There was a pause.
“If there has been no other threat to her—”
“They saw me.” He stood and moved to a more secluded part of the deck near the back, where the wind would carry his voice out over the water. He still kept an eye on Ava. “I imagine they’re being cautious. And since she thinks I’m some personal bodyguard her family hired to protect her, I don’t even have to hide. She sees me and says nothing. It’s the perfect cover to find out more about her.”
“Malachi, Rhys and I have been looking into her family history. There is no evidence—”
“That she’s Irina? I told you what she said.”
“She said, ‘I heard you.’ One statement that could mean any number of things, and then she ran away. If she was Irina, even if she didn’t know it, she’d be drawn to you. It’s part of who we are. And how could she be unaware?”
“If she was born after the Rending—”
“She was born Ava Russell, to Lena Russell, a single mother, in 1985. Born in Los Angeles, raised in Santa Monica. The scribe house there has no record of her or her mother. There is no father listed. What Irin would leave a child without giving her a name, Malachi? What Irina would raise her child outside the safety of a retreat?”
He had nothing to say. Damien was right. The number of Irin children born after the Rending could be counted on a few hands. They were never unguarded, particularly the young Irina. They were hidden away and treasured by their mothers, most of whom were in hiding. His people hadn’t been whole for two hundred years.
“I still think there is something different about her.” His voice was irritatingly hoarse. “How else would you explain the Grigori watching her like that?”
It was Damien who paused then.
“Jaron is…” His voice was halting. “Not as some others are. Since he has moved West, his people have not been as aggressive.”
A derisive snort was the only answer Malachi gave him.
Damien said, “It’s in their nature to be predators, yes. But there haven’t been as many deaths in Istanbul as you’d expect in the past twenty years. And yes, preying on women in the middle of the day like that is unusual. It’s possible that whoever was following her has been taken care of. He’s very controlling. That’s why this area has experienced the relative calm that it has.”
“You’re acting as if there is some kind of truce between you and him.”
“There isn’t. There can’t be; you know that. His nature has not changed, nor has ours. But he keeps a lower profile than what you were used to in Germany. Jaron is not Volund. He doesn’t like attention, and his Grigori are more subtle in their pursuits.”
“Nevertheless, I am going to stay with her.”
“And when she leaves? Rhys said she’s scheduled to leave Istanbul in another two weeks.”
“Then we’ll see what happens in two weeks.”
“You’re not following her out of the city, Malachi. I won’t allow it.”
Malachi bristled instinctively at the command. “Damien—”
“I am your superior,” his watcher reminded him coldly. “I will not allow it. Leave the human woman to whatever fate the Creator has for her.”
Malachi struggled to put into words the compulsion he felt. Ava Matheson needed to be protected. He knew she couldn’t be one of his kind, but there was still something…
“I sense something in her, Damien. Something different. I feel—”
“You feel hope, my friend.” The watcher’s voice softened slightly. “Something most of us haven’t felt for a very long time. But this hope… it’s your own desire. Nothing more. You’re not thinking clearly. She’s not Irina. She can’t be.”
“I know that.”
“Do you?”
Did he? His eyes returned to her. Ava was sitting next to a group of children, her eyes easy, her expression relaxed. Everything Damien had said about Ava made sense. There was no logical way she could be one of their kind. None. But something about her—her reactions, her energy—screamed that she was more than human. She was other. Different. Even the way she held herself away from the crowd while trying to blend in was familiar.
“I’ll follow her while she’s in the city. After that…”
“You’ll return to your duties, Malachi. You have a job to do. Leo and Maxim are already covering your shifts.”
A smile touched the corner of his mouth. “But I thought Jaron’s Grigori were the civilized ones.”
“A civilized Grigori is still a threat and an abomination. Some things will never change, including our mission.”
Malachi was tired of Damien’s constant discipline. Tired of the endless nights of stalking and waiting and violence. Perhaps someday he would join the more peaceful of their brethren in a rural scribe house like Rhys was always talking of doing. He would cloak his armor and spend his days copying sacred texts and his nights watching the stars, perhaps even some day counter the spells that prolonged his life so he could fade into the heavens as so many Irin had after their mates were torn from them.
Malachi had no mate. Only a handful of scribes did. And it was because of the cursed Grigori that he and all his kind were fated to spend their long lives alone.
He was kidding himself. He’d never retire from a warrior’s life. Malachi would fight them as long as he lived.
“You have a job to do, Malachi.” Damien was still talking. “And that job is not following a human woman who happens to catch your eye.”
“Yes, Watcher.”
“Keep me informed of your movements. I want to know where you are.”
“Have Rhys enable the tracker on my phone. He can do that now, you know. You can watch me move on the map, if you want.”
Damien paused. “He can do that?”
Malachi chuckled. “Welcome to the twenty-first century, old friend.”
The tour boat had reached the end of the Golden Horn and had turned back toward the Galata Bridge when Ava approached him. He’d been playing a game on his phone, some mind-numbing activity Leo was addicted to that involved shooting birds at pigs. It was oddly satisfying; the pigs exploded in a puff not unlike the Grigori when you put a knife in the right place. He glanced up when he saw her move, then watched silently as she approached the bench in the corner where he had positioned himself. Her camera bag bumped against her thigh as she walked, an unwieldy cargo he’d never seen her without.
She paused in front of him, then sank onto the wooden bench opposite as Malachi hid his phone.
“I’m incredibly bored.”
He shrugged. “So why did you take the tour?”
“You’re supposed to take a tour of Istanbul from the sea. Didn’t you know that?”
He smiled. “Do you always do what you’re supposed to?”
“Hardly ever, but this is work.”
“What do you do?” He already knew. Rhys had given him a full profile on her the day after he’d discovered her name.
“I take pictures for travel magazines.”
Ava Matheson was considered one of the top travel photojournalists in her field, distinguishing herself by her willingness to go to the most remote location and capture it for the hungry print and online world. In fact, the more
