A Line in the Sand

by K. A. Stewart

  Just once, in all the years I’d known him, had Ivan mentioned his personal life. He’d had a wife, and a daughter. That was the extent of what he’d shared with me. Sveta had been even more tight-lipped, and I knew no more than that her mother had passed some time ago. There was an entire encyclopedic set of volumes of unspoken words between the two of them, and no time left to sort through them all. I couldn’t force Sveta to talk to Ivan. But I knew it was always going to haunt me if she didn’t.

  Ivan’s room was as generic as a hospital room can get. It gave me a weird sense of déjà vu, and I half expected to see my wife sitting in the far corner, her head bowed over a book. The old man himself looked shrunken against the stark white sheets, his face still lacking the hale and hearty color it normally held. One finger sported a pulse-ox monitor, the red light assuring us that it was working as intended. An oxygen tube ran across his face, and an IV stand on his left made very soft dripping noises, only audible because the rest of the room was so quiet. For a moment, I couldn’t even hear him breathing, and I caught my own breath, waiting until his chest rose and fell again. When I let it out in a relieved whoosh, he opened his eyes.

  “Dawson.”

  “Hey. How you feeling?” I hated myself the minute the words were out of my mouth. It’s such a crappy thing to ask someone who’s in the hospital. Of course they feel like garbage. That’s generally why they were there. And yet, that always seemed to be the first words out of a visitor’s mouth. We latched onto them, because it was something to fill the silence when we had no idea what else to say.

  Ivan grimaced a little. “The bed is to being hard.”

  “That’s to make sure you don’t want to stay.” I gave him a smile I didn’t really feel, but already his eyes were drifting back over my shoulder, looking for a face I knew he wasn’t going to see.

  The blue gaze came back to me once he verified that I’d only brought Cam and Mary Alice. “Svetlana?”

  “She’s bringing the van around. Making sure there’re no bad guys waiting to jump us when we come out.” Okay, so it wasn’t precisely true, but it wasn’t exactly a lie, either. I could tell by his nod that he knew exactly how much truth that statement was lacking, but we both let it pass.

  “The doc’s only going to let us stay a few minutes. You want us to bring you anything from your suitcase when we come back in the morning?”

  “No.” When I went to move away, give someone else a turn at the bedside, his hand shot out and gripped my wrist painfully tight. “The doctor. He told you?”

  “Yeah. He told us.” His hand dropped back to the blanket as if he’d exhausted all his strength with that one move. “You should have been the one to tell us.”

  “It was not to being important.”

  “We’ll just have to agree to disagree on that, I guess.” Because I couldn’t seem to stop myself, I patted his hand before I stepped away from the bed. His skin felt dry and papery, like it was so thin he might blow away in a strong breeze. “Rest. We’ll discuss it in the morning.”

  “No. You are to be going to the chapel. You will not to be worrying about me.”

  I sighed, mentally asking anyone who was listening for patience. “We really gonna have to have this talk again about who is worrying about whom?”

  “Look, we all need rest, so nothing’s going to be happening until morning anyway.” Cameron intervened, smoothly sliding into my place next to Ivan’s bedside. “Sister Mary Alice can’t come with us anyway, she’s too well known. So she can come here to sit with you for a while, keep you from being bored, and the rest of us will go on to the chapel.”

  Ivan seemed to consider this for a moment, then gave one terse nod. “This is to being acceptable.”

  On our way out of the hospital, Cam observed, “He’s going to go to his grave giving you orders.” I was inclined to agree with him, and truthfully, I was going to dearly miss that gravelly voice on the day it fell silent forever. Which was, apparently, much closer than I had ever realized.

  Back at our borrowed apartment, no one seemed willing to take the bedroom that was supposed to be Ivan’s. Sveta disappeared into the room she was sharing with the nun, Cam was going to bunk on the couch, and Mary Alice found me a heaping pile of blankets and pillows for my spot on the living room floor (after we scrubbed Ivan’s blood out of the ornate rug).

  While everyone else bedded down, I stepped out onto the balcony and clicked through the Grapevine app. I didn’t know what time it was in Colorado, but Viljo’s owlish face blinked at me from the small screen almost immediately.

  “Did you know?” I jumped in before he could even start speaking.

  The hacker paused a moment, then sighed. “About the cancer? Yes, I knew. He told me months ago, when he started transferring everything over to you.”

  “You should have told me.” Hell, I should have known. Men like Ivan don’t start picking successors just for giggles.

  “It was not mine to tell.” Viljo pulled his glasses off and ran his hand over his face. “He is gone, then?”

  “No, not yet. He collapsed, though. The doc says he needs to be put on hospice.”

  “He should have done that weeks ago. But he will not. You know that.”

  “Oh yeah, that’s pretty damn clear.” Below me, the dark streets were quiet, broken only by the occasional sounds of distant traffic. I found light in a window, blocks away, and fixed my eyes there. The moisture gathering on my lashes was just from the breeze.

  I hadn’t known Ivan when I first wagered my soul against a demon. I had two fights, one of which was nearly the end of me, under my belt before the white-haired Ukrainian had come knocking on my door, but it seemed like he’d always been there. He gathered us all, champions of every race and creed, kept us organized, kept us in decent gear and highly illegal permits and travel documents. I didn’t know how he bankrolled it all, or even why he’d started it in the first place. He offered advice, counsel, and lessons when we needed it, and sometimes a decent ass-kicking when called for.

  “What are we going to do without him, Vil?”

  “That is why we have you, Jesse.”

  I snorted at that. “Shit. I don’t even know half the people I’m supposed to be taking care of.”

  “You will.” The keys of Viljo’s keyboard clacked audibly. “Since it looks like things are…close. You should know that there are bank accounts that will transfer to your name upon his death. The money you are to use for air travel, arranging permits and identities, things like that. The things that Ivan does for all of you now. There will be some other legal mumbo jumbo, a few emails that will go out to some of his contacts, introducing you. Things like that.”

  “And Sveta?”

  “What about her?”

  “What’s he leaving for her?”

  Viljo paused so long that I thought the app had frozen, and only when I saw him swallow hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his skinny throat, did I realize he was just trying to figure out what to say. “He told you about that too?”

  “No. She did. There are arrangements made for her, too, right?”

  The dark-haired geek nodded. “Yes, but she does not know. Nor does he want her to.”

  “Secrets. Always with the damn secrets. I’m telling you, Vil, when I’m running this show, we’re gonna do this differently.” Belatedly, I heard the words coming out of my mouth, but it was too late to bite them back. I grimaced, and muttered some very impolite words.

  There was a highly suspicious wrinkle at the corner of Viljo’s mouth, and I glared at him through my phone screen. “Don’t you dare smile at that.”

  “Sober as a judge, that is me.”

  “Look, some guys from the Knights Stuckupidus made a run at us today.” Jesus, was it just today? So much had happened. “Send out an all-call, warning everyone to be on the lookout. Pretty sure they were after me, but just in case.”

  “Will do, boss.” I didn’t even bother to correct him.

  “Anyone missin
g check-in?”

  “Nope.”

  “Goodnight, Viljo.”

  “Later.”

  I stood out on the balcony until Cameron poked his head out with a concerned frown, then allowed myself to be ushered inside. Sleep wasn’t going to come easily, and I could all but feel the nightmares nipping at the edges of my brain even fully awake.

  Lying on the floor in my cocoon of blankets, I could tell that Cam wasn’t sleeping either. It was justified, I suppose. His world had been turned on its ear every bit as much as mine had, albeit for different reasons.

  “Quit thinking already, I can hear your brain curdling.” That earned me a chuckle from the priest’s direction.

  “Sorry. You’re one to talk, you’re not asleep either.”

  “No. We’re gonna feel it in the morning, if we don’t, though.”

  Cameron chuckled again. “It is morning.”

  Damned if he wasn’t right. The sun had yet to crest the horizon, but we were closer to dawn than to midnight. “Later in the morning.”

  We were silent for a few minutes, both of us hoping against hope that slumber would sneak up on us when we weren’t looking, and then I heard the leather sofa creak as Cameron turned to face my direction.

  “Can I ask you something, Jesse?”

  “Still a free country.”

  He was quiet again, and I started to think that maybe he really had fallen asleep mid-conversation, but it wasn’t to be. “I saw your wrist.”

  A chill ran down my spine, and even though he couldn’t see me in the dark, I tucked my left hand under the blankets. “That wasn’t a question.”

  “You pushed your sleeves up when the paramedics got here, helping get Ivan on the gurney. I saw the mark on your left wrist.”

  “Still not a question.” Part of my brain, the part that was still a teenage criminal, spun frantically trying to come up with a plausible lie, a story that would be believed. The rest of me, the grown-up part of me, knew that ship had already sailed, and sunk.

  After another long silence, he sighed. “I guess I don’t have a question. I just…wanted you to know that I’d seen it. I don’t think Svetlana or Sister Mary Alice did. I wanted you to know that you could talk to me about it, if you wanted.”

  It was my turn to leave us in awkward silence again. Finally, I sighed. “I don’t want to talk about it. You know I didn’t sell my soul, or any of the ones I’m carrying. You’d be able to tell.”

  “This is true.”

  “So just…take it on faith that I haven’t done anything terminally stupid, and let it go.”

  “If that’s what you want.” The couch squeaked again as he shifted his weight. “Was it him? The one from the cabin?” Cam was acquainted with Axel. They weren’t friends.

  “No.”

  “I’m not sure if that makes me feel better, or worse.”

  “Go to sleep, Cam.”

  My usual nightmares took the evening off, perhaps deciding that they too needed sleep this close to dawn. I know that when I finally slept, I dreamed, but I couldn’t recall anything beyond being very cold and alone in a dark place. When I woke, I’d kicked my way out of my blanket burrito, so maybe that explained it.

  Chapter 11

  Daylight came all too soon, and we rose and dressed in a semi-conscious state, ushered along by Sister Mary Alice’s insistence that if we wanted to lose ourselves in the tourist lines, we had to get there early.

  My dress clothes consisted of one fairly new pair of black jeans, which were just going to have to do because there was no way Cam’s khakis were going to stay on my narrow hips, no matter how tight we belted them. I eyed one of his short-sleeved polo shirts with trepidation, knowing it would leave the demon contract tattoo visible for all eyes to see, but ultimately decided screw it. Cam knew already, and if either of the two women noticed, they didn’t say anything. The shirt was bright red, which wasn’t a color I usually chose, but it was either that, or lavender. And lavender just doesn’t go with my eyes.

  I pulled my hair back into a neat tail at the base of my skull, noting that the end now hit me just below the shoulder blades. It would be time to cut it again soon. After a quick shave, I was deemed presentable.

  Cameron had forgone his priest’s collar in favor of a navy polo and his khakis, looking every bit the fine and upstanding citizen I knew him to be. Clean shaven, hair gelled into fashionable spikes, we just had to hope that they’d be looking for a priest, not a civilian.

  Sveta produced a pair of dove gray slacks from somewhere, coupling it with a very nice white silk blouse. It had ruffles, even, around the collar and cuffs. She left her dark hair loose around her shoulders, one of the very few times I’d ever seen it down, and dabbed very subtle makeup on her face. Any other time, I’d have teased her about her fluffy shirt, but I could tell already that this was not the time for it. She made very little effort at conversation, getting through breakfast with the bare minimum words required.

  “We’ll meet you back at the hospital when we get done,” I told Sister Mary Alice as we parted ways in front of the building. “I don’t know what time that will be.”

  “It’s fine. Brother Cameron has my number.” She smiled, taking my hand and squeezing it gently. The hitchhiking souls in my skin fluttered a little, but in a pleasant way. They liked her. “Don’t worry. I’ll look after him. You go do what you have to do.”

  While I thought we were being absurdly early to just go stand in line, when we arrived at Vatican City, there were already at least fifty people ahead of us. The three of us slipped into the back of the line and were soon surrounded by more tourists, all of them entirely too cheerful for this obscene time of morning. All around us, they chattered and gushed and snapped selfies. There were college-age kids, middle-aged businessmen, elderly women with excited gleams in their eyes. For a few minutes, I envied them. I wished I could have been the one on vacation, touring amazing places and seeing amazing sights. I wanted to be able to appreciate the stunning architecture around us, to marvel at the history the place represented. Maybe even try to feel a bit awed at the sheer amount of faith and magic that I could feel in the stones under my boots. So many people passing through, for so many years, and their beliefs had soaked into the very bricks that built the place until it had its own kind of heartbeat, pulsing slowly but steadily. I wondered if life was easier, having faith that strong.

  Instead of gawking at our surroundings, we three took turns scanning the growing crowds, seeing if anyone was paying inordinate attention to us.

  There was a pair of Swiss guards nearby, their polearms held with an ease that said they actually knew how to use the archaic weapon. Cameron has assured me that they were actually formidable combatants, and I’d decided he must be right. Only total badasses could get away with wearing those gaudy uniforms with poofy pants. Luckily, neither of them spared us a second glance.

  With Cam and Sveta doing the hawkeyed bit, I turned my attention inward, focusing on the souls under my skin. I believed they would sense danger before we could see it, but thus far, they had stirred only a little, feeling almost drowsy. I hoped they’d wake up, if I needed them.

  I felt better, once the line started moving. It was easier to hide in a moving, seething mass of humanity than it was to just stand still like sitting ducks. By that time, the line behind us stretched halfway around the square, and the voices of that many people had become a very quiet roar.

  Sveta, her eyes peering ahead of us with all the softness of a razor-studded block of ice, had dropped into a loose fighting stance that didn’t match her outward appearance of fashionable thirty-something. I nudged her with my elbow, and her head snapped around, a glare on her face. “What?”

  “You look like you’re going to bite someone, or start snapping necks. You stand out. Smile. Put your arm around Cameron like you’re his girl.”

  She almost balked, her jaw tensing visibly, but then her gaze swept over the crowd once again, and I think she realized that
I was right. We weren’t moving correctly, the three of us, and our tiny island of tension stood out like a beacon even in the throng. The dark-haired woman pasted a smile on her face, and slipped her arm around Cameron’s waist.

  Cam, for his part, looked like he had just been hugged by a viper – and he may have – but he draped his arm over her shoulders with a casualness none of us felt. “Not much farther. We don’t actually need tickets for the chapel, we just need to get inside without being spotted. We can skip the museum and head straight there. After that, I think I can get us into the Cardinal’s quarters.”

  “So…what happens if you get arrested, in Vatican City?” Because really, we were going to be lucky if we didn’t wind up with the Swiss Guard pointing a bunch of pikes at us.

  “They have a prosecutor here, and there is no jury. Most minor crimes end up in fines.”

  “And bigger crimes?”

  Cam shook his head grimly, his eyes watching the long line of people behind us. “Normally, they turn serious cases over to the Italian courts. I think for us, they’d make an exception. But I guess that depends on how our conversation with the Cardinal goes.”

  After more time spent slowly shuffling our way toward the front of the line, I spotted something ahead of us that might cause us problems. “Metal detectors. We got anything that’s going to be noticed?” I was specifically looking at Sveta, but she just rolled her eyes at me.

  “You act as though I have not done this before.”

  “Hey, just covering all the bases.” I took a moment to look her over – not in a pervy way, geez – taking guesses at where she had weapons concealed. Both sleeves, surely, since those were loose and flowing. Nothing on her thighs, her slacks were too form-fitting, but maybe something around her left ankle. The cuff on that side wasn’t hanging quite right, but it could have just been wrinkled from the suitcase. Her hair, I finally decided. If she had to leave her hair down, which we both knew was a liability in a fight, she’d have something concealed in those thick tresses, too.