Midnight In St. Pertsburg (The Invisible War 1)

by Barbara J. Webb

  “Raised Catholic, then?”

  “Why does it matter?”

  Mike threw up his hands. “How should I know? Here I’m trying to have a conversation, and you’re acting like I jacked your prom date!”

  “Oh, very hip. They teach you that in priest school? ‘Relate to twenty-somethings on their own level using words they’ll understand’? News flash, Padre, I never went to the prom.”

  “Yeah? Well, neither did I.”

  Rose stared at him, eyes wide, then burst out laughing. Only for a minute, then she regained control of herself. Serious, now, but no longer petulant. “Were you—did you grow up in this life? Did you know you were going to be a Templar, even as a kid?”

  Fair enough. Mike could talk about himself for a while if that’s what it took to get along. “I always knew I wanted to be a priest. The other side of it, they scouted me out pretty young. I was fifteen when I was officially inducted by the Templars.”

  “I bet that was nice.” Rose sounded sincere.

  “Oh, sure, it was great. Staying out late. Meeting interesting people. I got to watch one of my friends get his head ripped off by a demon when I was seventeen.”

  “At least you had friends.” Mike saw the realization of the words she had just said come over Rose’s face, along with a look of horror. “Wait, I didn’t mean…that came out wrong.”

  “No kidding.” Mike wasn’t sure this was going any better than the silence had been.

  Rose drummed her fingers against the table, her other hand wrapped tight around her teacup. “I’m sorry, really. It’s just….” She started to speak, stopped, tried again. “I can’t think of any way to say this that doesn’t sound—well, stupid—but really, no one understood me.”

  Rose leaned forward, engaging in the conversation for the first time since they’d sat down. “The trouble was, I understood everyone else. Perfectly. Do you have any idea what it’s like to grow up knowing how much everyone around you thinks you’re a freak?”

  “Yeah, no other teenager ever felt like that.”

  Rose shook her head, emphatic. “You think you understand what it’s like to be a sensitive, you think you can imagine. You have no idea.”

  “Yes, I know. Everyone has their private pain. Everyone has their secrets.”

  “Not from me.”

  Mike didn’t know what to say to that. Rose kept going. “Want to know why I hate that collar of yours? Want to hear my sob story? Want to hear about the nuns that beat me or the priest who locked me in closets?”

  “Locked you in…what?”

  “Well that never happened. Nothing easy like that. Nothing I can just point to and have you understand. It was just…lies. From everybody.” Rose set her cup down and crossed her arms tight across her chest. “Starting with my parents. Don’t get me wrong, we were a basically happy family. They both had their tempers. They yelled some, but they laughed more. I can look back now, as an adult, and recognize that as relationships go, they had a good one.”

  “As an adult,” she repeated, leaning forward again. “But try to imagine if you can, what it would be like as a kid growing up, knowing moment by moment just how much your parents love you. Sure, now I get that people get mad and people get frustrated and it doesn’t change how they feel deep down, but that kind of understanding is way too much for any kid. Any time they said they loved me, or they were proud of me, or whatever—every time they said something good and didn’t really mean it, I knew. That went for anyone. At home, at school.

  “And yeah, at church. Sure, my parents were good Catholics and they dragged me along to mass with them. Where I listened to our priest’s very pretty words and felt every bit of the contempt behind them. That was the worst, because my parents knew I didn’t respect him and I couldn’t tell them why. I didn’t understand why they didn’t see it. But they just kept pushing me harder and harder and I’d get grounded and sent to bed without supper and all kinds of things because they thought I was just being willful.”

  Mike couldn’t let that go by. “Give me a break. You were absolutely being willful. I’ve known you four days and I can guess that much.”

  “Okay, yeah, maybe. But they wouldn’t listen. And I was too young to be able to make sense of any of it. And I shouldn’t have had to. Love is complicated and cloudy and that’s fine when you’re an adult, but kids should get to live the fairy tale.

  “And now you’re here, and you think you know everything about everything, and that I’m just some sort of kid playing dress-up. You act like I can’t understand what’s going on, but the thing you’ve got to accept is that I know what’s in front of my face. I know what the world is like. Maybe even better than you.”

  Mike shook his head. “I can respect what you’ve been through. I can accept that you know people are bad, even that there are bad things in the world. But so far, you haven’t acted like you know what that means. We’re in danger here. Real, physical danger. Including a bunch of voiders you’re not going to see coming. Until you demonstrate some sense of how to protect yourself, I’m going to keep telling you what to do.

  “Things we’re dealing with here, they’re not going to call you names on the playground. They’re going to kill you.”

  “I know that. Jeeze, I’m not stupid. I really get it, okay?”

  She didn’t. Mike knew she didn’t. Not on the internal, instinctive level that kept people like him and Ian and, dammit, probably even Nazeem alive. Mike also knew that wasn’t a lesson you could teach anyone. All Mike could do was try to look out for her until she did ‘really get it.’

  She wasn’t stupid. That much was true. The possibility existed she’d live long enough to figure things out. “You’re going to have to trust me.”

  Rose raised her eyebrows. “Funny how people keep telling me that.”

  Mike gave up. “Just finish your tea.”

  That order, she obeyed.

  * * *

  Rose watched Mike fumble with the key to his door, already half asleep. She waited till he’d gone into his own room before she walked past her own door and down the hall to Nazeem’s.

  She knocked quietly. He said he didn’t sleep, but that was hard for her brain to accept. “Nazeem?” she called through the door. “It’s me. Rose.”

  A moment later, the door swung open. Nazeem stood barefoot, attired in another of his robe-shirt thingies. Prickles of—surprise? concern?—grew inside him. “Is something the matter?”

  “No, everything’s fine. Can I come in?”

  Nazeem stepped aside, more comfortable than he had been before. “I’m afraid I can’t be of much assistance during daylight hours. Mike or Ian—“

  “I don’t need help. Mike and Ian are taking the afternoon off to catch up on sleep. I thought you might like some company.”

  Nazeem fell into that perfect, absolute stillness and Rose held her breath as he studied her. His face, when she could force her eyes to focus, showed no expression, and even his insides had grown quiet. When he took a breath to speak, Rose realized she’d been holding her own. “Please, have a seat. Might I order you something from room service?”

  “No, that’s fine. I just had tea with the padre.” Rose took the chair and Nazeem sat down at his desk where it looked like he’d been writing in the journal she’d seen before. “I’m sorry, did I interrupt you?”

  Nazeem shook his head and gently closed the book. “Your company is welcome.”

  He was all alone here. The vampires in the palace—Anastasia’s level of crazy aside—at least they had a community going in there. They could keep each other company. Play Monopoly or something. Nazeem, as far as she knew, had no one but the team to talk to. “Did you leave friends behind to come here? Or family?” Did vampires have family?

  “I’ve always had to travel a great deal. It has been many years since I was in a place long enough to make friends.” Nazeem gathered up his pens and began cleaning the ink from them using a tray of water and several cloths that had be
en laid out for that purpose. His every movement was precise, almost ritualized.

  Nazeem’s suite had nicer chairs than Rose’s. Overstuffed plushy things. Hers were padded wood—pretty, but not so comfortable to sit in. The drawback to being in a real hotel instead of a Holiday Inn—not all their rooms were exactly alike. “I’m sorry about last night. I know it was uncomfortable for you, having me there, and I was pushy.”

  Focused on his task, Nazeem didn’t look at her. “It’s all right.”

  “It’s kind of weird. The vampire thing. I don’t know what to think.” She frowned without meaning to. “I guess Mike would be happy to tell me what to think.”

  Nazeem smiled a little at that. “It’s hard for me to argue with Father Mike’s God.”

  “Maybe.” Nazeem was harder to read when he was calm like this. No strong feelings jumped out at her, separated themselves from the swirling oddity of the vampire’s soul. “On the other hand, I’ve known priests who felt the same way about me.”

  “Because of your gifts?”

  “Hell no! Like I ever told them I was a sensitive. They mainly thought I was a troublemaker.”

  “Father Mike would call me more sinister names.”

  Not just Mike. At the end, last night, Wentworth had seemed…intimidated? Maybe even scared? “Are you? More sinister, I mean.”

  That question earned her a quick, frowning glance from the vampire and the first hints of his prickly consternation. “What is it you really wish to know, Rose?”

  “Everything,” she answered with a grin. She tucked her feet in beneath her—this really was a comfy chair. “But I’ll settle for the truth about the vampire attacks and why those bother you so much.”

  Nazeem had finished organizing his calligraphy tools but he continued to make minute adjustments to their placement on the desk—fidgeting. The mundane nervousness surprised Rose. After a long pause, he said, “It is not a matter for outsiders.”

  “Sorry, but that’s not going to cut it.” When Nazeem looked up, surprised, Rose did her best to keep her eyes locked on his. “If we’re going to do this thing Alec’s hired us to do, you can’t play the vampires-are-special-snowflakes card.”

  Rose was pretty sure the whirling buzz building inside Nazeem was frustration, but she was feeling a fair bit of that herself. She pressed on. “Look, if I’m going to get this job—and believe me when I say I’m going to get this job—then someone’s going to have to start explaining things. You and Mike and Ian, you all know all this stuff, but no one will just sit down and tell me what everything means, and it makes it a lot harder for me to figure people out the way I’m supposed to if I don’t know anything about the politics or the rules or what’s normal and what isn’t.”

  Rose didn’t expect the smile that spread slowly across Nazeem’s lips. His insides still bristled, but the tone had shifted so Rose no longer felt confident of what she sensed. “I wonder if Alec’s employers recognize the enormity of this task they have set before us. How much we will have to overcome.”

  “Nazeem—”

  He shook his head, a bare hint of motion, but it silenced her. “You must be patient with Ian and Mike and I. We are all having to work to overcome years of ingrained secrecy. Yes, of course, it is important that you understand—that we all understand. But perhaps it would be better if I spoke to everyone at once.”

  Rose recognized the best deal she was going to get when she heard it. “Sure. As long as you promise you’ll tell.”

  “I promise.”

  As Nazeem’s insides calmed, as he sat focused on the precise, careful actions of cleaning his pens, Rose could almost see Nazeem the man, rather than the vampire. Had he always been this quiet, this patient? That compelling intensity, was it what he was or who he was? “What did you do before?”

  “Before…?”

  “Before you became a vampire.” Rose felt the pricks of his reawakened unease, but she wasn’t having any of it. “Look, you can’t make everything a state secret. If you won’t tell me vampire things, then tell me about you.”

  Nazeem never opened his mouth when he smiled. At least, not that Rose could make her eyes see. “And if I don’t want to talk?”

  Rose knew better. Any sensitive did. “Everybody wants to talk. It’s part of what makes us human.”

  This time it wasn’t wasps inside Nazeem. Something slower, darker. Sadness? “Father Mike would say I haven’t been human for a long, long while.”

  “Mike looks for monsters, so that’s what he sees.” Rose reached over and covered his hand with hers. Nazeem started, but didn’t pull away. “You seem human enough to me.”

  “I’m not,” he said simply. His eyes met hers and Rose couldn’t look away. She couldn’t tell if he was holding her there through some supernatural power or the simple strength of his candid gaze. “Don’t let yourself be fooled.”

  Mike and Nazeem both, working so hard to protect her, and neither of them had a clue. Rose squeezed Nazeem’s hand. His skin was warm, soft, but her thumb on his wrist felt no pulse beneath it. “I’m not a fool. I know what I know. You’re different, sure but you’re still there on this inside. From where I stand, Mike’s the one who looks like he’s given up his soul.”

  Nazeem gently disengaged his hand, and she could feel him pull in on himself, withdrawing from her senses as he had from her touch. “I don’t want to keep you from anything.” A soft dismissal.

  He was uncomfortable. Rose could tell that much, but she couldn’t pick out the flavor of it. That was the most frustrating part of all of this. Rose had never in her life had to question her welcome with anyone—she’d always known whether they genuinely wanted her around, no matter what they claimed. With Nazeem—was this how it was for normal people? All the time?

  She could leave, give him the distance he obviously wanted. Leave him to his isolation as she returned to hers.

  On the other hand, if Nazeem was lonely—and Rose suspected he was, even if she couldn’t sniff out that emotion yet—she knew exactly how that felt. And how hard it could be to let someone in. She leaned back in her chair, granting him his physical space as she asked “That offer for room service still open?”

  She could definitely tell when he relaxed. “Of course. What would you like?”

  “Lunch. And then we should order up a movie. I think we can get those in English on the pay-per-view.”

  “I don’t usually watch movies.”

  “No, it’ll be fun. We could both use some of that. I’ll find us something good. You order me a sandwich and some fries, if we can get those. And a soda.”

  Bemused, Nazeem went to the phone and began speaking in Russian. The room service people could talk to her in English, but it was a struggle on both ends to be understood. Better to have Nazeem do it. Hopefully she wasn’t taking too much of a chance letting the man who hadn’t eaten food in who knows how many years place the order. “And see if they have popcorn.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Wednesday After Dark

  After two movies, Rose excused herself and went back to her own room. Nazeem hadn’t given any indication of being tired of her, but Rose didn’t want to push it. Besides, the sun had set about halfway into the second movie and Rose was anxious to get back to work.

  Housekeeping had been through Rose’s room, and the dossiers Rose had left scattered across her desk were now stacked neatly next to her laptop. Rose wondered if her room attendants could read English, if they made anything of the strange documents, or if their day-to-day proximity to St. Isaac’s had sapped away the energy it took to be curious. She made a mental note to pay closer attention to the hotel staff, try to separate them out from the dreary city background and figure out if they’d had more life sucked out of them than most.

  Putting her back to St. Isaacs, Rose sat at the desk and opened her computer. She ignored the task-bar indicator that showed her unread e-mails had broken 100, and closed everything except her word processor. She created a new folder labell
ed St. Petersburg, then sat back and stared at the screen in front of her.

  On her cluttered desktop, the St. Petersburg folder looked no different from the rest. Who would be able to guess that instead of long reports on alcoholism, drug addiction, and child abuse, this one would contain notes on vampires, fairies, and voiders. It seemed wrong, somehow, like she was reducing it all to mundanity. As though typing the details of magic or fairies into the banal black-on-white text of Word could somehow rob them of their power.

  Of its own accord, Rose’s hand brushed over the bruised side of her head. Maybe robbing these creatures of their power wouldn’t be such a bad thing. If only she believed it could be that easy.

  Rose opened a new, blank document, and at the top, in a large font, wrote, Objective. She followed that with Peace in St. Petersburg, then immediately deleted those words. Too broad in scope. And they had specific duties anyway. Two bullet points. Identify and remove threat of the shining killer, and Identify the city’s unusual traits.

  Flipping through the neatly printed packets—now covered with her scribbled notes—Rose tried to organize her thoughts into a plan of attack. On the surface, the tasks were a little overwhelming. She needed to break it down, find a way in.

  The monks sheet, Rose set aside. Based on how Mike and Dmitri had described him, Rose had a pretty good idea the type of man Andrei was. On the screen, she typed:

  Andrei thinks everyone else is out to get him. Twist that to our advantage. If others meet with us, make him need to be there too or fear we might be plotting against him. Maybe Dmitri can help?

  The vampires—she didn’t know what to do with them yet, and probably wouldn’t till she could wheedle more information out of Nazeem. She set those pages aside as well.

  Which left the voiders at Revelations, over half of whom they hadn’t met yet. Svetlana had seemed dead set against working with them to find peace but….

  Peace isn’t the right word, Rose typed. That’s what Alec says, but he wants to make it sound pretty. We’re more like the Earp brothers trying to bring law and order to Tombstone, our authority questionable and enforced through cleverness and possibly carrying the bigger stick.