Chapter Eleven
MARIUS
That two-plus-hour train ride was the longest of my life, what with the woman I loved at my side and a vampire in the neighboring wagon. I counted every fucking second and doubly cursed each extra that came with our ten-minute delay into London.
Otherwise, I spent the time watching the door, with just the occasional glance at Mina.
But I kept those to a minimum because I had to remain vigilant, and because I might kiss — or kill — her otherwise.
Mina was smart as anything, so how the hell had she decided going to London was a good idea?
Hadn’t she realized she couldn’t trust Gordon?
“Wait. How did you know I was on this train?” she asked out of the blue.
I shrugged. “I just sensed it.”
She stared at me. “Seriously?”
I kept my eyes on the door. “I also staked out Gordon’s guest apartment.”
She rolled her eyes. “You had me for a minute there.”
The train rushed along through another kilometer of tracks before I whispered, “I can sense where you are. Not the precise location, but whether you’re near or far.”
She clasped my hand. “Same with me. I can even tell how you feel sometimes.”
Now we were in truly scary territory — on par with bloodthirsty vampires or Gordon’s criminal schemes.
I tipped my head closer to hers, and my dragon made me whisper, “Destiny.”
She nodded slowly, then leaned in. “So why fight it?”
“Because destiny doesn’t always have your best interests at heart. Sometimes, it just toys with you.”
Like the previous night, when it had made my mind go blank long enough to mark her, or so I feared. It was still too hard to tell for certain, however.
“I think it’s more that destiny tests us,” Mina said. “To check if you’ve earned what it has in mind for you, I mean.”
“Feels like a hell of a lot of testing. Like school, only worse.”
She chuckled. “Not all of school. Like art class — not a lot of testing there.”
I kissed her hand. Somehow, she always found a way to put a positive spin on things.
Still, I gave sheer luck the credit for bringing me to Mina’s side, rather than destiny.
I’d staked out Gordon’s guest apartment, figuring she would go for her usual morning run.
She’d headed to the train station instead, and I’d barely had time to buy a ticket.
It was also sheer luck that I had my travel documents with me, and that was only because I’d been couch-surfing from friend to friend over the last few days in Paris.
Fucking Brexit, my dragon sighed. Used to be so much easier.
“What were you doing in Brussels?” Mina asked out of the blue.
I shook my head. “Unrelated.”
“The way I thought London was unrelated to Gordon’s other business dealings?”
She had a point there, so I amended my answer to, “That’s confidential. Sorry.”
I wished I could tell her how harmless that job truly had been, at least compared to Gordon’s sketchier assignments.
Ironically, the one mission Mina had joined us on was the most dangerous job we’d done for Gordon.
Brussels and the mission previous to that had been walks in the park in comparison.
But Mina only had Mallorca to go on, so I couldn’t blame her for assuming everything we did was wildly illegal and hazardous.
She crossed her arms and sat in stony silence for the next forty minutes.
Only when we exited the Channel Tunnel and emerged back into daylight did she reveal her plan — what little there was — for the day ahead.
Walk a bit, visit an old lady, enjoy London.
All perfectly innocent, but I knew better.
If Gordon was involved, there was sure to be trouble.
“Now what?” Mina asked as the train pulled into St Pancras station.
I looked out the window. “We wait and watch.”
Passengers exited, flooding the platform, making it hard to spot Szabo. On the plus side, that would also make it hard for him to spot us, so after a quick look around, we joined the crowd, then started on a long series of meanders designed to reveal anyone tailing us.
I didn’t often miss Roux, Bene, and Henrik, but I would have loved to have had them around now.
Mina and I continued the game on the Underground, hopping from station to station until finally making our way to Hyde Park Corner. By then, it was noon, with only an hour until Mina’s appointment.
She led the way across the park to the address while I obsessively checked our surroundings.
“That’s it.” She pointed.
I looked up and whistled. “Nice place.”
We were just off Palace Gate, only a few blocks from Kensington Palace, a neighborhood dotted with embassies and high-end townhouses — the type where people decorated with genuine masterpieces, not cheap prints of Monet’s water lilies.
The building before us was divided into four units. Mina scanned the options, then rang a bell marked A. Petrova.
“Yes?” A voice came through the intercom.
“Hello. I’m Wilhelmina Durand, calling on behalf of Gordon Clervaud.”
“Third floor,” the woman replied, buzzing us in.
Mina craned her neck as we climbed the central stairway — a grand but squeaky stairway, like the one in Mina’s chateau. I doubted these residents did their own home repairs, though.
We climbed to the third-floor landing, where an apartment door opened — just a tiny sliver, though. It was secured by a laughably thin chain that wouldn’t hold up to a preschooler, let alone a dragon shifter. I could have kicked through it in an instant.
I didn’t, of course. Not after Mina had nagged me about good manners the whole way over.
An older woman studied us through that gap, though all I saw of her was one pale blue eye, a halo of white hair, and a few beads of her pearl necklace.
She eyed me suspiciously. “Gordon only mentioned his goddaughter.”
“This is…um…” Mina waved at me.
“Security detail, ma’am,” I said quickly.
The lady shut the door, and I couldn’t tell if I’d convinced her or blown the whole deal.
Then, whew. The woman fumbled with the chain, opened the door, and greeted Mina. “Anastasia Petrova — but please, call me Ana. Do come in.”
Her English was flawless but layered with a light Slavic accent.
My mind put the clues together — old associate of Gordon’s, rich, plus the accent — and decided widow of a Russian oligarch was most likely.
That also fit the icons on display in the entryway and the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves packed with Cyrillic titles.
Our shoes clicked over intricate parquet floors, then padded over thick Persian rugs. My eyes roved, taking in molded ceilings and walls covered with paintings. Nice place was an understatement. It was huge and vaguely regal, as if its owners hobnobbed with the residents of Kensington Palace.
But it was all a little aged and dusty, like the help hadn’t been by in a long time — and not too many visitors either. There were gaps on the walls too, where artwork had been recently removed or sold.
I glanced at our hostess. Had her funds dried up when her husband died (or been bumped off), leaving her struggling to maintain her old lifestyle?
Anastasia led us to a living room with a plush but faded sofa and armchairs.
“Please make yourself comfortable. I’ll fetch the tea.”
Her words were aimed at Mina, not me, so while she settled onto the sofa, I headed for a corner where I could keep an eye on Mina, the door, and the windows.
I hissed quietly, then jerked my head to the right.
Mina frowned, then scooched along the couch, watching me.
I made a stop motion, then nodded.
She rolled her eyes and spoke into my mind. Is this really necessary?
Moving her out of the clearest line of sight from the front aspect of the building? Yes.
Standard procedure, I growled back.
When Anastasia returned, she served sandwich slices and bite-sized cakes from a three-tiered platter that screamed teatime in Britain. The tea was served Russian-style, however, in glasses set in silver holders, and the hot water came from a samovar in the adjoining room.
“Oh, one more thing…”
When Anastasia toddled off again, Mina held up her glass and tapped the design on the holder.
I squinted at the rocket and letters engraved into the silver. I knew enough of the Cyrillic alphabet to slowly spell out Sputnik — the first satellite launched into space, way back in the 1950s. A truly vintage, old-school piece. Like its owner, I surmised.
“There.” Anastasia added a plate of lemon wedges to the coffee table and took a seat. “Now, tell me about yourself, dear.”
Mina considered, then started haltingly.
“Well, Gordon and my father were close friends. My mother is French, my father American…”
Understandably, she left out the supernatural part and the part about her chateau.
“I majored in art and art history, and I worked as a middle school art teacher…” Her eyes lit up as she summarized that aspect of her résumé. “I also worked at an auction house, so I’m familiar with the process of authenticating paintings.”
Anastasia asked about siblings, places Mina had lived, and politics, studying her like a hawk the whole time. This wasn’t chitchat. This was judging whether Mina could be trusted.
With your life, and definitely with precious artwork, I burned to say. She even risked her life for a lousy Van Gogh.
My dragon grumbled at the memory, and Mina coughed into her hand.
Watch it, she warned.
Then Anastasia drilled Mina on art. What were her favorite styles, painters, and artworks? What was most important in Impressionism — the light, the moment, or what a painting left unsaid? What about post-Impressionism? If Mina could have brought another guest to tea with Anastasia—
I shuffled, trying not to take that personally.
—would she pick Kandinsky, Toulouse-Lautrec, or Modigliani?
Mina giggled. “Oh, definitely Modigliani.”
I made a mental note to look up the guy.