Midnight In St. Pertsburg (The Invisible War 1)

by Barbara J. Webb

  But wasn’t that what all diplomacy came down to in the end?

  Justin. Rose typed the word, then stared at the blinking cursor. He’d been quiet in the meeting, and Rose was pretty confident he and Svetlana were lovers, but he hadn’t seemed hostile to their presence the way Svetlana had.

  What they needed was to talk to Justin alone, without Svetlana looming over their shoulders.

  Rose saved the document—even if it didn’t have much in it yet—and closed her laptop. Now she had a starting point in mind, she wanted to get moving. She could type stuff up during daylight hours when they couldn’t go places as a group. She reached for the phone on her desk and dialed Mike’s room.

  After three rings, the padre answered with a gruff, “What?”

  “Oh good, you’re up. It’s time to get to work.”

  * * *

  Revelations didn’t open for another hour, but a line was already growing outside. A burly, Slavic-looking bouncer kept people back from the door with the power of his glare alone. Mike could respect that. Even more, he appreciated when the man waved Mike’s group through, despite being a different guard than the one who’d let them in the other night. It implied a reasonable level of communication in Svetlana’s organization. If they were going to work with Svetlana….

  Mike was getting ahead of himself.

  As exhausted as he’d been when he’d crawled back to his room after coffee with Rose, Mike had woken up on his own about half an hour before Rose’s call. While indulging in a long, hot shower to drive back the cold that had settled into his bones sitting watch over the fairy door, Mike had mulled over the question of what their next step needed to be. He’d come to the same conclusion Rose had, although for entirely different reasons. Rose was thinking about the peace. Mike was preparing for war.

  Even if you ignored the vampires—which Mike wasn’t about to do—the list of threats in the city kept growing. First the murderer. Then the folk. And Mike had been in the business too long to discount as harmless the eerie gloom that Rose couldn’t seem to define. If he’d been here on the clock—if he’d still been in active service—he’d have called for a whole team of battle-tested Templars days ago. He still might have tried, if not for the Archbishop’s assurance when he’d given Mike this assignment that sending Mike was as far as the Church was willing to get involved in this business.

  Rose was all but defenseless. Nazeem, Mike couldn’t trust. And Ian, while he’d shown himself capable where his own kind were concerned, was no voider. Mike wanted—Mike needed allies who knew the city and could handle themselves if it came to a fight that involved magic.

  Dmitri and his companions would probably be willing, but Dmitri was old and Mike wasn’t sure how much freedom they had under Andrei’s paranoid eye.

  Rose thought the voiders here at the club could be allies. Mike had to admit her idea of talking to Justin wasn’t a terrible one. Justin was young, wouldn’t have lived through the time when Mike’s people were actively hunting and killing voiders like himself. So maybe…

  Empty of people and with the lights a more natural white rather than the eerie red they had been before, the main floor of Revelations was much less sinister. Justin stood behind the bar, polishing glasses along with a couple barely-dressed waitresses. At Rose and Mike’s entrance, he set down the glass in his hand and moved out from behind the counter. “If Svetlana sees you here…”

  “Bouncer let us in,” Mike said. “If Svetlana wants to keep us out, she’s not trying very hard.”

  “Into the club, sure. Any voider’s allowed in the club. But that doesn’t mean she wants to talk to you.”

  “Actually,” Rose said, “It’s you we wanted to see. If you’ve got a few minutes.”

  Justin looked around the floor, then nodded. “I can spare a couple.” He gave the stairs up a more furtive look. “Maybe outside?”

  This part of town was nothing like the palace district. Plain concrete walls, covered in graffiti, reached up into the sky. Even away from the growing Revelations line, the streets were lively with kids Ian and Rose’s age and older men with predatory eyes that put Mike’s every instinct on edge.

  They followed Justin to the end of the block. “I’m actually glad you came by.” Justin waved at a couple black-clad youngsters headed towards Revelations and spoke through his smile. “I wanted a chance to talk.”

  “Without Svetlana listening.” Rose’s words were muffled through the thick scarf she’d pulled up around her face.

  “Yes.” Justin’s expression was at once guilty and defiant. “I want to help. The murders—those are our people getting killed. I knew a couple of the guys. But Svetlana—“

  Rose lay a mittened hand on Justin’s arm, her face an impressive mask of sympathy. “You know her so much better than we do. Help us understand what it is like for her.” Mike could see some of the tension fall out of Justin’s shoulders; he had to admit, the girl was good at this.

  Justin leaned in and lowered his voice. “It’s so different here. It’s hard for us—” he broke off, glanced at Nazeem, “hard for us Americans, I mean, to really know how much it isn’t like what we’re used to.

  “Svetlana comes from a family of voiders. They’ve been doing magic since the Tsars were still in charge, and that gave them a sense of responsibility for the less fortunate. Her uncle and great-grandfather were part of the October Revolution, fighting against the excesses of the Tsars that left people poor and frozen and starving. Svetlana is proud of her roots, proud of how her family has always served Russia.

  “When communism didn’t work, when it became obvious people were still going hungry, were still cold, her family started to work against them. Svetlana was raised in the middle of an underground resistance group. When communism collapsed, it was a great victory for her and her friends.

  “But now?” Justin shrugged. “All the stories she grew up with, the glories of democracy. What’s really changed? The strong still prey on the weak. The poor still don’t have enough bread to eat or oil to run their furnaces. And then Alec starts talking about peace and a haven for supernaturals, and all she sees is another bunch of wealthy men and women doing whatever they want without a care for who they tromp over in the process.”

  That hit Mike closer to home than he wanted to admit. “Look, it’s not as though it’s safer for anyone if the supernatural factions are fighting each other.”

  “I know, I know.” Justin spread his hands in a what-can-you-do gesture. “I’m not saying I agree with her. Just letting you know where she’s coming from.”

  “It’s not so hard to understand.” Ian’s tone was as warm and smooth as Rose’s had been. “I think we’ve all—”

  “Guys,” Rose breathed the word, hardly a whisper. “I hate to interrupt, but are there supposed to be vampires hanging around here?”

  * * *

  Rose hadn’t wanted to break in on Justin’s moment of true confession, so she’d kept quiet when she’d felt the unmistakable presence of the trio of vampires. She shifted and squirmed, stamping the cold away, trying to spot them without it being obvious she was looking. They radiated a predatory tone that made Rose uncomfortable, even if they were well away from any normal people. As far as her othersense could tell her, the vampires were alone in their alley.

  Except…”Guys, I hate to interrupt, but are there supposed to be vampires hanging around here?”

  Justin’s head whipped around. So much for subtlety. “What? Where?”

  Rose kept her own voice low. “That alley over across from the club. I can’t see them, but I can sure as hell feel them.”

  “Good thing vampires are all harmless these days,” Mike muttered, glaring at Nazeem.

  “Like Hell,” Justin whispered. “They’ve been after us for a while.” His hand went to his gun. “Three of them, though. That’s too many. We should get help.”

  “No. We’ve got this.” Mike responded with grim confidence. He started for the alley. Nazeem glided beh
ind, moving to Mike’s right. Ian jogged to catch up, taking the opposite flank. Rose followed at a distance, fishing in her coat for her iron cross. Justin held back, indecicive.

  Rose hissed in a sharp breath as they came around the corner and saw the vampires weren’t alone after all. Voiders—Rose kept forgetting about the voiders. A goth-looking boy and a pretty blonde girl were in here with the vampires. One of the vampires had leaned in close to the goth boy, but Rose didn’t think it was just to whisper in his ear.

  “Hey!” Mike called out. The vampire’s head jerked up; faster than Rose could track, he slammed the voider boy against the wall. The boy slid to the ground. The girl shook her head, backing away, like she couldn’t make sense of what was happening. Rose, remembering Anastasia, knew exactly what that was like.

  The vampire muttered in Russian and his two friends laughed. “So sorry, Father,” he called in halting English. “My friend, he’s…eh…too much drinking. We take him home now.”

  Rose recognized the voice from their dinner with Anastasia, even if she couldn’t see his face in the darkness. Off to the side, Nazeem’s voice came out of the shadows. “Does Anastasia know you hunt the streets?” He repeated the question in Russian. The vampires lost their jovial expressions; the two in the back started to back away.

  “Tell him to get away from the kids,” Mike snapped at Ian.

  Ian spoke a stream of Russian words, but the vampire laughed. He lifted the unconscious voider by the lapels of the boy’s coat and made a deep-throated response.

  Ian translated with a grim smile. “You have no authority here, priest. Better leave now before we decide we want more than a snack.”

  “All I needed to hear,” Mike said. Ian didn’t bother to translate Mike’s words, only drew his sword.

  Just like that, Rose could feel the violence blossom through the frigid air. She ripped off her mittens, fumbled for her cross. The iron burned against her skin, freezing agony, but she had no idea if the magic would work without the direct touch of her flesh. She backed behind Ian as Mike drew out his rosary.

  The lead vampire leaped at Mike and Rose took another step back. Mike smiled, his lips pressed tight, and raised his rosary into the air. The tiny silver crucifix flashed as it swung. The vampire dodged back from it, wheeled, and came for Ian.

  Rose pushed her cross out, stumbling back, but Ian stepped forward to meet the vampire’s advance. His sword impaled the vampire, sliding into the creature’s gut with sickening ease.

  To no obvious effect. The vampire laughed and twisted to the side, yanking the sword out of Ian’s hands. Ian scrambled backwards, but no unease touched his heart. Rose hated him a little. “How do you kill a vampire?” he called out.

  The vampire grinned at Rose as he yanked Ian’s sword from his stomach. After that, her cross seemed a pitiful shield against the creature.

  “Decapitation is the surest way.” Nazeem circled the second vampire as Mike kept the third at bay. “Fire. Sunlight.”

  The front vampire swung Ian’s sword at Rose, aiming for her wrist and the cross she still clenched. Ian jerked Rose back before she could figure out how to make her legs work. Taking advantage of Ian’s distraction, the vampire was able to move in and Ian took a punch like a brick to his head.

  “Ian!” Rose thrust the cross in front of her, trying to drive the vampire back, but her hand shook with fear and cold and the vampire stepped right up. It kicked Ian, who had fallen to the ground, and grabbed for Rose’s wrist.

  “Rose, focus.” Ian’s words sounded blurry and surreal.

  Rose struggled against the vampire’s grip. The vampire ignored her, lined up a swing at Ian with Ian’s own sword.

  A chunk of brick came from Mike’s direction, hurled with a force only magic could give. It struck the vampire just above his ear. He stumbled, let go of Rose.

  The voider girl had stumbled over to her unconscious friend. She shook at his shoulders, and uttered an urgent stream of Russian. She sounded disoriented, spacey, and scared. Rose moved between the two kids and the vampire who had reoriented on his original target.

  Again, Rose pushed forward with the cross. Either she was more focused or he was less. Off balance, he fell, dropping Ian’s sword as he tried to catch himself.

  “Hold him down!” Mike called.

  Ian recovered more quickly than Rose would have imagined possible. He scooped up his sword. “Rose, move!” She backed away and Ian stabbed the sword down through the vampire’s spine; drove the supernaturally sharp blade several inches into the concrete.

  At this, the other two vampires took off at a run. Nazeem gave chase, but Mike came to help Ian and Rose. He stood over the vampire and sketched the sign of the cross. He spoke in Latin, a prayer or recitation Rose couldn’t understand. The crucifix of his rosary began to emit a soft glow. Mike reached down, touched the crucifix to the back of the vampire’s head. The vampire let out an unearthly scream, then crumbled into dust.

  “That,” Mike said, “is how you kill a vampire.”

  * * *

  Only now, in the silence that followed Mike’s pronouncement, did it sink in on Rose what they had just done. Nothing that had come before—not the dreams, not the attacks around St. Isaac’s, not the arguments and threats tossed back and forth between her teammates and the natives—had driven through her brain the deadly seriousness of this situation. She and Ian and Mike had just killed a man.

  And there was nothing—no trace at all. The vampire might never have existed, after Mike’s magic had burned him away to nothingness. But unlike before, when Nazeem had killed one of the voiders attacking Rose, this time Rose had felt the vampire’s sudden absence. The pulsing, burning core of emotion had been there one instant, then gone the next, because of something she had done.

  Rose stood there, staring at the spot where the vampire had fallen, as Ian and Mike kept moving. They started to chase Nazeem and the other two vampires, disappearing around the corner of a building, but they returned almost immediately. “Never find them in the dark,” Mike was saying. “Let’s get these kids to the club.”

  Both of the voiders had collapsed, but the girl woke up fast enough when Ian shook her. The guy was out cold, a dark stain leaking through his pale yellow scarf. Ian scooped him off the ground and carried him over towards the club.

  Rose jumped as Mike’s hand came down on her shoulder. “You okay?” he asked in his usual gruff tone.

  “Yeah, sure, I’m fine.” Rose pulled away. “This is…this is what you do, right?”

  “It is.” Mike glanced over at the club. Rose followed his gaze, saw Ian vanishing through the door with the dazed voider girl right behind him. Rose took a step to follow, but heard the familiar rustle and crinkle of Mike digging for a cigarette.

  “You coming?”

  “In a minute.” Mike took his time with the lighter, then inhaled long and slow. “You did good there, in the fight. I saw you keep that cross up. Exactly what you need to do against vampires.”

  Standing still like this, the cold was working its way through every layer of Rose’s clothes, making her shaky. “I’m fine, really.”

  “Just remember, he would have killed you if he could.”

  Rose realized she was staring at the pavement again, at the spot where the vampire had disintegrated. “Are you sure? I mean, was that really the only choice we had—to kill him?”

  Rose expected Mike to yell at her, or to launch into another speech about how she didn’t belong here. But his words, when they came, were soft and more sympathetic than anything she’d ever heard him say. “This is why they call it the invisible war. Because war is exactly what it is. Sure, we have drinks and even imaginary dinners sometimes, but when you’re standing in the dark with a vampire that’s drawn blood, you have to understand it’s going to come to fighting. It’s going to come to killing.

  “I’ve been doing this a long time, Rose. I know you don’t want to listen when I say vampires are bad news. But you remember th
is—remember tonight. Those vampires were going to kill those two kids, right here in an alley across from Svetlana’s club. They’re predators—they’re not human anymore—and I know you know that, because you can feel it.”

  Rose shook her head, recognized the denial gesture, stopped herself. She refused to let her emotional response overwhelm her. “Nazeem said they weren’t like that anymore. He said it was dangerous to kill, that they used volunteers now. He said…he said…,” she trailed off, realizing how pathetic she sounded.

  “Yeah, well, you gotta ask yourself—what reason would Nazeem have to tell you the truth?”

  “One might also ask,” Nazeem’s smooth voice came from out of the darkness, “what reason I would have to lie, when the truth is so easy to discover.”

  Mike didn’t have the grace to look embarrassed. “Did you catch those two?”

  Nazeem stepped out of the shadows, shook his head. “But I can guess their destination.” He came over to Rose, touched her cheek with hesitant fingers. “Are you all right?”

  Rose wished everyone would stop asking her that. “I’m fine. Really, I’m fine.” She caught his hand, pressed it against her cheek, grateful for the warmth.

  Nazeem frowned, but his unmistakable agitation wasn’t directed at her. “I should go to the Winter Palace.”

  “We should all go to the Winter Palace,” Mike countered.

  Again, Nazeem’s irritation and consternation was clear on both his face and in the swirling energies within him. Either Rose was getting a better sense of him or he was incredibly upset. “No, it would be dangerous. I don’t know what’s going on or why this happened, and until I understand whose idea this was, anyone could be a threat to all of you.”

  Mike’s crucifix was still wrapped around his hand and as he lifted it towards Nazeem, it began to glow again. “You want to talk threats?”

  Nazeem retreated a step, lifted his arm to shade his eyes. “I don’t want to fight with you. But I must insist you defer to my experience in this matter.”