Nothing beyond that?
No threat detected.
Confirm, Maxim demanded. Be certain.
Delphi went back to work. Gabby groaned just slightly.
The response came even faster.
Confirmed. No threat detected.
Delphi…are you sure? Could she be tampering with the results? Or hiding something?
Stated hypotheticals are defined as very unlikely.
Gabby smiled wearily and waited, blood dripping from one nostril.
Maxim holstered his gun without any awareness of having decided to do so. The red mark on her forehead where the pistol had pressed against her skin made him feel intensely guilty.
“It’s cold, and it’s still dark,” Gabby said, taking his hand. “Won’t you come back to the camp?”
***
Harbin was suffering under the third day of a cold snap that only added to Svetlana’s depression. She was tired of waking to find the windows coated with frost, and she was tired of breathing the heated air inside the hotel, which dried her sinuses and gave her headaches.
Still, she did what she was told, because that was what she did.
Svetlana hardly knew what to do with herself when she had no external direction. She spoke little Mandarin and was not a fan of the local cuisine, but after four meals from room service in a row, she was starting to feel a little desperate.
She wished that Anastasia had left her more to do, or at least something else to do.
The effort of bringing in the endless family and dignitaries for Anastasia’s debut had exhausted Svetlana, and then the further strain of the bombing and the disruption of the Ether left her bedridden and unable to travel. She had been left behind at the Marriot across the river in Harbin to recuperate, with no more responsibility than to supervise the cleaning and to see to it that the bodies made it back to Moscow, and from there to the various family estates where the burials would take place.
Anastasia had taken her personal maids with her, but she left behind the family’s platoon of black-clad servants, who required no direction or intervention on her part, seeking her approval only after plans had been formulated, and relegating her to little more than an observer with the utmost politeness.
Svetlana needed the rest, but she was not sure she appreciated it.
She might have felt better if she could have kept busier.
At the very least, she insisted on having a personal role in the care of the deceased, if only to review and approve each aspect of the arrangements.
Josef had been flown out yesterday, and Pavel that morning, but there were so many more.
Some of them were destined for the memorial grounds that the Black Sun maintained in St. Petersburg, while others were shipped to the cartel crematorium in Hong Kong, but almost half the dead were to be transported to familial burial grounds, which meant coordinating international shipping for twenty bodies.
A select few were to be interred in Central, a situation that presented its own complications. For now, those bodies were collected in a private freezer requisitioned from a shipping company, waiting for an apport.
Svetlana suspected that it might be a while.
That afternoon and evening had been spent dealing with three grief-stricken families and the logistics of their bereavement, which Anastasia was funding. All but the last of them were nice enough – and even the final couple were hardly mean, just very drunk and aimlessly angry – but Svetlana skipped dinner, and instead went straight to her room to lie down.
She felt weak and a bit slow, and since the bombing, what little sleep she had gotten was plagued with nightmares.
Despite her weariness, Svetlana had made no attempt to sleep. She ran a bath, adding a bath-bomb that smelled of rose and hibiscus, and then soaked for a half-hour, until the tightness in calves and the balls of her feet dissipated somewhat. She dried, dressed, and then propped herself up in bed with all three novels she was currently reading.
She was only really enjoying one of them, but Svetlana had a firm policy of finishing any book that she started, so she had been bringing the other two with her everywhere she went for months without making any real progress with either.
She glanced at the room service menu, and as she suspected, there was nothing on it that she wanted.
Svetlana fixed her hair, put on stockings, a heavy woolen skirt, and a matching blue sweater, and then did her makeup. She put on her warmest boots at the door and added a scarf and sunglasses.
The elevator was fast and nearly silent.
The clerk at the lobby asked after her politely, using the last name she used to check in. Svetlana had nearly forgotten it and felt like her response was rushed and unnatural.
She barely noticed the pair of security guards who followed her out the door, staying at a discreet distance while she waited for the car.
A polished Buick arrived promptly. One of the guards hurried to open the door for her, and Svetlana slipped inside, feeling a bit guilty for not offering some sort of tip, though she knew how ridiculous that thought was.
“Good afternoon, Miss,” the driver said, lowering his sunglasses so she could see his eyes in the rearview mirror, which were brown as dirt and cold as the wind blowing from the north. “Where can I take you?”
“I want to get something to eat,” Svetlana said, doing her best to affect the practiced boredom that Anastasia radiated. “Somewhere that serves Russian food, please.”
The driver nodded and piloted the car out onto the crowded road.
Svetlana closed her eyes, certain that she would not sleep.
The driver had to shake her awake at their destination, a small establishment in a fashionable area of town, with lots of windows and broad wooden tables that looked like great butcher’s blocks. Svetlana thanked the driver, checked her makeup in her compact, and then walked into the restaurant.
She did not even know the name of the place, and she had no memory of the driver calling ahead, but staff held the door for her on arrival, and the manager waited at the front to whisk her immediately to a private table in the quietest corner of the restaurant, complete with flowers in a vase and a small candle beside the cutlery.
A samovar of hot tea arrived before she could consult the menu, and the waiter was quite handsome, with an easy smile and tousled brown hair and a charming habit of blushing when she looked at him. The tables on either side remained empty, but on the other side of the dining room a pair of businessmen were deep in conversation, while her guards sat nearby at a table laid with black bread and onions and little glasses of clear spirits.
They spoke occasionally into their earpieces, and studiously avoided looking in her direction.
Svetlana entertained the idea of skipping directly to the honey cake that she truly wanted, before settling on solyanka and dumplings, counting on the familiarity of the food to create an appetite that she did not feel.
She sipped her tea and settled back in her chair.
The diners around her exchanged whispers, wondering who she was, to merit leaving a quarter of the restaurant empty during a busy hour, and Svetlana enjoyed that, just a little. She left her sunglasses on, because that felt like the right thing to do, until she noticed her bodyguards had done the same thing at their table.
She folded the glasses and returned them to her purse, feeling a bit ashamed of herself.
The gossip quieted, but it continued as she finished her tea.
The waiter brought her soup, brushing her hand as he refilled her teacup, which she did not mind. He assured her that the dumplings would quickly follow in his bashful way, and then returned to the kitchen, giving her a good look at his tight pants, which she also did not mind.
She poked at a chunk of pickled cucumber with her spoon and wondered if this was what it felt like to be Anastasia.
Svetlana thought it over while she waited for the soup to cool, deciding that it was unlikely. Anastasia was probably no more conscious of the wealth and power of h
er surroundings than a fish was of the sea in which it swam, or a bird the sky in which it flew.
Svetlana noticed and enjoyed privilege because it was unfamiliar.
She was accustomed to luxury, regularly exposed to it when she accompanied her Mistress to assignations and soirees. She had three closets of tailored dresses that she could never have afforded, and jewelry that she was afraid to wear except at Anastasia’s insistence. She had eaten at fine restaurants and danced with gentlemen and stood in state beside Anastasia in ballrooms and executive offices and hotel suites across the world.
Svetlana felt as though she had worn shoes a little too small for her feet, though the sizing was, of course, perfect. The meal felt as if she had snuck into a private party, only to find herself alone in a room full of strangers. She was a servant through and through, Svetlana thought, and would have felt more comfortable in the kitchen than in the dining room.
She felt tired all over again and started to wish she had just stayed in her room.
Svetlana raised her hand to catch the waiter’s attention, intending to ask for coffee.
He noticed and hurried over, smiling at her, so she did not notice the commotion at the door at first. She became aware of it only after she noticed her security detail rise, one of them talking rapidly into his earpiece, while the other pulled a gun.
The chatter in the restaurant was replaced by panic.
The sound of breaking glass was followed by a body crashing into a nearby table, breaking the legs and scattering the crockery. Svetlana backed away, startled to see the manager lying in the ruins of the table and settings, his spine bent the wrong way. He flailed about like he was drowning, pink bubbles forming at his lips.
The screaming started.
Patrons made for the door, or ran toward the back, where the staff fled. People were tangled in the aisles between tables, tripping over each other and getting in shoving matches at the doors. Both of her guards were on their feet, guns drawn, forcing a path through the crowd to where she cowered against the wall, entirely unsure what she was supposed to do.
There was further commotion at the front of the restaurant, then more crashing and screaming.
Another person went flying, crashing into one of the restaurant’s mirrored walls, dusting the crowd with broken glass.
There was a gunshot, deafeningly loud in the restaurant, and the screams increased in volume and shrillness. Svetlana covered her ears and sank to the ground, hiding below the table. Around the edges of the crisp white tablecloth, she could see one of her security guards taking aim at someone she could not see.
He got off three shots before his hand was impaled by a bolt of lightning that seemed to erupt from the floor beneath him. He screamed and dropped the gun. A current of electricity coursed through his body, making him convulse, until steam started to rise from the top of his head. He groaned and then collapsed on a table, tipping it as he fell.
The sounds of confusion and terror were overwhelming. Svetlana clamped her hands over her ears as hard as she could and shut her eyes.
She recognized the activation of an Isolation Field by the unique sense of pressure they always evoked, but she kept her head down and her eyes closed.
She counted to thirty, waiting until her heart had slowed to something less than a furious rate, then cautiously opened her eyes and uncovered her ears.
The restaurant was somehow perfectly quiet. A man she had never met before stood beside her table, looking at her in a way that felt very familiar, a combination of contempt and pity that she often saw in the eyes of those who interacted with her.
“Who are you?” Svetlana asked, reverting to Russian in her fear. “What do you want?”
“My name is Egill Johannsson, of the Thule Cartel,” the man replied, in English. “I’ve come here to kill you.”
She burst into tears, and he looked uncomfortable.
“Why? I don’t matter, and I’ve never hurt anyone.”
“It isn’t like that,” Egill said. “It is purely a practical concern. I require your talents.”
“Then let me help you, instead,” Svetlana begged. “I’ll take you wherever you want to go, just please don’t kill me.”
“I can’t do that,” Egill said. “I need your protocol for myself, and there’s only one way I can get it.”
Svetlana sobbed, and Egill looked around rather desperately, as if he expected some sort of help in dealing with the crying woman.
“It’s nothing personal,” he assured her. “You must have known when you joined the Black Sun…”
“Please, I don’t want to die,” Svetlana said. “Please don’t hurt me.”
“It won’t hurt,” Egill said. “I promise.”
She looked around the restaurant and realized that everyone inside of it was dead, steaming corpses stacked atop each other and strewn across the restaurant floor. Both of her guards and the handsome waiter were among the bodies.
She screamed, and Egill grimaced.
“Is that…?” Svetlana covered her mouth. “Is that what you want to do to me?”
“I will make it completely painless,” Egill assured her. “You won’t suffer at all.”
“Why is this happening? I’m no one! I just do transportation.”
“It’s bad luck, that’s all. Cartel business.”
“Please, you don’t have to…”
“It has to be done. I wouldn’t do it, otherwise.”
Svetlana wept bitterly.
“Please don’t!”
Egill swore and ran his fingers through his hair.
“I can’t do anything about it,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“I don’t want to die!” Svetlana backed away from him. “Isn’t there something…?”
“There’s nothing,” Egill said, reaching for her. “If you could just please…”
He slipped on the waiter’s body, and Svetlana leapt past him, heading for the door.
Egill had told the truth, at least.
She did not feel the bolt of lightning that burst from the ground to strike her. There was no pain or heat, no sense of shock or fear. She felt nothing at all as she crumpled, folding in on herself as the lights in the room dimmed.
Her heartbeat was very loud, and then it diminished, like a song on the radio fading to static as the signal was lost.
Egill touched Svetlana on the back of her neck. He then laid her out flat on the ground, arranging her head and arms in a comfortable position.
“Well,” he said, straightening his jacket, “that was horrible.”
***
She led him back to the camp, his arm tucked into hers, Maxim stumbling like a drunkard and trembling. Gabby murmured platitudes in his ear that Maxim could hardly hear, over the sound of his chattering teeth.
Gabby set him down gently, Maxim half-collapsing atop his pack. She hurried to the opposite side of camp and took off his jacket, spreading it on the dirt, smoothing out the wrinkles with a brush of her hand. She let her brown hair down and shook it out, watching him the entire time with an expression that Maxim swore he had never seen before, on anyone.
Duty, and reluctance, and…he did not know. Maxim knew three languages by heart and another three poorly, and yet lacked the words.
Gabby lay down on the jacket, and then looked up at him expectantly, patting the spot beside her.
“Come on, Maxim,” she said softly. “You’re freezing.”
An infusion of candy-store temptation that made his tongue curl with disgust, a saccharine and cloying idea that muddied his thoughts. Delphi poked at him, warning of empathic intrusion, but of course Maxim already knew the sensations were foreign in origin.
He shook his head.
Gabby stared at him for a moment, and all he could hear was blood rushing.
Maxim looked away, his mind a mess of honeysuckle and revulsion.
“Stop it,” Maxim spat, his throat tight. “Right now.”
Her expression remained perfectly neut
ral.
“What’s wrong, Maxim?”
The tide of misplaced desire receded from his mind, and he laughed shrilly.
“I’m not into girls,” Maxim admitted, wiping his face with the same rag he used to clean his pistol, smearing a veneer of ballistic oil on his skin. “I want you out of my head. Now. Understood?”
“…oh my God.”
Maxim exhaled sharply, shaking out his hands.
“I’m so sorry,” Gabby said, wrapping herself in his jacket self-consciously. “That was terrible of me.”
Maxim slapped himself lightly across the cheeks a couple times.
“I wondered what was wrong,” Gabby admitted, looking altogether relieved. “I’ve been leaning on you so hard, and nothing was working!”
“Yeah,” Maxim said, his skin crawling. “I know.”
She looked away, again with that odd expression. Maxim was curious despite himself.
“What is it?”
“It’s nothing,” Gabby said. “It’s just…”
“What?”
“I’m a little relieved, that’s all. I just…I want to live, I truly do, and I would do anything, but I really, really didn’t want to have to seduce you. No offense.”
“None taken.”
“It’s nothing personal!” Gabby said hurriedly. “I have a fiancé, you see.”
Maxim blushed, not entirely sure why, his eyes darting automatically to the fingers of her left hand.
“Oh, I don’t wear it in the field,” Gabby said. “Too easy to lose it, or…”
She trailed off.
“Who?”
“Who what?”
“Don’t play games with me. Who is your fiancé?”
“It’s still a secret, but I suppose there’s no hiding it from you,” Gabby said, with a reticent demeanor that Maxim did not buy at all. “His name is Grigori Aushev! Do you know him?”
Maxim’s eyes narrowed.
“The Auditor?”
“Just lately, yes,” Gabby said, flush with pride. “Our families made the arrangement two and a half years ago. He was just a junior Operator for the Hegemony, but I knew, even then, that he was destined for great things.”
Maxim rubbed his eyes.
The Church of Sleep (Central Series Book 5) Page 16
