by M. A. Grant
He crawled through the fence and found himself in a small, well-kept yard. Their entrance was hidden from view of the house by the decorative bushes. Atlas was already crouched beside the edge of the row, eyeing the back of the house with a trained eye.
“Did you notice the marks on the fence?” Cristian asked him quietly, checking the houses on either side for any signs of watchers. No lights on, no shifted window curtains from the few places that could see over the massive fence surrounding the back of Radu’s house. “Those aren’t from strigoi.”
“No,” Atlas agreed, just as quietly. “Probably a crowbar. Means we’re dealing with something else.”
“Is that why we’re crouched here in the dark like two burglars on their first job?”
“I wanted to make sure I couldn’t see movement inside.”
“And?”
Atlas sighed and rose from his crouch. “The glass is reflective, probably to block the sun.”
Cristian cackled gleefully and stood too. “You couldn’t see inside.”
“No.”
“Well, I don’t hear anyone in there, so I think we’re safe to go in.”
They crossed the yard quickly and drew up at the back door. It was a monstrous thing, heavy wood with iron hardware that must have been as old as Radu. Atlas grimaced as he ran his hands over it.
“If you want to stroke something, I have a few suggestions other than the door,” Cristian snarked, eyeing the complicated lock. Without a key or a code, they were fucked.
Atlas choked and stopped touching the door in favor of glaring down at Cristian, who knelt beside him. “Really, Mr. Slava?”
“Yeah, Mr. Kinkaid,” Cristian replied, dusting off his knees as he stood. “Want to hear them?”
“N-no. Just—” Atlas sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “We just need to get in. Let’s focus on that.”
“Coward.” On a hunch, Cristian grabbed hold of the door handle and tried it.
“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” Atlas breathed when the door cracked open.
Cristian released his grip and stepped to the side, preening a little under Atlas’s amazement. “I bet they had people in and out of here all day, investigating. Someone was bound to forget to lock it behind them.”
“Right,” Atlas muttered. “Forgot. Maybe we aren’t the only ones acting like burglars.”
Cristian shrugged and let him lead them inside. Atlas hated feeling useless, and his training meant he was far more efficient at clearing an area than Cristian could ever hope to be, even with his better senses and reaction time. He obeyed when Atlas ordered him to wait by the door while he did a quick sweep. He tracked Atlas’s wary path through the house and up the stairs through the creaks and groans from the floor overhead. A few minutes later, Atlas returned to him, looking unusually grim.
“You’re going to want to see this,” he said.
Their footsteps echoed over the parquet floors as they walked through the spacious, empty rooms. The window shades were drawn open, and the shadows flickered and moved as the storm broke open at last, pounding the roof with a torrent of rain. At least there were no trip hazards in their path. There was hardly any furniture, and what little existed was dated and done up in shades of faded red velvet and dark wood veneer. The lights overhead were a mixture of rectangular cut crystal chandeliers and odd glass discs that hid the bulbs from view.
“You’d think Radu would have updated things a bit,” Cristian said as they started up the narrow stairs to the second floor.
“It’s a temporary space,” Atlas said. “No point putting money into something that’s not meant to be a home.”
Cristian couldn’t help thinking of Atlas’s small, barren apartment back in Scarsdale. He knew what his father was paying the man, and that the lack of homey touches wasn’t just from budgetary concerns. Maybe Radu wasn’t the only one who hadn’t found himself a home yet.
They reached the hallway of the upstairs floor and Atlas hesitated. He glanced at Cristian, the slash of lightning outside casting his serious expression in silver relief. “First room on the right,” he said. “Go slow. It’s bad.”
Cristian reached the doorway and peered inside. Atlas’s warning seemed unnecessary. There was no sign of violence. Of panic, perhaps coercion, sure. The curtains were thrown open, the dresser’s drawers ripped out and scattered over the floor, a handful of men’s clothes mixed in with some women’s shirts and underwear. A lamp by the bed had been tossed carelessly to the floor, crushed underfoot, and the bedsheets were rucked up and in obvious disarray. But there was no blood spatter, no bodies, and no stink of death.
His shoe slid a little on the floor when he took a step forward. Surprised, he looked down and noticed the fine dust scattered over the wood. It had been shuffled about during the investigation. Varied shoe prints had tracked back and forth through it, spreading it around the room. It was pushed into the seams of the floor, stuck there, and no one had bothered to sweep it up. He’d seen such dust before, fallen in broken piles over his mother’s bed. Her remains had been honored. But this apartment provided an ignoble funeral for Luca.
At least Angelica had been surrounded by loved ones. He and his father had held her hands as she—
Bile rose swift and unexpected. He coughed against the acrid bite in the back of his throat, turned away from the sight, and stepped back into the hall. Into Atlas’s waiting arms. He buried his head against Atlas’s chest and sucked in breath after breath as he fought down the nausea.
“Sorry,” Atlas kept whispering to him as he petted the back of Cristian’s head and neck. “Sorry.”
“The man who met with Radu, Luca, is dead,” Cristian choked out. “And Florica was taken.”
“One of the neighbors must have heard the racket and called the police,” Atlas said.
“Do you think Radu knows what happened here?”
Atlas gave a halfhearted shrug that allowed him to keep his hold on Cristian. He slid his fingers through Cristian’s hair and caressed down his neck, still trying to soothe him after his earlier shock. “Maybe. Mihai didn’t mention this place, so he didn’t get a call about it.”
Pulling away from Atlas, from his comforting touch, wasn’t easy, but Cristian needed to think. That was impossible with Atlas’s hands on his body. “Radu said he was going to pay an unexpected visit to Grigore. I wonder if he found out about this place before he got there.”
“Maybe?” Atlas reached out, his hand settling at Cristian’s hip as he gently moved him out of the way. He returned to the bedroom, though he respectfully didn’t walk in any farther, leaving the ash remains of Luca undisturbed. “Why would they have taken Florica, instead of killing her?”
Cristian took a step back, needing more distance between himself and the room. “Donors here are treated differently. Vampires are not as...indulgent of them here as they are in my father’s territory.” Atlas gave him a meaningful look, and Cristian shrugged apologetically. “If they thought she’d broken her silence about our world, they would have taken her back to face the ispán.”
“Grigore, then,” Atlas decoded, voice tight.
“Most likely.”
“Radu is missing, and now one of the few people who could help us find him has been taken back to the man he was investigating,” Atlas said.
Cristian’s heart plummeted. It was a brutally succinct summary of the situation. He longed to find his old friend. Keeping Radu alive meant preserving the happy memories of his youth, of his family having a positive diplomatic tie to the territory, but they had no other clues to go on. Their search had reached a dead end for now.
“We have to find Florica,” Cristian declared. Maybe saying it aloud would help him believe it. “She’s our best link to Radu. She’ll know where he was going, or she’ll be able to testify and get the Council’s support for a search.”
“We co
uld ask around with the neighbors,” Atlas offered. “Maybe they saw something or know who took her—”
“No,” Cristian interrupted, mind racing. “We can’t risk talking to the neighbors.”
“Why not?”
“The Council’s team is investigating vampiric deaths and they have a Wharram with them. There’s no way we’ll be able to cover our tracks forever, but the longer we can go without catching Theo’s attention, the better. We can’t bring them down on us too early.” Cristian ran a hand through his hair, tugging nervously and using the faint pain at his scalp to refocus himself. “If they talk to Ileana and she sends them the same way we came, it’s just a matter of time before they find Mircea and feed from him—”
Atlas’s hand encircled his wrist and stopped him midtug. “Stop,” Atlas commanded, voice low and firm.
Suddenly, the slight ache of his scalp didn’t matter. Atlas’s fingers pressed into the soft skin near the tendon, holding the delicate bones of his wrist tightly. He was unable to move without Atlas’s permission. Safe.
“If the concerns about violence in Grigore’s territory have spread, or Mihai has ordered Emil to report on what he’s witnessed, the Council is more likely to visit there first,” Atlas explained. “We need to reach his territory before the Council does. We need to prevent him from hurting Florica in case he needs to cover his tracks.”
“Okay,” Cristian breathed. “I’ll call Emil. See if he can help us.”
“Are you sure we can trust him?” Atlas asked.
“Mihai does. And he fought alongside my father. If we want to help her quickly, we don’t have much choice. We’ll just need to be careful about it.”
“I guess so,” Atlas agreed, his thumb rubbing gently over Cristian’s skin. An approving touch, enough to make Cristian curl his toes inside his shoes from want. “Call him.”
Even when he released Cristian’s wrist and stepped back, the desire remained. Cristian licked his lips. He tried—and failed—to drag his gaze away from Atlas’s mouth, as he croaked, with more bravado than he felt, “Now?”
“Now. Should probably make it quick though.”
He nodded and pulled out their phone, dialing the number Mihai had given him. It rang out, but didn’t go to voicemail. Cristian frowned, hung up, and tried again. This time, the other end of the line crackled to life and a gruff voice said in a rush of Romanian, “This is Emil Oros.”
“Mr. Oros, do you have a free moment to speak with me?”
“Who is this?” Emil growled.
“A guest of Voivode Mihai’s who was told to reach out to you if he needed help.” Cristian waited for any sound of recognition from the other man, but was met with nothing but silence. “Do you have a free moment?”
“Hold on,” Emil said.
The line went silent and Cristian checked the phone to make sure he hadn’t been hung up on. The timer kept going, so the other end must have been muted. Atlas made a questioning noise, but Cristian waved to assure him all was well. He put the phone back up to his ear and waited. A short time later, Emil returned.
“You may speak freely,” Emil said.
“The voivode told me you served as vice-ispán to Grigore. He also told me you could help me during my travels in this territory.”
“He never spoke to me about this. I know of no visitor who would earn such familiarity from the voivode.” The growl in Emil’s voice warned of either confusion or frustration, neither of which Cristian wanted to feed into.
“You can call him if you need to,” Cristian said.
It earned him a bark of rough laughter. “Impossible,” Emil said. “The Council oversees all communication in and out of the nest now.”
“Shit,” Cristian whispered. Even in a different language, Atlas understood something was wrong and stepped closer.
“You haven’t even given me your name, stranger,” Emil pointed out. “You could be anyone.”
“My name is Daniel Putnam.”
“I’ve never heard mention of you before.”
“Please,” Cristian said, “I need to speak to you. It’s important—”
“If it’s so important, you can travel here and meet me face to face.”
He looked to Atlas in desperation, too caught up in the conversation to translate and explain the argument, and equally worried about giving away too much and putting them in danger. “I can’t—”
“Then you are no friend of the voivode’s,” Emil declared. “We are done.”
The threat of Emil hanging up was too great. In desperation, he blurted out, “My real name is Cristian Slava.”
Cristian winced. Atlas closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Slava?” Emil muttered. “Are you Decebal’s boy?”
“Yes.”
A long, difficult pause on the other end. Long enough for Atlas to take a deep breath and crowd back against him, leaning in to try to listen in on a phone call he couldn’t understand. Eventually, Emil murmured, “You should stay out of this county.”
“We can’t. We need to find someone, a woman named Florica. Can you help us?”
“You won’t be safe here,” Emil warned, his voice strange and strained.
“Please. We need to find her. Voivode Mihai’s judgment may hinge on this.”
Emil’s exhale came out a jagged, pained thing. “The Council hasn’t visited our county yet. But they will soon. Once they arrive, you’re on your own.”
“We’ll get there before they do,” Cristian promised. He reached out and clasped Atlas’s forearm, squeezing gently and hoping Atlas could sense they had made unexpected progress. “We can be there soon.”
“I’ll send you an address for a haven near Grigore’s nest. Be careful, Cristian. This is not the country your father left behind.” On that ominous warning, he hung up.
* * *
Grigore’s nest was located in the northeast corner of Romania. They drove until Atlas was too exhausted to continue, at which point Cristian ordered him to trade. It involved much grumbling and glaring, but he eventually gave up the wheel. It proved a mixed blessing. Cristian was glad to help Atlas, but driving gave him too much time to think. He couldn’t get the image of the dusty room out of his head. Every time his foot pressed against the pedal, he swore his shoe’s sole slid a little, like it was still covered in ash. It made for a disquieting trip, and the sense of dread in his gut only grew as they pulled into Grigore’s city.
Atlas, who’d slept too fitfully to call it rest, stared at the road straight ahead of them and the lightening night sky. “I hope Emil’s address is right,” he muttered as they followed the streets through the tall corridors of buildings. He’d plugged it into their GPS, but there would be no indication the haven was for vampires; they were relying on Emil’s knowledge—and his honesty. “It’ll be dawn soon. Do you think we’ll be able to tell it apart from these buildings?”
“Probably. Most are apartments,” Cristian said. “This was a center of industry during the Communist years. Parts of the city were rebuilt to provide housing for the workers.”
“Oh.” Atlas leaned closer to the window, tilting his head so he could look up toward the tops of the apartments. “Why would Grigore settle here?”
“It’s been a stronghold throughout history,” Cristian said. “And in modern years when the population increased, it made for lush feeding grounds. Grigore’s county is prosperous because of it.”
“I don’t think I’m going to like him much,” Atlas warned, sour expression obvious even in the passing streetlights.
Ahead at the roundabout, Cristian spotted a directional sign with a familiar logo. “There it is,” he declared, and changed lanes to follow the arrow. “Just like Emil said.”
Contrary to his guess, the haven didn’t stand out at all from the neighboring buildings. The only difference was
an unusual demarcation worked into the pavement outside the building, a detail Cristian noted carefully. The weathered white paint of the building’s facade left it a little dingy, but clean. The parts of its high roof Cristian could see were a patchwork of tiles and metal, decrying its age and attempt to hold together for a few years longer. There were tall, narrow windows spaced out around the building, which would do very little to let actual light into the interior.
“It looks like a murder hotel,” Atlas declared as they pulled into the enclosed garage and parked in one of the empty slots.
“I’m not saying that’s out of the question for vampires,” Cristian teased, until Atlas’s jaw tightened suddenly and his hands clenched in his lap. “Shit. No... There’s no...” He swallowed hard. “There’s a strict code of conduct for these places,” he said at last, hoping to ease Atlas’s fears. “Anyone who breaks the rules is punished, as is their sire.”
“With death?”
“Sometimes. And sometimes it’s more encompassing. Families have lost their territories before. And others have been blacklisted from any haven property. Being denied a safe place to rest and feed is not something anyone can afford, not even the Council elders. This might be the safest place we stay this whole trip.”
“Even safer than Mihai’s nest?” Atlas asked.
“Maybe.”
Atlas grunted at that and unbuckled his seat belt. He was up and out of the car before Cristian could get free of his own belt. Without a word, he grabbed their backpacks out of the backseat and waited for Cristian to join him.
“Let me do the talking?” Cristian asked when he finally got the car locked up. He held out a hand for his bag, which Atlas handed over grudgingly.
“Fine,” he said.
In Atlas-speak, that meant the situation was about as far from fine as possible, but there was nothing for it now. Cristian took a moment to brush his fingers along the back of Atlas’s hand in silent apology, checked the number of their parking spot one last time, and followed the painted arrows on the floor to the stairwell that led down to the lobby.