At last he spoke. "It is abandoned. Nobody goes there. Only nosy tourists." He dragged in a breath, his nose sounding clogged. Hay fever or a cold perhaps.
"Is anyone watching the place? Has he left the house at all?" I asked, shifting to the edge of my seat to peer through the window at the house far on the hill.
"There is no watching. Only me who sees him arrive and me who watches him come here to this place," he said. His Russian-accented English remained choppy and stilted, and beneath the words, I sensed something else in his demeanor as he watched me with his black eyes. A disdain or an intense dislike. It didn't bother me as long as he didn't get in the way of our investigation.
"Is there a best time for a closer inspection?" I asked, feeling the question was a waste of time. With nobody watching the place, we had no knowledge of their movement or their habits. When he didn't answer, I asked, "How many?" I couldn't keep the snappish tone out of my voice.
He seemed unaffected as he answered, "The fancy blond man in the long coat and four others. They look big and strong. Lots of ... how you say...?"
He pretended to pump iron with both hands, and I said, "Lift weights."
"Yes, yes, lifting weights. They look like they are doing a lot of this lifting weights." I frowned and glanced over at Joshua. Sounded like four Jotunn. We had to get past four frost giants to get to the virus. Not like we expected to walk right in and take the stuff though.
I still thought we needed better surveillance on the place before we went charging in. And something told me our Russian friend wasn't going to be too accommodating, but I said it anyway.
As I expected, he wasn't very cooperative. He shook his head, saying, "We do not have the agents for it. I am so sorry."
I shrugged. "I don't need your agents." I waved a hand at the team in the van. "As you can see, we have the agents, so all we'll need is a place to stay."
Yuri's eyes hardened, his jaw tightening. "It is difficult to find a place... Is short notice. This is not a tourist town, you know. Even tourists who want to see falling down old building, they don't stay in Belogorka. They drive back to St. Petersburg."
"Well, we won't be driving back. We need to find a place to stay here so we can watch the old house for a while." I spoke firmly and felt a chill at the ice in his eyes. He didn't need to be a frost giant to have an excellent chill effect.
A voice piped up from behind us and I twisted in my seat. "I found a place," said Derek with a satisfied smirk. "A woman named Maria Chekov runs a small boarding house. She says she has enough space for us all if we bunk two per room."
"Now, how in the world did you manage to make that happen?" I asked, more than impressed and thrilled that Derek had effectively thumbed his nose at our not-so-helpful Interpol liaison.
"It's called the wonder of the Internet," Derek said simply and was already looking back at his laptop.
"They have Internet here?" asked Aimee.
"This is Russia, not the moon," Derek said, straight-faced. He seemed pretty proud of himself and he deserved to be.
I snorted, then pointed skyward. "With the amount of satellites we have up there, I'm sure the moon has Internet too." Everybody laughed. "So what time is check-in?" I asked with a teasing grin, not expecting him to have gotten that far in the reservation stage.
"Oh." He looked down at his monitor, then snapped his gaze back to mine. "Oh, here it is. She said check in at your own leisure. I'm guessing that means we check in whatever time we want. She did say prices are charged per night."
I didn't tell him that I was wondering what that implied for the cleanliness of the rooms if the manager allowed people to walk in and get a room whatever time they wanted.
"Okay, so let's get checked in, then, and we can head out and find a few good locations to watch the place." I turned to Yuri. "Will you be staying with us, Yuri?" I asked. He was in a spot now. He couldn't say no because it would look bad since he was Interpol's man.
He gave his head a sharp jerk, which I took to mean no. "I will sleep in the van."
I raised an eyebrow, giving the floor of the vehicle a suspicious stare. Now I knew why the inside of the vehicle had the sour smell of unwashed Yuri, laced with the strong odor of cigarette smoke. I hoped all it meant was the man was a dedicated agent.
He gunned the engine, then got onto the road, making his way toward the village slowly. He arrived at a small house that looked like something out of a storybook. Raw redbrick walls, steep pointy roof, haphazard floor levels that hinted that the owners had added to the house as and when required, and without much thought.
It looked like it was about to keel over, and I totally loved it.
My delight with the house did not mean I'd missed the fact that Yuri had brought us straight here without having asked for the address. He'd known all along where the boarding house was but had tried to convince us to return to St. Petersburg.
Where exactly did Yuri Melnikov's loyalty lie?
Maria's boarding house did not live up to my expectations. It exceeded them by miles. The quaint place was spotlessly clean, and as we were led to our rooms, I noticed a hundred little things that gave the house, and our host, a little more personality in my mind. Photographs of forefathers, children, and grandchildren littered the house.
Each room was decorated in a different color, which told me our host was one smart woman. She'd themed her rooms with specific colors and decor. The first, which I'd already decided was mine, had deep-blue and white bedding on the beds, a small table with collections of candles in shades of blue, a painting on the wall that looked like a beautiful Greek island with deep-blue waters and bright-white buildings flowing down a hillside.
The next room was decorated in shades of orange with a hint of Spanish flair. She even had a room decorated in shades of green and bright white, with a hint of plants and patterns from a South Pacific island, New Zealand.
Aimee jumped the line to share a room with me, while our two fire girls were next door in the orange room. The four guys ended up in the last two rooms, and I paid little attention to who shared with whom.
After we were settled and spent some time resting, Maria hollered that the evening meal was ready. Her tone said we had little choice in the matter, so we filed down the stairs, hunching down to avoid hitting our heads on the low ceilings, and arrived in the dining room.
Our host stood waiting, hands on her generous hips, round cheeks red from the hot kitchen. Her grey hair was tied in a fat bun at the back of her head, and she watched us with happy twinkling eyes. She bustled around us dishing out beef and vegetable stew and passing around fresh, hot yeasty homemade bread and butter. The only shadow on the lovely meal was Yuri's presence. He'd paid for his meal, exchanging coins with the old woman, before seating himself. It was good he wanted to remain independent, but that didn't mean I trusted him.
I'd decided even before we arrived at Maria's that I was going to keep an eye on him. As yet, I hadn't found the time to get the team clued in on the matter of Yuri, but from their expressions at the table, I didn't think they would disagree with me.
After the meal, we retired to our rooms, eager to plan our stakeout. Yuri took his cue and left for his van. As we walked upstairs, I said to Aimee, "Have everyone come to our room. We need to make our plans."
She turned and hurried down the tiny passageway to the next room. Not long afterward, everyone trickled into the Greek-flavored room, taking seats wherever was available. Siri and Enya were the first ones in, and by the time the room had filled, Siri was clicking her fingers, sending a golden flame streaming from them while Enya looked on with an expression of wonder.
I sat beside her, my face filled with admiration. "That is amazing."
Siri beamed. "Just as amazing as a girl turning into a dragon?"
"Just as amazing," I said, my face serious. "Right, now let's get down to business. I want you all to pair off two per team. Aidan, you stay with Enya. Siri, you're with Joshua. We need a map of the area."
"Here," said Derek, turning his monitor toward me. I studied the photographs and appreciated satellite maps more than ever. Derek was able to scale down to the dirt roads that led from Maria's home to where Loki now hid within the walls of the crumbling old manor house.
"We will watch the manor from these four sides." I pointed them out. "Edrik and I will do one recon to find the best spots to watch the place. Then we go in. Derek? You have sufficient communication equipment?" When he nodded, I said, "Good. We keep radio silence unless it's urgent."
I looked around at the faces gathered in the room and a pang of doubt stabbed my gut. Was all this too big for us? I saw two innocent girls. One a daughter of Loki who wielded heat, the other a dragon princess new to war. I saw a wolf man who was for centuries in Odin's service in a mystical realm protected from real war and bloodthirsty killing. And I saw four humans who until a few months ago had been living normal lives, going to school, and dealing with normal teenage issues.
What if we were too inexperienced to win against Loki? Too inexperienced to beat him at a game he'd been playing for centuries?
I crossed my fingers and hoped we'd all make it out of this alive.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT