He smiled at her. “Hi.”
Nikita rattled them off. “This is Roland Webb, Jamie Anderson, Alexei Romanov – yes, that Alexei Romanov – and Trina Baskin.”
Many people would have gotten stuck on the tsarevich, and with good reason. Colette looked right at Trina, eyes widening. “Baskin?”
“My great-granddaughter.”
She whistled. “Damn.” Then her gaze narrowed and slid over to Alexei. “You one of Rasputin’s, too?”
Alexei nodded, and his features looked unmistakably royal at the moment, accentuated by the haughty tilt of his head. “What if I am?”
Collette grinned and her fangs showed. “Oh, child, don’t bother goading anyone three centuries older than you.” She glanced away from him, dismissive. “Disrespect my hospitality and you won’t like what happens.”
Nikita smirked.
“And you two,” she said, looking now at Lanny and Jamie. “You’re just young ones.”
“Cancer,” Lanny said.
“Wrong place wrong time,” Jamie said.
Colette sighed. “What is happening to this city?” She tsked. “Well, I supposed there’s a story. Anyone want any tea?”
*
The first floor was dedicated to her business, Colette explained as she led them up to the second, which boasted a toned-down version of the storefront style, as well as a chef’s kitchen and a sprawling living room that was clearly the work of thoughtful renovation. She sat them all down at a long plank table and made tea, which gave them a chance to decompress a little.
Trina didn’t realize how tightly her nerves were wound until she heard the creak of a step and a man appeared at the foot of the stairs that led to the third level. She jumped, and Nikita, on her left, laid a hand on her arm. “Colette’s boyfriend,” he explained in a whisper.
Trina relaxed a fraction, but silently thought Colette’s boyfriend – tall, broad, bearded, and wearing a flannel bathrobe – would look more at home felling trees in Wisconsin than in a psychic’s eclectic kitchen, with its herbs drying on string over the sink.
“We have company,” Colette said as she pulled tea mugs down from a shelf.
“I see that.” The boyfriend tightened the sash of his robe and shuffled into the room, took a seat at the end of the table next to Lanny. He grinned, then. “Oh hey, it’s you. And Nik! Hi. How’d the blood work out?”
“Fine, David, thank you,” Nikita said.
“This is your vampire girlfriend?” Lanny asked the lumberjack – David.
“Lanny,” Trina scolded.
He snorted in response.
Colette brought a wide tray with seven mugs, tea bags, and a steaming kettle to the table, setting it down in the middle. “It’s alright. I am a vampire, and I am a girlfriend.” She shot Trina a conspiratorial smile as she settled at the head of the table. “I learned long ago that you can’t make men tactful, no matter how you try.”
“Hey,” Lanny and David protested in unison.
Colette lifted her brows, but no one contradicted her. “Okay,” she said as she began pouring. “Tell us, Nikita.”
He did.
Listening to it like this, in an unemotional summary, somehow made the situation seem scarier than Trina had thought it was. By the time Nikita was finished, she felt every inch the helpless mortal. What options did she have? She couldn’t tell her captain what was really happening; couldn’t arrest werewolves who had eaten people; couldn’t hope to defend herself, really.
She was fucked.
When he was done, Colette stared at him a moment, then said, “And you decided to bring that threat to my doorstep.”
“Collie,” David said.
Trina nearly choked on her sip of tea.
Colette pursed her lips. “I want to know why,” she insisted.
“I didn’t want to put civilians at risk.” When Colette motioned toward David and opened her mouth to protest, Nikita said, “I know, I know. And I’m sorry. I didn’t want to come here. But we had nowhere else to turn. You have wards, Colette, strong ones. This is the safest place in the city right now and I just need to beg hospitality from you until I can take care of these fucking Institute people.”
“Until you can take care of?” Trina asked.
“Yes,” he said, not looking at her. Dismissing her.
“Hold up,” she said, before he could continue. “Time out, alright? Are you saying you want all of us to hole up here while you go ‘take care of’ things?”
He turned to her then, expression schooled to careful blankness. “Yes.”
“Well that’s not happening.”
“Trina–”
“I have work. This is my case, and–”
“A case is not worth your life!” he snapped, his fa?ade crumbling. “I don’t want civilian casualties, but I especially don’t want yours! Do you understand that?”
Colette cleared her throat.
Trina glanced away, breath coming short and quick. She couldn’t decide if she was furious, or terrified. Maybe both.
“I can provide shelter,” Colette said. “For a short time. But you all need to get out of the city.”
“What, just run away?” Lanny asked. “Like a buncha shitheads?”
Colette’s expression might have been called amusement. “In my lifetime, I’ve learned sometimes running is the safest option.”
“What if we leave and the Institute comes after you?” Jamie asked.
“They won’t,” she said. Her gaze shifted to Nikita, growing hard. “Not unless you’ve led them here.”
“I…” Trina started, and it hit her, suddenly, that she was completely exhausted. She wanted to cry. Instead, she said, “If it’s alright with you, and we really can stay, I’d love to catch a few hours’ sleep.”
“Of course.”
*
They came for her in her dreams.
A snowy vista stretched before her, edged with pine groves and the jagged shapes of mountain ranges. The air smelled of her Russia dreams, like frost and blood. But this time, the wolves were not the poor fallen beasts of before, when she’d seen Sasha’s dead pack. Two wolves faced her now, jaws bloody, dripping long trails of pink saliva onto the snow. They were both dark gray, their coats dull, eyes glassy. They lowered their heads and growled at her.
She closed her eyes. “It’s a dream,” she said. “Just a dream.”
But when she opened her eyes, the wolves were still there, still growling. And then they lunged.
She ran. Floundering through the snow, slipping, windmilling her arms for balance. She could heard their ragged breathing behind her and she knew that she’d never get away.
Her toes clipped something hard, a rock or log buried beneath the snow, and she tumbled forward, falling, falling… She twisted at the last second, landed on her back, lifted her hands to shield her face. They would kill her now, sink their fangs in her flesh and tear her to ribbons like they had Lanny’s neighbors.
She took one last trembling breath and braced for the attack.
It didn’t come.
The diffuse, gray sunlight glinted along a length of steel as it swung through the air and bit into the neck of one wolf. There was a wet, meaty thunk. Flash of arterial spray. The wolf went limp, falling to the snow, dragging the sword down with it – it was caught on bone. A boot appeared, shiny black, to brace against the beast’s shoulder, and the sword was tugged free.
The second wolf, startled and outraged by his friend’s slaying, snarled and turned away from Trina, toward the swordsman. One powerful swing sent the wolf’s shaggy head rolling across the snow, neck of the corpse gushing blood in rhythmic pulses as it collapsed.
The whole thing had happened in a blink. Too fast for comprehension.
Trina struggled to her feet and stood across from a tall, slender figure in an embroidered coat and a billowing sable cloak, pale hair streaming in the wind. “Val.”
He smiled, fangs flashing, and sketched a quick bow. “A pleasure to see you again, Detective Baskin.”
“You have a sword,” she said, stupidly.
His grin widened, eyes crinkling, delighted. “I do. And I’m rather good with one, if I do say so.”