Moscow Mule: Phantom Queen Book 5 - A Temple Verse Series (The Phantom Queen Diaries)

by Shayne Silvers

  “I do not care what you like,” the official snapped. He jerked his head and the guards dropped our bags to draw their weapons, holding them low, fingering the triggers. Leo took a slow look around, while I felt my heart rate spike; there’s nothing like the threat of lethal force to get the blood pumping.

  “If you do not do as we ask, we will be forced to restrain you,” the official hissed.

  I did a quick headcount. Including the official and the four security guards, we were only slightly outnumbered, but considerably outgunned. Still, Jimmy was right: nothing about this boded well. Besides, we’d come here trying to find our friends, not get immediately separated. I fought the urge to grind my teeth, wondering if this is what they’d done to Othello. Had they ambushed her the same way they had us? Was she locked away in some jail cell right now? I shook my head inwardly. Not likely. Othello was perhaps the most resourceful person I’d ever met; give her a month in jail and she’d be running the prison from the shadows.

  The official barked a command. The guards took a step forward, raising their sidearms as one. I frowned at their amateurish approach; professionals would have spread out and covered each other, letting one unarmed guard do the honors of cuffing us lest they risk us arming ourselves or taking a hostage.

  Coming at us all at once was a mistake.

  In that instant, Jimmy flicked his eyes at me. I nodded. With savage quickness, the detective pivoted and swung a chest-level roundhouse kick that swept aside all four guns. Ordinarily, Chuck Norris shit like that only worked on television, but when I saw each of the guards clutching their wrists in pain, I realized Jimmy’s transformation might have come with more perks than being able to cart luggage around. The leap-tall-building’s kind. Of course, I didn’t have long to dwell on that.

  We had a fight on our hands.

  Lakota and Leo quickly dove for the nearest pair of pistols, all of which had skittered and collided with the wall, while Jimmy followed up his kick with a series of brutal, bone-crushing body slams that sent two of the guards flying. The official, too startled to cry out, turned to flee down the corridor, but made it only a few feet before I was on him. I snatched the bastard by the back of his collar and yanked. Hard. He flew backwards, landing flat on his back, too winded to scream. I mounted him, pressing my knee against his chest, pinning him in place. He moved to go for his gun, which meant I was forced to wrench his arm up above his head. I wasn’t gentle about it, either; I heard his shoulder burst out of its socket with a sickening pop. I pinned a hand over his mouth to keep his cries from drawing any unwanted attention.

  Once I was sure he wasn’t going to cause me any more grief, I glanced up. The two guards Jimmy had attacked lay in a heap against the wall, unconscious, while the other two were held at gunpoint by Lakota and Leo, sporting nasty bruises. “That was reckless,” Leo admonished, flicking his eyes at Jimmy.

  Jimmy, fetching the two remaining pistols, nodded. “More than you know,” he said, popping out one of the clips. He held it up for Leo to see. A gleaming silver bullet lay nestled within its black casing. Leo’s eyes widened, as did mine. Silver-plated bullets were rare things, expensive and far from mass produced. Sure, you could buy them online if you felt so inclined, but to have come armed with them meant the guards had a good idea that they’d be hunting Freaks who were especially susceptible to the stuff.

  “I smelled silver as soon as they pulled us into the hallway,” Jimmy explained. “I had a feeling I wouldn’t care for their interrogation techniques.”

  Beneath me, the official squirmed, trying to free his mouth. I leaned in close. “I t’ink it’s high time ye tell us what’s goin’ on, comrade.” I shifted my weight, putting more pressure on his solar plexus to let him know I meant business. His eyes widened, then, without warning, fluttered closed. I stared down at him for several seconds before cursing.

  “What is it?” Leo said, swiveling to look back at me.

  “I t’ink I broke him,” I muttered.

  “You what?”

  I sighed as I rose, drawing my knee off the bastard and releasing his mouth. I yanked his gun from its holster as I answered Leo’s question, “Remember that learnin’ curve ye mentioned to Jimmy? Let’s just say I haven’t quite sorted out me limits.” To be honest, I wasn’t even sure I had any at this point. Despite training with Scathach to get a handle on my newfound strength and endurance, I’d yet to find a way to consistently adjust; if I didn’t pay close attention to every movement, I occasionally found myself tearing doors off their hinges and stomping through floorboards. The gym had proven useful in gauging the bounds of my abilities in a controlled environment, but with my adrenaline up, who knew how much weight I’d put on the official’s chest? Enough, apparently, to make him pass out.

  “It takes a while,” Jimmy acknowledged, glancing down at the men he’d incapacitated, their gun hands looking remarkably mangled.

  “Ye don’t say,” I quipped.

  He grunted, then stiffened, sniffing the air. “Company.”

  “Shit,” Leo said. “Lakota, call Warren. We need to get out of here, now.”

  “He’s been on the phone the whole time,” Lakota said, holding her cell up. “I called when we got pulled away, just in case.” I joined the others as she pressed a button and Warren’s high-pitched voice came screeching through.

  “Lizzie can’t seem to create a Gateway to where you are. It must be warded,” he yelled, clearly concerned.

  “Of course, it is,” I replied, sighing. I leaned towards the phone and let my voice carry. “Tell Lizzie she and I are goin’ to have a conversation soon,” I called. By reaching out to Warren, she’d done exactly what I’d warned her not to do; if I’d wanted him in her clutches, I’d have set them up on a blind date, not called her in to save his life.

  “Later,” Leo replied tersely. “Warren, I need you to find schematics for Domodedovo Airport. We need to find a way out of here. Preferably before we’re found.”

  Footsteps echoed down the hallway, sounding suspiciously like the slap of leather dress shoes on tile. “Too late,” Jimmy said, stepping up alongside me, slamming the clip he’d removed back into place. “He’s already here.”

  “You know,” a voice called out, not yet visible beyond the curve of the hallway, “I should have known you would do something reckless.” The voice, clearly a man’s, was surprisingly lovely. It had a thick richness to it that sat on the air long after he finished speaking, like a plucked string. It was also strangely accented. Slavic, but not quite like any accent I’d ever heard. “That is my fault. Please,” he said, coming into view from around the bend, “allow me to extend my sincerest apologies. My men were...overzealous. I should never have sent dogs to hunt down wolves.”

  My lip twitched at the analogy, but I was too busy giving the newcomer my full attention to comment. What I noticed first were his eyes. Not the color—though they were a startling shade of sky blue worth noticing—but how wide they were. He stared at us with the unblinking, unflinching gaze of a sweaty-toothed madman. It took me a moment to look away from those crazy eyes, to notice the hawkish nose and frazzled beard, the black-on-black three-piece suit that covered his thin frame like a funeral shroud.

  “I t’ink ye need to come up with a better metaphor,” I said finally, cocking the pistol I’d confiscated. There was no sense pointing it at the man, not yet. One, because no matter how crazy he looked, at the moment his threat level wasn’t high enough to warrant a death sentence. And two, because no matter how strong you are, holding someone at gunpoint can be exhausting—after the long, cramped flight, my shoulders weren’t up for the challenge.

  One of the guards said something in Russian, then cried out as metal hit flesh. I didn’t have to glance back to know Lakota had pistol-whipped the bitch. “If he talks again,” Lakota said, “tell him I’ll use the other end.”

  The newcomer chuckled. “Do not worry, he speaks English. I am sure he understands.” He flicked those eyes at me. “All I
meant was I should have come myself, sooner. I have been looking forward to meeting you all for some time. Especially you, Quinn MacKenna.”

  “And who the fuck are ye?” I asked.

  The man took a step forward, rather than answer. Jimmy and I raised our guns as one, prepared to fire. Apparently, my shoulders would have to suck it up. The man knelt down beside the official I’d incapacitated and fiddled in the man’s pockets, drawing out my passport.

  “That’s mine,” I hissed, cursing myself for forgetting to take it back.

  “Yes,” he replied, idly flipping through its pages, stopping to stare at my picture, his expression unreadable.

  “Give it back,” I insisted, uncomfortable with his fixation.

  “Quinn, it’s not the time,” Leo said.

  “No, she is right,” the man replied. “It belongs to her. Here. Catch.”

  I held out my hand, and that’s when it all went to shit.

  A wave of agony hit all four of us as the passport sailed through the air, dropping us to our knees as one. I looked over to find Jimmy clutching his chest. I realized I was doing the same. Panic fluttered in my chest as I tried to draw a breath, but it felt like someone had reached down into my lungs, grabbed all the air in them, and yanked. I couldn’t breathe. After a few miserable seconds, I couldn’t even think. I slid forward onto the cold tile, slumped over, my cheek pressed against the dirty floor. A flimsy blue booklet, my passport, lay beside me.

  Then, a pair of black leather shoes appeared, casually kicking the passport down the hall as tunnel vision set in, spots clouding my vision.

  “Take her away,” the man said,

  “Da, Father Grigori,” came the reply.

  I blacked out.

  Chapter 4

  The cell I woke up in wasn’t as bad as I’d expected. Frankly, I’d anticipated some horrific Gulag nonsense—a cell to make Miss Trunchbull’s Chokey feel like the Ritz. Instead, I found myself in a small, chilly, but relatively clean, jail cell. A bench had been screwed into the floor and a stainless-steel toilet sat in the furthest corner of the room. The whole place reeked of iron. Iron bars, iron bench, iron beams in the walls. Lately, I’d come to recognize the stench no matter where I was, to avoid places and people who smelled of it. As a Fae-in-training, iron had become my nemesis; I avoided it like a paraplegic avoided stairs.

  And yet, here I was, rubbing my bare arms for warmth, unwilling to touch anything. I took a deep breath, trying to ignore the raw burning sensation in my lungs that I’d woken to. Father Grigori. Something about that name rung a bell, but I couldn’t place it. I’d run into the Grigori before—a branch of angelic beings known as Watchers—but there was nothing remotely angelic about the man with the wild eyes. Frankly, I’d have loved to Google the name and be done with it, but my phone was missing. So was my passport and the gun I’d swiped. It looked like they’d given me a once-over, choosing to let me keep only my clothes and my watch.

  My watch...

  I smirked as I fiddled with the face of the sundial, sliding it to the right after removing the clasp that locked it into place. Inside the hidden compartment, a single golden leaf shimmered. I looked around for cameras before plucking it free and snapping the watch face back into place. I stared down at the leaf, wondering if what I was about to do was a good idea. The leaf, after all, belonged to my cranky roommate, Eve. She’d given it to me when I told her where I was going, urging me to contact her once I got to Moscow.

  “I’d prefer it if you didn’t die,” she’d said, her leaves ruffling. “Not yet, anyway.”

  Yeah, I know. Real chummy.

  I sighed, realizing I had no choice. I needed answers, and who better to ask than the Tree of Knowledge? I grimaced, gritted my teeth, and slid the razor-sharp edge of the leaf across my index finger per Eve’s instruction. It burned. A lot. “Son of a bitch,” I hissed.

  “Did you know that men typically swear more than women?” a voice rung out, emitting from the leaf in my hand, the veins of which now pulsed a bright, mercurial crimson. “Does that make you the outlier?”

  “Did I really have to cut me finger to make this work?” I asked, raising my wounded digit to suck the blood off.

  “Unless you felt like talking to yourself, yes,” she replied.

  I muttered something unpleasant under my breath.

  “Are you in Moscow, then?” Eve asked, ignoring me.

  “I t’ink so,” I replied, considering her question. It was possible we’d been moved outside the city, but unlikely. I’d woken up in pain, but not hungry, which meant I hadn’t been unconscious long enough to miss a meal. I wasn’t sure how long it took to get out of the city, but I had a feeling we hadn’t gone far.

  “You aren’t sure?” she asked.

  I shook my head, then realized she couldn’t see it. “No. We were ambushed.”

  “Oh?” Eve said, sounding mildly interested. “By whom?”

  “That’s what I wanted to ask ye.”

  “You know, one of these days I’m going to charge you for this.”

  That brought me up short. Charge me for asking questions? Or for using her as my own personal research assistant? I frowned. “I didn’t realize ye wanted anythin’, or I’d have offered a while ago,” I replied. It was true. The biggest issue I had with Eve was that I had absolutely no idea what she was, or how to make her happy. Unfortunately, the people I would have asked for advice, people like Othello, weren’t allowed to know she existed; I’d made a promise to her original owner to keep her a secret, and I meant to keep it.

  The silence stretched so long I wondered if she’d hung up on me.

  “Oy? Ye there?” I asked.

  “I’m here. I was thinking. I’ll have to get back to you. Ask your questions.”

  I sighed, deciding not to pick at it; I didn’t have that kind of time. Even though she hadn’t been a part of the conversation, Eve had the uncanny ability to know things. All things. So, I took a gamble. “D’ye know who Father Grigori might be referrin’ to?” I asked, opting for the most pressing question I had. It might not get me the hell out of here, but the name was nagging at me so much I could barely stand it.

  But Eve never got a chance to answer.

  Because I had company.

  Chapter 5

  Two men, their rough, guttural voices carrying down the hallway in conversational Russian, cut off Eve’s response. “I’ve got to go,” I whispered. “I’ll talk to you soon.” I shoved the leaf inside its hidden compartment and slid the watch face back in place. By the time the voices were distinguishable, I was sitting propped up against the wall, arms draped over my knees, doing my best to look bored. It was a difficult front to put up; I felt caged. If you’ve ever been truly confined to a space, no matter how large, you’ll know what I mean. Everything that follows—the anxiety, the trepidation, the hysteria—is a knee-jerk reaction, like gagging when an offensive smell practically cauterizes your nostrils. As the voices drew closer, my instincts began screaming at me, telling me to get out of there. I fought the urge; if I panicked now, my captors would be able to sense it, to use it against me. Calm. I needed to be calm.

  But then a whisper of something rode my spine, pebbling my flesh with goosebumps. My wild side, a memento from my time in Fae, tried to assert her will over my body, forcing me to clench my hands into fists, my nails digging into the skin of my palms. I ground my teeth, fighting to keep her voice out of my head. Once, I’d listened to her, even embraced her as merely another part of myself. But now wasn’t the time. In Fae, I could trust my wild side to do what was necessary, even if it cost me. She was me, after all, if only a version of myself I so rarely gave into. But here, in the mortal world? The world full of fragile, socially repressed human beings? No way. I swallowed and closed my eyes, shutting everything out but the sound of my own breathing.

  “So, this is the woman?”

  I opened my eyes to see two men silhouetted beyond the bars, the unflattering fluorescent bulbs shining at t
heir backs, obscuring their faces and bodies in shadow. I squinted, trying to draw out details. One of the men, a little taller than I was, seemed familiar. It was he who responded, “Da, she is the one.”

  I frowned at that voice. I recognized it. Or at least it was familiar. After speaking, the man twisted his neck a bit as if trying to work free a crick. The light hit one cheek, revealing the man’s thin stubble, his hair shaved so close to his head it was barely longer than that on his face. He wore dark fatigues and a black spandex compression shirt that hugged him like a second skin, revealing broad shoulders and a trim waistline. Did I know him? The sensation that I did nagged at me, like trying to recall the name of a washed-up celebrity or your second cousin’s birthday.

  “She is not much to look at,” the other man said, leaning forward to peer through the bars at me, like I was an animal on display in a public zoo. I considered, briefly, charging the bars and snatching the bastard by his throat. “You made her sound more...scary,” he added.

  “Scarier,” I said.

  “What?” he asked. The man was small and slight, tucked inside an impeccably tailored suit that made the most of his slender frame. The light bounced off the crown of his bald head, illuminating the fine white hairs that remained, neatly combed behind his ears. Everything about him screamed politician. Unfortunately, in this country that meant very little; Russian politicians were as likely to be reformed gangsters as they were to be ambitious idealists. I had no idea which I was dealing with but was leaning towards the former; idealists are far more likely to end up in a jail cell than standing outside one.

  “Scarier. Not more scary,” I said, shaking my head. “English, it’s a bitch, what can I say?”

  “She is disrespectful,” the politician said, still staring at me.

  The other man made a low sound in his throat. “You have no idea.”

  “Do I know ye?” I asked, glaring at the taller of the two men. To be fair, it wasn’t the content of his statement that pissed me off, but the tone. Hell, I was disrespectful. Arrogant. Rude. Abrasive. I embraced those adjectives. But they were my adjectives. Strangers had no right to use them.