Smoke and Mirrors (8 page)

“Are you?”

He opened her hand, spreading her fingers, stroking with his thumb. Her lips parted without permission, but at least she had control of her breathing, and he couldn’t feel the quickened beat of her heart. She’d relaxed too much. Her body felt as if it were glowing. She tried to clamp down on the growing intensity, and yet this was different, pleasurable, exciting, enticing her to let go and give in without blotting out…whatever it was she usually had to blot out.

Her reaction to Rodion’s touch was so untypical as to be laughable.

Concentrate!

“Am I dangerous to the gifted?” he repeated. “Possibly. But in my own way, I’m trying not to be. I’m trying to keep them safe.”

“Why don’t you tell the Guardian that?”

“She’s the Guardian, not me. I like your hand. It’s so soft and smooth. Like silk.”

“Moisturise, moisturise.” But she couldn’t help her flush at his compliment. His electric, caressing fingertip moved up her palm to her wrist, tracing the veins and pausing. At her pulse.

It took only an instant to recognise, and yet if she snatched it free, she admitted everything.

Admitted
what
, for God’s sake? That she was deeply affected by touch? That she liked
his
touch? In some weird, far too overwhelming way that she damned well wouldn’t think about.

His eyes held hers, unblinking. Then his fingers opened, and he released her. Her hand felt cold, stupidly bereft. The sweet glow in her body faded yet lingered.

“See?” he said. “What’s so bad about that?”

“Nothing,” she said breezily, rising to her feet. “At least I know now about the Guardian.”

“Wrap up warm,” he said to her back. “You’ll need a raincoat too. There are some spares hanging in the hall.”

She glanced back over her shoulder. “You really are going on a boat trip? At night?”

“Yes.
We
are.”

Chapter Six

She didn’t agree to it, but it seemed she had no choice. March on the North Sea was never going to have been a romantic experience, but any fears or illusions she might have secretly harboured were quickly laid to rest by the presence of Anna, Ilya, and Boris. With no one left to guard her, it seemed she had to go along.

She hadn’t grasped how close they were to the sea. The grey sky and the misty horizon had helped to disguise it, but less than a five-minute walk from the house, a sloping cliff led down to a sandy beach, where an unprepossessing motorboat had been tied up to a rusting iron ring in the rock.

“If the wind springs up, we’re dead,” Nell remarked.

“Nonsense, she’s stouter than she looks,” Rodion insisted.

And five minutes later, they were being swept across the water in the rickety vessel. Rodion had the tiller, and the other three kept watch with binoculars. After a few minutes breathing in the fresh, salty air, Nell reluctantly admitted the dark, rough beauty of being out on the sea at night, even in the bitter wind and drizzling rain. The rugged coastline was still visible, silhouetted against the sky.

She moved from her position leaning against the side and edged closer to Rodion. Without looking at her, he smiled acknowledgment of her presence, giving her yet another glimpse of how easy it would be to fall under his spell.

She sat on the bench beside him and jerked her head at the others. “What are they looking for?”

“Ships. Coastguards.”

“I don’t want to know where we’re going, do I?”

“No.”

She watched his calm, handsome face for a while in silence, and he didn’t seem to mind that either.

She said, “I’ve just worked out what you were doing earlier. In the sitting room. And the dining room to some degree.”

“What?”

“Keeping me distracted so that I wouldn’t ask about the one thing you didn’t want to talk about.”

“Actually, there were several things I didn’t want to talk about,” he said tranquilly. “Which one are you thinking about?”

“The fire lady. Your Guardian. Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t ruled out conjuring by any stretch of the imagination. But let’s suppose for a moment that I’ve bought it.”

“Sold to the lady in the huge yellow raincoat.”

“Thank you. What is she, exactly? A spirit? A real person projecting an image?”

He glanced at her, eyebrow raised in quick surprise. “Good question. The trouble is, I’m not really sure of the answer.”

“Give it your best shot.”

He shrugged. “The generally held belief is that she’s the spirit of a once powerfully gifted human. She had the fire gift, like me. When she was killed as a witch, her unquiet shade devoted itself to the protection of others.”

“Are you in the habit of seeing and talking to spirits? Because I’m not.”

“No, me neither,” he acknowledged. “But she only appears to me through fire. Fire made by my gift.”

“Then you’re the only one who can see her?” she asked, deliberately derisive. “Because you start fires?”

“Hardly. You saw her, didn’t you? Her manifestations are quite real. She speaks to most of us from time to time, appearing via whatever gift we have.” His lips twisted into a sardonic smile. “She might, for example, appear to you in a dream.”

“I’ll sleep so much better for knowing that. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. If you don’t want to know, don’t ask.”

“Oh no, so long as you don’t want to tell me, I’ll keep asking,” she assured him. Through the darkness, she found his gaze again and held it. “Why has she waited until now to tell you to stop? And what will she do to you if you don’t?”

He sighed. “I’m afraid I’ve left a bit of a fire trail across Scotland. In the space of about eight hours, I burned a warehouse, broke into two cars by melting the locks, and caused another car to explode. There were casualties, witnesses. That isn’t discreet.”

“
Is
discretion as important as she thinks?” She meant it to be derisive, as if she didn’t believe any of this nonsense—which, of course she didn’t, did she?—only it came out as plain curious.

He nodded. “You said it would be impossible for a country ‘full of supernatural dudes’ to remain hidden, and although my country isn’t exactly full of them, it does have them in such numbers that discretion really is our best protection.”

“And yet you defied her.”

“It’s an old habit.”

“Then her threats don’t bother you?”

“On the contrary, they could bother me a great deal,” he said ruefully.

“How?” she demanded.

He gazed straight ahead, at the sea, not at her, and she imagined his eyes were dark and bleak. She thought he wouldn’t answer, but after a moment, he said casually, “She could take away my gift. Probably. Or she could destroy me.”

The melodramatic words sent icy shivers down her spine. She was buying into all of this too fast, too easily. “Really?”

“I never overestimate my defences any more. So let’s just say that for the next few days, at least, fire is my last resort.”

“Rodya, I’ve got her in sight,” Ilya called.

“Alone?”

“So far as I can tell…”

“Any surveillance?”

“Clear, so far,” Ilya said, echoed by Boris and Anna.

What Ilya had in sight turned out to be a trawler.

“We’re going fishing?” Nell asked without much enthusiasm. Her father’s penchant for television programmes about Scottish trawler men and Alaskan crab fishermen had convinced her long ago that such a hard life was not for her.

Anna gave a short, hard laugh. “Something like that.” She wasn’t happy about this, and for some reason, this fired a much deeper unease in Nell.

As they drew closer to the trawler, a couple of pale, wavery lights on its deck illuminated a few men congregating at the side, watching their approach.

Rodion funnelled his hands around his mouth and called across the sea in English. “Ahoy, Captain! Parcel collection service!”

The penny dropped with a resounding clatter. She stared in fury at Rodion. “We’re collecting heroin?”

“Say it a bit louder,” Anna advised sourly. “Someone on the coast probably didn’t quite catch that.”

Nell didn’t even look at her. “I don’t fucking care,” she uttered, still glaring at Rodion. “You total bastard. You’re making me complicit.”

Whatever Rodion would have answered, if anything, was lost as the motorboat bumped into the side of the much larger trawler. Immediately, someone above them on the trawler heaved what looked like a small-boy-size, brown-paper-wrapped parcel onto the rail and, without further warning, dropped it.

Boris swore fluently in a mixture of Russian, English, and localised Zavreki as the boat rocked alarmingly under the force.

A large, burly man loomed over the side of the trawler. He didn’t look happy, and, like Nell, he was glaring at Rodion. “A word with you,
Captain
,” he said.

****

This, he hadn’t anticipated. The smuggling chain had been formed long ago, in the days of communism and cold war. Russian ships, both fishing and scientific vessels, met Scottish ones in the open sea. Sometimes, the goods were exchanged again before the Scottish boat came closer inland and was met by “the collection service.” It worked both ways.

For the struggling fishermen, the new transportation fee was a welcome supplement to shrinking income. There had never been a problem before, but looking into the captain’s hard face, Rodion recognised there was certainly one now.

“Are you inviting us aboard?” Rodion asked mildly.

“Just you.”

“Don’t,” Anna said as he stood up. “We’ve got the parcel. Let’s just go.”

The trouble with Anna was, she never looked ahead. “I won’t be long,” he said vaguely, reaching out and catching hold of the ladder at the side of the trawler.

He glanced over his shoulder. Ilya and Boris were staring at the trawler men. Boris was reaching not very surreptitiously into his coat. Rodion shook his head, and, without changing the direction of his gaze, Boris reluctantly let his hand fall to his side.

Nell sat as though frozen, looking at no one. As if she felt betrayed. Which meant she’d felt the connection between them this afternoon. Hopefully, she’d feel this one too, eventually. If he survived to make his point.

He climbed the ladder in silence. No one spoke on either vessel, and no one helped him over the side.

When he stood upright on the deck, the captain said distinctly, “Bastard. We don’t carry drugs.” And punched him full in the face.

Rodion hit the deck.

On the motorboat, presumably Boris flashed his weapon or just his villainous glare, for the men surrounding the captain brandished various dangerous-looking chains and hooks in that general direction.

Rodion hooked his ankle round the captain’s and yanked him to the deck. Before anyone else could intervene, he threw himself onto the captain and hit him back, hard enough to hurt, and then leapt to his feet. Since everyone else had clearly expected him to press his advantage by getting a few more punches in before he was hauled off, there was a moment of stunned, frozen surprise while they all stared at him.

Good. They needed time to think about what they were doing, to reassess him if he was to get out of this, let alone turn the situation to his advantage.

“Fine,” Rodion said. “I’ll cross you off the list.” He delved inside his coat and the trawler men advanced in immediate threat. Rodion lifted one hand in a pacifying gesture and with the other, brought out his flask, which he held out to the captain. “Whisky?”

From the deck, the captain stared up at him, scowling, rubbing his bruised jaw. Rodion had no sympathy for that. His own hurt like hell.

After a moment, the captain dragged himself to his feet, shaking off the hands that tried to help him. Eyeballing Rodion, he snatched the flask and raised it to his lips. He may or may not have drunk any. It didn’t matter. The gesture was made. Rodion accepted the flask back, took a sizeable swig, and passed it to the man next to him, who had to put his menacing chain in his other hand in order to take it.

Rodion said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you had—standards.”

“I’ve got kids,” the captain growled. “If I didn’t, I’d beat you to a pulp and throw you over the side. But I’m not stupid enough to get on the wrong side of your friends.”

So the punch had been for pride and honour, but that was as far, probably, as the captain would go. Whether for his own sake or that of his kids, he clearly had a healthy fear of the faceless villains behind the drugs package—rightly, as it happened.

Rodion raised one eyebrow. “But you think they’d be all right with you just breaking my jaw?”

“I didn’t hit you that hard.”

“Harder than I hit you.”

“Serves you right, you bastard.”

“Fair enough.”

The captain stared at him, baffled. “So my wife doesn’t get a horse’s head in her bed just for a punch?”

It sounded as if he’d worried himself with his own words. So Rodion grinned. “I won’t tell if you don’t.”

The captain gazed at him a moment longer. Then he drew in his breath and appeared to reach a decision. “The boy and I are going below for a chat. Get back to work.” He glanced again at Rodion. “Your lads won’t get—restive, will they?”

“Not unless you hit me again.”

The captain grunted. It might have been a laugh. Rodion followed him along the deck and into the wheelhouse. The captain sloshed tea from a flask into two slightly grubby-looking mugs and pushed one toward Rodion with a wave in the direction of a narrow bench against the wall.

Rodion took the tea and sat. The mug smelled vaguely of fish. Over the rim, he watched expressions flit across the captain’s shrewd face—confused by Rodion but intrigued, which was good.

“You seem like a decent bloke,” the captain observed at last. He was, apparently, a man who judged by instinct. “What the hell are you doing smuggling that stuff into Scotland?”

Rodion regarded him. The captain was big and rough and had made his view on drugs pretty plain. Besides, despite a sore jaw, Rodion rather liked him. So, following his general rule of only lying when necessary, he told the truth. “Between you and me, I’m taking it to the police. If everything goes according to plan.”

The captain raised one bushy brow. “You’re taking a hell of a risk with a lot of lives just to hand thousands of pounds worth of drugs over to the police. Why not just leave it where it was?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Why did you look to see what it was?” He shrugged. “The Afghans need the money. Fishermen need the money these days. Hell, even my boss thinks he needs the money.”

“And your boss is okay with this philanthropic venture of yours?” the captain asked with heavy sarcasm.

“Well, he isn’t aware of the outcome, just yet. When he is, he most definitely won’t be okay with it.”

The captain’s bushy brows contracted into a glower, although it didn’t seem to betoken antagonism. “Then what the hell are you doing it for?”

Rodion shrugged again. “Maybe I don’t want your kids using that stuff either.”

The captain sipped his tea thoughtfully. “You’re not quite sane, are you?”

“Not quite. But I’m still breathing.”

“Got anywhere to run to?”

“Lots of places.”

The captain’s lips cracked into a faint smile. “Well, if you need to be collected yourself, get in touch.”

Rodion was used to sizing up people quickly. He was rarely wrong about much that mattered. But this took him by surprise. You just never knew where or how you’d encounter the good guys. Or the people who saw past all his smoke screens and sized as quickly as he did.

He swallowed. “Thanks. I’ll bear it in mind.” He laid down his mug and stood up.

More gently, the captain said, “You’re in over your head, aren’t you, lad?”

Rodion really didn’t need a second father. And yet he found he was pathetically grateful. He gave a lopsided smile. “Oh no. My head’s still well above the water. I just need to deliver a few life jackets, and then we’re all on dry land.” He closed his mouth, which had an annoying habit of blabbing out nonsense in emotional situations, and stuck out his hand. “Thanks, Captain. There’ll be no more narcotics for collection.”