Midnight In St. Pertsburg (The Invisible War 1) (6 page)

“How would you know?” Mike grumbled. The fact Ian was agreeing with him didn’t improve Mike’s temper.

Ian’s smile lit up his impossibly blue eyes. “You Templars aren’t the only people who keep an eye on their surroundings.”

And Rose had never met a voider, vampire, or whatever-the-hell-Ian-was before she’d come here, and it wasn’t like they could hide from her. Which meant they had to be thin on the ground. “So what’s up with that?”

Alec raised his hand and the waiter arrived seconds later with the check. Alec scrawled his name on the line. “All right, yes, St. Petersburg seems to attract people like us. There’s a higher concentration of supernaturals walking these streets than anywhere else in the world, as far as my employers can tell. As for the reason why…”

Alec closed his bag and stood up, smiling around the table at each of them in turn. “That’s the other thing my employers are hoping you’ll figure out.”

*
   
*
   
*

Rose slipped the folder under Nazeem’s door, but before she had taken two steps away, the door opened to reveal Nazeem standing there. He wore what looked to be a cotton shirt than hung all the way down to his ankles. The folder was in his hand.

“What is this?”

“Alec brought them for us.” Rose held up her own folder. “They’re information about the people in the city we’re going to have to deal with. We had breakfast together.” Was it rude to talk about the breakfast Nazeem couldn’t have come to? “I haven’t read mine yet.”

Nazeem nodded. “Thank you.” He started to close his door.

“Wait, don’t vampires sleep during the day?”

Nazeem’s handsome face was a mask, and the churning energies within him might as well be some foreign language. She couldn’t even read his tone as he answered, “We cannot be out in the sunlight, but we don’t have to sleep, no. I do not sleep.”

“Not ever?” Rose took a curious step forward, trying to see into his room. “What do you do all day?”

He had already made the room his. Shelves along the close wall had been emptied of the hotel-supplied decor and filled with books, a strange mix of old, leather-bound volumes and newer paperbacks. In the new books, Nazeem’s taste ran to thrillers, and the cracked spines shown they’d all been well-read. All the words Rose could see on the older books were in Arabic, indecipherable.

Various knick-knacks decorated tables and counter-tops. A porcelain figurine of a small child with a flower. A jade dragon. A turquoise and silver ornament quite obviously from the American southwest. Other trinkets—souvenirs of his travels?

The heavy top-curtains hung down over every window in the room.

Nazeem stepped back. That gesture was clear enough: keeping his distance as he pointedly answered, “Today what I will be doing is studying this information Mr. Rutledge has provided.”

His face was more than just a mask. Some active force made Rose’s eyes slide away so she couldn’t focus on his features at all, couldn’t watch for those delicate cues that told her as much about people as any supernatural gift. Every time she tried, something distracted her, caught her eye, dragged her attention away. “Are you…doing something to me right now?”

“What would I be doing?” What little Rose could glean from his eyes was all honest confusion.

Down the hall, the elevator dinged. Some other hotel patron, returning to his room. This wasn’t a conversation they should be having in public. “Can I come in?”

Nazeem hesitated, then stepped aside. Rose shut the door behind her. “You’re strange to me,” she confessed. “Mike, Ian, Alec—I can read them just fine.”

Nazeem stood only a foot away from her; he hadn’t moved a step further into the room than she had. “I thought your…abilities didn’t work on people like Mike and Alec.”

“They don’t, but I can still read their faces. People—they have no idea all the little twitches they make that betray everything they’re thinking. But you—I can’t see any of that. It’s like I can’t even look at you properly.”

“Ah.” His emotions buzzed and swirled as his face remained impassive. “Yes. I am aware of that. It’s a defense. Part of being what I am. It’s not something I have any control over. But it’s one of the reasons a surveillance society is so dangerous to my kind. External marks of what we are—the human eye slides past; the camera does not.”

“Do I make you uncomfortable?” If Rose could start cataloging the alien impressions she got from the vampire…

“Yes.” He got points for honesty. “I am unaccustomed to invasions of my private space.”

Rose had trouble believing that. His dissonant insides might be off-putting, but only to a sensitive. His outsides were handsome enough, what she could focus on. On the other hand, the careful way he spoke, his cool demeanor… “What kind of social lives do vampires have?”

Nazeem crossed his arms, but just like last night, Rose detected a note of what might have been amusement leaking through. “Will there ever be an end to these questions?”

“Probably not until you tell me to stop,” Rose admitted.
 

His lips twitched, halfway to a smile. “You should go read the information our employers have been kind enough to provide. We will have other opportunities to talk.”

Belatedly it occurred to Rose the reason why he seemed so eerily still. Except when he spoke, he never took a breath. His shoulders, his chest, they lacked that one basic movement that made people look real. “Okay, I’ll go. But I’ll be back.”

“I have no doubt.”

It was Rose’s turn to smile.

*
   
*
   
*

Mike saw Rose go into the vampire’s room. That was a development he was going to have to keep an eye on. God only knew what lunatic notions kids had these days. All the silly, romantic vampire stories out there—those writers should all be indicted for reckless endangerment.

Rose was in no immediate danger. Mike hadn’t gone so far around the bend he thought Nazeem would attack her the minute everyone’s back was turned. But Mike hadn’t figured out Nazeem’s game yet, and that had Mike on edge.

Tomorrow’s problem.
 

Mike retreated to his suite and settled at the desk with Rutledge’s dossiers. Two read-throughs later, a plan was taking shape. He dialed Ian’s room.

Five minutes later, he and Ian met in the lobby. “You sure you don’t want Rose along?” Ian asked, shouldering into his duster.

“Very sure.” If Mike hadn’t been worried about people not speaking English, he wouldn’t even have invited Ian.
 

Ian didn’t press the issue, which Mike appreciated. Kid or not, Ian seemed to understand the truths of their situation. He waved down a cab as Mike pulled on his gloves, then gave the driver instructions after they’d both gotten into the vehicle.

“Where’d you learn to speak Russian?” Mike asked once they were underway. “Or, I guess, why?”

Ian shook his head, watching out the window as they drove through the heart of the city. “That’s a long story. One that demands alcohol.”

In Mike’s experience,
long story
was always code for a tragic love or a tragic death. Given Ian’s youth and charm, Mike guessed the first. “Some girl break your heart?”

“Not a girl.” Ian’s smile was wistful. “My dad.”

Tragic death, then. You’d think by now Mike would know what to say to that. Thankfully, Ian changed the subject. “I read through the monk packet. You expect they’ll talk to us?”

“I don’t see why not.” Confidence was one of the first emotions Mike had learned to feign. “We’re all men of God. There’s got to be a connection there. Besides, it’s been years since there’s been any open warfare between the Templars and the Orthodox Heresy.”

Ian grinned and pulled out his wallet as the cab parked next to a wide set of wrought-iron gates. “I know this isn’t my area of expertise, but things might go smoother if you don’t call them heretics to their face.”

Mike ignored the jab. “Make sure you get a receipt.”
 

The Alexander Nevsky Monastery was a complex of buildings, including a cathedral, two smaller churches, dormitories for the monks, and an elaborate cemetery. A woman at the gates took money from scattered tourists for admission onto the grounds, but with a glance to Mike’s collar, she let him and Ian pass without comment.
 

The cathedral itself was brightly lit and ornately appointed. Marble surfaces in pink and pastel blue and green were ornamented by crystal and malachite and gold. As ostentatious as anything Rome had to offer. No more appealing here than in his own church.
 

“Now what?” Ian asked, running his hand down the smooth surface of a column more than twice his width.

“Give it a minute.” Mike knew how to get their attention. He pulled power into himself, let it fill his body, an energizing radiance, a blinding flare to any voider nearby.
 

Ian didn’t notice. Hunters like him had their own power, but it came from a different place. Operated on a different wavelength. Mike didn’t understand how or why they were different, but since the creatures Ian’s people hunted were perfectly vulnerable to Mike’s form of magic, he’d never bothered asking a lot of questions.

A man emerged from a hallway at the front of the cathedral—a man Mike recognized from his photo. Tall and solid, wearing a dour expression above his Abbot’s robe. Father Andrei. The dossier hadn’t included much information about Andrei outside the warning he could be dangerous.

Andrei’s ice-blue eyes locked on Mike. Andrei stood where he was, waiting. Mike considered making a contest of it, but since this was Andrei’s house, Mike could give him the first round. A gesture of peace and all that. He crossed the room with Ian trailing behind.
 

“So,” Andrei began without preamble, speaking in English without being asked. “You are the ones they brought to St. Petersburg.” One corner of his lips curled up into a sneer. “An ornamental boy and a tired old man. And I am to be intimidated,
da
?”

Not starting out on the best foot. “We’re not here to intimidate anyone.” Although he couldn’t resist flaring his power.
 
Andrei would be able to feel it. It wasn’t a threat, exactly. More a polite display to warn you were armed, like pulling aside your jacket to show you were carrying a gun. Mike just happened to carry a big one.

Ian stepped up gracefully, made his own attempt. “We’re here as a courtesy, Father Abbot. To introduce ourselves. Since you doubtless know the city, we thought—“

“I know what you are here for,” Andrei interrupted, his voice as cold as his eyes. “You think this city will be so easy to claim for your own?”

Mike didn’t need Rose’s special skills to evaluate Andrei. This man was an asshole.
 

Mike wasn’t a complete idiot. He
could
be diplomatic. He knew he should apologize for their invasion of Andrei’s territory, reassure the man they wanted to work with him, not against him, maybe even ask for his help and stroke his ego a little. Trouble was, Mike couldn’t bring himself to do any of that. Not with Andrei’s challenging stare locked against his own. “Look, is there something we’ve done to piss you off, or is this just your usual Sunday face?”

Ian shot Mike a look of surprise before he reclaimed his diplomatic smile. “What Father Mike means—“

Mike cut that right off. “I don’t need you to speak for me, Irish. The Father Abbot knows exactly what I mean.”

“Indeed.” Andrei’s lips twisted up into a thin smile. “I would expect no better manners from a Templar.”

So much for this bright idea. Mike wasn’t going to find an ally in Andrei. “Come on, Ian. We don’t want to waste any more of the Father Abbot’s time.”

Outside the cathedral doors, Mike stopped and pulled out a cigarette. “Hold up.”

“You know, smoking’s bad for you,” Ian said.

“So’s fighting the supernatural.” Mike lit up, took a long drag. “Which one you think kills you faster?”

As they’d turned away from Andrei, Mike had just caught a glimpse of a shadow retreating into the hallway Andrei had emerged from. Andrei wasn’t the only voider here, and maybe not everyone shared his views.

Sure enough, a few minutes later, an acolyte emerged from one of the side doors. He said nothing, but held a folded slip of paper out to Mike. Ian thanked the boy in Russian while Mike opened the note. Written inside, in English in a strong, clear hand:

Come back after dark. I would meet with you and your companions. Andrei does not speak for all of us.

*
   
*
   
*

Rose read through her packet, but the information within raised more questions than it answered. How much of it made sense to the others? How long was she going to be playing catch-up?

Neither Ian nor Mike answered their phones, and Rose didn’t want to pester Nazeem too much in one morning, but she had to get out of her room. Surely they had coffee shops in Russia, right? She packed up her laptop and set out in search of one.

Even better, as she got off the elevator, she spotted Alec in the lobby, chatting with one of the front desk clerks. The clerk liked Alec. Rose felt that clear as a bell. Everybody liked Alec. The clerk saw Rose and pointed, prompting Alec to turn and wave.
 

“What are you up to?” he asked as Rose came over to join him.

Rose shrugged. “I’m kind of at loose ends. Although if you’ve got some time, I’d love to pick your brain on,” she glanced at the clerk, unsure how much she should say in front of people, “on some job-related stuff.”

“No trouble at all. There’s a teahouse just a short walk away. They make fabulous biscuits, and it’s a nice quiet place—great for talking.”

The morning air wasn’t as bitterly cold as last night had been, but even the short walk to the teahouse had Rose shivering and burying her gloved hands as far as they would go in her coat pockets. The climate was going to take some adjusting to. November in Phoenix meant you turned off the air conditioning. Well, some days.

Cute was the only word to describe the teahouse. Nestled in a shadowy nook alongside one of the canals, it had lacy curtains over little square windows and fringed tablecloths on the tables. And a smiling, little old lady who welcomed Rose and Alec with genuine warmth.