Smoke and Mirrors (7 page)

Her mouth opened as if she really would ask which of them, truth or lies, applied to the fucking comment. Disappointingly, she stopped herself in time.

He said, “You know. You’ve always known.”

Her eyes widened. Her lips parted. Warm blood suffused her cheeks. He could feel her body heat under his hands. He wanted to lay her on the rug before the fire, take off all those inconvenient clothes, and find out what lay beneath. What lay within. Not an oblivion fuck after all, but a tasting one. Not just to distract, but to know.

“Why?” she asked.

His fingers stilled. With one word, she’d flummoxed him, and her steady gaze said she knew it.

“I don’t know,” he said.

It wasn’t a good answer, and it fully deserved her quick snort of derisive laughter as she slid out from under his hands. “I suspect that’s the first honest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“I’ve only told one lie since you entered this room. And that was telling Gadarin I didn’t burn his heroin.”

A car was coming up the drive, slowly and without fuss. Anna and Ilya, back with the shopping. Nell heard it too, for her gaze flickered to the almost dark window. Then she looked at Rodion once more.

“Then maybe
you
‘ll dream about
me
tonight,” she said tartly. “But that still won’t make it future reality.” And she strolled out of the room.

Smiling because it was such a good exit, Rodion followed her and leaned against the doorframe, watching her walk across the hall toward the dining room. The sway of her hips, even inside Anna’s chunky sweater, did things to him.

“Hey, Nell. Want to come on a boat trip tonight?”

****

Boat trip, she thought with derision, ignoring him as she crossed the hall into the dining room. The man was a lunatic. You might think he just said the first thing that came into his head. Except he didn’t. Everything he said had a reason. She was just never very sure what it was.

For a minute or two, she tried to distract herself by poking into the sideboard drawers and cupboards, but since nothing much there interested her and she could hear lots of voices in the kitchen, she decided to use the opportunity of sneaking into the study and checking out the computer.

She wandered in with studied casualness, but no one sat behind the desk. The room was silent. She walked over and sat down, and switched on the computer. It made the loud, clunking noises of many older computers, and her nerves tensed as she prayed no one from the kitchen would hear.

With agonizing slowness, Windows appeared, and she hastily searched around for an Internet browser. There wasn’t one. Not even an e-mail program. No Internet access of any kind. Just a word processor, some ancient games—ancient at least by the standards of the dedicated gamers of her acquaintance—and bloody PowerPoint.

“Bugger,” she said in frustration, throwing herself back in the chair and shoving the mouse away from her.

“Doesn’t do much, does it?”

Nell jumped, glaring across the room to where Ilya sat in the corner with a laptop on his knees. “How long have you been there?” she demanded.

“Since I came back. Things to check on.” He nodded with apparent pity toward the old computer. “Doesn’t have Internet access.”

“I know,” Nell said, as if she really didn’t care. She eyed his laptop. “Do you?”

“Oh yes.”

“Mind if I borrow it?” she asked. “I need to send a couple of e-mails.”

“I’ll ask Rodion.”

She lifted her eyebrows. “Is the laptop his?”

“No. It’s mine, but—”

“Why ask him, then? Come on,” she wheedled. “I’ll let you read them before I send…”

Annoyingly, he didn’t even look tempted. “Sorry. Can’t.” He did manage a rueful smile. “Can’t lend you my phone either.”

She shrugged as if it didn’t matter. Maybe she could play “Railroad Tycoon” until he went to the toilet and she could sneak a shot of his laptop…

“‘Thief’ is good,” Ilya said, resuming his own silent work, whatever it was.

“And apt,” she muttered.

Computer games had never really held her interest before, whatever their age or content, and considering her situation, she had pretty low expectations of this one. But oddly enough, she found herself quickly intrigued and startled, so that for ten whole minutes at a time, she actually forgot to will Ilya to go and pee.

And then, before he’d even stood up once, Rodion strolled into the room.

She looked up at him. “Been sailing?”

His eyebrows lifted. “Making pasta.” He stood beside her, looking at the screen.

“Pasta,” she repeated.

“Rodion makes the best pasta outside Italy,” Ilya observed. “Inside most of it too.”

“Why?” Nell asked as Rodion bent over her shoulder to see the screen better. The hairs at the back of her neck stood up in warning. Her whole being seemed to be aware of his nearness. And yet none of it was unpleasant. Her perverse body
liked
being near him whatever her brain told it.

“Why what?” he asked.

“Why are you making pasta?”

“Therapy,” he replied. “And necessity. Got to eat. You’re dead, you know.”

Her heart lurched until she realised he was talking about the game. “I am
not
dead,” she said indignantly. “Look.”

“You will be if you keep going along there.”

“Crap,” Nell said roundly, and just for spite, resumed play. When she got a sword through the heart, he didn’t even say
I told you so
. Although he did grin as he straightened up.

“Thief,” she said disparagingly. “I’ll bet it only took you an hour to complete.”

He looked surprised. “Actually, I never got further than that corridor. Only ever played it once. Dinner’s ready.”

“Dinner,” she repeated. She seemed to be doing that a lot.

“Dinner,” he agreed. “With pasta. Even thieves must eat.”

And it seemed these thieves at least ate pretty well. The pasta turned out to be delicious, fine and melting and cooked with a heavenly tomato and herb sauce. And it was followed by fillet steak, an enormous salad, and garlic bread. They even shared a bottle of rather good red wine.

Nell felt slightly dazed by the whole experience, which any observer might have imagined a simple gathering of friends or family, happily enjoying a fun meal together. They discussed food and news and music, arguing over the relative merits of various Russian, British, and American bands featured in the tracks Ilya played them from his phone via a docking station. They asked her questions about Scotland and politics, made constant jokes among themselves that made no effort to exclude her.

Once, Boris said, “Nell. Is that really the name you were born with?”

“Nope. It says Yelena on my birth certificate.”

“You reject your mother’s heritage?” Ilya asked.

“No.” Although perhaps she had
. Loved my mother, ditched her heritage; hate my father, yet grab
his
heritage with both hands…
Didn’t make any sense. “My dad used to call me Nellie.”
My wee Nellie
. Christ, where had that come from? She shrugged and made a grab for her wineglass. “Nell suits me better.”

“Nell Gwynne,” Rodion said provokingly. She grabbed an orange from the bowl in the centre of the table and threw it at him. He caught it, laughing.

She could have been sucked very easily into this illusion. She wondered if she was supposed to be, and in fact it would have felt rude not to join in to some degree, helping collect dirty plates and carry in fresh ones. Everyone mucked in, and it would, she told herself, have been unnecessarily churlish to refuse, even if it did ruin her attempt at passive resistance.

Only when the meal was finished and Anna stood up to collect the empty coffee cups did reality begin to click back in.

“Half an hour?” Anna said to Rodion, who nodded. Ilya and Boris stood up too to help Anna, but when Nell made to rise, Boris, who’d been sitting next to her, put his hand on her shoulder to prevent her.

He grinned. Because of his scarred, villainous face, it looked inappropriately ferocious. “Not tonight. Next time,
you
cook and wash up.”

She bore his touch without moving, because despite his appearance, there was nothing aggressive or suggestive about it. But it was still a relief when he released her and ambled off in Ilya’s wake—even though it left her alone again with Rodion, who still sat on the other side of the table, hands in pockets, watching her.

“He doesn’t mean anything by it,” he observed. “Boris is just a touchy-feely sort of person.”

“I’m sure plenty of folk have the scars to prove it.”

“Maybe. But you’re not afraid of Boris.”

“No,” she agreed defiantly. “I’m not.”

“So why did you tense up when he touched you?”

“I guess I’m just
not
a touchy-feely sort of person.”

“You’re not, are you? You go out of your way even to avoid touching fingers on the bread plate. When it happens by accident, you’re very quick to get out of the way.”

She stared across the table at him. “Does it really seem odd to you that I don’t feel like hugging you guys?”

“No. But I noticed it in the police station too. You were squashed up there between Lamont and the lawyer, but you made bloody sure they never once brushed against you, not even when everyone stood up to get my clothes off.”

“So what? I don’t like touching strangers. What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing. I just wondered if that was why you’re single.”

Actually, it probably was. Her reaction to Gordon’s sudden Clark Gable-type jumping of her bones, which he’d meant to be romantic, was what had sent him stalking out on her in a huff. She couldn’t really blame him, but he knew not to take her by surprise like that…

She sat back in her chair, baffled as much by his interest as by how the hell to answer him. “How do I get into these conversations with you? A lover, a husband, wouldn’t be a stranger, would he?”

“What I’m wondering, is how he gets that far.”

“Well, you’ve no right to be wondering any such thing!” It sounded prim, even to her own ears, and the curve of his lips said he knew it.

“Can’t help being interested in how it works. Do you
feel
things from a touch?”

Oh yes, straight back to thorny ground. “What sort of things?” she demanded.

He shrugged. “Do you feel what a person is like by touching them?”

“Don’t be stupid. Do you?”

“No, I observe with my eyes. But there are lots of other ways to absorb information. I think you’re very sensitive to touch, and that’s why you avoid it. You don’t want to feel so intensely all the time.”

“Yeah, yeah, and I dream of the future, and there are fairies at the bottom of my garden.” Attack was the best method of defence, so she used it, even if it somewhat counterattacked her own argument. Leaning forward, she added, “And fiery goddesses burst out of flames to scold you. What the hell
was
that? You never did tell me.”

He scanned her face for a moment, then leaned forward too and reached one hand across the table to her. “Touch me, and I’ll tell you.”

She stared at him. “Fuck off.”

He smiled but didn’t take his hand away. Annoyingly, scenes from her childhood popped into her head—holding hands with her parents, hugging them. There had been comfort in that, childish, emotional pleasure. When had it changed? When had it become a chore, something she steeled herself to do? When her mother was in pain? During adolescence when she felt—or inspired—more intense, more adult emotions? She didn’t just avoid touching strangers now. She never even hugged her friends if she could avoid it; and boyfriends… She liked the excitement, the closeness of sex, and yet there had been times, several times, when she’d hated the intensity, had almost hated her lover.

Did I hate Gordon?

Shit, she couldn’t think about Gordon, about any of that stuff, not under Rodion’s piercing blue gaze, not while he challenged her so coolly to touch him. Her skin already seemed to tingle.

She could take the coward’s way out here, stand up, and walk away. It would be safest. Only it went against the grain to admit her fear, especially to him, for some reason. Besides, the bastard really wouldn’t tell her about the “goddess” if she didn’t play.

She looked at his hand, long-fingered, slender, sinewy, the blue veins close to the surface of his skin. The hand of a musician perhaps, or an artist. Or a magician. Could he have tricked her with the fire? Part of her hoped desperately that he had, and then she could relax and forget all this shit that was trying so hard to upset her belief system.

Fuck it.
Steeling herself, she laid her hand on his. His fingers twisted and clasped hers, and she had to force herself to be still, to betray nothing in her face or eyes, since he never took his gaze off her. His palm and the inside surface of his fingers was a little rough, as she remembered from the morning’s mad flight from the gunman, but not unpleasant.

She relaxed just a little, let the faint buzz of sensation seep through her skin.

He said, “The fiery goddess, as you call her—not inappropriately, as it happens—is the Guardian. She watches over the gifted—has done since time immemorial—and keeps us safe from threats.”

“She doesn’t seem very keen on
your
safety,” Nell observed.

Rodion gave a lopsided smile. “To her, I’m endangering all the others by using my gift too much.” Almost idly, his fingertip stroked her palm. She felt the tingles, repressed the shiver. And yet it felt good. Rodion had asked if she could tell what people were like through touch, but right now she rather thought touching Rodion interfered with all her other much more sensible senses.

He said, “The survival of people like me depends on the vast majority of the world being unaware of our existence. Telepaths, psychics, healers, those who talk to the dead, shift objects or even shapes with their minds, those who tell the future by touch or dream, or who, like me, have even weirder abilities that most people can’t even imagine—we’re all out there. In the past, we were regarded as unnatural; now we’d be freaks. So even in Zavrekestan we rarely talk about it, never in front of strangers. But here am I melting locks on banks and setting fire to buildings and bad guys all over the world. I’m a rogue villager, out of her control. She knows I’m dangerous.”