King of Thieves by Jane Kindred

Author:Jane Kindred [Kindred, Jane]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
Published: 2014-04-29T04:00:00+00:00

Odinnadtsataya

Something was up. Vasily had only caught snatches of what Dmitri was saying on the phone to Belphagor, but it was clear by that evening that something was going down in the city, and Vasily wasn’t going to be left out of it like some child. He knew where Belphagor was staying, and he knew someone was meeting him there at midnight for backup. It didn’t seem to be anything Dmitri was directly involved in, however. By eleven o’clock, he and Lev had gone to bed, and Silk had been asleep for hours, still recovering.

Vasily slipped out quietly into the soft glowing light of the White Nights with a stack of ruble bills in his pocket. It was too late to take the train, but he caught an unofficial cab and gave the man a sizeable chunk of his stash to drive him to the hotel. He had no idea how much the bills were worth, and he suspected the driver was well aware of his naivety and had taken him for a ride in more ways than one, but he didn’t much care about the value of Belphagor’s money.

Once he’d determined where it was, he had the driver drop him off a few blocks from the Oktiabrskaya and walked the rest of the way, looking over his shoulder—for what, exactly, he wasn’t sure. The sun was just hugging the horizon when he arrived.

A trio of dark-clad men—correction, one was a woman, but each had the build of a prizefighter—passed him, heading into the lobby. These were either the backup or the ones Belphagor needed backup against. They were dressed as if they were in the middle of some military training exercise, except their black combat uniforms had no insignia, and one had an object tucked into the back of his waistband that looked suspiciously like a gun. Vasily had seen one in a movie the last time he was here, and it had unnerved him how easily a Man could kill with one. He couldn’t take a chance that the gun was intended for Belphagor.

He followed them in but was swiftly waylaid by the hotel’s doorman with a hand to his chest. “What’s your business here?”

Vasily glanced down at the hand and back up at the doorman’s face. “I’m with them,” he growled, nodding toward the trio. The man seemed to blanch just a bit at the sound of his voice, which he couldn’t help but take a little pleasure in. He still wasn’t used to being imposing.

Despite his intimidation, the doorman stood his ground. “If you aren’t a guest, you sign in at the desk and wait for your party.”

“But they didn’t sign in.”

“If you insist on being belligerent, I’m going to have to call the authorities.”

Vasily wasn’t sure who the authorities were in the world of Man, but if they were anything like the ones in Heaven, he had no desire to see them called. He glared and turned back around.

As he stepped down from the entrance,

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