Midnight In St. Pertsburg (The Invisible War 1)

by Barbara J. Webb

  He spat down on Andrei. “Loyal. We hated them all. I lived through Stalin’s purges, saw far too many taken away forever. When they reopened the monastery, we celebrated, but we never believed ourselves safe. Even still, I trusted to God. I prayed to God. I dreamed of a Moses to come free us from our cruel masters.

  “Instead, He visited the worst cruelty of all.” Dmitri pointed down at Poulov who, even unconscious, twitched and let out a moan as sparks of energy lanced through his flesh. “The Black Fist used our monastery as their incubator. I raised their fledglings and they came and took them from me, once I had awakened their power. Those who would not serve, they executed. Those who would serve, they corrupted. And still, God did nothing.

  “And now,” Dmitri pointed at Andrei, “He was going to start it up again. I heard the whispers, read the messages. I know the deals he’s made with his new friends. They may not call themselves KGB anymore, but they are the same.”

  Dmitri floated back down to the circle, landed on the floor next to it. “I have taken matters into my own hands.”

  Mike wasn’t impressed. “You sold your soul.”

  “My soul is nothing. I have bought the power to carry out my justice. I will punish those who deserve it. Once I am done, what happens to me—it doesn’t matter.”

  Mike’s bonds were secure. Solid and smooth, Mike couldn’t get a magical grip on them. Nazeem’s bonds, on the other hand, were physical objects. Rope and cloth, Mike could manipulate. The trick was keeping Dmitri distracted.

  “What do you want me for? I can’t believe you’re going to just let me go after this.” Mike couldn’t afford any outward sign of concentration. He couldn’t even risk looking at Nazeem. He visualized Nazeem’s ropes with his eyes open, focused his will through a relaxed expression.

  Dmitri snapped at one of his men. The man drew a machete from under his coat and brought it to the Father Abbot. Old and worn, the hilt was little more than a frayed wrapping held together with electrical tape, but the blade looked plenty sharp. “I don’t want to have to kill you, Michael. I think we have more in common than not.” Dmitri whipped the blade through the air several times. “Your taste in companions aside.”

  Nazeem shifted, just a few inches, but enough to give Mike a view of the knots that held his arms. On the inside, Mike applauded the vampire for figuring out what Mike was doing. On the outside, Mike held his poker face. “I’m not going to help you, old man. You’ve made a pact with the other side. That makes us enemies.”

  “Oh, fah, other side indeed. You’re working with a vampire. How is that any different?”

  Dmitri had him there. Except, “I didn’t have to offer him my soul in exchange for his help.”

  “I did it to save my people. Tell me you would have done less.” Without touching the former agent, Dmitri lifted Poulov into the air before him. Poulov hung limp, still unconscious. Dmitri didn’t seem to care, even reached out to pull the blindfold from Poulov’s face. “For your crimes.” Poulov’s arm lifted, stiff, and Dmitri swung the machete to remove Poulov’s hand in one swift blow.

  Poulov’s blood fountained out over Andrei and Nazeem. Andrei was definitely still awake; he tried to twist away from the gore. The pain had brought Poulov back to consciousness. His eyes popped open as he struggled against the invisible power that held him.

  Dmitri cackled again, watching him thrash. Mike took advantage of his distraction to work harder at Nazeem’s ropes. With Nazeem’s speed and the machete right there, they might have a chance.

  Poulov’s struggles became weaker as the blood poured out of him. His head started to sag and his eyelids fell. He didn’t have much longer. Nazeem would have to move fast if they were to have any chance at all to save him.

  Mike took a risk, pantomimed pulling at the knots with his fingers. That little extra focus made the difference and he saw the ropes loosen. Nazeem rolled again, this time to hide the slack that had suddenly appeared. Mike bent his will to Nazeem’s blindfold, inched it up just enough to give Nazeem a slit of vision.

  It had to be now or nothing. Poulov was fading fast. Mike braced his mind, prepared for his own burst of power, whatever would help Nazeem. As soon as the vampire—

  Dmitri’s hand arced out and the machete sliced across Poulov’s throat. Half-beheaded, Poulov collapsed to the floor as Dmitri released him.

  Dmitri sighed and Nazeem rose into the air. His free arms were obvious and Dmitri finished what Mike had begun by whisking away Nazeem’s blindfold. “Even now,” Dmitri said, “Even now you try to help this creature. How dare you lecture me, Michael?”

  Dmitri’s smile grew wide under Nazeem’s stare. “Oh, I feel you, vampire, but you’ll gain no purchase on my mind. There’s nothing you can do to save yourself. You’re helpless. Just as my poor loyal servant was helpless before you.”

  Once more, Dmitri raised the machete. Once more it sliced through the air.

  * * *

  Rose tried to ignore the gnawing horror in her stomach, reminded herself she’d never had an honest premonition in her life. However sure she was something awful had already happened, that was no more than garden-variety fear. She didn’t know anything. Mike and Nazeem had to still be alive. Even if it felt like they’d wasted hours finding the folk and Ian’s dad and Pyotr.

  The small side-chapel was still empty, but bright light flowed in from the nave and voices echoed. The shining man was out there all right. Rose dropped to her knees and scrambled to gather the iron spikes and holly branches. The sigils Ian had drawn in the mixture of holy water and blood glowed an eerie green now the doorway was awake. Rose rubbed at them with her elbow until they faded.

  She should wait for Ian. Rose knew that. But after she laid the iron and holly carefully to the side where it wouldn’t hurt anyone, she couldn’t resist a peek around the edge of the doorway. What she saw—it was like falling back into her nightmare.

  Beneath the rotunda, the shining man hovered over a spreading pool of blood with Poulov’s mangled body in the center. Now Rose knew what to look for, she could make out Dmitri’s features through the blinding light.

  Andrei and Nazeem lay bound and struggling on the floor beneath him, in a candle-marked circle. As Rose watched, horrified, Dmitri lifted his hand and Nazeem floated up. “Even now,” Dmitri called in a thundering voice, “Even now you try to help this creature. How dare you lecture me, Michael?”

  Rose looked around and sure enough, there was Mike, stuck up high on the far wall. His arms and legs were twined with glowing cords of what Rose assumed must be magic.

  Dmitri raised his hand. A hand that held a machete. He smiled. “Oh, I feel you, vampire, but you’ll gain no purchase on my mind. There’s nothing you can do to save yourself. You’re helpless. Just as my loyal servant was helpless before you.”

  Dmitri swung and Rose screamed, “Stop!” At the same moment, Nazeem twisted and the blade swept across his chest. A bloody wound but not, Rose hoped, fatal to the resilient vampire.

  “Rose?” Dmitri’s glow wavered; his voice lost some of its power. “There you are, my dear. I didn’t mean for you to see—”

  In Dmitri’s distraction, Nazeem had gained some freedom of movement. He grabbed at Dmitri’s arm and twisted. Dmitri snarled as his blade went flying. Nazeem yanked him close—close enough for Nazeem to bite.

  With a casual sweep of his hand, Dmitri sent Nazeem flying through the air. The sound of bones crunching as Nazeem struck—head first—against the corner of a marble column. Nazeem crumpled to the floor.

  Time slowed down for Rose. Her mind snapshotted everything around her. Mike hung spread-eagle, high on a wall, held by glowing chains. Andrei, bound and bloody. Dmitri’s men closing in on her.

  On the floor, not far away, the machete Nazeem had knocked from Dmitri’s hand.

  Lines of power snaked up out of the ground and around Dmitri. Mike’s doing? Rose didn’t question. She dived for the abandoned weapon.

  The world sped up again as she focuse
d on her goal. One of the black-clad men reached for her, but she dove beneath his grip. She stumbled. Her knees and shoulder smashed against the hard marble floor, but she scooped up the machete, still slick with blood. She waved the sword at the black-clad man and he stepped back. Not far enough back.

  “Do not hurt her! She’s an innocent!” Dmitri yelled, his voice strained. He thrashed in the grip of writhing lines of energy. He pulled at them, sliced through them, but they re-grew and reformed, slithering around his arms, and legs. Aiming for his neck. Up on the wall, Mike had his eyes squeezed shut. His hands clenched to fists. Sweat dripped down the side of his face, giving it an unearthly sheen in Dmitri’s strange light.

  Ordered away from Rose, the black-clad voiders turned towards Mike. Bolts of fire and lightning shot from their hands, bolts that Mike deflected, but how long could he keep up a two-sided fight?

  She had to do something. She had to stop Dmitri. Rose tightened her grip on the blood-stained blade in her hand. Was Mike praying right now? Was God watching? Because Rose was about to kill a priest, and there weren’t enough Hail Mary’s in the world to atone for that. But Rose would have to work that out with God later. Right now, she had to stop Dmitri before he killed anyone else.

  Rose ran at Dmitri, raising the machete back over her shoulder like a baseball bat.

  She swung.

  The blade sunk deep into his thigh. Dmitri screeched. The other voiders yelled. Blood sprayed into Rose’s face. She felt the sickening echo of his pain. Above, Mike’s eyes popped open. “Rose!” he shouted.

  Sudden agony blossomed in her back, spread through her. She tried to gasp, but her lungs clenched tight. Her hand went to her chest, jerked back at more pain. Rose looked down to see the point of a blade sticking out through her shirt. Her knees buckled and the room went dim.

  * * *

  “Rose!” By attacking Dmitri, Rose had lost his protection. Mike could do nothing to stop the black-clad voider as he ran up behind Rose and ran her through. Horrified, Mike watched her fall to the ground. Mike had seen enough death to recognize the blow as fatal. His heart knifed in his chest. Where had she come from? What did she think she was doing?

  Dying. That’s what she was doing. That’s what they were all doing.

  Mike’s spell crumbled and Dmitri flew free, clutching at his leg. How badly had Rose hurt him? Mike couldn’t see. Why had she done that?

  His fault. He hadn’t been able to protect her. How many kids had died just like her, victims of the invisible war? Mike understood why Dmitri had made his choice. Mike felt that same frustration, that same betrayal with every drop of blood spilled.

  Down to the core of his soul, Mike was tired. He couldn’t keep his eyes open, couldn’t keep his head up. He didn’t have the energy left to keep fighting Dmitri. He didn’t have the will to break free.

  Those were men down there. Not demons, not vampires. Dmitri’s men who had probably started out just like Mike. Who probably still believed they fought on the side of the angels.

  For all the good that did them.

  The light behind his eyelids started to dim. Mike’s head snapped up, reflex driving away self-pity. What was Dmitri doing now?

  Fading. The old monk was fading. Had Rose hurt him that much? Yes, yes she had. Good for her. Mike swallowed around the lump in his throat. Rose had done what she had to do—her death had mattered. She’d given them a chance.

  As if to underline that realization, the bands that held Mike to the wall began to loosen, their power weakening along with their creator. Mike tried to catch himself as his arms pulled through them, but the long fight had taxed him too much and he couldn’t slow his fall. He hit the marble floor knee-first and felt a crunch and a deep thudding pain as he rolled over onto his back.

  The room went dark. Too suddenly, it went dark. Dmitri had doused his own light. He was still in control, not dead yet. If they let him get away, probably not dead at all. Demon pacts could make a man resilient, even an ancient, badly wounded man.

  Mike tried to summon light, but the final struggle with Dmitri had left Mike too drained for even the simplest incantation.

  In the darkness, the sounds of fighting had stopped. Mike heard a gasping, gurgling breath nearby. He dragged himself in that direction, unable to put pressure on the leg he knew had to be broken. His hand found a pool of warm, wet, stickiness. Then a shoulder. Rose, still clinging to life. Mike took her hand in one of his; with his other, he dipped a finger into her pooling blood and began to draw.

  He didn’t need to see what he was doing. Just because he’d moved beyond needing the symbols to work his magic didn’t mean he’d forgotten them. When he was a novice, his teachers had drilled them over and over again. In the field, he’d drawn them over and over again with demons snapping at him or tugging on him or pulling limbs off his fellow Templars.

  Protection. Imprisonment. Banishment. The symbols provided focus, drew power. Fueled in no small part by Rose’s sacrifice, through her blood, shaped by his will. He altered the patterns as he went, shaping their meaning to his need. In the center of them he drew a circle. In the center of the circle, an upside down cross to represent Dmitri. The power gathered, waiting. From his pocket, Mike drew his rosary. Kissed it. Lay it inside the circle. The power flowed out, searching for Dmitri.

  Just as eerie, multi-colored light flowed out from the other side of the nave.

  * * *

  In a burst of otherworldly glory, a host of armed and armored folk roared out from the chapel, Ian in the lead. Rainbow lights pierced the darkness, sparkled off the gold, flared in the eyes of Dmitri’s voiders who had surrounded Mike in the darkness. Ian’s sword flashed as he buried it in the shoulder of a voider too startled to dodge.

  The folk surged across the room, scattering Dmitri’s terrified men.

  Which left Dmitri to Mike. Struggling for focus against the sickening pain of his probably-broken leg, Mike laid his hand on his rosary and pulled.

  Dmitri screeched as Mike’s spell dragged him across the floor and back into the pool of gore his own actions had created. Bound by Mike’s magic, he was every bit as helpless as his own victims had been.

  “Michael….”

  Mike waited. If Dmitri wanted to confess, here at the end, Mike would give him that.

  Dmitri’s gaze found Rose and his face crumpled. “I’m sorry. She should not have…forgive me.”

  “It’s not my forgiveness that matters.” With Rose’s cooling blood, he finished the pattern of symbols. Protection, he reversed and added the symbol for demon. To imprisonment he added a modifier to represent the world beyond the curtain. And to banishment, he added power. He linked the symbols together with a line and erased Dmitri’s protection from the demon with whom he’d bargained. Now nothing stood between Dmitri and the raw power of the other side.

  Dmitri screamed and thrashed. He started to glow again. The power that had made him near invincible now burned him alive from the inside.

  It was over fast. When Dmitri stopped moving, Mike fell down onto his elbows, exhausted and no longer able to fight the pain.

  Ian came over and knelt down next to him, next to Rose. Hesitant, he reached out. “Is she…?”

  “Yes,” Mike said, still gripping her hand. “She stopped breathing.”

  “No,” a melodic voice said from behind. Mike looked up to see the fairy woman Rose had insisted they save. In her hand, she gripped a vial of sparkling liquid. “Move aside, hunter.”

  Ian held his sword up between them. “Leave her alone.”

  “Move! I will not let her die with this debt dragging at my soul.”

  A red-haired man Mike didn’t know pulled at Ian’s shoulder. “She’s trying to help. It’s all right.”

  Ian lowered his sword and backed away. Ian’s trust kept Mike still, but he kept his free hand inches above his rosary. The woman knelt down next to Rose, oblivious of the blood that left no stain on her gleaming armor. She tilted Rose’s head back and poured th
e sparkling fluid down Rose’s throat.

  At first, nothing happened. The water filled Rose’s mouth, ran out the corners. Then suddenly, Rose sputtered, coughed, started to struggle. Mike grabbed for her. “Lie still!”

  Obedient as ever, Rose tried to sit up. “Dmitri! Mike!”

  Ian took her by the shoulders, better able than Mike to offer support. “Just calm down, Rose. Breathe. You were—” He hesitated. “You were hurt. Badly.”

  Rose’s hand went to her chest. “I remember.” Heedless of propriety, she pulled at the tear in her shirt where the blade had penetrated, felt around beneath it. “I seem to be okay now.”

  Mike looked around to thank the fairy woman, but she was gone. All the folk were gone. Only the stranger remained—a stranger who, on closer inspection, looked quite a bit like Ian.

  There were probably all kinds of things they needed to do, but Mike was having trouble aligning his thoughts. “Someone should untie Andrei. And see about Nazeem.”

  At the mention of Nazeem’s name, Rose stopped feeling around for the hole in her chest and struggled to her feet. She almost tripped over Andrei who, without Dmitri to interfere, had about freed himself from his ropes. He drew himself up, haughty still, and glared down at Rose.

  After everything they’d gone through, Mike wasn’t impressed. Neither was Rose. “Listen, asshole,” she began, but Ian grabbed her arm and squeezed hard.

  “Father Abbot,” Ian’s voice was far more polite than Mike could have managed. “In light of all that’s happened here, I hope you’ll reconsider your insistence that we get out of your city.”

  Andrei sniffed, turned towards the door, took a couple stiff steps. He stopped, made a face as though the very thoughts in his head were sour. “We will talk.”

  Rose ran over to Nazeem’s side. At her touch, the vampire stirred, but his movements were slow and disjointed. Mike felt much the same. It really was getting hard to think. “Ian, we need to—“