Midnight in St. Petersburg: A Novel of the Invisible War

by Barbara J. Webb

  Ian said nothing as he read through the document, but the anger inside him swelled to a throbbing rage that drowned out everything else. “Ian, what is it?”

  “My father.” Ian closed the folder and stood, moving with an elegant calm that probably hid the murderous rage within from Mike and Arkaday. “I have to go.”

  “Go?” Arkaday jumped up, flustered. “But I cannot wait with these. Father Andrei will—”

  “I’ve seen all I need to see.”

  “Irish, what—” But Ian was out the door, closing it with a slam that was the only external testimony of what Rose could see on Ian’s insides.

  “Sorry, Arkaday, but we have to go.” Rose grabbed Mike’s sleeve. “I mean, like right now. I think Ian’s about to kill someone.”

  * * *

  Mike looked up and down the street as he and Rose ran out of the hotel, but Ian was nowhere in sight. They were too late.

  Rose spoke hurriedly to the doorman as Mike checked around the corner. “He got in a cab,” Rose called out.

  After a couple more words from Rose, the doorman signaled another taxi. “It’s okay,” Rose said. “I know where he’s going.”

  They pulled up to Revelations and Rose jumped out, leaving Mike to throw rubles at the driver. He rushed inside, far enough behind he’d lost sight of her.

  No one was at the bar. Mike made for the stairs. He heard the commotion on the second floor—so-called purgatory—as he passed through the magical sound barrier halfway up.

  He caught up with Rose at the arched entry to the second floor dance area. The room looked bare without the mist flowing or the kaleidoscopic floor lit up. Karchenko was here. Ian seemed to have caught him in the middle of replacing a light-bulb.

  Ian had his sword out, but Mike didn’t think Karchenko could see it. Something in his posture or expression made Karchenko wary, though. Karchenko’s right hand gripped the amulet he’d pulled from under his shirt; in his left, the forgotten lightbulb dangled.

  “What did you do to my father?” Ian repeated. Fury had deepened, rather than raised his voice.

  “I do not know what you’re talking about.” Karchenko’s lips continued to move. Mike couldn’t make out the specifics of the subvocalized words, but they told him quite a lot, all the same. Whatever rank Karchenko might have held in the Black Fist, he wasn’t much of a voider. Dependent on implements and chants to work his magic—Mike wasn’t impressed.

  Rose started to move in, but Mike grabbed her shoulders and held her back. Surely she could feel the violent tension in the room. Mike wasn’t ready to interfere—Ian was a big boy—but if Rose tried to get between them, she’d get hurt.

  “I saw the file.” Ian took another step forward. “Arkaday brought it to us. You kidnapped my dad, held him, interrogated him.”

  Karchenko shrugged and turned back to the light fixture. “Monks believe evil of everyone. They are paranoid, broken victims ready to blame all their problems on others.”

  Ian reached for Karchenko’s shoulder. Karchenko was ready for that. He spun, held out his hand, barked short, sharp words. Mike didn’t understand the Russian, but he felt the summoned power, a gathering of force to hurl Ian across the room.

  But Karchenko couldn’t see Ian’s sword, didn’t expect the blow against his forehead as Ian hit him with the flat of the blade. It interrupted the magic and the power dissipated as Karchenko staggered back.

  “Mike!” Rose struggled to break free. “We have to—“

  “Shush.” What they needed was to watch. Ian had this under control. It would do the kid good to work out a little anger. And if it gave Mike a chance to really see what Karchenko was capable of—to measure the competition—so much the better.

  Ian struck Karchenko again and again—wild blows that staggered Karchenko, although never with the blade’s edge. “What” strike “did you do,” strike “to my father?”

  “Ian!” Rose yelled.

  Ian lowered his sword, still shaking with rage. Karchenko scrambled away from him, clutching his amulet, his other arm held high to protect his face.

  Svetlana’s cold voice came from behind Mike—he hadn’t heard her approach through the sound-dampening magic on the stairs. “This is how you would keep peace in St. Petersburg?”

  She pushed past Mike and Rose, all but glowing with power. It burned inside her like a furnace. Svetlana was no half-assed dabbler; she was the real deal. Mike let go of Rose, reached into his pocket and wound his rosary around his fingers—just in case.

  She stormed up to Ian, stopped inches away. They stood, eye-to-eye, leashed nerves and fury. “The Chernaya Kulak did nothing to your father. Patrick Fior escaped.”

  “How do you know?” Ian demanded, the tip of his sword twitching.

  Svetlana gave a cold laugh. “You think governments are the only ones who spy?”

  “How can we trust you?” Rose demanded.

  “It is of no account to me.” Svetlana’s voice was low and deadly. “Get out. All of you.”

  Now it was time to retreat. “Ian,” Mike said in a gentle voice. “Let’s go.”

  Ian’s head whipped around to Mike, his eyes still wild. Mike held Ian’s gaze, kept his own expression calm, and gradually the tension seeped out of Ian’s stance. He sheathed his sword and followed Mike and Rose back out to the street.

  “I’m sorry,” Ian said once they were outside again. “I shouldn’t have done that. I was just…”

  They were all tired. And on edge. Hounded by enemies they couldn’t name in a city they didn’t understand. “Forget it, Irish. Let’s just get back to the hotel. Plenty of work still to do.”

  * * *

  Rose insisted they all meet in Nazeem’s room. She refused to leave the vampire out of the discussion and didn’t want to put off the talk until sundown. Since Nazeem’s suite was already set up to protect him from the mid-afternoon sunlight that flooded all the rest of their rooms, it seemed the logical place to go.

  Rose asked Nazeem to call room service for sodas. Life was so much better on an expense account. “And sandwiches. None of us got lunch.”

  Nazeem nodded, indulgent, and Rose listened as he expanded their order in his fluent Russian. She loved the sound of it. The more Russian she heard, the more she appreciated its unique cadence and pattern, and Nazeem’s soft, rich voice made it even better.

  Nazeem moved with his usual grace, but he looked worn. And sallow. His insides crinkled like Christmas paper. Across the room, Ian’s emotions were still ramped up in a whirling mess. Seated at the desk, Mike’s insides were hidden, but his outsides screamed exhaustion.

  Rose didn’t like the way all three of them had withdrawn into themselves. No one looked at each other; each focused on his own private issues. Pulling apart from each other—not that they had been cohesive to start with.

  Rose was tired. Fights with vampires, fights with fairies, fights with the padre—they were all catching up with her. She kicked off her sneakers—the only shoes she’d been able to stand over the blisters she’d picked up last night—and settled into a chair that was much less comfortable than the one Ian had claimed.

  As they waited for room service to arrive, Rose dug around for something to spark conversation. Something that wasn’t about killers or secrets or—really, anything that wasn’t about St. Petersburg. “So it’s Friday afternoon. If you guys weren’t here, what would you normally be doing?”

  They all stared at her, their faces all varying flavors of the same bafflement. Rose stumbled onward. “I mean—look, we still hardly know each other. Did you have, I don’t know, day jobs or something?”

  “Did you?” Ian asked, his curiosity a warm ripple through the more vibrant rage.

  “Well, sure. It’s not like being a sensitive exactly pays the bills. At least, it didn’t,” she corrected. “I was a social worker. Well, trying to be. I’d just graduated and hadn’t found a permanent job yet.”

  “It’s different for us,” Nazeem said. “You were b
orn as you are. Father Mike and I, we were made into what we are so that we might do what we do. One does not produce creatures,” Rose didn’t miss the ironic inflection he put into the word, “such as us and then send us to waste our time in mundane pursuits.

  “Ian too, if I understand his situation correctly, was intended for this work from the beginning, even if his talents are innate rather than awakened.”

  Despite everything she’d seen this week, until this moment, it hadn’t sunk in on Rose how much an outsider she was to these men. No, that wasn’t right. She wasn’t the outsider—they were. They didn’t live in the real world, didn’t think or react like normal people. Their lives—their realities—revolved around hunting monsters.

  A knock on the door interrupted her thoughts. Room service. A plate of sub sandwiches circling the assortment of salted pickles, crackers, and fish Rose was starting to recognize as typical appetizers. Rose waved a piece of the fish at Nazeem. “I realize it’s been some time since you ate real food, but this is not a tasty morsel. Don’t feel obligated to order them anymore.”

  “Noted.” His face was serious, but on the inside, he was laughing.

  Rose rolled her eyes.

  As they ate, Ian told the story of their meeting with Arkaday and his confrontation with Poulov. He didn’t leave anything out, even the part where he flew off the handle and tried to attack the former KGB voider. Nazeem listened quietly, his insides enigmatic once more.

  Now she was less concerned about Poulov and Ian trying to kill each other, Rose was more focused on the actual conversation, and a new puzzle piece snapped into place in her mind. “You know, if the—“ Rose paused, her eyes and her othersense locked on Ian, “if the Black Fist captured Ian’s dad, then they knew about the folk, right? So they might have done something to the faelock, too, something that sent him looking for revenge.”

  “Which puts him back on the table to be our murderer.” Mike sounded grim.

  Heavy silence again. Rose would have bet money they were all thinking about the almost disastrous fight last night. Might as well call it what it was—the faelock’s trap. None of them were up for another fight like that, not this soon.

  They’d been here less than a week, but to Rose it felt like an eternity. So many issues pressing in around them—Ian’s faelock, the murderer, Anastasia’s threats. For these men, it might be a typical Friday afternoon, but if this was normal life for them, it sucked. You couldn’t go on like this forever, and Rose had a growing suspicion part of the reason she was on this team was so someone would remember that. “We need a break.”

  “A break from what?” Ian asked.

  “From this. From the politics and killers and conspiracies. Let’s give it a rest for a bit. Eat our food. Watch a movie. Enjoy each others company. Take a night off.”

  “It’s Friday night,” Mike said. “Tomorrow night, someone else dies. We can’t afford a night off.”

  “Sure we can.” To Rose, it was obvious. “We know where he’s going to be tomorrow, right?”

  “And the faelock?” Ian’s agitation whirled so fast, it was amazing he could sit still. “We can’t afford to take time off. Not now. The more time we give him, the more ready for us he gets.”

  “He seemed ready enough last night,” Rose said.

  “We can’t just—“

  “Yes we can,” Mike interrupted firmly. He looked between Ian and Rose, frowning. Maybe even seeing the same raggedness Rose had. “Rose may have a point.” He glared at her, daring her to say something clever. For once, Rose kept her mouth shut.

  “Mike—“ Ian began again.

  Mike cut him off. “No. We’re none of us up for another fight. We need rest, or either the faelock or the shining man will get the drop on us, and then no one gets saved. We can set up an ambush tomorrow easy enough. Voider or faelock, we’ll be ready for him. Early to bed tonight and a good night’s rest for everyone. We all could use it.”

  “And in the meanwhile, we’ll order up a movie.” Rose smiled at Mike, this time, daring him to argue. “Don’t worry, padre, we’ll find something PG so you don’t have to go to confession after.”

  “Tomorrow….” Ian began, but Rose cut him off.

  “Movie now. Tomorrow we’ll worry about when it happens. Nazeem….”

  Dutiful as ever, Nazeem returned to the phone to order popcorn.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Friday After Dark

  Sitting in the vampire’s room, aimlessly munching on popcorn, Mike had to admit—to himself, although never to Rose—the movie had been a good idea. He, Ian, Nazeem—even Rose—were all tense and tired. It should have been obvious when Ian went off on Karchenko in Revelations. A point of personal failure that it had taken Rose to point this out to Mike. After thirty-plus years, he should recognize field-exhaustion. But it had been a busy week. And Mike was as tired as the rest.

  A few hours of downtime would do them good. Sharpen their minds, their reflexes.

  If Rose thought they should spend some relaxation time together, well, Mike didn’t care enough one way or another to fight about it.

  Their movie choices had been limited and Rose proclaimed them all oldies, despite the fact not a single option was older than she was. After some amount of friendly bickering over what title to pick, they settled on a police drama with two actors Rose was horrified Mike had never heard of.

  They dragged chairs around in front of the flatscreen TV and managed to form a companionable circle. Rose insisted on turning out the lights. The glow edging Nazeem’s curtains had turned scarlet then faded as the movie went on. Mike ate another handful of popcorn, finished off his soda, and let himself relax.

  They were moving towards the movie’s climax—the cop who’d been set up had convinced the outside expert he was innocent and they were on their way to the cop’s house to get the evidence to prove it—when Rose jumped up from her chair and ran to the window.

  “What?” Mike snapped as she pushed the curtain aside and stared out towards St. Isaac’s.

  “I don’t know. I can’t see. But someone out there is terrified.”

  Mike pushed himself up out of the deep, cushiony chair, but Nazeem moved faster. He stood behind Rose, one hand on her shoulder. “I see them. Four men dressed in black. They’re carrying something. It might be a man. Yes, it must be. I can see him struggling.”

  “Shit,” Ian said, standing much more gracefully than Mike had managed. “It’s only Friday night. It’s too early for our murderer.”

  Nazeem leaned forward until his forehead touched the glass. “It’s his men. I recognize one of them from the night Rose was attacked.”

  “The shining man,” Rose whispered.

  A day early. Breaking his pattern. “I don’t like this.” Mike would have rather put off this confrontation until tomorrow, when they were better rested, but they were going to have to take what they could get. “Rose, you stay.”

  “No!”

  He had neither time to argue nor any way to keep her from following. With four voiders plus the enigmatic shining man to deal with, he couldn’t leave Nazeem or Ian behind. “Fine then. Remember you asked for this, and stay close to me.”

  By the time they got outside and across the square, the doors were closed and locked against them. “Stand back,” Mike said, then focused. A wave of power surged through him and yanked against the locks. The doors burst open, crashing against the walls on either side of Mike.

  “I guess we’re not sneaking in,” Rose said.

  Mike ran a few steps forward, then stopped alongside Ian as they took in the scene that greeted them.

  The shining man from Rose’s dream hadn’t been a metaphor or allegory. He hadn’t been a symbol. On the floor a prone and bound figure lay in a circle marked by lit candles. Above the victim, a shining figure hovered—yes, hovered—too bright for Mike to look at directly.

  “What the hell?” Confusion softened Ian’s usually confident voice.

  Mike understood
how he felt. This wasn’t like anything he’d ever seen in all his years. He’d been expecting voiders, but this man…

  Rose, incredibly enough, sounded calm. “He’s a voider. But that’s a vampire he’s got down on the ground.”

  Mike was starting to regret their dramatic entrance. The shining man looked over at them. “This is no business of yours.” His deep, resonant voice echoed and distorted in the huge cathedral.

  This man had tortured and killed people. Mike reminded himself of that, focused on that, not the fact they were about to step into undefined danger to rescue a vampire. “I think we’ll make this our business.”

  “I know who you are. I know why you’re here.”

  This time, Rose answered. “A good trick, considering we’ve only introduced ourselves to everyone in this city. What’s next? You going to predict yesterday’s weather?”

  “I take no issue with you, little girl. The attack on you was a mistake. Leave now and my men will not stop you.”

  “Fraid we can’t do that.” Mike shielded his eyes, tried to pierce through the radiance to see the man inside. Pure power—frightening power. If this was a voider, like Rose said, he had more energy to burn than Mike could conceive of.

  “Are you sure?” the shining man asked. For a psychotic killer, he was awfully hesitant to engage with them. “I don’t want to—” Nazeem stepped out of the shadows. The man turned towards the movement; his light flared brighter. “You!” He lifted his hand and Nazeem flew up into the air and hung, suspended. “You do not get to leave. You killed one of mine.”

  “Mike!” Rose yelped. “Do something.”

  She was right. Time to act. Mike grasped his rosary, closed his eyes, narrowed his focus. Nothing but the magic. Nothing but the power. Everything he had to challenge this creature. “Father in heaven, help me to do your work.”

  He opened his eyes and flung out his hand towards Nazeem, sending a blade of power to slice through the shining man’s spell. Nazeem fell to the ground, vampire reflexes fast enough that he tucked and rolled and was on his feet, unharmed by the experience. The shining man spun to face Mike. “You dare?” he yelled, his voice deafening.