The Romanov Legacy

by Jenni Wiltz

  “What is it?”

  She tried to twist her lips into a smile but moving any muscles near her brain hurt too much. “I’m not who you think I am,” she whispered.

  “I called you by name in your apartment. We both know who you are, professor.”

  Natalie opened her mouth to explain but nothing came out. She wished she were telepathic instead of…whatever the fuck she was. What am I, Belial? she asked silently. Do you even know?

  I do, he answered.

  Then help me, she begged. If she told Constantine the truth, would he let her go or just start chasing Beth? She couldn’t think. Forcing ideas into her swollen brain felt like pushing a bedspread through a keyhole. “I’m not who you think I am,” she repeated.

  Constantine put a hand under her chin and tilted it to look her in the eye. “Pretending you’re someone else won’t make me go away. You know that, don’t you?”

  “I’m telling you the truth.”

  “Then if you’re not Professor Brandon, who are you?”

  “Beth is my sister.”

  He tightened his grip on her chin. “Our records indicate that apartment is leased by Elizabeth Brandon.”

  “She rented it for me. It’s her signature on the lease, not mine.”

  “Then why do her employment records also list that location as her residence?”

  “She makes students cry on a regular basis,” Natalie snapped. “Would you want hundreds of pissed-off undergrads knowing where you live?” Anger flooded her veins and the urge to throw up returned, drenching her in a wave of sweat. Belial soothed her, caressing her with his wing. You’re getting awfully upset, little one. I think you should let me handle the rest of this.

  She ignored him, grabbing the edge of the mattress and clutching it until she felt the springs dig into her fingertips. If Belial took control, she’d never find out what they wanted from her sister. She used the pain to stay focused, staring into the Russian man’s inscrutable blue eyes. “Why do you want Beth?”

  I don’t think you heard me, Belial said, flicking her with a wing.

  Natalie blinked back tears but kept her gaze focused on Constantine. “I’m not going to hurt her,” he said. “I just need information.”

  “What information?” Spots danced in front of her eyes, floating past her like waltzing mushroom caps. It was Belial, pressing on her optic nerve.

  “A man here claims he has a password that allows him to access Tsar Nicholas II’s funds in the Bank of England. He said he shared his information with your sister, who verified its authenticity. I need to find out what he showed her.”

  “He lied,” she said. A drop of sweat rolled into her eye, burning it with salt. She blinked it away but when she opened her eyes, everything had already gone black. Her fingers and toes tingled and when she commanded them to move, nothing happened. Not now Belial, she begged. Please not now.

  But it was too late.

  I’ll handle everything, Belial said. You just rest.

  He thrust his wings up against her skull, pressing them outward until she was sure her head would crack open. “I’m sorry,” she whispered as the world around her vanished.

  Chapter Ten

  July 2012

  San Francisco, California

  Constantine watched the girl’s eyes roll back in her head. She collapsed onto the bed and he reached for her wrists, pulling her upright. “Miss Brandon!” he called, shaking her gently. Sweat glistened in the creases of her forehead and he gasped when he felt the heat radiating from her skin. He swore out loud and laid her back down.

  Images from the horrible days following Lana’s return flashed through his mind. Sullen and withdrawn, she’d locked herself in her room for three days. When he finally broke down her door, she lay sweating and unconscious, in the grip of a terrible fever. She shook and spasmed like the girl in front of him, her skin concealing all the fires of hell.

  He ran to the bathroom and pulled the cold water handle of the claw-footed tub, releasing a stream of ochre-colored water. In the freezer, he found two plastic trays filled with frost-burned ice cubes and emptied them into the water. “Hold on,” he said to her, smoothing sweat-dampened hair from her cheeks. With one arm under her shoulders and the other beneath her knees, he carried the unconscious girl to the bathroom.

  Her body twitched when he lowered her into the cold water. He used his hands to scoop it over her arms and her chest, exactly as he had for Lana. The dirty water beaded like gray pearls on her skin.

  Constantine straightened her legs to make sure they were covered and dug beneath the sink until he found a washcloth. When he plunged it into the water, a dead spider fell out, floating like a jellyfish in the sea. He fished it out before it could touch her and placed the cool cloth on her forehead.

  This is my fault, he thought. He’d seen the professor’s headshot in the file. He should have realized the woman inside the apartment looked nothing like the woman on the book jacket. Instead of focusing on his objective, he’d been focused on finishing the job so he could go home.

  He tried to remember what his file had said about the professor’s sister—something about sanitariums. Looking down at the girl in the tub, he realized the file was probably right. Every one of her nails lay ragged, bitten off in pieces above the quick. Her masses of dark, tangled hair hadn’t seen a comb or scissors in quite some time. When open, her eyes were ghostly blue-white, not so different from the color of her skin. They reminded him of a frozen Siberian lake where something primeval and dangerous churned beneath the surface.

  He touched the back of his hand to her cheek. It was still hot to the touch, flushed an angry fuchsia. How long could he leave her in the tub until it became necessary to call for help? What if he left to fetch a doctor and the next Vympel death squad found her? It was his fault she was here at all; he couldn’t allow anything to happen to her because of his mistake.

  “Tell me how to help you,” he said. He picked up her hand to take her pulse but something else caught his attention: vertical white lines, running nearly the length of each forearm. Constantine recognized them immediately. Lana’s, he remembered, ran horizontally.

  He rocked back on his heels, still holding the girl’s arm. He’d killed dozens of people in his years working for Stealth and then the bureau, but never had he felt the urge to turn his weapons on himself. What made people do it? And if they failed, as both Lana and this girl had done, did that make them feel better or worse? Was it possible to realize life had more value than they realized, or did they just keep trying until they succeeded? For Lana, it appeared to be the latter.

  “Why did you do it?” he whispered, tracing the girl’s lines with the tip of his index finger. “I don’t understand.”

  A low moan rumbled up from her throat in response. Her legs twitched in the water, splashing him lightly. “You heard that, didn’t you?” he asked.

  She mumbled incoherently but it was good enough for him. He lifted her out of the tub, laid her on the bed and began to dry her with a towel. When he came to her face, he patted her cheeks gently but they were wet with tears a moment later. “What’s wrong?”

  “It hurts,” she moaned.

  “Tell me what I can do.” He tossed aside the towel and sat on the edge of the bed. The girl moved slowly, crawling into his lap and clutching fistfuls of his sweater in small white-knuckled hands. She pressed her head deep beneath his arm, as if she could burrow into his side. He tried to pull her up but she resisted, clinging to him until he let her be.

  Her eyes leaked tears in wordless sobs as the pain worked its way through her. It came in waves, like a pregnant woman’s contractions, except that each one left her with more and more time to breathe before the next one seized her. Over the course of an hour, they left her exhausted and weak, fingers cramped into curls where they clutched at him. He had never felt more helpless in his life. When at last she lay quiet in his arms, he bent his head to her ear and whispered softly, “Is it over?”
r />   The girl nodded, unable to open her cracked lips.

  “What do you need? Do you want some water?”

  She nodded again and he extricated himself from the tangle of her arms and found a glass in the kitchen cabinet. He rinsed it and filled it with tap water. “Here,” he said, holding it for her as she swallowed greedily.

  When she finished, she looked up at him with fire-bright eyes. Her skin was pale and shiny with oil and sweat. “Thank you,” she said.

  He shook his head. “That’s the first thing you can think of to say?”

  “You could have left me.”

  Constantine thought of Lana, discovered by a night watchman after Lazovsky and his men left her unconscious and bleeding on the pavement outside a warehouse. There was no honor in a man who left a woman to die on the street. “No,” he said. “I couldn’t.”

  Her lips moved outward, trying to replicate a smile. “You’ve made that choice before.”

  “Yes.”

  “For a woman?”

  “Yes.”

  She kept the empty glass clutched in her fingers. “Who is she?”

  “I think she’s like you.”

  “Like me,” she repeated. “Do the doctors tell her she’s crazy, too?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you believe them?”

  “Something bad happened to her and she can’t find her way past it. Is that what happened to you?”

  “No. One day, he just appeared.”

  “Who appeared?”

  “An angel named Belial. He lives in my head. Sometimes he tries to get out—that’s what you just saw.” She closed her eyes and sighed. “I suppose it could be worse. It could be Lucifer, right?”

  Constantine gulped. “I think you need more water.” He took her glass and refilled it at the kitchen sink until water ran over the top and spilled down the sides. Lucifer? he thought. What the hell is she talking about? Lana never talked about abstract things like angels and demons. But Lana wasn’t there—and he wouldn’t get to see her again until he finished this job. Focus, he told himself. Do what you were trained to do.

  When he brought the glass back to the girl, he held it an inch beyond her fingertips. “What’s your name?”

  “Natalie.”

  “Natalie, what does your sister know about Tsar Nicholas’s money?”

  “That’s what I was trying to tell you.” She leaned forward and took the glass. “Beth doesn’t know anything about it. She doesn’t believe it exists.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “Because I tried to convince her two days ago and we haven’t spoken since.”

  “The blackmailer mentioned your sister by name. Why?”

  “She just published a biography of Nicholas. Someone probably saw her name attached to the subject and bluffed.”

  “People who break into an embassy and blackmail the ambassador don’t bluff about things like that.”

  “I wouldn’t know.” She paused. “Do you have any more vodka?”

  “Are you crazy?” Then he realized what he’d said and felt his cheeks redden slightly.

  Natalie shrugged. “Alcohol is the only thing that helps when Belial acts up. It slows him down so I can out-think him.”

  Constantine blinked and swallowed heavily. “You said you tried to convince your sister the Tsar’s money is there. How do you know?”

  “Belial told me.” She drew her legs up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, blue-white eyes sparkling dangerously. “You mentioned a password. I’ve only seen one source in the whole world that talks about a password. Either your blackmailer found that source and is using it to bluff, or he’s telling the truth.”

  He watched the color flood back into her cheeks and it frightened him. “Try to stay calm,” he said. “I don’t want you to faint again.”

  “But what if we can solve a mystery that’s almost a hundred years old?”

  “Not we,” he said, shaking his head. “You wouldn’t even be involved in this if it weren’t for me.”

  Natalie swung her feet off the bed and planted them on the floor. He jumped up beside her, ready to catch her if she fell. “I’m fine now,” she said, standing slowly. “See?”

  “All the same.” He put an arm around her waist to steady her, resting it above the soft curve of her hip. Drops of water from the tips of her still-wet hair fell onto his sleeves. Although she’d lost the sudden fever, her body remained hot to the touch.

  “The men in my apartment,” she said. “Do they also think I’m Beth?”

  He nodded. “They must have followed me straight to you.”

  “So she’s safe as long as you don’t tell anyone you made a mistake?”

  “Yes.”

  “I want to keep it that way.”

  “You would take her place against a Vympel death squad?”

  “I’d take her place in hell.”

  Constantine looked down at her, pale skin glowing like a candle flame. He realized the blue tone beneath its surface came from iron or steel. “I believe you,” he said.

  “You have to promise me nothing will happen to her.”

  “I can’t.”

  “If you want my help, you have to.” She grabbed his wrists and held on tightly. “Belial told me the money is there. I’ll help you find it, but only if you promise me those men won’t hurt Beth.”

  He opened his mouth to tell her that no one in his line of work could promise anything. If a small-time gangster like Lazovsky would destroy his sister just to get to him, what would Vympel do if they believed Natalie and her sister had information they needed to complete their mission? He stared at her face, trying to find a way to explain how dangerous this all was. As he looked at her, his brain kept replaying images of Natalie in the bathtub, sodden clothes clinging to every curve. God damn it, he thought. I don’t need this.

  “Excuse me,” he said quickly, releasing her abruptly and escaping into the bathroom. “I’ll find you some dry clothes,” he called as he slammed the door behind him.

  He sagged against it, staring at his reflection in the mirror. Fucking Christ, he thought, what are you doing? She’s an ordinary informant…treat her like one. Stop pretending she’s like Lana and stop thinking about her in her underwear.

  He closed his eyes and pressed his hands to his head, but all he could see was Natalie Brandon’s eerie blue gaze. What was it she believed lived behind her eyes? An angel? Maybe that wasn’t so strange, he thought. The women who knelt before the icons in the Arkhangelsky Sobor believed a divine essence inhabited a painted piece of wood. Why shouldn’t it inhabit a person, too?

  He bent down and rummaged in the under-sink cabinet. Tucked in a small wicker basket, he found a pair of men’s Levi’s and a white t-shirt. He carried them back out to her. “This is all I can find,” he said, shaking them out. “They’re a little dirty.”

  “I like things that are dirty,” she said. “Didn’t you see my apartment?”

  He smiled then turned his back while she dressed, listening to the sound of the scratchy denim sliding up over her hips. He tried to keep his mind from replaying images of her in the tub. It didn’t work. “Okay,” she said. “You can turn around now.”

  The t-shirt hung loosely over her breasts, dark nipples visible through the thin cotton. He gulped. Natalie glared at him and pressed her scarred forearms to her chest. “Why are you staring at my arms? Isn’t there something else I can wear?”

  Arms? he thought. Does she really think I’m staring at her arms?

  “There’s nothing wrong with you or your arms,” he said, guiding her back to the bed and sitting beside her. “I know someone who has scars, too, remember?”

  Her eyes remained wary but she tilted her head, as if she were interested in spite of herself. “Why did she do it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why not?”

  “She won’t talk to me. Can you tell me how you got yours?”

  “Why the hell would you
want to hear about that?”

  He touched one of her scars and felt the soft, puffy skin. “It might help me understand why she did it.”

  “I guarantee you, it won’t.”

  “I’d really like to know.”

  “Are you going to shoot me if I don’t tell you?”

  He smiled. “Of course not. I wasn’t going to shoot you earlier, either.”

  “I didn’t think so,” she said softly. “But it wasn’t even my fault. It was Dante’s.”

  “Dante?”

  She nodded matter-of-factly. “Belial brought him to me in a dream. Dante said he needed me to transcribe a message for him. He said it had to be in blood or the devil would see it. I guess they do things differently where he is.”

  “Right,” Constantine said slowly, trying to hold his facial expression steady. “Why didn’t you say no?”

  She looked straight at him and then frowned. “When Italy’s greatest poet tells you to do something, you do it.”

  “Of course,” he replied, as if her answer were the only logical one. “So what did you do?”

  “I went into the kitchen, picked up a knife, and held it across my wrist like a violin bow. But then Dante said I was doing it wrong and corrected me, like this.” She held an imaginary blade parallel with her ulna. “I sliced away and used the blood for ink, writing every word he said on my kitchen wall.”

  Constantine pointed at her right arm. “What happened to that one?”

  “Canto XXXII. That fucker is long.”

  He bit his tongue until tears came to his eyes.

  “I wrote down everything he said, which turned out to be the eighth circle of the Inferno.” She shook her head. “The bastard could have just told me to look it up. I almost ran out of ink.”

  “Ink,” he repeated. She calls it ink. “But someone must have saved you.”

  “Beth had been calling me for an hour straight and when I didn’t answer, she called 911 and took a cab to St. Luke’s. When I woke up, I asked her to go read Dante’s message. She compared what I’d written to the real thing and found one line of verse that didn’t belong. It said not to believe the German, that cowardly hearts sought salvation with a pen instead of a prayer.”