Midnight in St. Petersburg: A Novel of the Invisible War

by Barbara J. Webb

  “Dammit,” Mike muttered, realizing he’d just behaved like a novice. The call of the women beneath the bridge he’d expected, resisted. The doorway was at the same time more powerful and more subtle. He took out his rosary, wrapped it around his hand. The buzzing faded to nothing.

  Ian stepped into the mushroom ring and stuck his head into the closet. “Okay, I don’t see anyone waiting for us. That’s good.” He turned back to face them, an eager grin on his face. “Okay, this is going to be interesting.”

  Mike hated interesting. Interesting never led to anything good. “What should we do?”

  “I’ve never done this before with a vampire or a voider,” Ian said, his tone apologetic. “Normal humans can’t cross the ring, not without help. But I think you two should be able to. Walk towards the mushrooms, slowly. If you start to feel sleepy or angry or any weird urges, like you want to start drinking blood or something, back off.” Ian stopped, thought a moment, then blushed. “Nazeem, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

  “It’s all right,” the vampire said with the slightest of smiles. “I understand what you’re saying.”

  Mike walked forward one step at a time. The crucifix in his hand warmed, but he felt no other symptoms. He stepped across. Beside him, Nazeem did the same.

  “Okay, good. Great.” Ian turned to Rose. “Now this is important. Whatever you do, don’t step inside. If you start to feel like you want to, touch your cross. It’ll help anchor you.”

  “Is there anything I should do? Any way I can help?”

  “Just stand guard.” Ian pointed to the fairy in the corner. “Keep your weapons handy. Watch her. Watch the door.” He pulled the rope out of his pack and threw it to her. “If the call starts to get too strong, tie yourself away from the circle.”

  Rose’s eyes went wide. “What do you mean by that? I thought you said people like me can’t cross the ring without help.”

  “No.” Ian was as sober as Rose had ever felt him. “But if you get close enough, something from this side can pull you in.”

  Mike only half-listened. Now that he was inside the ring, the buzzing had returned. With it, an almost desperate curiosity to see what was through that door. “We going in, Irish?”

  Ian nodded. “How about some of that light?”

  Mike focused his mind against the buzzing, called his power. The energy exploded through him and he was blinded by the white-hot glow of his own spell. Mike immediately dampened it, blinking as his eyes re-adjusted. Ian and Nazeem were watching him. “Sorry. Magic here is…different.”

  “This is where it comes from,” Ian said. “We’re on the other side now.”

  “What about you?” Mike asked Nazeem. “How do you feel?”

  “Alive,” was all the vampire said, his face, as always, a mask of indifference.

  “Come on.” Ian walked through the closet door. Nothing to do but to follow.

  They stepped into a tunnel made of nothing his mind could explain. Uneven, jagged, like someone had chiseled through rock, but this wasn’t rock. It wasn’t even solid in the way Mike had always understood the word. Rough, even brittle, it didn’t give to his touch, but it flowed and changed in a way his mind refused to accept. “What is this?” he asked.

  “Reality,” Ian answered. “They make their tunnels through it.”

  Mike’s rational mind didn’t like that answer any better, but after thirty years on the front lines, Mike had learned that sometimes the rational mind needed to take a time-out. This was going to be one of those days.

  Ian pulled chalk out of his backpack. “These tunnels branch. We’ll have to find the right path and mark it so we can find our way back again.” His smile, on his new features, looked a little wild. “We’ll probably be in a hurry.”

  “No,” Nazeem said, staring ahead. “I can see the path.”

  Ian considered the vampire, wariness plain on his expressive face. “Tell me what it’s like.”

  Nazeem took a couple steps forward and then took another long, deep breath. “It’s a calling.” He opened his mouth, drank in the air. For the first time, Mike had a clear view of his long, sharp canines. Did the vampire mind-tricks not work in this place? Or had Nazeem’s teeth grown, become so pronounced Mike could no longer miss them? “A promise. Blood. Revelry. Other…things.” He closed his eyes and shuddered. Mike closed his hand around the iron cross Ian had given him.

  Nazeem opened his eyes and his usual calm settled back across his face. “I know which way to go, to get to the other door. That’s what we want?”

  “Yes.”

  Mike didn’t care for the nervous edge of Ian’s voice. “Everything okay, Nazeem?”

  The vampire nodded, the barest of movements. “But I don’t think we should linger.”

  Best advice Mike had heard all day. Ian let Nazeem take the lead as they moved through the tunnel, passing branch after twisting branch. Ian chalked the path, which would get them out okay—assuming Nazeem wasn’t drawing them into some sort of trap. They were putting a lot of faith in the vampire. Mike prayed it wasn’t too much.

  * * *

  Mike lost any sense of where they were far too fast. All the tunnels looked alike; his eyes couldn’t focus on any memorable features, and even if they could, everything kept morphing when he looked away from it. Twenty years ago—maybe even ten—this would have been exciting for being new. Now, the size of it, the implication that there were still new truths to learn about the invisible war, it only made his mind tired. Even as the buzzing energy of this side invigorated his body.

  Ahead, Nazeem stopped. “Voices,” he murmured.

  Mike couldn’t hear anything, but he pulled his light back and faded it down to a candle-flicker. Ian motioned for them to continue, slowly. Mike moved as quietly as he could. As they came up to another branch, Mike could hear the voices echoing down the side tunnel.

  The language wouldn’t resolve in his head, even to figure out what the words sounded like. As he tried to focus, he became sleepy. He shook his head, hard, to counter the sensation.

  Ian stood still, listening. He held up a hand for them to stop. Ian’s other hand, wrapped around the hilt of his sword, had gone white with tension. Mike slipped the cold iron cross out of his pocket with his empty hand, held it tight. Nazeem stepped back into the shadows and disappeared from sight.

  Two of the folk came around the corner, male versions of the woman they had cornered back in the real world. These were fully dressed in shining armor and carried swords as large and wicked looking as Ian’s. Shimmering black hair hung long down their backs, waving gently in a breeze Mike couldn’t feel. They turned eyes that glittered like jewels on Mike and Ian and grinned wide, displaying, long, cruel teeth.

  Swords came out and Mike had just enough time to raise the cold iron cross against one as the very sharp-looking blade descended towards him. He heard the clash of Ian’s sword meeting the other. Mike’s opponent flinched back from the cross, but gathered himself for another swing.

  Nazeem came out of nowhere, landed on the fae’s back and sent him spinning. The fae spun with unnatural agility and flipped his sword around to try to stab backwards at the vampire. Faster than Mike could watch, Nazeem was away.

  Mike held up the cross again, this time using it as a focus for his own power. A shield shimmered forth, as blinding as the light had been when Mike had first summoned it. The fae’s sword skittered across it.

  Mike risked a glance at Ian, engaged in close melee with the second fae. Ian, so far, was holding his own, but he was on the defensive. Ian moved slower than the creature he fought, and lacked that unearthly, floating grace.

  Testing, Mike summoned a ball of flame and hurled it at his own opponent. The fae knocked it aside with his sword as casually as if Mike had lobbed a tennis ball. Mike was unsurprised. As strong as his own magic had become in here, he suspected theirs was stronger.

  That was fine. Even on Earth, demons had stronger magic than the most talented voiders, and Mike h
ad sent plenty of those screeching back to hell.

  Nazeem was back, once more catching the fae unaware. This time he got a hold of the creature’s right shoulder. It dissolved under his hand, reforming as the fae spun around to swing at the vampire. Nazeem ducked away, every bit as fast. Good thing one of them was.

  Except Nazeem couldn’t make parts of his body disappear and reappear. The fae’s sword glinted as it angled and blood splattered in gory contrast against the fae’s armor as the blade caught Nazeem’s shoulder.

  Mike shoved his crucifix forward into the creature’s armored back. As he did so, he focused power and thought a prayer for strength against his enemies. The cross flared into bright blue flame and sank through the fairy’s armor. The fae howled and spun, his sword aimed at Mike’s head, but Nazeem grabbed the fae’s arm again. This time, it stayed solid.

  Mike refocused on his shield and the pulsing energy pushed the fae back. Magic sent through the cross seemed more difficult for the fae to break.

  What did Ian keep calling the iron crosses? Anchors?

  Mike flung the cross at the fairy, using magic to guide it into the hole his crucifix had left. The cross struck. The fae screamed and stumbled. In a flash, Nazeem was on him and even Mike’s iron stomach gave a twitch as he watched the vampire rip out the fae’s throat.

  That left one fairy and three of them. The fae backed away, trying to disengage from Ian. “He’ll warn the rest!” Ian called.

  Nazeem was now behind the creature. Ian pressed from in front. Mike, with a moment to breathe, focused his will on the fairy’s sword. “Thy will like a hammer,” he mouthed and raised the crucifix.

  The fae’s sword shattered and Ian’s sword, meeting no resistance, stabbed into the fae’s chest. Nazeem grabbed the fairy’s shoulders. Ian’s next blow beheaded it.

  All of them were bloody, but Nazeem seemed to be the only one hurt. Mike retrieved the iron cross.

  “We have to move,” Ian said. “The rest will have felt the death of these two.”

  Nazeem rotated his shoulder, testing it. “Are you okay?” Mike asked, grateful, despite himself, for the vampire’s help.

  “It should hold.” Then he was off, half-jogging through the tunnels.

  Mike and Ian hurried to follow.

  They came around to a twisting obsidian archway. Through it, Mike could see light and color and madness. His insides throbbed as he felt his own connection to the energy within. Magic called. Magic wanted. In his world, Mike was no more than a conduit for the power. If he stepped through that gate, he would be consumed, be a part of it, be eternal.

  He tightened his grip around the iron cross. “This must be the place.”

  Ian had yanked two iron spikes from his pack and had bent to hammer them into the ground under the arch with the pommel of his sword. “Can you see anything moving in there?”

  Mike didn’t want to look again. Fortunately, Nazeem answered the question. “Nothing yet.”

  Ian didn’t answer, focused on his task. Mike counted the driving blows, five, ten, twenty, sharply aware of the seconds that passed with each one.

  “Are we done?” Mike asked when Ian stood. “Can we leave now?”

  Ian looked through the archway, then back into the tunnels. He sighed. “No. I promised Rose.”

  Before Mike could object, Ian stepped through the gate, became an ephemeral shadow of himself. Mike reached after him, but Nazeem caught his arm. “We must trust he knows what he’s doing,” Nazeem said.

  More seconds passed, each one an eternity. Mike’s ears strained to hear footsteps, voices, any sign they’d been discovered. Too much time had passed. Even if his rational brain had ticked off less than a minute. Ian stepped back out. In his hand, a small crystal flower. “Time to go.”

  They ran. When Mike felt the beginning of a stitch in his side, he pushed it away with magic. Impossible to do in the real world, but in here the power was more real than the demands of his body. Ian ran easily, barely winded. He and Nazeem both looked like they could keep this pace up all night.

  Nazeem led them unerringly through the twisting tunnels until Mike saw their door ahead with Rose standing just beyond the mushroom ring, watching for them. “Look out!” she yelled.

  Mike, last in line, twisted around to look and stumbled. A massive weight struck his shoulder, knocking him to the ground. The snarling hound with flaming eyes that had been following them silently for who knows how long snapped at Mike as its momentum rolled it past him.

  Ian and Nazeem turned, but even the vampire couldn’t get back to Mike before teeth longer than his fingers tore through his flesh. But that was fine. This was no armored knight, no master of fairy magic. This was a rabid cur that had aimed too high.

  The hound crouched and leapt. Mike reached back towards the iron spikes that crossed the doorway, ten feet past where he lay on the ground. He made a throwing gesture at the dog. Spikes met hound in midair, one piercing its chest and the other stabbed deep into its slavering maw. It fell on Mike, its weight already dissipating.

  Ian reached him, offered his hand to help Mike up. “Go on. Hurry.”

  Mike felt a twinge of temptation to linger, to give himself a few more pulse-beats of this magic, but temptation was a familiar enemy, easily vanquished. He left the circle, Nazeem only a step behind.

  He hadn’t realized how dark the room was, how devoid of color and life and energy. The ache in his side returned, magnified, and Mike was suddenly out of breath. He gasped for air, waving off Rose’s worried look. He wasn’t a kid anymore, and needed to remember that, despite the tantalizing illusions of the other side.

  In Ian’s other hand, he still held the flower he’d brought back from the other side. Its vibrant, shimmering beauty hadn’t diminished. He handed it to Rose. “If you’re sure.”

  “I’m sure.” Rose held out the flower to the fairy woman. “Take it. It’ll help you.”

  The fairy woman took the flower, closed her hand around it, crushed it. The mushrooms shimmered and she stood. She wobbled, weak and graceless, but she was able to cross the mushroom ring.

  Ian pointed his sword at her. “Go. This door closes at sunrise.”

  She hissed at Ian, showing her teeth, but backed away towards the tunnel. As she stepped into the closet, she took one last look at Rose. Then she was gone.

  Rose frowned at three of them. “You’ve all got blood on you.”

  “It was an exciting trip.” Mike returned the large cross to his pocket, but kept his rosary wrapped tight around his right hand.

  Ian sheathed his sword, then pulled the scabbard back over his head to lean it against the wall. He settled on the floor next to it. “I should stay here till daylight, make sure nothing else comes through before the door closes.”

  “I’ll stay with you,” Rose volunteered.

  “No,” Mike said. “Nazeem, you can escort Rose back to the hotel.” He held up a hand as Rose’s mouth opened, undoubtedly to object. “First of all, I’m instituting a new policy that none of us travel around the city alone. Second, there’s no reason for us all to stay, and Nazeem, for obvious reasons, can’t stay till sunup. If anything happens, I’m going to be more help for Ian than you are.”

  For a change, she didn’t argue. “Fine, yes, all right. I can’t really help fight the fairies.”

  “Good girl. Besides, I’ve worked with other sensitives in my time. Your needles start to go crazy when you don’t get enough sleep.”

  Rose frowned, but didn’t deny it. “Just leave a message when you guys get back, okay?”

  Mike nodded and waved her on, his body already protesting the thought of the long night ahead.

  * * *

  Blood smelled like blood, whatever the source. Sitting in the car next to the blood-soaked vampire, Rose could almost taste it.

  “I’m sorry,” Nazeem said. She must have wrinkled her nose.

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  At the hotel, Nazeem conversed in Russian with the dr
iver. “What did you tell him?” Rose asked as the car pulled away.

  “I reminded him to return for Mike and Ian at dawn.”

  Rose felt a pang of guilt she hadn’t thought of that. “I’m sure they’ll appreciate that.”

  “Are you?”

  The question was mild, but Rose didn’t miss the arch implication. “Okay, the padre won’t, but, you know, his loss.”

  Nazeem fell silent again as they rode up the elevator. Rose was getting tired of his attitude of enigma. Especially when she’d been forced to sit on the sidelines. “So what happened? What was it like in there?”

  “Strange,” he said, and fell silent again. Rose crossed her arms, letting her frustration show. As the elevator doors slid open, he glanced down at her. “I’m sorry.” The soft apology sounded sincere. “It isn’t my intention to be difficult. The experience was…not easy to describe.”

  Rose followed Nazeem to his room and he didn’t object when she slid through the door after him, only pulled a change of clothes out of the dresser and excused himself into the bathroom.

  Rose wandered over to his desk, where a notebook lay out next to an arrangement of ink bottles and calligraphy tips. The water was still running in the bathroom so Rose indulged her curiosity and opened the book. Inside, she found pages of beautiful illustrations filled in with Arabic letters. Birds and fish and lions looked out at her, all exquisitely inked.

  Rose closed the journal and went over to the bookshelf she’d seen before, amused herself by reading the backs of the thrillers. A few minutes later, Nazeem came back out.

  “You read a lot?” Rose held up the book in her hand.

  “It’s an enjoyable way to pass the time.”

  He’d have a lot of hours to kill. “Do you get bored?”

  “Sometimes, of course,” he brushed the question away with a shrug and went to the window. He pushed the curtain aside and Rose realized they’d been sewn together.

  Nazeem surveyed the open square and the looming cathedral. “There is an errand I need to run. Will you promise to stay safely inside?”

  “No. You heard the padre. It’s the buddy system from here on out.”