“No pitches,” Gabe said, and his chest ached with how much he wished it could be true.
Tanya watched him for a second longer, then stepped back. He could practically see it, the way she buckled herself back into official capacity. “All right. We must remove the security tapes first. Yes? You know where they are?”
Gabe nodded. “Third door on the left, I’m guessing. Looks like standard layout.” He wriggled his toes. “I could use some shoes, too.”
“Surely one of the guards’ boots will fit. Then we’ll go to the Vodnář. Rhemes will have what we need.”
Gabe’s brow furrowed. “What about Alestair? Nadia? Hell, now that Toms saw what happened at the docks, he knows there’s something up; he’s a solid operative, good instincts, maybe—”
Tanya shook her head. “Joshua has other matters to attend to. They’ve detained your station chief until the ritual is concluded, and he went with—”
When the information clicked together, it was like the click of a landmine arming. “Frank?”
Tanya nodded. “Chief Drummond, yes? The man with the—” Tanya pantomimed toward one leg.
“Tanya.” Gabe jumped up and reached for her shoulders. “Tanya, what the hell happened to Frank?!”
She blinked a few times, head cocking to one side. “The Flame took him. Maybe so he wouldn’t interfere in what they’re doing—at least, that is our best guess. Your friend Joshua is attempting to determine where he’s been taken while Nadia and Alestair prepare our assault on the ritual.”
Gabe dropped Tanya and slumped against the chilly concrete wall. “Fuck,” he said. Then, because he’d failed to fully convey the range of emotions he was feeling, “Fuck.”
“We can search for him once the ritual is stopped. But come—we must leave now. Poshli.” Tanya reached for his hand to pull him toward the door.
Gabe rubbed at his chin as his stomach curdled. “I—I can’t.”
He closed his eyes so he wouldn’t have to see the look on Tanya’s face.
“Gabriel Pritchard,” she said, low and throaty.
“He’s my station chief.” Gabe laughed bitterly to himself—what the hell kind of world was it, where he could say this so openly to a KaGeBeznik, and it wasn’t even close to the worst thing happening? “And you’re—you’re sure. The Flame has him.”
“I’m afraid so. But if they—if they meant to kill him—”
Gabe saw Edith, skin turning from warm to chilly gray. “They already would have by now. Unless they—they need him. For their—”
“Gabe. No. Don’t do this to yourself.” Tanya took another step toward the door. “I understand your concern, but if we do not stop the Flame—”
And suddenly Gabe saw it—the way out. If Frank was being held by a Flame witch, well, he couldn’t exactly deny the existence of magic anymore. And if Frank knew about magic, if he knew about the Flame, if he understood exactly why Dominic Alvarez did what he did and why the Flame wanted Edith dead—
Gabe could taste the briny Maine air once more. Could hear the shore lapping at his toes. And maybe, just maybe, his career could still be saved.
“You don’t need me to stop the Flame.” Gabe stood up straighter. “And it sure as shit wouldn’t look good for you to help me save a CIA station chief from whatever the fuck it is they intend to do with him.”
“Gabe, we don’t have time—”
“I’m sorry.” He glanced one last time at her face, framed in golden wisps, and his chest went tight. “God, you don’t know how sorry I am. But I have to do this.”
“Gabriel, please—”
But he brushed past her, and she didn’t reach out to stop him. He stepped out into the hall, where his guards dreamed peacefully of a magicless world, a world Gabe wanted to return to. And, bracing himself for the cool Prague evening air, he went in search of Frank.
3.
Jordan was doing her damnedest to scrub orange lipstick stains off a glass when the Devil himself walked into her bar. She managed to catch the glass before she dropped it—small blessing—but the cold fist that closed around her heart remained.
He crossed the floor in confident, easy steps, a cane held casually in one hand. None of the other patrons so much as glanced up. And why should they? A polished but wizened old man, well-dressed without being flashy, only a wisp of a smile on his dusky face, brooked no particular notice. She probably wouldn’t have paid him any mind, either, had the last time she’d seen him not been while he held a dagger above a young woman’s heart.
“Miss Rhemes.” He hooked his cane over the counter and began to peel off his leather driving gloves. A needless affectation, she thought, given the lovely spring air. Glancing up, he chuckled. “That is what it is now, isn’t it?’
Jordan set down the glass and clasped her shaking hands together to steady them. “I guess it is.”
Terzian stacked the gloves on the counter and took a cursory look around the bar. A few of her patrons—a hedgewitch who came in every Wednesday to restock on charged herbs, a witch who preferred to use the Vodnář as his flirting spot despite his poor success rate—returned his gaze now. Poor fucks. They had no idea what they were looking at.
“I’ve heard so much about your bar. I’ll confess, though, I was expecting something more.”
Jordan huffed. “We’ve got a jukebox. And Jim Beam.”
“You always were good at acquiring that which was not for sale.” He wore a smile of jagged glass. “A shame about the name business, though.”
“Vodnář?” She gestured around the bar. “It’s a little tongue in cheek, but—”
“Your real name. Your family’s name.” He let out a sigh that she was probably supposed to interpret as disappointed. “It used to mean something.”
Jordan clenched her jaw so hard it ached. “Nothing worth meaning.”
Terzian plucked the cane off the bar and, gripping it by its length, jutted the handle toward Jordan. With a flinch, she leaned back. Every instinct in her was screaming to snatch it out of his hands, but she knew better. There was no way to win a game of escalation with Terzian. Nothing good could come of even trying.
He propped the silver cane handle under her chin and tilted her head to one side, then the other. Now he had the attention of a few other patrons. One woman tried to catch Jordan’s eye—the universal language between women, offering to step in. Jordan closed her eyes. There was no point. If these poor junior witches and pretenders knew what was best for them, they’d run far, far away.
“It isn’t too late,” he commented, and pulled back the cane. “Muscle memory is a remarkable thing, is it not?”
Something throbbed between Jordan’s eyes, and she resisted the urge to clench her jaw. “What do you want?” Jordan asked.
“Granted, there are so many more powerful than you now. But what they’ve achieved through discipline, you’ve demonstrated a raw talent for. Imagine what you could do if you tried.”
Jordan folded her arms. “What,” she all but spat, “do you want?”
Terzian shook his head. “All right. We’ll have it your way.”
“It’s my bar,” Jordan said. “So yeah, yeah, you will.”
He smirked, and the very thought that Terzian had anything to smile about sent a chill down her spine.
“Very well.” The sorcerer dug around in his pockets for a moment and produced a supple, tooled leather wallet with a dark patina. “I understand you purvey all manner of goods here.”
“To unaligned individuals,” Jordan said. “My bar, my shop, me—we’re all neutral territory.”
“Of course you are.” He snapped the wallet open and began to produce Czech korunas. “I wish to make a purchase.”
Jordan peered over his shoulder. Most of the patrons had returned to their drinks and their conversations. Her hand fluttered against the counter behind the bar, but she forced herself to breathe deep and steady it before her fingers slid down toward a drawer fitted with a combination lock. “Lik
e I said—”
“Come now, Jordan, everything is for sale at the right price.” His eyebrows flicked upward for a moment. “Especially in your family.”
Bastard. She began to spin the rings of numbers—slowly, quietly as she could. “Fine. What is it you want to buy?”
“The confluence of lines you use to empower your goods. I wish to buy access to it.” He pulled free the entire stack of korunas and plopped them on the counter.
Jordan braced herself. “Not for sale.”
His fingers lingered atop the stack of bills as he raised one eyebrow. “That would be most unfortunate,” he said, as if placating a child’s tantrum. “I heard you offered its use to quite a different organization not so very long ago.”
“You heard wrong,” Jordan said, though her throat felt arid; her mouth tasted bitter. How could he have possibly heard about that? “Part of growing old, I guess.”
His eyes pulled tight. “It must have been another confluence, then. Another confluence of ley lines in Old Prague that sorcerers of the Ice used to execute highly regulated magics of the sort the Ice usually forbids.”
“I can’t help you,” Jordan said flatly. “And I won’t help you.”
“I’m afraid you’ll find, Miss Rhemes,” he spat, “that you owe me. For too many things to count.”
She stared at him open-mouthed. With a soft click, the drawer latch opened beneath her fingertips. “How desperate must you be,” she drawled, easing the drawer open, “to be dragging your dark business out into the light—”
And then he spoke a word of power that vibrated through Jordan’s bones. Dark, twisting tendrils of purple poured from his mouth and nostrils, then were gone just as quickly. A searing pain shot through Jordan’s palm where she’d closed it around the crystal working inside the drawer, and she dropped it with a shout. An orange vein flickered inside the crystal, flared bright, and then winked out. All that energy she’d channeled into it over the course of weeks—gone.
When Jordan looked up, a few of her patrons had stood, and begun to approach the bar with wolfish grins. None of them were faces she recognized. She cursed herself for not suspecting the trap sooner.
“Go,” Jordan shouted to the rest of the bar’s clientele. She met the gaze of the woman who’d sought her out earlier. “Go—get out of here!”
“Your bar,” Terzian said again. “Or rather, your basement. You will give it to us.”
Jordan backed against the shelves of liquor, and a bottle of bourbon toppled over her. There was a shotgun buried in the back of the cabinet—she liked her security to come in many flavors—but turning her back on Terzian wasn’t an option. Fuck. He wanted her desperate, he wanted her grasping—either way, he won. Either way, he got exactly what he wanted.
So she spoke a word of her own, even though it burned through her like cheap grease.
Terzian staggered backward, momentarily stunned, but as soon as he recovered, his grin returned. “Ahh, so you do remember.” He glanced at one of his lackeys, who clutched a cudgel-shaped chunk of stone carved with all sorts of things Jordan wished she didn’t recognize. “Maybe you aren’t hopeless after all.”
Jordan’s nails dug into her palm until it stung. Until she felt the warm rush of blood beginning to well. Bringing her hand up to her mouth, she took a deep breath, then exhaled an ancient sound across the slick drops of blood.
Orange curls of flame spiraled forward on her breath. But she was too slow—Terzian had a fistful of herbs, and with a weary sigh, he sent the flames skittering off to either side.
“You forget,” he said, “who devised so many of these spells.”
Jordan shook her head, tears stinging at the corners of her eyes. “I’ll never forget.”
Terzian regarded her, amused. “That’s the first sensible thing you’ve said all day.” With a glance to the men at either side of him, Terzian leaned on his cane. “Last chance, my dear.”
And then she felt it, like a rubber band pulling deep inside her gut, stretching and stretching as they drew on the power of the ley lines coursing beneath their feet. Terzian and his men were practically radiant with it—gold sparks flitted through the air and a dull roar filled Jordan’s ears. And Jordan knew. She knew that it didn’t matter what kind of filthy magic she used, how desperate she became. She was no match for the likes of Terzian. None in her family had been.
The best she could hope to do was warn the rest—and hope they stood a better chance than she of stopping him.
Terzian tilted his head to one side as something vile swirled inside his irises. Something Jordan never wanted to see again.
“I’m sorry,” Jordan whispered to the Vodnář as she hiked up the hem of her broom skirt.
And before Terzian could unleash whatever he was gathering inside of him, she turned for the side entrance and fled.
4.
“Comrade Komyetski.” Zerena spoke like she was chewing on stale black bread. He stood in the doorway of her study within the ambassador’s mansion, his cheeks red, his jowls framing a particularly pleased little smirk. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
Sasha stepped over the threshold and approached her desk. With one last weary glance at the correspondence she’d been answering, Zerena returned her pen to its holder.
“Oh, purely business, my dear. We have so many preparations to attend to, after all.”
“Of course.” Zerena pursed her lips. “But I was under the impression that they had already been… handled?”
“Well, not entirely. There is one small matter that remains.” He picked up a paperweight from her desk—an ugly blown-glass thing given to her husband as a gift from the Czech people in honor of their heritage or some kind of pastoral drivel. As he turned the glass over in his hands, Zerena waited for him to continue, but no further explanation was forthcoming.
A game, then. Yet another one. He was here for much the same reason he attended any function at the embassy—because he wanted to savor every last bite and sip, and it was Zerena’s duty to placate him throughout. Then, only when he had overindulged himself, could she gently steer him home.
Thoughts of Terzian were all that kept her from shoving him right out the door.
“So?” Zerena asked, unable to blunt the edge in her tone. “What is it we need to discuss?”
Sasha set the paperweight down, then, turning toward the doorway, he yanked her study’s glass-paneled French doors shut. Zerena pressed one hand to her temples, steeling herself, then executed a warding charm with no great joy.
“The ritual,” he said, then settled into the chair opposite her. “A decision has been reached.”
Zerena stilled.
“We believe we have concocted a superior method of transferring the elementals into Hosts more… suitable for our endeavors.” Sasha laced his fingers together with mathematical precision.
“We?”
He smiled, lips glistening. “Terzian and I.”
A dark thing sprouted in Zerena’s chest.
“Your conclusions are sound. The tweaks to the Cairo method. However, your method was inelegant. Further, Terzian has determined that you are perhaps too personally invested in the matter to see it with an empiricist’s detachment.”
“But it was my idea.” Zerena felt heat creeping up the back of her neck. “I devised the concept—”
“But you will not be the one to carry it out.”
For a moment, Zerena wanted to laugh. Sasha had never been particularly good at magic. That he was capable of performing any spells at all was a small miracle, probably resulting from dumb luck, like those useless heritage Ice families.
Then she realized the true meaning of his words.
“You’re to be the new Host.”
Sasha’s grin broadened like a curtain pulling back. “Indeed I am.”
Zerena gripped the arm of her chair. Her blood was buzzing; fury wasn’t quite the right word for what she felt. No, this ran much deeper. This was a total collapse of everyt
hing she’d been working for. No. The word circled and circled in her mind, an endless loop. No. No.
“You think yourself a master manipulator,” Sasha scoffed, something dark flashing in his eyes. “But you’re only a child. A bored little housewife, tinkering with the crossword puzzle.”
The words came from a well deep inside Zerena. “You idiot.”
“You always did reach above your station. The no-name factory girl pleading and screwing her way into university and the ambassador’s mansion. You thought magic could be the same way?” He laughed. “You don’t even know the meaning of the Flame.”
The well echoed with her anger. It rang through her, a cascade of rage, and only a curled fist in her lap could contain it. “I know it better than you,” Zerena snarled.
“Power is ours to grasp, but you are not strong enough to grasp it. Oh, you tried, my dear, you tried so very hard. But you should know better than to try to match me at chess.”
Zerena’s nails dug into the wood of the chair arm. “You arrogant—”
“Arrogant? I am accomplished. And you—my only regret is that you will not even be there to see it. We have no use for a filthy hedgewitch like you.” Sasha propped one ankle on his knee. “After all your scheming, it is I who will become a Host now. Terzian has seen you for the fraud, the petty schemer you truly are. I will control Prague. And when our cleansing fire sweeps through the streets—”
Zerena yanked open her desk drawer and pulled a fat folder from it. “Your cleansing fire,” she said, holding the words at arm’s length like a bit of garbage, “is not here yet, and no matter what Terzian tells you, will not come until the other elementals are found.”
“Nonsense—you don’t know what we’ll be capable of—”
“Until then, you have other duties.” She slammed the folder onto the desk and shoved it at Sasha.
He stared at it for a moment, then tapped the cover gingerly, like he thought it might be warded. “Am I supposed to be frightened?”
“You should be.” Zerena nodded at the folder. “A detailed record of your comings and goings in the rezidentura. My, but there is so much unaccounted for.”
The Witch Who Came In From The Cold: The Complete Season 2: The Complete Season 2 (The Witch Who Came In From The Cold Season 2) Page 45
