“I need one, after that.”
Van laughed. She sat, still naked, with her back pressed against the wall, legs stretched out in front of her. She slipped the cigarettes into her mouth and lit both of them. Nadia was enchanted by her movements: the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed in to ignite the tobacco, the purse of her lips, the indolent gesture of her arm reaching out to hand Nadia a smoke. Nadia leaned on her back and puffed on the cigarette, languid and luxurious in the twisted pile of sheets on the bed.
“So who would you say won this round?” The bed creaked; Van stretched out on her stomach alongside Nadia, blew her smoke at the wall.
“I’d say it was a tie.” Nadia stretched her arm across Van’s back and kissed her shoulder, leaving a trail of kisses across the top of her back. She could taste the salt on Van’s skin, and she pressed her face to the base of Van’s neck, breathing her in. They stayed like that for a few moments, entangled with each other. She had no sense of how long it had been since the fight, and she didn’t care.
“You’re burning the sheets!” Van giggled, and snatched the cigarette out of Nadia’s hands, extinguishing it in a black spot on the wall.
“You burned the wall.” Nadia kissed the back of Van’s neck again, and Van shifted beneath her, rolling onto her back so that Nadia found herself straddling her at the waist, their noses touching. Van finished her own cigarette, and when she kissed Nadia the taste of smoke lingered.
“Not my wall, not my sheets,” Van murmured, tracing her finger down Nadia’s spine. Nadia shivered with pleasure. “But if you burned the sheets you would have caught on fire yourself, and I would hate to see that happen.”
Nadia kissed Van on the mouth in response—too late for her, she was on fire again anyway, although it was a slow-burning fire, not the intense burst of desire that had erupted earlier. She kissed down the line of Van’s collarbone, over the soft swell of her breasts. Slowly. Taking her time, the way she hadn’t before. Van made soft mumbling noises of contentment and wound her fingers in Nadia’s hair. Nadia kept kissing, down over the hard, strong planes of her stomach. Over a tattoo.
A tattoo she hadn’t noticed before, having been too caught up in other things. But a tattoo that she recognized now, with a sharp twist of shock.
Imprinted in faded black ink on the faint angle of Van’s hipbone, a pair of jagged lines: a lightning strike and lucky number seven, layered on top of each other. The alchemical symbol for lead.
“Why’d you stop, mon chaton?” Van’s fingers brushed the back of Nadia’s head.
“I got distracted by your tattoo.” Nadia kissed it, her eyes fluttering. She half-expected to feel a surge of magical power, but there was only the soft silkiness of Van’s skin.
“Oh, that old thing.” Van laughed. “I had it done ages ago.”
“What’s it mean?” Nadia kept her voice spy-calm, and traced her finger over the tattoo. Perhaps it was nothing—a bad decision after a night of drinking.
But perhaps not.
“It’s an old family symbol,” Van said lightly. “From Vietnam.”
Bullshit. Nadia could hear the lie in Van’s voice. She kissed the tattoo again, kissed across Van’s stomach. “But what does it mean?” she murmured. “Beautiful? Sex goddess?”
Van laughed. “Nothing so exciting. Just a family thing.”
Liar, Nadia thought, as she kissed along the top of Van’s thigh. Van sighed with pleasure. There was some magical connection there. Not Ice, Nadia would know that. Van didn’t feel like an Acolyte of Flame—too much of a loner. The family business probably meant she was some kind of hedgewitch, the traditions passed down from mother to daughter through the generations.
But even if Van were Flame, Nadia wasn’t about to stop what she was doing. Van moaned and tugged on Nadia’s hair, whispered something in Vietnamese over and over again in soft, gasping sighs. Nadia made her decision. Whether Flame or hedgewitch, she—and Ice—would have this woman.
• • •
A knock sounded at Frank’s office door—and then, before he could answer, the door swung open and Emily bustled in, a stack of files under one arm, a mug of coffee steaming in her free hand.
“You read my mind,” he said, eyeing the coffee. Emily grinned at him and set it on his desk.
“I always do, sir. Do you have a moment to chat?”
Frank nodded and sipped at the coffee. Emily reached over and discreetly shut the door, then settled down in the chair without waiting to be asked. That was the thing Frank liked about her—she understood that there didn’t need to be that kind of hierarchy between the CIA station chief and his secretary, not the way there was between him and his officers. She didn’t just take his calls and bring him his morning coffee. She was his extension, his view into the inner workings of the ecosystem of the office. They had an understanding.
“I looked into the matter you asked me about yesterday,” she said, leaning back in her chair.
Frank nodded. “All ears.”
“I asked around the typing pool,” she said. “It turns out he mentioned to one of the girls—Sarah Gibbs, and she’s not given to making up gossip—that he was heading out to meet with Alestair Winthrop.”
Frank paused, coffee cup suspended in midair. “Alestair Winthrop? What the hell is Gabe doing with MI6?”
“He and Sarah chatted about it a bit,” Emily said. “I suppose he was feeling gregarious enough to mention it. He told her he had to maintain those diplomatic ties, you know. Could be about that NATO symposium, maybe.”
“Right.” The NATO symposium. Frank had been so preoccupied with the CI investigation—and with his own investigation of Gabe—it had slipped his mind. But it might make sense.
Still, Frank couldn’t shake that niggling sense that something was wrong.
“I can see what else I can find out,” Emily said. “Gabe keeps these things close to his chest, though. He doesn’t do much flirting.”
“Keep your eye out,” Frank said. “But this does help. Thanks.”
Emily nodded and disappeared out of the office with her stack of files. For a moment Frank just stared at the closed door. Damn Gabe for making him run his own investigation in tandem with Langley’s. At least he had an ally in Emily. She’d proven herself useful with this kind of thing before.
He picked up the phone, hit the call button. Emily chirped a bright, “Yes, sir?” at him on the other end.
“See if you can put me through to Winthrop,” he said.
“Of course, sir.”
The phone trilled in his ear. Frank settled back in chair, drummed his fingers against the desk. A secretary with the British embassy picked up. Alestair was in, and she’d connect him right away.
“Winthrop, here.”
“Alestair,” Frank said. “It’s Frank Drummond.”
Alestair didn’t miss a beat, the slick bastard. “Well, good morning, Frank! I hope all is well with the Americans.”
“Sure is. Listen, I’ve got a question for you. One of my guys met up with you yesterday, about the NATO symposium.” He was taking a risk here, guessing, but he didn’t want Winthrop knowing this was a probe call. “But he didn’t get his report in to me and I need it now. Langley’s up my ass about it.”
Alestair chuckled. “I’ll be sure to give Gabriel a stern talking-to the next time I see him. He’s always more interested in action than office work, isn’t he?”
Some of the tension slipped out of Frank’s shoulders. So Gabe hadn’t been lying about Alestair. And it seemed Emily was right about the NATO logistics.
“I just need a quick run-through of where the project stands,” Frank said. “No details, just something to report back to Langley.”
“Well, that I’m happy to provide.” Alestair launched straight into it. Nothing terribly specific, but they hadn’t switched over to a secure line, and it was enough that when Frank hung up the phone he was satisfied that, this time, at least, Gabe hadn’t been lying.
Sti
ll, he wasn’t going to just forget it, either. He filed away the conversation. It was probably nothing. But Frank hadn’t made his way to station chief without understanding that sometimes nothing really was something.
• • •
Jordan waved a bundle of burning sage over the tables in the downstairs area of the bar. They were already cleaned, wiped down with lemony disinfectant, but in a place like Bar Vodnář she had to clean in other ways, too. Conversations lingered like a bad scent. Magic left its residue.
The front door lurched in the frame, caught in place by the lock—and the wards. “We’re closed!” Jordan shouted as the smoke from the sage burned her eyes.
“What about for a dear friend?” called out a familiar, well-polished Eton accent.
Jordan sighed, dropped the sage to her side. She wouldn’t exactly claim Alestair Winthrop as a friend, but at least he wasn’t some Flame strong-arm. He was probably here on Ice business, though, which these days was just as bad.
She plunged the sage in the bowl of lemon water to extinguish it. When she slid open the lock, Alestair sauntered into the bar, his hands shoved jauntily into his pockets. He gave the air a sniff.
“Casting a charm or two?” he asked, winking at her.
“Getting the place ready. What do you want?” Jordan glanced at the clock ticking on the wall. “It’s too early for a drink.”
“It’s never too early for a drink, my dear, but you are correct in assuming that’s not why I’m here.”
He ambled over to the bar anyway, and Jordan followed him, silent but secretly cursing herself—if he didn’t want a drink he wanted magic, or access, and she wasn’t in a mind to push her neutrality even further into the Ice side then she already had.
He sat down on one of the stools and Jordan took her place behind the bar, falling easily into her role as bartender. “At least let me get you a glass of water,” she said. “On the house.”
“You’re too generous.” Alestair laughed, but there was a steeliness in those blue eyes of his that had her wary. She filled the glass and slid it down to him. He took a sip, folded his hands on the bar, leaned forward. Jordan waited for him to get to it.
“I’m afraid this isn’t purely a social visit,” he said.
Jordan said nothing; they both knew that already.
“I need information about the Flame.”
Jordan sighed. “I knew it.” She grabbed the bar rag and started swiping at the counter, even though it had already been cleaned and cleansed.
“It’s not so much to ask, really,” Alestair went on. “And I think when I tell you what I need, you’ll agree that it’s worth it to aid the Ice—”
“I’ve pretty much filled my quota of Ice aid for this year,” Jordan said. “Or did you forget the ritual in my basement that blew up a plane and killed a Host?”
Alestair sipped at his water, watching her. The “cleaning” was pointless. She tossed the rag over her shoulder and leaned against the far wall. Alestair’s eyes bored into her.
“I think the Flame have learned how to hide their magical workings,” Alestair said.
Jordan blinked. This was what he was coming to her about? Fairy tales?
“Gabe had an experience the other evening,” Alestair said. “I don’t know if he told you about it.” He then proceeded to regale her with a tale of an encounter between Gabe and a woman who seemed to recognize Gabe’s Host without setting off any of the magical alarms he had clanging around in his head. It was an interesting story, to be sure. If nothing else, something about the description of the woman reminded Jordan of her own strange encounter the other day. But she didn’t say any of this to Alestair.
“Doesn’t it strike you as odd?” Alestair said. He drained his glass of water. Jordan gave him a refill.
“I suppose.”
“We know the Flame have been moving into Prague,” Alestair went on. “This is concerning. Not just for Ice. For all sorcerers.”
Jordan sniffed. As if anyone in the Ice considered a neutral witch like her a sorcerer. That was their view of themselves: elite, special, almost sacred.
“I don’t know anything,” she said.
“Are you sure?” Alestair peered at her. She peered right back.
“Positive,” she said.
This wasn’t entirely true, of course. The Flame was definitely planning something, and she knew it. A ritual, although she didn’t know what for, exactly. She had gleaned, from the fragments of conversation that drifted around Bar Vodnář, that it involved the Hosts who had escaped the barge explosion the other night. But she wasn’t going to tell Alestair that. She wondered, as he stared at her across the counter, probably considering his next stratagem, if the Flame really had developed some way of dampening their magic.
“This is a rather serious matter,” Alestair said. “Surely even you can see that.”
Jordan raised an eyebrow. “Even me?”
Alestair spread his hands, shrugged. “I didn’t mean any offense! But just because you’ve removed yourself from institutionalized magic, it doesn’t mean you can’t see its effects on the world.”
“I can,” she said, adding in her head, from Ice and Flame both.
“So you understand why we need this information,” Alestair said. “If the Flame were able to wield that sort of power, it would devastate the world. Surely you know that.”
She didn’t disagree. Not completely. “I don’t think you understand what neutral means.”
The steel in Alestair’s expression hardened. He wasn’t here to charm, not anymore. “The Flame would burn down everything down,” he said, his voice low and calm and dangerous. Jordan didn’t move. “If you don’t help us, you might as well be with them.”
The air seemed to crackle around them, and any vague unease Jordan felt was subsumed by a rush of anger. “I don’t see the world that way,” she snapped. “And you are not respecting what I do here. I gave my aid to the Ice—against my better judgment, I might add—but I am not one of your Ice witches. So no, I will not tell you anything. I’m not here to spy on the Flame for you.”
Alestair regarded her with an unsettling severity. But then he blinked, and it was gone, as if he had taken off a mask. “I see.” He stood up, smoothed the lines of his coat. “If you won’t be convinced, then far be it from me to try to sway you.”
She heard the lingering sharpness in his voice. She didn’t care.
“You want charms,” she said, “I’ll get them for you. Same as anyone else. But nothing more.”
He watched her.
“The center cannot hold,” she said. “And so things fall apart.”
“You have that backwards.”
Jordan smiled, although there was no joy in it. “Not in this case.”
3.
When Gabe arrived at the square, Tanya was already there, sitting beneath a streetlamp with a beat-up paperback. The yellow light spilled over her as she turned one of the pages. He flipped up his collar against the early spring chill and kept walking, strolling past her without looking, all the way into a narrow alley on the opposite side of the square. He hoped it was good enough cover. Being out here like this was stupid. Every time they met in public, it pushed him closer to discovery by Edith, closer to being branded a traitor and a criminal. But they couldn’t let the Flame run wild, either.
He stopped at the end of the alley and leaned up against the wall. It was dark down here, everything shrouded in shadows. The air was quiet and still. Only a glimmer of light from the streetlamps on the square filtered in through the alley entrance, and he had set himself far enough back that he wouldn’t be seen.
Footsteps echoed off the buildings. A figure moved into the entrance—small, lithe. He could recognize Tanya by silhouette now.
She struck a match as she approached, a tiny flare of sulfuric light that cast long, eerie shadows along the sides of the buildings. She walked up to him, held the match up between them. It should have burned down to her fingers by now, but
it hadn’t.
“Nice trick,” he said.
“Don’t be so impressed. It’s something we teach children.”
Gabe smiled, but they didn’t have time for banter tonight. They needed to track down the stranger who’d known his secret. Needed to find out if she was Flame or some other player. Needed to find out if she was somehow hiding her true magical nature.
“Alestair told me you had a plan,” Gabe said. “I hope it’s more than a fancy match.”
It was impossible to read Tanya’s expression in the murky shadows that washed over her face, but Gabe thought she almost looked pleased. “I do have a plan,” she said. “A tracking charm. It will work better if we go to the place where she spoke to you.”
Gabe scowled in the darkness. “Is that really necessary? We need to do this quickly. I can’t risk being seen with you.”
Tanya shook her head. “The magic is most effective when it can be tied to the target somehow. All we know is where you saw her last.” She paused, smirking a little. “Unless you forgot to tell me you cut off a lock of her hair for a keepsake.”
Gabe sighed. “Fine. It was in the embassy district, at a tobacconist’s shop. Well, on top of it, technically. The rooftop.”
“Close by,” Tanya said. “That’s good.”
And they were on their way.
• • •
The Acolytes of Flame were gathering, moving like moths through Prague, converging on a single flicker of light on the city’s edge. A farmhouse. Or what had once been a farmhouse, centuries ago; it had been subsumed by the woods and then later by the outskirts of the city as the city grew and expanded. An isolated place that happened to have been built—through luck or through knowledge, Zerena did not know—atop the more powerful of the ley lines slashing their way beneath Prague. Luckily this one hadn’t burned like that poorly protected ritual house in the city—a mystery even Zerena’s whisperers hadn’t been able to solve. Yet.
Zerena parked her car and stepped out into the slushy, frozen mud. It was too warm for fur but she wore it anyway, a glossy white stole that she had draped over her shoulders. It made her look elegant, she thought, and powerful. And after what had happened to poor Karel, she needed to look as powerful as she could.
The Witch Who Came In From The Cold: The Complete Season 2: The Complete Season 2 (The Witch Who Came In From The Cold Season 2) Page 14