Chapter 12

12

May 11, 9:28 P . M . MSK

Moscow, Russian Federation

Valya appreciated having friends in high places. It had been Sychkin who had alerted her to where Sigma was holed up in Moscow. Unfortunately, he had refused to say how he had come by such knowledge.

Still, it was an opportunity she would not waste.

From her lofty vantage on the fifteenth floor of a housing complex, she continued to surveil the Apostolic Nunciature. The Vatican embassy squatted on the far side of a parking lot.

As she kept vigil, waiting for her team to get into position, her fist tightened on the knife in her hand. Behind her, the apartment's original occupants—an elderly couple—lay dead in their bloody bed. Valya had meticulously cleaned her blade afterward. The polishing ritual normally calmed her, but her heartbeat still pounded in her throat.

Frustration kept her on edge. The trap she had laid at the Simonov Monastery had failed to capture or kill her targets.

I will not repeat that mistake again.

Through an earpiece, she monitored the chatter of her assault team. It would not be much longer. She had confirmed her targets were inside the building. An hour ago, she had spied upon a group that had arrived at the embassy's gate. She identified one of them as a Sigma operative. They were met by another who ushered them inside. The group was escorting the Russian botanist whose kidnapping had been thwarted.

Valya hoped to correct that failing, too.

Oddly, the arriving group had come with a stranger—and a pair of large dogs.

She didn't understand their inclusion, but they would be dealt with, too.

Her earpiece buzzed on an encrypted channel. It was her second-in-command, Nadira Ali Saeed, a Syrian mercenary she had recruited three years ago. The woman had been part of an all-female commando squad, known as the Lionesses for National Defence, but her savagery and brutality had gotten her drummed out. Afterward, she had found a home in Valya's group, where she swiftly rose to her current position.

"We're ready, commander," Nadira reported in. "We're all locked down."

"How long of a window do we have before the local authorities respond?"

"We've jammed communications for three city blocks around the embassy. Once we engage, we'll roll out spike strips across the surrounding streets to thwart any vehicles coming into or out of the area."

"And our window of time?" Valya pressed her.

"Fifteen minutes, maybe twenty. After the monastery's firebombing, everyone is on high alert."

That will have to do.

The timeline was tight but manageable.

Valya lifted the old dagger in her hand. It had belonged to her grandmother, who had carved its black handle from a living Siberian spruce under a full moon. It was an athamé , a dagger used in magical ceremonies. Her grandmother had been a well-respected babka , a village healer. Later, during World War II, she had been drafted to fight the Germans, part of an all-woman unit, the 588th Night Bombers Regiment. The female pilots took to the air after sunset, gliding quietly across Nazi antiaircraft batteries to drop bombs on the unsuspecting enemy encampments. Their deadly efficiency earned them the nickname Nochnye Vedmy , or the Night Witches—which seemed appropriate for a woman who was a former village babka .

Unfortunately, after her grandmother's death, Valya's mother had tried to take up the mantle as a village healer. The family had needed the money, especially for a widow who had given birth to twins, both afflicted with albinism. And in such a rural area, notoriously prone to superstitions, it took only a few bad seasons for people to look for someone to blame. Valya's mother, burdened by two strange children, quickly became a target. Forced to flee their home, they made their way to Moscow. Penniless, their mother had turned to prostitution. Mercifully, she had died within a year, murdered by one of her patrons. Valya had come upon this crime, and in a fit of rage, she stabbed the man with her grandmother's dagger, turning a tool of healing into one of death.

Afterward, she and her brother, Anton—both twelve at the time—had been forced to fend for themselves on the streets, becoming savage and wild, until the Guild had found them and turned that anger into skill.

Valya studied her reflection in the mirror. She had powdered over her tattoo to hide the distinguishing mark, but the dark sun still shone through. She and her brother had disfigured their faces in this manner, as a promise to forever be there for each other.

But nothing lasts forever , she thought bitterly.

After the death of Anton, she was left with little else.

She gripped her witch's blade with white knuckles.

Except revenge.