Midnight In St. Pertsburg (The Invisible War 1) (36 page)

Ian reached up for the cross that wasn’t around his neck. “Pyotr—if he really is…it makes sense he’d change the world around him.”

Rose realized she’d been wrong in her original premise. It wasn’t that Pyotr was hiding behind the supernatural malaise of St. Isaac’s. Pyotr’s presence was the seed that had twisted the cathedral to be what it was. “It’s so weird to think he’s been here all this time. Trapped.”

“Trapped?”

Rose wasn’t sure why she thought that. There wasn’t anything she could target in on, any particular feeling that had led her to that, but still, she was sure. “Yeah. Somehow. I think.”

As Rose scanned the room, trying to make sense of it, her eyes fell on a familiar face. At the back of the room, in a cluster of her kind, the woman Rose had helped save. “Wait, what’s she doing back here?”

The fairy woman noticed Rose. She frowned and approached Rose and Ian.

She’d changed since Rose had seen her. She’d healed. The fear was still inside her, but it struggled with arrogance. The woman looked down on Rose and Rose felt, not gratitude, but anger. “You are the one who saved me.”

“What are you doing here? I helped you get away from him!” Even now, standing before this creature of magic and beauty and inhuman cruelty, Rose couldn’t keep her tongue in check.
 

“
He
knows my name.” Burning hatred flared within the woman. “When he calls, I must return.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I thought I was helping.”

Perfect lips twisted into a sneer. “But you did help. You saved my life. I am in your debt.”

And not happy about that at all. In the darker fairy tales—the ones Rose had always preferred—the fairies were all about twisting words and wishes so they worked against you in ways you least suspected. Under the onslaught of inhuman resentment, Rose wondered if fairy obligation could be a dangerous thing. “Don’t worry about it, really. I don’t need anything.”

“Humans,” the woman hissed. She spun away from Rose, returning to her cluster of…friends? Did fairies have friends? Nothing she sensed in this room felt anything close to friendship.

A ripple moved through the folk, another wave of the hunger Ian had evoked with his intense human feelings. This time, it was flavored with eagerness, expectation. At the center of the wave was Pyotr.

Even Ian felt it. He moved a protective step between Rose and the folk. “What’s happening?”

Pyotr sighed and turned his face towards the ceiling. His eyes rolled back and he took a long, slow breath, drinking in the air. “It’s time,” he said.

The folk broke into whispers. Eagerness, excitement. Whatever was happening, they wanted it just as much as Pyotr. “Time for what?” Ian murmured.

Pyotr heard his question, turned his beautiful, empty eyes on Ian and Rose. “Pain and death. Hatred. Exultation.” He shivered with eagerness.

“What—“ Ian began.

But Rose knew. “The murders. He’s talking about the shining man.” How had Rose forgotten? The reason they were here—the reason they’d chased down here in the first place—to stop the supposed faelock from interrupting their battle with the shining man. “Mike and Nazeem and Dmitri are up there right now.” Had they confronted the shining man? Had the fight started? Even worse, had it ended while she and Ian had been distracted by the folk?

“Yes, the old man,” Pyotr whispered. “Such delicious hatred. I know the taste of his pain.”

Rose’s stomach churned. The old man’s pain. Pyotr knew Dmitri? Pyotr knew Dmitri. His anger, his pain. Familiar.

Tottering, old, Father Dmitri. Voider Dmitri, who Rose couldn’t see inside of. Dmitri who had the strength and cunning to keep charge of the monastery through Soviet times—who had probably become very good at lying over those years. Dmitri who had been so eager to help.

“Oh god.”

Ian took another step forward. “It’s okay, Rose. They won’t hurt you.”

He didn’t get it. “Ian, we have to go. The shining man: I know who he is. It’s Dmitri.”

“What? How is that—“

“Think about it. Who gave us the information that made you almost kill Poulov? Who’s been cozying up to us all along, completely in our confidence? Who lost plenty of his monks—
his children
—not killed by the Black Fist, but taken by them and corrupted?”

“No. No, that can’t be right. He’s just a….” Ian trailed off, thinking.

“A harmless old man?” Rose finished for him. “In St. Petersburg?” She should have known. Damn it, she should have known. How could she have so blindly trusted a priest?

“Then Mike and Nazeem are walking into a trap.”

“We have to help them!”

Ian grabbed Rose’s arm as she turned towards the door. “Rose, wait. We can’t walk into the same trap. If Dmitri is our killer, he’s got his men with him and Mike and Nazeem may already be—“ He broke off, shook his head. “You and I can’t fight them all alone.”

Incredibly, Ian’s words were backed with excitement, not despair. “What are you thinking?” Rose asked.

“I have an idea. Come on.”

*
   
*
   
*

Patrick was still on the couch, vodka in hand. Ian got straight to the point. “How much authority do you have here?”

The happiness that had flared in Patrick at Ian’s return muted into caution. “What are you asking?”

“You were right when you said the folk here are different. The two who attacked us the other night with their hounds. It wasn’t like anything I’ve ever seen. They were there with a purpose, under orders, and then they left when they realized—when they recognized me. Because I’m your son.
 

“What I’m asking is, can you get them to help us? Our friends are in trouble, up in the cathedral. If we had a few knights of the folk on our side, that could change everything.”

Patrick took another sip, his face bland, but he couldn’t hide the truth from Rose. What Ian had asked terrified him.
 

That, right there, was the difference between Ian and his father that had been troubling Rose all this time. She’d never once, in all that had happened to them, felt fear from Ian.
 

“Please, dad,” Ian said when Patrick’s silence continued. “Help us.”

“You’ve been in hiding for almost twenty years,” Rose said, letting her instincts guide her. “Trying to keep Pyotr and his folk locked away from the world. But the whole reason you did that in the first place—the reason you left your family and the reason you never told the Black Fist what they wanted to know—was because you wanted to protect people. That’s your job, right? Just like Ian, you’re supposed to protect people.

“There’s a man up above in St. Isaac’s who could be every bit as dangerous as Pyotr if we don’t stop him. And the next person he’s going to come after, if he manages to kill our friends, is your son.”

Patrick set down the bottle. “All right.” He was still scared, but struggled against it with the same strength he’d passed on to Ian. “Let’s get your sword, Ian. Then gather our forces.”

“We’ll go through the hidden door,” Ian said to Rose, excitement building inside him. “Dmitri will never expect us.”

Except—“Wait! The trap! You said it would hurt or even kill any folk who went through it.”

“Shit. I’ll have to go ahead—“ He stopped, pushed a hand back through his hair. “I can’t. I need to make sure—“

Rose understood. Maybe better than Ian, she understood the delicate edge of Patrick’s courage. If Ian left, he might hesitate, or worse. Ian had to stay.

Rose didn’t. “I’ll do it.”

Worry and hope braided together inside Ian. “Can you find your way back? If you get lost…”

“I can make it.” If there was anyplace she could find her way back to by feel, it was St. Isaac’s. “Just promise you’ll hurry.”

“We’ll be right behind you.”

Rose ran through the throne room, didn’t stop to listen to the urgent pleas Patrick was making to Pyotr. She took a deep breath and ran through the fairy door, plunging once more outside of reality.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Saturday After Dark Continued

As Mike came to, he realized he couldn’t move. Bands of pure force held him tight against the wall, a good ten feet above the floor. From here, he had a perfect view of the sacrificial circle and the bodies that lay within—Poulov, Andrei, and Nazeem. All three were bound, gagged, and blindfolded. Above them, hovering, Dmitri radiated his strange light.
 

Spread about the church, Mike counted a dozen of Dmitri’s men. Although they stood in positions meant to guard, all their attention was focused on Dmitri and his captives. Mike had never wished harder for backup.
 

“I see you’re awake.” Suffused with power, Dmitri’s voice echoed and reverberated against the stone walls. Even knowing who he was, Mike still had trouble reconciling that voice with the thin, crackly sounds Dmitri had made talking to them in the monastery. Such a brilliant job of subterfuge. He’d played them all for fools.

“I wouldn’t want to miss the show.”

That brought forth a familiar, cackling laugh. “Michael, Michael, Michael. What am I to do with you?”

If only Mike believed he were honestly asking for suggestions. “I’m surprised I’m not down in your circle.”

Dmitri clucked his tongue. “Now why would I put you in there? You’re misguided, my boy, but I know you’ve been doing what you thought was best. You’re not a murderer. Not like this bunch.”

“So, what, this is supposed to be a learning experience for me?”

That earned a cackle. “I wouldn’t want you running off. You’ve made my life complicated enough tonight. Once I’m done here, once we’ve collected Rose and Ian, we can all go back to the monastery.”

Mike couldn’t help but squeeze his eyes shut at the thought. The kids—how would they escape Dmitri, who they had no reason to mistrust?

Dmitri must have seen his expression. “Oh, don’t worry, Michael. Little Rose is quite safe from me. She’s a dear girl, and I wouldn’t let anyone hurt her. Honestly, I’m disappointed with you, dragging her into the middle of this. But Ian—well, he’s a killer and needs to be dealt with.”

Mike hoped his bravado covered the chill Dmitri’s words sent through him. “Ian isn’t a murderer. You don’t need to do anything to him.”

“Oh, but he is. Just last night. While you and I were dueling, he ran his sword through Ivan. I have to protect my children. Surely you understand that.”

Mike sent his mind along the magic that held him captive, searching for a weak point. “Violence begets violence, Dmitri. It’s not our place to judge. Not our place to punish.”

“Bah.” Dmitri spat. “I’ll hear no such lecture from a Templar.”

“All my life, I’ve done no more than administer God’s justice.”

Dmitri floated up to hover just in front of Mike. Mike had to squint against the blinding light, but he refused to look away. “God’s justice is a lie. A hoax we tell the peasants to keep them content with the horrors of their lives. You wield God’s hammer, but only against those enemies who reach through the curtain. Against the evils that men do?” Dmitri spat again. “God would see us all suffer as his son suffered and he lifts no finger to help us.”

Dmitri floated up, away from Mike. He floated above the circle, making long shadows dance among the angels and apostles that looked down from the dome. “All my life, I waited for God’s justice. Listened for God’s word. What did I get for that? Soviet oppression. KGB spies.” He looked down at Andrei. “He wasn’t the only one. Not even the only one in my monastery. They didn’t trust us. Didn’t believe we were loyal comrades.”
 

He spat down on Andrei. “
Loyal
. We hated them all. I lived through Stalin’s purges, saw far too many taken away forever. When they reopened the monastery, we celebrated, but we never believed ourselves safe. Even still, I trusted to God. I prayed to God. I dreamed of a Moses to come free us from our cruel masters.

“Instead, He visited the worst cruelty of all.” Dmitri pointed down at Poulov who, even unconscious, twitched and let out a moan as sparks of energy lanced through his flesh. “The Black Fist used our monastery as their incubator. I raised their fledglings and they came and took them from me, once I had awakened their power. Those who would not serve, they executed. Those who would serve, they corrupted. And still, God did nothing.

“And now,” Dmitri pointed at Andrei, “He was going to start it up again. I heard the whispers, read the messages. I know the deals he’s made with his new friends. They may not call themselves KGB anymore, but they are the same.”

Dmitri floated back down to the circle, landed on the floor next to it. “I have taken matters into my own hands.”

Mike wasn’t impressed. “You sold your soul.”

“My soul is nothing. I have bought the power to carry out
my
justice. I will punish those who deserve it. Once I am done, what happens to me—it doesn’t matter.”

Mike’s bonds were secure. Solid and smooth, Mike couldn’t get a magical grip on them. Nazeem’s bonds, on the other hand, were physical objects. Rope and cloth, Mike could manipulate. The trick was keeping Dmitri distracted.

“What do you want me for? I can’t believe you’re going to just let me go after this.” Mike couldn’t afford any outward sign of concentration. He couldn’t even risk looking at Nazeem. He visualized Nazeem’s ropes with his eyes open, focused his will through a relaxed expression.
 

Dmitri snapped at one of his men. The man drew a machete from under his coat and brought it to the Father Abbot. Old and worn, the hilt was little more than a frayed wrapping held together with electrical tape, but the blade looked plenty sharp. “I don’t want to have to kill you, Michael. I think we have more in common than not.” Dmitri whipped the blade through the air several times. “Your taste in companions aside.”

Nazeem shifted, just a few inches, but enough to give Mike a view of the knots that held his arms. On the inside, Mike applauded the vampire for figuring out what Mike was doing. On the outside, Mike held his poker face. “I’m not going to help you, old man. You’ve made a pact with the other side. That makes us enemies.”

“Oh, fah, other side indeed. You’re working with a vampire. How is that any different?”