The Witch Who Came in From the Cold - Season One Volume Two

by Lindsay Smith

  “And what information do you have about her?” Zerena picked up the madeleine and weighed it between her fingers.

  “I think she may be speaking with the West.”

  At that, Zerena laughed. “That little mouse? Don’t be silly, Sasha. Her family’s loyal. She’s loyal.” Zerena nibbled dutifully on the madeleine and then called out in French to Rémy, who had emerged from the back room, “Marvelous work, darling! They’ll be the hit of the party, I’m sure.”

  Rémy pressed a hand to his heart, his way of saluting good taste. Zerena turned back to Sasha. He was scowling at her.

  “What’s the matter?” she said sweetly.

  “She has access to a radio,” he said.

  “Don’t we all?”

  Sasha sighed. “Not that sort of radio. One used for communication.” He shifted his weight and leaned forward, pushing the pastries aside. “I have reason to suspect she’s using it to contact the Americans. There was an—incident.”

  “Oh?” Zerena kept her expression neutral.

  “I replaced the real radio with a plant, which was stolen out from under me. It had a tracker on it, of course.” Sasha’s eyes glittered. “And I tracked it to an alley near the American embassy compound. An unusual coincidence, don’t you think?”

  Zerena gazed at him. This was an interesting development.

  “And of course you know she’s been dallying about with that American security man. Pritchard.”

  “Ah, yes, I had heard something about that.” So Tatiana Mikhailovna was flirting with the other side. Very interesting, indeed. Despite her protestations to Sasha, Zerena had, in fact, been considering this possibility herself—she wasn’t going to let him in on everything. But her little whisperers throughout the city had begun to talk of Morozova and Pritchard being seen together on a handful of occasions. Zerena didn’t care about treason; she found it a pointless concern—whose alliances remained steadfast throughout their lives? But to the Party, and to the West, such betrayals mattered deeply, and knowing of one was a treasure indeed.

  Still, she wondered why Sasha brought this information to her—Sasha, who played his own intelligence games in between those endless rounds of correspondence chess.

  “You understand my concern, then,” said Sasha. “My need for information—anything you have about Tanya, about the American, that might explain why she’d take her radio to such a—peculiar place.”

  And here Zerena saw the opportunity to vault herself back into her preferred position of power. Convince Sasha that the girl’s actions were of no concern to him, that this radio and this incident with the safe house were part of an assignment he was not privy to—and then Zerena could tuck the knowledge of Tatiana Mikhailovna’s betrayal away, where she could make better use of it than Sasha, or the Party, ever could.

  “The information I have to give you won’t make this the story you want.” Zerena took another small bite of her madeleine. “The radio itself is nothing of concern. It’s a decoy. A means to an end.”

  “A means to an end?” Sasha’s eyebrows drew closer together. “And how would you know that?”

  Zerena smiled at him. “How do I know anything? Your Tatiana is only doing what Mother Russia has asked of her. An assignment for my husband. Quite secret. I’m afraid I can’t say more than that.” She leaned forward and placed a hand on top of Sasha’s; he glowered at her. She was winning now. “I can assure you she’s not a traitor.”

  “You don’t really expect me to believe that.”

  “Believe what you want. Just remember that in a place like Prague, we can’t always be open with one another. Although I must say it’s a good thing the real radio was of no value, either—there are people who would be very upset to hear that you meddled in their affairs, swapping out plants when you had not been ordered to.”

  Sasha gave her a cool look.

  “I can ask my husband to verify for you, if necessary.”

  Sasha did not believe her. She could tell by the way he was glaring at her over the crumbs of his pastries. She could see him working up protestations behind his angry expression. Zerena leaned across the table, pushing her plate aside. She rested her chin on one hand and gazed at him. He looked back at her, still angry, but now also cautious.

  “Of course, I can’t honestly say the ambassador would be happy to verify. As I understand it, the business with the radio is rather important, and for the KGB Chief of Station to intercede without permission—” She clucked her tongue.

  Sasha’s eyes narrowed. “What are you saying, Zerena?”

  Zerena smiled at him. “Simply that my husband will not be happy about this situation. And I should remind you, Sasha, my friend, that my husband has very powerful friends back in Russia.”

  Sasha stared at her. He kept his expression blank, old spy that he was, but Zerena thought she saw a quiver of fear skipping across his features. It wasn’t just her husband’s powerful friends Sasha had reason to fear; Zerena had powerful friends of her own.

  “What are you saying?” Sasha asked in a low voice.

  A crash came from the bakery counter—the girl had dropped a mixing bowl and it clattered and spun across the tiles. Sasha tensed at the sound, his hand curling around the edge of the table. When he saw Zerena looking, he dropped his hand to his side and leaned back easily. But it was too late. She had seen that tension, that anxiety.

  Rémy berated the girl in rapid French. Zerena beamed at Sasha. He did not return the smile.

  “Only that this radio was always meant to be worthless to the Americans, so you didn’t muck things up too badly.” Zerena laughed, a sparkling, champagne-fizz laugh, and Sasha glared at her. “Now, let your girl do as she’s been commanded, and let my husband have his peace of mind.”

  Sasha kept staring at her, and she knew she had him, at least for the time being. If she could string this deception along for another few weeks, and keep Sasha fearful of doing his own investigations, it would be enough time for her to learn who, exactly, had been speaking to Tanya through that radio. A delicate piece of information, but an important one. Information that could do the right damage, if she laid it out at the right time, and for the right people.

  Sasha Komyetski was not the right person.

  4.

  The agents from the Flame were back. Jordan felt the air tighten with their approach, her charms lighting up in agitation. She glanced out the window to be certain, and sure enough, it was the two men from earlier, the smoker and the other one.

  Neither was smoking now. They stood conferring with each other on the sidewalk in front of the bar, heads bent together. Jordan pulled the curtains further back and peered out at them. A pile of old leaves smoldered in an ashtray on the windowsill; the smoke was a curtain, and when the two men glanced her way they’d only see an empty window.

  “What are you up to?” she whispered. The smoke burned at the back of her throat. The leaves had been soaking in a certain chemical compound for years, and the smell of it wrapped around her: the acrid toxicity of the chemicals, an undercurrent of magic. It was one of many charms she had prepared earlier this morning, down in her office.

  The two men pulled apart, turned, and paced the length of the sidewalk. Jordan counted their steps with them, her breath creating little white puffs on the glass. With each step her chest grew tighter. Ten . . . eleven . . . twelve . . . thirteen . . .

  She willed them to take one step too many, to ruin their spell’s foundation so she wouldn’t have to fight. But they didn’t. At the thirteenth step, both men turned around, as if preparing for a duel. The smoker pulled a rolled-up scroll out of his pocket. The protection charms thumped in time with Jordan’s heart.

  The smoker unfurled the scroll and it dropped to the sidewalk. Jordan yanked away from the window and bolted over to the bar. She flung open the cabinet and grabbed a handful of the prepared charms, shoving them in her pockets. Then she pulled out a stone box, figures carved into the lid and sides and stained red with
ancient blood. She had pulled it out of the safe in her office earlier today. Just in case.

  Beneath her feet, the ley lines hummed.

  Jordan hurried across the empty room, up to the front door. She could hear the men’s voices chanting softly on the other side. Stupid of them, doing a spell like that where anyone could walk by and see. They must be getting desperate indeed.

  She kicked the door open and stepped out into the cold.

  The men didn’t see her. They were deep into the spell, their eyes closed, voices rising up together as they reached out to the ley lines running beneath the bar. A pop came from inside: one of her charms disintegrating into ash.

  Jordan ground her teeth and held the box overhead. Damn the Flame, forcing her to do this out in the open. She began to chant, too, a different chant, in an older language. The thing inside the box rattled, thrashing against its confines. The man without the scroll glanced over at her, his eyes going wide. She glowered at him.

  No one stopped chanting.

  Her box began to glow, the figures turning molten, though they didn’t give off any heat. Her fingers tingled. The box cast a neon glow over the street, over the two men, and the one without the scroll stumbled in his chant and then stepped backward. The smoker’s eyes flew open.

  “Damn you, Ivan!” he roared, before his eyes found Jordan and her box, and he let out a string of frightened profanity.

  “Get away from my bar!” Jordan shouted. She didn’t lower the box, but she didn’t open it, either. She wasn’t about to let the thing inside loose on the streets of Prague—she wasn’t Gabe, for God’s sake—but the two Flame men didn’t know that. Let them think she was crazy enough to do it. She’d left the Ice, after all.

  “You wouldn’t dare!” The smoker stepped toward her, his scroll fluttering, useless in the wind. Jordan jerked the box so that it pointed at him, and it released a jolt of magic that knocked his head back.

  “Try me!” she shouted.

  And then a hot burst of power slammed into her back.

  For a long, stretched-out moment, Jordan was flying, her feet lifted nearly a meter off the ground. Cold air rushed around her. The box, she thought, and she curled it to her chest just as she went sprawling. The impact of her landing sped time up to normal. The box was still shut tight, although her magic had faded from it, and the thing inside had gone quiet.

  Chanting behind her, low and guttural. She recognized the spell and without thinking rolled to her left, into a patch of dirty snow. A ball of fire arced overhead and landed a few paces away. When it hit the ground the flames erupted, shooting straight up to the sky. They were tinged in green, not red, and they smelled like incense and spices.

  Jordan scrambled to her feet, feeling around in her pocket as she did so. The two Flame men were moving toward each other. One of them shouted, but Jordan’s hearing was muffled by the haze of magic drifting off the flames. She pulled a tangle of metal out of her pocket. Wollaston wires from an old telescope twisted around a bundle of matches. Platinum and phosphorus. If they wanted to fight with fire, so could she.

  “Hey!” she shouted, her voice hoarse. The two men ignored her. They were facing each other, lips moving. Shit. Shit. She didn’t recognize the spell.

  Jordan tucked the box under her arm. She twisted the tail of wire in her charm into the shape of an ancient rune, then held the whole thing to her forehead and closed her eyes. She murmured the sound of the rune three times under her breath, and then she hurled the charm onto the street between herself and the men.

  It exploded in a shower of golden sparks. Jordan flung herself back into the snow, arm up to cover her head. The box slipped out of her grip and landed hard on the frozen dirt. Her heart skipped a beat, but the box was still closed, thank God. She was deeply regretting bringing the thing out here, regretting her attempt at a bluff.

  Her charm continued to spew sparks. From this angle, they were harmless, but on the other side, the side that faced the two Flame men, the light would be like staring straight into the sun. She pushed herself up to standing. Her back ached where the Flame agent’s charm had struck. She lurched over to the golden sparks, one hand shielding her eyes. Behind the fountain of light, the shadows of the two men were scrambling toward her, away from the burning brightness of her spell.

  “You can’t take the hint?” she shouted at them. “I don’t want you here.”

  One of them flashed into view between the sparks. His eyes were squeezed shut.

  “Just wanted to talk!” he shouted back at her. “And then you had to bring out the Box of Cosstad.”

  “The Flame never just wants to talk,” Jordan shot back. She had a decision to make. The two men weren’t giving up, and they’d already done enough damage fighting out here in the street. These two spells would burn down eventually, leaving mysterious charred spots on the road, but God knew what other weapons these Flame bastards had brought with them. And anyway, Jordan’s full arsenal was inside, tucked away in the restocked cabinet beneath the bar.

  That didn’t mean she wanted to let them in, though. Not with the confluence underneath their feet. Not with that suicidal determination both of them seemed to possess.

  The one named Ivan was inching his way toward her. She took a step backward. She had two weapons remaining in her pocket. Two chances to get these men the hell out of here.

  Ivan slunk past the curtain of light. The skin of his face was red and peeling away in long strips. His eyes flew open. He snarled at her. Lifted one hand. Something glowed in his palm.

  Jordan didn’t have time to think. She pulled out both of her remaining charms: a vial of salt water dotted with flakes of gold, and a circuit board she’d designed herself, the copper wiring twisted into the language of the ancients.

  Ivan gave a cold grin when he saw her two weapons. “You think you can defeat the Flame with those handmade baubles?” He lifted his glowing palm. The light was a sickly red. Jordan could feel the magic staining the air around her.

  “I do, actually.” She flipped off the lid to the vial of salt water and threw it straight up. The gold-flecked water spilled out, fusing with the air. The ley lines thrummed. The area around her bar was the only place this charm would work, she’d seen to that. Within seconds, the water had turned into a cloud, which turned to a storm, a tiny, person-sized storm that rained concentrated energy over its victim. Ivan shrieked and dropped his own charm, which landed on the cement and shattered, the magic having flown out of it as soon as it left contact with his skin.

  Jordan reached into the storm and yanked Ivan out into the clean air. He gazed up at her, eyes wide with fear and panic, his skin glowing from the sudden influx of energy.

  “Whatever the Flame wants to do with my bar, they can’t have it,” she said.

  “You don’t get to make that decision,” Ivan snarled.

  Jordan shoved him back into the energy storm. He howled, tried to move away—the cloud followed him. It wouldn’t kill him, it just stung like peroxide on an open wound, and it would wash the magic out of him for a day or so.

  “Send word back to your masters!” she shouted at him. “They’re not getting my bar.”

  The sparks from her first charm were dying down, and she could see the other Flame agent curled up on the ground behind them, his arms wrapped around his head. Jordan walked over to him. She could feel the heat from the sparks against her back, as hot as the Egyptian sun. The man dropped his arms at the sound of her footsteps and gazed up at her. A heat blister bubbled over his left eye.

  “You’ll live,” Jordan said, and she held up the copper circuit board. “Look at your friend over there.”

  The man glanced over his shoulder. His eyes widened. “What did you—”

  “That’s a charm of my own design. So’s this.” She lifted the circuit board. “I guarantee that what it does is worse than that.” She tilted her head toward Ivan. “So you get the hell out of here before you find out what it is.”

  The man’s h
ead lolled. His eyes rolled up toward her. “You’re going to regret this,” he said.

  “I never regret kicking the riffraff out of Bar Vodnář.” She stepped back, keeping her eyes on him. Didn’t trust him not to try something desperate on her at the last minute. Her little energy storm was dying down, and his partner would be free soon, although he would be stripped of his magic. “Whatever the Flame’s got planned, they can do it elsewhere.”

  “You’re supposed to be neutral,” the man croaked. He forced himself into a sitting position.

  “You’ve got a strange idea of neutral if you think it means I’ll just give the Flame whatever they want.” Jordan gazed down at the magic burning itself away in her street. This was ostentatious, even for the Flame. It was a quiet, sleepy morning, to be sure, but they hadn’t even tried to keep things hidden.

  “Get the hell out of here,” Jordan said, and the man lifted his hands in surrender and climbed to his feet. “You, too!” she shouted at Ivan, glancing over her shoulder at him. The storm had evaporated completely. He scowled at her, slick with residue from the energy.

  “You’ll be sorry you did this,” he hissed.

  “You’ve made that clear. If I see you hanging around here again, I’m sure I’ll be even more sorry.”

  Ivan shuffled over to his partner, and the two glared at her. She flicked her hand at them. Bye-bye. They slumped in defeat, looked at each other, and then trudged away, the scent of spent magic rising off of them into the air.

  Jordan was suddenly very tired. The pain in her back throbbed. She had work to do: cleanup, reinforcing and repairing her protection charms. But she didn’t move. She watched the men stagger away, her head swirling with magic and questions.

  5.

  Zerena descended the stairs, one hand sliding over the banister, a slight smile fixed into place. The ballroom was already half-filled with guests. Zerena always made certain to arrive at least half an hour late to her own parties—the caterers and hired staff could take people’s coats and direct them to ballroom, and she knew the importance of making an entrance.