He slammed the door shut on the small refrigerator.
“Doesn’t anyone buy beer besides me?” he yelled to the empty kitchen. “If you don’t buy it, you shouldn’t drink it!”
From upstairs, a faint voice came. “You spent too much time in Hamburg. You’re back in Istanbul, Mal; we drink raki.” It was Maxim, no doubt lying in bed, waiting for the city to cool before he emerged.
“Or tea,” another voice added in the same thick Russian accent. If Maxim was upstairs, so was his cousin, Leo. “Gallons of tea.”
“Oceans of it.”
“If only the Bosphorus flowed with vodka.”
“We should get the brothers in Odessa working on that…”
Damien walked into the kitchen, glancing upward as the cousins continued to rib each other. “Drink water. You’re not used to the heat yet.”
Malachi grimaced. “I’ll be fine. I was born here.”
The watcher pulled a bottle of water from a cupboard and threw it toward him, the tattoos on his bare arms rippling as he threw the plastic bottle. “But you haven’t lived here for hundreds of years. The city has grown, and that makes it hotter.”
“Anthropogenic heat,” said Rhys, walking into the kitchen from the library and holding his hand out to Damien for another bottle of water. The pale man had been sweating nonstop for three days—not surprising considering the air conditioner had broken around that time. His dark brown hair was plastered to his forehead, and his normally pale skin was flushed. “Human activity produces heat. More humans. More heat. Not to mention climate change. Bloody humans and their automobiles will kill us all.”
Damien and Malachi exchanged amused glances. The cranky British scholar was constantly nostalgic for preindustrial times.
“Heat can’t kill us, Rhys!” Leo called from above.
“But your whining is doing a fairly good job of torture,” Maxim added. “Is whining a violation of the Geneva Convention?”
“Does the Geneva Convention apply to us?”
“Ask Rhys. He knows everything.”
The scholar’s face only grew redder. “Maybe if I wasn’t the only one working—”
“Stop.” One quiet word from Damien was all it took. The three men fell silent, even the ones on the second floor, who could hear their watcher’s voice from a distance.
Damien was of average height and weight. His face could make humans stop and stare, or he could blend into a crowd, based solely on his demeanor. The only remarkable thing about him was the intricate tattoos he had inked all over his arms. Malachi knew the work covered most of the man’s legs as well, though he kept them carefully covered. Malachi glanced down at his own markings. Four hundred years of scribing himself still hadn’t left him half as covered as Damien. Who knew how old the man was?
Damien continued in a low voice, “Leo, did you call the man to repair the air conditioner?”
A thundering set of footsteps came down the stairs and the hall. The man they belonged to stopped in the door, filling it with his massive frame. “They said they will come tomorrow. Beginning of the summer means lots of work. They’re busy.” Sweat dotted a pale forehead topped by a thatch of sandy-blond hair. Maxim followed Leo, a mirror of his cousin. The two were inseparable, cousins being as rare as siblings in their race. Their mothers had been twin sisters, and the men looked like twins themselves. Even their tattoos were almost identical, though their personalities couldn’t have been more opposite.
“So no air-conditioning until tomorrow?” Rhys asked.
Damien shrugged. “Sleep on the roof. There are beds up there and the breeze will be better when the sun goes down.”
For some reason, Malachi’s thoughts flicked to the woman slipping into the wooden house near Aya Sofia. The house had a plain street view, a classic Ottoman; it was probably cool and shaded in the interior. There might have been a courtyard. And air-conditioning.
“I should have kept following the woman,” he muttered.
Damien’s ears caught it. “What woman? Why were you following her? You know you’re not allowed to —”
“Do I look like a foolish boy?” He glared at the man. “There was a woman at the spice market. She’d caught the attention of a Grigori soldier. I was watching him, and he was watching her.”
All amusement fled the group. Each man knew the danger of a Grigori attack.
Maxim asked, “Did you kill him before he got to her?”
Rhys offered a bloodthirsty smile, forgetting his misery in the contemplation of Grigori death. “Set his soul free to be judged, brother? I wish I could have helped.”
“I didn’t. I’m being cautious, remember?” He aimed a pointed look at Damien. “Besides, his behavior was… odd. I wanted to ask you about it.”
Damien narrowed his eyes. “Odd how?”
“He was hunting her, but he wasn’t. He never approached her. Never tried to charm her. He was actually trying to remain unnoticed.”
Leo shook his head. “No, that’s not how they work. They seduce. They—”
“We all know what the Grigori do, Leo.” Damien was staring at Malachi. “What happened?”
“He followed her back to a hotel, and…”
Maxim said, “And what?”
“Nothing. He just watched her, called someone on the phone, then left.”
Damien was silent. The others were silent. It was, just as Malachi had suspected, unusual behavior for the Grigori of Istanbul. He had hoped Damien would have some clue, but the man’s face registered nothing. Not shock, not recognition. Nothing.
The watcher finally said, “So you know where this woman is staying?”
He smiled. “I do, but the Grigori doesn’t.”
“I thought you said—”
“She spotted him at the market. Took his picture when he was looking away. She went into the lobby of one of the hotels near the palace, waited for forty minutes until he’d left, then went to her real hotel. The Grigori never saw where she’s actually staying.”
Damien nodded, seemingly impressed with the resourcefulness of the human. “Clever.”
Leo nodded and grinned. “I like the clever ones. Was she pretty, too?”
Maxim elbowed his cousin. “That’s not important.” Then he turned to Malachi and narrowed his eyes. “But was she?”
“She was… interesting.” She had been pretty, Malachi realized. He’d been concentrating so hard on the chase that he hadn’t really noticed until he remembered her fine features, the slope of her eyes. “Yes, she was pretty.” Not that it mattered to him, but the cousins were still young enough to find human women attractive. They had never known true beauty like the older men had.
“I want you to go back to her hotel tomorrow,” Damien said. “Find out more. And you’re sure she wasn’t…?” There was a slight, hopeful rise in his voice.
“I don’t think so,” Malachi said quietly. “She would have heard me if she was. And the Grigori wouldn’t have shown any restraint.”
“Of course.” Damien looked away. All the men found things to look at, other than each other. “Go back tomorrow,” Damien said. “Find out more. We need to know why she’s attracted their attention this way. This is different.”
Malachi took a deep breath, alternately concerned and excited about the chase. It might be his most interesting day in the Old City yet.
The woman took a lot of pictures. And from the look of her equipment, she was a professional. She took picture after picture of the Sultanahmet’s mosques and streets. The alleys and corner gardens. Odd angles a tourist wouldn’t think of. Glimpses of old women selling lace and children selling toys. She even lay down on the
