Midnight In St. Pertsburg (The Invisible War 1) (15 page)

“Strange,” he said, and fell silent again. Rose crossed her arms, letting her frustration show. As the elevator doors slid open, he glanced down at her. “I’m sorry.” The soft apology sounded sincere. “It isn’t my intention to be difficult. The experience was…not easy to describe.”

Rose followed Nazeem to his room and he didn’t object when she slid through the door after him, only pulled a change of clothes out of the dresser and excused himself into the bathroom.

Rose wandered over to his desk, where a notebook lay out next to an arrangement of ink bottles and calligraphy tips. The water was still running in the bathroom so Rose indulged her curiosity and opened the book. Inside, she found pages of beautiful illustrations filled in with Arabic letters. Birds and fish and lions looked out at her, all exquisitely inked.

Rose closed the journal and went over to the bookshelf she’d seen before, amused herself by reading the backs of the thrillers. A few minutes later, Nazeem came back out.
 

“You read a lot?” Rose held up the book in her hand.

“It’s an enjoyable way to pass the time.”

He’d have a lot of hours to kill. “Do you get bored?”

“Sometimes, of course,” he brushed the question away with a shrug and went to the window. He pushed the curtain aside and Rose realized they’d been sewn together.
 

Nazeem surveyed the open square and the looming cathedral. “There is an errand I need to run. Will you promise to stay safely inside?”

“No. You heard the padre. It’s the buddy system from here on out.”

The buzzing, army of wasps feeling Rose was picking up from Nazeem she labeled consternation. “Rose, please, no games. This is important.”

“Obviously. But I’m still going with you. Look,” Rose flashed her best smile. “I realize none of us know each other very well yet, but we’ve all been dropped in the middle of the same situation here. I don’t like being told what to do anymore than the next person, but I have to go with Mike on this one. Do you know how much trouble I’d be in if he and Ian show back up in the morning and I have to tell them you never came back?”

“I’m going to come back. I’m not going anywhere dangerous.”

“Great.” Rose picked up her coat. “Then there’s really no problem with me coming.”

Nazeem closed his eyes and after a moment, his swirling, unreadable emotions lost their intensity. When he looked at Rose again, his insides were as bland as his expression. “My errand is not so urgent. It can wait. As Mike said, you need your rest.”

Rose didn’t trust this sudden change of plans. “Really, I’m fine.”

“Good night, Rose.” Nazeem laid a firm hand on her shoulder and steered her into the hall.

Rose retreated to her own room, suspicious. Was Nazeem lying? She thought so. Did he think he could sneak past her? To get from his room to the elevator or the stairs, he’d have to go right past her door. Rose could see the hall perfectly well through the spy-hole. And even if she couldn’t….

All their traipsing around the city, all the excitement at the doorway, Rose realized she had never eaten dinner. Predictably, she was hungry. How quickly could room service get her a sandwich? Or a steak? On her desk, the staff had helpfully left her an English room service menu. Rose scanned down the list; everything looked good. As hungry as she was….

The trick would have worked on a non-sensitive, but Rose felt Nazeem move through the hall, past her door, as sure as if she’d been watching. Rose dropped the menu, realized her hunger wasn’t as acute as it had been seconds ago. She focused on the feel of Nazeem, so unique among every other person in the hotel. No question he was on his way out. Rose grabbed her coat.

Rose let Nazeem stay well ahead, out of sight. A normal person, she might have lost track of, but Nazeem wasn’t about to blend in with the other people on the street. Not that there seemed to be other people on the street. And had it always been this dark? Obviously Russians didn’t believe in lots of street lights.

Nazeem was headed towards the river. No—Rose realigned her mental geography. The Winter Palace was this direction. The other vampires. Why was he sneaking out to see them?

Out of sight ahead, Nazeem slowed, so Rose did as well. Only two blocks from the hotel and she was already rethinking this plan. Even in her heavy coat, she shivered down to her bones, and the oppressive darkness—both visual and spiritual—haunted her perceptions. Distracted her. Her sense of Nazeem faded as she wrapped her arms around herself and tried to convince her brain she didn’t hear things scraping in the shadows, didn’t see things moving in the spaces between—

Rose yelped as a steel-strong hand closed on her arm and pulled her off the sidewalk.

*
   
*
   
*

Mike found a marginally comfortable floor contour across from Ian. It felt good to sit down. He stretched, felt his shoulder pop, tried to get his neck to do the same.
 

All-night vigils were something else Mike could have gone the rest of his life without and never missed. Especially all-night vigils in a cold, dark room with a gateway to hell only inches away. Although honestly, the thing he was most afraid of was embarrassing himself by falling asleep.

Ian sat with his sword across his lap, alert and awake with all the youthful exuberance the years had ground away from Mike. No question this was a game for younger men. Given the option, Mike wouldn’t trade his soul for a warm, soft, bed, but it would be a near thing.

On the other hand, the other side of that pendulum swing was Dmitri. Was that Mike’s inevitable future? Respected and coddled. Protected and caged. There were a handful of Templars Dmitri’s age, but Mike had never had the chance to talk with them. At least, not since he’d gotten old enough they might give him honesty rather than the gung-ho party line.
 

Ian traced a finger along the floor, like he was drawing something, but Mike couldn’t see clear enough to tell what he was doing. “What’cha up to, Irish?”

“Leaving a note, sort of. One other hunters can see.” He traced a couple more lines, then pulled his hand back into his lap. “Doorways like this, once they’ve opened once, it’s easier for them to open again. This way, another hunter will know there’s a weak place in the curtain here. Or if another doorway opens up, they’ll know it’s a repeat offender and bears close watching.”

An approach both thorough and forward-thinking. Holes in the curtain—permanent weak points—it would bear more thinking about at a time Mike wasn’t so tired. As it was, after the exhausting fight in the tunnels, Mike was having trouble keeping his eyes open.

He needed to keep talking. “You mentioned your dad before, that he was the reason you learned Russian?”

In the shadowy, moonlit room, Mike couldn’t make out Ian’s expression beyond a brief flash of Ian’s white teeth. “I guess we’ve got the time.” Ian’s voice was a soothing melody in the darkness. It should have threatened to put Mike to sleep, but that strange, compelling quality Ian had carried through and Mike found himself wide awake to listen.

“Patrick was his name. Patrick Fior. My dad was a hunter, like me. No, he was better than me. One of the best. You would have liked him. I liked him. I loved him.

“He used to tell me stories. Dad loves stories. All the old fairy tales. The pretty ones and the scary ones and everything in between. He said they were important, that at the heart of every story was a kernel of truth. When he wasn’t dealing with a faelock or tracking down breaches in the curtain, he was always hunting for more stories.
 

“I think he loved the folk a little. He always seemed sad when he came home after a fight. Most hunters, they get jaded, but dad, he said you couldn’t blame the folk for being what they are.
 

“Don’t get me wrong,” Ian’s words came faster, “He always sent them back, or killed them if he had to. But to him they were like…like a tiger at the zoo. Beautiful to look at even when you know it would rip your guts given half a chance.”

Mike could understand, even if that had never been his experience. “The things I deal with are rarely pretty.”

“I don’t really know what he saw or what he thought. I was only five when he went hunting for the last time. But I remember the stories he told. And I remember how he seemed sad.”

Ian sighed, a wistful sound. “I think if he’d been here tonight, he would have sided with Rose right off the bat. I think he would have liked that we helped that creature rather than killed her.”

Mike chose his words carefully. “Sympathy for the enemy can be dangerous. Especially given,” he stopped himself before he accused Ian’s dad of stupidity. “How was it he died?”

“I don’t know how. But I do know where.”

Mike was suddenly suspicious. “Tell me it wasn’t St. Petersburg.”

Ian’s teeth flashed once more in the darkness. “Wouldn’t that make for a strange coincidence? But no. I mean, maybe. I know he came to Russia. Mom said he was following some old story—like he loved to do. And when the iron curtain dissolved, he could finally come over to do some first-hand research. But she told me he’d planned to head south, small towns along the border. Although she never heard from him once he got here so…who knows?”

Rutledge had said every one of them had been researched, had been hired for a reason. Mike wondered if the reason Ian was here, instead of some older, more experienced hunter, had anything to do with Patrick Fior’s death.

“I always figured I’d come looking for him,” Ian said. “Someday. So of course, when Alec came to me with this job offer, I took it. All I want is to find out what happened to him.”

One man who’d died twenty years ago somewhere in Russia. “It’s a big country.”

“I’ve got time. And plenty to keep me busy in the meanwhile.”

No question of that. “Well I hope you can find what happened to him. I hope things here quiet down long enough to give you a chance to look.”

“Thanks.”
 

A companionable silence fell between them. Broken when Ian said, “I am going to confess, when Alec was talking about how St. Petersburg seems to draw people like us, I couldn’t help but think—“

“That maybe your dad found his way here after all?”

“Yeah.” Ian’s voice was soft, tentative. “You think that’s possible?”

“Anything’s possible, kid.” It was the best reassurance he could offer. In the end, Mike didn’t believe in fairy tales.
 

*
   
*
   
*

As the hand clamped over her mouth, Rose recognized the alien, buzzy presence of Nazeem. She couldn’t see his face in the dark alcove he’d dragged her into, didn’t know what he was thinking as he pushed her firmly back against the wall and let her go. “What are you doing here?” His words were a bare whisper.

Rose couldn’t think of any reason to lie. “Following you.”
 

Nazeem’s head turned back towards the street. Rose looked too, but her eyes couldn’t penetrate the shadows, couldn’t spot anything that might be out of place. What’s more, she didn’t sense anyone near. “Mike said,” she began.

“I know what Mike said.” Nazeem’s insides were bright and prickly, more energized than she had seen before. This close, she could feel the heat of his body, a bulwark against the cold St. Petersburg night. “This was not smart, Rose. It’s dangerous to be out alone.”

Dangerous for her, he meant. “Are you saying it’s safer for you than for me?”

“Yes!” An edge of tension, of exasperation broke through his voice. The first real emotion she’d heard from him.
 

With Nazeem standing next to her, the street no longer felt as haunted, but Rose hadn’t forgotten the gnawing, oppressive fear. “Is something out here? Something dangerous.”

Nazeem’s attention was still locked on a pool of darkness across the street. “After all you’ve seen this week, you have to ask?” His voice had regained its cool, emotionless tone. “Mike is correct that you require supervision.”

“I’m not as helpless as you think. I’m a sensitive, remember? It’s not like any of these bad people are going to sneak up on me.”

Nazeem’s face turned back towards her and Rose thought she saw the shadow of his smile. “I did.”

“Well….” Rose didn’t know what to say to that.

Nazeem took her arm again. “Come.”

Rose pulled back, but the gesture was useless. She couldn’t budge him by an inch. “Where are we going?”

“You’re the one who wanted to follow me.” He took a long, slow look up and down the street. “I cannot send you back alone, even if I trusted you to go.”

Nazeem kept a hold of her arm, guiding her steps as they crept up the street, sliding from one shadow to the next. Rose felt clumsy and noisy beside the vampire who moved like a ghost.
 

As Rose had predicted, Nazeem led them to the Winter Palace. They circled around to the same side door Alec had brought them to, where Nazeem released her arm and stepped out into the light. The guard looked over at him, raised his walkie-talkie, but Rose read no alarm. Rose touched Nazeem’s elbow and he stopped, looked at her.

“The guards, do they know they’re working for vampires?”

Even in the light, Rose couldn’t focus enough on Nazeem’s face to read it, but she recognized the same bright prickliness as he’d felt before. Anxiety? Frustration? Annoyance? “Is it too much to ask that you temper your curiosity? This situation is more delicate than you imagine.”

The pleading tone that had crept into his voice—so unlike the Nazeem she’d seen so far—awoke Rose’s cooperative side. “Okay. No more questions.”
For now
, she finished silently.

As they got close, the guard nodded and opened the door. Inside, as before, Wentworth waited. “Nazeem, Rose. Please, come in. What may I do for you this evening?”

Nazeem’s insides still had that prickly feeling, but now it was sharper, heavier. “I’ve been injured,” he said with clear distaste.

“How distressing.” Wentworth said with false concern, but he made no move to invite them in. He and Nazeem only stared at each other, a silent battle of wills that Rose wished she could decipher.