“After not-napping.”
She forced a smile. “Exactly. See? You’re an expert at my schedule already.”
He said nothing more, but his quiet amusement followed Ava all the way back to her room.
He picked her up again on the corner near the hotel but stayed a polite distance back and didn’t try to approach. She walked to the tram station and hopped on board, Malachi shadowing her. Then she stood, swaying with the movement of the car as the tram followed the tracks, down the hill and across the bridge to the New City. Instead of marble and brick, she was met with concrete and glass when she got off. Soaring buildings that would have been at home in any metropolitan area of Europe or Asia.
Malachi came a little closer as she walked toward the modern building that housed the doctor’s office. Ava noticed several names and office signs that seemed to indicate it was an office building for different medical or mental health professionals. She took the elevator up to the third floor, ignoring her shadow, who seemed thankfully content to linger in the lobby.
“Ms. Matheson?” A receptionist greeted her in the small waiting room.
“Ava, please.”
“Dr. Sadik will be just a few moments.”
“Of course.”
A few minutes later, a nurse peered into the waiting room and smiled before escorting her back to an utterly common office. There was a desk in one corner and a grouping of comfortable chairs in another. A chaise as well.
Ava had to smile. Apparently, Dr. Sadik was a traditionalist. She hadn’t seen a chaise in a psychologist’s office since she’d been a kid.
Green plants filled a small corner solarium, lending a verdant energy to the room, and Ava settled into a chair to wait.
She knew very little about Dr. J. Sadik other than the recommendation of the psychiatrist in Tel Aviv. Still, the shrink in Israel was supposed to be one of the best in his field, so Ava was willing to give his recommendation a chance. There wasn’t much online about him, but maybe that was common for Turkish doctors. She had enough experience with mental health professionals to spot a quack from a mile away. So far, everything about the office and the staff seemed exactly like what she would expect.
“Ava?” She heard her name from the back of the room. Odd, she hadn’t sensed the man before he entered. She must have been more distracted than she realized.
A thin man wearing glasses approached, holding out his hand for Ava to shake. He looked like he was in his early forties, younger than she was expecting. A pair of green eyes peeked out from behind simple gold rims. His English was slightly accented; Ava would guess Dr. Sadik had studied in England.
“You must be Dr. Sadik.” She smiled, trying to be polite. She could be polite. He was probably a perfectly nice man, even though he wouldn’t be able to help her. He took her hand in his and grasped it warmly.
As soon as he did, an unprecedented sense of peace filled her. It was as if the tension fled the room. Ava felt… clear. Unburdened. She cocked her head and smiled at him.
“What on earth…”
“I hear you have had trouble with voices, Ava. I’d like to help. From what little Dr. Asner has shared, I think I have had other patients with the same affliction.”
“You have?” Nothing about this made sense, but not a single alarm bell was going off in her mind.
“I believe so. I hope my treatments might help you as they’ve helped others. My other patients have learned how to manage their condition, allowing them to live more serene lives. I believe I could do the same for you, if you’d be willing to meet with me. I’d very much like to help you.”
The peace stole up her arm and through her shoulders, loosening them as Dr. Sadik still grasped her hand.
“That sounds…”
“Yes?”
“Wonderful. It sounds wonderful. But I’m not going to lie—”
“You have doubts.” He cast an understanding smile toward her. “Of course you do. You’re an intelligent woman. But let us sit.” He motioned toward the chairs. “And talk more. Ask me whatever you like, Ms.—”
“Ava,” she interrupted. “Just call me Ava.”
“Very well, Ava.” Dr. Sadik smiled and settled into his own chair. “What would you like to know?”
Chapter Three
A cruise on the Bosphorus was hardly how Malachi would have chosen to spend a ninety-degree day, but that didn’t matter. He was still following Ava, which meant he did what she did. And currently, that meant sitting through an uneventful narration of the history of Istanbul while on the water. Ava perched on the port side of the cruise ship, snapping pictures. She was evenly split between amusement and boredom if he had to guess from her expression. He’d become reluctantly familiar with the human woman in the days he’d been guarding her.
There, the privately bemused smile.
There, the bored lift of her right eyebrow.
There, the slight pinch of her mouth when someone passed too close.
Malachi might have had his suspicions, but he questioned whether they were mere figments of his own hopeful imagination. He hadn’t spotted a Grigori in days—not surprising since the two who had approached her in the alley had seen Malachi, as well. No Grigori would willingly take on a trained Irin scribe alone, or even with a partner. But could Ava be what he suspected without attracting their attention? None of it added up.
Malachi heard his phone ring.
“‘Allo?”
“It’s Damien. Anything new?”
“You’re missing out. It’s a beautiful, hot day on the water. Lots of tourists. Sadly, no beer.”
His watcher ignored him. “No one is following her?”
“Other than me? No.”
There was a pause.
“If there has been no other threat to her—”
“They saw me.” He stood and moved to a more secluded part of the deck near the back, where the wind would carry his voice out over the water. He still kept an eye on Ava. “I imagine they’re being cautious. And since she thinks I’m some personal bodyguard her family hired to protect her, I don’t even have to hide. She sees me and says nothing. It’s the perfect cover to find out more about her.”
“Malachi, Rhys and I have been looking into her family history. There is no evidence—”
“That she’s Irina? I told you what she said.”
“She said, ‘I heard you.’ One statement that could mean any number of things, and then she ran away. If she was Irina, even if she didn’t know it, she’d be drawn to you. It’s part of who we are. And how could she be unaware?”
“If she was born after the Rending—”
“She was born Ava Russell, to Lena Russell, a single mother, in 1985. Born in Los Angeles, raised in Santa Monica. The scribe house there has no record of her or her mother. There is no father listed. What Irin would leave a child without giving her a name, Malachi? What Irina would raise her child outside the safety of a retreat?”
He had nothing to say. Damien was right. The number of Irin children born after the Rending could be counted on a few hands. They were never unguarded, particularly the young Irina. They were hidden away and treasured by their mothers, most of whom were in hiding. His people hadn’t been whole for two hundred years.
“I still think there is something different about her.” His voice was irritatingly hoarse. “How else would you explain the Grigori watching her like that?”
It was Damien who paused then.
“Jaron is…” His voice was halting. “Not as some others are. Since he has moved West, his people have not been as aggressive.”
A derisive snort was the only answer Malachi gave him.
Damien said, “It’s in their nature to be predators, yes. But there haven’t been as many deaths in Istanbul as you’d expect in the past twenty years. And yes, preying on women in the middle of the day like that is unusual. It’s possible that whoever was following her has been taken care of. He’s very controlling. That’s why this area has exp
erienced the relative calm that it has.”
“You’re acting as if there is some kind of truce between you and him.”
“There isn’t. There can’t be; you know that. His nature has not changed, nor has ours. But he keeps a lower profile than what you were used to in Germany. Jaron is not Volund. He doesn’t like attention, and his Grigori are more subtle in their pursuits.”
Their pursuits. Malachi sneered. What a polite name for the Grigori practice of aggressively seducing and bedding human women, often leaving them half-dead or impregnated with children that could kill them simply by being born. Malachi had been tracking and killing Grigori soldiers for over four hundred years. It was his burning purpose in life. He had yet to see any soldier exhibit restraint.
“Nevertheless, I am going to stay with her.”
“And when she leaves? Rhys said she’s scheduled to leave Istanbul in another two weeks.”
“Then we’ll see what happens in two weeks.”
“You’re not following her out of the city, Malachi. I won’t allow it.”
Malachi bristled instinctively at the command. “Damien—”
“I am your superior,” his watcher reminded him coldly. “I will not allow it. Leave the human woman to whatever fate the Creator has for her.”
Malachi struggled to put into words the compulsion he felt. Ava Matheson needed to be protected. He knew she couldn’t be one of his kind, but there was still something…
“I sense something in her, Damien. Something different. I feel—”
“You feel hope, my friend.” The watcher’s voice softened slightly. “Something most of us haven’t felt for a very long time. But this hope… it’s your own desire. Nothing more. You’re not thinking clearly. She’s not Irina. She can’t be.”
“I know that.”
“Do you?”
Did he? His eyes returned to her. Ava was sitting next to a group of children, her eyes easy, her expression relaxed. Everything Damien had said about Ava made sense. There was no logical way she could be one of their kind. None. But something about her—her reactions, her energy—screamed that she was more than human. She was other. Different. Even the way she held herself away from the crowd while trying to blend in was familiar.
“I’ll follow her while she’s in the city. After that…”
“You’ll return to your duties, Malachi. You have a job to do. Leo and Maxim are already covering your shifts.”
A smile touched the corner of his mouth. “But I thought Jaron’s Grigori were the civilized ones.”
“A civilized Grigori is still a threat and an abomination. Some things will never change, including our mission.”
Malachi was tired of Damien’s constant discipline. Tired of the endless nights of stalking and waiting and violence. Perhaps someday he would join the more peaceful of their brethren in a rural scribe house like Rhys was always talking of doing. He would cloak his armor and spend his days copying sacred texts and his nights watching the stars, perhaps even some day counter the spells that prolonged his life so he could fade into the heavens as so many Irin had after their mates were torn from them.
Malachi had no mate. Only a handful of scribes did. And it was because of the cursed Grigori that he and all his kind were fated to spend their long lives alone.
He was kidding himself. He’d never retire from a warrior’s life. Malachi would fight them as long as he lived.
“You have a job to do, Malachi.” Damien was still talking. “And that job is not following a human woman who happens to catch your eye.”
“Yes, Watcher.”
“Keep me informed of your movements. I want to know where you are.”
“Have Rhys enable the tracker on my phone. He can do that now, you know. You can watch me move on the map, if you want.”
Damien paused. “He can do that?”
Malachi chuckled. “Welcome to the twenty-first century, old friend.”
The tour boat had reached the end of the Golden Horn and had turned back toward the Galata Bridge when Ava approached him. He’d been playing a game on his phone, some mind-numbing activity Leo was addicted to that involved shooting birds at pigs. It was oddly satisfying; the pigs exploded in a puff not unlike the Grigori when you put a knife in the right place. He glanced up when he saw her move, then watched silently as she approached the bench in the corner where he had positioned himself. Her camera bag bumped against her thigh as she walked, an unwieldy cargo he’d never seen her without.
She paused in front of him, then sank onto the wooden bench opposite as Malachi hid his phone.
“I’m incredibly bored.”
He shrugged. “So why did you take the tour?”
“You’re supposed to take a tour of Istanbul from the sea. Didn’t you know that?”
He smiled. “Do you always do what you’re supposed to?”
“Hardly ever, but this is work.”
“What do you do?” He already knew. Rhys had given him a full profile on her the day after he’d discovered her name.
“I take pictures for travel magazines.”
Ava Matheson was considered one of the top travel photojournalists in her field, distinguishing herself by her willingness to go to the most remote location and capture it for the hungry print and online world. In fact, the more remote the location, the more attractive the job seemed to be for her. She’d climbed mountains in Peru and Nepal, traversed the Gobi Desert, and boated the Orinoco. The burgeoning ecotourism industry loved her. Ava specialized in finding the luxurious in the most remote places in the world. She seemed to avoid cities unless there was a specific assignment calling her to one. Malachi had no idea what she was doing in Istanbul, as Rhys could find no record of a commission from any of her usual clients.
“Which magazine do you work for?”
“Lots of them.” Her gaze drifted off for a moment until it snapped back to his face. “I don’t want to talk about work. Isn’t that boring? I bet you hate to talk about bodyguard gigs. You probably have some great stories you can’t tell anyone though, huh?”
You have no idea. He lifted an eyebrow. “So what do you want to talk about?”
He hoped she wasn’t thinking about coming on to him. That was destined to end badly, then she’d call her parents—or whoever she thought had hired him—and start asking inconvenient questions.
“Are you Turkish? You don’t have the same accent as most of the people I’ve met.”
He could actually be honest about that one. “I am, but I’ve traveled a lot. Lived in a lot of other places. I imagine that’s influenced the accent. You?”
“All-American girl.”
“They write songs about your kind, you know.”
She laughed. “My kind? That’s a good one. I can pretty much promise they don’t write songs about my kind. Not good ones, anyway. Have you been to the States?”
“I lived in Chicago for a time, but that was years ago.”
Ava leaned forward, resting her chin in the palm of her hand as the breeze pulled dark hair into her eyes. “And what did you do in Chicago?”
I helped kill the upper echelon of Grigori soldiers belonging to a fallen angel who preys on the women of the Upper Midwest. And his pack of dogs. He was pissed about the dogs.
“The same thing I do here.”
“Exciting.”
“It has its moments.”
“Did you ever guard Oprah?”
“I don’t think so.” He frowned. “Not directly.”
“So, Malachi…” She shifted again, leaning back and lifting her face to the sun. It poured over her, warming her pale skin and lighting the red in her hair. She tilted her head back, closing her eyes behind her sunglasses. “Are you an independent contractor, or do you work for one of Carl’s usual companies?”
She was subtly digging for information, but he couldn’t figure out why. He decided to play along for now. It would be less suspicious.
“I’m somewhat independent, but I work wit
h a larger company. The headquarters is in Vienna. I imagine Mr. Matheson was referred from there.”
“Probably. He’s doing a lot of work in Eastern Europe lately. Low production costs.”
Her stepfather was a film producer, but Ava seemed unimpressed. In fact, everything about her spoke of boredom. Jaded expression. Cynical quirk to her mouth. Malachi sensed something else, though.
Lonely. The woman was desperately lonely.
“Do you like to travel alone?”
She seemed surprised that he’d asked a question. Her head tilted forward and she looked at him. “What?”
“Am I not allowed to ask you questions?”
“It’s unusual.”
“Call me unusual, then.”
She smiled then, a genuine smile untouched by cynicism. “Yeah, I like it. I’m not the most social person in the world.”
“I’ve noticed.”
“Wow. That bad, huh?”
He shrugged. “You just seem to like your own space. I don’t see you chatting with many strangers like a lot of the tourists do.”
“My own space?” Her smile hinted at some inside joke. “You could call it that. I don’t travel much in cities. They’re very…”
He waited, but she seemed to expect him to interrupt. He didn’t.
Finally, she said, “They’re crowded. Noisy. Too many smells and sounds and sights all crashing together. I don’t like them, usually.”
“Not even Constantinople?”
“You mean Istanbul?”
He grinned. “Are we going there?”
“We better not.” She laughed again. “I’ll have that song stuck in my head for days. But to answer your question, despite the noise and the people and the heat—”
“The heat is something else, isn’t it?”
“No worse than L.A. most summers. Despite all that…” Her eyes drifted toward the water. “I like it here. There’s something about it, isn’t there? It’s…” Her eyes sought his. “Seductive.”
Malachi could feel the tattoos covering his chest pulse. No… Not going there, either.
He straightened and cleared his throat. “It’s a fascinating place. Very complicated history.”
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