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

by Barbara J. Webb

  “I’ll just be a minute,” Ian said and went for the elevator. Mike followed Rose over to the desk where the clerk handed her a sheet of paper with Justin’s name and a number.

  “May I?” Rose asked, pointing to the phone behind the desk.

  “Of course.” He even dialed for her.

  Justin answered on the second ring. “It’s Rose,” she said.

  “Thank God. Where have you been? I’ve been trying all night.”

  Just what they needed—another crisis. “What’s wrong?”

  “Svetlana kicked Poulov out. Your…the fight yesterday, that was the last straw for her. After you guys left, they just kept arguing and arguing. She was pissed that he’d invited you in in the first place, and then when Ian start…well, you were there. She just flipped out.”

  So much for Poulov’s safe haven. “It’s Saturday.”

  “I know,” Justin said. “I tried to…she’s just…”

  “Where would he go?” Rose interrupted.

  In front of Rose, Mike raised a questioning eyebrow. Rose made her best it’s bad news face and his lips tightened into a hard line.

  Justin was stammering, “I don’t know. Maybe…he talked about the old days, about having bolt holes but now…now…unless he went to Andrei.”

  They’d both been Black Fist. Who had told Rose that? She couldn’t remember now. So many things to remember—it felt like she’d lived a year in the last week. “Okay, we’re on this. If you hear from him, leave a message here.” She paused, then added, “Or at the Winter Palace.”

  “The Winter Palace? Wait, what—“

  Rose hung up the phone. “Poulov’s out on the street,” she said to Mike. “Svetlana kicked him out. Justin thinks he might go to Andrei, but he isn’t sure.”

  Mike took the news in stride. “Her timing could have been better.” He looked up at the wall, in the direction of St. Isaac’s. From this side of the hotel, they didn’t have a view of the cathedral, but it was obvious what he was thinking. The shining man would be out looking for another victim.

  “You stay here and help Ian,” Mike said, re-buttoning his coat.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Where do you think?” Mike led her away from the desk and the clerk pretending not to listen. “If Karchenko’s at the monastery—really, even if he isn’t, we need help. We need voider help. Andrei may be our best bet.”

  Rose rolled her eyes. “You think Andrei’s going to suddenly take our side?”

  “He’d better. If we fail tonight—if Karchenko’s the next victim—then who do you think is next on the shining man’s list?”

  It made sense. Rose could only hope Andrei would see it that way. “Good luck.” They were all going to need it.

  * * *

  After three tries, Mike found a monk who spoke English and was able to direct him to Andrei’s office. The door was open, but as he approached, Dmitri came out and closed the door behind him. “Michael,” he said brightly as he saw Mike.

  “I’m looking for Andrei.” Mike nodded at the office. “Is he in?”

  “I’m sad to say he is not.” Dmitri’s lips tightened into a frown. “In fact, I haven’t seen him since last night. That voider fellow from Revelations showed up and caused something of a scene. He and Andrei went off somewhere together. They haven’t returned.”

  That made for an unexpected complication. Mike hadn’t anticipated Andrei or Karchenko leaving the safety of the monastery. “They’re in danger—both of them.”

  “Are they?” Dmitri gestured for Mike to precede him down the hall. “Why don’t you come have some refreshment and tell me about it?”

  “I’m sorry, Father Abbot, but I need to find them.”

  “It’s a big city, Michael. Where will you look?”

  Dmitri had him there. And maybe the old man would be able to give Mike some hint of where to go next. “All right. But I really can’t stay long.”

  Back in Dmitri’s room, over chilled wine and bread and cheese, Mike found himself telling Dmitri the entire story. Rose’s dream, Svetlana’s hostility, the fight with the vampires, and the confrontation with the demon-sworn madman. It felt good to confess his anger, his fear. To rage against the church that had left him on his own in hostile territory, to worry out loud about Rose and Ian who he wasn’t sure he’d be able to protect.

  Through it all Dmitri listened and nodded, but he didn’t speak until Mike was done. “You are determined to fight this…this shining man?”

  “What choice do I have?”

  “There are always choices. Choices to protect those who are in your care. Choices to save your strength. Choices to turn away from the battle you know you cannot win.”

  Mike heard the hesitance in Dmitri’s voice. “Could you do it? Could you walk away from this evil?”

  Dmitri’s smile was sad as he shook his head. “We are so alike, you and I. No, of course not. In your shoes, I would do exactly as you are. Which is why…” Dmitri pushed to his feet, “I’m going to help you.”

  “Father Abbot, I couldn’t ask—“

  “Psht.” Dmitri waved his objection away. “You didn’t ask. I offered.”

  Dmitri hobbled over to the ornate golden crucifix that hung on his wall and pressed his hand against it. “I know you look at me and see only an old man, long past his prime as a hunter like yourself. But ask yourself what you would want when you reach my age—to be coddled and protected, or to fight the glorious fight—to do all that you can to keep protecting those who need it?”

  “I’m supposed to be retired,” Mike said softly. “I’ve hunted demons and their creatures for over thirty years. I thought I was done.”

  “Retirement would not suit you. Trust me.”

  Dmitri was right, and Mike knew it. For all Mike’s problems with St. Petersburg—despite the vampires and Rose’s disobedience and the overwhelming impossibility in what they had to do tonight—Mike would never trade it for a life of sitting quietly in a room and waiting to die in his sleep. He wanted to be here. And he had no right to deny Dmitri the same fight Mike wouldn’t walk away from.

  “The two of us still aren’t enough. Not against a demon-sworn.”

  “No, of course not. But you leave that to me.” Dmitri seemed energized at the thought. “I’ve been training voiders here for generations. I will bring you warriors.”

  For the first time today, Mike felt genuine hope. “What about Andrei and Karchenko? Any idea how to find them?”

  Dmitri shook his head. “Sadly, no. For all we know, they are captured already. But we know where he will bring them.”

  Which was true enough. Andrei and Karchenko were big boys; they’d looked after themselves for years. If they evaded the shining man, more power to them. If they got captured, well, Mike and Dmitri would be there to rescue them.

  “Nazeem’s stuck at the Winter Palace until sundown,” Mike said.

  “Then I will meet you there. In the meanwhile, I must gather my men.”

  Mike stood. “Tonight, then.”

  Dmitri took his hand, gripped it tight. “Tonight. We will end this.”

  * * *

  Rose paced back and forth in the tiny chapel as Ian created a careful pattern of iron spikes, holly branches, and holy water mixed with drops of his own blood. With the sun up and the doorway dormant, it was completely invisible. If Rose hadn’t found it last night, they never would have known it was there.

  The shining man hadn’t found it. The mundane door that led into the chapel had been broken and melted. All the windows were shattered—a sign of the shining man’s anger at their miraculous escape. But the wall in which the fairy door lived showed no sign of abuse.

  No one disturbed them. The cathedral remained empty. Which made it easier for Ian to do his thing, but Rose would have rather had to talk their way past security and dodge tourists. The emptiness was eerie and wrong. On top of the usual pulsing spongy darkness of the cathedral, it made Rose incredibly jumpy.

&
nbsp; As if her own anxiety weren’t enough to deal with, Ian was wound so tight it was making her lightheaded. “You’re going to have to calm down,” she snapped.

  “I’m calm.” Anyone else might even believe it. Ian moved with careful precision. When he stopped here and there to double check his placements, he could have been a crimson and alabaster statue.

  But even without his dizzying emotions pressing against her brain, Rose knew better. Ian didn’t play the ice prince well. “I can see into your head, remember?”

  The worst part was that Ian wasn’t distressed, wasn’t anxious, didn’t have a stomach twisting into fearful knots. Ian was excited. Spoiling for a fight.

  A fight that was coming soon. The sun was fiery orange against the horizon. “We’re running out of time.”

  “This is the last one,” Ian said. “I’ve blocked every entrance and exit. There’s no way the folk can get in to the cathedral to ambush us. All the outside doors and windows are sealed off, and here,” his excitement spiked as he pointed to the intricate markings in front of the fairy door, “I’ve set a trap.”

  “For the shining man?”

  “For the folk.” Ian’s excitement wavered, rippled through with thoughtful curiosity. “But I wonder…” Ian walked to the chapel doorway, looked out into the cathedral proper.

  “What are you thinking?” Rose asked.

  “Ambush.” Ian ran his hand down the doorframe. “Not them, but us. I might be able to hide you and me. No matter how much voider magic this guy has, it wouldn’t help him see through a glamour. I’ve never tried one that big, but here in St. Isaac’s, I might be able to pull it off. It’s like this place is its own supernatural cover.”

  “No kidding. If you were hiding in here, I doubt even I could…”

  Ian looked back at her, waiting for her to finish her sentence, but Rose’s thoughts had exploded into a churning mass. So many seeming coincidences, flashing memories, falling together just right. “Ian, St. Isaac’s, it’s—it’s nothing but supernatural cover.”

  Ian tilted his head, confused. “Isn’t that what I said?”

  “Yes.”

  Ian still wasn’t getting it. “So you agree we should hide in here?”

  “No. I think something already is.”

  They didn’t have much time. Already the sky was turning red. “Oh god, Ian, we’ve been idiots. All this time, it’s been right there in front of us.”

  Rose talked fast. “Think about it, Ian. All our interactions with the folk. The attacks. The trail your domovoi followed. My dreams. Where have they all pointed to?”

  “Here. But we knew that, Rose. The faelock isn’t here. You’d feel it. I’d feel it.”

  “No. I’m not sure we would.” She started stomping around on the marble floor. “I mean, obviously he’s not anywhere we’ve searched, but what if there’s a trap door somewhere, a hidden staircase. A basement no-one knows about. What better place to hide than underneath all this supernatural suck?”

  Ian’s eyes widened and his confusion shattered against a wave of excitement. “Not a trap door. A door. This door. Don’t you see? He could be right beneath us—right under our feet—but no one would ever find him if the only way to get to him is through the hidden door through the curtain.”

  They turned together to stare at the spot where the doorway would appear mere moments from now. “Wait,” Rose said, “So you think he’s on the other side of the curtain?”

  “No. I think he’s on this side, camouflaged by St. Isaac’s, like you said. He’s just built himself a hidden pathway between his hidey-hole and the rest of St. Petersburg.”

  Rose stared down, focused every one of her senses, but she couldn’t see, hear, or feel anything through the shiny marble floor. “If the faelock is down there, could he come after us through the barriers you’ve put up?”

  “Any folk that cross over will be trapped and injured. Maybe even killed. But the faelock—yeah, he could cross it. And ambush us.” He drew his sword. “But not if we find him first.”

  “Is that a good idea?” How long would it take for Mike and Nazeem and Dmitri to get here? How long before the shining man showed up?

  “You’d rather wait for him to show up at our backs with the shining man in front of us?”

  Neither one seemed a good choice. But Ian’s excitement, his desperation pounded into Rose’s head. No way was she going to be able to talk him down. So she pulled out her own iron cross. She didn’t know how much use it would be against the faelock, but the solid weight of it felt good in her hand. “Let’s go.”

  This time, she was ready for Ian’s little blood ritual, even if she felt some annoyance at the third slice across her throbbing palm. “I’ll really be glad when we can take a couple days off from this.”

  “Me too,” Ian said with sincerity.

  Except the door still wasn’t there. “Wait, what happened? I can’t feel it at all.”

  “Patience.” Ian stood before the spot where the door had been. Waiting.

  For sundown. Rose had forgotten. The doorways only opened at night. As she stood there, wondering what counted as sundown in the supernatural sense, the felt the wave of power of the doorway springing open. “There it is.”

  Her second time into the tunnels wasn’t as bad as the first, but Rose still struggled against a wave of nausea as her othersense fell out of synch with all the rest. The world on this side had no presence, no substance, no reality. “I really hate this place.”

  Ian ran his hand along the wall. In here, Rose’s sense of him was muffled and echoey, but she still felt his unease. “What’s up?”

  “I can probably move us through so that we stay near the physical space of the cathedral—if you think he’s burrowed down beneath it somehow—but it’s going to be a lot of guesswork.” He ran the point of his sword lightly along the ground. It raised sparks. “The other night, you felt the vampires through the curtain. You think you could find the faelock the same way? I imagine he’ll have at least a few folk around him, so maybe you can home in on them?”

  “I’ll try.” She could only hope there weren’t any other large pockets of folk nearby. Rose closed her eyes and tried to open her othersense as wide as she could as Ian led her down the tunnel. She struggled against the seasickness this raised, tried to push through the muddling haze. She had to stay focused. She had no idea how much time they had before the shining man arrived at the cathedral, before Mike started worrying about her and Ian, before everything went wrong.

  She couldn’t tell how long she cast about for the feel of the folk—time didn’t seem to exist here either—when Rose felt a tug. “Wait, I think—ahead.” Stronger than the vampires had been last night, the feel of fairy magic rippled along the wall. “There’s something there, no question.”

  “Okay, keep quiet. I’m going to try to do this without making any noise.” Ian slid his sword into the wall, parted the curtain. Rose resisted the urge to rush back into the real world. Ian stepped through and stopped. Rose peeked around him and couldn’t hold back a gasp.

  This was one of the jumbled scenes she’d pulled from the mind of the fairy woman she’d saved—what felt like a lifetime ago. A cavern crowded with fantastical beings—creatures of dreams and of nightmares. Vivid colors and strange shapes and lyrical sounds all swirled, meaningless, as Rose’s othersense took in this presence of so many folk all together.

  At the center, on a throne above the rest, languid and bewitching, “Ian!” Rose spoke louder than she meant to, having to force the words through her leaden brain. “It’s the faelock!”

  Ian grabbed for her arm; his fingers dug painfully into her flesh. His horror fluttered, a gentle breeze amidst the brilliant folk. “Rose, that isn’t a faelock. Up there—that’s a god.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Saturday After Dark

  The cab dropped Mike at the Winter Palace, but he didn’t go immediately inside. He spent some time walking along the river, along the streets, throug
h the park that ran between the palace and the cathedral. He wanted to make sure he knew the ground. The sun was just below the horizon by the time Mike made it back to the vampire lair, and Nazeem waited for him outside their usual door. “Where are Ian and Rose?”

  “Finishing up at St. Isaac’s. I hope.” Mike lit a cigarette, took a long drag, blew it out slowly. The freezing wind off the river whipped the smoke away. “Andrei and Karchenko are both missing.”

  Nazeem thought about that through a good half of Mike’s cigarette. “Poulov believed himself safe in Revelations.”

  “Yeah, that’s what he thought.”

  “So it is just you and I.” Nazeem sounded neither nervous nor frightened. Mike was pretty sure that if the answer had been ‘yes,’ Nazeem would have gone with him anyway.

  Fortunately, that wasn’t the case. “Dmitri. He said he could collect some monks to help. He’s going to meet us here.”

  Mike bundled his coat tighter against the cold. Nazeem watched him, standing easy in his borrowed jacket and jeans. “We could wait inside, if you like.”

  “I’m fine,” Mike answered, sharper than he meant to.

  Nazeem nodded, fell silent.

  “Sorry.” No matter what else stood between them, Nazeem was volunteering to follow Mike into a potentially deadly battle. It wouldn’t hurt Mike to be polite. “It’s just this damn cold.” Even in the near darkness, Mike couldn’t miss the flash of Nazeem’s teeth as the vampire smiled. “What’s so funny?”

  “A week ago, I would not have imagined you apologizing to a vampire.”

  Mike dropped the spent cigarette, ground it out with his heel. He felt frustrated with himself. Frustrated with Nazeem. Frustrated with the world. “So color me an asshole.”

  “Those were not my words.”

  What killed Mike was that he really was growing to like Nazeem. The vampire was brave, but not fearlessly reckless like Ian. He was confident, without Rose’s blind optimism. And despite Mike’s every attempt to push his buttons, he was unfailingly polite. Mike had even started to trust him. A little. In certain circumstances.