Josh’s mouth felt dry. He stuffed his hands in his pockets because he wasn’t sure what to do with them. He knew what meaning he’d have read into the man’s advance in certain bars, in certain parts of New York, but what could it mean here? Be careful, Frank had said, as if Josh ever forgot. Some days—most—he wished he only had his country’s secrets to keep.
“Thanks,” he said. Kept his voice level, and his eyes. Kept his hands from fidgeting with his jacket, or his belt. “I’d like that very much. But I have to go. I’m sorry.”
“Duty calls?”
“It called a long time back.”
Winthrop smiled sadly. “A familiar experience, alas. Until next time, Mister Toms.”
“Mister Winthrop.”
Josh’s heart didn’t slow until he hit the street.
• • •
Gabe checked his watch. As soon as he’d seen Drahomir’s flower he’d cleared his checklist for this shindig, and Josh made the approach just fine, but you couldn’t sway into the Soviet embassy and sway back out five minutes later. People noticed things like that.
So he spoke with a Frenchman about agricultural imports, promised he’d discuss the matter with his people at the embassy, drank too much whatever-this-was (it certainly wasn’t champagne), ate too many passed hors d’oeuvres, and was about to leave when he noticed Alestair Winthrop by the buffet—guy must have come late, or else just now let himself be noticed.
He wound through the crowd toward Winthrop. “We need to talk.”
“A pleasure to see you again, my man.”
“Your nothing,” he said, companionable as he could make himself. “This thing in my head cost me another job. I can’t let it push me around anymore.”
“Progress takes time.” Winthrop steered Gabe by his elbow through the crowd. “And requires effort on your part. But we’ll do what we can. In the meantime, I thought I might seize upon a rare opportunity to introduce you to one of our allies in the field.”
Gabe thought, and did not say, that that field was Alestair’s, not his. He thought, and did not say, that his interest in the Ice and their secret war extended only so far as they allowed him to get a handle on his little problem. “More Brits?”
“Someday, perhaps,” Alestair said. “But for the moment, please meet my friend—” and he touched a tall young woman in a brown dress on the shoulder, “Tanya Morozova, this is Gabriel Pritchard.”
Then the rest of him caught up.
“Pleased,” he said, because he was a professional, “to meet you face-to-face.”
“Likewise,” Morozova said, and with equal venom.
Episode 4: Stasis
by Lindsay Smith
Prague, Czechoslovak Socialist Republic
February 3, 1970
1.
The knock on Gabe’s door ripped him from sleep with the force of a gunshot. He clutched at his chest, sucking down air, cold sweat wreathing his forehead as he tried to get his bearings.
Dark. Night. His apartment. He glanced at the wall beside his twin bed—he was alone. (No surprise there.) His sidearm was where he’d left it; he pressed the cold metal to his forehead and tried to think.
The knocking continued. Gabe racked his mind, trying to think who or what it could be now. Everything was going well with Drahomir; he’d handed him off neatly to Josh, so any issues that might arise—which they shouldn’t—would be Josh’s problem, not Gabe’s. Surely neither Josh nor Drahomir had already done something stupid. And he hadn’t been in Prague long enough to develop any other agents. Hell, he’d barely been in Prague long enough to make nemeses of the rival services. Except for that goddamned Ice woman, he’d barely roused their notice at all.
Ice. Magic. Right. The “Ice,” who had an honest-to-God KaGeBeznik in their midst.
Gabe swung his feet over the side of the bed and slid into his slippers. The thing inside him was awake, as far as he could tell; maybe it never really slept. Sometimes he thought it ran in circles, senseless, like squirrels scampering through an attic at night. Well, if it had any warnings as to who waited on the other side of the door, it kept its silence.
Gabe slid the cover for the peephole up and was greeted with an outsize Wimbledon-blue eye on the other side.
“Jesus, Alestair.” Gabe fumbled with the chain locks and deadbolts that scaled the side of his door—his fine motor skills still hadn’t fully woken up. “Do you have any idea what time it is?”
“Oh, I reckon it’s never too late for a few fingers of single malt.” Alestair jabbed his hand into Gabe’s for a forceful shake as soon as the door cracked open. “How’ve you been doing? Glad the office isn’t keeping you out late, wining and dining some mustachioed Slavic goon or another.”
Gabe suspected Alestair had consumed a few hands’ worth of scotch already. “Just trying to get some goddamned sleep. Shit,” he added, weariness filing off the edges of his temper. “Next few weeks are going to be hell. Station inspection, and then . . .” Were the Brits in on ANCHISES? Shit. Maybe this whole midnight visit was an elaborate ploy of Alestair’s to pry information out of him. He’d have to remember this trick for the future.
“All the more reason I think you’ll be glad I dropped by.” Alestair dug around in Gabe’s cabinets, in what Gabe knew was a fruitless search for glassware free of water stains and detergent rinds. “Has our fellow been letting you sleep?”
Gabe stopped in the doorway to his cramped kitchen. “He, uh . . . it . . .”
Gabe was still bothered by the strange pull he’d felt tailing Morozova and her Czech student. The strange pull he’d felt by the Vltava River. Almost like the thing inside him, the . . . hitchhiker had been—unsettled. Scared, even. Something to do with the Flame? Or something Morozova had done? It felt like the river itself, the water running beneath its frozen surface, something elemental had been ringing through him, plucking him like a string in a natural symphony. Not that it had sensed something malicious, so much as it had been overwhelmed. But ever since then, his new passenger had rested more easily within him. As if it had aligned with something, clicked cleanly into place at last.
“It’s been . . . behaving,” Gabe finally said.
Gabe wondered, now, whether Morozova’s pursuit of the university student was part of her spy work or witchcraft. The puzzle he’d gotten so good at, the East-West game, had suddenly popped into a confounding third dimension. It hurt his head. Not that his head needed the help these days.
Alestair nodded to himself, apparently satisfied, and set two glasses on the wobbly kitchen table. “A start, then.” He uncorked Gabe’s bottle of Grant’s and poured them both generous shares.
Gabe pinched the bridge of his nose. It figured that the first night he wasn’t suffering the unsettling mental hangovers of the . . . thing roiling inside him, or else out late on “official” business, he’d come down with a stuffy Brit infestation. “What do you want, then?”
Alestair took a gulp of scotch, then recoiled as if he’d been punched. “Dear God. Certainly not whatever this abomination is.” He shuddered, pounded one fist to his sternum, then took another drink, daintier this time. “I was at the Vodnář, chatting with Miss Rhemes, you know how it goes, and she voiced her concerns over your struggles in handling whatever it is that’s jerking your chain, so to speak.”
So this was all Jordan’s fault. Gabe winced.
“Seeing as how you’re so reluctant to take Miss Morozova’s assistance . . .” Alestair drew a circle in the air with the glass. “I thought perhaps I’d volunteer my own services to educate you on the finer points of handling elemental magic.”
Gabe glanced at the kitchen clock. In other words, Jordan kicked the Brit out to close for the night, and he was looking for an excuse to keep drinking. “Your services?”
Alestair pulled a smile. “In navigating your newfound magical aptitude, of course. You do want to actually make use of it, yes? It’d be a shame for it to go to waste.”
Gabe snatched up
his glass as well, and chugged half the pour, just to make a point. “Oh. So I’m invited to your secret magic club?”
“Anyone can do magic, with the proper time and training. But can you imagine the chaos it would cause if the whole world were to attempt it? The misused energy it might send out into the world?”
Gabe scowled at him. “And you’re choosing to let me in on the secret because of this—the thing in my head.”
“Yes, well, your situation is something of an anomaly. An anomaly I mean to sort out.” Alestair sipped at the scotch timidly, as if he were afraid it might bite him. “Fortunately for you, I’ve been doing some research, and I dare say that I think we can train you to use your fellow to your advantage.”
Advantage. The dangle. Gabe saw the fishhook in Alestair’s words, but swam toward it all the same. What if he could use the hitchhiker to his advantage—in his work, even? A little dash of secret sauce, a rabbit’s foot in his pocket to give him just enough of an edge to get back in Frank’s good graces. Bend some ears his way, add a little charisma and persuasion to his patter, give him just a little speed over the KaGeBezniks, even Morozova—no, especially Morozova.
A new arms race. If the KGB was using witches to aid their spy work, he’d be foolish not to claim the same advantage for himself.
Oh, God, but it was a wonderful prospect. An end to the spiral of stagnation and pratfalls he’d found himself in ever since that goddamned night in Cairo. Progress. No more worried looks from Frank and Josh; no more knowing glances and whispers behind cupped hands around the embassy. “Okay.” He finished the glass. “Show me what you got.”
Alestair grinned in return. “Come with me.”
• • •
Alestair started with the simplest elements of all: a pinch of common dirt, nicked from some collectivist farm or another nearby; a vial of purified water; a twig he’d found from a tree that he was pretty sure was oak, though Gabe doubted tree identification had been part of his classical Eton education. Gabe sat with his back to Alestair while the Brit set the elements on the table between them, and Gabe focused. Alestair suggested he start by trying to sense any sort of change in how he felt—trying to see if each element tugged at the hitchhiker a little differently.
At first, Gabe felt impossibly ignorant, like he was too drunk to tell the difference between a good tequila and jet fuel. But slowly, he started to notice little changes: the water had a taste, a quenching sensation to it that piqued the hitchhiker’s interest a certain way. The twig smelled a little loamy and felt firm and fine-grained in his mind. Okay. He could get the hang of this.
“Good work,” Alestair said, after he’d successfully identified water, dirt, wood, blood, cotton, and fire all in a row. “Now let’s move on to powering charms.”
Powering things—now that’s where the hitchhiker really gave Gabe hell.
The first charm, which Alestair claimed would erase the need for an hour of sleep completely by invigorating his bloodstream, bit back the moment Gabe tried to activate it. Or maybe it was the hitchhiker that lashed out—Gabe had no patience for the distinction.
“I think it worked in reverse,” he muttered, through what felt exactly like a sudden but raging caffeine headache.
“Go on. It’s quite simple once you get the hang of it.” Alestair had returned to drinking while he watched, as if charm activation were his new favorite country club sport.
After five more tries and an exhaustive repertoire of curses, Gabe snapped the charm to life. Some of the tension washed out of him; the tightness in his brain unspooled. He did feel better—not a full night’s sleep better, but maybe a not-too-strong mug of joe better.
“Wait.” Gabe stared down at the charm in his hand. “Most of Jordan’s customers—I thought they bought their charms already powered.” She’d given him a few charms, as well, telling him he didn’t need to do anything special to activate them.
Alestair’s smile poked up from other side of his glass as he took a drink. “Yes, ah, well . . . I had some theories about the way your ‘condition’ might work. Turns out I was right—you function as a very minor power source now.”
“So I’m your new pet science project. Great.”
Alestair ducked as Gabe lobbed the charm at his head. “Tell you what. You’re doing so well—let’s grab a round at the Vodnář to celebrate!”
Gabe sagged forward. “It’s seven in the morning.”
“Then we’re just in time for that wonderful breakfast she makes.”
• • •
Prague looked very different to Gabe through the lens of his new attunement. It felt different. As if a fine sheen of Soviet dust had been wiped away to reveal the ancient city beneath. Prague was alive and loud and clamoring for his notice. The more he practiced with Alestair, the more he found the subtle distinctions in different metals and stones and even soil from different regions; the more the riot of color and noise inside his head resolved into distinct shapes. He wandered the elemental garden that was Prague and marveled at each petal.
I could learn to live with this, Gabe dared to let himself think. Even if none of the witches he’d encountered thus far seemed to be able to tell him exactly what “this” was. He sensed a granite and quartz monument not far from the American embassy, and drank up the fine speckling and the rock’s subtle resonance with a trickle of power from the nearest ley line. I’m going to survive. Thrive, even.
“Whoa.” Josh stared at him when he arrived for work the next Monday. “Your face.”
Gabe’s fingers darted toward his cheeks. He had remembered to shave. “What . . . ?”
“You’re not frowning.” Josh smirked at him. “It’s—it’s weird.”
Gabe could get used to weird.
• • •
Drahomir: happy and producing some decent intelligence. Nothing too juicy out of him yet, but the best agents were steadily leaking faucets, nothing so egregious that it warranted calling the plumber, drip-dripping away for years.
Andula: missing, ever since that night he chased her and Morozova through the streets. That worried Gabe. He poked around the university, spotted the group of friends he’d seen her with at the lecture, but with an unfilled hole in their cluster. Like they, too, expected her to be there, and were still used to fitting their lives around her. What the hell had Morozova wanted with her? It had to have been KGB business—Alestair would have mentioned it if it was Ice-related, wouldn’t he? Surely Morozova hadn’t put in the work to recruit Zlata only to disappear her just as quickly.
But maybe the recruitment hadn’t gone according to Morozova’s plans. Maybe Andula got spooked—hadn’t expected to draw any interest from the rezidentura—and ran. Ran where? He pulled out the file he’d started on her (and never finished) and started looking for leads. Maybe she’d gone back to her mother’s farmhouse in western Czechoslovakia . . .
Josh raised an eyebrow at him from across the desk. “Is that the co-ed girl’s file?”
Gabe shot him a look. “I was just thinking—”
“I’m starting to think you have a little crush.” Josh laughed, eyes sparkling. “We followed them halfway across the city, and nothing. I’m sorry, Gabe, but it’s a dead end.”
“She’s missing. Hasn’t been to class in a week. You don’t find that just a little suspicious?”
“Could be. But it could be any number of things. Maybe she got some sense into her head, and she’s having second thoughts about selling out her countrymen to the Russkies.”
“They could have done something to her,” Gabe said.
“And there’s nothing you or I could do about it. It’s beyond our jurisdiction. You know where else she hasn’t shown up?” Josh thumped the stack of papers he’d been working through. “The guest list for the French National Day party. Isn’t that what you told me to focus on?”
Gabe’s gaze slipped toward the open door to Chief Drummond’s office, where Frank sat peering at the latest cables from headquarters. The chief
was content for now, but Gabe couldn’t rid himself of the sweaty film of their earlier conversation, right after he’d botched his first attempt at pitching Drahomir—what was it Frank had called him? A big dumb Labrador?
He was right, Josh was right—he couldn’t keep fetching the same stick into eternity. The community had far too short a memory for him to coast on the Drahomir recruitment for long. If he was going to pursue the Andula issue, it would have to be on his own time—time he couldn’t spare while he rebuilt his credibility in Prague Station. “And?” Gabe asked. “Any of the names on the guest list strike your fancy?”
As long as the hitchhiker was playing nice, he fully intended to rack up so many wins even Langley couldn’t forget.
• • •
The hitchhiker was on full alert inside of Gabe, attuning itself to the world around him as if it had raised its head and sniffed at the evening air.
Gabe stopped at the foot of the Charles Bridge. Sodium lights, sparkling up and down the banks; the cobblestone path; clay tiles and a smear of dirt in the snowdrifts across the street. But no, there was something else mingled in there, something that didn’t belong. The same dull, throbbing sense of so much he’d sensed when he’d tailed Andula and Morozova—only now he was better equipped to filter out the background chaos.
He tasted a tang like metal in the back of his throat and heavy heat in the back of his mind.
Blood.
Gabe paced south down the river path, and the blood faded. He approached the Charles Bridge again, and the sensation grew. Started to cross the bridge, but the otherness tugged him northward, just a little further north, and he stepped up to the railing, garnering a few odd looks from wool-wrapped pedestrians.
Blood. That had to be the element he was sensing. Gabe hoped he wasn’t standing over a crime scene. But there was something stronger beneath its pull—something powerful. Something that implied the blood had been used for magical purpose. It pulsated, charged by the ley lines and the willful intent of whatever witches had employed it.
The Witch Who Came in From the Cold - Season One Volume One Page 12
