The White City (7 page)

That counted as the sort of confidence one didn’t expect from a thousand-year-old friend. Jack thought about it for a minute, while his anger withered and drifted, tugged away as petals by the wind.

“She’s somebody else’s courtesan,” Jack said. “I didn’t know until after.”

Sebastien might be dead, but it hadn’t robbed his face of expressiveness. His hat angled up on his eyebrows. He pulled his muffler down. “That could be problematic. Did she name her patron?”

“Starkad,” Jack said.

Sebastien’s mouth quirked. “Not a name I know,” he admitted. “But he is of course using an alias. And he could be young. I will ask after him at the White Nights.”

A cart clattered past at an amble over the frozen ground, two heavy-bodied sorrels who obviously knew their own way bearing along a coat-swaddled bundle of teamsters dozing at the reins. Their red nostrils flared around white columns of breath. Jack squared his shoulders and lifted his chin, letting cold down his collar. “I’m not a child anymore, Sebastien.”

Sebastien shook his head. “We are not having this
argument in the street, Jack.”

“We’re having it in English,” Jack answered, reasonably. “Who’s going to overhear?”

“You cannot provide for me, and I will not—I will not do what was done to you before.”

Jack glanced over his shoulder, because the alternative was to kiss Sebastien in the street. He lowered his voice and said, “You damned fool. Have you forgotten you emancipated me? I
want
to provide for you, and I know I can’t do it alone. But please—if anything, Sebastien, all today has proven to me is that I do want this, and what happened—”

“You can’t say his name, even now.”

“
Jaromìr
. And it was no more his name than Sebastien is yours. Or John is mine. You bastard, I
want
this.”

Sebastien looked at him oddly. “And what if I say I don’t?”

“Then I call you a liar.” He turned and stalked away, while he still could. He’d wind up back at the apartment—he always did—but at least he could enjoy the satisfaction of a good exit for now.

Except— «Jan» Sebastien called after him, in the language of his childhood. «Jan Vražda. That’s your name.»

Jack stopped, hands thrust in his pockets. He considered for a moment, but could not stop himself from turning back. «And what’s yours?»

The pause dragged on until the wampyr dropped his eyes, studying the polished tips of his shoes. «It was so long ago. I don’t recall.»

Jack waited a long moment before he nodded, giving Sebastien time to think about what he’d said. But no answer nor qualification followed. “I’ll be at the apartment if you change your mind,” he said, and turned in his icy footprints to wend along the shoveled, snowy banks.

—h—

Sebastien would not have knocked, and so it was not Sebastien’s knock that awakened Jack. The pounding on the door made him think of a woman, in fact—it was light and quick and came in flurries, unlike a man’s measured, authoritative thumping.

He had a suspicion who it would be before the swinging panel revealed Irina’s long face. —How did you know where to find me?

—I asked at the café. Ilya told me which street.

Which didn’t answer the question of how Ilya knew, but Jack was certain he’d told one or two people roughly where he was staying. Information traveled in a crowd like that—gossip was one way of keeping each other safe from government agents. And having seen Ilya in action, well—anyone in his coterie would tell him anything he wanted to know.
Who is that young man with Irina?

Oh, he’s the wampyr’s courtier—

Irina pushed past him into the flat’s narrow kitchen without asking for an invitation. Well, if the sex hadn’t been proof she wasn’t a wampyr, that would have been.

“You’re polite,” Jack said.

From the wrinkling of her brow, she didn’t miss the sarcasm, even delivered in a foreign tongue. It was the rest of her expression, however, that stopped him. Red eyes, nose swollen—

—What’s wrong?— Jack said, already regretting the question even as he was unable to stop himself from asking it.

—Sergei is dead. His body was found in the alley after the meeting today. And the police want to talk to me about it. And you’re my…

The last word, he didn’t know, but he’d guess from context that it was
alibi
. Jack didn’t shut the door. He just stood aside, leaving it open in the obvious expectation that Irina should leave again.

—Christ, is that the other reason you slept with me? So you’d have somebody to cover for you? Who killed Sergei for you?

She recoiled physically, one hand clapped to her mouth, the other clinging to the kitchen counter as she fell back against it. —Jack! I…

She’d been totally unprepared to advocate for herself, and perversely it made him believe her. Being willing to use him to get to Sebastien didn’t make her a killer. She stared at him, stricken, until he turned his face away.

“I’m sorry.” He shut and locked the door. —I was hurt, and spoke harshly.

—I’m sorry too.— Her chin dropped as she studied her shoes. —I had no one else to go to.

—Sit down,— he said hopelessly. At a time like this, there was only one potential course of action. —I’ll make tea.

Moscow

Hotel Bucharest

May 1903

Abby Irene slept at last, and though it was midmorning, Phoebe sat in the sunken living room of their luxurious suite. Surrounded by rich brocade and heavy furniture, she pulled her knees into her chest, her nightgown falling over cushions satiny with embroidery. She looked up at Sebastien, who stood well-back from the window, arms folded, staring out into the brightness of the day. It burned his eyes, blinding, but he found he didn’t care much for seeing right now. “If you need to talk—”

He was warm and well, flushed with well-being. It wouldn’t do to get too used to feeling thus. He didn’t look over his shoulder, but
she
reflected in looking glasses, which this room had aplenty. “What is there to talk about?”

She knew him well enough that the look she shot him was more concerned than offended. She held her tongue, though, which provoked him more than any words.

He said, “If
you
need to talk—”

A thin smile, and finally he turned to face her. In her own intonations, so much more ironic than his, she said, “What is there to talk about?”

He sighed, blinking his eyes to clear the sun-spots that dazzled him. “Jack.”

She let her lips pucker in a grimace of discomfort. “Talking won’t bring him back.”

“Nothing will bring him back,” Sebastien agreed. “You know, when—” But the words stuck. He shook his head.

Phoebe’s eyebrow rose.

“Before I came to America,” he said, “I was tired. The years were heavy. Jack kept me…” …
alive. Undead. Whatever.
“…in the world.”

“And now?”

He shrugged. She stood, and did not come to him.

“Don’t you leave me too.”

That drew a thin smile. Now, warm, full of her life, he thought he could face the prospect of another fifty years, if that was what it took. What, after all, was fifty years? Abby Irene would never ask such a thing. Abby Irene would never ask a sacrifice of anyone—which, perhaps, was why so few had ever made one for her.

He wanted to ask,
Is that why you chose to come with me? Because I would outlast you?

But that was too cruel a thing to ask a woman twice-widowed, even if the second loss had been no husband under the church. Sebastien found over the years that he thought more of the heart of man than the house of God; it was more constant in its loyalty and reasons.

“I shall do my best,” he said, and knew she knew it was not a promise.

Moscow

Bely Gorod

January 1897

Sebastien would know before he mounted the stair that Jack had company, who comprised it, and how that company was being entertained. So Jack was anything but surprised when—a little before the sun was due to rise at nine in the morning—the door opened silently and the wampyr stepped in with a restrained bow to the two seated at the tiny square kitchen table where Jack usually ate his cereal alone.

—You must be Irina Stephanova,— Sebastien said. —I am Don Sebastien de Ulloa. I have heard so much about you.

She touched her cheeks as if her complexion hid a flush, looking down. “The police say I make man dead,” she said. “You may help me?”

“If I can.” Sebastien tugged the door until it latched and came forward lightly across boards that did not creak under his negligible weight. “But you must tell me everything.”

He paused between their chairs. Jack scooted to one side to make room for Sebastien to sit. The wampyr slid the stool over from the corner by the counter and perched upon it. Jack thought he liked this kitchen because it was windowless and dim—all the reasons Jack found it depressing. Still, a little sunlight wasn’t a matter of unlife and death for Jack as it was for Sebastien.

As he settled down beside Irina, dry and light as a husk, she leaned first away and then towards him. Jack hid his wince at her hopeful expression, the way her hands tightened on the fluted tea cup, so much more English than Russian.

Sebastien shed his coat and gloves on the floor, the muffler still casually looped about his neck. When Irina peeled her fingers off rose-painted china and brushed them across the cold back of his hand, he gave no indication he’d noticed the contact. He just caught her gaze on his and asked, —Where is your patron now, Irina Stephanova?

She looked down. —He left. He did not say where.

—And he did not leave you his ring?

She shook her head, her eyes fixed to the tabletop. She picked up her tea and tried to drink from the empty cup. Just as well it
was
empty, by how her hands shook.

—He took it back before he went.

—And he took back Sergei’s, too?

Jack blinked. Of course. He’d assumed Sergei was
Irina’s
ex-lover. And perhaps he was: it was easy for courtesans with the same patron to arrange such matters between themselves. It saved on explanations, and at least it kept the jealousies incestuous.

—And that of Grigor, and of Svetlana, and of Ilya— Irina said. —All of us. We were all his, his court.

—He arranged the gallery show,— Sebastien said, calmly.

Irina nodded. —Lesya, the owner of the gallery, is also one of his.
Was
. Was also one of his.

Damn
. If Sebastien had accepted Jack fully as a member of his court, Jack thought,
Jack
might have had the experience to be quicker on the uptake. But that was unfair to Sebastien. Jack was more to blame. He had not been paying attention to the situation, but only to the girl. He had, in short, ignored everything about observation that Sebastien had taught him while distracted by desire.

Irina’s expression pulled him back from his thoughts. It wasn’t the befuddlement of an inexperienced courtesan, but rather the wry acknowledgement of somebody who was used to wampyrs and their tendency to
know
things. —You inquired at the club. The Beliye Nochi.

—I learned a little about your patron, too. Starkad, or Starkardr. What did he tell you when he released you?

Her throat rippled as she swallowed nervously. Jack got up, taking her cup to bring her back more tea. She seemed oblivious until he pressed it into her hand again, whereupon she gave him a grateful nod—but for the way her eyes skipped off him, he suspected he might as well have been a clockwork automaton. Actually, something so wonderful might have actually caught her notice when a boy couldn’t, quite.

—He didn’t explain things.

—When he left?

—He didn’t
explain
things. Ever.

—Typical of the breed,—Jack interjected. Sebastien shot him a look and he smiled, sweet as the jam Irina was stirring into her teacup.

She looked from one of them to the other, possibly startled that Jack would dare to mouth off to a wampyr. But whatever she saw on their faces relaxed her. —He
encouraged us to linger in cafés and consort with revolutionaries. He said it made us more interesting. He liked artists, painters, sculptors. He said to me once that men and governments were ephemeral, but the continuity of the world was in its art. I
tried
to be what he wanted.

—He took back his ring,— Sebastien said gently, —because he did not expect to return to Moscow in your lifetime, and such things are never left as heirlooms.

—Oh.— Her mouth worked.

In the parlor, around the corner, light was brightening. Not sunrise yet, but the sky outside those windows would be gray. Jack found himself unsurprised when Sebastien leaned around Irina to glance out the window at the Sorok-sokorov, the forty-times-forty spires of ancient Moscow arrayed against the silver sky.

Well, ancient for Jack. For Sebastien, the next best thing to
born yesterday
.

The wampyr in question leaned back into his chair, his face contented. He spread his hands palm-down on the table and said, —So you did the right thing in coming to me.

She tucked her chin to her chest and shook her head. —They think I killed Sergei.

Sebastien tilted his face at Jack. Jack considered for a moment before shaking his own head emphatically
no
.

On
this
, Sebastien trusted his judgment.

Well, at least it was something. —It will be best if you surrender to the police,— Sebastien said. —Trust Jack and me to investigate for you. We will find the killer.

She shook her head, but Jack could see that she was agreeing.

—How did he die?— Jack asked.

She shrugged. —I didn’t hear of any wounds, and Nadia saw the body. He’s been unwell for two or three months. I’m not surprised. He hung around with worse revolutionaries than I did. Some who want to
explode
the Tsar’s factories.

—He died of hydrargaria,— Sebastien said.

Jack turned and stared at him. Same contentious nose, dark eyes, stern lips, swarthy complexion as always. Same curious, waiting expression. “Mercury poisoning?”