Free Heart of Steam & Rust (Empires of Steam and Rust) by Stephen D. Sullivan Page A

both outside and inside the perimeter—doing her best to imitate what she’d seen on the rug in the other Lina’s secret room. Once that was done, she smudged the whole thing, smearing out a clear exit from the circle and trying to make the inscriptions look “used.” She put a few crystals and feathers near the mess, to add to the effect.
    They’d have to clean everything up, of course, but later … after she’d completed her hunting for the night. No sense in having the hotelier believing they were practicing black magic.
    She dressed in the least restrictive of her newlywed outfits, one without a billowy skirt or high heels, all the while wishing she’d brought her uniform with her. Of course, that would have blown her cover if their rooms had been searched—not that their cover really mattered now.
    From a secret compartment in her baggage, she removed her weapons. She strapped the knife to her right calf, just above the hemline, and put her Nagant revolver in the pocket of her coat.
    All that remained to do now was contact headquarters for backup, but she couldn’t do that until the “ritual” was complete and Pyotr returned.
    So she lay down on the bed, head aching from all the subterfuge. She closed her eyes and focused her mind, clearing it of the clutter she’d accumulated since coming to this world, emptying it of her fears, her desires, her lusts, discarding as much as she could to make her brain open to receive the thoughts, the information, she needed to find.
    And as her mind expanded, she waited—waited for Pyotr to return, waited to make her next move.
     
     
    TEN
     
    Lina!
    She awoke with a start, certain that something was terribly wrong.
    How long had she been asleep? The clock on the wall said that Pyotr’s hour-and-a-half was not yet up, but ... Where was he?
    She concentrated, trying to sense his presence … But he wasn’t in the building—she felt sure of it.
    A flash inside her head. A stab of pain. An image in the fog: Pyotr fighting ... injured.
    Damn him!
    He’d gone investigating on his own, just as he had when she’d taken her bath!
    She climbed out the bedroom window onto the fire escape. The iron latticework was rickety and in ill repair, but it held her weight. She descended as quickly as she could, knowing this would be faster than running downstairs through the hotel. She didn’t wait for the spring-loaded ladder at the bottom of the second floor to extend all the way down. Instead, she leaped to the ground as soon as she had enough clearance.
    She landed hard, twisting her left ankle, but she ignored the pain and broke into a run.
    Where was Pyotr?
    She concentrated, trying to remember her psychic vision and match it to what she knew of her surroundings.
    Another flash of pain brought the picture into focus. An alley behind the Black Dog, right next to the docks, near where she’d been killed.
    Pyotr was struggling for his life! She felt it with every fiber of her being.
    Faster! She had to run faster!
    The adjoining streets lay empty as she skidded into the alleyway. Fog drifted in from the river, shrouding the scene in gray mist. She counted two figures lying unmoving on the ground … no, three … and one of them was Pyotr.
    A hulking, dark-clad figure in a trench coat stood over him, bloody knife in hand. The man turned as Lina approached and showed a crooked grin sporting a golden tooth.
    Rostov!
    Lina reached for her gun. But her groping hand found nothing inside her coat pocket. It must have fallen out while she slept!
    The man moved toward her, cackling in a deep voice. “No witnesses.” He slashed his knife toward her throat.
    Lina ducked under the cut, rolled forward, and pulled the knife from her calf sheath.
    Her skirt tangled her legs as she tried to rise. The man cut at her again.
    The dress made her too slow. She turned, but the knife slashed across her left shoulder, leaving a three-inch long wound.
    Again, a flash of pain, but hers this time, not