Midnight In St. Pertsburg (The Invisible War 1)

by Barbara J. Webb

  Wentworth led them through rooms that looked more lived-in than the parts of the palace they had seen before. The furniture was still elegant, the walls still painted and gilded, but there was more a sense of comfort than display to the arrangements. Rose suspected they were in the real living area of the palace, well off the tourist paths.

  Vampires they passed were curious. Unsurprising, after their last interaction with Anastasia. Rose herself was cautious, trepidatious even, about the reception they were about to receive.

  Wentworth escorted them to a sitting room of jewel-toned green and gold furnishings. The doorknobs looked like they might be real emeralds. Rose reached out and touched one as they passed.

  Anastasia lounged on a chaise, resplendent in a pure white gown bedecked with pearls and diamonds. She sat up as Wentworth entered. He bowed. Rose took her cue from Ian and bowed when he did. She couldn’t see Nazeem, but Mike stayed standing.

  Rose was getting pretty confident about her vampire reading; Anastasia was annoyed, but not angry. Rose held as still as possible, trying not to draw the Tsarina’s attention. As long as Anastasia wasn’t focused on her, Rose’s brain could work in her presence.

  “Carter.” Anastasia’s rich voice flowed through Rose, tried to drive all other thoughts from her head. Rose struggled to stay focused. The rest of Anastasia’s words were in Russian.

  Ian whispered a translation. “These people displease me. Why have you brought them here?”

  “Your majesty, I should tell you,” Wentworth was in full obsequious mode, “Nikolai disappeared earlier this evening. Tatiana saw him taken by a cluster of men in black.”

  Anastasia was on her feet. “You did not tell me?”

  “Forgive me, but we knew neither their identity nor their purpose. I could not risk your majesty’s well being, had you wished to go after him.”

  “So you did nothing?”

  Wentworth spread his hand. “Does your majesty think so little of me? Just moments ago, Father Michael and his associates returned him to us.”

  “What?” Rose asked on Ian’s translation. Nazeem gave her a sharp look backed with a wave of concern. Okay, okay, she got it. If Wentworth wanted to make it sound like he’d sent them after Nikolai, that was vampire politics and vampire business. “Sorry,” Rose said to Wentworth, “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  Anastasia’s annoyance snapped over to Rose and Rose’s head swam. She missed the next few exchanges, struggling against Anastasia’s presence. When she came back, Ian was explaining, in brief, how they’d broken into the palace. At least now that they were back in favor, they got to have their talk in English.

  Wentworth was genuinely interested. “A fascinating account. Tunnels through reality. I might not believe it, were the evidence not sitting in our gaming room.”

  Anastasia smiled. “Such a dramatic rescue. Of course, you are welcome in my house. Carter, make these people comfortable. They look like they are about to fall over. We can talk more once they’ve had a chance to rest.”

  “Of course, your majesty.” Wentworth bowed again and led them away from Anastasia.

  A cluster of people had gathered outside the sitting rooms, both vampire and human. Wentworth snapped out what sounded like instructions—Rose really needed to learn Russian—and everyone scattered.

  “Rooms are being prepared for you. And some fresh clothing. Would you like food now or after you’ve had a chance to sleep?”

  “Why are you doing this?” Mike asked. “Why are you helping us?”

  “If I understand your story correctly, it is not safe to go back to your hotel tonight.”

  “Yes, but that doesn’t answer my question.”

  Wentworth tilted his head, smiled at Mike. “I find the lot of you interesting. As does Anastasia.” He nodded to a girl lurking in the shadows. A living girl. She stepped forward. “This is Caroline. She’s American, like you. She’ll take you to your rooms and see that you are provided for.” Rose didn’t miss the look Carter exchanged with Nazeem.

  Caroline smiled and gave a little curtsey. She couldn’t have been older than eighteen. “Please, if you’ll follow me.”

  * * *

  Nazeem fell in next to Rose as they walked. He spoke softly. “You wanted to meet the people who live here with the vampires. There she is.”

  Caroline practically bounced down the hall. She seemed out of place with her hot-pink hair and the mesh stockings under her short suede skirt. “So she’s one of Wentworth’s…” Rose didn’t know the word. Guests? Prisoners? Pets?

  He gave a tight nod. The swirling layers of his emotions were too complex for Rose to pick apart.

  Caroline took them down a side hallway and pointed out four doors. “Only one of these rooms has its own bathroom, and—you know, ladies first or whatever.” The girl wasn’t chewing gum, but to Rose’s ear, she sounded like she should have been. “You guys will have to take turns at the end of the hall.” She led Rose to the room on the end. “This one is yours, um….”

  “Rose.”

  Caroline smiled. “Rose, sure.” She wasn’t at all afraid or nervous or sad or any of the things vampire prisoners were supposed to be.

  “You never answered Carter if you wanted any food or drink before you slept.”

  “No, I’m fine. Thanks.” Mike and Ian echoed her refusal.

  Caroline looked over at Ian. “If you’re hurt, I can bring the doctor.”

  “Nothing serious. I mean it,” Ian insisted when Mike glared at him. The padre seemed to be taking it personally that Ian had gotten hurt by the shining man’s voiders. “If they could just bring some bandages with the fresh clothes, I can dress it myself.”

  “I got it.” Caroline looked over at Nazeem, as though asking permission. Nazeem gave her a nod, and she ran off.

  Rose left the men arguing in the hall as to which of them got the first shower. Rose was more than happy to take advantage of being a girl and the private space that brought her.

  The room was, naturally, the most lavish thing she’d ever seen, their current hotel included. Everything coordinated in lavender and cream. And gilt, of course. God forbid any surface in the palace not be covered in gold. Velvet and lace pillows graced carved wooden chairs burnished to translucency. The bed had actual curtains hanging around it. The half-open door across the room led to a bathroom that seemed to be made entirely of marble. Or malachite? Rose still wasn’t sure of the difference.

  A knock on her door and Rose went to answer. A man stood there with a stack of clothes and towels. Rose thanked him and locked the door behind her.

  A scalding hot shower penetrated the half-daze that had blanketed Rose’s brain since the fight. She tilted her head back, let the water run over her face, down her body, awakening her skin with its burning caress.

  It brought her mind back as well and she stretched out the othersense that had felt dull and blurry since they’d stepped outside of reality. From one direction, she got Ian, bright and unmistakable. His usual curiosity and the post-fight high were overlaid with his pain and worry, and ragged with exhaustion. The end of a pretty rough day for him. For all of them.

  From the other direction….

  Even under the heat of water, Rose blushed.

  Caroline had joined Nazeem in his room. Their minds twined together in an ecstasy so intimate Rose flinched away. But like a bad smell, once she knew it was there, she couldn’t ignore it. She felt it, felt them, so close and so deep in each other Rose’s own body trembled in response.

  Rose reached over to turn off the hot water. The sudden blast of cold was so physically startling it locked her back into her own body. Rose held herself there, focused on the mundane tasks of drying herself, dressing herself, and refused to think about the vampire in the next room. She thought about the fact the jeans they brought her were a little big; the marble floor was cold beneath her bare feet; nothing about Nazeem.

  Finally, they stopped.

  Rose padded out into the hall an
d waited. It wasn’t long before Caroline emerged, cheeks flushed scarlet against an otherwise pallid complexion. She pulled Nazeem’s door shut, then jumped when she turned to see Rose. “Oh, Rose. Hi. Is there something else you need?”

  “Not really. I was hoping we could talk.”

  “Oh, um, are you sure?” Caroline hung back, hesitant. Not just hesitant: a little afraid. Of Rose. The girl who worshipped the vampires was afraid of Rose.

  Rose gave her best reassuring smile. “Come on in.”

  Unwilling to argue, Caroline followed. As she settled on the edge of a plushy divan, Rose looked deep into the girl. Beneath her immediate agitation, Rose saw contentment. She saw happiness. Caroline was probably the least troubled person Rose had met since she’d come to St. Petersburg. “So you live here? In the palace?”

  Caroline wouldn’t meet Rose’s eyes. “If you’re wanting information about the vampires, I don’t think I can give you that.”

  “No, that’s not it. Not really.” Could the girl really be trying to protect them? “I’m more interested in you. You and the rest of the people who live here. Who—I’m not sure what to call it—feed the vampires?”

  “We provide for them, yes. And they provide for us.”

  Rose kept her smile broad, trying to disarm Caroline’s defensiveness. “It’s okay. Seriously. I’m not here to make accusations. I’m just trying to understand.”

  “Understand what?”

  “Why you do it. Why you’re here.”

  Caroline’s smile grew out from the core of her. “I can’t imagine wanting to be anywhere else.”

  “But you’re prisoners here. You’re food!”

  “It’s not like that. You don’t understand.”

  “So help me out. Tell me what it’s like. Why you’re here.”

  Reassured that Rose’s interest was genuine, Caroline relaxed. She crossed her arms over the side of the divan and pulled her feet up. Rose had seen a similar dreamy expression on girls talking about their plans for prom night. “When I was sixteen, I ran away from home. My parents—they were awful—they didn’t understand me at all.”

  In the hospitals and city shelters, Rose had seen plenty of endings to stories that began like that. None of them pretty.

  “I came to Europe,” Caroline continued. “Hooked up with a bad crowd. Ended up alone in St. Petersburg with no money, no visa, and no way to get a job.

  “I was begging on the streets, trying to dodge the cops, when Carter came along.” Caroline sighed. “He was everything I’d thought men would be like here. Handsome and polite, with manners, oh and that accent.”

  Rose tried to imagine Caroline friendless and penniless on the streets of St. Petersburg and her smile wilted. How had this girl made it all the way over here without getting mugged or raped or freezing to death in an alley? No wonder she thought Wentworth was her shining savior.

  “We’ve got a good deal here. I like the people here—they’re fun and interesting and we all pretty much get along. And the vampires are cool. They take good care of us.”

  Caroline still hadn’t answered Rose’s question. “Are you allowed to leave? Do they force you to stay?”

  “No!” Caroline was shocked at the question. “Of course not. I mean, they prefer that we don’t go anywhere on our own. They worry about us. But why would we want to go anywhere? I mean, look around. We’re living in a palace. And they bring us pretty much anything we want.”

  “And in return, you let them drink your blood.”

  Caroline’s pity brought a lump to Rose’s throat. “You don’t understand. That’s the best part.”

  Caroline had no idea how well Rose could understand, how thorough a lesson Rose had gotten earlier. But that wasn’t what Rose wanted to talk about. “Don’t you want, I don’t know, something more from your life?”

  “More? Like what? Maybe if I worked and slaved for years, I’d make enough money to live like this, but there’s no guarantee. The vampires, they take care of me. And they’ll need me forever.” She sat up straight again, arms crossed, defiant. “They won’t care when I get old and ugly. I’ll be just as important to them then. They’ll need me just as much.”

  “Okay.” Rose had heard enough. “Well, thanks.”

  On the inside, Caroline was all prickles and barbs. “I don’t need you judging me. Or them. We’re all happy here, just like we are.”

  “I can see that.” Rose tried to keep her tone neutral, but something in it sent Caroline from the room in a huff.

  Which was fine. Rose was done with her.

  Nazeem opened his door between her second and third knock. He wore a fresh black turtleneck and jeans, neither of which looked right on him. His color had returned and the skin that had been cracked and blistered less than an hour ago was now smooth and flawless. Rose couldn’t resist reaching out to touch his hand, to feel its soft perfection. “That’s amazing.”

  A spark of amusement. The now-familiar half smile. “Thank you.”

  “You and Caroline,” Rose blurted out before she was sure what she wanted to say. She stopped, realized she was blushing, the memory of what she’d felt still strong.

  “Would you like to come in?” Rose did, and Nazeem closed the door behind her, granting them privacy. He stood silent, patient, while Rose framed her thoughts.

  “I spoke with Caroline. She explained things—probably more than she meant to. I think, maybe, I understand.”

  Nazeem had tight control of himself. Rose had to work to pick up the flutter of concern. “And is it as terrible as you feared?”

  For once, Rose thought hard about her answer before she gave it. “It’s not what I expected. And it’s nothing I could ever do. But the people here, they seem to like it. They’re not here under duress—I’d know it. And I could tell—” Rose looked down at the floor, felt her cheeks flush. “You should know, when Caroline was in here, I felt—I couldn’t help—when you two….”

  It would have been easier to talk about if she’d just walked in on them having sex.

  Did vampires have sex?

  “I apologize that it was uncomfortable for you. Had I realized you would be so aware, I would have gone elsewhere in the palace.” If Nazeem was embarrassed, Rose couldn’t tell.

  “So do you…like Caroline? People like Caroline?”

  “No.” Rose could feel the honesty behind his answer. “I believe in this society, in vampires and mortals living like this, keeping each other safe. But I cannot find it in myself to like the sort of mortals who wish to live like this.”

  Rose couldn’t deny the smug satisfaction she got hearing Nazeem say he didn’t like Caroline. “But you still—it felt so intimate. You’re forced to—”

  Nazeem’s hand, light on her shoulder, silenced Rose. His fingers brushed under her chin, and she looked up. “Not forced. I choose to be what I am. No one compels me to continue day to day. If there are distasteful things I must do to get by, that makes my life no different from anyone else’s.”

  “You have kind of a strange view of everyone else’s lives,” Rose whispered.

  He traced his fingers down her neck, a tingling path along her skin. The heat of his hand made her shiver. Nazeem leaned down, brushed his lips against hers. “It’s late,” he murmured.

  Even with his breath warm against her lips, Rose managed to feel annoyed at the implication of his words. “If I have to listen to you or Mike tell me one more time I need my sleep—“

  Nazeem kissed her. His lips were soft against her own, gentle. His hand tightened on her shoulder as the other slid up her back, pulled her closer. Rose had no trouble recognizing the swirl of emotion within him, desire and affection and yes, even that wonderful laughter.

  The moment was so perfect, and yet…

  The “it’s late” nagged at Rose, worried the edges of her thoughts, pulled her out of the moment. She brought her hands up between them, pushed against his chest. He released her at once, took a step back. “Rose?”

 
; His confusion—his hurt—those were clear as well. “No, don’t. Don’t be—” Rose lifted a hand to his cheek, but he caught her wrist—gently—and stood silent, waiting for her to explain.

  “I’m sorry. It’s just that...” Rose tried to push down the negative thoughts, and might have managed if not for the concern bubbling up inside Nazeem. Which shouldn’t upset her. Except that it did. “I can’t do this.”

  He was too much a gentleman to argue, and Rose felt him withdraw, felt him settle back into the mental quiet that made him hard to read. “I won’t keep you. I’m sure you need—”

  “Exactly,” Rose cut him off. “You’re sure I need, Mike is sure I need—neither of you seem to believe I should be left to decide things for myself. You both treat me like a child, and I can’t—I can’t do this with you if you won’t see me as an equal.”

  “We aren’t equals.” Nazeem said it matter-of-fact. “I’ve been trained for this. I have years of experience. As does Mike. You’re young, with a gift that does nothing to help you defend yourself, and with no exposure to the invisible war before you came here. I respect your courage, but you can’t expect either of us to act as though you were an equal.”

  “You could act like I’m a teammate,” Rose said softly. Nazeem stood silent. Rose couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t make this worse. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “Sleep well,” he said, releasing her hand.

  Rose retreated to her room, to her bed, but it was a very long time until she slept.

  * * *

  For the first time in a week, Rose slept outside the protective circles Ian had created around her bed. Once again, she found her dream-self in St. Isaac’s cathedral. Only this time, there was no creepy smoke, and no creepy Pyotr. This time, she was alone with the shining man.

  His light was blinding, but it did nothing to drive away the shadows. Rose felt them pressing in around her, dark and heavy, trying to smother. The shining man watched, but made no threatening moves toward her.

  “Who are you?” she asked. She should have been afraid—okay, she was afraid—but she felt no immediate threat from him.