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

by Lindsay Smith

  “Right.” Frank held his jaw tight.

  “You tie the weights right, even the fucking KGB can’t dig him up. He won’t surface until we’re damned good and ready, and by then . . . nothing but a waterlogged mess.” Dominic slapped his hands against his thighs. “Now. Pritchard? You still feeling a little green, or can I count on you tonight?”

  Gabe thrust his shoulders back. “I’m set. I’ve got Toms for backup. We’ll run over the plan one more time before we head out, but trust me, I can recite it backward in my sleep.”

  Frank cleared his throat. With his reading glasses perched, schoolmarmish, on his nose, the chief might have been mistaken for a soft touch, a prim desk man. But only by a fool. Gabe glanced at Dom and wondered if he was the right kind of idiot to cross a man who only needed a rusty shovel to take out an entire trench of enemies.

  “Dominic, with all due respect,” Frank said in a tone that offered no respect at all, “my men know this op’s history. They know the importance. Sokolov’s been one of our best producers out of Moscow Station. Hell, at this point he’s probably responsible for damn near half of what we know about the Soviets. Everyone wants to make sure he’s treated well. The president will probably pin a medal the size of my hemorrhoids on his chest. At the very least, we’re gonna give him a comfortable retirement. Tampa, maybe. A summer home on Nags Head. This is the biggest op anyone on my team has ever seen, possibly will ever see. They’re taking it seriously.”

  “Look, I just want to ensure that Mr. Pritchard is up to the task—”

  “I wouldn’t have recommended him if I didn’t think he was.” Frank snapped a stack of papers against the edge of his desk.

  “I know the plan,” Gabe said. “I’m ready.”

  “Not good enough, Pritchard,” Dominic said. “I want it tattooed on your eyelids.”

  Gabe sighed. The worst part of these kinds of ops was having to answer to two bosses, neither of whom wanted to answer to the other. “I assure you, I’ve got it down—”

  “And I’m sure you thought the same thing recruiting . . . Drahomir, was it?” Dom tossed a grin toward Frank, but the chief’s expression stayed guarded. “Or that antiques dealer back in Cairo? I’ve read up on you. I know what you’re capable of. But also what you aren’t.”

  Gabe shoved his hands into his blazer’s pockets, and his fingers brushed a stray charm tucked within. He grazed his thumbnail against it, weighing, considering . . . But no. This grandstander wasn’t worth the effort. Something loosened inside him, like the hitchhiker was standing down, and he pulled his hand away.

  “I can do this.” He squared his jaw. Forced the smell of searing, soggy flesh from his mind. “He’ll be right on time. Just make sure you’re waiting.”

  Dominic looked toward Frank, still grinning like he’d told a joke, but Frank crossed his arms and gave him a stern nod. “If my man says he has it handled, he has it handled.”

  “We’ll see about that.” Dominic slipped off the desk. “Once Sokolov’s safely in the air, then I’ll buy you all a drink.”

  2.

  The West German embassy didn’t know it, but they’d selected an ideal venue for ANCHISES when they arranged the conference reception: the Lichtenštejnský Palace, a stark Georgian block of stone and plaster mounted right along the western bank of the Vltava. Gabe waited patiently while the security guards frisked him, then Josh, and then headed into the soft amber glow of the grand reception space. Cherubs smiled down on them from the frescoed ceiling overhead as Josh and Gabe snagged appetizers off of the waiters’ trays; stern oil paintings watched them from the wall with long-suffering stares.

  Gabe studied the ceiling for a moment. At least the Party hadn’t redrawn the cherubs as Marx and Lenin. Yet.

  “Our friends are fashionably late,” Josh said, fidgeting with his glass of club soda. No whiskey tonight.

  Gabe shrugged. “They run on their own timetable.”

  But his mind was whirring over the potential ways they could be getting screwed right now. The Russian delegation’s minders could have decided that the dinner away from the hotel presented too great a security risk. They might have caught another delegate prowling the red light district without his minders, and decided to punish the whole team. Or they could just be postponing—laying the lectures on thick about the danger of speaking with Westerners, for instance.

  Gabe and Josh had to be prepared for the distinct possibility that all their well-laid plans for tonight had been for naught. That, at any moment, a minder’s suspicions could be tripped, and they’d blow their best chance at nabbing Sokolov. Surely Frank and Dominic couldn’t fault Gabe for it—these things happened. Spooks got spooked. But, God, it sure would be nice to have something go right, just this once.

  Gabe’s gaze slid across the cloth-covered tables toward the entrance just in time to catch sight of Tanya Morozova entering the reception.

  Shit. It had been too much to hope that he wouldn’t cross paths with her again until Sokolov was safely in US airspace. So much for an easy night.

  Tanya held a small clutch close to her chest as she scanned the room. Her dark blonde hair had been swept up and fastened with some sort of elegant jeweled device Gabe couldn’t name, and she wore a gauzy, shimmering gown that surely came out of the KGB’s costume closet. It bared her sharp Slavic collarbones and softened her hips and brought out that glimmering something in her expression that he’d only seen in flashes before. She looked . . . good. Fresh-faced, shy. Hopeful.

  It immediately set off every alarm bell Gabe had.

  Gabe turned back toward Josh before Tanya could catch sight of him and gripped the edge of the standing table. All right. So that’s how she wanted this to play out. Tanya thought she’d made a mark of him—that had to be why she was here. They’d had a moment in the hotel basement, their magic working harmoniously to stop the golem’s rampage. And in that moment, she must have seen something in him. An opportunity. A weakness to exploit. An open door to wedge her foot into. An unhealed wound that she could dig at with her wicked little nails—

  “Gabe?”

  Gabe blinked and looked up. Josh was frowning at him, that damning mixture of fear and concern from before Gabe had managed to get the hitchhiker under control.

  “What’s the matter?” Josh asked. “You looked . . . angry, all of a sudden.”

  Gabe exhaled, breath whistling through his nose. “More eyes here than I’d anticipated.”

  Josh peered over Gabe’s shoulder, then nodded. “I see.”

  Josh twisted his glass in his hands, like he was screwing up the courage to say something. No, Gabe thought. Please. No. It’s what she wants—for you to think that maybe there could be something between me and her. It’s nothing like that.

  It’s so much worse.

  “Well, she shouldn’t be a problem.” Josh forced a smile and elbowed Gabe. “Should she?”

  Gabe smiled back, hand slipping into his pocket again. The braided bits of copper and tin soothed him. They sang to the hitchhiker like a lullaby. “Not once the show starts.”

  A pinched-looking diplomat appeared at the base of the staircase and silenced the reception with a spoon against his glass. “Attention—might I please have your attention?”

  He introduced himself as the special assistant to the West German ambassador, and launched into a lengthy speech about his country’s deep and abiding interest in promoting scientific progress and agricultural advancement. After a morning full of such talk, Gabe could feel his eyelids starting to droop. He’d already pledged to stick to water and soda tonight—this op was too important—but he started scanning for a waiter to bring him a coffee.

  “Our friends from the Russian delegation are already waiting for us in the dining hall, so please, let us join them. After we eat, then we shall present the awards.”

  Josh and Gabe looked at one another. The Russians were already here? Their minders must have brought them up a rear staircase. The ice in Gabe’s glass rattled
as he took a slow sip and followed Josh toward the dining hall. “Well,” he said quietly, “they always know how to keep it interesting.”

  Dinner was the usual rubbery chicken Kiev and wilted sides of cabbage and beets. Gabe and Josh wound up at a table with a couple of agricultural scientists who spent the entire awards ceremony whispering their disdain back and forth in rapid-fire French. Sokolov was stationed at the far side of the room, at one of the tables closest to the podium. He never looked toward Gabe, but he did seem unusually fascinated by the long row of French windows along the eastern wall of the ballroom, which opened onto a series of balconies.

  “Beautiful night,” Gabe said to Josh. “Want to see if they’ll let us get some fresh air once the dancing starts?”

  Josh smiled. “I’ll go have a word with the hosts.”

  The Russians had moved, en masse, to the bar, the handful of scientists encircled by an arc of minders as they crowded the long wooden counter. Gabe reached into his pocket as he stood. Morozova wasn’t with them—it looked like she’d gotten trapped in conversation with the insufferable Hungarian secretary who’d become something of a hazing ritual for the Western officers. Gabe smiled to himself as Tanya squirmed, looking about ready to gnaw her arm off to escape whatever night at the symphony the secretary was recounting right then.

  The hitchhiker shifted, stirring, as Gabe closed his hands around the first charm in his pocket and approached the bar.

  Copper and crushed Czech wildflowers; ashes from a burnt birch tree and a few dabs of blood. Gabe tasted it like an early spring awakening, blossoming on his tongue. This was how he’d imagined magic should feel. A current that he could harness, not a live wire threatening to burn him to a crisp. This was exactly what he needed—magic that supplemented his work, not magic that got in the way.

  The hitchhiker approved. And, from the middle of the pack of minders, he sensed the elemental inside Sokolov awakening, as well.

  “Omluvte mě,” Gabe said, intentionally using thickly accented Czech instead of Russian as he shouldered his way past the goons up to the bar. In his pocket, the charm began to vibrate.

  The monitor whose personal space Gabe was currently invading curled his lips back to reveal a gummy sneer. “I am not Czech.”

  “Oh? My apologies.” Gabe jabbed out one hand. “Gabriel. And you are . . . ?”

  “I am not interested in speaking with you,” the ape replied.

  A second monitor peeled away from the crowd and sauntered over to them. “Dima. Who are you talking to?”

  “American man. Sounds like he is lonely.” Dima narrowed his eyes at Gabe. “Is trying to make Russian friends. Does not seem wise for someone in his position.”

  As soon as the second minder approached, Gabe activated the second charm. Through the thicket of Russian shoulders, Gabe noticed Sokolov wince—he, too, felt the power Gabe was drawing, whether he understood it or not.

  “Is easy mistake,” the second minder said. “Also easy to fix.”

  Gabe smirked. “Oh? And how’s that?”

  Come on, Gabe thought. One more. There was just one last minder who hadn’t approached him yet.

  “You buy us round of drinks,” Dima said. “Then, maybe then, we forget to tell people you talked to us, yes? Could be most embarrassing for you.”

  The other minder folded his arms. “I am sure your friends at embassy would not like to hear the treasonous things Mr. Gabriel Pritchard, commerce secretary for the United States embassy, said to me.”

  Gabe’s smile widened. He could always count on the Russians to do their homework. And he could always, always count on them to assume their boldness would give them the upper hand.

  “Very well.” He waved to the bartender. “A round of Goldwasser for my friends. In honor of our German hosts, yeah?”

  Dima and his beefy companion nodded after a moment’s beat.

  “Oh, but, uh . . . what about your other friend?” Gabe gestured toward the third monitor. “Wouldn’t want him to feel left out.”

  The second nodded. “Kostya! Come. We have drinks.”

  Gabe smiled and, as Kostya approached, thumbed the third charm in his pocket. The bartender poured out four shots of Goldwasser and Gabe plucked his up with a quick whisper under his breath.

  The whisper was only a single word. Amharic, probably. Ancient, definitely. He’d most likely botched the pronunciation. But Jordan had drilled him over it, again and again, and he knew exactly how it should feel, pouring out of his mouth. Exactly the golden rush that would cleanse through his nostrils and wash over his vision, if only for a moment’s time.

  The energy arced through him, fed by the elemental half-lodged in his skull and by the not-too-distant ley lines that coursed beneath Prague. Filtered through the charm, the charge of his spell dispersed over the shot glasses of Goldwasser and settled into the liquid and flecks of gold.

  Gabe raised his glass in toast. “Za zdorovie, comrades.”

  “Za zdorovie,” the minders echoed, and tossed back their shots. Everyone flipped their shot glasses and dropped them upside down on the bar. In such a mess, it was hard to notice that an entire shot’s worth of liquid had failed to make it into Gabe’s mouth.

  Already the Russians were calling for vodka. Gabe took the opportunity to step away from the bar and let the spell do its work. This was almost too easy. A few minutes’ time to set up something that might have taken him hours and several rounds of drinks to accomplish otherwise? Maybe there really was something to this whole “spycraft-via-magic” business.

  Gabe reached into his pocket once more to rub the charms. For good luck, he supposed. And for a silent thanks that Tanya Morozova was keeping away.

  Then a hand closed around his wrist.

  “Well, my dear fellow,” Alestair Winthrop said, looking up at Gabe with one eyebrow carefully raised. “I’m rather certain your agency doesn’t provide those as standard issue.”

  “Now’s really not the time, Al—”

  “But is this for business?” Alestair asked. “Or strictly for fun?”

  • • •

  Nadia’s boots slid across Staré Město, the cobblestones slick and gleaming from centuries of footsteps. Something was wrong. She sensed it in the warp and weft of the magic rising up from the ley line beneath her. Something was terribly wrong. Whatever had tripped her sensing charm was pulling way too much power off the line to be some simple incantation.

  Ritual magic. Elemental magic. Deep, powerful, and—if it wasn’t being conducted by the Ice—quite possibly dark.

  Her boxer’s muscles carried her quickly around the pedestrians out reveling in the precious extra hours of sunlight they’d snatched from winter’s grasp. She bounced on the balls of her feet periodically to scan over their heads, and darted down alleyways for a quick assessment. What the hell was the Flame brewing this time?

  A sudden horrific possibility flashed through her. What if they’d found another Host? A dark rumor had been winding its way through the Ice channels of late—whispers and wonderings over just what the Flame intended for the Hosts they collected. Blood sacrifices, elemental harvesting, all sorts of gruesome possibilities that Nadia didn’t care to dwell on for long.

  But if the Flame intended anything of the sort—Nadia knew exactly where they’d need to go to accomplish it.

  She crashed through the door of Bar Vodnář shoulder-first, a fistful of ashes at the ready and an ancient Slavic curse heavy on her tongue.

  The babble of conversation stopped abruptly as all eyes turned toward Nadia. Hedgewitches, in their dirndls and piles of crystal pendants, eyed her over glasses of mulled wine; tweedy, shifty-eyed spies shrank back into their corner booths. A Czech worker drinking at the bar tugged his cap brim over his face and curled his lip back. The jukebox bleated out a cheerful chorus of sugar, oh, honey, honey as Nadia scrutinized everyone and they, in turn, scrutinized her.

  Finally, Jordan Rhemes broke the stalemate as she swept out from behind the bar.
Her broom skirt twisted around her ankles and spun widely in rhythm with her steps as she approached Nadia at the door. She wore her usual bartending smile—amused but not enchanted—but the skin around her eyes had pulled tight.

  “Hello, Miss Ostrokhina.” Jordan’s voice was low, threaded beneath the chipper jukebox song. “Is there something I can help you with?”

  Nadia heard, too, what Jordan didn’t say. Because if there isn’t, you’d best be on your way.

  Nadia moved slowly, deliberately, making her intentions known as she tucked the handful of char back into her jacket pocket. “Someone’s pulling off the ley lines,” she whispered. “Powering something big. Huge. I was worried . . .” She swallowed past a sudden tightness in her throat. “I thought they might be—be using the confluence—”

  She broke off as Jordan’s expression changed. The woman’s lips pressed into a thin line, and she reached for Nadia’s arm.

  “Let’s have a word around back.”

  Nadia let herself be steered into the Vodnář’s storerooms. They ducked around dangling bouquets of dried and drying herbs, and Nadia narrowly avoided knocking a calcified lizard skin off a shelf. As soon as they were fully inside the back rooms, Jordan shut the door and uttered a few words of warding as she smeared a tincture from a nearby jar around the door’s frame.

  Nadia tilted her head, curiosity getting the better of her. Rhemes’s magic had always seemed so wild to her, so haphazard and imprecise. But she saw now a certain elegance in it. A simplicity that the Ice’s work often lacked.

  “A couple of Flame scumbags came poking around a few days ago,” Jordan said.

  Nadia folded her arms. One of the rare times she hated being right. “They wanted access to the confluence?”