Chapter Seven

Saint Petersburg, Russia 1765

Tenzin watched Giovanni from across the room, making every attempt to blend into the wall in the dark public house. She had trained him in the delicate art of poisoning, but this was his first attempt in public.

And they were very public.

The human they were killing was a detestable individual, but his manners toward his female servants weren't the reason they were killing him. He was a political rival in the court of Catherine the Great, and the duke who wanted him dead happened to have a Turkish blade and a property in the Crimea that Tenzin desired.

She'd promised the property to Giovanni if he succeeded; she only wanted the blade.

A vampire walked into the public house, drawing both her and Giovanni's attention.

Don't react. She willed the thought into his mind. Trust me.

It was her job to deal with complications. It was his job to kill the count.

Luckily, he kept his position at the table next to the one where the count was regaling a group of other men and a few barmaids with his story about boar hunting.

Humans were so boring.

The vampire who'd entered the pub lingered in the doorway, keeping to the shadows. Tenzin kept her eyes on the tall figure, searching the shadows for any other compatriots. Something made her amnis twitch, but her attention was divided between the young fire vampire she was training and the immortal at the door.

The figure strode forward, revealing an elegant man dressed in rich clothing with long black hair and aquiline features. His cheekbones were high, and his eyes were dark brown. Tenzin stared at the vampire from the shadows, searching for any hint of recognition.

Nothing.

If they'd met before, she didn't remember it. Then again, she met many faces she didn't bother remembering. The vampire's gaze caught on her own, but he swiftly looked away and turned his eyes to the woman behind the bar. The vampire kept their amnis close, and Tenzin couldn't discern his element, but since the immortal kept to himself, so did she.

Tenzin kept one ear on the new arrival but turned her attention back to Giovanni. The count had just refilled his vodka; it was the perfect time to dose his drink. All he'd need to do was get up from the table, ease around the man in the velvet jacket, and casually tip his hand over the count's drink.

The vampire approached her, but she kept her eyes on Giovanni.

"I didn't realize they allowed Mongols in this establishment." The vampire spoke in French, so Tenzin responded in kind.

"I am but a manservant of my lord." Tenzin kept her face turned to Giovanni, but her gaze turned to the vampire at her side.

Humans were within listening distance, but that didn't deter the vampire. "I am surprised to see you here," he continued in French. "Don't you remember me?"

"I meet many in the service of Signor di Spada." Tenzin's eyes remained on Giovanni. There was something familiar about the vampire, but she couldn't place it and she didn't care that much.

Underneath the restrictive masculine garments typical for servants of the day, she wore three blades, all of which she could access quickly and easily. Before this vampire drew a breath, she could have her dagger in his neck. If any of the humans saw anything, her amnis would wipe their memory, but it was more bother than she wanted.

"I would never have predicted seeing Elder Zhang's only daughter in the service of any man."

Her sire's name made Tenzin turn her face to the arrogant vampire beside her. "I think you have me confused with someone else." Who was he? A thread of smoke reached her nose before the vampire quickly pulled his amnis back.

It was enough. He was a fire vampire.

"Wouldn't it be lovely," the man whispered, "to tear their throats out, feast on their blood, and burn this wretched place to the ground?"

"A waste of time," she replied. "Why bother?"

Humans like this were a mix of cattle and prey to her. The rich and powerful were prey. The others were harmless cattle, humble people trying to survive in a world that didn't care about them. She had the same amount of concern for the cattle that she did for the winter fox or the deer hiding in the forest.

"We bother because we can," the tall vampire said. "The count?"

"Our prey, stranger. Not yours."

He nodded slightly.

Giovanni rose, joked with the man next to him in Russian, and appeared to drunkenly stumble past the count's table so he had to brace himself.

There!

The poison was in the vodka.

The count lifted the glass.

"Should I warn him?"

Tenzin's eyes flashed to the strange vampire, her fangs growing longer at the threat. "This is none of your concern."

"But it might be amusing." The corner of his mouth turned up.

Tenzin's hand moved to the dagger hidden just under her ribs as she watched the count from the corner of her eye. The dosed vodka disappeared down the human's gullet, and Giovanni moved toward her through the room, keeping up the appearance of a drunk human stumbling through the crowd and pulling on his overcoat.

Giovanni brushed against the strange vampire, eyeing the man from his carefully set hair to his polished boots. His chin lifted and his gaze turned haughty, the internal aristocrat coming to life before her eyes.

"Is there a problem?" he asked Tenzin.

"None." Tenzin glanced one more time at the stranger, then returned her attention to Giovanni. "Come, my boy. You've done well."

Giovanni and the other fire vampire locked eyes for a long moment; then Tenzin tugged Giovanni's arm and pulled him toward the door.

They walked out of the public house without another look back, crunching their way down the snowy streets of Saint Petersburg and dodging a carriage that rumbled past as it churned up icy slush.

"We'll wait for a few days to make sure he's dead," Tenzin said. "No one will be able to trace it back to the duke."

"I'd appreciate a bit of warmer weather," her protégé said. "An escape to the Black Sea is just what I was thinking."

"A nice relief," she said. "I'll be sure to fly ahead and check it out. It should only take you a month or so traveling by horse."

He laughed a little. "You're such a braggart, Tenzin." He looked over his shoulder. "Who was that back in the public house?"

"No one." Tenzin shrugged. "Probably someone I met before I knew you."

"You can't remember?"

"My boy, I have lived a long time."

"The boss is here."

Tenzin looked up to see Lev standing in the doorway that led to the stinky room. "Who is your boss?"

Brigid nudged her arm. "Oleg." She looked at Lev. "I didn't know he was in the area. You said he hated the cold."

"Oh yeah." Lev nodded. "That's probably why he's so grumpy, you know? And the dogs. He doesn't like the dogs."

Tenzin muttered, "What kind of human doesn't like dogs?"

"Maybe it's just the sled dogs," Brigid said. "I can't lie, they are really feckin' loud."

"Hmm." Tenzin stood up from the pictures she was examining. There was something about the photos that tickled her brain, but she couldn't place the irritation, so she just kept looking at them long after Brigid had lost interest.

"Is Oleg staying in the big house?"

Lev nodded. "Oh yeah, he doesn't stay here."

"Because it stinks like sweat?" Tenzin's nose twitched. "And pickled eggs?"

Brigid snapped her fingers, and a spark lit the air. "That's what it is. Pickled eggs." She wrinkled her nose.

"No, he stays at his house because…" Lev looked hurt. "He likes his privacy. Does it really smell like pickled eggs here?"

Tenzin and Brigid exchanged a look, and then they both nodded.

"Oh." Lev frowned. "Okay, so the boss said he wants to talk to you both in an hour. He doesn't want to come here. He says he'll have his housekeeper make tea."

"Okay, great." Brigid waved, and Lev returned to the front room. "Bollocks."

"What's wrong?" Tenzin returned to the map, trying to estimate how long it would take to fly to the burned villages.

"I don't have anything for tea."

"So?"

"Gift giving is a big thing for Oleg," Brigid said. "Anne said I should never show up to anything that Oleg is hostin' without some kind of gift."

"So he knows that about you," Tenzin said. "This is why he has invited us to his house instead of coming here and he specifically told Lev that he was preparing tea. He's challenging you."

Brigid's lip curled. "Yeah, but that doesn't help me at the moment." She lifted the pile of pictures. "What am I gonna give him? Snapshots of destruction?"

Tenzin shrugged. "I'll find something."

Brigid frowned. "Are you sure?"

"Yes." She pointed to the pictures. "Every type of attack. Every element represented. How likely is that? Usually our kind hunt in like groups. Wind with wind. Water with water."

Brigid crossed her arms and looked at the pictures. "You're spot on. Every single frame shows evidence of fire, earth, air, and water violence. It has to be intentional."

"This isn't chaotic," Tenzin said. "It's not random even though it's meant to look that way. Zasha is choosing vampires of each element and then letting them loose on these villages for fun."

Brigid sat down in a chair and stared at the fire. "Do ya know all the cruise ships that come up here to Alaska?"

"Cruise ships?"

"Humans all group together on large boats. I'm talking massive boats, Tenzin."

"Yachts?"

"Bigger than yachts." She spread her arms out. "Hundreds of bedrooms. Restaurants. Swimming pools. Nightclubs and pubs. Theaters sometimes."

"Like a floating city." A vampire buffet. She didn't say that part.

"Yes, like a floating city."

The idea of that had some appeal even without the human-buffet part. Tenzin traveled quite comfortably in boats even though Benjamin hated them. "If I could stay below the waterline, it wouldn't bother me. Ben stayed in a freighter once when we were?—"

"Focus," Brigid said. "So on these human cruise ships, they travel to different spots, and then when they get to those locations, the humans will go off and do different things. Tour historic sites. Visit national parks or museums. Things like that."

"I like museums."

"You like stealin' from museums," Brigid said.

"Not always."

But often.

Tenzin didn't have a problem with stealing from museums. After all, most of the things in museums had belonged to someone else to begin with. She was hardly going to feel guilty about stealing things that were already stolen.

"What if, instead of running hunts like Ivan, Zasha is running vampire tours? ‘Here, come to a place with long nights and cold weather where a lot of isolated vampires and humans are settled in for the winter, and then we can hunt them.'"

"For a price?"

"Of course for a price."

Brigid stared at the fire, and Tenzin watched the vampire and the fire react to each other.

Did the woman know the flames followed her? If she gestured, the fire moved in tandem. If she grew animated, the flames jumped. Sparks glowed when she stared at them, dying down when she looked away.

Fascinating.

Tenzin had never been particularly interested in fire. Giovanni's had been useful in certain situations, but they rarely burned vampires to death when a blade was so much quicker. She found herself curious about how Brigid and the fire worked together.

Giovanni wielded his fire like a warrior swung a sword.

But Brigid? Tenzin felt like the flames were almost reaching for her. As if the fire was an extension of her body.

Fascinating.

"…what you'll bring?"

She frowned. "What?"

Brigid said, "I was askin' if you had an idea what you'll bring? To Oleg's house." She glanced at the clock on the wall. "We should be there in about thirty minutes. I'm gonna go change into a clean shirt."

"Good idea. You are also starting to smell like pickled eggs."

"If I am, so are you." Brigid stood up. "We've gotta get some fresh air."

Tenzin waited at the front door of the luxurious wooden house in the middle of the forest. In the summer it would look out over a broad river teeming with fish. Bears probably rambled through to feed, and the sun from the long summer days would bake the wooden shingles on the steep, angled roof and warm the broad double porch.

The house's shutters were painted bright green with delicate flowers in red and yellow, a surprisingly feminine touch in an otherwise masculine abode. Elk and moose antlers decorated the face of the house, and two purebred white dogs lazed on a corner of the porch, looking for all the world like two miniature polar bears soaking in the snow.

"I guess he likes dogs after all," Tenzin said.

"I told you it's probably the barking." Brigid glanced at her. "What did you bring?"

"A gift." She shrugged. "He'll like it."

They had already clanged the heavy bell by the door, so Tenzin took advantage of the view. "It's beautiful here."

"It's Baltic cold."

"Yes, and beautiful." The broad river was frozen over on the edges but not in the center of the channel where the moon reflected in the black water. The snow refracted the lunar illumination, lighting up the world around them with an unearthly glow, and green lights danced in the night sky, waving like slow-moving banners across the velvet black.

The door opened behind them and Tenzin turned.

"Brigid." A tall man with medium brown hair and moderately handsome features greeted Brigid like a friend. "It's fucking cold out here. Get inside."

"Cheers, Mika."

Brigid walked in, and Tenzin approached the front door only to have the man step in front of her.

She stopped, looked up, and raised an eyebrow. "Mika Arakas."

"Tenzin of Penglai."

"It's been a long time."

"Who are you trying to kill at the moment? If it's Zasha, you can come in."

"I'm not going to kill Zasha."

Mika's blue eyes drilled into hers. "Then we will have a problem."

"I can't kill Zasha because I made a promise a very long time ago." She had no idea why she was telling this vampire anything save for the instinct that he was completely uninterested in her and would dismiss anything not pertinent to his master. "I am here to assist Brigid in killing Zasha," she said graciously. "So I suppose, as you guard Oleg, I guard Brigid."

Mika smirked. "You're playing bodyguard?"

"For the moment, and right now I'm outside and she's irritated. Can I come inside?"

"Fine." He opened the door and stepped aside to let her in. "Don't try anything."

She crooked her finger at Mika. "Come here," she whispered.

Mika indulged her and bent down since he was nearly a foot taller than Tenzin.

"If I wanted to kill you or Oleg," she murmured, "you'd never see it coming. You're welcome."

Mika stood up straight, and he looked perversely amused. "I heard you mellowed when you took a mate. I'm pleased to see the rumors are untrue."

"Oh no, this is me mellow." Tenzin rose a little in the air, patted his shoulder, then floated over to Oleg. "Hail, Varangian."

The corner of his mouth tipped up. "Welcome, Khazar."

Tenzin smiled and rested her feet on the ground before she nodded deeply. It was nice to meet a fellow immortal whose history the modern world had forgotten.

She dug into her pocket and brought out the bullet that had struck her thigh. She held it out to Oleg and dropped it into his outstretched palm. Brigid gasped and Mika cleared his throat.

"Oleg of Kiev, here is the lead and steel your people gave me on my arrival in your territory. I return it to you. This is the only lead or steel that I will return while we remain friends."

Mika released his breath, and Oleg nodded carefully. "Understood." The corner of his mouth inched up. "An acceptable gift. Brigid usually brings cake."

"If you wanted us to bring food, we were limited to pickled eggs."

Oleg grimaced. "The bullet will suffice."

"You saw the chaos that Zasha is playing with along the coast." Oleg sat back in a massive chair near the fire, his hand stirring the flames every time they died down. "I have been more than patient with the blood of our sire. They are working with the Grigorieva now and must be eliminated."

"Katya?" Brigid asked. "You think Zasha is workin' with Katya?"

"I heard the large one surmise it," Tenzin said. "I thought he was being foolish." She turned to Oleg. "Now you are being foolish."

Mika shrugged. "Katya wants us out. And all we want to do is use the property we have enjoyed peacefully for so many years."

"Yes," Oleg said. "The fishing in the summer is superb. Worth the short nights."

Lies. Brigid didn't seem to suspect anything, but Tenzin met Oleg's eyes and saw the calculation behind the facade. He was planning to take this territory back, and he was annoyed that Zasha might muck up his plans.

"Why not eliminate Zasha yourself?" Tenzin asked. "Why is this Brigid's problem?"

"Zasha is blood of my blood," Oleg said. "I have had to kill more than one of my sire's more… feral children, and my brothers in Moscow enjoy Zasha's antics. If I eliminate them…" He curled his lip.

"Awkward holiday dinners?" Tenzin asked.

Oleg muttered, "They will be unbearable."

"But if the results of Zasha's own antagonism caught up with them?" Mika spoke to Brigid. "That would be Zasha's own fault."

"Your brothers won't question why you didn't defend them?" Brigid asked. "Or why you won't avenge their death?"

"No," Oleg said. "They all know Zasha is a problem, but they all feel guilty."

"Why?" Brigid asked.

Oleg turned to Tenzin and met her silent gaze.

Zasha was different. The vampire was not like their brothers.

When Tenzin had first met Zasha, they were living as a woman. She could easily imagine what life had been like for Zasha in a warrior's compound because Tenzin had known that horror herself.

"Oleg's brothers are guilty because they are the ones who turned Zasha into what they are," Tenzin said.

"It was not a gentle house," Oleg muttered. "That's why I killed my father. That's why my brothers hate me even though they all know it was the right thing."

"And Zasha?"

"The only thing I could do for Zasha was kill our sire. I did that, and Zasha fled." He shrugged. "I let anyone who wanted to leave go. I am not my sire."

Mika muttered something in Russian that Tenzin couldn't hear, and Oleg snapped at him.

"Mika says I should have killed Zasha." He spoke to Brigid. "Perhaps he is correct, but we cannot see the future. I wanted to give them a chance."

"It's not your fault," Brigid said.

No, it's mine. Tenzin stayed quiet, watching the civilized vampires speak about plans and strategy, listening to them talk of traps and lures as if Zasha Sokholov was a particularly clever wolf they could trap.

Not a wolf. Not a wolf.

Zasha was a wolverine.

Ferocious, stubborn, opportunistic, and able to take out prey far larger than one would expect. After all, Zasha was only one vampire.

One vampire to cause this much mayhem.

"Tell us where to find Zasha," Tenzin said quietly. "We will hunt them and we will kill them. You don't have to be involved."

Mika and Oleg looked at each other again.

"We don't know precisely where they are," Mika said. "We never do."

"But we have ideas," Oleg said. "And you have wings."