Page 2 of Roma Queen
Before us, a dark stairwell descends underground, below the worn sidewalks of Rochester Park. Pasha’s eyes are feverish as he looks down into the darkness and he rocks his head to the left, cracking his neck. He doesn’t look excited by the prospect of going down the stairs and into the blackness beyond—I really don’t want to fucking do it, either—but there’s a determined, steely energy pouring from him, and I can feel it prickling at my skin like an electrical current.
“Probably best if we don’t speak to anyone until we’ve had chance to find my mother,” Pasha says, setting his jaw. “Things are bound to get out of hand otherwise.”
Out of hand?
I don’t like the sound of out of hand, but I don’t ask him what he means. The oily knot of panic that keeps twisting and turning in on itself in the pit of my stomach won’t let me ask questions, just in case the answers are even more worrying than the not knowing. Pretty damn pathetic, really.
Pasha takes the first step, leading the way down the stairs, and a high-pitched sound begins to screech in my head like nails down a chalkboard. Less than an hour ago, on the street outside my apartment, I was angry with him for preventing me from picking up a public payphone.
He’danswered the call that had rung out for a solid five minutes beneath my bedroom window. He was the one who’d spoken to the man on the other end of the line. It had therefore been his job to tell me the news that Corey Petrov was dead. Murdered by a man named Lazlo, who is now apparently going to kill my friend Sarah next. And then…
…and then God only knows what.
My anger toward Pasha now faded, the news of Corey’s death is still sinking in, and instead of being annoyed that he wouldn’t let me answer the phone, I’m extraordinarily grateful that he saved me from having to hear those vile words drip from Lazlo’s tongue. They would have haunted me, tormented and tortured me.
Pasha, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to be falling apart. Not in the slightest. There’s pain in his eyes, yes, and something like green-tinged fury—it burns bright enough to spot a mile away—but he’s also solid and immoveable, like a weathered pillar of rock amidst a raging storm.
“I’m sorry you’ve been dragged into all of this,” I whisper. These words are useless, I already know that, but I need to fill the silence; the air in the narrow staircase feels close, stifling and stripped of all oxygen, and the thickness of it is cramming its way down my throat, inside my ears, and up my nose. I can’t fucking bear it.
Pasha’s huge hand, locked around mine, squeezes again. “None of this is your fault. None of this is my fault. Lazlo is…” I stare at the buzzed, tiny strands of hair at the base of his skull as Pasha shakes his head, sighing heavily. “Lazlo was an outsider. Not born into the clan. He showed up years before I was born, from another clan. Always trouble. Never fit in. Never fucking tried. People loved the bastard for it. Everyone thought he walked on water. When I tried to tell them what I’d found him doing, they didn’t believe me. Or they just didn’t want to hear it. Sometimes it’s like that. People don’t want to feel like they were fooled into trusting someone who didn’t deserve it. Easier if someone else is lying than their own judgement be so off.”
At the bottom of the stairs, my heart makes its way up into my throat and refuses to sink back down into its rightful place. When I came here the first time, only a week ago, a young boy wearing an orange jacket had sat here, guarding the door to the fair. His name was Leo. I didn’t know when I met him, of course, that the very same boy had been attacked by Lazlo three years ago. Had nearly been raped by the bastard, and Pasha had killed him for it.
Hadthoughthe’d killed him for it.
It turns out Lazlo is very much alive, and his interest in little boys has far from waned. I nearly double over and vomit onto my shoes at that dark, disgusting thought. Corey. Poor fucking Corey. What went wrong? Yuri Petrov had been so confident he was getting his son back; he hadn’t seemed even close to worried when he approached me in the parking lot the other night. He showed me that video of the little boy—living, breathing, in one piece—and I’d allowed the head of Spokane’s Russian mob boss to convince me the situation was under control. I’d jumped at the chance to believe there was an end to the nightmare in sight, because my worry over the little boy had been eating me alive.
So, I’d gone home. I’d re-gifted the hideous fur coat Yuri had sent to me, and I’d promptly decided the matter was better off dealt with by people far more educated in matters of kidnapping, bribery and organized crime in general. It hadn’t been all right, though. The situation wasnotunder control, and Corey had paid the ultimate price.
Pasha lets go of me and pulls a large jumble of keys out of his leather jacket pocket. The metal flashes copper and silver in his hands as his fingers quickly fly through the individual pieces of metal until he finds the one he’s looking for. A second later, the large, heavy, steel door that leads into the fair swings open, and…
Pasha curses.
Behind the door, there is nothing but darkness.
The Midnight Fair is gone.
* * *
PASHA
The cavernous spacethat housed the clan only days ago smells like stale sugar and the ghost of smoke. Twenty-five stalls were set up down here, along with numerous tents and other attractions, but now there’s nothing but the silence, the light from my phone bouncing off the foiled stars tiled into the ceiling overhead, and the torn-up ground under our feet. There isn’t a scrap of paper left behind. Not a single piece of trash, a forgotten book, or a mislaid handkerchief.
This is the way it’s always been; an hour after we leave town, the only sign that we were ever there is our boot prints. A week after the Rivin family disappears, even the boot prints are gone, and the entire clan is in the wind.
Zara walks past me, eyes wide with confusion as she spins around, taking in the absolute…emptiness. She stops, facing me, her hands upturned toward the ceiling. “How can they have packed everything up so quickly? This place feels like it’s been abandoned for years, but I saw it. I saw all of the candles. The food. The people.”
“The Rivins are experts at bailing on very short notice.” I clench my jaw, breathing heavily down my nose. This is perfect. Just fucking perfect.
“Where the hell did they go?”
“I haven’t been with them for the last three years. They could have changed their route while I’ve been living in Spokane. There are a million places they could have moved to.” Even as I’m saying this, though, I already know where my mother, Patrin, Leo, and the others have gone. I just don’t want to admit it to myself, because admitting it will mean that we have to go there. And I really donotwant to go there.
I finally met the girl of my dreams. I finally held her in my fucking arms, and I made her my own. I kissed her. I claimed her. I set her soul on fire, just as she struck a match and caused the tattered rags of my own soul to go up in flames. Right now, I’m supposed to be stroking Zara’s wild red hair while she sleeps peacefully on my chest. We’re supposed to lock ourselves away in her apartment for the next three days while we explore each other’s bodies as well as each other’s limits, forgetting to feed ourselves or take showers, or to step outside as we learn everything there is to know about each other.
But instead, a little boy is dead, an aunt I never knew I had is being held captive, and a devil has risen from the dead.
And now we’re going to have to go to the glen?
