The White City (10 page)

It proved not to be, which surprised no one.

Moscow

Hotel Bucharest

January 1897

“You’ll stay with us,” Jack said, trying to sound as if it were already settled. “Under Sebastien’s protection.”

Irina looked up at him, startled, her bony fingers caged loosely around her fourth cup of tea. The ruins of a meal of blini, sour cream, pickled beets, and smoked fish lay scattered across the table between them. Sebastien lounged against the wall beside the kitchen window: if this were a Russian flat inhabited by actual Russians, it would be nailed shut against the winter, but Sebastien preferred the option of a quick egress.

Jack supposed enough hasty exits, over the centuries, inured one to the necessity of planning for them.

“But my work—” She shook her head. “Your flat is too small. I cannot bring my canvases here. And where would I sleep?”

Jack gave her a look up through his lashes to make her laugh. It worked, and when she was done she spread her hands in acknowledgement that he had scored.

But her surrender was only partial. “I need my studio.”

—Surely,— Sebastien interjected, —you can spare the work of a few days in order to protect your life.

She shook her head. —I have a commission. They are not so common.

Sebastien’s eyebrows rose. He glanced at Jack, and Jack nodded. Yes, all things considered, Irina was a better than average young artist.

—Then I shall become your patron now,— Sebastien said. —And Jack and I shall come and stay with you until the commission is completed. And Sergei’s murderer is caught.

It seemed as if Irina would argue, but Sebastien leaned forward and folded his arms in a gesture that could not have said
Try me
more plainly if he’d written it on the wall in chalk, and she subsided.

“I must hang paper over the windows,” she said.

Sebastien smiled. —We’ll see to it tonight. In the meantime, if you are sufficiently refreshed, if I may trouble you for a small favor, my dear?

Irina obviously had no doubt what he intended. Her fingertips crept to her collar. Sebastien nodded.

“Sure,” she said, as if she did not trust her voice to say more.

Silently, stiffly, Jack got up to clear the dishes.

—h—

Later, while Irina napped on the divan and Jack sat pretending to be engaged in a week-old French newspaper, Sebastien came to him. He perched on a kitchen stool and leaned forward, waiting until Jack collected his temper enough to acknowledge his presence.

“She’s, what, three years older than I am?”

“I didn’t raise her,” Sebastien said. “You’re more to me than
dinner
, Jack.”

The urge to slap him wasn’t doing anybody any good. Jack took it out on the paper instead, crumpling pages in both fists and smearing his palms with dingy ink. This seemed like a good time to change the subject decisively. “So
is
Irina the target, or is it Starkad? Or was it something Sergei actually did himself that got him
into trouble?”

“If it was,” Sebastien said, “it was something he did to somebody who knows enough about the blood to frame his nestmate.”

It wasn’t a polite term, which was unlike Sebastien in the extreme. While Jack was still blinking at him, he continued, “I’m uneasy about this Starkad character. What Irina said about her patron is all
anybody
knows about him. Or at least, all they’re willing to admit knowing. He exists, he’s been using that same name for as long as anyone recollects, he doesn’t interact with the society of blood
or
the society of men. I didn’t manage to speak to any of the blood who have ever met him, but several of them have heard of a courtesan who used to be Starkad’s, and was abandoned before being adopted by another patron.”

Jack refolded the paper more neatly, a delaying tactic while he thought. “So this is a pattern for him.”

Sebastien nodded. Beneath the taut, dehydrated lines of his flesh, Jack fancied he could see the bones of the young man Sebastien had been. If he ever kept himself fatted on blood, anyone would be able to see that he appeared no older than Jack—no older, and yet he was well-embarked upon his second millennium. The drawn cheeks of hunger imparted a certain authority.

“The afternoon looks like snow,” he said. “The barometer is falling. I’ll visit the Imperial Police and offer my services as Don Sebastien.” The wampyr smiled, and suddenly did not look young at all. “Maybe I’ll learn something.”

“I’m coming with you,” Jack said.

Sebastien lifted his chin stubbornly. “And leave Irina without a guardian?

Moscow

Kitai Gorod

May 1903

The long, stifling, jewel-bright days of a Moscow summer made it a seasonal destination for the blood—they descended upon the city in the winter, when the nights were long and the clubs—both underground and above—became gathering places for bored and restive mortals in search of romance, adventure, or just an evening’s distraction. The underground clubs were harder to find and harder to gain admission to, but it was in the best interests of the blood to assure that there were means.

Travelers must eat.

In summer, while the lovely old city filled up with mortal holiday-makers, the blood abandoned it for the soft nights of more temperate climes or the sultry and unrepentant tropics. Some took their courts along, but more trusted to Providence or preparation to see to their needs. Which meant an embarrassment of resources for any wampyr left behind—if it also meant limited hours in which to exploit them all.

One element of the secret to Sebastien’s long and storied life was his avoidance of conflict, or even the appearance of impropriety. An element of that was respecting the property rights of others. But there were always the would-be courtiers and those whose patrons had moved on, leaving them without rings or affiliation. And they sought out the companionship and community of others like themselves in havens old as the blood.

In the sweet gloaming of a summer evening, Beliye Nochi was such a place.

Sebastien paused amid the spires of the converted eighteenth century Kitai Gorod church housing the underground club and set his back to the central and largest onion-dome to admire the view. The walls were a dull
gold that faded to beige in the dusk, and over his head the wall-tops below the brick-hued domes were patterned in intricate mosaics of turquoise, gilt, and ivory. The groin-vaulted roof over the nave would have made a tricky traverse for a living man, but Sebastien floated across it like a shadow, light and quick.

He entered the club through a door cut into one of the smaller towers, lifting off his hat as he came within the embrace of the building. This entrance, though reserved for the blood, lay unguarded. No merely human dexterity would have attained it, and no merely human strength been sufficient to shift it. The door lead through a lightlock to a short, sunproofed spiral stairwell, where translucent windows protected any of Sebastien’s blood-kin who might come this far in daylight or who might be caught short in the city, far from other shade.

In silence he descended, where human feet had echoed.

He emerged through a lattice door into the nave of the church-that-was, to find Phoebe in a little gray dress, ensconced upon a little gray chair, waiting at the bottom for him. A rather large, bored-looking courtesan had settled next to her, wearing a ring set with a square-cut diamond and a pleasant expression. He bowed to Sebastien; Sebastien nodded back and then bowed in his own turn to the lady.

She accepted his hand and let him draw her to her feet, though she hardly needed the assistance. Her touch was as light on his fingers as a wampyr’s. “Abby Irene didn’t choose that dress.”

She gave the soft sensible skirts a shake, so they fell into deep pleats around her body. “The dress stands up to dirt,” she said, primly, and took his arm to lead him out into the main room of the club. Belliye Noche boasted other spaces in addition to this grand one—there were coatrooms and a conversation area in the old entryway, and the chancel had become a sitting room—but the former nave was both spectacular and comfortable. The windows had been dimmed inside with translucent glass, and cozy nooks established through the strategic use of Chinese screens and groups of furniture. There were two or three of the blood present, and a half-dozen courtesans and staff, but the old nave was capacious enough to seem barely inhabited even so.

Sebastien allowed Phoebe to guide him. She led him to a niche below the clerestory, the sort of corner where lean shadows loomed in apparent despite of the gaslamps and a velvet chaise collected dust. It was unoccupied: Sebastien would have hated to stumble upon a feeding pair who had withdrawn for some discretion, which was a hazard of public spaces in an underground club. Instead, Phoebe settled onto the wine velvet and patted the chaise to encourage him to join her.

Feeling rather like a summoned housecat, Sebastien obliged. The ancient horsehair stuffing barely compacted under his weight. “Old and dry,” he said.

Phoebe patted the couch again, a mistress of willful misinterpretation. “But still serviceable. I found Irina Stephanova.”

“How?”

“You know my methods, Watson,” she mocked, so Sebastien leaned ostentatiously away from her, and she was forced to add: “Do you really think he’s inspired by you?”

“Art always outstrips the reality,” Sebastien said. “Phoebe—”

“I am sorry.” She made a moue of contrition. “But do you know how rarely I have the advantage on you? I spent the morning inquiring after her in artist’s clubs and with her friends, and it turned out some few of them had heard your name, and all of them recognized the ring. That, and the tenor of my questioning, must have served to convince someone of the necessity of informing her of my inquiries. She met me for dinner and has agreed on my assurances to turn herself in.”

“To Dyachenko?”

“To you,” Phoebe said. “She’s waiting for you elsewhere. She did not wish to be seen, and coming here—would guarantee being seen.”

Sebastien took her hand, feeling its warmth, its pulse, the curl of her fingers around his. “You’ve done well, Phoebe.”

She leaned her head against his shoulder. “I know.”

He nerved himself—there were things no weight of years made any easier—and lowered his lips to her ear to whisper, “and I am sorry about Jack.”

She lifted her head and turned to stare at him. “Don’t you dare take responsibility for that.”

“Phoebe—”

“Don’t,” she interrupted, “you dare. I was there, Sebastien, and I know how little it was your fault.”

“I would have saved him for you if I could.”

“And for him, and for yourself,” she said, so agreeably he found himself looking for the trap. Confronted with his attention, she sighed and rolled her eyes. “You act as if this is the first time I’ve been widowed, Sebastien, and while I am not so accomplished upon it as you are, I know how to do this. And so do you.”

He stared, and shrugged, and said, “Touché. Does it hurt less the second time, then?”

“You don’t know?”

He had to think about it. And then he said, wearily, “Let us say for the moment that I do not recall.”

It was her turn to stare, a strand of her hair—the color of winter butter—straggling across her forehead. A moment only, and then she brushed the hair back into her bun and said, “Yes, well, rather, then. Shall we go and collect Irina Stephanova?”

“Yes,” Sebastien said, biting back relief. “Let us do so by all means.”

Moscow

Police Palace, Kremlin

January 1897

Imperial Police Inspector Kostov was a tall man, brown-haired, gray-eyed, thin and dressed like he accepted graft. Sebastien, seated across the desk from him, kept his hands folded and in plain sight.

—I am Don Sebastien de Ulloa,— he said. —Thank you for this meeting, Inspector Kostov. Perhaps my reputation precedes me?

Kostov inclined his head, an attempt at graciousness that his words did not support. —I appreciate your interest in the murder of Sergei Nikolaevich Vasilievsky, but I must inform you that we have the situation well under control.

—It so happens that I have been contracted by an acquaintance of the deceased.— Sebastien let his hands fall apart, a gesture of helplessness. —My client is very interested in finding out who killed her friend.

—Your client is Irina Stephanova Belotserkovskaya?

Sebastien was not surprised that Kostov knew that, and even if he had been he would not have demonstrated it. —You had her followed, of course.

This time, the acknowledgement actually did give the impression of generosity. Self-satisfaction looked good on Inspector Kostov. —We know Irina Stephanova is not guilty of the crime. She has nothing to fear as long as she cooperates with our efforts.

—I’m sure she will,—Sebastien agreed. —You make it sound as if the case were solved already.

Kostov smiled. —It’s always sex, revenge, or money, Don Sebastien,— he said. —It’s easiest when it’s all three. Then they write themselves, you know?

—The case
is
solved?— Sebastien didn’t mind pressing for answers, but that wasn’t actually what he was doing here. He was pressing for reactions, which was a different art form entirely, and this time he got one.

Kostov stood and gestured mock-graciously to the door, concluding the interview. —Bring your client around tomorrow, Don Sebastien. I can assure you she will not be imprisoned. We will, however, expect her to testify.

—h—

Sebastien, Jack thought uncharitably, was likely to drag them through every ring shop and jeweler’s in Moscow before the night was done. At least they’d be likely to close in an hour or so, but in the meantime there was walking, and cabs, and blank looks. All of them were willing to make rings for a wampyr—Sebastien had obtained a list of friendly gold- and silversmiths from the White Nights—but each one looked
blankly
willing at the mention of a water sapphire.

“Iolite,” Jack would say, to an even blanker look, and scattered nods.