lost and new friends found.”

They clinked glasses. Poulov drained his glass in a go. Mike and Ian did the same. Rose sipped at hers. “No, no,” Karchenko said, grinning. “For a toast, you must drink all of it.”

Rose grimaced, but she managed to drain her glass. Karchenko poured refills. “Now, we are friends. Let us talk.

“I know, of course, of your interest in the killer that stalks the streets of St. Petersburg.” Karchenko smiled and nodded, although none of them had spoken. “Ah yes, I know. As I know that as of yet, you have no true suspects.”

Mike bristled at Karchenko’s smug tone. Rose, too, looked all flavors of annoyed. “And how exactly do you know that?”

Karchenko brushed the question away with a shrug and another glass of vodka. “You have nothing to offer right now that is worth the answer to that.”

Ian drained his own glance and set it down with enough force to produce a solid thunk. “So what did we buy, last night, cleaning up your vampire mess?”

Karchenko refilled his own glass and Ian’s. “This meeting. I will tell you what I can.”

“What you can,” Rose repeated, matching Karchenko’s inflection. “But not what you know.”

His smile offered no apology. Mike’s initial vague dislike of the man was blossoming, gaining definition. Poulov Karchenko was no Andrei, not an aggressive thug, but Mike had no doubt the man was enjoying the fact that he knew more than they did, that he had the power in this interchange.
 

Fortunately for Mike, you didn’t live to Karchenko’s age playing these games without being a solid judge of what information was worth making people jump through hoops for. “So let’s hear it.”

Karchenko waved to the, so far, untouched plate of food. “Please, eat.”

Rose and Ian both dutifully grabbed sandwiches and began munching. Mike took a sandwich, but only held it for now. It was enough to satisfy Karchenko and he finally started saying something useful.

“There have been two—shall we say—classes of victim I believe can be traced to this killer.” Karchenko spoke quickly and his accent became looser. As though he’d rehearsed this. “The dead vampires we can discount as targets of opportunity.”

“So he
is
killing vampires? How do you know? Why don’t they count?”

“Let the man speak, Rose.”
 

Karchenko glared at her, and his voice took on a condescending edge as he counted his reasons off on his fingers. “No pattern to their deaths. No ritual. No disposal of the body.”

Ian held up his glass, waited for Karchenko to match his gesture, then drained it. That made his third. Karchenko did the same, which made—five?—for him since they’d come in the room. “Are you with the police?” Ian asked.

The unspoken toast earned Ian a polite response, at least. “I am no longer anything, but, yes, I was a law enforcement official. Before. So trust I know what I am talking about when I say it was voiders—and very particular voiders—the killer was after.

“All four of the dead voiders—do you know they were all missing their left hand? Cut off about here?” He pointed to a spot on his arm, about two inches above the cuff of his shirtsleeve. Mike gave the kids props for not responding to the question—not revealing any of their own information.
 

Karchenko kept going. “This next part, I tell you, is information that would have been worth your lives—my life—not many years ago. But it is a brand new world,
da
?

“You have all heard stories of the Soviet KGB, I am sure. As much romance as truth, I’m sure, but I can say for certain of a group that existed even in secret from the rest of the organization. A group with special gifts. Very special gifts.”

That one didn’t take a big leap of logic. “Voiders.”

Karchenko nodded. “And I can say this group bore a special mark—a tattoo—just above their left wrist.”

“Tattoo of what?” Rose asked.

“A black fist. And so they were called. The
Chernaya Kulak
.”

Mike didn’t like where this was going. “All the victims were members of this group? This is some political issue?”

“
Former
members,” Karchenko stressed. “When the Soviets fell from grace, the KGB had to…evolve. The Black Fist did not survive the transition.” He paused a moment, then added, “So far as I know.”

“I don’t think this is political.” Rose lifted one of the pickles, sniffed it, then set it back on the platter. “At least, not just political. He’s not just cutting off a hand. He’s cutting off the tattoo—severing their connection with the Black Fist. That’s personal. Someone hates these people on a deep and intimate level.” Her dream of the victim—his fear, his pain. “The shining man wants these people to suffer. He wants them to pay for…something.”

“What else do you know about them?” Mike asked. “What did they do? Who would want them dead?”